Several young Jewish kids were attacked by ten angry poorly educated Christians (yes, their religion is relevant as is their lack of education; you’ll see why) on the subway the other day. The Jewish kids were returning from a Chanukah celebration and were carrying a menorah. The Christian guys (one of whom has a Myspace page depicting him holding a gun to his girlfriend’s head; what a riot) wished the Jewish kids a Merry Christmas. Apparently they thought they were being sarcastic and were under the impression the Jewish kids would feel duly insulted. Instead the Jewish kids wished them a happy Chanukah right back. The Christians took offense, angrily declaring that the Jews had killed their Savior (see, that’s where the religion is relevant) on Chanukah (that’s where the lack of education is relevant) and that the Jewish kids were going to go straight to hëll. Apparently endeavoring to give them a preview, one of them spat on one of the Jewish kids. The Jewish kid calmly declared intent to, like Jesus, turn the other cheek. Whereupon the Christian guys attacked.
And who stepped in to intervene? A Muslim guy, who got two black eyes for his trouble.
Fortunately police were present at the next stop to arrest the attackers, one of whom was already slated to begin a six month jail stay in January for beating up a black guy in 2005.
No word from the MTA as to where hate crimes and assaults rank in desireability in comparison to pole dancers.
PAD
• 
w*w.inform.com/related_content/1312094,1
(replace the * with another w)
w*w.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2007/12/07/2007-12-07_dad_sorry_for_a_train_teens_actions-1.html
is even better–has the video as well. Punks, from the looks of it. I pity the poor father who recognized his kid as one of the beaters.
Thanks for the link.
Well, so much for my giving them the benefit of the doubt. Sheesh.
“Well, first of all, the correct quote is ‘Hëll is paved with good intentions.’ Not ‘the road to hëll.’ That’s a popular misquote.” says Peter David
If I had wished to point to a quotation, against which some standard of correctness might apply, I would have done so. Instead, I referred to the adage, as it happens to exist in popular usage — a fact to which various dictionaries of the language attest. Hence, your remark is somewhat off-base.
You are right to cling to the idea, from criminal law, that we aim to punish a man for his acts, and not for his thoughts, per se.
However, while the target of the law is an act, the aim of the law is always the thought that a man has.
We wish, so I claim, that every man would eschew all thinking that willingly, or contemptuously, brings violence “wrongfully” upon the person or the property of others.
That is, the end toward which we legislate, as a society, is the universal avoidance of such “wrong” thinking. This latter end, though, is not at all necessarily the same as a society that wishes to impose universal “right” thinking.
Between these two places for thinking to stand, there might stretch one of Cardozo’s bridges. Between these lies a chasm, which may have — at some points — some slopes that are steep, some slopes that are slippery.
Unless we, as a society build it and maintain it, no bridge will cross this chasm. We thus ever and always risk the slippery slopes, when we legislate. That was one of my points. We wish to define the law, objectively, as to acts demonstratively bringing “provable” harm to others. However, our legislative aim remains the thoughts of the people, collectively — which is the thinking that we as people do, as possible legislators or putative criminals.
Hence, I raised both of my moral points — against the death penalty and against torture. I claimed that neither of these practices was compatible with fundamental Christian principles, nor with belief in the justice of a world to come.
There is an easy, objective test to this claim. Where it is written, in the NT, “thou shalt punish, eye for an eye, …, showing neither mercy nor any grace?” Or, where is it written that “thou shalt torture suspects, when thou dost think they know something important to thine own well being”… In fact, the NT Scriptures seem to point our thinking in a rather different direction: not toward a defense of self, but toward the extreme, of exposure of one’s own vulnerability, against the possible aggressions of others. “If a man asks you for your coat, give him your shirt as well.”
The point, here, would be that a Christian society would not aim its laws as negatively, towards punishment, but would focus positively, towards the dual good ends of rehabilitation of the offender and restoration of the injured, at the worst. (*As a society thinks, in its heart, in writing its legislation, so it is.*)
Yes, our aim, as a society, is always and ever must be the reformation of man — of his ways of thinking that lead him to wrong-doing, especially to be doing-wrong, or even doing-nothing when he could be doing-good.
(And, perhaps, I should disclose that I am not a Christian, but a Jew — but I nonethless find no significant difference arises when, instead, I refer to what a Jewish society would do, if it were truly following the laws of Moses.)
