Throwing people in jail doesn't solve the problem. You can have a death penalty sentence and it won't make one bit of a difference.
That is an issue with the sentence being incommensuarate with the crime, not a piece of evidence that deterrence has no effect at all. In fact, I imagine that this gimp getting caught and put in jail will have some effect on potential fellow idiots.
He said something pretty cogent in my opinion. They're trying to develop a better algorithm for delivering packages, inspired by and utilizing teh internets.
It might be a creepy level of surveillance, but it sounds to me like a legitimately... *ahem* "innovative" move to make the business of moving packages more efficient.
I don't have a problem in teaching both evolution and creationism as theories
Agreed, children should all get a proper history of philosophy/religion/science education. Creationism deserves a brief mention as a theory discredited around the middle of the Nineteenth Century, and therefore of interest mainly to historians.
None of this has anything to do with teaching current science.
...is how embryology can be a lie. There's obviously ethical disagreement on things like abortion and embryonic stem cell research, but neither of those is embryology.
Do you really think he bothered looking up the difference between embryology and embryonic stem cell research?
Unless he was the sole member on the committee, I don't see any of what he said as problematic. Dissent is healthy. This is a democracy, and he as well as anyone
else has the ability to speak their mind.
If an elected official exercised his right to free speech by publishing a Mel Gibson style anti-semitic rant, or by declaring he was the second coming of Christ the lizard King and could therefore legitimately rape eight year old human children, he would hopefully be made to resign. Same for what this arse-bogey said. It is unacceptable coming from someone with a position of power and authority.
You can be as much of a mentalist as you want at home alone with your fishfingers, just don't expect to get away with it in public.
What I do know is that between the political environment, the sheer dumbification of americans and religious bigotry, I will choose other destinations for my holidays or visits.
What's ironic is that Americans are great on an individual level to have a drink with. It's just when you get two or more of them together discussing anything remotely serious that problems start and your eyes tend to glaze over as one of them turns into a 1950s redneck..
At least the members of the misguided 'Occupy Wall Street' organization put in the effort.
They were only misguided in being over-optimistic about the level of political insight in most Americans. When push comes to shove, too many of you fall for the old "anyone can become a billionaire" bollocks, and so the majority cheerfully chain themselves to the feet of their capitalist masters and think they are free.
Democracy is merely the rule of the uneducated masses. Nuances don't matter; the system itself is deeply flawed, if the majority is mostly ignorant and/or superstitious. Just look at the so called "Arab Spring": what do you think uneducated people there vote for, when given a chance? They vote for the very same religious nuts as the people in Georgia who voted for this representative. Maybe, just maybe, democracy is not such a good idea, when you can't count on the majority to be more or less sane and grown up intellectually?
It has been said many times before, that democracy may not be perfect but it's a lot better than the alternatives.
It's entirely possible to have a well developed sense of the divine (without knowing exactly what it is and understanding that it may be entirely neurological) and be entirely free of Christianity, Islam, or any other fan club affiliation that requires an unproven belief in invisible friends, holy war, talking snakes, ritual blood drinking and/or body eating or additional taxation in the form of tithing.
Yes, but LSD is illegal.
Alcohol isn't illegal but you still get that "oceanic" feeling of universal connectedness and love just the same, plus it's much less likely you'll suffer a psychotic breakdown in the short term.
I admire your optimism, but the fact is that the US has had many generations of well educated people. Your problem is your belief in capitalism and hard work as being the be all and end all of civilisation and culture, it is just unfortunate that this has got entwined with religion to create the Protestant Work ethic ideal.
Well, if the federal government didn't control education policy and funding, then it would have no impact whatsoever. If you advocate the involvement of government in education, you can have very little to say in opposition to elected officials' pedagogical opinions being leashed on the classroom.
Yeah, you should just leave education up to the people who know best, i.e. the churches instead. What could possibly go wrong?
"secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square."
- Barack Obama
You can take your fucking religion in with you, along with your crazed beliefs in the Aryan Master Race, tooth fairies, the power of astrology, a flat Earth, dinosaurs living in the north pole or whatever other rubbish you want, just don't mention them. Ever. Unless you want to lose all credibility.
The problem is that religious people are capable of rational thought but not about their religion .
It's analogous to how a mentally ill person can live an apparently normal life, but still believe that the government are using secret radiowaves to read their thoughts (or whatever). I wouldn't mind going out for a drink with them, but I wouldn't leave them alone with my kids.
If fundamentalist Christians or Muslims want to learn science in the UK, they get taught about evolution. If they don't like it, they can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. I suppose learning a bit of comparative religion is all right, but that belongs in Religious Education classes, not Biology.
Interestingly, you could be describing life under the Taliban or in Saudi Arabia, just with a few tweaks because it's a Christian theocracy rather than an Islamist one.
With all the prattling about how free America is, I know that I'd rather live in the UK where you don't have to pretend to be religious ever.
Slashdot Mirror
My solution would be to mount even more powerful lasers on some of the aircraft. Fight fire with fire. Plus, it would just be cool.
How about some sort of (amplifying) mirror?
Throwing people in jail doesn't solve the problem. You can have a death penalty sentence and it won't make one bit of a difference.
That is an issue with the sentence being incommensuarate with the crime, not a piece of evidence that deterrence has no effect at all. In fact, I imagine that this gimp getting caught and put in jail will have some effect on potential fellow idiots.
People who are dogmatic about avoiding Latinate words are just as tedious as those who use them indiscriminately or inaccurately for would-be effect..
English is a mongrel language, and the pseudo-racist attempt to reduce it back to "Anglo-Saxon" or whatever is simply ridiculous.
âoeradicallyâ in your post was "radically" in TFA.
