Microsoft has competition, therefore it is NOT A MONOPOLY.
First, I was speaking of monopoly in terms of its legal definition, rather than the more general term. Second, monopolies are defined by control of a market or commodity, not of a product. Third, given that no other company actually makes a profit selling desktop OS's, excepting perhaps some very, very small players, then yes MS is a monopoly in all the ways that matter. In any case the courts systems of five different countries have declared MS to not only be a monopoly, but to be illegally abusing that monopoly. Sorry, you're just wrong.
P.S. if you don't want to be modded as a troll you might want to avoid combining an anonymous coward account with lots of unnecessary punctuation with an ad homonym attack.
Just because the browser comes pre-installed doesn't mean that it's bundled quite the way IE is. You can still remove it, and install any other browser you want.
Ignoring, for the moment, the architecture behind Safari I think that people get too hung up on "what" and forget the "why." There are two big problems with IE+Windows. One is that it mingles code for file browsing, web browsing, and vital parts of the OS. Basically, it mixes code very insecurely in ways that allow interaction with the internet to potentially cause serious changes to the core of the OS. It also allows local users to abuse the Web browser and gain access to escalated privileges. Basically, it is an insecure and basically unfixable architectural mistake.
The second issue is not technical. As a monopoly it is illegal for MS to leverage their OS monopoly to gain a Web browser monopoly. The most common way to do this is bundling both products together, which MS did. MS supplies multiple components of an overall computer: OS, applications, mice, etc. Because they have a monopoly on one, they cannot legally bundle the others with that one. They can bundle their mouse with every copy of Office sold, but they cannot bundle Office or the mouse with their OS.
It is important to note that this does not mean an end user can't buy a bundle that includes Windows and a computer and IE. Retailers are free to bundle anything they want, so long as they don't have monopolies. Dell can bundle all of MS's products and only sell that combination and there is no legal issue. Only MS is legally bound not to do so. They have to sell them separately to Dell so that Dell can choose the best browser to sell to their customers, even though the market forces them to sell Windows as the OS on those computers.
Apple does not have a monopoly on desktop OS's or Web browsers so they can bundle the two. If they gained a monopoly on either, they could not. The same goes for IBM, and pretty much any Linux distributor.
To summarize, the problems are the insecurity of an architecture that commingles the core of the OS with a Web browser and illegal business practices. I haven't seen either problem with any alternative OS's.
Why did this get marked troll?? What's he's saying is true.
Because he intentionally missed the point the previous poster was making. This will allow real-world benchmarking of OS+application with hardware and software that is similar enough to expose the bottlenecks.
people are just blind to reality when it come to Apple.
Yes, everyone but you is ignorant and misinformed.
Show me specs of any Mac OS X machine outperforming the top Windows game.
For some reason not many people try to benchmark a operating system plus a machine against a game. I think it is because they are not even close to being the same thing.
It's not jut performance it's low cost customiation option too that Windows leads in.
Performance varies based upon a given task, hardware, and software. The point is we can soon actually benchmark a given task with the same (or very similar) hardware, thus removing a variable. Honestly no one really knows if "Windows is faster" because until now we have not had a way to test it. Of course everyone with the ability to reason knows the result will be that Windows is better at some things and OS X is better at some things.
In my opinion, Apple's snobbish attitude to third parties and refusal to open up their BIOS has led to these problems.
Yeah, Apple really should open up OpenFirmware which is what they've been using instead of BIOS for the last decade. They are just now moving to EFI, which is another open standard. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
Why are they bothering?...but unless they are going to do the porting job properly I don't think they should do it at all.
Google is basically a bunch of geeks, mostly Linux geeks. The geeks have paid time to work on their own projects. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that a couple of them wanted Picasa to work on their Linux boxes, or just wanted to do a project to get experience porting something using Wine. They threw together a working version and then someone said, "hey lets release this so we get bug reports and to expand the user base." So they are going to. If you're not fond of it, just don't use it.
That is a good point, but what about drugs that are so destructive that they can lead people to kill others?
To paraphrase the NRA: drugs don't kill people, people kill people. Basically, while drug addiction is a serious problem and can lead to accidental deaths, criminalization is just about the least effective way to deal with that issue that anyone has tried. Look at other countries, who deal with addiction as a medical problem and you'll note they do not suffer from the same levels of violence, associated crime, or massive imprisonment that the US does. If a heroin addict is in withdrawal and pain in the US they might rob someone, or resort to prostitution. In the UK, they go to a free clinic where they are given synthetics to mitigate the symptoms and enrolled in a program. Even if they never go to the program the cost to society of supplying them with the substitute is much less than that of their potential criminal acts. Desperation breeds crime and violence. Threats of jail time, anal rape, physical pain, withdrawal, etc. breed desperation.
It's fine that you picked LSD and marijuana, but how about cocaine and heroin?
I addressed the second half of this above, but I don't think you can just write off the first half. LSD and marijuana are illegal. That is a serious restriction on the freedom of US citizens, without any justification other than in the 50's someone needed a scapegoat and since then the status quo has been maintained.
How many people get locked away for years for smoking marijuana? For selling it, sure. I don't think I've ever heard of someone getting years for using it.
Quite a few. Possession of quantities small enough for one person's use (not to mention when multiple users live together) can result in 2 years minimum in prison in some states and as long as 20 years if the judge feels like it. Even a $25 fine like where I am now is too much. It is about freedom to not have anyone direct our actions for our own good as they see it.
You know, I used to think the same way. But I listen to all of the socialist wanna be hippies whine about how they want America to become this nanny state, where they are free to do drugs as they wish but must give up half their incomes to the government...why don't they just move?
Because they are Americans and this is their home as much as it is yours. Here's a hypothetical, analogous argument: "You know, I used to think the same way. But I listen to all of the nigger loving wanna be reformers whine about how they want America to become this religious state, where blacks are free to live among us but people aren't free to make them slaves...why don't they just move?"
The answer is, they were Americans fighting for what they believed and to make this country a better place. If you disagree with legalizing drugs, increased socialism, or emancipation of the slaves, well feel free to vote against them. Just don't go telling others to immigrate because they want to change things.
I'm all for well thought out change in our criminal justice system but to try to prop up China as being 'more free' that the United States to prove a point is the type of illogical thinking that should be challenged.
I'm not going to try to defend China. What I am trying to point out is that some of your arguments were just plain wrong. I'll also go so far to say that China is more free in some ways than the US, while less free in other ways. The important point is not to get caught up in some sort of attitude that because we're "not as bad as china" that there should not be changes made to make things better yet. Nor does the argument of "love it or leave it" have any weight. It is the cry of those who fear change, change that is the whole basis of the American ideal.
No, I don't. But I don't think the proposed legislation will fix the real problem.
Actually, this thread does not have all that much to do with the proposed legislation. We were discussing something a little more broad that would apply to all US companies.
A certain portion of consumers do, yes. They absolutely care how and where the products they buy are made. I wish more people did this, but lets face it, its a small portion that do. A simple example of this is Walmart. Walmart has long been known to have caused a lot of problems for wholesalers, local economies, etc. Yet they're growing and expanding everywhere because of their lower prices.
I think you are quite mistaken in two ways. One, you're confusing a retailer with a manufacturer. There is a difference between restricting the actions of US companies and restricting what non-US companies do. Secondly, price is a consideration for many, but it is not all encompassing. Walmart having the lowest prices, for example, is partially just good marketing. In truth they often have the same or higher prices than other stores. Walmart is expanding rapidly because they can leverage economies of scale and a well established process. They avoid putting Walmarts in higher density areas because they perform poorly when subjected to competition from a wide array of specialty stores. They make big money by being the only source of certain products in smaller areas with less diverse shopping and building a customer base from that.
If K-mart re-branded themselves as the patriotic and ethical company and ran a media campaign showing how other retailers carried products made by slaves and children in oppressive, unamerican ways you'd see a real market develop. People will pay to assuage guilt.
