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| Mindless and momentart lapse of sanity | November 3, 2007, 10:57PM |
 by: Industrial.Trash |
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All my life, I was taught never to judge a book by its cover so to speak. All my life I was taught morals and standards my my mother and father to life by. It seems tonight I had a momentary lapse of sanity I had gotten a phone call and was asked to attend a little social gathering near my cousin's college. I figured what the hell, I don't go out much and this gives me a chance to meet new people. Low and behold this was not what I had expected. The point blank, dead eyed cold stares. The look of confusion as to why I was there and who had the audacity to invite me. So I shrugged it off, thinking nothing of it. I managed to stick around for a few hours, only keeping to myself and my cousin whom I have been close to for a long time. Time passes, people still stare, point, instigate, degrade and infatuate themself on making sure my time spent was a non-enjoyable thing. As the time had finally come to an end, I decided it was time for me to go, so I had turned my back to the audience making me the nights joke, and had told my cousin it was time to leave, I had worn out my welcome and that I had given it a try, and stuck it out for him. As I was preparing to depart back home, someone had come behind me and made a typical, yet stereotypical and lude comment about ear gauges, tattoos and certain clothing style, and that's when it happened. The momentary lapse of sanity had kicked in. I was told my eyes had looked like they turned black, (not some form of voodoo or whatever, just blacking out, in a rage type fashion) and without hesitation, I had spun around and sent a punch to the so called comedian's mouth. His front tooth was lodged into my knuckle and he was on the floor out cold. My cousin had managed to get me into the car. By the time I came to my own senses, he had told me what I had happened. I knew from there it was the momentary lapse of sanity. So let this be a lesson learned to me and to others. No matter how much one is taught to never take the first swing, or learn to walk away, there is so much a human being can take. Sooner or later, sometime in one's own life, we all have our momentary lapse of sanity and do things and not realize them until it is over. Each case is different for everyone, none are exactly alike, similiar but not all accurate and to a "T". I hope that this little story will shed a light on most hostility shown towards us all and that sometimes, we do things we cannot control. Industrial Trash November 3rd, 2007 1056pm | |
topic: Life | |
[reply] [5 comments] |
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| A different way to look at things | November 3, 2007, 7:57PM |
 by: King.of.Damned.Souls |
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Before I go on, I warn that this may either enrage many people, and then again, may alter some people's thinking entirely. Religion When we take a look back at religion, let us look back at the earliest deity known, the Sun. The Sun has been recorded as a "god" even back to 10,000 B.C., and can be seen in a large amount of societies. For instance, we take a look back at the first anthropomorphized version of a "god", Horus, the Sun God of Egypt. Horus was born on December 25th to the Virgin mother. Ises Mary. His coming was signaled by a star in the East, and was visited by three kings. At the age of twelve, he became a teacher, at the age of thirty, he was baptized and began his ministry, was betrayed by a disciple, crucified, was dead for three days, and rose from the dead. Now whether or not it's original, we see this throughout mythology. But why the Virgin birth? Why December 25th? Why dead for three days and the resurrection? To take a closer look at this we need to take a closer look at the most recent "savior". Jesus Christ was born on December 25th to the Virgin mother, Mary. His coming was signaled by a star in the East, which three kings followed. At the age of 12, he started teaching, and at the age of thirty, began his ministry after being baptized. He was betrayed, crucified, dead for three days, and rose once again, ascending into Heaven. First of all, the Virgin birth, the Star and the Kings, and the Birth on December 25th are purely Astrological. The star in the East aligns with the three brightest stars in Orion’s belt, which are called today what they were called back in ancient times, the “Three Kings”. Over the period of each year, during the time near the Winter Equinox, the Sun gets lower in the sky and the days become shorter. This pattern continues until December 22nd, where the Sun reaches the lowest point in the sky. Curiously, it sits there for three days, December 22-24th, on the Horus cross, or crux. And on December 25th, the Sun miraculously goes up 1 degree. Now. Let us take a look at the Zodiac itself. We see the twelve signs, surrounding the sun. We have the twelve months, the four seasons, and the two equinoxes. Looking back into the bible from the beginning, in the beginning of the Bible, from Adam and Eve, to the time of Moses, it was the time of Taurus, the Bull. On Mt. Sinai, when Moses came down with the Ten Commandments, he saw his people worshipping a golden bull-calf, what was called a “false god”. In reality, the bull-calf was the time before