Slashdot Mirror
Bush vs. Kerry on Science
chrisspurgeon writes "The science journal Nature put 15 questions to Senator Kerry and President Bush. Read the candidates' responses on topics such as stem cell research, greenhouse emissions, and manned spaceflight to Mars."
GNAA reveals the truth - Nigger Operatives Responsible
MudanJiang, People's Republic of China: 13 August 2004
The GNAA has today broken the media lockout on North Korea's nuclear explosion. With governmental and press agencies everywhere desperately lying to the sheep-like public, the GNAA has had to step forward.
"We did it", the words of Gay Nigger Association President timecop. Nigger agent Relex is believed have penetrated deep into DPRK territory and conducted sabotage missions culminating in the recent Nuke blast. His weeklong absence from #GNAA (on irc.gnaa.us) was cause for suspicions that dangerous operations were afoot. Intelligence sources indicate that Relex did not have enough time to escape the lethal zone of the warhead, and was well within its kill radius at the time of detonation.
A pink ROFLcopter was seen speeding across the DPRK-Chinese border late Saturday night. Murmurs of Relex's successful extraction were confirmed finally on Sunday, 12 August by his personal appearance in #GNAA. He refused to comment on any operations at the time, claiming to have been "in Mexico".
His miraculous survival has led many to hypothesize about his invincibility. Some suggest the Holy Gay Nigger Seed may have "life-sustaining" properties, suggestions that the white medical establishment has dismissed. There is an ongoing debate surrounding this idea, with both sides throwing arguments back and forth. Supporters point to GNAA Terrorist Tar_Baby's unverified survival of the OSTG disaster, that killed over 300 Indians. The opposing camp points to the recent capture and possible death of GNAA broadcast propagandist l0de after he made threats to "crash a cruise ship into the Whitehouse". As of this release, the issue is not resolved, and hard evidence is lacking.
The GNAA's North Korea operations are believed to stem from the ongoing Korean/Black hatred.
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T
Is it just me, or does that webpage have problems in Firefox, such as the answers not scrolling..? Or is it just Flash for Linux being, well, less than capable?
Got ya Ryan & Fred
Any president who reads the bible for help making presidential decisions cannot be pro-science,
That's right - Mars, bitches!
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
I would have liked to hear what the other candidates' responses would have been, for contrast. Kucinic in particular.
In a chart, even better.
(going to be some election, with even non-Americans like me taking this intense an interest, hm?)
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
...in .pdf format is here if you don't want to hassle with the Flash presentation.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
"Read the candidates' responses on topics such as stem cell research, greenhouse emissions, and manned spaceflight to Mars."
Part of me is loathe to RTA. From here outside of the USA, I imagine the dialog to be stupefying.
I hope I'm wrong. Meanwhile, I'll read other articles.
...that Bush didn't write those answers himself. For one thing there are words of more than three syllables used throughout. For another it appears that the person who wrote them was actually familiar with Whitehouse briefing papers and current scientific issues. And the final clue is the use of the word 'nuclear' instead of GW's preferred 'nucular'.
I'm sure the same goes for Kerry, although he is actually able to spell and say most of the words used in his responses.
I really don't see the point of this kind of 'interview.' Basically, each candidate is asked a series of questions, each of which has a 'good' or 'bad' answer. The results will shock you.
Read Pynchon.
The flash player isn't exactly the most legible thing to read, so here is the more coherent printable version (PDF).
Climate change
Throughout his time in office, President George Bush has been slammed by environmentalists for avoiding steps to reduce global warming. Climate experts recommend cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions - and John Kerry pledges to take a greener stance.
Yucca Mountain
Twenty years ago an act of Congress put forward Yucca Mountain as a possible repository for the nation's nuclear waste - but fierce disputes over whether the site might leak radioactive material have held up its construction ever since. Now the mountain, in the political swing state of Nevada, has emerged as a hot campaign issue in the US presidential race, and both candidates claim that sound science is on their side
Stem cells
Before President George W. Bush arrived in the Oval Office, most Americans had never heard of a stem cell - a microscopic biological entity that can transform into hair, muscle or other human cell types. But four years on, the issue has escalated into a divisive one in US politics, and looks set to attract continued attention in the forthcoming election.
Manipulation of science
George Bush's presidency has suffered a rash of accusations that he is either ignoring or manipulating science. Democratic rival John Kerry, meanwhile, pledges to follow impartial scientific advice - but observers say that they are yet to be persuaded.
Nuclear weapons research
Late in 2002, the Bush administration proposed controversial plans to begin work on new designs for nuclear weapons. The idea has prompted fierce scientific and political opposition ever since.
And I doubt if he even bothered to try to understand the answers that were provided in his name. No way this incurious, verbally-challenged president could have given articulate, well-informed answers to those questions. For the sake of science and many, many other things that we care for, let's hope for regime change on Nov 2. Things don't look too good now, though.
I want more.
I wonder how hard it would be to do a /. interview with each candidate, similar to the interview with R. Glaser. I kindof doubt that it would happen, but you never know!
Each political party has agendas. Each party will use science to support their agendas. However, when there is no real science to support their agenda, or when real science contradicts the agendas, bad science will be created or the importance of science will be lessened.
Both political parties are guilty of the above. Merely because the right believes in invisible beings who control our destiny, doesn't make it worse than the left, who believes that creating a permanent welfare culture will end poverty.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The defense rests, your Honorificness.
Money for nothing, pix for free
the one thing that sticks out a mile is you can belive that Kerry could actually have written those answers, although I doubt he actually did.
Who cares what Bush thinks, everybody knows Cheney is the heartless brain behind current operations.
In my version I got there is nothing on space flight to Mars in the article, what you talking about Willis ?
... Dracula vs. Wolfman on childcare.
Why are the answers in tiny-little barely-readable Flash movie? That must be the worst abuse of bad web design principles I've seen all year -- and on a reputable journal!
Why the hell did they need to make this into Flash? There are no animations, no images, just hyperlinked text which is rendered too small... or not at all at first actually, as I normally use Firefox with adblocker.
With regards to the questions, wouldn't it have been more fun if they had asked B and K unprepared questions on science directly in person, without any speechwriters to hide behind?
"The HIV virus is a retrovirus. Can either of you tell us what that means?"
"Give us the strongest arguments pro and con for the existance of man-made global warming."
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Bush's supporters have been shown to vote for him soely on moral ground. The poorest county in america voted more then 80% for Bush. Why you ask? Because Bush has the Christian Right, a sizeable population. Bush can screw the enviroment, tax people into the ground, reinstate the draft, declare war on canada and mexico and still have the christian right's vote.
If people will wake up and realize that voting for Bush without understanding the issues is killing our country, then perhapse they will change... but until then bush can look forward to having all the bible thumpers under his belt, and abusing his power more and more. Ah well, personally, I think you should have to have a slashdot account to vote this year.
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
...in any form.
Bush comes across as the major offender here, but Kerry isn't too far behind.
BTW, judging by the frequency of "John Edwards and I" being repeated, I'm left wondering -- is Kerry gay?
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
I suspect more non-Americans than Americans are taking a really keen interest in this election. Considering that only, what, 40-odd percent of eligible voters actually bother to turn out on election day in the states, you could hardly say interest there is raging, despite the fanatical partisans we see all the time on the news. Given the disproportionate effect that US policies have on my country (Australia), I would kill to be able to vote in this election.
Of course, if non-US citizens could vote, it's pretty clear what the result would be. Although maybe we shouldn't publicise this, it might provoke a nationalistic wave of support for you know who...
Read Pynchon.
I really hope you guys elect Dubya again. We in Europe need all the help we can get competing in science, so Bush is our man.
Oh no... it's the future.
Nothing to see here...
the responses are political canned responses, most likely passed off to higher ranking lackeys in both organizations...
keep moving, nothing to see here.
#include sig.h
Yea!!
We hate Bush, We hate Bush, We hate Bush.
What was the topic again?
Oh, whatever, We hate Bush, We hate Bush, We hate Bush.
Its true. Even if lives are on the line. Just look at the War on Drugs. Even congressionally mandated research w/ results they 'disagree' with get ignored. And, because of this, people suffer and DIE.
Any president who reads the bible for help making presidential decisions cannot be pro-science
+5 Insightful??? Are you saying science is a substitute for religion, or those who practice religion should be dismissed as scientists? President Bush's actions in expanding the funding of NSF, NASA and many other agencies suggest that he is pro-science. Would you have said the same thing about Jimmy Carter who was also devoutly Christian? How about Albert Einstein who was a practicing Jew, or Donald Knuth who is a devout Lutheran.
an ill wind that blows no good
I was surprised to see a political slashdot posting that actually had something to do with science or technology. Well done.
He can't even follow the guidelines set for the article and he's expected to run a country?
Do you see what I did there?
I was amused that most of Kerry's responses mentioned John Edwards, but Cheney is not mentioned ONCE in Bush's answers. I suppose that makes sense for the questions about energy policy...
Its clear that the candidates don't ever plan on using these responses verbally. I'd love to see W try and pronounce "carbon sequestration". (In the Bush response to question #12.)
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
Over similar issues. Except this one is just an anlysis, no interviews. The sad thing is just how horrible Bush's scientific policies are. For one, when he dropped the USA out of the Kyoto treaty, he claimed that Global Warming was an "unproven hypothesis." While it is still sometimes disputed how much of global warming is caused by humans, global warming has been well-known for decades and the proof is very solid.
