Now imagine if the child was carrying the bomb in one of its cavities, or swallowed in a bag. I'm really wondering if the TSA would mandate that every person undergo a full x-ray, or, as a friendly alternative, a cavity search. At this point, I'm not sure they wouldn't.
The incarceration of convicts is now a private matter. There are plenty of private security forces. At what point is the public police force and criminal justice system merely a cog in a private system? At what point has the balance of power shifted enough to the private sector that it has a significant influence on the public sector in these areas?
It's all a matter of detail. And the devil sits right there.
But Spain under King Ferdinand of Aragorn executed people for heresy. Wasn't even all that long ago. So no, the religion really doesn't matter that much. What matters is the people practicing that religion.
Likewise, selling things to other people inside the store or just outside will get you asked to leave
As a result:
nowhere in my post did I say anything about things happening outside of the store's property,
Yes, you did. Unless you also bought the pavement outside of your property, which I doubt. If you didn't mean to include the outside of your property - fine, that makes my statement about entitlement moot. However, I would suggest actually saying what you mean in the future. Makes it easier to understand you.
I see the entitlement feeling even extends to small private businesses. Your entire business entirely revolves around people being able to freely buy and sell goods, and yet you find it rude. I can see that you would kick someone out doing it in your store - after all, it's your private property, and you can let in whoever you want. But you don't get to control what happens outside your store. Even if it happens to cut into your profit.
I'd say she probably is happy it isn't as complex and she can just poke around for a few minutes a day and be done with it.
But that's the thing - you can't just play Farmville for a few minutes a day and be done with it. Harvesting and planting is a mindnumbing activity that easily can take 5 minutes of clicking a space on your screen. And that's after you put in your calendar that it was time to harvest and replant.
It felt exactly like work. Once I realized that, I decided to focus on mind-numbing activities that actually paid me.
And why would you assume that you can extend the success of a tiny country with a monolithic society to the comparatively gigantic United States (or any other nation with a large, fractious population?)
If you think Switzerland has a monolithic society, you've never been there. Each Canton is distinct enough that it is more like a different country. Furthermore, my parent was stating that democracy was the greatest threat to civilization. That's a stronger argument than what you're advancing.
Simple fact: neither Communism nor Democracy has ever been tried on a significant scale (and no, Switzerland does not count as significant in this context.) The reason for that is very simple: neither of them actually work.
I'll tell you a secret: no government is guaranteed to work. They all rise and fall with the people that are in it.
Direct democracy is the greatest threat to civilisation.
Switzerland seems to be doing fine with their flavor of direct democracy. As always, things are never that black and white, and to blame California's issues mostly on the ballot measures is ignorant. Or should I remind you that until a few years ago, California was seen as the leading light in terms of state experiments?
California doesn't need more direct democracy, it needs a king.
And of course, you think you would do an acceptable job at being King, and even for a limited time, right? Only until the important stuff has been fixed?
Holy crap - someone used the distinction between a direct democracy and a republic or representative democracy in the correct context and to provide topical commentary. Color me shocked.
And even that common knowledge is false, because it was at most restricted to the US. Europe was already aware in the seventies that Global Warming was a more likely issue than Global Cooling.
Almost nobody denies the existence, to a greater or lesser extent, of "global warming."
I'll try to remind myself of this the next time I hear all the idiots complain about the lack of Global Warming when it gets cold in the winter, or those who think that 8 years after an all-time high (during a quiet solar phase, no less) constitutes Global Cooling.
Nukes are used for two things: deterrence and final retribution if the end is near.
Nice theory, but practice showed another use: to destroy so much of the enemy that fighting becomes pointless - especially with the threat of more nukes coming. From a military perspective, there's nothing about a nuke that isn't exactly the same as a very large amount of TNT.
Some people will use it as retribution, some people as a final Armageddon, some people will use it to turn the tide of battle in their favor. That's why the world is so uneasy about the proliferation of nukes: nobody knows who will use their nukes outside the scope of MAD. The only sure thing is that as the number of nuclear countries increases, the probability that some moron will use it in a first strike capability goes towards 1.