Moses, who was ushering in the age of the new, the age of the Ram. From the time of Moses in the B.C. age, to 1 A.D. it was the time of the Ram. At one A.D., the supposed time of the birth of Jesus, began the age of Pieces, the two fish. The fish is abundant throughout the world in biblical times and even today. For instance, Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. When Jesus began his ministry, he came across two fishermen. And in today’s times, look at the hat of the pope. It is clearly a fish head. And we have all seen the fish on the backs of people’s cars. It is not a symbol of Christianity, but a Pagan symbol representing Pieces. According to the ancients, there was a new age of each constellation of the Zodiac every twenty-one hundred and fifty years. After all twelve constellations had passed by the Earth, they called this the “Great Year”, which was approximately 26,000 yrs. Now. We go back to the Bible. Near the end of the Bible, one of Jesus’ disciples asks him when the next Passover will be. Jesus replied, “Behold. When thou enter the city, there shall be a man bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house which he entereth in.” This is a sign of Aquarius, who in 2150 A.D., will be bringing the new age, which, to the regret of most religious believers, will be the end of Jesus Christ’s time. And the cross, you know, the one with the circle in the center of it? The one that is on most Christian churches? It is not a symbol of Christianity, but rather a Paganistic cross. And the “hat” the Pope wears? Turned to the side, it looks like a fish head. Like the head of one of the fish of Pisces. So coming down to it, Jesus, like most Gods of the times, is merely a fictional character created to symbolize authority. Which gave way to such happy periods like the Dark Ages. The Catholic Church has been controlling populations for over 700 years with this fictional figure with such things like the Spanish Inquisition, and let us not forget the Salem Witch Trials. I suppose I can conclude in saying that most, if not all religion is a lie. | |
topic: Life | |
[reply] [32 comments] |
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| Models and Mathematics | November 2, 2007, 11:25PM |
 by: nothingmoves |
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A model, in the sense that will be relevant here, is a domain of objects along with an assignment function that maps the symbols of some language to be interpreted into members of the said domain. For example, suppose that our domain is natural numbers (1, 2, 3...) and that our language contains the following constants, "1", "2", "3", etc. Then a natural assignment function to associate with this domain-language pair is one that maps "1" to 1, "2" to 2, "3" to 3, and so on. We say that a domain "forms a model" of a well-formed formula (or "sentence" ) in some formal language when there exists an assignment function mapping elements of the relevant sentence into elements of the relevant domain such that the sentence comes out true. For example, suppose that our domain consists of natural numbers in tandem with certain familiar arithmetic relations, such as the plus relation. Then, on a natural interpretation, the relevant domain forms a model of "1 + 1 = 2" (roughly, we assign "1" to 1, "+" to the plus relation, and "2" to 2). A noteworthy, and fascinating, fact about modern mathematics is that all varieties of mathematical domains form models of all varieties of mathematical sentences. To take a simple example, a domain of real numbers and ordered-pairs of them forms a model of sentences from Euclidean geometry. Roughly the same domain forms a model of sentences from complex analysis (i.e. "complex-number calculus" ). In fact, it turns out that sentences from (virtually) *all* branches of mathematics find a model in a domain of, roughly, the empty set and iterative constructions out of it. The intuitive idea here is that, within limits, mathematical sentences might be *about* all sorts of things -- at least as far as their "truth-values" and semantic or “logical” forms are concerned. Neither the semantic or "logical" form, nor the truth-value of "pie minus the interior angles of a (hyperbolic) triangle is equal to its area" tells us whether that sentence is about *lines* in a (hyperbolic) plane or rather ordered pairs of *numbers* of a certain sort. Some have taken this to show that mathematical sentences are not *about* any particular domain of objects. The "truth-conditions" of "1 + 1 = 2", say, are just that there exists some model -- any model -- of the relevant sentence (i.e. that there exists some domain and assignment function that maps the elements of the relevant sentence into elements of the relevant domain such that the latter comes out true). But I want to suggest that this is much too lax a view. Suppose that our domain consists of slices of the right half of earth (it doesn't matter "which" right we choose). We assign "1" to the right half itself, "2" to the right half of the right half, "3" to the right half of the right half of the right half, and so on. Then, assuming that we assign our arithmetic relation symbols appropriately, we have generated a model of "2 + 2 = 4" and all of the other familiar arithmetic truths. But surely those sentences are not true if the *only* model of them that exists one in slices of the earth. So what, exactly, are the conditions under which a mathematical sentence is true? We noted lately that all sorts of domains form *models* of them, but also that forming a model of a mathematical sentence is not in general sufficient for making that sentence true. If there does not exist a satisfactory answer to this question, then there is a very strong sense in which modern mathematics is without a satisfactory foundation. | |
