That's correct...here is the absorption spec for water. The 2.4GHz wavelength is 12.5cm.
The fact is: if you put energy into a system, the stuff in the system gets hotter. It dosen't really matter if it's 10Ghz, 10Mhz or anywhere in between.
As long as it gets absorbed, it makes the object hotter.
<pendantic>I know what you mean, but I prefer the "if energy gets absorbed" terminology to the "if you put energy in"... after all, if I put the energy in, it could get reflected right back out... or go straight through... all depending on its frequency.</pedantic>
The FDA measures the radiation as a "Specific Absorption Rate", SAR = W/kg of body weight, averaged over the mass of a typical head. So if you have a large enough head, you can talk all you want.
Not exactly. The FDA limit was fixed in 2000; most phones fall within 25% to 100% of that limit, with digital phones lower than analog by a rough factor of 2.
Here is an exhaustive list of radiation exposures.
According to the FDA, typical cellphone exposure @ 900 MHz is around 1.3W/kg of body weight, which would be around 13mW for a 10-g calf eye.
These eyes got 2mW @ 1.1GHz, for the equivalent of 20hrs per day. The net result was significant, irreversible damage after 4 days -- 80 hours -- of exposure.
Seems like a study worth pursuing to me.
Slashdot doesn't damage your eyes, BTW; it only sucks one year of your life away, although one day it might go as high as five...*
This is not a hard point; it's big, basic, and obvious. The Taliban are not characteristic of 99% of Muslims; they are the extremists.
Inversely, American Christians are not characterized by the 1% (or whatever size) of extremists in their midst; they are normal people who are Christian. It is simply ludicrous to equate American Christians, even "conservative" ones, with the Taliban. Furthermore, Christians have a right to participate in government, just like any other American. If their ideas are unacceptable to you, then vote against them.
My argument has nothing to do with the morality of invading Afghanistan or Iraq; nor does it have to with the rightness or wrongness of pro-life activists.
My argument is, and has been, one basic point: American Christian != Taliban.
You have provided no good argument to the contrary.
You've laid a lot of crimes at the door of the US government. I might agree with you on some of those charges, but they aren't pertinent to the argument -- so I'm not going to discuss them. They are the actions of the US government, not of churches.
You've been weirded out by a college (Patrick Henry) whose mission statement is grandiose but whose real influence is trivial...a couple of interns in Congressional offices.
You think it's a big deal that the Air Force has a large number of vocal Christians. News Flash: the hearing you saw was the Air Force being *reprimanded by the US congress and forced to reform* its practices to make them less sectarian. Furthermore, the type of harassment that was alleged was things on the order of commanding officers praying in public. Do you seriously want to argue that that's equivalent to throwing sulfuric acid in a woman's face because she's not wearing her veil?
You've provided no evidence that an "American Taliban" is running the government. Quite the contrary:
If the Republican Party is truly in the pocket of the Christian Right, then why did Republican presidents choose Harry Blackmun (who authored Roe v. Wade), John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, and Sandra Day O'Connor?
If Christians are really "in control of the military" and out to get Muslims, then why did the U.S. military go to the aid of Muslims in Bosnia to protect them from their Greek Orthodox enemies?
Conversely, why did we take action against Bin Laden in 1998 (cruise missiles in Sudan) under Clinton? I suppose Clinton's part of the Christian Right, too.
If the Christian Right really imposes its will on American culture, then why is US media -- newspapers, television, and especially movies -- so visibly nonChristian?
The United States bears no resemblance to Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Here's the real deal: the Republican Party is, and has been since the late 19th century, the party of business. Follow the money... Wall Street, and not the pulpit, is the true source of direction for them.
Republicans have attracted Christian votes only because Republicans are less "pro-choice" than Democrats. The Republicans are happy to take those votes, but they don't give much of substance in return for them.
I don't know why you feel it necessary to level such bigoted accusations against Christians, but they're way over-blown and simply untrue.
You would do much better to learn some American history and discover that the religious life of its citizens has *diminished*, not grown, over time. Christians have far less influence now than they had when the Constitution was written. Even so, America was not conceived then, nor is it now, a "Christian nation." It is a nation founded in principles derived in large part from Christian thought. Nothing more, nothing less.
Free advice: you would also do well to drop the inflamatory language. Terms like "holier-than-thou", "sanctimonious", and "rant" don't add to your arguments; they take away from them. If you want your arguments to be taken seriously, then argue your opponent's ideas, not his character. Google for "ad hominem."
