Not sure how much should have been spent and through which one of Putin's buddies, but the result manages to be both challenging and safe for the sportspeople and entertaining for the spectators. Gays were afraid that the authorities wouldn't treat them tenderly enough, but there's been no official interest in gays at all, so these fears were baseless too.
I don't say that religion can't be useful - it can, in the way as a lie can be useful in some situations.
You have it nearly the same as Harris, but with a slight difference. According to him:
1. Lies are bad or, at best, useless 2. Religion is entirely a lie 3. If you disagree with him (particularly on his tenet #2), you are defending the Taliban, suicide bombers, and Christian crusaders
Tell me how his views are useful in some situations.
Sam Harris is justifiably scorned upon in the scientific and philosophical academic communities for giving them a bad name. To the religious community he has become irrelevant by now. In the speech linked by Jim, Harris says that Christian God tortures souls in hell, kills helpless children, doesn't answer prayers, condemns imaginary witchcraft, is a cruel psychopathic invisible monster like the Taliban, has no regard to human well-being - and does not exist. Meaning: No arguments with premises and conclusions, just colourful demonstration of his own gross misunderstanding of how religion works, both in the general sense and any religion in particular, individually, socially, historically. And all this without inherent consistency or logic, without connection to the topic of the event and without connection to what his opponent speaker had said hitherto at the event (if you care to watch the full context).
Why this preoccupation with Christianity, Jim? Do you have any interest in truth as such, or is it so much fun to laugh at your own forefathers? Does this ridicule serve to make a point?
Truth is universal, devoid of cultural idiosyncracies and phenomenal variance. Like the law of gravity that applies uniformly everywhere, even though the word "gravity" is different in every language, philosophical and metaphysical truths are omnipresent, can be found anywhere anytime with the same universal methods accessible to everyone willing to give some honest thought to the reality beyond apparent formal differences. In principle it's simple: The only thing to do is to discern between relevant and irrelevant, essential and accidental, topical and digressive.
Two videos for those who think religion isn't "falsifiable" (or whatever supposedly scientific word you have for "provable").
Can you prove a negative? The answer is of course "yes", if you use logic, i.e. rational argumentation rather than assumption and presumption.
What counts as evidence? It should be a no-brainer that empirical evidence is only a fraction of evidence, and can not serve as the basis of all knowledge. Particularly useful in this video is the explication of what the other bases or methods of knowledge are and how they work.
The outcome will be definite no. But you can already think you are independent. You only outsourced your monetary system, defence and government services to London, because it's cheaper this way. You are milking them good.
The problem persists: By degrading "well regulated Militia" into a subordinate clause in the sentence, this interpretation plays entirely into the hands of pro-gunners. When in subordinate clause, what force do the words "well regulated" have? Apparently none over "the people" and their "Arms".
I don't follow your argument. Terms like adjunct clause and subordinate clause are purely syntactic. Such clauses are disposable in the sense that you still have a grammatical sentence without them, not in the sense that they don't affect the meaning.
I was not making an argument. I was asking: What kind of legal bearing does such a syntactic clause usually have? Is there a solid line of interpreting it?
But I got the answer. Looks like the interpretation of the whole amendment should revolve around the "well regulated Militia" bit rather than anything else, but of course pro-gunners construe the second part as a holy human right, to which the wording - the wording of the second part specifically - seems to entitle them, nevermind the first part of the same amendment.
I always felt that the militia part should set stage for the interpretation, but didn't care to dig in the sources to find support or rejection, because I don't like jurisprudence in general and English common law practices in general. Thanks for linking stuff to me
It's not a syntax error, nor is it unclear: [...] "[Because] A well regulated Militia [is] necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
Now this is a clear explanation, thanks I can easily believe this may be the intended syntactic structure, as it makes sense in other Germanic languages too - even though not in legal text, imho.
The problem persists: By degrading "well regulated Militia" into a subordinate clause in the sentence, this interpretation plays entirely into the hands of pro-gunners. When in subordinate clause, what force do the words "well regulated" have? Apparently none over "the people" and their "Arms".
It's a bad sign that the wording of the American second amendment confounds me - bad sign for the constitution, not for me. I have professional experience with euro-legalese and, according to my experience, such syntax does not occur in European English legal texts. Which, imho, is of course a GOOD THING. Europe may suck otherwise for many reasons, but laws have uniform (il)legibility here, instead of haphazard selection of styles more suitable for poetry.
