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You're trying for funny, but Global Warmning ? Tell that to New Orleans, tell it to The Kilinailau Islands

For an interesting read and one which may challenge your ideas on how to cope with some of the people in these kinds of situations, try this article from the New Yorker which explores some of these issues.

So the defense of the happenings at Gitmo boils down to "Evil? Yes, but not as evil as other places." Perfect. Welcome to America, less evil than N. Korea.

Maybe the US could set its sights a bit higher and shoot for not evil, not less evil? Maybe at least follow international law(i.e. Geneva Conventions)?

New Yorker interview of someone who has visited Gitmo as a report

"Under the Geneva Conventions, which the Bush Administration decided not to abide by in their treatment of the Guantánamo prisoners, they would have had to do things very differently. The 1949 Geneva Convention requires the establishment of a "competent tribunal" to determine, on a case-by-case basis, if there is any doubt, whether a detainee should be designated a P.O.W. But when U.S. forces captured Al Qaeda and Taliban soldiers in late 2001 and early 2002, in Afghanistan, they were never given individual status-review hearings. As a result, critics say, a number of non-combatants were swept up along with them. If Geneva was followed the U.S.-held prisoners would not have had to answer questions beyond their name, rank, and serial number. In most cases, Geneva disallows any harsher treatment for prisoners who are non-cooperative. So the whole system of rewards and punishments that has been devised at Guantánamo would be out of bounds. Geneva also specifically bars coercive interrogations."

[snip]

"they bent over backward to allow access to a number of fascinating scenes in Guantánamo, including allowing me to attend one of the Administrative Review Board hearings in which detainees can challenge their status as a danger to the U.S. In the one I attended, the detainee, whose name I had to agree not to release, demanded to see the evidence that the U.S. had against him, so that he could refute it. But much of the evidence, U.S. military authorities told him, was classified, and he would not be allowed to see it."

The World Cup only highlights that America's best atheletes play American football, baseball, and basketball. If they played soccer (your football) their size and speed would transform the game.

1. Americans are not at all larger than everyone else.
2. In fact - the Americans only seem to grow wider, unlike the rest of us.
3. The US football side was just thrashed by the Czech
4. You are an ignorant hick.

>Is that torture? Were they permanently injured?

"Is that torture?"
Rape, according to a military investigation

>How would you interrogate people and obtain information if lives were on the line?

I'd try something that works. Look at what John McCain, a torture victim, has to say on that subject. Torture does not get you information to save lives, it gets you whatever you want to hear.

Stop and think that a lot of police departments hire former MPs. These people maybe, the ones who weren't caught for sure, will be questioning Americans in a few years.

>But let me ask you, what damage to our civil rights actually occurred

USAPATRIOT section 215, searches without warrant, review, or opportuity to challenge after the fact. "Free speech zones" surrounded by barbed wire. Open ended detention of US citizens without legal counsel or court review. Not all under the current administration but all within the last few years.

• allow construction of valuable Caspian pipelines
• keep Halliburton and Bechtel's stocks higher than Timothy Leary
• threaten the security of the West

Hmm? The New Yorker doesn't use apostrophes when pluralizing abbreviations. See here, for example: "DVDs," not "DVD's."

Anyway, why are you taking style hints from a source that seems to think it unobjectionable to splatter its pages with uncontrolled diereses? :-P

All very good points. Might I add a couple.

Compliance, or the Milgram effect. People treat computers as pseudo authority figures. The notion that "Big Brother"
is out there watching everything at central services gives a warm comforting feeling to some folk as much as it scares the bejesus out of others. Those of a more sheeplike disposition feel that there is some great controlling power watching over all their actions, that everything is centrally logged and nothing can go wrong because they are somehow protected. When they talk about "the computer" they are alluding to something greater than the box sitting on their desk.

The other is pride. Nobody wants to look like an idiot. Their default behaviour is to respond so as not to look silly. Us folk probably learned a long time ago the best default is to ignore unless you are obviously looking at a relevant personal communication, but some people still just repond to internet chain mails.

I've been seeing a lot of very interesting psychology stuff lately. Gibsons recent remarks and this http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/060515fa_ fact almost unbelievable story on the topic of 419 victims are two.

Social engineering, or con game, whatever you call it: read this week's The New Yorker for an article about some twit from Concord MA who got sucked all the way in. He's headed to jail for his part in kiting bad checks for the Nigerians. And yet he still believes there is a real person behind the e-mails, just waiting to get out of Nigeria with a gazillion dollars.

