I dream of the day when an atheist/agnostic person can be elected to the presidency; when a candidate's religious orientation does not matter; when we can truly have separation of church and state.
I've got one. Go to www.camcarolina.com and it'll serve you up a web page. I've got Yellow Dog Linux on it and it functions as a small web server just fine.
So, what the FBI didn't have any names to check the receipts against? No address? You didn't know the rough time they came in so you could check "large fertilizer sale around 3:00" or anything? That's so open-ended it's kind of hard to believe. This, honestly, doesn't sound like a plausible scenario to me.
Assuming what you say actually happened, next time ask for a warrant. It's not hard for them to get it, and remember that protecting your customer's privacy is important.
Since sunspots are dark it might be expected that more sunspots lead to less solar radiation and a decreased solar constant. However, the surrounding areas are brighter and the overall effect is that more sunspots means a brighter sun. The variation caused by the sunspot cycle to solar output is relatively small, of the order of 0.1% of the solar constant (a peak-to-trough range of 1.3 W m-2 compared to 1366 W m-2 for the average solar constant)[2][3]. This range is slightly smaller than the change in radiative forcing caused by the increase in atmospheric CO2 since the 18th century[4]. During the Maunder Minimum in the 17th Century there were hardly any sunspots at all. This coincides with a period of cooling known as the Little Ice Age. It has been speculated that there may be a resonant gravitational link between a photospheric tidal force from the planets, the dominant component by summing gravitational tidal force (75%) being Jupiter's with an 11 year cycle[5]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot
I see you, and several others in the comments, making connections to sunspots and global warming. There really isn't one, or rather, it's the opposite of what you'd think. The more sunspots the sun has, the hotter it gets. Indeed a prolonged period of low sunspot activity is one of the (unproven, competing) theories on what caused the Little Ice Age.
So, if you want to draw a conclusion on this, if the sunspots are low, and the earth is still getting hotter... that means we really are getting hotter (disclaimer: sunspot numbers go up and down all the time in regular cycles. Global Warming is a very long term trend that is going up over several sunspot cycles. You can't really draw a conclusion on global warming based on a short term sunspot activity. I'm just saying, if you really wanted to draw one, that'd be it).
> It's sort of a social experiment. It is fascinating how many people become
> upset if they can't tell, despite the very low probability that it will
> ever become any of their business.
I don't really think he was upset. He just asked why you were using a generic term when you (we hope!) knew the more specific term, which would have been expected.
You state that you're doing it, essentially, so see how often people will ask, so you're aware it's an odd turn of phrase. Your answer as to why you do it seems to be "because I want people to ask me why I'm using the odd phrasing." I think that's kind of a stupid reason, because, as you said, it has no real personal impact whether we know if your spouse is a man or woman (indeed, even if I did, I still wouldn't know what sex you were). So it seems like a pointless "experiment" to me. What's your hypothesis? That people will as you why you use such odd phrasing when you use it? Seems like kind of a pointless experiment.
> Are you going to be providing either of us with medical care?
> Do you plan to have sex with one or more of us? If not, how
> can it possibly matter?
Even though it was rhetorical, I'll answer. Because we are social animals, and we pick up many social cues on how to react someone based on their sex (both meanings, too - their partners and their gender). Therefore, someone purposefully obscuring those qualities draws questions about why they would do so, because it piques or socially wired ape brains. It's pretty simple.
I agree with the parent. When my wife and I got married, we had two weddings. One in "real life," the other in City of Heroes, since that's where we met. It seemed only appropriate that all our online friends be able to get together and be able to partake in the happy event.
We went through a lot of trouble to do it in the PvP Arena, since that's an instanced part of the game. We only invited people we trusted wouldn't abuse that to attack others, and it worked beautifully. I have no doubt that if we'd done it anywhere public, people would have harrassed us. Asssholes, that is, like your friend.
Read TFA you linked to, it appears you are misrepresenting the facts (Ha! Bet you didn't expect someone to actually read the links on Slashdot, did you?). The courthouse didn't have history's 15 most pre-eminent lawgivers. It had a picture of Jesus, and only Jesus. Then, the ACLU sued, so they put up some other pictures too.
Also, Jesus wasn't a lawgiver, so your whole argument is bunk. Jesus was a law-breaker, who threw most of the Old Testaments rules out the window and replaced them with "love god" and "love thy neighbor." And those are wonderful philosophies, don't get me wrong, but they ain't exactly laws.
