"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." — Eric Schmidt
That quote (or a variant thereof) is actually often used to defend government surveillance. It's a version of the "if you've got nothing to hide, you have no reason to oppose government surveillance" argument.
I'm Swedish, not Finnish, but Finland do have Swedish as an official second language, due to the fact that Finland was part of Sweden for hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, you are correct. Because otherwise, I could have made a bad joke about "fiskar" meaning plural of "fish" in Swedish, which certainly relates to submersion in water.
The difference is in my (faulty) assumption that the original poster was "someone who has intellectual issues with religionS" - instead of being "actually a religious extremist, with cultural and religious biases bordering on racism".
I do have intellectual issues with religion, I just don't pussyfoot around them as is nowadays required to avoid the "racist" label, at least when dealing with Islam. Christianity seems to be fair game for attack by the left, while Islam apparently is sacred and needs to be treated with silk gloves, or you're labeled a "racist". But anyone who can think for themselves understand that contempt for religion has nothing to do with race, and that accusations of racism are just attempts to silence dissent, nothing else.
Me, a religious extremist? Well, if it's "extremism" to expose religious hypocrisy and other nonsense to the point of ridicule, and/or show contempt for barbaric religions and their practices, them I guess I'm a (atheist) "religious extremist". A word of warning though, unless you want the term "religious extremist" to be diluted, just like the word "racist" has been the last couple of years, I'd advise keeping the "religious extremist" label for actual violent extremists.
As for cultural and religious biases, well, you got me there. I think western civilization is far superior than Islamic "civilization", and I'm not the least ashamed to admit this. As for religion, I think it is all a big load of junk. But some junk is pretty harmless (e.g. Buddhism), some junk is silly, while other junk is pretty dangerous (Islam). Especially as the latter is treated with silk gloves by much of the establishment here in the west. And this infuriates me a lot. I think Christianity is pretty silly, but it's already getting more than its fair share of derision and contempt. Islam also strongly needs this treatment, but it isn't happening, because of misguided notions of "cultural sensitivity" or "every religion is equal, just different".
Cause, you see, anything that you and the poster above are trying to ascribe to one particular religion can be ascribed to any other just as well. No religion is a religion of peace no more than it is a religion of war.
Ah, the silly notion that all religions are equal, just different. I think facts speak for themselves here, only someone with large blinders could continue pushing this outdated idea. There are many religions in this world, and they subscribe to radically different values. Some religions preach more peaceful values and other religions preach violence and hate. I don't believe in any of them, but I don't hesitate to admit the difference between them.
As for the term "religion of peace", it is an image that Islamic apologists have been pushing since the 9-11 attacks, but because of the almost 20000 terrorist attacks carried out since 9-11 by Muslims in the name of Islam, the term "religion of peace" is now used mostly in a sarcastic and mocking manner by people critical of Islam.
Exposing ALL religions as irrelevant and often contradictory sets of harmful superstitions is a moral act... "Exposing" ONLY ONE religion as "backward, intolerant and violent" is, again, religious extremism with cultural and religious biases bordering on racism.
As I said, religions are different, and it is grotesque to suggest that you can never criticize specific religions for their specific teachings. Today, Islam happens to be the worst of the worst, so it by far deserves the harshest treatment by critics all over the world. If there comes a time when mainstream Islam becomes like Irshad Manji's harmless version of Islam, I and many others would have nothing to complain about. But until then, we will continue to single out Islam as the worst religion there is and as a threat to civilization as we know it. And no fake labels of "racism" or "xenophobia" can scare us away any longer, those words have lost their edge because of incessantly repeated overuse by people trying to stifle free speech and stigmatize dissent. Well, it's not working any longer.
Regardless what you think about that concept, it's already in the guidelines. So, if you want to apply it consistently, unemotionally, geekily, you'd ban this video
Except that it doesn't demean any group of people based on their religion, it demeans the religion itself (which is not banned by their Community Guidelines). There is a difference, and that is why Google didn't pull the video, according to their own statement.
I am saying they would not be offended had they been grown-ups rather than little children with even littler egos.
