Long before the terrorism hysteria, chemistry sets were already on the way out... like the ambulance chasers and nanny staters were going to let kids play with potentially dangerous substances, terrorist threat or no terrorist threat.
The biggest manufacturers of the classic chemistry sets went out of buisness in the late 1980s, because of liability issues. It had nothing to do with terrorism.
If anything, the terrorist hysteria is going to help promote chemistry sets... because now it will be fashionable for the left to allow kids to have chemistry sets as a knee jerk counter reaction to the "war on terror", where as the left were pretty much the ones fighting for stricter regulations and liability on these types of things prior to 9/11.
He thinks that freedom to use, study, modify and redistribute code is extremely important. He clearly states that Linus has a different point of view. That statement in itself is a lie and subtle attack on Linus. Linus believes it is important to have the freedom to use, study, modify, and redistribute code, which is why he used the GPL v2.
GPLv3 goes beyond making sure people can use, study, modify, and redistribute code.
RMS doesn't want you to listen to him and simply say 'Amen', he wants you to listen to him and understand why freedom is important. Stallman's vision of "freedom" is a dictatorship. A very rigid and eleborate set of rules, that is getting even more rigid and elaborate. And anyone who doesn't agree to Stallman's code of rules "Hates Freedom".
The only licencing scheme that is truly free is the WTFPL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL If Stallman wanted freedom in any real sense, he would advocate the WTFPL!
Well, Stallman is using the George W. Bush definition of freedom... where "freedom" means "free obey me and do what I say because I am right!" kind of freedom, not freedom as in the "do whatever you want" kind of freedom.
I am sure, like Dubya, Stallman is very commited to promoting his vision of "freedom", but reasonable people don't see a licence that is full of ideologicaly motivated restrictions as very "free".
I mean, this is a guy who thinks that helping the secret police convert to Linux in a country where you need a government licence to send email, and authorities call the Internet "the great disease of 21st century", is somehow a victory for "Freedom". http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10611
Sorry, but I don't need any of Stallman's brand of "freedom", thanks.
And what keeps those very same employees from screwing up with M-rated titles? Nothing. They will screw up those M rated titles, and EBGames will get sued and fined millions of dollars.
But because M rated titles are such a large segment of gaming, the rewards are so huge that it will pay for the losses due to fines and lawsuits. EBGames makes so much money from selling M games that it easily is worth a few lawsuits once in a while.
I wonder though, why don't store sell them? I might understand Walmart's excuse for not selling adult stuff, but about game shops like EBGames and such? They're already asking for ID (or at least, they do over here) when they sell a M-rated game, why would it be any harder to ask for that same ID for AO-rated games? Because if EBGames screws up, they get sued and fined for millions of dollars. Eventually, with thousands of stores and employees, they WILL screw up.
What does fascist communism have anything to do with socialism? The fact that all fascist called themselves socialist pretty much links socialism and fascism.
Are you even aware that socialism is more common than straight capitalism? Even in the US. What you are talking about is a "mixed economy". True socialism (ownership of the means of production by the state, presumably "on behalf of the people"), is almost universally linked to fascism.
Do realize that there is *gasp* capitalistic fascism that is just as bad if not worse than socialism? Capitalist Fascism *IS* Socialism. Capitalists very quickly reach the natural limits of power in the marketplace, and are in constant competition with other capitalists. Capitalists are not ideologically capitalist - Once they reach extreme wealth, they want to eliminate the marketplace to avoid competing with other capitalists.
So the ultra-rich seek to nationalize the economy with themselves in control, that way they have total power and no longer have to worry about competition. Of course, the capitalists realize that if they admitted they were nationalizing the economy for their own benifit, that no one would go along with it - So they promote the idea that nationalization of the means of production is to "help the workers", or "protect the citizens", or "promote equality", or whatever people want to hear. These guys are the masters of advertising and marketing, so it isn't hard to get suckers to start believing it.
So the colonies should have bit the bullet and waited for the next king to come around? The colonies had their own governments, which for the most part had very weak ties to the central government in England (and England was several months sea voyage away). The primary government of the colonies wasn't being overthrown, the primary government of the colonies were actively participating in the overthrow of what they realized was a foreign power.
The American Revolution had some very unique circumstances that don't typically exist in most revolutions.
That isn't to say that people facing an oppressive government shouldn't overthrow the government... but most revolutions won't have the very specific advantages that the United States had in its revolution. The United States got VERY VERY VERY lucky with the circumstances of its revolution.
