You constantly say 'I see things how I want to see them.' Well, you know what? Giving someone money so you're allowed to talk to them and 'change their opinion' is bribery.
Nonsense, the money only provides a route of access, it's not the only route nor is it what sets or changes a position. The information or opinions are what changes the positions a politician takes not always the money. There is no guarantee of the position being changed either. You're doing little more then imposing your own imagination on the situation and acting like it's the only thing possible. As I demonstrated, you are wrong.
You can stand there and argue all you want, but I'm not actually trying to convince you, you are a rather well-known political loon. I think I've pretty much convinced everyone else reading.
Political loon? That's a laugh when it's coming from someone who has been proven wrong politically many of times. Face it, things are not like they are in your imaginary world when you get into real life. You might be able to find people to follow your argument, but then you will be just preaching to the quire. You sound like that democrat on Chris Mathews show who attempted to claim that MASS electors voted for a republican to replace the late Ted Kennedy because they already had health care and didn't care if anyone else did. He totally ignored the reality that the plans going around Washington scare so many people or the fact that in the list of problems people want solves, health care is something like 7th or 8th on the list. What makes you like that is the fact that you seem to want to ignore real life in order to maintain your imaginary based ideology.
So your solution to the 'Bill Gates' nonsensical problem you presented is remove all spending limits, and if I want to get elected, I can find some other rich guy to suck up to? And this is presented as some sort of actual rebuttal to the problem?
Why would you need to find some rich guy for? If your message was truly sincere and better for the country, you could get your money from everyone you could convince into believing in you. And yes, the answer is to no saddle you or anyone else with arbitrary limits that will stop you or them from getting your message out.
You see, the way politics or just about any other movement works is that you tell a few people your ideas, if they like it and support you, they encourage others to do the same and you end up with donations that can be used to spread your message to others who would do the same. MS could go bankrupt backing Gates and all you would need to do is get your message to the right people at the right time. This is because there will come a point- and this point will be different for each person and their message- where the opposition has to start spending exponential amounts of money in order to counter your message. Then there will come another point in time when the spending to counter reached such a high level, it alarms others into hearing what you want to say and it becomes even easier for you to get your message out. Finally, all the increased spending by the opponent will end up hurting their chances and degrade their popularity while driving the couch potatoes out to actually vote for you. That's how campaigns have worked since the beginning of this country, it's how the churches spread like dandelions in a field, it's how shit happens in the real life. Maybe the fact that you do not know this is why you seem to be wanting to shoot yourself in the foot by arbitrarily limiting campaign donations. And yes, when they started limiting donations, the dems started loosing while complaining that republicans were outspending them.
You know what? Fuck you. Yeah, just fuck you. This conversation is over.
What makes you think any god needs this? It sounds more like the church (roman catholic church to be more exact) which in no way tells god what to do, is going to need it.
A lot of people seem to confuse what men do in the name of god with what god wants man to do. In order to believe that, you would have to believe that some of the horrors that come from the churches over the years was justified. Simply not believing in a god would not erase that. But knowing that men (who have free will) do things for their own justifications and sometimes they are deranged enough to believe some god wanted it that way or they at least pretend to make the claim.
This has nothing to do with what god wants or needs outside of an ancillary connection to the men doing it as well as the message they are attempting to give.
Last I heard, celibacy was the lack of all sexual activity which would preclude pedophilia. The hiding of the outcomes or payoffs are completely separate and detached from this. It's like anything that would be damaging to any organization or person, they attempt to hide it or pay off the offended too.
You can look around the internet and see religious blogs all over the place. It isn't like this is some radical new thing here that will corrupt any message. The core of the catholic church is the bible and their "interpretation" of it. It isn't like a priest who goes to school to study this crap is not going to be faithful to the core.
Just like with any other technology, it's probably going to be the younger more adept priests who tackle this chore. Either way, the catholic church is more of a well run organization so I doubt their troubles would be much more then what we already see with corporations and/or charitable organization who are already on the plate.
Priests are not back woods bumpkins with no knowledge of anything outside the church. I think a lot of people, including you seem to be under the wrong impressions here. Especially when you consider the catholic church is an organization that has it's own country, operates on every continent, and has an establishment in almost every country in the world. This move is more akin to Exxon Mobile or Toyota encouraging management to blog.
All corporate spending must be towards the end of providing profit to the shareholders. There's not any middle ground there...it is either legitimate corporate spending, or it is not.
Agreed but all providing profits is not increases in profits. Spending to limit losses or maintain the status quo is also the same as providing profits. That's why you never see boards ejected for donating to the Red Cross or some other charity- it's free publicity within that group. The proper term you are looking for is not profit but fiduciary duty.
The only way it can be legitimate corporate spending is if it alters something, in some way, to make it more favorable to the corporation.
Again, agreed. The problem with the black and white scenarios you were attempting to make is that whatever is being altered does not have to be direct profit or regulations or laws. Donating to candidate B because they are more favorable to your business model while the others are extremely hostile is neither bribery nor malfeasance as you attempted to paint as the only two choices.
If the money does not alter the corporation's fiscal position, it is MALFEASANCE.
Wrong, we are not dealing with just the present. We have to consider the future too. If it looks like a candidate would be detrimental to a profit center, then donating in an attempt to keep them from office would not alter the corporations fiscal position but maintain it. That would not be malfeasance no matter how hard you wanted it to be.
Now, you're trying to argue the already used loophole, in that corporate money doesn't change politician behavior, it simply help politicians who already behave a certain way get elected.
No, I'm not attempting to ignore that what you claimed happens, I'm attempting to claim that this can happen and the two situations you describe are by no means the only two situations. I'm also allowing for the fact that politicians are not all knowing, and with the right education, they can be persuaded to view things differently. In that situation, money is only incidental because it only allowed access to educate the politician, it didn't sway the opinion, the facts (opinions) as presented did. Again, there is more then one way or the other.
This, of course, is, and has been, utter nonsense from the start. It's akin to lawyers helping judges pay for their parking each morning, and claiming it's legal because it doesn't 'bribe' anyone to make decisions in their favor, it just helps judges get to work. It's total nonsense. It's obvious nonsense.
Take your blinders off and look around a little. This is nothing like that and I do not know of any place where that is legal. In my state, municipality, and every one I have lived in, the courts house had special parking for the judges and employees which would not cost them one dime to park. In fact, when I do technical assistance for an attorney I work with at the court house, they validate my parking receipt and reimburse me for the costs at the clerk of courts office.
It might, might, might be possible to argue that specific support to a specific candidate really was legal. Occasionally, yes, a race will be close, between two people, one of whom is obviously better than the other, and some sort of case could be argued that such a donation was legal. And they should be happy to argue that to both the SEC (that their donate was an attempt to help the company) and the FEC (That their donation was not any sort of bribe.) At the same time.
That doesn't change the fact that 99% of them are bribes, that are not attempts to alter the race at all, but simply payment to the politician. The guy slipping the politician a wad of cash under the restroom door might also be someone paying off a legit gambling debt, but we sho
Have you ever seen a corporation act without human involvement or consent?
Corporations are nothing but collections of people who hire someone to run the corporation on their behalf. Because these owners or collections of people (remember, the red cross and most charities are corporations too) do not act in the running of the corporation means they are not entirely held accountable but a corporation cannot act without a human making it happen. That human has what is called a fiduciary duty or responsibility to the share holders whether it's one person or 10,000 people or more. Anyways, a corporation cannot act without a human steering the helm and it's actions have to be in good faith to the principals (or owners/shareholders).
I agree with what your saying but it's impossible for a corporation to "act with no human intent or human involvement" because a corp is not sentient.
Nothing like that will happen. This isn't a ruling saying the government has no right to interfere with a legal entity, it's saying specifically that it can't restrict the political speech of it because free speech (mainly political speech) is protected from the government by the constitution.
It would take another or a series of other rulings to even come close to what your mentioning.
To put this into a more appropriate scenario or analogy, it's more like the mom saying that the kid can't buy mountain dew because of a certain ingredient, not that you can't buy and drink carbonated drinks altogether.
I think you might be falling into a false dichotomy. There is a lot of middle ground you seem to be missing there.
Either giving money to candidate alters their vote, or not.
It can do neither in intent. What if the purpose of giving the money isn't even related to a vote but to a position the candidate takes in which the company finds favor in for what ever reason. This could be something as strong as supporting an issue or being totally silent on it when an opposing candidate stands harshly against that position. That's why giving money is speech.