So the arguments go round and round, but the casual link with the phrase "being necessary to the security of a free State" is pretty clear I think (the clue is in the use of the word "being" which points it to being the objective of the whole sentence, not simply one of a list of items).
So, as per you, it would be possible to make out the whole amendment as referring to the security of the incipient state? Does it mean that now, when the state is considered secured by other means, the right of people to bear arms can be gracefully interpreted as obsolete or nearly so?
Although SF already knows my answer to the OP question, I do have to point out to him that the 2nd Amendment doesn't mean anything at all to anyone outside of the US, as their laws on guns vary widely. (Probably already knows that, but I am pointing it out regardless)
On the face of it, the biggest difference is that it's a paragraph in the constitution, which is not the case anywhere else I know of. And it's written sloppily, something that should not have been allowed in the first place.
Let's examine the text: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
This is an egregious case of syntax error. What is this thing about "well regulated Militia"? Does this set the context, in light of which the entire amendment should be read? This would actually make sense, but why not make it clear? Who are the people in the latter part? People in general or the people of the "well regulated Militia"?
If the "people" part of the amendment is to be read radically apart from the "militia" part, as pro-gunners would have it, then what would the "militia" part mean? Pro-gunners read the amendment simply as "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." But in such case, the militia part inevitably reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, [...] shall not be infringed." What does it mean to say that "Militia shall not be infringed"?
Poor wording in the amendment, but from what I have understood, it's often the case in English (and medieval German) common law tradition. Over here we have a tradition of writing laws sensibly, so it will be unnecessary to forcefully try to read meaning into the text afterwards. That's a basic difference.
The practical differences in our gun laws are not too considerable. The regulations are pretty much the same all over the world. It's just that the regulations in the rest of the world are written in a manner that makes sense.
Problem is, I've only just met/known this relative for two weeks. She said the problem was health-related, and she did prove to me that she does in fact have a serious health issue.
Not sure if I will get that $120 back as promised, or if I will have to eat the loss.
Under similar circumstances, I give what I can afford to lose without regret, and consider it lost.
Invasions East and West are irrelevant, the only thing that matters for distinguish civilization from barbarian is the South resistance against northerners.
Like, when Rome expands and conquers, this greatly benefits the world, but when Rome is attacked, this is tragic and barbaric. Right?
Didn't we have a movie about that sort of thing a few decades back?
Russian submarines have visited Sweden's coast during Cold War, in plain sight of people. Sweden has kept very low profile about it in an attempt to seem neutral. Or being total chicken.
(What every Norwegian with military connection seemed to know, but somehow the Swedes were ignorant of, was that Sweden wasn't neutral, but a de facto NATO member in war time.)
Officially Swedes deny this, but brighter ones among them know that the game of neutrality that they are playing has been a double-faced game for along while now. For example, they have their own war industry (Saab AB) that routinely bribes other countries to buy its crappy products in order to keep itself going. In this connection, South Africa has figured in the news historically and Switzerland is a current story.
This kind of sense of humour is an example of what I mean by dead serious. Here we have people saying things like: "Let's make Brussels, Moscow, and Central Africa compete to provide the most cost-effective government services for us, so we can abolish our own unnecessarily expensive and non-customer-friendly government..." Dead serious, you see.
Not to mention the military industrial complex had much to gain from overplaying the threat.
The military-industrial complex is not a separate institution from the government. It's as if a party or a club with members in all important branches of the government. Think of it as "hawks" versus "doves". Or, if you like conspiracy theories, the military industrial complex is like Freemasons with their secret agenda and backdoor handshakes, while the overwhelming majority is ignorant or negligent of where the situation is being steered, finding out about things only when it's too late.
In any scenario, there is always a group gaining, but it's not always the same group. The only group that is always gaining is the sleaziest political careerists who betray all values at any change of wind, but they betray even each other, so they are not a particularly cohesive group. They are like a heap of sand, where no particle has any regard for the heap.
During the cold war, the world was evidently bi-polar, with the United States and Soviet Union playing as power centres against each other. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world politics has been unipolar, with the United States calling all the shots, putting the military bases right next door from Russia, messing and invading at will anywhere in the world. Clinton sent rockets to some African countries and airplanes to Kosovo and Serbia. Bush invaded countries surrounding Iran. All for flimsy reasons, with unclear or obviously false aims, and with adverse outcomes. All other countries have simply watched this happening. This is a unipolar world.
