Bush has spoken of his desire to go "over the heads" of the free press to avoid scrutiny - by setting up government-controlled media to deliver his message and by denying members of the press a chance to scrutinize. What greater threat is there to state-controlled media than the free exchange of ideas on the internet? We know that Bush has created fake news agencies and hired fake journalists to obscure the facts and make it seem like the press always agrees with him. Given this, why wouldn't he seek to undermine the internet?
So, want to expand on "[s]tem cells from fetuses have NOT been found to cause cancer"?
You haven't presented any evidence to the contrary. Don't be fooled by the reference to a 'tumor' - undifferentiated stem cells have never been observed to cause cancer.
Why would you want an injection of undifferentiated ESCs anyway? It sounds like someone was trying to use the word 'cancer' to instill terror in people. Shame on anyone who does that.
Thank goodness the Federal government isn't the only source of funding for controversial research. Personally, I'm against using embryos this way, but if other people want to fund the research, that's on their conscience(s), not mine.
I'm paying for your nice tax-exempt church. I'm paying for all those "faith-based initiative" cash giveaways you receive. I'm paying for your badly planned war that I find unconscionable. But you're too self-righteous to properly fund medical research that will end up helping everyone?
If implemented correctly it raises school standards to a higher level, creating an overall more educated workforce, and thus a more educated, flexible, and innovative society in which innovation thrives, and where racial injustice, crime and other human misdeeds are at a minumum.
...thus creating a nation that will never elect people like Mr. Bush. Come on, did you really expect it to be implemented correctly?
Why do you think so many of these groups are behind research on adult stem cells?
Because they're trying to set up a false dichotomy between adult and embryonic stem cell research. Call me cynical.
Actually, unless you're implying he's using circular logic, it doesn't "beg the question."
I'm not just implying it. I'm stating it directly. The argument goes something like this:
1) We aren't studying embryonic stem cells.
2) Thus, we don't know how embryonic stem cells compare to adult stem cells in practice.
3) Therefore, we shouldn't study embyonic stem cells.
This is one type of circular reasoning. In dialogue form:
A: Why aren't you studying embryonic cells?
B: Because we don't even know if they're better than what we've got!
A: But why don't you know?
B: Because we aren't studying them, of course!
The problem I had with this argument is that it left out what really is the fulcrum of the issue: that killing an early embryo is killing a living human being. I had fewer issues with your original post (which is the GGGP by now) because you came right out and said it: "...requiring the sacrifice of another human life...." But then someone made a post that seemed to pretend that the whole issue was just a matter of comparing embryonic and adult stem cells. That is what I reject. You MUST have a particular metaphysical belief in order for the anti-embryonic argument to make sense. With this belief, it makes perfect sense. Without this belief, it's nonsense.
As moral beings, are we not obligated to speak out and to act when we see evil being perpetuated, even if in the name of good?
Certainly we are. But we must also watch our own reasoning with a critical eye. Remember that this is medical research we're talking about. If you're wrong then you could be unjustly depriving others of life-saving treatment. Would that not be evil?
The ill-informed (*cough* Slashdot) crowd is very willing to always jump on the latest scientific bandwagon as long as it somehow conflicts with the views of anyone who dares say "life" in regards to abortion, stem cell research, etc.
Actually, one of the arguments for embryonic stem cell research is that it could save human life. It's just not the type of human life that certain political groups care about.
Do we know that embrionic stem cells will work better? No, it's a theory.
This begs the question. How will we know whether they're better if we don't study them? You can't use ignorance as an argument against inquiry.
On the other hand, Mike Lynn, a partner at Lynn Tillotson & Pinker says the threat the companies feel from message board posters is real. "As individuals involved in commercial speech become so powerful that they can move stocks and affect the value of companies, you'll see more of these lawsuits," he says.
When your investors place more trust in "infranet_rulz" than in you then you've got much bigger problems than some punk bad-mouthing you on the internet.
In fact, the article directly contradicts the summary, which states that the judge "ruled that Intelligent Design cannot be discussed in Dover, Pennsylvania biology classes."
From the article:
Jones wrote that he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed, saying its advocates "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors."
But, he wrote, "our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."
Capitalists can't "exploit" people without government rules on the market.
That's exactly the point. We have to prevent these capitalists from creating government rules. If anyone has a solution that would effectively prevent wealthy corporations and individuals from pushing through self-serving legislation then I'd love to hear it. So far no one seems to know how to do that either in fact or in theory. A popular uprising among the voting public is not feasible and any regulations barring government intervention would soon be repealed.
