Sorry, but while history is indeed not on my side, I'm apparently the exception. My church is very open about our finances, and money is not a means to control for us. I can, however, name you several churches that do indeed control their members most egregiously. I'm not saying christian churches are without their problems, but mine has far fewer than the others I've been a member of.
And of course, there are many references to bible passages that speak against birth control. A short list:
Isaiah 44:2: Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen." God created us in the womb.
Psalm 139:13: For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb." God knew David when he was in his mother's womb. To God, he was already a person, and deserving of both God's favor and protection.
Genesis 25:22-23: "And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD. 23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." Jacob and Esau are called by God babies, and they alreay struggle with one another.
Rather than go on, I offer these examples that God considers the unborn to be His people already. If God considers them people, how can I support killing them in the womb?
Exodus 21:22: "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine." In this passage, there is some dispute, as injuring a woman itself may entitle the husband to compensation. But this passage is usually understood to refer to a premature birth.
More importantly than all these references, however, is that there is a total lack of any mention of abortion in early Hebrew or Mosaic law. The concept is included in the definition of murder, because then an unborn child was assumed to already have a spirit and soul, and to kill it would be murder, already proscribed by Commandment.
It is an entirely different thing for me to consider a fetus to have a soul, and for others to consider a fetus as not-yet-human. We go down a difficult path with the not-yet-human argument, as we then get to consider when the fetus is 'sufficiently human' to warrant protection. This may be the most difficult decision to make, but it is the crucial one.
And despite all this, we live in a fallen world, and many people will choose to do what God abhors. If I can give good counsel to a woman considering abortion, I will, but carefully, and respectfully. It is not my place to judge or decide for her. And we are unlikely, as a society, to outlaw abortion any time soon, so I cannot and will not depend on legislation.
So instead of 332 spam messages a day, I'm only seeing 296 messages? Not really groundbreaking for me.
Playing Whack-A-Spammer is a losing proposition. Someone will start up a service at least as big as Spamit, and we're just as buried. I'm not at all hopeful that spam can be contained at all.
The only real solution is to go after the advertisers, the clients. I get occasional spam from what looks like mainstream advertisers, and if they get interested either in avoiding the bad press of spamming people OR they get interested in spammers using their trademarks without permission, maybe then we get some results.
But there's plenty of advertisers that don't care.
The ultimate solution is to make the spammers pay more than their clients will tolerate.
I admit my views on sex ed are considered outmoded. 10-year olds having sex with 8-year olds is a problem, but how to 'solve' that problem is beyond me. Our culture glorifies sexuality so much its inevitable.
And my example 'you killed another person unjustly' is called murder. Sometimes we, as a society, consider the circumstances of a particular murder so heinous or depraved that we require the life of the murderer in exchange. Right or wrong, that's the law. I'm not at all sure whether I support it or not. Of course self-defense is an interesting problem. Can you subdue your attacker with less than deadly force? But honestly, we are probably arguing over the grey, not the black and white.
Unfortunately, if we want people to be free to live as they want, some want to live in ways we don't.
My comment on people living freely in ways we don't was intended to illustrate the dilemma of 'liberating' a nation to see it choose to exercise its new freedom by going right back to something similar to what it was before. This liberating thing is indeed fairly complicated.
Your points about gay marriage do really speak to the fundamental point. Gays (and I somewhat hate using that term, it's simplistic and terse, but using 'homosexuals' seems stuffy, and well, perhaps an unintentional insult) truly want to be accepted into society, not tolerated or enjoyed as amusement. I understand their desire to be accepted. Until even a simple majority agrees, that isn't going to be written into law. I suspect it's inevitable, and I'm not at all convinced it will be the cause of our demise. I am, in fact, conflicted on this issue. The more so because I have many gay men and women in my family, several in relationships that are marriages in all but legality.
To the question of "What would you do with a corrupt regime, then?" Well, the same as a no corrupt regime. What do you think I did in the last election? I voted for someone else wherever I could bear it. Sometimes, though, voting for the challenger is wrong because the challenger is a tool. But I'm hard pressed to find a regime on Earth that isn't corrupt in some significant way. There probably is one or more, I'm just not thinking them up. Sweden? Vietnam?
Your point about sin and God's will is indeed the stuff of many a debate, none of them new. A passage in the Bible states "For all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God". Sin is falling short of the glory of God. I know you can find many good discussions about sin. If you haven't already, do. I still have as much to learn as anyone.
"So wouldn't it follow that a government can be evil and sinful, and it could be your duty to do what you can against it?"
Actually, yes. I do what I am willing to.
Just as a curiosity, are churches somehow exempt from some significant requirements as non-profits? I see churches pretty much as any others, but I may not be in the know on this. And our government seems pretty liberal in how it defines religious institutions and their tax-exempt status. Again, am I out of the loop here? I mean, there have been some cases of religions failing some test, but there will always be SOME test. You think our government is denying some organizations unfairly?
I think I can make a pretty good case that this was designed deliberately as a secular nation, and it was done so by people who mostly identified as Christian. As for where it is today, I claim that it's generally a good idea, and that we're not there yet.
I agree with you. I think our nation was created as a secular nation, and intentionally so. And I think that's a surprisingly Christian idea. More important to our founders than religious freedom was personal freedom. Focusing on religious freedom would have been at risk of *requiring* religion. They understood that while unusual in that day, agnostics and atheists needed to be free to be so also...
I'll admit I'm disappointed at the diminishing Christian influence in our society, but I hav
"So, for example, the ethic might tell us that children should be protected. One morality that might come out of this is sex education -- we want children to know what's out there and how to protect themselves. Another morality might be censorship -- we want to prevent children from seeing what's out there. These two moral stances are often opposed, but they have the same basic principle as their base."
I'm interested in how far sex education should go and when. Discussing condom usage in third grade? Yes, in Portland Maine. It just seems wrong, since at 8 children that are using condoms are at least in a situation where someone is violating the law. But in that area, there is no good.
"Not for the truly basic values. For example, the idea that life has some intrinsic value, and that you'd better have a damned good reason to take a life, is nearly universal, and not just in this country."
Ah, but the 'damned good reason' varies from 'you killed another person unjustly' to 'you drew a picture of Mohammed'. Universal values? Not in that example. Unfortunately, if we want people to be free to live as they want, some want to live in ways we don't. Freedom is nothing if it is cast only in our image.
"For the things we don't necessarily share, such as gay marriage, the pattern is usually an argument between people wanting to impose their morality on others, and people just wanting to do things on their own which don't affect anyone else. I'm not gay, and I'm not going to try (yet) to convince you that there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, or with homosexual married couples. What I don't see is why they shouldn't be allowed to marry."
You don't have to try to convince me there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, as while I think it's wrong and contrary to nature, it's also not my business, and I cannot judge another for being who they truly think they are. But the issue of gay marriage is entirely different. If it were a simple as gay couples wanting to be together and publically acknowledged, that is already done. But they seem to want to change the definition of marriage in a way I don't support. It changes the definition of family as well. Having said that, though, if gay marriage becomes the law of the land wherever I am, well, I'll be fine, and accept it, and move on. An important concept to me is that if God is truly in control, then what happens politically is His will. I make my views known, I vote, and I accept the authorities He permits. What else am I to do, challenge God's authority to make the world as He sees fit? That means taking the good with the bad.
"Well, if I wanted to find existing examples, that'd be right up there near the top of the list. Another example would be the tax exemption for churches."
Think of tax exemption for churches the same way you might for other non-profit organizations. Or the same way you do the sales tax exemptions for newspapers and books. To deny churches non-profit status would be discriminatory. And taxation is an excellent tool to punish with. Now, my pastor doesn't preach about politics from the pulpit except to point out what I did above - God is in control so accept His authorities as they are established. Other pastors have other opinions on this.
