Actually, orbiting mass such as the moon robs the earth of rotational energy. Days actually are longer these days than they ever have been, that's not old age creeping up on me^H^Hyou.
So it stands to reason that if we launched a bunch of solar cells into orbit (and assuming we figured out some sort of way to transmit the energy back down to earth in some way?) at the very least we'd increase the rate at which the earth spins on its axis. By a VERY, VERY, only relevant to the extra anal scientist types small amount. It might mess with the earth's electromagnetic field, too, I dunno, how's that power getting back down to earth? No seriously.. that's a confusion one for me. A cable / tether such as in a space elevator type design would mean that it wouldn't receive sunlight 24/7, and also that it would block some sunlight from whatever location it was tethered, which would mean less energy reaching the earth. fuck you, plant life! It's too hot everywhere, anyway. Maybe put huge hydrogen generators up there, but that would require lots of trips to and from the satellite. On one hand, hey, free rocket fuel to get home, hydrogen and oxygen and we'd just have to keep getting water up there. Plus, I don't know, but transporting huge tanks of hydrogen and oxygen back down through the atmosphere just makes me cringe. Maybe it's the pessimist in me. Really, anything that involves transporting mass to and from space is right out. Using a space elevator, if that's even possible, wouldn't be as bad (yeah huge tanks moving through the atmosphere, regardless of the contents, that's just a disaster waiting to happen).. but then you're right back to the tethering issue of blocking energy from reaching the earth. And if it's tethered anyway, why not just use a huge electrical cable, conduct that energy down.. but then you're moving huge amounts of current through an electromagnetic field, and there's also electromagnetic storms coming from the sun, which've already screwed up power transmission lines on earth before ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm ), tons of radiation. Just seems like the technical limitations might be higher than that of fusion, really. I mean, at least we know how that works and how we could get energy from it to us, we just don't know how to get it working right.
26% of America is disabled, but a significant number of those people are not ACTUALLY disabled as far as you (well, maybe you) or I are concerned.
There's a difference between "disabled" and "legally disabled". Fat people can be "disabled", if they're fat enough (which makes no sense, their whole problem is not doing enough physical exercise so we let them park closer and ride those awesome carts at walmart). There's also mental disabilities, which may make using a keyboard or mouse hard, but it's not anything that could be solved with software -- it's the mentally disabled person's brain that isn't working right, not the physical parts they use to interface with a computer. And believe me, there are a LOT of mentally disabled people out there. I'm not just talking retarded people, mentally disabled also can cover emotional disturbances (psychological problems, ie, shut-ins, OCD, ADD, all those wonderful things).
Now you've got to further trim the number as anybody who is physically disabled in a manner that only affects them from the upper torso down, because they are still able to use a computer without problem.
I'm glad someone mentioned this. What's up, Slashdot, who's been fuxing with the code? We are now overrun by some gentleman named Cowardon.. Anonymous Cowardon.
Lot of 'em never get up to canada, they decide to stop short and shack up on OUR golf courses. I don't golf, though, so old guys slipping on goose shit and bending their thousand dollar clubs just makes me laugh.:D
Exactly! Half the posts here are exactly what you said! I don't see how people just can't leave insightful comments alone and insist on parroting the good points, as if someone would read the response but not the parent!
You're a shill, but at least you're a *persistent* shill. Also, you're dumb. You see, what that guy did? Nobody told him to do it. It was an idea from his own crazy head. R2-45? That's an order from the leader of an organization. That's not a lone nut. That's a group that is bent on destroying anything that they do not like. If the Pope was telling Catholics to bomb abortion clinics you might have a point, but he's not so you're a douche. The Pope says abortions are wrong and shouldn't be done -- but at the same time, killing is wrong. Even killing someone who doesn't agree with you, even someone who argues with you. Do you see it yet? The difference? CoS ACTUALLY THINKS IT'S OK TO FUCKING KILL PEOPLE WHO GET IN THEIR WAY.
Tor only has so many exit-end IPs. Last I used it I think there was less than a dozen.. with numbers that small, it's not hard. Fire up Tor and connect to your own site, ban whichever IPs are recorded as hitting your site.
But the best argument I can make is this: if you could still use Tor to edit wikipedia, the/b/tards would be doing significantly more work on wikipedia than they are now.
