nemafakei

OK... it should then create one. Have you mounted a folder as your C drive?

Run the install programme again - what are your sound settings?

Using DosboxPPC, I can play Dune II on my HP iPAQ 210.

Regarding the 'small deployment' - thing is, the army won't be distributed evenly across the town, it'll be focussed on the centre and the major thoroughfares. If the town structure is anything typical, the rich in the suburbs will be fine while the poor in the inner city will have their lives disrupted or threatened. Especially if they look working class or maybe a bit foreign.

Hehe, Gob fixed it quickly once someone filed a bug report.

Mate, I'm not trying to argue the case for a reading of Ismael.

"Torah scrolls the world over are and have been exactly the same" That only tells us that they were standardised at some point, it does not tell us when. And indeed, as I understand it, the Torah does get standardised throughout its history. "How so?" An exegetic interpolation is when a note accompanying a text to explain it ends up being incorporated into the text, usually by being mistaken for an authentic part of the text in written works, or by being a 'useful' part of the text in oral transmission. Here, if the Muslim scholarship is correct, and calling Isaac the only son is confusing to the reader, then what might have happened would be that the passages that you say corroborate reading Isaac were not originally there, but were introduced to explain Isaac. "It's easy to make accusations against something based on the possibility that such and such could or may have been capable of happening, but there's no support for it, no proof." Sure, sure, but what's being offered is a contradiction - albeit one you don't accept - where the text itself (according to some) demonstrates a problem. All I'm saying is that your objections, that the Torah was written down a long time ago, that another passage contradicts the proposed reading, can themselves be countered. If the text as it stands is indeed contradictory, then the text as it stands is wrong and must be corrected. If the Torah contained a passage that read something like "And Moses went up to the mutton, from which high point he received some instructions, and he had the sheep for dinner, and he conveyed the instructions back down to his mates", we can see that going up to the mutton to receive instructions makes no sense, and that the correct word there is mountain. But how do we account for his reported meal? Interpolation. It doesn't matter if every Torah the world over has the word mutton there, it doesn't matter how long ago the Torah was written or who noticed the mistake and why - the text should in this example be "And Moses went up to the mountain, from which high point he received some instructions, and he conveyed the instructions back down to his mates". However, it all hinges on the one semantic point of whether the sentence makes sense. And, as I say, it's up to you to decide.

Purge, just because something is written down does not mean it is fixed. Unless you have the version of the Torah in Moshe's own hand, then there is scope for transmission error. Precisely what types of error we can expect to find will depend on the exact manuscript history, but your arguments about when things were written down do not hold water. "By "chapter 22" Isaac had already been born" This, as with the other paragraphs, might be exegetic interpolation.

"Anyway, it's my understanding that the field of Qur'anic textual criticism lags far behind that of the Jewish and ChristoPaulian scriptures; would that be an accurate assessment?" Difficult question to answer. On the one hand, there's the academic advancement, i.e. the methods and testing and so forth - Christian textual criticism is quite recent, beginning around the time of Erasmus, but I can't say for any of the others, nor compare their present states. On the other hand, there's how this advancement is treated - because we're dealing with holy texts, there's a great deal of defensiveness about what's written on the page. As I understand it, Islamic textual criticism is fairly well accepted as a necessity. Christian textual criticism is accepted by editors and academics, but many believers are deeply suspicious about it. In Judaism, I have no idea whatsoever. Finally, even textual critics have their own preferences, so the texts they produce are coloured by the dogma of their day as well as personal beliefs. Intertextuality, in particular, is a minefield - in secular criticism, it's a boon, but when editing a religious text created over many years, you end up literally create your own self-fulfilling prophecies if you're not extremely careful. "It's baseless revisionism of a long established text with a long established history." IF you believe, as you do, there is no inconsistency in the text to be solved, then you're correct, the rest is unreasonable. But it all hinges on that semantic question. If there is a contradiction, then irrespective of whether variants survive and irrespective of when it was first noticed, then it needs to be fixed, and a mis-recording of the name followed by several interpolations seems likely. And as I say, that's a matter of personal judgement.

Hm... as I understand it, two different oral histories record the name differently. At some point, an error occurred. The question is demonstrating where that error occurred. Accusations of bad faith are counterproductive in this conext, and are only useful to explain known phenomena that are otherwise inexplicable. The fact is neither oral nor textual histories are immune from a variety of innovations such as replacement, interpolation, omission, etc. "Muslims choose to ignore the entirety of the sentence "your son your only son who you love Isaac" and make excuses for why it says what it says, but they cannot retroactively change what it says." On the contrary, Tatar is claiming that Muslims do indeed take account of that sentence, but read a variation in the name, arguing that what it says today is not what it originally said, on the grounds that it is internally inconsistent. It is a matter of individual judgement whether you accept that the claim of inconsistency.

