Domain: encyclopedia.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to encyclopedia.com.
Comments · 182
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Re:Re
PECULIAR INSTITUTION was a euphemistic term that white southerners used for slavery. John C. Calhoun defended the "peculiar labor" of the South in 1828 and the "peculiar domestick institution" in 1830. The term came into general use in the 1830s when the abolitionist followers of William Lloyd Garrison began to attack slavery. Its implicit message was that slavery in the U.S. South was different from the very harsh slave systems existing in other countries and that southern slavery had no impact on those living in northern states.
Even back then, "political correctness" existed.
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Re:Re
This probably violates some written or unwritten
/. rule, but I'm going to repeat a reply I made to someone else since your point is the same as theirs. You aren't interpreting "America's peculiar institution" as the historians who use it professionally do.
The reference to slavery as America's "Peculiar Institution" is a term which goes back deep into the 19th century and isn't meant to imply that slavery is peculiar (as in "unique") to America but that slavery in the US was peculiar in the "different from other institutions" sense. It seems to have been coined by by the Southern pro-slavery politician John C Calhoun in 1837. A quick reference:
"PECULIAR INSTITUTION was a euphemistic term that white southerners used for slavery. John C. Calhoun defended the "peculiar labor" of the South in 1828 and the "peculiar domestick institution" in 1830. The term came into general use in the 1830s when the abolitionist followers of William Lloyd Garrison began to attack slavery. Its implicit message was that slavery in the U.S. South was different from the very harsh slave systems existing in other countries and that southern slavery had no impact on those living in northern states." -- from https://www.encyclopedia.com/h... [encyclopedia.com].
The term is seen fairly commonly in scholarly works, including this book from 1956, "The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South" by Kenneth M. Stampp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peculiar_Institution). -
Re:"peculiar institution"?
How is slavery America's "peculiar institution"?
You might check with John C. Calhoun, who coined the term in the 1820s.
Interesting. Unfortunately, that's taking an esoteric reference and applying it broadly where it is almost certain to give the wrong impression.
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Re:"peculiar institution"?
I'm not a historian but
... The reference to slavery as America's "Peculiar Institution" is a term which goes back deep into the 19th century and isn't meant to imply that slavery is peculiar (as in "unique") to America but that slavery in the US was peculiar in the "different from other institutions" sense. It seems to have been coined by by the Southern pro-slavery politician John C Calhoun in 1837. A quick reference:
"PECULIAR INSTITUTION was a euphemistic term that white southerners used for slavery. John C. Calhoun defended the "peculiar labor" of the South in 1828 and the "peculiar domestick institution" in 1830. The term came into general use in the 1830s when the abolitionist followers of William Lloyd Garrison began to attack slavery. Its implicit message was that slavery in the U.S. South was different from the very harsh slave systems existing in other countries and that southern slavery had no impact on those living in northern states." -- from https://www.encyclopedia.com/h....
The term is seen fairly commonly in scholarly works, including this book from 1956, "The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South" by Kenneth M. Stampp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peculiar_Institution). -
Re:"peculiar institution"?
How is slavery America's "peculiar institution"?
You might check with John C. Calhoun, who coined the term in the 1820s.
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Re:The Galiio Comparioson
Yes, and the crackpot list is long. Just look at Louis De Broglie, the prince of quantum. His thesis was first laughed at and dismissed by the greats like Bohr. It was't until it was handed to Einstein and he read it, realizing it was brilliant, that it ever was accepted. De Broglie had to fight hard against the accepted orthodoxy in the accepted model, but it turns out, he moved the ball forward.
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Re:I love where I live
Yes, I purchased a goodtogo pass, even after the savings of the fees, still cost $75 per week which is $3900 per year. Even in the toll lane, her commuter was 45min to an hour per way.
With so many people eager to pay the toll that the freeway was still congested, it sounds like the price was too low!
Without the toll lane, in regular traffic lanes...it's 1-2 hours per way for 25 miles... That's obscene.
Or in the words of Yogi Berra, "nobody takes the 405 anymore. It's too crowded."
Is the 405 paying for itelf? It was passed into law under the conditions...that the toll lanes...collect at least enough money to meet operating costs
Ok but what about maintenance costs, construction costs (including land acquisition costs) and opportunity costs (including the lost property and sales taxes the city would earn if they used the land for something else)? Will tolls cover all of the cost of building the new tunnel or will it also require a tax subsidy?
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Re:By that standard, the New York Times is fake ne
This isn't against breitbart specifically, because they are just quoting another article, who is quoting a person but...
"It's no surprise that Planned Parenthood would spend millions of dollars on Ralph Northam's behalf, given his extreme positions like supporting abortions in the eighth or ninth month or just because the unborn child is a girl."
Emphasis mine. I don't think anyone who's pro choice supports either of these as portrayed. Maybe like.. the fringes of pro choice..
Good catch of the limits of your own claim. There will certainly be some who choose abortion for such details.
As for the often stated claim that no one wants a late term abortion, and no doctor performs one unless medically necessary, remember Dr Gosnell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...but here in the US there isn't a big reason to prefer a boy to a girl. We might not be able to do anything about people having abortions for this reason, but that really is a whole other discussion. To address the earlier remark, I think you'd find that most people who are pro choice would only support an abortion in the 8th or 9th month if there was something seriously wrong with the viability of the baby. Eight or nine months is really late in the pregnancy to be getting an abortion all willy nilly considering that baby would be able to survive.
The problem with your opinion here is that you are still forcing some subset of women to carry a child to term, and insisting you have a right over the woman's body. To the hardcore feminists and their apologists, you are just as wrong as any pro-lifer.
Roe v Wade would seem to agree:
In the third trimester, the interest of the state in "the potentiality of human life"—that is, the life of the fetus before birth—makes it possible to regulate and even prohibit abortions except when necessary to save the life or health of the mother. By this period, the fetus is determined to be viable—that is, capable of living outside the womb—and therefore entitled to protection by the state.This is why the pro-life groups ask if a woman should be allowed to have an abortion one day before her due date. Two days? One week? etc. The usual response is deflection rather than a yes or no answer.
