If you can't differentiate between playing a game and the real world, maybe we shouldn't let let you have a nerf gun either. Obviously if you use that too much you'll be more likely to shoot people for no reason.
What, someone could be a suicide bomber in the lines outside the stadium? Do you really think it wouldn't be not only possible, but fairly easy? Just run as far into the crowd as you can and press the button. Quite honestly, I'm more surprised it hasn't than if it were to happen. But hey, I guess the terrorists prefer a boatload of showmanship.
The problem isn't that it's overkill, it's that it's not really effective. Someone determined to kill Americans could do it, and could do it very effectively. At this point, it seems like we're not outsmarting the terrorists, they just seem a whole lot more incompetant than us.
Except that if the music is a "work for hire" (which under a "technical ammendment" introduced by Mitch Glazier, a sound recording now can be, yay for corrupt lobbying!) it would technicly be under the ownership of the company, and thus have a fixed date (although yeah, if there's another copyright extension act, it's all screwed up, although at that point any validity about copyrights in the eyes of a reasonable person should be gone). Either way, though, I don't see companies bothering to do this, and I don't see the possiblity of a law, given the massive lobbying. However, society will eventually change, so just like photocopiers, p2p will eventually gain overall acceptance, probably about the time that all the teenagers of today become lawmakers.
What about a site like Drudge Report? Or even any blog out there? Sure, they may not be as automated as Google, but will the courts see it that way? I hardly see it as an issue of copyright if a site not only cites a source, but links back to get the whole story. Besides, this is the industry that thrives on AP and Reuters stories to fill most of it's content. Well, that and the random reporters that steal from Wikipedia: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/15/151321 6
So? That doesn't absolve either party at any stage of the game. It's not ok to do something just because the other guy might, it's wrong for both. Maybe if the average Joe would stop blinding defending his own party's wrongdoings by saying "they'd do the same" we could actually people within each of the individual parties cleaning up the wrongdoings, rather than resorting to the talking head partisan hacks who only distract people from the mounting piles of crap.
Yeah, but what are the feds gonna do if the website is hosted in Russia? Sure, they could try to put pressure on Russia, but I doubt that they're gonna be quick to act.
Do we really need an atomic bomb x10? If that's all we can think to do with the new knowlege we might gain, is that really an improvement? Why must the immidiate first application of technology always seem to be better and better ways to kill people and break stuff? If that's the first thing we make with our exporations into new science, than we are no more civilized than out cavemen ancestors.
However, it's not that uncommon for judges to cite precident from other districts (provided it's on a case that's not some hot button issue, i.e. anything abortion). The judges may not be beholden to it, but a reasonable judge would take it into consideration.
Really, there's a clear difference between text and video? Last time I checked, porn statutes applied to text-based sex stories just as much as it did to actual photos or video. I can sure as hell tell you that if you had a descriptive written account of Anne and Bob having sex and then you showed it to a minor that they could arrest and convict you on the exact same charges as if you showed a video.
Re:Why not add a "material harmful for minors"?
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Games Are Porn in Utah
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Do you have any idea how much violence there is in the Bible? I don't think even GTA showed genocide of entire races, a la the Midianites. Sure, it's a quite a stretch to ban the Bible (well, that and a violation of the first ammendment), but is it any more of a stretch than to ban a video game? What, just because one has thousands of years of entrenchment it should be given a pass?
I don't think it's right for the government to draw that line, in either case. Besides, aren't there a lot more important issues to deal with?
Really? You think people would bother waiting days to download something instead of drive down to the local Wal-Mart or Best Buy and plop down $10 for a game that they can expect quality from? Or heck, take out the driving to the store, and just have a direct download (ala Steam, minus the technical issues). I don't know about you, but a few bucks and instant gratification with a good game vs waiting days or weeks, even if it's free, just seems like a no brainer. However, $60 for one semi-decent game that I'm done with in a week just doesn't seem reasonable.