topic: Philosophy | |
[reply] [9 comments] |
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| Happy Halloween... and stuff. | October 31, 2007, 11:36AM |
 by: eon |
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I believe the recent server troubles have finally been resolved, as we've held steady for a few days now. *knocks on wood* As a side effect of all the work I did in tracking down the glitch, some helpful refinements were made in the code and in the way the server is set up. Ultimately, this has resulted in slightly smoother operation of the site. So smooth, it's scaaaaaary! Eh hem. So I hope you guys have a great Halloween. Have fun, keep it safe and watch out for the zombies and rabid chipmunks which are almost certain to be on the prowl tonight . . . Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!! | |
topic: Site News | |
[reply] [16 comments] |
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| Why I am an American Pariot.... | October 29, 2007, 5:39PM |
 by: sweetdreams |
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This is an essay I had to turn into my language arts teacher. It is/was a VFW (Veterans of Foreign War) competition; supposed to be 300-400 words (mine is about 500); and should explain "why I am an american patriot." I don;t consider myself a patriot, but my teacher apparently does. My mother told me to just write what came to mind, so I have. And.....These are the results...... ________________________________________________________________ The American Revolution. The men and women who were a part of this historical event are patriots, right? And these people definitely did not agree with their government, did they? They stood for peace and for democracy. They stood for having a choice. And today, we believe that we live in the society that they built for us. But do you honestly think that our “founding fathers” would be proud of us today? With our corrupted government, our continuous surges into the Middle East? With our war mongering, which gets us nowhere? They stood for peace, and they were patriotic. So can’t we be peaceful, and leave the rest of the world to their own selves? Let them fight their civil wars, as we did ours. Why can people not go to peace rallies and be considered patriots? Why do so-called patriots watch these rallies and shakes their heads in disgust? Are we really that wrong? Do they honestly think that wanting peace is unpatriotic? That not agreeing completely with the government is something to be shamed upon? We are patriots, just the same as those risk their lives as military personnel for this country. To work for peace is patriotic in the same way that going to war for your country is patriotic. One is just slightly less life threatening to do. Mark Twain once said “Loyalty to the country always; loyalty to the government when it deserves it.” Some may consider this unpatriotic. Yet others may consider it very patriotic indeed. A patriot is someone who wants the best for their country, but as Mark Twain has said, not necessarily for the government. A patriot doesn’t always support the views of their government; they are simply concerned for the well being of the place they live in and the others that live there as well. No one is perfect, not even those involved in politics. And not everyone is completely satisfied with the government either. But those people are still patriots. Not everyone is really proud of their country, but that doesn’t make them any less patriotic. Some people don’t think that they can be proud, with all the things we have done wrong. Yet everyone makes mistakes, citizens, soldiers, politicians, and whole civilizations. Some mistakes may just be blown out of proportion, or may turn into serious problems. Sometimes these problems need to be immediately dealt with, by those within the situation or others that watch over them. Sometimes these problems need to be left to the people directly involved in them. A patriot is someone who wants better for his or her country. A patriot is someone who wants to better living conditions wherever they may live. Patriotism is not just an American thing. It is a human thing. As is peace. Peace is a state of harmony, an absence of hostility. Peace is a natural thing, a human thing. Without peace, the whole world would be at constant war. This would result in many unnecessary deaths and hatred. _____________________________________________________________ There is no conclusion, but she accepted it anyways..... | |
topic: Essays | |
[reply] [4 comments] |
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| Abortion; A Rebuttal. | October 27, 2007, 3:16AM |
 by: life_on_1st_and_7th |
