One problem with death penalty cases from a fairness standpoint is that the prosecutors can exclude members from a jury who do not believe in execution.
No, that's not a "problem" at all. In pro-death penalty states, the state has collectively decided that they wish for capital punishment to be one of the available options during sentencing. Allowing individuals on the jury who refuse to even consider allowing such sentencing under any circumstances invalidates the availability of such sentencing in the first place. That'd be like allowing people on the jury who "don't believe in convicting people of crimes, for any reason." The prosecution has a right to a jury that is open to all of the legal options available in the particular venue in which the case is being tried.
Sure, but what happened to innocent until proven guilty? Now it's up to the defense to prove that he didn't do the crime? Instead of the prosecution proving that he did do the crime? Somethings wrong there.
No, nothing's wrong here, get your head out of the sand. "Innocent until proven guilty" is still the rule, and that's made clear to juries before cases even begin. Quit panicking about what a bunch of knee-jerk chicken-little slashbots and spouting.
Holy freakin' crap, you've spouted a lot of garbage, but I can't resist commenting on some of the stupidest points.
Re: Scott Peterson. He did it. It's as simple as that. There is a mountain of evidence against him, and your whole rant ignores one simple question: Who else had motive to kill Laci? Nobody. None at all. There was no forced entry to the home, nothing was ever reported missing or stolen, she was simply murdered. One common tactic investigators use in solving crimes is to start with the entire population as suspects, and eliminate people who could not possibly have done it. While it may be true that Scott Peterson was not the only one with the "Means" and "Opportunity," he was the only one with a "Motive." Nobody else had any reason to kill Laci. Scott did. A few other people may have had the "opportunity." Scott definitely did. He was seen in the area where her body was dumped, around the time it happened.
Finally, you assume that the jury is a bunch of brain dead lemmings eager to convict people for things they didn't do. They're not. Get off your friggin' high horse and check your ego. You're not the only open-minded and objective person in the world. Give others some credit. The jury was presented evidence from both sides, and concluded that Scott was lying, that he killed his wife, and that he deserved to die for it. They didn't do all this just because the prosecutors told them to (remember that the defense was equally passionately pleading with them to reach the completely opposite conclusion), they did it because they examined the evidence presented to them, and determined that there wasn't even a shred of "reasonable doubt" that maybe Scott didn't do it.
[The police] regularly pin crimes on the most likely suspect is proof of the fact.
Oh come on. Do you really, honestly believe that there are huge numbers of innocent people currently rotting in prison, just because the police "decided" to pin the crime on them? How exactly did the police manage to convince a judge/jury that this person was definitely the perpetrator? Is there a vast conspiracy of underground police labs, fabricating evidence to convict innocent people who just happen to be the "easy way out" for the cops to close the books on a crime? Are police all a bunch of immoral simpletons with no interested in truth and justice, but instead who all simply seek to put random innocent people in jail? Is that why the decided to go to police school and become cops? Do they hang out around the coffee machine and trade stories of innocent people they've convicted?
Gimmie a freakin' break. Do you really believe any of the garbage you're spouting?
I mean seriously, do you really, honestly believe that cops are all a bunch of people who don't care about right and wrong, and who knowingly accuse innocent people of crimes they didn't commit? Do you honestly believe that judges and juries are all so stupid as to be easily fooled into convicting innocent people? OR ARE THEY IN ON IT TOO, IN YOUR LITTLE PARANOID FANTASY?
I don't mean to yell, but sweet merciful crap, you are WAAAY out in left field buddy. I have a very hard time believing that anyone could possibly be as far out of touch with reality as you are appearing to be right now.
Finally, if what you claim were true, how did OJ get away with it? How did Robert Blake get away with it? They were certainly the "obvious" suspects (in fact, they most likely actually did it, and were not just unwitting pawns with unfortunate timing).
Which leads me to believe you are cherry picking information since you chose to limit to 4 years.
I chose recent history because it is useless to go back in time indefinitely. The original poster said:
People executed in the US are disproportinately black. (emphasis mine)
Since he used the present tense, and didn't qualify his statement by saying something like, "People executed in the US have historically been disproportionately black." That would have been a true statement, since if you go back to the beginning of US history, yes, there was a lot of racism, and back then, more blacks were executed. More slaves were black, too, but you don't see me saying "Slaves in the US are disproportionately black." Do you see where I'm going with this?
He was complaining about the CURRENT state of bigotry and prejudice in the US. So I chose statistics limited to a recent period to demonstrate that, while it is true that in the past blacks were disproportionately discriminated against, it is no longer the case.
You forgot the Arabs who took all those kids hostage in that elementary school in Beslan, south of Russia, or the Arabs who beseiged the theater in Moscow in 2002.
Many consider it acceptable to be prejudiced against gays.
When he said "acceptable," he meant by the mainstream public in general. The fact that you can come up with an example of a bigotry that a small pocket of people "accept" does not mean that it is "acceptable." It's moot anyway, as both of you are wrong. There are many prejudices that remain acceptable by the general public. For example, prejudice against smokers, fat people, and white males are all still widely accepted in today's society. Your feeble, twisted logic would conclude that even blatant racism is "acceptable," since the KKK exists somewhere.
In many nations, women are repressed. Even in the US they often have to overcome rediculous and antiquated notions.
