Domain: kansascity.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to kansascity.com.
Comments · 145
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Not a Hack
"The nation's security council discussed the breach and expressed concern that only 50 percent of the country's 175 state-run data systems have security oversight. President Valdis Zatlers called for immediate action to install proper security on all systems. Computer experts concluded that the breach did not constitute a cyber-attack and was the result of poorly developed software and systems management." http://www.kansascity.com/2010/02/24/1770170/cyber-whistleblower-stuns-latvia.html I'd hate to be that CIO.
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Re:Finally - Already doneToo late, its already being done. Best part is we didn't need to make it locate the terrorists, they plant it themselves.
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Re:Between a rock and a hard place?
Governments also consistently ruled that if someone gives the barman a fake ID and they fall for it, it's still the barman's fault
[citation_needed]
http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/1322917.html?storylink=omni_popular
Holiday was fined $500 by the Kansas Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. His customer was arrested in March 2008 for being a minor in possession of alcohol and for presenting police with a fake driver's license. He paid $452 in fines and court fees.
Holiday being the bar owner.
P.S. You really should check out this new site called Google. It lets you confirm such simple queries in less time than it takes to type the question (0.12 seconds in this case) instead of asking on a forum and having to wait minutes to hours for a reply.
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Re:Makes me wonder about cabling
See also: http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/1110793.html
Kansas might not need the coast's wind.
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Re:text
I'm just making some educated guessing
Not so much. They rarely look at individual answers on (real, not one of the fake made-up HR) personality inventories like the MMPI, unless there is some specific reason to do so. The test is scored, and certain questions combine to form a score for a particular category - honesty, outlook (are you happy, morose, depressed?), self-control, etc. They're also looking at your beliefs about things like how much you control the outcome of a situation - is it all deterministic (your actions are 100% responsible) or luck (you can't change the outcome of anything). The same question can and is asked in different ways - this is where they try to get at honesty, or if you're paying attention to what you're doing. Non-sensical scores might cause the evaulator to look at individual questions to see if something is wrong (ie did you mark A,B,C,D,E in that order all the way down the test)
While this type of battery could be performed by HR I suppose, being that it is a psychological test, it is generally administered and evaluated by a trained professional, or agency. Because of this, it is also generally covered by human subjects rules.
Answering the "wrong way" to one or two questions (out of over 500) isn't going to flag you as a crazy anarchist. Now, if the HR dept sees the Ron Paul bumper sticker on your car...
* I have a psychology degree, but it has been a while so I've forgotten a few things. -
Steven Chu: Dangerous for the human race
In September -- when gas in Europe was selling for the equivalent of $8.00 per gallon -- Chu told the Wall Street Journal, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."
Now, if you buy into all the global warming hype, Chu's your man. Reducing everyone's standard of living is a small price to pay, if it will prevent the sea from encroaching into low-lying areas like Miami and Tuvalu.
On the other hand, if you've been paying attention, you know that the earth has been in a cooling trend since 1998, and the extent of sea ice is the same as it was 30 years ago, despite the fact that CO2 concentration increased during both of those time periods. And you'd be wise to not interfere with the decisions made by free markets about the most efficient ways to power vehicles and generate electricity.
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Re:This just irks me"First, he isn't even the President elect until the 15th (or whenever the electors cast their vote) though the vote is not in doubt..."
Well, maybe not necessarily, and I can't find the links now, but, I thought I'd read weeks ago, that Justice Souter had requested a copy of the real Birth Certificate for Obama, and not just a certificate of live birth (apparently there is a difference).
Man...talk about interesting if somehow Obama was ruled to not be natural born in the US. What would happen? New election, or would the Electoral college vote between McCain and Biden?
I doubt anything will come of it...but, if people on the SCOTUS are looking into it...it is worth noting.
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Did anybody just open TFA
This guy looks like that austrian guy, Fritz, who rapped his daughter...hmmm, I see a pattern here.
Fritz: http://blogs.kansascity.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/11/fritz.jpg
Mad scientist (Mark Roth) : http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/1g/mark-roth-mad-scientist-1208-lg.jpg
Coincidence I THINK NOT!!