By the way, I have to point out that I am not pro-choice or pro-life. I am agnostic on this topic. I just get tired of the bad arguments and lack of logic I see on both sides.
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Re:By that standard, the New York Times is fake ne
This isn't against breitbart specifically, because they are just quoting another article, who is quoting a person but...
"It's no surprise that Planned Parenthood would spend millions of dollars on Ralph Northam's behalf, given his extreme positions like supporting abortions in the eighth or ninth month or just because the unborn child is a girl."
Emphasis mine. I don't think anyone who's pro choice supports either of these as portrayed. Maybe like.. the fringes of pro choice.. but here in the US there isn't a big reason to prefer a boy to a girl. We might not be able to do anything about people having abortions for this reason, but that really is a whole other discussion. To address the earlier remark, I think you'd find that most people who are pro choice would only support an abortion in the 8th or 9th month if there was something seriously wrong with the viability of the baby. Eight or nine months is really late in the pregnancy to be getting an abortion all willy nilly considering that baby would be able to survive.
Roe v Wade would seem to agree:
In the third trimester, the interest of the state in "the potentiality of human life"—that is, the life of the fetus before birth—makes it possible to regulate and even prohibit abortions except when necessary to save the life or health of the mother. By this period, the fetus is determined to be viable—that is, capable of living outside the womb—and therefore entitled to protection by the state. -
Re:Not the only thing we've lost.
Rape and domestic violence have always been treated seriously and punished severely.
I don't think that came out the way you thought you said it. In my state, spousal rape was legal until a few years ago and you could beat your wife with a stick as long as it wasn't longer than your forearm or bigger around than your thumb.(partially a hoax, partially true) It appears it is still legal to some extent in some places (or just not pursued as it should be):
http://www.womensafe.net/home/...
http://www.encyclopedia.com/so... -
Re:Arab sponsored.
It seems we're nearing the end of this little experiment.
The "experiment" barely ran three years
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Re:Perhaps The Acheans?
Iman Wilkens makes a case for the Trojan War not occuring in the Mediteranean and tries to map it to England.
http://www.troy-in-england.com...
Perhaps this is another candidate location for the war.I rather doubt it. If this really is the remains of a major battle it could have been fought for a number of reasons. Firstly, in view of the diverse origins of the fallen, it could have been part of some major trans-European migration like the one that brought down the Roman empire. Secondly it could have been a large scale raid like the armies that raided Britain and France during the peak of the Viking age. This hypothesis can also be supported by the DNA results pertaining to the ethnic diversity of the dead. These Viking raids were conducted by armies that consisted of everything from small war-bands led by independent chieftains to large-ish armies led by petty kings that had organized themselves into a properly big army that was led by whoever contributed the largest force or who had the most battle experience and prestige. Thirdly, and this is the most interesting option, this battle was perhaps actually a part of an organized attempt to go beyond the 'seizing cattle, looting farmsteads and abducting women' type of raiding warfare thought to be the norm in Europe at the time. In this case whoever organized the army perhaps lured 'mercenaries' into his service with promises of plunder, cattle, slaves and even land grants of conquered territory much like William the Bastard did in the run-up to is 1066 invasion of England to bolster his army. In this case this battle may represent a well thought out and planned attempt by somebody to conquer land and thereby control the north-south/east trade route through which flowed all the amber, furs, slaves, and whatever other northern goods were consumed by the great Mediterranean cultures at the time. In any case we will have to seriously re-assess the level of social organization and industrial ability of European bronze age cultures. This is a pretty interesting and potentially very significant discovery that puts another dent into the 'ex oriente lux' cliché (which, to be fair, has been steadily dismantled over the last few decades). This is not to say that Oriental influence on European culture was non-existent or insignificant but Northern Europeans of the bronze age were nor a bunch of disorganized, louse ridden, loincloth wearing barbarians who only washed when they were caught out in the rain or fell into a river and who needed to import oriental ideas before they could organize themselves into sophisticated cultures because they were to dull to devise such concepts by themselves.
What about the theory it is a common battlefield site where artifacts like this would have built up, giving the impression of a large-scale battle?
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Re:Perhaps The Acheans?
Iman Wilkens makes a case for the Trojan War not occuring in the Mediteranean and tries to map it to England. http://www.troy-in-england.com... Perhaps this is another candidate location for the war.
I rather doubt it. If this really is the remains of a major battle it could have been fought for a number of reasons. Firstly, in view of the diverse origins of the fallen, it could have been part of some major trans-European migration like the one that brought down the Roman empire. Secondly it could have been a large scale raid like the armies that raided Britain and France during the peak of the Viking age. This hypothesis can also be supported by the DNA results pertaining to the ethnic diversity of the dead. These Viking raids were conducted by armies that consisted of everything from small war-bands led by independent chieftains to large-ish armies led by petty kings that had organized themselves into a properly big army that was led by whoever contributed the largest force or who had the most battle experience and prestige. Thirdly, and this is the most interesting option, this battle was perhaps actually a part of an organized attempt to go beyond the 'seizing cattle, looting farmsteads and abducting women' type of raiding warfare thought to be the norm in Europe at the time. In this case whoever organized the army perhaps lured 'mercenaries' into his service with promises of plunder, cattle, slaves and even land grants of conquered territory much like William the Bastard did in the run-up to is 1066 invasion of England to bolster his army. In this case this battle may represent a well thought out and planned attempt by somebody to conquer land and thereby control the north-south/east trade route through which flowed all the amber, furs, slaves, and whatever other northern goods were consumed by the great Mediterranean cultures at the time. In any case we will have to seriously re-assess the level of social organization and industrial ability of European bronze age cultures. This is a pretty interesting and potentially very significant discovery that puts another dent into the 'ex oriente lux' cliché (which, to be fair, has been steadily dismantled over the last few decades). This is not to say that Oriental influence on European culture was non-existent or insignificant but Northern Europeans of the bronze age were nor a bunch of disorganized, louse ridden, loincloth wearing barbarians who only washed when they were caught out in the rain or fell into a river and who needed to import oriental ideas before they could organize themselves into sophisticated cultures because they were to dull to devise such concepts by themselves.