On a completely unrelated note, I spotted the following article today and thought I’d share since I don’t think glow-in-the-dark cats are an every day news story…
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/science/sns-ap-skorea-glowing-cats,0,77499.story?coll=ny_home_rail_headlines
Have you noticed that whenever scientists want to demonstrate some funky new advance in genetic engineering they usually do it by making things glow in the dark?
http://www.rv-orchidworks.com/orchidtalk/breeding-hybridization/3452-glow-dark-orchids.html
(glow in the dark orchids)
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/fishnews/a/glofish.htm
(glow in the dark fish)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4605202.stm
(Glow in the dark pigs)
http://oddanimals.com/unusualanimals/glowinthedarkrabbit.html
(glow in the dark rabbits)
So when’s the first GITD human?
Have you noticed that whenever scientists want to demonstrate some funky new advance in genetic engineering they usually do it by making things glow in the dark?
w*w.rv-orchidworks.com/orchidtalk/breeding-hybridization/3452-glow-dark-orchids.html
(glow in the dark orchids)
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/fishnews/a/glofish.htm
(glow in the dark fish)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4605202.stm
(Glow in the dark pigs)
http://oddanimals.com/unusualanimals/glowinthedarkrabbit.html
(glow in the dark rabbits)
So when’s the first GITD human?
Yipes… Did I strike everyone speechless?
Yes.
Yeah, an ignore feature would be great–I’ll pledge an extra $25 above and beyond the $10 I’m sending anyway for that feature, as long as I could turn it on and off at whim for those times when I want a moment of stupidity.
I have an ignore feature: It’s called my brain. When I see Mike’s name at the top of a posting, I tend to skip right over it. Best of all…it’s free!
Instead, I referred to the adage, as it happens to exist in popular usage — a fact to which various dictionaries of the language attest. Hence, your remark is somewhat off-base.
It’s not an adage; it’s a mangling of a quote typically attributed to Samuel Johnson. A wrong quote is a wrong quote is a wrong quote. Popular usage doesn’t make it right.
You are right to cling to the idea, from criminal law, that we aim to punish a man for his acts, and not for his thoughts, per se. However, while the target of the law is an act, the aim of the law is always the thought that a man has.
Only to the degree that it establishes whether he committed the crime, and whether he understood it, as has been made abundantly clear by others in this thread.
However, our legislative aim remains the thoughts of the people, collectively — which is the thinking that we as people do, as possible legislators or putative criminals.
I would agree with you if you were right. The legislative actions should and typically do involve the actions that people take, not what they were thinking about at the time.
Hence, I raised both of my moral points — against the death penalty and against torture. I claimed that neither of these practices was compatible with fundamental Christian principles, nor with belief in the justice of a world to come.
Except it’s irrelevant. The problem with the death penalty is that runs up against the legal prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment…not to mention that it’s applied unfairly. The problem with torture is that it runs afoul of the Geneva Convention.
All of which doesn’t detract from the notion that trying to legislate a person’s thoughts remains a bad idea.
PAD
Speaking of misquotes, there’s one that drives me crazy. One thing that I’ve found important in my work is consistent feedback. If the people using my product don’t get consistent feedback on whether they’re doing something right or not, it’s logical that people will have trouble figuring out what to do.
But more than once, someone I work with has heard me talk about consistency and said, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
At first this annoyed me because it’s a stupid saying. There’s no justification for it, it just sounds clever so they repeat it without giving any explanation for *why* consistency is bad. Then I looked it up. The actual quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
*That* makes sense. I still think it is a little redundant since anything foolish is likely to be a bad thing, but at least it makes sense. The message is that consistency is good, but not so good that you should apply it without considering anything else. Yet people have mangled the quote so much that they’re foolishly touting the value of *inconsistency*.
christine–tried to send a few other glow in the dark animal references but the filter wouldn’t allow it. google glow in the dark animals–they’ve done pigs, rabbits, fish, orchids…I feel left out.
I have an ignore feature: It’s called my brain. When I see Mike’s name at the top of a posting, I tend to skip right over it. Best of all…it’s free!
I know, I know…there’s always that chance he’ll smack his head and say “Cripes! I’ve been a putz!” and use his intellect for something more productive. Teachers have to be optimists.