First of all, it is regularly pointed out [admittedly by Republicans] that Nature is politically far left. This generalization in the introduction to these questions from the site just stopped me from reading anything else:
" scientists [read as educators/professors] at universities have become unfriendly territory for Republicans"
Professors at universities have NEVER been Republican - republicans ask for accountability and aren't necessarily for higher teacher pay. The teacher associations are the single biggest democratic support = bias
AND
"Bush accuses the Kerry campaign" - with no followup - Kerry accuses Bush campaign remarks = bias
I'm not just accusing Nature of being bias either.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Yes, Mr. Bush... How do you feel about the development of new Nucular weapons?
It should be noted that the current ban on stem-cell research actually only prevents funding research on the topic. Has anybody else seen that piece on 60 Minutes about the Howard Hughes research center that has been able to research it anyway because of its massive private funding?
That said, I'm still against the blocking of research funds. More eyes can be useful on this subejct, obviously.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
I just hope people don't read their bible for science anymore. WWGD : What Would Galileo Do?
This is interesting: "what would you do to ensure that your administration receives genuinely impartial scientific advice?"
Both essentially answer: "It is really important to get impartial advice, that's why I will take only impartial advice."
Both don't get at all into the problem - which is "how do you know what advice is impartial?".
Both answers have nice parts like Bush's world class sentence "I have sought out the best scientific minds..." - completely ignoring that the question was "how do you deal with the problem that it is hard to know what good science is?"
Kerry's reasoning is equally interesting when he says "[Hey, how do I ensure that I receive impartial advice?] My administration would never utilize biased advice."
That's true Mr. President. You can very well be sure that you receive impartial advice when you just don't utilize the biased advice!
JUST ALWAYS BE SURE THAT YOU PERSONALLY SEEK OUT THE BEST SCIENTIFIC MINDS!
Both candidates didn't say anything about the problem itself stating trueisms of the worst order.
You can attach boosters to anything. It just costs more. -
Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 07, @12:26PM
Meanwhile, I'll read other articles.
what an incredibly way to remain stupified.
Kent Brockman: Senator Dole, why should people vote for you instead of President Clinton?
............
..........
Kang: It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed. DOOMED!
Kent: Well, a refreshingly frank response there from senator Bob Dole.
Homer: America, take a good look at your beloved candidates. They're nothing but hideous space reptiles.
[audience gasps in terror]
Kodos: It's true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us.
[murmurs]
Man1: He's right, this is a two-party system.
Man2: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away!
Marge: I don't understand why we have to build a ray gun to aim at a planet I never even heard of.
Homer: Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Read Pynchon.
They ask an interesting question about star wars here. Bush claims that the program is working, and will be much more fully operational soon, Kerry says that more research is needed. However, the question only focuses on the scientific aspects of the system, not on it's stratagic usefulness. The world is much different than it was during the Soviet era. During the soviet era, outside the possibility of submarines the only way for the Soviets to attack the US was through missiles, because we hardly did any trade at all with our "enemy", but today the world is much different.
Suppose North Korea really wanted to nuke the US. They have missiles that could potentially reach Alaska, MAYBE California, and will soon have the nuclear technology to make weapons, if they don't have it already. But if North Korea really wanted to attack the US, why would they use a missile whose source can be detectable when they could just sneak a missile on one of the thousands of Chinese ships that come to the US each year that go virtually unsearched by customs? North Korea would have to be morons not to have spies working in the Chinese shipping industry(unbeknowst to China of course).
We are just dumping money down the drain on a system that is questionable both scientifically and strategically.
Monstar L
But since I am pro Bush, I would be marked as offtopic or troll, so Fuck you slashdot moderators.
that this time your president will be the one who actually wins the election.
judging by your username, Compact Dick, could i ask the same?
Next week we'll hear about a wrestling match between a 400 lb gorilla and a 2 year old child.
maybe firefox like all open source software is a piece of garbage?
How good would it be to see an interviewer sit down and totally grill Bush or Kerry for a good hour, with no aides or press secretaries, or time limits to force them to move on, and with no fear of losing 'access' and no drip-fed policy announcements and spin.
I often think about this. I think I have decided that open press conferences should be consitutionally mandates. The President should have to face the public and the press at least once a week throughout his term, and during the campaign there should be both compulsory debates and compulsory open press conferences. None of this stage managed bullshit.
Doonesbury says it well.
Read Pynchon.
Heartless? How the hell is he getting heart attacks every five minutes then?
The work was needed, according to a confidential Pentagon document, to determine whether the United States' earth-penetrating nuclear weapons could be used to destroy deeply buried bunkers in other nations that might house chemical or biological weapons.
In addition, Bush argues that the work will invigorate the minds of nuclear-weapons scientists and help them to respond more quickly to new threats. Such researchers have been consigned to maintaining the nation's stockpile of nearly 9,000 weapons since the end of the cold war.
So you mean to tell me that the 9000 nuclear bombs we already have that can destroy the human species 100,000 times over isn't enough? I guess we need bigger and better bombs so we can take out EVERYTHING, even cockroaches.
I wonder what excuse our un-elected presidunce AWOL Bush will use when confronted with scientific fact?
In fact, why not expand this to other issues? Why not require an on-the-spot literacy and basic knowledge test? I think that this would be a great idea, no leader left behind, and all. I may sound snarky, but i mean it. I'd love to see them have to answer some basic stuff. Things they really ought to know if they've got their hands on the purse strings and their finger on the button...
1. Which country does the US currently owe the most money to?
2. How much is one trillion, in millions?
(If you can't answer this, i don't want you spending my taxes. The English answer is often different from the American answer, too.)
3.a. What's the basic standard treatment for radiation sickness?
3.b. How thick should the walls of a fallout shelter be?
***
What else should be on the test?
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
For those who didn't RTFA, here's the answers:
... I can't believe I actually tallied these up.
Bush, questions 1-2, 4, 6-15: Yes, but no.
Kerry, questions 1, 6-15: Yes, but no.
Bush, questions 3, 5: No, but yes.
Kerry, questions 2-5: No, but yes.
A.
You are missing the point. Nobody is saying that science can replace religion. The previous poster's point was that the Christian faith in particular requires an attitude that is directly in opposition to the scientific process.
Only if you have to take the Bible literally. For example the Roman Catholic church reformed in the 60's to become much more liberal by normal Christian attitudes. Basically they say that if the Bible says "the Earth is flat" and then someone proves that it isn't, then the Bible was wrong. That's ok because it doesn't have to be taken for literal truth, or maybe someone messed up copying things along the way, or whatever. I have a fundamentalist geologist friend and he said "due to the abundance of evidence I can only say that the Earth is several billion years old." (I forget if it is billion or billions, sorry). Some religions and people are anti-science. But don't assume that Christians are all as shallow as you make them out to be. To semi-quote Neil Stephenson in Snowcrash - "Most smart people come to realize that 90% of the Bible is crap. The problem is they assume that the whole thing is crap, when that 10% is very important."
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
Anyone who would vote for bush (who is a no brainer) is a no brainer.
Only a traitor could still support AWOL Bush, the excuses Presidunce!
'The teacher associations are the single biggest democratic support = bias'
OH THANK YOU objective science republican, for telling us all the truth,based on your hard nosed research of the dirty facts. the 'single biggest democrat support' = 'teachers'. that '=' sign really makes it seem really really logical and scientific. wow thank you SOOOOO much. you genius objective truth man.
then of course there is 'accountability'. yes. like the multiple-trillion dollar national debt. i guess that is 'accountable' for republicans. oh wait its the democrats fault right? no, its not you dumb jerk-off. the republicans control congress too this time around so quit your stupid ass republican whining. and most of all,,,,
stop being a lying idiot
That episode is so funny, it was tempting to put the whole thing in. IMHO the funniest Simpsons ever...
Clinton Aide: People are becoming a bit confused by the way you and your opponent are... well... constantly holding hands.
Dole-alien: The politics of failure have failed. We must make them work again.
Bob Dole: What the hell is this? Some kind of tube?
Kodos: I am Clin-Ton. As overlord, all will kneel trembling before me and obey my brutal commands. End communication.
Marge: That's Slick Willy for you, always with the smooth talk.
Read Pynchon.
Question6, Bush: "a critically important experiment to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity and hydrogen" July 13th 2004, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham: "a critically important experiment to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity and hydrogen" Firstly, ITER as a source of hydrogen? I know ITER might spur the hydrogen producers, but then could this equally say ITER would be a source of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) and tritium (heavy-heavy hydrogen). Huh? Secondly, are these the words of our much loved Mr. Bush or did he just copy and paste some of Spencer Abraham's memos? This looks more like a 'whole party' thing.
I would love to see what the "excuses presidunce" has to say about that!
It's a PDF, but it's much easier to read. I hate clicking a bunch of links to read a simple article.
From the article linked to the story poster: Yucca Mountain as a possible repository for the nation's nuclear waste - but fierce disputes over whether the site might leak radioactive material have held up its construction ever since
I have a question that's so simplistic that I expect it's stupid. Admittedly I don't understand the facts about nuclear waste, but here goes ....
Can nuclear waste not be totally incinerated? I assume if this is possible then it will become carbon that is .... less radioactive?
Alternatively, is there no process that can change the structure of the atoms so they are not radio active anymore?
You may be enlightened enough to realize that religion and science can "get along", but your statement about science "not having any room for morality" makes me think you are just posturing. Ever heard of Bertrand Russell? Religion doesn't have a monopoly on ethics or morals. It just acts like it.
Please don't take my lack of flaming you and your fellow theists as holier than thou ignoramouses as an indication that I don't feel that way.
Talking to oneself ain't good, but so is the lack of line breaks...