"Mecha" not "mechas". The same way that "deers" or "mooses" are incorrect. One mecha or many mecha, there is no S at the end. Except that "deers" and "mooses", you know, actually exist.
I like crack... now that I've already lost my house and most of my teeth... it grows on you... try some That is a poor analogy. Crack at least makes someone feel good temporarily... and it is addictive.
Minmay's music is more like trying bile flavored rat-poison for the first time!
Talk about a way to ruin a perfectly good action-adventure cartoon.
This is great news for the oil and coal companies!
Basicly, we live in an urban dwelling energy dependent society. Short of mass sterilization and/or extermination of billions of people, and a decline to third world economy (at best) for industrialized nations, humanity needs to consume energy. Right now, the only sources that provide that energy in amounts that can fulfill our needs are fossil fuels, and nuclear power.
Since people aren't going to go for extermination or poverty, the only acceptable solution to global warming is to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. The only way to reduce fossil fuel use in a way that is significant enough to stop global warming (and won't amount to genocide) is nuclear power.
When we place restrictions on the safest large-scale energy production method known, we encourage the use of fossil fuels, and promote global warming.
There is not a safety issue, fossil fuels release tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere every year, more so than any worst case nuclear disaster. Fossil fuels kill more people than the Chernobyl disaster, every year... and the Chernobyl disaster was the worst-case exception, not the rule.
We are going to have a global warming catastrophy, because we are frightened of nuclear power. If we have a Chernobyl every 50 years (which is unlikely, given improvements in technology... including things like pebble bed reactors where meltdown is impossible), it would still kill far less people and cause far less ecological damage than even the modest estimates of global warming.
We need to understand that organizations like Greenpeace, who spend so much time and effort to sabatage nuclear power, do so because they are funded by the big oil companies. It is time we understand, that it doesn't matter if the so-called environmental organizations support big oil for the money, or they do it because they are too stupid to understand that they are puppets for big oil... Greenpeace is an organization whose fundamental purpose is to defend the mega-profits of the multinational oil corporations.
The average supermarket parking lot is much brighter at midnight than necessary. You also don't need the entire parking lot lit all night, when on most nights, the first two rows of lights would suffice for the night-time customers. After parking lot lights, the biggest offenders are billboards and other illuminated advertising signs. These can be turned off without compromising public safety, and with minimal harm to the efficacy of the advertising. It would totally suck if we cut the lighting in Time Square or Shibuya or the Las Vegas strip. It is one thing to cut light on a exurban freeway billboard, but there are plenty of places that would lose their character without all the bright lights.
So do you agree that it would be perfectly fine to give the Bible an NC17 rating for the sex and extreme violence involved... so parents can make a reasonable decision. You agree, that people who wanted to rate the Bible NC17 would be totally concerned about the children, and not have an anti-Christian agenda in any way?
His campaign used his celebrity, not well-reasoned thought. He had almost no formal education, little experience politically, and was basically voted in because he was famous. It's not enough just to be "informed", "think critically", and be "well reasoned". And this is different than most politicians, how?
Look, I am not saying that Arnold is some sort of genius... but the rhetoric, reasoning, and intelligence displayed by Arnold doesn't seem any different than any other politician. And at least Arnold was a very successful buisnessman... unlike most career politicians who haven't worked an honest job in their lives.
Have you even watched a presidential debate? Their "debate" wouldn't even cut it for a high-school debate team.
We already have that, backwards. The government is NRA funded. The NRA is a non-profit and pay no taxes... so the government isn't funded in any way by the NRA. If you mean that the NRA donates money to politicians, well obviously they haven't been donating enough to stop the gun-control police state from expanding.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin "Think of the children!!!" - Hillary Clinton
I donate to the ACLU as well as the EFF, but frankly I think these two groups should get a grant yearly from the government to keep watch over them. Silly idea? Ever heard about the GAO? That is the worst idea I have ever heard:
1. Any agency funded by the government, works for the government. For the ACLU to protect the rights of the people, it has to be voluntarily funded by the people directly. The government funding the ACLU is like the Mafia funding the FBI.
2. While the ACLU does do a good job protecting certain rights, the ACLU does a shitty job protecting other rights. When was the last time the ACLU defended people's 2nd Amendment Rights? Or do you want the NRA to be government funded as well?
You've had that sociopathic clique tell you all the time that the only way the economy and freedom can _possibly_ work is if you let them have more power, and that any other way leads to slavery and poverty. What are you talking about? The ultra-rich elite in the U.S. tend to be anti-free-market. For years the sociopathic ultra-rich and the ultra-powerful have been telling us to be more like Europe.