Sure it's capitalism! They're just investing in government officials to make their product more attractive than the competition! Having built up this political infrastructure (at their own expense) they clearly deserve to reap the benefits!
On a more serious note, there's nothing about pure capitalism that requires companies to provide useful products/services that benefit people in some way. There nothing that requires companies to support the free market and encourage competition.
You're forgetting one crucial fact: Americans still have the right to bear arms. In fact, we can now get assault weapons. Why is the government still around? Why are our rights still being taken away from us? Obviously, guns are not making any of these problems go away. The real problem here is that the people most adamant about bearing arms are the very same people who support the government's erosion of civil liberties. Arming the populace accomplishes nothing if the populace is willing to trade their freedom for security.
When I haev time to put the O'Reilly books down and read some political/philosophical stuff there are tons of books by sane authors I will never get the time to catch up, why waste time reading the ravings of a madman?
Yeah, but you could make the same argument about any text you don't want people to read. The Bible? Written by madmen. Kant? A madman. Plato? A madman. Ayn Rand? Yeah, she's nuts. Who gets to decide which book are clearly only read by insane people and which are clean?
Think of the title this way: Most senators wanted to pass the extension. They could not end the filibuster without 60 votes, so they failed. They did not reject the extension because they did not even vote on it.
the usa is a democracy, good gets done in the end after all is said and done
Looks like someone didn't read the article. Most senators (Republicans, big surprise) voted against the filibuster. This was a good result, but not an act of majority rule.
And for those of you praising Democrats and booing Republicans....both Republicans and Democrats voted against this.
Now that's just irresponsible of you. The article states that a whopping FIVE Republicans joined 42 Democrats in the filibuster. Only TWO Democrats voted to end the filibuster. But it gets better! One of those FIVE Republicans is Bill Frist, who changed his vote at the last minute just so he could be voting with the winners.
It may be unpleasant for some, but the truth is that the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans want to extend the Patriot Act and the VAST MAJORITY of Democrats want to end it. You cannot have had an adequate mathematics education if you insist that this vote was not along party lines.
A Feingold - McCain race would be the best thing that has happened to this country in a while. Two candidates who are their own person.
I get the impression that McCain just plays the moderate to increase his chances of being president someday. He says he opposes torture, but when the time came to act he did nothing. It was not until the torturers were safely reelected that he decided to criticize them. If he were president, could we trust him to do the right thing even if his Republican masters disagreed? I don't think so.
Soon you'll just get a package at your door that explodes when it hears the MGM or Paramount music and senses a WAP.
It doesn't have to explode, it just needs to collect enough evidence to convict you. Without evidence, the MPAA can't do much except scare people. If this guy's actions have really done $100,000 in damage then it should be the local law enforcement's top priority to collect the evidence to bring him down. On the other hand, if he's just another guy uploading movies for his pals then no one should be wasting their time on him.
Maybe someday we'll have a PATRIOT Act for copyrights that makes the DMCA look like the bill of rights. Then evidence would be obsolete and the MPAA could have people imprisoned for being suspected infringers.
...we've managed to hold onto our personal privacy to a much greater degree than any of Europe's tiny, irrelevant, jealous countries.
True, Europe is emulating and exceeding our mistakes in many areas. Even so, I'd save the holier-than-thou attitude for a time when the US government isn't expanding its network of secret detention facilities and insisting that torture is just.
If those Europeans are all so "jealous" then you should have no trouble leading by example. Jumping to a corrupt govenment's defense at the slightest insult is not going to help anyone except the corrupt politicians in charge.
I was just saying that the ACLU is finanly doing somehting that MOST people will agree with
Here in slashdot most people would agree with it, but in general it's harder to say. About surveillance the government has been rather frank. How would this kind of government stay in power in a country where most people don't believe in unlimited powers of surveillance?
No, the stance held by the ACLU is yet another position that falls along party lines.
A recent CBS news poll found that 51% of Americans don't believe in evolution.
These are the people whom Senator Clinton is trying to court. Personally, I'm glad she's trying to create worthless legislation instead of something actively harmful. This video game legislation is mild compared to some of the crazy things these moralists will do in the name of "protecting the children".
Slashdot Mirror
Water Fluoridation practitioners
Shouldn't that be further down the list, after 'Science Supporting Heretics' and 'Anti-Torture Prudes'?
Bush has spoken of his desire to go "over the heads" of the free press to avoid scrutiny - by setting up government-controlled media to deliver his message and by denying members of the press a chance to scrutinize. What greater threat is there to state-controlled media than the free exchange of ideas on the internet? We know that Bush has created fake news agencies and hired fake journalists to obscure the facts and make it seem like the press always agrees with him. Given this, why wouldn't he seek to undermine the internet?