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Re:A few thoughts
So?
"From 2004 to 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, a specialty publication. One reason is that Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards than many of the unregulated players in the private sector.
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Re:A few thoughts
Worse still, many people actually believe that whatever recession we'll end up having is exclusively the fault of only the current President, and can't look back to anything before the year 2000 for any blame whatsoever. The egregious irresponsibility of the sub-prime lending has a long and sordid history.
It doesn't matter how many times you repeat this stupid lie, it's still a lie. (A reasonable summary of Cards bullshit: http://adastrum.kansascity.com/?q=node/408).
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Re:Regulations ... don't work and cannot work.Problem is when you have someone with a little knowledge who thinks he knows it all.
The old saying "the more you know, the less that you know that you know" doesn't apply to everyone, like this guy:
http://blogs.kansascity.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/03/boyscout.jpg
Sure, David Hahn was delving into radioactivity, but same principals apply to goofballs playing with chemistry.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292111,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
Unfortunately, it's idiots like this guy that causes all sorts of overly protective legislation that keeps us from having real chemistry sets.
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Osama? How's the cave?
A picture is really worth a thousand words. In case you haven't heard there has been some dissent about the value of speculative future business, some doubt about the viability of current businesses, the current reliability of certain previously reliable credit rating agencies, the real value of certain assets and the value of the buck.
On a positive note, soft gold still warms in your hand, continues to have value and cannot declare bankruptcy. If gold fails you, it wouldn't hurt to have a gun.
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Re:Sad
If 85% of white people voted for McCain, it would be considered racist.
Moderator abuse!
The Obamas are calling everything against their candidate now racist. "Socialist" is NOT a code word for black. http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2493
Please metamoderate the troll moderator into oblivion.
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If he gets off lightly ...
If he gets off lightly, it sets a dangerous president. You'll likely see even more crime committed for the purposes of digging up dirt on politicians. Imagine if someone planted cameras in politicians homes or tapped their phones for getting anything humiliating about them. If that seems far fetched, anti-McCainite broke into a McCain headquarters to steal a laptop with campain strategies. http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/823580.html . Is this really how we want politics to be? As it is, you'd have to be extremely masochistic to run for office.
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Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal1. Any game requires rules, even if you don't like them. Breaking the rules, even if it's a stupid rule, still means you broke the rules.
2. Amongst other reasons, the age requirement is there because children under the age of 16 don't face the same pressures a 16 year old kid faces. This was thoroughly explained by the coach of the U.S. team. When you're 14, in the opinion of the rule makers, you are much more aware that you are competing in a global arena representing your country. When you're younger you see it as a game and you don't have nearly as much pressure.
3. Add this to the way the Chinese treat the U.S. gymnasts, by making them wait for a long time after they are called. It was done by the 'arena authorities' and not the IOC. They give no explanation why. They only do it to the U.S. gymnasts in the final round.
Add all these together and you get a insatiable lust for winning at any cost, not just a willingness to break "bad rules". China will do whatever it takes to win. Rules only apply to the weak [non communist].
http://www.kansascity.com/495/story/747330.htmlThe implication is that the tiny Chinese gymnasts (average size 4-foot-9, 74 pounds) have a big advantage, especially on the uneven bars. They're lighter and more agile than the other gymnasts.
Team coordinator Martha Karolyi claimed "psychological warfare" because Alicia Sacramone was made to wait a few minutes before beginning her fateful balance beam routine.
There is a mental advantage for youngsters who are clueless about pressure, unaware of what wobbles the burden to win can create.
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"transformational"
Samples are different. There is a whole different wing of case law for samples. Also, fair use is not just about commentary. The key word is TRANSFORMATIONAL. I shoulda linked to my story as well, which discusses that aspect a bit.
But yes, if you can show that you are taking something and making something significantly "new" from it, fair use applies, whether it is commentary or a dance remix of O'Reilly's rant.
But the artist who did that composed his own music. If you just sample, you're taking music and making
.... music. Not transformational. -
Re:i'm glad the meier family forgived
Perhaps you missed the part where Ashley Grills was an adult at the time? Why is the ADULT who 1) created the account 2) Sent the bulk of the messages 3) basically told the girl to kill herself getting off scot-free?
