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Consider the source:

"Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood" by Hans Asperger was published in 1944 in German and was translated into English in 1991 (Asperger, 1944/1991).

Asperger was defining deviance in the context of the Third Reich! So what is "impairment in social interaction" in a context where normal social interaction includes enthusiastic participation in Hitler Youth and running death camps for Jews? And what are "impairments in communication" in a society of Nazis?

It's fascinating and disturbing that Asperger's has become a diagnostic flavor-of-the-month in contempory America. Diagnoses and syndromes - such as the "hysteria" prevalent a century back in Austria - are often linked to certain cultures and periods. What in current American culture could so closely resemble the Third Reich as to account for the re-emergence of this particular syndrome here, now?

Also, another major "symptom" is reticence to make eye contact. A neighbor of mine was a child in occupied Holland. When the Gestapo knocked on the door demanding to search the house, her mother - six feet tall and blonde - stared them down, shouting "I am your damn ideal! How dare you demand to come into my home." It worked, that once. But how many willing to make eye contact during the Reich ended up in the camps?

One day a goldsmith in Rome was allowed to show the Emperor Tiberius a dinner plate of a new metal...

The logic programming community already spent a decade or two trying to replace SQL with logic languages like Prolog. SQL vs Prolog is like C vs lisp all over again.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3649/i s_199705/ai_n8761763

From : http://redmondmag.com/columns/article.asp?Editoria lsID=842
2. Brad Silverberg ?Silverberg is widely considered the man who launched Windows 95 and IE. He was lured from rival Borland Software, a move that incurred Borland founder Philippe Kahn's considerable wrath (nothing could be more grating to Kahn than a Microsoft limo showing up at Borland headquarters to whisk away a trusted lieutenant). After leaving Microsoft, Silverberg boarded his bike and pedaled around Canada for a month. Now he's a major force behind Ignition Partners, a VC firm that's a Who's Who of Redmond alumni, including Richard Tong and Cameron Myhrvold.

From: http://about.com/od/delphifornet/a/conspiracydnet_ 2.htm
Do you know that the man behind Delphi is Anders Hejlsberg, one of the original members of the Borland company.
During his time with Borland he extended its' Turbo Pascal compiler. Eventually he became the chief architect for the team which produced the replacement for Turbo Pascal - Delphi. As a chief architect at Borland, Hejlsberg secretly turned Turbo Pascal into an object-oriented application development language, complete with a truly visual environment and superb database-access features. Once touted as the "VB killer," Delphi has remained a cornerstone product for Borland.
In 1996 he left Borland and joined Microsoft where he was the man behind J++ and the Windows Foundation Classes. More recently he has led the team which has created the C# programming language, and he's been a key participant in the development of the .NET Framework. ...
According to the suit:?Among the defecting workers were Paul Gross, Borland's senior R&D VP, and Anders Hejlsberg, a major player in the development of Borland's technology.?Microsoft offered Paul Gross a $1 million signing bonus, stock options, and title to real estate near Microsoft's headquarters. He left Borland for Microsoft in September 1996.?Microsoft offered Anders Hejlsberg a signing bonus of $1.5 million and stock options. Microsoft doubled the bonus to $3 million after Borland made a counter-offer. Hejlsberg left Borland in October 1996.

Because we know that Apple would start foolish lawsuits.

Just to clarify: The government didn't own the phone companies

They most certainly did here. MTS was privatized in 1996, when they had a billion dollars worth of debt at a time when other telecoms in North America were reaping record profits.

There's a Maui Giclee, owned a Jim Kartes, that sells art reproduction prints. Umm, I'm sure that Maui Giclee has all their copyrights and licences in order, but ..

Here is a great example of automation gone overboard. The McDonalds automated kitchen. Considering what all the machines and maintenance must cost, would it really save money compared to paying minimum wage employees? Maybe so, but I'd be surprised to see the savings pay off anytime soon. In countries with lower labor costs, like many in South America, almost nothing is automated. Parking lots have attendants, subway and bus fare cards are sold by humans and not machines, there is no self-checkout, and most gas stations are full service. Automation can be a good thing, but it is not always the best solution.

