Comment 'critical thinking and creationism' (Score 1) 989
If that's not the oxymoron of the year...
While I think this is heavy handed of Lucasfilm Ltd, I looked up the actual product on their website. The pic in TFA is rather close up and doesn't truly show how close this laser resembles a lightsaber. Check out the other pics here: http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/Spyder_III_Pro_Arctic_Series-96-37.html
As much as I hate to admit it, it does look way too similar to a lightsaber.
I dunno, it sort of looks like a flashlight to me. And lightsabers look like flashlights too. That's why twelve year olds have been having "lightsaber battles" with flashlights for the past 30 years. Just because they both look like the same duck doesn't mean the first aper has been aped. You can take just about any cylindrically shaped object with a few surface projections and say it looks like a lightsaber hilt, because the lightsaber hilt is vague and simple. It would be one thing if they were marking these thinks as "Space Battle Light Blazers" or something even remotely close to any Lucasfilm owned trademarks, but as it is marketed as the spyder III pro arctic laser this is just ridiculous trolling. Kingman Group would, however, have a better shot at suing over use of the name Spyder.
Like a fully operational battle station?
A fully armed and operational battle station, I think.
You know why Apollo worked? We set goals and a date, and the figuring out took care of itself.
I suspect it worked because the government considered it important enough to pay for.
Yeah, we had to beat those commies to the moon, or panic would ensue. Now if only Al-Qaeda would start up a space program, then we'd on the moon tomorrow. With JDAMs and M1As.
Modern Warfare 2 sold 6.4million copies in the first week in the US and UK alone and yet there weren't 6.4million new mass murders on the streets.
To play the devil's advocate, if there were 6.3 million new mass murders then it would be ok too? How do you know that the number of murders didn't significantly increase, or that the number of murders won't increase due to the effects of this game on young minds once they grow up? You're lack of scientific evidence is worse than that on the other side of the argument, with the difference that they actually have done studies (however flawed) and you have not, your pulling conclusions from your anus.
Even if that were the case, you've got to at least try to show causality. cum hoc ergo propter hoc . 6.4 million copies of a violent game may be sold, and 6.3 million new murderers may appear at the same time, but that does not imply anything about causality. The numbers themselves don't even suggest a relationship between the individuals that are murderers and the purchasers of the video game, nor do the two bits of information constitute the entire scenario. 6.3 million people might have also had diarrhea in the same time span. 6.3 million people might have eaten a big mac at McDonald's. 6.3 million people might have stubbed their toes on the coffee table. 6.3 million people might have been laid off work and went nuts over it. It could just as well be that 6.3 million people joined a cult that required murder for initiation. Or maybe only 2 million of them joined the cult and 4.3 million had road rage. The argument also assumes several false dichotomies - that all the game players are killers or that all are not, that the game is the sole cause for murderous behavior or is not to any degree, etc. Bad logic is the fundamental building block of crime prevention law, and contributes heavily to its failure.
Yeah, there's a difference between making a modern adaptation of Shakespeare, or even a whole other thing INSPIRED by Shakespeare, and writing "Hamlet 2: The Revenge of the Prince!"
Yeah, the difference is Hamlet 2 has way more pyrotechnics. And Elizabeth Shue.
A gun isn't intended to do anything but push a projectile out of a barrel. If they were actively designed to be murder machines, the engineer responsible should be taken out and shot, because they have failed miserably.
I am in general in agreement with your post, but that statement is ironically funny on so many levels!
Why?
There is no reason why a three year old couldn't pull the trigger on a modern automatic pistol with a round chambered.
If it were a SA trigger with the hammer cocked, I would agree. But if this is in fact a Sigma series as suspected it is a DAO handgun with a 9.1lb trigger. That's quite a feat in my opinion for a three year old girl to successfully pull that trigger. I dunno, maybe she propped it up on the floor and leaned all her weight on it. But the situation seems horribly awry to me.
Why we need the BSD kernel for desktop? While the Linux kernel has the best hardware support coverage among all open source kernels, I am curious what's the reasons behind to pick BSD for a desktop oriented distro.
The only thing worse than a loaded question is one that is loaded with an unsubstantiated claim. Even if your assumption were true, the number of hardware drivers a kernel has available for it is a very naive metric for its usefulness.
It doesn't matter if the earth's climate is changing because of man or not.
Nonsense. It matters because it also affects how much a REDUCTION in man-made CO2 levels will affect the climate. The golden question that nobody is asking is "How much will the effects of reductions in man-made CO2 emissions be worth to us?", which requires the answers to both "How much will man-made CO2 reductions affect the climate?" AND "How much is reducing changes to the climate worth to us?" Until you can answer both, you won't know whether the benefit is greater than the cost. And since the policy choices on the table involve the US bearing a disproportionate amount of the global cost, it's downright game-theoretically stupid to do it unless we have to.
Ok. Next time you find yourself barreling towards a head-on collision in your car I'd expect you to use the same logic. You don't know that braking will necessarily save you from being killed, and it's just too damn much work if the other driver won't do it too. So just resign yourself to flying through your windshield at highway speed. Those of us that want to survive as a species will accept the loss of your carbon footprint and carry on with our lives.
