If only there were an equivalent technique for answering the door to doorstep evangelists at 8am on a Sunday. Other than being completely naked.

>> ^Payback:

"Remarkable restraint".
If it was me, I would have shoved my kid out the door and proceeded saved the State the costs of a trial and imprisonment.
Don't even TRY to tell me a jury of my peers would convict me.

ps: legacy, as you've checked the appropriate box, I will assume you're quoting QM or someone similar.


You'd leave your kid naked on the doorstep of a strange paedophile's house?

The transcription is from a different message. Here's the right one:

Greetings, members of NATO. We are Anonymous.

In a recent publication, you have singled out Anonymous as a threat to „government and the people“. You have also alleged that secrecy is a ‘necessary evil’ and that transparency is npt always the right way forward.

Anonymous would like to remind you that the government and the people are, contrary to the supposed foundations of „democracy“, distinct entities with often conflicting goals and desires. It is Anonymous’ position that when there is a conflict of interest between the government and the people, it is the people’s will which must take priority. The only threat transparency poses to government is to threaten government’s ability to act in a manner which the people would disagree with, without having to face democratic consequences and accountability for such behaviour. Your own report cites a perfect example of this, the Anonymous attack on HBGary. Whether HBGary were acting in the cause of security or military gain is irrelevant – their actions were illegal and morally reprehensible. Anonymous does not accept that the government and/or the military has the right to be above the law and to use the phoney cliche of „national security“ to justify illegal and deceptive activities. If the government must break the rules, they must also be willing to accept the democratic consequences of this at the ballot box.We do not accept the current status quo whereby a government can tell one story to the people and another in private. Dishonesty and secrecy totally undermine the concept of self rule. How can the people judge for whom to vote unless they are fully aware of what policies said politicians are actually pursuing?

When a government is elected, it is said to „represent“ the nation it governs. This essentially means that the actions of a government are not the actions of the people in government, but are actions taken on behalf of every citizen in that country. It is unacceptable to have a situation in which the people are, in many cases, totally and utterly unaware of what is being said and done on their behalf – behind closed doors.

Anonymous and WikiLeaks are distinct entities. The actions of Anonymous were not aided or even requested by WikiLeaks. However, Anonymous and WikiLeaks do share one common attribute: They are no threat to any organization – unless that organization is doing something wrong and attempting to get away with it.

We do not wish to threaten anybody’s way of life. We do not wish to dictate anything to anybody. We do not wish to terrorize any nation.

We merely wish to remove power from vested interests and return it to the people – who, in a democracy, it should never have been taken from in the first place.
The government makes the law. This does not give them the right to break it. If the government was doing nothing underhand or illegal, there would be nothing „embarassing“ about Wikileaks revelations, nor would there have been any scandal emanating from HBGary. The resulting scandals were not a result of Anonymous’ or Wikileaks’ revelations, they were the result of the CONTENT of those revelations. And responsibility for that content can be laid solely at the doorstep of policymakers who, like any corrupt entity, naively believed that they were above the law and that they would not be caught.

A lot of government and corporate comment has been dedicated to „how we can avoid a similar leak in the future“. Such advice ranges from better security, to lower levels of clearance, from harsher penalties for whistleblowers, to censorship of the press.

Our message is simple: Do not lie to the people and you won’t have to worry about your lies being exposed. Do not make corrupt deals and you won’t have to worry about your corruption being laid bare. Do not break the rules and you won’t have to worry about getting in trouble for it.

Do not attempt to repair your two faces by concealing one of them. Instead, try having only one face – an honest, open and democratic one.

You know you do not fear us because we are a threat to society. You fear us because we are a threat to the established hierarchy. Anonymous has proven over the last several years that a hierarchy is not necessary in order to achieve great progress – perhaps what you truly fear in us, is the realization of your own irrelevance in an age which has outgrown its reliance on you. Your true terror is not in a collective of activists, but in the fact that you and everything you stand for have, by the changing tides and the advancement of technology, are now surplus to requirements.

Finally, do not make the mistake of challenging Anonymous. Do not make the mistake of believing you can behead a headless snake. If you slice off one head of Hydra, ten more heads will grow in its place. If you cut down one Anon, ten more will join us purely out of anger at your trampling of dissent.

