If we play it backwards, does it tell us to worship the moon?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Everybody-Draw-Mohammad-Day-May-20th-2010

You mean like this? http://jesusinlove.org/art-that-dares.php#gallery

Yes, a small smattering of idiots would probably want that website banned. If it were of Muhammad, instead of a small smattering of idiots wanting to ban it, you'd have people getting killed over it. That's the difference. While any group of large enough stature is guaranteed to have idiots in it, it seems when it comes to Islam, it's not the isolated jerkwads that go apeshit, it's a significant part of the population.

The problem is we like the idea of uncensored free speech and the notion that all religions deserve equal respect under the law. Those are great ideas. They are encapsulated in the first amendment to our (American) constitution. I personally agree with them myself. Unfortunately, they are also going to get us all killed.

There's plenty of religions in this world with plenty of problems, but for the most part, you can live peaceably enough with most of them. Only one of them in the present day flies planes into buildings, bombs nightclubs and embassies and hotels, cuts people's heads off on camera, and kills people over cartoons of their prophet.

Qur’an:9:5 - And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.
[Note: Zakah is a concept that does not have a true english equivalent. The closest word that gives a very weak idea of zakah is "tithe".]

Qur’an:9:29 - Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.
[Note: Jizyah is the protective tax unbelievers must pay to the Muslims or be killed.]

Qur’an:8:39 - And fight them until there is no fitnah and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah. And if they cease - then indeed, Allah is Seeing of what they do.
[Note: Fitnah means "disbelief".]

Long story short, there is no "moderation" in Islam. Either you kill and subjugate non-believers, or you are not following the tenets of your faith. They (in general) are actively trying to do just what those verses say.

Either we drop the notion ourselves and fight back, or the Muslims remove it from us when they take control, but in either case, the idea of all religions being equal will cease to exist, and any society that holds that belief until the end, will end with it. It is not the fittest trait, and it will become extinct.

Amen to that. I learned it the hard way. My brother was arrested, and I witnessed the incident. Things I told the cops I didn't know for sure, and wrote in my statement that I did not see parts of the event and was not sure and only guessing at certain details, ended up being used against him as if I had stated them as absolute fact. And my appeals to the contrary did nothing. So, yes, I learned. I understand not all cops are bad guys, but don't expect me to ever say anything to any of them without an attorney present ever again, whether I am a suspect or merely a witness. Because they effectively lied their asses off using my words out of context to do it.

What constitutes "legitimate"? After all, with changing political whims, what is "legal" today could be "illegal" tomorrow, and suddenly a "legitimate" use becomes much less so, even if it is technically "legal". Godwin's law aside, Nazi Germany was following it's own laws in most of what it did, but I doubt most people would call any of it "legitimate". Give a government a tool, and it will abuse it eventually.

The government has no need to know where I am at any given point of the day, and trashing the privacy rights of the many to catch the few isn't the way to do it. Therefore, in my determination, there is no "legitimate" use for this. But, that's just my (and history's) opinion.

More likely it was a default or free add on when they bought it and they're just playing with it.

My car was in the shop a couple years back, and the loaner had a remote starter on it. I did the exact same thing, starting it as I walked up to it. Not cause I had to, but merely because I could, and it was kinda fun.

I'm a geek, I had a gadget, of course I was gonna play with it. I don't miss it on my car, and probably wouldn't pay to add it to my next one, but, if it came for free, I'd be doing the same thing. :)

Actually, there *was* a part of the movie with the uncanny valley feeling, at least for me. The part near the end when the humans are laying under the tree. They definitely gave off uncanny vibes. At least to me. The blue people, sure, they can look like whatever, they're not human. They aren't uncanny because they only comparison we have is to themselves. But the humans, well, they didn't quite make it far enough to make it out of the valley in those scenes.

My first thought on reading the summary was that Serverloft was a bunch of tools. As I read more and realized the press release was probably a hoax, it made me think. I know the US and Canada have different laws, and IANAL, but if this were the US, I would tend to think Serverloft would have a decent case of libel against them. They can claim "parody" all they want, but if I had merely skimmed the surface, and not read deeper, Severloft woulda been stuck with a negative connotation for me all because these a holes want to screw around. How many of Serverloft's customers read that press release and immediately went and checked if their sites were up? How many are currently looking for a new provider right now? I am all for free speech. If I say "Company A sucks" then fine. Too bad for them. (In the US, of course, I'm sure some company's attorney would want to sue you over voicing that opinion.) But to say they killed 4500 customers in a knee jerk reaction when they didn't? That is not the same thing at all. That can have actual damages. And if I were Serverloft, I'd be consulting someone about it.

Yes, but that requires work and thinking, and no one wants to do either of those anymore. Too little time anyway what with the kid's soccer practice and music lessons, and getting some time in at the gym and don't forget those new sitcoms on tv, after putting in a 50-60 hour work week. We're a nation of people who can't form a thought deeper than a two minute soundbite and you expect them to actually do research and weigh facts and report in a blog both sides of an issue? Good luck with that.