Farzana Shahid

http://www.naseeb.com/naseebvibes/prose-detail.php ?aid=2057&PHPSESSID=80e1a187f6ded5bed6278866af4102 cf

Lamya Hamad

http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2005/0 1/article10.shtml#1

Mustafa Akyol

http://www.islamonline.net/english/Contemporary/20 04/09/Article02.shtml

Adi Setia

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QYQ/is _1_2/ai_n6160521

I have to say TA:Spring looks very impressive in its own right, but I can't help but bring up this:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zd1up/is _200403/ai_ziff122201

Gas Powered Games is making a new RTS. Of course not a sequel to TA, but could be very interesting.

For a little background, Chris Taylor is the man credited with creating Total Annihilation. However he left Cavedog to start up Gas Powered Games some time before Cavedog produced TA:Kingdoms and subsequently went under.

Instead of chaos - which is what everyone thought would happen - there was a new order, far more simple and perfect and porous than the old system of government fiat. Anyone is permitted to buy and operate a broadcast transmitter. You go to your local equivalent of Radio Shack and buy an FM or television transmitter and you are on the air.

There are literally thousands of FM stations now, run by anyone who wants to transmit. Lansman said that it was in Rome he heard his first Hare Krishna station: it was the only one broadcasting chants 24 hours a day. ..."Since it always pays a broadcaster to go to the channel that is the least occupied, the power bill, the height of your antenna, your location, and your programming become your only limiting factors. It's the ultimate deregulation - restricted only by signal intensity, not the politics of oligopoly."

You mean the one it had been using for years before apple became cool again?

The first reference I can find to such a law is in the Journal for Historical Review. The home page of this institute seems awfully dedicated to Hitler, and the writeup of the law doesn't mention any specifics, and refers to the "Zionist state". Still skeptical, I found this in the Air Force Law Review, which looks a little more promising (search for 'Israel', but God knows I can't figure out where that shit is in the real law books)

An excerpt from A Nation of Salesmen, by Earl Shorris:

I saw that selling, in all its forms, has achieved dominion over the world in our time, not only determining the economic spirit of the nation but deeply affecting its social, political, cultural, and moral life. I saw that America has become the land of the salesman, Homo vendens, who is both dangerous and afflicted.

Under the dominion of Homo vendens, we are no longer free to know the world. The salesman now informs us. In the mix of mind and matter that is perception, the information comes not from our senses encountering reality but from the salesman. Thus we have lost the world.

You also didn't address my point. I was simply saying that suspicion of government assurances of nop infringement was reasonable if previous assurances had been quickly forgotten. It may have been quite reasonable to infringe on religious freedoms, but that doesn't change the fact that people will trust future assurances less. Whether breaking the assurance was legitimate, reasonable or just is completely beside the point.

And while you did not explicitely state that Christians hate non-Christians and want coerce others to become Christians your post most certainly did imply exactly that.

You can choose to hate non-Christians, and while they could choose to be Christian, you have no right to attempt to coerce them into it.

I do not hate non-Christians nor do I wish to force them to become Christians. You implied that I did. You are wrong.

I am also suspicious of your insistance that you agree with the statement "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it".

Chris Kempler's public statements are clearly objectionable to you. I take it you disagree strongly with what he said. That is your right and good for you for expressing your disagreement. I failed to notice the part of your post where you defended his right to make those statements that you disagreed with. Remember that those statements were made in a public forum and were never mentioned in his school. Not in the classroom and not in the staff room. Only in the editorial pages.

For the record, Chris Kempler discriminated against nobody. He simply expressed his disaproval of the behaviour of a group of people. Why are you not defending his right to express that disapproval. If someone expressed their disaproval of people of helping the homeless, I'd think he was a jerk, but I would defend his right to say that.

The print shop guy did descriminate. As I mentioned in my post he descriminated on the basis of the material he was asked to publish. (Not on the basis of the sexual orientation of his customers). The link I provided has this quote from the Ontario Divisional Court saying that Mr. Brockie held

"a sincere religious belief that homosexual conduct is sinful and, in furtherance of that belief, he must not assist in the dissemination of information intended to spread the acceptance of a gay or lesbian ('homosexual') lifestyle. Mr. Brockie draws a distinction between acting for customers who are homosexual and acting in furtherance of a homosexual lifestyle."