So here's the thing. Apple has 82% of the portable digital music player market. They have 69% of the online digital music download market. If either of those were declared sufficient to declare Apple a monopoly on that particular market and it could be shown that Apple used one market to gain in the other market their would be a case. The thing is, while you may view the competition as a mp3 player manufacturer or a music retailer like Walmart, a portion of each of their competitor's sales in either market is going to MS for a license to WMP. MS has bundled software that plays WMP with their desktop OS, which is certainly a legal monopoly and a predatory one at that as several courts have ruled. The part you are asking them to open up (we'll call it the format market although they have only licensed fairplay to two companies I know of) is the one in which their competitor is a predatory monopoly. MS also is a direct competitor in the digital music download market.
It would be a tragedy if the courts were to rule Apple a predatory monopoly in this case and as a result destroy their ability to compete against MS. Until MS's WMP format is unbundled from Windows this would be serious injustice and a demonstration of just how corrupt our court system is. Otherwise the courts are taking an innovator and crippling them in a fight against one of the biggest, most aggressive, and most abusive monopolies in the US today.
You make several very good points and certainly the parent poster is oversimplifying and failing to take a number of items into consideration. I take issue with three of your arguments, however.
Anything you compare to china on a "per-capita" basis is going to be skewed due to the sheer mass of their population.
How does normalizing for population skew comparisons due to a large population?
So why are you oppressed? Because the government tries to stop people from drugging themselves to death?
Freedom is the ability to do whatever you want. A reasonable limit to freedom is when your actions remove the freedom of others. For example, you might be free to own a gun, until you use it to injure another (removing their freedom to live their life as they choose). How does taking drugs, even drugs that may kill you remove the freedom of others? Other actions while under the influence of drugs may do that, but not the drugs themselves.
Also, the idea that the government's intention is to stop people from killing themselves using drugs is preposterous. More people have died from eating bacon than from all the marijuana and LSD use put together. More still have died from smoking ordinary cigarettes, which are legal. I can't even conceive of how a person could believe being locked in a cage for years for smoking marijuana is "more free" than it being legal to smoke it.
Move to China and see how much better you do there.
This is a classic false dichotomy. It is akin claiming that the US is what it is and it is better to just leave the US than it is to work to change the US and make it better. It is not only acceptable, but commendable to point out injustices and problems with the current state of affairs so that things can get better. "Love it or leave it" has always been an asinine emotional attack, and wholly counterproductive. It is, in the most historical sense, very unamerican.
All you've done then is to open the door for other companies with lower standards to move in. If you really want to change the way another company operates, the way to do is not by hampering your own companies.
So you think doing nothing will change the way other companies operate? Actually, I think I'm going to have to agree that requiring US companies to meet certain minimum requirements is a good idea. The reason for this is twofold. First, just because foreign companies behave unethically is not an excuse for US companies to do so any more than your neighbor stealing TVs is an excuse for you to do so. Second, consumers do care about these things, but are not given the opportunity to easily make informed choices since being a US based company right now has no bearing on that company's ethics.
Take a look at the organic food market, for example. Simply by defining a standard for what constitutes "organic" food a large market was created for food that was grown without pesticides and with humane treatment of animals. The standard had both an ethical and a quality standard and it worked very well.
If US companies were held to a higher standard then a "made in the USA" label would mean something, both in the US and in other parts of the world. People do not, believe it or not, buy solely on the basis of price. Quality and ethics do sell, if customers have a simple way to tell which products are made by ethical companies.
A compromise on this issue (and one that might avoid some nationalism) would be to simply start an international certification for companies that meet minimum ethical standards with regard to human rights and the environment. Further, provide some tax incentive to companies that meet that standard and use government funds to provide certification and marketing of the certification. I think you'd be very surprised by the number of people willing to pay $80 versus $20. People already pay that big of a difference for a name brand that is in no way indicative of better quality.
You've listed four examples of why you think it sounds weird. Three of them, use both the noun and verb version of the same word. This is sort of like saying "I walk the walk" or maybe "the boxer fights a fight tomorrow." Both of these are very common examples of words that are both nouns and verbs and they also sound weird when you pair them in the same sentence. It is one of the things most speakers and writers avoid to prevent confusion and because when you use either the verb or noun form, the other is often implied. Obviously a fighter is going to fight and a gift will be gifted. The other example, "Please gift to the United Way" is a less than proper usage. It would more commonly be written, "Please gift the United Way..." It is not a synonym for 'give.'
And no, that does not sound weird to me at all. The word is usually used in more formal and cultured instances, much like other words that are not common parlance. The use for a charity is very appropriate. I've seen it used as, "Mr. Smith gifted his daughter with a significant stipend" and suchlike regularly.
So the use of "gift" as a verb doesn't sound the least bit weird to you?
Actually, no not at all. I do run across 'gift' as a verb upon occasion in my reading. I can understand others might not (I read a lot), but that is not really all that important here. Just because particular word meaning is uncommon or unfamiliar does not mean you should assume it is incorrect and should not be used. That logic would result in our vocabularies shrinking more and more and the English language becoming a less expressive version that caters to the least common denominator.
I heard there is a Mac version of Black and White 2 coming. Would being bought by MS kill that? Granted, it's a port by another company, but the risk remains, right?
They had a playable alpha release of Halo on the mac at macworld in 1999 before MS bought Bungie. In 2001 they released the x-box version. It was not until 2003, four years later, that Halo was finally released for the mac. That is to say, it took them four years to go from a working version to a production version on what used to be their primary development platform. To answer your question, it is anyone's guess whether there would still be a timely Black and White 2.
My objection isn't over whether gift is a verb or a noun. It's over the clunky clumsiness of 'gifts X with Y' Why not just say 'Apple gives MacBooks to developers' ? I think that is much clearer and simpler.
So you're arguing that "Apple gives MacBooks to developers" is clearer than "Apple gifts developers with MacBooks?" Both are five words and neither phrase is more simple than the other. The one you dislike, however, makes it clear that the MacBooks are gifts, whereas your suggestion only makes it clear that they were given; whether as payment, part of a contract, or during a robbery is left to the reader to infer. I'm afraid I think you are wrong. The wording used, while less common these days, is actually a more precise way of speaking.
I must read very different materials than many of Slashdot's readers, since I do come across 'gift' as a verb upon occasion. In any case, I don't see any support for your claim that 'give' is clearer or simpler than 'gift.' Maybe instead of complaining when someone used a more precise and correct bit of proper English you should instead think about adopting it.
I didn't say I was correct, or that it was wrong. Read the initial post again.
OK, I did. I still don't get what you are trying to say. You made up a new word, "verbing" which you then applied along with "weirds" (a not quite proper, but accepted, informal verb. I assumed your definition of "verbing" was to make something into a verb, in which context your statement implied that "gift" was not a verb. If you intended something else, explain it to me.
This is slightly off-topic, but while Apple's feeling generous with regards to WebKit- do you think they'd consider releasing some form of Safari for Windows?
I doubt it, for a number of reasons. First, they have already released the core, all that is really required is the GUI bits. Apple does not really have a lot of expertise for building GUIs for Windows so it is not a casual project for them.
Second, who would use it? I mean, sure Web developers might use it for testing and maybe some users would like it and choose it instead of Firefox or Opera. Most of the users would probably be mac users forced onto Windows at work. That means they are probably not really cutting into IE's market share at all. The people willing to download an alternative OS have done so and Safari is unlikely to attract many clueless people away from IE since they have already failed to move to Firefox. The end result is quite simply more fragmentation of the non-IE Windows Web browser market, which may actually be detrimental to the adoption alternative software.
Basically, I don't think it is a wise investment of time and effort for them in the current climate. If IE were to drop significantly in market share, then it might make more sense.
Actually, gift is also a verb and has been one longer than it has been a noun. I find it very strange the number of people who made this same comment. I mean, who bothers to comment on a minor grammar issue, especially one where you don't even bother to make sure you are correct? Just because someone uses a word in a way you don't recall having seen it does not mean it is proper to assume they are incorrect in their usage. You are obviously in front of a computer. How hard is it too look up something in the dictionary if you think it is wrong? For me it is three clicks and much faster than posting a comment on Slashdot.
