561 Forum Posts by "Gario"
At 12/28/11 04:04 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
Due Process isn't a Static thing.
What?
The fifth amendment is a pretty static thing, I'm afraid.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Due process as defined by an online dictionary (if you find a better place to define it, be my guest)...
A fundamental, constitutional guarantee that all legal proceedings will be fair and that one will be given notice of the proceedings and an opportunity to be heard before the government acts to take away one's life, liberty, or property.
I think that's about as static and non-flexible as you get, and there's a reason for that. People need due process in order to prevent abuse of the law from others, which is precisely what people are worried about, in this case.
I understand the concern that if a website is given warning then it will use it's magic to change servers, domain names, etc., and continue it's piracy elsewhere, and that's a legitimate concern. However, even under the law in it's current state it will not stop this from happening - it'll just take a little more time to do so. Really, the cure is worse than the disease, and in this case it's not even a cure at all, for the sites that really need to be taken down.
I have nothing wrong with honest file sharing sites, however they don't exist because they are too expensive. I definitely understand your point. There is major value in the free exchange of ideas. However, how siters are run today is akin to a newspaper selling cocaine as its source of income. (not the best anbalogy, but not in a creative mood right now). Just because something serves a good purpose doesn't automatically indemnify it from the criminal acts it must do (or in these case, facilitate) to do that one good act. I would also say that with the explosion of Youtube, this argument you put forth become weaker and weaker. Anybody remember how a certain famous Canadain (possibly lesbian) became popular? Wasn't picked up until AFTER his youtube songs went viral.
I'm under the impression that you have no idea what I use file sharing sites for - I share files so I can collaborate with other musicians effectively from around the world. Youtube isn't very good at sharing files, only videos. You're making it sound like I'm talking about a negligible good thing - I'm talking about sharing files for business reasons, project files for collaboration purposes, pictures for personal reasons, videos (and yes, while YT has that covered it has it's limits), powerpoints for businesses, programs and code that an individual or business needs to push forward... these are not negligible good things. These are things that have revolutionized how business is done around the world, and as of yet these things do NOT have a viable alternative. Youtube is fine for videos, but there is so much more that can't be covered by this.
Pirates abuse this good thing by sharing illegal information, but there is a lot more good that comes from these things than bad. This isn't a black or white case where bad things negates all of the good. The result of removing this resource would be catastrophic, economically and socially speaking, so that should factor into what you're thinking, here.
So in the court of law that would be your defense for the rapist?
"The woman was incapacitated, so it was her own damn fault that my client sexually assaulted her"?
There was a time when these sort of accusations actually flew in court (think 60's and 70's), and that's precisely the side that people should be legitimately afraid of making a comeback. It is not a victim's fault that another man decided to unzip his zipper and stick his penis into any and/or all orifices that he could. It is entirely the rapist's fault that it happened, because drunk/drugged or not it is ultimately he who should have thought to himself 'Hey, this defiles another person's personal space, and it's wrong to do that'.
That being said, I've already stated my position that prevention should in fact be encouraged. It's not blind to believe that the rapist is completely at fault, yet at the same time understand that there is nothing we can do about the rapist and instead focus the message on women and prevention.
'Smoke detectors' is a bad example because fire is an accident that simply happens, given time and circumstance. There is intention and malice in a rapist, so no matter what a woman does there is a chance that she will be raped regardlesst. 'McDonalds' is a bad example because fatty foods directly cause obesity, and people eating it know and understand the risks (yet do so anyway). Alcohol and drugs are not the cause of rape, it is the malice and intent of a rapist that causes rape - they can lead to a situation where it's easier for the rapist to rape her, but that doesn't make them the cause of rape. These examples only serve to remove the rapist from the equation, which further the mindset that it MUST be the woman's fault that she was raped.
Our goals may be similar (prevent rape), and to be honest we're probably going to agree about the ad in question (it should remain in public), but your attitude on women is disgusting. You're not helping anybody by presenting your misogyny to everyone - if anything, all you're doing is discrediting everyone who shares the same goal as you and causing the problem to further spiral out of control (Yeah, remember the slutwalks? Your attitude is giving them legitimate reason to act as they did). Seriously, people like you would help your own cause much more if you never spoke of it again.