Being in public school, I can tell you that most classes that aren't AP generally don't do much. True, some teachers will care more than others, but most teachers don't, and thus not much is really learned. I've found that the best way to get someone to learn is to try to find something that interests them and build on that. I understand that it's impossible to please everyone, but I think that kids will learn more from being excited to learn. I can't tell you how much I've despised some of my classes before, but I can tell you that I didn't learn all that much from them. Likewise, I've had some great teachers for some classes that actually made it fun to learn, and it really does help. However, I think that the best situation is to have your kid find something they want to learn about outside of school, and then have them learn about it. The best teaching is usually that which is self done.
You are wrong. Unless the student is wearing clothing that is disruptive to the learning process, than there's nothing the school can do. I'd hardly see "Jesus saves" as disruptive, and I'm an atheist. Likewise, a pentacle, the Wiccan symbol, can be displayed, and it would be unconstitutional to ban it. Even if there's a distruption, it has nothing to do with the symbol, it has to do with the ignorance and intolerance of the individuals who don't like it. Would a pentagram be legal? I'd wager a guess that it is, since likewise, the symbol itself doesn't do anything, and just because some people may not like it, it doesn't mean that the school can trample on the first ammendment. Would it fly in court? Well, the south probably wouldn't see a problem with banning the pentagram, however the north would. Would the Supreme Court? Well, given the way it looks like it's going to go, it might be a sad time.
The only people in school that are prohibited from displaying religious clothing are teachers and staff, under the basis that they are acting as reprisentatives of the state, and thus cannot diplay their faith while working. This, however, doesn't prevent them from wearing a religious necklace, so long as it's tucked into their shirt.
This is all fairly firm case law, all based in the first ammendment.
No one has said that students can't pray to themselves, and it would be an obvious violation of the first ammendment if they couldn't. That's not to say that they can be disruptive of class and pray loudly, nor can they bully other kids into praying. However, a kid or a group of kids who feel like getting together on their own time can't be regulated to stop prayer.
Beyond that, organized Bible study groups can't be denied a right to form unless the school bans all other clubs. Read about the Feberal Equal Access Act: http://www.religioustolerance.org/equ_acce.htm . Schools can't prevent kids from forming a Christian group, a Muslim group, a Hindu group, a Wicca group, or an Atheist group, all for the same reason they couldn't prevent kids from forming a stamp or a chess club.
Divorce rates are higher than 50%. Would you like another? I only know that one off the top of my head.
Hmm, that's odd, because polls indicate the Born Again Christian Moraralist types are the same, or even more likely to divorce than even agnostics and atheists. Funny, eh, those gawdless, moraless heathens with their relatively secure marriages?
Likewise, Nevada, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama (your home state!) and Oklahoma have the 5 highest divorce rates. Coincidentally, they're also conservative hotbeds, steaming with "morals" and "family values".
Likewise, there were 9 states that averaged 83% of the national average. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont. Hmm, blue states, the type that aren't run by the party that wants to shut down porn.
Yes, that is a generalization. I constantly bring up morals and values, and I think they're a big deal. But I'm far from a Bible thumper.
Then from whence do you get your objection to porn, your feeling that morals are decaying, and your support of marriages despite neither party wanting to continue?
All I said was that misspelling some daily use words but correctly spelling porno terminology implies you have more porn knowledge than common sense.
Or perhaps that I had just looked up an article on the matter?
Please, if you're going to attempt to speak for me, don't dangle participles. That should be "I don't trust any source with which I disagree."
Any more grammar tips? They're certainly a great boon to your case, what with pointing out things that aren't that uncommon to use. Alas and alack, mayhaps we should all return to ye Olde English.
And actually, that quote would apply more to those evil liberals of whom I've spoken than I.
Good thing for me I'm not a lockstep liberal, or much of a liberal at all beyond wanting freedom.
You know, those that think Congress is a plantation.