Have I driven the point home that it was an adult, but not Lori Drew? Do you understand that 18 is an adult and no amount of flowering her age changes that?
Further, 13 is old enough to be charged with murder as an adult. Since most states have made that decision, including Missouri [1], there was no child involved in the case at all.
If a 13 year-old offender can be charged as an adult, a 13 year-old victim should be considered an adult.
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Re:An alternate interpretation
2008: That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/551520.html -
Re:Apple care
take a different example -- a burglar breaks into a home, steals a lot of stuff, and also sees child porn on the way out the door. If the burglar gives an anonymous tip to the police (or bargains for a lighter sentence in exchange for testimony) then the evidence can probably still be used, even though the burglar had no right whatsoever to be in your house. In fact, it was CRIMINAL for the burglar to be inside your house at the time he saw the child porn, but it's still probably fair game in a prosecution.
This actually happened: http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/files/risking_a_life_term_to_protect_a_child.pdf -
Related Case
I'm afraid I've not got any follow-up on this, but in 2005 a man was arrested for molesting a child after a safe containing photographs of the crime was stolen from his house. Can anyone find if he was convicted?
http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/files/risking_a_life_term_to_protect_a_child.pdf" [pdf] -
Re:Attempted Murder for a beating? Not cool.
Not to mention you can be charged with almost anything in court, jury can acquit, ask for consideration of a lesser charge...defense can contest, unless he is incomptent of course...
There's a problem with solely making this black v. white and it is hit on the nose here:
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/story/284511.html [kansascity.com] -
Batteries not included
This is progress, but not a breakthrough. The problem with electric cars used to be that batteries didn't have enough energy density. With lithium-ion batteries, the energy density is almost good enough, but the battery pack costs too much. So they're trying to deal with that by leasing the batteries. Interest rates are unusually low right now by historical standards, so this might actually work. But it's more of a financing gimmick than a technical advance.
Dragsters are going electric. The energy storage required to go a quarter mile isn't that much; the problem is getting it out of the battery fast enough. There's now an electric motorcycle that can go 0-60mph in under one second. They hope to break the top-fuel record for the quarter mile within a year, once they get a new battery pack.
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Re:Congressional testimony on Hot FuelsVote for who you will, but Dennis Kucinich was all over this a while ago: The Kansas City Star -- Fri, Jun. 08, 2007
. . . Rep. Dennis Kucinich, chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the country's consumers will pay $1.5 billion more for gasoline this summer because no adjustment is made for the effects of temperature fluctuation on fuel.
Kucinich and others noted that while the oil industry makes such an adjustment for wholesale transactions, it has opposed doing so for retail sales to consumers. Meanwhile, the industry embraced selling temperature-adjusted fuel to consumers in Canada, which is profitable for the industry because of the cooler temperatures in that country. "The oil industry is not known for lacking business sense," said Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who is running for president. "This is Big Oil's double standard." -
Re:Sudatenland
so the country will be even more dependent on oil to fund his plans
As an interesting aside to this one, what's going to happen to the prices of corn and oil as more economies try to make the switch? We're already seeing (on a small scale) what happens when a food staple becomes fuel: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/worl d/16594512.htm
If more countries/industries make a significant switch, the price of oil - which is keeping Venezuela afloat - will drop while their food prices are skyrocketing... sounds like a *bad* time to be in charge. -
Re:hm
Other religious organizations (Roman Catholic for the best example) dumped influencing governments centuries ago.
How about this: http://www.mocatholic.org/StemCell-Cloning/SCHCDe
x .htm ?Or this newspaper story: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/news
/ politics/15869428.htm ? -
Re:Honorable Mention
Not one to be outdone, the USA now has the Harry Reid bridge.
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Re:The machine that labors...
Speaking of combining two things inappropriately...
I think you are right that "labors to be born" is a genuine demi-entendre. "Labors to do something" is a common expression and readily confounded with another catchphrase.
At its worst, the demi-entendre reveals a profound state of confusion where one doesn't understand what one is saying. I've often thought in the past that Gilder was trying to sound intelligent rather than be intelligent.
