Check out Cowon, Archos, Creative, and SanDisk.
I can personally vouch for the SanDisk Sansa e200 series (one of those replaced my iPod 5G, and I am much happier with it) and I have a friend who has a Creative Zen. It is a sturdy device, with an attractive interface. The Zen will take some getting used to for an iPod user, while the Sansa is closer. It replaces the touch wheel with a physical one in addition to buttons on the perimeter (simialr to one of the older iPod models). It really depends on what you use it for, but try and look for something not locked into a particular store that supports the Mass Transfer Protocol (MTP) which is the closest to an open standard you are likely to find.
Perhaps this is a stupid question, but could we go back to riveting? The bridges have held, and if it is cheaper/easier/more practical... well, it goes against my geeky instincts to say it, but not every endeavor needs the latest tech, so long as what is used is safe and workable.
What DVD was it? I would like to be aware of a company pursuing the right course of action, I may need to give them some of my business.
Because I hate multi-paged lists...
on
James Bond Gadgets
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· Score: 2, Informative
Jet pack - Thunderball (1965) Sean Connery
Not really a gadget but one of the more memorable personal devices that Bond has possessed. After killing Colonel Jacques Bouvar at a chateau, Bond uses the jet pack to return to his car, an Aston Martin DB5. The pack used was developed by Bell Aerosystems as the Bell Rocket Belt which only had a 20 second flying time using a hydrogen peroxide fuel. The scenes in Thunderball were shot using two stuntmen and the shrill sound of the jets was overdubbed with the sound of a fire extinguisher. In 1984, a Rocket Belt was used in the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Jet packs may not have taken over the world but a mild solution of hydrogen peroxide on cotton wool can be used to disinfect and clean keyboards.
Lotus Esprit - The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Roger Moore
A deviation for Bond cars as it wasn't an Aston Martin, but it doubled as a submarine, so Bond could track down Karl STromberg's underwater lair.
BMW 750 IL - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) Pierce Brosnan
Another great Bond car and again not an Aston Martin. This car was armed with an impressive array of gadgets - it's bullet proof, laden with sunroof fired mini-missiles, metal spike dispensers, grenades and a cutter hidden behind the BMW badge. The best thing was though that it was remote controlled by a mobile phone - how cool is that!
Mobile phone - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) Pierce Brosnan
Brosnan was the first Bond to have a truly mobile phone, a concept design from Ericsson. A few years later the R380 production model appeared which had many of the features of the Bond original â" except for the stun gun, fingerprint scanner, lock pick and remote control for a BMW 750iL. In Quantum of Solace (2008), Daniel Craigâ(TM)s gadget-free Bond does possess a mobile and itâ(TM)s still a Sony Ericsson phone. This time its a titanium C902 which also lacks the first phoneâ(TM)s finer accessories â" itâ(TM)s not even a front-running smartphone. However, it does have a useful 5Mpixel camera to assist Bondâ(TM)s surveillance activities.
Aston Martin DB5 - Goldfinger (1964) Sean Connery
The most iconic car used by 007 is a silver Aston Martin which has appeared in Goldfinger, Thunderball (1965), GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Casino Royale (2006) and is due to make a return appearance in Quantum of Solace (2008). Admittedly, it has not always been the same vehicle but it has always been a non-standard production model. The first car had revolving licence plates, tyre slashers, a bulletproof shield, machine guns behind the headlights and smoke and oil sprayers at the back. Most famous of all was the ejector seat on the passenger side. IT and sports cars have always been intertwined with many bosses of manufacturing firms favouring Porsche models. Maybe the return of the Aston Martin will spawn a new craze â" if anyone can afford anything larger than a bicycle during the recession.
Fingerprint identification device - Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Sean Connery
This projector-based system was not one of 007â(TM)s tools but was used by diamond smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John). Compared to modern fingerprint identification systems, Tiffanyâ(TM)s device was extremely crude and immovable. To discover Bondâ(TM)s identity, she dusts a glass he has used, runs it through the device and compares it with a known example of his real fingerprint. Fingerprint identification is a much simpler operation these days with the proliferation computer-based fingerprint analysers that can skim through thousands of possible matches in seconds.
