That's kind of what I meant. I didn't meant to say that it was consciously invented. I was speaking very briefly and imprecisely.
The notion that abortion is wrong because of the moral sanctity of the fetus from conception is a justification used to keep abortion laws in place after the fact. It's a well known sociological phenomenon that when the original justification for a rule disappears, people make up a new justification, consciously or not, to keep it in place. Such justifications frequently make reference to things like moral sanctity and the will of the gods.
Infanticide was used mainly when the child was unhealthy, or the wrong sex. If only a male child would do, a female child would be left on the hillsides. When the family could support no child at all--or the child was the product of illicit sex--an abortifacient was used.
The most popular drug used for that purpose was the plant known in ancient writings as silphium. It was discovered in the 7th century BCE, and was so popular that it was extinct by the 2nd century CE. The economy of the Greek colony of Cyrene--the only place it grew--was so dependent on silphium trade that it featured prominently on their coinage. It was useful both as a contraceptive and an abortifacient, but few could afford to use it regularly not long after it began to be overharvested.
What the prevailing opinion on abortion was depended on time and place. It's not so simple that you can just say "a majority used to think abortion was bad" even in just America. In some places, it was just fine with most people as long as it occurred before the "quickening," the fetus's first movement in the womb. Before that time, the fetus was considered to be part of the woman's body. This attitude was reflected in English common law until the 19th century, when abortion was criminalized--for the health of the mother, rather than the fetus. Abortion remedies were notoriously dangerous.
The idea that abortion is morally wrong because it destroys the life of the fetus is a reason invented to keep the law in place retrospectively. It was not the intent of those who put the laws into place.
When Hippocrates invented his eponymous oath, most Greeks were okay with abortion. Its banning of abortion was so odd, in fact, that it prompted some scholars on that basis alone to associate the oath with Pythagoreanism, the one strand of ancient Greek thought known to ban it entirely.
Um... no, you can't. That's why it's called copyright law.
It is not legal to copy an entire book. There are some occasions when it might be admissible to copy an entire article or essay--that happens in academia all the time--but copying entire works like that simply isn't allowed under copyright law.
IANAL, but mere possession of lock picking equipment is perfectly legal in most states even without a license. It only counts as intent if there is some reason to think that you intend to use them to break in somewhere. There is a small hobbyist community that picks (their own) locks for fun--perfectly legally. It does vary from state by state, though; lockpick possession is considered prima facie evidence for intent in some even where simple possession might be legal under a strictly literal reading of the statute in question.
Walking around with them in your pocket isn't smart, though. Having them in your own home is frequently just fine, but taking them anywhere very frequently does constitute intent, if you're not a certified locksmith on a job.
So... that's not quite how it is with lockpicks. It depends on what State you're in. (Unless you're in Canada, of course. Canada requires certification even for mere ownership.)
That would be pretty nasty for a biped--or anything of substantial size, really. Chameleons can get away with it since they don't have to worry about falling down or running into things. Unfortunately, having eyes that can move about like that requires putting them outside the skull to some degree, which puts them in serious danger. One bad headlong rush into a tree or down a flight of stairs could blind such a creature forever.
If you're referring to the injunction "Thou shalt not kill" in the Ten Commandments, you'll find that the word used--transliterated as ratsach--does not necessarily refer to murder. While that is one of its primary meanings, it also includes unintentional killings as well. Indeed, this is the most common use of the word in Deuteronomy. It enjoins the Israelites to found three cities as refuges for those who kill unintentionally, so that they can flee there and be safe from vengeful relatives.
I'm not sure where the claim that it just means "murder" comes from. A good translation and a concordance will quickly show it to be simply and obviously false. In any case, it is shamelessly used by (mostly) Protestant preachers to justify all kinds of killing as not being "murder." Which isn't exactly in the spirit of Christian charity, to my mind.
Not that it matters to me all that much. I haven't been a believer for years.
How is it going to be cost-efficient to filter all "obscene" content?
