Yes. It's not a natural conclusion that everybody desires a democracy. That's something that seems to get glossed over in our society. As long as people are materially comfortable and are relatively free in their personal lives, most people don't give two shits about how the government is run. I agree that a democracy is the best thing for the world and China. For the foreseeable future, however, as long as wealth is building and people have jobs there will not be a strong democracy movement in China. It's hard to believe that a large amount of Chinese are worried about their freedom of speech when most are uneducated workers simply trying to feed themselves and find work.
Achtung Baby's a classic. Zooropa was ok. At least it was different. I agree that everything since then has been complete shit, though. I don't know why you dismiss U2's latest stuff as "pop-crap". They've always been playing simple pop music, it's just that their recent simple pop music sucks.
So was Japan. You can't extend current economic trends out that far. It's nearly impossible for them to keep the current growth constant for that long, particularly when given their political situation.
Anything that moves control of legislation closer to the people is a good thing. It's just as likely that politicians will influence "morality" laws on the federal level. At least on the state level the effects will be felt by fewer people and (presumably) the government has more of an obligation to the citizens' interests. Even in the worst-case scenario, those that are particularly offended or persecuted can move to a different state altogether.
Clearly the solution to today's situation would have been for everyone to have guns, then people could have started firing recklessly into the fray and that would have been really fucking great!
Clearly the way to counter stupid statements is by exaggeration and hyperbole! Well done. You have truly shown your superior intellect, sir.
Your original statement was that it was "idle speculation" that armed people would have prevented additional casualties. He gave an example of a situation where armed people nearby did most likely prevent casualties. There are a few situations that I have heard of where a gunmen has been shot down by concealed weapon holders. Do *you* have any examples of people acting as "heroes" and creating a worse situation or are you, as you originally stated, just idly speculating? You can't just throw your hands up and say that there's no reason to think that the gunman could've been stopped. It actually *has* happened in similar scenarios.
pretty much any gun murder described as a "crime of passion" wouldn't have happened if the murderer hadn't had ready, legal access to a gun.
That is a ridiculous statement with no supporting evidence. If anything, those are the murders that are *least* likely to be affected by gun control, as only one or two people are murdered and it is relatively easy to kill one or two people if they aren't expecting it by a variety of means. If you could completely remove guns from society (obviously impossible), the crimes most likely to be stopped are large-scale killings like the VT incident and things like drive-by shootings.
Turner Broadcasting only runs cable stations. They include CNN, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, TCM, Court TV, and others. I'm sure if you have cable that you've watched at least CNN a fair amount. They are NOT operating on public airwaves, and if you watch any of these stations there is a contract that you signed that at least implies that you understand it is ad-supported and that is ok with you. That's not to say skipping commercials is stealing like Mr. Kellner says, but you are misinformed and wrong.
I doubt it. There is no reason to believe that more women will go into web design just because they use the internet a little more. If women use phones more often, does that mean women are more likely to become electrical/communication engineers? If women take prescription drugs more often, are they more likely to become chemists? Most people don't really give a shit about how things work, just that they work. The gender gap in engineering/science/technology has much deeper roots than that.
How about we do exactly what the beekeeper in your article said and use science to determine whether or not Bt is harming bees? The appeal to nature argument is complete bullshit. These plants are not "natural". The entire agricultural process is not "natural". Instead of simply agreeing with what one beekeeper thinks might be the problem (and even he admits that it is an untested hypothesis), how about we focus on figuring out what the problem is and stop it?
Apple as a company is hugely affected by its own marketing at this point. Anything they can do to assure that the iPhone succeeds (or at least doesn't flop) will be much more effective than anything they could do with OS X. As long as Joe Sixpack views Apple as a successful and cool company, they will keep selling computers.
