It's typical, though, of policing and security agencies to set up straw man issues and pound away at them even if there's little or no evidence to back it up.
You gotta admit, though, that "cyber-terrorism" has a nice ring to it. It gets the attention of media and legislators who will go on and on about it while quoting the "experts" that thought the whole thing up.
But what can they do when the data says the Pentagon is getting attacked fewer times now than before?
Take credit for it!
Then tell legislators and the media that they need more cash to keep the trend line going down. Never mind that they've done all of nothing.
I cut the cable cord a couple of years ago due to high price, internet choking and the entire silliness of packaging.
I'm over 50 so I fit the insult, I'm not poor but there comes a time when even the least intelligent realize they're paying a lot for what they aren't getting with cable. Also, I'm far from a technophobe so I don't fit there.
The first two responses to this post are exactly the reason this sort of project should continue without drooling copyright lawyers hanging all over it.
Surely to heaven archival activities are fair use aren't they? They ought to be.
Welcome back to the Halcyon days if such outfits as the Hudson's Bay Company and the British East India Company when mercantile interests were promoted and encouraged by the British government.
At least partly to lower the cost of troops and policing because the above companies took that on themselves.
Didn't work very well in North America but the investors in the East India Company made out like bandits!
Thing is though that they cyber war argument is entirely circular with little or no reference to reality.
The Great Firewall of China is about as secure as the pay walls around News Corp properties.
Still, as you point out there's a LOT of money to be made chasing your own tail, it seems.
Interesting, isn't it, that the British Government wants to drydock virtually all of the Royal Navy, park and store most RAF jets and still, somehow, support what few troops three are in Afganistan but are going to spend a small country's GDP and cyber warefare.
And still the US NSA dreams of setting up a "secure" domain in cyberspace. Lemme know when they get that done or better yet let me know when you see pigs flying south for the winter of when the Cubs win the World Series.
Actually the anti-slavery movement got started before the Revolutionary War by a collection of Anglican priests in the United Kingdom and was picked up from there.
In part it was the "do unto others" reading that led Wilberforce to that conclusion who found it impossible to reconcile the condition of slaves in the English colonies of the day with that phrase.
It was also the recognition as the movement was picked up by the English and Americans in the North East of the United States that with the industrial revolution and attendant automation that agricultural slavery no longer made economic sense.
A point of view hotly contested by those in the cotton business the the South and the sugar and other businesses of the Caribbean.
BTW, most of us Anglicans/Episcopalians would also reject the notion that we're Protestant in the Continental European sense. We prefer the idea that we express in liturgy and in practice the "via media". ;-)
Quite the list of sins you come up with there. ;-)
And, of course, you're just as wrong as those who make those claims have always been.
Oh, and don't forget those who used religion as an excuse to be incredibly crappy to other people rather than the underlying reason such as the Pope of the time seeking to strengthen his "base", as we call it now", by encouraging the First Crusade and almost immediately regretting it because he couldn't control what he'd set in motion.
I would, however, suggest that in a remarkably short period of time political and economic ideologies, products of the Enlightenment both, have cause as much if not more bloodshed and misery that religion has ever been capable of.
Personally I don't doubt that he was a carpenter for the 30 some odd years he's not accounted for in the Gospels or by Paul for the simple reason that, according to tradition, Joseph was a carpenter and in those days one passed one's trade to the eldest son.
Also, Jesus needed to support himself as he wandered around and carpenters would have been in constant demand as they are now. Remember that Paul made his way in his wanderings falling back on his trade by making and mending tents.
Nor do I accept the often made argument that he was completely illiterate. As a carpenter he'd, at least, be numerate. As they do now, Jews took great pride and invested a lot in education as their faith was and is based on written documents. So I rather suspect that while he may not have been able to write Hebrew or Aramaic he could read one or both of them passably.
As for Buddhists and other faiths being familiar to the Holy Land. Keep in mind that on the trade routes of the day Jerusalem was on a choke point in the trade routes from the east to the Nile Delta and from then onto Greece and Rome. If that wasn't enough Herod the Great build a huge artificial harbour at Caesaria that he dedicated to Augustus in part penance for backing the wrong horse (Mark Anthony) in the recently concluded Roman civil war.