However, if you look at the country-by-country breakdown from the poll, it starts to make more sense. According to Globescan, CNN has almost the same trust numbers as FOX News, at 11 percent, with the other three major networks adding up to another 11 percent. Take that figure against the poll numbers in other countries and the American news market seems much more fractured than it at first appeared. Surprisingly, the poll also shows that most Americans still trust their local newspapers more than they trust national television news, by a margin of 81 percent to 75 percent. I suspect, but I can't confirm, that what we're actually looking at is ratings numbers in this category, not who the public really trusts more. Since FOX News has the highest ratings in the American market, the network comes out ahead of the competition when Americans are asked to name a single national news source. Tellingly, other poll numbers indicate that Americans are much more skeptical about their news sources than respondents in most other countries, with nearly 9 out of 10 Americans reporting that they look to multiple sources for their news. That fits the hypothesis. Internationally, according to the original Reuters article, CNN is the second most trusted news brand, right behind the BBC. That also seems about what I'd expect if you translate 'trust' to 'ratings' in the poll.

In any case, regardless of the poll numbers, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that many Americans prefer to get their news from sources who share their own political and social views. If I thought that Bush could do no wrong, and that the Republican Party was the greatest thing since sliced bread, I imagine I'd find it very believable too when FOX News reports on the latest victory in Iraq, followed by a story on how Republicans will bring about an economic Golden Age through more tax cuts for the wealthy.

Hmmm...yes, I can see how they might agree with that, just as 30% of Americans still agree with Bush even though he's reframed the Iraq argument four times: from "Saddam has WMD" to "Saddam has links with terrorists" to "Saddam has committed crimes against humanity" to "We want to redraw the map of the middle east and spread democracy." Ironically it is the last one that has been the most true for the most time, and the fact that the administration couldn't tell us the true reason in the first place indicates that the administration knows the majority of the American public that didn't vote for him in 2000 couldn't tolerate such insane messianic posturing. The problem with the idea that we are stabilizing the Middle East post-9/11 is that, well, we are not stabilizing the MIddle East, we are de-stabilizing Iraq, and with that the rest of the Middle East. Thinking that invading a country can somehow stabilize that country or its surroundings is foolhardy. "Regime change" annihilates order - you have to pick up the pieces quickly and re-assert order in a competent and logical fashion after you perform regime change, or you risk a long period of chaos, as we are seeing with Iraq. Moreover, who said the MIddle East was somehow de-stabilized by 9/11? Our efforts should be directed at Iran. So, the idea that there is literally *any* connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda has always been patently, 100% false, and that most of our troops appear to believe that one exists is very curious(while I don't know about the integrity of the poll in the parent post).

And now there are talks of military action against Iran and weapons tests involving plans for tactical nuclear weapons to use in such a military action - a three-war president? That is unprecedented, and for good reason.

You can't spread democracy at the barrel of a gun. Freedom is not freedom if it is imposed on people by force.

I followed up with a link showing that soil organic matter decomposition exceeds the CO2 output of ALL fossil fuels combined. In fact, it shows that CO2 released by soil organic matter decomposition exceeds emissions of CO2 from ALL OTHER SOURCES combined. You continue to maintain steadfastly that mankind is at fault for increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Sure, I can see that, and I just painted a big red target on what you SHOULD focus on if that concerns you. You also maintain this atmospheric CO2 increase is solely responsible for the average global increase in temperatures. I am not convinced.

However, if you are, and it really bothers you so much, why don't you DO something about it? Why don't you go after the 800 lb. gorilla instead of the small fish that is fossil fuel? It's an easier target. A 10% decrease in CO2 emissions caused by soil organic matter decomposition would be the equivalent of ceasing use of ALL FOSSIL FUELS. Go for the jugular if you're so damned convinced. And yet... you don't. When confronted with the facts, you simply whine and rail on about oil. That gets really old. Especially considering that if you don't do something about soil erosion/oxidation soon, you aren't going to have any arable land left to grow the food you eat. Your waterworld scenario is pure fantasy. Failure of civilization due to poor farming practices is established historical fact. Learn from history or repeat it. Change the world over to no till farming and in the process you will: preserve our farmland for future generations, reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels, and do it all without laying a finger on fossil fuels. What's not to like? Oh, thats right... it doesn't fit with the holy order of Global Warming's war on fossil fuels. Ignore all scientific fact in the jihad on oil. Besides, if you actually did reduce CO2, you might just have a little egg on your face should mean global temperatures continue to increase or fail to drop back...