If it does not, it is corporate malfeasance and fraud on the shareholders to do it.
There is already a regulatory department set up to correct management that do not honor their fiduciary duties to shareholders (which is what you are alluding to), but as I just mentioned, the reasons for donating the money could be totally separate from that candidate's vote and completely relevant to any of his challengers positions. For instance, if I manage a company that makes wool socks and a candidate for the senate says "shearing sheep of their wool is cruel to animals and should be prevented from ever happening", I could in good faith donate to the incumbent candidate who is totally neutral on the subject or who expresses how silly of an idea that is without ever running against my fiduciary duties (what you alluded to).
If it does, it more than likely is bribery. In fact, almost all large donations to politicians are bribery.
Yes and no. I agree whole heatedly with you here but want to caution that the way the vote is changed could change the entire concept of the argument. IF the only reason the vote was changed was because I gave someone 50k, then it's bribery as you mention. But in real life, if the reason the vote was changed was because I was able to introduce information to you that made you realize my way of thinking, then it wouldn't be bribery.
Sadly, access to some politicians is too often relegated to those giving the most money which not only neglects the rest of his/her constituency, but it also blurs the lines between bribery and votes changed because of educated reasoning.
Likewise, it is still malfeasance if the altered vote does not make more profit for the shareholders. Corporations lobbying, with their own money, to have less control by their shareholders, is ipso facto illegal.
I'm not sure which law school you have went to, but I would check their accreditation a little better. Not loosing money, not loosing as much if a certain law was made a certain way, or making more then predicted are valid reasons to lobby or donate. It's not malfeasance or illegal as long as the fiduciary duty was maintains and the actions commenced in good faith of them.
No one even slightly bothers to enforce any of this, of course.
I can understand your not happy with this or corporations in general. But it's not all black and white- one way or the other. There are many shades of gray along that you seemed to ignore. This is enforced when it really happens, it can be enforced in a number of ways, two of which being lawsuits brought about by the shareholders or complaints to governing boards that enforce. Another way to address this is for the shareholders to replace the board of directors and instruct the new board to clean house of the bad elements.
The real problem is that donating money to get people elected should be illegal, period. Candidates should get spending money from the government based on how many people they can get to sign onto their campaign, and that's it.
Nonsense, this is a horrible idea. What you suggest would resolve out political discussion to only the popular and self financed people in this world. Bill Gates is proba
Yet freedom of speech has never anywhere else been interpreted to be a guarantee of a platform for your speech. So why does money's obvious ability to guarantee that platform suddenly make it an integral part of political speech?
Money doesn't guarantee a platform for the speech, it allows access to that platform. And it certainly doesn't mean the speech will be heard or effective. It's just so that the platforms right now demand money for access. IF they decided that they would air-print-distribute-televise-or anything else to everyone's opinion without expectation of payment, money wouldn't be a necessary part of the matter. But seeing how that's a wonderland fallacy and it all costs money to do, it is part of the speech process when you want your views heard.
I think that within your accurate explanation of an executive agreement verses a treaty, that you have forgotten that things like TRIPS and Berne are actual treaties that have been ratified by congress.
The distinction here is that while it's true that if they want to change the copyright process, they will be limited to berne (and WIPO: WTC WPPT, and a few other treaties) unless they can change it or withdraw from it, but under the ACTA, the president could only point to it and say please don't change this because we have this unofficial agreement. The agreement would not be binding on the US or any other branch of government outside of the executive branch's constitutional implementation of it.
Wow, when did that happen? The alamo was a fought by the country of TEXAS, not the US. Texas wasn't a US teritory at the time nor was it a state. Mexico courted a bunch of wealthy US citizens to the Texas area and then after they built it up economically, started taking promised rights away from those TEXANS. This prompted the Texan's to start their own little revolution in which the Alamo was part of.
Slavery had no part in it. You might be thinking of the reconstruction years after the civil war in which the US invaded Texas (the country) to bring slaves back over.
While you address the immediate cause, you ignore the psychological effects, something that I tried to highlight. I guess I was not clear enough. My point isn't that you should not take precautions. It's sensible to avoid immediate, physical contact with people that have contact transferable diseases. It's sensible to avoid intimate contact with people whose diseases can be transmitted through body fluids.
Maybe neither of us was as clear as we would have liked to of been. My point was given what was known then, those were reasonable precautions that would seem entirely ridiculous knowing what we know today. It's easy to forget that after the fact\, or hindsight, is much easier to be 20/20. Back then, they didn't even have a name for disease causing microbes and only would have connected them to behavior. Now we know more and do not need to take as drastic precautions.
If you just tell people that such people are "unclean" and that you must not contact them without giving them a good reason, worse, by giving them the reason God wants you to stay away from them, the logic conclusion anyone will reach is that these people are hated by God. They must be if He asks you to deprive them from the most basic need a human (especially in ancient times) has: Closeness to his peers. Staying together, socially and locally, was important for survival. Asking to stay from someone, and putting him or her in danger, can only mean that God does not like these people, either for a period of time during which they are under the condition, or because they have that condition. This extrapolates into the condition is hated by God, or that someone who gets this condition is.
Well, that's sort of not the thing. Most of the things you weren't supposed to do was directed at the person who caused it. Some was directed at others like the garments or bedding being unclean if soiled with mans seed and crap like that. If you read the rules, they aren't presented as god hates them, they are presented as what will get you into trouble with god. It's more of a "if you do X, he is displeased". Some people take that as if they can order you to not do something, others realize that god supposedly gave people free will and it's up to that person to choose to follow or not or how much. Now Don't confuse what I'm saying here with they would gladly accept them knowing they were breaking the rules, what would typically happen is they would have to go somewhere else. But that is really no different from people moving to better neighborhoods so their lives or property isn't in as much danger or people banding together and having the police arrest and house others who break society's rules. About the only difference is the connection to a religion and the years of man abusing religions for their own gains which probably has played a great part in your opinion forming process.
As for the staying away, I don't think you grasp the entirety or the situation. They didn't banish these people from the lands or anything while this was happening, they didn't send them off to nowhere by themselves, Well, Abraham did to Haggard but he was confusing his wife's jealousy with God's will. But in the end of the story, an Angel came and told Haggard to raise Ishmel and them made water run from a rock in the desert. Anyways, they were only restricted to certain parts of town while they were unclean and once they resolved that issue, it was normal.
It's not far from there to social stigma.
I agree but I think you might be exagerating things a tad bit and placing them out of context in order to serve your point. If things were as you said or interpreted, I would agree. However, I do not think that was the case.
In the US and most the rest of the world, it is too. But the article wrote ton which is short for a "short ton" which refers to a short imperial ton.
The differences is that a tonne is a "metric ton" equal to 1000 kg or 2204 lbs, an "Imperial ton" (also known as a long ton) is 2240 lbs, or about 1016 kg, and a ton, known also as a short ton, is 2000 lbs or roughly 907 kg.
It gets a little more confusing when they use the word tonne in combination with energy proxies like in explaining the strength of a bomb or explosion as in how many tonnes of TNT it is comparable to or with amounts of force as in a 10mega tonne bomb. Or in combination with certain metal trades where they calculate the amount of metal in a long ton of ore by the percentage or metal within the ore. Then there are hold overs from traditions like in the HVAC world where AC is generally measure in ton(s) referring to how heat absorption and how heat would be displaced by a ton of ice in one day. Melting one ton of ice in this way or a 1 ton AC unit would be equal to about 12,000 BTU/h or 3517 Watts/h or 12,661,200 joules of energy per hour.
That was amusing. I haven't watched him on TV (that I can remember) so I didn't realize how he acted. On the Radio, the few times I heard him, he says things like he's been a customer of their long before they were a customer if his and crap like that. He makes it clear that he has an interest in selling gold and selling it through this company. He also states that you need to review everything for yourself and make your own informed decision.
As for the FEAR and other shenanigans, that's sort of like yelling "see, she floats, I told you she was a witch". He has been clambering about that crap for a long time before selling gold. About the only thing which has changed is the subject or names of the people he complains about. He would trash talk Bush too and complain about both sides of the isle as well as other countries. I just checked and it appears that Goldline has been around since 1960 in some form or another and became goldline in 1986 so it is possible that his entire career of bashing politics and complaining about how the country was being run has been about creating fear so gold would increase in costs. I find that improbable though. However, he does admit to having an interest in gold when pawning it out there.