I live in New York, you insensitive clod! Seriously though, Clinton is a power hungry whore. I don't like her, and I've never voted for her, and unless the Republicans come up with another fundamentalist big government ultraconservative, I won't vote for her in '08. Then again, if that happens, I'll probably vote libertarian anyway.
I'm gonna go pray to God she dies before being able to run for President now.
Well then, why bother reasoning? If you're going to put a blanket "I don't trust any source which I don't agree with", there's no point arguing.
2. If you think "bestiality, urination, defecation, and S&M" is normal then you are not normal. It's not about "community standards". It's about national moral standards.
I don't recall having said that bestiality, urination, defecation or S&M were normal, just that applying community standards, or for that matter, any "moral standard" to a work is stupid and are increasingly irrelevent in the age we live in. No one is forcing you to visit porn websites. It's a choice that you make. In the case of popups, you can easily get a browser that blocks them, and it's probably spyware on your computer anyway, which can also be cleaned up. For the children, you can easily install software that blocks adult sites. There's no reason to complain at all about porn that you don't like, other than you wanting to impose your morals on everyone else. You know what? Too damn bad. We don't live in a tyranny of the majority.
Our nation is in a moral decline, and that decline is hurting us individually and as a whole severely.
We're in a moral decline? Crime rates are down 33% compared to the days of Reagan, where the only people who had internet porn were the few people geeky enough to post on Usenet. So what if people aren't afraid to admit that they're gay, or that women are taking charge of their bodies more and more? It's not hurting anyone, and there's not a damn statistic out there that will prove your point.
You don't have to be a bible thumper to have morals. And being one doesn't mean you have them either.
Hmm, last time I checked, there weren't too many atheists who were saying "You can't do X in the privacy of your own home because I think it's wrong." Generally, it only seems like the Bible thumping type are the ones who constantly bring up morals and values as hotbutton issues. Is every Christian that way? No. Just the fundamentalists who think that there should be daily Bible reading in schools and the Ten Commandments in every government building.
3. Please learn to spell these words correctly when attempting to appear intelligent: necessary, specifically, warrant, and experiences. Misspelling those but getting "bestiality, urination, defecation" all correct leads me to assume you're a very sick minded individual.
Yes, obviously a few spelling mistakes renders my entire arguement invalid. I shall now bow down to you, since you have, I'm sure, never made a spelling mistake in anything you have ever written.
Against whom has abuse been proven? Who has successfully won a trial against the government yet? Oh, that's right, no one. There have been a few suits putting the "burden of proof" on the government to prove they haven't tapped the plantifs. Those suits have been filed, not won. I won't call you a terrorist supporter. Just uninformed.
So in other words, the program of obtaining wiretaps without going through the courts, even the FISA courts which were specificly set up for the type of wiretaps that would be needed against terrorists and which allow warrents 72 hours after the fact, the program which Bush doesn't deny and in fact claims is nessicary for the security of our nation, even though the FBI has been getting a steady stream of dead ends (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/politics/17spy. html), hasn't been shown in a court of law to be abusive, so it must be fine and dandy? I call bullshit on you.
And if you can't understand why it's important to at least try and protect children, then I don't know what to say. If your porn is that important to you... That's just sad.
I don't know about your experiances, but it's pretty rare for kids to come across porn without having searched for it. Aside from something like whitehouse.com from years ago, most porn sites are pretty obvious about what they are. I don't really think that it's nessicary for the DoJ and the FBI to list the anti-obscenity initiative as one of it's "top priorities". We haven't caught Osama, yet we still manage to have the time to set up a division of the FBI to look into and try to shut down websites that portray adults, specificly targeting bestiality, urination, defecation, and S&M just because they seem easy to hit due to past cases, and they're doing this with the "community standards" crap. Just because Fundytown, TX doesn't like porn, it shouldn't affect Sanenrational, Ohio.