I'm not even sure how you got modded insightful. Isn't it obvious that this was a battle over football, or soccer, or whatever you want to call it? What else would cause thousands of Europeans to band together and cause mayhem? The devastating effect of European football can be seen across the centuries and the ferocity of it culminated with the crusades, when Pope Urban II was tired of seeing the Roma FC lose in friendlies to Beitar Jerusalem and decided to take matters into his own hands.
If that is true where are the broken vodka bottles, crushed beer cans and the used condoms?
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Re:Perhaps The Acheans?
Iman Wilkens makes a case for the Trojan War not occuring in the Mediteranean and tries to map it to England. http://www.troy-in-england.com... Perhaps this is another candidate location for the war.
I rather doubt it. If this really is the remains of a major battle it could have been fought for a number of reasons. Firstly, in view of the diverse origins of the fallen, it could have been part of some major trans-European migration like the one that brought down the Roman empire. Secondly it could have been a large scale raid like the armies that raided Britain and France during the peak of the Viking age. This hypothesis can also be supported by the DNA results pertaining to the ethnic diversity of the dead. These Viking raids were conducted by armies that consisted of everything from small war-bands led by independent chieftains to large-ish armies led by petty kings that had organized themselves into a properly big army that was led by whoever contributed the largest force or who had the most battle experience and prestige. Thirdly, and this is the most interesting option, this battle was perhaps actually a part of an organized attempt to go beyond the 'seizing cattle, looting farmsteads and abducting women' type of raiding warfare thought to be the norm in Europe at the time. In this case whoever organized the army perhaps lured 'mercenaries' into his service with promises of plunder, cattle, slaves and even land grants of conquered territory much like William the Bastard did in the run-up to is 1066 invasion of England to bolster his army. In this case this battle may represent a well thought out and planned attempt by somebody to conquer land and thereby control the north-south/east trade route through which flowed all the amber, furs, slaves, and whatever other northern goods were consumed by the great Mediterranean cultures at the time. In any case we will have to seriously re-assess the level of social organization and industrial ability of European bronze age cultures. This is a pretty interesting and potentially very significant discovery that puts another dent into the 'ex oriente lux' cliché (which, to be fair, has been steadily dismantled over the last few decades). This is not to say that Oriental influence on European culture was non-existent or insignificant but Northern Europeans of the bronze age were nor a bunch of disorganized, louse ridden, loincloth wearing barbarians who only washed when they were caught out in the rain or fell into a river and who needed to import oriental ideas before they could organize themselves into sophisticated cultures because they were to dull to devise such concepts by themselves.
I'm not even sure how you got modded insightful. Isn't it obvious that this was a battle over football, or soccer, or whatever you want to call it? What else would cause thousands of Europeans to band together and cause mayhem? The devastating effect of European football can be seen across the centuries and the ferocity of it culminated with the crusades, when Pope Urban II was tired of seeing the Roma FC lose in friendlies to Beitar Jerusalem and decided to take matters into his own hands.
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Re:Perhaps The Acheans?
Iman Wilkens makes a case for the Trojan War not occuring in the Mediteranean and tries to map it to England. http://www.troy-in-england.com... Perhaps this is another candidate location for the war.
I rather doubt it. If this really is the remains of a major battle it could have been fought for a number of reasons. Firstly, in view of the diverse origins of the fallen, it could have been part of some major trans-European migration like the one that brought down the Roman empire. Secondly it could have been a large scale raid like the armies that raided Britain and France during the peak of the Viking age. This hypothesis can also be supported by the DNA results pertaining to the ethnic diversity of the dead. These Viking raids were conducted by armies that consisted of everything from small war-bands led by independent chieftains to large-ish armies led by petty kings that had organized themselves into a properly big army that was led by whoever contributed the largest force or who had the most battle experience and prestige. Thirdly, and this is the most interesting option, this battle was perhaps actually a part of an organized attempt to go beyond the 'seizing cattle, looting farmsteads and abducting women' type of raiding warfare thought to be the norm in Europe at the time. In this case whoever organized the army perhaps lured 'mercenaries' into his service with promises of plunder, cattle, slaves and even land grants of conquered territory much like William the Bastard did in the run-up to is 1066 invasion of England to bolster his army. In this case this battle may represent a well thought out and planned attempt by somebody to conquer land and thereby control the north-south/east trade route through which flowed all the amber, furs, slaves, and whatever other northern goods were consumed by the great Mediterranean cultures at the time. In any case we will have to seriously re-assess the level of social organization and industrial ability of European bronze age cultures. This is a pretty interesting and potentially very significant discovery that puts another dent into the 'ex oriente lux' cliché (which, to be fair, has been steadily dismantled over the last few decades). This is not to say that Oriental influence on European culture was non-existent or insignificant but Northern Europeans of the bronze age were nor a bunch of disorganized, louse ridden, loincloth wearing barbarians who only washed when they were caught out in the rain or fell into a river and who needed to import oriental ideas before they could organize themselves into sophisticated cultures because they were to dull to devise such concepts by themselves.
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Re:Seventh Douchebag? That's YOU!
I'm sorry that popular culture touched you in your no-no spot, but the seventh-son "meme" is quite a bit older than you apparently think.
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Re:I'll piss on a spark plug...
Most likely, if this ever gets used, businesses will take the FTC to court, say they are not a law enforcement body
Except, the FTC is most definitely a law enforcement body.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/to...
Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was established as an independent administrative agency pursuant to the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. The purpose of the FTC is to enforce the provisions of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce." The Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) also granted the FTC the authority to act against specific and unfair monopolistic practices. The FTC is considered to be a law enforcement agency, and like other such agencies it lacks punitive authority. Although the FTC cannot punish violators—that is the responsibility of the judicial system—it can issue cease and desist orders and argue cases in federal and administrative courts.Today, the Federal Trade Commission serves an important function as a protector of both consumer and business rights. While the restrictions that it imposes on business practices often receive the most attention, other laws enforced by the FTC—such as the 1979 Franchise Rule, which directed franchisors to provide full disclosure of franchise information to prospective franchisees—have been of great benefit to entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Emphasis added.
