Another thought that recently occured to me about the people that are protesting against animal cruelty is that, they often times miss some animals. Where are the protests against things like the senseless destruction roaches and mosquitos. Surely little Johnny crushing that fly with a swatter has to rival feeding a few researched medicines to a chimpanzee. Where, I ask, are the fly swatter burning demonstrations. "Brown recluse have rights too", anyone?
Having read the article you provided, there is still some debate about whether she is actually thinking through the actions she does, or whether she is merely acting on the reward that is given to her for correctly signing different words. Also, I don't think that an animal learning sign language qualifies as abstract thought. It doesn't actually know that it's learning sign language. It knows that by correctly signing a word, it will recieve praise of some kind, whether it be kind words or food.
It's these kind of extremists(on both sides of the political spectrum) that give people's beliefs and ideals a bad name. I'm a Christian, and would probably consider myself Republican, but does that mean I hate everyone who doesn't agree with my views, and consider any idealsfrom them contrary to mine. No, of course not. I have my own views about the way the world works, but that doesn't mean I'm going to force them down everyones throats, or kill them in the process. One of the main principles of the Constitution is free speach, and I think people frequently fail to understand(or misinterpret) what it really means.
Think about it for a second. On CNN, two people with opposite views can engage in a debate about a topic. What will happen because of this? Nothing. The government won't come into the room and take the offending person to some penal colony in the middle of nowhere for eternity. At worst, one or the others reputation may be slightly slandered, and a few people may have been swayed one way or the other, but otherwise, very little will have occured. You are able to write a point of view or opinion to your senators or represetntatives, and no ill will befall you because of it. You can go to Washington and form a protest stating anything you want, and nothing will happen. All the internet debates and disscussions you have will have absolutely no adverse effect on you. This is one of the most beautiful things about our country. This is also why you should be glad that they aren't lined up against a wall and shot
However, the Constitution also guarantees life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By my interpretation, this means that you should be able to live without having firebombs on your porch. There's nothing wrong with protesting the treatment of animals, as long as it doesn't infringe on my or another person's right to a peaceful life. This is why these people should be put in jail. If they want to change the treatment of animals, they should get together, give reasons convincing people of their point of view, in the hopes that they will care about it enough to elect officials who will change the laws.
I personally believe that experimentation on animals is okay. My religeous beliefs teach me that a human being is much more important than an animal, and my own concious tells me that if several or more animals die in research that may allow people longer lives, or rid them from a disease such as aids, that that is perfectly exceptable.
That isn't the same as animal cruelty, however. Animal cruelty would be if you killed the animal purely for the sake of killing something, and that if the animal had come to a state where it was no longer useful for reasearch, or if it was no longer needed, it should be quickly euthanized, and not forced to suffer longer than it has to.
Remember, these are my beliefs and ideals, and the Constitution gives me the right tout them about however I want, and allows you to reply to them in any way you feel nessecary. I would urge future posters to construct their posts in a manner that communicates the ideals and message they are trying to convey.
Humans are capable of abstract thought. I'm not sure if I have my biology down right, but I believe that is one of the defining factors that seperates humans from other animals. An animal relies mostly on instinct to survive, while a human is able to figure out and think for himself.
That's because eco terrorism isn't nearly as widespread or serious as the kinds of things conventionally thought of terrorists try to pull off. Of course the president isn't going to be looking into something like this. This is the type of thing that would be handled with a restraining order and jail time.
I think the whole problem with child predators and meeting people in chatrooms and the like has been seriously overblown by the media. News stations like CNN run stories about how to keep children safe on the internet, and the kids that have met predators online, but not once in my entire course of using the internet have I actually met one of these people. Due to the weight that news stations are allowed to give to stories, and the fact that the internet is a relatively new invetion, many stories about it get blown out of proportion by those who don't understand it.
I think that the idea of having a coach for gaming is pretty pathetic, not to mention useless. With the internet, and sites like Gamefaqs and IGN, most strategies and tips are all available free. If there are any special "secret" strategies for a game, they can usually be found for free on the internet.
