Just because a person claims to have faith doesn't mean said faith is based on mere credulity. I believe God gives us ample evidence upon which to base well-founded beliefs.
You can certainly decide to see evidence of what you want to believe (a God) if you have already chosen to do so, but the biggest problem I see is the extremely detailed, and usually contradictory aspects of any particular religion.
So being a deist (there is a god who created everything but that's about as far as he cared to interact with people) is a reasonable choice if you need to believe in a god to make yourself feel better. We don't know and might well never know what happened before the universe was here or how it got here. Arbitrarily deciding to believe that it was created doesn't lead to any contradictions and doesn't hurt anybody.
Believing some specific dogmatic religion does not meet the same criteria and is only possible through credulity. Take Christianity for example. It says: An all powerful, all knowing being created the universe and everything in it. He created people with the express intention of making them exactly as they are. He then made up a bunch of rules for them to follow which demand that they act in a manner contrary to their natures and that they would be punished for all eternity if they refused to go against their natures. Being all powerful, he knew exactly what would happen in each and every individual case and tweaked every variable in exactly the way to make it happen in that exact manner. Then, here's where it gets completely insane, *he got pissed off at people* for acting exactly how he made them, so he murdered the vast majority of them in order to start over with a few people. He then did the same damn thing over again. That meets the definition of insanity given by "doing the same thing over and over expecting different results", but it's much worse than that. He couldn't possibly have expected different results since he created things in such a way as to attain exactly the results that he got.
That's the old testament. For the new testament:
After going through this idiotic, pointless process a few times, he realized that it wasn't working so he came up with a new plan. In order to *allow* himself to forgive us for acting in exactly the manner that he created us to act he would have a kid and have him tortured and murdered.
That is the entire basis of the Judeo-Christian religion. Any of the other tenets rest squarely on this exact basis. Tell me how anything but extreme credulity could possibly lead a reasponable person to consider this anything but insane?
Ahhh, right. Even if you use UTC, then if your local time doesn't know about the change then you're still screwed. I guess my question comes under the heading of "duhh", and I await my 50 lashes with a wet noodle.
The Daily Kos crew, and other "politics isn't a contact sport, it's a battle to the death sport" wants the Democratic Party to ATTACK government funding goals that help Republican states. You wouldn't be very happy if the Democrats first action was to pull all highway funding, social spending, etc., for the state of Georgia, while leaving it for the rest of the states.
I think you're missing the problem that a lot of people have with the "red States". They continually yammer about how they are big time capitalists, how they hate welfare and big government and how "duh eval liburalz" are destroying the moral fabric of society. Now, were these positions they actually held, then there wouldn't be much of a problem. The problem is the totally dysfunctional actions they undertake due to the fact that they don't actually stand for any of that. If you look at where the federal income tax dollars go, then you see that the "red states" are, for the most part, socialist welfare states with the difference that they aren't the ones paying for it. They only have phones, cell phones, electricity and the like because the "Blue states" are paying their bills for them by way of massive subsidies for almost every aspect of their lives. Were they honest enough to admit that they are socialists and were they possessed of the integrity to deal with that fact in a sane and reasonable manner then most of the major conflicts would disappear.
So I support pulling all of their entitlements and subsidies not to "punish" them, but to permit them to have a sane realistic worldview that isn't completely warped and delusional.
And as far as the "moral decay of society", that is entirely driven by hypercapitalism. Sex sells, so it's everywhere in advertising. Gays, blacks, women and the like have money so they are catered to and played up in the media, movies, tv shows commercials and the like.
The fact that the same people whining about it are the ones who keep voting for it just demonstrates how completely dysfunctional and delusional these people are.
So, as long as they are going to leech off of my productivity and continue to bitch about leeches, then I completely support taking away their various welfare payments until they can act like same rational people. Heck, even then, I'm not a socialist, so I wouldn't support being forced to pay for people who neither can nor have any interest in pulling their own weight and just want to blame the productive members of society for their own failure.
I really dislike the recent increases in violent crime due to cuts in local government budgets, so add some more money to Minneapolis and Saint Paul to fund more cops, and have the state open more prison beds.
Oh for the love of anything decent. I had minor points of disagreement with some of what you said, based mostly on local (different locality than you) corruption related to some of those things, while agreeing with you on the whole, but this is taking one of the worst problems we already have (regardless of locality) and making it worse. We already have more people in prison per capita than any other nation in the world. We already have more people in prison *in raw numbers* than any other nation in the world. This includes nations with 3+ times our population to put the worthlessness of the per capita figure in perspective. Given those facts, we are clearly doing something wrong. Giving even more money to the prison industrial complex can not possibly help anything.