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I see that the abortion article, posted by You_x_x_Cunt has become a hot issue, with everyone posting, fully armed with their opinions. I noticed, it seems to be a somewhat fair split between DS members for, as well as against abortion. Some of the posters take a stance with logic, and some with emotion. I think it only fair to post a rebuttal, as somehow after all of the valid points made by You_x_x_Cunt in favor of abortion, she says she is personally against it, which doesn't make much sense to me, but sometimes people choose to play the devil's advocate, in order to get an issue across. So. People tend to think that abortion is a new issue, but what a lot of people don't realize is that abortions have been happening for thousands of years. As long as women have been getting pregnant, there have been women aborting the pregnancy. Because of decency standards being forever whittled away as time goes on, more and more biased and graphic advertisements have made their way into mainstream America. This is what makes abortion such a hot issue these days, so I would like to cover a few points. One. This is about the politics behind Pro-Life and Pro-Choice groups. Both groups were created from lobbyist groups attempting to get their respective legislations passed, but leave it to the "moral," "right," "christian" group to use loaded terminology to villify the Pro-Choice group. What the term "Pro-Life" does, is makes you sound immoral and evil if you are for a woman's choice, because what does it mean if you are not Pro-Life? It means you are Anti-Life. I believe personally, that loaded terms in our legislation are wrong, they are simply an emotional motivator to persuade people into their group, without truly educating them. Look at the "No Child Left Behind" act. Who, in congress wants to support leaving children behind. None of them, because that would make them look like a bad politician and lose them votes. Back to my point, if thought about logically, even Pro-Life supporters are Pro-Choice. They want women to CHOOSE not to abort. The vast majority of people are not against life itself, therefore are Pro-Life..... but we simply cannot define groups as Pro-Abortion and Anti-Abortion because abortion is an emotional word, and makes the people against abortion look like naysayers, and they would feel it villifies them. We cannot have that, now can we???? Two. This one is for the "Pro-Life" people out there. Looking at history, abortions have gone on since before recorded history in one form or another. Before socialized medicine, abortions were unclean, unsafe and often resulted in the mother's sterility, disfigurement or even death. Pro-Life advocates use an ad that says "one half of women who get an abortion die as a result of it." I would like to see where they gathered this statistic, as I have lived two doors from an abortion clinic for three years now, and have never seen a Coroner's van there. In fact I have only seen even an ambulance there twice in the three years I have lived here. So, for you Anti-Abortionists out there, what is it you support? You support making abortions illegal. Do any of you have any idea the social repercussions of that? There was a time in America where abortions were illegal. They were still performed. They were performed in dirty offices, behind closed doors, with unsterilized equipment. A lot of women who went in for abortions became ill, infected, had parts of fetus left in their bodies, and even died. Instead of killing one fetus, often times the mother would be killed as well. Today, abortions are done by trained professionals, with sterile equipment in sterile environments, with painkillers, antibiotics, and sometimes even anesthesia. surely this is more humane for the unborn baby than unclean metal instruments without any sort of anesthesia or antibiotic???? Should abortions be illegalized, we would go back to the old days. abortions would not cease, pregnancies will simply be aborted in unhealthy ways. Ways that, if an unborn child can feel pain are for more painful than the methods performed today. Three. My final point. Should it be any business but the mother's and whoever she chooses to involve what goes in and out of her body? If she makes a mistake, has unprotected sex, or a contraceptive fails and she gets pregnant, why should she not have the right to get rid of the problem? I may be immoral in your eyes, it may very well be immoral in hers, she may feel guilt for the rest of her life, but in today's world I would far rather abort a child than to raise it in an environment where it is unwanted, or in an environment where it will never know its parents. It simply is not fair to do that to an innocent child, to give it life, and then provide it with a life of questions and dissatisfaction, or a life of poverty. In closing, you may think I am immoral, and that I am. I tend to be the villian in any christian or conservative group. I wear girls clothing, I wear makeup, I engage in homosexual relations as well as heterosexual ones. I drink, i use occasional recreational drugs, I stand firmly against organized religion, am a devout socialist and I support abortion. But underneath all of that, I am a thinking being. I work, I love, and every day I wonder who the fuck my parents are, and it tears me the fuck apart. Never being born would have been a far greater alternative than foster home after foster home, and never knowing where I came from. I know my mother is still alive somewhere, but I found my fathers death certificate about 6 months ago. He died of some sort of overdose. | |
topic: Current Events | |
[reply] [23 comments] |
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| Child Abuse | October 21, 2007, 11:01AM |