I know, I know…there’s always that chance he’ll smack his head and say “Cripes! I’ve been a putz!” and use his intellect for something more productive.
I really don’t think there is any chance of that. Sorry.
PAD
I agree with PAD. I’m feeling pretty bad about trying to talk to him on the Dark Tower thread. If I had left things alone the thread might not have been derailed.
Quoted from Jason M. Byrant: “But more than once, someone I work with has heard me talk about consistency and said, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
At first this annoyed me because it’s a stupid saying. There’s no justification for it, it just sounds clever so they repeat it without giving any explanation for *why* consistency is bad”
Not to mention the irony involved when anyone uses the expression more than once.
You know what the only thing about these mass murderers and spree killers that impresses me is? They kill themselves when they are about to be caught. They honestly do the country a great service by not letting us waste out time, energy, and money going through trials just to prove that they are insane idiots.
Another adage—
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day”
Wrong. By definition, a clock is a timekeeping device. If it is broken, it is not keeping time, ergo, it is no longer a clock. In can be, if ornately designed, a work of art, but mostly it is now an expensive doorstop.
I’ve heard reports of glow-in-the-dark animals near the Love Canal.
You know what the only thing about these mass murderers and spree killers that impresses me is? They kill themselves when they are about to be caught. They honestly do the country a great service by not letting us waste out time, energy, and money going through trials just to prove that they are insane idiots.
Yeah, except every time I read about someone like that, I always think, Couldn’t he have just killed himself FIRST and spared everyone else from his insanity?
PAD
I wasn’t talking to you, Bill.
By the standards of debating as it’s known in western civilization, if you don’t demonstrate how your holding others to standards you refuse to be held to doesn’t qualify as hypocrisy, my assessment of you stands.
As hypocrisy is a moral deficiency, and being a jack-ášš is not, I don’t know how it doesn’t suck to be you, not having a soul and all.
I remember a recent NPR interview with a jazz musician with tourettes (not the guy in Sacks’s Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat). He said in jazz it didn’t matter if you had tourettes or were a junkie or whatever, as long as you were able show up and play jazz.
Well, where I work, it doesn’t matter what navel-gazing I do, as long as I complete my work. You are the only hypocrite I know. If you were to disappear from my radar, I’d have to find a new hypocrite to interact with. I’m going to take a guess and say having hypocrites not be able to stand me is a good problem, if it can be said to a problem at all.
I keep wondering why anyone feels the need to challenge anything I say, and no one ever provides a reason. Asserting narcissism with no evidence of narcissism = neediness.
Mike Leung, ladies and gentlemen. Dance, little troll.
Yeah, except every time I read about someone like that, I always think, Couldn’t he have just killed himself FIRST and spared everyone else from his insanity?
You have to wonder at the mindset. Obviously they don’t believe in heaven or hëll…’cause, you know, it’s no mystery where they’d be going. They intend to die so it isn’t like they are going to benefit from any notoriety, they aren’t going to be the next Charlie Manson. Doing it just to take out a few people when you check out is about as evil as it comes.
If I was in charge of the news I’d refer to this kind of person just as “the shooter” or something–go out of my way to NOT mention his or her name any more than is absolutely necessary. Take away any thought in the mind of the next loon that this is how to get your name in the paper. As it is now, it’s undeniable that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are names that will be remembered for far longer than they ever could have hoped for. Maybe if the next one is referred to as simply “Another Dylan Klebold wannabe” it will lose some of its allure.
But probably not–applying reason to lunatics is probably missing the point.
“You have to wonder at the mindset. Obviously they don’t believe in heaven or hëll…’cause, you know, it’s no mystery where they’d be going.”
Not necessarily, there are a lot of varieties of crazy. Some of these guys think they are divine retribution. Some believe in heaven and hëll, but they don’t understand why killing people would ever be considered a bad thing. Some know they’re going to hëll as absolute certainly, so they have nothing to lose.
Personally, I don’t think the news should give these guys significant coverage at all. They stand outside the cordoned off area, hanging on their every action for hour after hour. This makes stars out of these guys whether you know their names or not. I don’t know the name of the Columbine shooters, but I sure know what anyone is talking about when they mention Columbine.