Rather than add to that problem, how does this sound.: Eliminate all drug laws. The vast majority of the crime problem (especially violent crime) disappears overnight and not even mainly due to making "crime" into "not crime". It's not like we didn't already go through this before with prohibition. Exact same problem, exact same "solution", exact same unintended (or were they?) consequences of massive increase in violent crime, massive increase in organized crime and massive increase in the police state. Almost all problems commonly associated with drugs are caused entirely by drug laws. The rest could be dealt with with 10% or less of the money currently spent on *increasing the problems*. Drug laws are only part of the problem as well.
I'm sorry for the rant, but you seem pretty reasonable otherwise and spending more money to lock *even more* people in cages to address a problem caused almost entirely by bad laws just isn't reasonable in any way shape or form. I can only hope you've just never really thought about the issues around increasing police power when it already dwarfs that of any other nation in the world, civilized or otherwise, and just want less criminals around you and will take a few minutes to ask yourself one question:
What problems commonly associated with drugs (pick prostitution, or other illegal "vices" if you have time as well. It generally works out the same) are really caused by drugs and which are caused by drug laws.
I think you'll find that your local police are already massively overstaffed and overfunded if they were only expected to deal with actual problems rather than enforcing simultaneously psuedo morality and the profits of the prison industry.
And I live in Chicago, so I'll see your high taxes (and raise your local corruption) and second your <paraphrased and altered>No way in hell would I live in one of the leech states even though I'm already paying their taxes too.</paraphrased and altered>
The problem is, when we do things about it, the media doesn't listen except on very, very rare occassions. Finding the most vitrioloc rhetoric coming from a Christian sells.
That's true, but it is not *just* about what sells anymore. It is a dedicated campaign between the media conglomerates the big church leaders and the various other corporations dedicated to Fascism. Look at the whole "Mega Church" phenomenon. That's not a community thing, it's a means to make sure that large groups of people can be fed the same message.
It is not just that your presumably reasonable views aren't exteme enough to sell. We're way past that point. It's that they aren't aligned with the direction the fascists are going. The wingnuts are aligned with that and that is why Christianity defined as following the teachings of Jesus is being actively marginalized.
I would like to see the statement of intent to establish a theocracy from one of the Christian Right's big wigs you're referring to, though.
Here's a Wikipedia article about the general concept.
* "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies"
* "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God"
Now, clearly this is a movement with legs, but their stated goals are what they commonly deny when trying to shove their ideas into science classes. That's why they called it the wedge strategy. They are dedicated to getting the wedge in and using it to dismantle our society.
A few other examples, which are perhaps a level removed:
Fallwell.. well almost anything that kook says but specifically blaming 9/11 on gay people, "I urge everyone to go out and buy an SUV today."
Meh, side note, the building 2 over from me is on fire...again...City of Chicago thought it was better to stop the rehab project due to "permit issues" (lack of bribes) and just leave it abandoned except for squatters. It's cold as hell (taking the Dante view) here and so they start fires to keep warm. Fire Department is here and the building is brick so no real threat to me and mine, but it is a bit smokey. I'll blame my typos on that today;-)
This is probably the biggest misuse of anti child porn laws yet, but If some republicans get their way it won't be for very long.
Don't kid yourself. While I obviously (if you have sigs enabled) know the Republicans are scum, when it comes to this sort of thing both parties are in lockstep. Remember "OMFG there are dirty words in songs we must protect the children"? Dems aren't making any moves to repeal ProhibitionV2 as that would upset the profits of the prison industry. They're arguing about arguing about rapping Shrub on the knuckles with a ruler, but specifying that no ruler can be involved. They're both tools of the military industrial complex as well as proven by our foreign policy since WW2 (before as well, but that's when it went completely out of control).
The Republicans are clearly worse due primarily to the fact that they are *better* at being corrupt mainly because of the lockstep enabled by the fact that they only have 2 groups to cater to: Corporate power and religious extremists. The fact that hyper capitalism is the driving force behind the "moral decay of our society" since sex sells, escapes the religious extremists who keep voting against their own interests. Both of these groups can be compatible since Fascism (their chosen form of government) involves the merger of state and corporate power and religion is used to keep the sheep in line. See Nazi Germany for the canonical example.
The Dems on the other hand are incapable of being as corrupt and evil as the Republicans since they have such a diverse group to cater to (corporate power is their main one as well, but they are unable to be as blatant about it as the Republicans are). The goals of all the groups making up both parties is to use the power of the state against the individual, but the Dems are saddled with groups looking to use that power against each other as well as against the other party's base.