On ITER:
Question6, Bush: "a critically important experiment to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity and hydrogen"
July 13th 2004, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham [energy.gov]: "a critically important experiment to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity and hydrogen"
Firstly, ITER as a source of hydrogen? I know ITER might spur the hydrogen producers, but then could this equally say ITER would be a source of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) and tritium (heavy-heavy hydrogen). Huh?
Secondly, are these the words of our much loved Mr. Bush or did he just copy and paste some of Spencer Abraham's memos? This looks more like a 'whole party' thing.
Not so. I am Catholic, and fairly well-versed on apologetics.
Vatican II changed nothing of the faith. It was a pastoral council that changed only the expression of liturgy and language used to make the Faith more understandable to the modern world. Nothing of the faith changed.
The Church has always realized that Sacred Scripture is not a science textbook. The Bible is the story of how God relates to man and man's response. Many literary devices are used that seem to be non-sensical in modern English, but are in harmony and make perfect sense when you understand Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek prophetic language.
A perfect example is the whole "Left Behind" group nowadays which states that Christ will come not two times but three. (When He comes back the second, He will only be "in the clouds", so that's not a "real" coming back). What they neglect to notice is that the phraseology of "coming on clouds" in the Bible represents God's judgement. Ergo, when Christ comes back the second time it will be as Judge.
Many things in scripture use Hebrew prophetic language, and you have to understand the culture to understand the message. The Bible was not written outside of its culture as a message only for those 2,000 - 6,000 years later. It had relevance to the people each part was written to at the time, and you have to know the background to get a true sense of what Scripture is saying.
If you are really interested in this, check out a book entitled "Making Sense Out Of Scripture" by Mark Shea.
SYS 64738
By supporting Arlen Spectre over his challenger, Bush basically guaranteed that any of his allegedly anti-abortion judicial candidates would be "Borked" again. It was Spectre, a republican, that went off like a rabid attack dog on Bork when IIRC Bush senior was trying to get him approved. And do you know what the irony of it is? Bork is the kind of conservative that would have ripped Microsoft a new asshole on its anti-trust case if it had gone to the SCotUS.
Between his support for spectre, illegal alien amnesty, spending like a stripper with a stolen credit card, new entitlements and his equivocation on supporting Israel he stands to lose the Christian Right from the comments I've been reading on right-of-center sites. Most of them are not commentary sites either, but forums like FreeRepublic.
Unfortunately most of these guys will be deusch bags in 2004 and would stay home rather than vote for Petruka the Constitution Party candidate. Why? If it ain't the big guy, and it ain't their big guy, no point in voting. Most of them are probably working class or barely in the middle class because they cannot connect two simple facts: if they came out and voted LP or CP instead of voting for Bush, the minor parties would get so many votes that the RP would be howling in pain in 2004 and would be whoring itself out to the right to get its base back. But they won't do that, so why should the Republicans give a flying fuck about the Christian Right anymore?
As I have often quipped, we libertarians are the principled on the right, the "christian right" aren't principled, their voting habits show it. Rather they are merely the spoiled brats of the right.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
...but you cannot have a religious fundamentalist oil baron as president and expect him to respect pure science. I would take it a step further and say that you cannot have a truly religious person be impartial, unbiased, and untainted when making any type of policy-wide science-related decision. It's oil and water; religion and science just don't gel. Oh yeah, people say then can and do, but those people are usually of the religiously inclined, who are trying to stay true to their belief system without looking like a progress-hating ignoramous.
Slightly off-topic but relevant, I was having this discussion with a colleague. I posited that in a perfect political system, a politician would not be allowed to run for president; instead, we should only nominate and elect outgoing, well-versed, and apolitical scholars, with advanced degrees in areas pertinent to running a nation, such as economics, sociology, or whatnot. My colleagues rebuttal was that such people would not want the type of lifestyle that comes along with being El Presidente, thus would never even enter themselves in the running. Therefore, we continue to elect former actors, pure politicians, and shady businessmen to our highest office, thus perpetuating our current kakistocracy.
Suckage begets suckage.
Governments are not necessary.
...you could make things less radioactive by EATING them.
Yup. That would do it
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Radiation is a consequence of the instability of the nuclei of certain atoms. The process of burning only affects the bonds between atoms, not the nuclei of individual atoms. When you burn wood, the resulting by-products do contain carbon, it's true, but only because carbon atoms existed in the wood, to start with. If you burn magnesium, for example, you get oxides of magnesium, but no carbon, because there was no carbon to start with. There are processes which can change the nuclei of certain atoms, converting them to material which is 'less' radioactive before they're disposed of, but I'm afraid I don't have the details of them: anyone else care to contribute? As for being flamed for asking reasonable science questions: I would hope that the majority of readers would have more contempt for the flamer than the flamee.
This is all very interesting...but the "Church" has nothing to do with Bush...as he's not even Catholic but adheres to a much more rigid form: Born-Again Christian. The Born-Again Christians whom I've met in person and have had many talks with belive that the Church is the spawn of Satan...I'm not making that up folks, no joke.
While being an athiest, I DO see where you're coming from and it would certainly be an interesting evening if you and I were to sit down and have a conversation...but I've yet to have an interesting one with a "born-again" who feels in the absolute truth and validity of the Bible and everything...EVERYTHING in it.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
The Catholic Church (wow, I never thought I'd hear my self say this).... the Catholic Church has taken a surprisingly liberal view on the sciences recently, and has endured the wrath of the religious right in the United States because of it.
I'm not going to get into the whole abortion debate here, because fundamentally that's a personal decision and religion really should have nothing to do with it at the legislative/judicial level. Nonetheless, the Catholics while still endorsing "God Guided Evolution" (last I checked) also still buy into a number of other apocryphal stories in the Old Testament such as Noah and that guy who got eaten by the whale (Johna?).
What the Church needs to do is step back and say one way or the other "The Bible contains passages which may be metaphorical" or "The Bible should be taken literally at all times." If you're willing to admit the former, you need to be willing to allow the individual to judge what is Metaphorical and what is not for themselves. Obviously the Church has it within her power to take exception to this from time to time through the Pope's power of speaking Ex Cathedra.
Still, were the Church to view things in this way it would set a powerful precedent for the rest of the world and might just allow some of the Authoritarian Theocratic States (like the USA) to accomplish something in the sciences.
Obviously there are portions of the Bible that are important. That whole "love they neighbor" thing can make for a pretty decent place to live. But you can buy into that without agreeing with the bit about Adam living to be 900 or so.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
On most of the questions the responses from the candidates were equally uninformative. Overall I was impressed with the use of actual figures and specific plans in the Bush responses, versus the vague generalizations and even clearly ambiguous answers on questions like Mars and ballistic missile defenses that Kerry gave.
For the slightly interesting questions, here is the summary of responses(I am sure that Bush did not write his responses personally; for Kerry I am unsure, but I suspect that he didn't either):
Stem cell research: Bush quotes amounts of federal money given for stem cell research, whereas Kerry promises to allow federal funding of stem cell research on new lines. Scientists interested in stem cell research will all prefer Kerry's response.
Nuclear weapons: Bush promises to fund development of new types of nuclear weapons, Kerry promises not to.
Ballistic missile defense: Bush promises to deploy a system within the next two years, Kerry promises not to deploy the system Bush proposes for immediate deployment. No word on whether Kerry plans to continue funding research or eventually deploy a different system.
Greenhouse gas emmisions: Bush quotes previously announced goal of 18% reduction in US greenhouse gas emissions. Kerry promises to join Kyoto protocol.
Space science: Bush quotes Mars mission plan. Kerry promises that NASA will be given sufficient support for any future missions he proposes. No mention of any planned mission proposals, and it implies that he will can the Mars mission plan, although it doesn't say that explicitly.
This is insightfull stuff here.
Bush wants to prohibit research on reproductive research- stems cells and sexual sociology. Kerry wants to prohibit R&D on next generation nuclear weapons and anti-missile technology. I think limiting R&D of most any kind is counter productive in the long term. Some other country will do it.
Im no expert on the subject, but all the radioactive fuels I know of are heavy metals...certainly not flammable. I doubt excessive heat would accomplish anything except melting the waste into pretty shapes. Fumes would probably be lethal, too. Radioactice stuff will eventually decay, but I don't believe theres any practical way to make any signifigant quantity non-radioactive. Reprocessing used fuel to squeeze as much out of it as they can helps, but the problem still exists. Basically, the goal is to just contain it somewhere nobody cares about until it (eventually) gets relatively non-radioactive. To learn more about it, go google half-life & radioactive.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
In answer to just about every single question, Kerry pledges to do more, fund more, oversee more, and spend more.
Sure, that is all well and good, but if he is actually elected he will realize that it will surely be impossible to do all that he has pledged, even with all the increases in Taxes that he has planned.
I saw Bush's answers as much more definative and realistic.
geremy
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Mod parent up!
Mod the parent of the parent up! Don't let these religious wienies take over this site.
Besides, what the parent had to say was insightfull, just look at Bush's record in things of this nature. Do you really need someone holding your hand with this stuff?
Did your High-Priest^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HSchool Psychologists teach you how to do a coffeeshop sanity evaluation, or something?
Anyone who assesses someone on the basis of 'sanity' is a pawn for the Holy Church of Psych. There are no authorities on sanity, fool!
Perhaps not coincidentally, the French also were involved in Vietnam, as its colonial power. Will John Kerry's nefarious weak-kneed continental foppishness never cease to disgust red-blooded Americans?
The "Wait a minute, don't you think he looks kind of... French...?" moment may have been as low a moment for the American electoral process as Karl Rove's South Carolina push polls implying John McCain had sired a mixed-race child out of wedlock. Hear all about it from McCain's own campaign people.