He said something pretty cogent in my opinion. They're trying to develop a better algorithm for delivering packages, inspired by and utilizing teh internets.
It might be a creepy level of surveillance, but it sounds to me like a legitimately... *ahem* "innovative" move to make the business of moving packages more efficient.
It's not what he said, it's the way he said it.
I don't have a problem in teaching both evolution and creationism as theories
Agreed, children should all get a proper history of philosophy/religion/science education. Creationism deserves a brief mention as a theory discredited around the middle of the Nineteenth Century, and therefore of interest mainly to historians.
None of this has anything to do with teaching current science.
I support Intelligent Design.
It's really hard to take anything you say after that seriously.
...is how embryology can be a lie. There's obviously ethical disagreement on things like abortion and embryonic stem cell research, but neither of those is embryology.
Do you really think he bothered looking up the difference between embryology and embryonic stem cell research?
Unless he was the sole member on the committee, I don't see any of what he said as problematic. Dissent is healthy. This is a democracy, and he as well as anyone else has the ability to speak their mind.
If an elected official exercised his right to free speech by publishing a Mel Gibson style anti-semitic rant, or by declaring he was the second coming of Christ the lizard King and could therefore legitimately rape eight year old human children, he would hopefully be made to resign. Same for what this arse-bogey said. It is unacceptable coming from someone with a position of power and authority.
You can be as much of a mentalist as you want at home alone with your fishfingers, just don't expect to get away with it in public.
What I do know is that between the political environment, the sheer dumbification of americans and religious bigotry, I will choose other destinations for my holidays or visits.
What's ironic is that Americans are great on an individual level to have a drink with. It's just when you get two or more of them together discussing anything remotely serious that problems start and your eyes tend to glaze over as one of them turns into a 1950s redneck..
At least the members of the misguided 'Occupy Wall Street' organization put in the effort.
They were only misguided in being over-optimistic about the level of political insight in most Americans. When push comes to shove, too many of you fall for the old "anyone can become a billionaire" bollocks, and so the majority cheerfully chain themselves to the feet of their capitalist masters and think they are free.
Democracy is merely the rule of the uneducated masses. Nuances don't matter; the system itself is deeply flawed, if the majority is mostly ignorant and/or superstitious. Just look at the so called "Arab Spring": what do you think uneducated people there vote for, when given a chance? They vote for the very same religious nuts as the people in Georgia who voted for this representative. Maybe, just maybe, democracy is not such a good idea, when you can't count on the majority to be more or less sane and grown up intellectually?
It has been said many times before, that democracy may not be perfect but it's a lot better than the alternatives.
Religion isn't a mental illness, it's a coping mechanism. Look up terror management theory
Fine, it's a coping mechanism for scared children. Adults should have grown out of it.
It's entirely possible to have a well developed sense of the divine (without knowing exactly what it is and understanding that it may be entirely neurological) and be entirely free of Christianity, Islam, or any other fan club affiliation that requires an unproven belief in invisible friends, holy war, talking snakes, ritual blood drinking and/or body eating or additional taxation in the form of tithing.
Yes, but LSD is illegal.
Alcohol isn't illegal but you still get that "oceanic" feeling of universal connectedness and love just the same, plus it's much less likely you'll suffer a psychotic breakdown in the short term.
I admire your optimism, but the fact is that the US has had many generations of well educated people. Your problem is your belief in capitalism and hard work as being the be all and end all of civilisation and culture, it is just unfortunate that this has got entwined with religion to create the Protestant Work ethic ideal.
Well, if the federal government didn't control education policy and funding, then it would have no impact whatsoever. If you advocate the involvement of government in education, you can have very little to say in opposition to elected officials' pedagogical opinions being leashed on the classroom.
Yeah, you should just leave education up to the people who know best, i.e. the churches instead. What could possibly go wrong?
I wonder what he would think of the Pope saying that there is no conflict between the theory of evolution and church doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution#Pope_John_Paul_II
LOL all True Believers know that the Pope is the Antichrist.
Science--->Immortality. Hopefully in my lifetime and at my price point.
If it's not at everybody's "price point" immediately it's possible, you will have the revolution to end all revolutions.
"secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square."
- Barack Obama
You can take your fucking religion in with you, along with your crazed beliefs in the Aryan Master Race, tooth fairies, the power of astrology, a flat Earth, dinosaurs living in the north pole or whatever other rubbish you want, just don't mention them. Ever. Unless you want to lose all credibility.
The problem is that religious people are capable of rational thought but not about their religion .
It's analogous to how a mentally ill person can live an apparently normal life, but still believe that the government are using secret radiowaves to read their thoughts (or whatever). I wouldn't mind going out for a drink with them, but I wouldn't leave them alone with my kids.
Al Qaeda reads their holy text in the original language.
Duh, I think you'll find that the King James Bible was written in Jacobean English.
A grassroots organization is a parasite?
I just had to chop down a tree that had been killed by ivy. And the ivy didn't start from the topmost branches and work down.
If fundamentalist Christians or Muslims want to learn science in the UK, they get taught about evolution. If they don't like it, they can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. I suppose learning a bit of comparative religion is all right, but that belongs in Religious Education classes, not Biology.
Interestingly, you could be describing life under the Taliban or in Saudi Arabia, just with a few tweaks because it's a Christian theocracy rather than an Islamist one.
With all the prattling about how free America is, I know that I'd rather live in the UK where you don't have to pretend to be religious ever.
Of course, the starting point is a crock of shit, but if you take it as a given, the rest is actually logical.
So what? If you take the Nazis' belief in The Master Race and extrapolate it "logically" to the Holocaust what does that prove?