That fact does not in any way mean that the Dems and the Reps are not in lockstep on an issue like this which can be spun as both "religious" and "protecting the little guy" while really being about increasing government power over the individual.
I'm a Christian myself, unlike them and this sort of BS sickens me.
Fixed it for you;-) OK, I probably put words in your mouth that you wouldn't say, but as long as you and those like you do not do more to make that point, people like me who don't buy in to your beliefs will continue to be forced to lump you all together out of simple self defense. Living in America, I fucking despise "Christians" because they are on a crusade to destroy the fundamental basis of this nation. They already managed to insert "under god" into the pledge of alliegance and have the audacity to claim to be "conservative" and "standing up for traditional values" when reasonable people attempt to undo the results of their extremism, passed many purely evil laws like this, prohibition, drug laws etc. Their stated goal is the elimination of the constitution and its replacement with a "Christian" state which would see me, my family and all of my friends put to death simply because I don't blindly buy into bullshit.
Given the fact that that is the threat we face and the fact that the only reason that they have managed to get as far as they have is the protections provided to religion then it is not reasonable to decide whether they're "good" Christians or "evil" Christians. The threat is too great and you and yours have let it happen and done nothing to deal with the problems created by your faith.
So you have a responsibility to step up and do a hell of a lot more about these sick fuckers hiding under the protection afforded your religion. I'm an atheist, so I'm a pig fucking satan worshipping monster who should not even be allowed citizenship in their eyes. I have no way of having any pull with them or even having a reasonable argument listened to (yes, this is a rant rather than a reasonable argument. I'm perfectly capable of both). You and yours need to step up and do something about the desecration of your faith. Philosophically, I'm fine with the vast majority of it leaving out the silly fairy tale bits. In practice it has, almost without exception, always been used for evil. And it is due to good people like you doing nothing about it.
You know, it's somehow heartwarming to know that even the celibate can be branded perverts for their choice.
Well, wikipedia says:
Perversion is a term and concept describing those types of human behavior that are perceived to be a deviation from what is considered to be orthodox or normal.
Given that, they clearly are perverted as it's extremely rare to find a person who actually chooses celibacy. It is unnatural and far outside normal human behavior.
In reality, it has huge consequences, both physical and psychological, and if it can be delayed until adulthood it probably should be.
Complete crap. Are you truly that deeply ignorant of the entire history of our species?
Most high school kids have sex. This has been true for a long time, and before that they were getting married and having kids at that age or earlier. Done properly with birth control, there are no physical consequences. Psychologically, there might be, but only if it was coerced. Most girls love sex as much or more than men do. I'm sorry you missed out on that, but that's *your* problem. The vast majority of the human species has gotten along quite well fucking each other from a very young age. Most people in history grew up with their extended families in the same room, and managed to get along ok growing up listening to their parents fucking right next to them.
So, no there is nothing wrong with teenagers fucking each other. It is perfectly normal and healthy. What causes psychological damage is sanctimonious pricks shoving idiotic made up "morals" that directly contradict human nature nad what is normal and healthy.
Some aren't. Most, maybe. But by no means all. And that is the problem. The law has to put a line somewhere. Not all kids develop at the same rate. So some are mature enough, and some aren't, at the arbitrary dividing line.
Mentally and emotionally, sure. Physically, they're adults. Pictures only capture the physical making the whole thing even more of a farce. Expect more of these cases and even worse ones as the fundies fight to destroy America. All those insane, brutal biblical punishments for nonsense crimes? They are desperate to bring those back. Ever cheated on your spouse? If they get their way, you'll be stoned to death for it.
There's a reason that prior to 9/11 8 out of the top ten most dangerous terrorist groups were American Christian terrorist groups. This is just one of the results of their actions.
Heh. I wish it were so, but the invisible hand of the market tends to focus on 'cheaply' unless you regulate the f*** out of the market - at which point the government might as well just do the business itself.
Not necessarily. You can get by with minimal regulations as long as the penalties for failure to abide by the regulations are sky high.
Take everybody's favorite whipping boy Microsoft. They regularly steal other people's shit...ok, violate their copyrights.. gotta keep it on the level;-). They make (please do not touch or smell the following numbers for your own sake.) a billion on it and get fined a million. And that's only when it's so clear cut that the little guy can go against their army of lawyers. They have an incentive to break the law in that situation and they know it well.
Similarly with just about anything else. It isn't the laws that stop a sociopath (all corporations are) from doing something it's the penalties if they get caught.