At 12/28/11 01:44 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
Now on Parody, NG is very safe. Parody has never been outright protected, but the fair use cases of the early 1990s (2LiveCrew) put parody in a very safe position in terms of fair use. Parody has a very large leeway in using copyrighted material in terms of parodying it. It's rare that a parody even come close to the line, so NG is well in the clear.
See, there's the problem, right there. That's precedent, not law, and that sort of thing would need to be argued in court in order to be heard, which this bill bypasses completely. Frankly, if the bill didn't bypass the court like it does I wouldn't be nearly as offended by it as I am, at the moment. The bill revokes due process by the way that it's written. You don't have the opportunity to discuss matters like precedent and fair use because due process is revoked by the way the bill's written.
In this regard, it isn't what was written in the bill but what was not included in the bill that has me worried most. Find me the clause where the prosecutor must take the owner of the website to court, or send a fair warning against the owner of the site before enacting the bill. Please, find it, because I missed it completely. If it's an honest mistake then alright, great, I'm a little less worried about it, but I couldn't find it.
Also, holy fuck you don't think file sharing sites being dismantled is a bad thing? Sure, Megaupload and the such should be taken down for their constant and blatant infringement, but I would have a VERY hard time discussing my own musical endeavors (which are LEGAL) without sites like Box and Tindeck. Most any file sharing site can be used heavily for piracy, so all of them would be taken down, yet there are so many other uses for these sites that would be utterly destroyed in the process that it scares me that some people would consider this a good thing.
At 12/25/11 04:23 PM, aviewaskewed wrote:At 12/23/11 10:40 PM, adrshepard wrote:Or we could use actual science and reality in our arguments instead of bullshit like "life begins at conception" which is a concept that has been wholly discredited.Discredited how?Scientific research
By who?People who did the research.
Don't you need a link to make statements like that? Obviously it's not common knowledge if people are still debating the same thing over and over, so it's your responsibility to provide the research that proves your position to people in this thread.
At 12/23/11 03:18 PM, Camarohusky wrote: The "and" ties 103(a) to 103(b) which qualifies any action on a site having an illegal item, upon that site that either... well now my adobe isn't working. But I remember it speaking of the same languagwe as is PIPA. This is along the lines of a site that is either solely or almost wholly dedicated to comitting or facilitating piracy, or a site that has done some other form of direct support of piracy.
So what sound like a really wide sword, 103(a) is greatly shrunk by the "and" with its conjunctive 103(b) limits.
Sec. 103. a. 1. B. ii. II.)
operates the U.S.-directed site with the object of promoting, or has promoted, its use to carry out acts that constitute a violation of section 501 or 1201 of title 17, United States Code, as shown by clear ex-pression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement.
... which still qualifies Newgrounds (and OCRemix.org, another site that I frequent) as a target, if someone wants to push for it. Newgrounds promotes parody, which could easily target it for site shutdown if someone pushed for it.
Even if it ultimately didn't allow the site as a target (which I believe it does), the court can still issue it's duty to shut down all access to the site if someone came to them in good faith (i.e. 'because someone says so and the court thinks they're being honest about it' - no seriously, that's what it means, and it's in the bill) and claimed that there was copyrighted material on the site, and the site openly allowed the illegal material to remain on the site. See, even if the bill dotted all of it's i's and crossed it's t's, they still removed due process from the system, which allows for the damage to occur even if nothing illegal was done wrong, and there's nothing the site owner can do in his/her defense until the damage starts rolling in. Read through the bill again and tell me when they tell the site owner to remove the material or else action will be taken. It's not there - there is no negotiation, only action once the court hears of the infringement, which is a highly abuse-able law.
