However, despite whether you may think this is a left vs right issue or whatever, I find it highly disturbing that the more liberal groups continue their attempts to strip the rights of states to have their own laws, especially in a representative government.
States do not have the right to enact laws that conflict with the federal constitution, which, among other things, is what the ACLU is arguing in this case. You can argue about whether or not the law in question is unconstitutional, but the issue is not about states' rights to enact laws.
Who is to say the people of Utah do not want this law? Maybe they do. If they do not, they could elect individuals who would overturn said law.
I live in Utah and I, for one, do not want this law. I try to elect representatives whose views reflect my own, but I just keeping getting out voted.
Part of the whole point of the Bill of Rights is to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. People seems to forget this sometimes. A "perfect" democracy in which the will of the majority is always carried out, can easily be an oppressive place to be if the majority decides that its will is to take all your property, put you in jail and torture you.
A lot of posts have put forth the "Oh, how likely is it that in all the entire universe we are the ONLY planet to have life?" type argument. (I'll call this the "oh come on" argument.)
But this argument is not exactly correct. If you took a random planet out of the universe and it had life, then you would be justified in thinking that there are probably more life-bearing planets in the universe.
But that is not the position we are in. The earth is not a random planet, it's the one we live on.
Suppose, for argument's sake you had a bag full of, say, a billion marbles. You know that all the marbles are either black or red.
Situation 1: You reach into the bag without looking and pull out a red marble. What are the chances that there are any other red marbles in the bag?
Situation 2: Someone else looks through the entire bag and tells you that there is at least one red marble in the bag. What are the chances that there are at least two red marbles in the bag?
In situation 1, if there is really only one red marble in the bag, then you hit the billion in one chance of drawing it out. Pretty unlikely.
But in situation 2, you have no way of knowing what the chances for more red marbles are. All you know is that there is at least one.
We are in situation 2. We didn't draw Earth randomly out of the bag.
Basically the "oh come on" argument boils down to this: "But if there is only one planet with life on it, what are the odds that that out of all the zillions of planets we happen to live on the one with life?"
I'm not saying that we are definitely alone in the universe, just that the mere fact that we live on a planet with life does not give us any information on the probability of there being life on other planets.
Maybe the chance of life arising is so miniscule that it really did only happen once.
Slashdot Mirror
You do use Firefox, right? Get the Adblock extension and all your troubles will be over. When I go to Myspace now, it looks positively spartan.
Yes. Because the blind ought to be able to surf for porn too.
States do not have the right to enact laws that conflict with the federal constitution, which, among other things, is what the ACLU is arguing in this case. You can argue about whether or not the law in question is unconstitutional, but the issue is not about states' rights to enact laws.
Who is to say the people of Utah do not want this law? Maybe they do. If they do not, they could elect individuals who would overturn said law.
I live in Utah and I, for one, do not want this law. I try to elect representatives whose views reflect my own, but I just keeping getting out voted. Part of the whole point of the Bill of Rights is to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. People seems to forget this sometimes. A "perfect" democracy in which the will of the majority is always carried out, can easily be an oppressive place to be if the majority decides that its will is to take all your property, put you in jail and torture you.
Gosh I sure hope there aren't 44! bugs. (Since 44! is more than the number of atoms in the planet.)
Actually, in most cases, this wouldn't work. (RTFA).
The attack is only valid when you have several versions of the same document that differ slightly.
... the spammers sue YOU!
Wait a minute. [reads article]
gawddammit
A lot of posts have put forth the "Oh, how likely is it that in all the entire universe we are the ONLY planet to have life?" type argument. (I'll call this the "oh come on" argument.)
But this argument is not exactly correct. If you took a random planet out of the universe and it had life, then you would be justified in thinking that there are probably more life-bearing planets in the universe.
But that is not the position we are in. The earth is not a random planet, it's the one we live on.
Suppose, for argument's sake you had a bag full of, say, a billion marbles. You know that all the marbles are either black or red.
Situation 1: You reach into the bag without looking and pull out a red marble. What are the chances that there are any other red marbles in the bag?
Situation 2: Someone else looks through the entire bag and tells you that there is at least one red marble in the bag. What are the chances that there are at least two red marbles in the bag?
In situation 1, if there is really only one red marble in the bag, then you hit the billion in one chance of drawing it out. Pretty unlikely.
But in situation 2, you have no way of knowing what the chances for more red marbles are. All you know is that there is at least one.
We are in situation 2. We didn't draw Earth randomly out of the bag.
Basically the "oh come on" argument boils down to this:
"But if there is only one planet with life on it, what are the odds that that out of all the zillions of planets we happen to live on the one with life?"
I'm not saying that we are definitely alone in the universe, just that the mere fact that we live on a planet with life does not give us any information on the probability of there being life on other planets.
Maybe the chance of life arising is so miniscule that it really did only happen once.
The earth is flat, sinner.