Why Google and Amazon Are Hypocrites (om.blog) 245
Amazon earlier this month responded to Google's decision to remove YouTube from all Fire TV products and the Echo Show. Google says it's taking this extreme step because of Amazon's recent delisting of new Nest products (like Nest Secure and the E Thermostat) and the company's long-running refusal to sell Chromecast or support Google Cast in any capacity. Veteran journalist Om Malik writes: This smacks of so much hypocrisy that I don't even know where to start. The two public proponents of network neutrality and anything but neutral about each other's services on each other's platforms. They can complain about the cable companies from blocking their content and charging for fast lanes. The irony isn't lost on me even a wee bit. They are locked in a battle to collect as much data about us -- what we shop, what we see, what we do online and they do so under the guise of offering us services that are amazing and wonderful. They don't talk about what they won't do with our data, instead, they bicker and distract. So to think that these purveyors of hyper-capitalism will fight for interests of consumers is not only childish, it is foolish. We as end customers need to figure out who is speaking on our behalf when it comes to the rules of the Internet.
That's easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody.
Next question?
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Next question?
What is the air velocity of an unladen swallow?
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African or European?
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*looks around*.... Yes. :D
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Hunhh? I don't know that! AAaaaiieeeeeee.....
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No, no, no. Certainly "What is your favorite color?" should be next.
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We are no longer allowed to talk about issues of color, or pick favorites!
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Pshhh. Says you! My favorite color is clear. The most accepting of other colors. The invisible favorite of everyone's color!
Article fusses over non-issue (Score:2, Insightful)
If the device can access the Internet, it can play youtube. Apparently, the Fire is some kind of walled-garden already, so negotiations about what are in or out actually make sense. If Amazon wants youtube in their walled garden, they appease Google. Otherwise, they tear down the walls. They can get youtube either way.
Amazon's store front doesn't sell everything in the world. There are many products not listed for many reasons. There is no store-provision neutrality law nor even debate on the topic.
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Interesting)
Even when we [The People] speak on our own behalf in large numbers, nobody is listening.
There is your problem. You mistake the US as a democracy and the FCC under whims of popular opinion. The government is listening to "The People" through their elected representatives in Congress and Trump. Have you ever considered that "The People" disagree and the best way to handle that disagreement is through elections which we have had (having) to decide how best the government address the concerns of "The People"? Sometimes in elections your opinion loses to the other opinion.
If the current FCC chair is so bad then Obama shouldn't have nominated him to serve in the FCC. Yes, under law he was required to nominate a republican and he was suggested by the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McTurtle (seriously looks and sounds like a turtle) but Obama didn't have to accept that recommendation and pick any other republican to fill the position.
What's the problem here and how is the government ignoring "The People"?
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It's a fine idea. And perhaps one day it will be common to find politicians who actually wish to represent the people electing them, rather than the donors willing to offer the biggest bribes.
I'll start looking right after I catch a unicorn.
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This is the part where you tell me that the people voting are too stupid to vote for their own self interests. Out of the 536 federal elections none of the constituents understand the issues like you, right?
I am confused. Are people smart enough to have their opinion matter for the FCC or are they too stupid to vote in 3 people to represent their interests at the federal level?
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I'm saying candidates interested in representing their electorate rarely get the financing necessary to run a credible campaign, and so instead everyone votes for the perceived lesser evil of the major party candidates,who clearly *don't* represent their interests except on a few hot-button topics of no interest to their corporate backers, and which they tend to remain in eternal gridlock with their opponents over - to the benefit of everyone directly involved.
And sadly, voting for the lesser evil is in fact the rational choice in this situation - it is a known weakness of first-past-the-post voting systems, and one that politicians have learned how to game extremely effectively.
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rarely get the financing necessary to run a credible campaign
The funny thing is that the more moneyed candidates have been losing. Well financed != victory.
few hot-button topics of no interest to their corporate backers
If you are a single issue voter, so what? If a congressmen has a corporation in their district that employs many of their constituents, do you expect the employees to be favorable to that corporation in the election? It would seem like corporate welfare to an outsider but do you think the people voting would want favorable treatment of that corporation by the government and want that interest represented at the fe
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America wasn't founded by people who hoped good politicians would eventually look after them. It was founded by people who tool the matter into their own hands.