Gender equality is virtually universal in North America. There are no longer "rediculous [sic]" obstacles to them achieving equal rights and priveleges.
People executed in the US are disproportinately black.
Demonstrably false. More whites are executed in the US than blacks. Count 'em yourself: here's Texas' list. Since Jan 1, 2000, Texas has executed 73 whites, 52 blacks, and 17 hispanics. The irony is that you began your post with:
Whoa, buddy. You just spouted some grade-A bullshit.
I humbly suggest that you've done the same.
Arab-Americans are more likely to be stopped at airports.
Do you have any evidence to support this claim, or are you just pulling wild accusations out of your ass, like you did with the "more blacks are executed than whites" baloney?
Weel, at 11:11 on 11/11 some big war ended at one point in time...
Actually, I think it was just 11:00, not 11:11. I recall the speech saying something to the effect of "On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, allied forces (etc.)" Correct me if I'm wrong.
But then again, I still remember where I was at exactly 1:23:45, 6/7/89.
In the US, you can sue for anything at all, and this is what happenes when a company with money picks on someone who doesn't. Hmm.. who does this remind us of? ??AA anyone? The case would be thrown out of court in a heartbeat, but first it has to get there, and that means that Mark Mumma will first have to hire a lawyer (which he already has, according to TFA).
This is just another symptom of the twisted legal system that has been allowed to evolve in the US. When will legislators realize that it's time for serious legal reforms to end these types of frivolous, baseless lawsuits that are intended only to intimidate and harass?
A movie star gets paid for acting in the movie. How many times that game or movie is rebroadcast on TV doesn't affect how much monet the performer gets paid: they were paid for the initial act of the performance.
That's not entirely accurate. More and more stars are commanding royalty deals in Hollywood. For example, a sweetheart royalty deal on the Matrix sequels is what made Keanu Reaves the richest actor in Hollywood.
Not to nitpick, but just wanted to point out that "royalties" are not unique to the music industry. Literature publishing works that way almost exclusively, and it is becoming more and more pervasive in Hollywood, too.
People shouldn't have their hands tied from reporting based on the facts available.
(Ob. Simpson quote): "Facts, schmacks! Facts can be used to prove anything even remotely true."
I hope you see the absurdity in your statement. Of course "reports" should be held accountable for what they report. Yes, by all means, they should only report the facts, or clearly note when they are editorializing. Haven't you ever noticed that news outlets are incredibly diligent about always referring to someone as the "alleged driver of the car," or "the individual suspected of ordering the shooting?"
And for the record, OJ actually does threaten legal action when media outlets publish/broadcast stories referring to him as a "murderer." That's why none of them do it. They always say he was "accused" of murdering his wife, or found "civilly responsible" in civil court. But they never call him a "murderer" outright. They know he could/would sue them.
Your entire argument is predicated on the WRONG notion that entertainment is something people have to pay professionals for. People have lived together in communities for thousands of years and provided free entertainment to each other FREE OF CHARGE for that entire time. Professional entertainers aren't the norm for human society, and are one of the worst things to come out of technology.
I'm gonna stop you right there, because you're making yourself look silly. You are apparently ignorant of history, because entertainers have always been paid. You think Shakespeare and Da Vinci worked for free? Artisans have traditionally been commissioned to work for the patriarchy/monarchy. I assure you: they were paid. The fact that the benevolent rules chose to share the fruits of their creation with the public at large doesn't negate the fact that the creators themselves were compensated. You think the roof of the Sistine Chapel was painted out of charity? Out of some need to dedicate 7 years of his life to "entertain" people? Who paid for his food and housing during that period?
The business model has changed, but let there be no doubt: There has always been a "business" in entertainment. Charging for entertainment is certainly nothing new, and it has not "come out of technology."
"Books" is an excellent counter-example to my original point, although I question whether or not books are enjoyed for as many hours as CDs. I suppose for a slow reader with a small collection, it's possible.
Many of them are cheaper and you can enjoy them as long as you want too
Well, for one thing, they're not cheaper. I mean, sure, you can find a DVD of a 1985 movie in the "bargain bin" that'll be cheaper than the brand new Blink 182 album, but when you're comparing apples-to-apples, DVDs are more expensive. A new CD is about $15. A new DVD is about $20. 'Round here, anyway.
As for enjoying them "as long as you want," I generally tend to listen to my CDs while I'm working, while I'm driving, and while I'm exercising. That time adds up fast I can't watch a DVD while I drive to work every day, or while I'm actually at work doing stuff.
I would say it's a pretty safe bet that DVDs, on average, only get "watched" 2, maybe 3 times. Would you disagree? How many times do you think a CD gets listened to? Personally, I listen to my CDs at least a dozen or so times each, in their entirety.
And on a dollar-per-hour basis, practically any video game has CDs beat too.
You may have a point with video games, but again, that has to be a dedicated activity. You can't play video games while you're at work or driving or studying. If you're playing a video game for an hour a day, then you're not doing anything else for that hour. Thus, I don't think the total hours will add up to equal the number of hours you'd spend listening to your CDs over a lifetime, unless you have no job, no wife, and no life, and spend all your time playing said video game.
you decided to compare it to the wrong kinds of things to make your point.