You may disagree with his beliefs and many people do, but your agreement or disagreement with him isn't the point.

Finally, I'm not trying to argue that there aren't people calling themselves Christians who are hypocritical or hurtful. I'm not so foolish as to try and defend everything anyone calling themselves a Christian says. But I do try to understand where everyone is coming from.

bunch of screeching Christians like to pretend that they did

That might be because the last time the government assured us that a new law wouldn't make someone compromise their religious principles that *promise* lasted only a couple of years.

If you want the details, it was when the government, (or was it just our unelected supreme court decided to add "Sexual Orientation" to the list of things you were not allowed to descriminate on the basis of that are listed in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (Well actually it was our unelected Supreme Court that decided to do this even though the people who'd written the Charter only a few years before had considered putting "Sexual Orientation" in the list and decided against it, but let's not get sidetracked).

This was all fine and good, but some people had concerns that their religious convictions against homosexual lifestyles would be made illegal. (For instance a religious school might get shut down for refusing to hire a man in a sexual relationship with another man). The architects of our new world order assured us this was merely our stupid redneck paranoia getting the best of us and that we shouldn't worry, because our betters would make sure that religious freedom was protected.

Some time later, a religious man in Toronto who owned a printing company was approached by an activist group wanting him to print their letter head, business cards etc. The man refused because he felt it violated his religious conscience to use his resources to aid an organization that promoted ideas contrary to his beliefs. Rather than go to another printer muttering something about ignorant dumbasses, (as some people might do if their business was refused), the group decided to make a human rights complaint. (Human rights commissions are not courts of law incidentally, but their decisions have the force of law). The man was fined $5000 and was told that he was not allowed to refuse orders like that.

A couple of other factors are interesting. This was in Toronto where there are many printers available, many of whom would have loved the business. It's not as if this action took away anyone's ability to actually get materials printed. Also, no one ever contested that the man did in fact serve gay customers and there was no suggestion that the man wouldn't serve people who were gay, merely that he wouldn't print materials promoting a homosexual lifestyle.

Now I know nothing about the situation other than what I've read, but I do have a personal connection to the next case. (Albeit a distant one).

A Christian man by the name of Chris Kempling teaches school in British Columbia. He wrote a letter to a local newspaper. (In fact he wrote one freelance column and six letters to the editor between 1997 and 2000). Dr. Kempler's views are so toxic that he addressed the UN on March 4th 2005 on the subject of Human Rights. The subject of of Dr. Kempler's letters were factual STD & promiscuity rates, that many religions consider homosexuality to be immoral, that it may be caused by negative psycho-social influences, and that it was nothing to be applauded. He did not express these views in the classroom, or in the staff room, but only in the editorial pages of the local newspaper. In 2002 he was suspended by the BC College of teachers. The suspension was upheld by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in last year.

My tenuous connection to this case is that a co-worker and friend of mine knows him personally and his father helped Dr. Kempler in his defence. (Unsuccesfully). The accounts I have heard is that Dr. Kempler is reasonable and does not descend to nasty behaviour. (Most certainly not a "redneck").

So I think you can see why

OK, I found the article and headline a little short on hard facts, so did a quick search for a better explanation. You can find that here:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BRZ/is _5_23/ai_103731260
The alleged move to 3D is something of a red herring.
It appears that with current longitudinal technology, each bit is encoded by a magnet with a North-South axis that lies in the same plane as the platter itself and occupies some 100 grains of the magnetic material. The novelty here is that in perpendicular recording, the magnet is stood on end with its North-South axis perpendicular to the plane of the platter.
Apparently this theoretically leads to greater areal densities of data exceeding that of the longitudinal technology. This is where the win occurs.
In particular, what initially confused me is that we are not talking about multiple layers of data within one platter. There is still only one layer of data per side per platter, but we have achieved greater areal density of that data. Exactly what that density will be once these drives are in production is anyone's guess.
Any help?

Which means that all those gorgeous images the previous poster was talking about will no longer be available other than with false color.

This is just personal experience, but I remember many girls into video games when I was a kid and games were 2D. The first home system I ever played was an Atari 2600, and it belonged to a girl.

