Which campaign? Huawei has documented ties to the Chinese cyber-espionage program. A foreign power likely to be a target of such a program has removed their products from sensitive locations. I don't see anyone saying "DON'T BUY FROM Huawei!!! They'll steal your WoW account to steal your gold!" or anything of the sort.
There are times when UD (Uncertainty and Doubt) are useful measures when making product decisions. I don't see anyone (other than perhaps politicians) entering into the F part.
That misses the point though; can you imagine if switches were installed in such a lab with a stuxnet-style attack built in and waiting for a certain type of network traffic to pass over them to trigger?
At that point, it doesn't really matter if data is exfiltrated or if there's no way to remotely access the switches. This seems like what they're attempting to protect against, and is the kind of attack unlikely to originate from home-grown hardware. Of course, most "home grown" hardware these days has chips on-board that are made in China, so most of what they're doing is raising teh bar and making a political statement.
Just show them Back Door Sluts 9, show them how it's done. Theyll see it eventually anyway so its better that they'd see it in a controlled environment. I saw the 'bad' stuff when i was just a wee boy as well, never did me any harm did it?
This nonsense of 'not showing the R-rated' stuff is mostly just to console the parents really. They knew they were wrong when they allowed a child to be born into this harsh and cruel world and would rather the child think that things are rosy for another couple of years until it is absolutely impossible to keep up the lie any longer.
It's a typical US viewpoint that considers R-rated to be about how much skin is shown.
You really REALLY don't want to show violent movies to a 3-year-old. They aren't wired to process it in a healthy way. Even movies with intense emotional content (but non-violent) can cause months of nightmares. By the time puberty hits, such stuff can be handled somewhat; but a 3-year-old has trouble separating fact from fiction; to them, everything they experience is real in the same way.
If you're not concerned with a 3-year-old stumbling on the somewhat tepid live action version of Back Door Sluts 9 in your bedroom, you don't have to worry about it if they stumble on the film. But don't let them watch anything on film you wouldn't be comfortable with them seeing in real life, because for them there's not much difference (they can "tell" you when something's pretend or real with training, but it's still being processed in the same way inside their heads; separate neural pathways for the two sets of stimuli doesn't develop until later).
Instead of looking for a technical solution to do your job for you.
Yeah, i know. mindblowing for sure.
Kids require 24-7 supervision for about 16 years or they WILL get into something you don't like. 100% guaranteed. The only fix is doing the job you signed up for when you had a child.
I believe that should read "Kids require 24-7 supervision for about 16 years AND they WILL get into something you don't like." The trick is to ensure they've had the training before they get into it so that they know how to handle it at least somewhat maturely.
Giving kids access to things is just like giving everyone else access to things -- information wants to be free; too much information is sometimes a bad thing (in retrospect). Technical solutions for kids are a useful loose set of guidelines to help protect them from wandering off accidentally, but as you state, only a history of good parenting will help them once they (not if they) intentionally step off the beaten track.
Make a user for yourself and one for your child. A folder specifically for kids movies. Your child's account is limited and cannot access your users movies.
You can setup a macro to log out/switch user, and quickly log onto the kids account for movies. Keep password on your account.
Simple enough?
I did this, and have since stopped using the "kids" account. I figure if my kid is as intelligent as me, he'll eventually figure out how to get past the password if he really wants to. Now, I just have the screensaver with a password lock for making access to the system less trivial (my kids can't just "accidentally" browse the files) and have trained them in the proper way to treat a computer and account privileges. Setting up a VM and showing them what can happen to it when violating house policies helped.
Now they generally only want to view the stuff that's been whitelisted for them. This will, of course, change as they get older, but they're pretty happy with using their parents as intentional content filters right now.
My first dash of reality came back when I left my 1 year old near the computer with a web browser open to Google in the foreground, and came back to find porn splashed across the screen. All from mashing the keyboard and hitting the mouse in Google (with safebrowsing on). That's when I shortened my password lock timeout and set the screen to turn off after a minute of disuse (or when mouse moved to a hot corner).