 by: MorningStar23 |
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In 2004 alone, 1,490 children were killed from child abuse. This translates to a rate of 2.03 children per 100,000 children in the general population. The scary thing about this statistic is that some of these situations of abuse were reported to law enforcement officials before the child was dead. What is wrong with this picture? The law is supposed to protect us, isn't it? I didn't know any of this last year, but I knew I wanted to get my friend help. She'd come in with black eyes, bloody lips, and sometimes even an untreated knife wound. Some days she wouldn't come in at all, and those were the days that scared me the most. When she finally told me what was going on, I knew I had to get help! First I wanted to meet her mother to see how bad it really was. I went over to her house with the excuse that I needed help on a project from school, and such it was that I met her mother. Thirty minutes into our study session, her mom came in and started yelling at her with me right there! She called her every name I'd ever heard, and some I hadn't. She grabbed onto my friends neck tightly with one arm and raised the other back as though about to strike, and then looked at me. She threw her down and said 'You're lucky your goddamn friend is here or you'd be missing school tomorrow too you bitch!" I left her house that night feeling horrible. I was leaving her vulnerable to her Mother, and I felt there was nothing I could do about it. I walked into my house and told my mom what was going on. Together we called Child Protective Services, but got transferred to the police department. They sent out a squad car and we told them what happened. They went over to her house and spoke with her and her mother and then came back to our house to tell us what happened. They spoke to my friend and she told her story just as she told it to me, then they sent her away and spoke privately with her Mother. Her Mother lied her ass off that night. She told them that her daughter was always lying and running away, getting into fights, and basically the most untrustworthy bitch on the planet. The police believed her, and left my friend there at the mercy of her mother again. When I asked the police (In the most civil tone I had been able to manage at the time) why they didn't take her with them when there was obvious proof, physical scars from her mother hitting her, they said "It wasn't happening while we were there, so there was not sufficient evidence to support an abuse case." My friend was not at school the next day. Working together with my mom, we used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to our advantage. We managed to get more case files than we knew existed. We requested the ones only on my friends family to see what the police wrote as opposed to what was said. On the file we reported, they wrote down the exact opposite of what we told them. They wrote down that we said we thought she was in no danger by staying with her Mother, when we actually said there was extreme danger. The other case files were a plethora of information. Turns out that the Mother had been reported about fifteen times before, all ending the same way. The police leaving her alone. Over half of the times had been reported by neighbors and witnesses. The other portion of files were as reported by my friend and her sister. We did all that was in our power to get something done for my friend. I didn't want her to be just another statistic people look at with sad eyes. Sadly, what was in our power simply wasn't enough. We even brought the outstanding number of files to the attention of the chief of police for the district. He said it was unusual indeed, and he investigated, but it ended the same. Not once during the ordeal did they even take my friend out of the house for her protection. About three months later (me still worrying every day about her) her Mother kicked her out, expecting her to be back within a few days. She went to live with a friend. She was fourteen at the time. Luckily, she got away, and lived. She still has the scars to show for the lack of initiative that was shown her every time she needed help. So I ask you, what is the point of having a law in place if no one ever enforces it? Why is it that children die at the hands of the people they are supposed to be able to trust, even if they tell someone? What can we do about it? | |
topic: Life | |
[reply] [40 comments] |
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| Rehabilitation in State Prisons | October 20, 2007, 12:32PM |
 by: Black_Blooded_Poet |