Slashdot readers continue to be dazed by news trivia while the

President Of Al-Qaeda plans to
attack Iran.

Patriotically from an undisclosed, secure bunker,
Kilgore Trout, General

P.S. Defend America: Deport The White House

Go ahead, mod me offtopic.

BTW, you may want to read this. It deconstructs the myth of the lone inventor fairly convincingly, and not just for the patently obvious reasons.

Here's a link for the article mentioned:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060 320ta_talk_surowiecki

I very frequently see topics discussed on slashdot appear in the new yorker. THey most definately have someone trawling slashdot for stories. I cant remember if i ever mentioned it before, but pretty much any technical computer related story has alot of points lifted off of this site.

They frequently quote the EFF as well and ive seen a number of articles on the philosphies and concepts of open source. Its pretty much the most well written magazine out there. It must be nice just trawling slashdot for comments and then copyright infringing them into a piece you get paid for. I dont figure i own what i say on here anyways and id rather have the readership of the new yorker have a better understanding than any vanity i could care to derive. Wish i had that kind of job.

their website is also very well done and their are plenty of free articles offered.

This article has a nice example of how a Russian botnet was hunted: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051 010fa_fact A few weeks later, on a Saturday in March, Ivan slipped up: he logged in to the chat room without disguising his home Internet address. The same day, Turner happened to be online, and decided to look up eXe's registration information. To his astonishment, he found what appeared to be a real name, address, and phone number: Ivan Maksakov, of Saratov, Russia. Lyon dashed off an e-mail to the authorities with the subject line "eXe made a HUGE mistake!"

Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world's median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries. American life expectancy is lower than the Western average. Childhood-immunization rates in the United States are lower than average. Infant-mortality rates are in the nineteenth percentile of industrialized nations. Doctors here perform more high-end medical procedures, such as coronary angioplasties, than in other countries, but most of the wealthier Western countries have more CT scanners than the United States does, and Switzerland, Japan, Austria, and Finland all have more MRI machines per capita. Nor is our system more efficient. The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year--or close to four hundred billion dollars--on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita. And, of course, every other country in the industrialized world insures all its citizens; despite those extra hundreds of billions of dollars we spend each year, we leave forty-five million people without any insurance. A country that displays an almost ruthless commitment to efficiency and performance in every aspect of its economy--a country that switched to Japanese cars the moment they were more reliable, and to Chinese T-shirts the moment they were five cents cheaper--has loyally stuck with a health-care system that leaves its citizenry pulling out their teeth with pliers.

The issue about what to do with the health-care system is sometimes presented as a technical argument about the merits of one kind of coverage over another or as an ideological argument about socialized versus private medicine. It is, instead, about a few very simple questions. Do you think that this kind of redistribution of risk is a good idea? Do you think that people whose genes predispose them to depression or cancer, or whose poverty complicates asthma or diabetes, or who get hit by a drunk driver, or who have to keep their mouths closed because their teeth are rotting ought to bear a greater share of the costs of their health care than those of us who are lucky enough to escape such misfortunes? In the rest of the industrialized world, it is assumed that the more equally and widely the burdens of illness are shared, the better off the population as a whole is likely to be. The reason the United States has forty-five million people without coverage is that its health-care policy is in the hands of people who disagree, and who regard health insurance not as the solution but as the problem.

  - Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker

Those photos were real photos. Whether they drew the right conclusions from them is open to debate, but Colin Powell didn't present fake evidence. That would be Dan Rather.

I think this is an example of a social "power law" problem. That's when only a few people are doing the most damage, meth labs are an example, so are other major illicit drug producers, and its the same thing with piracy. You have a few dedicated pirates or groups of pirates supplying everyone with files, DRM and broad lawsuits don't curb the problem because the large amount of people being affected by those aren't causing near the damage as the few bad actors.

Approaches are different for different problems, but the best way to solve these is no broad laws that treat everyone like criminals, its to make it inneficient or unprofitable for the bad actors. In piracy and marijuana, it might be better to create legal competition that will take the money out of the hands of the bad actors and let a market control things. In the case of methlabs and homelessness , you need to let the government come in and take care of the worst offenders.

