There are two entirely different things, and people often get them confused: rights and entitlements. Rights are things like the right to bear arms, the right to practice any (or no) religion, and so forth. Entitlements are things that the government should give somebody, such as cheese to poor people.
Access to communications _should_ be a human right, just like the right to education (article 26, Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
The freedom to communicate is a God-given human right, not the freedom to have cheap or easy access to all possible communications methods. I only have access to a high-speed connection when I am at the university, and only a modem connection at home, but I don't believe my rights are being violated by this.
And as for the UDHR, it routinely tries to pass off entitlements as if they were rights just like this, and the worst part of it all is found in Article 29 Section 3:
These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
My translation of what the U.N. is really saying here: "You should have all of these freedoms, and all of this stuff we list, unless it becomes inconvienent for us, in which case you can all suck our dicks and pretend to like it."
The PATRIOT Act is nothing compared to that one line. It is equivalent to replacing Amendment IX of the U.S. Constitution, which currently says:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
with
The rights and freedoms enumerated in the Constitution may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United States.
I just put a new one of those on my 1985 Mercury (a.k.a. Ford) yesterday, and a new booster too, so not only was I under the hood to work on the brakes, I also had my head at the driver's side floor inside too, (un/re)bolting the booster. The only time I was at the actual brakes in the whole operation was when I bled them at the very end.
I am personally a fan of the BSD license, which is almost public domain, but the same thing applies to the GPL stuff too. The vast majority of the people working on free software (GPL, BSD, etc.) are giving their skilled labor freely: the software is merely the product of that freely-given labor.
Anyone who would advocate the elimination of intellectual property in our modern intellectually-oriented society would be a communist: they are advocating the forced redistribution of property, in this case intellectual property. I do believe there are many problems with the current IP system, but I do not believe that the idea of intellectual property itself should be eliminated.
Free software is software that is freely given by the authors, usually out of pure goodwill, with the programmers choosing to do so; or at least their employers, the actual owner of the software in either case. This is a good thing.
Communism, and I am talking about the idealized Marxist communism here, not the even worse real-world examples, is about the poor stealing from the rich, simply because the poor outnumber the rich. This is not voluntary on the part of the rich, but rather their property is taken against their will, and this robbery is justified by the greed of the poor.
Free software is not communism, but instead is better described as Christian, in line with Christ's command to give of yourself freely; however, since many of the people who develop free software are of other religions, perhaps a better phrase would be just "being a really nice person."
The idea that most closely relates to Marxist communism in the realm of software would instead be the software and music pirates, who justify stealing software from Microsoft and music from the companies in the RIAA because Microsoft and the RIAA have a lot of money, and the pirates don't, as if it somehow isn't theft then.
I agree, I prefer the Mozilla Suite too. I actually use both the e-mail and the web browser, and sometimes some of the other components too. I don't know why everybody seems to have this application suite hostility, and I don't see why they can't merge the common stuff into a common code base, sort of how they used to have a browser-only download available for Netscape. It isn't bloat if I am going to use all of the applications. I don't really use the editor though, I usually write my web-pages in Vim.
I don't think it would really be a problem if the Japanese were re-armed anymore. It's not like the Germans after WWI after all. They have a strong democracy now, and are basically one of the stongest allies to the U.S. If anything, it would probably be in the best interest of the U.S. for Japan to be well-armed, especially with the North Korea situation as it is. It isn't as if they would bomb Pearl Harbor again.
No. Being intelligent, rational, and "generally a nice chap" rule out being an atheist.
Intelligence and rationality do not, upon observing the universe, conclude that it just "gee-wiz kinda happened by itself".
This is seperate from any specific religious system however:
rather just the realization that there is something beyond that created all of this.
There are many very well-educated athiests.
There also many very well-educated Christians, and many well-educated Jews, and many well-educated Muslims, and many well-educated Hindus, and many well-educated people who ascribe to every other major religion.