I think that the move to 3D gaming may be partly responsible for fewer girls playing games. In studies I've read about the differences between women and men, generally they all say that we're about the same EXCEPT that men are better at 3D thinking. From thisarticle that I quickly Googled, "...Men perform better on some cognitive tests, like visualizing 3D objects. Women tend to have greater verbal abilities..."

I'm no expert, but if this is correct and applicable, women are on average at a disadvantage with modern 3D games.

Government should not be funding OSS unless it is under contract to provide an immediate service that is needed.

If you want to get annoyed with govt. waste, think how much govt. (at all levels) has spent on MS Office over the years. How many billions does Microsoft have sitting in the back? And guess who is their biggest custmer: the govt. of course.

It's time to end the Microsoft handout. For a relatively paltry fee, the government could get competitive bids to fix up OpenOffice in whatever way necessary (if at all) to meet government needs. Over time it would save billions!

Programmer productivity is higher in garbage-collected (MS calles them "managed") environments such as Java and .Net/C#.

Nothing prevents C++ from being used with a garbage collector as well as with any of a number of other memory-management models. (Really, between STL and shared_ptr, memory management is a non-issue in the vast majority of properly written programs, without the overhead and non-deterministic destruction of a garbage collector.)

And, by any chance, have you heard of products that detect memory leaks in Java programs?

Another thing you may want to consider is this: memory is not the only resource your program needs to properly dispose of. There are things like file descriptors, database connections, network connections, threads, mutexes and so on. With C++ deterministic destruction, these can be handled correctly and automatically. Try this with Java, in the presense of exceptions, and see where you are more productive.

oh my god, he smokes pot. He must be a sentinel of satan. why o why can't we stone him in the biblical way as he so richly deserves?

Seriously, what is your problem with that? You don't want to smoke pot, don't. Why shouldn't he? Unbiased medical studies are rarer than hen's teeth, but there aren't a whole lot of stoners dying from lung cancer. Oh, wait - because it's illegal? Because he's supporting terrorists? Yeah, right - only if by "terrorist" you mean "some kid in the 'burbs with a hydroponic setup in his garage".

Look up the history of why pot is illegal sometime. Note that William Randolph Hearst is the main reason, and that it has nothing to do with morality, personal health, or terrorists and everything to do with sales of hemp for industrial use. Then try to explain to me why it makes sense that some teenager who gets caught with a joint does more hard time than a rapist.

Doesn't sound to me like he's the sort of wastoid who can't do anything but sit on the sofa, smoke grass and eat Cheetos. He said himself he turns down free weed so that he can continue to perform well. Sounds like he's pretty responsible in his use of pot. Is that threatening to you, finding someone who smokes pot but doesn't go out murdering and raping like they always taught you he must?

To me, the fact that he doesn't know that iTMS is an abbreviation for iTunes Music Store is more worrisome than the fact that like approximately half of Americans, he has smoked pot. And frankly, not getting that abbreviation doesn't seem very critical to me.

It wasn't a very good interview, though. You're absolutely right about that.

Now, what about this champion of webcasters and enemy fo the RIAA who happens to be a lifelong Republican? Guess you don't read Slashdot that much...

What about this Republican? Just in case you read PCWorld....

Here's a few Republicans against the RIAA. Wow. Must not use Google much, huh whitroth?

How about this Republican taking a swing at the RIAA?

And finally.... One of the RIAA's main champions is.....DEMOCRAT!

God, I hate smug bastards. Especially ones who use cute little terms like "Reptilians" and don't even know a Rpeublican is spearheading an investigation into the RIAA. Google Search for those who can't do it themselves.

Why not? As long as they don't put her behind the wheel...

When RHIC was announced, some in the scientific community expressed concern that it could do just this. The RHIC public relations crew came out and laughed off the concerns as bogus.

Specifically, they said that black holes simply cannot be created whatsoever as there just isn't enough matter or energy for this to happen. The full committee report debunking any such black hole nonsense can be found here.

So now that it has been demonstrated that RHIC's scientists were completely wrong, we're supposed to have further confidence in them how? That the accidental black hole didn't cause the earth to disappear isn't quite sufficient for an answer.

Debunked here (and many other places)

...as you can see here.

The biology behind it also explains why birds and bees can fly at ludicrous speeds through tree branches without hitting a thing, but we can barely navigate the mall.