I figure my next hurdle with this stuff will come when puberty kicks in, at which point I hope that early training in openness, honesty and respect for others will be enough to save them from being permanently scarred from exposure to things like slashdot at -1.
I have to admit, I haven't looked at the list yet, but just for clarification: you want us to make suggestions FROM THE LIST on what we want to see covered on slashdot regarding the show, right? So that you can prioritize what booths you visit and what pics you snap and give us what we want?
2. The Idaho legislature spent too much money and/or cut taxes too much. Someone pointed out that teachers cost more money than an internet connection. Someone else suggsted raising taxes to pay for teachers' salaries. That second person was laughed out of the building.
Actually, someone suggested raising taxes to pay for teachers' salaries, and it happened. Once the taxes were raised, the legislature turned around and pointed out you can't earmark a tax for something like teachers' salaries, and spent the money elsewhere in the general budget. This brought things full-circle to 2a, having already foisted 2b on the approving voting public, without teachers seeing a penny.
Then you run into the same problem as people trading in broken or useless guns to the gun buyback:
By turning in your property, you effectively endorse their political cause. They get to say that "X number of people turned in this filth to get it off of our streets and out of our schools!". Personally, I'm not willing to become part of their cause and make that value of X going higher at any cost.
If you actually do find their message convincing then by all means turn in your games.
But if you use the reward you get from the group to directly support the opposite of their agenda... did you really help them? For instance, using the gift token to buy a new FPS game.
I would like to think they would somehow arrange for the reward to not be able to be used in this way, but groups like this tend not to be terribly forward thinking.
Unless you get full media coverage of you going to buy that new FPS game, you're supporting their agenda -- because it's not about removing violent media from the media pool, it's about public awareness and making a statement. It doesn't really matter if the sales of violent media increase, as long as their number of turned in media continues to rise.
What might work better is turning in things that *they* might take offense to destroying, but which are still violent media. Say, Road Runner cartoons, Bibles, movies such as the Passion of The Christ, all the local newspapers, copies of Grimm's fairy tales, etc.
Making a counter-statement by using their own strategy against them works best, as it educates them as well.
Colonialism in the Americas: Europeans were brought in and decimated the way of life of the original inhabitants. Europeans stayed and prospered.
Colonialism in Australia/NZ: Europeans were brought in and decimated the way of life of the original inhabitants. Europeans stayed and prospered.
Colonialism in Asia: Europeans were brought in and failed to decimate the way of life of the original inhabitants. Europeans left and infrastructure helped natives recover (slowly).
Colonialism in Africa: Europeans were brought in and decimated the way of life of many inhabitants. Europeans left while retaining ownership of anything of value (oil, minerals, etc), and prospered. Original inhabitants continue to fight over what's left.
Some parts of Africa are doing better than others. The same continent gives you South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Mali, Somalia and Rwanda. Some of these were heavily damaged by colonization, some profited from it, some were barely touched by it. Generalizing a continent with so many different ancient cultures, histories, and societies based on how they are recovering from the most recent major political upheaval is a bit narrow-minded in my opinion.
Middle class in Africa isn't even remotely close to being comparable to middle class in most of the first world. In the U.S. it would still be considered extreme poverty.
Depends what you're comparing. In many parts of Africa, cell phone use is much denser per capita than in the US; access to nutritious food can be on-par. Access to other infrastructure varies, as does the need to have that infrastructure.
Looked at a different way: Middle Class USA is considered pretty messed up by much of the rest of the world, with individual values that make up being "middle class" being heavily skewed (who wants to work constantly to "buy" expensive things that don't really improve quality of life, while putting you in debt to others (indentured servitude) for the rest of your life, and destroying social health and well being?).
Why isn't there a scammers black list? We have ad lists for ad blockers and spam list for spammers. Why not a black list for ipaddress of known scammers?
Many anti-spam products keep a dynamic list of these, as well as grey-lists of IP blocks in common scam areas. SURBL keeps a list too.