Car and Driver published a study in which they compared reading and writing text messages with drunk driving. They only tested reaction times, not vehicle control. But, in general, reading and writing texts led to worse reaction times than being intoxicated. Decent and short read.

http://tinyurl.com/candtextingwhiledriving

As another posted mentioned though, enforcement will be the real issue. Sounds like it will be more post crash cell phone log analysis to see if you were texting than anything they can pull you over for. Because unless you're doing it in a very obvious manner, there's no real way to tell you're doing it until you crash.

Actually, the laws in this country, for better or worse, were originally based on the Judeo-Christian concept of good and evil. It had less to do with emotion and more to do with what the Bible dictated was sin. Now, I am not arguing that that is better or worse than what we have now, nor am I trying to start a theological debate.

Truth is, I agree with you in that too much logic with no emotion is just as bad as too much emotion with no logic. And right now, in our current situation in this country, we are definitely experiencing the latter. We have been for years. However, logic and critical thinking, while they look very similar, are not the same thing. Logic is just a set of algorithms and cold fact and structured instructions. Critical thinking requires taking a deep look at something, both short and long term, and trying to decipher the results. In a legal sense, asking, does this law, as written cover what we are trying to do? What are the possible consequences? How might someone innocent be caught in this law? How can we adjust it if needed to avoid that? But emotional laws do not care. They just want to punish the perpetrator of what everyone's gut reaction says is a horrible crime.

That is the problem with zero-tolerance anything. It removes any ability for the judge to apply logic or reason to the situation, and most zero-tolerance laws are based not on logic but emotion. Having 2 Tylenol is NOT the same as an ounce of weed or a couple rocks of crack in school, but under most zero-tolerance systems, you'd be expelled for drugs just the same. Or the kids who's SADD shirts got banned when the school's zero tolerance policy went into effect that prohibited ANY clothing referencing alcohol. It takes time for enough kids to get caught in the cracks before someone uses critical thinking and applies a variance to the rule.

Yes, school rules are not the same as the legal system, but those are two good cases to illustrate the point. Maybe you would claim that Social IQ is what steps in and remedies these laws passed by cold logic, but I disagree. I see it as the opposite. Social IQ is what causes those laws to get passed, and after enough people get hurt, the Social IQ starts to slowly grasp the illogical nature of the law and once some critical thinking is applied, the laws are adjusted to be more fair. If critical thinking had been applied in the first place, those laws wouldn't have hurt anyone.

I like the idea of a Social IQ, but, I think in most cases, what you refer to as a Social IQ is really just an emotional response with no rational thought applied.

Child porn cases are very good at exposing this kind of reaction. It evokes a VERY strong negative emotional reaction in most people. Even the most logical among us would feel differently if it was OUR kid's head on photo-shopped on that body.

But, despite what you might think, you do NOT want emotion (or Social IQ) running the legal system. That's how ape-shit laws get passed, and now you have a 14 yo kid sending a naked picture of herself from her cellphone to her 14 yo boyfriend, and getting tagged a sexual criminal for life for distributing child porn. Why? Because the law is the law, and when it was passed, no one took the time to think and say, hey, if it's a kid taking pictures of themselves, why don't we add some form of exclusion for that? Instead the emotional knee jerk response crafted a zero tolerance law leading to situations like that.

I think the truth of the matter is that what is lost here is critical thinking skills. Most people these days no longer have them. Kids are never taught to actually stop and think. They go to school, do their homework, go to 12 different after school activities, all while their parent (or parents) work 60 hour weeks trying to pay for everything. And any down time is spent wasting their brains away in front of the TV.

True philosophical thought is, for the most part, dead. Who has spent the time to actually sit down and ponder anything? Most are trained to react based on emotional response and call it thinking, but it's not. It's a robotic programmed reaction to something. Critical thinking of a higher order requires just as much time and practice as anything else. You don't get it from soccer practice or football or watching the latest sitcom on TV.

And this isn't to say I disagree entirely with you. I think you are correct in your idea of a Social IQ, where the ability to interact with other people in social situations is not at all related to your ability to handle spatial reasoning or deep critical thinking.

However, the law is based on critical thinking, not Social IQ, and trying to apply the latter to the former is what makes the prosecutor take the exact wording of the law, and twist it to apply to something that it, as written, doesn't cover. No amount of Social IQ nor emotional reaction can change that fact. And it takes critical thinking, not Social IQ, to understand that.

Nah, I've HAD the ATM screw up before, and record a deposit twice. The bank happily deducted it from my account later. I've also had an ATM record a withdrawal three times for the one transaction. Took me a couple weeks of back and forth for them to get it all straightened out. So, the ATMs *do* screw up, but the banks don't care because in the end they don't lose any money. The only one that suffers is the customer (by being out my $$ for two weeks).

Have you heard what the RIAA is selling these days? Don't be so hasty in your pronouncements.