However, in this case, it could just be bad writing or bad editing. It should serve as a reminder to us all to labour to avoid clichés.
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Re:Anyone else noticing TV Movies lately?
I read an article about how "The Nine", which premiered last night after "Lost", was actually a movie treatment before the creators decided to make it a TV series. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues.
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Enterprising RFID Entrepeneur
My guess is that some enterprising RFID Entrepeneur got into the Old Boys Network and landed some massive contract. Here in Missouri we have s imilar situation - Within just a few months of the state mandating increased ethanol in all gasoline, the governor's brother was found to have invested a substantial amount of money in ethanol (Matt Blunt is governor if your curious, see here for info on the ethanol scandal). Their orwellian response was simply to state that "there is no conflict of interest here."
It would be nice to know who got the contract, what city they live in and what relationships they have with government. -
Proof of Immunizations
I'm a law student at the University of Kansas, where the outbreak hit a few weeks ago.
The outbreak hit despite the school's immunization policy, which has always required proof of two vaccinations against MMR.
It would seem, as a previous commenter suggests, and as some news reports corroborate, that the outbreak is affecting those already vaccinated.
""
Most of the current cases have been among people who were vaccinated. But that doesn't mean the vaccine has become less effective, Seward said.
No vaccine is capable of protecting everyone who receives it, she said. Five percent to 10 percent of people vaccinated for the mumps will fail to gain immunity.
These are probably the people who are becoming ill.
"The mumps vaccine is still protecting huge numbers of people," Seward said. "We would expect thousands of people to get sick if there wasn't good immunity in the community."
""
-The Kansas City Star -
Spontaneous spending = disaster"To the extent that digital money doesn't feel like real money, it may increase spontaneous purchasing,. .
."Yeah, this is what we need in the U.S.: more consumers spending money at random.
We already have a negative savings rate combined with large amounts of consumer debt (for some of us at least). Thrown in the continuing increases in government borrowing and you have a royal, financial mess.
I've said it for well over a decade (maybe 2 decades) that the only reason this country keeps running is because of all the crap people buy. I don't mean necessity items like food, clothing, etc but all the knickknacks that people buy and sit on shelves doing nothing but collecting dust (and helping to contribute to their allergies).
How about we not provide a new way for people to spend willy-nilly and start doing some serious education on money management. I propose we start at the top with the Congress and White House since they seem to think money falls from the sky.
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Re:Wonder what they'll find
From http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_i
d =0100000094LG [sci-tech-today.com] :
Watching too much violent TV and playing too many violent video games takes a toll on children's social and physical development, researchers report.
"We found that the more TV they watch, the less time they spend with their friends," says researcher David S. Bickham, a research scientist at the Center on Media and Child Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. However, "this relationship really only holds true for violent TV," he adds.
Another study found that violent video games appear to instill poor attitudes in children when it comes to their own health, while promoting risky behaviors. A third report found that mature-rated video games often include explicit sexual imagery and language content not included on warning labels
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscou t/2006/04/03/hscout531930.html [forbes.com]
TV and Video-Game Violence Harms Kids
MONDAY, April 3 (HealthDay News) -- Watching too much violent TV and playing too many violent video games takes a toll on children's social and physical development, researchers report.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/loca l/14256547.htm [kansascity.com]
Studies link media to modern ills
By ALAN BAVLEY
The Kansas City Star
Media and Children | Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association
"We are conducting an ongoing, uncontrolled experiment on this generation in terms of media exposure and potential future behavioral and physical consequences, and it seems unopposed by the media industry and most parents."
-- Donald Shifrin, American Academy of Pediatrics
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Re:Best part of the decision
Very good points.
The judgement not only goes against common sense, it is contradicted by the latest scientific research:
From http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id =0100000094LG :
Watching too much violent TV and playing too many violent video games takes a toll on children's social and physical development, researchers report.
"We found that the more TV they watch, the less time they spend with their friends," says researcher David S. Bickham, a research scientist at the Center on Media and Child Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. However, "this relationship really only holds true for violent TV," he adds.