"But no, I wasn't actually making that claim. The point was rather that this is one thing separation of church and state is supposed to be about. You seemed to be skeptical that the "Wall of Separation" was a good idea."
I'm one of those who question the current and historical concept of the 'wall of separation'. But even if it did not exist, I would be thinking that mixing government with religion overtly is not a good idea, and not necessary. Of course, since myself and others make decisions about government based on our beliefs and opinions, the influence is pervasive, but there are others who think very differently. In the end, consensus is necessary. America doesn't have to be a legally Christian nation. But it ought to be a good one.
Not only does ROR refuse to comply with the original order because it was not a party to it, but the original order was entered as default judgement. Legally it's a finding, but in reality the judge didn't get a chance to hear evidence and make a decision - the original defendents never appeared.
A cautionary tale. You really should answer lawsuits. You have nothing to lose if the alternative is to ignore it and let the court issue default judgement. And you might at least catch a sympathetic judge who will at least listen.
Racetrack memory works by storing data as magnetic regions (also called domains), which would be transported along nanowire "racetracks." Instead of forcing a computer to seek out the data it needs, as traditional computing systems do, the information would automatically slide along the racetrack to where it could be used."
And I'm focused on the word "automatically". Um, so racetrack memory is clairvoiant? No, it appears to be a FIFO method. So it appears "automatically" when it's time for it to appear. The 'seek time' is the speed of the loop. Sort of like watching your favorite race car coming down the stretch. The rest of the time, it's circulating. You get to see it "automatically" when it completes a lap, though RM apparently doesn't use a loop, so it shuttles the bits back and forth on a wire. The more I understand this, the more "automatically" becomes so much oversimplification.
Whatever, they didn't have to make it sound cooler than it already is.
I still don't see the real difference between an 'accepted' journalist like Mr. Ellsberg leaking papers and Mr. Assange, a foreign national, leaking papers. Oh, wait, Mr. Ellsberg wasn't a journalist. And so far, Julian hasn't released all the papers he has...
I'm more convinced than ever that these two cases have more in common than not, and are different in two very distinct areas only: First, that the diplomatic papers are unique and especially damaging, and second that Julian Assange has no specific patriotic national interest. If the second test is the lesser one, inagine how we might apply the standard of "he has no real patriotic interest, and is not justified in his actions" to foreign journalists all over the world. But the first is most important, as in 'too important to disclose'.
Disclosing the methods and particulars of American nuclear arsenal security would be very, very damaging, and probably clearly actionable as an espionage and national security threat. Disclosing the secret but frank assessments of foreign leaders by U.S. diplomats is damaging, but in such a different way. First, some of the cables leaked point out facts that are inconvenient for those foreign leaders, but indisputable. If you don't want the world to know you're a Muslim leader who keeps a Ukrainian nurse with him, perhaps he should consider changing his behavior. Such a thing is an open secret in Middle Eastern diplomatic circles, it's just the worldwide exposure that will cause the angst. As well it should.
I just don't see the difference at all. Too big to fail. Too important to disclose. Right.
Perhaps the most damning cables that have been released are those that show various U.S. allies nearly begging us to take an action that they repudiate publicly. Such hypocrisy is very embarassing. Darn.
But Pvt. Manning will probably be tried for at least espionage. A long prison term is likely if the case is proven, and he will have no sponsor to bargain for his release.
You have many points, and I would respond to each one, but for brevity I do want to some I consider more important than others...
"Of course, if we include Catholics, there's the institutionalized child rape -- I say "institutionalized" because of the Church's reaction."
If there is a singular example of judging a philosophy by its abuse, this is it. You really don't expect me to defned the Catholic Church's record of dealing with the problems of child abuse by their clergy, do you? Seriously? If that's your example of religion gone bad, it's a good one. If it's your example of Christianity failed, well, you are well off the mark. But you're correct in that the Catholic Church is failing on this, and failing badly. There is no excuse.
"All legislation is someone's morality.
That sucks, if that's true. I'd hope it would be based on common ethics, instead. In particular, I really, truly, honestly hope that none of this is based on the Bible."
Well, to expand, legislation is always some expression of someone's intention. And informed by their morality, as all of our actions ultimately are. You seem as if you're assuming 'morality' is always a non-secular thing. It is not.
"Not sure what you mean. What morality would the atheist have that the Christian wouldn't?"
Well, while Atheists would probably have different moral views than Christians (for example), they both do have some sense of morality. An amoral person actually chooses what we call 'no morality' as their morality. I'm not saying that atheists are amoral, but that they do have morals of their choosing. we all do.
This is important:
"The point is to legislate based on values which are common to all of us, and to enforce the bare minimum in order to have a society. Freedom of speech is a great example of this -- I don't think the KKK has anything useful to contribute to society, and I don't think there's much they say that isn't completely and disgustingly immoral, but I do think they have a right to say it."
You speak volumes there.
First, if the point is to legislate based on values which are common to all of us, that legislation is doomed to fail, if it is even enacted. We are a diverse society in the U.S. and it is prety much bare majorities that are passing legislation. To ask for even a supermajority is too much. Even on what I would think are pretty obvious issues that should gain widespread support, the electorate seems fractured.
Second, to 'enforce the bare minimum' is laudable, and used to be a goal of the Conservative movement. We are well past that, sadly. I wish we could have a minimal government, but the Liberal, Progressive, or Leftist movement in the U.S. seems determined to greatly expand government beyond the bare minimum. Not that the Conservatives or Republicans are afraid of spending and expanding in their direction either. I fear for our Union in this area as the inevitable destruction of us.
"If we move to a world where people can be censored because it's against someone's religion, where religious values are the basis for a government, just looking at the numbers, I'm going to guess Christianity loses and Sharia wins."
Another important point. You make the point, based on numbers, but in reality the choice is between violence and peace. I'm aware of several violent responses to various insults against Islam. France has seen this. Holland (?) has seen this. If we ever did come to allowing censorshsip of religious thought besed on the majority, I fear that a violent minority could intimidate the majority. And I fear that no matter who their target is. Because eventually the target is everyone else.
Just as an aside, is Christianity in the 20th and 21st centuries marked by violence and intolerance? I know the media have many examples of intolerant Christian thought, but are thye viewed as the mainstream of Christian thought? For reference, I do not accept them as such. We could talk about them a great deal, my friend.
Service members may be uniformed, but the UCMJ is 'uniform'.
Sheesh.
And it is not so much an NDA as it is a security clearance with the attendant lawful requirements. If Pvt. Manning did remove classified material from secure areas without clearance to do so, he's guilty of that crime. Disclosing it to unauthorized third parties is another offense. In fact, it's possible that his bringing storage media into a secure area is an offense, and if he himself views the material, well, pile on another offense.
He'll probably get an Article 15 hearing for conduct unbecoming, and spend some time cleaning cells, but escape an article 133 hearing since he's not an officer, and presumed to not be responsible for acting as a gentleman. If nothing else, he could be tried under Article 134, but there are plenty of other alternatives in the UCMJ. You gotta love the UCMJ. No, I do not have the personal experience of a court-martial, I was just awake during that class.
My point was that had Julian been part of the established media, he would not have been attacked by both that media and by various governments, and the retaliation of DDOS's against so many entities would not have happened.
But to attack Julian by essentially attempting to deprive him of his freedom and financial support, and of course to censor his outlet, is what started the whole DDOS thing. Misguided as it was, there was a precipitating event. That was my point.
"However, the abuse is why it matters whether or not the philosophy is actually true. I know more than a few atheists who are activists of sorts, who run all sorts of atheist events and do all sorts of atheist promotion, and most of them say they wouldn't bother if it weren't for exactly that abuse. If Islam actually was a religion of peace, if Christians actually did keep church and state separate, if Mormons quit showing up on their door, they'd leave well enough alone."