The only real obstacle to nuclear power is public terror.
I'm no expert on the subject (or even that well versed really), but the main reasonable sounding objection I've heard is that it isn't economically feasible.
<repeating shit I heard>No nuclear power plant ever built has paid for itself before being EOLd. France is the biggest user of nuclear power and that industry is heavily subsidized.</repeating shit I heard>
Is this untrue? If it is true are there any hard numbers to show that efficiencies of scale would overcome it were it to be put into widespread use?
Where in the HELL did that Gentoo Linux OS on my hard disk come from, then???
Well, I don't know you or the OP,so I'm going to have to assume you're both telling the truth. Likewise I'll assume that your surprise is genuine.
Given that, the only reasonable conclusion I can come up with is that when you thought you were buying a new hard drive the vendor screwed you and sold you a used drive which was previously owned by a robot with a preference for Gentoo.
Alternatively it could have been some strange solar flare, but that just seems silly.
People who get hard-ons for Linux don't know where they're actually supposed to put their penises.
Well, the PCI slot is a bit narrow one way, too wide in the other and it feels all burny when you turn the computer on. USB/Network ports are too small. Firewire sounds pretty good....it's not as it turns out.
A little trial and error later, I ordered one of these babys and after a few mods involving Lego Mindsprings and some duct tape it was perfect to put my dick in thank you very much. She can even walk over and put it in herself.
So I hope you realise how silly you look now since not only do we know where to put it but we can figure it out for ourselves quite well.
If you would point me to your source of information, I will consider as well on this matter.
Well, it's mostly right there in the paragraph you quoted. Xerox invited Apple in and showed them what they had. Their lawsuit was intended to get them something in the event Apple won. Nothing about Apple stealing anything.
Here's one link. looks to have a fairly high degree of Apple zealotry, but the facts are correct to the best of my knowledge.
Here's another which hopefully won't be replaced with goatse before you get a chance to look at it;-)
Relevant quote: "Xerox granted Apple engineers 3 days of access to the PARC facilities in return for selling them one million dollars in pre-IPO Apple stock (approximately $18 million net)."
So, my point was just that giving MS a pass while claiming Apple was ganking things doesn't make any sense. If those were "stealable" things, then MS absolutely stole them. Apple paid *and* developed something very different. MS didn't pay and directly copied Apple's work. That's why the "Windows 95=Mac 88 (or whatever the year)" phrase got so much play. MS went out of their way to make it look as much like a Mac as they could and it was still an abysmal piece of crap.
Personally I'm not a fan of the whole patenting/copyrighting "look and feel" or any related crap, so I think it was stupid all around. If you feel the need to place blame though, at least do it in a way that it's possible to argue for.
Ok, so I'm a defense contractor and I'm against weapons smuggling into countries with arms embargoes.
Your analogy fails when you need to bring in mythological creatures. Weapons manufacturers are *never* in favor of arms embargoes. In fact, a lot of the violence in the world is actively promoted by them. Doubt it? then come up with some other possible way for them to do their duty to their shareholders to grow their business.
So, no, it isn't as simple as that since Apple is not working to push DRM on everything. That would be Microsoft. This doesn't mean that Apple is the good guy, it just means your analogy is completely broken.
I thought (and still do think) it was lame for Apple trying to maintain a monopoly on the GUI; they had been using it for so many years why not let others now innovate with it. (This was also before I learned how Apple ganked it from Xerox.)
Apple *paid* Xerox for that in stock which ended up making Xerox a mint.
So your purely emotional (evil apple stifling innovation and *ganking* poor Xerox's shit) argument on that point is broken. The only way to make it make sense it to say MS ganked Apple's tech.
I don't really agree that they should have been able to prevent anyone from doing something similar, but save the ignorant loaded nonsense.
I guess you've never heard much from women who can't take the pill because it makes them fell really sick, like being pregnant all the time.
I am aware of such things. Unfortunately, being married, I'm no longer allowed to have sex with all of them. It's not an issue for my wife, therefore not one for me.
You go find your own greatest thing ever and stop pissing in my cheerios. This is working out spectacularly for me;-)
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Just because a person claims to have faith doesn't mean said faith is based on mere credulity. I believe God gives us ample evidence upon which to base well-founded beliefs.
You can certainly decide to see evidence of what you want to believe (a God) if you have already chosen to do so, but the biggest problem I see is the extremely detailed, and usually contradictory aspects of any particular religion.