I simply compared CDs to a random sampling of as many different kinds of "entertainment" that I could think of. A movie will net you 2 hours of entertainment for $12. A CD costs the same, but gives you far more hours of entertainment. A nice dinner will cost twice that much, and only be "enjoyed" for an hour. Tickets to a pro sport game can easily run into the hundreds, and for at most 3 hours. Opera/play/ballet/concert tickets are also at least $50/$60, and once it's over, it's over.
The music industry is being greedy, not logical when they determine their pricing right now. [T]he price for music is obscenely high. No CD is worth $ 16
The hair on the back of my neck stands up whenever I hear someone claim that "CDs cost too much." CDs are the cheapest form of entertainment, on a dollar-per-hour-enjoyed basis of anything I can think of. For the price of $12 or $15, you can buy an hour's worth of high-quality (fidelity, if not artistic merit) music and enjoy it over and over, for thousands of hours, as many times as you want. And when you finally get bored with it, you can sell it and recoup some of your money.
NOTHING else is as cheap. No pro sports, concerts, operas, plays, ballets, movies, dinners, truck shows, car races, or comedy clubs give you anywhere near that many hours of entertainment, for anywhere close that such a low price. Nor can you get any of your money back when you're finished "enjoying" anything I just listed, except for CDs.
I guess that is why 30+ states allow their citizens to carry handguns for self-defense.
Wow, the US must be one of the safest places in the world! Up here in Canada, NOBODY is allowed to carry guns in ANY province except cops, wildlife officers, and guards transporting large amounts of money for banks.
Our folks are just sitting ducks! NOBODY is carrying a concealed weapon up here, and the rampant chaotic violence is truly terrifying. Why, our homocide rate is 10 times that of the US!
No... wait... I read that wrong... looks like it's actually 1/10th. That can't be right though... all those US states allow people to carry guns, and you said that makes them safer... what's going on here? Why is Canada so much safer, where nobody is carrying guns, but the US is so dangerous?
If there's anything that voters need to learn, it's that everything a politician in office does is to get re-elected.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
We want our politicians to unwaveringly act in ways that please the majority of his/her voters. Only then are they truly and most faithfully fulfilling the wishes of "the majority" (or "the plurality," if that's the best you can do on some issues). Isn't that what "Democracy" is all about? Majority rules, right? So if the politician wants to be re-elected, they should do whatever pleases the most voters, which vicariously means they are carrying out the wishes of the majority (whether that wish is just or unjust is irrelevant).
Do you smell that? I do, it's the smell of legislation that will never be passed. This is just another one of those bills we keep seeing that has absolutely no chance of ever becoming law
RTFA. It's already been passed. It comes into effect on May 2. They're discussing making changes to it to exempt individuals.
I do wonder if this money would be better spent alleviating the human misery in Sudanese refugee camps instead of making sure we get one more TV season of actors with forehead bumps.
I am so sick of this red herring fallacy. There is always something more worthwhile to spend our money on. How can the government give money to the military when our schools and hospitals are so desperately in need of cash? How can they fund public television? Why don't they just raise taxes, and give every last cent to foreign aid, completely eliminating all funding for all other programs? I mean, how can anyone cash their unemployment/social security check with a clear conscience, knowing that there are people starving somewhere?
We should balance our funding. Yes, of course we should provide money to other causes, but your argument is the top of a slippery slope that ends with the conclusion that we should devote ALL our money to the most worthy cause, with NO money for any other cause. This is clearly silly. Other programs are important too. Just because they're not as important as other programs doesn't mean they should forfeit their funding, it merely means it should be balanced and justified.
Plus, it's THEIR MONEY. They can spend it however they want. Would you want someone coming to your house and criticising you like that? "Do you really need a TV, an internet connection, and name-brand groceries? Why don't you take the bus instead of owning a car, and give the difference to charity? Do you really need a house? Couldn't you get by just fine in a small apartment, and instead donate that money to charity? Why are you buying new clothes instead of just borrowing from others? Why are you drinking beer, when that $5 would innoculate an African child against several life-threatening diseases? How can you not hate yourself for not feeling the guilt you should over your outrageously self indulgent lifestyle, with your 'groceries' and '50 channels of TV'?"
were willing and able to foil (though sadly not stop) the terrorists.
We don't know what happened in the last moments of that flight, but I don't think the passengers all made a conscious decision to trade their lives to save others. I'm pretty sure they were all hoping to survive.
no aircrew in the world is going to surrender control of the plane to hostage-takers; and passengers are willing to fight.
I don't think that's necessarily true. If anything, I think Flight 93 may have made it easier for the terrorists, and made passengers less likely to fight back. They'll all remember that everyone on Flight 93 died, and will instead hope that the new super-safe security measures, like the reinforced cockpit door, and the superhero air marshall will save them.
give every able-bodied person on the plane a big-ass knife. Let any potential terrorists get the Flight 93 treatment, just give the passengers the tools to do the job.
Need I remind you that everybody on that flight died? Surely there's a better solution that doesn't result in the death of every single person the plane. Flight 93 was not a success. It was merely the least of 4 tragic horrors.
Can't the airline just say "No ID, no Fly. That's our policy and if you don't like it, don't fly with us."?
Can McDonald's chose to only serve white people? Can they say, "no white skin, no Big Mac?" Certain types of discrimination and restrictions are unconstitutional. That's the root of the issue here.