If I was in charge of the news I’d refer to this kind of person just as “the shooter” or something–go out of my way to NOT mention his or her name any more than is absolutely necessary.
Instead, the media goes out of their way to mention everything they can about these deranged people: their names, who their parents are, their friends, where they went to school, what weapons they had, how much ammo they were packing, what music they listened to, video games they played, suicide notes, websites visited lately, whether they got laid in high school, pictures, and so on.
The media constantly gives these bášŧárdš exactly what they want – all the attention in the world.
Yeah, and they get it wrong. Remember how the Columbine shooters were picked on by jocks and carrying out a twisted revenge. Didn’t happen. These guys weren’t outcasts–though they certainly should have been–and they were targeting anything with a pulse.
I’ll go you one better, Bill. “Shooters” still sounds cool to some people. If I ran a news network, idiots like that were only referred to as “the subjects” when not actually discussing the act itself.
My reasons would be twofold here. First, despite the opinions expressed by many back in the Tech Shooter debates, the subjects’ families often share zero real responsibility for the killing sprees that take place. It’s got to be hard enough on the parents, brothers and sisters to have this happen without the family’s name and history being dragged through the press rounds 24/7. There’s no need for the press or it’s ever more tabloid news loving audience to add to their pain without need.
Second, I just don’t want to see any more of these áššhølëš get the immortality. Once they become immortals in the pop culture pantheon, they tend to evolve as time goes by. Add a couple of decades, and sick freak killers like Manson suddenly become interesting or cool and start showing up on t-shirts, flags and posters that are purchased and displayed by idiots that have no real clue what kind of monster that he is. Add several decades or more to the time gone and you get popular culture romanticizing the scum. Bonnie and Clyde were cowardly scum who were despised by the common man (since it was actually the common man that they robbed) and far from being “beautiful people” in any way shape or form. Pop culture had its way with them and turned them into tragic folk heroes and the man that brought them in into a cowardly jerk who ambushed and murdered America’s much loved duo. The Chicago Mob was, from top to bottom, filled with lowlife scum. Pop culture took the big names, made them immortals and romanticized then to the point that everyone talks about what great, gentlemanly criminals we used to have back in the day compared to nowadays. Nothings really changed, we just have poor memories and get our education from pop culture.
No one would think today that there was even a possibility that, say, twenty plus years from now we’d see kids walking around with t-shirts of the image of the Columbine twits snarling into the camera or the Tech twit holding his gun to his head or pointing it at the camera, would they. But who from the time of the Manson killings would believe that a mere two decades later high school kids would be wearing Manson t-shirts and posters?
I can’t help but think that there’ll be at least a few in schools by the time Ian hits high school. They best way, I think, to keep from adding to the t-shirts vendors future sales is to keep the šhìŧhëádš as anonymous as possible and keep the victims memory alive. If the victims and the way they died were kept alive the way the Bonnie and Clydes, Mob killers and Mansons were, immortalized by our culture the way that the killers were, there would likely be less romanticizing of the scum.
Oh, if anyone thinks Columbine t-shirts are a stretch… Someone already did put together a video game based on the incident where players get to be the twits.
Jesus Christ, is there no end to your hatred of short people? I hope your salary is worth the time you spend holding your nose in the presence of the children you’ve demonstrated you can’t stand.
Dance!
PAD: “I would agree with you if you were right.”
As a general rule of thumb, I tend to agree with people who are right. Those who are wrong just don’t seem to get it.
The problem I have with the death penalty isn’t so much for the X% of the people who are guilty of their crimes, but for those who are not. No system is perfect.
Thank you for simply dropping the pretense of reason you use to shelter your hypocrisy, and not disagreeing with me. It’s a wonder what all your craptacular denials have been about all this time. It’s much easier all around without you trying to take credit for virtues you feel free to abandon when they don’t give you what you want.
Have you ever been to a Mensa meeting? I’d like to hear what demonstrates the independence of intellect and productivity from each other more than a Mensa meeting.
With what Jung portrayed as the four personality functions, a consciousness led by the intellect seems the most divorced from a sense of urgency. Productivity seems to be a priority for intuition. There’s no 1:1 relationship between indulging in hypocrisy and accessing someone else’s intuition.
I disagree with you.
Now, keep dancing!