If NPR didn't like it, they wouldn't have sat on it for so long.
They didn't. Hence why they apparently repeatedly talked to him about how he appears on Fox News. Mind you, not that he does, just what he says.
He's honest, he speaks from the heart.
So is Sarah Palin and Alvin Greene. What's your point?
The only reason he'd bring it up is because he recognizes that such an emotional response is wrong, but being honest, he admits to feeling that way. He's not saying O'Reilly's audience should be afraid. He's not saying that anyone should be excluded from air travel. All he did was state his own emotional state. NPR, a network that even has show called "All Things Considered" refuses to tolerate a man's irrational fear, even as he's using it to promote dialog on a touchy subject? It's absurd. We'll never get past issues like this if we refuse to discuss them.
The problem is that he didn't expand on that point. He left it as is and never went into why that particular feeling is wrong: because the statistics are against it. The way he worded it, the way O'Reilly left it up there, it seemed like a completely normal attitude. Coming from someone who is employed as a news analyst - not a commentator, not a reporter, but someone who is supposed to put news into context - this was a major failure.
Besides the fact that one event does not qualify as a lot, I would actually argue that NPR was right in its firing for two very different reasons. Number one, it can hire whoever it wants if the big shots think he/she fits into the company, and can fire whoever it wants if the same big shots think he/she doesn't. It's called capitalism. Number two, for a news analyst, that was a retarded comment that calls into question how he analyzes news. Every muslim is a danger to upstanding Americans? Reminds of how black people were viewed in the fifties, or the Irish in the 19th century: substituting race/appearance for a rational judgment of risk. In other words, he seems like a lousy analyst.
Donations work pretty well for public radio. My local NPR station has a fundraising drive every quarter. They manage to raise about 2-3 million dollars every time this way. It is work though, and requires a lot of preparation and harassment of the listeners. Not to mention that it only covers about 60% of their budget, with the large majority of the rest coming from contributions from corporations. There has been some talk for newspapers to copy this model.
Here's the issue though: it requires people to care about your programming enough that they fork over their own money to get through the interruptions. Not to mention that it's non-trivial to adapt that model of interruption to the web.
The problem with ASCAP is that it considers itself the rightful collector for any music being played, without checking whether that music is part of the ASCAP catalog. This means that bars can find themselves faced with paying an ASCAP fine or challenge the fine in the court of law - which is more expensive than the ASCAP fine.
An organization like this will turn into a racket just like ASCAP has. I can tolerate this for music - I can live without live music - but I won't tolerate this for news.
NPR and BBC Official Establishment news? Have you been so taken in by the demagogery against media that you think that anything that isn't an opinion, isn't authoritative? You completely fail to understand that an important part of news reporting is to report exactly what someone said. If the government is talking about enhanced interrogation, I want the news blurb to say "Government agent said they're doing enhanced interrogation", not "Government agent said they're doing torture". It is up to me to figure out whether what the government is talking is enhanced interrogation or torture. The mark of quality reporting is that it gives me the information necessary to make a decision about that myself.
And just to make it clear - yes, everything and everyone is biased. It's a platitude of the highest degree. The real trick is identifying what biases are at work, and to put the information presented in the proper context. People who misidentify the bias at work are just as blind as those who do not identify the bias at all - and even more lost than those who know don't know what bias is at work.
The strong Libertarian position is anarchy for the powerful. Just enough government to protect the interests of the powerful, and enough liberty for justice to be available only to the rich. And that certainly wasn't a Jeffersonian position. I wish people wouldn't trot out some famous name to support whatever crazy notion they have in mind.
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Now imagine if the child was carrying the bomb in one of its cavities, or swallowed in a bag. I'm really wondering if the TSA would mandate that every person undergo a full x-ray, or, as a friendly alternative, a cavity search. At this point, I'm not sure they wouldn't.