Excellent. Step right this way, sir. We have a glass house for you to live in, complete with glass bathroom. Please ignore the people who appear to be pointing and laughing at you; they don't exist.
For others' convenience, we have also posted your bank statements online. Several thousand financial institutions would like to send you a free brochure.
The surprise trip you wanted to surprise your wife with -- well, too bad that it became a Slashdot poll!
Those hateful things you said to your best friend about your Principal in the 6th grade? Now they're part of your permanent record, and we find them very... interesting. In fact, they seem double-plus ungood. So we're going to publish them, without context, so that others can come to the same conclusion about you that we already have.
So glad you have nothing to hide. Have a nice day, sir.
I'm glad you got the Air Force story from CSPAN instead of CNN. I listen to a lot of CSPAN radio because it's a lot of raw data instead of opinion.
Dude the messenger doesn't change the facts and the fact is on the outskirts of Washington, there is a new College founded in 2000 that its exclusively for home schooled Christians being groomed for leadership positions in the New Washington.
Sources matter; that's why I jumped on the New Yorker article. The New Yorker is not, and does not pretend to be, a magazine of record. It is an opinion mag. As such, any article in it is going to present only those facts that bolster the case of the op-ed writer.
Context: About 100 colleges are in or outside of Washington D.C.
Fact: Patrick Henry College accepts mostly home-schoolers.
Context: Patrick Henry College uses a model of education called "Classical Education", similar to St. John's College. The largest group of "classically" trained students happens to be home-schoolers.
Fact: PHC states that its mission is to train "Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding."
Context: there are all sorts of public policy schools out there. The Woodrow Wilson school at Princeton comes to mind. Googling for "public policy school" gives another 20 examples.
When you put those facts in context, it turns out that PHC (of which I'm no particular fan) is simply one more of the multitude of voices in America. It is by no means some kind of "Dumbledore's Army" (if you happen to have read Harry Potter).
END aside
Your post brings us back to the main point: Is the "Christian Right" parallel to the Taliban?
You say Yes, and argue that the Christian Right wants to force others to accept their point of view, which is a religious one; so do the Taliban; therefore, the two are parallel.
I say No. Wanting to implement one's point of view is inherent and legitimate within a democratic society.
Consider: The environmental lobby has an agenda. They want cars and power plants to stop polluting the atmosphere. They want to stop or slow urban sprawl so that habitats will be preserved. That agenda affects the rest of us. It lowers our property values; it restricts our freedom to use our own property the way that we want. It can even make us liable, after the fact, for industrial waste cleanup on chemicals that were government-approved at the time of release. All manner of seeming injustices are proposed by environmentalists.
But wait... it's worse. Some environmentalists are "eco-terrorists", who maliciously harm others and wreck equipment in order to save spotted owls. AND, environmentalists EVEN HAVE THEIR OWN AGENCY IN THE GOVERNMENT -- the EPA. Furthermore, some environmentalists go so far as to worship "Gaia", Mother Earth.
So are the environmentalists just like the Taliban?
Nonsense. They are people with an agenda who operate, by-and-large, within the framework of a democratic society. They are a legitimate voice in our society.
So it is with the Christian Right. They have an agenda, absolutely. Much of that agenda is fueled by their religious beliefs. But, they pursue that agenda within the context of a democratic society. When American Christians lose elections, they do the same thing all other Americans do: they wait for the next election and plan to win. They use the legislative and judicial processes, as convoluted as those are, to accomplish their agenda. When ruled against by the Supreme Court, they abide by the Court's decision, by-and-large, and try to do what all other Americans do: bring the Court around to their own point of view. That's not some "co
You're welcome to your opinion, but it's not a very informed one. Or to be more precise, it appears to be informed by media stories... the Air Force Academy story is straight out of CNN -- I noticed the story when it came out because a friend of mine, Martin Carlisle, was quoted in the article. Your Patrick Henry College story is out of the *New Yorker*, for crying out loud.
It should disturb you that your impression of Christians is entirely second-hand. Do think maybe just possibly that publications like CNN and the New Yorker have an interest in putting Christians in a bad light?
You would do better to spend some time here and find out what Christians really think. Then you might be in a position to follow your own advice about passing judgment on others.