1. My daughter was telling me about a discussion that she had at lunch, she mentioned how excited she was about seeing the Golden Compass. A girl at her table exclaimed “You CAN’T go see that it was written by an Atheist!” My very outspoken daughter replied “that is the stupidest thing that I have ever heard! The Authors belief system does not negate the fact that he wrote an amazing story. I can’t believe that you have such an unchristian attitude!” I am so proud of her.
It seems that more and more “Christians” have forgotten that little phrase in the bible
.
JUDGE NOT LEST YE BE JUDGED
Judges must be very busy in heaven.
Diana
Well, since you’ve invited me to navel-gaze:
While I’ve been citing my pattern of living by principles as a rebuttal to the notion I am insincere, I think it might still be fair to portray our interaction as a form of game. You could easily take control of my participation here by acknowledging the hypocrisy by you I cite but you can’t deny, simply by waiving your privilege of holding others to principles you don’t hold yourself to, the means by which you take credit for virtues you don’t uphold.
You see, there was a speech by (iirc) the computer admin of the Manhattan Project when he retired from AT&T in the mid-1980s. The gist of his speech was that the engineers he was talking to should ask themselves what the most important solutions remaining unsolved in their disciplines were and, if they weren’t working on them, why. If you want to apply what he said here, we should all speak as if our participation in this forum is the most important thing going on here.
From my experience, the only virtue of hypocrisy is to shelter predatory behavior. It’s only use is in securing under false pretenses a consensus for what is really a hidden agenda. It seems to be the moral deficiency common to all things that can be said to be morally deficient. Therefore, under the principle of an ounce of prevention equaling a pound of cure, my challenging your hypocrisy is the most important thing that goes on in this forum.
And it doesn’t even seem like the privilege of hypocrisy provides all that much gratification to those who practice it, so it’s a practice of trading away a dollar of problem-solving for 5¢ of privilege.
And because you have this control over our interaction, I have no guilt over the offense anyone takes from my posts, because hypocrisy is no one’s right. And because I can count on your vanity from preventing you from exercising this control, I can count on you being available for my studies on the single most important obstacle to problem-solving anyone can speak of. And if I’m wrong, and you see the light and take control of our interaction, it will demonstrate a level of competence on my part you’ve portrayed me as incapable of demonstrating — so I’m free to speak with all sincerity and not deny myself anything.
Sorry, your inability to make sense keeps me from taking the time it would require to actually decipher your nonsense.
What can be discerned is more of the oh so needy narcissism that has become so predictable that you’ve become not just a troll–you’re a wind up troll.
Think about it.
the notion I am insincere
Actually, most people think you are, as you were described by someone on another internet group you leeched onto, “Nutty Mike Leung”. I think you are sincere, in your own way. That’s…unfortunate. You could easily stop lying. Fixing crazy takes effort.
You could easily take control of my participation here by acknowledging the hypocrisy by you I cite but you can’t deny,
Oh, so I can win by agreeing with you? Wow, all that time wasted reading Jung and you’re trying to use playground psychology. Holy smokes.
If you want to apply what he said here, we should all speak as if our participation in this forum is the most important thing going on here.
Sorry. You are not that interesting to me.
Therefore, under the principle of an ounce of prevention equaling a pound of cure, my challenging your hypocrisy is the most important thing that goes on in this forum.
But apparently the opposite isn’t the case. Well, it’s kind of flattering to be the focus of someone’s interest. Creepy, too.
But of course it’s much more than that for you. You need the attention. Otherwise, you could just email me and not inflict yourself on the board. kaiju@aol.com. I’ll even read them before hitting the delete button, promise.
I have no guilt over the offense anyone takes from my posts
No doubt. That would require a degree of empathy you’ve never demonstrated. It a thing normal people have, so pay it no mind.
I can count on you being available for my studies on the single most important obstacle to problem-solving anyone can speak of.
Let me know how the research is going, Boswell. I hope that once your work is published I will be able to have the strength of character to congratulate you on solving one of the great problems of our time.
And if I’m wrong, and you see the light and take control of our interaction, it will demonstrate a level of competence on my part you’ve portrayed me as incapable of demonstrating
So you win either way! Yay you! It’s FUN to be a kook!
Don’t ever change, Mike. And keep dancing!
It must be a sign of the Apocalypse – Every single thing PAD has said in this string seems exactly correct. We should be punishing not thoughts, but deeds. Until there is an action or a movement toward taking the action, it’s nothing but harmless thoughts.