That's really the problem with a lot of this legislation, you are trying to treat a power-law distribution of a problem with a linear approach, bringing everyone down on the y-axis a little bit does very little to the few at the end of the curve.

In the absence of constant selective pressure to maintain antibiotic resistance, the resistance is lost in the population. There's some research on this topic that I read and which you can probably find by careful searching of PubMed.

Eliminating antibiotics in animal feed, preventing people from flushing meds down the drain, more targeted treatment and effective babysitting of the worst 5% or so of the chronic homeless (which cause most of the health care costs, see Gladwell's article in The New Yorker), and improving the hospital transmission problem (many people who contract resistant strains do so when they go to a hospital for some other reason) will go a LONG way towards reducing this problem without any new drugs.

Kind of ironic, coming from somebody that is objecting to the contents of a speech he didn't hear and can't find a transcript of, isn't it? But I'll bite.

My claim, which you are objecting to:

This is now known to be false; the treatment was in fact authorized (by redefining torture) and Bush has yet to recant his position. It looked for a minute as if McCain had cornered him into showing some sense, but his signing statement makes it clear that he still endorses torture. The only thing that clearly wasn't authorized (and what the Bush administration has actually objected to) is taking pictures of the torture and leaking it to the media. The "perps" who have so far been charged are (last I heard) only the low level grunts who got caught.

My proof (or at least a sampling thereof--there's lots more):

• The Bush administration redefined 'torture' to permit techniques such as used at Abu Grabe
• The Bush administration defends the need for torture
• The Bush administration has a system of secret prisons in which such torture is conducted
• McCain pushes to have torture outlawed
• Bush dodges with a "signing statement" saying he isn't bound by the ban
• The Bush administration primarily objects to the fact that pictures were taken
• ...and blames the leakers
• Only the low-level grunts who got caught have been nailed, and they got slaps on the wrist

There is, of course, a lot more where that came from.

Now, can you please back up your claim that Gore told the Arabs to attack us?

--MarkusQ

It sure as hell does happen.

The Bin Laden clan owns a five billion dollar construction firm, the largest in the Islamic world and a fortune built on a monopoly in construction for the Saudi royal family. The House of Bin Laden Osama's share was worth something like $200 million.

There is the small matter of the fact that China owns a sizeable chunk of the national debt. (Second to last paragraph)

Do you even read the news? Hundreds of Iraqi prisoners were released without charge. If you are not aware of this, you obviously are not informed enough. Are you saying that all these people were enemy combatants or criminals? If they were, why weren't they charged?

Iraqis were indiscriminately rounded up and imprisoned at Abu Ghraib I don't make a habit of archiving stories that have been so widely covered across the globe as to be common knowledge, but a quick internet search gives this link:

There were gross differences, Taguba said, between the actual number of prisoners on hand and the number officially recorded. A lack of proper screening also meant that many innocent Iraqis were wrongly being detained--indefinitely, it seemed, in some cases. The Taguba study noted that more than sixty per cent of the civilian inmates at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society, which should have enabled them to be released.

There are other sources out there, but I don't see why I should do your research for you. Moreover, the lack of transparency means that the administration is not giving details of who is imprisoned, so we have no real way of tracking these abuses. That is wrong in itself. Any system of justice, military or civilian, should be accountable and transparent.

What if this happened on American soil? What if there were terrorist cells in America, and YOU were suspected of being involved, and imprisoned indefinitely without access to lawyers or any trial? This is not spreading democracy or freedom, it's just spreading fear and injustice.

• This JAMA study found over 27,000 errors due to hospital (not other medical care) negligence in one year, in New York state alone.
• This Institute of Medicine study found 44,000 to 98,000 deaths per year due to hospital errors alone. That makes it the 8th leading cause of death, ahead of car accidents, AIDS, and breast cancer.
• The more comprehensive HealthGrades study puts the number of deaths due to hospital error at 195,000. And the study's authors think that underestimates it. (Also reported here.)
• Just try a few Google searches and you'll easily find more information, like this study.

That's right, doctors' errors are at least the eighth leading cause of death in this country. And the problem is the lawyers?

The response of the medical industry is to continue their practices, blame lawyers, and lobby congress for protection from accountability. I remember when the IOM study came out, it was proposed that hospitals be legally required to report these errors -- think about that: There is no reporting mechanism for, and no regulation of, hospital errors!. The American Medical Assoc. (the doctors' lobby) resisted, saying the potential penalties would discourage doctors from complying. By that reasoning, I shouldn't have to report running that guy over the other day -- I might be held responsible!