There's no way that anyone will come up with a cost-efficient way to filter things that will both a) filter enough obscene content and b) not block a whole heck of a lot of legit content. The difficulty of doing so with text alone is high enough. Throw in images, and you're dealing with a problem that will require a lot of processing. With the proliferation of internet video, however, this is going to be just too hard to accomplish.
To be sure, the treatment of Christians and Jews frequently left much to be desired. However, I was responding to the claim that, essentially, Islam was spread by the sword. The implication that "convert or die" was the standard is clearly wrong from a historical standpoint, no matter what Islamic motivations for leniency might have been. (Though I don't think the Muslim injunctions to uphold peace and not to kill should be ignored, not to mention Muhammad's example of NOT killing Christians and Jews unless they actively worked against the survival of the ummah, or Islamic community.) I was trying to argue against a drastically over-simplistic presentation of history, not present one of my own.
He did convert Mecca at the point of the sword--and extended the same treatment to all of those who followed the polytheistic traditions of the Arabs up to that point.
However, he had very different treatment for Christians and Jews--Christians somewhat better than Jews, since a group of Jews turned against Muhammad at Medina and nearly ended Islam as a movement. Nonetheless, the point stands that Islamic civilization was, up until movements like the Enlightenment, far more accommodating of people of other religions than European civilization was.
Actually, Muhammad once had quite friendly relations with Christians. Some of his followers were sheltered by a Christian king in Ethiopia prior to the Hegira, Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina. Muhammad himself was sheltered by powerful clan members.
While Muslim rule was spread by force, the religion was not forced upon Christians or Jews. In fact, Muslim rule was well-known for tolerance of People of the Book under its rule. "Heretics" and Jews flocked to Spain when it was under Muslim rule because they knew they could expect much better treatment.
There were, in fact, people in the Middle East who really dislike America. Heck, 9/11 wouldn't have happened if that weren't the case.
However, you have to understand that this is at least in part due to American action. Our most egregious action was probably propping up the Shah in Iran. America has a history of using both deceit and pure muscle to get its way in the Middle East, and that has created a lot of enemies. Enemies that were there prior to Iraq.
Our invasion in Iraq certainly didn't help things. It flared up old angers that had, in some areas, begun to die out. It brought our men within striking range. It shouldn't be any kind of surprise that this situation creates insurgents. Our invasion of Iraq strengthens the political position of our enemies; their claims about America seem to be confirmed, and it helps stokes the fears that cause people to flock to such causes.
You have to look at this historically. People in the ME don't hate the US because of our freedom. They hate the US because of how we've treated them in the past.
(It is, of course, more complicated than that, but this is a Slashdot comment.)
Depends on what period of history and what area you're talking about, actually.
There's evidence of Jewish presence in China as early as the 7th century. There were reports in the 9th century of Christian, Muslims, and Jews killed in a massacre in the 9th century. And Marco Polo reported encountering Jews in China in the 13th century. They lived mostly in Kaifeng, where a synagogue was built in the 11th century.
However, it wasn't until the 15th century that Jews in China had much recognition by the local government. In 1421, Jews were finally allowed to take the civil service test. The population in Kaifeng was discovered by European Christians in the 17th century, who used their version of the Torah to crosscheck it against the versions being used in Europe. They were identical.
So... yeah. Not many Jews, but there are signs dating back to the 7th century that Jews were present.
'Course, that's not nearly early enough to match up with Mormon scripture.
1. I get a huge kick out of this Shel person quote. Since when is plain-speaking rewarded or even sanctioned in big-school politics? Shel must be planning to move onto a much smaller school.
Levity aside, he is at Berkeley. Their views on what is and isn't respectable are rather different than the mainstream. I mean, the town (and hence, University) was named after a guy who rejected the idea that anything actually physical exists.