The founding fathers would be disgusted by you.
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So you're saying that we should vote every other November and shut the hell up on the other 729 days? That we should only express our political opinions by voting for one person who represents our interests better than the other guy?
The election was not about Net Neutrality. The people voting for Trump were not voting to get screwed in favor of large businesses.
If you've spoken out on any government action, like the ACA, you're being hypocritical.
The problem is that people like you get all technica
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Hold the phone. There is a difference in voicing your opinion about federal issues through arguments/votes and conflating a legally required open comments for a federal bureaucracy with "speak on our own behalf in large numbers, nobody is listening". The government and FCC/FTC ARE listening. If you don't believe that then you can tell me what the FTC got wrong in 2007 [ftc.gov]. Seems to me they understand perfectly well the issues and what is at stake.
Go ahead and tell me why the FCC/FTC are wrong or that how you th
Not hypocritcal (Score:5, Insightful)
A good parallel is Uber and Lyft. They both use the same infrastructure (roads). Should they be required to support each other's services? No. They're competitors. Similarly, Google and Amazon use the same infrastructure (the Internet). Net neutrality should allow them to compete on the shared infrastructure, just as others compete on their shared infrastructure.
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A good parallel is Uber and Lyft. They both use the same infrastructure (roads). Should they be required to support each other's services? No. They're competitors. Similarly, Google and Amazon use the same infrastructure (the Internet). Net neutrality should allow them to compete on the shared infrastructure, just as others compete on their shared infrastructure.
Agreed. There is a difference between a level playing field and having players from the other team on your team.
That said, yes this sucks for customers and customer choice and is anti-competitive for companies to be using their market position in one area to be restraining other goods and services.
I would fault both companies... where if Google have not retaliated and acted in the best interest of consumer choice I would have laid the blame squarely on Amazon.
Another reminder of why it can be bad when comp
Re:Not hypocritcal (Score:4, Insightful)
Except one and the same driver can be driving for Lyft and Uber at the same time, choosing the most convenient passenger to pick up (or for that matter, someone can have both Uber and Lyft apps on their phone at the same time).
What Google and Amazon are doing is anticompetitive. It may not match with your carefully drawn definitions of net neutrality, but what they are doing is anticompetitive (they are leveraging their market power in one market segment to help their product in another segment), which is why to nontechnical people, this seems as wrong as violations of net neutrality principles.
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Oh no! Car analogies are going autonomous!
The information superhighway will never be the same.
*Ahem* Google Fiber anyone? (Score:2)
Google is a competitor to the big ISPs via Google Fiber. Google wants neutrality on their networks for its streaming services, but you know it's not going to scratch their backs if they want full and undiscriminated access to their networks.
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Google is a competitor to the big ISPs via Google Fiber. Google wants neutrality on their networks for its streaming services, but you know it's not going to scratch their backs if they want full and undiscriminated access to their networks.
Google Fiber serves only a few areas and last I heard had put a halt to its expansion plans.
Maybe if incumbent ISPs start upcharging for YouTube they will reconsider those plans.
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This has nothing to do with Net Neutrality and everything to do with actually making a better product. Both make products that have nearly every video content competitor out there. Except for their direct technology competitors. It's the worst kind of vendor lock-in.
No, compare this to the attack ads or lower-third crawls that your cable/satellite company runs when a local broadcast affiliate or national network wants to raise its rates - they are both being greedy and selfish and making the experience w
Re:Not hypocritcal (Score:4, Insightful)
Case #2 in point, Google's execs regularly fly their Boeing 767 into and out of government owned Moffett Field rather than "fight the lines" at San Jose International a mere 4 or 5 more miles down the road.
That's not a very good example. NASA got a pretty good deal there, gaining access to regular use of the Google jets, saving them several million dollars per year, and then later $1.2B for a lease of Hangar One, saving them millions more in annual maintenance expenses in addition to the cash.