And the next time that you are talking with all of your many Nobel-prize-winning friends, of which I am sure you have plenty, remember that even Yassir Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize, so it isn't exactly the most accurately-awarded medal, and being an asshole does not preclude a person from the possibility of recieving one either.
Wait... so you acknowledge that our policies affect them, if anything, more than they do us... but also say they shouldn't have a say? Please explain that logic.
American policy should, and is, made in order to benefit Americans firstly, and others as a secondary benefit.
If we can manage to benefit the Iraqi people (by replacing a violent dictator with a mostly democratic republic) while defending our interests, all the better, but there is a definite ordering of the priorities.
What do you think is going on in Iraq right now? What do you think people are rebelling for - fun?
They're rebelling for stuff like this:
[Cite]
To quote directly from the article:
About 20m ahead of me, I could see the American Bradley armoured vehicle, a huge monster with fire rising from within. It stood alone, its doors open, burning. I stopped, took a couple of photos and crossed the street towards a bunch of people.
So, in other words, the American soldiers were responding to an attack and defending themselves.
If you believe the polls in Iraq, the majority of Iraqis (even when you include the pro-US Kurds) want the US to just leave.
And as I previously stated, their opinion is not being taken into account, nor should it.
Secondly, you attribute the violence to people who want an islamic theocracy. Pray tell, where did you come across this insight into the motives of diverse resistance groups across Iraq?
I don't attribute all of the violence to groups who want an Ismamic theocracy; there are still some of the old Baathists around too.
... random "No Blood for Oil" rantings, operating under the false assumption that we are over there merely to steal a few barrels of crude...
Their "government" was millions of people. One of Bremer's admitted biggest mistakes was kicking all baathists out of public office (which he later rescinded), because even under Saddam, the government was still just people doing their jobs, apart from a relatively small number with blood on their hands.
The Baathists were
"Just doing their jobs":
what a wonderful excuse.
Do you also apply this low standard to Private Lynndie England and her friends?
Or only to non-Americans?
> their hospitals were even more shortly
> supplied, and their doctors lacked the freedom
> to leave the country.
"I am afraid to ride to work in my car," she said, because of recent robberies, rapes, kidnappings and murders.
And then your last paragraph:
Oh, they certainly seem to be showing will. Power? That's arguable. They're certainly militarily weaker than the US, but they've been doing quite impressively nonetheless via the force multiplier of guerella warfare. And despite all of the innocents caught in the crossfire, polls show that those who are resisting have more popular support than us, the occupiers.
So these are your freedom fighters in Iraq?
Do you want these people running the show over there?
When your freedom fighters bomb a civilian location, that is merely acceptable "innocents caught in the crossfire", but when an American military vehicle is torched, and some civilians who where stupid enough to run towards the explosion instead of away get killed in retaliatory fire, that isn't?
I think Iraqis like Riverbend and other Iraqi bloggers have said it best: what policies we choose over here affects them, if anything, even more than it affects us.
Yes, it does.
That does not mean that they should be allowed to have any say in our policies.
The US rebelled from the British for less than that.
Yes, we did.
We were willing to rebel against a tyrant, and were successful.
The Iraqis were not willing to rebel against their tyrant, and they most definitely won't rebel against their liberation, even if it was only a useful side-effect for them from our preservation of our interests.
The bombs are blowing up in *their* streets, *their* civilians are getting killed, and *their* buildings are blowing up.
Perhaps they would prefer if we just left, and then those people exploding bombs and such wouldn't need to anymore, since they would be unopposed in their plans to turn Iraq into just another Iran?
Their preferences are not being taken into account, nor should they be, but rather the interests of the United States instead.
Their oil revenue is going to foreign companies, their government is being selected, their hospitals are short-supplied, and their doctors are leaving the country.
Their oil revenue was going to Hussein, their "government" was merely Hussein's cronies, their hospitals were even more shortly supplied, and their doctors lacked the freedom to leave the country.
Their country has entire cities as closed zones; the people in their country have friends or relatives living in these places (Fallujah et al).
