Every woman dreams of the perfect "fairy princes" wedding. Even the ones that say otherwise have that dream.
How silly. No, every woman does not dream of that. I got married in Vegas to avoid such a (to me) preposterous display, and I've never regretted it for a moment. I wore jeans. It took about fifteen minutes.
North Korea is not currently barred from competition. They were banned from one championship in 1993.
In fact, a gymnast from North Korea just won the gold on women's vault (Un Jong Hong).
I don't know who you're thinking about, but a thirty-three-year-old gymnast DID win the silver in the vault. Her name is Oksana Chusovitina. The Beijing Olympics was her fifth.
I'm a woman. And no, you're not ever getting laid.
Seriously, though--what is it that men expect from us? Is it intelligence? That's not usually the case, as I, a computer-nerd atheist female, have discovered.
Look at this thread, for example. I'm sure that the men on Slashdot are more intelligent (on average) than typical men, but a lot of responses have boiled down to "Is she hot? Does she have big tits? Then who cares if she's a moron?" I realize that most of this was good-natured ribbing, but I really believe that most men would rather have their wives be beautiful than be smart.
You get what you expect, gentlemen. And generations of ladies have gotten that message. It doesn't matter if we're smart or like UNIX or believe that astrology, deities, and the like are bunk. What matters is how sexy the package is. I've gotten far more attention from being cute and dressing nicely than I ever have for being smart. But intelligence lasts, and looks will fade. What good will a woman's beauty be when she's fifty and you find her prattling about fashion, celebrities, and astrology insufferable?
Just as those with an agenda to push became convinced that pornography leads to rape, today's overwrought "think of the children" hysterics attack video games. If video games truly were a starting point for murderers and thugs, we'd see a sharp increase in said crimes as video games became more popular. In fact, the reverse is true, and according to the Wiki article on crime in the U.S., 2005 was the safest year overall in the last thirty.
People relentlessly analyze everything that offenders do, searching for something to blame. But the confusion of correlation with causation is perhaps one of the stupidest mistakes researchers (and the public) can make.
I wish we could stop focusing on silly issues like whether the new Halo game is offensive to members of the Flood or whether the main character in Grand Theft Auto kills hookers. We've got people suffering and dying all over the world, and bored biddies would rather censor our PlayStations than do some actual good. I suppose the lure of controlling others' lives is stronger than helping people.
That Comcast is more likely to enact this mechanism than you are is not a fault of politicians.
No, of course not. That I haven't bothered to follow up on the debt owed (it's a small amount) is completely my fault. But consumers do feel helpless, and though that's not necessarily the fault of politicians, it is the system that's causing it. My point was simply that if this debt were owed by a single person, the repercussions for nonpayment would be much worse than they would ever be for a company.
As consumers, we're made to feel helpless. The worst we can do (without litigation) to a company is complain or refuse to use their services, but what harm can that do to a giant conglomerate? And in situations in which one company has a monopoly in a certain area of the country, for example, consumers may not have the ability to switch or do without.
As a personal example, Comcast owes me a refund check for Internet services I canceled six months ago. If I, as a consumer, had allowed my debt to go unpaid for that long, my account would have been sent to collections long ago. But the problem is that most of the power--with the economics of the situation, with politicians, and so on--lies on one side of the table, and that power ain't with the consumer.
I'd be interested to see some quotes on that. I've read quite a few of Dawkins's books, and though he is certainly no fan of religion, I can't recall him calling religious people "ignorant."
Saying that a belief someone holds is ignorant (though I can't recall him doing that, either) is hardly the same as calling the person ignorant. And I can't think of a different way to describe a belief where, for example, someone holds that an all-powerful being created the universe in six days. Like it or not, Biblical literalism is ignorant. Yes, people can be perfectly intelligent and believe strange things. (See Scientology for another good example of this.) But religion isn't exempt from critique, or at least it shouldn't be.
