Addi

try mediacoder audio edition. it's free.

http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/audio/

Come now, I think we all know that statistics are probably the most easily manipulated sources of information in the world. For example, what exactly constitutes a "jihadist attack"? Of course there have been more attacks on US and British troops in the last few years, thousands of them have been fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Do these figures take on board the one-off, religously motivated murders of thousands of people across the world, whos countries have not been inolved in Iraq?

If you had bothered to actually read the article instead of just looking at the graphs, deciding you didn't like the what they meant for your argument and then discarding them out of hand you would have seen that the sources for their data are given at the end.

There is no point in even trying to engage you in a reasonable discussion about these things. You have presented no evidence, you just state your opinion and when it's shown to be wrong using evidence (which you dont bother reading) you just decide that the evidence doesn't count.

You have formed your opinion and no amount of evidence will change your mind.

There is quite simply no evidence linking American involvment in any conflicts to increased Islamic terrorism.

I suggest you read this article (part 4 of 5). It has nice graphs showing the increase in terrorist attacks (both in the middle east and worldwide) after the invasion of Iraq.

This link to a new york times article shows that the assessment by the US intelligence services concur with the above article

An opening section of the report, "Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement," cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report "says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse," said one American intelligence official.

Both sides have been just as guilty of an unwillingess to have a rational dialogue over the years.

The basic outlines of a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict have been supported by a broad international consensus for 30 years: a two-state settlement on the international border, perhaps with minor and mutual adjustments.

The Arab states formally accepted this proposal in 2002, as the Palestinians had long before. Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that though this solution is not Hizbullah's preference, they will not disrupt it. Iran's "supreme leader" Ayatollah Khamenei recently reaffirmed that Iran too supports this settlement. Hamas has indicated clearly that it is prepared to negotiate for a settlement in these terms as well.

This is taken from an op-ed peice by Noam Chomsky, you can read the whole piece here, which was initially taken from the Guardian.

To say that they are both as bad as each other would imply, to me, that the palestinians had not been willing to take part in a diplomatic solution - which is simply not true.

It only appears irrational when viewed against the stated goals of the Israeli government.

If nuclear states were willing to honour the commitments they made in the NNPT then we would all be dismantling our nuclear weapons stockpiles and no one would have nuclear weapons. When we refuse to live up to our obligations, and when we build new nuclear weapons we are making the world more dangerous for ourselves. The very fact that we have nuclear weapons and threaten to use them forces our 'enemies' into developing them.

But, if there was an 'enemy' of ours that had nuclear weapons, i would still rather that we didn't.

What you are talking about is a doctrine called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

It is the most insane idea ever in the history of the world.

The Fog Of War: 11 lessons from the life of Robert S. MacNamara is a film in which MacNamara (US Secretary of Defence, 1961-8) talks about the things he learned while in that position. Including how close we have come, on several occasions, to destroying the world with a massive nuclear war. His second lesson (of the 11 in the film) was "Rationality will not save us." I suggest watching this film. I imagine it is up on google video.

Spend a couple of hours reading about MAD and how close we came to destroying the world during the cold war and it will probably change you perspective on our nuclear policies.

I'd have the crab half on top so I could still fuck her / it.

I imagine a claw job is very unpleasant though.

Also, this whole idea just makes me think of HP Lovercraft stories.

These guys could make an awesome anti smoking advert.

Thomas Paine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Paine was an author and revolutionary during the french and american revolutions. He was the main contributing factor to american independence of great britain. In 'Common Sense' called for american independence when everyone else was just arguing for america to get recognition and higher status in the commonwealth. His pamphlets were incredibly popular and many people learned to read just so they could read this writings. He also had a major impact on the french revolution with his pamphlet 'Rights of Man'

For more information about him read the wikipedia article or find a book about him on amazon, there are plenty.

You should care about what he said because his theories and observations have become integral parts of many governments around the world and his observations on social contracts are still very relevant today.

And you do choose to enter into this society, simply by not leaving it. If you don't like this society, you can leave. So by staying you have implicitly chosen to be a part of it.

When I read about these scandalous freaks living their lives away from the rest of us decent normal folks, trying to shake the system up with their outrageous attitudes, my monacle popped right out of my eye, and my bow tie spun round around round making a 'wheeeeeeeeeee!' noise

Monacles are like pirate eye patches for distinguished gentlemen.

why is britain such an uptight place to live?

People are born free,like animals, and should be allowed to pursue any means for survival they see fit(that obviously dont infringe on the majority).

If the government is goin to give them freebies complain to the government, dont hate the people who take advantage of the governments stupidity.

There are no radically different ways to live anymore(in britain) and now people expect everyone to be near carbon copies of the people around them to be accepted.

If you ask me that chick probably has more freedom than alot of 'normal' people who 'live to work' ,even with the leash on, thats probably why there are so many bitter soundin comments about this story on the Daily Mail site, people get pissed off that these 'freaks' didnt just do what they did and become another mindless slave being.

I just think that generally peoples perceptions seem to be blinkered beyond belief , and if the majority dont agree on it then its 'bullshit/blasphemous/lame'.

hmm reminds me of the religious oppression britain was subjected to a few hundred years ago, except now its not even religion, its media.

'Britains media - reinforcing blinkered views'

and no im not going to live anywhere else in the near future, before the inevitable 'if you dont like it here ,leave' comment.

