The question is, will this new platform allow the author to add an ending to a novel?
No, the real question (other than, "have you actually read any of his recent stuff?") is: will this lame arm-chair-lit-crit-groupthink meme itself ever find an ending?
Right. What's a few tens of trillions of dollars of debt, currency headed towards worthlessness, and people on the left clammoring for more entitlement spending? So, the single most substantive topic there is, when talking about politics (to wit, what is the role of government)... you don't see that as substantive? You're why the economy is in the toilet, sir.
What issues of actual substance has Glen Beck ever raised?
Let's see... profligate spending on enormous debt-fueled entitlement programs? Colossal bailout programs that have done none of the things promised, but which have piled onto the deficits and debt? The huge and growing intrusion of government into more and more aspects of personal life, small business, and the rest? The rather spectacular waffling by politicians of every stripe on fundamental stuff that should be crystal clear, and plainly spoken about (like, say, what our actual goals are in dealing with illegal immigration, or in energy policy, or in trade deficits).
He's WAY too religious for my taste. But does that make harping on the fact that everyone's grandkids are going to be wearing the debt from just this year's deficits somehow insubstantial?
where angry emotional outburst meets paranoid fear
You mean the spot on the map where his critics were referring to his event the other day as a "klan rally?" That spot? If you want to see irrational outbursts and paranoid fear, listen to what people actually say about him instead. It's really quite amusing.
The spot on the map occupied by paranoia and emotional outbursts is going to be heavy with every other person that posts feverishly on MoveOn.org or the HuffPo, etc. The level of vitriol, naked hate, and refusal to address any issue of actual substance is off the charts. It's right up there with the Ron Paul fans sending the blogosphere off the charts this week based on his observation that it's a possibility there is no gold in Ft. Knox.
You need to step back a bit and look at the wider universe of irrational people - it's a whole lot bigger than your pet list of villains.
Just to repeat: there are no universal rights. Merely rights people agree on
Nope, sorry. Just because someone can beat you into state of not being able to enjoy/pursue your natural rights doesn't make them less valid. Just difficult to exercise. Having your liberty denied to you doesn't change the actual, rational definition of liberty. It just means it's being denied to you.
There are "universal" rights in the sense that if you actually use reason in the process, they are naturally derived. It's as simple as that. That doesn't mean they are universally embraced, because of course many people choose not to use reason or rational processes to inform their world view.
Correction: it is a privilege granted to you by the state through virtue of the Constitution
No, no, no. The Constitution does not grant any rights. It is there to limit the government's ability to infringe on the rights you naturally have. That is the entire point of how the founders set things up.
He's about to be convicted of a felony. They will revoke his ability to own firearms. It isn't a right if it can be taken away from you. It's a privilege (like driving).
So, things like being able to walk around in the open, and go where you want, is also a mere privilege, granted to you by the State?
it would seem to me that the pharmaceutical companies that benefit from this... should have responsibility in the computer crimes taking place here
The overwhelming majority of the "pharmaceutical" ads in questions are fraudulent. They're not actually selling Viagra. They're either selling knockoff placebos, or they're selling nothing at all, because they're just looking for naive suckers to visit a sketchy web site and cough up a credit card number or other details that can be used in identity theft schemes or similar crimes. Merck and the other actual makers of the real products would love nothing more than to shut this crap down.
This is voter intimidation like my dog peeing on your lawn is breaking and entering
You're STILL missing the point. If the same video tape had appeared, swapping out crazy skinhead guy for crazy black power guy, and the DoJ under Bush had looked the other way, we would absolutely never have heard the end of it. It isn't about the substance, it's about the shrill and lopsided reactions from the press.
No offense, but who takes the Black Panthers seriously?
That's not the point. The GP correctly points out that if the previous administration had decided to pull the same crap in letting a video-taped voter intimidation asshat (like the person in question) off the hook, there would have been giant screaming howls of protest for months (well, forever) about a racist DoJ, the Bushnazi, and so on. It's the left's hypocrisy that's the issue, not absurd little fantasy world in which the Panthers (or skinheads, etc) live.
No, but you can't say it with any kind of moral authority if you keep robbing banks over and over again. Iran isn't the only example.