You're making my point. The abuse of these philosophies is what you claim people are energized against. Except that you define the Christian problem as 'actually keeping church and state separate'. All legislation is someone's morality. Let that sink in for a moment. You would extend to the Atheist the right to legislate based on their morality, but not the same to a Christian? You live in what world? Not a free one, I submit.
"And if the religion isn't true"
But there's the rub. what I accept as truth you do not, and vice versa. am I entitled to my beliefs? Do you argue that yours are permissible to be propogated, while mine, because you disagree, are not?
"Without ideas like faith as a virtue, belief as a core part of your identity, eternal rewards and punishments, that kind of thing, there are all sorts of lines of thinking which just don't happen."
If your beliefs are not a core part of your identity, what are they? what sort of thinking is going to result from having no core beliefs?
"The kind of cognitive dissonance it takes to exercise critical thinking towards every aspect of your life except this one thing, this most important thing, is also the kind of thinking that can lead do, well, anything."
Are you assuming that I have not exercised any critical analysis towarts my faith? You make a terrible mistake. A basic one. If you do believe that, you are in error, much to your detriment.
"Now, if there actually is a god, and it's possible to know there's a god, then most of what I've said is moot, and it really is just a matter of not letting people corrupt a good thing."
How very true. Much religion that is corrupted thus has caused much suffering. But many good or reasonable ideas have been corrupted and cause much suffering and pain. Religion is not alone in this.
"But if there isn't, what I inevitably arrive at is that faith is dangerous, and it just isn't worth it."
Actually consider this, if you would. If you only have the current evidence that smoking cigarettes causes cancer, but one day you find out that that was not true, do you go out and buy a pack and start smoking, just because it isn't as dangerous as once thought? Or do you continue to abstain, because you don't enjoy it? Even if the existence of God could be disproven beyond any doubt, I would still live my life in large part as a Christian woulds, as much as I am able to, because I also prefer it, and see the benefits. I don't see my Christianity as dangerous to anyone, as I don't force it upon anyone and I don't see any harmful effects to trying to do the right thing... But I do see others or many faiths who appear to be pretty much harmful. It's sad.
As a former soccer referee, I understand that entirely. I didn't get replays of my decisions, but I knew all too often I got it wrong. 'Making it up' was always wrong. As a player before that, I loathed officials that would make up for a call later. Usually, they got it wrong twice anyways, but I wanted the right call the first time. Failing that, I wanted consistency - make the same call again, and we are now on a level playing field.
And that's MY point about Wikileaks. If Julian was working for the established media, he would be ok. He would have been moderated by his editor, and we would have seen him as a journalist.
But we would have gotten only part of the story, the part his editor wanted to publish. Perhaps his editor would be a fair and honest broker, sensitive to the problems of exposing secrets without discretion, but perhaps his editor would be less than impartial, and publish those secrets that made his opposition seem less honorable, while suppressing the secrets that would have diminished his favorites. Of course, Julian has his favorites also.
Is it always wrong to expose governmental secrets? I propose it is not. Discretion is, unfortunately, a difficult thing.
The right way to make the argument for net neutrality is to compare the Internet properly to other media, such as Television and Radio.
Since the FCC permitted more consolidation of media outlets, we have seen two significant circumstances come to the fore, and one other interesting one.
First, commercial music-oriented radio had consolidated to the point that there seem to be a handful of networks running automated music stations, indistinguishable from one another except for the genre. Interesting, but local flavor is pretty much lost except for perhaps drive-time talkers that mostly interrupt the music. It's all about big advertising contracts and money. Cheap stations, national advertisers, just shovel the money into the bank.
Second, talk radio has never been bigger, and I propose that is because music radio is such a wasteland. Bit talk radio is driven directly by advertisers, and they want ears, so it is dominated by the talk genre that attracts the most listeners. This looks terrible to those who don't feel represented, but it's all about money.
Third, the FCC allowing multimedia companies to expand has brought us Fox News. Whether you like it or not, think of Fox News as the television and radio equivalent of a big-city newspaper. Somehow we don;t seem to mind too much that several major newspapers have easily discernable points of view and biases, but for FNC this is just wrong. Compare this situation to some of the other cable news networks, and very few seem, to me, to be anywheres near fair and balanced. Notice I don't mention the broadcast news networks? They have lost. Who cares?
If you think this consolidation of media companies is a problem, then you can grasp why letting your Internet provider either directly or indirectly filter or manipulate your access to other Internet services may be a problem. If you think the dominance of a few voices in media is a bad thing, you want the opportunity to find others. If your ISP decides to hamper your viewing of movies from, say, Netflix, you should be asking 'why'? The answer is probably nor any further than the on-demand programming your Cable ISP offers, or perhaps the tie-in to a satellite TV company your telco ISP has. And if you want to listen to music via some Internet legal and legitimate service, imagine your ISP thinking they have a music service too. If you want to use Skype, imagine your ISP of either dominant flavor already has a telephone service. Of course they want to sell that to you. Skype is their competitor.
The problem is, we need to define the Internet properly now. If your cable ISP wants to serve you up limited Internet with the competing pieces missing, they really can only be expected to say so, so you can make an informed choice. Same thing with your telco ISP. If we need to make Internet service a common-carrier utility, we'll see prices soar. And we'll see ISPs try and sell another, cheaper service. One they admit they throttle and manipulate, but hey, if you want videos, they got 'em right here! Telephone? they got that too! Want full-on Internet? That's more expensive, but they got that as well.
We are close to seeing segregated Internet services. I'm afraid we cannot stop it short of mandating that all Internet service must be free and unfettered. And that opens the floodgates of price gouging as ISPs claim that an unfettered Internet is so overwhelming that they need to build out even more capacity, and that costs so much more than we're paying now.
Perhaps that is the argument that the FCC (maybe) or local governments (more likely) can use to challenge contracts. As in, if the ISP that has a government-imposed monopoly is claiming they can't provide the service, well, perhaps it's time to open up the bidding to someone who can.
I'm interested in demanding my municipality add an enforcable SLA to the next cable contract. Uptime, latency to known significant destinations, and support for all RFC'd protocols. I imagine I'll get a target on my back for that, but it would be an interesting start. Because all politics is local, you know.
On the one hand, you now know why I don't listen for Rush much any more. He has a few interesting insights amongst a lot of noise and half-baked ideas. The Volt controversy, for instance, is his attempt to point out that GM calls it an 'electric' car, when it is more like the Prius dual-mode hybrid than not. And that's too fine a point, and his real point is that GM is living off the taxpayer's largesse and only exists because we bailed them out, so their competition properly complain that this is an eneven playing field, and, well, he goes on about our current economic situation, and you get lost in the weeds pretty quick.
On the other hand, if Rush would turn the clock back a bit and take on the fundamental (not religious, but basic) issues, he would be doing more of a service than he does now.
But Rush is an entertainer now. I want more than that. So I'm gone. No longer a dittohead. I didn't change, he did. And a LOT of his 'old' audience hasn't either. His current audience is mostly harmless, and you should pay less attention to he and they than you are.
Before the Internet, if you wanted to truly annoy someone, you didn't stop at signing them up for every stupid mail-order catalog available, no matter the content. You didn't even stop at signing them up for every credit card offer available.
You subscribed them to every magazine you possibly could. Every one. Then you wrote, in their name, complaint letters to whatever corporations, politicians, etc you had the time to. Ah, carbon paper and Mag Card typewriters. Damn, good times.
I keep trying to find a villain in all this, are the banks evil for cutting off Wikileaks from their funding, is Wikileaks evil for indiscriminately publishing sensitive info, is 4chan evil for hammering those who tried to thwart Wikileaks, is Switzerland evil for jailing Julian on what are suspiciously convenient charges?
Then I remember. If Julian worked for the Washington Post, he would be a hero of the Left, and we would have seen cables from the Bush and Reagan administrations published daily for weeks amid cheers and applause from their loyal readership.