• "National Security Letters" - the FBI sends these to ISPs, demanding access to account data or e-mail. There's no judicial oversight; the FBI does this all by themselves. The ISP can't talk about it. One ISP is sueing the Justice Department, and until recently, they were under a gag order so strong they couldn't say they were in litigation. Since there's a threat of a five year prison sentence for disclosing that you received a National Security Letter, these tend not to get publicity. But hundreds of them have been sent.
• The "no fly list" mess. On at least two occasions, the "no fly list" has been used to keep opponents of Adminstration policy from travelling. The "no fly list" is a secret, too. And there's no way to get off it.
• "Guilt by association". Vague involvement with some group vaguely associated with terrorism can be punished as a terrorist act. This is getting a few terrorist wannabees, like the Virgina Jihad, a bunch of guys into paintball and Islamic rhetoric.
• Jose Padilla. Padilla is apparently a small-time Chicago crook who hooked up with some al-Queda people as if they were a gang. He's being held without trial, only because Ashcroft made a big deal about him building a "dirty bomb". He never accomplished enough that he could be convicted of much, which is probably why he hasn't been charged.

The Patriot Act is overkill for the losers the Administration is catching with it.

We all learned in high school about the theory of biogenesis, right? It's the principle that life comes only from other living things. It doesn't arise spontaneously. Rocks don't turn into turtles. It's a basic principle of biology. (The opposite of this theory, the theory of abiogenesis, is given as an example of a scientific theory that was once believed but that we now know to be false.)
-- end context--

Enough! Tortured justifications don't make a wrong right..)

Enough yourself. It's not a tortured justification. His "it's a baby, not an offspring" comment was inappropriate in reference to a thread on biogenesis and abiogenesis and the continuous nature of life.

I have no objections to stems cells per se, or even to human cloning. But I am concerned about protection of life in the process of extraction of these cells. Consider this description: a set of cells with DNA distinct from it's mother and it's father, that represents a distinct human being. This description fits:
- you
- me
- a fetus
- an embryo
All deserve the same level of protection of life.

Lets address EXISTING problems first, and worry about non-existent concerns later - during the hyperspace jump to sector 42.



Fair enough. Taking your defintion; It's now possible to clone animals, and theoretically possible to clone a human from an adult (non-embryonic) stem cell. While some animals are more 'clonable' than others, the biggest barrier to human cloning is desire, not technical abilty. At what point would that cloned stem cell become human? It seems irrational to me to argue that it would be human before it started to differentiate into the various adult cell types; nerves, muscle, etc. at the very earliest, since before then it would be functionally equivalent to another adult stem cells in the human body. This is one reason why I reject the "life begins at conception" cannard which has been repeated endlessly. If taken to its logical conclusion, it would equate cells inside the body with individual human beings because they are capable of becoming human beings. Putting an adult stem cell into a lab does not transform it into a human being. Similarly, you are not allowed to kill a twin as long as his other twin remains alive, so the notion that death is the destruction of an entire genetic set wouldn't work (identical twins being natural clones). The current legal standard is based on degree of differentiation of the cell towards a self-sufficient individual rather than preservation of a certain unique set of cells. This useful standard is being deliberatly blurred by people trying to introduce their "life begins at conception" line. If this standard is adopted, it will inevitably increase the arbitrariness of the law by creating a standard which, by its nature, cannot be applied uniformly in all situations.


I have no objections to stems cells per se, or even to human cloning.

Same here. What I object to especially is the catagorization of cells, particularly undifferentiated cells, as human, which is a view some are attempting to push, claming through some leap of logic that their views are religiously grounded.

I don't believe in the morality of abortion of a differentiated fetus, but I believe even less in the morality of state interference into people's medical choices.

If stem cells could be obtained from a fetus in a pregnant woman, with absolutely no harm done to the fetus (and there was a great benefit to society in this being done) who could object to that?

Embryonic stem cells are obtained from undifferentiated embryos, thus the name. By the time an embryo is a fetus, it's past the stage when it would typicaly be used for stem cell research. Pluripotent stem cells can be recovered from umbilical cord tissue. Pluripotent stem cells can also be obtained from adult tissue, but it's currently very diffic

Ref I found

I agree entirely with your sentiment about Slashdot, however. I used to think it was a great forum where you could find expert opinions on all sorts of technology and science, but now that I'm a few years further down the path to being an expert myself, I recognize that there's practically nothing of value here. I continue to read it primarily out of habit.