Thank you, now that you've pointed out the reference, I expect to be modded up any minute now. I mean, it's a Futurama reference, and this is Slashdot. Free mod points, really.;)
No, it's far far worse. Based on that logic, we shouldn't give any aid to anyone. Starving kids in Africa? AIDS babies? At some point, we have to realize that helping the less fortunate costs money.
Exactly. And, if they have hereditary conditions (high blood pressure was mentioned in TFA), they should be charged more. Of course, why stop there? Why not pay proportionally more? Of course, that'd price most people with hereditary conditions out of insurance altogether, but that's the free market at work!
And you're dead on, choosing to live in a flood zone is *exactly* like choosing to be born to parents that have hereditary conditions. They should definitely pay the price.
Encouraging Americans to be healthy is great. I don't really have a problem with charging those who smoke more, for instance. But high blood pressure? Come on, that's hereditary. Once you start discriminating against people for their genetic makeup, you're on a slope that is not just slippery, but frictionless.
As a former Libertarian (full disclosure: now pretty much a Dem), let me say that Libertarians aren't really against Democrats any more than Republicans.
Libertarians tend to agree with Conservatives on fiscal issues and small government (with exceptions, of course. Libertarians tend to be in favor of little to no national debt, while Republicans generally either don't care or see mounting debt onto the nation as a way to bleed money from government programs like welfare and public education). However, Libertarians tend to side with Democrats on most social issues (they tend to be in favor of keeping the government out of your bedroom and strongly believe in civil liberties, but tend to be against programs that try to "artificially" achieve equality, such as affirmative action).
Traditionally, Libertarians run as Republicans, because Republicans have had better fund raising and a better "brand" in the US. If you agree with both sides equally, why not run as the one that you're more likely to win as? However, with the general democratic trend on the 2006 elections and the rise of democratic fundraising, more and more Libertarians are running as Democrats. In many ways, the Blue Dogs that got elected in 2006 were just that.
Many now are even being more open about it. Bob Lord is raising huge cash right now to make a run in Arizona. Technically running as a Democrat, he's calling himself a Libertarian. It'll be interesting how this turns out.
My God. You say
a) temperatures are rising. Lots of hard data to support this, and everything looks statistically significant.
b) greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are rising. There is more debate here, but mankind has most certainly contributed and the question is simply about narrowing down "how much".
Then you say something about how you don't trust the results because computer models are being used, which just goes to show you how well the rest of the paragraph is going to go. Then you say...
What I do see very clearly is that all suggested solutions seek to punish the united states while leaving some other areas of the world untouched. I pick "punish" deliberately; it's as if the US has been "bad" and now everyone wants their ounce of vengeance.
Maybe it's because, uh, the United States can only make laws for itself? We could pass laws telling China to emit less greenhouse gasses, but I don't think they're going to listen. Or maybe it's because we emit FAAAAR more carbon than any other country?So not only do I choose to wait, but my attitude is now skeptical - this seems like a typical "america bad" attitude on the side of the global warming proponents.
So basically, your argument is "Yes, there's a lot of data, and it looks statistically significant, and there's broad agreement in the scientific community, but because it makes America look bad, I refuse to believe it."
This is the worst kind of ignorance. The kind where you choose to be ignorant on purpose, and the kind that no amount of education can overcome.
That's the problem with the abortion argument, it all just boils down to that one belief most of the time. I personally believe the most pragmatic solution is to have abortion legalised, because if it is not legal it will still go on and more people will end up hurt from poor practices. That said, I'm one of those that believes that "human life" begins at birth (or thereabouts) so I'm predisposed towards legalised abortions in the first place.
That's a pretty extreme viewpoint (as extreme as believing life begins at conception, IMO). Do you consider it OK to have an abortion at eight months pregnant? If so, is it OK to kill a child born a month premature? If not, what's the difference? They're the same developmentally?
Or is your stance that the child somehow supernaturally "becomes human" by cutting the umbilical cord/leaving the womb?
It doesn't, so shopping hours & alcohol should be unregulated.
Tell that to all the people whos lives have been ruined by alcohol. Both drinkers and non drinkers.
So, anything that can potentially harm someone should be illegal? My father was an alcoholic. I know how hard that can be first hand. But that just means that I believe there should be more help for alcoholics, more early prevention when it starts (because by the time anyone tried to help him, he was too far gone). It doesn't mean that alcohol shouldn't be sold on the Christian holy day. It means there should be more to prevent alcoholism every day of the week. Blue laws don't stop alcoholism.
So, my answer is, of course you should be able to 'marry' any consenting adult, but you should not be able to force me to recognise your relationship as marriage.
Yet the rest of us are forced to recognise any half-baked nonsense you choose to call a religion. Lots of consenting adults running about threatening our freedoms, and all under constitutional protection. If asked to choose between this and two adults entering a civil union, I know which side I'd come down on.