... not exactly. FSZs were actually expanded not because of GW, but because of the WTO protests. It became pretty clear that there is a type of protester who has absolutely no fucking clue what the actual meaning of the first amendment is and who are quite likely to have violent and destructive outbursts.
These people shouldn't be allowed out of their homes, let alone have their voices heard.. but that's another story, and I am fairly elitist when it comes to self-important ignorant asses who forcefully and violently espouse half-baked sound bites as some sort of justification for their rampage with no actual understanding of what the fuck is going on period end full stop.
FSZs are only tied so tightly to the Bush admin. because of.. media. I may be wrong, but as far as I'm aware, the DNC used FSZs long before the RNC ever picked up the habit. It's not a Republican problem, FSZs are used by people on the entire political spectrum -- FSZs are a *protester* problem.
I don't think FSZs are the ideal solution to the problem (I think the ideal solution would be to allow protests to get to the point where it's a riot (which would not take a whole lot when dealing with the groups that most often wind up in FSZs.. that is, ultra-leftists such as the anarchists from the WTO protests or PETA / ELF - type groups, who can't seem to even behave as well as the fucking KKK does when THEY hold a rally).. and then, once they're officially breaking things and disrupting the lives of others with their inane and poorly-aimed message... just drive a fucking car through the middle of the crowd. 'course, we can't do that, and when they get out of hand the police are in a bind. Either they allow the riot to continue and grow unchecked, or they attempt to push back against the rioters and incite further violence (but at least primarily directed at the police, now, who are more suited to handle it), or use measures such as CN gas or tasers or beatings to get the protest under control (and if you have to get a protest under control.. that means it's a riot, now, and no longer a protest). If they do that, the protesters 'win' as they get to post all kinds of (heavily edited) videos online of how terrible these poor innocent protesters who weren't doing anything wrong were treated by police (5 seconds before the video starts you can probably see the incident that precipitated the police response..).
It's a whole lot more than just GW infringing on people's rights. It's a whole lot more about people not understanding that the first amendment isn't a "Do Whatever the Fuck I Want" card. Yes, you can peaceably assemble, but you can't peaceably assemble on somebody else's property. Public streets are public property, true -- they are for the use of EVERYBODY, and the rights of everybody take precedence over the rights of a group of protesters. Essentially if your protest is on public property, and not disruptive to others attempting to use that public land, you're not in a bad place and should be left alone... however, certain groups have made it clear through repeated actions that they're not satisfied with that deal and will disrupt the freedom of everyone around them until the world suits their little idea of How Things Should Be. It's that disruption that leads to the FSZs, and until that ends I don't see any end to FSZs either. I certainly would support locking up loons who are going to handcuff themselves across an intersection simply to block traffic so that everybody so inconvenienced takes notice of them. 'course, a smart person would realize there IS such a thing as bad PR, but I think I've made it pretty clear I don't exactly consider those sorts of protests to contain any smart people.
Your example is the actions of an individual who, due to their own personal beliefs, feel they are just in committing murder. No Christian church condones abortion clinic bombings. Not even the Catholic church, and they fucking HATE abortions don't you agree? Their chosen method of action against things they don't agree with is to speak out against them and try to convince people of whatever it is they believe is right.
Meanwhile, the CoS has OFFICIAL DOCTRINES for committing illegal actions and violent crimes and generally terrible things against any individual or group who the church labels as subversive. Their chosen method of action against things they don't agree with is to sue the hell out of them with completely baseless claims, because even having 1,000 cases thrown out of court is still a nightmare of stress and money for any average person. And if that doesn't work, they'll try and dig up dirt on you to either blackmail you or submit it to the police and have you arrested. And if that doesn't work, there's always R2-45, AMIRITE?
A child could understand the difference. How's that update for you, skippy.
... or just take a walk one night from somewhere in mexico to somewhere in texas. or california -- probably cali, actually. california loves its illegals, texas doesn't because you can't shoot them.
Free speech zones do not exist because you cannot freely speak everywhere. Free speech zones exist because in order for a large city to continue daily operation without a great risk of injury to members of the public, or without risk of emergency services being able to reach a location, DISRUPTIVE PROTESTERS need to be kept in a fucking box so they don't throw chains across streets and brick storefront windows.