But Julian doesn't work for anybody. He's alone. Except for those who mistrust their government no matter the political affiliation currently holding sway.
Yep, Wikileaks would be heroic if they had a sponsor. All they have is us. And 4chan. The truth is most always inconvenient to the powerful.
"As opposed to Creationists arguments being based on "everything you believe is rubbish because the Bible says so!"
Or could we say:
"As opposed to Evolutionists arguments being based on "everything you believe is rubbish because Science says so!"
Pretty convincing,don't you agree?
Or...
"a means to an end for the established churches and religions around the world to exercise and justify torture, among other things, and complete control over people."
Oh yeah. Like my church, which I came to freely, and could leave any time I wanted to, and no one would come over and say "no, you can't" I doubt anyone would come over and say "no, you shouldn't". Some might ask me why.
There are churches that do berate their members if they try to leave. Some even killthose who abandon their faith. And they should not be.Some. Not all.
Stereotyping religions based on the actions of a few is not enlightened. You cannot judge a philosphy by its abuse.
I thank God He has created a universe that we can discern, examine, and understand sufficiently to subdue, manipulate, and thrive in. Doctors can understand and treat illnesses, some of them at least. Geologists understand the Earth well enough to find petroleum. We even figure out how to send men to the Moon and return them safely.
Ask some of your scientist friends, if you have any, how little difference it would take for the universe to be so unobservable as to be a mystery. A little more interstellar dust, slightly different characterisics of the radiation we call 'light', even the distances. Imagine some common elements missing, or the physical mechanism of heat not existing. What sort of life might have been created that would have little or no understanding of the world around it.
Our God does not want us to wander around oblivious to the world, not does He want us to flounder helplessly. Our universe is, in fact, wonderfully made. Even Science argues against the premise that it was created out of chance. Occam's Razor. Which is the simpler argument, that it all 'just happened', or that it was created on purpose? Obviously, I believe the latter. YMMMV.
"When you are a child you do not have the thinking skills to reject fantastical ideas. Those basic thinking patterns are then used to "hang" your later learning off of. I'd be ashamed to handicap my children with such outmoded ideas. Religion fulfills a societal function only which is diminishing rapidly, at least in first-world nations."
1. This entirely explains people who come to some belief in a deity in adulthood after a lifetime of no such influence... oh, wait, it's pretty much impossible to live in the U.S. or anywhere for any length of time and NOT be exposed to religious thought. Or atheist thought. Or agnostic thought. Or any thought. Your point, that thinking skills that 'reject fantastical ideas' are important to avoid handicapping chldren with 'outmoded ideas', is itself a point of view that could be argued against in the very same way. So how is atheism so distinct from other religions that it is rational and obvious when other religions aren't? And yes, atheism is a religon. A belief system. Yes it is.
2. I can't speak with much specificity to other religions, but Christianity has sponsored or fulfilled some useful societal functions in first-world nations. Despite the many protests that will come, Christianity is largely responsible for the creation of the United States, and most of the institutions that have allowed it to endure, thrive, and, in my opinion, provide justice and protection to both its citizens and the world. Religion provides more than one societal function, and the diminishment of religious influence in the U.S. does not seem, to me, to be an improvement.
But we live in a free nation, and you are not only free to have different opinions, but to live according to them and to influence others.
Don't listen to your head. Listen to your heart. It is never silent.
- Mandating maximum user-to-port ratios. Oversubscribing was just plain essential for survival. Wrong, but necessary. - Mandating modem interoperability. What fun having to have both K56 and X2, with different pools and numbers. Ack! - Making ISPs common carriers, would they have required them to be treated differently than the telcos did? My first ISP had 10 phone lines in his closet (LITERALLY the living room closet of his apartment) with modems stacked in front of a desk fan. The phone company asked about why he had so many lines, and he basically said 'cause i wanna'.
- Would Usenet have survived? Would I have been required to maintain the FCC's mandated days' of files, which was an enormous task?
- Would BitTorrent have been a permitted protocol? So much for RFCs, carriers would want to regulate the protocols permitted, to ensure orderly traffic management and of course avoid crushing providers with massive traffic.
- Would the FCC been able to regulate spam without destroying free speech on the Internet?
No, the FCC would have ruined the Internet. If they had gone in, we would today have AOL and Compuserve. That's all.
I'm facing more restrictive password policies at work every day. Some expire every 14 days. Some require that they start AND end with an alphanumeric character, include a symbol from a short list of acceptable symbols, upper and lower case characters, and be 8-11 characters long. These restrictions broke my normal conventions. I'm pretty much forced to keep a cheat sheet of hints to my passwords. Today I have 11 unique passwords shared among 22 different systems comprising 32 different hosts and services. That's just work. I'm required to change at least one password 4 out of 5 days a week. Some of these require me to use unique passwords, not using any of the 5 to 8 previous passwords. Some deny using duplicate sequential characters, some any duplicate characters, some deny using specific words, one denies using any character that is in my master employee ID (8 chars, 1 alpha & 7 numeric), and some restrict using the same password as other systems that use the same authentication server - yes, our SSO server is no longer SSO, depending on the service it is supporting. They still call it SSO. Perhaps 5 of these systems permit me to recovery my password by resetting it via a process or phone call. Two of them require managment approval for a password reset. One, the magic one, requires me to get upper management approval for resetting a password, and this system will expire my password if I don't log in before the periodic change period expires. This password expires every 30 days, and I need to use it ever 30 days. Yup, I make a note to log in mid-month to keep it alive. Most users only use it monthly, and it is designed that way. Several services delete my user account if I let a password expire, requiring a new user ID setup. I also have to watch for my access being denied due to any of various initiatives, Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, arbitrary system resets, etc., but that's just corporate policy. The weasels think they are winning.
No fix is in sight. This company is proud of their record of zero breaches ever. But I spend a noticeable amount of time managing passwords, and am delayed in work by failed authentication. Security for my position is becoming an impediment to work. I am in a relatively unique position, requiring a lot of access to several different systems, and combinations that bring me to the attention of our Corporate Lawyers occasionally, and I'm not even doing anything wrong, just my job. I'm not proud to say I've never looked up sensitive data out of curiosity. If I got caught, it would be my dismissal. And they watch specifically for that stuff.
For my personal business, I have only 7 specific payroll, banking, or healthcare sites I need to maintain passwords for. Some expire, some don't. Some require specific rules, some don't. Two of them show me their score for relative strength of the password I'm trying to use.
Then I have all the other stuff. I easily have 30+ logins to various technical and social sites, probably 50+. Some I don't use for years. I use a lot of conventions to manage them by role and relative importance to me. Don't get me started on usernames.
My only, ONE AND ONLY password breach was thanks to my lovely wife, who was too lazy to change the Facebook page to HER signon, and clicked away on a bunch of quizzes, tests, free stuff, and finally an auction link. eBay had me down to buy a bunch of stuff and I got the emails confirming it. I cancelled them all with eBay's help, they tracked down the offending user which was pointless as they don't exist, and I avoided bad feedback and PayPal problems. Looks like the seller was creating fake buys to get feedback and enhance their rep enough to attract more willing victims. My wife was shocked. Then she was angry with me. Then she started playing Farmville. I got her a computer of her own. Grrr...
Passwords are not enough. My home notebook has a fingerprint scanner I use, wish I could teach it some tricks. I use a couple of password keyrings online, but not for everything. I'm using OpenID more, but I can't yet see the value.
We need something better. Fingerprint scanners or camera-based something that isn't fooled by a photo.
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Sorry, but while history is indeed not on my side, I'm apparently the exception. My church is very open about our finances, and money is not a means to control for us. I can, however, name you several churches that do indeed control their members most egregiously. I'm not saying christian churches are without their problems, but mine has far fewer than the others I've been a member of.