The truth is that the Christian community is highly heterogenous. Some within the Christian community are homophobic; others are not. I'm not. I've been sought out by two of my students who wanted to discuss their struggles with sexual identity. But funny thing, some nonChristians are homophobic and some are not. Assigning homophobia to Christianity as a defining trait is, ironically enough, bigotry.
The United States government is even more heterogeneous. Are you disturbed about Patrick Henry interns working in Washington? Wait until 2008. Bush and Rove will be out of power; someone else will be in.
The United States is far too large of a country to be painted with a brush of a single color.
I need to state carefully up front that I do not condone all of the actions of the U.S. For example, I am generally opposed to blanket support of Israel.
Nor do I condone all of the actions of the Church, however broadly that may be defined.
Having said that, I really have trouble with your logic. First, a fatwa is the pronouncement of a religious court. The Bush Administration has no more authority to issue fatwa's (or even a Christian version thereof) than Bill Gates does.
My point stands: American Christian churches do not issue fatwas (or Christian versions thereof) calling for the death of their opponents.
Now, if you want to object to some U.S. governmental policy of killing people without a trial, then fine: I'll support you in that. But don't blame it on some cabal of "Washington Christians", as if some church put out a hit list. That's tin-foil-hat material.
Second, it is true that Christians have, and in some cases still do, exact revenge against their opponents. However, it is also the case that when they do, they are acting in direct opposition to the tenets of their religion. See for example Romans 12:17-20. The same is *not* true of Islam, which gets mixed signals from the Koran (2.177 - 193, e.g.).
Third, your point about the veils is bizarre. No one has *ever* said to *anyone* in a wedding "you must wear a veil." My wife wore one -- her choice, mind you -- because she thought it was pretty.
Fourth: the "holier-than-thou" stuff is just name-calling. There has to be some way for reasonable people to respond to claims. The claim was made that conservative Christians are just the same as the Taliban. I rejected the claim and provided evidence. If that makes me "holier-than-thou", then I guess there's a lot of that going around. It's easy to be judgmental about America when you don't live here.
"Identity" means "being you." "Privacy" means that information about you is unavailable to others. If everyone played nice, then sufficient identity would guarantee privacy. Unfortunately, commercial interests encourage others to share my info with the unwashed masses of retailers.
I'm still me, and I've never been confused with anyone else, so I have plenty of identity... but no privacy.
This article substantiates your claim that some money went from the US to Afghanistan in 2001 -- in exchange for what seemed to be a halt to their drug trade. On the other hand, this article, especially the next-to-last paragraph, puts the same transaction in a different light.
That's the peril of global politics... if you give money for "humanitarian aid" to a country ruled by thugs, the money usually goes to the thugs. If you don't give money, you're accused of being a self-centered, greedy nation. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Congress stopped funding to Afghanistan in the mid-90's, according to this. By 1998, the US had an officially hostile posture to Afghanistan. I'm willing to be proven wrong; the US has certainly funded a lot of bad causes.
But I have never heard from any publication (right, left, or center) that the US under Bush funded the Taliban.
The term Fundamentalism" has a historical meaning that is much more limited than you are using it here. That's not an argument against your points; it's just a clarification.
Theonomy is a minority view within the Reformed tradition, represented by a few authors (Google for Rousas Rushdoony or Gary North). The vast *vast* majority of Reformed churches believe in some form of separation of Church and State. Every major Reformed seminary teaches against theonomy.
Baptists are even more definite about separation of Church and State; "Bible" churches tend to follow their lead.
Ironically, the denominations that tend to mix church and state most frequently are... liberal ones. Think here about the political prominence of Rev. Jesse Jackson or Rev. Al Sharpton. Think also of the political involvement of mainstream denominations in the issues of slavery (good involvement!) and Prohibition (bad involvement!).
My point is that Christian Reconstructionism, which would indeed be scary if it were actually implemented, is rejected by most conservative Christians.
I don't know what church you used to attend, but I'm sorry that it didn't work out for you. You would probably like mine.
Interesting historical link on conservative Christians and Prohibition
I'm not at all engaging in wishful thinking. The examples that you cite are very real, but there is a significant difference: in this country, they are
1) The exception rather than the norm, 2) Highly publicized and criticized, and 3) Self-corrected.
Case in point: Fred Phelps, the pastor of Westboro Church and the publicizer of the repulsive slogan "God Hates Fags" has been publicly debated and repudiated by... evangelical Christians.
Rev. Paul Hill, one of a handful of abortion doctor murderers, was defrocked by his denomination.