The ultra-rich and powerful know that when socialism comes, they will still be the ones in charge - only they will have more power than ever before.
Unfortunately, I'm from Europe, and here we're living proof that it doesn't work that way. Look in the G8 who's in there besides the USA, and you'll find such countries as the left-wing Germany and the pretty socialist France in there. We didn't go bankrupt yet, and we're not quite slaves either. Funny how those social elitism's bogeymen just failed to happen. If you look at the actual government policies of the U.S. and Europe, you will find that both are about as equally socialist. In fact, the U.S. is becoming more and more fascist as it becomes more and more socialist and European.
We're more like in a mind to actually control the government and make it work for us. We also have a parliamentary system that didn't degenerate into two parties and gerrimandering yet, so it tends to work better. Actually, you have a more regulated and centrally controlled media, and a sense of nationalism tied to anti-Americanism. Information about your own countries evil deeds and social failures are better suppressed, and if they aren't completly supressed it is not something you want to hear anyway.
We've had over 60 years in which we were supposed to get that "boot in everyone's face", and it just didn't happen. No, Europe is really a pretty oppressive place. Even with the recent neo-con paranoia in the U.S., the government is less threatening than in Europe. You have just had 60 years to become more obedient and conformist and comfortable with Big Brother. The U.S. is becoming more Fascist, that is true... but that correlates perfectly with how socialist and European we are becoming. Fortunatly there is still a tiny minority of people in the U.S. who are anti-authority, where as cradle to grave government education, government media, and nannie state, have made Europeans incapable of critical though about their own governments or societies.
Not to mention the centuries of monoarchy and feudalism and imperialism that have bred a European culture where people are used to be lorded over by the upper class. It is a short jump from having your life run by an upper class based on heredity, to a technicratic upper class.
So it makes me wonder... maybe all those bogeymen exist only in the USA rich clique's propaganda, after all? Once again, ever since the robber barons of the late 19th century, the ultra-rich have been champions of expanded government. Socialism has been the rich cliques propoganda since the 1930s. When capitalists reach the limits of power that the market will grant to them, they look for more power through the state... they promote their increased power as "socialism" in order to make it palitable to the working classes who they wish to exploit.
Look, I know that you don't like "conservatives", and you don't like Microsoft... but really, get a grip. There is no connection between the two. Microsoft is located in the heart of a "blue state", has supported progressive policies like same-sex partner benifits even when doing so put them under fire from conservatives, and Bill Gates donates billions to groups that promote abortion rights, birth control, and family planning.
I very much doubt that bin Laden is actually "off the grid". He needs to talk to other fundamentalists or he is effectively dead It is very likely that he is more than effectively dead... he is probably dead. There hasn't been any public communication from him for a long time, and it isn't like he is some sort of Lex Luther evil genius or anything - by all accounts his main asset was his ability to rally people for his cause, which he is obiously not doing right now.
Espionage has been around for thousands of years before computers. Every country in the world participates in espionage.
So we are supposed to be shocked that people are using modern technology to commit acts of espionage?
Geez, if it was an actual act of sabatoge, if the "hackers" destroyed data or disrupted operations, thas would be significant. Otherwise, China is pretty much doing what every other country in the world is doing, collecting information on its potential enemies.
I would be much more worried if there was no evidence of Chinese hacking... because that would mean that they were doing a really, really good hacking job.
The U.S. government is probably doing the same thing right back (and they have a duty to be doing the same thing right back)... it is just that in the U.S., security failures are more likely to get reported to the media.
Finally, don't get me wrong, I'm not against the rich or capitalism... as such. It's just that when one side has disproportionately more bargaining power and power to subvert the system, at some point you have to restrict what they can do with it. Otherwise, if left unchecked, they'll just figure out a way to turn everyone else into their serfs. See, the Romans again. I don't get it. So you are so afraid that a tiny elite will be able to achieve so much power through non-violent means (i.e. capitalists in the free market), that you are willing to give an even smaller elite even more power through violent means (i.e. the state) to "protect" yourself.
At any rate, sometimes you have to restrict people's "choice" to accept being kicked in the head, because otherwise it can very soon degenerate into something where you have no choice to refuse it. And sometimes we need to destroy the village to save it. And sometimes, war is peace.
Sorry, having a boot kick everyone in the face forever is an extremly poor way to make sure that a few crazy people don't agree to get kicked in the head.