I read somewhere that 9 out of 10 rap albums are purchased by male, white, middle class teenagers. Not sure if that's true, but it doesn't seem too far off the mark. That is one thing that bothers me about the majority of rap music. It is selling a stereotype to an audience. Since our society is still very segregated, most white kids grow up having very little contact with "black society" outside of the media. If black people really want to be divorced from the stereotypes of pimps and ho's and a bunch of thugs, they need to stop supporting the people that glorify and sell that image to white America. (I realize that there are in fact a ton of people that do stand up against it, but it doesn't seem to be a large group IMHO.)
Well, first of all, not all people of African descent speak in ebonics. Not even close. It's more of a southern/inner city cultural thing. Even when someone does speak it, they are usually bi-dialectal (meaning they switch in and out of it based on who they are speaking to). Secondly, it does have its roots in slavery, segregation, etc. That doesn't mean that we should be ashamed of it. It is part of our country and we should be proud of it, despite of whatever roots it may have. Do you suggest we go to predominantly black districts and forbid them from speaking in their natural way, simply because it has its roots in racist policies? We can't change the past, we also shouldn't try and suppress it.
Do you suggest we go to the northeast and kill off the New England accent because it is different? Should we do the same thing with the Southern accent, etc. Why is it only an issue with ebonics? Wouldn't eliminating people's natural way of speaking and forcing them to speak in the mainstream "normal" way be just another forced submission to "white" culture?
This was not the first time Imus has displayed hateful speech on his show. He has claimed that black people hired by the New York Times were simply affirmative action hires. He said of Gwen Iffil, "Isn't the [New York] Times wonderful. . . . It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House." He has repeatedly used slurs like raghead, faggot, etc. He called publishing house Simon & Schuster "thieving jews" and then later claimed that the phrase was redundant. On 60 Minutes he was confronted and admitted to saying that one of his staffers was there to do "nigger jokes." His assistant said on air that Serena and Venus Williams would be more suited to posing in National Geographic than Playboy. This is not a one time deal.
You are right that we should be equally offended when black people use language like that, I agree. Many black people are offended. More should be. We shouldn't listen to anyone who is that goddamn ignorant.
People are right to be offended. This is not manufactured outrage, he is racist and a complete asshole. The only thing I'm sorry about is that it took this long for people to get upset and get his ass fired. We as a society shouldn't listen to people embarrass and degrade other human beings for entertainment.
They can't be making money off his show or they wouldn't have fired him. Plain and simple.
Several major advertisers decided to pull their advertisements from the show or were thinking about pulling their advertisements from the show. Several major guests had cancelled appearances or were thinking of cancelling, including Cal Ripken last week. There were definitely going to lose money on his show, at least in the short term.
The truth is, we haven't had a conservative government for decades.
The truth is, we have rarely had a truly conservative government because conservatism is stupid, idiotic, and completely indefensible as a way of thinking. I don't mean conservatism in the way it is usually used in politics (i.e. right-wing or Republican) but the actual ideology. The definition of conservatism is looking to traditional values, customs, etc. to determine what is correct. Liberalism, by contrast, is constantly questioning what is right and looking for new answers to problems. The problem is that no progress is ever achieved by true conservatives. Conservatives look to the constitution, religion, and other things as being correct without bothering to think that liberalism is what produced those institutions in the first place. There was a time when the US government, Christianity, Protestantism, etc. were new and radical. If we always looked to tradition, nothing would ever change. No matter what they call themselves, most politicians and educated people in the US are liberal.
I think both you and the GP poster are using examples of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. If you go by the actual definition of the words without the politics we usually associate with them (which is difficult), nearly all politicians are liberal and very few are conservative. By the commonly accepted definitions, however, Democrats are liberal and Republicans are conservative whether you disagree with their current policies or not.
There are more examples like the line "endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights" from the Declaration of Independence. Those statements do not in any way restrict the free expression of your own religion (or lack thereof). Freedom of religion is not freedom *from* religion. So yes, I would say that we do in fact have perfect freedom of religion. Care to give some examples of actual restrictions of religious freedom that exist in the US?