Those are excellent examples you list there, of course. The continual placement of US-injected dictators all around the world is sure an issue, especially where US troops are stationed to protect their puppets. I assume you mean governments throughout the Balkans, eastern Europe, South Korea, Japan, etc, since those are the places where the US military continues to prevent the locals, who quake at the murderous US military presence, from electing who they like. Right? Or in Iraq, where we definitely have Our Guy in place, right?
Do you know how close Germany and France were and are culturally?
Yes. Which is to say: my wife is from Frankfurt. We have friends from Alsace. Grew up talking to diplomats working throughout western Europe. How's that? I can't believe you see the history between France and Germany like some sort of soccer league thing.
I wonder how much these investments in military are impacting the citizens. We may see another Iranian revolution yet.
Not much. This is a PR stunt to go along with Iran opening their brand new nuke plant. It (the drone) doesn't cost much - it looks less sophisticated than half the stuff they build on Mythbusters.
eventually the US is going to have to realize that the west/Russia simply can't have a nuclear monopoly
What are you talking about? You do understand that there are many other countries with nuclear weapons, right? First, there's that funny litte country out east... "China" or something like that. I suppose you'd rather forget about the UK, and France, and Pakistan, and South Africa, and India... why, I'm not sure. But you have an odd working definition of "monopoly" (which is funny, because even in the way you used it, you implied that the US and Russia are somehow a single entity. Which is ridiculous.
War breeds more war, diplomacy can keep peace. Look at WWI which bred WWII
What are you talking about? It was diplomacy that bought Germany enough time to gear up for WWII. Google for "peace in our time" just for a refresher.
WWII which bred the Cold War
Have you actually ever studied any of this? The Cold War was between, essentially, the Soviet Block and everyone else (primarily the US and NATO allies). This wasn't about anything that happened in WWII, it was about the communist totalitarians running the USSR looking to forcibly model the rest of the world in the same fashion. It was the deterrent threat of an unwinnable nuclear war that ended that horrible regime.
And I'm sure if you looked further you could see that there were conflicts which caused WWI
You're completely missing the point. It wasn't previous conflicts (as is, past battles/wars) that "caused" WWI. It was fundamental differences between regional cultures, economies, resources, etc. Physical conflict errupted as a means by which to resolve those differences - because talking about them did not, of course, actually change anything. The entire history of Europe involves thousands of years of territorial, religious, and familial squabbling over turf, power, and resources. War (against the Germans, twice) was what ended that. War with the Soviets never happened, and their system collapsed under its own ponderous, confiscatory, non-productive, Nanny State weight.
How can one summarize this bit of news, and leave out the fact that Iran refers to this UAV as "The Ambassador Of Death?" I mean, come on. That's the best part.
One explanation for what you perceive could be that there's a vast conspiracy controlling most of the news media
Who said anything about a conspiracy? I'm pointing out that most "news" outlets have an editorial orientation, and that the majority of those very demonstrably lean noticeably to the left. To pretent otherwise is absurd. That's what makes the shrill, foot-stamping, name-calling stuff aimed at one cable channel ring so particularly hollow.
Thank you for demonstrating so thoroughly what GPP was talking about
What was his point? I watch all of those networks, and spend time on all of those web sites. The level of bias, spin, and agena-pushing is stupendous, across the board. I'm not sure what his point was - perhaps to remind us that there's only one cable network that routinely bucks the larger, and more vocal trend, and that he thinks they shouldn't be tolerated?
This is insightful? Have you actually looked at the numbers from that study? Less than half of Obama's own Democrat supporters (it used to be more than half!) could accurately identify his religion.
Too many people spending too much time watching the Fox Propaganda Network
As opposed to the MSNBC lefty spin vortex? Or the NPR Intelligensia Superiore Ruling Class network? Or the ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN all-Obama-pats-on-the-back-all-the-time networks? Or people who actually think they're getting "news" from the Daily Show, or Colbert? Or people who think that The Huffington Post, MoveOn.org, and the Daily Kos are level headed, rational sources of non-agenda-driven information? Or media coveage of Nancy Pelosi's call to investigate those bitching about that mosque in lower Manhatten that makes her look like anything other than the Moonbat Totalitarian that she is...? Should the people slurping up their world view from those sorts of sources receive any of your derision? I see.
And nobody does anything about it. What a fucked up society.
Really? And what would you do about it? Make it illegal for a company to sue someone who is infringing on their copyrights or trademarks? Make bootleg products legal?