Another study found that violent video games appear to instill poor attitudes in children when it comes to their own health, while promoting risky behaviors. A third report found that mature-rated video games often include explicit sexual imagery and language content not included on warning labels
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscou t/2006/04/03/hscout531930.html
TV and Video-Game Violence Harms Kids
MONDAY, April 3 (HealthDay News) -- Watching too much violent TV and playing too many violent video games takes a toll on children's social and physical development, researchers report.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/loca l/14256547.htm
Studies link media to modern ills
By ALAN BAVLEY
The Kansas City Star
Media and Children | Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association
"We are conducting an ongoing, uncontrolled experiment on this generation in terms of media exposure and potential future behavioral and physical consequences, and it seems unopposed by the media industry and most parents."
-- Donald Shifrin, American Academy of Pediatrics -
Re:Real funny given the latest news
Of course, Bush would put Benjamin Franklin on a terrorist watch list.
The way Bush has been treating the Constitution, most of the founding fathers would have just disappeared by now (probably to a secret CIA prison overseas). -
Too badIt's a shame that Mirecki's rather stupid and inflammatory emails got the class cancelled, it sounded like an interesting class. In the absence of a scientifically testable theory of design religious studies, philosophy, or poli-sci is probably the correct place to study ID, mainly as a socio-political movement popular with religious conservatives.
Fortunately it appears as though KU will probably wait until the furor over Mirecki dies down and find somebody else to teach the class.
It looks as though a KU anthropology professor is planning a similar course, titled Archaeological Myths and Realities, which will discuss ID, crop circles, ESP, and how to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. And I've read that other universities around Kansas are teaching ID as religious studies or philosophy.
One of Mirecki's conservative critics also has a habit of saying inflammatory things, not that it makes what Mirecki said anymore right.
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Re:IQ tests are severly flawedIQ tests are too unreliable for identifying gene that contribute to intelligence.
Yes, yes.. That's very PC and all, but it looks like THAT gene does play a significant role.
From here
Jirtle said his assertion that the IGF2R gene affects IQ is bolstered by experiments in mice. When he and his colleagues disabled a copy of the gene in lab mice - an experiment intended to mimic humans who inherit the variant copy of the gene - they noticed that the male mice were slow learners on a maze test. Electrical recordings of the mice's brain tissue were also altered in a way that is consistent with slow learning.
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Re:The early Catholic church rang...
It sounds like CNN looked up the orbital distance from Mars and assumed that it orbits the Earth...
It still does. In Kansas.
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ICEEs are older, better, and help you get girlsWhere I grew up, they were called ICEEs (say Ice-E) even at the 7-11. Anyone who called it a Slurpee was a pansy.
The ICEE has been around more than 45 years and the first ICEE machine was sold in 1960. The Kansas City Starhas a good history on the Frizz/ICEE/Slurpee and its inventor, Omar Knedlik:
..."A pre-mix of most any flavor is placed inside the machine. There it is put under pressure. Any liquid increases in density when pressurized. Release of the pressure causes it to freeze. So when the liquid pours from the machine it freezes as it hits the cup."I suspect someone at 7-11 HQ has been screwing around with the settings, because a Slurpee is more liquidy than a ICEE. This appears to allow for faster consumption, which results in more brain freezing, which provides for a less enjoyable experience.
As far as helping you hookup, the official ICEE cup is predominately blue and red. Time and again science has proven that women are attracted to blue and men are attracted to pink and red. Combine the higher brain freeze rate of the Slurpee and there's no lovin' tonight for Johnny.
So there. Now stop calling it Slurpee! It's ICEE! It's pissing me off.
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Today's anger level: Yellow - Irritated for no reason -
Re:Stupid headline
Not to mention, according to any other article that you check out there, you'll see that the gas giant (which of course, could not sustain life on its nonexistent surface), is far outside of the habitable region of the star. It orbits at a distance of only 4 million miles.
That means that a year on that planet lasts less than 4 of our days, and the surface of any rocky moon of that gas giant would be hotter than even Venus or Mercury -- a toasty 1,300 degrees F.
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Re:oh! so its okay...Funny you mentioned delinquents.
