Lincoln is the worst President the United States ever had. He single-handedly destroyed the Constitution and created the conditions where a cretin like Bush could act like a monarch.
I disagree. I'd have to say that Reagan was worse than either. Look at the actual legacy of his administration: Terrorism, IslamoFascism, American Christofascism, US run torture schools, CIA involvement in the international cocaine trade, the destruction of the last scraps of integrity in the media ("crack baby" made up panics and the like). People like to credit him for the fall of the USSR, but that's nonsense. All he did was ensure that instead of any possibility of a smooth transition that their economy would collapse leading directly to massive proliferation of nuclear materials and experts to the highest bidder.
Reagan's legacy contributed far more to Bush's ability to freely wipe his ass with every decent value this country ever had than Lincoln's did.
Read Polybius. There's a discussion in his history of the Punic Wars designed to explain to Greeks why the Roman Republic was superior to Greek democracies or oligarchies because of its balance of powers.
I assume you mean his, "The Rise of the Roman Empire" (which oddly enough was written while Rome was still a republic.) One of the most interesting things I've done was to read this immediately followed by The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
In "The Rise", Publius compares Rome to both Sparta and Carthage. Rome beat Sparta because in Sparta it was illegal for any man to own more than any other. If a man came to amass much wealth or land, it was divided up. This put a huge damper on their ability to become any sort of world power since trade was more or less a no go, and motivation wasn't there.
Carthage, on the other hand lost out becasue they were the opposite extreme. There was pretty much nothing you could do in Carthage that was considered wrong provided it was profitable. Public officials were bribable, and their prices were even posted publically.
In Rome, if any public official was caught taking bribes, they were killed. Some things just weren't done regardless of the profit potential since their society believed in some sort of morals. Needless to say, the early Roman Republic was far less corrupt than Carthage.
So Rome in the repbulic, did a good job of heading down the middle ground between these 2 extremes. This is much Like the US was up until sometime around WW2.
Then in Gibbon's "Decline", we see in the later years how Rome basically went the way of Carthage and was corrupted beyond repair due to their pure greed and lust for power without any redeeming moral virtues.
This is where America is now, given the sole driving force behind our government is Profit above all, that they are entirely bribable and corrupt, and the people claiming to stand for moral values are the ones most supporting the destruction of any moral system in the name of profit.
Why do you think they haven't already tried impeachment? Because there's no evidence
I'm sorry, but that is laughable naive.
He hasn't been impeached due to one and only one simple fact. His party runs congress. The members of his party are loyal to that party above everything else. That is the only reason Clinton was impeached, and the only reason Bush has not been impeached, jailed and executed for multiple acts of treason.
The evidence is all there, what is lacking is any integrity in the Republican party as is made absolutely clear by the raft of ethics violations among the leadership. Pretending it's a lack of evidence at this point in the game is so patently absurd as to defy rational thought.
But the point was, sure the fundies in Kansas want to teach their kids that way but they aren't hellbent on forcing it on everyone in the rest of the country.
Ummmm....Dude...... The only reason most people have even heard of ID is that the fundies are, in fact, hellbent on doing exactly that. You know the recent court cases and the like? Why do you think they are so hellbent on stacking the Supreme Court with extremists that they pray to thank god for killing non-extremist SC Justices?!?
The heathen left on the other hand love to impose their most crackpot ideas as 'revealed truth' nationwide. And anyone who disagrees with them is unworthy to debate, instantly dismissed as an ignorant savage, bigot or some other convienent label.
Like what, for example? That seems to be the script of every single right wing "news" show. at least as far back as Wally George.
What happenned to faith was that it was constantly abused throughout all of human history to fuck over the masses for the benefit of the elite. Some people got together, came up with the idea that maybe common sense and reason would lead to a better world. This was known as the Enlightenment. Out of this great period of human history came one overtowering achievement: The birth of a nation dedicated to these principles; for the first time in history a nation whose government was completely seperated from the evil corrupter that is "faith".