Aston Martin DBS - Casino Royale (2006) Daniel Craig
It's hard to find a true gadget in the gritty Casino Royale, but Daniel Craig's sumptous Aston Martin DBS possibly qualifies. Daniel Craig nearly dies inside his car, but is brought back to life thanks to a mini portable defibrillator and some antidote.
I think he means the Mojave Experiment, proof that, in a setting they control, showcasing what they want you to look at, Microsoft can convince computer illiterates that Vista is a sweet OS.
Call'em Nazi's all you want, but the Republicans (or at least the Conservatives) have never made demands over what you eat, what you drive, the type of toilet you use, or whether you smoke; that's for Liberals to control.
I like Nazi's, since you brought it up. Are you familiar with the underlying political philosophy of 1930's-1940's Germany? Mussolini once called it corporatism, Hitler called it National Socialism, and long before either of them the Romans called it Fascism. It descends from the thinking of Plato, that all good is traceable to a single, central form. The greatest good is therefore achieved through the harmonization of all lesser goods. A good society can't have dissent from the truth offered by the ordained ruling class, they can't have sex with people of the same gender or not believe in god. Who does that sound like?
There are fanatics on both sides. If you play with fanatics, you will get oppressed. Compromise is the essential virtue of democracy.
It appears I was mistaken. I knew of the company only in passing. I read about them awhile ago and it seems I misremembered some details. I thought the engines were replaced with Porsche engines, but it seems they are either just modified Ford engines or are custom built by Saleen.
There is a reason. Ask your mechanic about the quality of Ford engines, or rather ask yourself if MS Windows was only available on MS made computer, who would hack it to run on third party hardware? Here is a company that takes Ford cars and installs Porsche engines (as well as a few other enhancements).
With Geode, when a website requests your location a notification bar will ask how much information you want to give that site: your exact location, your neighbourhood, your city, or nothing at all
So, what is the point? What is the point in having it determine where you are by WiFi signal? Why not enter it manually? In fact, if it is at the websites discretion, why even have this at all? It seems like there is not just the potential for abuse, that is the only rational reason to include I can think of; that it is designed for abuse. Am I missing something?
Further, I don't understand what is going through the heads of the coders over at Mozilla. It is a customizable browser. It can be added on to. That is the only reason to even continue using gecko for christ's sake. Wasn't the original point of Firefox, or Netscape before it, to be a lightweight, standards compliant browser? I have an idea that could realize that goal: STOP BUILDING MORE STUPID SHIT IN.
I would think the simplest answer to "why is it getting hotter on earth?" would be the giant fireball in the sky is heating up, as it is want to do in a somewhat cyclical fashion. I understand that there is more nuance to the situation, and that we are indeed contributing to climate shift (even if no one has explained to me why it was fine for the climate to fluctuate for some 4,500,000,000 years but it mustn't be allowed now that we have noticed), but doesn't that put the lie to Occam's Razor? Science and the simplest explanation rarely go hand in hand, particularly in as complicated and vast a system as global climate.
What was the source of your video? It has been pulled by Warner Music Group. I don't want to sound like a member of the tin foil hat brigade, but this is not the first time in recent days I have been sent to youtube to watch a video about political scandal only to find it pulled by a media company. Am I alone in this, and just being paranoid, or is something else going on?
And what if my local bank has closed its doors because the president shares your retarded free market ideals and deregulated the market causing a massive economic meltdown?
The inherent flaw in Libertarian property rights is the principle of original acquisition. Your so-called liberty based morality fails to take into account on any level the historically unequal distribution of resources that results from the seizure of property through force or coercion. Further, libertarianism assumes, for no reason whatsoever, that I am morally superior (or at the very least deserve a larger share of resources) simply because I am more talented/intelligent/lucky than the next guy. Are the handicapped inherently less deserving of needed resources simply because they were born less capable of providing for themselves? Should a percentage of the old starve because they were too stupid to set aside funds for their retirement? Is this consistent with your conception of justice?
True free market principles have failed to produce a favorable outcome anywhere. See: The Great Depression, Argentina under the Chicago Boys, the current deregulation clusterfuck with sub prime mortgages.
In short, Libertarianism is a failed theory clinging to flawed moral reasoning to justify why the rich should get richer.
Say you want to carry them because you want to be able to kill people who annoy or frighten you..... You are mistaken about who they are meant to kill, or at least you have generalized to the point of absurdity.
