This just in, Cheney's an idiot...

"For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously"

Holding people indefinitely without trial? That's violating their human rights.
Going to war on false pretenses? That violates somebody's rights, even if you're convinced it's for the best.

He says more...

"I think the fact of the matter is, the United States has done more to advance the cause of freedom, has liberated more people from tyranny over the course of the 20th century and up to the present day than any other nation in the history of the world.

This, of course, is debateable. Even if it weren't, it's not as though we're talking a scale here. Good deeds don't absolve you for the bad. It just doesn't work that way.

"Guantanamo's been operated, I think, in a very sane and sound fashion by the U.S. military. ... I think these people have been well treated, treated humanely and decently," Cheney said. "Occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment.

"But if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who has been inside and been released ... to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated."

Who can cite the logical fallacy here? Anybody? I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees that just because these people have fortunately been released from Guantanamo does not make them bad sources.

Oh, they might be. This might all be a vast conspiracy from former prisoners to harm the US. It might. Maybe.

An editorial about Limbaugh and torture and plays...

Here.

( Read more... )

For Firefly fans...

Actually, it's about more than Firefly. I know people already who only watch TV on DVD, or via downloads, for various reasons - no TV, not willing to watch commercials (that'd be the big reason I'd do that, really), no time when the show is nominally on, don't like wasting 15 minutes of every hour on commercials (did I say that already? Sorry), whatever.

I'm thinking that the more options people have for mindless (or not so mindless) TV watching, the better.

Oooooh...

A post on RotS, and German, with comments about the dubbing in Japanese...

It's all cool and all. *grins*

An article about the end of the world...

Have I posted this before?

Oooh!

LiveJournal is selling permanent accounts again, for a very limited time only.

Oh, and there's a list of purged usernames.

An article taken from asperger on genetic screening for autism...

There's not much left for me to say.

Though I'm wondering at their "HIDDEN EPIDEMIC" graphic. Even if you believe that actual cases of autism are increasing, it's hard to call it a hidden epidemic when it seemingly gets more news coverage than torture, war, and cute little puppies who survive deadly fires.

I know I've ranted about person-first language before.

I think that the linguistic contortions people go through to use nouns in place of perfectly acceptable adjectives are insane, and draw more attention to the oh-so-stigmatizing disability than just speaking naturally.

However. Special needs is not an adjective. You can't be a "special needs child" because special modifies needs and needs doesn't modify anything, since it's a noun. It sounds stupid. It is stupid. The awkwardness of using a phrase in this manner, again, calls attention to those Very Special Needs of Blossom whatever child that is. Stop it.

Additionally, I'd like to ask which needs a child might have (since it's always special needs child, never special needs person) that are special. I mean, so special that they merit this label. Don't all children have needs, some of which are unique? Or is it that most kids are all alike, and only a few are special enough to merit the label of doom?

You know what I have to do?

I have to delete all existing memory categories in my journal and start afresh. Oy vey.

That was random. This is Yet Another funny post on that movie, the name of which I do not care to say.

I'm beginning to think that there ought to be some sort of law...

You can't be president if either your parent or your sibling was president before you.

I mean, if we can randomly prevent every non-native-born citizen from becoming president, surely we can prevent a dynasty of idiots from arising, right? That's not very different from the argument against serving more than two terms, is it?

An article from sophiaserpentia

About adware and anti-adware programs.

An idea I had for book_icons

You're welcome to contribute ideas, save me the trouble of searching them out all by myself.

Bored, bored, I am so bored.

And chanting.

And being boring in addition to merely bored.

Quick, somebody give me something to do. Please? I'll start reciting poems if you don't.

Taken from asperger

Having to do with the tentative criteria for "Crypto-sensitivity syndrome" purported to be in the next edition of the DSM.

It's a PDF. Youse all know how I hate that, so I'm going to copy it and put it here, hold on a bit.

( Read more... )

Done-done.

*blinkblinkblinkblink*

Did I do something wrong?

She asks a question. I answer it, albeit rather tersely. I'm not paid enough to be nice to people, y'know? She replies rather snittily (or so I thought). I point out the error in her statement, and I get called a bitch?

*looks down*

Nope, no fur. Still a biped.

Edit: She also appears to take offense to my answering questions I don't know with "you should check the support area". Well, I'm sorry, but I'm starting to notice that asking questions off of the support area tends to lead you to get a number of erroneous answers. Sad, but true.

(That, or I've been saying a lot of VERY wrong things to people on the boards, a truly scary thought)

Edit: I love you guys, I really do. But, please, can we stop troll-feeding? Sooner or later LJDrama or fandom_wank is going to pick up on it, and those people hate me. Which doesn't really bother me, but I like my actual journal being the first google result again.

Edit again: We're all made up.

Our love. It's so special.