Not that the "Frenchie" thing was near as disturbing, as a tactic -- it didn't smack so outrageously of the most extreme possible "Southern Strategy." But it was if anything even more puerile, which has got to be a record.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Actually he read "My Pet Goat" to find decisions while the entire country was upside down on one fine day in September three years ago.
I was going tow write a responce, but I'm not the most informed person on the subject. I'll let someone more knowledgeble than I make the point.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I consider myself a Christian and lean towards the right on most issues, and I will definitely NOT be voting for Bush in Nov.
This has got to be bogus.
I can actually read and understand Dubbyahs answers.
Darwin was a pretty devout Christian as I recall. And Copernicus and Gregor Mendol were both monks. In general Christianity and Science are most definately compatible. Evangelical, Fundamentalist Christianity is a different kettle of fish.
-sam
I was just here, where did I go?
I used to work in a series of book stores. (It was my job to set up "superstores" for one of the big chains, back when those were new and cool.) I'll never forget the indignant customer who approached me one day at the register to unload an accusation that our magazine rack was decidedly slanted to the left. This came as a mild surprise to me -- our magazine choices were extensive, you know how big those racks are, and I'd seen the inventory list many times in the process of setting up the stores without thinking I saw any particular bias. Was I simply sleepwalking past this problem?
So, good-natured service person that I was, I asked this customer to explain to me how we might correct the problem, and to maybe suggest alternative titles we could carry to make up the balance. Told her I'd send the suggestions in to the General Office.
She had plenty to say against basically every title on the shelf. Time Magazine? Newsweek? US News & World Report? The Economist? Completely liberal. Every news magazine we carried that wasn't edited by William F. Buckley was also ultra-liberal. That we even carried Columbia Journalism Review irked her -- that was for the media, itself horribly liberal.
She had one suggestion for an alternative title we could carry -- it was a niche political publication that didn't distribute to our area of the Midwest. Otherwise she wanted me to remove titles from the rack. Several titles.
There was only one magazine this woman had a dilemma over: "Girls and Guns" magazine. Guns she seemed to be okay with -- but she suspected there was something not quite right about "girls" that would buy it.
When you issue your little "wrong side of the river" fatwas against opposing opinions, you can count me out of the distribution list.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Religion is exactly 100 percent 180 degrees from science. Anyone who thinks otherwise is thinking wrong. Wrong as in "not correct". Wrong as in "untruthful". Wrong as in 1 = 2. Wrong as in black = white.
Anyone who states that religion isn't mutually exclusive from science believes in miracles and is most likely religious in the first place. I cannot even fathom the depths of illogic that goes on in thinking that way. Religion is about picking an idea about the way you think the world works and.....NEVER CHANGING IT. That is NOT the way science works. Science is about picking an idea about the way the world works and actually testing it to FIND OUT IF IT IS TRUE. True as in equal to reality. That is what truth means, an equivalence between the way you think the world works and the way it actually works.
The difference between those who truely believe in things and those who doubt is that those who doubt leave a wake of truths in their path.
I guess it isn't illogical that people who believe science isn't mutually exclusive from religion are themselves religious. Wake up.
Manipulation of science: George Bush's presidency has suffered a rash of accusations that he is either ignoring or manipulating science.
This coming fom the community who have been backpeddling as fast as they can on "global warming" (because facts don't back it up) and now endlessly peddling their latest spin (drumroll please, are you ready?): "climate change". And that's just one of many, many... Funny, that.
(Score:-5, Rationalist)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Neil is wrong. If 90% of a source is crap but happens to be correct about 10% of its content, then clearly that source is a bad place to look for information about that remaining 10%. There is clearly a better place to look for information on that content.
:-)
Kinda like slashdot?
It was Einstein who famously insisted that "God does not play dice" even when there was mounting evidence of the "truly random" effects in Quantum Mechanics. Just an example of someone's religion getting in the way of science.
http://www.nixtro.com/pentagon121.swf
....to determine who wins is a no-holds barred, fight to the death. No problems with chad's, a brother's state, the man with the most number of votes losing, etc, etc..
Simply take both the candidates, lock them into a cage and have a gladitorial conflict to the death (or one quits).
I'm waiting for the Jessie/arnie showdown
with tongue firmly in cheek
Jaj
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Dubya's reckless defecit spending has made the Canadian dollar strong again. If he gets to screw up the American economy for another fours years, Canadian may finally have a stronger dollar the US again! Mmmm, I can't wait to buy a cheap IPod. A vote for Dubya is a vote for all non-Americans (unless yer skin ain't white and yer sitting on a lot of oil).
I don't believe for a second that Bush could even successfully read his responses in there, much less understand what they mean.
Clearly the questions were provided in writing where others could answer, not verbally where they had to answer for themselves.
That makes both sets of answers largely meaningless.
I have been paying close attention to science policy since the Nixon years. Every administration, Republican and Democrat has had serious problems with its science policy, but in my opinion, and in the opinion of many of us old enough to have been there, there has never been an adminstration where Science was so badly distorted for ideological reasons. From climate change to missile defense to abortion to environmental toxins to the teaching of evolution, the Bush administration has made science subordinate to its ideological positions.
As others in this thread have noted, the actual printed responses in the Nature article are mostly unhelpful canned PR blurbs (and it is a scary sign of ideological polarization to see Nature, the world's most prestigious general scientific journal, described as "far left"), but it is important not to lose sight of the fact that this is not just politics as usual. There are plenty of conservatives and Republicans who are friends of good science, but there is nothing conservative about the Bush administration in this regard: they are radicals, in favor of science only when it supports their ideology.
This is terribly dangerous. To paraphrase the great physicist, Richard Feynman, (whom I first heard make statements like this when I was a student at Caltech): For any technological society to succeed, sound science must take precendence over ideological conviction, because nature cannot be fooled. In my opinion, the Bush administration's failure to understand this concept presents a grave danger to our country and to the world.
Yeah, let's turn the radioactive solid into radioactive fumes. Then we can reuse it by filling party baloons with them.
at sufficiently high temperatures, not only will atomic bonds be affected, but electrons can be stripped from their nuclei, causing a plasma to form. and then given sufficient pressures, you could trigger nuclear reactions. whether the results of these reactions are more or less radioactive than the original reactants, i'm not sure. it probably depends on the nature of the original reactants. and this whole process sounds incredibly unrealistic and impractical, so while what you suggested may be possible, i doubt it would be more practical than just burying the stuff at yucca mountain or even firing it into the sun.
Actually only 1/2 the non-voting public would need to vote to get a 3rd party candidate in office (since only 50% vote and roughly 1/2 go to one side and 1/2 go to the other).
25% of voting population to bush
25% of voting population to kerry
25% of voting population to 3rd Party Person
25% eating cornnuts not knowing there is an election going on.
"the Bush administration has opposed the introduction of enforced cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions and has refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol."
Now to me, this is a way to show Bush in a bad light, because he won't sign the Kyoto Protocol; however,
"a Kerry-Edwards administration will not sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, partly because the short-term goals are unfeasible, says Devona Dolliole, a spokeswoman for the campaign."
So the difference is: Bush flatout won't sign up to the Kyoto Protocol while Kerry won't because it's not feasible. I don't see how this as "Contrasting" the two politicians.
Even funnier still is that people think these politicians will actually do what they say. Heck, for Bush (being his second term), he could say "I will sign up to the Kyoto Protocol and make it even more expensive for developed countries" without consequence (besides losing the funding of some oil companies and car manufacturers).
Emissions should be controlled at the state level first. California is taking new initiatives to make the emissions guidelines for automobiles even more stringent than they already are, affecting automobile manufacturing. As California takes the lead, other states can follow. It's like an Alpha phase, then a Beta, and finally all the states can adopt over time. Now I know Bush definitely did nothing to see if this was possible within states he had power, but does anyone know if Kerry did with Massachusetts? (I'm from MA and nothing comes to mind, but I could be wrong)If he didn't, I'll take his current stance as "what can I do to get more votes" and not "what I actually believe in"
NOTE: I am a fan of neither candidate. I would have much rather seen Nader's and Badnarik's comments next to these questions.
By reading the first question's both answers as a citizen of the united states I guess I wouldn't feel bad. Maybe bush's answer was a bit harsher. However, both answers make 18 year olds that are not citizens of the united states scared that they won't be able to have free educational life there.
Every young adult wants to have a couple of his/her college/university years in a reality or illution of freedom. These answers just sloughter this feeling. Nobody reading them would choose UK or.. Hong Kong as better destinations.
However I understand the feeling of fear that covers the united states nowadays. It's the one and only super power in the meta-coldwar years therefore every terrorist's dream.
You have two choices for a better life. Either give up some of this power or its execution or be braver.
-someone
Bush is going to win anyway.
Question: Will you (do cool science X)?
Bush: I already did.
Kerry: I will look for other countries to do it.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
Most of the questions were loaded, and the answers were predictable. Here is how I imagine the article would have been written if one of the topic areas was the color of the sky:
Nature: All scientists agree that the sky is green. What are you doing about it?
Bush: Er, umm. (Green?) Ahem. Yes, well, my administration, um, has made green sky policy a priority.
Kerry: As president I would support more (insert topic here) funding. Senator Edwards and I believe that we can grow the economy, while at the same time giving attention to the (insert topic here) issue.
Proverbs 21:19
Bush's supporters have been shown to vote for him soely on moral ground.
And? Why shouldn't somebody need to be moral to hold a position of great responsibility?
The poorest county in america voted more then 80% for Bush. Why you ask? Because Bush has the Christian Right, a sizeable population.