A statement from someone like that at Berkeley gives me hope that they'll rethink they're tolerance for and cooperation with the RIAA's antics. It wouldn't be difficult for them. Heck, they could assign law students to dealing with the issue and probably do quite well; Berkeley has one of the top ten law schools in the country, by many rankings.
That's true--and MADD may be doing exactly the same thing. I don't know enough about MADD to know whether they're a bunch of teetotalling nutjobs or something more sophisticated, so I'll give them the benefit of a doubt.
My instinct is that MADD may very well be trying to gin up publicity for their own cause. Grand Theft Auto games have been in the news for years, and have played a role in bringing things like gun control and crimes against sex workers to the headlines. Jumping on the GTA-bashing bandwagon may not be fair or justified from the standpoint of the issues themselves, but it might be a very media-savvy thing to do.
If done properly, this really isn't a bad thing for users.
It only uses information put on your public profile. You really shouldn't have anything incriminating or overly personal on there anyway. I mean, if you're willing to share it with strangers (I assume that's what "public" means), why would it be a problem for an ad company to see it?
That's not to say that there aren't nefarious uses to which this kind of thing could be put. But just from what I read in the article, there doesn't seem to be too much of a problem.
>and the "graphics" on Beyond Zork constituted
>intellectual genocide
Beyond Zork didn't have graphics. At all. It was white text on a blue background, if you went with the default ANSI scheme. Perhaps you're thinking of Zork Zero?
I've lived in Oklahoma all my life, and it really doesn't surprise me that something like this has occurred. While Oklahoma City and Tulsa actually have some competent officials--Oklahoma City's recent prosperity can be chalked up in large part to a few good decisions--our ability, as a whole, on the technical front is pretty low.
Really, I've just been waiting for something like this to come out. Corrupt state officials can only keep this kind of thing hush-hush for so long. I anticipate even more scandals of this kind for my state in the next few years. Especially as we move toward putting more and more information online.
Slashdot Mirror
That's kind of what I meant. I didn't meant to say that it was consciously invented. I was speaking very briefly and imprecisely.
The notion that abortion is wrong because of the moral sanctity of the fetus from conception is a justification used to keep abortion laws in place after the fact. It's a well known sociological phenomenon that when the original justification for a rule disappears, people make up a new justification, consciously or not, to keep it in place. Such justifications frequently make reference to things like moral sanctity and the will of the gods.
Infanticide was used mainly when the child was unhealthy, or the wrong sex. If only a male child would do, a female child would be left on the hillsides. When the family could support no child at all--or the child was the product of illicit sex--an abortifacient was used.
The most popular drug used for that purpose was the plant known in ancient writings as silphium. It was discovered in the 7th century BCE, and was so popular that it was extinct by the 2nd century CE. The economy of the Greek colony of Cyrene--the only place it grew--was so dependent on silphium trade that it featured prominently on their coinage. It was useful both as a contraceptive and an abortifacient, but few could afford to use it regularly not long after it began to be overharvested.
What the prevailing opinion on abortion was depended on time and place. It's not so simple that you can just say "a majority used to think abortion was bad" even in just America. In some places, it was just fine with most people as long as it occurred before the "quickening," the fetus's first movement in the womb. Before that time, the fetus was considered to be part of the woman's body. This attitude was reflected in English common law until the 19th century, when abortion was criminalized--for the health of the mother, rather than the fetus. Abortion remedies were notoriously dangerous.
The idea that abortion is morally wrong because it destroys the life of the fetus is a reason invented to keep the law in place retrospectively. It was not the intent of those who put the laws into place.
When Hippocrates invented his eponymous oath, most Greeks were okay with abortion. Its banning of abortion was so odd, in fact, that it prompted some scholars on that basis alone to associate the oath with Pythagoreanism, the one strand of ancient Greek thought known to ban it entirely.
Um... no, you can't. That's why it's called copyright law.
It is not legal to copy an entire book. There are some occasions when it might be admissible to copy an entire article or essay--that happens in academia all the time--but copying entire works like that simply isn't allowed under copyright law.
