Posts by MeanMrMustard

170

Sign this petition - Investigation On Jehovahs Witnesses Religious Policy That Violates Human Rights and Abuses Religious Freedom

by TJ Curioso in

launch an investigation on jehovahs witnesses religious policy that violates human rights and abuses religious freedom.

link.

MeanMrMustard

I believe what is being said here is, a religion should not have the power to impose "threats" upon placing any restrictions on human rights, or it should be looked at as a form of extremism, if it results in deaths by suicide.

Define in this context "human rights". What "right" are you referring to? Is it the "right" that your family talk to you? Define this right.

What other "forms of extremism" would be included in your definition? Who decides what is "extreme"? You? Me?

When someone commits suicide, it is tragic. However, in what way should others be held legally responsible for someone killing himself? If I divorce my wife, and she kills herself after, am I now responsible for her death? Are you saying that I would need to LEGALLY be forced to stay married to prevent the possibility of her killing herself?

The JW's are a corporation - that act as a religious institution, and any corporation that imposed "hate speech" upon blacks or gays would not be tolerated - so why call people "mentally diseased" (in the present day - with the present zero tolerance of stigmatization "craze" that is sweeping our nation) those who wish to convert?

First, I believe the WTB&TS as a corporation has legally disconnected itself with the body that produces doctrine, not that it matters much.

Second, define "hate speech".

Third, hate speech against gays and blacks, or any other group, is most definitely tolerated - and should be! If it were not tolerated, free speech would be meaningless. Are you saying that members of the KKK should be fined and perhaps sent to jail because they might say horrible things about blacks and jews? Of course it is distasteful, but agreement is NOT toleration. You tolerate something you don't agree with by definition. If you agreed with it, you wouldn't have to tolerate it, because you would agree.

Tarnishing the reputation of those from their own family associations? It needs to be investigated.

Slander is a different story. But there are specific laws that define such an offense. It is not simply "that-guy-said-something-bad-about-me" sort of thing.

But I do believe, if anything is done by the legal departments of the agencies, this has to spill out to the other religions that shun, as well.

If anything is done by "legal departments" or "agencies", then it would spill out to more than religions. It would spill out to any group not currently in political power - which might include YOU!

MMM

170

Sign this petition - Investigation On Jehovahs Witnesses Religious Policy That Violates Human Rights and Abuses Religious Freedom

by TJ Curioso in

launch an investigation on jehovahs witnesses religious policy that violates human rights and abuses religious freedom.

link.

MeanMrMustard

In most modernized countries like the US for example there is a statue of freedom of religion that involves human rights.

What does that even mean? Can you define what "human right" is violated by the WTS' policy? Can you point to and quote this "statute"?

Freedom of religion shouldn't mean a religion has the right to impose hatered upon an individual simply for choosing another

religious faith, breaking up families in the process and causing assorted amount of grief and anguish.

This is what I worry about. In this case disagreement is conflated with hatred. This is such a slippery slope. I have a feeling that if you were to try to define what "hatred" is, you would find your definition would be so general that it would include simple disagreement.

MMM

34

Breyers is not allowed to call it's product "ice cream" anymore by the FDA!

by EndofMysteries in

many other so called ice cream at grocery stores as well.

have you noticed how it seems to be different than from a couple years ago?

that it doesn't melt, it just warms up and becomes like a whipped cream texture?

MeanMrMustard

Häagen-Dazs .. Strawberry.. Get some. Best ice cream EVER!

Incredients: cream, skim milk, strawberries, sugar, egg yolks

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

@DS211:

Sent in PM.

MMM

223

Comprehensive NWT Comparison Project (calling all technically skilled members)

by Apognophos in

is anyone aware if this project is already being done by someone?

if not, perhaps we can brainstorm how to go about this, now that the pdf for the revised nwt is out.

a couple initial impressions:.

MeanMrMustard

@slii, Hi there! This looks like your one and only post. I've let this thread slide, and I missed your post. Sorry about that.

I don't think the .PUB files in the Watchtower Library are in this same format. I've done lately some reverse engineering of the 2006 version, and I now understand a bit about the format of the publication files.

Good for you! I don't have the stomach to get into those PUB files. I didn't really think the PUB files were encoded the way the mobile app is encoding its data.