Slashdot Mirror
Long before the terrorism hysteria, chemistry sets were already on the way out... like the ambulance chasers and nanny staters were going to let kids play with potentially dangerous substances, terrorist threat or no terrorist threat.
The biggest manufacturers of the classic chemistry sets went out of buisness in the late 1980s, because of liability issues. It had nothing to do with terrorism.
If anything, the terrorist hysteria is going to help promote chemistry sets... because now it will be fashionable for the left to allow kids to have chemistry sets as a knee jerk counter reaction to the "war on terror", where as the left were pretty much the ones fighting for stricter regulations and liability on these types of things prior to 9/11.
Spacecrafts don't have to "slow down" before they reach Mars. They use a transfer orbit.
GPLv3 goes beyond making sure people can use, study, modify, and redistribute code. RMS doesn't want you to listen to him and simply say 'Amen', he wants you to listen to him and understand why freedom is important. Stallman's vision of "freedom" is a dictatorship. A very rigid and eleborate set of rules, that is getting even more rigid and elaborate. And anyone who doesn't agree to Stallman's code of rules "Hates Freedom".
The only licencing scheme that is truly free is the WTFPL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL
If Stallman wanted freedom in any real sense, he would advocate the WTFPL!
Well, Stallman is using the George W. Bush definition of freedom... where "freedom" means "free obey me and do what I say because I am right!" kind of freedom, not freedom as in the "do whatever you want" kind of freedom.
I am sure, like Dubya, Stallman is very commited to promoting his vision of "freedom", but reasonable people don't see a licence that is full of ideologicaly motivated restrictions as very "free".
I mean, this is a guy who thinks that helping the secret police convert to Linux in a country where you need a government licence to send email, and authorities call the Internet "the great disease of 21st century", is somehow a victory for "Freedom".
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10611
Sorry, but I don't need any of Stallman's brand of "freedom", thanks.
But because M rated titles are such a large segment of gaming, the rewards are so huge that it will pay for the losses due to fines and lawsuits. EBGames makes so much money from selling M games that it easily is worth a few lawsuits once in a while.
So the ultra-rich seek to nationalize the economy with themselves in control, that way they have total power and no longer have to worry about competition. Of course, the capitalists realize that if they admitted they were nationalizing the economy for their own benifit, that no one would go along with it - So they promote the idea that nationalization of the means of production is to "help the workers", or "protect the citizens", or "promote equality", or whatever people want to hear. These guys are the masters of advertising and marketing, so it isn't hard to get suckers to start believing it.
The American Revolution had some very unique circumstances that don't typically exist in most revolutions.
That isn't to say that people facing an oppressive government shouldn't overthrow the government... but most revolutions won't have the very specific advantages that the United States had in its revolution. The United States got VERY VERY VERY lucky with the circumstances of its revolution.
The monkey in the white house is a head of state. States are simply social machines, and in and of themselves are amoral.
Minmay's music is more like trying bile flavored rat-poison for the first time!
Talk about a way to ruin a perfectly good action-adventure cartoon.
This is great news for the oil and coal companies!
Basicly, we live in an urban dwelling energy dependent society. Short of mass sterilization and/or extermination of billions of people, and a decline to third world economy (at best) for industrialized nations, humanity needs to consume energy. Right now, the only sources that provide that energy in amounts that can fulfill our needs are fossil fuels, and nuclear power.
Since people aren't going to go for extermination or poverty, the only acceptable solution to global warming is to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. The only way to reduce fossil fuel use in a way that is significant enough to stop global warming (and won't amount to genocide) is nuclear power.
When we place restrictions on the safest large-scale energy production method known, we encourage the use of fossil fuels, and promote global warming.
There is not a safety issue, fossil fuels release tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere every year, more so than any worst case nuclear disaster. Fossil fuels kill more people than the Chernobyl disaster, every year... and the Chernobyl disaster was the worst-case exception, not the rule.
We are going to have a global warming catastrophy, because we are frightened of nuclear power. If we have a Chernobyl every 50 years (which is unlikely, given improvements in technology... including things like pebble bed reactors where meltdown is impossible), it would still kill far less people and cause far less ecological damage than even the modest estimates of global warming.
We need to understand that organizations like Greenpeace, who spend so much time and effort to sabatage nuclear power, do so because they are funded by the big oil companies. It is time we understand, that it doesn't matter if the so-called environmental organizations support big oil for the money, or they do it because they are too stupid to understand that they are puppets for big oil... Greenpeace is an organization whose fundamental purpose is to defend the mega-profits of the multinational oil corporations.
Food and cigarettes are apolitical. Artistic expression is not.