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Re:Enjoy The Ride
Actually, there is a fairly simple solution that can be done in a couple of decades, and has the bonus side effect of producing megatons of food in some of the more impoverished regions of the world. The trick is to convert semi-arid and arid grasslands into productive grazing lands for herbivores by using Managed Intensive Rotational Grazing which is described in detail (with stunning before/after photos) by Allan Savory in this TED Talk.
In a nutshell: MIRG simulates the "mobbing, mowing, and moving" behavior of large herds of herbivores in nature, where herds "mob together" for protection from predators, and move constantly to find fresh pasture. Following in their wake is a swath of "disturbed" pasture, which has just been aerated by hoof prints and fed with a rich load of fertilizer. This spurs a blaze of regrowth in the grasses, which replaces root mass which had earlier been shed (many plants shed root mass when cropped, to preserve the root-shoot ratio). Thus, every time herbivores graze a piece of land, they sequester a large amount of carbon into the soil, and actually increase the health and the depth of the topsoil.
Obviously, there's quite a bit more to this story, including earthworks to harvest and retain water, permaculture design to optimize ecosystem health and productivity, etc. But hopefully this will be enough to get the gears turning...
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Re:Life
Yes, virgin birth... which in biblical times, in that area of the world, meant that the woman was a virgin when she MARRIED. Doesn't have dick to do with god, God, or gods, except in the eyes of someone ignorant of their own religion.
I am a (religious) Greek actually, reading the New Testament in its original Greek text - it is very clear that "Virgin (Greek:parthena) Birth (Greek:genesis)" means a birth from a virgin... NOT "a birth from someone who was a virgin at some time".... something that you don't even have to read in the original Greek to understand! You can write that you don't believe it, but let's not change what it is writen and its very clear meaning.
Less dogmatic bullshit, more reality = better for everyone. It's not even all that uncommon of an event: http://www.encyclopedia.com/to...
parthenogenesis is a type of asexual reproduction in which the offspring develops from unfertilized eggs. It is particularly common amongst arthropods and rotifers, can also be found in some species of fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles, but not in mammals. Parthenogenetic development also occurs in some plants species, such as roses and orange trees.
I just made a (not so off-topic) reference to God and the Virgin Birth my friend - we BOTH have science confirming reality: you have it for the parthenogenesis of what your link mentions, i have it for the parthenogenesis of Jesus Christ... no need to get upset, especially since my reality is confirmed from both SCIENCE and GOD!
Yes they were originally written in Greek. However they are stories written by Greeks about non-contemporaneous events in a part of the world that did not speak Greek and did not have Greek customs... in short you've done nothing to refute GP's point.
Sir, my primary refute is not based on the language but on the fact that i read the text (in the original Greek, but this fact is not so important) and it is very clear for the events it describes - for example, from Matthew 1:18-25 (the "New International Version", which i just checked against the Greek text and i can confirm it is a good translation):
" 18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about[a]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet[b] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[c] because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[d] (which means “God with us”). 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. "No need to believe it, but also no need to know Greek for you to understand the events as described - right?
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Re:Life
Yes, virgin birth... which in biblical times, in that area of the world, meant that the woman was a virgin when she MARRIED. Doesn't have dick to do with god, God, or gods, except in the eyes of someone ignorant of their own religion.
I am a (religious) Greek actually, reading the New Testament in its original Greek text - it is very clear that "Virgin (Greek:parthena) Birth (Greek:genesis)" means a birth from a virgin... NOT "a birth from someone who was a virgin at some time".... something that you don't even have to read in the original Greek to understand!
You can write that you don't believe it, but let's not change what it is writen and its very clear meaning.Less dogmatic bullshit, more reality = better for everyone. It's not even all that uncommon of an event:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/to...parthenogenesis is a type of asexual reproduction in which the offspring develops from unfertilized eggs. It is particularly common amongst arthropods and rotifers, can also be found in some species of fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles, but not in mammals. Parthenogenetic development also occurs in some plants species, such as roses and orange trees.
I just made a (not so off-topic) reference to God and the Virgin Birth my friend - we BOTH have science confirming reality: you have it for the parthenogenesis of what your link mentions, i have it for the parthenogenesis of Jesus Christ... no need to get upset, especially since my reality is confirmed from both SCIENCE and GOD!
Yes they were originally written in Greek. However they are stories written by Greeks about non-contemporaneous events in a part of the world that did not speak Greek and did not have Greek customs... in short you've done nothing to refute GP's point.
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Re:Life
Yes, virgin birth... which in biblical times, in that area of the world, meant that the woman was a virgin when she MARRIED. Doesn't have dick to do with god, God, or gods, except in the eyes of someone ignorant of their own religion.
I am a (religious) Greek actually, reading the New Testament in its original Greek text - it is very clear that "Virgin (Greek:parthena) Birth (Greek:genesis)" means a birth from a virgin... NOT "a birth from someone who was a virgin at some time".... something that you don't even have to read in the original Greek to understand!
You can write that you don't believe it, but let's not change what it is writen and its very clear meaning.Less dogmatic bullshit, more reality = better for everyone. It's not even all that uncommon of an event: http://www.encyclopedia.com/to...
parthenogenesis is a type of asexual reproduction in which the offspring develops from unfertilized eggs. It is particularly common amongst arthropods and rotifers, can also be found in some species of fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles, but not in mammals. Parthenogenetic development also occurs in some plants species, such as roses and orange trees.
I just made a (not so off-topic) reference to God and the Virgin Birth my friend - we BOTH have science confirming reality: you have it for the parthenogenesis of what your link mentions, i have it for the parthenogenesis of Jesus Christ... no need to get upset, especially since my reality is confirmed from both SCIENCE and GOD!
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Re:LifeYes, virgin birth... which in biblical times, in that area of the world, meant that the woman was a virgin when she MARRIED. Doesn't have dick to do with god, God, or gods, except in the eyes of someone ignorant of their own religion. Less dogmatic bullshit, more reality = better for everyone. It's not even all that uncommon of an event:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/to...parthenogenesis is a type of asexual reproduction in which the offspring develops from unfertilized eggs. It is particularly common amongst arthropods and rotifers, can also be found in some species of fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles, but not in mammals. Parthenogenetic development also occurs in some plants species, such as roses and orange trees.
