Oh for Pete's sake. I also mention the Imperial Japanese, the USA, the USSR, and the Chinese for some scientific crimes against humanity to make the larger point.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, as the saying goes.
Well I for one am glad you don't have the billions to do this.
How many insufficiently tested products have killed people under the current research rules? For example, because people and other drugs can respond differently, drug side effects slip through still in our current research and testing rules.
I assume you would allow bioengineered foods and animals because you are not specifically prohibiting them. What a serious danger that could be without proper research rules and the moral underpinnings to consider the effects on society.
Hey, how about bio-engineered monkeys - made smarter and subservient - that we will end up turning into a race of trained slaves?
As opposed to the other extreme, where science has no sense of morality and is only another function of the wants of the state. Like the Nazi's and Imperial Japanese in WWII experimenting on live humans. Such as testing biolgical warfare on them, the identical twin studies of Mengele, Japanese scientists dissecting Allied prisoners alive, and so on. Or the US for a scientific study letting blacks with syphilis go untreated for decades. And who knows what the USSR and the Chineses did/are doing.
Science has to have some moral responsibility for its research and conclusions. The hard part is where to draw the line, and reasonable people can disagree on that.
Oh use some logic.
The Crusades were 1000 or so years ago. The Spanish Inquisition was hundreds of years ago. And the Germans were Christians? Maybe, but Nazism was not Christian.
Defending radical Islamist terrorists who today slaughter thousands of innocents every year by saying "But Johnny did it once too!" is not only childish but insults the intelligence of the reader.
(And don't respond by talking about the US military. The difference is they are following rules of civilized warfare like wearing uniforms for one thing, and not attacking innocents as their main targets like terrorists do.)
Wow - disturb the herd mentality and they lash out, don't they?
I guess quoting the NY Times as I did saying a lot of his work was mediocre means nothing.
You can't seriously be saying that using the NY times as a source makes me a right-winger?
And "widely regarded" - you mean appealing to authority is your argument? Use some critical, independent thinking, please.
As Dinitia Smith writes in Vonnegut's New York Times obituary, pity the poor high school student who thinks that Vonnegut's novels are what literature is all about. I suspect that many past readers view Vonnegut's works through rose-colored glasses because he was a "counterculture" celebrity, encouraging the young and impressionable in grandiosity, fatuity, and irresponsibility. As someone else said, from an adult perspective one can see that the novels are full of cheap irony, insufferable sentimentality, paper thin characters, and forgettable plots.
Vonnegut's early story "Harrison Bergeron" is one of his better works. He wrote of a nightmare future in which "everyone was finally equal." It's a tale that points out the deadly and inconvenient flaws of the type of current leftist political orthodoxy that Vonnegut was a symbol and spreader of.
That is the point exactly. All the anti-Christian bigotry, like the posts here that just assumed that Christianity was the focus of the story because it "is" stupid, patriarchal, evil, stoned or burned people at the stake (hundreds of years ago, and don't pull up an isolated incident or two to say it still happens), feels no fear to express their opinion. They do of Islam, because a significant minority threatens or uses violence any time they feel Islam was insulted. For example, during the controversy of the Danish publishing some cartoons poking fun at Islam Islamic protestors carried signs like "Behead those who insult Islam".
So this incident has nothing to do with religious freedom of speech and everything with Islamic radicals inhibiting freedom of speech through fear. Sadly, too many of the people here and other places that claim to be so for freedom of speech and expression stay qiuet or even support Islmalic radicals suppressing it. Usually because the west was colonial at one time or because Chimpy McHitler is still Us president.
If I saw a few more comments like "Yes, this seems to have caught some terrorists that have killed hundred of innocent people but I don't think it is still worth the potential abuse and erosion of civil liberties" it would a sign that people have actually thought about this issue and not just had a reaction because Bush or America did it. (Reference example - the US has used it to capture the mastermind of the 2002 bombing of a Bali nightclub. That bombing killed 202 people, for example - almost all non-Americans).