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Case #2 in point, Google's execs regularly fly their Boeing 767 into and out of government owned Moffett Field rather than "fight the lines" at San Jose International a mere 4 or 5 more miles down the road.
Not sure that is a great example. Google leases the field from NASA and operates it. I've never leased an airport before, so I'm not sure if 1.16 billion dollars for a 60-year lease (and Google taking over the maintenance costs) is a good or bad deal for NASA.
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The flaw in your analogy is overlooking that infrastructure roads are public, whereas the infrastructure of the internet is built on private networks. If roads were built and maintained by private entities, they would be within their rights to charge a fee for usage, a.k.a, a toll, right? But they would also be within their rights to vary the price of the toll based on the amount of usage and impact to the roads. We accept this model for toll roads, yet, for some reason, reject it for networks.
We accept higher tolls for heavier vehicles that do more damage to the road. Do you think people would accept different tolls for the same vehicle traveling the same stretch of road, based on what the destination was? Headed to Disney World? Your toll is $10. Universal Studios? $20. Going to visit both? $30. That is where we will end up without either net neutrality or a competitive market for ISPs
The cost of transferring a packet between a subscriber and the internet backbone is the same regardless of the
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That is insightful to a point. Where the comparison trips up is that the "internet roads" are really *semi* private. They use land that was confiscated with the force of eminent domain to put up. Time-Warner, et. al., didn't go door to door making agreements with individual land owners in order to run cable lines across private property.
If that were the case, I would accept your analogy. As it is, I have to ask why the cable lines are private. IMNSHO, if the state uses eminent domain to confiscate prop
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Time-Warner, et. al., didn't go door to door making agreements with individual land owners in order to run cable lines across private property.
That's right. They went to the local municipality and obtained a franchise agreement allowing them access to the easements and rights of way that the government had already obtained.
They use land that was confiscated with the force of eminent domain to put up.
The implication being that Time Warner was the driving force behind the easement/rights-of-way and caused the land to be confiscated. Time Warner is a late-comer to that process.
As it is, I have to ask why the cable lines are private.
Because they belong to Time Warner or Comcast or ... who are paying the municipal authority for access to the rights-of-way.
IMNSHO, if the state uses eminent domain to confiscate property "for the public good", then said property and anything built upon it should remain with the state "for the public good."
If we had to depend on "the
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Was just going to chime in with a car analogy, but there's two good ones here.
Why would you think that in the first place? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who the hell said that? Google and Amazon are acting in their own interest. On net neutrality, their interests align with ours. I'm not sure I'd call it hypocrisy, because the point is the same in both cases: corporations are going to serve their own interests, including when that has a detrimental effect on healthy competition. If you are trusting anyone to do anything else, you are a fool.
If they are actively blacklisting... (Score:2)
Now near as I figure, Amazon did the latter... and Google responded by doing the former.
This kind of arms race is just going to fragment th
Re:If they are actively blacklisting... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The web is being neutral. As .long as the net is neutral, neither Google nor Amazon can block the rise of competition. Google and Amazon are acting like jerks here, but companies acting like jerks is nothing new and not necessarily a problem.
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Net Neutrality is not about the WWW or about servers.
It is about routers.
Internet routers should not discriminate. That is net neutrality. If a server wants to discriminate, that is just Freedom.
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AFAIK, they didn't block the web browser, you can still go to youtube.com and watch all the videos (and ads).
What they blocked was the app, Amazon responded by spoofing a web browser, probably using the same technique as NewPipe, and this is what they blacklisted.
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This kind of arms race is just going to fragment the 'net, and the consumers like you and me are going to the losers.
No, consumers like you are going to be a loser.
If I don't like it, I don't buy it. Just because you're a moron and fail at your own attempts to vote with your wallet doesn't mean I made the same mistakes.
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I was referring to consumers of internet service in general, not the consumers of products that might be pushed upon them.
Of course, if you are suggesting that you are intending to go without using the internet at all, then, well.... to each their own, I suppose.