Yes, I'm not going to argue the point that you could in fact put a shitload of music of a mediocre to decent quality on an 8GB portable device. That is of course true. However, there are people that want all of their music on one portable device at a very high quality so they can listen to anything they want whenever they want. Yes, they could make do with what they have. I could also make do with a 8GB hard drive on my computer, but that doesn't mean I want to.
A portable music player is after all a luxury device. You don't *need* it do do a goddamn thing. If you're buying something, you may as well buy what you want. There are obviously enough people that have similar feelings, as 80GB iPods are selling well. It's not as if it is wasteful or anything. I don't really see why you seem to have a problem with it.
For the record the only portable audio player I have is a refurbished 2GB Nano, but if I could afford a 80GB video iPod I'd buy it in a second.
What if you have your music stored in FLAC or extremely high bitrates? Then your assumption of 1MB/min is very far off. I personally would love a way to have all of my music available to me on the go. That way I would never have to waste my time figuring out which songs I might want to listen to in the near future, I could just throw it all on there and go. It's not like people want to listen to all of their music at the same time sequentially. They just want the option to listen to what they want, when they want. That's perfectly reasonable to me.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Tae Guk Gi. I've never been to Korea and I don't speak Korean, but that movie is incredible. Compare its $12 million budget (according to Wikipedia) to the $70 million budget of Saving Private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates, both of which I enjoyed. It's not as powerful as Apocalypse Now or All Quiet on the Western Front, which I consider the best two war movies ever made, but it is a great movie with incredibly well done special effects. Visually it surpasses any of Hollywood's recent movies, even Saving Private Ryan. If it would've been made in the US, though, I guarantee you it would've had a budget of over $100 million.
So, again the USA wants to force things onto others, while being exempt from those things itself.
Welcome to the real world. Any country with power does this. There is no idealism in international politics. What are you gonna tell me next, that the countries that founded the UN hold a disproportionate amount of power in that body? Countries that already have nukes want to prevent those they dislike from gaining them? Say it ain't so!
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Yes. It's not a natural conclusion that everybody desires a democracy. That's something that seems to get glossed over in our society. As long as people are materially comfortable and are relatively free in their personal lives, most people don't give two shits about how the government is run. I agree that a democracy is the best thing for the world and China. For the foreseeable future, however, as long as wealth is building and people have jobs there will not be a strong democracy movement in China. It's hard to believe that a large amount of Chinese are worried about their freedom of speech when most are uneducated workers simply trying to feed themselves and find work.
Achtung Baby's a classic. Zooropa was ok. At least it was different. I agree that everything since then has been complete shit, though. I don't know why you dismiss U2's latest stuff as "pop-crap". They've always been playing simple pop music, it's just that their recent simple pop music sucks.
So was Japan. You can't extend current economic trends out that far. It's nearly impossible for them to keep the current growth constant for that long, particularly when given their political situation.
Anything that moves control of legislation closer to the people is a good thing. It's just as likely that politicians will influence "morality" laws on the federal level. At least on the state level the effects will be felt by fewer people and (presumably) the government has more of an obligation to the citizens' interests. Even in the worst-case scenario, those that are particularly offended or persecuted can move to a different state altogether.
It's pretty hard to fit that turntable into your pocket :)
Clearly the way to counter stupid statements is by exaggeration and hyperbole! Well done. You have truly shown your superior intellect, sir.
Your original statement was that it was "idle speculation" that armed people would have prevented additional casualties. He gave an example of a situation where armed people nearby did most likely prevent casualties. There are a few situations that I have heard of where a gunmen has been shot down by concealed weapon holders. Do *you* have any examples of people acting as "heroes" and creating a worse situation or are you, as you originally stated, just idly speculating? You can't just throw your hands up and say that there's no reason to think that the gunman could've been stopped. It actually *has* happened in similar scenarios.