The problem here is that known scammers are not located at IP addresses -- the Nigerian system is set up with mob bosses and a chain of command -- with the actual "scammers" usually being people sending scams via internet cafes or via cell phones who are being threatened by the mob or whose family members are being threatened by the mob (little "m"). Blocking an IP address just blocks a specific computer in an internet cafe or individual phone from sending scam mail while it has that address reserved. Eventually it's released back to the local pool and another one is used.
Essentially, you'd have to block Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and various other African countries (or at least their major ISP netblocks) in order to block *some* of the scammers.
Recently, the African scammers have learned about botnets, and now you see the messages coming from compromised computers in Korea and the Philippines.
The other technique used by African scammers is to break into individual email accounts inside US educational institutions, and then send their scams to others within the same institution, collecting more addresses as they go. When they get enough addresses for a rotating list, they start sending out low-volume scam mail to people outside the institution (including the "help! I'm on vacation in Mozambique and lost everything! Please wire me some money!" scams). The sender IP is from the institution, and the email address is legit. Why not just block all emails referencing Western Union or Moneygram? You'd be more effective than with IP blocks.
The real solutions are much more complex (both already implemented and actually effective).
Mormonism seems to run the same way as other churches. Scientology seems to operate like the US government.
Ah; that's the ticket! The CoS in the US can be charged with treason; members are being asked to pledge allegiance to a separate political entity and the CoS takes on the roles of government for any citizens.
And just like the US: once you're a citizen, you can never leave (except in exceptional circumstances)....
Then again, the US has Utah, so this may not work.
Maybe this is just me, but making fun of Mormon underwear seems to me just as dumb as making fun of the hijab, yarmulke, Sikh turban, or pocket protector.
OK, I've never worn a pocket protector, but you get my point I hope.
I'm trying to imagine you wearing Mormon underwear, a hijab, a yarmulke and a Sikh turban... and failing (thankfully).
The myths of Scientology aren't any more ridiculous than the myths of Christianity, Catholicism, Judiasm, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or any other religion.
Scientologists have a bad reputation for sketchy things they have done to people, but look at the record of any of the religions listed above.
So what is the difference between Scientology and those other religions. Time. Scientology was recently made. There are adults who were alive when L Ron Hubbard was alive and wrote Scientology.
The other religions were written in the murky past, hiding their shaky, man-made foundations. The other religions have generations childhood & family traditions/inculcation. Scientology does not.
To me, the two sets of things are about the same. I don't think Scientology can be put on trial without a mighty helping of hypcroisy.
The difference between CoS and the isms you mention is that the leaders in the isms believe (or at least are supposed to believe) the same things they're teaching their followers. The places you get the abuses are when people were given political power in these religions who didn't actually practice what they preached -- which IS similar to CoS.
So... the main difference is that the CoS and scientology is internally defined by what was wrapped *around* the religions you mentioned. Some day there may be a religion based on some layer of the CoS beliefs, but it is not in and of itself a religion (any more than the Holy Roman Empire was a religion or the Spanish Inquisitors were a religion or Al Qaeda is a religion).
Of course, your argument completely side-steps what's happening here: CoS isn't being put on trial for claiming to be a religion; they're being put on trial for alleged organised criminal activity -- just like practitioners of those religions you mentioned have been in the past. Think about it: the Mafia is actually closer to the CoS, as they have a belief structure that's different at different levels, you can't leave once you've joined, and somewhere in there is a warped version of Catholicism. Will the Mafia eventually become a religion? I doubt it. The organisational structure won't likely become one any time soon either.
I thought a slingshot was a weapon that uses a retracted thong that is released in the direction of the intended projectile arc?
No need for it to use an elastic strap... the *sling* is the important part, as is the *shot*.
Of course, you're right that a crossbow is based on a bow, which has the identifying part being a bent semi-flexible rigid material.
I'd be more tempted to call this a modified elastic-kinetic dart launcher (uses elastic strap to store and release energy, but uses a rigid launch vehicle on a guide to propel the ammunition).
Actually, I'd just call this a firecracker launcher. I'm not a pedant in real life.