It's a matter of importance and magnitude (Score:5, Insightful)
YouTube on some Amazon gadget or Amazon selling some Google toy is two kids petty bickering I can easily ignore.
Net neutrality is something that WILL affect me, no matter how hard I try to ignore it being eliminated.
This smells of a rather desperate attempt to shill, after all sensible arguments have been gone for a long, long time, so what's left is whataboutism and deflection.
Nothing to do with Net Neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
Neutrality doesn't sell in the marketplace (Score:2)
Consumers are EASILY distracted by marketing.
Of course it's NOT to the end users' benefit that you can't watch Youtube on your Echo and you can't listen to Amazon Music on your Google home.
BUT with a general purpose computer you can still listen to both.
The big telecoms want to TAKE AWAY rules protecting your freedom to use a general purpose computer to access whatever content you want at the same cost to download or upload each bit of data from your ISP no matter which service you decide to use;
Not the same issue (Score:3)
The same cannot be said if, for example, my ISP decided that access to YouTube is not part of my internet channel package, and I have to pay $30/mo more for the privilege.
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Google can't really block any open device from accessing Youtube. How would they know I am using X and not Y unless my computing device tells them that? If I can control my computing device, I will continue being a dog.
Why this article is stupid. (Score:2)
Amazon hypocrisy (Score:2)
If Amazon won't sell competing products in their store, then why do they sell iPads? Those compete against the Amazon Fire tablets, right? Amazon is full of hypocrisy.
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Because Apple doesn't have any cloud computing or API services.
False equivalence (Score:2)
The analogy is stupid, badly thought out, and has no place to be compared to Net Neutrality.
Doesn't matter if the companies are fighting, you can get a Roku stick, an Apple TV, Hulu, stick to a tabletop HTPC or whatever if you don't like what Google and Amazon are offering.
This is about ISPs treating data equally without distinguishing it, not about what corporations choose to offer in their own proprietary devices.
How can people still be this stupid on this issue after how long we have been discussing this
Lead by example (Score:2)
They are providing a really valuable, real life example of why net neutrality is important: because otherwise we will get shit like this Google-Amazon cat fight where the only ones that really lose are the customers.
Hypocrit? I think not (Score:2)
Bezos is an apex predator, who has never even pretended to not be an ignore-what-I-say planet-destroying hypocrite where his business interests were concerned. To some degree, Google really has to fight fire with fire here. I remain a long ways away from tarring Google and Amazon with the same brush.
Check out The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (2013). Captures the general tone of the organization brilliantly.
Amazon just removed encryption from its tablet devices [dailydot.com] — March 2016
Good example (Score:2)
Hypocrites or not, this is a good example of what will happen when the telecom companies, which have a de-facto monopoly in a specific area due to infrastructure costs, have the ability to charge differently and throttle the traffic going through the 50Mbps pipe I paid for based upon where that traffic originated.
Conflated post. (Score:2)
The poster is trying to conflate the Amazon Google battle with net neutrality in an attempt to cast them as hypocrites. I wonder did AT&T/Verizon lobby arm create this post?
This has nothing at all to do with net neutrality. What this is about is Amazon's starting a war with Google by blocking the sale of Google's products in favor of their own products and as a result Google has responded in kind after two years of doing nothing. I remember two years ago when Amazon pulled Google Chromcast from t
None of the above (Score:2)
Personally I would much rather have mega corporations fighting each other than duopolies colluding.
YouTube has jumped the shark. (Score:2)
Amazon may have as well, but YouTube has definitely passed its "Best Used By" date. Now they're all about bringing in that ad revenue, including extending the middle finger to longtime contributors simply because the advertisers would prefer to go in another direction. The sooner they fade into irrelevance (I don't think they'll die any time soon), the sooner we'll have to come up with an alternative or three.
YouTube should die in a Fire(TV).
There is so much media pushing for Net Neutrality (Score:2)
That's hypocrasy.. how? (Score:2)
It seems to me that there's a difference between:
"I'm not going to support my competitor's products"
and
"I don't want a random third party fucking up my business."