This is an odd argument. I hadn't noticed that the poor and uneducated of the inner cities, for example, were voting Republican. It's also a rather offensive, sneering argument that relieves you of the need to think, ironically.
Bush can screw the enviroment,
He has done no such thing.
tax people into the ground,
Um, he's the guy who cut taxes. Kerry wants to raise them, er, repeal the cuts, er, something, unless you actually ask him, or something.
reinstate the draft,
That is a Moore-ian fantasy.
declare war on canada and mexico
Are we into Saturday Night Live now, or what?
If people will wake up and realize that voting for Bush without understanding the issues is killing our country, then perhapse they will change... but until then bush can look forward to having all the bible thumpers under his belt, and abusing his power more and more. Ah well, personally, I think you should have to have a slashdot account to vote this year.
That this sort of bigotry is considered "insightful" is just pathetic.
I like how scientists are called "impartial" in this report. Bush is slammed for not signing the Kyoto Protocol, something many consider junk. Yet, it is typical for a group of scientists to consider their position as "the" position. Global Warming is a theory, and not a unanimous one. Yet, we would hold someone's feet to the fire on it? Puhleez.
Most of Bush's answers seem to not make much sense or have major terminology errors...
But in the answer to question 6... "ITER is a critically important experiment to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity and hydrogen." (emphasis added)
Perhaps one of the many scientific reviewers that parsed his comments before sending them to nature should've let him know that fusion actually consumes hydrogen?
Oh and on question 3... is "fissile materials" really a word?
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
Give them Tim Sebastian. That guy rocks big time!
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
I follow space stuff pretty closely but I can't speak to the rest. Kerry's response is boilerplate stuff that he's said before. Bush's stance on space is flawed but a whole lot better than Kerry's in my opinion. From what I can tell Kerry thinks of space as a place to do international diplomacy publicity stunts, do drug research, and talk about how great it is. Not much more.
Not to hijack the topic but NASA has needed direction more than money and that's what Bush has given it. the engineers will fine tune the details like mission plans. the president's job is go give them broad-brushed policy. humans plus robots in space as appropriate is a-ok with me.
Blaze a trail to the New World
My comments about American Democracy (more specfically the 2 party system) are at the bottom*
:)
Well, I think Badnarik could possibly take votes away from Bush. There are several Republicans that are mad at Bush for not controlling spending, I am willing to give him a small pass since we have had some unusual circumstances during his presidency.
Badnarik is just too extreme (I want an FDA thank you very much) for my tastes. If the Libertarians were more moderate they would be a good party,and would engender a great deal of support.
I am fiscally conservative and socially somewhat liberal. I just don't think the "social" issues have any chance of changing any time soon, plus I care less about them.
I do agree that a vote for Nader or McCobb is probably a vote for Bush. Although, if they weren't running many of their supporters may not vote at all so it is hard to say
Bush 50% Kerry 47% Nader 3%
Well, there you see, Kerry has a tie because you just add the 3 to 47!
I am looking forward to the election
--Joey
*In some ways our 2 party system works well, because picture that we had 10 (viable) parties, and let's say one of the parties was called the "Party of God" you could have people like Falwell controlling the all branches of government, because you only need 10% to win. It would give rise to extreme opinions because you have to find your niche. Even with our system, we still haven't had the winner of the last few elections grab more than 50% of the votes (I doubt this will be different).
Why don't you ask Kerry about shooting a fleeing wounded teenage enemy combatant IN THE BACK, in a war the he opposed? Wouldn't the 'right thing' to do be to allow the kid to get away?
I don't know why I'm even trying to debate this - the 'excuses President' is just the latest Kerry campaign tactic - the fact that you're using it shows where you are on the polictical spectrum, and leaves little chance that you're open to debate.
I've heard this argument before, but I just don't get it. Do you honestly feel that an athiest is some kind of wild-man who runs around in a totally sociopathic way?
No, but the athiest is somebody who has a cultural inheritence from societies who's morals were shaped by religion.
And you do see a drift, over time, towards that wild man thing. The 60's flower children had a huge cultural inheritence of religion-based stability, so they just assumed that if you did away with all that morality jazz we'd all just live in peace and free love harmony. Didn't quite work out that way, did it? And every generation since has less and less of that inheritence of morality.
Priceless :-)
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
some reasons why Bush isn't allowed to answer such questions by himself:
"Let me put it to you bluntly. In a changing world, we want more people to have control over your own life." --George W. Bush, Annandale, Va, Aug. 9, 2004
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004
"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004
"The march to war hurt the economy. Laura reminded me a while ago that remember what was on the TV screens -- she calls me, 'George W.' -- 'George W.' I call her, 'First Lady.' No, anyway -- she said, we said, march to war on our TV screen." --George W. Bush, Bay Shore, New York, Mar. 11, 2004
but I've yet to have an interesting one with a "born-again" who feels in the absolute truth and validity of the Bible and everything...EVERYTHING in it.
It's called cognitive dissonance. If you come to believe something that is too far from reality to be reconcilable with it, your mind will choose to reject reality instead of rejecting existing knowledge. That is the essence of brainwashing: you fill a person's mind with so much disinformation they are unable to act outside the guidelines of what they already know.
When you talk to those people both of you are unable to reconcile what the other person is saying with what you already know, and you never reach a common ground to start a debate from. By wholly rejecting the other person based on what they are saying, it becomes impossible to hold a real conversation, which is why neither of you finds anything but affirmation of their existing beliefs in what little conversation that does ensue.
The Bible has been translated through many languages/dialects to the present. Events relocated due to revised spelling/pronunciations.
Nothing was written down until 200AD.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
deusch is not the word you're looking for it's douche (french not german).
Because as it has become apparent, it certainly had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, nor with 'liberating' the Iraqi people. Or if it did, it was executed so incompetently that claiming an ulterior motive is almost charitable.
You do realize that in the real world not everything is wrapped up in 30 minutes with a happy ending? Nobody knows how Iraq will turn out, however calling it a failure as the first free election in the craddle of civilization is about to occur this January seems a bit short sighted.
Just a few days ago I had a revelation why God never wants himself to be proven: Amazingly, this is really easy to answer. God wants to test our hearts. Our hearts aren't just an organ, it directly represents our desires. Everyone wants, desires, and even wishes for different things, what do you want? Now the key is,"Is what you want something God would find good?" Now If you could prove God existed, then he wouldn't get the chance to know the whole you. The whole culture would be skewed towards goodly living, so people born into the culture would be different. Think about it. Everyone would be doing good deeds just to show off to God, and not because their heart tells them but because they have to. They'd just be trying to score points in a game, it'd be just like money to them. So if someone's greedy and knew there was a God, he'd find it better to store treasures in heaven, so he'd give to the poor. Whereas, people not knowing if there is a God or not(people in our reality), if they're greedy, they just want money, a big house, good food, and other stupid luxuries for themself. God can watch this person and know him. Some will argue,"God knows everyone before they're even born.", to them I'd say,"Or as in covered in Job, maybe God already knows everyone, but just likes to show good examples off to the devil who doesn't have the vision God has." Anyway, I hope you can see why God hasn't let his presence be scientifically known. www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me.
Huh, I have no idea what you're trying to say so I'm going to just hold on to my ideas...
/ Funny moderations in a LONG time! It's like watching ping-pong.
All kidding aside, this is very interesting. I'll have to read up on this aspect of things because so many times it get's bogged down into what is happening on Slashdot with this subject. I haven't seen so many Troll/Insightfull/Flamebait/Interesting/Overrated
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
I keep hearing about how the temperature is signifigantly higher than it used to be but never see it reported what the mean and standard deviation of what the global temperature actually is.
Hey now, let's not bring strippers down to Bush's level.
Do not touch -Willie
Mod parent up as insightful
If you want insight into the candidate's views on science, you should look into views on basic issues, like Evolution.
Bush has made several comments supporting the teaching of creationism in public schools. But, given the radical religious beliefs permeating his administration, this is not really surprising.
In essence, an Irish reporter, Carole Coleman, was granted a sit-down interview with Bush a few weeks ago. She gave a BBC-style interview (in depth, follow-up questions), following which they White House lodged an official complaint with the Irish embassy.
That's the problem - any in depth interview like that, and you'll find your press pass revoked (and your visa, if you're an international journalist).
-T
I haven't seen US territory get hit with another major attack in the last three years.
Q: How long was is between the 9/11 and the previous AlQ ueda attack on US territory?
A: About 8 years.
Can we, from this data, conclude that Clinton was a great preventer of terrorism? After all he kept us from being attacked for 7 years...
Al Queda doesn't, and never has, attacked frequently; they attack grandly. The fact that 3 years have gone by since a major attack is meaningless. They probably wouldn't have attacked again by now even if we had been sitting on our thumbs.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Are you saying global warming is a fact or is global warming caused by humans is a fact? I'm open to seeing any scientific proofs that you have that I am unaware of.
Discount it or not but there is disagreement about the causation of global warming. My own feeling is that there is a human factor to it but the quantitative proof has not been established.
In regards to the Kyoto treaty, the inequity in responsibility for relief was enough to kill it. That coupled with the unproven benefits to be realized meant that the treaty was more of a political and economic weapon than an environmentally sound policy.
Bush sat down eith Tim Russert for an hour on Meet the Press. He met with Bob Woodward for several hours. Kerry is still trying to figure out why he's running so he hasn't taken questions from the press for over a month.
I was in New Zealand during the 2000 USA election debacle and, as soon as anyone heard my USA accent, they invariably asked if we still felt justified messing with every other country's electoral process when we apparently couldn't run an honest internal election.
Every day, the USA election debacle was the front page of every NZ newspaper.
