I suspect it is mostly a he said/she said thing without some extensive research, but I would honestly be surprised to learn that Germany/Belgium/UK have more breweries than the US (taken individually; maybe if you mean all three together). Here's why: size.
The US is HUUUUGE. Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen breweries in NC alone. And by brewery, I mean commercially distributed. One in particular I like isn't widely distributed outside the area it is brewed in, but you can walk into stores and buy it in some places, so I count it as a legitimate brewery. There are probably at least a dozen more (likely dozens) in NC alone like that; I simply haven't found them yet.
Now, maybe NC is a brew happy state, but I doubt it (in fact, there is at least one county I know of where you can't even buy beer). And of course, I don't have any real data on the number of breweries in the UK/Belgium/Germany, but given the physical size, I suspect you'd have to stack breweries on top of one another to have as many as are (probably) in the US. Again, I'll admit I don't have any actual data, this is all conjecture based on extrapolation, but I doubt anyone does have any actual data.
p.s. I drink pale ales and stouts, so any brewery I enjoy is producing more than just a standard Lager.
Man, I'm glad somebody else here isn't taking crazy pills. I mean, behavior profiling is wrong?! If we shouldn't make judgments about people based on their behavior, what exactly should we use?
Likewise, the articles of confederation (enacted before the US constitution, which gave the states an extremely high degree of autonomy) proved to be a complete and total failure. Most US states are simply too small to effectively handle their own affairs,
I would simply like to point out that the conclusion in your second sentence does not necessarily follow from the example in your first sentence. Most of the individual states today are as large, if not larger, than the entire US at the time of the civil war (population & economy wise). Of course, the whole world is also much larger, so your conclusion may still be correct.
That is an excellent point, AC. However, the revenue is more direct than that - the two services I have heard of are subscription based. I suspect there are still ads, however. *Disclaimer: I have never used these services, but have heard them described by friends that live outside the viewing area for their favorite college teams.
Well, I admit, it was an assumption based on your apparent attitude towards Americans. Maybe you are an American, I don't know.
In other words, Americans deserve some things, and others deserve less. I search for some way to say this without being offensive, but this is the definition of bigotry.
Yes, American citizens deserve more from the American government than others. What's wrong with that? I don't expect the Chinese government to treat me with the same consideration as a Chinese citizen, beyond a certain basic level that all human beings deserve. You still failed to say which country you are in, but again, I am willing to bet your government treats your citizens preferentially. Just like you probably treat your family preferentially.
So the American government has a right to omniscience, gained by any means necessary? Can you think of any other governments that claimed a right to know everything? Would you wish to be associated with them?
This isn't "any means necessary". It's eavesdropping. Which governments did you have in mind that don't engage in similar activities?
What would happen if America stopped funding the ridiculously corrupt and inept CIA to commit crimes in other countries?
I'd be among the first to cheer. But this has nothing to do with the current discussion of eavesdropping electronically. If you really equate some of the heinous things the CIA has done with electronic eavesdropping, then you have some pretty weird ethics/morality. And not that it is an excuse at all, but why only point your finger at the CIA and pretend they put America somehow in a league of their own? It's not like we are the only ones to have meddled in foreign affairs to suit our own perceived interests.
I sincerely don't understand why so many Americans think that right and wrong stop at the US border.
I sincerely don't understand why so many non-Americans cop such a holier-than-thou attitude when America's dirty laundry gets aired. Does your country really treat all human beings equally, regardless of citizenship or not? I doubt it. I don't know what country you are from, but I would love to know which government doesn't have any import/export tariffs, no customs agency, has a completely porous border, etc. What, you treat non-citizens with a different set of rules than citizens!? Oh, the humanity!
As for this specific instance, right and wrong don't stop at our borders, but it sure as hell gets redefined. It is my government's responsibility to protect Americans from everyone else. I don't think the whole world is out to get me or anything, but I don't think we live in some utopia, either. There are people out there that will take advantage of the weak; pick any one of a dozen major human rights violations currently being "tsk tsked" by the UN. It is my government's responsibility to make sure we are not taken advantage of. Part of that is making sure we know what everyone else is doing. There is no such reason for spying on American citizens (by the US government, that is). Such an action is overwhelmingly likely to be used for political/legal suppression of "undesirables"; we've seen it several times before in just our short history.