Here I will agree. If I'm forced to recognize the Conservative Christian version of mairrage, why shouldn't they be forced to recognize the Gay version of mairrage?
It affects me in the same way as if your girlfirend wanted to kill her newborn.
It doesn't affect me to anywhere near the same degree. The fact is, most people, when it comes right down to it, aren't really ready to accept underdeveloped embryos as fellow citizens. Which isn't to say that abortion isn't a tough decision. It's a tough one that a lot of women have to make. But ninty-nine times out of a hundred, it's the right decision, and everyone, the mother, the father, society, know it was the right decision. Sometimes, these decisions have to be made. And if asked to choose between people making tough decisions and people being forced to bring children to term, I know which side I'd come down on.
The Christian poster is right. It comes down to a question of when does life begin. Let's say a child is born premature. Is it OK to kill the child? Of course not. What if it was so premature abortion would still be legal? If it's not OK to kill the child (morally, of course, not legally), why? The child is just as developed as it would have been inside the womb. Can you argue that somehow its physical location (in a womb vs out of one) determines if it's alive?
What if technology advances to the point that premature babies can be reimplanted in the womb to continue gestation? Can you just put the child back in the womb and have it be OK to abort again?
The question is developmental one. Don't dismiss his claim just because it's a Christian saying it. The idea that life is somehow based on location is absurd from a logical perspective. Now, where is that line drawn, the point that it is developmentally no longer a collection of cells and is now a human life? That's a Big Question, one I don't have an easy answer for. But to dismiss the idea that when abortion should be legal and when it shouldn't is not a question based on the developmental state of the child is absurd.
It took all of us around the office a while to piece together the full story, but it turned out, it went something like this...
The customer called up one day copmlaining their computer had stoped working. In fact, they noted a sizzling sound had eminated from it at the moment of failure and the smell of something burnt was in the air. The phone tech did just what they should have done and told the customer to box the unit up and send it in for repairs.
I worked a few cubicles down from the room where the techs opened these boxes. It was a fairly booring day until I heard the bloodcurdling scream. Half the office jumps up and runs over to see what's the matter, and I'll never forget the sight. Coachroaches. The tech, once he'd removed the side of the unit, had exposed them to the light and they were trying to find a new place to hide. There must have been a hundred in there. Craziest thing I ever saw.
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I dream of the day when an atheist/agnostic person can be elected to the presidency; when a candidate's religious orientation does not matter; when we can truly have separation of church and state.
Do you often dream of the civil war era?
I've got one. Go to www.camcarolina.com and it'll serve you up a web page. I've got Yellow Dog Linux on it and it functions as a small web server just fine.
Why wouldn't you just shoot the nuke at Mars, then?
So, what the FBI didn't have any names to check the receipts against? No address? You didn't know the rough time they came in so you could check "large fertilizer sale around 3:00" or anything? That's so open-ended it's kind of hard to believe. This, honestly, doesn't sound like a plausible scenario to me.
Assuming what you say actually happened, next time ask for a warrant. It's not hard for them to get it, and remember that protecting your customer's privacy is important.
I see you, and several others in the comments, making connections to sunspots and global warming. There really isn't one, or rather, it's the opposite of what you'd think. The more sunspots the sun has, the hotter it gets. Indeed a prolonged period of low sunspot activity is one of the (unproven, competing) theories on what caused the Little Ice Age.
So, if you want to draw a conclusion on this, if the sunspots are low, and the earth is still getting hotter... that means we really are getting hotter (disclaimer: sunspot numbers go up and down all the time in regular cycles. Global Warming is a very long term trend that is going up over several sunspot cycles. You can't really draw a conclusion on global warming based on a short term sunspot activity. I'm just saying, if you really wanted to draw one, that'd be it).
> It's sort of a social experiment. It is fascinating how many people become
> upset if they can't tell, despite the very low probability that it will
> ever become any of their business.
I don't really think he was upset. He just asked why you were using a generic term when you (we hope!) knew the more specific term, which would have been expected.
You state that you're doing it, essentially, so see how often people will ask, so you're aware it's an odd turn of phrase. Your answer as to why you do it seems to be "because I want people to ask me why I'm using the odd phrasing." I think that's kind of a stupid reason, because, as you said, it has no real personal impact whether we know if your spouse is a man or woman (indeed, even if I did, I still wouldn't know what sex you were). So it seems like a pointless "experiment" to me. What's your hypothesis? That people will as you why you use such odd phrasing when you use it? Seems like kind of a pointless experiment.