You seem to be very passionate about your cause. So passionate, you don't let small things like facts get in your way. Iran has not been bombed, invaded, looted, or anything else by the United States. But I will forgive your ignorance, friend.
Who ever claimed it had been? Iraq has been, which is where the analogy comes in.
but the fact is, Hussein was committing acts of genocide against his own people.
Yeah, we flew over to a foreign country, who had coincidentally not been towing the line as one of our puppets in the area. Then we invaded and killed a lot of people and set up a CIA informer as their new interim leader. Now at this point, most of the people, who did not want us their in the first place, were justifiably angry, but if we had just left it at that and helped them rebuild while they reinstated their democracy all may have worked out. But here it is, years later. We're still there and have built 10 permanent military bases including a giant compound in the middle of their capital. We have completely looted their treasury and taken out huge loans on their behalf. The power does not work, the water sometimes works, violence is everywhere. Basically we made thousands and thousands of people's lives a whole lot worse. We also sold all the factories, businesses, and resources to foreign (american and european largely) investors very cheaply. They are afraid to go there and their workers keep killing them when they do, so industry has been killed. The only people this whole thing is good for are a few american companies that are getting very, very rich off of american tax dollars and iraqi oil.
Just because the reason was "bad" doesnt mean the end result is. Iraq is growing stronger. People have rights unheard of prior to the American "interference". Women have rights to vote and opportunities to gain an education. Children don't have to worry about mom and dad being fed to the plastic shredders. National team athletes don't have to worry about torture for disgracing their country by not coming in first
Yeah great new rights, like the right to go hungry, the right to have no job, the right to sit in the dark or read by candlelight. Other great rights like the right to stay locked in your home after dark, the right to be shot or blown up as collateral damage in the fight between the US and the resistance. They have the right to serve in public office provided they are of the correct religion. Don't forget the right to no longer travel, at all and the right to home school since it is not safe to let your kids go to school. They have so many rights a lot of them have fled to Iran, because we all know what a great place to live that is.
Now I'm not trying to defend Hussein. He was a psycho, like most of the dictators we help put in power. But all the reasons the people had to hate him and his affect upon their lives apply equally and often more to the US invasion force. We have not made things better.
I sincerely hope you someday learn to see the full picture instead of what your left wing friends feed you. You seem fairly intelligent, it would be a shame for you to not think for yourself.
You see, attacks like this do nothing to bolster your case. You accuse me of ignorance, but don't actually mention one factually incorrect part of my post (except the one you misunderstood). Further you have to try to make this about some partisan left or right thing. That is exactly what I expect from someone who only sees the mainstream press (who love such stupid artificial dualism). I don't have understanding for the actions of the Muslim people because I am for Bush or against Bush or a republican or a democrat. Sadly that is the way most people form their opinions. I understand because I understand some basic psychology and am informed about their situation. I would really like to see Bush and his cronies removed from power, because of the things I've seen them do, not because I am a member of some political party and thus am loo
But don't use it as an excuse to complain about cartoons that you view as offensive to your religion, because one issues doesn't have anything to do with the other.
Yes, they do. The muslim people of the middle east feel they are being persecuted partially because of their religion and partially because they are being made scapegoats for the actions of others who are fighting the US. Then a series of cartoons is released that not only mocks their religion (reinforcing the first belief) but equating their religion with bombings (reinforcing the second belief and tying it to the first). Picture this. You're in a bar and a man walks in with a gun. He announces, "Gays are rapists and deserve to die." Then he shoots someone in the face. People dive for cover and people yell saying, "that guy wasn't a rapist." The attacker asserts that he was and it comes out that while the guy was gay, he wasn't even the person the attacker was looking for. He then asserts that all gays are rapists, yells at one guy that he knows he is gay and he should shoot his balls off. You're uninvolved in the situation, but you are gay.
Now would you or would you not react unfavorably to the guy next to you saying "this guy is a faggot rapist" while pointing at you. Normally, maybe you would not care at all what some guy said, but you're in a bar with a psycho with a gun, a few feet away from the bloody mess that used to be some guy's face. You're scared and angry.
I'm all for free speech, but I also understand that someone in that situation is aggravating a bad situation and their free speech is both slander (you're not a rapist) and is likely to get you murdered by a psycho.
Claiming that you should view the speech on its own merits without considering the situation is a fallacy.
Again, the muslims need to police themselves before looking outside their own backyard.
Muslims need to police themselves? When the US invades another country an murders thousands based upon a lie do we say, people in green need to be less violent? When the IRA blows up a car do we say, Christians need to stop being so violent? Christians for the most part invaded another country and murdered thousands of them. Maybe the christians should stop being violent before they start trying to interfere with muslims.
The main problem with islam is that the moderates, the non fanatics do not intervene. Why does it take over a week of riots, violence and protests for one single moderate islamic group to say that extremists are wrong.
It doesn't, it takes you weeks before you read a newspaper that reports on it. When angry muslims were attacking embassies their were other muslims denouncing them for it and other muslims doing their jobs as police to try to stop them and still other muslim religious leaders throwing themselves in between the rioters and the embassy and trying to get the people to listen to reason. When was the last time you saw a christian priest try to stop a riot?
Why can't the moderate muslims learn to tell the extremists to STFU?
They do, why don't you read news that actually reports on it rather than the sensationalist ones that only report on the violent ranting of a few radicals and promotes this type of prejudice?
I think I've made my point. You can't judge people based upon their nationality or religion and if you form opinions based upon one news source more interested in sensationalism than truth then you are doing a disservice to yourself.
"Who would gladly". What the fuck does that mean? Does that mean that they have or not? And if not, are you assuming that they would if given the power, and what evidence do you have to back up your theory.
Well, I have the comments in this thread from what i supposedly one of the more educated segments of the population talking about killing all the muslims. And I have plenty of anecdotal evidence from conversations with people who expressed the opinion that non-christians should be killed or kicked out of this country.
Actually, let's not. Let's deal with what's happening right now. Let's deal with injustice that exists instead of trying to say "but we were just as barbaric once". In case you hadn't noticed, we went past that some time ago.
The very next person in this thread wrote, "They are demonstration to the world the reason why each and every muslim needs to be composted." Yeah it sure sounds like we've advanced well beyond that sort of thing. Christians act violently against members of other religions in many parts of the world, and even against members of other sects. Worse yet, look at our invasion of Iraq. Do you think the US people would have stood for it if the government had come up with some pretext to invade Norway and take their oil? The fact of the matter is many christians feel anyone who another religion is wrong and don't think violence is an unacceptable solution. How long has it been since some christian went and killed someone for being homosexual, something forbidden by their religion. I think the last mass killing was what, three days ago.
So lets deal with what is happening right now. The US army is killing people every day in a country we have conquered. We are making a lot of threats about invading another country next door. Both those countries just happen to be predominantly muslim while the invaders are christian. This causes a whole lot of terror, as it is intended to. It is also completely unethical and wrong, just as wrong as burning an embassy.
Christians raping their people?". Who? What "Christians" are you talking about?
Did you miss the prison scandal where service men and women were shown in photographs in the act of sexually abusing inmates? I can assure you it was a much bigger deal for them than it was to you.
You know what makes me puke about your views - I bet that post September 11th, you were calling for mercy against the people of Afghanistan. I bet you didn't say "hey, the people of the US are understandably frightened and angry and if you don't expect some of them to act on that anger then you don't understand people at all."
Your statement is fundamentally flawed. Obviously our invasion of Afghanistan and all the resulting death was wrong. War is almost never the correct action, especially wars of invasion against countries that had not attacked us. But I obviously also sympathized with the reactions of the American populace. They were outraged and angry and if they burned down all the buildings owned by the Bin Laden family I would consider what they did wrong, but also understandable. This is not an inconsistent point of view. Just because I sympathize with and understand the people who attacked the embassies does not make what they are doing right. They have behaved unethically, as I have previously stated several times in this thread.
If military people are raping people in Iraq, they'll be dealt with by the military.