So, to recap. Spying on foreign nationals, probably being used to protect American interests. Whether I agree with how those interests are being defined is a different topic, but it is completely unreasonable to expect any state to not engage in espionage. Domestic spying, probably being used to harass or suppress whoever the current powers-that-be define as undesirable. Again, whether I agree with their definition of undesirable is beside the point; it is an abuse of the power that WE gave them, and we can and should take it back.
Squeezing out a bit of slightly-different smelling gas each time a creature had a new thought certainly won't be an effective means of communicating a plethora of ideas.
Whereas transmitting variations within a rather limited range of vibrations via the medium of air is obviously effective - it is how we got to where we are. I fail to see why variations within a limited range of chemical combinations would be so much less effective. Hell, we are currently communicating (more or less effectively) by transmitting various combinations of at most 50 characters (including punctuation and spaces and such). Why do you think pheromones are a more limiting communication vector?
And what useful way of knowing about the world is there other than science?
Hey, I like science as much as the next geek, but I would say any method that gets at a useful "truth" is, well, useful. Statistics ain't science, but I'd say its a pretty useful way of looking at the world (in certain situations). Ditto for mathematics, psychiatry, even intuition. As long as you arrive at a reasonable understanding of reality, the method by which you got there is not that important. Science has a BIG advantage given its proven track record, but it isn't always the appropriate method. Next time your wife is mad at you and you are desperately trying to appease her, word of advice: go with intuition to figure it out, not science.
Who are these anti-nuclear hippies, anyway? I've never met one.
I have. I went to a fairly liberal college in the 90s. Think PCU, to a degree. There was some talk at the time about building a waste disposal facility for low-level waste in the area. Basically, there are a large number of research hospitals and one nukee lab in the area, so a lot of low-level waste was being generated there. Well, the keyword "nuclear" sent the protesters into a frenzy. I remember being asked to sign a petition against this facility, and having a "bang your head against wall" conversation with the (admittedly hot) chick about what she suggested be done with the waste if she didn't want a disposal facility being built.
"We need to cut back on nuclear waste b/c it is so dangerous!"
"Uhm, so we need to stop providing modern medical services?"
"No, we just need to produce less nuclear waste!" Rinse, lather, repeat.
I don't think she ever really understood what it was she was protesting against, other than "teh evil nuculars".
There is a large difference in degree of abuse between abusing my checking account and abusing my email. Someone that would never think of stealing from you very well might consider sending you spam, selling your email address, etc.
It's similar to how I would trust my friend with my car keys, but not the key to my liquor cabinet. If I actually had a liquor cabinet, that is.
Nonsense. I am anti-abortion, as in I would never choose my child to be aborted. However, I don't feel that I have the right to make that choice for everyone, so I am pro-choice. No semantic contortions needed. I personally choose not to drink vodka, but think you should be allowed to. Does that make me pro-vodka, or pro-choice-in-beverages?
Nope. I lie down. I lay you down. Lie (in this particular use) always refers to the subject; lay typically refers to an an object. See definition 2
lay vs. definition 1 lie.
I blame the old nursery rhyme for all the confusion on this matter - "Now I lay me down to sleep". While technically correct in its usage of lay (not in its usage of me, should be myself), it is a rather unwieldy usage. Much cleaner to say "Now I lie down to sleep", but the scansion is off. Of course, it doesn't help that lay is the past tense of this usage of lie; lied is the past tense of the "telling untruths" use of lie. "You lay down to sleep" IS correct, it just means you did it in the past. Freaking English! I don't know how non-native speaker EVER figure it out.
Wishing murder, rape, and torture on other people is evil, and I'm not backing down on that one bit. Whether or not such expressions are A) commonplace, and B) tolerated in "progressive" circles is the pertinent question. I think it's valid to ask that question.