Since when were military actions expected to be convienent?
In short, what they get from the US election is as important or more important than what we do.
This is because they lack the will and the power to control their own destiny.
That is their problem, not ours.
Please that's nothing. I know of a new restaurant with newly printed menus "Peking fuck" instead of "Peking duck".
Apparently the menu printing restaurant hired a cheap and angry teenager to do the printing.
The English Language and the German Language haven't been the same since the Eleventh Century, when a bunch of Germans from France got tired of living that close to the French, and therefore decided to go conquer England instead.
They kept the French Language because it is pretty.
Why should a person who has dedicated perhaps 10 years of his life to study, who is now capable of making tremendous contributions to science, sit around teaching basic facts to 18 year-olds that they could get from a book just as easy? For every productive professor forced to teach undergraduate classes, we can expect progress in the sciences and humanities to slow ever so much.
The vast majority of them are completely incapable of making minor contributions to anything, much less tremendous contributions to science.
If they are really good they might write a few papers about some minor facet of some minor subject in their field that might advance that subject ever so slightly.
If the material could be gleaned from the textbook alone, then why do the universities offer the courses?
Didn't you take those courses?
Do you think you could have gathered as much of an understanding of the subject from just the textbook alone (if it was in a lecture hall with 300 people, then you probably could have.)
Besides, someone who has studied up to a doctorate is generally up in the clouds and capable of comfortably discussing his work only with colleagues of the same or nearly the same level. It is hard for an expert to relate to undergraduates who don't know anything yet. That's why grad students should teach undergraduate classes, they are closer in age and perspective to the undergraduates and better prepared to respond to their needs.
If you can't explain something to an eight-year-old, then you don't really understand it yourself.
Graduate students shouldn't teach, only assist, since they have had no real teaching experience beforehand, and since they have their own studies to worry about.
Slashdot Mirror
There are two entirely different things, and people often get them confused: rights and entitlements. Rights are things like the right to bear arms, the right to practice any (or no) religion, and so forth. Entitlements are things that the government should give somebody, such as cheese to poor people.
Access to communications _should_ be a human right, just like the right to education (article 26, Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
The freedom to communicate is a God-given human right, not the freedom to have cheap or easy access to all possible communications methods. I only have access to a high-speed connection when I am at the university, and only a modem connection at home, but I don't believe my rights are being violated by this. And as for the UDHR, it routinely tries to pass off entitlements as if they were rights just like this, and the worst part of it all is found in Article 29 Section 3:
These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
My translation of what the U.N. is really saying here: "You should have all of these freedoms, and all of this stuff we list, unless it becomes inconvienent for us, in which case you can all suck our dicks and pretend to like it." The PATRIOT Act is nothing compared to that one line. It is equivalent to replacing Amendment IX of the U.S. Constitution, which currently says:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
with
The rights and freedoms enumerated in the Constitution may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United States.
I just put a new one of those on my 1985 Mercury (a.k.a. Ford) yesterday, and a new booster too, so not only was I under the hood to work on the brakes, I also had my head at the driver's side floor inside too, (un/re)bolting the booster. The only time I was at the actual brakes in the whole operation was when I bled them at the very end.
Shouldn't that be TANSTAAFi?
I am personally a fan of the BSD license, which is almost public domain, but the same thing applies to the GPL stuff too. The vast majority of the people working on free software (GPL, BSD, etc.) are giving their skilled labor freely: the software is merely the product of that freely-given labor.
Anyone who would advocate the elimination of intellectual property in our modern intellectually-oriented society would be a communist: they are advocating the forced redistribution of property, in this case intellectual property. I do believe there are many problems with the current IP system, but I do not believe that the idea of intellectual property itself should be eliminated.
Free software is software that is freely given by the authors, usually out of pure goodwill, with the programmers choosing to do so; or at least their employers, the actual owner of the software in either case. This is a good thing.