I wasn't talking about who they are MEANT to kill, but who they actually kill.
Fair enough. When we look at who guns (in America) actually kill, we find that just above half the time, they kill their owners. I believe suicide, or the choice to cease living, is a natural human right, and guns are a quick and painless (if messy) way to go, so no problems there. Do you believe in the right to die? I would argue that the other half of gun deaths fall into four categories as follows: premeditated, passion, accidental, self-defense.
Premeditated: If you are going to take the time to plan it out, are you going to buy a gun from, a licensed dealer who will take your name, and keep records with serial numbers, ballistics info, and other data (only a fool thinks guns should be sold like other products), or will you seek someone out on the street? If a gun wasn't available (is it impossible or just difficult to get a gun in Britain?) could you come up with another way?
Passion: If you are so enraged that you would kill another person, momentarily psychotic with anger, would the lack of a gun stop you, or just make it harder?
Accidental: Shit happens. Incidentally, it happens with more frequency in cars.
Self-defense: Is it acceptable to use lethal force in self-defense?
It is the wet dream of every tyrant, strong man, and one party state to take from the people the power of armed resistance.
This is a peculiar American fantasy. Lots of countries have instituted "strong man, one-party government", in countries awash with guns (often in post-war regimes with an AK-47 under every ex-soldier's bed). It makes it easier for the "strong man" to increase police powers, reduce civil rights, with the aim of protecting people from armed gangsters or insurgents.
An informed and educated populous, with access to the free exchange of ideas, is of far greater importance for democracy than an AK-47. That being said, look at your own argument; First a would-be dictator comes to power, then he expands his powers using as evidence the large number of armed citizens that "the common man" needs protection from, and then he takes away their guns. Finally, he is able to oppress as he sees fit, having established a monopoly on armed force.
Look how far your own government has come in that regard recently. You're not Zimbabwe yet, but you've certainly been going in that direction.
My own government has used nationalism, terrorism, and a complacent and profit driven corporate media to seize expanded powers, not fear of a gun toting mob, so I am not sure how your comparison to Zimbabwe is relevant.
As a brief aside, I hope you are enjoying this debate as much as I am. I would hope it goes without saying, but it doesn't always so: I respect and appreciate your opinion.
The right, as codified in the Second Amendment, is not limited to any one specific use, and thus permits self-defense, hunting, skeet shooting, trick shooting, target practice, etc. I was speaking more to the original intent, as I interpret it. Having just fought a war of rebellion, and written the first amendment to guarantee basic human rights, they wrote the Second Amendment to safeguard our right to protect those primary freedoms.
I am of a mind that we ought to rewrite and update the constitution myself, and would welcome a lively debate on the merits of the Second Amendment. The only argument I can personally conjuor on behalf of a universal right to bear arms is the right of rebellion. Hunting only requires certain types of weapons, and thus chipping away at the right. It allows for a neutered "conditional right." Even self-defense, in ones home or on the street, only requires a pistol. Only the right to armed rebellion explains adequately and with no room for equivocation, the need for a populous to have unfettered access to all forms of projectile weapon.
In short, I agree with you. I merely suggest that my rational is, while not the only, the primary justification for the right to bear arms.
Don't be a hypocrite: Guns and knives are designed to kill people (before you start sneering about butter knives, pop guns, etc; just assume the words are defined sensibly as the lethal kind of offensive weapon). Say you want to carry them because you want to be able to kill people who annoy or frighten you.
As an American supporter of the Second Amendment, I want to tell you that you are half right. Guns are meant to kill people. That is why the founders of my country enshrined the right to own them in our founding treatise. You are mistaken about who they are meant to kill, or at least you have generalized to the point of absurdity. Guns (in America) are a protected right because they are meant to kill agents of oppressive government.
We don't have the right to bare arms for every day self defense, that would be impractical and make almost every citizen a vigilante. We have them to safeguard our right to violent armed rebellion. The men who wrote our Constitution had just lived through a rebellion against a tyrant which would never have been successful without frontier farmers and their guns. While you may argue that, with the profusion of modern weapons (planes, tanks, etc) we could never win such a rebellion again, such was thought at the time of the American revolution, when more importance was placed on the training and superior equipment of the British army than the passion and local knowledge of the rebels.
