The whole point of that episode is that all of our languages are metaphor piled on top of metaphor. The difference is that we've lost the connections to much of the context. Example: The word "talent" is used a millions of times every day by people who have no idea that it's a metaphoric reference.

She has already admitted to multiple felonies related to mishandling classified information. Nothing happened. It is hard to imagine anything that Wikileaks could dump that would harm her at this point. There will be no criminal charges so long as Obama holds the Presidency and obviously none should Hillary win, and should she lose Trump won't waste the political capital to bring her to justice either.

Her voters already know she is a criminal, they are not voting for her in spite of the knowledge, but because of it. It demonstrates she possesses the Will to Power they consider a requirement in a leader.

My own mother bought me a car fish sticker that says "Linux" inside the fish, thinking that it was cute and that I'd like it, having been a linux user since slackware was a pup and being a Xtian. I can't imagine putting it on my vehicle though, as I'm not sure what message it transmits.

Unlike something like Taoism, that appears to bond easily to some other worldview (Celtic-Taoist is a combination that is not necesarily incongruous, for instance), the Christian/Darwinist fish symbol bumper sticker wars have made the situation so contentious that I'm afraid someone will misconstrue my intent.

What message does an Ichthys with the word Linux inside it actually present?

That Linux is my religion? I mean, I like Linux, and it *is* a gateway to salvation and all, but I'm not willing to give up Jesus for it yet. Maybe after another 20 years. (Side note: I'm sure that Linus is a $%#$& %^$^#$^% Saint.)
That Linux is bigger than religion? That would be like the one where the Evolution fish is eating the little Christian Ichthys and this one isn't like that.

Anyhow, I'm sorry for the guy who lost his darwin fish thing. I'm sure it was clever and not at all designed to demean someone else's heartfelt expression of their belief in the fisher of men. In any event, the person (or wind, or adhesive that loosened the paint when moisture collected) was wrong for taking it, regardless of their intent, religion, cosmology or "act of God/Nature/Physics"-ness.

"Grubby sheepherders" pretty much tells us where you are coming from, brother.

In terms of bigotry, I think you just gave us an object lesson in it.

If I "catch your drift" as far as what you mean by "places some grubby sheepherders above all other people", you show your thorough ignorance of Christianity and of the importance of the Abrahamic family story that preceded it, in terms of describing not just metaphysical points, but also in giving one big extended family's view of a very important period in human history. "Chosen", in a Biblical context is more like "Those that have Chosen", than what I think you are meaning by it.

"religion of dominion".... I'm not sure what to say about that. Around 1095 (let's just round up and call that 1000 years ago), Pope Urban II at Clermont exhorted Christian men of arms of both means and those without means to travel to the holy land to push back against the Mahometans[sic] that had been steadily pushing (for "dominion", perhaps?) westward. It lasted for c. 200 years and the West (Christendom, if you will) hasn't had much in the way of religious wars since.

As for "hacked and re-hacked" and politics. Sure, even the cleanest water will be tainted if it is poured into rusty vessels. People will get it wrong and some people will get it *very* wrong. (It even says that it in the Book.) But looking at the central goals, precepts and directives of the Judaeo-Christian worldviews, I don't see the malice that so many people claim to see there in its core. Sure, there's lots of sin, lots of "missing the mark", even among people claiming to be leaders. There will be lots of people who fall into literalist or mysticist traps and even more that hide their cynicism under a veneer of practiced faith.

That the Church has been used by the state on occasion does not confirm or deny the church's message and actual purpose. It just shows that people suck and can be corrupted or coerced. All the more reason to give them access to a worldview that, while understanding their faults, exhorts them to do better and not suck so much.

Most of the preachers one sees on American television will fall into some kind of heresy within a few minutes. "Word of Faith", "Seed Money" and "Give to Get" are almost ubiquitously connected to Christianity, despite being thoroughly off the map, as far as Christian doctrine goes. Here's an example of where Christian church folk have grown. Christians no longer burn or otherwise kill heretics. Haven't done so in quite awhile. Its always been in the rules ("let he without since cast the first stone", and all) but people are slow to catch on.

Try not to judge a religion by those who *haven't* gotten it right. Try to take a look at what it is really asking of its adherents, what its most thoughtful proponents claim as its goals and ideals, not what its most bombastic hangers-on shout about.