As for Mike, give him a break – There’s something seriously wrong with his mind. It’s not nice to make fun of the schizophrenics talking to the chipmunks.
If you devote any of your time attempting to decipher nonsense, how is that in any way anyone else’s fault?
That’s an internet group I’ve never posted to and never would have heard of if you hadn’t referred to it. You are Wrong.™
But since you reserve the privilege of holding others to standards you don’t hold yourself to, why should you care? Answering that is my challenge here.
It’s literally the truth, and if you’re taken hostage by playground psychology, I don’t see how that doesn’t mean it sucks to be you.
I hope your salary is worth the time you spend holding your nose in the presence of the children you continue to demonstrate you can’t stand.
Uh, yeah, then it’s a wonder you feel the need to challenge anything I say.
You are free to Make It A First™ and cite an instance of my holding someone to a standard I don’t hold myself to.
I am addressing accusations against me in the forum they’ve been made.
If you review your Dante, he will remind you that the gateway to the purgatory that leads to paradise isn’t Empathy™ but Morality.™
Sociopaths are not deficient in Empathy.™ They simply don’t let it get in the way of their morally-deficient Hypocrisy.™
I agree. Jackie Robinson, as well asthe rest of the best of us, are not normal, and I have no resolve to distance myself from him by devoting myself to conforming to the majority.
You and everyone else is observing it as I am. Like I said, I free to speak with all sincerity on this.
Well, if there’s an afterlife, I will be able to look whoever does publish this work in the eye, like I prepare to look the samurai and the vikings and the other wild things in the eye. I agree we should all do in this life what it takes for you to do that also…
…regardless of how widely the challenge varies from person to person.
And I’m fortunate in that if I’m wrong, if at the gate to the afterlife they ask me how I allowed this to happen, I can say I was completely honest, and all I got was coercion and disgust and was provided no reason to change my mind.
That, ironically, is how the internet, the principle of free speech, and Peter David, have been good to me.
Hate crime standards are no more thought-intolerance than conspiracy to murder. It’s Hypocritical™ to challenge one and not the other. With conspiracy, you don’t even need a victim, just an intended victim.
Mike Leung, ladies and gentlemen.
If you wonder how long he’s been doing this check out this thread, sent to me by someone who must be following up on old acquaintances (and thanks but I’d really rather be sent links to funny videos involving cats, all things being equal)
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002N1U
7 years old and nothing much has changed…although I think the quality of your writing was better back then. Your descent into narcissism has made you less interesting. Think about it.
Then it’s a wonder you can’t attack me on the merits of what I prolifically say here.
Bill, I have to say yes, in our interactions, your modest offenses out-distance the sum-total of all other offenses I’ve received in my life. I have to admit I feel some embarrassment at my naiveté.
But you’re also demonstrating how much potential control over my environment, by citing how I’ve had all along what I’ve made work here. I simply feel an obligation to access this potential, and address the hypocrisy that seems to be common to all things that can be said to be morally deficient.
You WANT to be attacked…how deep do these problems go? It’s a wonder…
But the offer is still open- just send me emails at kaiju@aol.com, if you truly want one on one material for your, um, studies. I promise a reply to each one (hoo boy). They may only be one or two words, depending on the quality of the initial letter, but reply I will.
Of course, this will deny you the audience I think you need, all claims to the contrary. As the link above shows, this is what you do. This is who you are. That folks from back then still chuckle at your name seems pathetic to most of us but it gives you the gratification you need. That you would think that puts you up there with Jackie Robinson…well.
So go ahead, reply to this, get that last word you need…and I’ll ignore it. You can continue the conversation at my email address. These topics are two interesting to see them partially derailed by your issues and your arguments have become so repetitive that I can’t imagine it will take too much time on my part to dismiss them. So…everyone wins!
Think about it.