Communism, and I am talking about the idealized Marxist communism here, not the even worse real-world examples, is about the poor stealing from the rich, simply because the poor outnumber the rich. This is not voluntary on the part of the rich, but rather their property is taken against their will, and this robbery is justified by the greed of the poor.
Free software is not communism, but instead is better described as Christian, in line with Christ's command to give of yourself freely; however, since many of the people who develop free software are of other religions, perhaps a better phrase would be just "being a really nice person."
The idea that most closely relates to Marxist communism in the realm of software would instead be the software and music pirates, who justify stealing software from Microsoft and music from the companies in the RIAA because Microsoft and the RIAA have a lot of money, and the pirates don't, as if it somehow isn't theft then.
Big friggin' lasers are easy, it is the problem with the batteries required that causes the Marines to still carry M16's.
I agree, I prefer the Mozilla Suite too. I actually use both the e-mail and the web browser, and sometimes some of the other components too. I don't know why everybody seems to have this application suite hostility, and I don't see why they can't merge the common stuff into a common code base, sort of how they used to have a browser-only download available for Netscape. It isn't bloat if I am going to use all of the applications. I don't really use the editor though, I usually write my web-pages in Vim.
Are you one of those people who writes letters to Aleve, and other over-the-counter medicines?
I don't think it would really be a problem if the Japanese were re-armed anymore. It's not like the Germans after WWI after all. They have a strong democracy now, and are basically one of the stongest allies to the U.S. If anything, it would probably be in the best interest of the U.S. for Japan to be well-armed, especially with the North Korea situation as it is. It isn't as if they would bomb Pearl Harbor again.
How easy is it to get an 8-liter V8 in a Honda? Perhaps they should be missing?
That is actually a very good idea. If this were 1999, you would have the VC types beating down your door.
Hi! This is my friend, I don't think you two have met before: his name is Mr. Satire, but you can just call him Steve.
No. Being intelligent, rational, and "generally a nice chap" rule out being an atheist. Intelligence and rationality do not, upon observing the universe, conclude that it just "gee-wiz kinda happened by itself". This is seperate from any specific religious system however: rather just the realization that there is something beyond that created all of this.
There are many very well-educated athiests. There also many very well-educated Christians, and many well-educated Jews, and many well-educated Muslims, and many well-educated Hindus, and many well-educated people who ascribe to every other major religion.
And the next time that you are talking with all of your many Nobel-prize-winning friends, of which I am sure you have plenty, remember that even Yassir Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize, so it isn't exactly the most accurately-awarded medal, and being an asshole does not preclude a person from the possibility of recieving one either.
A, C, and F generally rule out the possibility of E.
He is displaying his ignorance of the book by misquoting it, thereby displaying his strength.
American policy should, and is, made in order to benefit Americans firstly, and others as a secondary benefit. If we can manage to benefit the Iraqi people (by replacing a violent dictator with a mostly democratic republic) while defending our interests, all the better, but there is a definite ordering of the priorities.
What do you think is going on in Iraq right now? What do you think people are rebelling for - fun? They're rebelling for stuff like this: [Cite]
To quote directly from the article:
About 20m ahead of me, I could see the American Bradley armoured vehicle, a huge monster with fire rising from within. It stood alone, its doors open, burning. I stopped, took a couple of photos and crossed the street towards a bunch of people.
So, in other words, the American soldiers were responding to an attack and defending themselves.
If you believe the polls in Iraq, the majority of Iraqis (even when you include the pro-US Kurds) want the US to just leave.
And as I previously stated, their opinion is not being taken into account, nor should it.
Secondly, you attribute the violence to people who want an islamic theocracy. Pray tell, where did you come across this insight into the motives of diverse resistance groups across Iraq?
I don't attribute all of the violence to groups who want an Ismamic theocracy; there are still some of the old Baathists around too.
Their "government" was millions of people. One of Bremer's admitted biggest mistakes was kicking all baathists out of public office (which he later rescinded), because even under Saddam, the government was still just people doing their jobs, apart from a relatively small number with blood on their hands.