Even grown-ups can be offended, but most grown-ups shrug it off, write a letter to the editor of their favorite newspaper or posts an article on their blog. The ability to control your anger over petty offenses are actually an important part of adulthood at least in my part of the world. Here, when people whine about being offended by something, they are told to grow up and grow a thicker skin. On the other hand, when Muslims are offended and start rioting, people start making excuse after excuse about how that is how they are and that we must stop offending them. Nobody says anything similar about e.g. religious satire directed at Christians. Piss Christ? Refreshingly provocative. The prophet M. as a roundabout dog? That's suddenly an unconscionable offense by a failed racist artist.
I'm an atheist, but I'm sick and tired of this difference in how the media treat different religions. I'm all for satirizing all of them, but the (mostly left-wing) journalists think that we should pussyfoot around Islam while attacking Christianity with the full force of the toolbox of satire. That's starkly hypocritical, in my opinion.
If that happens, the diplomatic fallout will be ENORMOUS, especially with the potential of oil supply reduction or even cutoff to Western countries and any eastern Asian country allied to the West.
Oh, that's easy. Invade Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states, and you have all the oil you ever want. Besides, you might liberate the country from its oppressive leadership stop the flow of Saudi funds for extremist mosques and other Islamist pressure groups in the west. That would be a huge favor and we would be eternally thankful to anyone cutting off the air supply to this scourge.
After the fatwas against Salman Rushdie and cartoonists the violent reaction is predictable.
So we should treat them not like humans, but like an unstoppable force of nature? I'd say that we hold those people committing violence to account, and not the producers of this film or any film, cartoon, article or whatnot. Freedom of speech is sacred, much more sacred than any god or prophet or scripture, and that is exactly what we should be telling the Muslim world today, instead of cowering when faced with the very predictable Muslim violence, apologizing for our core values such as free speech and condemning filmmakers, while making excuse after excuse for "predictably" violent Muslim reactions.
They want to shove Islam and its blasphemy laws down our throats by force. It's time we start shoving free speech and religious satire down their throats by force. And no, I don't believe in the possibility of peaceful coexistence with unreformed Islam, there will always by conflict and tension, and no anti-hate-speech laws or anti-blasphemy regulations can do anything about that. It can temporarily give the appearance of peace, but it's like welding a safety valve shut in an operating steam boiler. Some day, the boiler breaks, and when it does, it does so with a bang.
No wonder nationalist and anti-islam parties are on the rise in Europe.
Saying that the original act didn't cause the riots afterwards is ignoring the evidence of a very clear chain of cause and effect.
What you are actually saying is that Muslims are not humans but robots, which are hardwired to react in a certain way to certain input, and thus cannot be held responsible for what they do.
If you are actually after a positive result you shouldn't "attack" their superstition. Don't stoop to that level. Instead, expose it. Both to reason and to the truth.
What's the difference? Exposing Islam for what it is will undoubtedly be viewed as an attack on their faith by devout Muslims. So let's stop pussyfooting around Islam and let them know time and time again exactly what we think of their backward, intolerant and violent religion. A purported "religion of peace" according to its apologists, but when someone says it isn't, they are usually threatened with violence. Thus, it's a "religion of peace" in the same way that North Korea is a "people's democratic republic".
What you, in essence, are saying is that Muslims are robots which can be predicted with high accuracy to respond to religious offense with violence, and since it is instinctive (hardwired) and not a conscious decision, they can't be held to account. A bit like a force of nature. As we know, gravity can't be held to account when a chunk of ice falls from a building and kills a passersby. In this case, the building owner can be charged with negligent homicide for failing to remove the ice from the roof.
Or, you could view Muslims as human beings, who can consciously choose between violence or non-violence when he is offended, and thus be held to account for that choice. If he chooses a violent response, he should be punished for it, not the guy causing the offense. After all, anything can be offensive to someone, and banning people from offending others would grind society to a halt, as nobody would be able to say pretty much anything.
Sam Harris evidently disagrees with you. In this video, he explains that unlike Islam, which is often called a "religion of peace" by many of its apologists, Jainism is really a religion of peace. As Harris says, "The crazier you get as a Jain, the less we have to worry about you. Jain extremists are paralyzed by their pacifism.... They can't take their eyes off the ground lest they step on an ant, they filter their drinking water through cheese cloth lest they swallow and kill a bug".
Excuse the language but my sincerest fuck you, being a muslim i find this highly offensive.
I find Islam and many of the values it promotes to be highly offensive.
Let's all be insensitive about each others culture, I'm sure we will have a better society.
So if you want to be sensitive towards my values, you would need to ban Islam from public life. Do you think that this is a good idea? Or, you and your muslim brethren could just grow a backbone and not throw a hissy fit as soon as someone mocks your religion, culture and/or values, and I'll do the same for you.