What a great sentiment. We'll invade your country and kill thousands of you because you can't prove you aren't building weapons secretly somewhere (a logical impossibility) and then we find out we were completely wrong. No one is punished for all that needless death. We imprison literally thousands of people (often any male within a certain age bracket in a town) and then sexually abuse them on film, and don't worry we'll take care of it. That is complete hypocrisy. The US decides it has the right to police other countries, and enfor
So to clarify "Death to the infidels" is not a cry to religious genocide, but a cheer for the Jihad basketball team. Thank you for clearing that up for me.
Oh I must have been confused. I missed the news report that told me how Iran had bombed major US cities, invaded, decimated our military, looted our treasury, sold off our nation resources, built ten permanent military bases around the country and build a giant, concrete walled compound in Washington DC from which they are managing the creation of our new government and selling our factories to muslim investors, and are now discussing the invasion of Canada. I wonder how I missed that news report.
We invaded their lands and took over, not the other way around jackass.
Bullshit. One of them attacks military targets. Another of them attacks any target.
Then americans soldiers are all terrorists. We bombed cities and killed thousands of innocent civilians. The US media calls anyone who uses guerilla tactics against the US terrorists, but what do we call our special forces when they sneak into another country and murder a civilian member of their government or blow up research center? I'll tell you what a terrorist is. A terrorist is someone who uses terror as a weapon. That is it, plain and simple and without all this propaganda new-speak. The US military is a terrorist organization by its own admission. Remember using "shock and awe" to make the enemy capitulate? Terrorism.
If you fight like you argue, then I'd have to conclude that you'd go to Russia and start picking off people at random.
I might at that, kill any Russian that had invaded the US. After all, they are invaders, right? That is certainly how many Iraqi feel right now. Can you blame them for killing the foreign businessman who has just been handed control of a large factory by the US who killed a lot of people and took it? Because that has happened a lot, until they all fled back to their respective countries. That is one of the reasons industry is so stagnant there. And what of the US soldiers and politicians that are over there. Are they blameless? They were the ones shooting and dropping bombs and giving orders. And what of the rich westerners who funded the war with their tax dollars and who voted in all the politicians who directed the war on their behalf? Are they innocent too?
There is plenty of blame to go around. But the fact is, the Iraqi have done nothing to the people of the US that is not justified. The US has done a lot to the Iraqi that is justified. And the people of the surrounding countries know that. And all of them, especially in Iran fear that the US will do the same thing to them. Especially because we keep making threats to do so. You might say the Iranians in particular are being terrorized, by US terrorists. And if the people in those countries are reacting badly due to that terror then certainly that is their fault, but the terror is our the US's making.
The real problem being that "extremists" actively work to harm individuals who have done nothing to harm the extremists and pose no direct threat to anyone?
The US military certainly fits that definition. Dropping bombs on cities filled with civilians is certainly actively harming those who have done nothing to them. For that matter, pretty much no one in Iraq did anything to the US at all. We just invaded them "for their own good" and now thousands are dead, they have unreliable electricity and polluted water supplies. No one goes out at night and everyone lives in fear. All the resources and infrastructure has been looted and sold/given to foreign corporations. The treasury has been looted and large debts have been taken out on behalf of the Iraqi people. Basically, life is much, much worse for most people and many are dead. All of this because extremist americans invaded their country without cause.
the members of a rational civil society who should take an absolute and uncompromising stand against extremists who advocate or cause harm to innocents, whether they're American politicians, suicide bombers, racist agitators, or media commentators.
And this is where you start holding people responsible for the actions of others. If a politician orders and attack, is he guilty or are those who actually shoot people, or both? What about those who elected him and funded him with their tax dollars. What about those who just don't care that he did it, or are uninformed and approve of his actions?
Understanding the perspectives of others and empathizing with them should never take precedence over establishing the rule of law and requiring all members of a society to respect the basic human rights of others.
There is no law in international relations and there never really has been. How can you expect a person who just saw their little girl murdered by those who violate basic human rights to still uphold those same rights while fighting to avenge her? The truth is he has no hope to change things and stop his people from being killed and exploited if he "plays by the rules" while the US is pulling every dirty trick.
Choosing to be driven by by emotions and disregarding the rights of others? That's well and good. Let he who is without emotion and fully cognizant of the rights of others decide whether to let you have a warning shot...
Wow, you really don't understand psychology. No one chooses to be driven by emotions. Emotions are a fundamentally deeper level of decision making than reason. Reason can, in most cases, mitigate or override actions that would normally be taken by acting on emotion, unless that emotion is too strong. More importantly the normal human condition is to act based upon emotion, while modifying and/or justifying those actions using reason. A person might decide to believe in a religion because they are emotionally driven by family and circumstance. Then, they use reason to justify their belief.
There are those who apply reason to the fundamentals of their lives, and a number of disciplines of thought, like the scientific method, but they are the exception not the rule. If you want to condemn the majority of our species for being what it is then that is your right, assuming you are not being hypocritical about it and you actually do apply a rational, reasoned method to your entire life.
So here is what I think is important. Given the same situation, most people would act similarly to the way the people of the middle east did. Most of them acted peacefully, but a few were driven by their emotions and lack of understanding to do something rash. I wholly disapprove of what they have done. At the same time, I wholly disapprove of the media characterization and most of the comments I have read here that insist on judging entire cultures and religions based upon the actions of a few. And given how much wrong has been done to them by some individuals that to them represent western culture and western religion I
Nah. Where I work I heard grumblings among the scientists all the time even after the NIH's budget was doubled.
Yeah, doubled then redirected to the military. Four days after Bush was re-elected the major research university down the street announced that the NIH had cut their available grant money in half. Projects were put on ice and a lot of researchers started looking for more work. That includes the Parkinson's disease research my girlfriend is working on, the cancer research, Alzheimer's research, AIDs research, etc., etc. that a lot of my friends were working on. Personally my own work is booming since it helps stop those scary terrorists or something. Are you claiming these researchers had no business being upset that funding for finding cures and treatments for these medical conditions was slashed?
Once again, religion is shown to be what it is - a system of control that leads to evil deeds.
What an interesting statement. Religious, moral, and ethical beliefs are all subjective; as is the entire concept of evil. Religion did not cause this violence, people acting specifically to incite anger by attacking and disrespecting the beliefs of others did, and it was wholly intentional. The same type of behavior could be triggered by nationalist, philosophical, or many other kinds of belief. Anger, as I said, is the instinctual response to remove a threat by destroying it. They were attacked and they responded. It would be the same as if under very stressful conditions, where mathematics were being outlawed and mathematicians burned if someone insisted on yelling in your face "Pi is exactly three, bitch." Maybe you would react calmly, but maybe, under extreme stress and fear you would react violently. We all have beliefs and breaking points.
What I AM saying is that the general, public perception of all Muslims is only harmed when they find out about things like this.
And I'm saying that public perception, that prejudice of judging muslims only as a group is just as wrong as the violence some particular muslims committed.
...they find sacreligious because of their stupid ignorant ridiculous unsubstantiated religion.
Ahh yes, lets ridicule the beliefs and religions of others. Obviously then, you have all the answers. Tell me then, what is the nature of reality and thought and the fundamental basis for ethics. Now tell me in simple terms how should all communities co-exist and resolve disputes? There is plenty of real, useful reasoning in islam, just as there is in christianity and buddhism. To claim that a religion is "wrong" and its adherents "stupid" is the pinnacle of hubris.
Furthermore, attacking an embassy is itself a statement that you are not interested in rational negotiation
I think we previously established that the individuals in question were reacting emotionally, rather than with reason.
Don't make assumptions about what I think. You want to know what I think? How's about fucking ASKING me? Don't tell me. I don't respond well to that kind of bullshit.
Fine, but you were responding to what I had written by attacking the concept of understanding the perspectives of others. You're the one who made both moral judgments and assertions that my comments explaining the perspective of others was "the reason we have so much violence." If you do not want to be considered intolerant, show tolerance. If you do not want be seen as unsympathetic to the suffering of others show empathy. All your remarks were attacks on understanding and I for one reject such holier than thou crap. If you can't put yourself in the shoes of another and understand their reasoning and perspective you have business judging their actions, or condemning them.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft has competition, therefore it is NOT A MONOPOLY.