If Google was complaining about net neutrality while simultaneously blocking their services from Comcast customers (as a competitor to its Fiber brand) then they would be hypocritical. Fighting with your competitor in an unrelated market is not. At least not by any definition I've ever heard.
Of course words don't mean anything anymore in our curr
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Spoken like someone who always cheats if he can.
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>People had a really hard life back then. 40 years, if you made it that far, was REALLY old.
I was going to school you on life expectancy after early mortality was removed... but a bit of research shows 40 WAS damn old until a few hundred years into the common era, though late 50s had been not terribly uncommon for a maybe a thousand years by then - if you lived in the right place, of course.
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>People had a really hard life back then. 40 years, if you made it that far, was REALLY old.
I was going to school you on life expectancy after early mortality was removed... but a bit of research shows 40 WAS damn old until a few hundred years into the common era, though late 50s had been not terribly uncommon for a maybe a thousand years by then - if you lived in the right place, of course.
Maybe you should look a bit harder...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Specifically this table...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
The change in life expectancy of mature men has not changed as dramatically over 3000 years as might be expected, although this data must of necessity refer to privileged members of society.
The observation being, it probably matters less where you lived than if you lived a hard life...
On the other hand, this observation doesn't appear to apply to women.
Life expectancy of women at the age of 15 years has however changed dramatically over the last 600 years and by a decade and a half since the mid-Victorian period.
One wonders what socio-economic forces might explain this
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On the other hand, this observation doesn't appear to apply to women.
Life expectancy of women at the age of 15 years has however changed dramatically over the last 600 years and by a decade and a half since the mid-Victorian period.
One wonders what socio-economic forces might explain this
Childbirth has become much less hazardous.
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Life expectancy of women at the age of 15 years has however changed dramatically over the last 600 years and by a decade and a half since the mid-Victorian period.
One wonders what socio-economic forces might explain this
Death in childbirth, or from infections following childbirth, were very common. The big change occurred from 1840 to 1870, when midwives and doctors began washing their hands [wikipedia.org].
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Fine. If we do that hard enough, the only people that can run for office will be penniless eunuchs, and they might base policies on facts.
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If there's a 1% chance someone is a sexual predator, you should find another candidate.
1. They couldn't "find another candidate". Even at the time of the 1st allegation, it was too late to remove Moore from the ballot.
2. There is WAY more than a 1% chance that the accusations are true. About 10% of accusations of sexual assault that are investigated are found to be false. That doesn't mean that other 90% are all true, but it does indicate that accusations are more likely true than not. The accusers have no known motivation to lie, have no history of political activism, and most of them
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they should have shitcanned him before he even filled out the paperwork.
Who is "they"?
If there is a more than 1% chance that someone is guilty of any major crime or morally questionable action, find someone else, because the pool of eligible candidates is in the millions.
The number of adults with a 99% chance of having never done anything morally questionable is precisely zero.
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Sorry if my euphemisms were a bit too vague. I'm talking about a relatively low number of major actions (corruption, ephebophilia/pedophilia, sexual harassment) that aren't covered by laws, but could similarly tarnish a campaign. The number is still going to be quite small, but we don't need very many candidates.
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"They" is the GOP.
You seem to have a weird mental model of how elections work. The GOP consists of 52 million people. How are they going to decide who does or doesn't get to file an election form in an Alabama courthouse?
There is no "they". Anyone can run for office if they meet the age and a few other legal requirements. No one other than the voters can stop them.
If there was a "they", then Jeb Bush would be president.
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I'm not saying that you prevent them from filing an election form, I'm saying that you make it clear that power behind the party is not going to be on Moore's side, and that you will immediately rip him to shreds if you don't withdraw.
The reason Moore wasn't impeded wasn't because he couldn't have been impeded, it's because nobody with the power to saw a reason to stop him. And no, it's not a hard, explicit, conspiracy, it's mostly not even an intentional conspiracy, but there is definitely a system, and
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I'm saying that you make it clear that power behind the party is not going to be on Moore's side
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. The establishment overwhelmingly backed Luther Strange, and was vehemently opposed to Moore.