I'd suggest that if we discard the hot-button issue of race, we'd find that generally there is almost always (at least) a single-digit difference between what people SAY they're going to vote for, and what they ACTUALLY vote for.
The Bradley Effect does not only apply to issues of race, it applies to all issues in some way related to political correctness, i.e. issues where there exist significant social pressures to think in a certain way. Environmentalism is an example of such an issue, and at least here in Sweden, the Green Party pretty much always get significantly higher results in the polls than in the actual elections. Advocating for environmentalist policies (especially policies regarding anthropogenic climate change) is highly politically correct in Sweden, and the poll vs election results closely resembles what the Bradley Effect predicts. The Sweden Democrats are affected in the opposite way. Being critical of Islam and in favor of restricting immigration (on cultural and religious grounds) are highly politically incorrect positions and consistently show lower poll results than actual election results, just like the Bradley Effect predicts.
Your post reminds me of this video, by a young black conservative guy who sharply criticizes the Cornell Wests, the Jesse Jacksons and the Al Sharptons of the world, exactly because they perpetuate the stereotypical image of blacks as eternal victims of white oppression. He reminds everyone that these guys depend on this image for their business, and that they would lose their livelihood if this image were to fall apart.
Right now I see three big posts about "if 95% of black people voted for obama, how is that not racist" which is bullshit.
If they voted for Obama because of his skin color, their motivation was racist. If they voted for Obama because of his political ideas, their motivation was not racist. But the situation is likely more complex. A subset of those 95% may have voted for Obama because of his dark skin, and another subset may have voted for him based on his political positions. In addition, some people may have voted for him based on both his politics and his skin color.
"Reverse racism" is a silly term. It implies that some types of racism are better than other. More specifically, it suggests that racism carried out by a minority against a majority (so-called "reverse racism") is "better" or "less bad" than ordinary racism, which according to the proponents of this term can only be carried out by a majority against a minority.
In my opinion, all racism is equally bad, regardless of who is the perpetrator and who is the victim.
Ok, you are right in those cases. But they differ from.e.g. Slashdot in that Slashdot has a large community with very diverse opinions about almost everything, which is not really comparable to a political party, which more or less requires that everyone subscribe to the same set of values and the same political agenda.
Slashdot has a large community of posters, but a community does not hold double standards, only individuals may do so. So, Slashdot has a (fairly large) set of community members promoting the GPL and similar licenses, and Slashdot has a set of community members advocating copyright infringement. But since we do not have any information about whether these sets overlap or not, we cannot accuse anyone of holding double standards.
The sets may be completely disjoint (i.e. have no common members), or they may overlap to an unknown extent. But even if they overlap, there is no "average poster" that can be accused of anything, all you have is a set of individuals holding double standards. Only if those sets are almost the same, you can reasonably accuse the "Slashdot GPL advocates" of double standards. But since we have no such information, no conclusions can be drawn, and there is no point in continuing this discussion until someone actually collects and compiles the positions held by a large number of Slashdot posters, so that we have some real data to discuss.
The explosion would be detected by a Defense Support Program satellite, but it would lack the double flash typical of nuclear detonations, so the military would probably not be seriously alarmed. People on the ground in SF on the other hand might have a little scare.
It could be much more serious if this happened over a less developed country possessing nuclear warheads but not the advanced detection equipment the US has, especially when its forces were on high alert. In June 2002, one such incident were just a few hours from happening. A meteor exploded over the eastern Mediterranean with the force of a small atomic bomb. Had it arrived some three hours later, it would have exploded over the border between India and Pakistan, when those countries had their nuclear forces on high alert. Since those countries probably do not have advanced detection equipment like the DSP mentioned above, they could have believed that the other side had launched a nuclear attack, and launched their own weapons in "retaliation".
Hydrogen has many uses that do not rely on being able to store it. For example, the Sabatier reaction combines hydrogen with carbon dioxide in the presence of a nickel catalyst to produce methane and oxygen. And methane is the primary component of natural gas, so I'm sure that you can see why that is useful.
Hydrogen can also be used together with carbon monoxide in the Fischer-Tropsch process to create liquid hydrocarbons, which could be used as synthetic petroleum. In other words, another very advantageous use of raw hydrogen without the associated problems with storing the raw hydrogen gas.