Except you didn't ask that question. You stated that it is "progressive" to question/hate America/capitalism. By the way, I like the way you lump questioning (displaying skepticism) into the same category as hating. Very "conservative" of you. As is the subtle assertion that "progressives" wish murder, rape and torture on people. Pretty ironic, since apparently the mark of a "progressive" is such acts as questioning whether or not "America" is torturing and murdering our enemies in the name of freedom.
Man, I miss the days when one could dismiss such ridiculous drivel as an obvious troll. Unfortunately, I believe you actually believe this point of view is a) internally consistent and b) reasonable.
What needs protecting is the ability of people to enjoy those rights
Okay. I don't see the point in distinguishing between my rights and my ability to enjoy my rights. I fail to see how you can deprive me of my life while leaving my right to life intact, but if you see a distinction, so be it.
You said: If it were not so, the will and testament of a dead person, for instance, would amount to nothing, you'd be free to harvest any corpses you can lay your hands on for transplants, then in reference to this statement expounded
First example pertains the right to property, second to habeas corpus.
Wow. Just, wow. FYI, habeas corpus has NOTHING to do with corpses.
I never heard of basic human rights including the right to be willfuly ignorant and advocate murder.
I'll limit myself to this one comment on the irony of you accusing me of ignorance, but I will say that I never advocated murder. Guess what? Not everyone that disagrees with you is pure evil. Try reading my posts w/o that implicit assumption and I suspect you will come away with a significantly different interpretation.
Additionally, my sarcasm concerning your advocacy of rights was in response to your desire for my rights to be violated w/ a rubber hose. I guess observance of rights is only for people you like, huh?
p.s. I'm still giggling over habeas corpus concerning the rights of corpses:)
We'll see then if you feel they are worthless just because they were infringed upon.
I never said I felt rights are worthless. In fact, it is because I value the ideal of them that I object to the ridiculous idea that they are somehow intrinsic to life. Rights must be asserted and protected, or they disappear.
If it were not so, the will and testament of a dead person, for instance, would amount to nothing, you'd be free to harvest any corpses you can lay your hands on for transplants and murder would probably not be punishable. Mmkay?
Huh? Of these three, only murder has anything to do with human rights. And to reiterate: the fact that there is such a thing as murder proves the right to life is, for all practical purposes, quite possible to deny someone.
I hope you learn a lesson about how human rights are inalienable the hard way - by having them violated, preferably with a rubber hose.
I'm glad to see you are such a big proponent of human rights for everyone.
THANK YOU!!!! I get quite tired of the sanctimonious pricks out there that regurgitate that drivel about how rights are inalienable, and thus can neither be granted nor retracted. A moments pause for thought shows that this simply is not true. One of the fundamental rights is the right to life - how exactly is that impossible to take away from someone?
There are 49 Democrats in the Senate, 49 Republicans, and 2 Independents that typically vote Democrat. I don't think you can blame the Democrats alone for any Senate failings.
Oddly enough, NC is only a red state nationally. Locally, the majority of our governors have been Dem for the last 50 years or so, the majority of our state assembly tends to be Dem. Even in the various counties I have lived in, the county seats seem to tend towards Dem. But Presidential, you betcha, Rep all the way.
Why not? Activist judges have been striking down laws and ruling from the bench for years.
You know, I see/hear this sort of comment a lot, almost always as a criticism of "activist judges". And sure, some judges abuse their power (just as do some presidents, mayors, dog-catchers, etc.). But I gotta say, as a general sentiment towards the judicial branch, this is a retarded complaint. Striking down bad laws is EXACTLY what judges are supposed to do. It's one of those checks-and-balances thing-a-majigs put into that Constitution thingy most people are sort of fond of.
Slashdot Mirror
Because you used your old Linux version of MS Office to create documents in the (now) unsupported formats?
I suspect it is mostly a he said/she said thing without some extensive research, but I would honestly be surprised to learn that Germany/Belgium/UK have more breweries than the US (taken individually; maybe if you mean all three together). Here's why: size.