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Prison. It’s a just two syllable word. Does it send a shiver down you spine? Does it? Or on the contrary, does it do just the opposite? Does it make you feel safe? Does it? Is it comforting to know that, when there is a need to get rid of social delinquents, there is no finer solution than compacting them together in concrete boxes? Is it? Do you sleep better at night knowing that they’re locked away? Do you? Even if you’re response is, “yes” that’s fine and dandy... if incarceration is permanent. The idea of prison sentences is based on the primitive, perhaps even naive notion that if enough punishment is inflicted upon a prisoner, he/she will reform. Unfortunately, that concept does not appear to be working. The U.S. Bureau of Justice's statistics speak for themselves. Re arrest rates for the same crime recommitted are unacceptable, the highest being an average 75% for theft. Collectively 744,000 released felons face new charges within 3 years of their release. Rehabilitation, as far as prison is concerned, is defined as restoring to useful life through therapy and education, bringing a motivated criminal into a more normal state of mind. Such actions of restoration are based on the idea that people are not defined solely as criminal, and it is possible to turn a criminal into a productive member of society. The “punishment into reform policy” has quite obviously failed, as one could easily infer from the previous numbers given. This punishment into reform basis consists of a same day-to-day activity in an unrealistic social system, debilitating and skewing convicts’ perception of the real world. Rehabilitation, on the other hand, addresses the issues which instigates the criminal activity in the first place in an attempt at reintegration into society. Now I ask you, which appeals more to you: an oppressive repercussion, or a negotiative one? As previously defined, rehabilitation consists of therapy and education, and lack of education is, without a doubt, a major artery in the heart of crime. 68% of State prison inmates did not receive a high school diploma, and education walks hand-in-hand with material profits. In-prison education systems should prepare prisoners for a higher-paying job. Increasing these systems would alleviate, or at least lessen, the theft re-arrest rate, and in turn, would address prison overcrowding, which is a common contributor to the lack of rehabilitation programs. Yet, barely half of inmates take educational courses. For example, a mere 26% of state inmates complete the occasionally offered GED course. A similar paradox is ever-present in another prison demographic: drug abusers. Only 40% of drug abusers within State prisons partake in a treatment program. The number of those who actually complete that treatment is unavailable, but most likely, less than those who enter one. One of rehabilitation's objectives is to re-assert a criminal into a more normal state of mind. Mental instability is just another vein of social distortion within state prisons, with approximately 55% of male inmates and 73% of female inmates having mental health problems. So why is it only 1 in 6 jail inmates who has such mental health issues receives therapeutic treatment? These untreated mental instabilities leads to the eventual suicides of 14 state inmates per every 100,000. Punish. Restore. Punish. Restore. The most logical of the two (until another alternative to consider shows its face) would be restoration, so why is it not happening? The easy answer would be, "a lack of money," (which ironically is a root of evil, per the old cliche) accompanied by the issue of increasing overpopulation of state prison facilities. Collaboratively, these two circumstances translate into a lack of aid, both educational and psychiatric to those who would benefit most from them. On the contrary, rehabilitation not only reduces the number of re-arrests, but, by substituting rehabilitation for lengthy sentences(not completely ridding of prison punishments mind you), the state saves approximately $20,000 per inmate per year. What's not to love? So why is it not happening? Are those individuals within the justice and prison systems more comfortable that a convict can be simply tossed away for a handful of years? Are they comforted by the word "prison"? Do they rest easier in their sense of safety? Perhaps they need to be removed from their seat of power by the people who see the fallacies within their work and replaced by those who are willing to rehabilitate crime, not merely condemn it. This process would begin like any idea: it must be spread. The general population is a powerful force, especially when inspired. America is “of the people,” and there’s no doubt about that. The concept of rehabilitation over institutionalized punishment, with a little compassion, would not only create the demand for such a solution, but for those who would make it possible such as counselors, teachers, and therapists. Not all prison inmates are monsters. They’re human: flawed, responsive, and influenced. Rehab will inevitably fail for some, but what about the others? Where is the justice in taking in funds to repetitively damn criminals for their crippling pre-dispositions without aiding them? Of course, they’re all locked up in a concrete and steel box, hidden and silenced. Will you be the one to speak for them? | |
topic: Current Events | |
[reply] [5 comments] |
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| Outages | October 14, 2007, 10:21PM |
by: eon |