First of all, I have so far seen nothing to indicate that any portion of the files are encrypted. Large parts of them are compressed, though, using a compression algorithm resembling Huffman which I'm starting to understand (I still don't fully understand the construction of some lookup tables used for decompression).

You may be correct here.

Some pieces of the textual data (mainly titles) are in uncompressed form, yet this is not immediately obvious from inspecting the files. This is because the system uses internally a 16-bit MEPS-specific character set, which I believe is able to represent multiple scripts but predates Unicode. Overall, I get the impression that whoever designed this knew quite well what they were doing, but there's obviously lots of arcane legacy baggage involved. As to why WTL, or at least the 2006 version, still uses MEPS-coded documents internally, I do not know; perhaps they consider it a useful obfuscation to throw at possible reverse engineers (it did make me scratch my hea for a while), or maybe it's just a legacy thing that hasn't been enough of a problem to touch in code that could be in maintenance-only mode.

Agreed. At this point I think MEPS is dead. Unicode can take its place quite easily and, in fact, be a lot easier to work with. But I think there are a lot of things about the WT Lib that are archane (more on that below).

For example, if you look at wte.lib, it contains lots of uncompressed strings (publication names, if I remember correctly). Most (all?) .pub files also contain some uncompressed strings. In English-language files, look for places where every other byte is a 08 (hex); most of those will likely be strings. At least uncompressed MEPS strings tend to be stored in a Pascal string like style, i.e. the first 16 bits are the length of the string (in bytes, so it's always an even number), and not null-terminated.

Interesting.

Some 16-bit values seem to be mapped to some kind of control codes that most probably specify things like italics. Most of the Latin alphabet seems to be in the 08xx range. Being a typesetting-oriented coding system, it also seems to contain codes for ligatures; for example, the "ff" ligature is apparently represented as 0851.

Specifically, the English alphabet is mapped to 16-bit values, which are stored in little-endian format, as follows (numbers in hex):

0800..0819 A-Z; 081a..0833 a-z; 0834..083d numbers, "1234567890" (BTW this is the only character set I know of where 0 comes after 9, not before 1)

0841..0844 ":;.,"; 0845, 0846 left and right single quotation marks; 0847..0848 "?!"; 084b..084e "()/-"; 084f em-dash; 0850 en-dash; fb61 <SPACE>

0851 ff ligature; 0865 é (small e with acute); 0x08fb hyphenation point (used a lot e.g. in NWT to show proper hyphenation of names).

fb57 and fb58 are often seen around dashes, as in <fb57>--<fb58>. Perhaps they prevent breaking the line between them?

I guess the overall format of the .pub files and the compression are a topic for another post.

Very interesting! You have definitely gotten into the weeds. Ultimately however, I think there might be an easier way. To date I have successfully extracted every piece of text from the 2011 and 2012 WTLibs. I did this without looking at the PUB files and without any manual clicking. I planned on mentioning it in a future thread with some statistics calculated from the text.

I thought it would be cool to see if there are any meaningful differences between the 2011 and 2012 version of text. That is, we expect some differences - new content for the 2012 version, and probably some new entries into the publication index. But aside from that, I am just wondering if there are any textual changes they snuck in. The NWT project turned out to be difficult because there were so many changes involved, and it was meant to be that way. But if you take, say, the Jan 1 1980 version of the WT in the 2011 version and the 2012 version, you would expect that there are no changes between these two documents.

Anyhow, the code base is the same between the 2011 and 2012 version, and probably all the previous versions. They just add new content. I can tell because in the 2011 version has a serious memory leak in it, and the same issue is carried over to the 2012 version.

MMM

11

HALF AND HALF or 50/50

by Terry in

jw
friends

there are only a thousand people left on earth.. about ten percent of the survivors (of some unnamed disaster) have professional expertise of some kind.. 80 per cent have some education, but not any practical grasp of how things operate.. 10 per cent are extremists of varying kinds; a sort of lunatic fringe with knee-jerk "solutions" they propose to carry out.. a temporary leader/spokesman acts as a referee to sort things out.. a meeting is conducted with all 1000 present.. after much arguing, a vote is conducted.. 51 % want to carry out one set of plans while 49% want know part of it.. the thin majority start doing things their way and the minority get more and more outraged.. what happens next?.