Only if your prescription never changes. A year's worth of contacts cost me about $120. My glasses cost $400. If my prescription changes even a little in 2 or 3 years (which it inevitably will), I'll need to buy new glasses. I'll need new contacts, too, but I get new contacts every year anyway. I the cost comparison is much closer than you think.
Plus, poking myself in the eye every morning just doesn't appeal to me.
Neither does jabbing my wife in the cheek with my wire frames while I'm trying to kiss her. You get over the "poking your eye" thing real fast. The benefits of contact lenses are numerous. They don't fog up when you come indoors from the cold. You can see better in the dark (no glare or reflections). You can actually see in the rain/snow/drizzle. Your peripheral vision is sharp. You don't get red marks on your nose where your glasses were resting all day. You can see clearly while playing sports. They don't get in the way when doing photography, or target practice with a rifle. You can wear them in a pool. You can sleep with them in without worrying about rolling over and destroying your glasses accidentally. You can wear any kind of sunglasses you want and still be able to see clearly.
Not to mention that a good set of frames can compliment your face nicely.
According to whom? That's right: the eyewear industry. That's just marketing propaganda they shovel to sell glasses. I admit that there are a few rare people that can look better with glasses, but in the vast majority of cases, glasses detract from your appearance. Ever notice that almost NOBODY on TV is wearing glasses? In Sport's Illustrated's Swimsuit issue, or Maxim, or Playboy, how many of the people are wearing glasses? If glasses really, truly made you look better, wouldn't at least some of the models be wearing them?
Wearing glasses makes your eyes look smaller. Ever notice that when you see someone take off their glasses, their eyes suddenly look much bigger? Well, bigger eyes = youthful look = attractive. Conversely, the illusion of smaller eyes produced by glasses conveys the impression of "beady" eyes, or someone introverted.
Glasses make you look smart. That's about it. I've been wearing contacts for years, and I'll never go back to glasses.
The answer in the past was debateable, but usually ended up concluding that you are better off focusing on writing clear code, and letting the compiler handle the optimizations.
Nowadays, compilers are extremely sophisticated, and can perform very convoluted (and yet, ultimately efficient) optimizations that even the most seasoned programmer wouldn't devise. I've tried this myself with several different compilers, where I code the same algorithm the "clear" way, then re-do it, trying my damndest to make it tight, compact, and efficient. When I compared the output bytecodes/assembly, they were identical. In the former case, the compiler made all kinds of optimizations anyway. In the latter, the compiler had still come up with some optimizations that I hadn't thought of, and in some cases, ignored my own optimizations in favour of an even more efficient way.
Trust your compiler. A helluvalot of thought has gone into them, and they can optimize far better than you can ever dream to.
Let's say I'm bidding on an item, usually start small as a maximum bid to avoid driving the price up early. Let's say that bid remains uncontested. Now it's getting near the end of the auction, it's late. I want to win it but don't want someone outbidding me at the last minute. Don't feel lilke watching it like a hawk at 2 in the morning.
I up the bid to what I would actually pay and go to sleep. Seems sensical to me.
No, it's still nonsensical.
Say the item you want has a starting bid of $1.00, and no one has bid on it yet. You feel it is worth $40 to you, but as you said, you "don't want to drive the price up early." So you bid $20. The current max bid becomes $1 (as you are the first bidder), and you are the winning bidder so far.
As the auction end nears, the price has been driven up to $18. You are still the high bidder, but to make sure you win, you change your max bid to $40.
The reason this is stupid is because if you had simply bid $40 in the first place, rather than $20, you still would have been winning the auction, at $18. Bidding your personal, actual max right off the bat does NOT prematurely drive up the price of the auction, because your bid will automatically only be incremented enough to beat the next closest bidder. Nobody else knows what your max bid is. The situation above would have played out exactly the same if you'd just bid $40 to begin with, and gone to bed. You'd still win the auction for $18.
This whole argument is moot anyway, since if you seriously intend to win the item at a bargain price, you should avoid eBay altogether and just use a sniping service. I'll never go back to "normal" online auctions.
If Mettalica sing a song, at a concert, and I'm at the concert, or even outside it!, and I record the song on my handy gizmo, am I libel for copyright theft? What the hell did I steal? The changes in pressure in the air? Why the hell is an acoustic waveform the subject of copyright?!
If you possess kiddie porn, what exactly do you possess? Some 0's and 1's in an intangible, abstract concept of a "file?" A pattern of phosphors illuminated on your screen? Isn't that as absurd as copyrighting a performance?
If you bring some plants across an imaginary line, are you trafficking in drugs? Yes, if that plant is cannabis, and that "imaginary line" is the US border. Isn't that just as absurd as copyrighting a performance?
Society outlaws a lot of things that can be portrayed in ways that make the idea look ridiculous, but when you look at them objectively, they do indeed make sense. Well, maybe not the drug thing. Its your own body, for crying out loud.
The Digital Rights Management (DRM) makes it impossible to transfer the song [...] unless I go through some ridiculous steps which involve burning the purchased song to a CD and then ripping it. This causes a noticeable loss of sound quality due to the song being recompressed. Totally unacceptable. I want pure silence.
I gotta admit, I laughed out loud at this line. "A noticeable loss of sound quality" of silence? I agree, that's totally unacceptable.
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One problem with death penalty cases from a fairness standpoint is that the prosecutors can exclude members from a jury who do not believe in execution.
