The only question I really want answered is, "House of Representatives: Who the heck are you representing?" Because I don't believe that the majority of America, let alone 60% of us, want the government to be able to get search warrants without a judge's consent. To force us to keep quiet about a search. To invade the privacy of our medical and library records.
I'd like to attempt to derail this topic and turn it into a vaguely related philosophical discussion.
Does the public know what's good for it? Large portions of it don't really know or care about politics, and yet they have voting rights. As much as it's maligned politics would appear to be vital to a country's survival. Many of the blacker ops the US has conducted over the years would have caused great public outcry, but the public is not in possession of nearly all of the facts and assuming that some genuinely were for the good of the country would fiercely oppose their best interests.
On the other hand, is the good of its country synonymous with the best interests of the public? And isn't decent politics that fabled mythical yet much-sought thing? Is there any chance of implementing it? Gah!
- Kizor, who doesn't know whether or not even he agrees with this
Why do people claim that so many people hate the U.S., when the U.S. was the one that had nuclear weapons long before the USSR, but other than the two that were used against Japan to end WW2, there were no other mushroom clouds?
Have I suddenly lost the ability for reading comprehension, or did I just see someone state that we should be saying "Thank you for refraining from committing mass murder?"
As annoying as Dan Simpson may be at times, I think he makes a very valid point that in a civilized society, there are certain requirements basic enough that meeting them is not praiseworthy. Or as he put it:
"Boy, Bob is a wonderful human being! Today he was really mad about something, but he didn't beat anyone to death with a hammer!"
i.e. when the US acts without the backing of the UN, we're the big, evil bully. However, when the US DOESN'T act when the UN is disinterested, we're the big, evil, unfeeling nation who could care less about the plight of the rest of the world. Right?
Since claiming that this has happened every time the US has done these things - and it's a rather active country - would be very weird or just a rather weak straw man attack, I'm going to assume you're smarter than that and mean these two specific incidents.
So yes, not taking steps to stop a slaughter when you can is vile. And starting a war on the basis of fabricated evidence and outright lies? Doesn't sound too good, but that might be just me.
Excuse me, miss, we seem to be having some minor technical problems. If you could just take a few steps back and go through the scanner again, a bit slower... thank you, that's - oh, that's/almost/ got it, sorry, just once more should do it, please swing your hips more...
Frith o Inlé! That could actually work. The MPAA and RIAA create extremely sophisticated viruses that latch onto pirated mp3s and avis, then seed them into the P2P networks. When the infected files are played, the viruses up the radiation emitted by CRT monitors and what have you, sterilizing pirates!
If that's not enough of a deterrent by itself, the problem will remove itself in a few generations. Now, if we can only stop the insidous pirate recruiters from bringing impressionable young children into the filesharing lifestyle...
"A foop like the noise of a hundred thousand people saying "foop"?"
Given that we're dealing with movie versions of famous fiction books here, there's going to be a trilogy, and the Orcs shouting "Grond!" in the Return of the King was done by getting a football stadium's worth of people to do so......naaah.
- Kizor, who tried to put in the italics with Wikipedia tags
> US 'conservatives' have the intellectual consistency of baby shit.
I'm forced to note that baby shit is, in fact, remarkably consistent. If the baby is still breast-feeding, its diet is incredibly monotonous by later standards, and as such it can be expected to produce far more similar shits than the human being at any other part of the life cycle.
Thank you.
> Is it me, or does it seem that every week that goes by, I read hear or encounter something >that makes me believe that the U.S. is turning into a increasingly dumbed down, lowest >common denominator, theocratic fundamentalist society?
Well, it seems to me that you keep up with the current events of an enormous nation, plus at least one of your news sources is considerably more likely to report science losing ground to fundamentalism than gaining it. Would this be related?
It wouldn't be too stretched a guess, either, that you're much more likely to pay attention to and remember stuff like this, with your apparent level of annoyance.
In contrast, my entire country is slightly smaller than Montana. If I learned of significant events of this nature happening here weekly, then there'd be very good reason to freak out..
Slashdot Mirror
I, for one, welcome our giant space insect overlords.