So, want to expand on "[s]tem cells from fetuses have NOT been found to cause cancer"?
You haven't presented any evidence to the contrary. Don't be fooled by the reference to a 'tumor' - undifferentiated stem cells have never been observed to cause cancer.
Why would you want an injection of undifferentiated ESCs anyway? It sounds like someone was trying to use the word 'cancer' to instill terror in people. Shame on anyone who does that.
Thank goodness the Federal government isn't the only source of funding for controversial research. Personally, I'm against using embryos this way, but if other people want to fund the research, that's on their conscience(s), not mine.
I'm paying for your nice tax-exempt church. I'm paying for all those "faith-based initiative" cash giveaways you receive. I'm paying for your badly planned war that I find unconscionable. But you're too self-righteous to properly fund medical research that will end up helping everyone?
If implemented correctly it raises school standards to a higher level, creating an overall more educated workforce, and thus a more educated, flexible, and innovative society in which innovation thrives, and where racial injustice, crime and other human misdeeds are at a minumum.
...thus creating a nation that will never elect people like Mr. Bush. Come on, did you really expect it to be implemented correctly?
Why do you think so many of these groups are behind research on adult stem cells?
Because they're trying to set up a false dichotomy between adult and embryonic stem cell research. Call me cynical.
Actually, unless you're implying he's using circular logic, it doesn't "beg the question."
I'm not just implying it. I'm stating it directly. The argument goes something like this:
1) We aren't studying embryonic stem cells.
2) Thus, we don't know how embryonic stem cells compare to adult stem cells in practice.
3) Therefore, we shouldn't study embyonic stem cells.
This is one type of circular reasoning. In dialogue form:
A: Why aren't you studying embryonic cells?
B: Because we don't even know if they're better than what we've got!
A: But why don't you know?
B: Because we aren't studying them, of course!
The problem I had with this argument is that it left out what really is the fulcrum of the issue: that killing an early embryo is killing a living human being. I had fewer issues with your original post (which is the GGGP by now) because you came right out and said it: "...requiring the sacrifice of another human life...." But then someone made a post that seemed to pretend that the whole issue was just a matter of comparing embryonic and adult stem cells. That is what I reject. You MUST have a particular metaphysical belief in order for the anti-embryonic argument to make sense. With this belief, it makes perfect sense. Without this belief, it's nonsense.
As moral beings, are we not obligated to speak out and to act when we see evil being perpetuated, even if in the name of good?
Certainly we are. But we must also watch our own reasoning with a critical eye. Remember that this is medical research we're talking about. If you're wrong then you could be unjustly depriving others of life-saving treatment. Would that not be evil?
The ill-informed (*cough* Slashdot) crowd is very willing to always jump on the latest scientific bandwagon as long as it somehow conflicts with the views of anyone who dares say "life" in regards to abortion, stem cell research, etc.
Actually, one of the arguments for embryonic stem cell research is that it could save human life. It's just not the type of human life that certain political groups care about.
Do we know that embrionic stem cells will work better? No, it's a theory.
This begs the question. How will we know whether they're better if we don't study them? You can't use ignorance as an argument against inquiry.
On the other hand, Mike Lynn, a partner at Lynn Tillotson & Pinker says the threat the companies feel from message board posters is real. "As individuals involved in commercial speech become so powerful that they can move stocks and affect the value of companies, you'll see more of these lawsuits," he says.
When your investors place more trust in "infranet_rulz" than in you then you've got much bigger problems than some punk bad-mouthing you on the internet.
From the article:
Capitalists can't "exploit" people without government rules on the market.
That's exactly the point. We have to prevent these capitalists from creating government rules. If anyone has a solution that would effectively prevent wealthy corporations and individuals from pushing through self-serving legislation then I'd love to hear it. So far no one seems to know how to do that either in fact or in theory. A popular uprising among the voting public is not feasible and any regulations barring government intervention would soon be repealed.
Sure it's capitalism! They're just investing in government officials to make their product more attractive than the competition! Having built up this political infrastructure (at their own expense) they clearly deserve to reap the benefits!
On a more serious note, there's nothing about pure capitalism that requires companies to provide useful products/services that benefit people in some way. There nothing that requires companies to support the free market and encourage competition.
You're forgetting one crucial fact: Americans still have the right to bear arms. In fact, we can now get assault weapons. Why is the government still around? Why are our rights still being taken away from us? Obviously, guns are not making any of these problems go away. The real problem here is that the people most adamant about bearing arms are the very same people who support the government's erosion of civil liberties. Arming the populace accomplishes nothing if the populace is willing to trade their freedom for security.