It is no accident that so many hospitals and schools all over the world bear the names of Catholic saints. You can claim "world dominion" all you want, (btw, I'm no huge fan of the Roman Church myself) but they put their money where their mouths were time and time again and fed the hungry, clothed the poor and cared for the sick. Power corrupts, though, and the Reformation provided a bit of a reset. I think we're in another of those reset periods again, where the choices the big American denominations made over the past 100 years are leading to another Reformation,

More often than not, though, I see anti Jew or anti Christian folk that want to ignore their own basic reasoning skills and go prooftexting out the description of one Biblical incident or another, or a law from Leviticus, pointing out how horrible [this or that] is, or trying to frame an incident from, perhaps, the Bronze Age, using a 21st century western perspective or maybe go straight for the Crusades

The stakes aren't quite as high, in terms of the potential for squelching freedom of speech in the present world where Internet access is far more vital than telephone access.

Also, telephony is long established and one-on-on, for the most part. Internet freedom of expression and of receipt of information is, for what it's worth, access to the common dataset of humanity now.

While I don't think that this ICANN move is that dangerous in and of itself, the phrase "slippery slope" and images of Blue Helmeted Cyber Cops eventually out looking for OUCHTHINK and BADTHINK won't stop echoing in my head as I try to finish this reply.

Where you see ITU, I'm sortof thinking U.N. "Human Rights" Council and U.N. profiteers.

The Internet started out and has remained open and free because it is a system designed, like the United States was designed, to be about individual right of access and local control under an accepted set of protocols designed for maximum cooperation.

The U.S., at our best, and codified in our Constitution, shows the power of the rule of law and puts the individual's absolute right of expression at the top of the list, just as "the Internet" at its best represents cooperation and individual freedom of access to, and dissemination of, information.

Someone (here on Slashdot, I think. My apologies for not having the attribution at the moment.) wrote:

Cacophony of international interests mucking about? Not so much.

> retired it due to not having any PS2 machines any more.

That isn't a reason to part with a Model M. Get a USB converter (you may have to try a couple) and keep on trucking. I have an original Logitech three button mouse on the same adapter with my Model M. I use the middle click a heck of a lot more than the wheel so prefer an actual button that won't end up sending scroll up/down every time I middle click on a link to throw it into a tab for later reading. Have to clean the mouse out every month or so but other than it is still good to go.

Can I get an AMEN!

I have a pair of em. Thinkpads also tend to have darned good keyboards even after the Lenovo takeover.

If ya spring for the good stuff it lasts. And face it, keyboards aren't something that you need to change out every year or two when you buy a faster machine. Keyboards endure. Old keyboards even have a full size spacebar instead of those almost useless Microsoft mandated keys.

> Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science.

Agreed. But when debating the policy implications of AGW a climatoligist is useless. What insight can they offer into whether cap and trade is a good idea? They aren't economists. If the conversation turns to carbon sequestration they aren't the person to ask whether that is feasable. If we want to talk alternative energy they can't provide any insight on that either. You need different scientists and experts to answer those questions. Climatology is a pretty narrow specialty.

> notwithstanding Mann's dubious practices

But that is just it. Mann is the elephant in the room, you simply can not ignore him. He was so obviously a fraud, and stone cold busted, and not a single voice was raised against him by the warmers. That is called a clue. What more do you want, the hand of God to reach down to you with a graven stone tablet saying "AGW IS A FRAUD!" or something? They didn't care if the science was fake because they aren't interested in the least in science. They have a policy solution in mind and the science will be tortured until it confesses.

AGW may indeed be real. But it is literally impossible to say at this point. The raw data was destroyed and the 'adjusted' data we have left is unreliable. Not only that we would need a lot more data for a lot longer than reliable records have been kept to say with the reliability normally expected from science. We do know the Earth has been both a lot warmer and a lot colder than at any point in the last hundred years. We are making predictions on time horizons as long as our reliable data set of past history and covering that lack with a lot of proxy data of dubious reliability. Doesn't sound very scientific if ya ask me, but I'm just a lay person. But somehow I doubt anyone would build a multibillion dollar chip fab on a theory of such reliability yet we are supposed to entirely reorder our economy on this theory's predictions. And anyone who expresses a doubt is called an idiot, anti-science and worse.