Thomas Paine said that we are born with natural freedom to do whatever we want, but when we enter into a society we give up those freedoms and are given rights and responsibilities instead. One of the responsibilities is to respect the will of the majority. Here is why:

As I said above, we gave up our freedom for rights in this society. We are not free. If we think we are free then it is only because we have never tried to do anything truly subversive/controversial. Our 'freedoms' extends only as far as they are protected by rights, and in this country there is no constitution so our rights are whatever is enshrined in law (which is always subject to interpretation) and after that it is whatever the majority hold our rights to be. Note here the important point that our rights don't stop where another persons rights begin, but they stop wherever the hell the majority want them to.

Take for example assisted suicide: It doesn't affect society at large whether or not someone with a degenerative brain condition kills themselves or not. If they did kill themselves it wouldnt infringe on the rights of anyone else, but assisted suicide is still illegal. This is simply because the majority don't like the idea. They find it troubling, or they simply don't care about the suffering of someone else to put in the effort of reconsidering the current societal norms.

Also, new media by it's very nature is blinkered. Video/Audio/Text is an inherently one dimensional, depth first, process whereas events as they happen in real life are breadth first. No part of the world exists in a vacuum. All stories happen in context with a large variety of contributing factors, the media can not cover all of these. So of course the story doesn't get accurately portrayed. The media is not perfect by a long shot of course but in this country we have quite good access to information.

People should be held accountable for their prejudices, not the government.

All this said I think it's important I say that I completely support these two people in their awesome gothy stylings and leash wearing capers. I think a society where people expressed themselves through the way they dress would be awesome instead of just expressing "look at me i have a nike tshirt" or "i enjoy the music of <insert band here>". Right now I am wearing a t-shirt with a big greek letter pi on it (geeky, yay!).

Everyone is trying to be an attention whore, even people who dress 'normally'. That's why people will spend loads of money on clothes just because they have some logo on them. Those types of people are just harder to see in everyday life, because they are all attention whoring in the same direction and we call it a culture.

It doesn't take a genius to work out any of the plethora of reasons why someone, particularly female, wearing a lead in public like that could cause offense...

I really don't see why someone would find that offensive.

I think its amazing that goths even have bus passes. It's not an item I usually assosciate with goths. I would expect them to be riding a black horse across a windswept moor or something. Ah well, I guess that is the sacrifice the urban goth has to make.

I love this story.

The driver is a twunt and should be fired.

As for the girl on a leash I think she's awesome! Yay her! And the guy seems like a bit of a legend too. They should have refused to give up their seat on the bus and started the gothic rights movements.

...improves mental health...

I'm not sure about that. Reading didn't exactly improve Don Quixote's mental health.

Books are awesome though. Yay books.

I finshed the Malcolm X autobiography. It was tremendous, go and read it!!

Then I read The Straw Men by Michael Marshall (uses the name Michael Marshall Smith when writing science fiction, i read some of his scifi stuff earlier, possibly mentioned in this thread.)

It's strange reading a normal thriller type book after reading so many long books recently. I was struck with how the story just seemed to fly by. I think i prefer stories that build slowly and really develop the characters, because that way even small things (such as a change in a characters motivation) can seem very big.

When a story doesn't have this then it just feels like a stream of action scenes with the only common factors being that they share the same characters and have a very rough cause/effect relationship.

That said, I did enjoy the book, it was about 500 pages and I finished it in about 4 or 5 days so it was quite good at holding my somewhat shinythingcentric attention. It also retained the new and interesting ideas which had originally led me to enjoy his scifi work, which was something I was worried he would lose in the transition to crime fiction. I think I probably will read the other crime books he has written at some point.

I am now reading 'The Brother Karamazov' by Dostoyevsky. I have high hopes for it.

I hope it's set to some Squarepusher and cut like Chris Cunningham made it.

I havent posted in this thread in far too long

So far this term I have read 'Common Sense' by Thomas Paine and am just over half way through the autobiography of Malcolm X and it is looking like its heading to be in my top 3 books.

Last term I read: 3 Sherlock Holmes books (finished them all now!), 'The End of the World Blues' by jon courtenay grimwood, 'Anna Karenina' by Tolstoy which was awesome, '1984' by Orwell, 'The War of the Flea' by Robert Taber which was a very good exploration of how/why guerilla wars begin/are fought, 'Conversations with Durito' by Subcommandante Marcos which is a collection of communiqus by the EZLN about an anti-neoliberalist beetle's experiences in the fight for indigenous rights in Mexico, 'Rights of Man' by Thomas Paine, and finally 'Crime and Punishment' by Dostoevsky which was also excellent.

I had very good luck with book choices last term, they were all great. Let's hope the same happens again this term!

Doesn't New Zealand have a socialised healthcare system?

Why shouldn't a country stop someone who has a higher chance of developing medical conditions (because of their life choices) from entering the country?

I'm getting stuck into The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde which is pretty good so far. The idea of being able to jump into books and interact with the characters appeals to the child and the English graduate in me.

There was a good episode of Fairly Odd Parents where they were jumping through books. It was pretty powerful.

Every country has dumb people, they just happen to be louder and fatter in America so it seems like there are more of them.

I think most of this discussion just misses the point. The problem isn't fast food places and it isn't people flyering. It's people being inconsiderate. If you get a takeaway, put the rubbish in the bin. If you have a flyer you dont want then put it in the bin.

It's sad that I will probably be thought of as naive for thinking people should be expected to act conscientiously and leave places in a nice condition.

hmm. oprah winfrey is a fucking liar!

It's strange she'd get her facts wrong because you would expect her to be all over Krispy Kreme like a fat chick on doughnuts.

fun fact for the day:

krispy kreme have never advertised. never. not since their inception. the only thing that made them so popluar is word of mouth.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

"Check out our new TV ad campaign." (top right hand corner)