No, that's not a "problem" at all. In pro-death penalty states, the state has collectively decided that they wish for capital punishment to be one of the available options during sentencing. Allowing individuals on the jury who refuse to even consider allowing such sentencing under any circumstances invalidates the availability of such sentencing in the first place. That'd be like allowing people on the jury who "don't believe in convicting people of crimes, for any reason." The prosecution has a right to a jury that is open to all of the legal options available in the particular venue in which the case is being tried.
Sure, but what happened to innocent until proven guilty? Now it's up to the defense to prove that he didn't do the crime? Instead of the prosecution proving that he did do the crime? Somethings wrong there.
No, nothing's wrong here, get your head out of the sand. "Innocent until proven guilty" is still the rule, and that's made clear to juries before cases even begin. Quit panicking about what a bunch of knee-jerk chicken-little slashbots and spouting.
Holy freakin' crap, you've spouted a lot of garbage, but I can't resist commenting on some of the stupidest points.
Re: Scott Peterson. He did it. It's as simple as that. There is a mountain of evidence against him, and your whole rant ignores one simple question: Who else had motive to kill Laci? Nobody. None at all. There was no forced entry to the home, nothing was ever reported missing or stolen, she was simply murdered. One common tactic investigators use in solving crimes is to start with the entire population as suspects, and eliminate people who could not possibly have done it. While it may be true that Scott Peterson was not the only one with the "Means" and "Opportunity," he was the only one with a "Motive." Nobody else had any reason to kill Laci. Scott did. A few other people may have had the "opportunity." Scott definitely did. He was seen in the area where her body was dumped, around the time it happened.
Finally, you assume that the jury is a bunch of brain dead lemmings eager to convict people for things they didn't do. They're not. Get off your friggin' high horse and check your ego. You're not the only open-minded and objective person in the world. Give others some credit. The jury was presented evidence from both sides, and concluded that Scott was lying, that he killed his wife, and that he deserved to die for it. They didn't do all this just because the prosecutors told them to (remember that the defense was equally passionately pleading with them to reach the completely opposite conclusion), they did it because they examined the evidence presented to them, and determined that there wasn't even a shred of "reasonable doubt" that maybe Scott didn't do it.
[The police] regularly pin crimes on the most likely suspect is proof of the fact.
Oh come on. Do you really, honestly believe that there are huge numbers of innocent people currently rotting in prison, just because the police "decided" to pin the crime on them? How exactly did the police manage to convince a judge/jury that this person was definitely the perpetrator? Is there a vast conspiracy of underground police labs, fabricating evidence to convict innocent people who just happen to be the "easy way out" for the cops to close the books on a crime? Are police all a bunch of immoral simpletons with no interested in truth and justice, but instead who all simply seek to put random innocent people in jail? Is that why the decided to go to police school and become cops? Do they hang out around the coffee machine and trade stories of innocent people they've convicted?
Gimmie a freakin' break. Do you really believe any of the garbage you're spouting?
I mean seriously, do you really, honestly believe that cops are all a bunch of people who don't care about right and wrong, and who knowingly accuse innocent people of crimes they didn't commit? Do you honestly believe that judges and juries are all so stupid as to be easily fooled into convicting innocent people? OR ARE THEY IN ON IT TOO, IN YOUR LITTLE PARANOID FANTASY?
I don't mean to yell, but sweet merciful crap, you are WAAAY out in left field buddy. I have a very hard time believing that anyone could possibly be as far out of touch with reality as you are appearing to be right now.
Finally, if what you claim were true, how did OJ get away with it? How did Robert Blake get away with it? They were certainly the "obvious" suspects (in fact, they most likely actually did it, and were not just unwitting pawns with unfortunate timing).
Which leads me to believe you are cherry picking information since you chose to limit to 4 years.
I chose recent history because it is useless to go back in time indefinitely. The original poster said:
People executed in the US are disproportinately black.
(emphasis mine)
Since he used the present tense, and didn't qualify his statement by saying something like, "People executed in the US have historically been disproportionately black." That would have been a true statement, since if you go back to the beginning of US history, yes, there was a lot of racism, and back then, more blacks were executed. More slaves were black, too, but you don't see me saying "Slaves in the US are disproportionately black." Do you see where I'm going with this?
He was complaining about the CURRENT state of bigotry and prejudice in the US. So I chose statistics limited to a recent period to demonstrate that, while it is true that in the past blacks were disproportionately discriminated against, it is no longer the case.
You forgot the Arabs who took all those kids hostage in that elementary school in Beslan, south of Russia, or the Arabs who beseiged the theater in Moscow in 2002.
Many consider it acceptable to be prejudiced against gays.
When he said "acceptable," he meant by the mainstream public in general. The fact that you can come up with an example of a bigotry that a small pocket of people "accept" does not mean that it is "acceptable." It's moot anyway, as both of you are wrong. There are many prejudices that remain acceptable by the general public. For example, prejudice against smokers, fat people, and white males are all still widely accepted in today's society. Your feeble, twisted logic would conclude that even blatant racism is "acceptable," since the KKK exists somewhere.
In many nations, women are repressed. Even in the US they often have to overcome rediculous and antiquated notions.
Gender equality is virtually universal in North America. There are no longer "rediculous [sic]" obstacles to them achieving equal rights and priveleges.