Your only chance of defeating the movement which binds all of us is to accept it. This is no longer your world. It is our world – the people’s world.

We are Anonymous.
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

>> ^blankfist:

You confused me a bit here. You're repeating my sentiment on this.
Certainly it's a smart business move to use the post office in less accessible/less populated areas, because it's cheaper than paying a driver and buying a truck to do it. Again, this has something to do with the USPS having a monopoly on first class mail, because they're the only show in town for first class mail they have to offer their service nearly everywhere in the US - even to rural areas where they're probably losing money to operate there.

And again, I think that's probably true for some set of examples that don't involve deliveries to the NetRunner household. I don't live in a rural area. I live in an urban area, and even more specifically I'm quite near a FedEx delivery hub.

Still, they think it's cheaper to pay the USPS to deliver the package than use one of their own delivery trucks. I think they're right. It's far more efficient to use the USPS because they already have the infrastructure in place to deliver mail to my doorstep, and will be delivering mail to my neighborhood every day already. No point in inefficiently duplicating effort.
>> ^blankfist:
I think that's what @chilaxe meant by subsidizing. He didn't mean tax dollars,

I read the phrase "your and my paycheck" as an allusion to taxation. I also said as part of my rejoinder that it won't be affected, "unless you buy postage".

>> ^blankfist:
[T]he cost of postage on first class mail is subsidizing those drivers and stations in less profitable areas (though tax dollars did subsidize the post office for years). So, because the USPS already has trucks going out to those areas, companies like FedEx use that to their benefit where it would normally be unprofitable for them. Would you disagree with this assertion?

No, I agree with that assertion. Do you think there's something wrong with that kind of subsidization?

>> ^blankfist:
By the way, I think highly of Marxist philosophy. Marxists and little 'l' libertarians (think anarchist leaning) have more in common than Marxists and Social Democrats & Progressives. But that's a whole other conversation.


And one I'd like to have sometime. I personally think it's pretty strange for you to claim to respect Marxist philosophy, while decrying everything liberals do.

My dad has her beat. He put up a "Vote for Bush" (read my lips bush) on his balcony when Clinton was running...just to be silly. He got a visit from the secret service. They showed up as his door, and asked him some questions. One of which, was "Do you have plans to overthrow the United States Government?" to which his replay was *slightly long pause*..."Well, not yet!". As you can imagine, this response elicited a longer conversation. After they figured out he was just a silly old rabbler rouser, they left. There are always going to be these slight kind of run-ins when you have peoples who are free and also have an additional set of people tasked with keeping people "safe".

There was no harm done here either way in the end, the lady didn't get arrested for doing nothing wrong, and she wasn't overly rude beyond what an annoyed person should be for being questioned like this (it is scary, it is the FBI...on your doorstep, fucken scary). But I still find more problem with her being even questioned more than I have a problem with how she acted. Seemingly, the whole point of this contact wasn't for "investigation", but to either scare her into a recourse of action that she would regret, or to admit to something they could pin her with to arrest her. They questions were so vague, and the aim of their investigation so ambiguous, you can tell this was just them setting up land mines for her to crash into. She avoided them mostly, and perhaps not as nicely as they were setting them up for her to fall into, but someone being nice as they investigate you for crimes they want to charge you with doesn't necessarily put you in a good mood. It is like wishing someone a good day as you fire shots above their head. They were doing a hard job, yes. But was it a job worth doing, debatable. I think her response was in line with that debate. Not a hero, just a person doing the best they could.

Sorry for anyone religious who doesn't like it but if you truly believe in an all powerful all knowing God then this event and all others go right to his doorstep. Because every time something tragic happens (small and large) then if something all powerful is there, then it happens because either a)he allows it and thus condones it or b)can't prevent it, thus negating any all powerful claims and any other claims made by him based on that (which is all of them).

And still, when it comes to other people and their beliefs we do not always respect them (or their beliefs). Imagine someone who believes that Elvis is still alive and "preaches" it. We effectively marginalize such people and do not respect their views. I would go so far to say we do not even respect them.