What would be interesting is seeing the full context of the clips cut together that Stewart used to show Beck creating or instilling Fear. On his radio program, he usually cites verifiable facts and is clear about something just being his opinion verses someone else'. I just went to http://www.glennbeck.com/content/tv/ and watched the first video on the page, they removed any commercials but it's similar to his radio program where he attempts to cite what he claims and railed about something forever. You should give it a watch and decide for yourself.
As I said, I don't listen to him much, I have a car I use for long trips and the engine puts on some terrible electrical whine in the radio if it is not on a strong AM station so if he on, I listen. I've attempted to fix the whining noise but I think replacing the radio is the last option and that would probably cost more then the car is worth.
Only trouble is, if you don't tell people WHY they should not contact these items or people, they will extrapolate and draw the wrong conclusions. Not touching a leper or anyone with a highly infectious disease is not such a bad idea. Just telling people that they should not get into contact with people who are really sick is pretty inhumane simply because they will consider everyone who has a disease (even if it is normally not transmissible through normal human contact, let's say AIDS for example) in some sort "cursed by god".
What you have touched on is more to the ignorance of modern man and the information we now know. Take an AIDS patient for instance, before we knew how it was contracted, it was a good idea to stay away from them. Now we know and it's still a good idea to stay away from them under certain conditions like if you have open wounds and they do to and neither of you have taken precautions to limit the threat of contamination. I know I can shake hands with a HIV/AIDS patient, I can drink after them, I can sit in the same room as them, I don't need to wash my hands after touching them or something they have touched, but I only know that now because I have been educated on what it involves. Now take someone who hasn't, or even take someone who has been educated but doesn't know for sure if the person is infected, A doctor will still wear rubber gloves when examining you for back pain just because of the known unknowns. So humane or not, as a measure of self preservation, it is still is a good idea to not go around a sick person until you know how to protect yourself. The major difference nowadays is that we have a more complete idea of germs, how they spread, which ones cause what illnesses, and how to protect ourselves from them. But the Bible was specific in it's Don't do this or go around that person so it wasn't a blanket "run away and hide", it was more of a "this is the only way we know how to protect ourselves at the time.
Times have changed now, and if your christian, a lot of those old rules no longer apply. But take the Jewish for instance, a lot of them still store their meat separate from their dairy. Not because the old diseases that brought the necessity of the rule around is still applicable with modern containers and cooling devices, but because of the honor or respect for the traditions that got their people through a time when one could contaminate the other and wipe a family out.
Likewise, not having sex with women during their period is a pretty good idea in a time when there is little known about STDs or germs in general. Saying they're "unclean" implies that the bleeding itself is in some way something not liked by God and that the mere fact is something that makes that woman somehow "cursed".
Unclean and clean is a hold over of a word from thousands of years ago which should be more interpreted as safe and not safe. Again, I thinks it's a what we know now and less of a consideration of then in the definitions of the wordings. According to the Dr. Stong's concordance, unclean means 1) unclean, impure a) ethically and religiously b) ritually c) of places. It's not really a curse or not liked by a god because there were simple ways of remedying the conditions or situations. Now I will admit that religions haven't been interpreted as being fair or particularly kind or equal to women, but lets take a small trip back in time and consider the situations that would have made a rule like that practice. Every practicing Jew would have sessions where they went to the tabernacle and studied the scriptures, including the women. Generally women and men were separate but even children were expected to memorize the Torah. Ok, so a women on her period goes to study, her staff infection in which her body tolerates without signs of illness soaks into her clothes and gets transferred onto the benches. A child comes in later and sits next to that site, gets some on his hand, somehow in h
Generally, when it says not to do X, it was because it offended someone- namely the god of the religion. Some of this was some sound advice for the type of life and technology available at the time, some was just control of the masses as it seems.
I mean things like eating shellfish, well if we didn't have refrigeration today, or live in an arctic climate, we would generally get really sick by eating shell fish that has set out for hours in the hot sun before being cooked. Although other fish would degrade in quality but not generally make us sick. Things you shouldn't/aren't supposed to do in the bible also revolved around the idea of germs long before we officially discovered them. Not touching the clothing of a leper or washing yourself afterward if some good advice. Not being around women on the rag and washing everything she touched in this unclean state was some sound advice that might still applied today if we didn't have modern conveniences. When a woman is on her period, it creates an Ideal condition for Staff bacteria to bread and there is still a real threat of toxic shock syndrome that can actually kill them. This condition became prominent recently when the super absorbent tampons were introduced to the market in the 70's. We didn't even think about it much before then but a few deaths later and the science to see why it happened caused them to be pulled off the market and even today general guideline suggest not using a tampon longer the 8 hours at a time. Anyways, the S. aureus or S. pyogenes bacteria could be transferred to men, children or other women if they came into contact with it. And remember, this was a time when there wasn't modern soaps or medications to treat infections like this.
Anyways, no logical reason doesn't mean there wasn't one and following a tradition whether set by a religion or society doesn't mean it's not logical when doing it. Take going to court for instance, tradition is that you dress up in your nicest -respectable cloths when going to court as a defendant. You don't have to, there generally isn't any law requiring you to do so, but there may be someone who thinks your cocky and deserves to pay if you do not. Of course there is always the risk of it backfiring but it shows a level of respect that generally shouldn't upset any already gained favor.
Now I will admit that religions do have some quirky things in them. Most of it is designed to signify a state or submission after doing something wrong (again, controlling the populace) or to create a hurdle on forgiveness which makes you work hard at things. This is like the find doves and doing burn offering and such that is in the Bible. There is no logical reason to do so, it's just that you had to work harder then saying I'm sorry to undo your supposed wrong. But this is the same as there not being a logical reason why I can't cross the street in the middle of the block when no cars are coming or face a $180 jaywalking citation. I can follow that rule or not, it's not logical to forbid something that can be safely done in the name of protecting you, but none the less it's there and presents a rule to follow that is not illogical if you go to the corner and obey the traffic signals.
Just a quicky on this. As for the goldline commercials, Beck has always admitted to having an interest in selling gold as he has always claimed he was a customer of the same company as far back as I can remember him doing them. He also does "say it isn't so" spots where he mocks a position that can be taken out of context easily if you miss part of it. I don't watch him on the TV but I have heard him on the radio a few times and it's sort of obvious if your paying attention. The problem walks in when you miss the setup where you find out it's a gag or something. I don't really think it's a difference between paid opinion and honest opinion rather then what you missed with the opinion that easily blurs the line. And I believe this to be true regardless of whether you agree or disagree with what he says.
Just a though I figured you might want to consider.
Please explain what "People like him and people like you are the reason we're in this fucking mess. You've driven this country off a goddamn cliff and we're not going to sit here and watch anymore." means. I'm left with nothing to go by your statements because you seem to list things that came to be and were the fault of the left and the right (err democrats and republicans) to varying degrees with gross support by third party activists leaning on all sides too.
You've had your say. You're obviously incompetent. Now we're done arguing with you. So sit down, shut up, and let the grownups work.
I'm wondering if your not the pot calling the kettle black and maybe you should lead by example.
It shouldn't amaze you much. Illegal immigration is the problem that is on most people's minds. It the problem that allows companies to replace skilled US and legal workers with barely skilled illegals at half the rate because they live in fear of being deported if they complain about something as basic as getting a minimum wage.
To me, the illegal immigration situation is probably one of the worst problems America has from not only an economic standpoint but from a human rights stand point. If a black mans deserves the same pay as a white man, if a women deserves the same pay as a man, then any immigrant deserves the same pay as anyone else doing the same job. Instead, they are replacing American and legal workers which creates a drain on the social safety net as well as decreases the taxes collected because most are paid significantly less or under the table or both in sort of a double whammy. Granted, their pay may be better then where they came from, the squalor they live in with multiple families may be better then what they had, their freedom may be more and their over all life may be better, but as humans they deserve the same liberties we enjoy which is robbed from them by their illegal status.
To me the answer isn't as much about changing out immigration laws. It's about increasing the quality of life in the countries they come from. It seems like Mexico's answer to it's problems is to export them to the US instead of creating opportunities for it's own citizens and creating laws that allow them to act in their own self interest. If the people were living better and had more liberty or opportunities in their own damn countries, attempting escape into the US wouldn't be dominating the discussion on US immigration. This also dove tails with exporting jobs and the problems that creates.
