I don't expect a link to a dictionary, just something to support calling a person a bigot. You did so here, and somewhere else down the thread:
You always bang on about Muslims. You really should read more unbiased news outlets, as you clearly have been corrupted by forces just as evil as the evil Muslims you think exist. See how that works? Of course not - you're a hate-filled bigot.
jareth further up the thread just went for the "you're a racist" argument.
Yeah, about 10% of his posts mention "Muslim". A fairly large percentage of them are based on the Muslim - terrorist stereotype, a fair few have references to support criticisms of Islam. Nothing beats a bit of Friday afternoon Slashdot stalking! Quite frankly, he's got every right to be highly critical of Islam, but tarring everyone with the same bush certainly isn't reasonable.
The problem I have is that people are quite happy to throw around accusations racist, *phobic, bigot as an argument against somebody's comments without ever supporting their argument, or even understanding the terms they're using. It's like a feminist calling a man a misogynist when he doesn't agree with them, or being accused of being anti-Semitic when criticising Israeli policies. More often it's just a knee-jerk reaction rather than a reasoned argument, and quite frankly the laziness of it pisses me off.
You would never say something like "Alpha C is 4.3 light years away, while the voyager spacecraft has already traveled 18.2 billion kilometers! The stars are ours, if we take the time!"
Well, to be fair you were originally complaining about the authors mixing units, and nowhere did they do so in a single sentence.
Your "metre by a yard" comparison is cute, but relying on people to know that a metre is about 3 inches more than a yard certainly is something that can lead to troubles.
i made this comment (I can't remember what it was about) in front of a group of friends in uni(engineering, management, nursing students) - some of those I knew would understand. Those that didn't, they asked, because it was obvious there was a difference, otherwise I would have said "a metre by a metre". Now they know, or at least knew for a period afterwards. As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to be embarrassed about being ignorant of something simple. Choosing to stay ignorant is a different matter.
Right, so you chose the wrong word that had the biggest negative weight behind it.
As for Islamophobia, I doubt many people are actually frightened by Islam, more that they are disgusted by its attitudes to other religions, women, apostasy and homosexuality. So again, wrong word. Anti-Islamic would probably the best description, and many people would not feel that being described as such would be negative, for the reasons stated above. I'm wouldn't really class myself as an anti-theist - believe what ever makes you happy, but if your beliefs start impinging on the rights of people who don't toe the line, then fuck you, you deserve no respect.
So we're left with prejudice and bigotry. Prejudice may or may not apply - it was preconceived, but not necessarily without reason. As for bigotry, it is a result of somebody's prejudices which as I said may not be a valid argument for him being a bigot.
It's quite possible that Muslims were mentioned because Catholics priests (who may want to remove any mention of themselves from google) would fall under the paedophile group already mentioned.
Of course ChrisQ may be a complete Islamophobe (who shakes with fear when he sees a niqab), and loathes every Muslim, no matter how moderate, but to base that opinion on a line of text is just plain stupid. What's certain is that both yourself and myself are both being prejudiced against ChrisQ as we've been passing preconceived comments on him without knowing the actual basis of his comments.
But, but but, they were communist sympathisers - that should have been reason enough.
Yes, but you can't build the wall just to survive prevailing winds, what happens if it *does* get hit by a tornado?
The problem is also that a long wall isn't like a rectangular tower - the drag coefficient will be far higher as a wall of this size can be assumed to act similarly to 2d flow (~2), compared to a tower (~1.3 -> 1.5), so loading will be much higher too. I might load up OpenFOAM to have a look.
Even if you're skimming the summary, if you see "1,000 foot" in the title, and then see the number "300" in the body text, then the immediate reaction should be "oh, they're probably using metres here". That's even if you're ignoring the fact that explicitly states the units used.
mixing them should be a capital crime.
Bollocks - I regularly mix units, because it sometimes makes a lot of sense. I've described something as a metre by a yard (it wasn't quite square). Similarly, I've described items in feet or inches in area, but thickness in millimetres (it tends to be anything less than 1/4 inch).
Before you complain that not everyone knows basic conversions (not everyone's an engineer), it helps if you do any amount of travelling, especially if you're from the US or UK. Also, this topic is physics/engineering, so it usual to see mixed units - we see them when talking about rocket payloads all the time. Similarly, would you complain about the mixing of AUs, light years, millions of km/miles in an article about astrophysics or astronomy.
Fake celebrity endorsements - using Celine Dion's photo on his website after she supported "...what she believed to be a philanthropic cause..." even though she's stated that she has no involvement with him. Though in that case, I'm not sure who I should feel sorry for!
What was more interesting was reading the comments for that article. Out of the 9 comments, one commented on the Nobel Peace Prize, one commented on show business (I didn't really understand the comment). The remaining 7 were scathing about the journalism, used the standard "well what have you done" argument and questioned the journalists motives. Interestingly enough, all 7 users have only made a single comment each. Clearly that article hit a nerve.
Sounds a bit like Kent "there's no fucking carbon in it" Hovind's ethics - lie, cheat and commit fraud as long as it's for God.
For anyone who doesn't get the reference - Potholer54: "Carbon dating doesn't work -- debunked". I'd normally link to the actual time-stamp (4:51), but the video is good enough to watch on it's own. I go back to that clip whenever I need a laugh.
Having a something visible in incredibly important. I've never owned a bike, but did own a Westfield (Lotus Super7 style) kit car - it was 425kg of box metal and fiberglass. It was bright yellow, and I always drove with my headlights switched on. When you're driving something in which you'll most likely die in the event of an accident you make sure that people will see you. It wasn't massively noisy (2 twin webber carbs are noisy but behind a scoop, but it had a good exhaust silencer) compared to most kit cars, and as most people have said most of the noise is behind you.
I picked up a lot of good habits from motorcyclists when driving that car that I still use - always look over your shoulder (don't rely solely on mirrors) when changing lanes, never assume that people realise how quickly you can accelerate and never assume that people have seen you. In fact, assume nothing.
Is this what we've come to? "It's not a law", so fuck common sense?
Out of interest, did you go to a CofE school or a state school, and when? I'm under the impression that my niece's school (England) has an RE class, but then they're probably a lot more careful about what they teach (rather than preach) nowadays. For her school, I can see no mention of a chaplain being on the books.
I too had a lot of RE classes where they spent more time preaching rather than teaching, though for the last few years most of us used it as a place to do our homework. In secondary school I always felt that I should kick up a fuss to allow me not to go to the [daily] religious assembly - like Jewish students - as I was (still am) an atheist. It was only years later that I realised that the only reason that I was in a private Methodist school was that the state (Republic of Ireland) provides grants to families to go to a school of their own faith - something that is granted in the constitution. So, I may have put up with the religious rubbish, but I did get an [what I feel was an] excellent education from the school.
More like they didn't want to be seen practicing Thierry Henry's "technique".
To do nothing is to be nothing.
