WebMonk
46p99 comments posted · 1 followers · following 0
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Environmentalists'... · 0 replies · +1 points
Hopefully this will be part of a move toward a more respectable stance against the pollution of the world.
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Bono's confession... · 0 replies · +1 points
Bono knows he's a sinner and has plenty of proof of it every day (like we all do), and his not worrying about trying to scrub his life of every tiny "bad thing" might be something along the lines of what Luther was intending.
Just an off-the-cuff thought.
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Bono's confession... · 8 replies · +1 points
Becoming more and more like Christ would wind up with a better following of the moral law, obviously, but the better following of the moral law isn't evidence of being more like Christ. We are indeed transformed continually into the image of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit, but that transformation isn't always displayed through a reduction in the acting out of a particular sin.
Equating the two is a nonsensical thing in this regard. If that nonsense what you're pointing out, then cool.
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - A flu by any other name · 0 replies · +1 points
This one started in pigs and was in the excrement and other waste which was flushed out to where it got into the local water supply and started infecting people. Swine Flu works pretty well since it was a virus that existed in pigs and was then transmitted to people.
Vilsack and Napolitano are doing public relations work for the pork industry, trying to make sure people don't stop eating pork just because of a confluence of names.
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Pestilence · 0 replies · +2 points
The "scary" part is that it is a nasty strain of the virus. It's maybe a tenth as scary as it seems to be portrayed in most of the news I've read.
Editor looking for a catchy piece for the news:
"Politics - we already have five political stories. Something else.
"Wars, bombings, fighting - ho hum.
"Hey, there hasn't been a health scare for a few months, and it even has an animal name attached to it like the bird flue stuff - that'll catch us some ratings!"
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Pestilence · 0 replies · +1 points
Unfortunately, it is a nasty bug which is killing people with lousy medical care available in densely populated areas. It is most certainly a worse-than-normal sickness, but not even close to pandemic levels.
(Yes, I know there have been some statements by medical professionals saying "pandemic" but there are people who like grabbing 5 seconds of fame in every profession.)
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Credit card reform · 0 replies · +1 points
Credit card contracts are specifically stated to be changeable by the credit card company in respect to rates and credit limits, so it's not a legal issue if they change rates even on perfectly reliable customers. When they have a really high rate of bankruptcies that are costing them billions of dollars they will try to make it back by charging the responsible people a higher rate.
Since when is this new? I pay for other people's mistakes all the time. I pay for my own too, and there are times when other people have paid for my mistakes. It's the way the world works and it's not limited to credit cards.
So, while it is perfectly legal for them to be doing what they're doing (at the moment anyway), it is generally considered unfair and unethical to make people pay for mistakes that were not their own, so raising the credit limit is probably an unethical act.
However, it's one of those types of unethical acts that happen all the time all over the world quite regularly. I think it's something we all just have to live with because so far all the solutions to stop the unfair or unethical acts have far larger issues than that which they are trying to fix.
Sure, we could pass laws to stop the unfair (maybe even unethical) acts of the credit card companies which make people pay for other's mistakes, but the havok and consequences of those laws (at least as formulated so far) would have a far MORE unfair and unethical effect than the credit card companies' actions.
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Pirate tale · 0 replies · +1 points
Having a ship loiter in an area, jump from one shipping line to another, or repeatedly cruise through an area would be a dead giveaway after the first couple surprises since the pirates would be particularly watching for things like that.
I think it would work great for the first couple times, but countering the decoy strategy isn't prohibitively difficult for the pirates and I suspect they would work around it pretty quickly.
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Pirate tale · 0 replies · +1 points
14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Pirate tale · 2 replies · +1 points
Just based on monetary costs, the sufficient arming and training of freighters combined with the remaining risk of damage to the ships FAR exceeds the monetary costs of the hijackings.
Kyle, many thousands of ships go through there and the number of ships stopped is only 0.01% of the total ships going through that area. You'd have to spend months with those 6 ships deployed to draw out even one attack. The shipping companies don't want anything to trigger the pirates into being more aggressive, so they would scream, too.