Unless you have permission, of course
IANAL, but mere possession of lock picking equipment is perfectly legal in most states even without a license. It only counts as intent if there is some reason to think that you intend to use them to break in somewhere. There is a small hobbyist community that picks (their own) locks for fun--perfectly legally. It does vary from state by state, though; lockpick possession is considered prima facie evidence for intent in some even where simple possession might be legal under a strictly literal reading of the statute in question.
Walking around with them in your pocket isn't smart, though. Having them in your own home is frequently just fine, but taking them anywhere very frequently does constitute intent, if you're not a certified locksmith on a job.
So... that's not quite how it is with lockpicks. It depends on what State you're in. (Unless you're in Canada, of course. Canada requires certification even for mere ownership.)
That would be pretty nasty for a biped--or anything of substantial size, really. Chameleons can get away with it since they don't have to worry about falling down or running into things. Unfortunately, having eyes that can move about like that requires putting them outside the skull to some degree, which puts them in serious danger. One bad headlong rush into a tree or down a flight of stairs could blind such a creature forever.
Actually not.
If you're referring to the injunction "Thou shalt not kill" in the Ten Commandments, you'll find that the word used--transliterated as ratsach--does not necessarily refer to murder. While that is one of its primary meanings, it also includes unintentional killings as well. Indeed, this is the most common use of the word in Deuteronomy. It enjoins the Israelites to found three cities as refuges for those who kill unintentionally, so that they can flee there and be safe from vengeful relatives.
I'm not sure where the claim that it just means "murder" comes from. A good translation and a concordance will quickly show it to be simply and obviously false. In any case, it is shamelessly used by (mostly) Protestant preachers to justify all kinds of killing as not being "murder." Which isn't exactly in the spirit of Christian charity, to my mind.
Not that it matters to me all that much. I haven't been a believer for years.
How is it going to be cost-efficient to filter all "obscene" content?
There's no way that anyone will come up with a cost-efficient way to filter things that will both a) filter enough obscene content and b) not block a whole heck of a lot of legit content. The difficulty of doing so with text alone is high enough. Throw in images, and you're dealing with a problem that will require a lot of processing. With the proliferation of internet video, however, this is going to be just too hard to accomplish.
It wasn't whitewashed as much as foreshortened.
To be sure, the treatment of Christians and Jews frequently left much to be desired. However, I was responding to the claim that, essentially, Islam was spread by the sword. The implication that "convert or die" was the standard is clearly wrong from a historical standpoint, no matter what Islamic motivations for leniency might have been. (Though I don't think the Muslim injunctions to uphold peace and not to kill should be ignored, not to mention Muhammad's example of NOT killing Christians and Jews unless they actively worked against the survival of the ummah, or Islamic community.) I was trying to argue against a drastically over-simplistic presentation of history, not present one of my own.
He did convert Mecca at the point of the sword--and extended the same treatment to all of those who followed the polytheistic traditions of the Arabs up to that point. However, he had very different treatment for Christians and Jews--Christians somewhat better than Jews, since a group of Jews turned against Muhammad at Medina and nearly ended Islam as a movement. Nonetheless, the point stands that Islamic civilization was, up until movements like the Enlightenment, far more accommodating of people of other religions than European civilization was.
It's correct grammar if "yourself" is meant to be the subject of the clause with "deciding" as the predicate.
It's idiomatically poor, not grammatically.
You get the Worst Analogy of the Day Award!
Actually, Muhammad once had quite friendly relations with Christians. Some of his followers were sheltered by a Christian king in Ethiopia prior to the Hegira, Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina. Muhammad himself was sheltered by powerful clan members.
While Muslim rule was spread by force, the religion was not forced upon Christians or Jews. In fact, Muslim rule was well-known for tolerance of People of the Book under its rule. "Heretics" and Jews flocked to Spain when it was under Muslim rule because they knew they could expect much better treatment.
Person who does not like the US != insurgent.