Every day there were jokes comparing us to a banana republic.
What was happening here? Well, we made our bed and now we have to lie in it. They will probably butt out of ours if we butt out of theirs, but that will be a cold day in hell.
Mod me as a troll, but it seems to me that this should be listed under Politics rather than Science. The fact that most of the comments are about Bush vs. Kerry *Politics*, rather than anything about science.
I'm really disappointed the answer to so many of these questions is "Oh, we'll spend more, of course". Kerry's speech at the DNC was much the same. There he started out saying he'll balance the budget and then 90% of his speech is what he'll spend more on. I didn't get to see Bush's speech, but I imagine it was much the same. If politicians weren't allowed to be such flim flams maybe we would start seeing actual solutions being proposed like ending the war on drugs, tossing out the nuke stockpile, breaking up the two party system for something more democratic (lol, ok fat chance on that one), etc..
The Jewish people had many wars for the region of Israel. They didn't kill off everyone, so they were to be punished in that nearby people were to be raised as a thorn in their side for all time. Some Jewish leaders believe this still to be true and want to wipe out the Palestinians.
Now anyone who declares a war in the name of the New Testament is really misunderstandting the text. And many people do misunderstand or pervert the text.
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me.
Theoretically, shooting nuclear waste into the sun would get rid of it, as the sun could break it down into component atoms that would mix in with the already-present radioactive soup. (Someone who has studied this aspect, please correct me if I'm wrong.)
However, the other aspect - getting the waste to the sun - makes this completely impossible. There is no method of launch that is safe enough to risk a large payload of nuclear waste. Perhaps - just perhaps - if we would build our nuclear plants on the moon, we could safely dispose of the waste of those plants by jettisoning. No way on earth.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
What the [Catholic] Church needs to do is step back and say one way or the other "The Bible contains passages which may be metaphorical" or "The Bible should be taken literally at all times." If you're willing to admit the former, you need to be willing to allow the individual to judge what is Metaphorical and what is not for themselves. Obviously the Church has it within her power to take exception to this from time to time through the Pope's power of speaking Ex Cathedra.
The Catholic church has never held the view that the Bible must be taken literally at all times, but that "Scripture and Tradition take equal weight". In fact, the Catholic/Protestant split arose because the (soon to be) Protestants insisted the Bible was the literal Word of God, and it contradicted certain Church teachings and practises. The Catholics countered that the Word of God comes directly from the Pope, and not the Bible which is, after all, a Church-assembled anthology.
Anyway, if the Pope came up with something radical like you're suggesting, all he would do is cause another schism in the Catholic Church; some would follow the new teaching, some wouldn't, and nothing would be clarified. Least of all for the Protestants, who have no equivalent office to the Pope, and are hardly likely to take to the Pope's view into account.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
Did they have a choice? If they went on saying that the earth was still flat in the face of "proof" they'd be written off as crazies(arguably as they should).
To semi-quote Neil Stephenson in Snowcrash - "Most smart people come to realize that 90% of the Bible is crap. The problem is they assume that the whole thing is crap, when that 10% is very important."
I dunno about you but if 90% of something is irrelevant/untrue I consider the rest of it to be highly suspect. Eventually when we have eroded 99% of what is in the bible there will be a few hold outs saying that the last 1% is true. How much do they need to concede is untrue before people say hey, this entire document is largely innaccurate/untrue?
I guess my point is that you can't look to the bible for anything that NATIONAL POLICY is based on as we have already shown 90% to be untrue(by your own admission). With that in mind, anyone who bases decisions based on something so overwhelmingly innaccurate is foolish indeed. Basing your policies on the bible is akin to basing your views of gun culture/president bush on Michael Moore's documentaries.
Your statement makes it sound like it shoudl be this or that, when in fact it should be both.
It reminds me of the decisions you make in a game like C&C Red Alert with limited funds. Do I buy the Patriot missle battery for air attack first or do I buy more men first. You want them both for a complete defence but you can only get them one at a time.
Missle Defence is not wasted money! Think about how useful it could be to ourselves and our allies.
"I want an FDA thank you very much"
I wouldn't be so certain. I think such tasks are better left to consumer advocacy groups. One thing the FDA did for years was block a food from entering the US that could basically cure a large number of cases of epilepsy in children. Why was it blocked? The can claimed it had 3 carbs per serving, while the FDA thought it had 11. Thankfully that pissing contest is now resolved.
By the way, for those of you stuck with epilepsy, I wholeheartedly recommend The Ketogenic Diet. It provides a drug-free way of dealing with epilepsy that is MUCH MUCH more side-effect-free than current epilepsy meds. Ketocal was the food that was blocked by the FDA, which is a powder that allows you to serve the ketogenic diet to children with feeding tubes.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Your Prayers Have Been Answered.
Stream
Use Real, Real Alternative, Quicktime or VLC. Not sure about WMP.
A real interview with the President. With a real jounalist from Ireland. From late June 2004 with Irish broadcasting.
OMG do he look incompetent. This is the little known but infamous interview where he claims that Pakistan is a democracy!
From the transcript:
[My emphasis]
Well as you will understand after viewing that; there is a reason why this is the only lenghty interview with non-preapproved questions he will do with a decent journalist asking real questions not just picthing.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Man was created on the 6th day, world was something like the 3rd or something?
Key is the time in God's day is different than our day.
Its quite likely the way God created creatures was a mix of creationism and evolution over the course of hundreds of millions of years... Eventually settled on a time when he liked, and made a garden. I don't think the trees had to date back to the beginning of time.
I wouldn't say the bible was ever meant to be a scientific text, but saying God can violate expected science whenever he feels like it, and he does it in such ways that tales of his power are unbelievable to some.
I know God exists, he spoke to me: www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me.
He nor his campaign have ever once mentioned pulling out of Iraq.
No, as he realizes that the "you break it you buy it" principle applies to Iraq. What he does want to do is increase international participation in Iraq, which Bush hasn't been able to do thanks to his "my way or the highway" approach.
"Bush makes it quite clear that people should stop thinking of stem cell research as a solution to all medical problems, and especially NOW, at the current time, we shouldn't be giving false hope to people who have recently been diagnosed."
Let's turn that around, shall we? Replace "oil exploration" with "stem cell research".
Bush makes it quite clear that people should stop thinking of [oil exploration] as a solution to all [energy] problems, and especially NOW, at the current time, we shouldn't be giving false hope to people who have recently been [paying jacked-up oil prices].
One more time, with "ballistic missile defense system".
Bush makes it quite clear that people should stop thinking of [the ballistic missile defense system] as a solution to all [national security] problems, and especially NOW, at the current time, we shouldn't be giving false hope to people who have recently been [attacked by terrorists]
See, when you divorce the logic from the religious dogma held by some re: stem cell research, it's sounds incredibly stupid doesn't it?
The Gospel of Mark, however, is understood by all Christians to be a historical narrative.
Christians differ over what parts they think refer to historical narrative.
Therein lies the problem. If the Bible was so clear, there wouldn't be 1600 sects of Christianity. Face it. The first liberalization of the bible was the New Testament, and it'll keep going until (I hope I see the day) the United States is just like Europe - where people believe some parts and ignore others, and combine other religious principles as well.
And, since every line of the bible is open to interpretation, the places where the Bible coincides with other history (which it should, since it was written during or after), do not mean that the rest of the bible is true. Okay, Egypt had slaves! That doesn't man a stave can turn into a snake.
Meanwhile, half of the Christian organizations in the world lie daily to con middle-class, the poor, and vulnerable seniors out of their hard earned money. Over at World Changers, the two head pastors have matching Bentleys and matching private jets. I have a feeling if Christian "non-profits" were forced to have transparent accounting, the people who make $400 a week would keep a little more in their own pocket.
Remember, Christ walked the world with no posessions. He never asked for money. He preached love and tolerance. He spent time comforting the addicts, prostitutes, and the unloved and unaccepted. But today nearly every organization (ahem, 700 Club) calls these people sick and evil.
http://www.cbn.com/communitypublic/ -- Check it out! Pat's Age Defying Shake! Word of god, my ass.
Like doctors who no longer rely on exorcism to cure the common cold, some of us have found reasons to be moral that don't depend on mythology.
vk.
"I want an FDA thank you very much"
I wouldn't be so certain. I think such tasks are better left to consumer advocacy groups.
Yeah... damn that FDA. I wish we could roll back to the late 1890s when companies sold radioactive water because "radation was nature's miracle worker". The whole hole in your jaw side effect was just... a coincidence.
For instance, on further Nuclear weapons, he was straight to the point. I paraphrase, "We will discontinue research for next-generation Nuclear weapons, they are not needed."
The research that's being done right now is to determine whether we really need the weapons. No one is actually building them. It's unclear how Kerry can know that we don't need them, unless he comes from the Dan Rather school of evidence. It would seem that Bush's position (lets study this to see if we really need these things or not) is the more scientific in this case.
I also wonder why he's so consistent in referring to 'John Edwards and I'.
I thought this was funny, too. I think it's probably because Edwards has so much more charisma than Kerry (at least if you listen to those who have seen the two in public).
...it will be interesting to see if he (and John Edwards) stick to his (their) guns if Kerry does become the next president.
You mean like how he has consistent positions on things like the war in Iraq?JOIN US FOR PONG!
Statements like this always amaze me. I'm sure it's a matter of semantics to some degree, but "religious thought" to me implies reasoning based on one's opinion of a higher, eternal being or morality outside of Man and our own expediency. To wit, the statement "there is no God so it doesn't matter what I do" is as much a religious statement as "God says this is right, so it is what I will do".