People executed in the US are disproportinately black.
Demonstrably false. More whites are executed in the US than blacks. Count 'em yourself: here's Texas' list. Since Jan 1, 2000, Texas has executed 73 whites, 52 blacks, and 17 hispanics. The irony is that you began your post with:
Whoa, buddy. You just spouted some grade-A bullshit.
I humbly suggest that you've done the same.
Arab-Americans are more likely to be stopped at airports.
Do you have any evidence to support this claim, or are you just pulling wild accusations out of your ass, like you did with the "more blacks are executed than whites" baloney?
Weel, at 11:11 on 11/11 some big war ended at one point in time...
Actually, I think it was just 11:00, not 11:11. I recall the speech saying something to the effect of "On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, allied forces (etc.)" Correct me if I'm wrong.
But then again, I still remember where I was at exactly 1:23:45, 6/7/89.
In the US, you can sue for anything at all, and this is what happenes when a company with money picks on someone who doesn't. Hmm.. who does this remind us of? ??AA anyone? The case would be thrown out of court in a heartbeat, but first it has to get there, and that means that Mark Mumma will first have to hire a lawyer (which he already has, according to TFA).
This is just another symptom of the twisted legal system that has been allowed to evolve in the US. When will legislators realize that it's time for serious legal reforms to end these types of frivolous, baseless lawsuits that are intended only to intimidate and harass?
A movie star gets paid for acting in the movie. How many times that game or movie is rebroadcast on TV doesn't affect how much monet the performer gets paid: they were paid for the initial act of the performance.
That's not entirely accurate. More and more stars are commanding royalty deals in Hollywood. For example, a sweetheart royalty deal on the Matrix sequels is what made Keanu Reaves the richest actor in Hollywood.
Not to nitpick, but just wanted to point out that "royalties" are not unique to the music industry. Literature publishing works that way almost exclusively, and it is becoming more and more pervasive in Hollywood, too.
People shouldn't have their hands tied from reporting based on the facts available.
(Ob. Simpson quote): "Facts, schmacks! Facts can be used to prove anything even remotely true."
I hope you see the absurdity in your statement. Of course "reports" should be held accountable for what they report. Yes, by all means, they should only report the facts, or clearly note when they are editorializing. Haven't you ever noticed that news outlets are incredibly diligent about always referring to someone as the "alleged driver of the car," or "the individual suspected of ordering the shooting?"
And for the record, OJ actually does threaten legal action when media outlets publish/broadcast stories referring to him as a "murderer." That's why none of them do it. They always say he was "accused" of murdering his wife, or found "civilly responsible" in civil court. But they never call him a "murderer" outright. They know he could/would sue them.
Your entire argument is predicated on the WRONG notion that entertainment is something people have to pay professionals for. People have lived together in communities for thousands of years and provided free entertainment to each other FREE OF CHARGE for that entire time. Professional entertainers aren't the norm for human society, and are one of the worst things to come out of technology.
I'm gonna stop you right there, because you're making yourself look silly. You are apparently ignorant of history, because entertainers have always been paid. You think Shakespeare and Da Vinci worked for free? Artisans have traditionally been commissioned to work for the patriarchy/monarchy. I assure you: they were paid. The fact that the benevolent rules chose to share the fruits of their creation with the public at large doesn't negate the fact that the creators themselves were compensated. You think the roof of the Sistine Chapel was painted out of charity? Out of some need to dedicate 7 years of his life to "entertain" people? Who paid for his food and housing during that period?
The business model has changed, but let there be no doubt: There has always been a "business" in entertainment. Charging for entertainment is certainly nothing new, and it has not "come out of technology."
"Books" is an excellent counter-example to my original point, although I question whether or not books are enjoyed for as many hours as CDs. I suppose for a slow reader with a small collection, it's possible.
How about DVDs?
What about them?
Many of them are cheaper and you can enjoy them as long as you want too
Well, for one thing, they're not cheaper. I mean, sure, you can find a DVD of a 1985 movie in the "bargain bin" that'll be cheaper than the brand new Blink 182 album, but when you're comparing apples-to-apples, DVDs are more expensive. A new CD is about $15. A new DVD is about $20. 'Round here, anyway.
As for enjoying them "as long as you want," I generally tend to listen to my CDs while I'm working, while I'm driving, and while I'm exercising. That time adds up fast I can't watch a DVD while I drive to work every day, or while I'm actually at work doing stuff.
I would say it's a pretty safe bet that DVDs, on average, only get "watched" 2, maybe 3 times. Would you disagree? How many times do you think a CD gets listened to? Personally, I listen to my CDs at least a dozen or so times each, in their entirety.
And on a dollar-per-hour basis, practically any video game has CDs beat too.
You may have a point with video games, but again, that has to be a dedicated activity. You can't play video games while you're at work or driving or studying. If you're playing a video game for an hour a day, then you're not doing anything else for that hour. Thus, I don't think the total hours will add up to equal the number of hours you'd spend listening to your CDs over a lifetime, unless you have no job, no wife, and no life, and spend all your time playing said video game.
you decided to compare it to the wrong kinds of things to make your point.