There's a difference between a protest and a riot and that's just not something the majority of people, most especially those inclined to protest, can understand.
If you doubt me, ask yourself this. Did you hear word one about free speech zones during the recent Tea Party protests? No? Huh, must be because they were mostly older, conservative folk. Free speech zones really only rear their ugly head when a protest is going to be held by some manner of far-left group -- because those protests quite often result in (instigated) incidents with police, and frequently deteriorate to destruction if there is not some form of control established before they show up.
If you think that's just a coincidence, or the Man coming down hard on leftists, you're wrong -- it's actually a fairly clever scheme by the higher-ups that lead these groups (whether openly or via puppet). By creating a conflict with the authorities the movement gains the "VICTIM" badge and gets to cry about how abused and marginalized they are, and how their rights are trampled just because of what they believe. It is, of course, untrue, and any conflicts are the result of actions directly taken by the protesters specifically to create those kinds of conflicts. It's all in furtherance of the cause.
If you think that's some left-field conspiracy theorist shit you really lack an understanding of how the world operates. It's all about manipulation. What is? everything is. If something does not strike you as manipulative, you simply have fallen for the manipulation.
You make a compelling argument if this was 1000 years ago.
Thing is, it's today, and if any religion tried that shit today they would get the shit stomped out of them by the civilized world in half a heart beat. If you disagree, go talk to Mr. Milosovec or Mr. Hussein (of Iraq). Religious wars aren't tolerated today.
Keep in mind we're not attacking the benefits or detrements of christianity here -- this is about the evils of the CoS. Evils that one branch of Christian faith perpetuated hundreds and hundreds of years ago are completely irrelevant to whether or not we should allow evils to continue today.
If you want to hold the church responsible for those horrors.. well, be my guest, but just because one faith did bad things back in a time and age when those bad things were not considered bad does not mean that another 'faith' can do bad things in a time and age when those things ARE considered bad.
Not exactly. You go to google and type in "Armani", first of all all the sponsored links are for Armani crap... but that's beside the point. Point is, even if all the sponsored links were Gucci, they're all LABELED as sponsored links. They are either in a box on the far right of the page, or above the search results. Both locations are LABELED as "Sponsored links". That is akin to going to a store, asking for Armani suits, and when you're taken to them there are ads on the walls for all sorts of other Armani- and suit-related companies. You know they're ads, but they're also related to what you are currently looking at.
Asked a kid working at the grocery store where the coke was. Two aisles over, he said, and pepsi's right next to it and on sale for 2 for 2 bucks. or whatever. that is no different. Or how about we use the phone book. It also is simply a method to search for things, right? Well, the yellow pages don't count -- you can't search for a specific business name, that's arranged by business type. White pages, then. This is akin to Business X paying to place an ad (which are boxed off and labeled appropriately) for their business near the listing for their competition, Business A, in the white pages. Still don't see a problem with that.
I don't think it matters. I don't believe I saw anything in the law that would disclude someone who is severely emotionally distressed due to hateful, repeated whatever speech NOT directed towards them personally. They might, at most, have to demonstrate that they consider Brand X to be a part of them, just the same as you or I might get pissed if someone started talking shit about our cars. We are not our car, but we identify with it as ourself. Maybe I'm not Apple, but maybe I've worked there for a long time, and I love Apple more than my family and all this hateful talk about Apple is just REALLY terribly upsetting -- whoops, jail time for you.
eh, this law will never, ever, ever even make it to a vote.
No, but you're completely misunderstanding what's going on here. If Microsoft found your blog to be full of severe, repeated hostile language, then you would be in violation of the law. Not CIVIL law, but FEDERAL law. This wouldn't be a case where you sue for damages. This would be a case where they show evidence to a jury of your peers that the language on your blog was, indeed, severely hostile and repeated, and thus in violation of the law, and then you'd go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. If they found that the contents of your blog were also harmful lies, well, that's a civil matter. THAT would be libel.
But that's a whole different case. As far as I can see, this bill makes no distinction between truth and falsehood -- therefor, you could be locked up for saying things that are COMPLETELY TRUE, yet cause somebody to feel severe emotional distress (PEOPLE GET SEVERELY EMOTIONALLY DISTRESSED WHEN POPEYE'S RUNS OUT OF CHICKEN FFS). Now isn't that a fun idea?