First, I was speaking of monopoly in terms of its legal definition, rather than the more general term. Second, monopolies are defined by control of a market or commodity, not of a product. Third, given that no other company actually makes a profit selling desktop OS's, excepting perhaps some very, very small players, then yes MS is a monopoly in all the ways that matter. In any case the courts systems of five different countries have declared MS to not only be a monopoly, but to be illegally abusing that monopoly. Sorry, you're just wrong.
P.S. if you don't want to be modded as a troll you might want to avoid combining an anonymous coward account with lots of unnecessary punctuation with an ad homonym attack.
Just because the browser comes pre-installed doesn't mean that it's bundled quite the way IE is. You can still remove it, and install any other browser you want.
Ignoring, for the moment, the architecture behind Safari I think that people get too hung up on "what" and forget the "why." There are two big problems with IE+Windows. One is that it mingles code for file browsing, web browsing, and vital parts of the OS. Basically, it mixes code very insecurely in ways that allow interaction with the internet to potentially cause serious changes to the core of the OS. It also allows local users to abuse the Web browser and gain access to escalated privileges. Basically, it is an insecure and basically unfixable architectural mistake.
The second issue is not technical. As a monopoly it is illegal for MS to leverage their OS monopoly to gain a Web browser monopoly. The most common way to do this is bundling both products together, which MS did. MS supplies multiple components of an overall computer: OS, applications, mice, etc. Because they have a monopoly on one, they cannot legally bundle the others with that one. They can bundle their mouse with every copy of Office sold, but they cannot bundle Office or the mouse with their OS.
It is important to note that this does not mean an end user can't buy a bundle that includes Windows and a computer and IE. Retailers are free to bundle anything they want, so long as they don't have monopolies. Dell can bundle all of MS's products and only sell that combination and there is no legal issue. Only MS is legally bound not to do so. They have to sell them separately to Dell so that Dell can choose the best browser to sell to their customers, even though the market forces them to sell Windows as the OS on those computers.
Apple does not have a monopoly on desktop OS's or Web browsers so they can bundle the two. If they gained a monopoly on either, they could not. The same goes for IBM, and pretty much any Linux distributor.
To summarize, the problems are the insecurity of an architecture that commingles the core of the OS with a Web browser and illegal business practices. I haven't seen either problem with any alternative OS's.
Why did this get marked troll?? What's he's saying is true .
Because he intentionally missed the point the previous poster was making. This will allow real-world benchmarking of OS+application with hardware and software that is similar enough to expose the bottlenecks.
people are just blind to reality when it come to Apple.
Yes, everyone but you is ignorant and misinformed.
Show me specs of any Mac OS X machine outperforming the top Windows game.
For some reason not many people try to benchmark a operating system plus a machine against a game. I think it is because they are not even close to being the same thing.
It's not jut performance it's low cost customiation option too that Windows leads in.
Performance varies based upon a given task, hardware, and software. The point is we can soon actually benchmark a given task with the same (or very similar) hardware, thus removing a variable. Honestly no one really knows if "Windows is faster" because until now we have not had a way to test it. Of course everyone with the ability to reason knows the result will be that Windows is better at some things and OS X is better at some things.
In my opinion, Apple's snobbish attitude to third parties and refusal to open up their BIOS has led to these problems.
Yeah, Apple really should open up OpenFirmware which is what they've been using instead of BIOS for the last decade. They are just now moving to EFI, which is another open standard. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
Why are they bothering? ...but unless they are going to do the porting job properly I don't think they should do it at all.
Google is basically a bunch of geeks, mostly Linux geeks. The geeks have paid time to work on their own projects. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that a couple of them wanted Picasa to work on their Linux boxes, or just wanted to do a project to get experience porting something using Wine. They threw together a working version and then someone said, "hey lets release this so we get bug reports and to expand the user base." So they are going to. If you're not fond of it, just don't use it.
That is a good point, but what about drugs that are so destructive that they can lead people to kill others?
To paraphrase the NRA: drugs don't kill people, people kill people. Basically, while drug addiction is a serious problem and can lead to accidental deaths, criminalization is just about the least effective way to deal with that issue that anyone has tried. Look at other countries, who deal with addiction as a medical problem and you'll note they do not suffer from the same levels of violence, associated crime, or massive imprisonment that the US does. If a heroin addict is in withdrawal and pain in the US they might rob someone, or resort to prostitution. In the UK, they go to a free clinic where they are given synthetics to mitigate the symptoms and enrolled in a program. Even if they never go to the program the cost to society of supplying them with the substitute is much less than that of their potential criminal acts. Desperation breeds crime and violence. Threats of jail time, anal rape, physical pain, withdrawal, etc. breed desperation.
It's fine that you picked LSD and marijuana, but how about cocaine and heroin?
I addressed the second half of this above, but I don't think you can just write off the first half. LSD and marijuana are illegal. That is a serious restriction on the freedom of US citizens, without any justification other than in the 50's someone needed a scapegoat and since then the status quo has been maintained.
How many people get locked away for years for smoking marijuana? For selling it, sure. I don't think I've ever heard of someone getting years for using it.
Quite a few. Possession of quantities small enough for one person's use (not to mention when multiple users live together) can result in 2 years minimum in prison in some states and as long as 20 years if the judge feels like it. Even a $25 fine like where I am now is too much. It is about freedom to not have anyone direct our actions for our own good as they see it.
You know, I used to think the same way. But I listen to all of the socialist wanna be hippies whine about how they want America to become this nanny state, where they are free to do drugs as they wish but must give up half their incomes to the government...why don't they just move?
Because they are Americans and this is their home as much as it is yours. Here's a hypothetical, analogous argument: "You know, I used to think the same way. But I listen to all of the nigger loving wanna be reformers whine about how they want America to become this religious state, where blacks are free to live among us but people aren't free to make them slaves ...why don't they just move?"
The answer is, they were Americans fighting for what they believed and to make this country a better place. If you disagree with legalizing drugs, increased socialism, or emancipation of the slaves, well feel free to vote against them. Just don't go telling others to immigrate because they want to change things.
I'm all for well thought out change in our criminal justice system but to try to prop up China as being 'more free' that the United States to prove a point is the type of illogical thinking that should be challenged.
I'm not going to try to defend China. What I am trying to point out is that some of your arguments were just plain wrong. I'll also go so far to say that China is more free in some ways than the US, while less free in other ways. The important point is not to get caught up in some sort of attitude that because we're "not as bad as china" that there should not be changes made to make things better yet. Nor does the argument of "love it or leave it" have any weight. It is the cry of those who fear change, change that is the whole basis of the American ideal.
No, I don't. But I don't think the proposed legislation will fix the real problem.
Actually, this thread does not have all that much to do with the proposed legislation. We were discussing something a little more broad that would apply to all US companies.
A certain portion of consumers do, yes. They absolutely care how and where the products they buy are made. I wish more people did this, but lets face it, its a small portion that do. A simple example of this is Walmart. Walmart has long been known to have caused a lot of problems for wholesalers, local economies, etc. Yet they're growing and expanding everywhere because of their lower prices.
I think you are quite mistaken in two ways. One, you're confusing a retailer with a manufacturer. There is a difference between restricting the actions of US companies and restricting what non-US companies do. Secondly, price is a consideration for many, but it is not all encompassing. Walmart having the lowest prices, for example, is partially just good marketing. In truth they often have the same or higher prices than other stores. Walmart is expanding rapidly because they can leverage economies of scale and a well established process. They avoid putting Walmarts in higher density areas because they perform poorly when subjected to competition from a wide array of specialty stores. They make big money by being the only source of certain products in smaller areas with less diverse shopping and building a customer base from that.
If K-mart re-branded themselves as the patriotic and ethical company and ran a media campaign showing how other retailers carried products made by slaves and children in oppressive, unamerican ways you'd see a real market develop. People will pay to assuage guilt.