And where exactly did you hear '2003'? Was that from Microsoft, or Bungie?

Back in January of 2004, they first announced the 'fall 2004' date. Prior to that, it was just "when it is done."

Then, in May, they gave the November 9th date.

So you might be barking up the wrong tree with the Halo 2 release date. They told us 6 months ahead of time the DAY it would be released. And they hit it.

4k is becoming more standard, but a lot of digital effects are still done at 2k res. so if you're sitting there watching a movie at a cinema with standard 35 projectors, i doubt you would be able to pick out the effects that were rendered at 2k or 4k.

while 2k does fall short of the resolution of 35, i believe it would still fall into the same category of "looking just as good".. when you are getting into the 4k side of things, you are talking about it actually looking crisper and better than 35 (even though it's the same "resolution" on paper)...

that's just my opinion. take it as you want... but here is an article about 2k/4k/6k(vista) that's interesting.. a few years old, but still a good read...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HNN/is _1_17/ai_82533914/pg_1

There's really no good way to solve this problem

I really hate this attitude. Wikipedia is only about four years old, and you're ready to throw in the towel? The system is as good as it'll ever be?

The problem of maintaining accuracy without raising the bar to new contributors too high is being attacked from many different angles. Lots of ideas, some rather good, are being discussed. Some features have already crept into the software, and more are on the way.

Don't be like the patent office commissioner who assumed that everything that could be invented had been (well, not really... but you get my point).

Do you have one of these?

I've been thinking about ditching iPod / iTunes and getting the AV420 and Napster To Go. The AV420 doesn't work with NTG or even Windows Media Player 10 yet, but apparently it will soon:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is _2005_Jan_6/ai_n8683782

I've called Archos but tech support and sales are clueless. When I mention the above press release they said the PlaysForSure logo will be on a new device and to not buy anything yet. They have no idea what will or won't work with NTG.

"Yeah, that's the ticket! Blackmail a company into making what I'm doing legit! Since I know they won't do the legal way I'll force them into it using blackmail!"

It happens more than you might think. A few years back, a grad student in Colorado found a hole in Audible's web site and told Audible that he wouldn't release the vulnurability if they agreed to give him A Volvo T5, some cash, two Diamond Rios and a lifetime subscription to Audible.

If I'd been the FBI agent assigned to that one, when it came time to go to his house to arrest him, I'd have done so in a new Volvo T5, just to make him think until the last second that he was getting what he wanted. Then I'd jump out of the volvo and scream "psych!" or whatever the hip phrase was back then.

Here is the article about the Nuclear Boy Scout. Quite an interesting read.

Don't believe me? Read all about it

I'm not all that impressed by a "cure" that uses HIV. Both in that I don't trust it to be safe, but also in that there has already been knowledge of a much safer virus that can cure cancer for several years. At first glance one might think that we don't already have the older cure since it's naturally occuring and so the medical industry can't patent it and make millions from everyone who needs it, but look at other recent patents for naturally occuring things argues against that. Sure, with all of the different cancers we may need more than one treatment, but why does there not seem to be lot of research on this promising approach that might give us one real cure rather than tinkering with something as dangerour and unstable as HIV?

Ah - so the first American president to win the election, both in electoral votes AND popular votes in oh, however many years, is a fuckup?

You may want to sit down for this - the number of votes a politician gets doesn't alter whether or not his policies are successful. Opinions don't magically alter reality.

Even in 2000, it was clear Bush had the reverse Midas touch - everything he'd been involved with had turned to crap. His only success in 'business' involved getting the state of Texas to confiscate land and hand it over to a baseball team.

But you can say that John Kerry (or any of the other candidates) wasn't one?

Actually, they didn't say that. It's pretty clear Kerry did fuck up, in that he lost to arguably the worst US president ever.

If the US is so concerned about the capability to do evil things, when is this administration invading Russia? Or if the issue is actual harm done, what is this administration doing for the 4 million dead and 3 million displaced in the Congo?