Let's actually look at the wording of the law.
"(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
Wait, coerce? COERCE? TITS OR GTFO would be in violation of federal law. I wish I was joking -- I am not. Intimidation, coercion, what the fuck? These are not things that are illegal to do in person. There are circumstances that MAKE them illegal, but let's say you're talking to your significant other and trying to talk them into sex even though they're kinda tired. Nothing wrong about that at all. Now, this law passes. Now repeat the above, but via some sort of electronic means. You are now attempting to coerce -- perhaps even intimidate would be able to be used, it depends on how Wymyn's-Lib the judge is (ZOMGS SEX IS INNATELY ABOUT VIOLENCE AND DOMINANCE AND ABUSE bitch please) -- and you're in violation of the Illustrious Idiot Sanchez of the glorious state of Cali-less-free-than-the-rest-of-the-country-fornia.
Well, there's a TON of positive effects. No noisy lawnmowers waking me up on the weekend, no need for me to use a lawnmower, that's a big plus. It's safer, especially if you have a hilly spot of land. Lawnmowers rolling and flipping on to people is serious business, but I can't think of any way a goat rolling over due to a steep hill has ever killed anyone, or even seriously disfigured a foot. Much safer.
The downside? Goats poop a lot, and have devil eyes.
They do taste pretty good, though. If you cook 'em right.
Slashdot Mirror
Good sir your argument is moving and I may stea^H^H^H^Hborrow it at a later date yet to be determined.
Awwwwwwgggggh congrats.. that's the first poop joke I've seen made so far. I think you even beat the jockpoo copypasta..
eww eww eww
Somebody please mod up the one person on slashdot who has any understanding about how things are SUPPOSED to work. Here's to you, Mr. Cowardon.
Actually, orbiting mass such as the moon robs the earth of rotational energy. Days actually are longer these days than they ever have been, that's not old age creeping up on me^H^Hyou.
So it stands to reason that if we launched a bunch of solar cells into orbit (and assuming we figured out some sort of way to transmit the energy back down to earth in some way?) at the very least we'd increase the rate at which the earth spins on its axis. By a VERY, VERY, only relevant to the extra anal scientist types small amount. It might mess with the earth's electromagnetic field, too, I dunno, how's that power getting back down to earth? No seriously.. that's a confusion one for me. A cable / tether such as in a space elevator type design would mean that it wouldn't receive sunlight 24/7, and also that it would block some sunlight from whatever location it was tethered, which would mean less energy reaching the earth. fuck you, plant life! It's too hot everywhere, anyway.
Maybe put huge hydrogen generators up there, but that would require lots of trips to and from the satellite. On one hand, hey, free rocket fuel to get home, hydrogen and oxygen and we'd just have to keep getting water up there. Plus, I don't know, but transporting huge tanks of hydrogen and oxygen back down through the atmosphere just makes me cringe. Maybe it's the pessimist in me.
Really, anything that involves transporting mass to and from space is right out. Using a space elevator, if that's even possible, wouldn't be as bad (yeah huge tanks moving through the atmosphere, regardless of the contents, that's just a disaster waiting to happen).. but then you're right back to the tethering issue of blocking energy from reaching the earth. And if it's tethered anyway, why not just use a huge electrical cable, conduct that energy down.. but then you're moving huge amounts of current through an electromagnetic field, and there's also electromagnetic storms coming from the sun, which've already screwed up power transmission lines on earth before ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm ), tons of radiation.
Just seems like the technical limitations might be higher than that of fusion, really. I mean, at least we know how that works and how we could get energy from it to us, we just don't know how to get it working right.
26% of America is disabled, but a significant number of those people are not ACTUALLY disabled as far as you (well, maybe you) or I are concerned.
There's a difference between "disabled" and "legally disabled". Fat people can be "disabled", if they're fat enough (which makes no sense, their whole problem is not doing enough physical exercise so we let them park closer and ride those awesome carts at walmart). There's also mental disabilities, which may make using a keyboard or mouse hard, but it's not anything that could be solved with software -- it's the mentally disabled person's brain that isn't working right, not the physical parts they use to interface with a computer.