But what if that person does actually make your life "hell" because they don't like that you disbelieve in their worldview? That's still harassment/assault, isn't it? What if they provoke others to act against you based on their beliefs and rhetoric?
Sure, That would be harassment/assault. But simply saying your going to hell if you do not do or believe in something doesn't quite rise to that level. In a free society, I'm even free to pick and chose who I do business with based on whatever we have in common or uncommon. That shouldn't be considered harassment or assault either because I'm in no way obligated to make sure you can make a living or remain employed or whatever. So we need to take into consideration the differences between a real harassment/assault and what just seems annoying like listening to someone preach when you walk by a church with open windows.
An example of how I pick and chose who I do business with is a convenience store which is close to me, I will go past it to the next one because they have a sign saying Iraq spelled backwards is Vietnam (which is another conversation). There is also a parts store I go to above all the others in my area simply because they sponsored my nephews little league team a few years ago. So even if someone doesn't patronize you for not believing or believing in the wrong thing, it's really no different then any other preference that goes on in society.
In any case, we're not talking about real-world harm here - we're talking about "blasphemy" laws, which depend entirely on what one believes, not on the physical reality of the harm. Indeed, one could be locked up in a very real prison for disbelieving in the object of "blasphemy."
From what I can tell, you actually have to offend someone based on their beliefs in order for this law to effect you. It's similar to hate speech laws where if your already assaulting someone and call them a racial slur at the same time, your in more trouble then if you just kept your mouth shut and beat then nearly to death. But you can walk down the street saying Nigger, Jew, wetback, Spic, dego, cracker, whore, bitch, tramp, Irish, Pollock, or a number of other things all day long as long as you do not commit a crime against someone who could remotely fall into one of those groups. (this reminds me of a funny story with a racist I ran into at a bar on Christmas eve. He was walking around saying kill a niggar for baby jesus and I asked him what the hell he was talking about. He asked me if I would kill a nigger for baby jesus and I asked him why should I. He said "it's in the bible, God doesn't like Niggers and jews. I laughed at him and quoted Genesis where it says God created man in his image and it was good. He then attempted to claim that we didn't look like them and I said so, it was allowed to happen because we were created in his image and it was good. I then told him Jesus and his father was a Jew and he started getting pissed. His friend came over and pulled him away as he was angry enough to fight now. True story- happen this last Christmas eve and I have no idea where the idiot came from)
But I will admit that some Blasphemy laws are a little more extreme and you can't speak out against a state sponsored religion or belief. Take Iran for instance, they tax non-Muslims more for having their own religion or not. Alcohol is outlawed in Iran except for religious purposes and the Jews are about the only religious group in Iran that has alcohol as part of their belief structures. But it can be even worse then that, remember a few years ago when an English school teacher doing aid work in some African village allowed her class to name a pet or stuffed animal Mohamed? She almost lost her life and if it wasn't for the backing of England and it's allies in attempting to negotiate her safe release, she probably would have.
To say that is there is no god is a practical position for one to take when one does not believe in a god or lacks a belief in a god. Just the same as although I lack a belief in faeries, for all practical purposes I don't believe in faeries.
It's only practice if you are attempting to ignore what you already said. I'm confident there are no fairies in this world so I will say there are no fairies. If I didn't know there wasn't any fairies but didn't believe there were, I would say I don't believe fairies exist. However, the distinction you drew was with someone saying "i don't believe" compared to someone saying "I know there isn't". The later is a belief whether you like it or not.
God(s) are indeed not necessary for a religion, and indeed as you point out Buddhism, communism often appears to be a religion also. I'd hesitate to say it is one, but in some places has become one when an individual leader is worshipped as a god.
When you say like a god, do you mean like a supernatural powerful god or a god as in the top of their field or respected association as some compare people with extraordinary yet still human abilities in a certain task or tasks. It's not really all that important except we should note that the rulers of Rome and Egypt at one time claimed to be gods with no superhuman abilities outside an overwhelmingly powerful influence on others around them. In that instance, I can easily see how communism could become a religion just the same as I could other social areas including portions of science and the followers of it.
Philosophically speaking, outside mathematics nothing really is ever proven or not, but in real life things can, for all practical purposes be proven. Atheism as a philosophical position is not something that can be proven, but practically speaking the universe acts and behaves as if there is no intervening personal god.
As we currently understand or want to understand the universe, yes, it does appear to behave as if there is no intervening personal god. However, this appearance can be specifically to the discovery of what we know. What I'm getting at here is the we look for an explanation beyond what would only be needed for an intervening god. A lot of that explanation is not provable yet can be disprovable so we tend to attempt to accept it as close enough for government work until it is disproved. But even with the Big Bang, we reach a point to the beginning of time when something was just there and somehow energy was created, and bam, solar systems and planets and life was created where humans tened to be the leaders of the reals we can imagine.
Now I point this out not because I want to compare it with a religion, but because you will find atheist all over the place laying claim the the big bang theory is fact, that evolution as in macro-evolution and the current taxonomy tree models are fact when the real fact is, they are more or less best guesses giving the information we know and our abilities to process it. That is a hallmark of a religion- demanding that someone unprovable is fact instead of just possible or probable. It could be correct, it could be incorrect, but it's to a point with some that you can't even dispute a single piece of it because they need to preserve their belief system the way it is. Two seemingly favorite strong holds in these people are "evolution and abiogenesis" and the age of the earth. I'm not disputing either of them but in order for science to be science, discussing alternatives and constantly evaluating the evidence needs to be included otherwise it's just another plausible religious story/dogma when nothing can be changed. You will find the same in the real of Global warming too.
It is much harder to practically disprove a deist god that doesn't intervene in the universe, but only started it off, so to speak. But for all practical purposes, it doesn't
Who's going to make them stay in their seats? If a passenger gets up, saying his bladder is about to explode, is the flight crew really going to stop him?
There are air marshals on almost all international flights. But stopping him may not have been the only answer. If someone was detected, then diverting the flight to less populated areas is a potential point of action.
The rule is pointless and counter-productive, since it will undoubtedly create numerous problems with passengers who have a legitimate need to leave their seat during the last hour of flight.
I think you are exaggerating things a little bit. A lot of the potential issues your thinking of could have been addressed by simply announcing that they are expecting to enter a turbulent air space in 15-20 minutes and the fasten seat belt light would be on so use the facilities while you can. Most people who are not sick, can hold from using the restroom for an hour or two without much issue.
Furthermore, what are the chances that multiple bombings would be planned to occur on the very day that the secret new restrictions go in place?
Are you serious? The secret new restrictions were in response to failed bombing attempt and was implemented directly because of them. Logic would tell us that a competent agency would block an avenue of attack as soon as it knows about that avenue. So if you were attempting to do something you know you shouldn't be doing, are you going to do the same method after someone already got caught doing it? No, you would be doing it before they knew the attack vector existed otherwise you would be shut down at the gates. That is why this policy was sensitive at the time, the logic for multiple attacks through this avenue would be a narrow window of time between when the first one happened and the time the flights were already in the air. Otherwise, changes at the terminal would most likely detect the bomb before you boarded the flight.
Furthermore, what are the chances that you could actually keep secret a plan that requires the cooperation of tens of thousands of airline and airport and TSA employees?
It's not how long they can keep it a secret that matter. Their intent was not to keep it a secret forever. Now could they have kept it a secret from terrorist already on a plane or boarding a plane before the news of the failed attack was public around the world? Well, they only needed a day or two in order to make sure the threats were not there. But in a hypothetical world, the policy is leaked, an attacker on another flight is tipped off by an operative who read the blog, and instead of attempting to blow up the plane on landing, he does it an hour and 5 minutes earlier.
Do you see the potential problem there? While we didn't know if further attack would be attempted, the policy would alert us to those attacks and give us a potential to either foil them or divert the plane to less populated area. As soon as the policy became public, that potential became significantly less because anyone could have tipped the attacker off and they could have detonated and 5 minutes before the restrictions would be applied on the flight.
It's silly to pretend the TSA should be able to keep secret stupid, pointless new "security" rules like this.