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Re:Not a problem
Oh my! You are a father?
And you don't even bother with a quick search to double check if maybe your initial statements might be false.
Two minutes of web search:
http://www.apa.org/research/action/protect.aspx
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2003/03/media-violence.aspx
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00246.x/abstract
http://mediasmarts.ca/backgrounder/kids-net-seven-and-eight-year-olds
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/pr040527.cfm
BTW I am not concerned about simple nudity or a normal sex act, it is very specifically the mixture of aggression and sex that is most concerning. That is why I repeatedly cited "Fisting" and "Ball Torture".
Your comment has certainly ruined my day and is very depressing. I originally chalked this nonsense up to teenage immaturity. If you are in fact a parent and yet so proudly display your ignorance on this topic, then this is disturbing on many levels.
And yes, you are also entirely wrong about learning. You are essentially negating decades of neurological, psychological, AI and educational research. The key here is how category learning works and the path towards more abstract thought processes.
Don't think though that any of this will penetrate you pre-conceived notion.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3403200097.html
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Re:Mayans or Incans
The museum articles associated with the machu pichu exhibit said that
a) the incans never discovered the wheel
b) they had an extensive system of roads.This is backed up here:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Machu_Picchu.aspxSome of the quipus had disks with holes in them at the ends. These were basically wheels.
The entire exhibit isn't available online so I can't easily link the pictures of the rolling pin object. But it was very close and not there.
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Re:Ron Paul should give away his money
You realize we can use this thing called Google, correct?
In 1951 doctors' annual earnings for 1949 were reported by the Department of Commerce. The report calculated the average salary of a physician to be $11,058, but there was a wide range of earnings depending on specialty. By comparison, the median family income in 1949 was just under $3,400.
Three times the average family income. You were saying?
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Re:Or they flew over a CAFO
If your argument can be used to support very bad things (like "vegetarianism/abolition is bad for the economy") then present more arguments (especially since the prediction that slavery would be bad for the economy was proven false). Let's delve deeper, not be satisfied with superficialities.
The reason I don't eat meat is because I don't want to be eaten. Until I know that an animal wants to be eaten, I'm going to err on the side of safety.
Vegetables are a different matter, because it is their survival strategy to produce fruit that birds eat and fly to other places and excrete seeds that spread the vegetable's genes.
By this logic, root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic are not ethically edible since you kill the plant. Jains have worked out a whole science of moral eating.
The ultimate goal is to stop eating. Gain energy directly from the sun, or die by self-starvation to demonstrate your mastery of bodily instincts.
But these are voluntary, self-imposed goals; Jainism includes lesser vows (anuvrata) for householders, who can choose to put off ultimate enlightenment until later in this life, or the next.
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Re:Something is missing
A) it's small. Small meteorites don't make much of a crater because their velocity is slowed much more than larger meteorites
B) the area that Opportunity is visiting has experienced substantial erosion on the bedrock surface, such that even if it did make a small dent in the surface, it could be eroded away by now. More durable rock types (such as the iron-nickel meteorites found previously, and also the hematite "blueberry" concretions that litter the surface) tend to accumulate on the surface as the softer rock is worn away. It's what geologists call a lag deposit.Incidentally, Opportunity has already moved a closer to the rock in question. The picture in the article was taken on Sol 2363, and there are now pictures downloaded to Sol 2367, such as this one, and this one. The higher-resolution "Panoramic Camera" images aren't fully downloaded, but you can see the edge of the rock. Looks like the next download pass they should have some pretty good shots. Check the "raw images" page for the Opportunity Rover in the next couple of days and there should be plenty of closer shots.
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Re:Dude!
Alright. Don't laugh at me. Really, don't laugh. I had assumed the "thinking position" on the Great White Porcelain Throne when the name came to me. Evergreen. A quick google gives me several hits for pentium replacements. I don't see my excact chip among the results - I replaced a plain old Pentium (before we had names like P1 and P2, etc) with one of these Evergreen chips. Articles I'm reading seem to suggest that they are powered by Pentium, they are just repackaged, and fitted to cards or whatever to fit your machine.
http://www.allbusiness.com/electronics/computer-equipment-computer/6909786-1.html
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-96615200.html
The specific chip that I bought all those years ago looked very similar to the Pentium that I replaced, it had a silver sticker with a green logo on it, and the numbering on the chip itself was unlike the markings on a genuine Pentium. Of course, it had to fit into the same ZIF socket, so it coudln't look VERY different from the original Pentium.
As I recall, the Pentium was clocked at 100 mhz, the fastest replacement was 133 mhz, but the Evergreen offered 166 mhz. But, that is ancient memory - I may have those speeds mixed up with later chips.
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Unions are monopolies
and we can't possibly think in shades of grey or make exceptions where needed.
Ever heard of the Ptolemaic model of the world? It seemed correct, but new and new facts required more and more exceptions until collapsing under their weight. Once you begin talking about "shades of grey" and "exceptions where needed", you admit, your model is junk...
And surely stuff like a bunch of women unionizing will all be an evil bunch
The workers wanting to bargain collectively aren't evil — they are doing, what's best for them. What is evil are the laws, that recognize unions as anything more than a group of people willing to associate with each other... No such laws should exist. A "union" of New York City transit workers should have no more legal recognition, that the community of Slashdot posters.
Moreover, given that unions are organizations set up with the explicit goal of maintaining and raising the price of what their members are selling (their own labor), they should be viewed as monopolies, subject to "trust-busting" laws.
If Staples and Office Depot were prevented from merging with each other for fear, the price of office supplies would go up, why do we allow our supply of healthcare, education, transportation, as well as crime- and fire-fighting to be controlled by the price-fixing monopolies?
Wake me up when you have an argument that actually applies to genetic testing
My argument, for the last time is that we are all employers, and, when considering any employment-regulating law (such as the ban on the use of genetic-testing by employers, implicitly suggested at the top of this thread), we should apply it to ourselves from the other end too: do I want this (or similar) law to control my interactions with all these people I hire: food takeout, gardener, nanny, cab-driver?