That is a ridiculous statement with no supporting evidence. If anything, those are the murders that are *least* likely to be affected by gun control, as only one or two people are murdered and it is relatively easy to kill one or two people if they aren't expecting it by a variety of means. If you could completely remove guns from society (obviously impossible), the crimes most likely to be stopped are large-scale killings like the VT incident and things like drive-by shootings.
Turner Broadcasting only runs cable stations. They include CNN, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, TCM, Court TV, and others. I'm sure if you have cable that you've watched at least CNN a fair amount. They are NOT operating on public airwaves, and if you watch any of these stations there is a contract that you signed that at least implies that you understand it is ad-supported and that is ok with you. That's not to say skipping commercials is stealing like Mr. Kellner says, but you are misinformed and wrong.
I'll take that bet.
I doubt it. There is no reason to believe that more women will go into web design just because they use the internet a little more. If women use phones more often, does that mean women are more likely to become electrical/communication engineers? If women take prescription drugs more often, are they more likely to become chemists? Most people don't really give a shit about how things work, just that they work. The gender gap in engineering/science/technology has much deeper roots than that.
How about we do exactly what the beekeeper in your article said and use science to determine whether or not Bt is harming bees? The appeal to nature argument is complete bullshit. These plants are not "natural". The entire agricultural process is not "natural". Instead of simply agreeing with what one beekeeper thinks might be the problem (and even he admits that it is an untested hypothesis), how about we focus on figuring out what the problem is and stop it?
Apple as a company is hugely affected by its own marketing at this point. Anything they can do to assure that the iPhone succeeds (or at least doesn't flop) will be much more effective than anything they could do with OS X. As long as Joe Sixpack views Apple as a successful and cool company, they will keep selling computers.
I read somewhere that 9 out of 10 rap albums are purchased by male, white, middle class teenagers. Not sure if that's true, but it doesn't seem too far off the mark. That is one thing that bothers me about the majority of rap music. It is selling a stereotype to an audience. Since our society is still very segregated, most white kids grow up having very little contact with "black society" outside of the media. If black people really want to be divorced from the stereotypes of pimps and ho's and a bunch of thugs, they need to stop supporting the people that glorify and sell that image to white America. (I realize that there are in fact a ton of people that do stand up against it, but it doesn't seem to be a large group IMHO.)
Well, first of all, not all people of African descent speak in ebonics. Not even close. It's more of a southern/inner city cultural thing. Even when someone does speak it, they are usually bi-dialectal (meaning they switch in and out of it based on who they are speaking to). Secondly, it does have its roots in slavery, segregation, etc. That doesn't mean that we should be ashamed of it. It is part of our country and we should be proud of it, despite of whatever roots it may have. Do you suggest we go to predominantly black districts and forbid them from speaking in their natural way, simply because it has its roots in racist policies? We can't change the past, we also shouldn't try and suppress it.
Do you suggest we go to the northeast and kill off the New England accent because it is different? Should we do the same thing with the Southern accent, etc. Why is it only an issue with ebonics? Wouldn't eliminating people's natural way of speaking and forcing them to speak in the mainstream "normal" way be just another forced submission to "white" culture?
I'm pretty sure they were more upset with the "ho's" part of "nappy-headed ho's".
This was not the first time Imus has displayed hateful speech on his show. He has claimed that black people hired by the New York Times were simply affirmative action hires. He said of Gwen Iffil, "Isn't the [New York] Times wonderful. . . . It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House." He has repeatedly used slurs like raghead, faggot, etc. He called publishing house Simon & Schuster "thieving jews" and then later claimed that the phrase was redundant. On 60 Minutes he was confronted and admitted to saying that one of his staffers was there to do "nigger jokes." His assistant said on air that Serena and Venus Williams would be more suited to posing in National Geographic than Playboy. This is not a one time deal.
You are right that we should be equally offended when black people use language like that, I agree. Many black people are offended. More should be. We shouldn't listen to anyone who is that goddamn ignorant.