Most political analysts believe that the establishment opposition actually helped Moore's candidacy. The GOP establishment is not very popular in American, and even less so in Alabama. Every time Mitch McConnell says Moore should drop out, his poll numbers go up.
Here is one other guy that won despite strong opposition by the GOP establishment: Donald Trump.
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1. They couldn't "find another candidate". Even at the time of the 1st allegation, it was too late to remove Moore from the ballot.
Exactly. The first allegation was trotted out to the world the very day after the deadline to remove Moore from the ballot.
Convenient timing, hmmm?
If, after the election, it is discovered that all these allegations are completely false (yeah, unlikely, some of them seem to have some basis) would there be a do-over on the election? Ha! Of course not; there is no provision in law for that.
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So yes, the Republican leadership did insist that he withdraw from the race. But the closer the election came, and the closer the tax screwup bill vote seemed to be, the more they decided they should back Moore anyway.
Ironic, since it was not very long ago that everyone bitched that Bill Clinton didn't have the right "character", and that he was a "waffler". So here we see the Republicans waffling over a candidate of low character. They're ready to toss their dignity away for the sake of a tie breaking vo
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Supposedly Matthew 18:6 Matthew 18:6 6"If anyone causes one of these little ones-those who believe in me-to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
That doesn't sound like a blanket ban. Pedophilia should still be okay as long as the victim isn't a believer.
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Supposedly Matthew 18:6 Matthew 18:6 6"If anyone causes one of these little ones-those who believe in me-to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
That doesn't sound like a blanket ban. Pedophilia should still be okay as long as the victim isn't a believer.
and yet the text doesn't say that. The text doesn't refer to whether or not the victim "believes". It also isn't limited to pedophelia - murder, pedophelia, abuse, etc would all fall into the context of what was said, and the term used is a generic for all children.
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The text doesn't refer to whether or not the victim "believes".
Uhh ... yes it does: "those who believe in me".
If the qualification was not important, then why did J.C. include it?
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Matthew (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+18%3A6-9&version=NIV) and Mark (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+9%3A42-50&ve
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more importantly, there has been no allegations in more recent times. Every allegation is 30yrs old. If we are going to remove everyone from any elected or government position based on any sort of thing they did 30 years ago, under the scrutiny of 2017 views (bear in mind that in alabama, asking parents for their underage kids hand in marriage was not _that_ uncommon; Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13yr old Cousin only a about decade earlier) then we better start throwing every single one of them out and look
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I understand that you are in America, but even so, Feminism was a big thing in the 1920's - Ie about 100 years ago. Here in the UK, the tradition _was_ that if someone got an under-age girl pregnant, the girl would go to a mother and baby home, and the boy/man would be "disappeared" - either leave town never to return, or be found face down in the river. It was still happeni
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Establishing the right to vote was a big thing in the 20s. But Feminism and Women's rights are similar but not entire the same movement. Women didnt do the whole 'burn their bra' thing until the 60s. Thats really when I see the biggest transition of Feminism in society. Women in the workforce happened during WWII, but they were expected to become housewives once the men returned. Women didn't really start going back to work en masse until later. Sure there were nurses and secretaries etc, but that was reser
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... or it wasn't prohibited due to consanguinity.
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"When I was in college I knew someone who intended to go into politics. He was 19 and systematically avoided anything that might prove “a problem” to his future career. What he avoided was everything that a normal 19-year-old might do. I couldn’t articulate then what I can now: I do not want to be led by someone who has led a life free of trial, error, remorse and forgiveness. I do not want to be led by anyone who hasn’t moved to the edge of the abyss because I want my leader to know
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So, he apparently committed certain heinous acts, and what really bothers you is that the description some people use of him is technically inaccurate?
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So, he apparently committed certain heinous acts,
He didn't "apparently" commit, he "allegedly" committed. And yes, if the term being used has huge negative connotations compared to the truth, using the "technically accurate" term is the right thing to do. At least, it is the honest thing to do.
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no, just creepy, that is, if you are old enough to potentially be their parent; which happens around age 36.