What I'm saying is that the superficial similarity between those incidents and the incidents that occur on a regular basis under the Taliban, with support of the mainstream religious community, is exactly that: superficial.
American Christians, on the whole, do not tolerate our nutjob extremists; Muslim communities in Afghan, Pakistan, Saudi, and Iran lionize them. That is a significant difference.
Every political party is an attempt to ram ideas down someone else's throat. Think about it: you find like-minded people, organize with them, and attempt to influence enough other people so that you have a majority. Then your issue wins -- and the minority has to eat sour grapes.
Religion is simply a cause du jour; in the '50s, it was Communism; in the '30s, it was isolationism; in the 1890's, it was the gold standard.
Don't be manipulated by the anti-religious rhetoric. Anti-religionists are no more freedom-loving than the Christians they demonize. If you doubt it, consider the French Revolution.
Christians in this country, even the conservative ones, are light-years away from mullahs in Afghanistan. American Christians do not issue fatwas on their opponents. They do not roam the streets in gangs looking for infidels to brutalize. They don't force women to wear veils, don't execute others for being non-Christian, and don't carry out suicide bombings for the sake of their cause.
The only plausible connection between American Christians and mullahs is that they are both zealous for their religion. That's pretty slender.
We did it to ourselves... incrementally and with few misgivings.
Huge personal info databases? We created the technology and wrote the code to make it possible. We gave the information when asked, because we didn't want the hassle that would occur when we said "no, that's none of your business."
We accepted the notion of Social Security and believed the government when they told us that SS#s would *never* be used for identification except by the SSA.
We elected officials based on the performance of the economy... which encouraged them to stay out of the way of businesses as they tracked, junk-mailed, and spammed us.
We accepted the transition from cash to credit cards because we liked the convenience... never blanching at the fact that we were leaving a paper trail for ourselves every month.
We accepted the notion that the First Amendment was all about the right to any kind of free speech whatsoever, even commercial junk mail by corporations, who are persons only as a legal convenience.
We were so scared of sexual predators in our schools that we willingly asked the government to take fingerprints of every school employee to match against their databases.
And above all, we clamored for greater security in our own country -- we accepted the 9/11 commission report -- because losing all of our rights seemed more palatable and *less likely* than our becoming the next Twin Towers victims.
Has government and business taken away our privacy? Yes -- but only because we wanted them to.
You're fine with that, and you're right: RAID isn't worth it for you.
RAID isn't trying to solve your problems, anyway. Most RAID configurations are trying to provide higher rates of speed OR instantaneous fail-over solutions for servers. Not to worry!
The array of disks is redundant. The data isn't. Seems like "RAID0" is an appropriate term for that.
RAID0 isn't really appropriate for anything other than temporary files, anyway... for exactly the reason you mention.
Re:Still a single point of failure
on
Basics of RAID
·
· Score: 1
It all depends on your needs. Several posters above have provided good links to RAID info; check them out.
If you need storage space, just use independent disks. If you need speed for streaming data, use RAID 0 (but be aware that your speed will be severely curtailed by your software-assisted controller). If you need switch-over backup in case of disk failure (usually, servers need it, so that they can keep on carrying out their tasks), use RAID 1. (Do NOT use RAID 1 as a replacement for periodic backups of data.)
If you need some combo of the above, use RAID 5 or higher.
Each RAID configuration is trying to solve a particular problem... so match your problem to the known solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
Informative post!
The FDA measures the radiation as a "Specific Absorption Rate", SAR = W/kg of body weight, averaged over the mass of a typical head. So if you have a large enough head, you can talk all you want.
Here is an exhaustive list of radiation exposures.
According to the FDA, typical cellphone exposure @ 900 MHz is around 1.3W/kg of body weight, which would be around 13mW for a 10-g calf eye.
These eyes got 2mW @ 1.1GHz, for the equivalent of 20hrs per day. The net result was significant, irreversible damage after 4 days -- 80 hours -- of exposure.
Seems like a study worth pursuing to me.
Slashdot doesn't damage your eyes, BTW; it only sucks one year of your life away, although one day it might go as high as five ...*
*Princess Bride reference for the humor-impaired.
Nah, just pay for everything in cows and goats. Spotting a phony cow is easy.
wouldn't this significantly (well, x6) enhance the performance of applications that require a lot of virtual memory?
That seems like it might be worth it for, say, large databases or graphics rendering.