Hydrogenium is half greek (hydro-) and half latin (-genium) and means "water creator", which is a completely cromulent name for the element. Where the strange notion comes from, that the ending "-um" or "-ium" means a metal is beyond me. Wolfram, bismut and cobalt have no -um ending and are metals, while helium has the -um ending and is a noble gas. So I call this bullshit. Come back when we call the noble gas "hel".
Having more caregivers in a social species gives the species an edge as long as the non-reproducing members don't take away too many scare resources from the reproducing ones.
Ahh... that explains the USA's edge. It's the scare resources:D
So, you follow the NRA line that we should arm all the teachers and students so they can defend themselves against Obama's stormtroopers? How long do you think they'd last?
Longer than they would if they were unarmed.
LK
Training in non-firearms weapons and defensive techniques will probably work better than giving them all handguns. I'd say that some of them would be dead due to "friendly" fire before said stormtroopers ever showed up, and most would be incapable of using them in any meaningful way against the shock troops. End result? More citizens (whether "stormtroopers" or "teachers and students" injured and killed, with no perceptible gains. Now if all teachers and students were part of the local militia, and had the training that came with that, AND actually had weapons at hand when the troops showed up, that MIGHT adjust the odds somewhat. A flash mob of live streaming smartphones and some firehoses would probably do a better job, however.
Evil is correct. We have rights, stated clearly in the Constitution. If you want to take those rights from us there is one legal means to do so - amend the Constitution, any other means is subversive, illegal and evil.
Amend it to swap the right to bear arms with the right to play rock music -- after all, the political damage of rock music is worse (although I've never heard of someone being accidentally or intentionally killed with it).
Slashdot Mirror
Which campaign? Huawei has documented ties to the Chinese cyber-espionage program. A foreign power likely to be a target of such a program has removed their products from sensitive locations. I don't see anyone saying "DON'T BUY FROM Huawei!!! They'll steal your WoW account to steal your gold!" or anything of the sort.
There are times when UD (Uncertainty and Doubt) are useful measures when making product decisions. I don't see anyone (other than perhaps politicians) entering into the F part.
That misses the point though; can you imagine if switches were installed in such a lab with a stuxnet-style attack built in and waiting for a certain type of network traffic to pass over them to trigger?
At that point, it doesn't really matter if data is exfiltrated or if there's no way to remotely access the switches. This seems like what they're attempting to protect against, and is the kind of attack unlikely to originate from home-grown hardware. Of course, most "home grown" hardware these days has chips on-board that are made in China, so most of what they're doing is raising teh bar and making a political statement.
Just show them Back Door Sluts 9, show them how it's done. Theyll see it eventually anyway so its better that they'd see it in a controlled environment. I saw the 'bad' stuff when i was just a wee boy as well, never did me any harm did it?
This nonsense of 'not showing the R-rated' stuff is mostly just to console the parents really. They knew they were wrong when they allowed a child to be born into this harsh and cruel world and would rather the child think that things are rosy for another couple of years until it is absolutely impossible to keep up the lie any longer.
It's a typical US viewpoint that considers R-rated to be about how much skin is shown.
You really REALLY don't want to show violent movies to a 3-year-old. They aren't wired to process it in a healthy way. Even movies with intense emotional content (but non-violent) can cause months of nightmares. By the time puberty hits, such stuff can be handled somewhat; but a 3-year-old has trouble separating fact from fiction; to them, everything they experience is real in the same way.
If you're not concerned with a 3-year-old stumbling on the somewhat tepid live action version of Back Door Sluts 9 in your bedroom, you don't have to worry about it if they stumble on the film. But don't let them watch anything on film you wouldn't be comfortable with them seeing in real life, because for them there's not much difference (they can "tell" you when something's pretend or real with training, but it's still being processed in the same way inside their heads; separate neural pathways for the two sets of stimuli doesn't develop until later).
Instead of looking for a technical solution to do your job for you.
Yeah, i know. mindblowing for sure.
Kids require 24-7 supervision for about 16 years or they WILL get into something you don't like. 100% guaranteed. The only fix is doing the job you signed up for when you had a child.