But, since the byte is really the smallest meaningful unit of data is a byte (yes, a single bit can represent a boolean value, but you can't transmit a single bit; in the simple case of a modem, you would generally transmit a byte; with modern networks, you transmit a packet, and I believe the smallest amount of data you can encapsulate in a packet is also one byte, isn't it?), data speeds should really be measured in *bytes* per second.
I disagree. There are several reasons why data transfer capacities of network equipment is measured in raw bits per second. First, different encoding schemes use different numbers of bits to transmit one byte. Second, at what layer do you want to measure the byte transport capacity? Do you wish to use the frame payload, the IP packet payload, the TCP stream payload, or something else? Third, even with a set encoding scheme and a defined layer, different packet sizes will give different amounts of overhead and thus differing data transport capacities for the same raw bitrate. Transmitting a stream of packets with a one-byte payload results in much more overhead and much lower payload transfer rate than if you use packets carrying 1 kb of payload. Fourth, features of various protocols significantly affect transfer rate. For an example compare the transfer rate of TFTP and FTP on the same network.
Actually, they do. In Sweden, hate speech is illegal except if you do it because of your religion. A few years ago, a pentecostal pastor said that gays were "a cancer in society". He was charged with hate speech and convicted, but the conviction was overturned because freedom of religion trumps other laws (including laws against hate speech) in the EU.
There have been other instances. Last year, a muslim man was applying for a job at a company. At the interview, he refused to take the hand of the female boss while shaking the hands of other men. When the Swedish Public Employment Service because of this incident concluded that this man didn't make a reasonable effort to get a job, they retracted his social security payments. He complained to the public anti-discrimination board and they filed suit against the employment service, charging that he had been discriminated against because of his religion, a court case which they won. That he himself had discriminated against the female boss because of her sex was obviously considered irrelevant, as religion and multiculturalism apparently trumps equality between the sexes in Sweden.
Slashdot Mirror
That quote (or a variant thereof) is actually often used to defend government surveillance. It's a version of the "if you've got nothing to hide, you have no reason to oppose government surveillance" argument.
I'm Swedish, not Finnish, but Finland do have Swedish as an official second language, due to the fact that Finland was part of Sweden for hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, you are correct. Because otherwise, I could have made a bad joke about "fiskar" meaning plural of "fish" in Swedish, which certainly relates to submersion in water.
The difference is in my (faulty) assumption that the original poster was "someone who has intellectual issues with religionS" - instead of being "actually a religious extremist, with cultural and religious biases bordering on racism".
I do have intellectual issues with religion, I just don't pussyfoot around them as is nowadays required to avoid the "racist" label, at least when dealing with Islam. Christianity seems to be fair game for attack by the left, while Islam apparently is sacred and needs to be treated with silk gloves, or you're labeled a "racist". But anyone who can think for themselves understand that contempt for religion has nothing to do with race, and that accusations of racism are just attempts to silence dissent, nothing else.
Me, a religious extremist? Well, if it's "extremism" to expose religious hypocrisy and other nonsense to the point of ridicule, and/or show contempt for barbaric religions and their practices, them I guess I'm a (atheist) "religious extremist". A word of warning though, unless you want the term "religious extremist" to be diluted, just like the word "racist" has been the last couple of years, I'd advise keeping the "religious extremist" label for actual violent extremists.
As for cultural and religious biases, well, you got me there. I think western civilization is far superior than Islamic "civilization", and I'm not the least ashamed to admit this. As for religion, I think it is all a big load of junk. But some junk is pretty harmless (e.g. Buddhism), some junk is silly, while other junk is pretty dangerous (Islam). Especially as the latter is treated with silk gloves by much of the establishment here in the west. And this infuriates me a lot. I think Christianity is pretty silly, but it's already getting more than its fair share of derision and contempt. Islam also strongly needs this treatment, but it isn't happening, because of misguided notions of "cultural sensitivity" or "every religion is equal, just different".
Cause, you see, anything that you and the poster above are trying to ascribe to one particular religion can be ascribed to any other just as well. No religion is a religion of peace no more than it is a religion of war.
Ah, the silly notion that all religions are equal, just different. I think facts speak for themselves here, only someone with large blinders could continue pushing this outdated idea. There are many religions in this world, and they subscribe to radically different values. Some religions preach more peaceful values and other religions preach violence and hate. I don't believe in any of them, but I don't hesitate to admit the difference between them.