So being a deist (there is a god who created everything but that's about as far as he cared to interact with people) is a reasonable choice if you need to believe in a god to make yourself feel better. We don't know and might well never know what happened before the universe was here or how it got here. Arbitrarily deciding to believe that it was created doesn't lead to any contradictions and doesn't hurt anybody.
Believing some specific dogmatic religion does not meet the same criteria and is only possible through credulity. Take Christianity for example.
It says:
An all powerful, all knowing being created the universe and everything in it. He created people with the express intention of making them exactly as they are. He then made up a bunch of rules for them to follow which demand that they act in a manner contrary to their natures and that they would be punished for all eternity if they refused to go against their natures.
Being all powerful, he knew exactly what would happen in each and every individual case and tweaked every variable in exactly the way to make it happen in that exact manner.
Then, here's where it gets completely insane, *he got pissed off at people* for acting exactly how he made them, so he murdered the vast majority of them in order to start over with a few people. He then did the same damn thing over again. That meets the definition of insanity given by "doing the same thing over and over expecting different results", but it's much worse than that. He couldn't possibly have expected different results since he created things in such a way as to attain exactly the results that he got.
That's the old testament. For the new testament:
After going through this idiotic, pointless process a few times, he realized that it wasn't working so he came up with a new plan. In order to *allow* himself to forgive us for acting in exactly the manner that he created us to act he would have a kid and have him tortured and murdered.
That is the entire basis of the Judeo-Christian religion. Any of the other tenets rest squarely on this exact basis.
Tell me how anything but extreme credulity could possibly lead a reasponable person to consider this anything but insane?
NTP doesn't know diddly about your timezone.
Ahhh, right. Even if you use UTC, then if your local time doesn't know about the change then you're still screwed.
I guess my question comes under the heading of "duhh", and I await my 50 lashes with a wet noodle.
The Daily Kos crew, and other "politics isn't a contact sport, it's a battle to the death sport" wants the Democratic Party to ATTACK government funding goals that help Republican states. You wouldn't be very happy if the Democrats first action was to pull all highway funding, social spending, etc., for the state of Georgia, while leaving it for the rest of the states.
I think you're missing the problem that a lot of people have with the "red States". They continually yammer about how they are big time capitalists, how they hate welfare and big government and how "duh eval liburalz" are destroying the moral fabric of society. Now, were these positions they actually held, then there wouldn't be much of a problem. The problem is the totally dysfunctional actions they undertake due to the fact that they don't actually stand for any of that.
If you look at where the federal income tax dollars go, then you see that the "red states" are, for the most part, socialist welfare states with the difference that they aren't the ones paying for it. They only have phones, cell phones, electricity and the like because the "Blue states" are paying their bills for them by way of massive subsidies for almost every aspect of their lives. Were they honest enough to admit that they are socialists and were they possessed of the integrity to deal with that fact in a sane and reasonable manner then most of the major conflicts would disappear.
So I support pulling all of their entitlements and subsidies not to "punish" them, but to permit them to have a sane realistic worldview that isn't completely warped and delusional.
And as far as the "moral decay of society", that is entirely driven by hypercapitalism. Sex sells, so it's everywhere in advertising. Gays, blacks, women and the like have money so they are catered to and played up in the media, movies, tv shows commercials and the like.
The fact that the same people whining about it are the ones who keep voting for it just demonstrates how completely dysfunctional and delusional these people are.
So, as long as they are going to leech off of my productivity and continue to bitch about leeches, then I completely support taking away their various welfare payments until they can act like same rational people. Heck, even then, I'm not a socialist, so I wouldn't support being forced to pay for people who neither can nor have any interest in pulling their own weight and just want to blame the productive members of society for their own failure.
Assuming you set all your servers off of a local time server which is set off of an official time server, is this much of an issue?
I really dislike the recent increases in violent crime due to cuts in local government budgets, so add some more money to Minneapolis and Saint Paul to fund more cops, and have the state open more prison beds.
Oh for the love of anything decent. I had minor points of disagreement with some of what you said, based mostly on local (different locality than you) corruption related to some of those things, while agreeing with you on the whole, but this is taking one of the worst problems we already have (regardless of locality) and making it worse. We already have more people in prison per capita than any other nation in the world. We already have more people in prison *in raw numbers* than any other nation in the world. This includes nations with 3+ times our population to put the worthlessness of the per capita figure in perspective. Given those facts, we are clearly doing something wrong. Giving even more money to the prison industrial complex can not possibly help anything.