I believe that should read "Kids require 24-7 supervision for about 16 years AND they WILL get into something you don't like." The trick is to ensure they've had the training before they get into it so that they know how to handle it at least somewhat maturely.
Giving kids access to things is just like giving everyone else access to things -- information wants to be free; too much information is sometimes a bad thing (in retrospect). Technical solutions for kids are a useful loose set of guidelines to help protect them from wandering off accidentally, but as you state, only a history of good parenting will help them once they (not if they) intentionally step off the beaten track.
Make a user for yourself and one for your child. A folder specifically for kids movies. Your child's account is limited and cannot access your users movies.
You can setup a macro to log out/switch user, and quickly log onto the kids account for movies. Keep password on your account.
Simple enough?
I did this, and have since stopped using the "kids" account. I figure if my kid is as intelligent as me, he'll eventually figure out how to get past the password if he really wants to. Now, I just have the screensaver with a password lock for making access to the system less trivial (my kids can't just "accidentally" browse the files) and have trained them in the proper way to treat a computer and account privileges. Setting up a VM and showing them what can happen to it when violating house policies helped.
Now they generally only want to view the stuff that's been whitelisted for them. This will, of course, change as they get older, but they're pretty happy with using their parents as intentional content filters right now.
My first dash of reality came back when I left my 1 year old near the computer with a web browser open to Google in the foreground, and came back to find porn splashed across the screen. All from mashing the keyboard and hitting the mouse in Google (with safebrowsing on). That's when I shortened my password lock timeout and set the screen to turn off after a minute of disuse (or when mouse moved to a hot corner).
I figure my next hurdle with this stuff will come when puberty kicks in, at which point I hope that early training in openness, honesty and respect for others will be enough to save them from being permanently scarred from exposure to things like slashdot at -1.
I have to admit, I haven't looked at the list yet, but just for clarification: you want us to make suggestions FROM THE LIST on what we want to see covered on slashdot regarding the show, right? So that you can prioritize what booths you visit and what pics you snap and give us what we want?
Nobody puts Baby in a corner....
You'd better back that up with one impressive dance combination....
2. The Idaho legislature spent too much money and/or cut taxes too much. Someone pointed out that teachers cost more money than an internet connection. Someone else suggsted raising taxes to pay for teachers' salaries. That second person was laughed out of the building.
Actually, someone suggested raising taxes to pay for teachers' salaries, and it happened. Once the taxes were raised, the legislature turned around and pointed out you can't earmark a tax for something like teachers' salaries, and spent the money elsewhere in the general budget. This brought things full-circle to 2a, having already foisted 2b on the approving voting public, without teachers seeing a penny.
Those who do not want to give up their violent games are under no obligation to do so.
Yes... and no. If your friends are collecting up all their kids' games and handing them over, you're likely to do it too.
Of course, these games have an M rating, and so shouldn't be in kids' hands to begin with -- I think this says something in itself.
Then you run into the same problem as people trading in broken or useless guns to the gun buyback:
By turning in your property, you effectively endorse their political cause. They get to say that "X number of people turned in this filth to get it off of our streets and out of our schools!". Personally, I'm not willing to become part of their cause and make that value of X going higher at any cost.
If you actually do find their message convincing then by all means turn in your games.
But if you use the reward you get from the group to directly support the opposite of their agenda... did you really help them? For instance, using the gift token to buy a new FPS game.
I would like to think they would somehow arrange for the reward to not be able to be used in this way, but groups like this tend not to be terribly forward thinking.
Unless you get full media coverage of you going to buy that new FPS game, you're supporting their agenda -- because it's not about removing violent media from the media pool, it's about public awareness and making a statement. It doesn't really matter if the sales of violent media increase, as long as their number of turned in media continues to rise.
What might work better is turning in things that *they* might take offense to destroying, but which are still violent media. Say, Road Runner cartoons, Bibles, movies such as the Passion of The Christ, all the local newspapers, copies of Grimm's fairy tales, etc.
Making a counter-statement by using their own strategy against them works best, as it educates them as well.