As for the term "religion of peace", it is an image that Islamic apologists have been pushing since the 9-11 attacks, but because of the almost 20000 terrorist attacks carried out since 9-11 by Muslims in the name of Islam, the term "religion of peace" is now used mostly in a sarcastic and mocking manner by people critical of Islam.
Exposing ALL religions as irrelevant and often contradictory sets of harmful superstitions is a moral act ... "Exposing" ONLY ONE religion as "backward, intolerant and violent" is, again, religious extremism with cultural and religious biases bordering on racism.
As I said, religions are different, and it is grotesque to suggest that you can never criticize specific religions for their specific teachings. Today, Islam happens to be the worst of the worst, so it by far deserves the harshest treatment by critics all over the world. If there comes a time when mainstream Islam becomes like Irshad Manji's harmless version of Islam, I and many others would have nothing to complain about. But until then, we will continue to single out Islam as the worst religion there is and as a threat to civilization as we know it. And no fake labels of "racism" or "xenophobia" can scare us away any longer, those words have lost their edge because of incessantly repeated overuse by people trying to stifle free speech and stigmatize dissent. Well, it's not working any longer.
Sure, it certainly is absolutism, but I can't really see that the following applies:
When that happens, ... you're either on the side of god, angels and good or you're on the side of evil. And evil, as we all know, must be vanquished.
If you're a pacifist, you can't really vanquish evil, so you shouldn't be a threat to the rest of us, even if you might think that we are evil.
Oh, by the way, where is my appeal to authority?
Regardless what you think about that concept, it's already in the guidelines. So, if you want to apply it consistently, unemotionally, geekily, you'd ban this video
Except that it doesn't demean any group of people based on their religion, it demeans the religion itself (which is not banned by their Community Guidelines). There is a difference, and that is why Google didn't pull the video, according to their own statement.
I am saying they would not be offended had they been grown-ups rather than little children with even littler egos.
Even grown-ups can be offended, but most grown-ups shrug it off, write a letter to the editor of their favorite newspaper or posts an article on their blog. The ability to control your anger over petty offenses are actually an important part of adulthood at least in my part of the world. Here, when people whine about being offended by something, they are told to grow up and grow a thicker skin. On the other hand, when Muslims are offended and start rioting, people start making excuse after excuse about how that is how they are and that we must stop offending them. Nobody says anything similar about e.g. religious satire directed at Christians. Piss Christ? Refreshingly provocative. The prophet M. as a roundabout dog? That's suddenly an unconscionable offense by a failed racist artist.
I'm an atheist, but I'm sick and tired of this difference in how the media treat different religions. I'm all for satirizing all of them, but the (mostly left-wing) journalists think that we should pussyfoot around Islam while attacking Christianity with the full force of the toolbox of satire. That's starkly hypocritical, in my opinion.
Nice misspelling of prophet (as "profit") in the picket signs.
Aside from that, it's nice to see that some sane voices exist even in the Muslim world.
If that happens, the diplomatic fallout will be ENORMOUS, especially with the potential of oil supply reduction or even cutoff to Western countries and any eastern Asian country allied to the West.
Oh, that's easy. Invade Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states, and you have all the oil you ever want. Besides, you might liberate the country from its oppressive leadership stop the flow of Saudi funds for extremist mosques and other Islamist pressure groups in the west. That would be a huge favor and we would be eternally thankful to anyone cutting off the air supply to this scourge.
After the fatwas against Salman Rushdie and cartoonists the violent reaction is predictable.
So we should treat them not like humans, but like an unstoppable force of nature? I'd say that we hold those people committing violence to account, and not the producers of this film or any film, cartoon, article or whatnot. Freedom of speech is sacred, much more sacred than any god or prophet or scripture, and that is exactly what we should be telling the Muslim world today, instead of cowering when faced with the very predictable Muslim violence, apologizing for our core values such as free speech and condemning filmmakers, while making excuse after excuse for "predictably" violent Muslim reactions.
They want to shove Islam and its blasphemy laws down our throats by force. It's time we start shoving free speech and religious satire down their throats by force. And no, I don't believe in the possibility of peaceful coexistence with unreformed Islam, there will always by conflict and tension, and no anti-hate-speech laws or anti-blasphemy regulations can do anything about that. It can temporarily give the appearance of peace, but it's like welding a safety valve shut in an operating steam boiler. Some day, the boiler breaks, and when it does, it does so with a bang.