This alone would have exposed Jerusalem, Nazerth (right on the direct path to Caesaria) and other points in Judea to many faiths and influences. Buddhism among them as they'd have traded with Persans and the Buddhist Afgans and residents of the Indus River watershed (Pakistan) of the time.
The Romans make that claim for the Bishop of Rome. Or the Pope of Rome. In the ancient church there was more than one Pope because all that term meant in those days was Bishop of Bishops or one step below Patriarch.
And you're very right in that the use of the term catholic in the Nicaean, Apostles and other accepted creeds means universal it doesn't apply to just one branch of Christianity.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "people always try to say there are contradictions in the bible"
"That proves to me that the Bible is simply the work of flawed men."
NOW you're getting it! And what human enterprise isn't flawed?
Paine's observation is hardly unique but it missed the point entirely. The Gospels are not history they're narrative. Three of them are called synoptic for the simple reason that they're all based on Mark plus what's known as the "Q" source.
(Don't blame me for calling it that. Some German theological came up with that and for some reason it stuck.)
As for an unreliable guide keep in mind that each of the Gospels were written for a specific audience by men who were not intending to write Scripture but to explain Jesus to that audience. For example Mark was written to and for an group of early Christians, most likely Jews/Hebrews outside of Judea perhaps Alexandria. Matthew for another group of Christians of the Hebrew/Jewish faith within Judea which included the begats and the birth narrative and then expanded and added to Mark for his audience. Luke for a collection of Greeks in Greece who, in all likelihood, were what Hebrews known as God Fearers who were on the edged of the Hebrew faith without quite getting their feet wet, as it were and he expanded on Mark and Matthew. John for a church in, probably, Antioch who were living in a time of persecution not only from the Romans but the more numeric Hebrews at the time as the Christians were being excluded from the synagogue.
All after the Romans flattened, quite literally, Jerusalem and the Temple and were, in part, trying to explain that.
What we now know as Christianity wasn't a separate religion at the time but saw themselves as reformers of the Hebrew faith which they felt had lost its way in, among other things, kowtowing to the Romans.
By the way, John's not very flattering comments about Jews wasn't aimed at Hebrews in general but those from Judea (hence Jew) and specifically the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem at the time of the crucification. And yes, we Christians have a lot to answer for in how we've treated our co-religionists ever since then.
Nor are the Gospels in any way what we call history. That's an invention of the 18th Century.
Let's go back to the story of Cain and Abel for a moment, In what amounts to a fit of jealousy Cain murders able and God, referred to in this story as Elohim if memory serves, is questioned and admits it whereupon he's exiled after being marked by Elohim.
Now that part's important. There are two major writers in Genesis one of whom refers to God as Elohim, the other as YAHWEH (capitals intentional) as that's what was written. The other reference, name, is "I am" by the way.
At this point God is still universal rather than the family god we are presented with beginning with Abraham and returning to universality with Isaiah. Which culminates, according to Christians, in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ (Messiah). According to Islam the culmination is in the dictation of the Qur'an to Mohamed. To Jews there has, as yet, been no culmination.
So let us assume for the moment that with Abel dead the male line of all of humanity comes from Cain. That may, along with the blessing/curse of free will, explain some of the more obvious flaws in human beings.
Now, some time later, a man is ordered stoned by God (YAHWEH) in that story for violating the Sabbath.
The reality, as we are coming to understand, does not require such a horrific intervention, now and then, as those who slave away 7 days a week to satisfy their fetishized love of money have an overall tendency to live shorter, far less happy far less content lives than those who take the advice/order of taking a day of rest.
"Unless this is all part of God's great scheme."
Now you choose to make the mistake that literalists make in that every single word of the Bible in literally true by our society's definition of literal truth.
It isn't. The Old Testament is not a literal history, was never intended as a literal history or to be read and understood as such.
That, too, is idolatry, or a fetish, take your pick. As for God's "great scheme" I certainly have no idea what that might be except to say that it has to be far better than what we human's have managed to date.
Also, God is not a cosmic babysitter. We are each responsible for our own actions.
And Khorne is quite appropriate for this channel. :-)
I have a programmable pacemaker stuck in my chest that repeated shots of x-rays will (a) wipe out the programming and (b) eventually destroy the chips.