Sure, but I don't think he was necessarily talking about all religious people. She, by the by.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Religion is not always detrimental (in fact, I believe that some people would be absolutely lost without it), but trying to impose your faith on others by insisting upon legislation based solely upon what your god might want is both insane and immoral. If you don't have a logical, secular reason for why you think something should be allowed or forbidden, then I believe you should not try to force others to follow your reasoning.
The problem, IMO, is that some people see it as an us-them situation.
Actually, it is an us-versus-them situation.
On the one hand, you have people who believe that everything--laws, beliefs, what have you--should be based on logic and reason.
On the other hand, you have folks who, while not necessarily opposed to logic or denying its usefulness, decree that sometimes the decisions should be placed in the hands of a (by all descriptions) wishy-washy, temperamental, and angry deity. A deity who may or may not have our best interests at heart, mind you.
I find these two world views to be at odds. I'm not suggesting that you personally are one of the "legislate religion" crowd. But they certainly do exist, especially in the States. How do you argue with a line of reasoning that stops at "God says so"? You can't. That's why I find the idea of trying to educate the public (at least, the 75 percent or so of the public who happen to be religious) about evolution almost laughable. What point is there in explaining that natural selection is about as non-random as you can get to a person who believes that only sentience creates order? Why would you try to get across the idea of common descent to someone who insists upon believing that snakes can talk, that a man housed every species of animal on one boat, or that a dead man came back to life to appease his father (who was also himself)?
I'm sorry in that I don't mean to insult you (or anyone else). But I just simply don't see the point in trying to get the holy rollers to grasp scientific concepts. Will it make them less likely to try to legislate against scientific progress? I doubt it.
I'd be interested to see what he's doing and why it might not be working. I just tried to recover deleted mail messages and was able to do it both through having the mail application opened when I started Time Machine and by flipping through old versions of my ~/Library/Mail folder. Couldn't help him with Back to My Mac . . . I'm not sure I've ever been away from my computer long enough to need it.
Oh, and [insert snarky anti-Republican or anti-OSX comment here]. Bastards, the lot of them!
Slashdot Mirror
Or I could be a moron you can all safely ignore.
. . . to the list, instead of an article discussing the list: Link
Every woman dreams of the perfect "fairy princes" wedding. Even the ones that say otherwise have that dream.
How silly. No, every woman does not dream of that. I got married in Vegas to avoid such a (to me) preposterous display, and I've never regretted it for a moment. I wore jeans. It took about fifteen minutes.
North Korea is not currently barred from competition. They were banned from one championship in 1993. In fact, a gymnast from North Korea just won the gold on women's vault (Un Jong Hong).
Womens gymnastics and figure skating are the only ones with this rule, for gymnastics the rules started this year.
Not true. The minimum age of 16 has been in place since 1997.
You're absolutely right. The ability of China to win at table tennis and trampoline signals the dawn of a new leader. All hail the mighty overlords!
I don't know who you're thinking about, but a thirty-three-year-old gymnast DID win the silver in the vault. Her name is Oksana Chusovitina. The Beijing Olympics was her fifth.
Well, you know, if wishes were hookers, then nerds would ride.
Wait, did I get that right?
I'm a woman. And no, you're not ever getting laid.
Seriously, though--what is it that men expect from us? Is it intelligence? That's not usually the case, as I, a computer-nerd atheist female, have discovered.
Look at this thread, for example. I'm sure that the men on Slashdot are more intelligent (on average) than typical men, but a lot of responses have boiled down to "Is she hot? Does she have big tits? Then who cares if she's a moron?" I realize that most of this was good-natured ribbing, but I really believe that most men would rather have their wives be beautiful than be smart.
You get what you expect, gentlemen. And generations of ladies have gotten that message. It doesn't matter if we're smart or like UNIX or believe that astrology, deities, and the like are bunk. What matters is how sexy the package is. I've gotten far more attention from being cute and dressing nicely than I ever have for being smart. But intelligence lasts, and looks will fade. What good will a woman's beauty be when she's fifty and you find her prattling about fashion, celebrities, and astrology insufferable?