Rather than add to that problem, how does this sound.:
Eliminate all drug laws. The vast majority of the crime problem (especially violent crime) disappears overnight and not even mainly due to making "crime" into "not crime". It's not like we didn't already go through this before with prohibition. Exact same problem, exact same "solution", exact same unintended (or were they?) consequences of massive increase in violent crime, massive increase in organized crime and massive increase in the police state. Almost all problems commonly associated with drugs are caused entirely by drug laws. The rest could be dealt with with 10% or less of the money currently spent on *increasing the problems*.
Drug laws are only part of the problem as well.
I'm sorry for the rant, but you seem pretty reasonable otherwise and spending more money to lock *even more* people in cages to address a problem caused almost entirely by bad laws just isn't reasonable in any way shape or form. I can only hope you've just never really thought about the issues around increasing police power when it already dwarfs that of any other nation in the world, civilized or otherwise, and just want less criminals around you and will take a few minutes to ask yourself one question:
What problems commonly associated with drugs (pick prostitution, or other illegal "vices" if you have time as well. It generally works out the same) are really caused by drugs and which are caused by drug laws.
I think you'll find that your local police are already massively overstaffed and overfunded if they were only expected to deal with actual problems rather than enforcing simultaneously psuedo morality and the profits of the prison industry.
And I live in Chicago, so I'll see your high taxes (and raise your local corruption) and second your <paraphrased and altered>No way in hell would I live in one of the leech states even though I'm already paying their taxes too.</paraphrased and altered>
Dude, ok. I posted that half an hour before you posted that link ;-)
That was the article I was thinking of though.
See "The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of U.S. Primacy," International Security 30, no. 4 (Spring 2006).
There was an article in "Foreign Affairs" ~ 6 months ago (don't have it here) making the same argument.
That's true, but it is not *just* about what sells anymore. It is a dedicated campaign between the media conglomerates the big church leaders and the various other corporations dedicated to Fascism.
Look at the whole "Mega Church" phenomenon. That's not a community thing, it's a means to make sure that large groups of people can be fed the same message.
It is not just that your presumably reasonable views aren't exteme enough to sell. We're way past that point. It's that they aren't aligned with the direction the fascists are going. The wingnuts are aligned with that and that is why Christianity defined as following the teachings of Jesus is being actively marginalized.
I would like to see the statement of intent to establish a theocracy from one of the Christian Right's big wigs you're referring to, though.
Here's a Wikipedia article about the general concept.
This one gives a lot of information about the basis for the Intelligent Design movement. It includes (direct link to a pdf) a link to the original document which starts with the goals of the Intelligent Design movement:
* "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies"
* "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God"
Now, clearly this is a movement with legs, but their stated goals are what they commonly deny when trying to shove their ideas into science classes. That's why they called it the wedge strategy. They are dedicated to getting the wedge in and using it to dismantle our society.
A few other examples, which are perhaps a level removed:
Fallwell.. well almost anything that kook says but specifically blaming 9/11 on gay people, "I urge everyone to go out and buy an SUV today."
OK, this is getting bad
I can barely get my Mazda3 down the alley they're bringing the firetruck down. Talk to you later.
This is probably the biggest misuse of anti child porn laws yet, but If some republicans get their way it won't be for very long.
Don't kid yourself. While I obviously (if you have sigs enabled) know the Republicans are scum, when it comes to this sort of thing both parties are in lockstep.
Remember "OMFG there are dirty words in songs we must protect the children"?
Dems aren't making any moves to repeal ProhibitionV2 as that would upset the profits of the prison industry. They're arguing about arguing about rapping Shrub on the knuckles with a ruler, but specifying that no ruler can be involved.
They're both tools of the military industrial complex as well as proven by our foreign policy since WW2 (before as well, but that's when it went completely out of control).
The Republicans are clearly worse due primarily to the fact that they are *better* at being corrupt mainly because of the lockstep enabled by the fact that they only have 2 groups to cater to: Corporate power and religious extremists. The fact that hyper capitalism is the driving force behind the "moral decay of our society" since sex sells, escapes the religious extremists who keep voting against their own interests.
Both of these groups can be compatible since Fascism (their chosen form of government) involves the merger of state and corporate power and religion is used to keep the sheep in line. See Nazi Germany for the canonical example.
The Dems on the other hand are incapable of being as corrupt and evil as the Republicans since they have such a diverse group to cater to (corporate power is their main one as well, but they are unable to be as blatant about it as the Republicans are). The goals of all the groups making up both parties is to use the power of the state against the individual, but the Dems are saddled with groups looking to use that power against each other as well as against the other party's base.
That fact does not in any way mean that the Dems and the Reps are not in lockstep on an issue like this which can be spun as both "religious" and "protecting the little guy" while really being about increasing government power over the individual.
when wanting to post as AC, remember to check the 'anonymous' option.....