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The site was intermittently accessible and extremely slow for much of the day, today. This was due to a network failure at our webhost that has been addressed. They've informed me that we should no longer be affected by the issue. However, this issue was not related to the series of outages we've had over the past few days, which have run anywhere from a few hours to many hours in length. These outages are due to a problem actually somewhere on our server that I am still tracking. Basically, something is hanging the server up at random times, seemingly every 24 hours or so. I'm addressing this by setting up log files to monitor different things that might be related. After each crash, I'm going back through log files, looking for the cause and potentially setting up new logs to track other potential causes. Unfortunately, since the crashes happen without warning and at any given time, there's always the chance one will happen while I'm away. In which case, the server will be down for X amount of hours. Bear with me, I'm trying to check more frequently to reduce downtimes (though I do have to sleep occasionally!) and hopefully I will be able to track down the source of the failure soon. I'm also looking into some automated process to monitor the server and automatically reboot when it crashes. Additionally, I will be running some maintenance soon, sometime in the next few days. This will tie things up for hopefully no more than 2-3 hours. Thank you for your patience. | |
topic: Site News | |
[reply] [9 comments] |
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| Affirmative Action: A very poor sollution to a very real problem | October 12, 2007, 12:18AM |
 by: KLOKWERKAOS |
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Job discrimination is a problem in the United States. Minority groups of all kinds are regularly discriminated against in the job market, a problem that continues unchecked to this day. Affirmative action has failed as it places people who are not necessarily the highest qualified applicants for a job into a position based upon their ethnic background. This destandardization of requirements not only destroys the economy but it also works against leveling the playing field for all members of a society, tilting the scales further off balance in a different direction. Instead Affirmative action does not eliminate discrimination but endorses it by placing a job requirement on the color of the applicant's skin, religious background or sexual orientation. How do we solve this issue then? There is a clear solution to this. Make it mandatory that the job application process requires a social security number and work certificate only. Do not provide additional details to employers such as age, race, or even your name (which can allow employers to infer all kinds of things about you). But what of jobs with additional requirements? What about finding a model for men's clothing or a stripper for a gentleman's club? What about requiring that a college degree or three years related experience is a necessity? Or that facial piercings are not allowed on the job for reasons of sanitation in jobs like food service? That a worker have reliable transportation to the place of business? Can we have a woman model men's clothing or a man strip at a gentlemen's club? Certainly not. This is another easy found solution. Provide a list of additional job requirements that the applicant must meet as a minimum requirement for job status. If a male clothing model is desired, place the stipulation that the worker must be male and meet the requirement for subjective superficial appearance judgements for the purposes of marketing. Could this include not hiring a black model because you intend to market to whites specifically with your clothing line? No, because the institution is a part of a public sales environment. You could not market specifically to whites because you are not allowed to sell clothing to whites only and not to blacks, hispanics, Jews, etc. An exception is of course made for private institutions (such as golf courses) who are allowed to discriminate, but inevitably will take a loss in revenue generated in a capitalist environment. This is their option and obviously when a market is open to the public, discrimination is not an option. Further this type of business is seen as counterproductive to equal rights, and thus a luxury that warrants additional taxing. It is also understood that such private institutions are generally owned by the rich who will band together to prevent such taxes, it's the one thing the peasants can count on the very rich to do; prevent themselves from taking a pay cut. This being the case, it is also understood that this article presents this as a goal to work towards, rather than an overnight cure-all to all the world's many problems. Going back to the instance of the male model, a hiring employer would be required to complete a competency course in equal rights (which is largely already the standard in most industries). This would not guarantee a lack of discrimination, but education versus the option of restriction and bureaucratic imposition is always the preferred option. If the potential male model worker is not willing to subject themselves to this kind of discrimination then they should not apply for the job and consider another career that would be more suited to their requirement preferences such as a telephone technical support representative who would not be required to meet physical appearance standards. To get to the heart of it all, affirmative action was a mistake, and as the slogan goes: "Bureaucracy; if you are not willing to be part of the solution, there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem." More institutional imposition is not the answer, rather, standardizing requirements and replacing ignorance with education will be the solution to leveling the playing field for the work force. Written by Ambassador KLOK KAOS Edited by Alex Zacarola | |
topic: Essays | |
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