So here's the thing. Apple has 82% of the portable digital music player market. They have 69% of the online digital music download market. If either of those were declared sufficient to declare Apple a monopoly on that particular market and it could be shown that Apple used one market to gain in the other market their would be a case. The thing is, while you may view the competition as a mp3 player manufacturer or a music retailer like Walmart, a portion of each of their competitor's sales in either market is going to MS for a license to WMP. MS has bundled software that plays WMP with their desktop OS, which is certainly a legal monopoly and a predatory one at that as several courts have ruled. The part you are asking them to open up (we'll call it the format market although they have only licensed fairplay to two companies I know of) is the one in which their competitor is a predatory monopoly. MS also is a direct competitor in the digital music download market.
It would be a tragedy if the courts were to rule Apple a predatory monopoly in this case and as a result destroy their ability to compete against MS. Until MS's WMP format is unbundled from Windows this would be serious injustice and a demonstration of just how corrupt our court system is. Otherwise the courts are taking an innovator and crippling them in a fight against one of the biggest, most aggressive, and most abusive monopolies in the US today.
You make several very good points and certainly the parent poster is oversimplifying and failing to take a number of items into consideration. I take issue with three of your arguments, however.
Anything you compare to china on a "per-capita" basis is going to be skewed due to the sheer mass of their population.
How does normalizing for population skew comparisons due to a large population?
So why are you oppressed? Because the government tries to stop people from drugging themselves to death?
Freedom is the ability to do whatever you want. A reasonable limit to freedom is when your actions remove the freedom of others. For example, you might be free to own a gun, until you use it to injure another (removing their freedom to live their life as they choose). How does taking drugs, even drugs that may kill you remove the freedom of others? Other actions while under the influence of drugs may do that, but not the drugs themselves.
Also, the idea that the government's intention is to stop people from killing themselves using drugs is preposterous. More people have died from eating bacon than from all the marijuana and LSD use put together. More still have died from smoking ordinary cigarettes, which are legal. I can't even conceive of how a person could believe being locked in a cage for years for smoking marijuana is "more free" than it being legal to smoke it.
Move to China and see how much better you do there.
This is a classic false dichotomy. It is akin claiming that the US is what it is and it is better to just leave the US than it is to work to change the US and make it better. It is not only acceptable, but commendable to point out injustices and problems with the current state of affairs so that things can get better. "Love it or leave it" has always been an asinine emotional attack, and wholly counterproductive. It is, in the most historical sense, very unamerican.
All you've done then is to open the door for other companies with lower standards to move in. If you really want to change the way another company operates, the way to do is not by hampering your own companies.
So you think doing nothing will change the way other companies operate? Actually, I think I'm going to have to agree that requiring US companies to meet certain minimum requirements is a good idea. The reason for this is twofold. First, just because foreign companies behave unethically is not an excuse for US companies to do so any more than your neighbor stealing TVs is an excuse for you to do so. Second, consumers do care about these things, but are not given the opportunity to easily make informed choices since being a US based company right now has no bearing on that company's ethics.
Take a look at the organic food market, for example. Simply by defining a standard for what constitutes "organic" food a large market was created for food that was grown without pesticides and with humane treatment of animals. The standard had both an ethical and a quality standard and it worked very well.
If US companies were held to a higher standard then a "made in the USA" label would mean something, both in the US and in other parts of the world. People do not, believe it or not, buy solely on the basis of price. Quality and ethics do sell, if customers have a simple way to tell which products are made by ethical companies.
A compromise on this issue (and one that might avoid some nationalism) would be to simply start an international certification for companies that meet minimum ethical standards with regard to human rights and the environment. Further, provide some tax incentive to companies that meet that standard and use government funds to provide certification and marketing of the certification. I think you'd be very surprised by the number of people willing to pay $80 versus $20. People already pay that big of a difference for a name brand that is in no way indicative of better quality.
You've listed four examples of why you think it sounds weird. Three of them, use both the noun and verb version of the same word. This is sort of like saying "I walk the walk" or maybe "the boxer fights a fight tomorrow." Both of these are very common examples of words that are both nouns and verbs and they also sound weird when you pair them in the same sentence. It is one of the things most speakers and writers avoid to prevent confusion and because when you use either the verb or noun form, the other is often implied. Obviously a fighter is going to fight and a gift will be gifted. The other example, "Please gift to the United Way" is a less than proper usage. It would more commonly be written, "Please gift the United Way..." It is not a synonym for 'give.'
And no, that does not sound weird to me at all. The word is usually used in more formal and cultured instances, much like other words that are not common parlance. The use for a charity is very appropriate. I've seen it used as, "Mr. Smith gifted his daughter with a significant stipend" and suchlike regularly.
So the use of "gift" as a verb doesn't sound the least bit weird to you?
Actually, no not at all. I do run across 'gift' as a verb upon occasion in my reading. I can understand others might not (I read a lot), but that is not really all that important here. Just because particular word meaning is uncommon or unfamiliar does not mean you should assume it is incorrect and should not be used. That logic would result in our vocabularies shrinking more and more and the English language becoming a less expressive version that caters to the least common denominator.
I heard there is a Mac version of Black and White 2 coming. Would being bought by MS kill that? Granted, it's a port by another company, but the risk remains, right?
They had a playable alpha release of Halo on the mac at macworld in 1999 before MS bought Bungie. In 2001 they released the x-box version. It was not until 2003, four years later, that Halo was finally released for the mac. That is to say, it took them four years to go from a working version to a production version on what used to be their primary development platform. To answer your question, it is anyone's guess whether there would still be a timely Black and White 2.
My objection isn't over whether gift is a verb or a noun. It's over the clunky clumsiness of 'gifts X with Y' Why not just say 'Apple gives MacBooks to developers' ? I think that is much clearer and simpler.
So you're arguing that "Apple gives MacBooks to developers" is clearer than "Apple gifts developers with MacBooks?" Both are five words and neither phrase is more simple than the other. The one you dislike, however, makes it clear that the MacBooks are gifts, whereas your suggestion only makes it clear that they were given; whether as payment, part of a contract, or during a robbery is left to the reader to infer. I'm afraid I think you are wrong. The wording used, while less common these days, is actually a more precise way of speaking.
I must read very different materials than many of Slashdot's readers, since I do come across 'gift' as a verb upon occasion. In any case, I don't see any support for your claim that 'give' is clearer or simpler than 'gift.' Maybe instead of complaining when someone used a more precise and correct bit of proper English you should instead think about adopting it.
I didn't say I was correct, or that it was wrong. Read the initial post again.
OK, I did. I still don't get what you are trying to say. You made up a new word, "verbing" which you then applied along with "weirds" (a not quite proper, but accepted, informal verb. I assumed your definition of "verbing" was to make something into a verb, in which context your statement implied that "gift" was not a verb. If you intended something else, explain it to me.
This is slightly off-topic, but while Apple's feeling generous with regards to WebKit- do you think they'd consider releasing some form of Safari for Windows?
I doubt it, for a number of reasons. First, they have already released the core, all that is really required is the GUI bits. Apple does not really have a lot of expertise for building GUIs for Windows so it is not a casual project for them.
Second, who would use it? I mean, sure Web developers might use it for testing and maybe some users would like it and choose it instead of Firefox or Opera. Most of the users would probably be mac users forced onto Windows at work. That means they are probably not really cutting into IE's market share at all. The people willing to download an alternative OS have done so and Safari is unlikely to attract many clueless people away from IE since they have already failed to move to Firefox. The end result is quite simply more fragmentation of the non-IE Windows Web browser market, which may actually be detrimental to the adoption alternative software.
Basically, I don't think it is a wise investment of time and effort for them in the current climate. If IE were to drop significantly in market share, then it might make more sense.
Verbing weirds language.
Actually, gift is also a verb and has been one longer than it has been a noun. I find it very strange the number of people who made this same comment. I mean, who bothers to comment on a minor grammar issue, especially one where you don't even bother to make sure you are correct? Just because someone uses a word in a way you don't recall having seen it does not mean it is proper to assume they are incorrect in their usage. You are obviously in front of a computer. How hard is it too look up something in the dictionary if you think it is wrong? For me it is three clicks and much faster than posting a comment on Slashdot.