Beyond that, I seriously doubt that a normal teenager that gets their hands on porn is suddenly going to become a serial rapist, pedophile, blind, hairy palmed pervert. I'd bet that most boys, and probably quite a few girls get their hands on porn. Guess what, they turn into normal adults. Sure, they may not be afraid of their bodies, and they may want premarital sex in a non-missionary style position, the horror! Just because you or our president or the religious fundamentalists in our country might not like porn, it doesn't mean that they should be able to shut it down while screaming "won't somebody please think of the children?!?" It's not about children for Bush. It's about imposing his Bible thumping morals on the rest of us.
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If you can't differentiate between playing a game and the real world, maybe we shouldn't let let you have a nerf gun either. Obviously if you use that too much you'll be more likely to shoot people for no reason.
Yeah, that makes sense. *rolls eyes*
What, someone could be a suicide bomber in the lines outside the stadium? Do you really think it wouldn't be not only possible, but fairly easy? Just run as far into the crowd as you can and press the button. Quite honestly, I'm more surprised it hasn't than if it were to happen. But hey, I guess the terrorists prefer a boatload of showmanship.
The problem isn't that it's overkill, it's that it's not really effective. Someone determined to kill Americans could do it, and could do it very effectively. At this point, it seems like we're not outsmarting the terrorists, they just seem a whole lot more incompetant than us.
Except that if the music is a "work for hire" (which under a "technical ammendment" introduced by Mitch Glazier, a sound recording now can be, yay for corrupt lobbying!) it would technicly be under the ownership of the company, and thus have a fixed date (although yeah, if there's another copyright extension act, it's all screwed up, although at that point any validity about copyrights in the eyes of a reasonable person should be gone). Either way, though, I don't see companies bothering to do this, and I don't see the possiblity of a law, given the massive lobbying. However, society will eventually change, so just like photocopiers, p2p will eventually gain overall acceptance, probably about the time that all the teenagers of today become lawmakers.
What about a site like Drudge Report? Or even any blog out there? Sure, they may not be as automated as Google, but will the courts see it that way? I hardly see it as an issue of copyright if a site not only cites a source, but links back to get the whole story. Besides, this is the industry that thrives on AP and Reuters stories to fill most of it's content. Well, that and the random reporters that steal from Wikipedia: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/15/151321 6
So? That doesn't absolve either party at any stage of the game. It's not ok to do something just because the other guy might, it's wrong for both. Maybe if the average Joe would stop blinding defending his own party's wrongdoings by saying "they'd do the same" we could actually people within each of the individual parties cleaning up the wrongdoings, rather than resorting to the talking head partisan hacks who only distract people from the mounting piles of crap.
So it's just like the rest of America!
Yeah, but what are the feds gonna do if the website is hosted in Russia? Sure, they could try to put pressure on Russia, but I doubt that they're gonna be quick to act.
Do we really need an atomic bomb x10? If that's all we can think to do with the new knowlege we might gain, is that really an improvement? Why must the immidiate first application of technology always seem to be better and better ways to kill people and break stuff? If that's the first thing we make with our exporations into new science, than we are no more civilized than out cavemen ancestors.
How long till we get posts from the GNAA trolls about this?
Sir, if I subscribe to your newsletter, would I get a complimentary tinfoil hat and some kool-aid?
However, it's not that uncommon for judges to cite precident from other districts (provided it's on a case that's not some hot button issue, i.e. anything abortion). The judges may not be beholden to it, but a reasonable judge would take it into consideration.
My point was that for the purpose of showing and distributing porn to minors, it doesn't matter that much whether it was in text or visual form.
Really, there's a clear difference between text and video? Last time I checked, porn statutes applied to text-based sex stories just as much as it did to actual photos or video. I can sure as hell tell you that if you had a descriptive written account of Anne and Bob having sex and then you showed it to a minor that they could arrest and convict you on the exact same charges as if you showed a video.
Do you have any idea how much violence there is in the Bible? I don't think even GTA showed genocide of entire races, a la the Midianites. Sure, it's a quite a stretch to ban the Bible (well, that and a violation of the first ammendment), but is it any more of a stretch than to ban a video game? What, just because one has thousands of years of entrenchment it should be given a pass?