People are right to be offended. This is not manufactured outrage, he is racist and a complete asshole. The only thing I'm sorry about is that it took this long for people to get upset and get his ass fired. We as a society shouldn't listen to people embarrass and degrade other human beings for entertainment.
Several major advertisers decided to pull their advertisements from the show or were thinking about pulling their advertisements from the show. Several major guests had cancelled appearances or were thinking of cancelling, including Cal Ripken last week. There were definitely going to lose money on his show, at least in the short term.
The truth is, we have rarely had a truly conservative government because conservatism is stupid, idiotic, and completely indefensible as a way of thinking. I don't mean conservatism in the way it is usually used in politics (i.e. right-wing or Republican) but the actual ideology. The definition of conservatism is looking to traditional values, customs, etc. to determine what is correct. Liberalism, by contrast, is constantly questioning what is right and looking for new answers to problems. The problem is that no progress is ever achieved by true conservatives. Conservatives look to the constitution, religion, and other things as being correct without bothering to think that liberalism is what produced those institutions in the first place. There was a time when the US government, Christianity, Protestantism, etc. were new and radical. If we always looked to tradition, nothing would ever change. No matter what they call themselves, most politicians and educated people in the US are liberal.
I think both you and the GP poster are using examples of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. If you go by the actual definition of the words without the politics we usually associate with them (which is difficult), nearly all politicians are liberal and very few are conservative. By the commonly accepted definitions, however, Democrats are liberal and Republicans are conservative whether you disagree with their current policies or not.
I've never seen a more opportune time to use this quote: "The plural of anecdote is not data."
There are more examples like the line "endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights" from the Declaration of Independence. Those statements do not in any way restrict the free expression of your own religion (or lack thereof). Freedom of religion is not freedom *from* religion. So yes, I would say that we do in fact have perfect freedom of religion. Care to give some examples of actual restrictions of religious freedom that exist in the US?
Yes, I'm not going to argue the point that you could in fact put a shitload of music of a mediocre to decent quality on an 8GB portable device. That is of course true. However, there are people that want all of their music on one portable device at a very high quality so they can listen to anything they want whenever they want. Yes, they could make do with what they have. I could also make do with a 8GB hard drive on my computer, but that doesn't mean I want to.
A portable music player is after all a luxury device. You don't *need* it do do a goddamn thing. If you're buying something, you may as well buy what you want. There are obviously enough people that have similar feelings, as 80GB iPods are selling well. It's not as if it is wasteful or anything. I don't really see why you seem to have a problem with it.
For the record the only portable audio player I have is a refurbished 2GB Nano, but if I could afford a 80GB video iPod I'd buy it in a second.
What if you have your music stored in FLAC or extremely high bitrates? Then your assumption of 1MB/min is very far off. I personally would love a way to have all of my music available to me on the go. That way I would never have to waste my time figuring out which songs I might want to listen to in the near future, I could just throw it all on there and go. It's not like people want to listen to all of their music at the same time sequentially. They just want the option to listen to what they want, when they want. That's perfectly reasonable to me.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Tae Guk Gi. I've never been to Korea and I don't speak Korean, but that movie is incredible. Compare its $12 million budget (according to Wikipedia) to the $70 million budget of Saving Private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates, both of which I enjoyed. It's not as powerful as Apocalypse Now or All Quiet on the Western Front, which I consider the best two war movies ever made, but it is a great movie with incredibly well done special effects. Visually it surpasses any of Hollywood's recent movies, even Saving Private Ryan. If it would've been made in the US, though, I guarantee you it would've had a budget of over $100 million.
Welcome to the real world. Any country with power does this. There is no idealism in international politics. What are you gonna tell me next, that the countries that founded the UN hold a disproportionate amount of power in that body? Countries that already have nukes want to prevent those they dislike from gaining them? Say it ain't so!