The incarceration of convicts is now a private matter. There are plenty of private security forces. At what point is the public police force and criminal justice system merely a cog in a private system? At what point has the balance of power shifted enough to the private sector that it has a significant influence on the public sector in these areas?
It's all a matter of detail. And the devil sits right there.
But Spain under King Ferdinand of Aragorn executed people for heresy. Wasn't even all that long ago. So no, the religion really doesn't matter that much. What matters is the people practicing that religion.
Quote from first post from you:
Likewise, selling things to other people inside the store or just outside will get you asked to leave
As a result:
nowhere in my post did I say anything about things happening outside of the store's property,
Yes, you did. Unless you also bought the pavement outside of your property, which I doubt. If you didn't mean to include the outside of your property - fine, that makes my statement about entitlement moot. However, I would suggest actually saying what you mean in the future. Makes it easier to understand you.
I see the entitlement feeling even extends to small private businesses. Your entire business entirely revolves around people being able to freely buy and sell goods, and yet you find it rude. I can see that you would kick someone out doing it in your store - after all, it's your private property, and you can let in whoever you want. But you don't get to control what happens outside your store. Even if it happens to cut into your profit.
You are not entitled to a profit.
I'd say she probably is happy it isn't as complex and she can just poke around for a few minutes a day and be done with it.
But that's the thing - you can't just play Farmville for a few minutes a day and be done with it. Harvesting and planting is a mindnumbing activity that easily can take 5 minutes of clicking a space on your screen. And that's after you put in your calendar that it was time to harvest and replant.
It felt exactly like work. Once I realized that, I decided to focus on mind-numbing activities that actually paid me.
And why would you assume that you can extend the success of a tiny country with a monolithic society to the comparatively gigantic United States (or any other nation with a large, fractious population?)
If you think Switzerland has a monolithic society, you've never been there. Each Canton is distinct enough that it is more like a different country. Furthermore, my parent was stating that democracy was the greatest threat to civilization. That's a stronger argument than what you're advancing.
Simple fact: neither Communism nor Democracy has ever been tried on a significant scale (and no, Switzerland does not count as significant in this context.) The reason for that is very simple: neither of them actually work.
I'll tell you a secret: no government is guaranteed to work. They all rise and fall with the people that are in it.
Direct democracy is the greatest threat to civilisation.
Switzerland seems to be doing fine with their flavor of direct democracy. As always, things are never that black and white, and to blame California's issues mostly on the ballot measures is ignorant. Or should I remind you that until a few years ago, California was seen as the leading light in terms of state experiments?
California doesn't need more direct democracy, it needs a king.
And of course, you think you would do an acceptable job at being King, and even for a limited time, right? Only until the important stuff has been fixed?
Holy crap - someone used the distinction between a direct democracy and a republic or representative democracy in the correct context and to provide topical commentary. Color me shocked.
And even that common knowledge is false, because it was at most restricted to the US. Europe was already aware in the seventies that Global Warming was a more likely issue than Global Cooling.
Almost nobody denies the existence, to a greater or lesser extent, of "global warming."
I'll try to remind myself of this the next time I hear all the idiots complain about the lack of Global Warming when it gets cold in the winter, or those who think that 8 years after an all-time high (during a quiet solar phase, no less) constitutes Global Cooling.
In comparison to what Christianity went through during the medieval dark ages, it was indeed benign and enlightened.
Number of World Wars prior to the 20th century: 0.
I think you might have a problem with your statistical sampling.
Nukes are used for two things: deterrence and final retribution if the end is near.
Nice theory, but practice showed another use: to destroy so much of the enemy that fighting becomes pointless - especially with the threat of more nukes coming. From a military perspective, there's nothing about a nuke that isn't exactly the same as a very large amount of TNT.
Some people will use it as retribution, some people as a final Armageddon, some people will use it to turn the tide of battle in their favor. That's why the world is so uneasy about the proliferation of nukes: nobody knows who will use their nukes outside the scope of MAD. The only sure thing is that as the number of nuclear countries increases, the probability that some moron will use it in a first strike capability goes towards 1.