The only question I really want answered is, "House of Representatives: Who the heck are you representing?" Because I don't believe that the majority of America, let alone 60% of us, want the government to be able to get search warrants without a judge's consent. To force us to keep quiet about a search. To invade the privacy of our medical and library records. I'd like to attempt to derail this topic and turn it into a vaguely related philosophical discussion.
Does the public know what's good for it? Large portions of it don't really know or care about politics, and yet they have voting rights. As much as it's maligned politics would appear to be vital to a country's survival. Many of the blacker ops the US has conducted over the years would have caused great public outcry, but the public is not in possession of nearly all of the facts and assuming that some genuinely were for the good of the country would fiercely oppose their best interests.
On the other hand, is the good of its country synonymous with the best interests of the public? And isn't decent politics that fabled mythical yet much-sought thing? Is there any chance of implementing it? Gah!
- Kizor, who doesn't know whether or not even he agrees with this
Other materials increasingly employed are magnetic tapes, casettes and diskettes (small flexible disks similar in size to a small gramophone record
This would definitely make one appreciate modern developments if the diskettes of 2005 didn't have the data integrity of a dead koala.
Why do people claim that so many people hate the U.S., when the U.S. was the one that had nuclear weapons long before the USSR, but other than the two that were used against Japan to end WW2, there were no other mushroom clouds?
Have I suddenly lost the ability for reading comprehension, or did I just see someone state that we should be saying "Thank you for refraining from committing mass murder?"
As annoying as Dan Simpson may be at times, I think he makes a very valid point that in a civilized society, there are certain requirements basic enough that meeting them is not praiseworthy. Or as he put it:
"Boy, Bob is a wonderful human being! Today he was really mad about something, but he didn't beat anyone to death with a hammer!"
Did you lose anyone you knew in the recent tsunami? Likely not. Did you care about the event?
can you imagine Disney of today doing a show where the main character's mother is killed shortly into it?
Just out of curiosity, have you seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame recently?
Excuse me, miss, we seem to be having some minor technical problems. If you could just take a few steps back and go through the scanner again, a bit slower... thank you, that's - oh, that's /almost/ got it, sorry, just once more should do it, please swing your hips more...
</obligatory>
*Blink*
*Blink*
Frith o Inlé! That could actually work. The MPAA and RIAA create extremely sophisticated viruses that latch onto pirated mp3s and avis, then seed them into the P2P networks. When the infected files are played, the viruses up the radiation emitted by CRT monitors and what have you, sterilizing pirates!
If that's not enough of a deterrent by itself, the problem will remove itself in a few generations. Now, if we can only stop the insidous pirate recruiters from bringing impressionable young children into the filesharing lifestyle...
Anakin will beat the Midi-Chlorians to death, all of them, using Jar-Jar's twisted body for the task.
"A foop like the noise of a hundred thousand people saying "foop"?"
...naaah.
Given that we're dealing with movie versions of famous fiction books here, there's going to be a trilogy, and the Orcs shouting "Grond!" in the Return of the King was done by getting a football stadium's worth of people to do so...
- Kizor, who tried to put in the italics with Wikipedia tags
Yes, it is wet, squishy, and stinks. Just like the intellectual standards of US 'conservatives'.
Is it also remarkably both like and unlike yoghurt?
> US 'conservatives' have the intellectual consistency of baby shit. I'm forced to note that baby shit is, in fact, remarkably consistent. If the baby is still breast-feeding, its diet is incredibly monotonous by later standards, and as such it can be expected to produce far more similar shits than the human being at any other part of the life cycle. Thank you.
> Is it me, or does it seem that every week that goes by, I read hear or encounter something
>that makes me believe that the U.S. is turning into a increasingly dumbed down, lowest
>common denominator, theocratic fundamentalist society?
Well, it seems to me that you keep up with the current events of an enormous nation, plus at least one of your news sources is considerably more likely to report science losing ground to fundamentalism than gaining it. Would this be related?
It wouldn't be too stretched a guess, either, that you're much more likely to pay attention to and remember stuff like this, with your apparent level of annoyance.
In contrast, my entire country is slightly smaller than Montana. If I learned of significant events of this nature happening here weekly, then there'd be very good reason to freak out..
Pedant 3rd class, signing off.