I simply compared CDs to a random sampling of as many different kinds of "entertainment" that I could think of. A movie will net you 2 hours of entertainment for $12. A CD costs the same, but gives you far more hours of entertainment. A nice dinner will cost twice that much, and only be "enjoyed" for an hour. Tickets to a pro sport game can easily run into the hundreds, and for at most 3 hours. Opera/play/ballet/concert tickets are also at least $50/$60, and once it's over, it's over.
The music industry is being greedy, not logical when they determine their pricing right now. [T]he price for music is obscenely high. No CD is worth $ 16
The hair on the back of my neck stands up whenever I hear someone claim that "CDs cost too much." CDs are the cheapest form of entertainment, on a dollar-per-hour-enjoyed basis of anything I can think of. For the price of $12 or $15, you can buy an hour's worth of high-quality (fidelity, if not artistic merit) music and enjoy it over and over, for thousands of hours, as many times as you want. And when you finally get bored with it, you can sell it and recoup some of your money.
NOTHING else is as cheap. No pro sports, concerts, operas, plays, ballets, movies, dinners, truck shows, car races, or comedy clubs give you anywhere near that many hours of entertainment, for anywhere close that such a low price. Nor can you get any of your money back when you're finished "enjoying" anything I just listed, except for CDs.
Quit complaining. CDs are cheap.
I guess that is why 30+ states allow their citizens to carry handguns for self-defense.
... I read that wrong ... looks like it's actually 1/10th. That can't be right though... all those US states allow people to carry guns, and you said that makes them safer... what's going on here? Why is Canada so much safer, where nobody is carrying guns, but the US is so dangerous?
Wow, the US must be one of the safest places in the world! Up here in Canada, NOBODY is allowed to carry guns in ANY province except cops, wildlife officers, and guards transporting large amounts of money for banks.
Our folks are just sitting ducks! NOBODY is carrying a concealed weapon up here, and the rampant chaotic violence is truly terrifying. Why, our homocide rate is 10 times that of the US!
No... wait
If there's anything that voters need to learn, it's that everything a politician in office does is to get re-elected.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
We want our politicians to unwaveringly act in ways that please the majority of his/her voters. Only then are they truly and most faithfully fulfilling the wishes of "the majority" (or "the plurality," if that's the best you can do on some issues). Isn't that what "Democracy" is all about? Majority rules, right? So if the politician wants to be re-elected, they should do whatever pleases the most voters, which vicariously means they are carrying out the wishes of the majority (whether that wish is just or unjust is irrelevant).
What's the problem here?
Do you smell that? I do, it's the smell of legislation that will never be passed. This is just another one of those bills we keep seeing that has absolutely no chance of ever becoming law
RTFA. It's already been passed. It comes into effect on May 2. They're discussing making changes to it to exempt individuals.
I do wonder if this money would be better spent alleviating the human misery in Sudanese refugee camps instead of making sure we get one more TV season of actors with forehead bumps.
I am so sick of this red herring fallacy. There is always something more worthwhile to spend our money on. How can the government give money to the military when our schools and hospitals are so desperately in need of cash? How can they fund public television? Why don't they just raise taxes, and give every last cent to foreign aid, completely eliminating all funding for all other programs? I mean, how can anyone cash their unemployment/social security check with a clear conscience, knowing that there are people starving somewhere?
We should balance our funding. Yes, of course we should provide money to other causes, but your argument is the top of a slippery slope that ends with the conclusion that we should devote ALL our money to the most worthy cause, with NO money for any other cause. This is clearly silly. Other programs are important too. Just because they're not as important as other programs doesn't mean they should forfeit their funding, it merely means it should be balanced and justified.
Plus, it's THEIR MONEY. They can spend it however they want. Would you want someone coming to your house and criticising you like that? "Do you really need a TV, an internet connection, and name-brand groceries? Why don't you take the bus instead of owning a car, and give the difference to charity? Do you really need a house? Couldn't you get by just fine in a small apartment, and instead donate that money to charity? Why are you buying new clothes instead of just borrowing from others? Why are you drinking beer, when that $5 would innoculate an African child against several life-threatening diseases? How can you not hate yourself for not feeling the guilt you should over your outrageously self indulgent lifestyle, with your 'groceries' and '50 channels of TV'?"
were willing and able to foil (though sadly not stop) the terrorists.
We don't know what happened in the last moments of that flight, but I don't think the passengers all made a conscious decision to trade their lives to save others. I'm pretty sure they were all hoping to survive.
no aircrew in the world is going to surrender control of the plane to hostage-takers; and passengers are willing to fight.
I don't think that's necessarily true. If anything, I think Flight 93 may have made it easier for the terrorists, and made passengers less likely to fight back. They'll all remember that everyone on Flight 93 died, and will instead hope that the new super-safe security measures, like the reinforced cockpit door, and the superhero air marshall will save them.
give every able-bodied person on the plane a big-ass knife. Let any potential terrorists get the Flight 93 treatment, just give the passengers the tools to do the job.
Need I remind you that everybody on that flight died? Surely there's a better solution that doesn't result in the death of every single person the plane. Flight 93 was not a success. It was merely the least of 4 tragic horrors.
Can't the airline just say "No ID, no Fly. That's our policy and if you don't like it, don't fly with us."?