If you rate or censor any sort of media, you are protenially restricting the political expression of some people.
So do you agree that it would be perfectly fine to give the Bible an NC17 rating for the sex and extreme violence involved... so parents can make a reasonable decision. You agree, that people who wanted to rate the Bible NC17 would be totally concerned about the children, and not have an anti-Christian agenda in any way?
Look, I am not saying that Arnold is some sort of genius... but the rhetoric, reasoning, and intelligence displayed by Arnold doesn't seem any different than any other politician. And at least Arnold was a very successful buisnessman... unlike most career politicians who haven't worked an honest job in their lives.
Have you even watched a presidential debate? Their "debate" wouldn't even cut it for a high-school debate team.
Arnold fits into politics perfectly.
1. Any agency funded by the government, works for the government. For the ACLU to protect the rights of the people, it has to be voluntarily funded by the people directly. The government funding the ACLU is like the Mafia funding the FBI.
2. While the ACLU does do a good job protecting certain rights, the ACLU does a shitty job protecting other rights. When was the last time the ACLU defended people's 2nd Amendment Rights? Or do you want the NRA to be government funded as well?
The ultra-rich and powerful know that when socialism comes, they will still be the ones in charge - only they will have more power than ever before. Unfortunately, I'm from Europe, and here we're living proof that it doesn't work that way. Look in the G8 who's in there besides the USA, and you'll find such countries as the left-wing Germany and the pretty socialist France in there. We didn't go bankrupt yet, and we're not quite slaves either. Funny how those social elitism's bogeymen just failed to happen. If you look at the actual government policies of the U.S. and Europe, you will find that both are about as equally socialist. In fact, the U.S. is becoming more and more fascist as it becomes more and more socialist and European. We're more like in a mind to actually control the government and make it work for us. We also have a parliamentary system that didn't degenerate into two parties and gerrimandering yet, so it tends to work better. Actually, you have a more regulated and centrally controlled media, and a sense of nationalism tied to anti-Americanism. Information about your own countries evil deeds and social failures are better suppressed, and if they aren't completly supressed it is not something you want to hear anyway. We've had over 60 years in which we were supposed to get that "boot in everyone's face", and it just didn't happen. No, Europe is really a pretty oppressive place. Even with the recent neo-con paranoia in the U.S., the government is less threatening than in Europe. You have just had 60 years to become more obedient and conformist and comfortable with Big Brother. The U.S. is becoming more Fascist, that is true... but that correlates perfectly with how socialist and European we are becoming. Fortunatly there is still a tiny minority of people in the U.S. who are anti-authority, where as cradle to grave government education, government media, and nannie state, have made Europeans incapable of critical though about their own governments or societies.
Not to mention the centuries of monoarchy and feudalism and imperialism that have bred a European culture where people are used to be lorded over by the upper class. It is a short jump from having your life run by an upper class based on heredity, to a technicratic upper class. So it makes me wonder... maybe all those bogeymen exist only in the USA rich clique's propaganda, after all? Once again, ever since the robber barons of the late 19th century, the ultra-rich have been champions of expanded government. Socialism has been the rich cliques propoganda since the 1930s. When capitalists reach the limits of power that the market will grant to them, they look for more power through the state... they promote their increased power as "socialism" in order to make it palitable to the working classes who they wish to exploit.
Look, I know that you don't like "conservatives", and you don't like Microsoft... but really, get a grip. There is no connection between the two. Microsoft is located in the heart of a "blue state", has supported progressive policies like same-sex partner benifits even when doing so put them under fire from conservatives, and Bill Gates donates billions to groups that promote abortion rights, birth control, and family planning.
Funny, my TV already has that feature. I don't turn the TV to Fox News, and strangly enough, Fox News doesn't appear on my television.
Espionage has been around for thousands of years before computers. Every country in the world participates in espionage.
So we are supposed to be shocked that people are using modern technology to commit acts of espionage?
Geez, if it was an actual act of sabatoge, if the "hackers" destroyed data or disrupted operations, thas would be significant. Otherwise, China is pretty much doing what every other country in the world is doing, collecting information on its potential enemies.
I would be much more worried if there was no evidence of Chinese hacking... because that would mean that they were doing a really, really good hacking job.
The U.S. government is probably doing the same thing right back (and they have a duty to be doing the same thing right back)... it is just that in the U.S., security failures are more likely to get reported to the media.
Sorry, having a boot kick everyone in the face forever is an extremly poor way to make sure that a few crazy people don't agree to get kicked in the head.