No, I do not think it's silly at all. First, it wasn't meant to be secret forever, second, the time frame where it would have the greatest potential impact wasn't all that long and even the dummies the TSA hired should have been able to keep most of it a secret with only divulging bits and pieces of information here and there. In contrast, some idiot totally ignored that and emailed the policy changes to someone who would have posted it on the internet as if that inside person wanted all the potential attacking friends to know about
Your forgetting that there was other rules other then leaving your seat in effect too. The most obvious one that would make the bomber want to leave his seat would be the rule requiring everything to be off your lap and no communications devices in use in the last hour of the flight.
The bomber used a blanket to conceal his actions in attempting to arm the device. If that couldn't be done, then he would probably want to use the restroom to accomplish this task. When that can't be done, he has basically two choices with some variations, disobey one of the rules in which case he is potentially caught, or not follow through with the attack. Of course that later left the possibility of him detonating it in the restrooms at the terminal. Hopefully, he would become anxious or nervous and be flagged for followup and become discovered before that could happen.
The employees were sworn to secrecy when they signed up for the job too. The government does not have to swear someone to secrecy every time something becomes classified or everytime someone reviews something classified. Sometimes they might depending on the importance or level of classification, but in general, once it's classified or marked secret, the employees know what they can and can't do with it. They identify the paper as being of a level of secrecy and only allow access to the people with those clearances. If the paper made it to someone who wasn't cleared for it, it's the government's fault for fucking things up. But if they followed their parts right, then it is a clear case of someone disclosing information before they should have. It could have been an accident or on purpose, either way, we need to find out how and why and close the gap, especially if it was the government fucking up.
As for it being unrealistic to think it could remain a secret, I agree with you. But that was never the intention with this policy. It was only supposed to remain a secret while the potential threats were evaluated. Remember, it is about what we didn't know- namely, if more attacks were in progress. They had plans of making the policies public, it's just that timing in this case didn't match the expectations.
I would say the most useful these policies would have been was in the hours and days right after the failed attack when others would/could have a clear window of opportunity to evade the same types of security. After news of the failed attack became known, attempting to smuggle a device like this on to an airplane would become pretty much impossible so getting them on before the first one went off or before the news of it could be spread would be crucial in coordinating multiple attacks.
The problem exists when it goes beyond a lack of belief and into a positive assertion.
Evangelical Atheist will assert that there is no god, not that they do not believe in a god. You can see this documented quite well even here where self proclaimed atheists attempt to assert this to anyone showing the sign of a belief in a god. When it goes from a "I don't believe there is a god" to a "I believe there is no god", then it goes from the traditional lack of to an affirmative of something that is unprovable -either way- just like religion.
But we must also understand that a god isn't necessary for a religion. Buddhism is probably the most popular one that is considered a complete religion. Now don't get me wrong, Buddhism can have gods, and many Christians follow the core sets of Buddhism as a complement to their own religion. TO say Atheism is not a religion is probably proper but we can't ignore the people who intent to use it as a religion or substitute religion.
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Nonsense, the money only provides a route of access, it's not the only route nor is it what sets or changes a position. The information or opinions are what changes the positions a politician takes not always the money. There is no guarantee of the position being changed either. You're doing little more then imposing your own imagination on the situation and acting like it's the only thing possible. As I demonstrated, you are wrong.
Political loon? That's a laugh when it's coming from someone who has been proven wrong politically many of times. Face it, things are not like they are in your imaginary world when you get into real life. You might be able to find people to follow your argument, but then you will be just preaching to the quire. You sound like that democrat on Chris Mathews show who attempted to claim that MASS electors voted for a republican to replace the late Ted Kennedy because they already had health care and didn't care if anyone else did. He totally ignored the reality that the plans going around Washington scare so many people or the fact that in the list of problems people want solves, health care is something like 7th or 8th on the list. What makes you like that is the fact that you seem to want to ignore real life in order to maintain your imaginary based ideology.
Why would you need to find some rich guy for? If your message was truly sincere and better for the country, you could get your money from everyone you could convince into believing in you. And yes, the answer is to no saddle you or anyone else with arbitrary limits that will stop you or them from getting your message out.
You see, the way politics or just about any other movement works is that you tell a few people your ideas, if they like it and support you, they encourage others to do the same and you end up with donations that can be used to spread your message to others who would do the same. MS could go bankrupt backing Gates and all you would need to do is get your message to the right people at the right time. This is because there will come a point- and this point will be different for each person and their message- where the opposition has to start spending exponential amounts of money in order to counter your message. Then there will come another point in time when the spending to counter reached such a high level, it alarms others into hearing what you want to say and it becomes even easier for you to get your message out. Finally, all the increased spending by the opponent will end up hurting their chances and degrade their popularity while driving the couch potatoes out to actually vote for you. That's how campaigns have worked since the beginning of this country, it's how the churches spread like dandelions in a field, it's how shit happens in the real life. Maybe the fact that you do not know this is why you seem to be wanting to shoot yourself in the foot by arbitrarily limiting campaign donations. And yes, when they started limiting donations, the dems started loosing while complaining that republicans were outspending them.
Yes, I would abandon your position too.
What makes you think any god needs this? It sounds more like the church (roman catholic church to be more exact) which in no way tells god what to do, is going to need it.
A lot of people seem to confuse what men do in the name of god with what god wants man to do. In order to believe that, you would have to believe that some of the horrors that come from the churches over the years was justified. Simply not believing in a god would not erase that. But knowing that men (who have free will) do things for their own justifications and sometimes they are deranged enough to believe some god wanted it that way or they at least pretend to make the claim.
This has nothing to do with what god wants or needs outside of an ancillary connection to the men doing it as well as the message they are attempting to give.
How is requiring Celibacy promoting pedophilia?
Last I heard, celibacy was the lack of all sexual activity which would preclude pedophilia. The hiding of the outcomes or payoffs are completely separate and detached from this. It's like anything that would be damaging to any organization or person, they attempt to hide it or pay off the offended too.
You can look around the internet and see religious blogs all over the place. It isn't like this is some radical new thing here that will corrupt any message. The core of the catholic church is the bible and their "interpretation" of it. It isn't like a priest who goes to school to study this crap is not going to be faithful to the core.
Just like with any other technology, it's probably going to be the younger more adept priests who tackle this chore. Either way, the catholic church is more of a well run organization so I doubt their troubles would be much more then what we already see with corporations and/or charitable organization who are already on the plate.
Priests are not back woods bumpkins with no knowledge of anything outside the church. I think a lot of people, including you seem to be under the wrong impressions here. Especially when you consider the catholic church is an organization that has it's own country, operates on every continent, and has an establishment in almost every country in the world. This move is more akin to Exxon Mobile or Toyota encouraging management to blog.
Agreed but all providing profits is not increases in profits. Spending to limit losses or maintain the status quo is also the same as providing profits. That's why you never see boards ejected for donating to the Red Cross or some other charity- it's free publicity within that group. The proper term you are looking for is not profit but fiduciary duty.
Again, agreed. The problem with the black and white scenarios you were attempting to make is that whatever is being altered does not have to be direct profit or regulations or laws. Donating to candidate B because they are more favorable to your business model while the others are extremely hostile is neither bribery nor malfeasance as you attempted to paint as the only two choices.
Wrong, we are not dealing with just the present. We have to consider the future too. If it looks like a candidate would be detrimental to a profit center, then donating in an attempt to keep them from office would not alter the corporations fiscal position but maintain it. That would not be malfeasance no matter how hard you wanted it to be.
No, I'm not attempting to ignore that what you claimed happens, I'm attempting to claim that this can happen and the two situations you describe are by no means the only two situations. I'm also allowing for the fact that politicians are not all knowing, and with the right education, they can be persuaded to view things differently. In that situation, money is only incidental because it only allowed access to educate the politician, it didn't sway the opinion, the facts (opinions) as presented did. Again, there is more then one way or the other.
Take your blinders off and look around a little. This is nothing like that and I do not know of any place where that is legal. In my state, municipality, and every one I have lived in, the courts house had special parking for the judges and employees which would not cost them one dime to park. In fact, when I do technical assistance for an attorney I work with at the court house, they validate my parking receipt and reimburse me for the costs at the clerk of courts office.
Have you ever seen a corporation act without human involvement or consent?