The only lists that Saddam was #1 on were:
1: Weak states on top of vast oil reserves
2: Mistakes W felt his daddy made

I disagree with the premise that some kids may need 10 years to learn 2+2. All the information I have suggests that in 10 years anyone (except a small percentage of kids with various "complications") can learn trigonometry, calculus and at least the basics of differential and integral calculus. And at least the basic of statistics and probability theory. And by "learn" I mean understand and be able to use, not just memorize and train to mindlessly solve similar tasks. The same level of performance can be achieved in all other important fields as well. All this doesn't even require expensive equipment and super-teachers. The available assets would do just fine, if only someone sane could set some basic rules in stone (i.e. "not lying", "not training for the tests", "finding out whether kids actually understand stuff", etc.). This isn't rocket science, any book on pedagogy has all the necessary techniques and approaches.

So if we decide to make sure that the kids "at least know functional skills", we are missing the point. Yes, we can fix the education system to make sure they learn at least that, but it won't place us closer to the goal - having schools produce "good" citizens. This problem is common - people presume that education is already too complex and we need to simplify it. The reality is that we just need to honestly and openly fix the education system, stop the lies and make it work honestly again. That's the real problem, not that we didn't teach enough basic math in grade 1 (I mean, parents would sometimes do the homework for grade 1 pupils so that they can get better grades).

"curiosity and willingness to learn are not teachable" - they are. You just create the right environment, add a good teacher, remove/neutralise those few students that want to disturb (this becomes unnecessary at later stages) and it works with all, but the most complicated kids (i.e. mentally unstable, cretins, drug addicts, horribly abused kids, etc.).

Re P.S. Sorry if that appeared that way. It was actually inspired by the article in Harper related to the topic that I read recently, it wasn't really targeted at your post. But if I look at your post more closely, it's actually clear that you claim schools should not be focused on being "ground for enlightenment" and should teach functional skills first. It isn't about condescension, it's also about elitism (i.e. "don't think that some people are 'inferiour' in that they don't need advanced education"). My point was that even the poster kids for your position (i.e. totally uneducated minorities who do not appear to be in need of some Plato or Didrot, but 2+2=? and "do not eat this" skills) would in reality benefit immensely from "enlightment". And, as the linked article neatly illustrates, enlightment would lead to personal development that would lead to fixing their lifes, getting professional education and stuff.

The 1977 Soviet Constitution said it best - "The free development of each is the condition of the free development of all".

Only an educated populace can appreciate the freedoms. It always was so and always will be.

"Teaching" about the First Amendment is pointless. The understanding of its role and importance can only come from reading the great books of Plato, Voltair and Hegel and learning about world history from books and museums. Watching History Channel (if even that) is not a valid substitute.

There was a company that made rare-earth magnets in Valparaiso, Indiana. (Necessary for small strong servos in, oh... missles...) That got sold to China...

inconsistent, arbitrary law enforcement breeds contempt.

If we had a compentent National Security Council, none of this would have happened, nor would it have been allowed to be politicized.

--Mike--

Money. Everything costs more in Japan, hardware, software, accessories.

"If that really is the case, then wouldn't it be a good idea to artificially increase the amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere to reflect away even more sunlight in proportion to the increasing CO2 levels?"

Particulates cause health problems so it may not be the best idea. If you want to control the solar flux, launching a sunshade to the L1 Lagrange point might work better. But as you said tinkering with the solar flux is risky. It won't be easy either. One estimate is 300,000 sq km of mirrors will be needed.

Kyoto isn't enough, and the economic consequences of more expensive energy are real, but I think more expensive energy is inevitable as oil production peaks out. What's really scary is that once cheap oil is gone, the only cheap energy left will be coal, and there's enough coal to last hundreds of years. It's time for creative thinking and high tech solutions. I don't know what might be practical, but I've seen plenty of ideas:

- Pump coal plant exhaust through algae ponds (makes them grow extra fast).
- Pump CO2 from coal plant exhaust into empty oil wells (they do that anyway to pressurize them to recover more oil)
- Grow algae or soybeans for vegetable oil for biodiesel (A lot of spare capacity there. Something like 70% of US farmland is used for growing animal feed. Cheap hamburgers aren't that important to me)

Here's an article which confirms that the official cause for the six deaths which occured in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yatch Race was lack of decent weather info.

