Slashdot Mirror

Thomas Jefferson

All said or written when he was younger. When he was older ... especially after he was President... he changed his mind on a great many things. Not always completely, but his attitude on religion did a near-180. Jefferson never became a conventional Trinitarian Chirstian, but he did warm up to religion and came to understand it as healthy and necessary in America, to the point where he believed that American liberty might not survive without it. Jefferson recognized that while he wasn't a conventional Christian, the vast majority of his countrymen were, and he came to respect their faith. Contrary to the whole notion that Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists indicated he favored a complete ban on religious expression on public grounds (the letter with the now oft-misquoted "separation of church and state" line), this was a false understanding of his position. Jefferson himself approved of Protestant services being held in the US capitol building. He attended them himself every Sunday, and at times even had the Marine Band play music for the hyms... all at public expense. And don't take my word for it. See what the Library of Congress has to say about it:

It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a "crowded audience." Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.
Jefferson's actions may seem surprising because his attitude toward the relation between religion and government is usually thought to have been embodied in his recommendation that there exist "a wall of separation between church and state." In that statement, Jefferson was apparently declaring his opposition, as Madison had done in introducing the Bill of Rights, to a "national" religion. In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government."

Far from being anti-religion, Jefferson came to recognize that the American experiment depended on a melding of ideas that had to include religion and the best ideas of the enlightenment:

"Religion, as well as reason, confirms the soundness of those principles on which our government has been founded and its rights asserted." --Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815.

Jefferson, after all, was the primary mover behind the notion that we had an inalienable right to freedom of religion, and was the primary influence in ensuring that this right was enshrined in the Constitution. Like a lot of people, he was a bit of a radical hothead when he was younger, and again like most people, he became older and wiser.

Sorry, there are UF, FSU, FAU, and FIU, as well as universities of Central, North, West, and South Florida. But no FU. GP is safe wrt Floridian institutions.

Please play again.

According to http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.h tml, the Enlightment occured before the founding of the country. Considering the U.S. forefathers were heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, I suspect they probably meant a separation of separation of church and state. You might want to see James Madison's view, http://www.jmu.edu/madison/center/main_pages/madis on_archives/constit_confed/rights/epilogue/epilogu e.htm, or, perhaps, the view of Thomas Jefforson on Church and State, http://www.unf.edu/~dschwam/danbury.htm.

Mr. Gates writes "We have a research lab in Cambridge, we have one now in China, one in India and that is where the top problems in computer science are going to be solved."

Really ?

Here's some of the top problems in CS.

Here's the research lab in India - working on technology implementations, certainly not top CS problems.

Here are the 10 innovations that will blow you away - coming out of Beijing. Again, some very sound implementations, but not exactly top 10 CS problems.

But yes, Cambridge is looking at some of the top 10 CS problems. However, MS is no Bell Labs when it comes to taking on research problems. They end up successfully monetizing tech solutions, but that is quite different from pioneering fundamental breakthroughs like inventing a transistor or laser.

Sorry - basic economics show that the burden of wage taxes are split between the employer and the employee. If the 30% tax was removed, the market clearing price for your labor would still be $100. Moreover, reducing wage taxes increases overall employment. Studies have proven out both of these theories.

Please see this link so you are not to economics what creationists are to biology, then read this study which shows that lower labor taxes decreases unemployment.

Use a goose.

I have not recompiled the app since Qt 2.something
but I use it on my desktop all the time.

http://www.unf.edu/~kschin/qtxconsole/

Ok, a little self-promotion but I find the app of some use.

Gargantua and Pantagruel
But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs.

is at The Computer Science Hall of Fame