It is always better to talk things out, and to try and fix the system from within, but we should never give up the ultimate plan B. It is the wet dream of every tyrant, strong man, and one party state to take from the people the power of armed resistance. That is why we want our guns, or at least those of us who have studied history and know what we are talking about.
You are 100% correct. Her personal views on science are not hers to choose or arrive at through rational reflection, God gave them to her (may his name be praised). Ergo, her ability to view with equanimity any issues presented her, and approach rationally and intelligently the duties of the VP, and in the event of McCain's death (unlikely right? I mean the man has God on his side!) the president, have no bearing on her belief that dinosaurs roamed the earth 5000 years ago and are presumably only gone because they were to big to fit on the ark. Or were gay, en masse. Or something. In short, intelligence and judgement are personal, and in no way reflective of a persons qualification to be VPOTUS or POTUS./sarcasm
Palin believes in a profoundly stupid pseudoscience. Palin is one of the following:
1. profoundly stupid
2. brainwashed by profoundly stupid interest groups
3. correct in here faith
Now setting aside the possibility that Palin is right and I am wrong about God, which remaining possibility leaves her qualified to run the country with the largest nuclear stockpile?
Now the real crux of the matter, IMNSHO, what kind of candidate chooses such a woman as his emergency successor? Is it the kind of candidate who is wholly qualified?
The ONLY important question you should ask before you reference Matt Damon's argument is whether or not it is a good one. So tell me is intelligence an important qualification for the POTUS? These are questions of qualification, based on facts not in dispute, as to whether she will adequately perform a job she will, in all likelihood, be required to perform for at least some time if John McCain is elected. What is the required criteria for exerting common sense?
Incidentally, I read somewhere, although I don't know if it is true, that statistically there exists a 1/3 chance that McCain will not survive his first 4 years.
Actually, they did use a pencil, and so did the Russians. A private company invented the space pen, and sold them to NASA. I have the bullet model, which (according to wikipedia) is also on display at the museum of modern art. It is a great pen, one of the smoothest with which I have had the pleasure of writing, not to mention its simple but elegant form.
OP was hardly proclaiming doooom, merely acknowledging the possibility of unforeseen consequences. I understand enough about the LHC (to use your example) to know it will not destroy the world, but even so I can't help but think of headcrabs...
I also recall that during the first atomic detonation, even most scientists underestimated its power. The military man in charge of the project is famously credited with the saying that he, as a munitions expert, knew bombs, and that it would never go off. They positioned soldiers far to close to the blast radius, and as a result most died of radiation poisoning (within a year IIRC).
Must you know everything to comment on a story, or merely approach it reasonably and rationally? We know that introducing a rogue element into an ecosystem can reek havoc, and this is the ultimate unknown: a new example of (almost) life. As a parting shot I will offer a musing and a confession: Virus are almost, but not quite, life; and I did not RTFA, nor am I particularly facile with biology.
I wouldn't say Democrats are morally superior, rather they are morally ignorant swaying whichever way is not mainstream thinking. Hell, I would be a hard core democrat if it wasn't for their horrid objection to my moral principles.
I am truly curious as to which of your moral principles the Democrats object. You mention family values, which leads me to think of issues such as abortion, gay marriage, the war on drugs, prayer in schools, evolution vs creationism, under god in the pledge, etc. In each of these issues, the Democrats are not objecting to your freedoms, they are objecting to the imposition on others of your belief set. Am I wrong about your "family values issues," or are your moral principles threatened by the disagreement of others?
Full disclosure: I am always interested in more freedom. I hate being told by the Dems that I can't play violent video games, own a gun, exclude from my private club or business whomever I damn well please, etc. just as much as I hate being told by the Republicans I can't burn the flag, smoke some pot, expect privacy on cellular telephone calls, marry another man, abort my child, etc. Freedom is the ownership of the self in the past (property rights), present (liberty), and the future (life). I don't want to do half the things on my little list, but I damn sure want to make that decision for myself.
Slashdot Mirror
From your link:
"We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web," says a company spokesman.
I take it from that, Google's perpetual beta philosophy applies only to constantly changing web apps, which Chrome is not.