There were, in fact, people in the Middle East who really dislike America. Heck, 9/11 wouldn't have happened if that weren't the case.
However, you have to understand that this is at least in part due to American action. Our most egregious action was probably propping up the Shah in Iran. America has a history of using both deceit and pure muscle to get its way in the Middle East, and that has created a lot of enemies. Enemies that were there prior to Iraq.
Our invasion in Iraq certainly didn't help things. It flared up old angers that had, in some areas, begun to die out. It brought our men within striking range. It shouldn't be any kind of surprise that this situation creates insurgents. Our invasion of Iraq strengthens the political position of our enemies; their claims about America seem to be confirmed, and it helps stokes the fears that cause people to flock to such causes.
You have to look at this historically. People in the ME don't hate the US because of our freedom. They hate the US because of how we've treated them in the past.
(It is, of course, more complicated than that, but this is a Slashdot comment.)
You'd be wrong there.
Depends on what period of history and what area you're talking about, actually.
There's evidence of Jewish presence in China as early as the 7th century. There were reports in the 9th century of Christian, Muslims, and Jews killed in a massacre in the 9th century. And Marco Polo reported encountering Jews in China in the 13th century. They lived mostly in Kaifeng, where a synagogue was built in the 11th century.
However, it wasn't until the 15th century that Jews in China had much recognition by the local government. In 1421, Jews were finally allowed to take the civil service test. The population in Kaifeng was discovered by European Christians in the 17th century, who used their version of the Torah to crosscheck it against the versions being used in Europe. They were identical.
So... yeah. Not many Jews, but there are signs dating back to the 7th century that Jews were present.
'Course, that's not nearly early enough to match up with Mormon scripture.
Levity aside, he is at Berkeley. Their views on what is and isn't respectable are rather different than the mainstream. I mean, the town (and hence, University) was named after a guy who rejected the idea that anything actually physical exists.
A statement from someone like that at Berkeley gives me hope that they'll rethink they're tolerance for and cooperation with the RIAA's antics. It wouldn't be difficult for them. Heck, they could assign law students to dealing with the issue and probably do quite well; Berkeley has one of the top ten law schools in the country, by many rankings.
That's true--and MADD may be doing exactly the same thing. I don't know enough about MADD to know whether they're a bunch of teetotalling nutjobs or something more sophisticated, so I'll give them the benefit of a doubt.
My instinct is that MADD may very well be trying to gin up publicity for their own cause. Grand Theft Auto games have been in the news for years, and have played a role in bringing things like gun control and crimes against sex workers to the headlines. Jumping on the GTA-bashing bandwagon may not be fair or justified from the standpoint of the issues themselves, but it might be a very media-savvy thing to do.
If done properly, this really isn't a bad thing for users. It only uses information put on your public profile. You really shouldn't have anything incriminating or overly personal on there anyway. I mean, if you're willing to share it with strangers (I assume that's what "public" means), why would it be a problem for an ad company to see it? That's not to say that there aren't nefarious uses to which this kind of thing could be put. But just from what I read in the article, there doesn't seem to be too much of a problem.
>and the "graphics" on Beyond Zork constituted >intellectual genocide Beyond Zork didn't have graphics. At all. It was white text on a blue background, if you went with the default ANSI scheme. Perhaps you're thinking of Zork Zero?
I've lived in Oklahoma all my life, and it really doesn't surprise me that something like this has occurred. While Oklahoma City and Tulsa actually have some competent officials--Oklahoma City's recent prosperity can be chalked up in large part to a few good decisions--our ability, as a whole, on the technical front is pretty low. Really, I've just been waiting for something like this to come out. Corrupt state officials can only keep this kind of thing hush-hush for so long. I anticipate even more scandals of this kind for my state in the next few years. Especially as we move toward putting more and more information online.
No, it is not.
It's precedent, but not binding precedent. It's used sort of like advice. Other courts can take the advice, but they don't have to.