I hope the actual bill doesn't use the words "hacking tool". Then again, if it does, that makes it even more ridiculous and therefore easier to attack (and less likely to pass).
"Do you have a license for that C++ compiler, mate?"
More likely than not, a couple of state legislators with special agendas wrote it up, few others in the state support it, and it'll die quickly. All kinds of idiotic crap like this gets proposed, and then rejected by a huge majority (that's why we have the legislative process - to eliminate the crap). I'd wait until it shows signs of actually having support before sounding the alarm, though you might want to send a few letters to your legislators to make sure they know what's going on.
Hell, there a couple of bills that pop up every few years on the Federal level that attempt to start a draft. They fail every time.
"A well-educated populace being necessary to a nation, the right of citizens to read shall not be infringed."
Using your interpretation of the second amendment, the above sentence would prohibit anyone who isn't well-educated from reading. Also, as the other poster pointed out, "militia" as it is used in the Constitution is a much broader term than you seem to think.
The "Four legs good, two legs better" came about after the pigs had changed the laws of the animal state to allow them to do whatever they wanted, effectively making them the same as the enemies they supposedly fought against. The Patriot Act promises to protect us against loss of freedom while rewriting the laws of our country to take them away, just like the pigs in Animal Farm.
Animal Farm wasn't just a denunciation of Soviet Communism, it was a warning not to put your full faith in ANY government.
Why not? It's not like there's some sort of sacred barrier there. If the store tries to claim trespass or some crap, you respond with harassment or theft charges. If you put up with shit without fighting back, you make things harder for everyone who ISN'T being a prick.
The sig is about the agenda of (most) moral relativists: to allow themselves the freedom to do what they want without having to defend it or feel guilty about it. They can't do that when everyone else believes in a solid set of morals, so they want to make morals irrelevant.
"Last year one of them refused to hand my drivers license back and I had to go to collect it from the police station after a few questions, turns out another guy with a name similar to mine had bought a few packets recently from that same chemist."...How can a pharmacist decide to hold onto your drivers license "just in case the cops need it"? Are pharmacists considered law enforcement in Australia?
Seriously, though, if you want a free country at this point, you'd be better ready to carve it out of a non-free one. There is no place to run to, and even if there were, running to it would only delay the fight. Take a stand NOW.
That's not an accident. They want the controversy over the Patriot Act to be seen as "yesterday's news", something that's settled and that no one needs to worry about anymore.
He was saying that the average person probably cares more about doing whatever they want in their life than astronomy, and they aren't willing to give up perks such as gas-guzzling vehicles for it. The field could disappear overnight and most people wouldn't care, because for the most part, people are shortsighted.
The "fat lady driving a hummer" is a popular negative stereotype of the common person that (like many stereotypes) didn't exactly appear out of nowhere.
That's doubtful, since (from what I understand) the stress would primarily hurt them in the long term, and pushing the workers results in more short-term productivity. Most companies aren't worried about their workers being nervous wrecks at forty, as long as they manage to get New Snazazz 2006 out on time.
"The social implications of this research are staggering. If boring environments, stressful noises, and the primate's particular slot in the dominance hierarchy all shape the architecture of the brain--and Gould's team has shown that they do--then the playing field isn't level. Poverty and stress aren't just an idea: they are an anatomy. Some brains never even have a chance."
Now, I don't think that poverty alone would cause the stifled neurogenesis they're talking about, but if you combine it with a lot of the other stressful things that tend to come along with poverty (crime-filled environment, fractured/broken families, poor education), that might do it.
Bills such as this one rarely "die" in the conventional sense. They just get banished for a couple of years then someone summons them again, often in a slightly different form.
From what I understand from the article, the bill had already been amended from its original form and only would have required teachers to state that "not all scientists agree about evolution or the origin of species" (which is technically true, though potentially misleading).
Also:
1. I'm slightly annoyed at people using "anti-Darwin" and "anti-evolutionist" interchangibly. 2. I wish the media would stop trying to fuel the "Science/Logic vs. Religion/Faith War", which to a large extent wouldn't exist if they didn't fan the flames every couple of weeks. People on both sides are generally content to believe what they want until you make them feel that they're under attack somehow.
I say it's a damn good thing most people don't TRY to, especially on ideas that are based in history and mythology...Where would the Fantasy genre be if Tolkien had copyrighted most of his "ideas" instead of only his books?
"I've know a linux zealot to claims that linux ran very well on a 386, with X-Window and a complete GUI. He claimed the GUI was just a little sluggish."