• 'The system will use radar to determine the distance to the next car ahead on the road and how fast it is going. A computer chip in the so-called smart car will monitor the speed of the motorist's car.
  
  If a motorist uses the system's new type of cruise control and does not see vehicles ahead slowing or stopped, the smart system would sound an alarm and an indicator button would flash, telling the driver the car must slow down, Colgin said. The cruise control system also would automatically apply the car's brakes, he said.
  
  In instances in which very hard braking was required, the driver also would have to step on the brake pedal to stop the car in time, he said. If the cruise control system was off, the car would only warn the driver but not brake, Colgin said.'
  
  The system would also use a camera to ``see'' the road ahead and ``understand'' when vehicles were turning along a curved road. That way, the smart car would be able to figure out which car is ahead of it in a lane, even when the lane is not straight ahead, Colgin said.
  
  ``This is a fully automatic system which sorts out which is the most threatening vehicle ahead,'' he said. ``It is meant to solve the problem of the inattentive driver.''

• VDIM, an evolution of Toyota's vehicle stability control system, integrates anti-lock braking, electronic-power steering and traction control. The automaker says the system is the first of its kind. Analysts expect the technology to be adopted next on the Toyota's Lexus lineup.
  
  Senior research executive Tetsuo Hattori explains that previous braking, steering, vehicle stability and traction control systems functioned independently. "With VDIM, each system is integrated and seamlessly managed. Moreover," he says, "control is actuated before the vehicle exceeds its movement threshold. This assures a high degree of preventive safety and significantly improves upon ordinary driving performance in terms of traveling, tuning and stopping."
  
  Hattori adds that VDIM "begins integrated control of the brakes, engine and steering before the vehicle reaches its limits, thereby achieving higher preventive safety performance and ideal vehicle kinetics." [In a test drive on simulated ice, the system did not allow the driver to veer off-course and spin the car.]'

In my intro to social psych class my final semester we had a section on stereotypes and how perceived disadvantages actually affect performance. A quick google search turned up a article dealing with this type of thing.

Quote from page 4:

In this study, we found that when men and women were told to take a standardized math test--a test that was quite difficult for them--women scored lower and were less able to formulate any strategy on more problems in comparison to men. However, when this same test was portrayed as gender fair, men and women scored equally on the test, and women were just as able to formulate strategies as men. We believe that this small change in the testing situation changed the meaning of the situation for the participants. Although women were taking the same difficult test, when they experienced frustration, they no longer had to be concerned about their ability being judged by the stereotype.

Movies are self-regulated, but only after repeated threats from government that it either self-regulate or be regulated by government. This has happened many times, with major events in 1909-1915 (several states wanting to regulate), 1950-1965 (more threatened regulations), and 1983-1991 (introduction of more ratings and more threatened regulations). They are regulated, just self-regulated with threats of governmental regulations. The same thing recently happened with music: they were told either to put together their own regulation system or have one forced on them.

Cars are regulated. You can't just build your own car and drive it on the roads without having it pass various legal requirements. The car must be registered and pass roadworthy requirements, or have a waiver of the requirements. Minors either cannot hold drivers licenses, have graduated restrictions, or are otherwise regulated for minors.

Sex. This is actually heavily regulated. Rape and statutory rape, molestation, prostitution, and many other sexual acts are all legislated. A few studies have found most teenage pregnancies are due to underage girls with adult males. Those are all covered under statutory rape and/or prostitution laws. In most US states, children under age 16 cannot legally have consentual sex, basically for the same reason they can't sign contracts (as you mentioned in your post). After age 16, things get a bit tricky, but as you can see, it *IS* regulated.

liquor and tobacco, obviously regulated by the ATF in the US.

marriage. Many states have legal definitions of marraige, requirements on who can get married, what constitutes a commonlaw marraige. For example, some people seem to think of Utah as a home of polygamists, but one requirement Congress made for Utah's statehood was to have and enforce laws preventing polygamy. After 110 years, they are still enforced, and sometimes make national news. That's all regulation.

Looks like 6/6 to me.

frob

There was grumbling from the NAACP over this.

He's still around, repairing watches. He now sells over the Internet. He has one of the few places where you can legitimately buy a used Rolex on line.

There is, it just hasn't caught on.

c.