Can McDonald's chose to only serve white people? Can they say, "no white skin, no Big Mac?" Certain types of discrimination and restrictions are unconstitutional. That's the root of the issue here.
contacts are more expensive over time as well
Only if your prescription never changes. A year's worth of contacts cost me about $120. My glasses cost $400. If my prescription changes even a little in 2 or 3 years (which it inevitably will), I'll need to buy new glasses. I'll need new contacts, too, but I get new contacts every year anyway. I the cost comparison is much closer than you think.
Plus, poking myself in the eye every morning just doesn't appeal to me.
Neither does jabbing my wife in the cheek with my wire frames while I'm trying to kiss her. You get over the "poking your eye" thing real fast. The benefits of contact lenses are numerous. They don't fog up when you come indoors from the cold. You can see better in the dark (no glare or reflections). You can actually see in the rain/snow/drizzle. Your peripheral vision is sharp. You don't get red marks on your nose where your glasses were resting all day. You can see clearly while playing sports. They don't get in the way when doing photography, or target practice with a rifle. You can wear them in a pool. You can sleep with them in without worrying about rolling over and destroying your glasses accidentally. You can wear any kind of sunglasses you want and still be able to see clearly.
Not to mention that a good set of frames can compliment your face nicely.
According to whom? That's right: the eyewear industry. That's just marketing propaganda they shovel to sell glasses. I admit that there are a few rare people that can look better with glasses, but in the vast majority of cases, glasses detract from your appearance. Ever notice that almost NOBODY on TV is wearing glasses? In Sport's Illustrated's Swimsuit issue, or Maxim, or Playboy, how many of the people are wearing glasses? If glasses really, truly made you look better, wouldn't at least some of the models be wearing them?
Wearing glasses makes your eyes look smaller. Ever notice that when you see someone take off their glasses, their eyes suddenly look much bigger? Well, bigger eyes = youthful look = attractive. Conversely, the illusion of smaller eyes produced by glasses conveys the impression of "beady" eyes, or someone introverted.
Glasses make you look smart. That's about it. I've been wearing contacts for years, and I'll never go back to glasses.
The answer in the past was debateable, but usually ended up concluding that you are better off focusing on writing clear code, and letting the compiler handle the optimizations.
Nowadays, compilers are extremely sophisticated, and can perform very convoluted (and yet, ultimately efficient) optimizations that even the most seasoned programmer wouldn't devise. I've tried this myself with several different compilers, where I code the same algorithm the "clear" way, then re-do it, trying my damndest to make it tight, compact, and efficient. When I compared the output bytecodes/assembly, they were identical. In the former case, the compiler made all kinds of optimizations anyway. In the latter, the compiler had still come up with some optimizations that I hadn't thought of, and in some cases, ignored my own optimizations in favour of an even more efficient way.
Trust your compiler. A helluvalot of thought has gone into them, and they can optimize far better than you can ever dream to.
Let's say I'm bidding on an item, usually start small as a maximum bid to avoid driving the price up early. Let's say that bid remains uncontested. Now it's getting near the end of the auction, it's late. I want to win it but don't want someone outbidding me at the last minute. Don't feel lilke watching it like a hawk at 2 in the morning.
I up the bid to what I would actually pay and go to sleep. Seems sensical to me.
No, it's still nonsensical.
Say the item you want has a starting bid of $1.00, and no one has bid on it yet. You feel it is worth $40 to you, but as you said, you "don't want to drive the price up early." So you bid $20. The current max bid becomes $1 (as you are the first bidder), and you are the winning bidder so far.
As the auction end nears, the price has been driven up to $18. You are still the high bidder, but to make sure you win, you change your max bid to $40.
The reason this is stupid is because if you had simply bid $40 in the first place, rather than $20, you still would have been winning the auction, at $18. Bidding your personal, actual max right off the bat does NOT prematurely drive up the price of the auction, because your bid will automatically only be incremented enough to beat the next closest bidder. Nobody else knows what your max bid is. The situation above would have played out exactly the same if you'd just bid $40 to begin with, and gone to bed. You'd still win the auction for $18.
This whole argument is moot anyway, since if you seriously intend to win the item at a bargain price, you should avoid eBay altogether and just use a sniping service. I'll never go back to "normal" online auctions.
If Mettalica sing a song, at a concert, and I'm at the concert, or even outside it!, and I record the song on my handy gizmo, am I libel for copyright theft? What the hell did I steal? The changes in pressure in the air? Why the hell is an acoustic waveform the subject of copyright?!
If you possess kiddie porn, what exactly do you possess? Some 0's and 1's in an intangible, abstract concept of a "file?" A pattern of phosphors illuminated on your screen? Isn't that as absurd as copyrighting a performance?
If you bring some plants across an imaginary line, are you trafficking in drugs? Yes, if that plant is cannabis, and that "imaginary line" is the US border. Isn't that just as absurd as copyrighting a performance?
Society outlaws a lot of things that can be portrayed in ways that make the idea look ridiculous, but when you look at them objectively, they do indeed make sense. Well, maybe not the drug thing. Its your own body, for crying out loud.
The Digital Rights Management (DRM) makes it impossible to transfer the song [...] unless I go through some ridiculous steps which involve burning the purchased song to a CD and then ripping it. This causes a noticeable loss of sound quality due to the song being recompressed. Totally unacceptable. I want pure silence.
I gotta admit, I laughed out loud at this line. "A noticeable loss of sound quality" of silence? I agree, that's totally unacceptable.