Check out Cowon, Archos, Creative, and SanDisk. I can personally vouch for the SanDisk Sansa e200 series (one of those replaced my iPod 5G, and I am much happier with it) and I have a friend who has a Creative Zen. It is a sturdy device, with an attractive interface. The Zen will take some getting used to for an iPod user, while the Sansa is closer. It replaces the touch wheel with a physical one in addition to buttons on the perimeter (simialr to one of the older iPod models). It really depends on what you use it for, but try and look for something not locked into a particular store that supports the Mass Transfer Protocol (MTP) which is the closest to an open standard you are likely to find.
Perhaps this is a stupid question, but could we go back to riveting? The bridges have held, and if it is cheaper/easier/more practical... well, it goes against my geeky instincts to say it, but not every endeavor needs the latest tech, so long as what is used is safe and workable.
What DVD was it? I would like to be aware of a company pursuing the right course of action, I may need to give them some of my business.
Jet pack - Thunderball (1965) Sean Connery
Not really a gadget but one of the more memorable personal devices that Bond has possessed. After killing Colonel Jacques Bouvar at a chateau, Bond uses the jet pack to return to his car, an Aston Martin DB5. The pack used was developed by Bell Aerosystems as the Bell Rocket Belt which only had a 20 second flying time using a hydrogen peroxide fuel. The scenes in Thunderball were shot using two stuntmen and the shrill sound of the jets was overdubbed with the sound of a fire extinguisher. In 1984, a Rocket Belt was used in the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Jet packs may not have taken over the world but a mild solution of hydrogen peroxide on cotton wool can be used to disinfect and clean keyboards.
Lotus Esprit - The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Roger Moore
A deviation for Bond cars as it wasn't an Aston Martin, but it doubled as a submarine, so Bond could track down Karl STromberg's underwater lair.
BMW 750 IL - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) Pierce Brosnan
Another great Bond car and again not an Aston Martin. This car was armed with an impressive array of gadgets - it's bullet proof, laden with sunroof fired mini-missiles, metal spike dispensers, grenades and a cutter hidden behind the BMW badge. The best thing was though that it was remote controlled by a mobile phone - how cool is that!
Mobile phone - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) Pierce Brosnan
Brosnan was the first Bond to have a truly mobile phone, a concept design from Ericsson. A few years later the R380 production model appeared which had many of the features of the Bond original â" except for the stun gun, fingerprint scanner, lock pick and remote control for a BMW 750iL. In Quantum of Solace (2008), Daniel Craigâ(TM)s gadget-free Bond does possess a mobile and itâ(TM)s still a Sony Ericsson phone. This time its a titanium C902 which also lacks the first phoneâ(TM)s finer accessories â" itâ(TM)s not even a front-running smartphone. However, it does have a useful 5Mpixel camera to assist Bondâ(TM)s surveillance activities.
Aston Martin DB5 - Goldfinger (1964) Sean Connery
The most iconic car used by 007 is a silver Aston Martin which has appeared in Goldfinger, Thunderball (1965), GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Casino Royale (2006) and is due to make a return appearance in Quantum of Solace (2008). Admittedly, it has not always been the same vehicle but it has always been a non-standard production model. The first car had revolving licence plates, tyre slashers, a bulletproof shield, machine guns behind the headlights and smoke and oil sprayers at the back. Most famous of all was the ejector seat on the passenger side. IT and sports cars have always been intertwined with many bosses of manufacturing firms favouring Porsche models. Maybe the return of the Aston Martin will spawn a new craze â" if anyone can afford anything larger than a bicycle during the recession.
Fingerprint identification device - Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Sean Connery
This projector-based system was not one of 007â(TM)s tools but was used by diamond smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John). Compared to modern fingerprint identification systems, Tiffanyâ(TM)s device was extremely crude and immovable. To discover Bondâ(TM)s identity, she dusts a glass he has used, runs it through the device and compares it with a known example of his real fingerprint. Fingerprint identification is a much simpler operation these days with the proliferation computer-based fingerprint analysers that can skim through thousands of possible matches in seconds.
Aston Martin DBS - Casino Royale (2006) Daniel Craig It's hard to find a true gadget in the gritty Casino Royale, but Daniel Craig's sumptous Aston Martin DBS possibly qualifies. Daniel Craig nearly dies inside his car, but is brought back to life thanks to a mini portable defibrillator and some antidote.