Why would any company invest in hiring people and spending money to develop something if they have no recourse when someone can simply set up to sell bootlegs of the finished work with no consequences?
Sure, it's fun to hate lawyers. Until it's you being ripped off.
They might only be excluding one member of a group, but it means that the entire group will eat somewhere else.
And so your point is that these business owners are simply too stupid to understand this? That it has never occurred to them that this might be an issue? And that only the wise Nanny State has the smarts to point this out?
Will the Wise Nanny State also help them with their business plan and accounting, and show them how they're better off losing a year's services of a couple of their staff so they can afford all of the legal, contractual, and business-interruption costs of remaking their establishment to accommodate a once-in-a-while customer that they'll have to now make sit around longer because they can't afford to pay as many staff for the year?
Here's an idea: If a business wants the public relations and warm-and-fuzzy benefits of giving up floor space, a second floor, and all sorts of other utility so that they can woo clients with wheelchairs, or movie-goers who are blind, etc., then let them decide it makes sense to do so. If you're right, and dozens of people will regularly skip a venue in favor of one that had re-made itself as friendly to every possible disability or lifestyle, and the lost revenue from losing that business actually matters to them and would pay for the added expenses... why would you care? They'll take care of it themselves. And if all of that is true, and they can't be bothered, then... why would you care? They'll lose business to someone else, right?
Your vegetable-eating example is especially spurious. There are all sorts of establishments that either cater exclusively to, or gladly make offerings to people who don't eat meat (or certain kinds of meat, or meat handled in certain ways, etc). This wasn't true decades ago. And... look! No government intrusion required! The market addressed the issue, and did so creatively and competitively. There have neve been so many choices, in that way. If enough people convincinly show a business owner that the math is in favor of expensively re-tooling around a very small, infrequent demographic, then they'll act. If the math doesn't work, so be it.
Slashdot Mirror
The question is, will this new platform allow the author to add an ending to a novel?
No, the real question (other than, "have you actually read any of his recent stuff?") is: will this lame arm-chair-lit-crit-groupthink meme itself ever find an ending?
nothing of actual substance there
... you don't see that as substantive? You're why the economy is in the toilet, sir.
Right. What's a few tens of trillions of dollars of debt, currency headed towards worthlessness, and people on the left clammoring for more entitlement spending? So, the single most substantive topic there is, when talking about politics (to wit, what is the role of government)
What issues of actual substance has Glen Beck ever raised?
... profligate spending on enormous debt-fueled entitlement programs? Colossal bailout programs that have done none of the things promised, but which have piled onto the deficits and debt? The huge and growing intrusion of government into more and more aspects of personal life, small business, and the rest? The rather spectacular waffling by politicians of every stripe on fundamental stuff that should be crystal clear, and plainly spoken about (like, say, what our actual goals are in dealing with illegal immigration, or in energy policy, or in trade deficits).
Let's see
He's WAY too religious for my taste. But does that make harping on the fact that everyone's grandkids are going to be wearing the debt from just this year's deficits somehow insubstantial?
where angry emotional outburst meets paranoid fear
You mean the spot on the map where his critics were referring to his event the other day as a "klan rally?" That spot? If you want to see irrational outbursts and paranoid fear, listen to what people actually say about him instead. It's really quite amusing.
The spot on the map occupied by paranoia and emotional outbursts is going to be heavy with every other person that posts feverishly on MoveOn.org or the HuffPo, etc. The level of vitriol, naked hate, and refusal to address any issue of actual substance is off the charts. It's right up there with the Ron Paul fans sending the blogosphere off the charts this week based on his observation that it's a possibility there is no gold in Ft. Knox.
You need to step back a bit and look at the wider universe of irrational people - it's a whole lot bigger than your pet list of villains.
why don't they respond quicker?
What makes you think that any of those 7k script kiddie attacks on MS's public-facing web presence actually show with anything the least bit new?
Just to repeat: there are no universal rights. Merely rights people agree on
Nope, sorry. Just because someone can beat you into state of not being able to enjoy/pursue your natural rights doesn't make them less valid. Just difficult to exercise. Having your liberty denied to you doesn't change the actual, rational definition of liberty. It just means it's being denied to you.