And of course, there are many references to bible passages that speak against birth control. A short list:
Isaiah 44:2: Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen." God created us in the womb.
Psalm 139:13: For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb." God knew David when he was in his mother's womb. To God, he was already a person, and deserving of both God's favor and protection.
Genesis 25:22-23: "And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD. 23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." Jacob and Esau are called by God babies, and they alreay struggle with one another.
Rather than go on, I offer these examples that God considers the unborn to be His people already. If God considers them people, how can I support killing them in the womb?
Exodus 21:22: "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine." In this passage, there is some dispute, as injuring a woman itself may entitle the husband to compensation. But this passage is usually understood to refer to a premature birth.
More importantly than all these references, however, is that there is a total lack of any mention of abortion in early Hebrew or Mosaic law. The concept is included in the definition of murder, because then an unborn child was assumed to already have a spirit and soul, and to kill it would be murder, already proscribed by Commandment.
It is an entirely different thing for me to consider a fetus to have a soul, and for others to consider a fetus as not-yet-human. We go down a difficult path with the not-yet-human argument, as we then get to consider when the fetus is 'sufficiently human' to warrant protection. This may be the most difficult decision to make, but it is the crucial one.
And despite all this, we live in a fallen world, and many people will choose to do what God abhors. If I can give good counsel to a woman considering abortion, I will, but carefully, and respectfully. It is not my place to judge or decide for her. And we are unlikely, as a society, to outlaw abortion any time soon, so I cannot and will not depend on legislation.
So instead of 332 spam messages a day, I'm only seeing 296 messages? Not really groundbreaking for me.
Playing Whack-A-Spammer is a losing proposition. Someone will start up a service at least as big as Spamit, and we're just as buried. I'm not at all hopeful that spam can be contained at all.
The only real solution is to go after the advertisers, the clients. I get occasional spam from what looks like mainstream advertisers, and if they get interested either in avoiding the bad press of spamming people OR they get interested in spammers using their trademarks without permission, maybe then we get some results.
But there's plenty of advertisers that don't care.
The ultimate solution is to make the spammers pay more than their clients will tolerate.
I admit my views on sex ed are considered outmoded. 10-year olds having sex with 8-year olds is a problem, but how to 'solve' that problem is beyond me. Our culture glorifies sexuality so much its inevitable.
And my example 'you killed another person unjustly' is called murder. Sometimes we, as a society, consider the circumstances of a particular murder so heinous or depraved that we require the life of the murderer in exchange. Right or wrong, that's the law. I'm not at all sure whether I support it or not. Of course self-defense is an interesting problem. Can you subdue your attacker with less than deadly force? But honestly, we are probably arguing over the grey, not the black and white.
Unfortunately, if we want people to be free to live as they want, some want to live in ways we don't.
My comment on people living freely in ways we don't was intended to illustrate the dilemma of 'liberating' a nation to see it choose to exercise its new freedom by going right back to something similar to what it was before. This liberating thing is indeed fairly complicated.
Your points about gay marriage do really speak to the fundamental point. Gays (and I somewhat hate using that term, it's simplistic and terse, but using 'homosexuals' seems stuffy, and well, perhaps an unintentional insult) truly want to be accepted into society, not tolerated or enjoyed as amusement. I understand their desire to be accepted. Until even a simple majority agrees, that isn't going to be written into law. I suspect it's inevitable, and I'm not at all convinced it will be the cause of our demise. I am, in fact, conflicted on this issue. The more so because I have many gay men and women in my family, several in relationships that are marriages in all but legality.
To the question of "What would you do with a corrupt regime, then?" Well, the same as a no corrupt regime. What do you think I did in the last election? I voted for someone else wherever I could bear it. Sometimes, though, voting for the challenger is wrong because the challenger is a tool. But I'm hard pressed to find a regime on Earth that isn't corrupt in some significant way. There probably is one or more, I'm just not thinking them up. Sweden? Vietnam?
Your point about sin and God's will is indeed the stuff of many a debate, none of them new. A passage in the Bible states "For all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God". Sin is falling short of the glory of God. I know you can find many good discussions about sin. If you haven't already, do. I still have as much to learn as anyone.
"So wouldn't it follow that a government can be evil and sinful, and it could be your duty to do what you can against it?"
Actually, yes. I do what I am willing to.
Just as a curiosity, are churches somehow exempt from some significant requirements as non-profits? I see churches pretty much as any others, but I may not be in the know on this. And our government seems pretty liberal in how it defines religious institutions and their tax-exempt status. Again, am I out of the loop here? I mean, there have been some cases of religions failing some test, but there will always be SOME test. You think our government is denying some organizations unfairly?
I think I can make a pretty good case that this was designed deliberately as a secular nation, and it was done so by people who mostly identified as Christian. As for where it is today, I claim that it's generally a good idea, and that we're not there yet.
I agree with you. I think our nation was created as a secular nation, and intentionally so. And I think that's a surprisingly Christian idea. More important to our founders than religious freedom was personal freedom. Focusing on religious freedom would have been at risk of *requiring* religion. They understood that while unusual in that day, agnostics and atheists needed to be free to be so also...
I'll admit I'm disappointed at the diminishing Christian influence in our society, but I hav
Precisely. Don't blame a thug dictator. Don't blame his sponsors.
Pathetic. The man behind the curtain is certainly in the right, isn't he? Ha!
"So, for example, the ethic might tell us that children should be protected. One morality that might come out of this is sex education -- we want children to know what's out there and how to protect themselves. Another morality might be censorship -- we want to prevent children from seeing what's out there. These two moral stances are often opposed, but they have the same basic principle as their base."
I'm interested in how far sex education should go and when. Discussing condom usage in third grade? Yes, in Portland Maine. It just seems wrong, since at 8 children that are using condoms are at least in a situation where someone is violating the law. But in that area, there is no good.
"Not for the truly basic values. For example, the idea that life has some intrinsic value, and that you'd better have a damned good reason to take a life, is nearly universal, and not just in this country."
Ah, but the 'damned good reason' varies from 'you killed another person unjustly' to 'you drew a picture of Mohammed'. Universal values? Not in that example. Unfortunately, if we want people to be free to live as they want, some want to live in ways we don't. Freedom is nothing if it is cast only in our image.
"For the things we don't necessarily share, such as gay marriage, the pattern is usually an argument between people wanting to impose their morality on others, and people just wanting to do things on their own which don't affect anyone else. I'm not gay, and I'm not going to try (yet) to convince you that there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, or with homosexual married couples. What I don't see is why they shouldn't be allowed to marry."
You don't have to try to convince me there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, as while I think it's wrong and contrary to nature, it's also not my business, and I cannot judge another for being who they truly think they are. But the issue of gay marriage is entirely different. If it were a simple as gay couples wanting to be together and publically acknowledged, that is already done. But they seem to want to change the definition of marriage in a way I don't support. It changes the definition of family as well. Having said that, though, if gay marriage becomes the law of the land wherever I am, well, I'll be fine, and accept it, and move on. An important concept to me is that if God is truly in control, then what happens politically is His will. I make my views known, I vote, and I accept the authorities He permits. What else am I to do, challenge God's authority to make the world as He sees fit? That means taking the good with the bad.
"Well, if I wanted to find existing examples, that'd be right up there near the top of the list. Another example would be the tax exemption for churches."
Think of tax exemption for churches the same way you might for other non-profit organizations. Or the same way you do the sales tax exemptions for newspapers and books. To deny churches non-profit status would be discriminatory. And taxation is an excellent tool to punish with. Now, my pastor doesn't preach about politics from the pulpit except to point out what I did above - God is in control so accept His authorities as they are established. Other pastors have other opinions on this.
"But no, I wasn't actually making that claim. The point was rather that this is one thing separation of church and state is supposed to be about. You seemed to be skeptical that the "Wall of Separation" was a good idea."