OK, so, if I want to cross the border from Canada into the United States, which I regularly do, I expect to subjected to x-rays and have been for years.
By land I don't get to say "please hand scan me" as I do at an air or sea port so I just grin and bear it. By land that's not really an option.
Still, I know the power of the scan, thanks to the US Consulate, and it's a low risk.
Then again, private security agencies, individuals, employers and others get their hands on this I find myself getting increasingly worried.
And, has been noted, what can be used for legitimate security concerns at border points, can also be used by baddies for other things as has been noted.
And, remember, that the scan strength can be increased at will by whoever controls the device.
As for your people in the back of a hot truck in the Arizona desert what in heaven makes you think that truck has actually cross a border point port of entry?
Nice try but privacy is a right not a privilege.
As is the right to unreasonable search and seizure. Part of the United States Constitution, part of Canada's, in precedence part of the UK's .... need I go on?
It's not even that it's the state that may be doing this it's that private interests, be is a corporation or an individual who can get this equipment as well.
As for your notions of physical fitness and that we ought to all allow backscatter scans to show how fit and "beautiful" we are just because you're an exhibitionist doesn't mean we all are.
As for your "everyone" else statement the overflowing jails will be overflowing unless you want to build walls and watchtowers around a medium sized city in some part of the United States you don't like much.
Of course, it could be you and it could be your city. Then again, you've never ever so much as even had a fantasy about doing anything illegal or dodgey have you?
Re: It's all about money, is what strikes me as the sum of above.
Sorry but you're wrong.
Musicians and performers work extremely hard for their money. And all have been needed throughout human history.
And most never do "make it" and end up in a mansion on a hill. Chad Kroger wrote a song about that but as he and his band aren't taken seriously no one would notice. :-)
"Do you know that most songwriters own their own songs and publishing?"
I call bulls**t on that one.
Please, then, explain to me, the relationship between Northern Songs and The Beatles for one. Or how that entire catalog ended up in the hands of Micheal Jackson.
In some cases the songwriters do but in the majority they don't unless, of course, they self publish.
Of course, you're the music industry expert here, not me, but I'd be tempted to say the closest you ever got to that was scalping tickets outside an event and probably not that well at that.
On the post: For All The Cyberwar Talk, Turns Out There Have Been Fewer Attacks On The Pentagon's Network
You gotta admit, though, that "cyber-terrorism" has a nice ring to it. It gets the attention of media and legislators who will go on and on about it while quoting the "experts" that thought the whole thing up.
But what can they do when the data says the Pentagon is getting attacked fewer times now than before?
Take credit for it!
Then tell legislators and the media that they need more cash to keep the trend line going down. Never mind that they've done all of nothing.
On the post: New Cable Talking Point Against Cord Cutters: They May Be Cutting, But They're Poor Nobodies
I'm over 50 so I fit the insult, I'm not poor but there comes a time when even the least intelligent realize they're paying a lot for what they aren't getting with cable. Also, I'm far from a technophobe so I don't fit there.
Gee, I must be an outlier. If so I'm proud of it.
On the post: Archive Of Geocities Released As A 1TB Torrent
Surely to heaven archival activities are fair use aren't they? They ought to be.
On the post: India Concerned How ACTA Changes Previous Trade Agreements
Back to The Future ((c) and so what!)
At least partly to lower the cost of troops and policing because the above companies took that on themselves.
Didn't work very well in North America but the investors in the East India Company made out like bandits!
On the post: How The Defense Department And NSA Is Hyping Cyberwar To Better Spy On You
Re: Re:
The Great Firewall of China is about as secure as the pay walls around News Corp properties.
Still, as you point out there's a LOT of money to be made chasing your own tail, it seems.
Interesting, isn't it, that the British Government wants to drydock virtually all of the Royal Navy, park and store most RAF jets and still, somehow, support what few troops three are in Afganistan but are going to spend a small country's GDP and cyber warefare.
And still the US NSA dreams of setting up a "secure" domain in cyberspace. Lemme know when they get that done or better yet let me know when you see pigs flying south for the winter of when the Cubs win the World Series.
:-)
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
Re:
As in "Thou shalt profit to my expectations or I shall see thee in court with the Lord at my side"
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
Re: There are different Biblical Authors
In part it was the "do unto others" reading that led Wilberforce to that conclusion who found it impossible to reconcile the condition of slaves in the English colonies of the day with that phrase.
