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Saddam and Ozzy are mostly former allies that became a liability. Saddam was a useful tool when that towelhead took over Iran along with all that super cool bleeding-edge war gear the US sold to the Shah before. To put it into perspective, until 1979, the Iran was the strongest ally the US had in the middle east. And they stuffed so much military hardware into the country (in exchange for oil, well, you didn't expect those F-14 and Phoenix missiles to be a gift, did ya?) until it had the fourth largest army on the planet. The fourth largest army. Technologically on par with the US. And all that great war gear now in the hands of that mullah. Who is anything but buddy-buddy with the US.

Waging war there? That would've been WW2 all over again. And since WW2 the US never fought a war against an enemy that had even remotely the same technological level. The bloodshed would have been enormous. So what did the US do? Hire a likable local tinpot dictator of course. That was Saddam. The idea was, they send him some war gear and Saddam wages war against Iran to trash all those nice weapons. And Saddam did as he was ordered. First gulf war, 1980 to 1988. Afterwards, both countries were basically fucked and the Iran's weapon arsenal was no longer a threat.

Threat?

Well, yes. To understand this, take a closer look at this map here: Notice something? Well, towelhead isn't towelhead, ya know? There's two (ok, more, but two big) groups of Muslims. Sunnite and Shiite. And they like each other about as much as Catholics liked Protestants about 500 years ago.

Can you imagine who was a tad bit worried when the Iran was turned into a theocracy AND had a bigger weapon arsenal than the rest of the Arab world combined? That Red Sea isn't that wide and modern planes can easily cross it...

But I digress. Anyway, Saddam was a useful tool to trash that stockpile of weapons. But when he noticed that he can't get in (well, duh...) and turned around to invade Qatar, that wasn't part of the deal. So just like the Iran, he turned from best buddy to armpit of evil over night.

Similar with Ozzy. He was pretty useful back when he and his religious fanatics fought Soviets in Afghanistan. The US bankrolled him and shoved weapons his way. Remember Rambo III? Remember the original ending credit crawl? If not, here's a quick reminder. It changed when Osama found out that he's been had and decided to turn against the US when he found out that he was simply used as a convenient idiot to do the US' dirty work.

Do you know how IQ scores actually work?

Yes, thank you.

As it happens his statement is still wrong, but I hold up my hand to being a bit of an ass in my reply.

Only half the population can have an IQ under 100. It's the average.

And what's the average (as in mean) of the following set of numbers: [108, 100, 99, 99, 99, 99, 99, 99, 99, 99]? And what proportion of them are below 100?

Would you like to reconsider your statement?

sabbede was talking about IQ scores, not a small set of numbers selected to prove a point. Do you know how IQ scores actually work?

You believe they are actually on different teams?

Have you seen "The Obama Deception" on youtube? I was going to type a long ass rant, but will save the trouble. Just watch that movie please.

Read this wonderful 2 thousand year old story. Then ask yourself why a majority of American's know more about Celebrities and Sports than they do about Politics. It is not a new story mind you, through history we have seen the same thing repeated over and over. It never ends well for the majority that get shammed by people in power.

There are so many indicators that we are in deep shit, yet very few will talk about them. These types of executive orders dismantling the constitution are not new, but recently they have been quite drastic. Corporate controlled media will not talk about them. I watch and listen to the "News", but can assure you that there is very little "News" to be found.

If you don't repeat the game's content, then how are you supposed to get good at the game? You get killed, you try again, and you get better. If you're not enjoying the challenges that the game is giving, and you spend all of your time composing poorly-thought-out diatribes against the game, then the technical term for your state is "burned out", and you're better off moving to different activities in life other than video games. Trust me, you'll be happier when you're not clicking on a Skinner box.

on learning

OK, you invited this one...

ah, Will, thy name is troll...

I saw the puff pieces for the NOLA Elites ...

Which has nothing to do with my arguement. 'Look at the pretty kitty...'

Investigate Maslow's Heirarchy before you go ascribing people's behavior in extremis - in the Army, when I had to command people, it was a very useful tool in understanding how people really behave, not some artificial construct such as you describe.

Yes, let's. I'm curious to what 'artificial contruct' you refer, but you seem to like offering tangential, vague comments as a connotation of superiourity. Ref your "when are you moving to NO..." post - wholly non sequitor to the parent and in fact counter to your obvious retorical intent. Were you talking about the termites example? That's the only 'construct' I created, I think. I wasn't discussion folks behaviour as they were at risk of life. I was discussing behaviour of government folks far removed from any risk - behaviour well in advance of any hurricane (uhm, years?) As far as Maslow Heirarchy of needs(1) goes, let's see, at the bottom are basic physical needs - food, water, air, etc. I can understand looting food from this context, but that's not what we were discussing.

Next it's Safety - gee, I think secure levies kinda falls under this heading, don't you? I suppose the Superdome was keeping the Saints safe from the elements but I think that is rather a stretch. I guess they skipped Security and Emotional connection and went straight to Esteem. They drowned but the City's collective self-esteem was wonderful? So, what exactly was your point besides taking the opportunity to snipe at the US, tell us you commanded folks in the Army and drop names?

(1) http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/maslow.html

13 months of 28 days each (4 weeks), with one day tacked on to the end of the last month (two on leap year)

Yup. I remember seeing that suggestion ages ago ("ages" as in "probably between 35 and 40 years") in some magazine, probably Life. It was proposed as August Comte's Positivist Calendar back in 1849; it's also been proposed as the Tranquility Calendar and elsewhere. Google for "13 months" "28 days" and then rest assured that great minds think alike. :-)

U.S. currency contains no ferrous metals...