Slackware with blackbox GUI _will_ do that, though why someone would want a GUI on a 386 I don't know (I tried it once just to see if it would work). He probably DID give the wrong impression, though, so your point about overstating the case is valid.
The medical care part of your post made sense. This part didn't:
"'First they took your guns'
Most of us didn't have/didn't need them."
Your argument for why it doesn't matter that your Government took your guns is that you didn't need them at the time and most people didn't have them? Do you think they're just going to give them back to you when you DO need them? Even the tired old "they're too dangerous for the common man to use" argument makes more sense than that.
And why does how many people have or don't have something matter when the Government is trying to ban it? Most people 15-20 years ago didn't have cell phones; does that mean it shouldn't have mattered if the Government had banned them from private use? Plenty of people fifteen years ago would have liked to regulate the purchase of computers and bandwidth, you know (some still would).
That happens in every other field too. It's called "shit runs downhill" and is one of the major principles of military life, office life, school life, and plumbing.
Well, you also have to live in an area where there's a demand for IT people...There isn't going as much of a market for them in a rural area as there would be in a large city. Of course, I don't know what type of place you live in because you didn't say, but that's a likely problem.
Well, that's flamebait-ish, stereotyped, and oversimplified, but it does have a point.
Different areas and nations of the world tend to specialize in certain things.
From what I see, the US does most of the initial innovating. Japan and Europe take that initial innovation and attempt to "refine and perfect" it. Nations with sweatshop labor like China and Mexico specialize in manufacturing.
And Europe, Japan, and the US do most of the buying, because few people in China and Mexico can afford to.
I guess this is the logical argument against pornography people have been looking for. There's no new blood, brains, and muscle to build up the nation if all your men are buying RealDolls and your women want to be pop stars instead of mothers.
From the Update, I get the idea that it is only for things that may be unsafe to sell...So, the old model of a TV set that was known to shock people won't be legal to sell, but the old cell phone or 486 is fine?
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I hope the actual bill doesn't use the words "hacking tool". Then again, if it does, that makes it even more ridiculous and therefore easier to attack (and less likely to pass).
"Do you have a license for that C++ compiler, mate?"
More likely than not, a couple of state legislators with special agendas wrote it up, few others in the state support it, and it'll die quickly. All kinds of idiotic crap like this gets proposed, and then rejected by a huge majority (that's why we have the legislative process - to eliminate the crap). I'd wait until it shows signs of actually having support before sounding the alarm, though you might want to send a few letters to your legislators to make sure they know what's going on.
Hell, there a couple of bills that pop up every few years on the Federal level that attempt to start a draft. They fail every time.
"A well-educated populace being necessary to a nation, the right of citizens to read shall not be infringed."
Using your interpretation of the second amendment, the above sentence would prohibit anyone who isn't well-educated from reading. Also, as the other poster pointed out, "militia" as it is used in the Constitution is a much broader term than you seem to think.
The "Four legs good, two legs better" came about after the pigs had changed the laws of the animal state to allow them to do whatever they wanted, effectively making them the same as the enemies they supposedly fought against. The Patriot Act promises to protect us against loss of freedom while rewriting the laws of our country to take them away, just like the pigs in Animal Farm.
Animal Farm wasn't just a denunciation of Soviet Communism, it was a warning not to put your full faith in ANY government.
Why not? It's not like there's some sort of sacred barrier there. If the store tries to claim trespass or some crap, you respond with harassment or theft charges. If you put up with shit without fighting back, you make things harder for everyone who ISN'T being a prick.
The sig is about the agenda of (most) moral relativists: to allow themselves the freedom to do what they want without having to defend it or feel guilty about it. They can't do that when everyone else believes in a solid set of morals, so they want to make morals irrelevant.
We're getting dangerously close to the "Four legs good, two legs better" stage...
"Last year one of them refused to hand my drivers license back and I had to go to collect it from the police station after a few questions, turns out another guy with a name similar to mine had bought a few packets recently from that same chemist." ...How can a pharmacist decide to hold onto your drivers license "just in case the cops need it"? Are pharmacists considered law enforcement in Australia?
Haven't other nations laid claim to most of it?
Seriously, though, if you want a free country at this point, you'd be better ready to carve it out of a non-free one. There is no place to run to, and even if there were, running to it would only delay the fight. Take a stand NOW.