The US is HUUUUGE. Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen breweries in NC alone. And by brewery, I mean commercially distributed. One in particular I like isn't widely distributed outside the area it is brewed in, but you can walk into stores and buy it in some places, so I count it as a legitimate brewery. There are probably at least a dozen more (likely dozens) in NC alone like that; I simply haven't found them yet.
Now, maybe NC is a brew happy state, but I doubt it (in fact, there is at least one county I know of where you can't even buy beer). And of course, I don't have any real data on the number of breweries in the UK/Belgium/Germany, but given the physical size, I suspect you'd have to stack breweries on top of one another to have as many as are (probably) in the US. Again, I'll admit I don't have any actual data, this is all conjecture based on extrapolation, but I doubt anyone does have any actual data.
p.s. I drink pale ales and stouts, so any brewery I enjoy is producing more than just a standard Lager.
That, my friend, is true dedication to a joke. You'll probably burn in moderated hell for it, but that is damn funny.
Man, I'm glad somebody else here isn't taking crazy pills. I mean, behavior profiling is wrong?! If we shouldn't make judgments about people based on their behavior, what exactly should we use?
Likewise, the articles of confederation (enacted before the US constitution, which gave the states an extremely high degree of autonomy) proved to be a complete and total failure. Most US states are simply too small to effectively handle their own affairs,
I would simply like to point out that the conclusion in your second sentence does not necessarily follow from the example in your first sentence. Most of the individual states today are as large, if not larger, than the entire US at the time of the civil war (population & economy wise). Of course, the whole world is also much larger, so your conclusion may still be correct.
"Can" implies ability, "may" implies permission.
That is an excellent point, AC. However, the revenue is more direct than that - the two services I have heard of are subscription based. I suspect there are still ads, however. *Disclaimer: I have never used these services, but have heard them described by friends that live outside the viewing area for their favorite college teams.
Maybe that just refer to them in that way for the sake of tradition. Kind of how I "dialed in" to work last night, via my broadband connection.
What makes you think I am a non-American?
Well, I admit, it was an assumption based on your apparent attitude towards Americans. Maybe you are an American, I don't know.
In other words, Americans deserve some things, and others deserve less. I search for some way to say this without being offensive, but this is the definition of bigotry.
Yes, American citizens deserve more from the American government than others. What's wrong with that? I don't expect the Chinese government to treat me with the same consideration as a Chinese citizen, beyond a certain basic level that all human beings deserve. You still failed to say which country you are in, but again, I am willing to bet your government treats your citizens preferentially. Just like you probably treat your family preferentially.
So the American government has a right to omniscience, gained by any means necessary? Can you think of any other governments that claimed a right to know everything? Would you wish to be associated with them?
This isn't "any means necessary". It's eavesdropping. Which governments did you have in mind that don't engage in similar activities?
What would happen if America stopped funding the ridiculously corrupt and inept CIA to commit crimes in other countries?
I'd be among the first to cheer. But this has nothing to do with the current discussion of eavesdropping electronically. If you really equate some of the heinous things the CIA has done with electronic eavesdropping, then you have some pretty weird ethics/morality. And not that it is an excuse at all, but why only point your finger at the CIA and pretend they put America somehow in a league of their own? It's not like we are the only ones to have meddled in foreign affairs to suit our own perceived interests.
I sincerely don't understand why so many Americans think that right and wrong stop at the US border.
I sincerely don't understand why so many non-Americans cop such a holier-than-thou attitude when America's dirty laundry gets aired. Does your country really treat all human beings equally, regardless of citizenship or not? I doubt it. I don't know what country you are from, but I would love to know which government doesn't have any import/export tariffs, no customs agency, has a completely porous border, etc. What, you treat non-citizens with a different set of rules than citizens!? Oh, the humanity!