The trick in textual criticism is not simply to adduce other passages which might suggest one or the other, but attempt to chronologise those passages. A textual error in one place might beget scores of interpolations everywhere else. SandChigger, while I agree that citing the bible as proof that god exists or whatever is silly, using textual criticism to find out what order all the different variations and traditions arose in can still be interesting.

But he said the war was well-planned at 1.34, whereas at 2.48, he says that Bush pursued a failed policy. I call that a contradiction. Ok, perhaps he's changed his mind. But no: at 2.50, he says he's always been the greatest critic of the first three and a half or four years. He claims to have bitterly disagreed with the strategy. Additionally 2.20 he is confident of a short victory; 7.25, 7.39 he says a long time and suggests a hundred years. Sure, that's just a change of forecast, but it's an interesting reflection. And it really is a stunning thing to get wrong, considering the number of excess deaths that have taken place since Bush flew the "Mission Accomplished" flag. "what do you call Obama's retroactive optimism about Petraeus' surge?" Quite possibly the same, I've not seen that video/text/etc. But then I don't particularly think Obama is much less corrupt than any other politician.

2.38 and following contradicts the previous two minutes.

Only the Repair Vehicle model is capable of dispensing healing. You can make it heal infantry by finding the right property from vehicles (Repairable or CanBeRepaired or something) and adding it to infantry. A separate medic unit is not possible.

It is not reasonable to apply for a job in the full knowledge that an intrinsic part of the job is something you have a religious objection to. The question is what constitutes an intrinsic part of the job. On the other hand, the worker in question was subjected to a change in the type of employment. On those grounds, she is entitled to severance pay if the employer wished to terminate her employment. Yet, this was not the case being heard - the case was for compensation for harassment. "She said she was picked on, shunned and accused of being homophobic for refusing to carry out civil partnerships". It would be interesting to see the evidence for "picked on", as that seems to be the only one worth looking at. Accused of being homophobic is, er, a true accusation, and as for "shunned", does that mean her co-workers, some of whom may be gay themselves, are supposed to smile and pretend they're best of friends and that her prejudice isn't harming anyone? Ultimately, though, there is a problem that the media and the law are trying to view all this as if things like cultural homophobia didn't exist as a force in society and that the only possible problems can be narrowed down to individuals. Bullying is part and parcel of a complex interrelationship between different power structures - religious, cultural, economic, political, and so on.

Yes. There already is one in the beta.

"the desert was populated with evil spirits and jinns" Wait, so Muhammed made them extinct? Damn, maybe Emprowrm was right...

As an aside, the moderators will also be taking notes during the course of this topic with regard to how people expect to be treated when they break forum rules.

Hm. While this will be exceptionally useful should there be an outbreak of violence by philosophers, I fear that either such incidents tend to go underreported or they do not constitute a significant proportion of the crime rate at present.

It depends what game you're talking about, but I suspect the answer is going to be no, the game's engine does not permit it.

OK, let's go through these. Deterrence Deterrence is beneficial because it dissuades potential criminals from committing a crime, and the crime happens less. Fairly straightforward. It does depend on having a justice system (from policing to investigation to judiciary) that takes the crime in question seriously and has a high record of detection and accuracy. The social cost of the crime, multiplied by the effect of the deterrence, must be weighed against the social cost of the penalties as well as the cost of making sure those penalties are exacted on all those and only those who commit the crime. Rehabilitation Rehabilitation is beneficial because it targets those who have offended before - the group most likely to do so again - and seeks to dissuade them from future crime by helping them deal with the proximate causes of their aggravation in non-criminal ways. It's a sticking-plaster, and it's labour-intensive, but if done seriously and not undermined at every turn, it can be very effective. It can work even if the justice system is inaccurate. Punishment Punishment is beneficial because it gives victims or their families the sweet taste of revenge. Er... great. It is problematic because unless the underlying causes of the crime are solved, it alienates the criminal further from society, gives them the feeling they are owed something, reinforces the acceptability of violence, and so on. Also, the greater the punishment, the more important that accuracy thing is, the harder it is to rectify mistakes, etc. The more a justice system is based around punishment, the more it is sensationalised and subject to media pressure rather than accuracy. But, as Morval points out, we also need to look carefully at why crime happens. No-one looks up statistics on crime and thinks "Ah, the expected outcome, summing all the outcomes multiplied by their respective probabilities, turns out to be better for me if I mug a few pensioners. Let's see, where do I get a nasty-looking knife nowadays". Actually, there are probably some accountants and bankers that do that to a certain extent, but I think they're still motivated by *some of* the same principles, even if they're a little more callous and sociopathic about it. We live in a society which promises freedom and metes out repression. We live in a society that promises prosperity and creates poverty. We live in a society that claims to be equal and delivers injustice. People feel alienated from society, and they lash out. Violence is an accepted part of society - we excuse and glorify war and heavy-handed policing and criminal 'justice'. Not only do we regard so much violence as natural, we accept it and even support it, when it's in 'special circumstances'. We're not conditioned to refrain from violence on principle, we're conditioned to refrain from violence conditional on not feeling aggreived, conditional on accepting the norms of polite society. When polite society rejects you, you cease to feel an obligation to polite society. And we live in a world where we're all increasingly alienated from society. So for deterrence to work, we need the agents of the state to be prosecuted, not let off the hook, and for people to make a real connection and think "I have no right to do this" whenever the opportunity for a crime presents itself. For rehabilitation to be possible, we need a society that people want to rehabilitate themselves to. Otherwise we end up settling for punishment alone, which only reinforces the impossibility of the other two. Sure, the responsibility for each crime ultimately rests with the criminal. But the responsibility for crime as a phenomenon lies with society.