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For some reason, being disgraced is not enough of a reason to convince voters. Some of them like the crazy uncle style of politician. In Alabama they're single-issue voters; tell them how the candidate stands on the abortion issue and that's all they need to know.
Even the hypocrite Newt Gingrich, who turned out to be a much bigger sleazebag than Clinton, was making a comeback on the Trump coat tails. All the voters want is someone on their team who can shout and rail against the other team. No one gives
Re: alabama (Score:5, Informative)
Some of the accusations against Franken are dubious. They're of behavior far short of stalking malls for underage girls, which is what got Moore banned from some malls. Franken acknowledged and apologized. Franken called for an investigation into his activities.
There are indeed hypocrites in both parties, but Franken doesn't show that.
Re: alabama (Score:4)
There is one picture, and if you bother to actually look at it, it's using the camera angle to fake groping - kind of like those photographs of a tourist 'holding up the leaning tower of Pisa'. Tasteless, perhaps, but not 'evidence of assault'. And you might want to account for the context of the joke - i.e. whether it was consistent with the general cut-up nature of that USO backstage scene.
No, the Democrats got played on this one - and yeah, they're way to easily played this way. That Breitbart chick that tried to dupe the Washington Post almost got away with it too.
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Franken is still in the Senate. So hypocrites abound in both parties. News at 11
Franken has announced his resignation, a majority of Democratic Senators have called for his resignation, the news on this was last week.
Roy Moore has received the personal endorsement of the Republican President(who campaigned for him just this weekend), their PACs(writing checks to pay for advertising to his benefit), and the rest are barely able to tepidly criticize him as they pray they won't have to accept him into the Senate due to some vague impropriety in the election or something(Shelby has already
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Didn't the Alabama House start debating a new law that would throw out special elections and instead allow the (Republican) Governor to appoint someone to fill the seat until the next general election?
But you're right, I wouldn't put it past them to declare the election invalid on some pretext, pass the aforementioned law, and the have the Governor appoint his designated crony.
And even more so if Jones wins...
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On what basis? That might be true in hunter/gatherer societies, but is not generally the case in farming societies. I would expect there to be firm evidence about Roman views on the issue, and the area was, as we know, under Roman rule at the time. I was taught (by a Christian school) that "Virgin" in Latin of that era should be read as "teenager" in modern terminology.
I have no idea whether Mary was thirteen or ninete
Re:The reason they support âoeNet Neutrality (Score:2)
Is because the current incarnation supports them and not any newcomers. Bundling, zero-rating services, higher speeds on networks exclusive to Google/Amazon/Netflix and selective data caps all while maintaining the âoecommon carrierâ status helps them a bunch. Losing Obamaâ(TM)s Net ââ(TM)Neutralityâ would level the playing field again to where they all have to play to the same rules or lose common carrier.
Huh? Can you please expand on that, because it seems like self-contradictory nonsense to me.
Re:The reason they support âoeNet Neutrality (Score:2)
Um, no. You're completely wrong. With Net Neutrality, any site that wants to compete with Google and/or Amazon can reach everybody. Without Net Neutrality, Google and Amazon can work out a relationship where search engines and online stores pay some for access to the ISPs' customers, and freeze out potential competition before it starts.
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Yes, my point is, that was what common carrier status was all about, about a decade ago at least. Then "Net Neutrality" came about which actually was a redefinition of what we understood back then to be Net Neutrality and suddenly all these providers are now bundling their data, apps and Netflix/Google is more than happy to pay for priority access to the network without any repercussions.
Google/Netflix/Amazon don't REALLY want Net Neutrality, they want government protected lines for themselves but not for t
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Get a Roku. For now. Before Roku tries too hard at becoming a media company in its own right. They have Youtube AND Amazon. Just nothing Apple, because they are exclusively vendor lock-in across the board.
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McDonald's doesn't sell the Whopper.
If you go into a McD and ask for a "whopper", they'll happily sell you their equivalent. I've done it. They laughed, asked for money, then magically a hamburger remarkably similar to a Whopper appeared on a tray in front of me.
BTW, "special sauce" is just thousand island dressing.