No, it wouldn't be legal for companies to use the law in this manner, but most people can't afford to fight it (I know from personal experience that this is how the legal system works, and those who play it in their favor). Legal assistance isn't cheap, and even if there was promise to compensate a victim if proven innocent (which this bill, to it's credit, provides), the victim still needs to make the down payment him/herself to start with, which more often than not the victim simply cannot do. Moreover, as I mentioned before, once a site loses it's funding for a significant period of time the domain providers will shut them down... and everything will be lost, if that is the case. No amount of money can compensate the loss of all the work on this site. It doesn't matter that someone is liable to provide assistance to rebuild the damage that was done - how on earth would anyone be able to restore 600,000 flash movies, 400,000 audio tracks and numerous art pieces that have accumulated over a period of more than a decade?
I'm neither for nor against Ron Paul, but I honestly have to ask why people are throwing around the repeal of the Patriot act like that's a bad thing?
It's an honest question, I'm not being sarcastic - I was under the impression that most people really don't like that bill, so I'm curious what the other side of the argument has to say about it.
At 12/23/11 02:26 AM, Halberd wrote: Masturbation is also genocide because you are killing sperms that COULD HAVE BEEN PEOPLE
>pro-life logic
Setting fire to straw-men is also annoying because you are killing arguments that COULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
>pro-troll logic
Since this is basically the Camarohusky vs anti-SOPA people thread ('cause everyone else migrated to Tom's thread on it), I'm going to post my response to his challenge on here rather than the official thread.
I looked and looked through the link you provided for the SOPA act, Camarohusky, and couldn't find anything about portions of a site getting a site knocked off the internet. That's because you never provided a link to SOPA, but to PIPA - a less threatening (but still no good) bill on piracy where your arguments might have some validity. This is the SOPA bill, and allow me to direct you to the portions that are causing people to shit their pants.
Sec. 103. a. 1. DEDICATED TO THEFT OF U.S. PROPERTY.-An ''Internet site is dedicated to theft of U.S. property'' if- (A) it is an Internet site, or a portion thereof, that is a U.S.-directed site and is used by users within the United States;
If there is a portion of the site that has illegal material on it, it is enough to warrant the effects of the bill. That is where people are getting the 'If someone posts an illegal link on the site, it'll get shut down' bit. Or, more accurately, if there is a link on the site then it'll enact the law... which pretty close to amounts to the same thing.
Throughout the bill, advertisers, domain providers, search engines and most other forms of suport for a site must withdraw their support within five days from the entire site (you can't withdraw support for a single page), as detailed in Sec. 102. c. 2.. If these providers do not comply then they will suffer an injunctive relief from the Attorney General (meaning the Attorney General will pressure them legally to act in accordance to the bill), as is stated in Sec. 102. c. 4..
I would like to ask you, Camarohusky, where in the bill I linked to, it gives due process to the owners of a site by allowing them a fair trial, or where it tells the site to attempt to deal with the site owner first before presenting it t the attorney general. If it exists, I haven't found it - all notification is to be provided only after the fact - which means it bypasses the site owners entirely and enacts the bill without their prior knowledge. From what I read, even if all that's available to show an infringement is a statement made in good faith (forgot the precise section), the attorney general will act on the claim. That's action taken without allowing the victims enough time to respond to a claim before a site shutdown (it's a five day MAXIMUM, so action will be taken before then).
The damages are irreparable. If, say, Newgrounds was forced out of it's funding due to a single infringement somewhere that slipped under the radar and the internet providers don't allow others to visit the site and advertisers are forced to remove their support, guess what? Tom won't be able to pay for the site, and will be forced to stop paying the domain provider for their space, and everything will be gone. Sure, if a claim is shown to be false then the person who made the claim will be responsible to pay for the damages and whatnot, but what was lost wasn't something that could be payed for - it was the content, and it doesn't come back.
This is all assuming the best case scenario with Tom being able to afford the legal fees involved in presenting this case to the attorney general, which more likely than not he won't be able to. In which case, even if the claim wasn't true, the site is lost forever. This is also assuming after all the advertisers, service providers and search engines have gone through the legal trouble with the site they are even willing to provide their services again. Once bitten, twice shy, after all, and in that case the site will still be lost, even if he convinces the court that there was no infringement.