This worked well for a time until recently these evil people crawled out of their lairs where they had been living off of the welfare they were provided by the decent rational people of the nation via subsidies on their farms, their electricity, their phones, and on basically everything that allows them to live a modern life. They were sick and tired of other people being able to decide for themselves what to believe, who and how to love. They were utterly sickened by the ideas that led to the founding of this country, like "All men are created equal". They were so full of hatred for anybody who didn't blindly believe as they did that they embarked upon a campaign to destroy freedom and bring back theocracy even though anybody who isn't afraid of knowledge knows that that only leads to corrupt religion and oppressive government.
So to answer your question, nothing happened to faith. It's doing what it has always done.
The fundies in Kansas don't want their kids taught Evolution, but they aren't campaigning to force Boston's public schools to teach from the Book of Genesis.
Wow, what color is the air on your planet?
The entire reason that the whole ID movement exists is so the fundies can shove Genesis into science classrooms. You obviously have no idea how long this has been going on, no idea who the people are behind the movement, and no idea whatsoever those people have stated flat out that they formed the movement to accomplish.
Sorry, but you're either dumber than a bag of rocks or a troll. Which is it out of curiosity?
It seems to me that atheists have abundantly more faith than any believer. I believe it takes more faith to believe that there is no God.
No offense, but all that shows is that you have no idea what you're talking about. It isn't a question of believing that there is no god, it's not believing that there is a god. One is a belief, like yours. The other is the lack of a belief. It doesn't take any faith to look at the various contradictory, and often violently aggressive faiths out there spouting nonsense about how *their* god is all about love and so they must go murder the others who think the exact same thing, and chuckle a bit before concluding that regardless of anything else, none of those people have a reasonable believable idea about the subject. All it takes is an open mind and some common sense.
So your religion makes you happy. Great, good for you. I don't share your religion because I have no need of one. I'm quite content knowing that there are things I don't know. That isn't in any way even remotely similar to a faith. So please, in future, do not accuse people of such ridiculous things when a half second of thought could have proven to you that is is utter twaddle.
it has to do with the fact that the "Politico-Legal-Media Complex" (as opposed to the "industrial military complex") thrives on keeping people in a "State of Fear".
There's no "opposition" there.
Those are the same exact group. The military industrial complex includes big media, government, communications companies and the like.
What we have now, I'm not sure has a name or parallel in history. What we have now is a corrupt corporate-despot partnership that has no name.
Sure it does. It's called Fascism.
People seem to forget that most of the American elite were tremendous supporters of Hitler prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. Heck, many of them, including our current president's grandfather continued treasonously trading with them throughout the war.
Once they were dragged into the war by the evil leftists, they never forgave them, hence the rabid hatred of anything even remotely to the left of the extreme right.
Once the war was over, they continued right on pushing an extreme fascist agenda.
Once the United States government starts firing on protestors and dissolves the Senate and House (leaving the states with no representation), I'll agree with your analogy.
Yes, because cowardly policies of appeasment worked so well against totalitarianism last century. Much better to bury your head in the sand so long as there is something worse in history left to point to.
built a Raid 5 box with 900GB of usable space using a 3Ware card and 300GB HD's.
Funny, that's exactly what I just built for our backup server at work. I also put a 2 external port sata card with 2 300G drives in external enclosures to pull offsite backups;-)
Better yet, bust out his Real and Complex Analysis. Principles is rightfully called "Baby Rudin."
OK, you made me go here. In a deep dark cupboard I have a copy of Gert Pedersen's Analysis NOW! which we used for graduate Real Analysis. That guy makes Rudin look verbose;-)
I think our differences come down to this:... Same bunch of people, different appellations and also connotations.
Certainly. I have nothing against Christians defined as those who follow Jesus's teachings. Those that can't be defined that way yet still call themselves such seem to be on the rise.
I think its the same bunch of people we are both looking at; or folk very like them.
Agreed.