There are "universal" rights in the sense that if you actually use reason in the process, they are naturally derived. It's as simple as that. That doesn't mean they are universally embraced, because of course many people choose not to use reason or rational processes to inform their world view.
Correction: it is a privilege granted to you by the state through virtue of the Constitution
No, no, no. The Constitution does not grant any rights. It is there to limit the government's ability to infringe on the rights you naturally have. That is the entire point of how the founders set things up.
He's about to be convicted of a felony. They will revoke his ability to own firearms. It isn't a right if it can be taken away from you. It's a privilege (like driving).
So, things like being able to walk around in the open, and go where you want, is also a mere privilege, granted to you by the State?
it would seem to me that the pharmaceutical companies that benefit from this ... should have responsibility in the computer crimes taking place here
The overwhelming majority of the "pharmaceutical" ads in questions are fraudulent. They're not actually selling Viagra. They're either selling knockoff placebos, or they're selling nothing at all, because they're just looking for naive suckers to visit a sketchy web site and cough up a credit card number or other details that can be used in identity theft schemes or similar crimes. Merck and the other actual makers of the real products would love nothing more than to shut this crap down.
This is voter intimidation like my dog peeing on your lawn is breaking and entering
You're STILL missing the point. If the same video tape had appeared, swapping out crazy skinhead guy for crazy black power guy, and the DoJ under Bush had looked the other way, we would absolutely never have heard the end of it. It isn't about the substance, it's about the shrill and lopsided reactions from the press.
No offense, but who takes the Black Panthers seriously?
That's not the point. The GP correctly points out that if the previous administration had decided to pull the same crap in letting a video-taped voter intimidation asshat (like the person in question) off the hook, there would have been giant screaming howls of protest for months (well, forever) about a racist DoJ, the Bushnazi, and so on. It's the left's hypocrisy that's the issue, not absurd little fantasy world in which the Panthers (or skinheads, etc) live.
No, but you can't say it with any kind of moral authority if you keep robbing banks over and over again. Iran isn't the only example.
Those are excellent examples you list there, of course. The continual placement of US-injected dictators all around the world is sure an issue, especially where US troops are stationed to protect their puppets. I assume you mean governments throughout the Balkans, eastern Europe, South Korea, Japan, etc, since those are the places where the US military continues to prevent the locals, who quake at the murderous US military presence, from electing who they like. Right? Or in Iraq, where we definitely have Our Guy in place, right?
You might be confused, here. I'm not the one suggesting they're the same. I was replying to the guy who was scolding me for calling them different.
Do you know how close Germany and France were and are culturally?
Yes. Which is to say: my wife is from Frankfurt. We have friends from Alsace. Grew up talking to diplomats working throughout western Europe. How's that? I can't believe you see the history between France and Germany like some sort of soccer league thing.
I wonder how much these investments in military are impacting the citizens. We may see another Iranian revolution yet.
Not much. This is a PR stunt to go along with Iran opening their brand new nuke plant. It (the drone) doesn't cost much - it looks less sophisticated than half the stuff they build on Mythbusters.
eventually the US is going to have to realize that the west/Russia simply can't have a nuclear monopoly
... "China" or something like that. I suppose you'd rather forget about the UK, and France, and Pakistan, and South Africa, and India ... why, I'm not sure. But you have an odd working definition of "monopoly" (which is funny, because even in the way you used it, you implied that the US and Russia are somehow a single entity. Which is ridiculous.
What are you talking about? You do understand that there are many other countries with nuclear weapons, right? First, there's that funny litte country out east
War breeds more war, diplomacy can keep peace. Look at WWI which bred WWII
What are you talking about? It was diplomacy that bought Germany enough time to gear up for WWII. Google for "peace in our time" just for a refresher.
WWII which bred the Cold War
Have you actually ever studied any of this? The Cold War was between, essentially, the Soviet Block and everyone else (primarily the US and NATO allies). This wasn't about anything that happened in WWII, it was about the communist totalitarians running the USSR looking to forcibly model the rest of the world in the same fashion. It was the deterrent threat of an unwinnable nuclear war that ended that horrible regime.
