On 4/14/2011 10:24, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Well, yeah, obviously. I'm sure there are remote countries that nobody has
> ever heard of where people still regularly get stonned to death.

Like, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_Saudi_Arabia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_Iran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_Pakistan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_Afghanistan

Please tell me you've heard of at least one of those countries.

Contrast with

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_Kingdom#20th_and_21st_centuries>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_States#Prosecution_for_blasphemy>

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/14/2011 10:38, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> decide between two competing products,

He asks his experts and evaluates their response.  *His* job is to evaluate 
which experts to hire.  Now, it's entirely possible he can't do his job 
either, but that's a different thing there.

> been a complex, twisted mess of poor grammer, ambiguous phrases and
> confusing sentence structure. WTF, people?

I've noticed that sort of thing, yes.

> I don't know, whenever I've watched these guys at work, whether installing
> software or just casually chatting while they go through their email, they
> always seemed very dim to me.

It's possible your company hires lots of stupid people. It's possible your 
preconceptions make you notice their stupid bits and forget their smart 
bits. But generalizing that to an entire country makes *you* sound stupid 
even when you're not. See how that works? :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/14/2011 10:22, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> First, I think this is a relatively recent phenomenon. I don't remember
>> anything beyond arguing over abortion and making fun of TV megachurch
>> preachers until maybe 20 years ago. Nobody argued over evolution or kicked
>> people out of school for saying "One Nation Under God" or whatever. Religion
>> was just a non-subject for the most part.
>
>    I don't think that's completely true. See for example:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial

Not completely true, no. But I mean this trial was a big thing even at the 
time, with the arguments coming from presidential candidates and such.

I didn't literally mean *nobody* argued over evolution. Just that it wasn't 
a part of the normal culture. I never heard of anyone filing a lawsuit over 
christmas trees on government lawns, or over saying "under god" in school 
each morning, or getting kicked out for wearing a t-shirt that says you're 
an atheist or wearing christian jewelry.  You got yelled at for writing 
swear words on the blackboard, not religious words.  None of that crap was 
part of the daily political scene 25 years ago.

You can point to a well-publicized big thing like that, but that's like 
showing one airliner crash and saying "see, since it was in all the news, 
planes must be much more dangerous than cars."

On the other hand, maybe back before 1950 or so, it *was* a bigger thing. I 
wasn't around to take note, tho.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/14/2011 10:38, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> First you laugh...
> ...and then you weep.

http://www.dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/100000/10000/8000/900/118932/118932.strip.print.gif

Today's, relevant.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Darren New escreveu:
> On 4/14/2011 10:38, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> First you laugh...
>> ...and then you weep.
> 
>
http://www.dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/100000/10000/8000/900/118932/118932.strip.print.gif

> 
> 
> Today's, relevant.

a true dickhead. lol

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 4/14/2011 10:04, Warp wrote:
> > Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
> >> Saying "shut down 80% of the power plants in your
> >> country and go back to 19th century technology" is something else.
> >
> >    How about "shut down 80% of the power plants in your country and move
> > to the 21st century already"? Producing energy by eg. burning coal is just
> > utterly stupid.

> And what would you suggest for (say) a country that wants to industrialize 
> that doesn't have the infrastructure to build nuclear reactors? A big city 
> in Kenya, say, where 50 miles away people still spin wool by hand? How are 
> you going to build a safe nuclear reactor? Or do you want to Chernobyl all 
> over again?

  And do you think burning coal is the solution?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 4/14/2011 10:16, Warp wrote:
> > fuels will last forever.

> No, but there's a whole lot more natural gas and coal left than there ever 
> was oil. :-)  It's just inconvenient to power vehicles with it.

  Did you see the lecture I posted in another thread? Even if there is
more natural gas and coal than oil, it won't last long because the
consumption rate is growing exponentially.

  The only way to make it last longer is to halt the consumption rate
growth.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Now *that* is a good question.  There are many followers of the 
> Republican party that I know of who think the religious fundamentalist 
> whackjobs are out of their minds, but they want fiscal conservatism and 
> the only way to get that (that they can see) is to vote for the religious 
> fundamentalist whackjobs because the alternative are those "pinko-commie-
> socialist liberals" in the Democratic party.

  When will the Americans realize that a two-party system does not work
very well?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 4/14/2011 11:48, Warp wrote:
>    And do you think burning coal is the solution?

A solution to global warming? No.  A solution to running out of oil? Quite 
possibly.  A solution to having a power generation technology that a poor 
uneducated population can use without fear of actually killing people on the 
other side of the world when they screw up? Sure.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I didn't literally mean *nobody* argued over evolution. Just that it wasn't 
> a part of the normal culture. I never heard of anyone filing a lawsuit over 
> christmas trees on government lawns, or over saying "under god" in school 
> each morning, or getting kicked out for wearing a t-shirt that says you're 
> an atheist or wearing christian jewelry.

  I don't understand how it can be legal to expel someone for the sole
reason of wearing a t-shirt that says you're an atheist. That *sounds*
like blatant discrimination and grounds for a juicy lawsuit (not to talk
it being unconstitutional).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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