It can be done better:

When anesthesiologists were facing high error rates and corresponding malpractice costs, they took a different approach: They systematically studied the problem and tried to reduce errors. As a result, deaths due to anesthesia dropped from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 200,000-300,000. And insurance premiums dropped 37%. You can read about it here or pay for the full story here.

And most of the industrialized world countries manage to deliver better care for far less. According to a study reported here, Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world's median of $2,193; ... Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less

'McDonalds: Changing the world -- literally'

Calvin Trillin, a food writer, wrote an interesting column on wine tasting a couple of years ago. There may not be much to it:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020819fa_fa ct

> Is there anybody out there who doubts that Bush is not good for our country?

There's some as to whether he's even in the loop.

the *principle* of giving consumers certain rights at the source irregardless of practical workarounds

Irregardless? Is that like esquivalience?

I of course agree with you. I'd be a fool not to. But I don't think you go far enough. The way you've worded this it sounds like Wikipedia isn't an authoritative source, but that something else is.

What might that be exactly? Not The New York Times, not The encyclopedia Britannica and surely not public officials. Personally, I tend to trust the OED and the CRC, but with dictionaries including intentional errors and any book potentially containing typos I don't trust them absolutely. I'm quite comfortable using Wikipedia as a source, something I consider about as trustworthy as a newspaper or a college professor.

But I can't think of a single source that I would consider absolutely authoritative, can you?

--MarkusQ

I apologize for exaggerating in my initial statement. The Bush administration has not broken ALL laws, rules, treaties and international regulations. Im sorry for making such a blatant generalisation. Do you follow the same logic in other contexts? Is it wrong to say that Saddam killed Kurds because he didnt kill ALL Kurds?

What I said in the original post, and for clarification will repeat here is that the Bush administration have shown that any law, rule, treaty or regulation by any national (US) or international forum will be broken, bent or circumvented if they see fit to do so.

The current administration has

Tortured
Kidnapped
Murdered
Instigated coups
Lied (Take your pick. My favourite is: "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.")
Broken treaties
Hindered international courts

The list goes on and on. I could list more points, various incidents on each point and various sources for each incident but frankly, I can't be bothered. Those who realize that these atrocities are being committed need no persuasions and those who refuse to acknowledge or refuse to see the harm... well... I have no illusion of "converting" anyone.

So; have a nice weekend, and don't let the clue-by-four hit you on the way out.

Recall the maxim, Keep your enemies closer. Read this great 8-page New Yorker article from May, 2005 to understand better where these people are coming from:

"Why Intelligent Design Isn't"
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/050530fa_ fact

Marianne

This might not be a prank.

About 2 weeks ago, news stories were circulating regarding how dictionaries and encyclopedias deliberately insert false entries into their compendiums. They do this to catch obvious theft of their information.

There remains the possibility that GOOGLE themselves or another company that keeps map data has inserted their own false information.

Here's a refresher article on the false entries in dictionaries/encyclopedias: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050 829ta_talk_alford

Pauline Kael in The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/ quotes Greta Garbo at seeing "Beauty and the Beast" by Jean Cocteau.
She thought the unencumbered actor was a disappointment without all those details.
(Alas, only the Disney cartoon review (1991) is online)

I've never seen someone fellate their boss more than in that interview. It was like watching the whole thing unfold through a bad Scooter Libby novel, only without the fiction.

Personally, I find this workflow* to be a more likely scenario for how the recent Star Wars were made.

* the link is correct, image name includes original site, and posting date of image, for reference.

Now it all makes sense. The studios released these movies for the same reason that esquivalience was added to the New Oxford American Dictionary, not because they were worth seeing in a movie theatre.

First off, congratulations, you've discovered why noone likes Kerry, on the left or the right. He flutters around as political winds shift, like most career politicians. He believed the lies when it suited him politically, then turned around on that. But really, why is John Kerry the issue at hand? The real issue is:

Unless you can prove that Bush and Blair were aware of the fabrication of evidence, you have no case to make that statement.

Now, why don't you educate yourself?

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fa ct

Think of the intelligence game the same way a police station works. If some crazy bat who's mad at her boyfriend calls up, she will gladly lie her ass off to get him in trouble. She'll claim he's selling 30 kilos of cocaine a week or something rediculous. At this point, the police will try to VERIFY the report. For example, stake the house out for a week, see what kind of traffic they see.