I think people that make statements like this have little knowledge of scientific history. Many scientists throughout history have been deeply religious - in the believing in God sense, and also in the "there is no God" sense. One's opinion on the eternal profoundly and deeply affects all of one's life. Many "believing" scientists feel that studying and understanding our physical world is a way to understand and know the eternal better.
Anyway, I find it hard to believe people can disconnect their "scientific" thought from their "religious" thought. Science is based on hypotheses. One of the most fundamental hypotheses is "is there a God?" A scientist's answer to that statement will deeply affect the rest of their approach to a question/problem/experiment.
My guess is that this is referring to the US's policy concerning abortion. From a "scientific" point of view, a fetus/embryo is a human being. Period. We then make moral decisions on whether human beings are inherently worth preserving, or whether certain stages of human life are more or less valuable. Many "religious" - in the believe in some Higher Being sense - people believe that all human life, regardless of stage of development, ought to be preserved - or at least ought not to be casually destroyed. - Jasen.Let me point out some fallacies I see being repeated over and over again throughout the threads on this topic:
Fallacy - The set of people who are scientists does not intersect the set of people who are Christians.
Fact - Many scientists are also Christians, including myself.
Fallacy - Bush does not allow stem cell research.
Fact - Bush does not support fetal stem cell research with my personal tax dollars. Dollars for stem cell research are still being spent by our government, and private institutions can perform their own embryonic stem cell research if they so choose. You can even donate your own personal money to support embryonic stem cell research.
That is all for now, thank you.
It's a good book, quite well written, with a powerful message for Christians. I think it should be required reading for them.
Unfortunately, if you knock out his assumptions that 1) there is a god and 2) this god is purely good, then the rest of his arguments don't hold up.
vk.
Of course you're making the sad assumption that 90% of it is crap, which is coming from some random author.
I have a BS in scientific computing with a minor in physics from CMU and I haven't seen any holes in the bible. I think 100% of it is important, but some of it is VERY DIFFICULT to understand. People who's mind can't fathom the harder parts, or the miracles are prone to reject it. Just like in science when someone comes up with a new theory that contradicts the old school, many people don't want to hear it.
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me.
My money's on them both failing miserably. I'd handicap Kerry as having the better advantage, but they'd both suck gigantic monkey nuts at any sort of trivia game.
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Oh and on question 3... is "fissile materials" really a word?
Well, it's two words, but yes, it is a normal term ... or sounds normal to this former Navy nuke.
The whole "Bush is dumb" thing gets really boring ... neither of them is a scientist, nor does either of them study router tables or web server logs. So?
"Most smart people come to realize that 90% of the Bible is crap. The problem is they assume that the whole thing is crap, when that 10% is very important."
That's a very intersting view point.
Just this week, I chose to live my entire life by the moral leadership of a foreign book written in a different country thousands of years ago. Boy, how superior I now feel.
alongside thousands of others
Alongside a few others for a clear political agenda to document and film for political gain and to rip apart the VERY TROOPS he "fought alongside".
Kerry was a rather significant contributor to the low morale of Vietnam.
The AWOL you refer to is a forgery or do you not read?
Most research money does not come from federal grants. Federal grants pale in comparison to what a single "blockbuster" drug such as Prozac or Viagra makes. That's the money that funds most of these companies.
The reason the drugs cost so much has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of marketing. It is almost entirely due to the cost of research and development, which costs many billions of dollars and results in only a tiny percentage of successful drugs. Generics are produced by companies that merely copy already-successful drugs, and so obviously have no research and development costs. That is why they are cheaper.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Was FRAMED!
I saw that on a bumper sticker in Hillsboro/Portland, Oregon in 2002.
"Eve Was Framed"
Yesterday, in SF, I saw two funny bumper stickers:
"Support Our Troops: Bring'em Home ALIVE"
"Defend America, Defeat Bush"
A few months ago, on a vehicle on the freeway, I saw "More Trees, Less Bush"
I wonder how the two contestants would respond to those...
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I suppose Donald Knuth being devoutly religious means he's not a real scientist after all?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I was thinking of Hard Talk aswell. It can be entertaining and revealing (sometimes both), but i actually find Tim Sebastian irritating when he seems to be trying to antagonise his guest for the sake of it. A typical Hard Talk will end something like "(Tim:) that's not true, but didn't you say, stop lying, (sudden change of expression) thanks very much for coming on Hard Talk!". So it's an act, but irritating your guest and trying to get them to say something stupid isn't always the best idea imho. i think you'd never see a democratic head of state on that program, they'd have to be insane.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
There is anecdotal evidence (look for "Caller" inthe text) that aliens are more interested in preventing the use of nuclear weapons than in provoking their use.
If they wanted to destroy us, assuming they've had centuries more time to develop technologically, wouldn't this be easy for them to do?
"My administration is now well along in implementing a comprehensive climate change to advance the science, expand the use of transformational energy and carbon sequestration technologies, and mitigate the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States and in partnership with other nations."
Wow! That's a mouthful. I didn't know Dubya could talk like that.
He sounds almost like... like...
Al Gore.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Common now. Remember how Russert sneered at Dean for not knowing exactly how many troops are in the U.S. military? Remember how he moved right on to the next question when he asked Bush a similar question in 2000?
And besides, this is irrelevant to the poster's point, as Bush only does interviews with pre-approved questions. The Ireland interview was like that too - it just never occured to Bush's handlers that the interviewer would actually challenge Bush on his prepared answers.
Nah it's silly to call Bush a Hitler. He's clearly more a Mussolini type.
Bush's response here was pretty well balanced I thought - saying that he wanted to balance use of embrionic stem cells in an ethical manner, which continuing funding but also support adult stem cell research. Also he said it was dangerous to bring false hope to those with very serious illnesses that only embrionic stem cells will bring the cure they seek.
I thought Kerry's response was rather more loose, and actually stregthened Bush's point - Kerry said "We must increase embrionic stem cell research now to find a cure for cancer!". He did add "In an ethical manner" at the end though.
Altogether, I would say just about all the answered were just about the same but Bush is expressing a slightly clearer direction on most points - going to the moon again vs "increase in funding for NASA". A targeted 18% decrease in greenhouse gas vs "sign Kyoto and look to American Inginuity to make it work out". Keeping scientists in poor areas employed and key components out of the hands of people who should have them vs. forming an international comittee and oversight of biomedical research.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For starters, we are not getting the Bush vs. Kerry debate here, we are getting the Bush Campaign vs. the Kerry Campaign debate. I'd be suprised if either candidate even signed off on these personally.
/. is concerned) as opposed to successes of his policy. If the current media is any indication, you won't even hear about things like the largest spending on AIDS programs in Africa ever, or the billions of dollars of support directed at developing alternate energy, or even the Bush Energy plan which would have reduced our dependance on foreign oil by 2% by now if it had been passed way back when. And of course, Bush will let 527s supporting him go off on Kerry for a while before asking them to stop, in which case they ignore him and keep right on hammering Kerry.
The second problem is that we have Kerry - who has no official administrative record what-so-ever, claiming he'll do something, but knowing full well he may or may not have the power to do that once in the White House. It's easy to make promises, its quite another to actually stick by them. One t hing we can trust Kerry with is that he will be on whatever side of the issue his audience is on. He'll vote for it before he votes against it, he'll support it, then he'll oppose it, he'll throw the bill over the wall, then he'll say he threw the pen over the wall, then he'll say that pens and bills are interchangable, then he'll attack Bush's record through his surrogate 527 cohorts.
Then, we have Bush's record, which is much more solid so its easier to point at failures of his policy (that is, wherein as far as the
Lastly, neither one gives specifics. Bush can point to what he's done, which is all good and fine, and Kerry can claim what he will do, but either way these one liners are useless.
None had an industrial spin. I guess it's 'gauche' to talk about using science to make ourselves more successful in industry.
1) What will you do to help make American students interested in math & science again?
2) What will you do to help entrepeneurs wanting to start companies that apply science? Our economy has become such that only hugely profitable 'googles' are worth starting anymore.
3) Do you recognize that we're becoming a nation that does little but sell, market and consume products designed and built by others? How long do you think this can continue?
4) Why are we simultaneously becoming politically similar to China, in locking people into state dependence, and economically unlike China by creating a climate where designing and building things is a losing battle given taxes, entitlements, regulations and a useless, pampered, lawsuit-hungry, unqualified workforce coming out of politically-correct, declining, anti-science, anti-God and anti-industry schools?
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
So there are very good reasons why people outside the US have a very low opinion of Bush. Calling him a modern Hitler is hyperbole, but such low opinion of him is not unfounded.
... or listen to off-the-record commentary by friends and acquaintances stationed there (none of the folks I know actively serving in the miliarty ... admittedly the several I do know are not a statistical universe, but nevertheless ... will be voting for Bush)].
... a price the Bush's and the Republicans are only too happy to pay.
Calling Bush Hitler is not only Hyperbole, it is also a disservice. Differences between Bush and Hitler abound, including but not limited to Hitlers legitimate election vs. Bush's coup d'etat of 2000, Hitler's staging of a terrorist attack vs. Bush's exploitation of a real attack, Hitlers murder of millions vs. Bush's murder of tens of thousands, Hitlers antisemetism vs. Bush's uncritical support of Sharon, and Hitlers devout Catholocism vs. Bush's devout Methodist(ism).