> Are you going to be providing either of us with medical care?
> Do you plan to have sex with one or more of us? If not, how
> can it possibly matter?
Even though it was rhetorical, I'll answer. Because we are social animals, and we pick up many social cues on how to react someone based on their sex (both meanings, too - their partners and their gender). Therefore, someone purposefully obscuring those qualities draws questions about why they would do so, because it piques or socially wired ape brains. It's pretty simple.
Exactly. If someone is powerless to do anything about, that makes it alright to abuse them. And, they are automatically crybabies.
I agree with the parent. When my wife and I got married, we had two weddings. One in "real life," the other in City of Heroes, since that's where we met. It seemed only appropriate that all our online friends be able to get together and be able to partake in the happy event.
We went through a lot of trouble to do it in the PvP Arena, since that's an instanced part of the game. We only invited people we trusted wouldn't abuse that to attack others, and it worked beautifully. I have no doubt that if we'd done it anywhere public, people would have harrassed us. Asssholes, that is, like your friend.
Read TFA you linked to, it appears you are misrepresenting the facts (Ha! Bet you didn't expect someone to actually read the links on Slashdot, did you?). The courthouse didn't have history's 15 most pre-eminent lawgivers. It had a picture of Jesus, and only Jesus. Then, the ACLU sued, so they put up some other pictures too.
Also, Jesus wasn't a lawgiver, so your whole argument is bunk. Jesus was a law-breaker, who threw most of the Old Testaments rules out the window and replaced them with "love god" and "love thy neighbor." And those are wonderful philosophies, don't get me wrong, but they ain't exactly laws.
Thank you, now that you've pointed out the reference, I expect to be modded up any minute now. I mean, it's a Futurama reference, and this is Slashdot. Free mod points, really. ;)
Perhaps he works for the Democratic Order Of Planets.
On top of that, switching to AT&T sends a message to their pocketbooks, encouraging them *not* to do the same.
No, it's far far worse. Based on that logic, we shouldn't give any aid to anyone. Starving kids in Africa? AIDS babies? At some point, we have to realize that helping the less fortunate costs money.
Exactly. And, if they have hereditary conditions (high blood pressure was mentioned in TFA), they should be charged more. Of course, why stop there? Why not pay proportionally more? Of course, that'd price most people with hereditary conditions out of insurance altogether, but that's the free market at work!
And you're dead on, choosing to live in a flood zone is *exactly* like choosing to be born to parents that have hereditary conditions. They should definitely pay the price.
Encouraging Americans to be healthy is great. I don't really have a problem with charging those who smoke more, for instance. But high blood pressure? Come on, that's hereditary. Once you start discriminating against people for their genetic makeup, you're on a slope that is not just slippery, but frictionless.
As a former Libertarian (full disclosure: now pretty much a Dem), let me say that Libertarians aren't really against Democrats any more than Republicans.
Libertarians tend to agree with Conservatives on fiscal issues and small government (with exceptions, of course. Libertarians tend to be in favor of little to no national debt, while Republicans generally either don't care or see mounting debt onto the nation as a way to bleed money from government programs like welfare and public education). However, Libertarians tend to side with Democrats on most social issues (they tend to be in favor of keeping the government out of your bedroom and strongly believe in civil liberties, but tend to be against programs that try to "artificially" achieve equality, such as affirmative action).
Traditionally, Libertarians run as Republicans, because Republicans have had better fund raising and a better "brand" in the US. If you agree with both sides equally, why not run as the one that you're more likely to win as? However, with the general democratic trend on the 2006 elections and the rise of democratic fundraising, more and more Libertarians are running as Democrats. In many ways, the Blue Dogs that got elected in 2006 were just that.
Many now are even being more open about it. Bob Lord is raising huge cash right now to make a run in Arizona. Technically running as a Democrat, he's calling himself a Libertarian. It'll be interesting how this turns out.
No, that was the popular opinion. In the 1400s, most scientists believed the Earth was round. I think you unintentionally drew a parallel.
My God. You say a) temperatures are rising. Lots of hard data to support this, and everything looks statistically significant. b) greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are rising. There is more debate here, but mankind has most certainly contributed and the question is simply about narrowing down "how much". Then you say something about how you don't trust the results because computer models are being used, which just goes to show you how well the rest of the paragraph is going to go. Then you say... What I do see very clearly is that all suggested solutions seek to punish the united states while leaving some other areas of the world untouched. I pick "punish" deliberately; it's as if the US has been "bad" and now everyone wants their ounce of vengeance. Maybe it's because, uh, the United States can only make laws for itself? We could pass laws telling China to emit less greenhouse gasses, but I don't think they're going to listen. Or maybe it's because we emit FAAAAR more carbon than any other country? So not only do I choose to wait, but my attitude is now skeptical - this seems like a typical "america bad" attitude on the side of the global warming proponents. So basically, your argument is "Yes, there's a lot of data, and it looks statistically significant, and there's broad agreement in the scientific community, but because it makes America look bad, I refuse to believe it." This is the worst kind of ignorance. The kind where you choose to be ignorant on purpose, and the kind that no amount of education can overcome.