These are conclusions that are being drawn strictly from the wording of the bill. I would like you to actually read the correct bill this time and tell me where I'm going wrong, because I seriously hope I'm reading this horribly wrong.
Seriously, Tom posted about it even. Discuss it there.
Also, yes, Newgrounds will be affected by SOPA. Shut down or not, this bill will have a very large negative impact across the internet. PIPA as well, if that manages to pass.
What good is your internet when 90% of the sites you visit are not there? International NGers, you should be shitting your freakin' pants right now due to the fact that not only will it affect you equally as much as most anyone else, you have absolutely no voice in whether it passes or not. One of the more frustrating things about this is how it's an internationally significant piece of legislation being controlled solely by the USA.
NATO should be diving down our fucking throats for this, but NATO is... well, NATO. Not really the type to do much of anything.
At 12/20/11 09:25 PM, AngryBombshell wrote: I've read a few paragraphs of this 'censorship policy' and none of it seemed too terrible. Very little of content on Newgrounds is copyrighted anyway - so it really won't make any difference, like with most sites. If a website wasn't in the wrong in the first place, then they're safe; no worries.
'Very little content' is still content. Either you're chosing a horrible time to troll (if this is the case, just stop), or you're really unaware of the issue - 'very little content' would give people & corporations the right to shut a website down while bypassing due process.
IP counts as content. Not only sprite movies, but anything Mario related, for example, could easily be argued to be stolen intellectual property. Is it technically breaking the law? No, but when you bypass due process the law doesn't come into play.
That's the whole problem.
At 12/20/11 03:31 AM, LogicalDefiance wrote: I want to look into serialism more this coming year. More specifically the 12 tone method.
Any suggestions on good articles or books on the subject?
In all honesty, I can't imagine that being something that a textbook would easily mess up - it's so mathematical in it's presentation that it leaves little room for interpretation (and thus little room for error). If you're just starting take a good look at some reviews for some textbooks, then buy what best fits your needs.
If you're looking to advance serialism as someone who is already familiar with the subject, try checking out Milton Babbit's 'Twelve Tone Invariants as Compositional Determinants'. It's a little tough to read, but it's basically where twelve tone music got it's start, in the theory world.
If you can get a hold of Robert Morris' "Composition with Pitch-Classes: A Theory of Compositional Design", it's a truly amazing piece of work that deals in great detail on twelve tone systems, serial treatment of non-pitched elements, multiplicity... and a shitload of other things. It assumes that you're comfortable with basic discrete mathematics (as do most more advanced atonal/serial theory articles and books I'm presenting), so be prepared for the heavy mathematical language. Unfortunately it's a bit tricky to get a hold of, nowadays - it's been out of print for a while. Best bet is to find that one in a college library or something, but it's still worth mentioning because it's really worth looking for, if you're serious.
David Lewin's "Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception" is also considered one of the great atonal studies, and unlike the other book mentioned I believe this one has returned to print... but I'm not 100% sure if it addresses serial music like the other book, since I haven't read it myself. I need to get a hold of that one...
Morris has another book series, 'Advanced Class Notes for Atonal Theory', that I'd love to buy myself sometime soon (it's available for 35$) that has a chapter dedicated to 12-tone music (you can actually read the overview of it here) that might be the best of both worlds - availability and detail showing that it discuses the 12-tone method in detail. I'd certainly check that one out.
These are not places to start learning about serialism and atonal theory, so if you're shaky on the basics I insist you get your hands on an introductory level book, as well. Also, be prepared for a bit of interesting math. I hope this helps you out a bit.
At 12/19/11 08:32 PM, Thecrazyman wrote: The only thing I know for certain is that Obama can't be re-elected, he's only meant for one term and one term only, some democrats need to come to realize that re-electing Obama will only do the American people even more harm then good, even Steave Jobs (CEO of Apple) said so himself.
That said, some Presidents are only meant for one term while others are re-elected for another, as I said once and I'll say again, Obama is one of those Presidents only meant for one term.