Another thing that is I find useless about coaches is that, if you are already good at a game, you aren't going to be needing a whole lot of help. People that already suck probably aren't going to get a whole lot of help by going to these coaches that just practicing isn't going to get them. I highly doubt an 8 year old is going to be able to actually analyze what it is that make him good, and see how he can improve other peoples skills
Also, other sports, like tennis and basketball, often have coaches because they are professional sports, and have athletes competing in prestigeous tournaments, and the athletes are looking for any edge they can to get up on the competition. Video games haven't quite gained that amount of attention(and hopefully, IMO, they never do). Yes, there are tournaments for lots of games like SSBM and Halo, but they usually don't get a lot of attention outside of the inner gameing circles.
Slightly off-topic, but it goes along with the above paragraph, I doubt that video game tournaments will ever have much success because in my experience, its not very much fun to watch people play video games. How many times has your little brother or sister bugged you for an hour asking if they can play.
The need for a airport security systems would be greater if airports were actually the normal targets of terrorist incidents. Almost always, it is the planes that are targets of terrorist attacks, and usually, the goal of these attacks is to take over the plane, not destroy it(at least not at first).
I think one of the reasons that Myspace is so popular is that it allows the people who use it to be able to rank their popularity using the comments and friends list, and then compare it to their friends in real life. The more friends and comments they have, the more popular(or at least to them) they will be in the real world. They don't consider the quality of what they have on their pages to be as important as how much they have. Instead of keeping there people on there friends list that are actually their friends, they add people that they may barely know, or not know at all. They usually also try and usually make there pages as big and flashy as possible, and fill it with lots of random things to try and make it look more important and meaningful. When a person posts a comment on another persons page, they usually expect that that person will post one on there page(and they usually do), which is what I think is the cause of the lack of comments that seem to be repetitive and contentless.
I agree with you that Myspace can be used as a tool for those without the knowledge to create their own web pages, but part of the problem is that the majority of the people who use Myspace don't even know how to design their Myspace homepages in an appealing manner. I don't know how many countless times I've looked at people's Myspaces, only to be met with horrible font and color schemes, and a large amount of pictures, movies, and music that takes forever to load up. This is also added to the fact that many people fill the page with random junk, such as various quizzes and other random things that they've gotten off of other websites, and that the comments that people have are normally incredibly repetitive and inane. There are some Myspace pages that actually do look good, and have actual content to them. However, most of these are either made by people who already have webpage designing experience, or bands who have someone design there page for them.
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Another thought that recently occured to me about the people that are protesting against animal cruelty is that, they often times miss some animals. Where are the protests against things like the senseless destruction roaches and mosquitos. Surely little Johnny crushing that fly with a swatter has to rival feeding a few researched medicines to a chimpanzee. Where, I ask, are the fly swatter burning demonstrations. "Brown recluse have rights too", anyone?
Having read the article you provided, there is still some debate about whether she is actually thinking through the actions she does, or whether she is merely acting on the reward that is given to her for correctly signing different words. Also, I don't think that an animal learning sign language qualifies as abstract thought. It doesn't actually know that it's learning sign language. It knows that by correctly signing a word, it will recieve praise of some kind, whether it be kind words or food.
It's these kind of extremists(on both sides of the political spectrum) that give people's beliefs and ideals a bad name. I'm a Christian, and would probably consider myself Republican, but does that mean I hate everyone who doesn't agree with my views, and consider any idealsfrom them contrary to mine. No, of course not. I have my own views about the way the world works, but that doesn't mean I'm going to force them down everyones throats, or kill them in the process. One of the main principles of the Constitution is free speach, and I think people frequently fail to understand(or misinterpret) what it really means.
Think about it for a second. On CNN, two people with opposite views can engage in a debate about a topic. What will happen because of this? Nothing. The government won't come into the room and take the offending person to some penal colony in the middle of nowhere for eternity. At worst, one or the others reputation may be slightly slandered, and a few people may have been swayed one way or the other, but otherwise, very little will have occured. You are able to write a point of view or opinion to your senators or represetntatives, and no ill will befall you because of it. You can go to Washington and form a protest stating anything you want, and nothing will happen. All the internet debates and disscussions you have will have absolutely no adverse effect on you. This is one of the most beautiful things about our country. This is also why you should be glad that they aren't lined up against a wall and shot
However, the Constitution also guarantees life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By my interpretation, this means that you should be able to live without having firebombs on your porch. There's nothing wrong with protesting the treatment of animals, as long as it doesn't infringe on my or another person's right to a peaceful life. This is why these people should be put in jail. If they want to change the treatment of animals, they should get together, give reasons convincing people of their point of view, in the hopes that they will care about it enough to elect officials who will change the laws.