For a particular example, I don't want my nanny to have above-average incidence of sickness — even it is not contagious — because, any time she can't show up, I have to skip my work. So if, when interviewing candidates, I can quickly check their health, I'd want to be able to do it. This makes me sympathetic to the other employers wanting healthy employees. Someone of poor health may try to compensate with something else (higher productivity, better education, willingness to accept lower pay, whatever), but any bans on the use of any criteria are just that: Illiberal.
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Re:surprising?
(my previous post should have started with "not even close"...)
It wasn't about "phones sold", but marketshare, supposedly... Besides, the former is also certainly inconsistent, not the least because smartphone sales are still growing rapidly and with great room to grow - that wouldn't be possible if they were already at 75%...you would hear "smartphones are close to saturating the sales!"
Isn't the turnover time pretty much 2 years? (yeah, some people keep mobile phones longer...and some change them every few months; I suspect those two groups mostly cancel each other out in a way that makes them insignificant)
If there are 234 million mobile phones in the US, that would mean an average sales of 10 million monthly; 30 million per quarter. And that's probably way too cautious, considering that in Q2 2008 (a long time ago...and outside holiday season) 42 million were sold. So, it's safe to assume that during last holiday season...50 million were sold?And...
http://gigaom.com/2010/03/27/when-it-comes-to-apps-feature-phones-are-the-new-black/those passé, non-OS handsets that account for a whopping 83 percent of the overall U.S. handset market
^that was a three-month average ending in December; pretty much representing pre-holiday numbers. If between that period, and data from the end of February (showing feature phones at around 80%), probably up to 50 million phones was sold...then most of them certainly were not smarpthones (because smartphones were owned by only 45 million people at the end! And that represents a growth of 21% from pre-holiday season!) Not even close to half. The change in overall smartphone marketshare would have been way bigger.
Or...remember that global shipments of Symbian handsets in 2009 were only 80 million units...even though it has 47% of global sales (and barely anything in the US)
Also global shipments for iPhone were 25 million units (global!); now, with 50 million mobile phones shipped in the US in that quarter above - for smartphones in the US to have even 50% of sales (and considering US iPhone share of them), there would be really no iPhones left for the rest of the world. Not to mention if that would be 75%...For perspective, keep in mind that Nokia sells half a billion phones annually. That's an order of magnitude more than total number of iPhones made, ever.
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Re:Calling bullshit
Pick one.
How about Redwine or Geri Halliwell? It's hard to check people who may or may not exist. But yes, there may even be a few actual researchers there. I have no time to check now.
Now, answer my question:
Show me a single government funded study that concluded the less government intervention is required? Why would AGW be any different?Among the first few Google results on "deregulation study" comes this:
Seven years of deregulation in Canada's natural gas market have ushered in "a large number of buyers and sellers," says a new study prepared for Canada's National Energy Board.
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Re:Look, IBM is losing it anyway
Like all large corporations (including Google), they will do evil to make money. They just don't care any more. They are usually strong enough to put the government off indefinitely or are willing to pay a small fine to make a large profit.
You mean like walking off with USD1.6 billion of US taxpayers' money? Yes, if any company has the credentials to be able to do that, IBM would be at the top of the list.
(For those who don't remember, IBM was billions of dollars into an FAA modernization contract in the mid 90's when it sold its federal services division, including the never-completed contract, to Loral, effectively walking away with billions of dollars of taxpayer money for services never rendered.)
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Re:Useful to whom? The racists who care about skin
During the Kennedy administration, the Republican minority in Congress introduced many bills to protect the constitutional rights of blacks, including a comprehensive new civil rights bill. In February 1963, to head off a return by most blacks to the party of Lincoln, Kennedy abruptly decided to submit to Congress a new civil rights bill.
Wow. You're guzzling the GOP Kool-Aid pretty hard -- mainlining it right from The Washington Times, apparently. That's at least a two letter grade reduction for plagiarism. Really, you could at least bother to re-phrase the Republican whining points in your own words.
As for the facts of the matter, JFK was pushing for a meaningful civil rights bill in the Senate in 1960. The idea that he "abruptly" discovered the issue is nonsense. Not to say that there weren't some progressive Republicans who favored civil rights -- I'll certainly give a nod to Eisenhower on that.
Though he shared Johnson's convictions on safeguarding the constitutional rights of blacks, if Nixon had been in the White House...
Just so long as they didn't breed with whites, that is. According to Tricky Dick, "There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white. Or a rape."
Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and Progressiveism are all on the extreme end of the scale ranging from anarchy at one extreme to total government control on the other.
No, they aren't. Anarchists are socialist, as one of the links I've already provided to you explains. And lumping Progressives like Teddy Roosevelt in with fascists is just silly.
"Make those rich people PAY! It's not FAIR that they have money and you don't!", never minding that the rich person got that way by working hard, being smart
No. That's the fantasy. One accumulates vast wealth by a combination of being born into it, by gaming the system, by exploitation, or by luck. Very, very rarely does a person become truly wealthy by talent and hard work.
Bill Gates? Born with a silver spoon, rode IBM's coattails, used criminal business practices and used government-issued copyrights and patent to rake it in. Warren Buffet? Son of a Congressman, got rich not from producing useful goods or services but made his wealth in the form of gambling called the stock market. Carlos Slim Helú? Gamed the deregulation of the Mexican telephone system to end up in control in 90% of its landlines, so that his company can charge some of the highest usage fees in the world.
Meanwhile, the investment class sucks its profit out of the labor of the people who actually do the productive work. The worker creates all the value, the bank, the bondholder, and the stockholder create none -- yet they not only get a cut -- indeed, often the lion's share -- of the value the worker creates, but we set our economic policy for their benefit.
We still live in the most-free (as an overall measure) nation on the planet with the highest standard of living of any other nation, ever.
No, we don't. It's a great nation -- hey, we taught the world to rock and roll, and whose bootprints are on the moon? -- but it's not as great as those wearing the flag as a blindfold like to pretend. We have the highest rate of incarceration on the planet. We rank 13th on the human development index, and are well down from the top in the CIFP rights rankings.