And believe me, there are a LOT of mentally disabled people out there. I'm not just talking retarded people, mentally disabled also can cover emotional disturbances (psychological problems, ie, shut-ins, OCD, ADD, all those wonderful things).
Now you've got to further trim the number as anybody who is physically disabled in a manner that only affects them from the upper torso down, because they are still able to use a computer without problem.
We already have a large experiment running under this criteria, it's called "quite a bit of Africa".. ask them how well it's working out.
You just wait.
Or don't you remember that the CIA was accused of releasing super secret spy squirrels into Iran?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12131243
Best link I can find, but I seem to remember hearing Iran also claim they've caught super secret spy pigeons, too.
This sort of stuff is full-blown crazy, not just weird. Moon landing deniers would chuckle at this. SPY SQUIRRELS.
I'm glad someone mentioned this.
What's up, Slashdot, who's been fuxing with the code? We are now overrun by some gentleman named Cowardon.. Anonymous Cowardon.
Lot of 'em never get up to canada, they decide to stop short and shack up on OUR golf courses. :D
I don't golf, though, so old guys slipping on goose shit and bending their thousand dollar clubs just makes me laugh.
Exactly! Half the posts here are exactly what you said! I don't see how people just can't leave insightful comments alone and insist on parroting the good points, as if someone would read the response but not the parent!
You're a shill, but at least you're a *persistent* shill.
Also, you're dumb.
You see, what that guy did? Nobody told him to do it. It was an idea from his own crazy head.
R2-45? That's an order from the leader of an organization. That's not a lone nut. That's a group that is bent on destroying anything that they do not like.
If the Pope was telling Catholics to bomb abortion clinics you might have a point, but he's not so you're a douche. The Pope says abortions are wrong and shouldn't be done -- but at the same time, killing is wrong. Even killing someone who doesn't agree with you, even someone who argues with you.
Do you see it yet? The difference? CoS ACTUALLY THINKS IT'S OK TO FUCKING KILL PEOPLE WHO GET IN THEIR WAY.
Tor only has so many exit-end IPs. Last I used it I think there was less than a dozen.. with numbers that small, it's not hard. Fire up Tor and connect to your own site, ban whichever IPs are recorded as hitting your site.
But the best argument I can make is this: if you could still use Tor to edit wikipedia, the /b/tards would be doing significantly more work on wikipedia than they are now.
That depends on how many dupes and Idle stories are on the front page
I'd be willing to bet that wiki already blocks any proxy IPs it's aware of thanks to /b/
... not exactly. FSZs were actually expanded not because of GW, but because of the WTO protests. It became pretty clear that there is a type of protester who has absolutely no fucking clue what the actual meaning of the first amendment is and who are quite likely to have violent and destructive outbursts.
These people shouldn't be allowed out of their homes, let alone have their voices heard.. but that's another story, and I am fairly elitist when it comes to self-important ignorant asses who forcefully and violently espouse half-baked sound bites as some sort of justification for their rampage with no actual understanding of what the fuck is going on period end full stop.
FSZs are only tied so tightly to the Bush admin. because of.. media. I may be wrong, but as far as I'm aware, the DNC used FSZs long before the RNC ever picked up the habit. It's not a Republican problem, FSZs are used by people on the entire political spectrum -- FSZs are a *protester* problem.
I don't think FSZs are the ideal solution to the problem (I think the ideal solution would be to allow protests to get to the point where it's a riot (which would not take a whole lot when dealing with the groups that most often wind up in FSZs.. that is, ultra-leftists such as the anarchists from the WTO protests or PETA / ELF - type groups, who can't seem to even behave as well as the fucking KKK does when THEY hold a rally).. and then, once they're officially breaking things and disrupting the lives of others with their inane and poorly-aimed message... just drive a fucking car through the middle of the crowd. 'course, we can't do that, and when they get out of hand the police are in a bind. Either they allow the riot to continue and grow unchecked, or they attempt to push back against the rioters and incite further violence (but at least primarily directed at the police, now, who are more suited to handle it), or use measures such as CN gas or tasers or beatings to get the protest under control (and if you have to get a protest under control.. that means it's a riot, now, and no longer a protest). If they do that, the protesters 'win' as they get to post all kinds of (heavily edited) videos online of how terrible these poor innocent protesters who weren't doing anything wrong were treated by police (5 seconds before the video starts you can probably see the incident that precipitated the police response..).