The Fed Gov't already tried to do that one
Additional info here or google.But critics charge the database will subject the homeless "to a level of tracking that is normally used against criminals," said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina.
I'm just not going to mention the schools that recently gave their students RFID enabled ID cards so they can keep track of who's showing up to school.As for the rest of your idiocy, not all sex offenders are pedophiles, released felons have always had to deal with discrimination and longer jail terms will not solve the problem.
A large part of the pedophile problem is tracking them. When these registered sex offenders slip through the cracks, they end up working as ice cream truck drivers, carnies, in schools etc.
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Re:What Science Really is...
"Someone could [as ID proponents do] take existing "pure" scienctific research, use it to posit that there is order to the universe and use inductive reasoning [logical argument] to "prove" that a supreme being exists."
As opposed to say, using "pure" scientific research to "prove" evolution?
The goal of (some of) the Kansas Board of education is to DE-EMPHASIZE the teaching of evolution. Not emphasize ID, or any other biases. I personally don't have a problem with that. Teach the scientific process; teach them the skills they need to do research; teach them how to think on their own.
The attitude from the pro-evolution side so far has been "we don't want to discuss it, and we can't believe you want to hold a debate about it". That attitude sounds to me like the "fundamentalists" that thought the world was flat.
evidenced here: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/brea king_news/11544836.htm -
Re:My uncle (to all: please read this)
Disclaimer: This post is an 'Advertorial' with a relevant, one line ad for myself at the very bottom of this post. If you hate ALL ads--even if preceded by GENUINELY, useful content--then read no further. By including this disclaimer, I expect this post to avoid downmods from readers who would feel 'hoodwinked' into reading ANY useful content that contains ANY form of advertising whatsoever.
has just been laid off from the Greenock plant, where he was involved in manufacturing for 20 or so years. He's now working in a call centre handling mortgage applications... :(
This pardigm shift happened decades ago in the USA--possibly around the time of the entrance of the IBM PC personal computer to the market (how ironic). Briefly, the US economy has moved away from making things (industrial economy) to playing with money (financial services) and bits (information technologies and telecommunications) with the instrumental help of mass computerization. As a result, most of the real jobs left in the USA are in the service and retail industries--infamous 'McJobs' at large, giant, impersonal, 'low-balling', retail and service/hospitality chains such as Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and Hilton.
Don't belive me?
Look at how the terrible events of 2001-09-11 in the USA crippled the financial services industry world wide and changed global air travel procedures for good. Note that just recently, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian's offer to buy 5% of GM "sent GM shares and the Dow Jones industrial average flying Wednesday [2005-05-04]." according to a news article in the Kansas City Star. (Note: Registration may be required to view this article -- I saw it for free once via this Google link.)
There IS hope.
Thanks to the Internet, individuals can become full or part-time entrepreneurs by offering specialized goods and services for sale to others in small, niche markets not being serviced by large corporations because it is inefficient or outright unprofitable for them to do so. While the purists denouce the (over)commercialization of the Internet, this trend began as least as early as 1978
I am a part-time Internet entrepreneur, how about you?
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Re:My uncle (to all: please read this)
Disclaimer: This post is an 'Advertorial' with a relevant, one line ad for myself at the very bottom of this post. If you hate ALL ads--even if preceded by GENUINELY, useful content--then read no further. By including this disclaimer, I expect this post to avoid downmods from readers who would feel 'hoodwinked' into reading ANY useful content that contains ANY form of advertising whatsoever.
has just been laid off from the Greenock plant, where he was involved in manufacturing for 20 or so years. He's now working in a call centre handling mortgage applications... :(
This pardigm shift happened decades ago in the USA--possibly around the time of the entrance of the IBM PC personal computer to the market (how ironic). Briefly, the US economy has moved away from making things (industrial economy) to playing with money (financial services) and bits (information technologies and telecommunications) with the instrumental help of mass computerization. As a result, most of the real jobs left in the USA are in the service and retail industries--infamous 'McJobs' at large, giant, impersonal, 'low-balling', retail and service/hospitality chains such as Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and Hilton.
Don't belive me?