What they *don't* do is call the crazy bat girlfriend down to the courthouse and walk up to a judge, demanding a warrant for the arrest of the boyfriend on drug trafficing charges. If they were to try that, the judge would laugh them out of the courtroom for going on the word of a single, unreliable source.

Now, if you read that article carefully, that's exactly what was happening. The normal intelligence process was reshaped so that the crazy-batshit-unverified intel was going straight to policy makers. This is downright insane, as it basically turns unsubstantiated rumor into 'credible' intelligence.

That's what is meant by the statement 'intelligence .. was being fixed around the policy.'

You know, the truth is all around you, why is it so hard to admit you've been duped?

I mean, bringing up how Saddam supported the families of suicide bombers is a really telling statement, especially seeing as the so many Saudi Arabians funded them too.

The October 10 New Yorker magazine has a nice companion piece to this story, "The Zombie Hunters: On the trail of cyberextortionists" by Evan Ratliff. The article describes the tactics of the extortionists and those who track them down or thwart their attacks. Probably nothing new to the /. crowd, but a good read nonetheless. Here's a link.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051 010fa_fact

The Climate of Man I

The Climate of Man II

The Climate of Man III

Interview with the author

The Climate of Man I

The Climate of Man II

The Climate of Man III

Interview with the author

The Climate of Man I

The Climate of Man II

The Climate of Man III

Interview with the author

The Climate of Man I

The Climate of Man II

The Climate of Man III

Interview with the author

Don't get me wrong about this, I believe in evolution (have since I was 4, first in my family to do so, etc) but I would just like to play Devil's Advocate with a counter argument for that.

The No-Free-Lunch theorem (note: theorem NOT theory) results in the fact that: 'You're on foot and it's a moonless night; you've got two hours to reach the highest place you can. How to proceed? One sensible search algorithm might say, "Walk uphill in the steepest possible direction; if no direction uphill is available, take a couple of steps to the left and try again." This algorithm insures that you're generally moving upward. Another search algorithm--a so-called blind search algorithm--might say, "Walk in a random direction." This would sometimes take you uphill but sometimes down. Roughly, the N.F.L. theorems prove the surprising fact that, averaged over all possible terrains, no search algorithm is better than any other. In some landscapes, moving uphill gets you to higher ground in the allotted time, while in other landscapes moving randomly does, but on average neither outperforms the other.' (from here)

When used in biological terms, the 'algorithm' of natural selection is not any more efficient than random selection (due to climate changes, etc.)

"However, it is also the case that when they do, they are acting in direct opposition to the tenets of their religion. See for example Romans 12:17-20. The same is *not* true of Islam, which gets mixed signals from the Koran (2.177 - 193, e.g.)."

Why yes it is mostly against the teaching of Christ but the bible as a whole gives just as much a mixed message as the Koran does. That doesn't change the fact that the U.S. military is massively Christian, the Air Force Academy has developed a rep for a fanatical cadre of born agains who try to convert or hound out anyone who hasn't found Jesus. Once the graduate they will no doubt go on to kill people with abandon from on high and in Jesus' name. Many Christian churches have been pro war and pro killing thoughout American history. The U.S. prays as it kills people in wars just as much as Muslims and Jews do. There are very few Christian sects who in fact practice non violence, like the Quakers and Amish. Some main stream churches are pro war to the point of being bloody thirsty.

"Third, your point about the veils is bizarre. No one has *ever* said to *anyone* in a wedding "you must wear a veil." My wife wore one -- her choice, mind you -- because she thought it was pretty"

You missed the point, it is a cultural tradition to wear a veil at Christian weddings, its a cultural tradition and Islamic doctrine for women to cover their heads if not their entire head all the time. Christian nuns cover their heads too. The point is if you have this uncontrollable urge to inflict your cultural biases on other cultures, I'm of the opinion they should be able to tell you to not do things that offend them. For example how would Americans feel if Muslim countries forced Americans to stop consuming alcohol. They have a good case for that, alcohol is a devestatingly bad drug, they are on the right side of the issue. If you want to tell them what women can and can't wear is it OK if they tell you what you can and can't do?