Corporations are nothing but collections of people who hire someone to run the corporation on their behalf. Because these owners or collections of people (remember, the red cross and most charities are corporations too) do not act in the running of the corporation means they are not entirely held accountable but a corporation cannot act without a human making it happen. That human has what is called a fiduciary duty or responsibility to the share holders whether it's one person or 10,000 people or more. Anyways, a corporation cannot act without a human steering the helm and it's actions have to be in good faith to the principals (or owners/shareholders).
I agree with what your saying but it's impossible for a corporation to "act with no human intent or human involvement" because a corp is not sentient.
Nothing like that will happen. This isn't a ruling saying the government has no right to interfere with a legal entity, it's saying specifically that it can't restrict the political speech of it because free speech (mainly political speech) is protected from the government by the constitution.
It would take another or a series of other rulings to even come close to what your mentioning.
To put this into a more appropriate scenario or analogy, it's more like the mom saying that the kid can't buy mountain dew because of a certain ingredient, not that you can't buy and drink carbonated drinks altogether.
I think you might be falling into a false dichotomy. There is a lot of middle ground you seem to be missing there.
It can do neither in intent. What if the purpose of giving the money isn't even related to a vote but to a position the candidate takes in which the company finds favor in for what ever reason. This could be something as strong as supporting an issue or being totally silent on it when an opposing candidate stands harshly against that position. That's why giving money is speech.
There is already a regulatory department set up to correct management that do not honor their fiduciary duties to shareholders (which is what you are alluding to), but as I just mentioned, the reasons for donating the money could be totally separate from that candidate's vote and completely relevant to any of his challengers positions. For instance, if I manage a company that makes wool socks and a candidate for the senate says "shearing sheep of their wool is cruel to animals and should be prevented from ever happening", I could in good faith donate to the incumbent candidate who is totally neutral on the subject or who expresses how silly of an idea that is without ever running against my fiduciary duties (what you alluded to).
Yes and no. I agree whole heatedly with you here but want to caution that the way the vote is changed could change the entire concept of the argument. IF the only reason the vote was changed was because I gave someone 50k, then it's bribery as you mention. But in real life, if the reason the vote was changed was because I was able to introduce information to you that made you realize my way of thinking, then it wouldn't be bribery.
Sadly, access to some politicians is too often relegated to those giving the most money which not only neglects the rest of his/her constituency, but it also blurs the lines between bribery and votes changed because of educated reasoning.
I'm not sure which law school you have went to, but I would check their accreditation a little better. Not loosing money, not loosing as much if a certain law was made a certain way, or making more then predicted are valid reasons to lobby or donate. It's not malfeasance or illegal as long as the fiduciary duty was maintains and the actions commenced in good faith of them.
I can understand your not happy with this or corporations in general. But it's not all black and white- one way or the other. There are many shades of gray along that you seemed to ignore. This is enforced when it really happens, it can be enforced in a number of ways, two of which being lawsuits brought about by the shareholders or complaints to governing boards that enforce. Another way to address this is for the shareholders to replace the board of directors and instruct the new board to clean house of the bad elements.
Nonsense, this is a horrible idea. What you suggest would resolve out political discussion to only the popular and self financed people in this world. Bill Gates is proba
Money doesn't guarantee a platform for the speech, it allows access to that platform. And it certainly doesn't mean the speech will be heard or effective. It's just so that the platforms right now demand money for access. IF they decided that they would air-print-distribute-televise-or anything else to everyone's opinion without expectation of payment, money wouldn't be a necessary part of the matter. But seeing how that's a wonderland fallacy and it all costs money to do, it is part of the speech process when you want your views heard.
I think that within your accurate explanation of an executive agreement verses a treaty, that you have forgotten that things like TRIPS and Berne are actual treaties that have been ratified by congress.
The distinction here is that while it's true that if they want to change the copyright process, they will be limited to berne (and WIPO: WTC WPPT, and a few other treaties) unless they can change it or withdraw from it, but under the ACTA, the president could only point to it and say please don't change this because we have this unofficial agreement. The agreement would not be binding on the US or any other branch of government outside of the executive branch's constitutional implementation of it.
Wow, when did that happen? The alamo was a fought by the country of TEXAS, not the US. Texas wasn't a US teritory at the time nor was it a state. Mexico courted a bunch of wealthy US citizens to the Texas area and then after they built it up economically, started taking promised rights away from those TEXANS. This prompted the Texan's to start their own little revolution in which the Alamo was part of.
Slavery had no part in it. You might be thinking of the reconstruction years after the civil war in which the US invaded Texas (the country) to bring slaves back over.
Maybe neither of us was as clear as we would have liked to of been. My point was given what was known then, those were reasonable precautions that would seem entirely ridiculous knowing what we know today. It's easy to forget that after the fact\, or hindsight, is much easier to be 20/20. Back then, they didn't even have a name for disease causing microbes and only would have connected them to behavior. Now we know more and do not need to take as drastic precautions.
Well, that's sort of not the thing. Most of the things you weren't supposed to do was directed at the person who caused it. Some was directed at others like the garments or bedding being unclean if soiled with mans seed and crap like that. If you read the rules, they aren't presented as god hates them, they are presented as what will get you into trouble with god. It's more of a "if you do X, he is displeased". Some people take that as if they can order you to not do something, others realize that god supposedly gave people free will and it's up to that person to choose to follow or not or how much. Now Don't confuse what I'm saying here with they would gladly accept them knowing they were breaking the rules, what would typically happen is they would have to go somewhere else. But that is really no different from people moving to better neighborhoods so their lives or property isn't in as much danger or people banding together and having the police arrest and house others who break society's rules. About the only difference is the connection to a religion and the years of man abusing religions for their own gains which probably has played a great part in your opinion forming process.
As for the staying away, I don't think you grasp the entirety or the situation. They didn't banish these people from the lands or anything while this was happening, they didn't send them off to nowhere by themselves, Well, Abraham did to Haggard but he was confusing his wife's jealousy with God's will. But in the end of the story, an Angel came and told Haggard to raise Ishmel and them made water run from a rock in the desert. Anyways, they were only restricted to certain parts of town while they were unclean and once they resolved that issue, it was normal.
I agree but I think you might be exagerating things a tad bit and placing them out of context in order to serve your point. If things were as you said or interpreted, I would agree. However, I do not think that was the case.
In the US and most the rest of the world, it is too. But the article wrote ton which is short for a "short ton" which refers to a short imperial ton.
The differences is that a tonne is a "metric ton" equal to 1000 kg or 2204 lbs, an "Imperial ton" (also known as a long ton) is 2240 lbs, or about 1016 kg, and a ton, known also as a short ton, is 2000 lbs or roughly 907 kg.
It gets a little more confusing when they use the word tonne in combination with energy proxies like in explaining the strength of a bomb or explosion as in how many tonnes of TNT it is comparable to or with amounts of force as in a 10mega tonne bomb. Or in combination with certain metal trades where they calculate the amount of metal in a long ton of ore by the percentage or metal within the ore. Then there are hold overs from traditions like in the HVAC world where AC is generally measure in ton(s) referring to how heat absorption and how heat would be displaced by a ton of ice in one day. Melting one ton of ice in this way or a 1 ton AC unit would be equal to about 12,000 BTU/h or 3517 Watts/h or 12,661,200 joules of energy per hour.
Don't worry, you will be sure to get multiple stories about it here.
It will be just like you didn't know what you didn't know what you missed.
That was amusing. I haven't watched him on TV (that I can remember) so I didn't realize how he acted. On the Radio, the few times I heard him, he says things like he's been a customer of their long before they were a customer if his and crap like that. He makes it clear that he has an interest in selling gold and selling it through this company. He also states that you need to review everything for yourself and make your own informed decision.
As for the FEAR and other shenanigans, that's sort of like yelling "see, she floats, I told you she was a witch". He has been clambering about that crap for a long time before selling gold. About the only thing which has changed is the subject or names of the people he complains about. He would trash talk Bush too and complain about both sides of the isle as well as other countries. I just checked and it appears that Goldline has been around since 1960 in some form or another and became goldline in 1986 so it is possible that his entire career of bashing politics and complaining about how the country was being run has been about creating fear so gold would increase in costs. I find that improbable though. However, he does admit to having an interest in gold when pawning it out there.
What would be interesting is seeing the full context of the clips cut together that Stewart used to show Beck creating or instilling Fear. On his radio program, he usually cites verifiable facts and is clear about something just being his opinion verses someone else'. I just went to http://www.glennbeck.com/content/tv/ and watched the first video on the page, they removed any commercials but it's similar to his radio program where he attempts to cite what he claims and railed about something forever. You should give it a watch and decide for yourself.