What you said makes no sense at all. Steave Jobs is not a person, the CEO of Apple has very little say in how the government is run, and what you posted has never been true about our country or it's presidential election policies. Please try again.
The whole concept of blaming the victim for rape is wrong. However, discussing possible methods of prevention is the only thing that anyone can do to try to protect the victims from potential attacks is not blaming the victim. I'm not against ads that try to make the opposite sex aware of behavior that could attract unwanted attention. It's the same as asking someone to lock their door at night - it's not the victim's fault if they get robbed (there is another with malicious intent involved who should take full responsibility), but it's prudent to lock their doors to help prevent such a thing from happening, if at all possible.
It's not 'blaming the victim', it's doing what you can to lower the occurrence of rape in any way possible. What other advice could be offered to help lower the chances of rape - tell the rapist that what they're doing is wrong and that they should stop? Well, no shit that's true, but a rapist isn't going to heed that advice, so that's pointless. If avoiding getting hammered at a party helps keep a woman from date rape (since targets of this act are generally incapacitated, it would prevent this type of rape), then why not inform them?
At 12/14/11 12:32 AM, Bolo wrote:
Rick Perry claims to speak for all Christians, and certainly anybody who agrees with him on the essential point of his ad is in favor of the creation of a theocracy. That is the only point I am trying to make.
Likes to dislikes ratio on the vid - 1:31, as of today.
For some reason, I seriously doubt he's representing all Christians, or for that matter very many Christians at all (though that ratio is still too high in his favor, to my tastes).
If I claimed to represent all atheists and set them all up to look like nihilistic, ethically deprived murderers I'm sure plenty of people would (rightly) say that I'm not a very good representative of atheists. I think it's safe to say, looking at his flailing numbers, that he's not a very good representative of all Christians in this country, either (at best, with the YT like/dislike numbers anyway, he's only representing less than 5% of them). Actually, going back and reading what you were responding to, why did you bring him up in the first place? Was it to somehow justify the fear that Christians all want to force their beliefs upon everyone? Proof by example is a foolish way to go about showing this.
At 12/13/11 06:28 PM, Bolo wrote:
I would disagree, given the stance of men like Rick Perry, who based on public statements they have made, are actively working towards the creation of a theocracy in the United States.
Rick Perry is a moron who disgraces the United States image with his platform for candidacy. It doesn't mean that everyone who says 'Merry Christmas' or would like to celebrate the holiday publically is trying to start a theocracy - you're creating a slippery slope.
At 12/8/11 08:36 PM, Camarohusky wrote: It's not that people are offended just because others celebrate Christmas. It comes down to two things. When the government celebrates Christmas it comes very close to supporting the religion upon which Christmas is based.
That Ancient Roman holiday that was about debauchery and awesomeness? That's where it comes from, after all.
That aside, while it's roots are Christian, the holiday has found itself on relatively neutral grounds as of late - it's more about the 'spirit of giving' and general goodwill rather than the birth of Christ, for people that aren't Christians (and hell, for most that are, too). It has a Christian foundation (er, actually Roman, but you know what I mean), but most of the time the Christian association is avoided.
When private companies celebrate Christmas people begin to feel left out. Businesses have learned that this is not a feeling that induces shopping. It may also open up religious discrimination suits in the form of "I was intentionally removed from benefit because I was not Christian."
If that's true then I completely understand if companies... wait a minute, isn't most of the country Christian? I don't want people to be left out, but wouldn't it be smarter for their bottom line if they directed their shops toward the majority?
In fact, I think most shops do openly acknowledge Christmas, at this time, so I'm a bit confused. I'd like to see some links supporting what you're saying, because it doesn't make business sense, to me.
It was never about the idiot who got himself nailed to a cross.
Funny how one can virtually agree with everything that another says (as I do with you), then throw in a random insult to try to throw up barriers for the sole sake of throwing up barriers. Y'know you could get more support from both sides if you keep idiocies like that to yourself, especially when they're not true (Christmas was taken over by Christians, so at least at that point in time it was about Jesus, even if you didn't want it to be).
I still love you though.