As for this specific instance, right and wrong don't stop at our borders, but it sure as hell gets redefined. It is my government's responsibility to protect Americans from everyone else. I don't think the whole world is out to get me or anything, but I don't think we live in some utopia, either. There are people out there that will take advantage of the weak; pick any one of a dozen major human rights violations currently being "tsk tsked" by the UN. It is my government's responsibility to make sure we are not taken advantage of. Part of that is making sure we know what everyone else is doing. There is no such reason for spying on American citizens (by the US government, that is). Such an action is overwhelmingly likely to be used for political/legal suppression of "undesirables"; we've seen it several times before in just our short history.
So, to recap. Spying on foreign nationals, probably being used to protect American interests. Whether I agree with how those interests are being defined is a different topic, but it is completely unreasonable to expect any state to not engage in espionage. Domestic spying, probably being used to harass or suppress whoever the current powers-that-be define as undesirable. Again, whether I agree with their definition of undesirable is beside the point; it is an abuse of the power that WE gave them, and we can and should take it back.
Squeezing out a bit of slightly-different smelling gas each time a creature had a new thought certainly won't be an effective means of communicating a plethora of ideas.
Whereas transmitting variations within a rather limited range of vibrations via the medium of air is obviously effective - it is how we got to where we are. I fail to see why variations within a limited range of chemical combinations would be so much less effective. Hell, we are currently communicating (more or less effectively) by transmitting various combinations of at most 50 characters (including punctuation and spaces and such). Why do you think pheromones are a more limiting communication vector?
And what useful way of knowing about the world is there other than science?
Hey, I like science as much as the next geek, but I would say any method that gets at a useful "truth" is, well, useful. Statistics ain't science, but I'd say its a pretty useful way of looking at the world (in certain situations). Ditto for mathematics, psychiatry, even intuition. As long as you arrive at a reasonable understanding of reality, the method by which you got there is not that important. Science has a BIG advantage given its proven track record, but it isn't always the appropriate method. Next time your wife is mad at you and you are desperately trying to appease her, word of advice: go with intuition to figure it out, not science.
Who are these anti-nuclear hippies, anyway? I've never met one.
I have. I went to a fairly liberal college in the 90s. Think PCU, to a degree. There was some talk at the time about building a waste disposal facility for low-level waste in the area. Basically, there are a large number of research hospitals and one nukee lab in the area, so a lot of low-level waste was being generated there. Well, the keyword "nuclear" sent the protesters into a frenzy. I remember being asked to sign a petition against this facility, and having a "bang your head against wall" conversation with the (admittedly hot) chick about what she suggested be done with the waste if she didn't want a disposal facility being built.
"We need to cut back on nuclear waste b/c it is so dangerous!"
"Uhm, so we need to stop providing modern medical services?"
"No, we just need to produce less nuclear waste!" Rinse, lather, repeat.
I don't think she ever really understood what it was she was protesting against, other than "teh evil nuculars".
There is a large difference in degree of abuse between abusing my checking account and abusing my email. Someone that would never think of stealing from you very well might consider sending you spam, selling your email address, etc.
It's similar to how I would trust my friend with my car keys, but not the key to my liquor cabinet. If I actually had a liquor cabinet, that is.
Nonsense. I am anti-abortion, as in I would never choose my child to be aborted. However, I don't feel that I have the right to make that choice for everyone, so I am pro-choice. No semantic contortions needed. I personally choose not to drink vodka, but think you should be allowed to. Does that make me pro-vodka, or pro-choice-in-beverages?
Nope. I lie down. I lay you down. Lie (in this particular use) always refers to the subject; lay typically refers to an an object. See definition 2 lay vs. definition 1 lie.
I blame the old nursery rhyme for all the confusion on this matter - "Now I lay me down to sleep". While technically correct in its usage of lay (not in its usage of me, should be myself), it is a rather unwieldy usage. Much cleaner to say "Now I lie down to sleep", but the scansion is off. Of course, it doesn't help that lay is the past tense of this usage of lie; lied is the past tense of the "telling untruths" use of lie. "You lay down to sleep" IS correct, it just means you did it in the past. Freaking English! I don't know how non-native speaker EVER figure it out.
Oh man, that made me laugh and cringe all at the same time!