I noticed you linked to an LDS site earlier. I have a couple issues with some church policies, but on the whole (generalizations being what they are and all) given my experiences it's tough to tough to think of a genuinely nicer group of people.
My wife's from England, but her immediate family all live in North America now. Her parents lived in Sandy, UT (right outside Salt Lake) for some years. We were visiting, and as we were all leaving to go out for dinner, I asked if they'd locked the door. They just laughed at me;-). Not that the one implies the other or anything, but it was funny, so...
Those other books must be cheap, because I spent like $50.00 on that puppy *used*.
I would donate it to my local library if I didn't have so much fun scaring friends with it late night when we're all drunk reminiscing about difficult college classes.
Seriously, that book will win you every "my classes were so hard" discussion you ever get into.
When I tell a potential employer I know Galois theory, he stares at me for a few seconds, and then asks me "Do you know how to use Excel?". To which I reply that I prefer Mathemathica and rarely touch Microsoft products. Then the interview is over.
If you *really* got Galois theory you would have challenged his dumb ass to a duel...or slept with his wife...however that story went. I only learned enough Galois theory to prove the Greeks wasted a lot of our time with bogus constructions;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Lincoln is the worst President the United States ever had. He single-handedly destroyed the Constitution and created the conditions where a cretin like Bush could act like a monarch.
I disagree. I'd have to say that Reagan was worse than either.
Look at the actual legacy of his administration:
Terrorism, IslamoFascism, American Christofascism, US run torture schools, CIA involvement in the international cocaine trade, the destruction of the last scraps of integrity in the media ("crack baby" made up panics and the like). People like to credit him for the fall of the USSR, but that's nonsense. All he did was ensure that instead of any possibility of a smooth transition that their economy would collapse leading directly to massive proliferation of nuclear materials and experts to the highest bidder.
Reagan's legacy contributed far more to Bush's ability to freely wipe his ass with every decent value this country ever had than Lincoln's did.
Read Polybius. There's a discussion in his history of the Punic Wars designed to explain to Greeks why the Roman Republic was superior to Greek democracies or oligarchies because of its balance of powers.
I assume you mean his, "The Rise of the Roman Empire" (which oddly enough was written while Rome was still a republic.)
One of the most interesting things I've done was to read this immediately followed by The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
In "The Rise", Publius compares Rome to both Sparta and Carthage.
Rome beat Sparta because in Sparta it was illegal for any man to own more than any other. If a man came to amass much wealth or land, it was divided up. This put a huge damper on their ability to become any sort of world power since trade was more or less a no go, and motivation wasn't there.
Carthage, on the other hand lost out becasue they were the opposite extreme.
There was pretty much nothing you could do in Carthage that was considered wrong provided it was profitable. Public officials were bribable, and their prices were even posted publically.
In Rome, if any public official was caught taking bribes, they were killed. Some things just weren't done regardless of the profit potential since their society believed in some sort of morals.
Needless to say, the early Roman Republic was far less corrupt than Carthage.
So Rome in the repbulic, did a good job of heading down the middle ground between these 2 extremes.
This is much Like the US was up until sometime around WW2.
Then in Gibbon's "Decline", we see in the later years how Rome basically went the way of Carthage and was corrupted beyond repair due to their pure greed and lust for power without any redeeming moral virtues.
This is where America is now, given the sole driving force behind our government is Profit above all, that they are entirely bribable and corrupt, and the people claiming to stand for moral values are the ones most supporting the destruction of any moral system in the name of profit.
Why do you think they haven't already tried impeachment? Because there's no evidence
I'm sorry, but that is laughable naive.
He hasn't been impeached due to one and only one simple fact. His party runs congress. The members of his party are loyal to that party above everything else.
That is the only reason Clinton was impeached, and the only reason Bush has not been impeached, jailed and executed for multiple acts of treason.
The evidence is all there, what is lacking is any integrity in the Republican party as is made absolutely clear by the raft of ethics violations among the leadership.