TV wristwatch - Octopussy (1983) Roger Moore Watc
I think he means the Mojave Experiment, proof that, in a setting they control, showcasing what they want you to look at, Microsoft can convince computer illiterates that Vista is a sweet OS.
Call'em Nazi's all you want, but the Republicans (or at least the Conservatives) have never made demands over what you eat, what you drive, the type of toilet you use, or whether you smoke; that's for Liberals to control.
I like Nazi's, since you brought it up. Are you familiar with the underlying political philosophy of 1930's-1940's Germany? Mussolini once called it corporatism, Hitler called it National Socialism, and long before either of them the Romans called it Fascism. It descends from the thinking of Plato, that all good is traceable to a single, central form. The greatest good is therefore achieved through the harmonization of all lesser goods. A good society can't have dissent from the truth offered by the ordained ruling class, they can't have sex with people of the same gender or not believe in god. Who does that sound like?
There are fanatics on both sides. If you play with fanatics, you will get oppressed. Compromise is the essential virtue of democracy.
It appears I was mistaken. I knew of the company only in passing. I read about them awhile ago and it seems I misremembered some details. I thought the engines were replaced with Porsche engines, but it seems they are either just modified Ford engines or are custom built by Saleen.
There is a reason. Ask your mechanic about the quality of Ford engines, or rather ask yourself if MS Windows was only available on MS made computer, who would hack it to run on third party hardware? Here is a company that takes Ford cars and installs Porsche engines (as well as a few other enhancements).
Isn't Burger King releasing games [slashdot.org] funded entirely by Burger King with Burger King themes in them? (Did I mention Burger King?)
It's a fine establishment! Plus, did you know that you can get a refill on any drink? For free!?!
With Geode, when a website requests your location a notification bar will ask how much information you want to give that site: your exact location, your neighbourhood, your city, or nothing at all
So, what is the point? What is the point in having it determine where you are by WiFi signal? Why not enter it manually? In fact, if it is at the websites discretion, why even have this at all? It seems like there is not just the potential for abuse, that is the only rational reason to include I can think of; that it is designed for abuse. Am I missing something?
Further, I don't understand what is going through the heads of the coders over at Mozilla. It is a customizable browser. It can be added on to. That is the only reason to even continue using gecko for christ's sake. Wasn't the original point of Firefox, or Netscape before it, to be a lightweight, standards compliant browser? I have an idea that could realize that goal: STOP BUILDING MORE STUPID SHIT IN.
Time to switch to Iceweasel.
I would think the simplest answer to "why is it getting hotter on earth?" would be the giant fireball in the sky is heating up, as it is want to do in a somewhat cyclical fashion. I understand that there is more nuance to the situation, and that we are indeed contributing to climate shift (even if no one has explained to me why it was fine for the climate to fluctuate for some 4,500,000,000 years but it mustn't be allowed now that we have noticed), but doesn't that put the lie to Occam's Razor? Science and the simplest explanation rarely go hand in hand, particularly in as complicated and vast a system as global climate.
What was the source of your video? It has been pulled by Warner Music Group. I don't want to sound like a member of the tin foil hat brigade, but this is not the first time in recent days I have been sent to youtube to watch a video about political scandal only to find it pulled by a media company. Am I alone in this, and just being paranoid, or is something else going on?
And what if my local bank has closed its doors because the president shares your retarded free market ideals and deregulated the market causing a massive economic meltdown?
The inherent flaw in Libertarian property rights is the principle of original acquisition. Your so-called liberty based morality fails to take into account on any level the historically unequal distribution of resources that results from the seizure of property through force or coercion. Further, libertarianism assumes, for no reason whatsoever, that I am morally superior (or at the very least deserve a larger share of resources) simply because I am more talented/intelligent/lucky than the next guy. Are the handicapped inherently less deserving of needed resources simply because they were born less capable of providing for themselves? Should a percentage of the old starve because they were too stupid to set aside funds for their retirement? Is this consistent with your conception of justice?
True free market principles have failed to produce a favorable outcome anywhere. See: The Great Depression, Argentina under the Chicago Boys, the current deregulation clusterfuck with sub prime mortgages.
In short, Libertarianism is a failed theory clinging to flawed moral reasoning to justify why the rich should get richer.