It was also the recognition as the movement was picked up by the English and Americans in the North East of the United States that with the industrial revolution and attendant automation that agricultural slavery no longer made economic sense.
A point of view hotly contested by those in the cotton business the the South and the sugar and other businesses of the Caribbean.
BTW, most of us Anglicans/Episcopalians would also reject the notion that we're Protestant in the Continental European sense. We prefer the idea that we express in liturgy and in practice the "via media". ;-)
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
Re:
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
Re: Re: There are different Biblical Authors
And, of course, you're just as wrong as those who make those claims have always been.
Oh, and don't forget those who used religion as an excuse to be incredibly crappy to other people rather than the underlying reason such as the Pope of the time seeking to strengthen his "base", as we call it now", by encouraging the First Crusade and almost immediately regretting it because he couldn't control what he'd set in motion.
I would, however, suggest that in a remarkably short period of time political and economic ideologies, products of the Enlightenment both, have cause as much if not more bloodshed and misery that religion has ever been capable of.
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy shit.
Also, Jesus needed to support himself as he wandered around and carpenters would have been in constant demand as they are now. Remember that Paul made his way in his wanderings falling back on his trade by making and mending tents.
Nor do I accept the often made argument that he was completely illiterate. As a carpenter he'd, at least, be numerate. As they do now, Jews took great pride and invested a lot in education as their faith was and is based on written documents. So I rather suspect that while he may not have been able to write Hebrew or Aramaic he could read one or both of them passably.
As for Buddhists and other faiths being familiar to the Holy Land. Keep in mind that on the trade routes of the day Jerusalem was on a choke point in the trade routes from the east to the Nile Delta and from then onto Greece and Rome. If that wasn't enough Herod the Great build a huge artificial harbour at Caesaria that he dedicated to Augustus in part penance for backing the wrong horse (Mark Anthony) in the recently concluded Roman civil war.
This alone would have exposed Jerusalem, Nazerth (right on the direct path to Caesaria) and other points in Judea to many faiths and influences. Buddhism among them as they'd have traded with Persans and the Buddhist Afgans and residents of the Indus River watershed (Pakistan) of the time.
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
Re: I have a plan for them...
Too late!
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy shit.
And you're very right in that the use of the term catholic in the Nicaean, Apostles and other accepted creeds means universal it doesn't apply to just one branch of Christianity.
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "people always try to say there are contradictions in the bible"
NOW you're getting it! And what human enterprise isn't flawed?
Paine's observation is hardly unique but it missed the point entirely. The Gospels are not history they're narrative. Three of them are called synoptic for the simple reason that they're all based on Mark plus what's known as the "Q" source.
(Don't blame me for calling it that. Some German theological came up with that and for some reason it stuck.)
As for an unreliable guide keep in mind that each of the Gospels were written for a specific audience by men who were not intending to write Scripture but to explain Jesus to that audience. For example Mark was written to and for an group of early Christians, most likely Jews/Hebrews outside of Judea perhaps Alexandria. Matthew for another group of Christians of the Hebrew/Jewish faith within Judea which included the begats and the birth narrative and then expanded and added to Mark for his audience. Luke for a collection of Greeks in Greece who, in all likelihood, were what Hebrews known as God Fearers who were on the edged of the Hebrew faith without quite getting their feet wet, as it were and he expanded on Mark and Matthew. John for a church in, probably, Antioch who were living in a time of persecution not only from the Romans but the more numeric Hebrews at the time as the Christians were being excluded from the synagogue.
All after the Romans flattened, quite literally, Jerusalem and the Temple and were, in part, trying to explain that.
What we now know as Christianity wasn't a separate religion at the time but saw themselves as reformers of the Hebrew faith which they felt had lost its way in, among other things, kowtowing to the Romans.
By the way, John's not very flattering comments about Jews wasn't aimed at Hebrews in general but those from Judea (hence Jew) and specifically the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem at the time of the crucification. And yes, we Christians have a lot to answer for in how we've treated our co-religionists ever since then.
Nor are the Gospels in any way what we call history. That's an invention of the 18th Century.
On the post: Not Very Biblical: Investor Sues Bible.com For Not Being Profitable Enough
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy shit.