Pretending it's a lack of evidence at this point in the game is so patently absurd as to defy rational thought.
But the point was, sure the fundies in Kansas want to teach their kids that way but they aren't hellbent on forcing it on everyone in the rest of the country.
Ummmm....Dude......
The only reason most people have even heard of ID is that the fundies are, in fact, hellbent on doing exactly that.
You know the recent court cases and the like?
Why do you think they are so hellbent on stacking the Supreme Court with extremists that they pray to thank god for killing non-extremist SC Justices?!?
The heathen left on the other hand love to impose their most crackpot ideas as 'revealed truth' nationwide. And anyone who disagrees with them is unworthy to debate, instantly dismissed as an ignorant savage, bigot or some other convienent label.
Like what, for example? That seems to be the script of every single right wing "news" show. at least as far back as Wally George.
What happened to faith in this world today?
What happenned to faith was that it was constantly abused throughout all of human history to fuck over the masses for the benefit of the elite.
Some people got together, came up with the idea that maybe common sense and reason would lead to a better world. This was known as the Enlightenment.
Out of this great period of human history came one overtowering achievement:
The birth of a nation dedicated to these principles; for the first time in history a nation whose government was completely seperated from the evil corrupter that is "faith".
This worked well for a time until recently these evil people crawled out of their lairs where they had been living off of the welfare they were provided by the decent rational people of the nation via subsidies on their farms, their electricity, their phones, and on basically everything that allows them to live a modern life.
They were sick and tired of other people being able to decide for themselves what to believe, who and how to love. They were utterly sickened by the ideas that led to the founding of this country, like "All men are created equal". They were so full of hatred for anybody who didn't blindly believe as they did that they embarked upon a campaign to destroy freedom and bring back theocracy even though anybody who isn't afraid of knowledge knows that that only leads to corrupt religion and oppressive government.
So to answer your question, nothing happened to faith. It's doing what it has always done.
The fundies in Kansas don't want their kids taught Evolution, but they aren't campaigning to force Boston's public schools to teach from the Book of Genesis.
Wow, what color is the air on your planet?
The entire reason that the whole ID movement exists is so the fundies can shove Genesis into science classrooms. You obviously have no idea how long this has been going on, no idea who the people are behind the movement, and no idea whatsoever those people have stated flat out that they formed the movement to accomplish.
Sorry, but you're either dumber than a bag of rocks or a troll.
Which is it out of curiosity?
The church in the UK is far more interested in issues like social justice, and Africa than it is in creationism.
That's because they are actually Christians unlike the American Taliban.
It seems to me that atheists have abundantly more faith than any believer. I believe it takes more faith to believe that there is no God.
No offense, but all that shows is that you have no idea what you're talking about.
It isn't a question of believing that there is no god, it's not believing that there is a god.
One is a belief, like yours.
The other is the lack of a belief. It doesn't take any faith to look at the various contradictory, and often violently aggressive faiths out there spouting nonsense about how *their* god is all about love and so they must go murder the others who think the exact same thing, and chuckle a bit before concluding that regardless of anything else, none of those people have a reasonable believable idea about the subject. All it takes is an open mind and some common sense.
So your religion makes you happy. Great, good for you.
I don't share your religion because I have no need of one. I'm quite content knowing that there are things I don't know. That isn't in any way even remotely similar to a faith. So please, in future, do not accuse people of such ridiculous things when a half second of thought could have proven to you that is is utter twaddle.
Thanks.
it has to do with the fact that the "Politico-Legal-Media Complex" (as opposed to the "industrial military complex") thrives on keeping people in a "State of Fear".
There's no "opposition" there.
Those are the same exact group. The military industrial complex includes big media, government, communications companies and the like.
GE owns NBC etc. etc. etc.
Why do I have to configure a TV card and add channel listings to even use this program again?
You don't. Then it really is that easy.
USE="frontend-only" emerge mythtv mythvideo mythmusic mythweather etc. etc.etc.