Just as those with an agenda to push became convinced that pornography leads to rape, today's overwrought "think of the children" hysterics attack video games. If video games truly were a starting point for murderers and thugs, we'd see a sharp increase in said crimes as video games became more popular. In fact, the reverse is true, and according to the Wiki article on crime in the U.S., 2005 was the safest year overall in the last thirty.
People relentlessly analyze everything that offenders do, searching for something to blame. But the confusion of correlation with causation is perhaps one of the stupidest mistakes researchers (and the public) can make.
I wish we could stop focusing on silly issues like whether the new Halo game is offensive to members of the Flood or whether the main character in Grand Theft Auto kills hookers. We've got people suffering and dying all over the world, and bored biddies would rather censor our PlayStations than do some actual good. I suppose the lure of controlling others' lives is stronger than helping people.
No, of course not. That I haven't bothered to follow up on the debt owed (it's a small amount) is completely my fault. But consumers do feel helpless, and though that's not necessarily the fault of politicians, it is the system that's causing it. My point was simply that if this debt were owed by a single person, the repercussions for nonpayment would be much worse than they would ever be for a company.
As consumers, we're made to feel helpless. The worst we can do (without litigation) to a company is complain or refuse to use their services, but what harm can that do to a giant conglomerate? And in situations in which one company has a monopoly in a certain area of the country, for example, consumers may not have the ability to switch or do without.
As a personal example, Comcast owes me a refund check for Internet services I canceled six months ago. If I, as a consumer, had allowed my debt to go unpaid for that long, my account would have been sent to collections long ago. But the problem is that most of the power--with the economics of the situation, with politicians, and so on--lies on one side of the table, and that power ain't with the consumer.
I'd be interested to see some quotes on that. I've read quite a few of Dawkins's books, and though he is certainly no fan of religion, I can't recall him calling religious people "ignorant."
Saying that a belief someone holds is ignorant (though I can't recall him doing that, either) is hardly the same as calling the person ignorant. And I can't think of a different way to describe a belief where, for example, someone holds that an all-powerful being created the universe in six days. Like it or not, Biblical literalism is ignorant. Yes, people can be perfectly intelligent and believe strange things. (See Scientology for another good example of this.) But religion isn't exempt from critique, or at least it shouldn't be.
Actually, it is an us-versus-them situation.
On the one hand, you have people who believe that everything--laws, beliefs, what have you--should be based on logic and reason. On the other hand, you have folks who, while not necessarily opposed to logic or denying its usefulness, decree that sometimes the decisions should be placed in the hands of a (by all descriptions) wishy-washy, temperamental, and angry deity. A deity who may or may not have our best interests at heart, mind you.
I find these two world views to be at odds. I'm not suggesting that you personally are one of the "legislate religion" crowd. But they certainly do exist, especially in the States. How do you argue with a line of reasoning that stops at "God says so"? You can't. That's why I find the idea of trying to educate the public (at least, the 75 percent or so of the public who happen to be religious) about evolution almost laughable. What point is there in explaining that natural selection is about as non-random as you can get to a person who believes that only sentience creates order? Why would you try to get across the idea of common descent to someone who insists upon believing that snakes can talk, that a man housed every species of animal on one boat, or that a dead man came back to life to appease his father (who was also himself)?
I'm sorry in that I don't mean to insult you (or anyone else). But I just simply don't see the point in trying to get the holy rollers to grasp scientific concepts. Will it make them less likely to try to legislate against scientific progress? I doubt it.I'd be interested to see what he's doing and why it might not be working. I just tried to recover deleted mail messages and was able to do it both through having the mail application opened when I started Time Machine and by flipping through old versions of my ~/Library/Mail folder. Couldn't help him with Back to My Mac . . . I'm not sure I've ever been away from my computer long enough to need it.
Oh, and [insert snarky anti-Republican or anti-OSX comment here]. Bastards, the lot of them!