As I said, I don't listen to him much, I have a car I use for long trips and the engine puts on some terrible electrical whine in the radio if it is not on a strong AM station so if he on, I listen. I've attempted to fix the whining noise but I think replacing the radio is the last option and that would probably cost more then the car is worth.
What you have touched on is more to the ignorance of modern man and the information we now know. Take an AIDS patient for instance, before we knew how it was contracted, it was a good idea to stay away from them. Now we know and it's still a good idea to stay away from them under certain conditions like if you have open wounds and they do to and neither of you have taken precautions to limit the threat of contamination. I know I can shake hands with a HIV/AIDS patient, I can drink after them, I can sit in the same room as them, I don't need to wash my hands after touching them or something they have touched, but I only know that now because I have been educated on what it involves. Now take someone who hasn't, or even take someone who has been educated but doesn't know for sure if the person is infected, A doctor will still wear rubber gloves when examining you for back pain just because of the known unknowns. So humane or not, as a measure of self preservation, it is still is a good idea to not go around a sick person until you know how to protect yourself. The major difference nowadays is that we have a more complete idea of germs, how they spread, which ones cause what illnesses, and how to protect ourselves from them. But the Bible was specific in it's Don't do this or go around that person so it wasn't a blanket "run away and hide", it was more of a "this is the only way we know how to protect ourselves at the time.
Times have changed now, and if your christian, a lot of those old rules no longer apply. But take the Jewish for instance, a lot of them still store their meat separate from their dairy. Not because the old diseases that brought the necessity of the rule around is still applicable with modern containers and cooling devices, but because of the honor or respect for the traditions that got their people through a time when one could contaminate the other and wipe a family out.
Unclean and clean is a hold over of a word from thousands of years ago which should be more interpreted as safe and not safe. Again, I thinks it's a what we know now and less of a consideration of then in the definitions of the wordings. According to the Dr. Stong's concordance, unclean means 1) unclean, impure a) ethically and religiously b) ritually c) of places. It's not really a curse or not liked by a god because there were simple ways of remedying the conditions or situations. Now I will admit that religions haven't been interpreted as being fair or particularly kind or equal to women, but lets take a small trip back in time and consider the situations that would have made a rule like that practice. Every practicing Jew would have sessions where they went to the tabernacle and studied the scriptures, including the women. Generally women and men were separate but even children were expected to memorize the Torah. Ok, so a women on her period goes to study, her staff infection in which her body tolerates without signs of illness soaks into her clothes and gets transferred onto the benches. A child comes in later and sits next to that site, gets some on his hand, somehow in h
Generally, when it says not to do X, it was because it offended someone- namely the god of the religion. Some of this was some sound advice for the type of life and technology available at the time, some was just control of the masses as it seems.
I mean things like eating shellfish, well if we didn't have refrigeration today, or live in an arctic climate, we would generally get really sick by eating shell fish that has set out for hours in the hot sun before being cooked. Although other fish would degrade in quality but not generally make us sick. Things you shouldn't/aren't supposed to do in the bible also revolved around the idea of germs long before we officially discovered them. Not touching the clothing of a leper or washing yourself afterward if some good advice. Not being around women on the rag and washing everything she touched in this unclean state was some sound advice that might still applied today if we didn't have modern conveniences. When a woman is on her period, it creates an Ideal condition for Staff bacteria to bread and there is still a real threat of toxic shock syndrome that can actually kill them. This condition became prominent recently when the super absorbent tampons were introduced to the market in the 70's. We didn't even think about it much before then but a few deaths later and the science to see why it happened caused them to be pulled off the market and even today general guideline suggest not using a tampon longer the 8 hours at a time. Anyways, the S. aureus or S. pyogenes bacteria could be transferred to men, children or other women if they came into contact with it. And remember, this was a time when there wasn't modern soaps or medications to treat infections like this.
Anyways, no logical reason doesn't mean there wasn't one and following a tradition whether set by a religion or society doesn't mean it's not logical when doing it. Take going to court for instance, tradition is that you dress up in your nicest -respectable cloths when going to court as a defendant. You don't have to, there generally isn't any law requiring you to do so, but there may be someone who thinks your cocky and deserves to pay if you do not. Of course there is always the risk of it backfiring but it shows a level of respect that generally shouldn't upset any already gained favor.
Now I will admit that religions do have some quirky things in them. Most of it is designed to signify a state or submission after doing something wrong (again, controlling the populace) or to create a hurdle on forgiveness which makes you work hard at things. This is like the find doves and doing burn offering and such that is in the Bible. There is no logical reason to do so, it's just that you had to work harder then saying I'm sorry to undo your supposed wrong. But this is the same as there not being a logical reason why I can't cross the street in the middle of the block when no cars are coming or face a $180 jaywalking citation. I can follow that rule or not, it's not logical to forbid something that can be safely done in the name of protecting you, but none the less it's there and presents a rule to follow that is not illogical if you go to the corner and obey the traffic signals.
Just a quicky on this. As for the goldline commercials, Beck has always admitted to having an interest in selling gold as he has always claimed he was a customer of the same company as far back as I can remember him doing them. He also does "say it isn't so" spots where he mocks a position that can be taken out of context easily if you miss part of it. I don't watch him on the TV but I have heard him on the radio a few times and it's sort of obvious if your paying attention. The problem walks in when you miss the setup where you find out it's a gag or something. I don't really think it's a difference between paid opinion and honest opinion rather then what you missed with the opinion that easily blurs the line. And I believe this to be true regardless of whether you agree or disagree with what he says.
Just a though I figured you might want to consider.
Please explain what "People like him and people like you are the reason we're in this fucking mess. You've driven this country off a goddamn cliff and we're not going to sit here and watch anymore." means. I'm left with nothing to go by your statements because you seem to list things that came to be and were the fault of the left and the right (err democrats and republicans) to varying degrees with gross support by third party activists leaning on all sides too.
I'm wondering if your not the pot calling the kettle black and maybe you should lead by example.
It shouldn't amaze you much. Illegal immigration is the problem that is on most people's minds. It the problem that allows companies to replace skilled US and legal workers with barely skilled illegals at half the rate because they live in fear of being deported if they complain about something as basic as getting a minimum wage.
To me, the illegal immigration situation is probably one of the worst problems America has from not only an economic standpoint but from a human rights stand point. If a black mans deserves the same pay as a white man, if a women deserves the same pay as a man, then any immigrant deserves the same pay as anyone else doing the same job. Instead, they are replacing American and legal workers which creates a drain on the social safety net as well as decreases the taxes collected because most are paid significantly less or under the table or both in sort of a double whammy. Granted, their pay may be better then where they came from, the squalor they live in with multiple families may be better then what they had, their freedom may be more and their over all life may be better, but as humans they deserve the same liberties we enjoy which is robbed from them by their illegal status.
To me the answer isn't as much about changing out immigration laws. It's about increasing the quality of life in the countries they come from. It seems like Mexico's answer to it's problems is to export them to the US instead of creating opportunities for it's own citizens and creating laws that allow them to act in their own self interest. If the people were living better and had more liberty or opportunities in their own damn countries, attempting escape into the US wouldn't be dominating the discussion on US immigration. This also dove tails with exporting jobs and the problems that creates.
Sure, That would be harassment/assault. But simply saying your going to hell if you do not do or believe in something doesn't quite rise to that level. In a free society, I'm even free to pick and chose who I do business with based on whatever we have in common or uncommon. That shouldn't be considered harassment or assault either because I'm in no way obligated to make sure you can make a living or remain employed or whatever. So we need to take into consideration the differences between a real harassment/assault and what just seems annoying like listening to someone preach when you walk by a church with open windows.
An example of how I pick and chose who I do business with is a convenience store which is close to me, I will go past it to the next one because they have a sign saying Iraq spelled backwards is Vietnam (which is another conversation). There is also a parts store I go to above all the others in my area simply because they sponsored my nephews little league team a few years ago. So even if someone doesn't patronize you for not believing or believing in the wrong thing, it's really no different then any other preference that goes on in society.