I have one backend with every other computer in the house as a frontend.
It works really well, I haven't tried Freevo though.
Yeah, I'm Canadian... wanna fight about it?
;-)
Don't you mean, "wanna fight aboot it?"
TLKNABOOT?!?
That ain't English, it's Canadian
What we have now, I'm not sure has a name or parallel in history. What we have now is a corrupt corporate-despot partnership that has no name.
Sure it does.
It's called Fascism.
People seem to forget that most of the American elite were tremendous supporters of Hitler prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.
Heck, many of them, including our current president's grandfather continued treasonously trading with them throughout the war.
Once they were dragged into the war by the evil leftists, they never forgave them, hence the rabid hatred of anything even remotely to the left of the extreme right.
Once the war was over, they continued right on pushing an extreme fascist agenda.
That's where we are today.
Once the United States government starts firing on protestors and dissolves the Senate and House (leaving the states with no representation), I'll agree with your analogy.
Yes, because cowardly policies of appeasment worked so well against totalitarianism last century.
Much better to bury your head in the sand so long as there is something worse in history left to point to.
Stay away from it. Support LSI, they're more friendly to the free software community!
Not sure why you'd say that. The drivers are in the kernel tree and 3ware includes Linux drivers on the CD.
built a Raid 5 box with 900GB of usable space using a 3Ware card and 300GB HD's.
;-)
Funny, that's exactly what I just built for our backup server at work.
I also put a 2 external port sata card with 2 300G drives in external enclosures to pull offsite backups
Better yet, bust out his Real and Complex Analysis. Principles is rightfully called "Baby Rudin."
;-)
OK, you made me go here. In a deep dark cupboard I have a copy of Gert Pedersen's Analysis NOW! which we used for graduate Real Analysis. That guy makes Rudin look verbose
I can't really see a wolf attaking and killing, alone, a grown human male.
Not to discount your point, but:
1) You versus a wolf might win, but you wouldn't look too pretty.
2) Wolves are pack hunters.
Couldn't the birds have attacked AFTER death?
Let me see if I have this straight...
You're postulating that zombie chickens used to plague the earth?!?
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I think our differences come down to this: ...
;-). Not that the one implies the other or anything, but it was funny, so...
Same bunch of people, different appellations and also connotations.
Certainly.
I have nothing against Christians defined as those who follow Jesus's teachings. Those that can't be defined that way yet still call themselves such seem to be on the rise.
I think its the same bunch of people we are both looking at; or folk very like them.
Agreed.
I noticed you linked to an LDS site earlier. I have a couple issues with some church policies, but on the whole (generalizations being what they are and all) given my experiences it's tough to tough to think of a genuinely nicer group of people.
My wife's from England, but her immediate family all live in North America now. Her parents lived in Sandy, UT (right outside Salt Lake) for some years. We were visiting, and as we were all leaving to go out for dinner, I asked if they'd locked the door. They just laughed at me
Principles of Real Analysis (Rudin)
Those other books must be cheap, because I spent like $50.00 on that puppy *used*.
I would donate it to my local library if I didn't have so much fun scaring friends with it late night when we're all drunk reminiscing about difficult college classes.
Seriously, that book will win you every "my classes were so hard" discussion you ever get into.
When I tell a potential employer I know Galois theory, he stares at me for a few seconds, and then asks me "Do you know how to use Excel?". To which I reply that I prefer Mathemathica and rarely touch Microsoft products. Then the interview is over.
;-)
If you *really* got Galois theory you would have challenged his dumb ass to a duel...or slept with his wife...however that story went.
I only learned enough Galois theory to prove the Greeks wasted a lot of our time with bogus constructions
Interesting. What do your students do for money, particularly high-school ones?
Internet porn?
I could see Bailey's in yout Cocco Puffs,
Damn, Dude.
That sounds like it might actually be good.
Unless your apps were written by God Himself, they will fail on you.
Don't rely on it even then, heck Jesus saves.