In most other areas, as Sam Harris puts it, to be highly certain of something with a low order of evidence is a sign that something is wrong with your mind. However, when it comes to religion, we must suddenly flip this on its end and respect other people's beliefs. Why?

When it comes to tolerance, I could care less what people believe in their own heads. If it would only stay there. I do not want their views imposing on my life as it does now through the hindering of science and an attachment to ancient moral values. They are actively hindering me from fulfillment in this the only life I think I have. And while their lives appear better to themselves it comes at the cost of almost endless suffering felt by others. Condoms in Africa anyone?

Summing it up: Believe what you want, but as soon as you put it out there and it affects others be ready to have your reasons inspected and challenged.

>> ^SDGundamX:

I'm 100% with mgittle on this. You don't convince people by disrespecting them. While you don't have to respect people's ideas, in a civilized society at least, you should respect the person who formed them and not assume they are a total idiot just because they don't agree with you.
My basic problem with his argument is that it assumes that faith is somehow imposed from the outside--as if the faithful have all been suckered--and he's here to save them all from it. A lot of faithful that I know are willingly faithful. They know there is no "hard" evidence. They have a choice and they choose to be faithful. Why? The answer is simple really: because their faith makes their lives better.
And how can you argue with that? Would you honestly accept someone else telling you demanding that you change because that's what they think is going to make you happy? It works both ways, of course. Most of us here hate it when one of the overzealous faithful shows up on our doorstep to proclaim how much better we'll be worshiping their particular deity. This guy is just doing the same thing in reverse. Like mgittle said, showing them how happy you can be is far more persuasive.
Problem, of course, is that again it works both ways. Some people see how happy a certain faithful person is and choose to embrace the faith as well. I honestly think certain people are happier and more productive when they are practicing a religion and others are happier and more productive when atheist. It just depends on the individual. And I absolutely agree with justanotherday that it is entirely possible for all of us to get along... if we all learn some respect.
That said, there are serious problems within many major organized religions, and these do need to be addressed. But I see that as a separate issue from that of faith (in Christianity), which is mostly what the video was about.

I'm 100% with mgittle on this. You don't convince people by disrespecting them. While you don't have to respect people's ideas, in a civilized society at least, you should respect the person who formed them and not assume they are a total idiot just because they don't agree with you.

My basic problem with his argument is that it assumes that faith is somehow imposed from the outside--as if the faithful have all been suckered--and he's here to save them all from it. A lot of faithful that I know are willingly faithful. They know there is no "hard" evidence. They have a choice and they choose to be faithful. Why? The answer is simple really: because their faith makes their lives better.

And how can you argue with that? Would you honestly accept someone else telling you demanding that you change because that's what they think is going to make you happy? It works both ways, of course. Most of us here hate it when one of the overzealous faithful shows up on our doorstep to proclaim how much better we'll be worshiping their particular deity. This guy is just doing the same thing in reverse. Like mgittle said, showing them how happy you can be is far more persuasive.

Problem, of course, is that again it works both ways. Some people see how happy a certain faithful person is and choose to embrace the faith as well. I honestly think certain people are happier and more productive when they are practicing a religion and others are happier and more productive when atheist. It just depends on the individual. And I absolutely agree with justanotherday that it is entirely possible for all of us to get along... if we all learn some respect.

That said, there are serious problems within many major organized religions, and these do need to be addressed. But I see that as a separate issue from that of faith (in Christianity), which is mostly what the video was about.

Some comments:

1) "Idolators" really doesn't refer to followers of Judaism or Christians. Idolatry was outlawed in the Ten Commandments. That being said, there's a whole lotta bowin' and genuflectin' in the Roman Catholic Church. Still, that's NOT what was meant by 'idolators'. It referred to the pagan/animistic precursors of Islam, and it called for a zero tolerance policy toward those who were not 'people of the book'. So effective was this that there really are none around today.