Say you want to carry them because you want to be able to kill people who annoy or frighten you. .... You are mistaken about who they are meant to kill, or at least you have generalized to the point of absurdity.
I wasn't talking about who they are MEANT to kill, but who they actually kill.
Fair enough. When we look at who guns (in America) actually kill, we find that just above half the time, they kill their owners. I believe suicide, or the choice to cease living, is a natural human right, and guns are a quick and painless (if messy) way to go, so no problems there. Do you believe in the right to die? I would argue that the other half of gun deaths fall into four categories as follows: premeditated, passion, accidental, self-defense.
Premeditated: If you are going to take the time to plan it out, are you going to buy a gun from, a licensed dealer who will take your name, and keep records with serial numbers, ballistics info, and other data (only a fool thinks guns should be sold like other products), or will you seek someone out on the street? If a gun wasn't available (is it impossible or just difficult to get a gun in Britain?) could you come up with another way?
Passion: If you are so enraged that you would kill another person, momentarily psychotic with anger, would the lack of a gun stop you, or just make it harder?
Accidental: Shit happens. Incidentally, it happens with more frequency in cars.
Self-defense: Is it acceptable to use lethal force in self-defense?
It is the wet dream of every tyrant, strong man, and one party state to take from the people the power of armed resistance.
This is a peculiar American fantasy. Lots of countries have instituted "strong man, one-party government", in countries awash with guns (often in post-war regimes with an AK-47 under every ex-soldier's bed). It makes it easier for the "strong man" to increase police powers, reduce civil rights, with the aim of protecting people from armed gangsters or insurgents.
An informed and educated populous, with access to the free exchange of ideas, is of far greater importance for democracy than an AK-47. That being said, look at your own argument; First a would-be dictator comes to power, then he expands his powers using as evidence the large number of armed citizens that "the common man" needs protection from, and then he takes away their guns. Finally, he is able to oppress as he sees fit, having established a monopoly on armed force.
Look how far your own government has come in that regard recently. You're not Zimbabwe yet, but you've certainly been going in that direction.
My own government has used nationalism, terrorism, and a complacent and profit driven corporate media to seize expanded powers, not fear of a gun toting mob, so I am not sure how your comparison to Zimbabwe is relevant.
As a brief aside, I hope you are enjoying this debate as much as I am. I would hope it goes without saying, but it doesn't always so: I respect and appreciate your opinion.
The right, as codified in the Second Amendment, is not limited to any one specific use, and thus permits self-defense, hunting, skeet shooting, trick shooting, target practice, etc. I was speaking more to the original intent, as I interpret it. Having just fought a war of rebellion, and written the first amendment to guarantee basic human rights, they wrote the Second Amendment to safeguard our right to protect those primary freedoms.
I am of a mind that we ought to rewrite and update the constitution myself, and would welcome a lively debate on the merits of the Second Amendment. The only argument I can personally conjuor on behalf of a universal right to bear arms is the right of rebellion. Hunting only requires certain types of weapons, and thus chipping away at the right. It allows for a neutered "conditional right." Even self-defense, in ones home or on the street, only requires a pistol. Only the right to armed rebellion explains adequately and with no room for equivocation, the need for a populous to have unfettered access to all forms of projectile weapon.
In short, I agree with you. I merely suggest that my rational is, while not the only, the primary justification for the right to bear arms.
Don't be a hypocrite: Guns and knives are designed to kill people (before you start sneering about butter knives, pop guns, etc; just assume the words are defined sensibly as the lethal kind of offensive weapon). Say you want to carry them because you want to be able to kill people who annoy or frighten you.
As an American supporter of the Second Amendment, I want to tell you that you are half right. Guns are meant to kill people. That is why the founders of my country enshrined the right to own them in our founding treatise. You are mistaken about who they are meant to kill, or at least you have generalized to the point of absurdity. Guns (in America) are a protected right because they are meant to kill agents of oppressive government.
We don't have the right to bare arms for every day self defense, that would be impractical and make almost every citizen a vigilante. We have them to safeguard our right to violent armed rebellion. The men who wrote our Constitution had just lived through a rebellion against a tyrant which would never have been successful without frontier farmers and their guns. While you may argue that, with the profusion of modern weapons (planes, tanks, etc) we could never win such a rebellion again, such was thought at the time of the American revolution, when more importance was placed on the training and superior equipment of the British army than the passion and local knowledge of the rebels.