I'm one of those who question the current and historical concept of the 'wall of separation'. But even if it did not exist, I would be thinking that mixing government with religion overtly is not a good idea, and not necessary. Of course, since myself and others make decisions about government based on our beliefs and opinions, the influence is pervasive, but there are others who think very differently. In the end, consensus is necessary. America doesn't have to be a legally Christian nation. But it ought to be a good one.
Not only does ROR refuse to comply with the original order because it was not a party to it, but the original order was entered as default judgement. Legally it's a finding, but in reality the judge didn't get a chance to hear evidence and make a decision - the original defendents never appeared.
A cautionary tale. You really should answer lawsuits. You have nothing to lose if the alternative is to ignore it and let the court issue default judgement. And you might at least catch a sympathetic judge who will at least listen.
Well, maybe not, but again nothing lost.
I read this:
Racetrack memory works by storing data as magnetic regions (also called domains), which would be transported along nanowire "racetracks." Instead of forcing a computer to seek out the data it needs, as traditional computing systems do, the information would automatically slide along the racetrack to where it could be used."
And I'm focused on the word "automatically". Um, so racetrack memory is clairvoiant? No, it appears to be a FIFO method. So it appears "automatically" when it's time for it to appear. The 'seek time' is the speed of the loop. Sort of like watching your favorite race car coming down the stretch. The rest of the time, it's circulating. You get to see it "automatically" when it completes a lap, though RM apparently doesn't use a loop, so it shuttles the bits back and forth on a wire. The more I understand this, the more "automatically" becomes so much oversimplification.
Whatever, they didn't have to make it sound cooler than it already is.
I still don't see the real difference between an 'accepted' journalist like Mr. Ellsberg leaking papers and Mr. Assange, a foreign national, leaking papers. Oh, wait, Mr. Ellsberg wasn't a journalist. And so far, Julian hasn't released all the papers he has...
I'm more convinced than ever that these two cases have more in common than not, and are different in two very distinct areas only: First, that the diplomatic papers are unique and especially damaging, and second that Julian Assange has no specific patriotic national interest. If the second test is the lesser one, inagine how we might apply the standard of "he has no real patriotic interest, and is not justified in his actions" to foreign journalists all over the world. But the first is most important, as in 'too important to disclose'.
Disclosing the methods and particulars of American nuclear arsenal security would be very, very damaging, and probably clearly actionable as an espionage and national security threat. Disclosing the secret but frank assessments of foreign leaders by U.S. diplomats is damaging, but in such a different way. First, some of the cables leaked point out facts that are inconvenient for those foreign leaders, but indisputable. If you don't want the world to know you're a Muslim leader who keeps a Ukrainian nurse with him, perhaps he should consider changing his behavior. Such a thing is an open secret in Middle Eastern diplomatic circles, it's just the worldwide exposure that will cause the angst. As well it should.
I just don't see the difference at all. Too big to fail. Too important to disclose. Right.
Perhaps the most damning cables that have been released are those that show various U.S. allies nearly begging us to take an action that they repudiate publicly. Such hypocrisy is very embarassing. Darn.
But Pvt. Manning will probably be tried for at least espionage. A long prison term is likely if the case is proven, and he will have no sponsor to bargain for his release.
You have many points, and I would respond to each one, but for brevity I do want to some I consider more important than others...
"Of course, if we include Catholics, there's the institutionalized child rape -- I say "institutionalized" because of the Church's reaction."
If there is a singular example of judging a philosophy by its abuse, this is it. You really don't expect me to defned the Catholic Church's record of dealing with the problems of child abuse by their clergy, do you? Seriously? If that's your example of religion gone bad, it's a good one. If it's your example of Christianity failed, well, you are well off the mark. But you're correct in that the Catholic Church is failing on this, and failing badly. There is no excuse.
"All legislation is someone's morality.
That sucks, if that's true. I'd hope it would be based on common ethics, instead. In particular, I really, truly, honestly hope that none of this is based on the Bible."
Well, to expand, legislation is always some expression of someone's intention. And informed by their morality, as all of our actions ultimately are. You seem as if you're assuming 'morality' is always a non-secular thing. It is not.
"Not sure what you mean. What morality would the atheist have that the Christian wouldn't?"
Well, while Atheists would probably have different moral views than Christians (for example), they both do have some sense of morality. An amoral person actually chooses what we call 'no morality' as their morality. I'm not saying that atheists are amoral, but that they do have morals of their choosing. we all do.
This is important:
"The point is to legislate based on values which are common to all of us, and to enforce the bare minimum in order to have a society. Freedom of speech is a great example of this -- I don't think the KKK has anything useful to contribute to society, and I don't think there's much they say that isn't completely and disgustingly immoral, but I do think they have a right to say it."
You speak volumes there.
First, if the point is to legislate based on values which are common to all of us, that legislation is doomed to fail, if it is even enacted. We are a diverse society in the U.S. and it is prety much bare majorities that are passing legislation. To ask for even a supermajority is too much. Even on what I would think are pretty obvious issues that should gain widespread support, the electorate seems fractured.
Second, to 'enforce the bare minimum' is laudable, and used to be a goal of the Conservative movement. We are well past that, sadly. I wish we could have a minimal government, but the Liberal, Progressive, or Leftist movement in the U.S. seems determined to greatly expand government beyond the bare minimum. Not that the Conservatives or Republicans are afraid of spending and expanding in their direction either. I fear for our Union in this area as the inevitable destruction of us.
"If we move to a world where people can be censored because it's against someone's religion, where religious values are the basis for a government, just looking at the numbers, I'm going to guess Christianity loses and Sharia wins."
Another important point. You make the point, based on numbers, but in reality the choice is between violence and peace. I'm aware of several violent responses to various insults against Islam. France has seen this. Holland (?) has seen this. If we ever did come to allowing censorshsip of religious thought besed on the majority, I fear that a violent minority could intimidate the majority. And I fear that no matter who their target is. Because eventually the target is everyone else.
Just as an aside, is Christianity in the 20th and 21st centuries marked by violence and intolerance? I know the media have many examples of intolerant Christian thought, but are thye viewed as the mainstream of Christian thought? For reference, I do not accept them as such. We could talk about them a great deal, my friend.
Uniform code of Military Justice, or UCMJ.
Service members may be uniformed, but the UCMJ is 'uniform'.
Sheesh.
And it is not so much an NDA as it is a security clearance with the attendant lawful requirements. If Pvt. Manning did remove classified material from secure areas without clearance to do so, he's guilty of that crime. Disclosing it to unauthorized third parties is another offense. In fact, it's possible that his bringing storage media into a secure area is an offense, and if he himself views the material, well, pile on another offense.
He'll probably get an Article 15 hearing for conduct unbecoming, and spend some time cleaning cells, but escape an article 133 hearing since he's not an officer, and presumed to not be responsible for acting as a gentleman. If nothing else, he could be tried under Article 134, but there are plenty of other alternatives in the UCMJ. You gotta love the UCMJ. No, I do not have the personal experience of a court-martial, I was just awake during that class.
I would agree.
Ooh. Are we recursing?
My point was that had Julian been part of the established media, he would not have been attacked by both that media and by various governments, and the retaliation of DDOS's against so many entities would not have happened.
But to attack Julian by essentially attempting to deprive him of his freedom and financial support, and of course to censor his outlet, is what started the whole DDOS thing. Misguided as it was, there was a precipitating event. That was my point.
"However, the abuse is why it matters whether or not the philosophy is actually true. I know more than a few atheists who are activists of sorts, who run all sorts of atheist events and do all sorts of atheist promotion, and most of them say they wouldn't bother if it weren't for exactly that abuse. If Islam actually was a religion of peace, if Christians actually did keep church and state separate, if Mormons quit showing up on their door, they'd leave well enough alone."