2) If I read him right, he's calling for Crusade. I mean, all those guys were fighting defensive wars, and they managed to drive the Muslim invasion away from their doorsteps. However, the reason WHY they were fighting in Vienna and Constantinople and Lepanto was that Charles Martel stopped them at Tours, then let them walk away--keep all of Spain, in fact. Now all this seems to ignore that there was a whole lot of tit-for-tat fighting going on. They'd attack Christian Europe, and Christian Europe would attack them right back. In almost all cases, the conflict was couched in a religious context, but was really more of a geopolitical struggle. The only thing that could stop this struggle is the aforementioned Crusade, except this one would end with two significant cities in the Arabian Peninsula wiped off the map. The thing is--he tells us what might help, but he doesn't for a moment suggest what we could do in the modern context. This is the worst kind of 'expert'--someone who will freely share all the problems, and say that the solutions are quite apparent, and then fail to share what those solutions might be.

3) I've had several students over the years (I taught high school) actively try to convert me to Islam. I'd listen to them, because it was something about which they were passionate, and you never want to dampen their spirits. I would then pull out a map, and show them the growth of Islam. I'd ask them how it got from Mecca to Tours in 100 years. Inevitably they'd come up with some wonderful fairy tale about how people would hear the words of the Prophet, and convert on the spot. I then pointed out that they pretty much cut their way across North Africa, and swept into Spain, and if not for Charles Martel, Christianity might have been wiped off the earth. Did they think that Martel was the first person to say, "No, thanks?" This usually made them quite uncomfortable, because what followed that period was a time of (relative) peace in an area not known for its stability. "How many people honestly and openly chose Islam, do you think?" Again, they'd get uncomfortable. Is Islam all about peace? Sure it is--as long as Islam is on top. But that's pretty much the story with Christianity, right? That's the source of all this talk about America being a "Christian" nation. It seems to have little to do with actual tenets of faith, and everything to do with BRAND IDENTITY.

The real question, then, is this: How many modern Muslims are willing to go back to the old way of doing things? Damn few, it turns out. That's what this whole "perversion" thing is about. Those who would ignore EVERYTHING the modern world offers and KILL PEOPLE to get it are, in fact, very few in numbers, but the fruits of this modern world allow small groups of determined people to unleash mayhem. People like that can be found in every faith, political party, and ideology. The idea that their way might not be the right way scares the hell out of them, and they'd do anything to feel absolutely sure. How do we fight this? How have we ever fought ignorance? Knowledge and time. Crusade never works.

What, are they the being devoured by nano-Langoliers? Oh hey, the Director of Cube. Should be decent scifi. It will now be chilling in my Netflix queue and one day I will be surprised by its arrival at my doorstep.

I was hoping I'd be able to get the ball rolling on the "man with no arms and no legs jokes", but oh well.

What do you call a man with no arms and no legs...
...on a doorstep?
Matt
...in a crock pot?
Stu
...in a hole?
Phil
...in the ocean?
Bob
...in a mailbox?
Bill
...in a woman's dresser?
Teddy
...on a BBQ grill?
Frank
...hanging on the wall?
Art
...water skiing?
Skip

Ha ha! Yeah, I guess there was, but we didn't call it that. My uncle either couldn't or didn't tell anybody he was coming home, and just showed up on the doorstep one morning. I think it was that very night when my grandfolks cleared out the garage.

I was just a kid, and I remember the night was pitch black and the only light you could see was the glow from out the garage door, and from there the music, the laughter, the food, the smell of beer.

What a hoot.

In reply to this comment by calvados:
Was there a hootenanny in the garage that night?

In reply to this comment by rougy:
That song reminds me of camp fires.

It reminds me of my grandpa's garage on the Saturday my uncle Chuck got home from Vietnam.

It reminds me of brick-wall alleys on a fall day, kicking leaves as I walked.

This scene references this: http://www.videosift.com/video/Operation-Doorstep-nuclear-tests-against-cars-and-houses

oh and </votefish>

The Indy fridge scene: http://www.videosift.com/video/Operation-Doorstep-nuclear-tests-against-cars-and-houses

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Operation_Doorstep

Tags for this video have been changed from 'dumbfoundingly silly, indiana jones, indy, nuclear explosion, fridge, harrison ford' to 'dumbfoundingly silly, indy, nuclear explosion, test, doorstep, fridge, harrison ford' - edited by calvados