From what I can tell, you actually have to offend someone based on their beliefs in order for this law to effect you. It's similar to hate speech laws where if your already assaulting someone and call them a racial slur at the same time, your in more trouble then if you just kept your mouth shut and beat then nearly to death. But you can walk down the street saying Nigger, Jew, wetback, Spic, dego, cracker, whore, bitch, tramp, Irish, Pollock, or a number of other things all day long as long as you do not commit a crime against someone who could remotely fall into one of those groups. (this reminds me of a funny story with a racist I ran into at a bar on Christmas eve. He was walking around saying kill a niggar for baby jesus and I asked him what the hell he was talking about. He asked me if I would kill a nigger for baby jesus and I asked him why should I. He said "it's in the bible, God doesn't like Niggers and jews. I laughed at him and quoted Genesis where it says God created man in his image and it was good. He then attempted to claim that we didn't look like them and I said so, it was allowed to happen because we were created in his image and it was good. I then told him Jesus and his father was a Jew and he started getting pissed. His friend came over and pulled him away as he was angry enough to fight now. True story- happen this last Christmas eve and I have no idea where the idiot came from)
But I will admit that some Blasphemy laws are a little more extreme and you can't speak out against a state sponsored religion or belief. Take Iran for instance, they tax non-Muslims more for having their own religion or not. Alcohol is outlawed in Iran except for religious purposes and the Jews are about the only religious group in Iran that has alcohol as part of their belief structures. But it can be even worse then that, remember a few years ago when an English school teacher doing aid work in some African village allowed her class to name a pet or stuffed animal Mohamed? She almost lost her life and if it wasn't for the backing of England and it's allies in attempting to negotiate her safe release, she probably would have.
It's only practice if you are attempting to ignore what you already said. I'm confident there are no fairies in this world so I will say there are no fairies. If I didn't know there wasn't any fairies but didn't believe there were, I would say I don't believe fairies exist. However, the distinction you drew was with someone saying "i don't believe" compared to someone saying "I know there isn't". The later is a belief whether you like it or not.
When you say like a god, do you mean like a supernatural powerful god or a god as in the top of their field or respected association as some compare people with extraordinary yet still human abilities in a certain task or tasks. It's not really all that important except we should note that the rulers of Rome and Egypt at one time claimed to be gods with no superhuman abilities outside an overwhelmingly powerful influence on others around them. In that instance, I can easily see how communism could become a religion just the same as I could other social areas including portions of science and the followers of it.
As we currently understand or want to understand the universe, yes, it does appear to behave as if there is no intervening personal god. However, this appearance can be specifically to the discovery of what we know. What I'm getting at here is the we look for an explanation beyond what would only be needed for an intervening god. A lot of that explanation is not provable yet can be disprovable so we tend to attempt to accept it as close enough for government work until it is disproved. But even with the Big Bang, we reach a point to the beginning of time when something was just there and somehow energy was created, and bam, solar systems and planets and life was created where humans tened to be the leaders of the reals we can imagine.
Now I point this out not because I want to compare it with a religion, but because you will find atheist all over the place laying claim the the big bang theory is fact, that evolution as in macro-evolution and the current taxonomy tree models are fact when the real fact is, they are more or less best guesses giving the information we know and our abilities to process it. That is a hallmark of a religion- demanding that someone unprovable is fact instead of just possible or probable. It could be correct, it could be incorrect, but it's to a point with some that you can't even dispute a single piece of it because they need to preserve their belief system the way it is. Two seemingly favorite strong holds in these people are "evolution and abiogenesis" and the age of the earth. I'm not disputing either of them but in order for science to be science, discussing alternatives and constantly evaluating the evidence needs to be included otherwise it's just another plausible religious story/dogma when nothing can be changed. You will find the same in the real of Global warming too.
There are air marshals on almost all international flights. But stopping him may not have been the only answer. If someone was detected, then diverting the flight to less populated areas is a potential point of action.
I think you are exaggerating things a little bit. A lot of the potential issues your thinking of could have been addressed by simply announcing that they are expecting to enter a turbulent air space in 15-20 minutes and the fasten seat belt light would be on so use the facilities while you can. Most people who are not sick, can hold from using the restroom for an hour or two without much issue.
Are you serious? The secret new restrictions were in response to failed bombing attempt and was implemented directly because of them. Logic would tell us that a competent agency would block an avenue of attack as soon as it knows about that avenue. So if you were attempting to do something you know you shouldn't be doing, are you going to do the same method after someone already got caught doing it? No, you would be doing it before they knew the attack vector existed otherwise you would be shut down at the gates. That is why this policy was sensitive at the time, the logic for multiple attacks through this avenue would be a narrow window of time between when the first one happened and the time the flights were already in the air. Otherwise, changes at the terminal would most likely detect the bomb before you boarded the flight.
It's not how long they can keep it a secret that matter. Their intent was not to keep it a secret forever. Now could they have kept it a secret from terrorist already on a plane or boarding a plane before the news of the failed attack was public around the world? Well, they only needed a day or two in order to make sure the threats were not there. But in a hypothetical world, the policy is leaked, an attacker on another flight is tipped off by an operative who read the blog, and instead of attempting to blow up the plane on landing, he does it an hour and 5 minutes earlier.
Do you see the potential problem there? While we didn't know if further attack would be attempted, the policy would alert us to those attacks and give us a potential to either foil them or divert the plane to less populated area. As soon as the policy became public, that potential became significantly less because anyone could have tipped the attacker off and they could have detonated and 5 minutes before the restrictions would be applied on the flight.
No, I do not think it's silly at all. First, it wasn't meant to be secret forever, second, the time frame where it would have the greatest potential impact wasn't all that long and even the dummies the TSA hired should have been able to keep most of it a secret with only divulging bits and pieces of information here and there. In contrast, some idiot totally ignored that and emailed the policy changes to someone who would have posted it on the internet as if that inside person wanted all the potential attacking friends to know about
Your forgetting that there was other rules other then leaving your seat in effect too. The most obvious one that would make the bomber want to leave his seat would be the rule requiring everything to be off your lap and no communications devices in use in the last hour of the flight.
The bomber used a blanket to conceal his actions in attempting to arm the device. If that couldn't be done, then he would probably want to use the restroom to accomplish this task. When that can't be done, he has basically two choices with some variations, disobey one of the rules in which case he is potentially caught, or not follow through with the attack. Of course that later left the possibility of him detonating it in the restrooms at the terminal. Hopefully, he would become anxious or nervous and be flagged for followup and become discovered before that could happen.
The employees were sworn to secrecy when they signed up for the job too. The government does not have to swear someone to secrecy every time something becomes classified or everytime someone reviews something classified. Sometimes they might depending on the importance or level of classification, but in general, once it's classified or marked secret, the employees know what they can and can't do with it. They identify the paper as being of a level of secrecy and only allow access to the people with those clearances. If the paper made it to someone who wasn't cleared for it, it's the government's fault for fucking things up. But if they followed their parts right, then it is a clear case of someone disclosing information before they should have. It could have been an accident or on purpose, either way, we need to find out how and why and close the gap, especially if it was the government fucking up.
As for it being unrealistic to think it could remain a secret, I agree with you. But that was never the intention with this policy. It was only supposed to remain a secret while the potential threats were evaluated. Remember, it is about what we didn't know- namely, if more attacks were in progress. They had plans of making the policies public, it's just that timing in this case didn't match the expectations.
I would say the most useful these policies would have been was in the hours and days right after the failed attack when others would/could have a clear window of opportunity to evade the same types of security. After news of the failed attack became known, attempting to smuggle a device like this on to an airplane would become pretty much impossible so getting them on before the first one went off or before the news of it could be spread would be crucial in coordinating multiple attacks.
The problem exists when it goes beyond a lack of belief and into a positive assertion.
Evangelical Atheist will assert that there is no god, not that they do not believe in a god. You can see this documented quite well even here where self proclaimed atheists attempt to assert this to anyone showing the sign of a belief in a god. When it goes from a "I don't believe there is a god" to a "I believe there is no god", then it goes from the traditional lack of to an affirmative of something that is unprovable -either way- just like religion.
But we must also understand that a god isn't necessary for a religion. Buddhism is probably the most popular one that is considered a complete religion. Now don't get me wrong, Buddhism can have gods, and many Christians follow the core sets of Buddhism as a complement to their own religion. TO say Atheism is not a religion is probably proper but we can't ignore the people who intent to use it as a religion or substitute religion.