And I'm sure if you looked further you could see that there were conflicts which caused WWI
You're completely missing the point. It wasn't previous conflicts (as is, past battles/wars) that "caused" WWI. It was fundamental differences between regional cultures, economies, resources, etc. Physical conflict errupted as a means by which to resolve those differences - because talking about them did not, of course, actually change anything. The entire history of Europe involves thousands of years of territorial, religious, and familial squabbling over turf, power, and resources. War (against the Germans, twice) was what ended that. War with the Soviets never happened, and their system collapsed under its own ponderous, confiscatory, non-productive, Nanny State weight.
How can one summarize this bit of news, and leave out the fact that Iran refers to this UAV as "The Ambassador Of Death?" I mean, come on. That's the best part.
One explanation for what you perceive could be that there's a vast conspiracy controlling most of the news media
Who said anything about a conspiracy? I'm pointing out that most "news" outlets have an editorial orientation, and that the majority of those very demonstrably lean noticeably to the left. To pretent otherwise is absurd. That's what makes the shrill, foot-stamping, name-calling stuff aimed at one cable channel ring so particularly hollow.
Thank you for demonstrating so thoroughly what GPP was talking about
What was his point? I watch all of those networks, and spend time on all of those web sites. The level of bias, spin, and agena-pushing is stupendous, across the board. I'm not sure what his point was - perhaps to remind us that there's only one cable network that routinely bucks the larger, and more vocal trend, and that he thinks they shouldn't be tolerated?
Personally I only use The Onion as a reliable source of information
Well, I can't see anything wrong with that. It says right on their web site that they are America's finest news source. So, that's cool.
This is insightful? Have you actually looked at the numbers from that study? Less than half of Obama's own Democrat supporters (it used to be more than half!) could accurately identify his religion.
Too many people spending too much time watching the Fox Propaganda Network
...? Should the people slurping up their world view from those sorts of sources receive any of your derision? I see.
As opposed to the MSNBC lefty spin vortex? Or the NPR Intelligensia Superiore Ruling Class network? Or the ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN all-Obama-pats-on-the-back-all-the-time networks? Or people who actually think they're getting "news" from the Daily Show, or Colbert? Or people who think that The Huffington Post, MoveOn.org, and the Daily Kos are level headed, rational sources of non-agenda-driven information? Or media coveage of Nancy Pelosi's call to investigate those bitching about that mosque in lower Manhatten that makes her look like anything other than the Moonbat Totalitarian that she is
And nobody does anything about it. What a fucked up society.
Really? And what would you do about it? Make it illegal for a company to sue someone who is infringing on their copyrights or trademarks? Make bootleg products legal?
Why would any company invest in hiring people and spending money to develop something if they have no recourse when someone can simply set up to sell bootlegs of the finished work with no consequences?
Sure, it's fun to hate lawyers. Until it's you being ripped off.
Many people think that if you are in public, you do not have a right on privacy
What do you mean?
They might only be excluding one member of a group, but it means that the entire group will eat somewhere else.
... why would you care? They'll take care of it themselves. And if all of that is true, and they can't be bothered, then ... why would you care? They'll lose business to someone else, right?
... look! No government intrusion required! The market addressed the issue, and did so creatively and competitively. There have neve been so many choices, in that way. If enough people convincinly show a business owner that the math is in favor of expensively re-tooling around a very small, infrequent demographic, then they'll act. If the math doesn't work, so be it.
And so your point is that these business owners are simply too stupid to understand this? That it has never occurred to them that this might be an issue? And that only the wise Nanny State has the smarts to point this out?
Will the Wise Nanny State also help them with their business plan and accounting, and show them how they're better off losing a year's services of a couple of their staff so they can afford all of the legal, contractual, and business-interruption costs of remaking their establishment to accommodate a once-in-a-while customer that they'll have to now make sit around longer because they can't afford to pay as many staff for the year?
Here's an idea: If a business wants the public relations and warm-and-fuzzy benefits of giving up floor space, a second floor, and all sorts of other utility so that they can woo clients with wheelchairs, or movie-goers who are blind, etc., then let them decide it makes sense to do so. If you're right, and dozens of people will regularly skip a venue in favor of one that had re-made itself as friendly to every possible disability or lifestyle, and the lost revenue from losing that business actually matters to them and would pay for the added expenses
Your vegetable-eating example is especially spurious. There are all sorts of establishments that either cater exclusively to, or gladly make offerings to people who don't eat meat (or certain kinds of meat, or meat handled in certain ways, etc). This wasn't true decades ago. And