Beonid, I fear you're taking SAND's anecdote as the sum total of the argument. I don't have the research to hand (I'll keep looking), but war is a major contributor to environmental destruction. Consider first that tanks, aircraft, and ships are not exactly the most energy efficient of vehicles. Think how much fighting a war means just in transporting troops and big crates of ammunition around, now remember the carbon cost of producing all these vehicles, aircraft, ships, ammuinition, the carbon cost of maintaining armies and equipment to fight these wars. Never mind the destruction it causes - the carbon cost of rebuilding, the smoke and the bombs.

"I presume MOT = mode of transportation?" No, though I suspect Khan means to say road tax, which is graded somewhat for fuel efficiency.

"Fuel

Woo, spleen, they want us all dead, etc, etc. Ok, Mod-hat on: faster, you are making a number of pretty nasty generalisations and getting very close to breaking the no harrassing/discriminating rule. I'd advise you consider carefully precisely who you mean by "them" (and, for that matter, "us"), and direct your criticism towards the ideology of Islam rather than Muslims, and to the specific practices you object to. As a staff member, it's part of my job to deal with flaming and trolling, and it's very easy for criticisms of religion to veer into quite vicious sweeping personal attacks. You appear to be a new user, so I'd advise that you take a look at the rules. Please don't hesitate to ask if you need clarification. Modhat off... "Isn't that what we were all taught?" Dunno where you're from, but over in Britain, portrayal of muslims is very, very negative. We're constantly being told that christianity is the religion of peace, even as our prime minister is prayerfully ordering the slaughter of thousands of muslims. "They can publicly threaten us, but if WE held a protest against Islam, making the same kinds of threats, we'd be jailed." This is simply untrue - the National Front, and more recently, the British National Party have occasional rallies when they can muster the numbers. The police even make a special effort to accommodate and protect the neo-Nazis when all the anti-fascist counter-demonstrators turn up to chant "there are many, many more of us than you". It's mostly only when they're caught on camera discussing their plans to cause physical harm that they get imprisoned. "I'm not defining "civilized" by my own culture, but by the generic mores and values that make civilization possible at ALL" Which are? Wishing death on people who do things differently seems to have been a staple of civilisation since recorded history began. "They don't tell us THAT when they quote that passage, though, do they?" Well, aside from asking for chapter and verse, I'll say what I've said before: unlike the Quran the hadith is not viewed as the word of God and the veracity and textual tradition of the accounts are a matter of continuing academic debate among Muslim scholars. Presumably, you know this, so I'm left wondering why you don't point THAT out! As to the (by no means welcome) feminist arguments... yes, you're quite right, Islam is used to justify some pretty horrible things. But in case you haven't noticed, Islam is not the sole source of women's oppression: women are still oppressed in the west, and in the far east. The more overt violence and obvious disenfranchisement has only been tackled in the past century, mainly because of historical processes that had little to do with religion. Patriarchy is built into almost every world religion as it exists, because religions are conservative things that preserve the practices of a prior era and because they are useful tools of oppression. Women's liberation in the Middle East isn't going to come from some 'enlightened westerners' waging a war on Islam, it's going to come from muslim women in the middle east. And it is happening: a lot has been bubbling over in Iran recently, though I'm not directly in contact with the activists on the ground. "If Muslims wish to be bestial, they should all be required to live in places where there are only Muslims" So the many should suffer for the crimes of the few, and we should enforce some kind of religious segregation. Sadly, I can't even tell if you're having a laugh. Edit: Ooh, a question for you: Do you think gay muslims seeking asylum from Iran should be deported back to Iran?