It's a whole lot more than just GW infringing on people's rights. It's a whole lot more about people not understanding that the first amendment isn't a "Do Whatever the Fuck I Want" card. Yes, you can peaceably assemble, but you can't peaceably assemble on somebody else's property. Public streets are public property, true -- they are for the use of EVERYBODY, and the rights of everybody take precedence over the rights of a group of protesters. Essentially if your protest is on public property, and not disruptive to others attempting to use that public land, you're not in a bad place and should be left alone... however, certain groups have made it clear through repeated actions that they're not satisfied with that deal and will disrupt the freedom of everyone around them until the world suits their little idea of How Things Should Be. It's that disruption that leads to the FSZs, and until that ends I don't see any end to FSZs either. I certainly would support locking up loons who are going to handcuff themselves across an intersection simply to block traffic so that everybody so inconvenienced takes notice of them. 'course, a smart person would realize there IS such a thing as bad PR, but I think I've made it pretty clear I don't exactly consider those sorts of protests to contain any smart people.
Let's see if you can use your brain.
Your example is the actions of an individual who, due to their own personal beliefs, feel they are just in committing murder.
No Christian church condones abortion clinic bombings. Not even the Catholic church, and they fucking HATE abortions don't you agree?
Their chosen method of action against things they don't agree with is to speak out against them and try to convince people of whatever it is they believe is right.
Meanwhile, the CoS has OFFICIAL DOCTRINES for committing illegal actions and violent crimes and generally terrible things against any individual or group who the church labels as subversive.
Their chosen method of action against things they don't agree with is to sue the hell out of them with completely baseless claims, because even having 1,000 cases thrown out of court is still a nightmare of stress and money for any average person. And if that doesn't work, they'll try and dig up dirt on you to either blackmail you or submit it to the police and have you arrested. And if that doesn't work, there's always R2-45, AMIRITE?
A child could understand the difference. How's that update for you, skippy.
... or just take a walk one night from somewhere in mexico to somewhere in texas. or california -- probably cali, actually. california loves its illegals, texas doesn't because you can't shoot them.
Free speech zones do not exist because you cannot freely speak everywhere.
Free speech zones exist because in order for a large city to continue daily operation without a great risk of injury to members of the public, or without risk of emergency services being able to reach a location, DISRUPTIVE PROTESTERS need to be kept in a fucking box so they don't throw chains across streets and brick storefront windows.
There's a difference between a protest and a riot and that's just not something the majority of people, most especially those inclined to protest, can understand.
If you doubt me, ask yourself this. Did you hear word one about free speech zones during the recent Tea Party protests? No? Huh, must be because they were mostly older, conservative folk. Free speech zones really only rear their ugly head when a protest is going to be held by some manner of far-left group -- because those protests quite often result in (instigated) incidents with police, and frequently deteriorate to destruction if there is not some form of control established before they show up.
If you think that's just a coincidence, or the Man coming down hard on leftists, you're wrong -- it's actually a fairly clever scheme by the higher-ups that lead these groups (whether openly or via puppet). By creating a conflict with the authorities the movement gains the "VICTIM" badge and gets to cry about how abused and marginalized they are, and how their rights are trampled just because of what they believe. It is, of course, untrue, and any conflicts are the result of actions directly taken by the protesters specifically to create those kinds of conflicts. It's all in furtherance of the cause.
If you think that's some left-field conspiracy theorist shit you really lack an understanding of how the world operates. It's all about manipulation. What is? everything is. If something does not strike you as manipulative, you simply have fallen for the manipulation.
You make a compelling argument if this was 1000 years ago.
Thing is, it's today, and if any religion tried that shit today they would get the shit stomped out of them by the civilized world in half a heart beat. If you disagree, go talk to Mr. Milosovec or Mr. Hussein (of Iraq). Religious wars aren't tolerated today.
Keep in mind we're not attacking the benefits or detrements of christianity here -- this is about the evils of the CoS. Evils that one branch of Christian faith perpetuated hundreds and hundreds of years ago are completely irrelevant to whether or not we should allow evils to continue today.