It is always better to talk things out, and to try and fix the system from within, but we should never give up the ultimate plan B. It is the wet dream of every tyrant, strong man, and one party state to take from the people the power of armed resistance. That is why we want our guns, or at least those of us who have studied history and know what we are talking about.
You are 100% correct. Her personal views on science are not hers to choose or arrive at through rational reflection, God gave them to her (may his name be praised). Ergo, her ability to view with equanimity any issues presented her, and approach rationally and intelligently the duties of the VP, and in the event of McCain's death (unlikely right? I mean the man has God on his side!) the president, have no bearing on her belief that dinosaurs roamed the earth 5000 years ago and are presumably only gone because they were to big to fit on the ark. Or were gay, en masse. Or something. In short, intelligence and judgement are personal, and in no way reflective of a persons qualification to be VPOTUS or POTUS. /sarcasm
Palin believes in a profoundly stupid pseudoscience. Palin is one of the following:
1. profoundly stupid
2. brainwashed by profoundly stupid interest groups
3. correct in here faith
Now setting aside the possibility that Palin is right and I am wrong about God, which remaining possibility leaves her qualified to run the country with the largest nuclear stockpile?
Now the real crux of the matter, IMNSHO, what kind of candidate chooses such a woman as his emergency successor? Is it the kind of candidate who is wholly qualified?
Since when is an ad hominem attack insightful?
The ONLY important question you should ask before you reference Matt Damon's argument is whether or not it is a good one. So tell me is intelligence an important qualification for the POTUS? These are questions of qualification, based on facts not in dispute, as to whether she will adequately perform a job she will, in all likelihood, be required to perform for at least some time if John McCain is elected. What is the required criteria for exerting common sense?
Incidentally, I read somewhere, although I don't know if it is true, that statistically there exists a 1/3 chance that McCain will not survive his first 4 years.
Actually, they did use a pencil, and so did the Russians. A private company invented the space pen, and sold them to NASA. I have the bullet model, which (according to wikipedia) is also on display at the museum of modern art. It is a great pen, one of the smoothest with which I have had the pleasure of writing, not to mention its simple but elegant form.
Fantastic wikipedia article! Particularly this bit here.
Your thoughts?
OP was hardly proclaiming doooom, merely acknowledging the possibility of unforeseen consequences. I understand enough about the LHC (to use your example) to know it will not destroy the world, but even so I can't help but think of headcrabs...
I also recall that during the first atomic detonation, even most scientists underestimated its power. The military man in charge of the project is famously credited with the saying that he, as a munitions expert, knew bombs, and that it would never go off. They positioned soldiers far to close to the blast radius, and as a result most died of radiation poisoning (within a year IIRC).
Must you know everything to comment on a story, or merely approach it reasonably and rationally? We know that introducing a rogue element into an ecosystem can reek havoc, and this is the ultimate unknown: a new example of (almost) life. As a parting shot I will offer a musing and a confession: Virus are almost, but not quite, life; and I did not RTFA, nor am I particularly facile with biology.
SBD?
Several interesting possibilities...
I wouldn't say Democrats are morally superior, rather they are morally ignorant swaying whichever way is not mainstream thinking. Hell, I would be a hard core democrat if it wasn't for their horrid objection to my moral principles.
I am truly curious as to which of your moral principles the Democrats object. You mention family values, which leads me to think of issues such as abortion, gay marriage, the war on drugs, prayer in schools, evolution vs creationism, under god in the pledge, etc. In each of these issues, the Democrats are not objecting to your freedoms, they are objecting to the imposition on others of your belief set. Am I wrong about your "family values issues," or are your moral principles threatened by the disagreement of others?
Full disclosure: I am always interested in more freedom. I hate being told by the Dems that I can't play violent video games, own a gun, exclude from my private club or business whomever I damn well please, etc. just as much as I hate being told by the Republicans I can't burn the flag, smoke some pot, expect privacy on cellular telephone calls, marry another man, abort my child, etc. Freedom is the ownership of the self in the past (property rights), present (liberty), and the future (life). I don't want to do half the things on my little list, but I damn sure want to make that decision for myself.