There are terrorists out there that behead innocent women for not wearing a veil, send carbombs into groups of children just to get one American soldier, and hundreds of other evils that need to be defeated. They are trained to take advantage and abuse our laws whenever possible - captured (authentic) training manuals for example say to always claim you are tortured when captured by the "infidels" even if you are not.
Is this program worthwhile to defeat them? That is a valid point that should be argued, and reasonable people might come to different conclusions. But not even mentioning what the program is currently used for and ignoring the terrorists methods, that shows me that there are people out there who are not approaching this logically or using reason.
Child pornography is illegal - and vile. Possession of child pornography is illegal - and vile.
RTFA:
The proposals have been sent to Congress and include new laws that will require ISPs to report child pornography and bolster penalties for those companies that fail to do so.
Mr Gonzales also said that he is also investigating ways to ensure that ISPs retain records of a user's web activities to track down offenders.
As long as the ISPs themselves report the violations of EXISTING law, I have no problem with the first part, and neither should most rational people. I could easily have a problem with the second, but that is not a proposal to Congress yet - just a potential future idea.
Now, could this be expanded on to cause problems in the future? Yes, of course. But just because something may have the potential of being expanded upon later and misused does not mean never do it. New technologies bring new areas of illegal activity that current laws cannot naturally handle. A free society needs to remain vigilant against the natural tendency of government to seek more control, and make sure those new laws aren't misused.
In the early 1970's, the USA tried to make daylight saving times go year round to save energy. I was a kid then, and remember waiting for the school bus in the dark. An outcry from parents about safety (deservedly so, in my opinion) caused them to quickly rescind it. History repeats itself, and this attempt may be the "farce" part if parents speak up again. Hopefully some kids won't die in the dark and make it the "tragedy" part.
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Oh for Pete's sake. I also mention the Imperial Japanese, the USA, the USSR, and the Chinese for some scientific crimes against humanity to make the larger point. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, as the saying goes.
Well I for one am glad you don't have the billions to do this. How many insufficiently tested products have killed people under the current research rules? For example, because people and other drugs can respond differently, drug side effects slip through still in our current research and testing rules. I assume you would allow bioengineered foods and animals because you are not specifically prohibiting them. What a serious danger that could be without proper research rules and the moral underpinnings to consider the effects on society. Hey, how about bio-engineered monkeys - made smarter and subservient - that we will end up turning into a race of trained slaves?
As opposed to the other extreme, where science has no sense of morality and is only another function of the wants of the state. Like the Nazi's and Imperial Japanese in WWII experimenting on live humans. Such as testing biolgical warfare on them, the identical twin studies of Mengele, Japanese scientists dissecting Allied prisoners alive, and so on. Or the US for a scientific study letting blacks with syphilis go untreated for decades. And who knows what the USSR and the Chineses did/are doing. Science has to have some moral responsibility for its research and conclusions. The hard part is where to draw the line, and reasonable people can disagree on that.
Oh use some logic. The Crusades were 1000 or so years ago. The Spanish Inquisition was hundreds of years ago. And the Germans were Christians? Maybe, but Nazism was not Christian. Defending radical Islamist terrorists who today slaughter thousands of innocents every year by saying "But Johnny did it once too!" is not only childish but insults the intelligence of the reader. (And don't respond by talking about the US military. The difference is they are following rules of civilized warfare like wearing uniforms for one thing, and not attacking innocents as their main targets like terrorists do.)
Wow - disturb the herd mentality and they lash out, don't they? I guess quoting the NY Times as I did saying a lot of his work was mediocre means nothing. You can't seriously be saying that using the NY times as a source makes me a right-winger? And "widely regarded" - you mean appealing to authority is your argument? Use some critical, independent thinking, please.