If you want to hold the church responsible for those horrors.. well, be my guest, but just because one faith did bad things back in a time and age when those bad things were not considered bad does not mean that another 'faith' can do bad things in a time and age when those things ARE considered bad.
Tabasco under your fingernail.
Yes, capital idea! I don't see any way that could turn disastrously painful either!
Not exactly.
You go to google and type in "Armani", first of all all the sponsored links are for Armani crap... but that's beside the point. Point is, even if all the sponsored links were Gucci, they're all LABELED as sponsored links. They are either in a box on the far right of the page, or above the search results. Both locations are LABELED as "Sponsored links".
That is akin to going to a store, asking for Armani suits, and when you're taken to them there are ads on the walls for all sorts of other Armani- and suit-related companies. You know they're ads, but they're also related to what you are currently looking at.
Asked a kid working at the grocery store where the coke was. Two aisles over, he said, and pepsi's right next to it and on sale for 2 for 2 bucks. or whatever. that is no different.
Or how about we use the phone book. It also is simply a method to search for things, right? Well, the yellow pages don't count -- you can't search for a specific business name, that's arranged by business type. White pages, then. This is akin to Business X paying to place an ad (which are boxed off and labeled appropriately) for their business near the listing for their competition, Business A, in the white pages. Still don't see a problem with that.
this woman's just a bit overzealous I believe.
I don't think it matters. I don't believe I saw anything in the law that would disclude someone who is severely emotionally distressed due to hateful, repeated whatever speech NOT directed towards them personally. They might, at most, have to demonstrate that they consider Brand X to be a part of them, just the same as you or I might get pissed if someone started talking shit about our cars. We are not our car, but we identify with it as ourself. Maybe I'm not Apple, but maybe I've worked there for a long time, and I love Apple more than my family and all this hateful talk about Apple is just REALLY terribly upsetting -- whoops, jail time for you.
eh, this law will never, ever, ever even make it to a vote.
Sometimes, Slashdot just works wonderfully.
I suggest you look at the other reply to my post, where a car analogy is made!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1222985&cid=27839807
No, but you're completely misunderstanding what's going on here.
If Microsoft found your blog to be full of severe, repeated hostile language, then you would be in violation of the law. Not CIVIL law, but FEDERAL law. This wouldn't be a case where you sue for damages. This would be a case where they show evidence to a jury of your peers that the language on your blog was, indeed, severely hostile and repeated, and thus in violation of the law, and then you'd go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
If they found that the contents of your blog were also harmful lies, well, that's a civil matter. THAT would be libel.
But that's a whole different case. As far as I can see, this bill makes no distinction between truth and falsehood -- therefor, you could be locked up for saying things that are COMPLETELY TRUE, yet cause somebody to feel severe emotional distress (PEOPLE GET SEVERELY EMOTIONALLY DISTRESSED WHEN POPEYE'S RUNS OUT OF CHICKEN FFS).
Now isn't that a fun idea?
Let's actually look at the wording of the law.
"(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
Wait, coerce? COERCE? TITS OR GTFO would be in violation of federal law. I wish I was joking -- I am not.
Intimidation, coercion, what the fuck? These are not things that are illegal to do in person. There are circumstances that MAKE them illegal, but let's say you're talking to your significant other and trying to talk them into sex even though they're kinda tired.
Nothing wrong about that at all.
Now, this law passes. Now repeat the above, but via some sort of electronic means. You are now attempting to coerce -- perhaps even intimidate would be able to be used, it depends on how Wymyn's-Lib the judge is (ZOMGS SEX IS INNATELY ABOUT VIOLENCE AND DOMINANCE AND ABUSE bitch please) -- and you're in violation of the Illustrious Idiot Sanchez of the glorious state of Cali-less-free-than-the-rest-of-the-country-fornia.
Well, there's a TON of positive effects. No noisy lawnmowers waking me up on the weekend, no need for me to use a lawnmower, that's a big plus. It's safer, especially if you have a hilly spot of land. Lawnmowers rolling and flipping on to people is serious business, but I can't think of any way a goat rolling over due to a steep hill has ever killed anyone, or even seriously disfigured a foot. Much safer.
The downside? Goats poop a lot, and have devil eyes.
They do taste pretty good, though. If you cook 'em right.