"But don't blame it on some cabal of "Washington Christians"

Dude you aren't paying attention. There IS a cabal of "Washington Christians" along with some "Washington Jews" and they are killing, disappearing and torturing people with abandon, all of whom happen to be Muslim.

A bizarre example covered in New Yorker recently is Patrick Henry College. It was founded in 2000 when the Republicans swept in to power. Its student body is entirely home schooled Christians, people who have never been corrupted by contact with the public education system, or heathens. Their entire student body is actively working in Republican political campaigns and they all get fast tracks to internships in top spots in the Federal government including the White House and Karl Roves office, and leading conservative think tanks. They ARE a "Washington Chrisitan Cabal" being groomed to reign over America from now to eternity, or at least until the rapture takes them all to Jesus.

"The claim was made that conservative Christians are just the same as the Taliban."

"Just the same" is a stretch but there is a lot of disturbing" similarity which is why people keep drawing the parallel. Born again Christians are hell bent on trying to inflict their world view on people who don't like or want their world view. They don't approve of abortion so they want to force women to ride out unwanted pregnancies and raise unwanted kids who have a propensity to turn in to criminals, or put a new wave of kids in to foster care, orphanages and adoption. They don't approve of homosexuality so they want to drive people who are unavoidably gay back in to the closet if not out of society. The whole problem here is when some Muslim country tries to force their ideaology on people you get your panties in a twist. When American Christians do the same thing you rationalize and turn a blind eye becuase you wear cultural blinders, your culture always good, everyone elses culture always bad (unless of course they make it exactly like yours).

Bottomline learn to live and let live. Forgive and forget. Don't pass judgement on others. That is a world view Christ would have approved of.

From the Ask Slashdot post:

However, what can we do to make it suck less?

• stop inflating grades (a recent article reflected on how many schools now have so many valedictorians (one in Seattle actually had 47 valedictorians!) that many have had to dispense with the tradition of having valedictorian address the graduating classes). (The New Yorker article is here and is a long, but worthwhile read.)
• more emphasis on (mathematics) basics. Get rid of the calculators, at least until after the fundamentals are assuredly learned. Make students learn how to use slide rules, for the sake and feel of what is really happening during calculations (addition of log tables... illustrates nice short cuts for coming up with fast and accurate estimates for seemingly complex "problems")
• more emphasis on (language skills) basics. It would be nice to go an entire day without something totally illiterate on the CNN Headline News crawler. (We once had a "discussion" with our daughter's teacher because he said he wasn't so much interested in her spelling correctly and applying grammatical principles correctly as he was in what she was saying. While we agreed what she was trying to say was important, we felt it equally important (for a fifth grader) to be grounded in grammatical and spelling fundamentals)
• stop moving kids onto the next grade if they really didn't perform at the level necessary. It's become an "everybody gets a trophy" society, and that's not consistent with the real world. Kids more than ever need to understand rewards and accountability.
• standards of competency for teachers (rather than tenure by unions). We once accused our daughter of "doctoring" a bad grade when she brought it back with an updated "note" from her teacher. We were convinced she had not met with the teacher because the "note" on her paper from the teacher was illiterate. We were all embarrassed when we confronted the teacher and found he indeed had written the note (maybe that's why he was not so interested in our daughter's grammar).
• stop relying on technology as the next silver bullet in transcendental teaching philosophies and techniques
• get rid of MTV

There are probably more, but this might be a good start.

Contrary to stereotype, Rice is hardly from a poor family.
According to the New Yorker profile,
She was an only child, born to older ..., well-established parents, with a large supporting cast of relatives in addition to the community itself, and a long-standing family tradition of ambition and education.
-- kieran hervold

You mean it's partially applicable to English and even less applicable to American English. This emperor isn't completely without clothes, but is definitely dressed for the beach. "Zero tolerance" (or even "zero-tolerance") is not quite accurate.

Just read the New Yorker Review for more detail.

I had always thought that salt water was better because of osmotic pressure issues: fresh water enters the lung tissue causing tissue and red blood cell rupture. But apparently different bad things happen for either salt or fresh water inhalation with salt water resulting in more severe hypoxia during recovery because the alveoli are more completely filled with plasma drawn out of the tissue. Ideally, you should try to drown in water of exactly the same salinity as human blood.

http://www.rescuediver.org/med/drown.htm

You would have to be in the Antarctic for the temp difference to be relevant and probably not even there.

Interesting OT article relating to Antarctic swimming:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030203fa_fa ct1