I personally believe that experimentation on animals is okay. My religeous beliefs teach me that a human being is much more important than an animal, and my own concious tells me that if several or more animals die in research that may allow people longer lives, or rid them from a disease such as aids, that that is perfectly exceptable.
That isn't the same as animal cruelty, however. Animal cruelty would be if you killed the animal purely for the sake of killing something, and that if the animal had come to a state where it was no longer useful for reasearch, or if it was no longer needed, it should be quickly euthanized, and not forced to suffer longer than it has to.
Remember, these are my beliefs and ideals, and the Constitution gives me the right tout them about however I want, and allows you to reply to them in any way you feel nessecary. I would urge future posters to construct their posts in a manner that communicates the ideals and message they are trying to convey.
Humans are capable of abstract thought. I'm not sure if I have my biology down right, but I believe that is one of the defining factors that seperates humans from other animals. An animal relies mostly on instinct to survive, while a human is able to figure out and think for himself.
That's because eco terrorism isn't nearly as widespread or serious as the kinds of things conventionally thought of terrorists try to pull off. Of course the president isn't going to be looking into something like this. This is the type of thing that would be handled with a restraining order and jail time.
I think the whole problem with child predators and meeting people in chatrooms and the like has been seriously overblown by the media. News stations like CNN run stories about how to keep children safe on the internet, and the kids that have met predators online, but not once in my entire course of using the internet have I actually met one of these people. Due to the weight that news stations are allowed to give to stories, and the fact that the internet is a relatively new invetion, many stories about it get blown out of proportion by those who don't understand it.
I think that the idea of having a coach for gaming is pretty pathetic, not to mention useless. With the internet, and sites like Gamefaqs and IGN, most strategies and tips are all available free. If there are any special "secret" strategies for a game, they can usually be found for free on the internet. Another thing that is I find useless about coaches is that, if you are already good at a game, you aren't going to be needing a whole lot of help. People that already suck probably aren't going to get a whole lot of help by going to these coaches that just practicing isn't going to get them. I highly doubt an 8 year old is going to be able to actually analyze what it is that make him good, and see how he can improve other peoples skills Also, other sports, like tennis and basketball, often have coaches because they are professional sports, and have athletes competing in prestigeous tournaments, and the athletes are looking for any edge they can to get up on the competition. Video games haven't quite gained that amount of attention(and hopefully, IMO, they never do). Yes, there are tournaments for lots of games like SSBM and Halo, but they usually don't get a lot of attention outside of the inner gameing circles. Slightly off-topic, but it goes along with the above paragraph, I doubt that video game tournaments will ever have much success because in my experience, its not very much fun to watch people play video games. How many times has your little brother or sister bugged you for an hour asking if they can play.
The need for a airport security systems would be greater if airports were actually the normal targets of terrorist incidents. Almost always, it is the planes that are targets of terrorist attacks, and usually, the goal of these attacks is to take over the plane, not destroy it(at least not at first).
I think one of the reasons that Myspace is so popular is that it allows the people who use it to be able to rank their popularity using the comments and friends list, and then compare it to their friends in real life. The more friends and comments they have, the more popular(or at least to them) they will be in the real world. They don't consider the quality of what they have on their pages to be as important as how much they have. Instead of keeping there people on there friends list that are actually their friends, they add people that they may barely know, or not know at all. They usually also try and usually make there pages as big and flashy as possible, and fill it with lots of random things to try and make it look more important and meaningful. When a person posts a comment on another persons page, they usually expect that that person will post one on there page(and they usually do), which is what I think is the cause of the lack of comments that seem to be repetitive and contentless.
I agree with you that Myspace can be used as a tool for those without the knowledge to create their own web pages, but part of the problem is that the majority of the people who use Myspace don't even know how to design their Myspace homepages in an appealing manner. I don't know how many countless times I've looked at people's Myspaces, only to be met with horrible font and color schemes, and a large amount of pictures, movies, and music that takes forever to load up. This is also added to the fact that many people fill the page with random junk, such as various quizzes and other random things that they've gotten off of other websites, and that the comments that people have are normally incredibly repetitive and inane. There are some Myspace pages that actually do look good, and have actual content to them. However, most of these are either made by people who already have webpage designing experience, or bands who have someone design there page for them.