I don't think it's right for the government to draw that line, in either case. Besides, aren't there a lot more important issues to deal with?
Seriously, what about Spore? Ok, maybe there's a tenuous connection to Sim Life, but seriously, Spore is gonna be a whole new thing.
The article doesn't mention a single PC game. Why talk about sequels vs original games without at least mentioning computer games?
Really? You think people would bother waiting days to download something instead of drive down to the local Wal-Mart or Best Buy and plop down $10 for a game that they can expect quality from? Or heck, take out the driving to the store, and just have a direct download (ala Steam, minus the technical issues). I don't know about you, but a few bucks and instant gratification with a good game vs waiting days or weeks, even if it's free, just seems like a no brainer. However, $60 for one semi-decent game that I'm done with in a week just doesn't seem reasonable.
Being in public school, I can tell you that most classes that aren't AP generally don't do much. True, some teachers will care more than others, but most teachers don't, and thus not much is really learned. I've found that the best way to get someone to learn is to try to find something that interests them and build on that. I understand that it's impossible to please everyone, but I think that kids will learn more from being excited to learn. I can't tell you how much I've despised some of my classes before, but I can tell you that I didn't learn all that much from them. Likewise, I've had some great teachers for some classes that actually made it fun to learn, and it really does help. However, I think that the best situation is to have your kid find something they want to learn about outside of school, and then have them learn about it. The best teaching is usually that which is self done.
You are wrong. Unless the student is wearing clothing that is disruptive to the learning process, than there's nothing the school can do. I'd hardly see "Jesus saves" as disruptive, and I'm an atheist. Likewise, a pentacle, the Wiccan symbol, can be displayed, and it would be unconstitutional to ban it. Even if there's a distruption, it has nothing to do with the symbol, it has to do with the ignorance and intolerance of the individuals who don't like it. Would a pentagram be legal? I'd wager a guess that it is, since likewise, the symbol itself doesn't do anything, and just because some people may not like it, it doesn't mean that the school can trample on the first ammendment. Would it fly in court? Well, the south probably wouldn't see a problem with banning the pentagram, however the north would. Would the Supreme Court? Well, given the way it looks like it's going to go, it might be a sad time.
The only people in school that are prohibited from displaying religious clothing are teachers and staff, under the basis that they are acting as reprisentatives of the state, and thus cannot diplay their faith while working. This, however, doesn't prevent them from wearing a religious necklace, so long as it's tucked into their shirt.
This is all fairly firm case law, all based in the first ammendment.
No one has said that students can't pray to themselves, and it would be an obvious violation of the first ammendment if they couldn't. That's not to say that they can be disruptive of class and pray loudly, nor can they bully other kids into praying. However, a kid or a group of kids who feel like getting together on their own time can't be regulated to stop prayer. Beyond that, organized Bible study groups can't be denied a right to form unless the school bans all other clubs. Read about the Feberal Equal Access Act: http://www.religioustolerance.org/equ_acce.htm . Schools can't prevent kids from forming a Christian group, a Muslim group, a Hindu group, a Wicca group, or an Atheist group, all for the same reason they couldn't prevent kids from forming a stamp or a chess club.
And imagine if they moved to Canada, they could be billinares!
Obviously the story is biased.
____________________
(It's a joke for those who are slow)
The mess that real dog leaves in the corner?
Hmm, that's odd, because polls indicate the Born Again Christian Moraralist types are the same, or even more likely to divorce than even agnostics and atheists. Funny, eh, those gawdless, moraless heathens with their relatively secure marriages?
Likewise, Nevada, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama (your home state!) and Oklahoma have the 5 highest divorce rates. Coincidentally, they're also conservative hotbeds, steaming with "morals" and "family values".