No wonder nationalist and anti-islam parties are on the rise in Europe.
Saying that the original act didn't cause the riots afterwards is ignoring the evidence of a very clear chain of cause and effect.
What you are actually saying is that Muslims are not humans but robots, which are hardwired to react in a certain way to certain input, and thus cannot be held responsible for what they do.
If you are actually after a positive result you shouldn't "attack" their superstition. Don't stoop to that level. Instead, expose it. Both to reason and to the truth.
What's the difference? Exposing Islam for what it is will undoubtedly be viewed as an attack on their faith by devout Muslims. So let's stop pussyfooting around Islam and let them know time and time again exactly what we think of their backward, intolerant and violent religion. A purported "religion of peace" according to its apologists, but when someone says it isn't, they are usually threatened with violence. Thus, it's a "religion of peace" in the same way that North Korea is a "people's democratic republic".
What you, in essence, are saying is that Muslims are robots which can be predicted with high accuracy to respond to religious offense with violence, and since it is instinctive (hardwired) and not a conscious decision, they can't be held to account. A bit like a force of nature. As we know, gravity can't be held to account when a chunk of ice falls from a building and kills a passersby. In this case, the building owner can be charged with negligent homicide for failing to remove the ice from the roof.
Or, you could view Muslims as human beings, who can consciously choose between violence or non-violence when he is offended, and thus be held to account for that choice. If he chooses a violent response, he should be punished for it, not the guy causing the offense. After all, anything can be offensive to someone, and banning people from offending others would grind society to a halt, as nobody would be able to say pretty much anything.
Sam Harris evidently disagrees with you. In this video, he explains that unlike Islam, which is often called a "religion of peace" by many of its apologists, Jainism is really a religion of peace. As Harris says, "The crazier you get as a Jain, the less we have to worry about you. Jain extremists are paralyzed by their pacifism. ... They can't take their eyes off the ground lest they step on an ant, they filter their drinking water through cheese cloth lest they swallow and kill a bug".
Excuse the language but my sincerest fuck you, being a muslim i find this highly offensive.
I find Islam and many of the values it promotes to be highly offensive.
Let's all be insensitive about each others culture, I'm sure we will have a better society.
So if you want to be sensitive towards my values, you would need to ban Islam from public life. Do you think that this is a good idea? Or, you and your muslim brethren could just grow a backbone and not throw a hissy fit as soon as someone mocks your religion, culture and/or values, and I'll do the same for you.
I'd suggest that if we discard the hot-button issue of race, we'd find that generally there is almost always (at least) a single-digit difference between what people SAY they're going to vote for, and what they ACTUALLY vote for.
The Bradley Effect does not only apply to issues of race, it applies to all issues in some way related to political correctness, i.e. issues where there exist significant social pressures to think in a certain way. Environmentalism is an example of such an issue, and at least here in Sweden, the Green Party pretty much always get significantly higher results in the polls than in the actual elections. Advocating for environmentalist policies (especially policies regarding anthropogenic climate change) is highly politically correct in Sweden, and the poll vs election results closely resembles what the Bradley Effect predicts. The Sweden Democrats are affected in the opposite way. Being critical of Islam and in favor of restricting immigration (on cultural and religious grounds) are highly politically incorrect positions and consistently show lower poll results than actual election results, just like the Bradley Effect predicts.
Your post reminds me of this video, by a young black conservative guy who sharply criticizes the Cornell Wests, the Jesse Jacksons and the Al Sharptons of the world, exactly because they perpetuate the stereotypical image of blacks as eternal victims of white oppression. He reminds everyone that these guys depend on this image for their business, and that they would lose their livelihood if this image were to fall apart.
Right now I see three big posts about "if 95% of black people voted for obama, how is that not racist" which is bullshit.
If they voted for Obama because of his skin color, their motivation was racist. If they voted for Obama because of his political ideas, their motivation was not racist. But the situation is likely more complex. A subset of those 95% may have voted for Obama because of his dark skin, and another subset may have voted for him based on his political positions. In addition, some people may have voted for him based on both his politics and his skin color.
"Reverse racism" is a silly term. It implies that some types of racism are better than other. More specifically, it suggests that racism carried out by a minority against a majority (so-called "reverse racism") is "better" or "less bad" than ordinary racism, which according to the proponents of this term can only be carried out by a majority against a minority.