Now, I pose the question. If our impact did not cause it, are we responsible to fix it? Even if our impact did cause it, what portion of what they are experiencing can be attributed to what we did? And what about the impact of the rest of the world (including those very same third world countries that are going to suffer the effects first, as you put it)? I'm not against sending aid to other countries that need it, but to declare the USA as "responsible", and potentially bankrupt a single country for a global problem, is ignorant at best...
It doesn't matter if the earth's climate is changing because of man or not. If no nations want to act to keep the earth habitable, the money they keep in their economies will mean jack shit when we're extinct. Choosing money over survival is what I call ignorant at best.
You claimed that I was somehow "spitting on democracy", by opposing a "public option". No law has been passed at this time, this seems to suggest that a majority of Americans have reservations about the bills that have been brought forward in Congress (the Administration and Congressional leadership originally set a deadline for passing healthcare reform before the August recess).
Oh how you misquote me, without actually even quoting me.
I'm sorry if you don't like the prospect of this health care reform, I really am, but don't spit in the face of democracy over it because you didn't get your way.
Note that I did not equate the opposition of a public option with anything. You spit in the face of democracy by suggesting that the policy goals of this administration are weakly supported even though they clearly have public support - they won the fucking election - or that this one health care reform bill is somehow going to circumvent all other democratic processes and take us down a slippery slope to your nightmare scenario of a single payer system. It's hysterical FUD and I won't abide it.
I see your comment about "if the bill passes", are you suggesting that people should just shut up and accept whatever bills are passed by "our representatives" without letting said representatives (and our fellow citizens) know what we think of the bills under consideration?
*sigh* Again, let me quote myself since you seem unable to do so.
If, as you say, 30% of the public wants a public option, then there should only be 30% of congressmen and representatives that support it and the rest should eat them alive and eject it from the bill. So far, that hasn't happened. That's how our system works. Again, I'm sorry you don't like it. Write your congressman or representative.
And again, if you don't like it, I can only offer my condolences and urge you to write to your congressman or representative.
And one more to grow on:
I don't know why you bother responding if you're not going to read first.
I think it is disingenuous to suggest that the majority of the Congresspersons were elected for the express purpose of passing this bill.
Maybe if you stick enough words in my mouth you'll be able to convince yourself you are right. I never made any such claim. My claim is that the american people elected representatives whose agendas and views they supported, who they trusted would listen to their voices. If the majority wants no public option, then that should be reflected in the actions of their representatives. If the majority does not want a public option and it is created anyway, then we elected shitty representatives and we only have ourselves to blame. In that case, the next time elections come around, we'll elect representatives that will promise to right the horrible wrongs of yesteryear and they'll go riding on the white horse of Truth, Justice, and the American Way to remove the public option from law. Like I said, that's how our democracy works. And again, if you don't like it, I can only offer my condolences and urge you to write to your congressman or representative. You can argue till you are blue in the face that there is some enchanted mystical evidence delivered upon the chosen few to disseminate onto the world that the american people do not want a public option, but in the end that doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Reality doesn't care what evidence you have (and for some reason do not divulge). If the bill passes with a public option, it's because our representatives acting on our behalf passed it as such. It is not because an evil liberal socialist president and his evil liberal socialist cronies decided to pick on the poor god fearing capitalist patriot conservatives and take all their fancy health care away.
If the American people decide they want a single payer system, so be it. I believe that it would be a terrible mistake. The American people currently don't want a single payer system. Additionally, they have recognized that the current "public option" is an attempt to get a single payer system in by the back door and appear to have decided that they don't want that either. As far as I can tell, all of the support for the "public option" comes from people who want a single payer system but have recognized that the American people will not accept one at this time. The evidence I have seen suggests that somewhere around 50% of the population doesn't want the "public option", while only somewhere around 30% do want it. So who is the one "spitting in the face of democracy"?
Who the fuck do you think is writing and modifying the damn bill? The same officials we elected to act on our behalf. If, as you say, 30% of the public wants a public option, then there should only be 30% of congressmen and representatives that support it and the rest should eat them alive and eject it from the bill. So far, that hasn't happened. That's how our system works. Again, I'm sorry you don't like it. Write your congressman or representative.
Could an American please explain to me why the majority of USA seems to oppose public healthcare?
According to economist Paul Krugman in The Conscience of a Liberal, the most likely answer to this question is "because it will help black people". He argues that this was the biggest reason Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson couldn't get health care plans through. And part of the reason why Bill Clinton couldn't, and probably bigger part of the reason Barack Obama's having a tough time.
Plus (like some of my sibling posters) a lot of folks put a Somebody Else's Problem field around 40-50 million people who lack health insurance, and the even larger number of folks who's health insurance companies cancel their coverage as soon as it comes time to pay major claims.
In my experience, the same people that are barking mad about public health care are also the religious zealots that want prayer in schools, the ten commandments in public buildings, and intelligent design in science class. Yet for all their "christian values", helping their fellow man in need is just too much to ask. Hands off my cash, Jack, your failing heart isn't my problem. Jesus loves me and gave me a PPO.
Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"