Look at how the terrible events of 2001-09-11 in the USA crippled the financial services industry world wide and changed global air travel procedures for good. Note that just recently, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian's offer to buy 5% of GM "sent GM shares and the Dow Jones industrial average flying Wednesday [2005-05-04]." according to a news article in the Kansas City Star. (Note: Registration may be required to view this article -- I saw it for free once via this Google link.)
There IS hope.
Thanks to the Internet, individuals can become full or part-time entrepreneurs by offering specialized goods and services for sale to others in small, niche markets not being serviced by large corporations because it is inefficient or outright unprofitable for them to do so. While the purists denouce the (over)commercialization of the Internet, this trend began as least as early as 1978
I am a part-time Internet entrepreneur, how about you?
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Re:Too True
Would it be agreeable to you to allow citizens of (insert your country here) to be extradited for trial by a court run by the UN? The same organization that brought us the oil for food scandal? The same organization that put Libya on the human rights board? At times when nations are feuding with each other, what do you think your chances would be if you got stuck with a judge from the other side?
Citizens of various countries were kidnapped, in the middle of the night and shipped to Guantanamo Bay, where they were held, without trial, without being charged, without even being permitted to learn what, if any, evidence there was against them. Let me suggest that this US policy is more antidemocratic, more contrary to the principles of fundamental justice, and more to be feared than your hypothetical UN extradition strawman, where, at least, the prisoners would have charges laid against them, would be free from the fear of torture, and could expect a reasonably fair trial, where they could actually hear the evidence against them.
Did the UN system allow Saddam, and collaborators in other nations to loot the oil for food funds? Yes. The USA is one of the five permanet members of the UN Security Council. So, why doesn't the USA share some of the responsibility for this scandal?
The CPA took over the administration of the remaining $20 billion in May of 2003. Was Iraqi money looted during Paul Bremer's stewardship? Yes. Billions went missing. He blew through almost all of the Iraqi money in not much longer than a year, with very poor audit controls. Billions were expended with no sign that the expenditure was actually spent on anything that benefitted Iraqis. On a year by year basis a greater portion of the funds can't be accounted for when it was under Paul Bremer's stewardship than when it was under the UN stewardship.
Yes, I know this is "off-topic". It is worth losing some karma to challenge the flawed reasoning of the parent post -- which, moderators, is just as off-topic.
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Re:Congratulations to Scaled Composites & Stev
According to this he had about 1100 pounds left--enough for ~10 more hours! (which means he probably could have made it to DC or New York.....wow!)
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Re:67 hours no?
-The whole "loss of fuel" thing was a huge publicity stunt that worked wonderfully. Oooh, the anxiety!
Article Link
"When asked if the Mission Control team had overplayed the seriousness of the fuel shortage, Branson replied: "Incredibly, the thing is, in life truth is often stranger than fiction."
Branson said he had expected the flight would either be disastrous or boring but "everything that could have happened seems to have happened. There has been a lot of drama.""
(That was before the landing.) -
I wonder...
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Re:Okay, that's a stretch.
It's also common for police to "find" something to cite you for to justify pulling you over and searching you.
And, of course, they do this because it turns up an unbelievable number of drivers with stolen cars, outstanding warrants, trunks full of contraband, etc. Or, Timothy McVeigh.
Yesterday , a cop pulled over a guy and a girl who were going too fast on the highway. The guy acted nervous, and the cop treated his odd behavior as reason to search the car. In the trunk were bloody clothes and other items. The two had killed their mother and grandparents (and buried them in the basement) for some cash and credit cards. -
you don't sayYou mean this stuff really is worse than they let on? I just read this article the other day and it struck me as typical goverment "it's not really that bad for you bullshit".
Waiter, I'll have the 0 ppm water. Thanks.
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Re:Your post is amusing. let's see why.
acording to thisThe locals have started throwing the foreigners out sometime around october. I cannot find my 15-25% reference but it was before the article here The iraqi government and "other officials" claim there are more foreigners but it is hard to tell because they clensed themselves of identityIt also apears that the foreigners are the ones mostly commiting the terrorist activities like attacking civilians and such.
It also appears that they have set up shop in thier nobel fashion in other areas too.