In my opinion, all racism is equally bad, regardless of who is the perpetrator and who is the victim.
Ok, you are right in those cases. But they differ from .e.g. Slashdot in that Slashdot has a large community with very diverse opinions about almost everything, which is not really comparable to a political party, which more or less requires that everyone subscribe to the same set of values and the same political agenda.
Did you ever consider that this partition may be what remains of the operating system shipped with the computer?
Slashdot has a large community of posters, but a community does not hold double standards, only individuals may do so. So, Slashdot has a (fairly large) set of community members promoting the GPL and similar licenses, and Slashdot has a set of community members advocating copyright infringement. But since we do not have any information about whether these sets overlap or not, we cannot accuse anyone of holding double standards.
The sets may be completely disjoint (i.e. have no common members), or they may overlap to an unknown extent. But even if they overlap, there is no "average poster" that can be accused of anything, all you have is a set of individuals holding double standards. Only if those sets are almost the same, you can reasonably accuse the "Slashdot GPL advocates" of double standards. But since we have no such information, no conclusions can be drawn, and there is no point in continuing this discussion until someone actually collects and compiles the positions held by a large number of Slashdot posters, so that we have some real data to discuss.
The explosion would be detected by a Defense Support Program satellite, but it would lack the double flash typical of nuclear detonations, so the military would probably not be seriously alarmed. People on the ground in SF on the other hand might have a little scare.
It could be much more serious if this happened over a less developed country possessing nuclear warheads but not the advanced detection equipment the US has, especially when its forces were on high alert. In June 2002, one such incident were just a few hours from happening. A meteor exploded over the eastern Mediterranean with the force of a small atomic bomb. Had it arrived some three hours later, it would have exploded over the border between India and Pakistan, when those countries had their nuclear forces on high alert. Since those countries probably do not have advanced detection equipment like the DSP mentioned above, they could have believed that the other side had launched a nuclear attack, and launched their own weapons in "retaliation".
Hydrogen has many uses that do not rely on being able to store it. For example, the Sabatier reaction combines hydrogen with carbon dioxide in the presence of a nickel catalyst to produce methane and oxygen. And methane is the primary component of natural gas, so I'm sure that you can see why that is useful.
Hydrogen can also be used together with carbon monoxide in the Fischer-Tropsch process to create liquid hydrocarbons, which could be used as synthetic petroleum. In other words, another very advantageous use of raw hydrogen without the associated problems with storing the raw hydrogen gas.
But, since the byte is really the smallest meaningful unit of data is a byte (yes, a single bit can represent a boolean value, but you can't transmit a single bit; in the simple case of a modem, you would generally transmit a byte; with modern networks, you transmit a packet, and I believe the smallest amount of data you can encapsulate in a packet is also one byte, isn't it?), data speeds should really be measured in *bytes* per second.
I disagree. There are several reasons why data transfer capacities of network equipment is measured in raw bits per second. First, different encoding schemes use different numbers of bits to transmit one byte. Second, at what layer do you want to measure the byte transport capacity? Do you wish to use the frame payload, the IP packet payload, the TCP stream payload, or something else? Third, even with a set encoding scheme and a defined layer, different packet sizes will give different amounts of overhead and thus differing data transport capacities for the same raw bitrate. Transmitting a stream of packets with a one-byte payload results in much more overhead and much lower payload transfer rate than if you use packets carrying 1 kb of payload. Fourth, features of various protocols significantly affect transfer rate. For an example compare the transfer rate of TFTP and FTP on the same network.
Actually, they do. In Sweden, hate speech is illegal except if you do it because of your religion. A few years ago, a pentecostal pastor said that gays were "a cancer in society". He was charged with hate speech and convicted, but the conviction was overturned because freedom of religion trumps other laws (including laws against hate speech) in the EU.
There have been other instances. Last year, a muslim man was applying for a job at a company. At the interview, he refused to take the hand of the female boss while shaking the hands of other men. When the Swedish Public Employment Service because of this incident concluded that this man didn't make a reasonable effort to get a job, they retracted his social security payments. He complained to the public anti-discrimination board and they filed suit against the employment service, charging that he had been discriminated against because of his religion, a court case which they won. That he himself had discriminated against the female boss because of her sex was obviously considered irrelevant, as religion and multiculturalism apparently trumps equality between the sexes in Sweden.