Back to more interesting subjects–copycat killers
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/dec/15/kopel-reducing-the-risk-of-copycat-killers/
Reducing the risk of copycat killers
How papers can avoid glorifying perpetrators
By Dave Kopel, Rocky Mountain News
Worth a look (and he gives a nice plug for cryptozoologist Loren Coleman’s book The Copycat Effect )
Even if one grants the arguments that publication of a publicity-minded killer’s name and picture serve a public interest that trumps the risk of encouraging copycats, there are some standards that every responsible media outlet could adopt, to at least reduce the risk:
1. If a killer was seeking infamy, neither his picture nor his words should ever appear on the front page. The front page, because it seen at newsstands, convenience stores, and other locations, even by people who don’t read the newspaper, has a publicity value that far exceeds any other part of the newspaper.
2. Temple argues that photos help readers understand that people who do terrible things are often very ordinary-looking. If so, a single photo on a single day is sufficient.
3. Never run a photo or video which the killer has chosen for his own publicity. Similarly, never run a photo of the killer “in action” – as in a surveillance tape. Such photos are enticing to sociopaths.
4. Do publish a photo showing the disgusting post-mortem condition of the killer, with half his face blown off after he has killed himself or been shot by a good citizen. The photo should appear, not in the printed paper, but on the newspaper’s Web site and behind a warning page. Such photos would deglamourize the perpetrators.
5. Although there is some news value in reporting the killer’s name initially, there is no need to use the name incessantly. Talk shows, TV programs, and follow-up news articles should follow the good example of Caplis and Silverman. Refer to the killer instead as “the coward,” or some other term.
I’d like to congratulate Bill for winning this year’s “Most Ridiculous Attempt To Blame The Offended” Award.
You don’t have to publicly post your attacks against me. There is no such law.
Other than your devotion to conformity, I have as much in common with Jackie Robinson as you.
And if the burn-out of your hypocrisy can be systematized, someone could start a version of the Dog Whisperer for hypocrites called the Hypocrite Whisperer — and all for the good of humanity, too.
First off, Mike bugs the hëll out of me, and I have just about no sympathy for him under any circumstances. Nonetheless, giving out what is supposedly his real name (when he has not given it here) and linking to a site where he has seemingly submitted his personal Email address seems out of bounds (and certainly sufficient ammunition for him to complain at length for a considerable time). In this case, I hope Mike is correct that Bill Mulligan has him mistaken for someone else – but Bill’s intent, of exposing Mike as he has not chosen to be exposed, is very much against the terms of service here.
Back to Mike, though….Why does he persist in appending the (TM) to nontrademarked words? As a guideline to all, those words meriting (TM) are just this: “words which have been assigned trade marks.” When he is mulling which words would benefit from the (TM), it would be best to just ask “Is there a trade mark here? It would just look ignorant to be wrong about that, goodness knows! I sure don’t want to look like an undereducated goon, you know – just because I think (TM) is a really keen graphic.”
Jeffrey–Mike’s name has been open knowledge for some time. He still has it up at his old webblog, though he apparently lost interest in speaking to nobody back almost 2 years ago and decided to latch onto this blog instead.
And the Mike Leung referred to in that post is very much our Mike Leung. Accept no substitutes. He’s been doing this for a while. But don’t take my word for it–straight from the horse’s ášš: I’ve been kicked off of communities before, and now no one even notices I’m a troll at all. (In fact, he said that in a post directed right at you).
At any rate, you can’t expect to go incognito when you’ve spent years on the web being, um…cognito. The quote above had a link to Mike’s site, complete with email and even a photo. So I don’t see how I have chosen to expose anything Mike himself hasn’t exposed.
As long as he links to it, I have no reservation against Bill citing what I’ve posted to any public forum.
Anyway, the addresses are obsolete and, with all the hypocrisy that gets sheltered here, I do wonder if posting names of particular ethnic varieties is more incendiary than it needs to be to those who submit their need to portray me as deficient as their proof I am. If anyone feels any anxiety from the absence of a unique identifier to hold my posts to, I have no reservation against linking them to “http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com”. That way, the other Mikes will feel free to abstain from all other identifiers without feeling the need for further identification to disassociate from my posts.
Trade competition involves creating the association of services to the identifiers the trademark protects. If my post demonstrates a Notion™ of some kind embodied in someone’s behavior, why should I refuse to emphasize that portrayal with a ™?
As we can see, the Need™ to withhold access to the source of the post is always preferable to those who depend on false pretenses to build a consensus for what is really a hidden agenda.
Having read many times over the past 5 years many threads involving a person whose name sounds like Sick Old Knee, it is easy to see where this will all end.
Bounced checks?