Colonialism in the Americas: Europeans were brought in and decimated the way of life of the original inhabitants. Europeans stayed and prospered.
Colonialism in Australia/NZ: Europeans were brought in and decimated the way of life of the original inhabitants. Europeans stayed and prospered.
Colonialism in Asia: Europeans were brought in and failed to decimate the way of life of the original inhabitants. Europeans left and infrastructure helped natives recover (slowly).
Colonialism in Africa: Europeans were brought in and decimated the way of life of many inhabitants. Europeans left while retaining ownership of anything of value (oil, minerals, etc), and prospered. Original inhabitants continue to fight over what's left.
Some parts of Africa are doing better than others. The same continent gives you South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Mali, Somalia and Rwanda. Some of these were heavily damaged by colonization, some profited from it, some were barely touched by it. Generalizing a continent with so many different ancient cultures, histories, and societies based on how they are recovering from the most recent major political upheaval is a bit narrow-minded in my opinion.
Why is Africa always having epidemics?
Same reason everyone else is... it makes for good press coverage.
A Pandemic, on the other hand, is much more rare, as it's not news; everyone has already experienced it.
whoosh...
Middle class in Africa isn't even remotely close to being comparable to middle class in most of the first world. In the U.S. it would still be considered extreme poverty.
Depends what you're comparing. In many parts of Africa, cell phone use is much denser per capita than in the US; access to nutritious food can be on-par. Access to other infrastructure varies, as does the need to have that infrastructure.
Looked at a different way: Middle Class USA is considered pretty messed up by much of the rest of the world, with individual values that make up being "middle class" being heavily skewed (who wants to work constantly to "buy" expensive things that don't really improve quality of life, while putting you in debt to others (indentured servitude) for the rest of your life, and destroying social health and well being?).
Why isn't there a scammers black list? We have ad lists for ad blockers and spam list for spammers. Why not a black list for ipaddress of known scammers?
Many anti-spam products keep a dynamic list of these, as well as grey-lists of IP blocks in common scam areas. SURBL keeps a list too.
The problem here is that known scammers are not located at IP addresses -- the Nigerian system is set up with mob bosses and a chain of command -- with the actual "scammers" usually being people sending scams via internet cafes or via cell phones who are being threatened by the mob or whose family members are being threatened by the mob (little "m"). Blocking an IP address just blocks a specific computer in an internet cafe or individual phone from sending scam mail while it has that address reserved. Eventually it's released back to the local pool and another one is used.
Essentially, you'd have to block Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and various other African countries (or at least their major ISP netblocks) in order to block *some* of the scammers.
Recently, the African scammers have learned about botnets, and now you see the messages coming from compromised computers in Korea and the Philippines.
The other technique used by African scammers is to break into individual email accounts inside US educational institutions, and then send their scams to others within the same institution, collecting more addresses as they go. When they get enough addresses for a rotating list, they start sending out low-volume scam mail to people outside the institution (including the "help! I'm on vacation in Mozambique and lost everything! Please wire me some money!" scams). The sender IP is from the institution, and the email address is legit. Why not just block all emails referencing Western Union or Moneygram? You'd be more effective than with IP blocks.
The real solutions are much more complex (both already implemented and actually effective).
I don't know about that. Scientology, for all its ills and faults, doe not try to subjugate women. LDS, on the other hand, thrives as a result of it.
CoS does try to subjugate women -- it's just equal opportunity and attempts to subjugate everyone else too.
Mormonism seems to run the same way as other churches. Scientology seems to operate like the US government.
Ah; that's the ticket! The CoS in the US can be charged with treason; members are being asked to pledge allegiance to a separate political entity and the CoS takes on the roles of government for any citizens.
And just like the US: once you're a citizen, you can never leave (except in exceptional circumstances)....
Then again, the US has Utah, so this may not work.
Maybe this is just me, but making fun of Mormon underwear seems to me just as dumb as making fun of the hijab, yarmulke, Sikh turban, or pocket protector.
OK, I've never worn a pocket protector, but you get my point I hope.
I'm trying to imagine you wearing Mormon underwear, a hijab, a yarmulke and a Sikh turban... and failing (thankfully).