You're making my point. The abuse of these philosophies is what you claim people are energized against. Except that you define the Christian problem as 'actually keeping church and state separate'. All legislation is someone's morality. Let that sink in for a moment. You would extend to the Atheist the right to legislate based on their morality, but not the same to a Christian? You live in what world? Not a free one, I submit.
"And if the religion isn't true"
But there's the rub. what I accept as truth you do not, and vice versa. am I entitled to my beliefs? Do you argue that yours are permissible to be propogated, while mine, because you disagree, are not?
"Without ideas like faith as a virtue, belief as a core part of your identity, eternal rewards and punishments, that kind of thing, there are all sorts of lines of thinking which just don't happen."
If your beliefs are not a core part of your identity, what are they? what sort of thinking is going to result from having no core beliefs?
"The kind of cognitive dissonance it takes to exercise critical thinking towards every aspect of your life except this one thing, this most important thing, is also the kind of thinking that can lead do, well, anything."
Are you assuming that I have not exercised any critical analysis towarts my faith? You make a terrible mistake. A basic one. If you do believe that, you are in error, much to your detriment.
"Now, if there actually is a god, and it's possible to know there's a god, then most of what I've said is moot, and it really is just a matter of not letting people corrupt a good thing."
How very true. Much religion that is corrupted thus has caused much suffering. But many good or reasonable ideas have been corrupted and cause much suffering and pain. Religion is not alone in this.
"But if there isn't, what I inevitably arrive at is that faith is dangerous, and it just isn't worth it."
Actually consider this, if you would. If you only have the current evidence that smoking cigarettes causes cancer, but one day you find out that that was not true, do you go out and buy a pack and start smoking, just because it isn't as dangerous as once thought? Or do you continue to abstain, because you don't enjoy it? Even if the existence of God could be disproven beyond any doubt, I would still live my life in large part as a Christian woulds, as much as I am able to, because I also prefer it, and see the benefits. I don't see my Christianity as dangerous to anyone, as I don't force it upon anyone and I don't see any harmful effects to trying to do the right thing... But I do see others or many faiths who appear to be pretty much harmful. It's sad.
As a former soccer referee, I understand that entirely. I didn't get replays of my decisions, but I knew all too often I got it wrong. 'Making it up' was always wrong. As a player before that, I loathed officials that would make up for a call later. Usually, they got it wrong twice anyways, but I wanted the right call the first time. Failing that, I wanted consistency - make the same call again, and we are now on a level playing field.
And that's MY point about Wikileaks. If Julian was working for the established media, he would be ok. He would have been moderated by his editor, and we would have seen him as a journalist.
But we would have gotten only part of the story, the part his editor wanted to publish. Perhaps his editor would be a fair and honest broker, sensitive to the problems of exposing secrets without discretion, but perhaps his editor would be less than impartial, and publish those secrets that made his opposition seem less honorable, while suppressing the secrets that would have diminished his favorites. Of course, Julian has his favorites also.
Is it always wrong to expose governmental secrets? I propose it is not. Discretion is, unfortunately, a difficult thing.
The right way to make the argument for net neutrality is to compare the Internet properly to other media, such as Television and Radio.
Since the FCC permitted more consolidation of media outlets, we have seen two significant circumstances come to the fore, and one other interesting one.
First, commercial music-oriented radio had consolidated to the point that there seem to be a handful of networks running automated music stations, indistinguishable from one another except for the genre. Interesting, but local flavor is pretty much lost except for perhaps drive-time talkers that mostly interrupt the music. It's all about big advertising contracts and money. Cheap stations, national advertisers, just shovel the money into the bank.
Second, talk radio has never been bigger, and I propose that is because music radio is such a wasteland. Bit talk radio is driven directly by advertisers, and they want ears, so it is dominated by the talk genre that attracts the most listeners. This looks terrible to those who don't feel represented, but it's all about money.
Third, the FCC allowing multimedia companies to expand has brought us Fox News. Whether you like it or not, think of Fox News as the television and radio equivalent of a big-city newspaper. Somehow we don;t seem to mind too much that several major newspapers have easily discernable points of view and biases, but for FNC this is just wrong. Compare this situation to some of the other cable news networks, and very few seem, to me, to be anywheres near fair and balanced. Notice I don't mention the broadcast news networks? They have lost. Who cares?
If you think this consolidation of media companies is a problem, then you can grasp why letting your Internet provider either directly or indirectly filter or manipulate your access to other Internet services may be a problem. If you think the dominance of a few voices in media is a bad thing, you want the opportunity to find others. If your ISP decides to hamper your viewing of movies from, say, Netflix, you should be asking 'why'? The answer is probably nor any further than the on-demand programming your Cable ISP offers, or perhaps the tie-in to a satellite TV company your telco ISP has. And if you want to listen to music via some Internet legal and legitimate service, imagine your ISP thinking they have a music service too. If you want to use Skype, imagine your ISP of either dominant flavor already has a telephone service. Of course they want to sell that to you. Skype is their competitor.
The problem is, we need to define the Internet properly now. If your cable ISP wants to serve you up limited Internet with the competing pieces missing, they really can only be expected to say so, so you can make an informed choice. Same thing with your telco ISP. If we need to make Internet service a common-carrier utility, we'll see prices soar. And we'll see ISPs try and sell another, cheaper service. One they admit they throttle and manipulate, but hey, if you want videos, they got 'em right here! Telephone? they got that too! Want full-on Internet? That's more expensive, but they got that as well.
We are close to seeing segregated Internet services. I'm afraid we cannot stop it short of mandating that all Internet service must be free and unfettered. And that opens the floodgates of price gouging as ISPs claim that an unfettered Internet is so overwhelming that they need to build out even more capacity, and that costs so much more than we're paying now.
Perhaps that is the argument that the FCC (maybe) or local governments (more likely) can use to challenge contracts. As in, if the ISP that has a government-imposed monopoly is claiming they can't provide the service, well, perhaps it's time to open up the bidding to someone who can.
I'm interested in demanding my municipality add an enforcable SLA to the next cable contract. Uptime, latency to known significant destinations, and support for all RFC'd protocols. I imagine I'll get a target on my back for that, but it would be an interesting start. Because all politics is local, you know.
On the one hand, you now know why I don't listen for Rush much any more. He has a few interesting insights amongst a lot of noise and half-baked ideas. The Volt controversy, for instance, is his attempt to point out that GM calls it an 'electric' car, when it is more like the Prius dual-mode hybrid than not. And that's too fine a point, and his real point is that GM is living off the taxpayer's largesse and only exists because we bailed them out, so their competition properly complain that this is an eneven playing field, and, well, he goes on about our current economic situation, and you get lost in the weeds pretty quick.
On the other hand, if Rush would turn the clock back a bit and take on the fundamental (not religious, but basic) issues, he would be doing more of a service than he does now.
But Rush is an entertainer now. I want more than that. So I'm gone. No longer a dittohead. I didn't change, he did. And a LOT of his 'old' audience hasn't either. His current audience is mostly harmless, and you should pay less attention to he and they than you are.
Before the Internet, if you wanted to truly annoy someone, you didn't stop at signing them up for every stupid mail-order catalog available, no matter the content. You didn't even stop at signing them up for every credit card offer available.
You subscribed them to every magazine you possibly could. Every one. Then you wrote, in their name, complaint letters to whatever corporations, politicians, etc you had the time to. Ah, carbon paper and Mag Card typewriters. Damn, good times.
I keep trying to find a villain in all this, are the banks evil for cutting off Wikileaks from their funding, is Wikileaks evil for indiscriminately publishing sensitive info, is 4chan evil for hammering those who tried to thwart Wikileaks, is Switzerland evil for jailing Julian on what are suspiciously convenient charges?