Doesn't matter. Magnetic braking is caused when conductive material is moved through a magnetic field. The induced current causes a resistive force in the moving metal, slowing it down. This works very well even in completely nonferromagnetic material such as aluminum.

Magnetic braking is in fact used in vending machines to slow coins by just a certain amount, to test against slugs. Wrong alloys will be slowed too much or not enough; either way, they can be rejected.

See question and answer #14 here for more details.

So what does define "religion" then, if not a belief in the supernatural?

...Buddhism is most certainly a religion, and yet it doesn't talk of any gods at all...

Oh really?. A brief examination of Buddhist cosmology would tend to negate that assertion.

Religion is a style of thought involving a high degree of faith, and it doesn't have to be faith in a god to count.

1. That is not the commonly accepted definition of the word "religion". Most dictionaries will specifically mention religion's supernatural component.
2. If you choose to dilute the definition of religion that much then it becomes effectively a useless word. Do you have some other word for differentiating those who believe in god from those who don't? (theist vs atheist perhaps?)
3. Why do you choose to dilute the definition of religion such that encompasses secular humanism (which by virtue of the word "secular" in its name is, in the conventional interpretation, specifically not religious in nature). What do you gain by doing so?

Microsoft has no brainwashing ability. Every individual can make his own choices.

There's an adage that I'm sure you've heard that says, "Tell a lie often enough and eventually it is accepted as the truth". I'm not suggesting that Microsoft is necessarily lying, but the fact remains that if you keep pummeling a message into people's head, they eventually accept it as being a fact. It's called persuasion, it's a part of how the human mind works, and Microsoft are very very good at it. You can read the gory details here. Note that brainwashing is the most extreme form of persuasion and is rarely ever seen in practice.

music!=food
Music ranks higher in needs pyramid.
Needs pyramid

My bosses answer to this is easy. If they can complete a certain workload in the given time and still have time to spend on something else, they are not working at 100% and could do more work (=more $$$) in the same time with no additional cost.

Where I work, if people let them (and only the stupid do), they will pile stuff on them ad nauseum, no matter what it means in terms of overtime.
[My emphasis]

The emergence of Open Source Software phenomena is an interesting and hopeful commentary on humanity.

I think it can best be explained by Malsow pyramid or hierarchy of needs. Those toward the top of pyramid have an increasing desire to create. Also OSS provides a way to create without an artifical "leadership" or power structures that dominate almost all our other areas of living.

Also, the invention of the internet provided the basic infrastructure for like minded people to get together and create something greater than they could themselves providing a big payoff and providing a sense of community and friendship.

Many 'gurus' teaching new users about Linux make it look harder than it needs to be

You might want to check out this case from a social psychology point of view. People who are not real experts but perceives themselves to be experts might want to emphasize their expertise by showing the new user how smart they are in comparison.
It should be noted that real experts shouldn't (at least in theory) have this inferiority complex, which makes the interaction for them with newbies much more straightforward and purposeful.

Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"

Or is it they don't know that much but think and want others to think they do?

Where does one draw the line between useful information and cool things to talk about at a party?

Knowledge does not have to be either useful or cool in order to be valuable.

One common approach is that of Cardinal Newman in the Idea of a University: Knowledge is capable of being its own end. Such is the constitution of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward.

The other common approach is to follow Socrates' dictim that "The unexamined life is not worth living", which he derived from his belief that ignorance causes evil.

These approaches still leave unanswered the question of where you draw the line between learning and other activities, knowledge being infinite and time being short.

I submit that there is no line. Learning includes close observation of things around you. In this way you integrate a love learning with everyday life and test the ideas acquired in solitary study.

Despite the fact that most great scientists have been more motivated by the love of learning than anything else, I've found that people who insist that knowledge must have a utilitarian purpose cannot be convinced otherwise.

So, neutrinos can actually provide early warning*about a supernova. Light from SN1987a was in fact preceeded by neutrionos that arrived 18 hours ahead of time (ref-1) (ref-2).

Here is a really good page (among a bunch) that explains supernovae.

If you are interested in this sort of stuff, look for books by Lillian Lieber. She wrote:

• The Einstein Theory of Relativity some of which is online here
• Non-Euclidean Geometry
• Galois and the Theory of Groups
• The Education of T. C. Mits
• Mathematics for the Two Billion
• Mits, Wits, and Logic
• Infinity

I really loved her books as a kid and I find that they still hold up today. Mrs. Lieber, wherever you are today, thank you!

I trust the Bandura study more than I trust any recent meta-analysis study.

For those of you who aren't familiar with behavioral pyschology/the Bandura study: http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/bandura.html look for "bobo doll studies"

I still manage to be surprised that rational people can accept supernatural explanations for their own subjective experiences. Read the sci.skeptic FAQ? It's good stuff. I tend to pigeonhole theists alongside UFO freaks, crystal-waving new age bubbleheads and Carlos Castaneda fans. I really cannot understand how people who use computers daily can swallow such transparent myth.

On the other hand, I recently started reading about Buddhism here, and, modulo the culturally specific far-eastern context, found it very interesting and thought-provoking. Next thing in the reading pile happened to be The Elegant Universe, which discusses superstring theory and how it unifies quantum mechanics and relativity. (Links to Amazon, sorry B&N too slow... where else is there? anyone?) This last is utterly mind-bending. Now there are still some features of the universe and cosmology that are poorly understood; some things we may never be able to know, although we can invent untestable theories about what they might mean. I can see that there is space within this framework for something... hard to comprehend. We may call this 'the mind of god' if we like, but whatever it is, is sure as hell isn't an old guy with a big beard sitting on a cloud taking an interest in the events on planet Earth.

Christian Geeks? Do me a favour.

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Camaron de la Isla 'When I sing with pleasure, my