Inversely, American Christians are not characterized by the 1% (or whatever size) of extremists in their midst; they are normal people who are Christian. It is simply ludicrous to equate American Christians, even "conservative" ones, with the Taliban. Furthermore, Christians have a right to participate in government, just like any other American. If their ideas are unacceptable to you, then vote against them.
My argument has nothing to do with the morality of invading Afghanistan or Iraq; nor does it have to with the rightness or wrongness of pro-life activists.
My argument is, and has been, one basic point: American Christian != Taliban.
You have provided no good argument to the contrary.
You've laid a lot of crimes at the door of the US government. I might agree with you on some of those charges, but they aren't pertinent to the argument -- so I'm not going to discuss them. They are the actions of the US government, not of churches.
You've been weirded out by a college (Patrick Henry) whose mission statement is grandiose but whose real influence is trivial...a couple of interns in Congressional offices.
You think it's a big deal that the Air Force has a large number of vocal Christians. News Flash: the hearing you saw was the Air Force being *reprimanded by the US congress and forced to reform* its practices to make them less sectarian. Furthermore, the type of harassment that was alleged was things on the order of commanding officers praying in public. Do you seriously want to argue that that's equivalent to throwing sulfuric acid in a woman's face because she's not wearing her veil?
You've provided no evidence that an "American Taliban" is running the government. Quite the contrary:
The United States bears no resemblance to Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Here's the real deal: the Republican Party is, and has been since the late 19th century, the party of business. Follow the money ... Wall Street, and not the pulpit, is the true source of direction for them.
Republicans have attracted Christian votes only because Republicans are less "pro-choice" than Democrats. The Republicans are happy to take those votes, but they don't give much of substance in return for them.
I don't know why you feel it necessary to level such bigoted accusations against Christians, but they're way over-blown and simply untrue.
You would do much better to learn some American history and discover that the religious life of its citizens has *diminished*, not grown, over time. Christians have far less influence now than they had when the Constitution was written. Even so, America was not conceived then, nor is it now, a "Christian nation." It is a nation founded in principles derived in large part from Christian thought. Nothing more, nothing less.
Free advice: you would also do well to drop the inflamatory language. Terms like "holier-than-thou", "sanctimonious", and "rant" don't add to your arguments; they take away from them. If you want your arguments to be taken seriously, then argue your opponent's ideas, not his character. Google for "ad hominem."
For others' convenience, we have also posted your bank statements online. Several thousand financial institutions would like to send you a free brochure.
The surprise trip you wanted to surprise your wife with -- well, too bad that it became a Slashdot poll!
Those hateful things you said to your best friend about your Principal in the 6th grade? Now they're part of your permanent record, and we find them very ... interesting. In fact, they seem double-plus ungood. So we're going to publish them, without context, so that others can come to the same conclusion about you that we already have.
So glad you have nothing to hide. Have a nice day, sir.
BEGIN aside
I'm glad you got the Air Force story from CSPAN instead of CNN. I listen to a lot of CSPAN radio because it's a lot of raw data instead of opinion.
Sources matter; that's why I jumped on the New Yorker article. The New Yorker is not, and does not pretend to be, a magazine of record. It is an opinion mag. As such, any article in it is going to present only those facts that bolster the case of the op-ed writer.
Fact: Patrick Henry College is outside of Washington D.C.
Context: About 100 colleges are in or outside of Washington D.C.
Fact: Patrick Henry College accepts mostly home-schoolers.
Context: Patrick Henry College uses a model of education called "Classical Education", similar to St. John's College. The largest group of "classically" trained students happens to be home-schoolers.
Fact: PHC states that its mission is to train "Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding."
Context: there are all sorts of public policy schools out there. The Woodrow Wilson school at Princeton comes to mind. Googling for "public policy school" gives another 20 examples.
When you put those facts in context, it turns out that PHC (of which I'm no particular fan) is simply one more of the multitude of voices in America. It is by no means some kind of "Dumbledore's Army" (if you happen to have read Harry Potter).
END aside
Your post brings us back to the main point: Is the "Christian Right" parallel to the Taliban?
You say Yes, and argue that the Christian Right wants to force others to accept their point of view, which is a religious one; so do the Taliban; therefore, the two are parallel.
I say No. Wanting to implement one's point of view is inherent and legitimate within a democratic society.