The progress we have made, though, is entirely because of those who l
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Re:Render unto Cesar.
One might question whether you read the sources you cited, as opposed to simply linking terms you heard a convincing speaker use one day.
Fortunately that's not true. In high school history we learned about Manifest Destiny.
Manifest destiny has little to do with Christians spreading the word across the world. While the idea existed that it was ordained by the Christian God, Manifest Destiny was the idea that Americans were charged with expanding capitalism, democracy, and even the American government to all of North and Latin America.
You left out "the idea that 'uncivilized' peoples could be improved by exposure to the Christian, democratic values of the United States." Or Native Americans and Christianity:
"White Attitudes. Among whites there were two common religiously based attitudes toward Native Americans. One was expressed in the notion of Manifest Destiny, the idea that white Christians had a God-given mission to expand their civilization and its ideals of liberty and democracy across the entire North American continent. From this point of view Indians who occupied valuable lands could be removed or even exterminated with few moral qualms. A second point of view held that the Indians did not have to be seen as a hindrance to white progress. Rather, they were simply ignorant heathens who could become part of American society if they were allowed to benefit from the civilizing instruction of whites. The first step toward civilization was believed to be conversion to Christianity. Although earlier missionaries to the Indians had produced few converts and much antagonism, the revivals of the early nineteenth century brought new impetus to the missionary movement. Most Protestant denominations as well as the Roman Catholic Church sent men and women to Indian tribes across the country, where they preached, distributed Bibles, and established schools.""Christian Talibans" is a lovely buzz word... but wholly inappropriate as Taliban is neither an adjective
adjective: "noun: the word class that qualifies nouns.
verb: add a modifier to a constituent.
"Taliban" modifies "Christian".t is instead a proper noun describing a terroristic dictatorship that was formerly the ruling body of Iraq and had strong control over Afghanistan and is currently engaging in guerrilla and terrorist assaults to prevent the peoples of those regions from asserting their own power.
And Christian Talibans such as those I already linked to would do the same thing. The difference is the religion, and the sect of the religion. Seeing as how either you can't be bothered to see that Dominionists and other Reconstructionists would do the same thing, that "civil government should be controlled by Christians alone and conducted according to Biblical law", I am left thinking you're trolling. All that's changed is the religion and the holy book.
And if you don't think stoning, which is what they plan, isn't terrorism then I don't want to live in your world. Even associates of the Rev. Jerry Falwell said theologian Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony positions on stoning were scary.
"In a world run by Rushdoony followers, sots would escape capital punishment--which would make them happy exceptions indeed. Those who would face execution include not only gays but a very long list of others: blasphemers, heretics, apostate Christians, people who cursed or struck their parents, females guilty of "unchastity before marriage," "incorrigible" juvenile delinquents, adulterers, and (probably) telephone psychics. And that's to say nothing of murderers and those guilty of raping married women or -
GeoWorks did this in 2000
Geoworks demonstrated this on the San Francisco local news back in 2000.
Check out:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-66096362.html
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-66915753.html
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-66096362.html -
GeoWorks did this in 2000
Geoworks demonstrated this on the San Francisco local news back in 2000.
Check out:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-66096362.html
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-66915753.html
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-66096362.html -
Re:Before we get into this too deep...
Yeah, it's not like Israel has ever been caught red-handed doing this before, is it?
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Re:Makes me wonder...
can we expect to have fusion power in the next 20 years?
You can have fusion power even now, if you want (if you call 1991 "now") - but it either produces less energy than it consumes, or is unstable, or usually both.
Making it easier to spend money doesn't require you to spend that money
Maybe for you it doesn't. For other people it does. It's all psychology; it's too easy to buy stuff if you don't have to pay cash (which you might as well not have.) Millions of people are in debt. The last thing they need is easier methods to spend money. If the payment takes more effort or time they have a chance to reconsider the purchase. I don't say it's a good solution, but it helps. Look at this advice, for example:
Put all your credit cards in a bowl of water and freeze them. When the time comes you wish to make a purchase, you'll have plenty of time to reconsider how badly you "need" the item while the cards are thawing out.
(I just found it on the Web, I don't claim invention of it, or anything
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Re:what about
First off, wind power is a great supplement, not a replacement. It suffers from too much variability to be a reliable power source, and therefore replace fossil fuels.
True but geothermal is a reliable and steady energy source. It's also available in many places. Iceland, in the Arctic, gets a lot of energy from geothermal sources. California gets 4.5% of it's energy from geothermal sources. In Hawaii the Big Island gets 20% of it's energy from the Puna Geothermal Venture which supplies geothermal energy. Heck even the Philippines harvests geothermal energy. Mexico has 853 MW of installed geothermal energy.
That energy does not depend of sunlight or the wind. It is a steady source of energy. New York state has the webpage Geothermal Heat Pumps with contacts that can install both commercial and residential systems.
at least with nuclear power, the pollution is contained.
No it's not. Mining is not contained. Neither are leaks, spills, and other releases. Such as the tritium spills at Exelon Nuclear-owned plants in IL.
As for your road tax solution, who cares if we pay it with income taxes or fuel taxes?
I do as do many others. Only those who use the roads should have to pay for them. If a person does not directly pay for something they have no idea how much it costs for one Now if you have to pay say 10 cents a mile, in addition to gas costs, unless you're wealthy you will pay attention. And I say that as someone who loves driving and will not give up my car unless I have to.
Everyone uses and benefits from the roads.
And they will pay for it, but not with income taxes. You may walk or ride a bike everywhere but as long as you buy items you will still pay for the roads. Sellers raise their prices to cover their expenses, they are in business to make money afterall. Heck even when you order a physical object online, you're paying. Say you order a printed book from Amazon you pay shipping and the shipper pays for the roads.
Falcon
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Re:Universities can't keep up
Someone might show up at IBM wearing blue jeans! Wait, that was 1995. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-819481.html
It would do the younger generation well to learn the language and traditions of their elders so that they can blend in and become gainfully employed until their generation is old enough to make the rules; but you're guilty of a slippery slope line of thinking to associate using modern informal English in a paper with a lack of basic interpersonal skills.