;-)
Given your new AC troll friend below, I suspect you'll probably remember in future
I'm a Christian myself, unlike them and this sort of BS sickens me.
;-)
Fixed it for you
OK, I probably put words in your mouth that you wouldn't say, but as long as you and those like you do not do more to make that point, people like me who don't buy in to your beliefs will continue to be forced to lump you all together out of simple self defense.
Living in America, I fucking despise "Christians" because they are on a crusade to destroy the fundamental basis of this nation. They already managed to insert "under god" into the pledge of alliegance and have the audacity to claim to be "conservative" and "standing up for traditional values" when reasonable people attempt to undo the results of their extremism, passed many purely evil laws like this, prohibition, drug laws etc. Their stated goal is the elimination of the constitution and its replacement with a "Christian" state which would see me, my family and all of my friends put to death simply because I don't blindly buy into bullshit.
Given the fact that that is the threat we face and the fact that the only reason that they have managed to get as far as they have is the protections provided to religion then it is not reasonable to decide whether they're "good" Christians or "evil" Christians. The threat is too great and you and yours have let it happen and done nothing to deal with the problems created by your faith.
So you have a responsibility to step up and do a hell of a lot more about these sick fuckers hiding under the protection afforded your religion. I'm an atheist, so I'm a pig fucking satan worshipping monster who should not even be allowed citizenship in their eyes. I have no way of having any pull with them or even having a reasonable argument listened to (yes, this is a rant rather than a reasonable argument. I'm perfectly capable of both).
You and yours need to step up and do something about the desecration of your faith. Philosophically, I'm fine with the vast majority of it leaving out the silly fairy tale bits. In practice it has, almost without exception, always been used for evil. And it is due to good people like you doing nothing about it.
You know, it's somehow heartwarming to know that even the celibate can be branded perverts for their choice.
Well, wikipedia says:
Perversion is a term and concept describing those types of human behavior that are perceived to be a deviation from what is considered to be orthodox or normal.
Given that, they clearly are perverted as it's extremely rare to find a person who actually chooses celibacy. It is unnatural and far outside normal human behavior.
In reality, it has huge consequences, both physical and psychological, and if it can be delayed until adulthood it probably should be.
Complete crap. Are you truly that deeply ignorant of the entire history of our species?
Most high school kids have sex. This has been true for a long time, and before that they were getting married and having kids at that age or earlier.
Done properly with birth control, there are no physical consequences. Psychologically, there might be, but only if it was coerced. Most girls love sex as much or more than men do. I'm sorry you missed out on that, but that's *your* problem.
The vast majority of the human species has gotten along quite well fucking each other from a very young age.
Most people in history grew up with their extended families in the same room, and managed to get along ok growing up listening to their parents fucking right next to them.
So, no there is nothing wrong with teenagers fucking each other. It is perfectly normal and healthy.
What causes psychological damage is sanctimonious pricks shoving idiotic made up "morals" that directly contradict human nature nad what is normal and healthy.
Some aren't. Most, maybe. But by no means all. And that is the problem. The law has to put a line somewhere. Not all kids develop at the same rate. So some are mature enough, and some aren't, at the arbitrary dividing line.
Mentally and emotionally, sure.
Physically, they're adults.
Pictures only capture the physical making the whole thing even more of a farce.
Expect more of these cases and even worse ones as the fundies fight to destroy America. All those insane, brutal biblical punishments for nonsense crimes? They are desperate to bring those back.
Ever cheated on your spouse? If they get their way, you'll be stoned to death for it.
There's a reason that prior to 9/11 8 out of the top ten most dangerous terrorist groups were American Christian terrorist groups. This is just one of the results of their actions.
One thing Microsoft needs to do is "innovate" a swap partition. That would definitely help with fragmentation.
Create a partition and tell windows to use that for its pagefile. Don't use it for anything else.
Plenty of real criticisms to go around yada yada.
Heh. I wish it were so, but the invisible hand of the market tends to focus on 'cheaply' unless you regulate the f*** out of the market - at which point the government might as well just do the business itself.
;-). They make (please do not touch or smell the following numbers for your own sake.) a billion on it and get fined a million. And that's only when it's so clear cut that the little guy can go against their army of lawyers. They have an incentive to break the law in that situation and they know it well.
Not necessarily. You can get by with minimal regulations as long as the penalties for failure to abide by the regulations are sky high.