I live next door from Russia, and here's a sense of Russia waiting for another chance to become a world power again, equal to EU and China, if not more. The likely outlook for the countries between Russia and the biggies of EU is that our independence will be sold at a crisis very cheaply and dishonourably without any war or struggle. The politicians here are intensely competing with each other in who has the least backbone, exactly as dictated from Brussels. For Brussels, this enables "dialogue" with Russia, but for the population here, this creates a strong sense of estrangement from and illegitimacy of the power. Any passerby can fill in the power vacuum and take over the strings of the puppets. The closest passerby is Russia.
Here in the Nordic countries, Russian invasion plans have always been taken dead seriously. Last year Russia made two fighter jet drills involving simulated attacks straight into Sweden, as if Finland and the Baltic countries were nothing.
Repeat: That's two fighter jet drills last year where the scenario involved straight attack on Sweden from a military base near St. Petersburg. At the first attack Swedes didn't react in any manner to Russian fighter jets heading towards Gotland (or Stockholm - they are roughly on the same line when viewed from St. Peterburg). Baltic countries are protected by 2 (two!) NATO fighter jets in Lithuania. Those reacted, but got their arses up only when Russian fighters had already returned to Russian airspace.
At the second Russian drill Swedes managed to react. Sweden and Finland are not NATO members. The debate on joining is ongoing.
MS Office 2010, or at least Word 2010, actually seems to run perfectly in Wine, although I prefer to run it on Windows 7. (If "prefer" is the right word.)
I strongly doubt Trados and Wordfast would run well in Wine, and cooperate with MS Office there. And I am not used to working with them anyway. I have used them at various jobs, some employers demand them, but I haven't used them routinely. Also, Trados costs insanely, and I refuse to buy it for myself. I have an MS Office 2000 disc lying around (didn't pay for it), but it's legacy now (no .docx), and I refuse to buy newer versions.
Free software should be more widespread for many reasons and I am making my small mark here professionally.
In keeping with the attitude of scientific inquiry, I see no place for the notion that the proclaimer of some truth should be the embodiment of the same truth or be generally likable to hearers.
Truth is what it is, whether you like it or not. Just like at school you learn facts from teachers, but you don't have to like the teacher - and the teacher may be ignorant of other aspects of life, even of the other aspects of the subject she is teaching -, I don't understand how people demand anything more from religious teachers.
Truth is what it is, and personalities are entirely distinct from it. If you want truth, why let the teacher or preacher become an obstacle, rather than a stepping stone?
I find LibreOffice more usable than any version of MS Office (especially if you use ODT, but also with DOC). Only its track changes functionality is inferior.
To me also OpenOffice and LibreOffice are more usable than the newer releases of MS Office, but my sister is interacting with people who generally have MS Office. When she creates her own documents, she is bound to get complaints like "What kind of file is this? It's not a .doc/.xls!" so she has to learn to save files carefully, and everybody of course hates to learn.
Besides inferior track changes, LibreOffice has not full compatibility with .doc. I have gotten complaints that certain element such as tables, headers and footers have shifted after I tampered with documents. Also, industry-leading translation programs like Trados and WordFast are specific to MS Office and not cross-platform. These are a few aspects how Linux limits my professional chances, but I survive.
I'm not sure about contests in this area, but excreting is not an unimportant matter, and culture in this area differs as widely and wildly as in the area of eating. There are eating contests, but I would never participate. For some people, dogs and rats are normal meals, but I would decline even in the pain of being considered rude. The same way, Russian (and Asian) culture of public collective group excretion are a topic, where a differing opinion has its legitimate place even when Russians may complain. No, I am not fully rejecting those toilets. I have used huge public sh*thalls where you could well conduct your contests, Krake, and I survived. But it's really just a survival issue for me, or at best an adventurous amusing little incident. I won't do it for a living or to win, not even to prove a point. It is what it is.
There is now a portable version of Microsoft Word 97, which works very well on work computers that have a newer version of Office installed. Surprisingly it still hasn't been taken down on copyright grounds.
I tried to install the Word and Excel app on my sister's Windows laptop. Norton antivirus identified the apps as viruses. So she is doomed to learn herself LibreOffice.
Shouldn't the favicon and the site logo be the same? May I suggest the logo be like the favicon, but with a round white background, so as to stand out from the rest of the site's colours? So that when you change the theme colours of the site (I understood this was going to be a user option at some point), it won't affect the logo.
I can easily believe this may be the intended syntactic structure, as it makes sense in other Germanic languages too - even though not in legal text, imho.