You seem to be very passionate about your cause. So passionate, you don't let small things like facts get in your way. Iran has not been bombed, invaded, looted, or anything else by the United States. But I will forgive your ignorance, friend.
Who ever claimed it had been? Iraq has been, which is where the analogy comes in.
but the fact is, Hussein was committing acts of genocide against his own people.
Yeah, we flew over to a foreign country, who had coincidentally not been towing the line as one of our puppets in the area. Then we invaded and killed a lot of people and set up a CIA informer as their new interim leader. Now at this point, most of the people, who did not want us their in the first place, were justifiably angry, but if we had just left it at that and helped them rebuild while they reinstated their democracy all may have worked out. But here it is, years later. We're still there and have built 10 permanent military bases including a giant compound in the middle of their capital. We have completely looted their treasury and taken out huge loans on their behalf. The power does not work, the water sometimes works, violence is everywhere. Basically we made thousands and thousands of people's lives a whole lot worse. We also sold all the factories, businesses, and resources to foreign (american and european largely) investors very cheaply. They are afraid to go there and their workers keep killing them when they do, so industry has been killed. The only people this whole thing is good for are a few american companies that are getting very, very rich off of american tax dollars and iraqi oil.
Just because the reason was "bad" doesnt mean the end result is. Iraq is growing stronger. People have rights unheard of prior to the American "interference". Women have rights to vote and opportunities to gain an education. Children don't have to worry about mom and dad being fed to the plastic shredders. National team athletes don't have to worry about torture for disgracing their country by not coming in first
Yeah great new rights, like the right to go hungry, the right to have no job, the right to sit in the dark or read by candlelight. Other great rights like the right to stay locked in your home after dark, the right to be shot or blown up as collateral damage in the fight between the US and the resistance. They have the right to serve in public office provided they are of the correct religion. Don't forget the right to no longer travel, at all and the right to home school since it is not safe to let your kids go to school. They have so many rights a lot of them have fled to Iran, because we all know what a great place to live that is.
Now I'm not trying to defend Hussein. He was a psycho, like most of the dictators we help put in power. But all the reasons the people had to hate him and his affect upon their lives apply equally and often more to the US invasion force. We have not made things better.
I sincerely hope you someday learn to see the full picture instead of what your left wing friends feed you. You seem fairly intelligent, it would be a shame for you to not think for yourself.
You see, attacks like this do nothing to bolster your case. You accuse me of ignorance, but don't actually mention one factually incorrect part of my post (except the one you misunderstood). Further you have to try to make this about some partisan left or right thing. That is exactly what I expect from someone who only sees the mainstream press (who love such stupid artificial dualism). I don't have understanding for the actions of the Muslim people because I am for Bush or against Bush or a republican or a democrat. Sadly that is the way most people form their opinions. I understand because I understand some basic psychology and am informed about their situation. I would really like to see Bush and his cronies removed from power, because of the things I've seen them do, not because I am a member of some political party and thus am loo
But don't use it as an excuse to complain about cartoons that you view as offensive to your religion, because one issues doesn't have anything to do with the other.
Yes, they do. The muslim people of the middle east feel they are being persecuted partially because of their religion and partially because they are being made scapegoats for the actions of others who are fighting the US. Then a series of cartoons is released that not only mocks their religion (reinforcing the first belief) but equating their religion with bombings (reinforcing the second belief and tying it to the first). Picture this. You're in a bar and a man walks in with a gun. He announces, "Gays are rapists and deserve to die." Then he shoots someone in the face. People dive for cover and people yell saying, "that guy wasn't a rapist." The attacker asserts that he was and it comes out that while the guy was gay, he wasn't even the person the attacker was looking for. He then asserts that all gays are rapists, yells at one guy that he knows he is gay and he should shoot his balls off. You're uninvolved in the situation, but you are gay.
Now would you or would you not react unfavorably to the guy next to you saying "this guy is a faggot rapist" while pointing at you. Normally, maybe you would not care at all what some guy said, but you're in a bar with a psycho with a gun, a few feet away from the bloody mess that used to be some guy's face. You're scared and angry.
I'm all for free speech, but I also understand that someone in that situation is aggravating a bad situation and their free speech is both slander (you're not a rapist) and is likely to get you murdered by a psycho.
Claiming that you should view the speech on its own merits without considering the situation is a fallacy.
Again, the muslims need to police themselves before looking outside their own backyard.
Muslims need to police themselves? When the US invades another country an murders thousands based upon a lie do we say, people in green need to be less violent? When the IRA blows up a car do we say, Christians need to stop being so violent? Christians for the most part invaded another country and murdered thousands of them. Maybe the christians should stop being violent before they start trying to interfere with muslims.
The main problem with islam is that the moderates, the non fanatics do not intervene. Why does it take over a week of riots, violence and protests for one single moderate islamic group to say that extremists are wrong.
It doesn't, it takes you weeks before you read a newspaper that reports on it. When angry muslims were attacking embassies their were other muslims denouncing them for it and other muslims doing their jobs as police to try to stop them and still other muslim religious leaders throwing themselves in between the rioters and the embassy and trying to get the people to listen to reason. When was the last time you saw a christian priest try to stop a riot?
Why can't the moderate muslims learn to tell the extremists to STFU?
They do, why don't you read news that actually reports on it rather than the sensationalist ones that only report on the violent ranting of a few radicals and promotes this type of prejudice?
I think I've made my point. You can't judge people based upon their nationality or religion and if you form opinions based upon one news source more interested in sensationalism than truth then you are doing a disservice to yourself.
"Who would gladly". What the fuck does that mean? Does that mean that they have or not? And if not, are you assuming that they would if given the power, and what evidence do you have to back up your theory.
Well, I have the comments in this thread from what i supposedly one of the more educated segments of the population talking about killing all the muslims. And I have plenty of anecdotal evidence from conversations with people who expressed the opinion that non-christians should be killed or kicked out of this country.
Actually, let's not. Let's deal with what's happening right now. Let's deal with injustice that exists instead of trying to say "but we were just as barbaric once". In case you hadn't noticed, we went past that some time ago.
The very next person in this thread wrote, "They are demonstration to the world the reason why each and every muslim needs to be composted." Yeah it sure sounds like we've advanced well beyond that sort of thing. Christians act violently against members of other religions in many parts of the world, and even against members of other sects. Worse yet, look at our invasion of Iraq. Do you think the US people would have stood for it if the government had come up with some pretext to invade Norway and take their oil? The fact of the matter is many christians feel anyone who another religion is wrong and don't think violence is an unacceptable solution. How long has it been since some christian went and killed someone for being homosexual, something forbidden by their religion. I think the last mass killing was what, three days ago.
So lets deal with what is happening right now. The US army is killing people every day in a country we have conquered. We are making a lot of threats about invading another country next door. Both those countries just happen to be predominantly muslim while the invaders are christian. This causes a whole lot of terror, as it is intended to. It is also completely unethical and wrong, just as wrong as burning an embassy.
Christians raping their people?". Who? What "Christians" are you talking about?
Did you miss the prison scandal where service men and women were shown in photographs in the act of sexually abusing inmates? I can assure you it was a much bigger deal for them than it was to you.
You know what makes me puke about your views - I bet that post September 11th, you were calling for mercy against the people of Afghanistan. I bet you didn't say "hey, the people of the US are understandably frightened and angry and if you don't expect some of them to act on that anger then you don't understand people at all."
Your statement is fundamentally flawed. Obviously our invasion of Afghanistan and all the resulting death was wrong. War is almost never the correct action, especially wars of invasion against countries that had not attacked us. But I obviously also sympathized with the reactions of the American populace. They were outraged and angry and if they burned down all the buildings owned by the Bin Laden family I would consider what they did wrong, but also understandable. This is not an inconsistent point of view. Just because I sympathize with and understand the people who attacked the embassies does not make what they are doing right. They have behaved unethically, as I have previously stated several times in this thread.
If military people are raping people in Iraq, they'll be dealt with by the military.