Consider: The environmental lobby has an agenda. They want cars and power plants to stop polluting the atmosphere. They want to stop or slow urban sprawl so that habitats will be preserved. That agenda affects the rest of us. It lowers our property values; it restricts our freedom to use our own property the way that we want. It can even make us liable, after the fact, for industrial waste cleanup on chemicals that were government-approved at the time of release. All manner of seeming injustices are proposed by environmentalists.
But wait ... it's worse. Some environmentalists are "eco-terrorists", who maliciously harm others and wreck equipment in order to save spotted owls. AND, environmentalists EVEN HAVE THEIR OWN AGENCY IN THE GOVERNMENT -- the EPA. Furthermore, some environmentalists go so far as to worship "Gaia", Mother Earth.
So are the environmentalists just like the Taliban?
Nonsense. They are people with an agenda who operate, by-and-large, within the framework of a democratic society. They are a legitimate voice in our society.
So it is with the Christian Right. They have an agenda, absolutely. Much of that agenda is fueled by their religious beliefs. But, they pursue that agenda within the context of a democratic society. When American Christians lose elections, they do the same thing all other Americans do: they wait for the next election and plan to win. They use the legislative and judicial processes, as convoluted as those are, to accomplish their agenda. When ruled against by the Supreme Court, they abide by the Court's decision, by-and-large, and try to do what all other Americans do: bring the Court around to their own point of view. That's not some "co
It should disturb you that your impression of Christians is entirely second-hand. Do think maybe just possibly that publications like CNN and the New Yorker have an interest in putting Christians in a bad light?
You would do better to spend some time here and find out what Christians really think. Then you might be in a position to follow your own advice about passing judgment on others.
The truth is that the Christian community is highly heterogenous. Some within the Christian community are homophobic; others are not. I'm not. I've been sought out by two of my students who wanted to discuss their struggles with sexual identity. But funny thing, some nonChristians are homophobic and some are not. Assigning homophobia to Christianity as a defining trait is, ironically enough, bigotry.
The United States government is even more heterogeneous. Are you disturbed about Patrick Henry interns working in Washington? Wait until 2008. Bush and Rove will be out of power; someone else will be in.
The United States is far too large of a country to be painted with a brush of a single color.
Nor do I condone all of the actions of the Church, however broadly that may be defined.
Having said that, I really have trouble with your logic. First, a fatwa is the pronouncement of a religious court. The Bush Administration has no more authority to issue fatwa's (or even a Christian version thereof) than Bill Gates does.
My point stands: American Christian churches do not issue fatwas (or Christian versions thereof) calling for the death of their opponents.
Now, if you want to object to some U.S. governmental policy of killing people without a trial, then fine: I'll support you in that. But don't blame it on some cabal of "Washington Christians", as if some church put out a hit list. That's tin-foil-hat material.
Second, it is true that Christians have, and in some cases still do, exact revenge against their opponents. However, it is also the case that when they do, they are acting in direct opposition to the tenets of their religion. See for example Romans 12:17-20. The same is *not* true of Islam, which gets mixed signals from the Koran (2.177 - 193, e.g.).
Third, your point about the veils is bizarre. No one has *ever* said to *anyone* in a wedding "you must wear a veil." My wife wore one -- her choice, mind you -- because she thought it was pretty.
Fourth: the "holier-than-thou" stuff is just name-calling. There has to be some way for reasonable people to respond to claims. The claim was made that conservative Christians are just the same as the Taliban. I rejected the claim and provided evidence. If that makes me "holier-than-thou", then I guess there's a lot of that going around. It's easy to be judgmental about America when you don't live here.
"Identity" means "being you." "Privacy" means that information about you is unavailable to others. If everyone played nice, then sufficient identity would guarantee privacy. Unfortunately, commercial interests encourage others to share my info with the unwashed masses of retailers.
I'm still me, and I've never been confused with anyone else, so I have plenty of identity ... but no privacy.
OK, fine, the Grammar Police will get my identity too. *sheesh*
That's the peril of global politics ... if you give money for "humanitarian aid" to a country ruled by thugs, the money usually goes to the thugs. If you don't give money, you're accused of being a self-centered, greedy nation. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Congress stopped funding to Afghanistan in the mid-90's, according to this. By 1998, the US had an officially hostile posture to Afghanistan. I'm willing to be proven wrong; the US has certainly funded a lot of bad causes.
But I have never heard from any publication (right, left, or center) that the US under Bush funded the Taliban.