Take everybody's favorite whipping boy Microsoft. They regularly steal other people's shit...ok, violate their copyrights.. gotta keep it on the level
Similarly with just about anything else. It isn't the laws that stop a sociopath (all corporations are) from doing something it's the penalties if they get caught.
Call me when you've found a way to drive truck with geothermal power.
;-)
Park it on top of a volcano, duh
The only real obstacle to nuclear power is public terror.
I'm no expert on the subject (or even that well versed really), but the main reasonable sounding objection I've heard is that it isn't economically feasible.
<repeating shit I heard>No nuclear power plant ever built has paid for itself before being EOLd. France is the biggest user of nuclear power and that industry is heavily subsidized.</repeating shit I heard>
Is this untrue?
If it is true are there any hard numbers to show that efficiencies of scale would overcome it were it to be put into widespread use?
People don't install OS's.
OH MY GOD!!!!
Where in the HELL did that Gentoo Linux OS on my hard disk come from, then???
Well, I don't know you or the OP
Likewise I'll assume that your surprise is genuine.
Given that, the only reasonable conclusion I can come up with is that when you thought you were buying a new hard drive the vendor screwed you and sold you a used drive which was previously owned by a robot with a preference for Gentoo.
Alternatively it could have been some strange solar flare, but that just seems silly.
People who get hard-ons for Linux don't know where they're actually supposed to put their penises.
Well, the PCI slot is a bit narrow one way, too wide in the other and it feels all burny when you turn the computer on. USB/Network ports are too small. Firewire sounds pretty good....it's not as it turns out.
A little trial and error later, I ordered one of these babys and after a few mods involving Lego Mindsprings and some duct tape it was perfect to put my dick in thank you very much. She can even walk over and put it in herself.
So I hope you realise how silly you look now since not only do we know where to put it but we can figure it out for ourselves quite well.
If you would point me to your source of information, I will consider as well on this matter.
;-)
Well, it's mostly right there in the paragraph you quoted. Xerox invited Apple in and showed them what they had. Their lawsuit was intended to get them something in the event Apple won. Nothing about Apple stealing anything.
Here's one link. looks to have a fairly high degree of Apple zealotry, but the facts are correct to the best of my knowledge.
Here's another which hopefully won't be replaced with goatse before you get a chance to look at it
Relevant quote: "Xerox granted Apple engineers 3 days of access to the PARC facilities in return for selling them one million dollars in pre-IPO Apple stock (approximately $18 million net)."
So, my point was just that giving MS a pass while claiming Apple was ganking things doesn't make any sense.
If those were "stealable" things, then MS absolutely stole them. Apple paid *and* developed something very different. MS didn't pay and directly copied Apple's work. That's why the "Windows 95=Mac 88 (or whatever the year)" phrase got so much play. MS went out of their way to make it look as much like a Mac as they could and it was still an abysmal piece of crap.
Personally I'm not a fan of the whole patenting/copyrighting "look and feel" or any related crap, so I think it was stupid all around. If you feel the need to place blame though, at least do it in a way that it's possible to argue for.
Ok, so I'm a defense contractor and I'm against weapons smuggling into countries with arms embargoes.
Your analogy fails when you need to bring in mythological creatures.
Weapons manufacturers are *never* in favor of arms embargoes. In fact, a lot of the violence in the world is actively promoted by them. Doubt it? then come up with some other possible way for them to do their duty to their shareholders to grow their business.
So, no, it isn't as simple as that since Apple is not working to push DRM on everything. That would be Microsoft.
This doesn't mean that Apple is the good guy, it just means your analogy is completely broken.
I thought (and still do think) it was lame for Apple trying to maintain a monopoly on the GUI; they had been using it for so many years why not let others now innovate with it. (This was also before I learned how Apple ganked it from Xerox.)
Apple *paid* Xerox for that in stock which ended up making Xerox a mint.
So your purely emotional (evil apple stifling innovation and *ganking* poor Xerox's shit) argument on that point is broken.
The only way to make it make sense it to say MS ganked Apple's tech.
I don't really agree that they should have been able to prevent anyone from doing something similar, but save the ignorant loaded nonsense.
Don't you mean commie's ?
Damn right. I could have tripped right over that 's' if you hadn't warned me it was coming.
Lets just hope you never want to have kids.
;-)
We don't.
I guess you've never heard much from women who can't take the pill because it makes them fell really sick, like being pregnant all the time.
I am aware of such things. Unfortunately, being married, I'm no longer allowed to have sex with all of them. It's not an issue for my wife, therefore not one for me.
You go find your own greatest thing ever and stop pissing in my cheerios. This is working out spectacularly for me