We do it because everyone bashes the French. Even themselves, according to Reuters: "French outpace Americans in French-bashing"
That's the problem with the abortion argument, it all just boils down to that one belief most of the time. I personally believe the most pragmatic solution is to have abortion legalised, because if it is not legal it will still go on and more people will end up hurt from poor practices. That said, I'm one of those that believes that "human life" begins at birth (or thereabouts) so I'm predisposed towards legalised abortions in the first place.
That's a pretty extreme viewpoint (as extreme as believing life begins at conception, IMO). Do you consider it OK to have an abortion at eight months pregnant? If so, is it OK to kill a child born a month premature? If not, what's the difference? They're the same developmentally?
Or is your stance that the child somehow supernaturally "becomes human" by cutting the umbilical cord/leaving the womb?
Allow me to rebut from an atheist viewpoint.
It doesn't, so shopping hours & alcohol should be unregulated.
Tell that to all the people whos lives have been ruined by alcohol. Both drinkers and non drinkers.
So, anything that can potentially harm someone should be illegal? My father was an alcoholic. I know how hard that can be first hand. But that just means that I believe there should be more help for alcoholics, more early prevention when it starts (because by the time anyone tried to help him, he was too far gone). It doesn't mean that alcohol shouldn't be sold on the Christian holy day. It means there should be more to prevent alcoholism every day of the week. Blue laws don't stop alcoholism.
So, my answer is, of course you should be able to 'marry' any consenting adult, but you should not be able to force me to recognise your relationship as marriage.
Yet the rest of us are forced to recognise any half-baked nonsense you choose to call a religion. Lots of consenting adults running about threatening our freedoms, and all under constitutional protection. If asked to choose between this and two adults entering a civil union, I know which side I'd come down on.
Here I will agree. If I'm forced to recognize the Conservative Christian version of mairrage, why shouldn't they be forced to recognize the Gay version of mairrage?
It affects me in the same way as if your girlfirend wanted to kill her newborn.
It doesn't affect me to anywhere near the same degree. The fact is, most people, when it comes right down to it, aren't really ready to accept underdeveloped embryos as fellow citizens. Which isn't to say that abortion isn't a tough decision. It's a tough one that a lot of women have to make. But ninty-nine times out of a hundred, it's the right decision, and everyone, the mother, the father, society, know it was the right decision. Sometimes, these decisions have to be made. And if asked to choose between people making tough decisions and people being forced to bring children to term, I know which side I'd come down on.
The Christian poster is right. It comes down to a question of when does life begin. Let's say a child is born premature. Is it OK to kill the child? Of course not. What if it was so premature abortion would still be legal? If it's not OK to kill the child (morally, of course, not legally), why? The child is just as developed as it would have been inside the womb. Can you argue that somehow its physical location (in a womb vs out of one) determines if it's alive?
What if technology advances to the point that premature babies can be reimplanted in the womb to continue gestation? Can you just put the child back in the womb and have it be OK to abort again?
The question is developmental one. Don't dismiss his claim just because it's a Christian saying it. The idea that life is somehow based on location is absurd from a logical perspective. Now, where is that line drawn, the point that it is developmentally no longer a collection of cells and is now a human life? That's a Big Question, one I don't have an easy answer for. But to dismiss the idea that when abortion should be legal and when it shouldn't is not a question based on the developmental state of the child is absurd.
It took all of us around the office a while to piece together the full story, but it turned out, it went something like this... The customer called up one day copmlaining their computer had stoped working. In fact, they noted a sizzling sound had eminated from it at the moment of failure and the smell of something burnt was in the air. The phone tech did just what they should have done and told the customer to box the unit up and send it in for repairs. I worked a few cubicles down from the room where the techs opened these boxes. It was a fairly booring day until I heard the bloodcurdling scream. Half the office jumps up and runs over to see what's the matter, and I'll never forget the sight. Coachroaches. The tech, once he'd removed the side of the unit, had exposed them to the light and they were trying to find a new place to hide. There must have been a hundred in there. Craziest thing I ever saw.