----------
Eh, I'm fine with people saying 'Happy Holidays'. I'm fine with people saying 'Merry Christmas'. I'm not fine with people that get their pantyhose in a twist when someone says 'Merry Christmas', accusing them of religious discrimination. I'm not fine with Christians that get angry at others for NOT saying 'Merry Christmas' because they think everyone should call it the same thing. Give people the space to say whatever they want about whatever holiday they think it is. There are idiots on both sides of the religious fence that don't understand this, which is a shame.
Dl'ing now.
I'm not complaining 'cause I like free good music, but isn't this another advertisement thread?
Looking through the thread, there seems to be one fairly large issue that isn't addressed in here yet that affects the Audio portal quite a bit. In the current system, all of the voter's weight is placed into how many Flash movies they've reviewed, and there is no affect of how many Audio tracks have been reviewed/voted for. This is a major factor in who has the power to vote and incentives to vote for Audio submissions (rather than just listen to them). I've been tempted simply to avoid voting and reviewing in the Audio portal because in the eyes of the system these votes don't count towards seniority. It hurts to make a well thought out vote and review of a track and have it count for 1.50, while somebody who reviews Flash movies in general listens to something and has a vote worth 9.50, even if they don't vote for audio at all normally. I have nothing against voting for flash movies (seriously, I'd be out of place on Newgrounds if I did), but I hope you understand that it makes as much sense to solely give audio voting power to flash reviewers as it does to have a mathematicians grade English papers. If you want more audio people to vote for more audio submissions, have it add weight to their voting power.
I'm not at all for a 100% review system of voting. In that system it discourages both zero bombers AND regular voters from voting for the track It only aggravates the bigger problem further. A pure 'likes' system might not be too bad, though. I would also propose something that follows the most downloaded tracks in a day/week/month, instead - those numbers are tricky to twist. Heck, if this isn't in the works already perhaps there should be multiple methods of organizing searches (rather than Alphebetical, Date and Vote)? Things like Downloads, Views, etc., could help give artists some more recognition by detouring from the vote's method of finding music on here.
I'm looking forward to an overhaul to the system, here. The Audio Portal does need something to curb the current issues and/or effects of few voters and zero bombers, if it's at all possible.
At 12/5/11 08:25 PM, samulis wrote:At 12/5/11 02:56 PM, SineRider wrote: or you could call it VIImin7b5 ;)... I like the zero with the line through it, thankee very much... it looks less like Greek and more like music.
and no, you would simply be wrong to use the slashy zero for Vitaminb5. Simply wrong.
At 12/5/11 02:56 PM, SineRider wrote: or you could call it VIImin7b5 ;)
Touche. I will be calling it Vitaminb5 from now on. :P
At 12/4/11 05:55 PM, samulis wrote:At 12/4/11 05:48 PM, SBB wrote: isn't the seventh degree like viiø or somethingvii with a degree sign (or superscript o) because it is diminished, methinks... but I can use neither superscripts nor do I have a degree sign on my keyboard. XD
Most of the time viio works well enough - people generally aren't so detail oriented as to where they get upset that it's not a superscript, so it should work alright. viiø is actually half-diminished, and may only be applied to 7th chords (like viiø7), as to differentiate from a fully diminished 7th (viio7).
At 12/4/11 07:37 AM, Chris-V2 wrote:At 12/4/11 04:33 AM, Gario wrote: I say screw harmonies - harmonic progressions (at least the ones that work nicely) are all overused and boring nowadays. Let's stick to counterpoint, instead.> Implying that counterpoint generaly doesn't spell out some form of harmonic progression.
It doesn't have to, actually.
I say screw harmonies - harmonic progressions (at least the ones that work nicely) are all overused and boring nowadays. Let's stick to counterpoint, instead.
At 12/4/11 12:49 AM, Sense-Offender wrote: Well, I think some people argued that the big deal was the fact he got it on in the Oval Office, but I really doubt he was the first president to do that. I dunno.
I think it had more to do with the fact that he swore under oath to the entire country that he didn't have an affair with the woman. Bald-face lying to your nation and getting caught for it is pretty hard to sweep under the rug.