As Dinitia Smith writes in Vonnegut's New York Times obituary, pity the poor high school student who thinks that Vonnegut's novels are what literature is all about. I suspect that many past readers view Vonnegut's works through rose-colored glasses because he was a "counterculture" celebrity, encouraging the young and impressionable in grandiosity, fatuity, and irresponsibility. As someone else said, from an adult perspective one can see that the novels are full of cheap irony, insufferable sentimentality, paper thin characters, and forgettable plots. Vonnegut's early story "Harrison Bergeron" is one of his better works. He wrote of a nightmare future in which "everyone was finally equal." It's a tale that points out the deadly and inconvenient flaws of the type of current leftist political orthodoxy that Vonnegut was a symbol and spreader of.
We did that in 1974 and little kids were going to school in the dark. Parents had a fit and Congress changed it back in 1975.
That is the point exactly. All the anti-Christian bigotry, like the posts here that just assumed that Christianity was the focus of the story because it "is" stupid, patriarchal, evil, stoned or burned people at the stake (hundreds of years ago, and don't pull up an isolated incident or two to say it still happens), feels no fear to express their opinion. They do of Islam, because a significant minority threatens or uses violence any time they feel Islam was insulted. For example, during the controversy of the Danish publishing some cartoons poking fun at Islam Islamic protestors carried signs like "Behead those who insult Islam". So this incident has nothing to do with religious freedom of speech and everything with Islamic radicals inhibiting freedom of speech through fear. Sadly, too many of the people here and other places that claim to be so for freedom of speech and expression stay qiuet or even support Islmalic radicals suppressing it. Usually because the west was colonial at one time or because Chimpy McHitler is still Us president.
If I saw a few more comments like "Yes, this seems to have caught some terrorists that have killed hundred of innocent people but I don't think it is still worth the potential abuse and erosion of civil liberties" it would a sign that people have actually thought about this issue and not just had a reaction because Bush or America did it. (Reference example - the US has used it to capture the mastermind of the 2002 bombing of a Bali nightclub. That bombing killed 202 people, for example - almost all non-Americans). There are terrorists out there that behead innocent women for not wearing a veil, send carbombs into groups of children just to get one American soldier, and hundreds of other evils that need to be defeated. They are trained to take advantage and abuse our laws whenever possible - captured (authentic) training manuals for example say to always claim you are tortured when captured by the "infidels" even if you are not. Is this program worthwhile to defeat them? That is a valid point that should be argued, and reasonable people might come to different conclusions. But not even mentioning what the program is currently used for and ignoring the terrorists methods, that shows me that there are people out there who are not approaching this logically or using reason.
Yes, I see the mispellings. That's what I get for being ashamed and upset at the quality of debate that is in this thread and posting too fast.
He has an interesting obeservation and he is modded a troll? I wish I ahd my mod points right now.
Child pornography is illegal - and vile. Possession of child pornography is illegal - and vile.
RTFA:
The proposals have been sent to Congress and include new laws that will require ISPs to report child pornography and bolster penalties for those companies that fail to do so.
Mr Gonzales also said that he is also investigating ways to ensure that ISPs retain records of a user's web activities to track down offenders.
As long as the ISPs themselves report the violations of EXISTING law, I have no problem with the first part, and neither should most rational people. I could easily have a problem with the second, but that is not a proposal to Congress yet - just a potential future idea.
Now, could this be expanded on to cause problems in the future? Yes, of course. But just because something may have the potential of being expanded upon later and misused does not mean never do it. New technologies bring new areas of illegal activity that current laws cannot naturally handle. A free society needs to remain vigilant against the natural tendency of government to seek more control, and make sure those new laws aren't misused.
Partly true - the second common thread is Bush hatred.
Or that so many of the Slashdot posters are reflexively liberal (or at least anti-"conservative") that it they would assume it was Republican.
In the early 1970's, the USA tried to make daylight saving times go year round to save energy. I was a kid then, and remember waiting for the school bus in the dark. An outcry from parents about safety (deservedly so, in my opinion) caused them to quickly rescind it. History repeats itself, and this attempt may be the "farce" part if parents speak up again. Hopefully some kids won't die in the dark and make it the "tragedy" part.
And in another related story, the amount of zombie infections and attacks dropped dramatically worldwide as well!