The term Fundamentalism" has a historical meaning that is much more limited than you are using it here. That's not an argument against your points; it's just a clarification.
Theonomy is a minority view within the Reformed tradition, represented by a few authors (Google for Rousas Rushdoony or Gary North). The vast *vast* majority of Reformed churches believe in some form of separation of Church and State. Every major Reformed seminary teaches against theonomy.
Baptists are even more definite about separation of Church and State; "Bible" churches tend to follow their lead.
Ironically, the denominations that tend to mix church and state most frequently are ... liberal ones. Think here about the political prominence of Rev. Jesse Jackson or Rev. Al Sharpton. Think also of the political involvement of mainstream denominations in the issues of slavery (good involvement!) and Prohibition (bad involvement!).
My point is that Christian Reconstructionism, which would indeed be scary if it were actually implemented, is rejected by most conservative Christians.
I don't know what church you used to attend, but I'm sorry that it didn't work out for you. You would probably like mine.
Interesting historical link on conservative Christians and Prohibition
1) The exception rather than the norm,
2) Highly publicized and criticized, and
3) Self-corrected.
Case in point: Fred Phelps, the pastor of Westboro Church and the publicizer of the repulsive slogan "God Hates Fags" has been publicly debated and repudiated by ... evangelical Christians.
Rev. Paul Hill, one of a handful of abortion doctor murderers, was defrocked by his denomination.
What I'm saying is that the superficial similarity between those incidents and the incidents that occur on a regular basis under the Taliban, with support of the mainstream religious community, is exactly that: superficial.
American Christians, on the whole, do not tolerate our nutjob extremists; Muslim communities in Afghan, Pakistan, Saudi, and Iran lionize them. That is a significant difference.
Religion is simply a cause du jour; in the '50s, it was Communism; in the '30s, it was isolationism; in the 1890's, it was the gold standard.
Don't be manipulated by the anti-religious rhetoric. Anti-religionists are no more freedom-loving than the Christians they demonize. If you doubt it, consider the French Revolution.
Christians in this country, even the conservative ones, are light-years away from mullahs in Afghanistan. American Christians do not issue fatwas on their opponents. They do not roam the streets in gangs looking for infidels to brutalize. They don't force women to wear veils, don't execute others for being non-Christian, and don't carry out suicide bombings for the sake of their cause.
The only plausible connection between American Christians and mullahs is that they are both zealous for their religion. That's pretty slender.
...and the resulting crash will cause everything west of the San Andreas Fault to slide into the ocean. :-)
Huge personal info databases? We created the technology and wrote the code to make it possible. We gave the information when asked, because we didn't want the hassle that would occur when we said "no, that's none of your business."
We accepted the notion of Social Security and believed the government when they told us that SS#s would *never* be used for identification except by the SSA.
We elected officials based on the performance of the economy ... which encouraged them to stay out of the way of businesses as they tracked, junk-mailed, and spammed us.
We accepted the transition from cash to credit cards because we liked the convenience ... never blanching at the fact that we were leaving a paper trail for ourselves every month.
We accepted the notion that the First Amendment was all about the right to any kind of free speech whatsoever, even commercial junk mail by corporations, who are persons only as a legal convenience.
We were so scared of sexual predators in our schools that we willingly asked the government to take fingerprints of every school employee to match against their databases.
And above all, we clamored for greater security in our own country -- we accepted the 9/11 commission report -- because losing all of our rights seemed more palatable and *less likely* than our becoming the next Twin Towers victims.
Has government and business taken away our privacy? Yes -- but only because we wanted them to.
RAID isn't trying to solve your problems, anyway. Most RAID configurations are trying to provide higher rates of speed OR instantaneous fail-over solutions for servers. Not to worry!
RAID0 isn't really appropriate for anything other than temporary files, anyway ... for exactly the reason you mention.
If you need storage space, just use independent disks. If you need speed for streaming data, use RAID 0 (but be aware that your speed will be severely curtailed by your software-assisted controller). If you need switch-over backup in case of disk failure (usually, servers need it, so that they can keep on carrying out their tasks), use RAID 1. (Do NOT use RAID 1 as a replacement for periodic backups of data.)
If you need some combo of the above, use RAID 5 or higher.
Each RAID configuration is trying to solve a particular problem ... so match your problem to the known solutions.
Point taken. "Don't exist on earth." Better now?
Sorry for being touchy. :-)