Someone else in this thread made a point about the King James version of the Bible, and I have encountered a small amount of high medieval English in my studies as well. The former is awkward to read, the latter impossible without taking a course in it. Between 1500 and 1700AD there was such a massive transformation of the English language that I sincerely doubt many people could have fluently read and written what was popular among both the octogenarians and the youth.
As for the comments on grammar from other posts; grammar studies were invented to reflect the language not vice-versa. There are numerous models and none of the ones taught in elementary school have accurately reflected the language to a great degree. To say that we must conform to a model of a crude after the fact model of our language is like telling the universe that it must conform to Newtonian physics.
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Encryption makes it hard to read
At least that's what the NSA, CIA, TFI, FBI, DEA, ONI, ATF, CIA, NGA, DHS, DIA, DOD, DOE, INR, NRO, ISR, RIAA, BSAA, and the Children's Television Workshop have all said at some stage.
The DOJ insisted back in 1999 that its agents need the ability to secretly enter private property and disable security on personal computers. Apparently SELinux has a back door built in using NSAKEY as the password. -
Re:On the other hand
indeed. GW leads to much colder winters in western Europe. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-88092634.html
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Re:But why would it be intentionally similar?
Unless you're talking about a different case it appears to be Sony Corp vs Sony's Restaurant. So it is the same name, although given that Sony Corp doesn't sell any food that I'm aware of I'm not sure why they got excited about it. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-1331412.html
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Re:Good Read.
No, actually they didn't:
Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, read U.S. weakness in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and blustered publicly that he might retaliate by driving the U.S. out of West Berlin. U.S. President John Kennedy, in return, openly boasted that the U.S. possessed many more (and more accurate and deliverable) nuclear missiles and warheads than the U.S.S.R., and would consider striking first with them if it ever found itself at a military disadvantage. Kennedy's claim was true; in 1962, the U.S.S.R. had at most 20 or 30—perhaps as few as four — functional, deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs); the U.S. had several hundred. Nevertheless, Kennedy had claimed, during his presidential campaign, that the incumbent Eisenhower's administration had allowed the Soviets to get ahead of the U.S. in missiles, causing a "missile gap." A missile gap did exist, as Kennedy knew, but in reverse; it had always been the U.S. that was far ahead of the U.S.S.R. in such weapons. Once in office, Kennedy dropped the old story about the "missile gap" and brandished the United States's nuclear superiority openly against Khrushchev.
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Re:What took it all so long??
Subsidy: transfer payment, usually made by government to individuals, groups, or institutions, to bring about a redistribution of welfare which could not be achieved through market forces.
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It wasn't _that_ proton-m
The dateline for the proton-m article is 2005 (which mentions satellite AMC-23), giving a launch date of Dec. 6, 2005. It even successfully launched!. I'm pretty sure that particular rocket wasn't responsible for the light show.
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Re:Oh rats
Intel delivered the first sub-40nm flash memory and has delivered two generations of top-flight solid state drives. Intel has always been strong in flash memory.
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Re:I think my world looks dystopian...
I have never seen the word "majority" used the way you used it. Never.
I guess Britannica is wrong too.
Oh, and Encyclopedia.com.
You'd better get cracking, obviously you need to correct them as well.
I should point out that your use of "majority" in this way left you without a term that means "> 50%". As a result, you commandeered the term "super-majority" for this purpose.
I'll give you this one. It was meant to be evocative, but clearly if you don't have a basic understanding of what the word "minority" in this context means, it may be confusing. It was clear to me, it was clear to several people I showed the post to, but obviously it was unclear to you.
In short, I believe your usage is probably wrong, and definitely confusing.
Believe what you like. All you've shown me so far is an unwillingness to learn a new use for a term, and a stubborn insistence that "if you don't know about it, it probably isn't right".
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health care and free markets
What would we need to do to have a pure free market as you suggest in this country?
I wouldn't, don't, say have a pure free market but make it freer than it is. If a business employer offers employees health insurance the business will get a tax break. However if I, you, or anyone else goes and buy their own health insurance then we do not get the same tax break. The business has their taxes cut but we have to pay just as much in taxes, it obviously better for the employer. What I want is a level playing field, businesses get tax cuts so should individuals. I also want to be able to cross state lines to buy health insurance, that is not possible now because each state regulates insurance. If an insurance company in Florida offers lower priced insurance there than in my state I should be able to buy from the Florida company.
I's also like to be able to open a walk-in clinic in my neighborhood. Before she died Mother Teresa tried to open a homeless shelter in NYC but the city demanded one requirement after another until she dropped her plan. The city cared more about it's rules than about the homeless. Things like this and zoning laws make it hard to open low cost walk-in clinics in areas where they can help people.
Get rid of medicare and medicaid. Aside from those programs, pretty much we have market driven health insurance and health care today
See above, there isn't much market driven health care. As for Medicare, which I am on, and Medicaid I say get rid of them. What I would do instead is have health insurance policy issuers pay into a pool which would then provide insurance for those who can not get insurance, either because no one will sell them insurance or because they can not afford it. I'd also require insurance to accept preexisting medical conditions. Now so there isn't a misunderstanding, I would not require insurance to pay for everything, for instance if someone without insurance breaks an arm then applies for insurance, it would not have to cover the broken arm. However if a diabetic gets a new policy, after say a year it would have to cover diabetes. As I said above I get Medicare. I get it because I am disabled, now if I were to get a private health insurance after a year it would cover my disability.
One last thing, I'd have all medical expenses tax deductible. That is insurance, treatments, and medications.
What I laid out isn't a compleatly free market but it's freer than the market is now.
Falcon
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Re:So the bullshitters change their story.
People are leaving that organization in droves.
I would beg to differ. Several top Google hits suggest that they are growing, but at a rate less than the world population. Thus, as a percentage of world population, Catholocism is shrinking, but it's still growing in numbers. People are not, as you suggest, leaving it in droves.
Another great statistic I just found was that an average of 171,000 Christians are "martyred" for their faith every year. That's pretty wild! I'd make a joke about some well-fed Roman lions, but that would be in very poor taste.