As for Herman Cain, I thought he was going to try to be the very best. He seemed to understand that life can be a challenge, life can seem impossible and that it's never easy when there's so much on the line.
I guess I thought wrong on that front.
At 12/3/11 04:31 PM, morefngdbs wrote:At 12/3/11 01:31 PM, Gario wrote: To everyone saying that the numbers are 'fixed', those numbers are always set in that manner (even according to the article posted).;;;
Actually unless "always" means since 1994... only then would you be correct !
I actually meant basically a few years before Obama to now, so yes, I'm correct - sorry that I didn't make that clear, I was hoping that would be intuitive. Most of what happened before then couldn't really be applicable to whether or not these new numbers objectively show an improvement in the economy while Obama was in office.
So... yeah, back to what I was saying, it's a bit misleading to compare two different sets of numbers and treat it as an equal comparison; it's a form of moving the goalpost. Sheesh, if you look at the written unemployment and then compare it to the actual unemployment a few years later, of course it's going to be higher, even if the economy was improving considerably in those years, since you're comparing two different graphs.
If you want to continue about how shitty our economy is, I agree it still isn't anywhere near a healthy level yet; hell, I'd even agree that we're still in a recession/depression here that's as bad if not worse than the 30's (because we do not have the same options for relief that we did in the past). I was simply pointing out that bringing in facts from different graphs skews the 'The economy isn't getting any better, even though the visible unemployment rate has dropped below 9% for the first time in years' argument in a bit of a tricky way.
At 12/3/11 08:47 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:At 12/2/11 09:15 AM, Proteas wrote:Well, you'll admit that the economy being shitty isn't his fault, right? You can't have it both ways.At 12/2/11 08:36 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: Guess Obama isn't sooooo bad for the economy after all.And the cult of personality that surrounds our president wastes no time giving him the credit.
They're not mutually exclusive occurrences - it could have been someone else's fault for the poor economy and his doing that fixed the economy (or vice versa, of course).
To everyone saying that the numbers are 'fixed', those numbers are always set in that manner (even according to the article posted). Yes, actual unemployment is higher than the percentages shown, but that's always the case no matter what you're looking at, so that has little bearing on the fact that unemployment is, indeed, going down, which is good news.
At 11/19/11 04:51 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote: Sounds like a real cockhead to me.
QFE.
Yup, sounds like a moron, to me. I think people like that should realize that just because a religion came to one conclusion and non-religious people come to the same conclusion, it doesn't imply that one person 'stole' the ethics from another. It just means that the two groups have come to a consensual agreement on something - even if it's for very different reasons. It's the sort of thing that should help the two opposing groups find common ground, not create reasons to divide them even further.
At 11/17/11 01:04 AM, cjsnow1 wrote: Think this'll affect Newgrounds in any way? More specifically the AP seeing as I'm sure quite a few Hip Hop producers are sampling (me included).
Considering sampling commercial samples can get your submission taken down if they catch it (iirc), I don't think it'll affect NG audio as much as you'd think.
At 11/15/11 10:10 AM, MsRukia wrote: They were using a public building and carried out a religious practice. So there was an infringement of the separation state and church. You could call it pedantic, or pointless to act upon it. To a particular extent I honestly agree with you, it isn't severe in any way and it was something minuscule. It's an area where the constitution is foggy on, but the law was acted out and there was no exceptional treatment at least.
To this I respond...
IF the school gave the people the venue because they were Christian then I would call bullshit on that (that is definitely the state exercising power in favor of a religion), but it's more likely than not that in this capitalist society the group of people payed for it. As long as it was an open option to everyone then there's nothing wrong with the state making money off of Christians who think they need a space to stay for a night. That's capitalism.
Whether or not a schoolshould be used like that... Mmm, alright that's an arguably valid point. Personally, I think it'd be a waste if it was going unused when the state could've been making money selling the space as a venue (and if the people have the money it shouldn't matter who they are). Again, if there were special favors involved then I'd be calling bullshit along with you, but I have no reason to believe that this is the case.