Wishing murder, rape, and torture on other people is evil, and I'm not backing down on that one bit. Whether or not such expressions are A) commonplace, and B) tolerated in "progressive" circles is the pertinent question. I think it's valid to ask that question.
Except you didn't ask that question. You stated that it is "progressive" to question/hate America/capitalism. By the way, I like the way you lump questioning (displaying skepticism) into the same category as hating. Very "conservative" of you. As is the subtle assertion that "progressives" wish murder, rape and torture on people. Pretty ironic, since apparently the mark of a "progressive" is such acts as questioning whether or not "America" is torturing and murdering our enemies in the name of freedom.
Man, I miss the days when one could dismiss such ridiculous drivel as an obvious troll. Unfortunately, I believe you actually believe this point of view is a) internally consistent and b) reasonable.
In Faciest America, the voting machine choose FOR you.
I don't have a face, you insensitive clod!
What needs protecting is the ability of people to enjoy those rights
:)
Okay. I don't see the point in distinguishing between my rights and my ability to enjoy my rights. I fail to see how you can deprive me of my life while leaving my right to life intact, but if you see a distinction, so be it.
You said: If it were not so, the will and testament of a dead person, for instance, would amount to nothing, you'd be free to harvest any corpses you can lay your hands on for transplants, then in reference to this statement expounded
First example pertains the right to property, second to habeas corpus.
Wow. Just, wow. FYI, habeas corpus has NOTHING to do with corpses.
I never heard of basic human rights including the right to be willfuly ignorant and advocate murder.
I'll limit myself to this one comment on the irony of you accusing me of ignorance, but I will say that I never advocated murder. Guess what? Not everyone that disagrees with you is pure evil. Try reading my posts w/o that implicit assumption and I suspect you will come away with a significantly different interpretation.
Additionally, my sarcasm concerning your advocacy of rights was in response to your desire for my rights to be violated w/ a rubber hose. I guess observance of rights is only for people you like, huh?
p.s. I'm still giggling over habeas corpus concerning the rights of corpses
We'll see then if you feel they are worthless just because they were infringed upon.
I never said I felt rights are worthless. In fact, it is because I value the ideal of them that I object to the ridiculous idea that they are somehow intrinsic to life. Rights must be asserted and protected, or they disappear.
If it were not so, the will and testament of a dead person, for instance, would amount to nothing, you'd be free to harvest any corpses you can lay your hands on for transplants and murder would probably not be punishable. Mmkay?
Huh? Of these three, only murder has anything to do with human rights. And to reiterate: the fact that there is such a thing as murder proves the right to life is, for all practical purposes, quite possible to deny someone.
I hope you learn a lesson about how human rights are inalienable the hard way - by having them violated, preferably with a rubber hose.
I'm glad to see you are such a big proponent of human rights for everyone.
THANK YOU!!!! I get quite tired of the sanctimonious pricks out there that regurgitate that drivel about how rights are inalienable, and thus can neither be granted nor retracted. A moments pause for thought shows that this simply is not true. One of the fundamental rights is the right to life - how exactly is that impossible to take away from someone?
There are 49 Democrats in the Senate, 49 Republicans, and 2 Independents that typically vote Democrat. I don't think you can blame the Democrats alone for any Senate failings.
Oddly enough, NC is only a red state nationally. Locally, the majority of our governors have been Dem for the last 50 years or so, the majority of our state assembly tends to be Dem. Even in the various counties I have lived in, the county seats seem to tend towards Dem. But Presidential, you betcha, Rep all the way.
Why not? Activist judges have been striking down laws and ruling from the bench for years.
You know, I see/hear this sort of comment a lot, almost always as a criticism of "activist judges". And sure, some judges abuse their power (just as do some presidents, mayors, dog-catchers, etc.). But I gotta say, as a general sentiment towards the judicial branch, this is a retarded complaint. Striking down bad laws is EXACTLY what judges are supposed to do. It's one of those checks-and-balances thing-a-majigs put into that Constitution thingy most people are sort of fond of.