Your theology sucks, do you know that?
Let's go back to the story of Cain and Abel for a moment, In what amounts to a fit of jealousy Cain murders able and God, referred to in this story as Elohim if memory serves, is questioned and admits it whereupon he's exiled after being marked by Elohim.
Now that part's important. There are two major writers in Genesis one of whom refers to God as Elohim, the other as YAHWEH (capitals intentional) as that's what was written. The other reference, name, is "I am" by the way.
At this point God is still universal rather than the family god we are presented with beginning with Abraham and returning to universality with Isaiah. Which culminates, according to Christians, in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ (Messiah). According to Islam the culmination is in the dictation of the Qur'an to Mohamed. To Jews there has, as yet, been no culmination.
So let us assume for the moment that with Abel dead the male line of all of humanity comes from Cain. That may, along with the blessing/curse of free will, explain some of the more obvious flaws in human beings.
Now, some time later, a man is ordered stoned by God (YAHWEH) in that story for violating the Sabbath.
The reality, as we are coming to understand, does not require such a horrific intervention, now and then, as those who slave away 7 days a week to satisfy their fetishized love of money have an overall tendency to live shorter, far less happy far less content lives than those who take the advice/order of taking a day of rest.
"Unless this is all part of God's great scheme."
Now you choose to make the mistake that literalists make in that every single word of the Bible in literally true by our society's definition of literal truth.
It isn't. The Old Testament is not a literal history, was never intended as a literal history or to be read and understood as such.
That, too, is idolatry, or a fetish, take your pick. As for God's "great scheme" I certainly have no idea what that might be except to say that it has to be far better than what we human's have managed to date.
Also, God is not a cosmic babysitter. We are each responsible for our own actions.
And Khorne is quite appropriate for this channel. :-)
On the post: X-Ray Scanner Vans Not Just Being Sold To Law Enforcement
Re: Re: Re: Obligatory nothing-to-hide references
What with darryl's similar idiocy above I may have over reacted.
And you're right, we do need a sarcasm tag around here!
On the post: X-Ray Scanner Vans Not Just Being Sold To Law Enforcement
Re: Whats the problem with that ?
I have a programmable pacemaker stuck in my chest that repeated shots of x-rays will (a) wipe out the programming and (b) eventually destroy the chips.
OK, so, if I want to cross the border from Canada into the United States, which I regularly do, I expect to subjected to x-rays and have been for years.
By land I don't get to say "please hand scan me" as I do at an air or sea port so I just grin and bear it. By land that's not really an option.
Still, I know the power of the scan, thanks to the US Consulate, and it's a low risk.
Then again, private security agencies, individuals, employers and others get their hands on this I find myself getting increasingly worried.
And, has been noted, what can be used for legitimate security concerns at border points, can also be used by baddies for other things as has been noted.
And, remember, that the scan strength can be increased at will by whoever controls the device.
As for your people in the back of a hot truck in the Arizona desert what in heaven makes you think that truck has actually cross a border point port of entry?
On the post: X-Ray Scanner Vans Not Just Being Sold To Law Enforcement
Re: Obligatory nothing-to-hide references
On the post: Fallacy Debunking: Successful New Business Model Examples Are The 'Exception'
Re: It's all about money, is what strikes me as the sum of above.
Musicians and performers work extremely hard for their money. And all have been needed throughout human history.
And most never do "make it" and end up in a mansion on a hill. Chad Kroger wrote a song about that but as he and his band aren't taken seriously no one would notice. :-)
On the post: Fallacy Debunking: Successful New Business Model Examples Are The 'Exception'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Do you know that most songwriters own their own songs and publishing?"
I call bulls**t on that one.
Please, then, explain to me, the relationship between Northern Songs and The Beatles for one. Or how that entire catalog ended up in the hands of Micheal Jackson.
In some cases the songwriters do but in the majority they don't unless, of course, they self publish.
Of course, you're the music industry expert here, not me, but I'd be tempted to say the closest you ever got to that was scalping tickets outside an event and probably not that well at that.
On the post: Hadopi Already Up To Sending Out 25,000 'First Strike' Notices Per Day
Re: Burden of Poof....
It isn't that by their past recent history says they're above things like that. Of course not!
(cynicism off)
(maybe)
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