Because he is a narcissistic bastard who wants us to worship him through our own decision. Not much fun in being adored by a puppet.
If NPR didn't like it, they wouldn't have sat on it for so long.
They didn't. Hence why they apparently repeatedly talked to him about how he appears on Fox News. Mind you, not that he does, just what he says.
He's honest, he speaks from the heart.
So is Sarah Palin and Alvin Greene. What's your point?
The only reason he'd bring it up is because he recognizes that such an emotional response is wrong, but being honest, he admits to feeling that way. He's not saying O'Reilly's audience should be afraid. He's not saying that anyone should be excluded from air travel. All he did was state his own emotional state. NPR, a network that even has show called "All Things Considered" refuses to tolerate a man's irrational fear, even as he's using it to promote dialog on a touchy subject? It's absurd. We'll never get past issues like this if we refuse to discuss them.
The problem is that he didn't expand on that point. He left it as is and never went into why that particular feeling is wrong: because the statistics are against it. The way he worded it, the way O'Reilly left it up there, it seemed like a completely normal attitude. Coming from someone who is employed as a news analyst - not a commentator, not a reporter, but someone who is supposed to put news into context - this was a major failure.
Besides the fact that one event does not qualify as a lot, I would actually argue that NPR was right in its firing for two very different reasons. Number one, it can hire whoever it wants if the big shots think he/she fits into the company, and can fire whoever it wants if the same big shots think he/she doesn't. It's called capitalism. Number two, for a news analyst, that was a retarded comment that calls into question how he analyzes news. Every muslim is a danger to upstanding Americans? Reminds of how black people were viewed in the fifties, or the Irish in the 19th century: substituting race/appearance for a rational judgment of risk. In other words, he seems like a lousy analyst.
If you think what we have right now is anarchy, go compare it to Somalia.
Glaring fact omission, editorializing, and every story has a major liberal slant to it.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Donations work pretty well for public radio. My local NPR station has a fundraising drive every quarter. They manage to raise about 2-3 million dollars every time this way. It is work though, and requires a lot of preparation and harassment of the listeners. Not to mention that it only covers about 60% of their budget, with the large majority of the rest coming from contributions from corporations. There has been some talk for newspapers to copy this model.
Here's the issue though: it requires people to care about your programming enough that they fork over their own money to get through the interruptions. Not to mention that it's non-trivial to adapt that model of interruption to the web.
The problem with ASCAP is that it considers itself the rightful collector for any music being played, without checking whether that music is part of the ASCAP catalog. This means that bars can find themselves faced with paying an ASCAP fine or challenge the fine in the court of law - which is more expensive than the ASCAP fine.
An organization like this will turn into a racket just like ASCAP has. I can tolerate this for music - I can live without live music - but I won't tolerate this for news.
NPR and BBC Official Establishment news? Have you been so taken in by the demagogery against media that you think that anything that isn't an opinion, isn't authoritative? You completely fail to understand that an important part of news reporting is to report exactly what someone said. If the government is talking about enhanced interrogation, I want the news blurb to say "Government agent said they're doing enhanced interrogation", not "Government agent said they're doing torture". It is up to me to figure out whether what the government is talking is enhanced interrogation or torture. The mark of quality reporting is that it gives me the information necessary to make a decision about that myself.
And just to make it clear - yes, everything and everyone is biased. It's a platitude of the highest degree. The real trick is identifying what biases are at work, and to put the information presented in the proper context. People who misidentify the bias at work are just as blind as those who do not identify the bias at all - and even more lost than those who know don't know what bias is at work.
You're a few years too late. Apple and Nintendo aren't viable stocks right now.
The strong Libertarian position is anarchy for the powerful. Just enough government to protect the interests of the powerful, and enough liberty for justice to be available only to the rich. And that certainly wasn't a Jeffersonian position. I wish people wouldn't trot out some famous name to support whatever crazy notion they have in mind.
Considering that you don't know the difference between the slippery slope fallacy and extrapolation, I'd say you failed your Logic 101 class.