That's not an accident. They want the controversy over the Patriot Act to be seen as "yesterday's news", something that's settled and that no one needs to worry about anymore.
He was saying that the average person probably cares more about doing whatever they want in their life than astronomy, and they aren't willing to give up perks such as gas-guzzling vehicles for it. The field could disappear overnight and most people wouldn't care, because for the most part, people are shortsighted.
The "fat lady driving a hummer" is a popular negative stereotype of the common person that (like many stereotypes) didn't exactly appear out of nowhere.
That's doubtful, since (from what I understand) the stress would primarily hurt them in the long term, and pushing the workers results in more short-term productivity. Most companies aren't worried about their workers being nervous wrecks at forty, as long as they manage to get New Snazazz 2006 out on time.
The article actually goes into that.
"The social implications of this research are staggering. If boring environments, stressful noises, and the primate's particular slot in the dominance hierarchy all shape the architecture of the brain--and Gould's team has shown that they do--then the playing field isn't level. Poverty and stress aren't just an idea: they are an anatomy. Some brains never even have a chance."
Now, I don't think that poverty alone would cause the stifled neurogenesis they're talking about, but if you combine it with a lot of the other stressful things that tend to come along with poverty (crime-filled environment, fractured/broken families, poor education), that might do it.
Bills such as this one rarely "die" in the conventional sense. They just get banished for a couple of years then someone summons them again, often in a slightly different form.
From what I understand from the article, the bill had already been amended from its original form and only would have required teachers to state that "not all scientists agree about evolution or the origin of species" (which is technically true, though potentially misleading).
Also:
1. I'm slightly annoyed at people using "anti-Darwin" and "anti-evolutionist" interchangibly.
2. I wish the media would stop trying to fuel the "Science/Logic vs. Religion/Faith War", which to a large extent wouldn't exist if they didn't fan the flames every couple of weeks. People on both sides are generally content to believe what they want until you make them feel that they're under attack somehow.
I say it's a damn good thing most people don't TRY to, especially on ideas that are based in history and mythology...Where would the Fantasy genre be if Tolkien had copyrighted most of his "ideas" instead of only his books?
"I've know a linux zealot to claims that linux ran very well on a 386, with X-Window and a complete GUI. He claimed the GUI was just a little sluggish."
Slackware with blackbox GUI _will_ do that, though why someone would want a GUI on a 386 I don't know (I tried it once just to see if it would work). He probably DID give the wrong impression, though, so your point about overstating the case is valid.
The medical care part of your post made sense. This part didn't:
"'First they took your guns'
Most of us didn't have/didn't need them."
Your argument for why it doesn't matter that your Government took your guns is that you didn't need them at the time and most people didn't have them? Do you think they're just going to give them back to you when you DO need them? Even the tired old "they're too dangerous for the common man to use" argument makes more sense than that.
And why does how many people have or don't have something matter when the Government is trying to ban it? Most people 15-20 years ago didn't have cell phones; does that mean it shouldn't have mattered if the Government had banned them from private use? Plenty of people fifteen years ago would have liked to regulate the purchase of computers and bandwidth, you know (some still would).
That happens in every other field too. It's called "shit runs downhill" and is one of the major principles of military life, office life, school life, and plumbing.
PS: Nice sig. Hope you brought your own towel.
However, the laws are still there. It might be fun to mock the UK's Government, but a witty phrase can't stop a truncheon.
Seriously...How are we supposed to pronounce "WA!PS3 Online"? Sony should fire whatever marketer came up with that.
That said, I hope the service is good enough to overcome it.
Well, you also have to live in an area where there's a demand for IT people...There isn't going as much of a market for them in a rural area as there would be in a large city. Of course, I don't know what type of place you live in because you didn't say, but that's a likely problem.
Well, that's flamebait-ish, stereotyped, and oversimplified, but it does have a point.
Different areas and nations of the world tend to specialize in certain things.
From what I see, the US does most of the initial innovating. Japan and Europe take that initial innovation and attempt to "refine and perfect" it. Nations with sweatshop labor like China and Mexico specialize in manufacturing.
And Europe, Japan, and the US do most of the buying, because few people in China and Mexico can afford to.
I guess this is the logical argument against pornography people have been looking for. There's no new blood, brains, and muscle to build up the nation if all your men are buying RealDolls and your women want to be pop stars instead of mothers.
From the Update, I get the idea that it is only for things that may be unsafe to sell...So, the old model of a TV set that was known to shock people won't be legal to sell, but the old cell phone or 486 is fine?