So true! Getting blowjobs by fat ugly interns is the hight of morality.
Compared to torturing people in secret prisons and spying on your own citizens? Yes, it certainly is the height of morality.
Well... ...by giving a tax deductable donation your money goes farther.
Yes, but the point is that the motivation behind your donation isn't all that benevolent if you're doing it just for the tax break.
Uncle Sam needs to figure out how to do more with less.
Good news! Uncle Sam is doing more and more, and has less in the bank than ever before!
When I haev time to put the O'Reilly books down and read some political/philosophical stuff there are tons of books by sane authors I will never get the time to catch up, why waste time reading the ravings of a madman?
Yeah, but you could make the same argument about any text you don't want people to read. The Bible? Written by madmen. Kant? A madman. Plato? A madman. Ayn Rand? Yeah, she's nuts. Who gets to decide which book are clearly only read by insane people and which are clean?
Hopefully we can continue to elect out the lawmakers who would lie and steal their voter's rights.
By "continue" you mean "start", right? I don't see ANY of the bad lawmakers being held accountable so far.
Think of the title this way: Most senators wanted to pass the extension. They could not end the filibuster without 60 votes, so they failed. They did not reject the extension because they did not even vote on it.
the usa is a democracy, good gets done in the end after all is said and done
Looks like someone didn't read the article. Most senators (Republicans, big surprise) voted against the filibuster. This was a good result, but not an act of majority rule.
And for those of you praising Democrats and booing Republicans....both Republicans and Democrats voted against this.
Now that's just irresponsible of you. The article states that a whopping FIVE Republicans joined 42 Democrats in the filibuster. Only TWO Democrats voted to end the filibuster. But it gets better! One of those FIVE Republicans is Bill Frist, who changed his vote at the last minute just so he could be voting with the winners.
It may be unpleasant for some, but the truth is that the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans want to extend the Patriot Act and the VAST MAJORITY of Democrats want to end it. You cannot have had an adequate mathematics education if you insist that this vote was not along party lines.
A Feingold - McCain race would be the best thing that has happened to this country in a while. Two candidates who are their own person.
I get the impression that McCain just plays the moderate to increase his chances of being president someday. He says he opposes torture, but when the time came to act he did nothing. It was not until the torturers were safely reelected that he decided to criticize them. If he were president, could we trust him to do the right thing even if his Republican masters disagreed? I don't think so.
Soon you'll just get a package at your door that explodes when it hears the MGM or Paramount music and senses a WAP.
It doesn't have to explode, it just needs to collect enough evidence to convict you. Without evidence, the MPAA can't do much except scare people. If this guy's actions have really done $100,000 in damage then it should be the local law enforcement's top priority to collect the evidence to bring him down. On the other hand, if he's just another guy uploading movies for his pals then no one should be wasting their time on him.
Maybe someday we'll have a PATRIOT Act for copyrights that makes the DMCA look like the bill of rights. Then evidence would be obsolete and the MPAA could have people imprisoned for being suspected infringers.
Just searching through stories on slashdot, it looks like the first such lawsuit reported was the California Class Action Suit. Later that month, a Texas Civil Lawsuit was filed.
The EFF and New York apparently have filed their own lawsuits, but I don't have links.
...we've managed to hold onto our personal privacy to a much greater degree than any of Europe's tiny, irrelevant, jealous countries.
True, Europe is emulating and exceeding our mistakes in many areas. Even so, I'd save the holier-than-thou attitude for a time when the US government isn't expanding its network of secret detention facilities and insisting that torture is just.
If those Europeans are all so "jealous" then you should have no trouble leading by example. Jumping to a corrupt govenment's defense at the slightest insult is not going to help anyone except the corrupt politicians in charge.
Why is this "crucial"?
Read the rest of the sentence, silly!
"...it's crucial that the company get its bottom spanked spanked quite painfully as a deterrent to its sister cartels in the entertainment racket."
It's a deterrent. The point is to discourage other would-be malware distributors.
I was just saying that the ACLU is finanly doing somehting that MOST people will agree with
Here in slashdot most people would agree with it, but in general it's harder to say. About surveillance the government has been rather frank. How would this kind of government stay in power in a country where most people don't believe in unlimited powers of surveillance?
No, the stance held by the ACLU is yet another position that falls along party lines.
A recent CBS news poll found that 51% of Americans don't believe in evolution.
These are the people whom Senator Clinton is trying to court. Personally, I'm glad she's trying to create worthless legislation instead of something actively harmful. This video game legislation is mild compared to some of the crazy things these moralists will do in the name of "protecting the children".