The Baathists were "Just doing their jobs": what a wonderful excuse. Do you also apply this low standard to Private Lynndie England and her friends? Or only to non-Americans?
> their hospitals were even more shortly
> supplied, and their doctors lacked the freedom
> to leave the country.
Wrong.
[Cite]
To quote the second article you mentioned:
"I am afraid to ride to work in my car," she said, because of recent robberies, rapes, kidnappings and murders.
And then your last paragraph:
Oh, they certainly seem to be showing will. Power? That's arguable. They're certainly militarily weaker than the US, but they've been doing quite impressively nonetheless via the force multiplier of guerella warfare. And despite all of the innocents caught in the crossfire, polls show that those who are resisting have more popular support than us, the occupiers.
So these are your freedom fighters in Iraq? Do you want these people running the show over there? When your freedom fighters bomb a civilian location, that is merely acceptable "innocents caught in the crossfire", but when an American military vehicle is torched, and some civilians who where stupid enough to run towards the explosion instead of away get killed in retaliatory fire, that isn't?
Yes, it does. That does not mean that they should be allowed to have any say in our policies.
The US rebelled from the British for less than that.
Yes, we did. We were willing to rebel against a tyrant, and were successful. The Iraqis were not willing to rebel against their tyrant, and they most definitely won't rebel against their liberation, even if it was only a useful side-effect for them from our preservation of our interests.
The bombs are blowing up in *their* streets, *their* civilians are getting killed, and *their* buildings are blowing up.
Perhaps they would prefer if we just left, and then those people exploding bombs and such wouldn't need to anymore, since they would be unopposed in their plans to turn Iraq into just another Iran? Their preferences are not being taken into account, nor should they be, but rather the interests of the United States instead.
Their oil revenue is going to foreign companies, their government is being selected, their hospitals are short-supplied, and their doctors are leaving the country.
Their oil revenue was going to Hussein, their "government" was merely Hussein's cronies, their hospitals were even more shortly supplied, and their doctors lacked the freedom to leave the country.
Their country has entire cities as closed zones; the people in their country have friends or relatives living in these places (Fallujah et al).
Since when were military actions expected to be convienent?
In short, what they get from the US election is as important or more important than what we do.
This is because they lack the will and the power to control their own destiny. That is their problem, not ours.
The server news.mit.edu perhaps?
Why thank you.
FUCK BUSH
There is at least two meanings to this one. Either way though, I must say your mind is quite a skilled and tactful machine.
GET OUT OF IRAQ
That does sound like an excellent idea. How about they take an eastern march out? They might even find something useful to do on their journey.
One of the coolest things to do if you have a really big hard drive: /usr/ports; make install
cd
And wait a very long time.
Take a close look at your keyboard.
That is a 14.3% productivity increase.
The English Language and the German Language haven't been the same since the Eleventh Century, when a bunch of Germans from France got tired of living that close to the French, and therefore decided to go conquer England instead. They kept the French Language because it is pretty.
The vast majority of them are completely incapable of making minor contributions to anything, much less tremendous contributions to science. If they are really good they might write a few papers about some minor facet of some minor subject in their field that might advance that subject ever so slightly. If the material could be gleaned from the textbook alone, then why do the universities offer the courses? Didn't you take those courses? Do you think you could have gathered as much of an understanding of the subject from just the textbook alone (if it was in a lecture hall with 300 people, then you probably could have.)
Besides, someone who has studied up to a doctorate is generally up in the clouds and capable of comfortably discussing his work only with colleagues of the same or nearly the same level. It is hard for an expert to relate to undergraduates who don't know anything yet. That's why grad students should teach undergraduate classes, they are closer in age and perspective to the undergraduates and better prepared to respond to their needs.
If you can't explain something to an eight-year-old, then you don't really understand it yourself. Graduate students shouldn't teach, only assist, since they have had no real teaching experience beforehand, and since they have their own studies to worry about.
Then perhaps they should be taught how to learn?