The myths of Scientology aren't any more ridiculous than the myths of Christianity, Catholicism, Judiasm, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or any other religion.
Scientologists have a bad reputation for sketchy things they have done to people, but look at the record of any of the religions listed above.
So what is the difference between Scientology and those other religions. Time. Scientology was recently made. There are adults who were alive when L Ron Hubbard was alive and wrote Scientology.
The other religions were written in the murky past, hiding their shaky, man-made foundations. The other religions have generations childhood & family traditions/inculcation. Scientology does not.
To me, the two sets of things are about the same. I don't think Scientology can be put on trial without a mighty helping of hypcroisy.
The difference between CoS and the isms you mention is that the leaders in the isms believe (or at least are supposed to believe) the same things they're teaching their followers. The places you get the abuses are when people were given political power in these religions who didn't actually practice what they preached -- which IS similar to CoS.
So... the main difference is that the CoS and scientology is internally defined by what was wrapped *around* the religions you mentioned. Some day there may be a religion based on some layer of the CoS beliefs, but it is not in and of itself a religion (any more than the Holy Roman Empire was a religion or the Spanish Inquisitors were a religion or Al Qaeda is a religion).
Of course, your argument completely side-steps what's happening here: CoS isn't being put on trial for claiming to be a religion; they're being put on trial for alleged organised criminal activity -- just like practitioners of those religions you mentioned have been in the past. Think about it: the Mafia is actually closer to the CoS, as they have a belief structure that's different at different levels, you can't leave once you've joined, and somewhere in there is a warped version of Catholicism. Will the Mafia eventually become a religion? I doubt it. The organisational structure won't likely become one any time soon either.
I thought a slingshot was a weapon that uses a retracted thong that is released in the direction of the intended projectile arc?
No need for it to use an elastic strap... the *sling* is the important part, as is the *shot*.
Of course, you're right that a crossbow is based on a bow, which has the identifying part being a bent semi-flexible rigid material.
I'd be more tempted to call this a modified elastic-kinetic dart launcher (uses elastic strap to store and release energy, but uses a rigid launch vehicle on a guide to propel the ammunition).
Actually, I'd just call this a firecracker launcher. I'm not a pedant in real life.
Hydrogenium is half greek (hydro-) and half latin (-genium) and means "water creator", which is a completely cromulent name for the element. Where the strange notion comes from, that the ending "-um" or "-ium" means a metal is beyond me. Wolfram, bismut and cobalt have no -um ending and are metals, while helium has the -um ending and is a noble gas.
So I call this bullshit.
Come back when we call the noble gas "hel".
Yeah; I can't get helium to freeze either.
Having more caregivers in a social species gives the species an edge as long as the non-reproducing members don't take away too many scare resources from the reproducing ones.
Ahh... that explains the USA's edge. It's the scare resources :D
.. that the bacteria fossils were persistently aligned into a pattern of a likeness of Mel Gibson.
What... not Rick Astley?
So, you follow the NRA line that we should arm all the teachers and students so they can defend themselves against Obama's stormtroopers? How long do you think they'd last?
Longer than they would if they were unarmed.
LK
Training in non-firearms weapons and defensive techniques will probably work better than giving them all handguns. I'd say that some of them would be dead due to "friendly" fire before said stormtroopers ever showed up, and most would be incapable of using them in any meaningful way against the shock troops. End result? More citizens (whether "stormtroopers" or "teachers and students" injured and killed, with no perceptible gains. Now if all teachers and students were part of the local militia, and had the training that came with that, AND actually had weapons at hand when the troops showed up, that MIGHT adjust the odds somewhat. A flash mob of live streaming smartphones and some firehoses would probably do a better job, however.
Evil is correct. We have rights, stated clearly in the Constitution. If you want to take those rights from us there is one legal means to do so - amend the Constitution, any other means is subversive, illegal and evil.
Amend it to swap the right to bear arms with the right to play rock music -- after all, the political damage of rock music is worse (although I've never heard of someone being accidentally or intentionally killed with it).