Exactly. I am exactly as qualified to discuss the policy implications of AGW as Mann. Both of us are interested lay people who have studied the issue and can debate it as ordinary citizens as part of the political process. Except of course that isn't how it works, he is held up as an expert. He isn't. Al Gore on the other hand, IS a politician and is actually qualified to debate (I can disagree and experts on my team can take him on, it is politics) the policy side. Where he fails is in trying to go the other way and argue the science. He isn't a scientist any more than I am and it is silly when the media hold him up as an expert on the science, scientists were embarrassed by much of the science in _An Inconvenient Truth_ but because they agreed with his politics they kept their yap shut.

No. I have looked into the HIV/AIDS thing enough to be willing to bet that if it isn't the entire story it is pretty close to it. But when the banhammer came down in the 1980s on any dissent (the science is settled! Settled I say!) there was still some room for doubt. That is the sort of thing that creates conspiracy theories. Especially when you have celebrated cases like Jordan who was announced to be HIV positive how far back and still AIDS free?

There is a lot of areas of scientific inquiry that are simply forbidden. People notice that. There is also a lot of 'settled science' that is probably far from settled. There is a word for that sort of thing. Politics. So the only people who don't believe science has been politicized is the few who agree with so many of the political decrees they don't even see it as a controversy. I.e. progressive academics.

Damned right. As a rational person pissed at the debasement of science by the political hack poseurs.

At most a climitologist can rightfully say the Earth is warming, CO2 is the cause and human activity is the likely cause of the increase of CO2. Beyond that they should say NOTHING. Other scientists, in other fields, are qualified to evaluate proposed policies. What to do about it in the policy realm is as far outside their expertise in climatology as Sally Field's infamous Congressional testimony on the plight of farmers because she had played one in a movie. The second they use the cloak of science to push policy solutions they aren't scientists anymore, they are amateur politicians. Emphasis on the amateur.

Lefty professors ask a loaded question rigged to produce the result they wanted, anyone suprised? Good way to prove our point that science has been politicised to the point a lot of us take a default position of "BS!" on any pronouncement from the white labcoat set that has the slightest whiff of politics.

We notice that all of the mentioned 'science' issues are tied to public policy positions of the left and that the 'scientists' are working outside their areas of expertise when they push policy solutions to the problems they 'find.'

We doubt AGW because we have been given very solid fact based reasons to. We see hacks like Mann protected from the consequences of his fraud with the 'Hockey Stick" and nay, even rewarded for it. Cleared from all wrongdoing by the same corrupt institution that turned a blind eye to Sandusky and covered his crimes until they exploded into the newspapers. And both for the exact same reason, they were stars who brought in the sweet sweet cash money.

The whole HIV/AIDS thing got wierd because it is a complex and murky thing and yet anyone with an eye willing to open it could see that it was totally politicized. It was the only disease in human history to get a bizarre sort of 'rights' attached to it. Whole lines of research were simply forbidden as career ending. Consipracy theories almost always pop up in vacumns of fact, especially when it is pretty obvious that facts are suspected but being supressed.

This is even worse than it first appears if you get past the hype and look to history. In the past pretty much every developer Microsoft could find would have development tools a year before a new OS launched to ensure apps would be ready to drop on release day. Nokia just announced product with Windows 8 and select brown nose devs will be getting complete dev tool support SOON? What?

Balmer may still be there but he ain't the same Monkey Boy who did the sweaty, bouncy, "Developers! Developers! Developers!" dance. It is clear that not only the hardware partners are going under the bus, the future for 3rd party application developers is dimming. Which of course is the way it must be. Microsoft currently has as close to a total monopoly on the desktop with Windows and Office as can be. So if they are to grow the topline they won't be doing it by doing more of what made them big. So they have to take in the hardware profits and eventually try to suck in the rest of the application space's profits. Dell's profit margins aren't huge but it makes serious coin on the gross revenue line and it will look good on the topline to keep the institutional investors happy a few more years. Plus, in the long run it is probably the only way to truly lock the platform, which is the only way to cut off the penguin's oxygen supply.

They could take out Netscape by making IE free but that doesn't work with Linux since it is already Free. But what it does need is a plentiful supply of commodity hardware and thus that is it's oxygen. Cut that off and it dies. Android can be dealt with later, assuming they don't end up just monitizing it through patent trolling to the point it makes them so much money they can't afford to kill it.

Preach brother.

If you wanna see the Mouse's attitude, go look at a Disney DVD. Every other studio puts a (C) year on there, denoting the year of Copyright, with the implication someone might want to know the year to know if it has expired. Not the House of Mouse, they just say Copyright without a year because as far as they are concerned it ain't ever going into the public domain if they can help it.