Apech

Welcome - agree about The Dharma Bums - one of favourite books.

Good work ... what's a CSS bug? he asked ignorantly. Does it have six or eight legs?

All you can do is sit in front of your computer and weep. (Well actually with some browsers like Chrome its as well to clear your cache because often even if the site is back up it just returns to the cache file).

and ixquick

using StartPage now

Do they? I didn't know that , thanks.

Is it Vladimir Putin?

Even though it's fake I still believe in it.

Who wants to censor speech? Not me. I was just suggesting we are going over old ground which appears in some other threads is all.

I phrased it badly is all. OK they hacked the DNC which had the result of exposing what was exposed.

They hacked the DNC to show that Hillary was shafting Bernie - her nomination was rigged. So its quite right she lost in a way. The phishing scam just released John Podestas emails to Wikileaks - well you'd think he'd be careful what he writes would you - and also be savvy enough not to get caught by phishing. Q. How many threads do we have about Trump and the election?

There you go with your ego disentangling again.

God knows what he's saying - one of most annoying vids I've seen for quite a while.

Very nicely put - thank you.

Fantastic irrefutable evidence of psychic powers - thanks - I hope the Mo Pai gang are watching.

RIP 'owner's permissions'. Good work Admin and Staff

Vigorous debate as shown in the OP video is encouraged in Tibetan Monasteries - in fact the current Dalai Lama had to win such debate in public to achieve his qualifications as a Geshe/Lama. What’s more interesting (to me at any rate) is the historical close connection between the development of Tibetan Buddhism and Daoism. The Tibetans (probably to enforce authenticity) tend to stress exclusively the Indian root of their system. And it’s true that what they preserved is the tantric buddhism of medieval India before it died out in that country - together with the monastic tradition of Atisha etc. They also stress the spiritual authority they possessed through various great Lamas like Sakya Pandita and the Karmapas as spiritual mentors to Chinese emperors. But I think this will be shown to be a very one sided account. I’ve noticed a few references to the reverse influence and indeed the mutual regard between the yogic tradition in Tibet and the Daoists. For instance some tankas show the trigrams of the I Ching - and my teacher said that his Tibetan teacher had recommended the I Ching to him as a method of divination - saying it had ‘a great heart’. The latest thing I read was in a book called ‘A Golden Swan in Turbulent Waters’ by Shamar Rinpoche - which is an account of the life of the 10th Karmapa (1604 - 1674) in which Daoist masters are mentioned briefly in a contemporary account - I’ll give the quote below: “At that time (1661), some Chinese monks arrived from China. In their company were also Chinese scholars and professors. They were very learned on the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. …… Chinese Taoshi also arrived. These groups from China addressed Karma as Siphu. Karmapa gave them hats, shoes, and clothing for their travels.” This in itself is not much to go on. And the way it is termed it suggests that Karmapa as ‘Siphu’ had the authority in this relationship. But I would suggest this disguises a two way dialogue which long existed - in fact one which was sufficiently strong that an environment of mutual teaching and learning was taking place. Anyway just a thought

I read this post and was instantly enlightened.

There are some good things in there too

For me there are just two types of moderation rules. The first is 'no insult +' - which I think most people understand and is just there to preserve the quality of debate - so it doesn't descend into ad hominem flame wars instead of actually staying on vaguely on topic. The second is more of a boundary problem. That is 'what is this site for?' - and the quick answer to that is 'eclectic discussions on the way'. That's the main subject of the site in a positive sense. And there's no reason for instance why politics should not be part of that - although its kept mostly in off-topic because its usually not being framed in the context of a path or system. After all Lao Tzu gave advice to the sage-ruler and that's political. So the inner core of the boundary of the site is 'eclectic discussions on the way' and the outer boundary is ( and this is more difficult) unacceptable or inappropriate material e.g. this is not a porn site. Even more difficult is extreme political views like say white supremacy - and this really strays into the area of the reputational risk and the owner's (Sean's) decision rules. The reputational risk means that do we the members, the staff or the owner wish TDBs to be known as a resource for certain types of material or links to certain types of site. And if the answer is no, then that sets the outer boundary - which ceases to be an issue of free speech because as a privately owned site the owner is entitled to have preferences. Pitting material is just a gentle form of moderation which goes back to the original approach which was to 'never edit other's posts'. I'm not sure this still stands as there's much more hiding and locking going on than there used to be. But essentially the same thing stands that instead of just deleting content that breaches the rules of hijacks and ruins otherwise interesting threads - they are moved to the Pit. I get the alternative idea of the Pit as a no holds barred cage fight - which is what it was at one point - but that changed a long time ago when it became a dump for disruptive disputes and so on.

Congrats on the wildlife sanctuary! Perhaps I shouldn't have actually said all the tech corps are the same - they clearly have different 'personalities' - and I am fairly sure that I am probably still stuck in the late 90's when Apple had a superior product placement and design strategy which allowed them to turn things like clunky mp3 players into the must have gadget of beauty - whether you really needed it or not. There was a time also before that when there was the mega big Microsoft corporation and little Apple struggling on with a tiny percentage of the market - and I'm guessing that this is the origin of the appeal to lefties. However what you also have to take into account I think - is that what 'being left' means has changed radically in the last ten years. So much so in fact that I am probably no longer left wing - but I haven't changed much in my values - the left has. I think the traditional part of the left which would object to major corporate business is now almost extinct. But as I said above I cannot think of any political influence over what I buy - so if its there its unconscious.

No idea. As for myself a few years ago I dumped Windows PCs in favour of a MacBook and never looked back - I prefer the functionality and the operating system - also the design is better - although they are massively over priced. I looked at samsung and other smart phones but I preferred the iPhone. It was a pure consumer choice into which politics never entered. As far as I am concerned all the big tech companies are as bad as each other.

While we are on the subject of ... whatever it was - here are some new word definitions:

I already have two

I'm sans-culottes personally myself.