Then I remember. If Julian worked for the Washington Post, he would be a hero of the Left, and we would have seen cables from the Bush and Reagan administrations published daily for weeks amid cheers and applause from their loyal readership.
But Julian doesn't work for anybody. He's alone. Except for those who mistrust their government no matter the political affiliation currently holding sway.
Yep, Wikileaks would be heroic if they had a sponsor. All they have is us. And 4chan. The truth is most always inconvenient to the powerful.
Wow.
"As opposed to Creationists arguments being based on "everything you believe is rubbish because the Bible says so!"
Or could we say:
"As opposed to Evolutionists arguments being based on "everything you believe is rubbish because Science says so!"
Pretty convincing,don't you agree?
Or...
"a means to an end for the established churches and religions around the world to exercise and justify torture, among other things, and complete control over people."
Oh yeah. Like my church, which I came to freely, and could leave any time I wanted to, and no one would come over and say "no, you can't" I doubt anyone would come over and say "no, you shouldn't". Some might ask me why.
There are churches that do berate their members if they try to leave. Some even kill those who abandon their faith. And they should not be.Some. Not all.
Stereotyping religions based on the actions of a few is not enlightened. You cannot judge a philosphy by its abuse.
I thank God He has created a universe that we can discern, examine, and understand sufficiently to subdue, manipulate, and thrive in. Doctors can understand and treat illnesses, some of them at least. Geologists understand the Earth well enough to find petroleum. We even figure out how to send men to the Moon and return them safely.
Ask some of your scientist friends, if you have any, how little difference it would take for the universe to be so unobservable as to be a mystery. A little more interstellar dust, slightly different characterisics of the radiation we call 'light', even the distances. Imagine some common elements missing, or the physical mechanism of heat not existing. What sort of life might have been created that would have little or no understanding of the world around it.
Our God does not want us to wander around oblivious to the world, not does He want us to flounder helplessly. Our universe is, in fact, wonderfully made. Even Science argues against the premise that it was created out of chance. Occam's Razor. Which is the simpler argument, that it all 'just happened', or that it was created on purpose? Obviously, I believe the latter. YMMMV.
"When you are a child you do not have the thinking skills to reject fantastical ideas. Those basic thinking patterns are then used to "hang" your later learning off of. I'd be ashamed to handicap my children with such outmoded ideas. Religion fulfills a societal function only which is diminishing rapidly, at least in first-world nations."
1. This entirely explains people who come to some belief in a deity in adulthood after a lifetime of no such influence... oh, wait, it's pretty much impossible to live in the U.S. or anywhere for any length of time and NOT be exposed to religious thought. Or atheist thought. Or agnostic thought. Or any thought. Your point, that thinking skills that 'reject fantastical ideas' are important to avoid handicapping chldren with 'outmoded ideas', is itself a point of view that could be argued against in the very same way. So how is atheism so distinct from other religions that it is rational and obvious when other religions aren't? And yes, atheism is a religon. A belief system. Yes it is.
2. I can't speak with much specificity to other religions, but Christianity has sponsored or fulfilled some useful societal functions in first-world nations. Despite the many protests that will come, Christianity is largely responsible for the creation of the United States, and most of the institutions that have allowed it to endure, thrive, and, in my opinion, provide justice and protection to both its citizens and the world. Religion provides more than one societal function, and the diminishment of religious influence in the U.S. does not seem, to me, to be an improvement.
But we live in a free nation, and you are not only free to have different opinions, but to live according to them and to influence others.
Don't listen to your head. Listen to your heart. It is never silent.
Imagine the FCC regulating those pioneering ISPs:
- Mandating maximum user-to-port ratios. Oversubscribing was just plain essential for survival. Wrong, but necessary.
- Mandating modem interoperability. What fun having to have both K56 and X2, with different pools and numbers. Ack!
- Making ISPs common carriers, would they have required them to be treated differently than the telcos did? My first ISP had 10 phone lines in his closet (LITERALLY the living room closet of his apartment) with modems stacked in front of a desk fan. The phone company asked about why he had so many lines, and he basically said 'cause i wanna'.
- Would Usenet have survived? Would I have been required to maintain the FCC's mandated days' of files, which was an enormous task?
- Would BitTorrent have been a permitted protocol? So much for RFCs, carriers would want to regulate the protocols permitted, to ensure orderly traffic management and of course avoid crushing providers with massive traffic.
- Would the FCC been able to regulate spam without destroying free speech on the Internet?
No, the FCC would have ruined the Internet. If they had gone in, we would today have AOL and Compuserve. That's all.
"Trans details don't match submission in MFAS for merchant"
I'm not a 'Trekkie', but I'm a fan of the genre.
Define 'understand'.
I'm facing more restrictive password policies at work every day. Some expire every 14 days. Some require that they start AND end with an alphanumeric character, include a symbol from a short list of acceptable symbols, upper and lower case characters, and be 8-11 characters long. These restrictions broke my normal conventions. I'm pretty much forced to keep a cheat sheet of hints to my passwords. Today I have 11 unique passwords shared among 22 different systems comprising 32 different hosts and services. That's just work. I'm required to change at least one password 4 out of 5 days a week. Some of these require me to use unique passwords, not using any of the 5 to 8 previous passwords. Some deny using duplicate sequential characters, some any duplicate characters, some deny using specific words, one denies using any character that is in my master employee ID (8 chars, 1 alpha & 7 numeric), and some restrict using the same password as other systems that use the same authentication server - yes, our SSO server is no longer SSO, depending on the service it is supporting. They still call it SSO. Perhaps 5 of these systems permit me to recovery my password by resetting it via a process or phone call. Two of them require managment approval for a password reset. One, the magic one, requires me to get upper management approval for resetting a password, and this system will expire my password if I don't log in before the periodic change period expires. This password expires every 30 days, and I need to use it ever 30 days. Yup, I make a note to log in mid-month to keep it alive. Most users only use it monthly, and it is designed that way. Several services delete my user account if I let a password expire, requiring a new user ID setup. I also have to watch for my access being denied due to any of various initiatives, Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, arbitrary system resets, etc., but that's just corporate policy. The weasels think they are winning.
No fix is in sight. This company is proud of their record of zero breaches ever. But I spend a noticeable amount of time managing passwords, and am delayed in work by failed authentication. Security for my position is becoming an impediment to work. I am in a relatively unique position, requiring a lot of access to several different systems, and combinations that bring me to the attention of our Corporate Lawyers occasionally, and I'm not even doing anything wrong, just my job. I'm not proud to say I've never looked up sensitive data out of curiosity. If I got caught, it would be my dismissal. And they watch specifically for that stuff.
For my personal business, I have only 7 specific payroll, banking, or healthcare sites I need to maintain passwords for. Some expire, some don't. Some require specific rules, some don't. Two of them show me their score for relative strength of the password I'm trying to use.
Then I have all the other stuff. I easily have 30+ logins to various technical and social sites, probably 50+. Some I don't use for years. I use a lot of conventions to manage them by role and relative importance to me. Don't get me started on usernames.
My only, ONE AND ONLY password breach was thanks to my lovely wife, who was too lazy to change the Facebook page to HER signon, and clicked away on a bunch of quizzes, tests, free stuff, and finally an auction link. eBay had me down to buy a bunch of stuff and I got the emails confirming it. I cancelled them all with eBay's help, they tracked down the offending user which was pointless as they don't exist, and I avoided bad feedback and PayPal problems. Looks like the seller was creating fake buys to get feedback and enhance their rep enough to attract more willing victims. My wife was shocked. Then she was angry with me. Then she started playing Farmville. I got her a computer of her own. Grrr...
Passwords are not enough. My home notebook has a fingerprint scanner I use, wish I could teach it some tricks. I use a couple of password keyrings online, but not for everything. I'm using OpenID more, but I can't yet see the value.
We need something better. Fingerprint scanners or camera-based something that isn't fooled by a photo.