What a great sentiment. We'll invade your country and kill thousands of you because you can't prove you aren't building weapons secretly somewhere (a logical impossibility) and then we find out we were completely wrong. No one is punished for all that needless death. We imprison literally thousands of people (often any male within a certain age bracket in a town) and then sexually abuse them on film, and don't worry we'll take care of it. That is complete hypocrisy. The US decides it has the right to police other countries, and enfor
So to clarify "Death to the infidels" is not a cry to religious genocide, but a cheer for the Jihad basketball team. Thank you for clearing that up for me.
Oh I must have been confused. I missed the news report that told me how Iran had bombed major US cities, invaded, decimated our military, looted our treasury, sold off our nation resources, built ten permanent military bases around the country and build a giant, concrete walled compound in Washington DC from which they are managing the creation of our new government and selling our factories to muslim investors, and are now discussing the invasion of Canada. I wonder how I missed that news report.
We invaded their lands and took over, not the other way around jackass.
Bullshit. One of them attacks military targets. Another of them attacks any target.
Then americans soldiers are all terrorists. We bombed cities and killed thousands of innocent civilians. The US media calls anyone who uses guerilla tactics against the US terrorists, but what do we call our special forces when they sneak into another country and murder a civilian member of their government or blow up research center? I'll tell you what a terrorist is. A terrorist is someone who uses terror as a weapon. That is it, plain and simple and without all this propaganda new-speak. The US military is a terrorist organization by its own admission. Remember using "shock and awe" to make the enemy capitulate? Terrorism.
If you fight like you argue, then I'd have to conclude that you'd go to Russia and start picking off people at random.
I might at that, kill any Russian that had invaded the US. After all, they are invaders, right? That is certainly how many Iraqi feel right now. Can you blame them for killing the foreign businessman who has just been handed control of a large factory by the US who killed a lot of people and took it? Because that has happened a lot, until they all fled back to their respective countries. That is one of the reasons industry is so stagnant there. And what of the US soldiers and politicians that are over there. Are they blameless? They were the ones shooting and dropping bombs and giving orders. And what of the rich westerners who funded the war with their tax dollars and who voted in all the politicians who directed the war on their behalf? Are they innocent too?
There is plenty of blame to go around. But the fact is, the Iraqi have done nothing to the people of the US that is not justified. The US has done a lot to the Iraqi that is justified. And the people of the surrounding countries know that. And all of them, especially in Iran fear that the US will do the same thing to them. Especially because we keep making threats to do so. You might say the Iranians in particular are being terrorized, by US terrorists. And if the people in those countries are reacting badly due to that terror then certainly that is their fault, but the terror is our the US's making.
The real problem being that "extremists" actively work to harm individuals who have done nothing to harm the extremists and pose no direct threat to anyone?
The US military certainly fits that definition. Dropping bombs on cities filled with civilians is certainly actively harming those who have done nothing to them. For that matter, pretty much no one in Iraq did anything to the US at all. We just invaded them "for their own good" and now thousands are dead, they have unreliable electricity and polluted water supplies. No one goes out at night and everyone lives in fear. All the resources and infrastructure has been looted and sold/given to foreign corporations. The treasury has been looted and large debts have been taken out on behalf of the Iraqi people. Basically, life is much, much worse for most people and many are dead. All of this because extremist americans invaded their country without cause.
the members of a rational civil society who should take an absolute and uncompromising stand against extremists who advocate or cause harm to innocents, whether they're American politicians, suicide bombers, racist agitators, or media commentators.
And this is where you start holding people responsible for the actions of others. If a politician orders and attack, is he guilty or are those who actually shoot people, or both? What about those who elected him and funded him with their tax dollars. What about those who just don't care that he did it, or are uninformed and approve of his actions?
Understanding the perspectives of others and empathizing with them should never take precedence over establishing the rule of law and requiring all members of a society to respect the basic human rights of others.
There is no law in international relations and there never really has been. How can you expect a person who just saw their little girl murdered by those who violate basic human rights to still uphold those same rights while fighting to avenge her? The truth is he has no hope to change things and stop his people from being killed and exploited if he "plays by the rules" while the US is pulling every dirty trick.
Choosing to be driven by by emotions and disregarding the rights of others? That's well and good. Let he who is without emotion and fully cognizant of the rights of others decide whether to let you have a warning shot...
Wow, you really don't understand psychology. No one chooses to be driven by emotions. Emotions are a fundamentally deeper level of decision making than reason. Reason can, in most cases, mitigate or override actions that would normally be taken by acting on emotion, unless that emotion is too strong. More importantly the normal human condition is to act based upon emotion, while modifying and/or justifying those actions using reason. A person might decide to believe in a religion because they are emotionally driven by family and circumstance. Then, they use reason to justify their belief.
There are those who apply reason to the fundamentals of their lives, and a number of disciplines of thought, like the scientific method, but they are the exception not the rule. If you want to condemn the majority of our species for being what it is then that is your right, assuming you are not being hypocritical about it and you actually do apply a rational, reasoned method to your entire life.
So here is what I think is important. Given the same situation, most people would act similarly to the way the people of the middle east did. Most of them acted peacefully, but a few were driven by their emotions and lack of understanding to do something rash. I wholly disapprove of what they have done. At the same time, I wholly disapprove of the media characterization and most of the comments I have read here that insist on judging entire cultures and religions based upon the actions of a few. And given how much wrong has been done to them by some individuals that to them represent western culture and western religion I
Nah. Where I work I heard grumblings among the scientists all the time even after the NIH's budget was doubled.
Yeah, doubled then redirected to the military. Four days after Bush was re-elected the major research university down the street announced that the NIH had cut their available grant money in half. Projects were put on ice and a lot of researchers started looking for more work. That includes the Parkinson's disease research my girlfriend is working on, the cancer research, Alzheimer's research, AIDs research, etc., etc. that a lot of my friends were working on. Personally my own work is booming since it helps stop those scary terrorists or something. Are you claiming these researchers had no business being upset that funding for finding cures and treatments for these medical conditions was slashed?
Once again, religion is shown to be what it is - a system of control that leads to evil deeds.
What an interesting statement. Religious, moral, and ethical beliefs are all subjective; as is the entire concept of evil. Religion did not cause this violence, people acting specifically to incite anger by attacking and disrespecting the beliefs of others did, and it was wholly intentional. The same type of behavior could be triggered by nationalist, philosophical, or many other kinds of belief. Anger, as I said, is the instinctual response to remove a threat by destroying it. They were attacked and they responded. It would be the same as if under very stressful conditions, where mathematics were being outlawed and mathematicians burned if someone insisted on yelling in your face "Pi is exactly three, bitch." Maybe you would react calmly, but maybe, under extreme stress and fear you would react violently. We all have beliefs and breaking points.
What I AM saying is that the general, public perception of all Muslims is only harmed when they find out about things like this.
And I'm saying that public perception, that prejudice of judging muslims only as a group is just as wrong as the violence some particular muslims committed.
Ahh yes, lets ridicule the beliefs and religions of others. Obviously then, you have all the answers. Tell me then, what is the nature of reality and thought and the fundamental basis for ethics. Now tell me in simple terms how should all communities co-exist and resolve disputes? There is plenty of real, useful reasoning in islam, just as there is in christianity and buddhism. To claim that a religion is "wrong" and its adherents "stupid" is the pinnacle of hubris.
Furthermore, attacking an embassy is itself a statement that you are not interested in rational negotiation
I think we previously established that the individuals in question were reacting emotionally, rather than with reason.
Don't make assumptions about what I think. You want to know what I think? How's about fucking ASKING me? Don't tell me. I don't respond well to that kind of bullshit.
Fine, but you were responding to what I had written by attacking the concept of understanding the perspectives of others. You're the one who made both moral judgments and assertions that my comments explaining the perspective of others was "the reason we have so much violence." If you do not want to be considered intolerant, show tolerance. If you do not want be seen as unsympathetic to the suffering of others show empathy. All your remarks were attacks on understanding and I for one reject such holier than thou crap. If you can't put yourself in the shoes of another and understand their reasoning and perspective you have business judging their actions, or condemning them.