Likewise, there were 9 states that averaged 83% of the national average. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont. Hmm, blue states, the type that aren't run by the party that wants to shut down porn.
Then from whence do you get your objection to porn, your feeling that morals are decaying, and your support of marriages despite neither party wanting to continue?
Or perhaps that I had just looked up an article on the matter?
Any more grammar tips? They're certainly a great boon to your case, what with pointing out things that aren't that uncommon to use. Alas and alack, mayhaps we should all return to ye Olde English.
Good thing for me I'm not a lockstep liberal, or much of a liberal at all beyond wanting freedom.
I live in New York, you insensitive clod! Seriously though, Clinton is a power hungry whore. I don't like her, and I've never voted for her, and unless the Republicans come up with another fundamentalist big government ultraconservative, I won't vote for her in '08. Then again, if that happens, I'll probably vote libertarian anyway.
What a Christian thing to do.
Well then, why bother reasoning? If you're going to put a blanket "I don't trust any source which I don't agree with", there's no point arguing.
I don't recall having said that bestiality, urination, defecation or S&M were normal, just that applying community standards, or for that matter, any "moral standard" to a work is stupid and are increasingly irrelevent in the age we live in. No one is forcing you to visit porn websites. It's a choice that you make. In the case of popups, you can easily get a browser that blocks them, and it's probably spyware on your computer anyway, which can also be cleaned up. For the children, you can easily install software that blocks adult sites. There's no reason to complain at all about porn that you don't like, other than you wanting to impose your morals on everyone else. You know what? Too damn bad. We don't live in a tyranny of the majority.
We're in a moral decline? Crime rates are down 33% compared to the days of Reagan, where the only people who had internet porn were the few people geeky enough to post on Usenet. So what if people aren't afraid to admit that they're gay, or that women are taking charge of their bodies more and more? It's not hurting anyone, and there's not a damn statistic out there that will prove your point.
Hmm, last time I checked, there weren't too many atheists who were saying "You can't do X in the privacy of your own home because I think it's wrong." Generally, it only seems like the Bible thumping type are the ones who constantly bring up morals and values as hotbutton issues. Is every Christian that way? No. Just the fundamentalists who think that there should be daily Bible reading in schools and the Ten Commandments in every government building.
Yes, obviously a few spelling mistakes renders my entire arguement invalid. I shall now bow down to you, since you have, I'm sure, never made a spelling mistake in anything you have ever written.
So in other words, the program of obtaining wiretaps without going through the courts, even the FISA courts which were specificly set up for the type of wiretaps that would be needed against terrorists and which allow warrents 72 hours after the fact, the program which Bush doesn't deny and in fact claims is nessicary for the security of our nation, even though the FBI has been getting a steady stream of dead ends (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/politics/17spy
I don't know about your experiances, but it's pretty rare for kids to come across porn without having searched for it. Aside from something like whitehouse.com from years ago, most porn sites are pretty obvious about what they are. I don't really think that it's nessicary for the DoJ and the FBI to list the anti-obscenity initiative as one of it's "top priorities". We haven't caught Osama, yet we still manage to have the time to set up a division of the FBI to look into and try to shut down websites that portray adults, specificly targeting bestiality, urination, defecation, and S&M just because they seem easy to hit due to past cases, and they're doing this with the "community standards" crap. Just because Fundytown, TX doesn't like porn, it shouldn't affect Sanenrational, Ohio.
Beyond that, I seriously doubt that a normal teenager that gets their hands on porn is suddenly going to become a serial rapist, pedophile, blind, hairy palmed pervert. I'd bet that most boys, and probably quite a few girls get their hands on porn. Guess what, they turn into normal adults. Sure, they may not be afraid of their bodies, and they may want premarital sex in a non-missionary style position, the horror! Just because you or our president or the religious fundamentalists in our country might not like porn, it doesn't mean that they should be able to shut it down while screaming "won't somebody please think of the children?!?" It's not about children for Bush. It's about imposing his Bible thumping morals on the rest of us.