.

MeanMrMustard

@Terry:

"The reason I ask is because it is a microcosm of what is happening in America."

I see where you might be going. Let me ask something. When you say: " A temporary leader/spokesman acts as a referee to sort things out", what exactly does "referee" mean in your scenero?

My gut reaction - if there is a rule of law (no killing, stealing, etc and an inforcement mechanism), then what happens next? Natually, captialism. The real kind, not the messed up kind we have today. There will natually be some that invest time to produce capital goods, and then become more efficient, produce more, etc.

MMM

30

Has the Jehovah's Witness computer data base number totaling 23,720 child molesters on file in Patterson, New York created a public nuisance by keeping the names secret ?

by Sol Reform in

has the jehovah's witness computer data base number totaling 23,720 child molesters on file in patterson, new york created a public nuisance by keeping the names secret ?.

that question, is basically before the court,regarding roman catholics.. .

in the first lawsuit under a new minnesota law that allows victims of child sexual abuse to bring claims decades later, accuses the archdiocese of saint paul and minneapolis and the diocese of winona of negligence for allowing a known pedophile to continue working with children for years.. the plaintiff, identified as "doe 1," seeks a court order to force the church to release an internal list of "credibly accused child molesting priests," and accuses the church of creating a public nuisance by keeping the names secret.. .

MeanMrMustard

@Simon:

Almost all authoritarian regimes keep records because information is POWER that they may need to use against someone one day ... they just can't resist hanging on to things.

If they were interested in doing the right things they would simply hand the information over to the proper authorities but instead they like to keep control of everything they can.

Ok, I can get behind this. But I have a hard time believing, if there is a DB, that it will be accessible from anywhere except the legal department at headquarters. It just seems like a major screw up for them to make a DB and yet put it on a network accessible from outside that building. This stuff about Anonymous getting the DB from hacking seems cheesy. Now, if they want to infiltrate - get into the building somehow.. or get a lawyer or IT guy working there to get the info and leak it out, that's different.

MMM

34

thedog1 said "I just listened to your JC hearing for re-instatement"

by KateWild in

thedog1 said.............. hi sam.

i just listened to your jc hearing for re-instatement.

without knowing the details of what happened it is difficult to make a comment on it but here goes.

MeanMrMustard

@KateWild:

" You seem so caring and considerate, I bet you wouldn't have even df'd me in the first place if we were in your cong. If all elders were like you, we would have a better organisation, but the fact is they aren't."

Perhaps true. But even the greatest intentioned, most justice-loving man would be too corrupt. :) - It is simply none of their business. The only reason they think so is because the WT has said this. Not scripture.

MMM

34

thedog1 said "I just listened to your JC hearing for re-instatement"

by KateWild in

thedog1 said.............. hi sam.

i just listened to your jc hearing for re-instatement.

without knowing the details of what happened it is difficult to make a comment on it but here goes.

MeanMrMustard

@thedog1:

Is the Jerusalem Bible a more literally or commentary-like version? RSV is a more literal, and yet not as "forceful". But note: it is irrelavant. Why does it demand, or even "suggest", that this is an organizational action - especially in light of the fact that the members of the Cor. congregation did not completely follow Paul's words? (see the scripture I cited in 2 Cor when the man was trying to repent). That is, there was no central decision. The language can be VERY forceful, but it is FORCEFUL language to the congregation, not a direcive to form a committee and decide for all the members. Why does it mean a central body makes the decision for the members - thereby giving the elders athority over the conscience of the congregation?

The inidividual members, at least in this case (the one you cite in 1 Cor 5 as support for the authority), ultimately made the decision on their own, and some of them decided to keep association.

MMM

34

thedog1 said "I just listened to your JC hearing for re-instatement"

by KateWild in

thedog1 said.............. hi sam.

i just listened to your jc hearing for re-instatement.

without knowing the details of what happened it is difficult to make a comment on it but here goes.

MeanMrMustard

@thedog1:

"I suppose this depends on whether you acknowledge the right of a body of elders to guide and direct matters in a cong."

Why would anyone acknowledge that? Is there a scripture that would give them authority over the conscience of the members?

MMM

edit: Note, we aren't talking about 'directing matters' in a general sense. We are talking about telling members to shun another member based on a judicial decision.