Bush is far more comparable to Milosevic. A toxic leader, with a toxic idealogy and a toxic agenda, who has no compunction about starting wars in smaller countries he ultimately cannot win, perpetuating atrocities on a relatively minor scale (Abu Ghraib, Gitmo), disregarding international law and norms to the point of alienating an ever dwindling number of friends and allies, stripping his own people of what civil rights and priveleges they once had in the name of "defending against [insert threat here]", leaving his own soldiers to die by the hundreds (or thousands) for no other purpose than to delay the inevitable defeat a timely amount (say, until after the November elections, or in Milosevic's case, until the end of negotiations), and ultimately leaving his country destitute and discredited in the world, to the point where its own citizens become reluctant to admit to their citizenship while travelling abroad.
Bush Junior isn't a Hitler. He is a Milosevic couched in a slightly different rhetoric, and he is in the process of teaching complacent Americans the same ugly lessons that Milosevic taught the Serbs a decade ago.
What is really depressing is how the Bush's and the Republicans have maneuvered themselves into a win-win situation with respect to the fiasco in Iraq through their delaying tactics in keeping Americans unaware of the ugly fact that we have already lost the war. [Yes, I know you folks in most of the rest of the world already know this, but keep in mind that our media is actively downplaying the fact that we're losing the war: most people here aren't even aware that most of Iraq, including most of its major cities, are in insurgent hands, and our troups virtually holed up in their bases under siege. One has to go to the German, French, Russian (thank you babelfish!), and other foreign media to get any inkling as to what is really going on over there
Delay Americans' realization that Bush started a war he lost until after the November elections. If Bush wins, they win the presidency and can withdraw, with four years to get the American people to forget about what he has done (probably by starting a whole new mess we'll be concerned about instead). If he loses, he leaves Kerry with an untenable situation, Kerry pulls out, and the Republicans can spin it as "weak Democrats who didn't see it through."
The only cost are a few hundred American lives, and a few thousand Iraqis
I would weep for the future of this country, if there were one. I fear it resembles that of Yugoslavia only too closely.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Alongside a few others for a clear political agenda to document and film for political gain and to rip apart the VERY TROOPS he "fought alongside".
Bzzt! Did American troops commit attrocities? Of course they did, its an undisupted fact. He wasn't bashing bashing everyone in the military by talking about it, he was using it as another reason why we should have gotten the fuck out of Vietnam.
But please, feel free to spin the facts any way you want. Its never stopped neocons before.
A company called TriStem claims to be able to produce stem cells from a patients own blood.
n ewswise.com/articles/view/502153/
http://www.tristemcorp.com/faq.htm
http://www.
"A small company in London, called TriStem, claims to be able to turn human blood cells into cells capable of regenerating worn out, damaged or diseased tissues including heart, nerve, muscle and bone. If TriStem's method really can produce such a wide range of cells, its potential would be huge and could revolutionise medicine. The company has so far provided proof that it can turn white blood cells into the blood-generating stem cells found in bone marrow. Yet, their astounding claims have been met with disbelief by researchers and experts."
The question was a little more general than Star Wars, really about missle defense altogether.
I think the primary point of funding something like this is that you want to have these things deployed not so much for the US - but for allies or even just to various people to keep situations stable. You could even see the US giving missle defense systems to both sides of a conflict to make it less likley the would go for a first-strike kind of war.
No weither you think missle defense systems work, that's another matter. I believe there is some percentage of success where the probably become worthwhile - what that is I'm not sure.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nice try. Before you start throwing the "traitor" and "coward" labels around, don't forget that Clinton avoided the military altogether.
Bullshit. Clinton didn't spend his entire political career claiming he met his sworn military agreements when in fact he did not. Clinton did not have surrogats attacking the military service of Herbert Walker Bush or Bob Dole in 1992 or 1996. Clinton did not rush off to war ignoring the advice of those who did serve in the military.
How good would it be to see an interviewer sit down and totally grill Bush or Kerry for a good hour, with no aides or press secretaries, or time limits to force them to move on, and with no fear of losing 'access' and no drip-fed policy announcements and spin.
You know what, if you had someone do that to the president of my company, and start grilling him on how the hell we have architected IT, he would come up pretty short.
I'm not sure what use proving each candidate has weak areas of knowledge would prove. Regardless of Kerry or Bush, either one is going to have a lot of advisers feeding him information to make choices on.
I think this interview is the closest we can probably get to an answer from them, since presumably they would be using some of the same sources to answer this they would to make actual decsions... though of course the results are rather muffled by the not-so subtle point of an oncoming election day close at hand!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The candidate that will advance our understanding of the universe is obvious... only one them is being supported by space aliens!
Cheers.
The Bolachek Journals
Are you sure he wasn't talking about slashdot?
It would be pretty hard to distinguish these two guys without the clues like "John Edwards" or "current administration's mishandling of the problem".
I think both candidates are pretty clueless in science, surely neither is as smart and erudite as Clinton was (who, among other things, admitted in 1999 the possibility of human immortality and stated that it should be our goal).
The questions by Nature weren't too interesting either. The only thing that we can learn from this article is that both candidates have good support stuff who can bullshit people very well.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
The Bible says Jonah was eaten by a large fish. Everybody knows whales are mammals.
Beside which, the ark thing [Ge 6 et seq] is quite obviously fabrication. The ark is "300 cubits long x 50 cubits wide x 30 cubits high". A cubit is reckoned to be about 50cm. in modern measurements, so we're saying 150m. by 25m. by 15m. Which is big for a wooden ship, especially without metal reinforcement; but not very big for all the world's animal species. Getting the logistics to work, just so this boatload of people and animals could survive a massive wave of indiscriminate killing, would have required a whole lot more effort than just a simple targeted eradication. And then, after saving just two of each of those animals, he goes and sacrifices a bunch of them [Ge 8:20-21]. Also, before the flood there must have been no such thing as refraction [Ge 9:12-15]. (And after all this was over, Noah got pissed and fell asleep naked. His kids put a blanket over him and they ended up getting the blame).
Basically it reads like one of those awful, cheap movies where five minutes after watching it you realise it was based on a totally impossible premise. [If you managed to drill right to the centre of the Earth, gravity would be working against you between there and Australia. Molten gold solidifies from the bottom upwards, not from the top down. Objects made smaller by squashing matter into the empty space it contains would still weigh the same. A motion sensor held in the hand gives false positives. Et cetera ad nauseam.] Good enough fairy tale, if you can read it quickly without questioning {and some authors manage to inject enough pace into their work that you're too busy concentrating on the action to notice some quite blatant errors}; but too many reasons why it wouldn't work like that in real life. Of course, if you strip away the embroidery, you get "Some guy built himself a boat, then it started to piss down with rain; so he got in the boat with his family and all their animals. The water got deep enough for the boat to float, and it moved." That's believable.
Remember, kids, the Bible has three strands deftly interwoven: a historical account of life up to 6000 years ago; a fanciful mythology complete with plenty of sex and violence; and a sales pitch for the Jewish faith. It can be very hard to pick these strands apart; especially where a piece of mythology based on real fact is used as an advert for God.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I don't know that your argument supports your statement. First, building robots is more technology than science, but that's a minor quibble. And that moral position can be reversed: Why employ people to do something, allowing them to feed themselves and their families, when you can build a robot to do it? And why not stop wars by building and using a new, abundant energy supply to turn their armies (and everyone else) into dark spots in the wreckage?
If you look into the history of famine and you'll find that famine comes not when the land won't grow things but when people decide to starve other people. Our farms are more productive than ever. Our airplanes and cargo ships can move vast amounts of supplies to the ends of the earth with astounding speed. That science hasn't stopped governments from starving their people. When you have no choices, you need no morality. When you are given a vast number of choices, choices advances in science and technology can give us, that is when you need morality.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From actually watching the video, I wouldn't really call Bush's response as "bristling". He just tried to keep the conversation on track to some extent, and finish up questions to his satisfaction.
Both of them were pretty evenhanded, really... a pretty good interview. Not much new to be learned though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For all those geeks out there that think design is not important, this is a good example of why it is. Whoever put this thing together must have wanted the fewest readers possible, which explains why he/she put tiny gray type against a gray background on the left, and tiny black type against an American flag on the right, complemented by tiny scrollbars that move the text about 2 pixels per click. I love that when you hold down the scrollbar arrows, nothing happens. Let's hear it for the triumph of technology over substance!
// This is not a sig.
Bye! Don't let the door hit you on your ass on the way out, you spineless worm. If you don't like something in your country, take a stand and try to change it.
... an island of sanity in a nation consumed with neurosis), but I fully empathize with the poster who has had enough and is leaving, and feel nothing but the deepest contempt and disgust for the toxic politics and philosophies of people like yourself that have made it necessary.
I can't speak for the guy going to Vancouver (I'm actually going there on vacation next month, and may even get a summer home there if I like it enough), but I've been fighting the pendulum swing to the right since I first started voting in '84. Twenty years later, and the nonsense I keep hearing about "the pendulum will swing back eventually" rings truly hollow. It may be true in the very long term, but it sounds more like the Jews telling themselves "this too shall pass" (it did, but not until after most of those telling themselves that had been murdered). [cue the usual Godwin's law trolls]
I'm tired of fighting a losing battle against mindlessly nationalistic, irrationally religious idealogues, and other right wing zealots like yourself.
I'm tired of contributing to a society whose international agenda can only be described as toxic and deeply irresponsible.
I'm tired of living among people whose politics and philosophies I have learned over the years and decades to despise.
I'm sick of seeing a country I love destroy itself from within so profoundly and so completely.
I'm sick of a culture that has chosen, systematically, and with ever more zeal, to sell out its basic ideals (freedom, human rights, free expression, and so on) in exchange for short term profits and greed.
Indeed, I'm sick of being a part of a culture that has deified greed and disregarded basic human cooperation and caring, having forgotten that it is cooperation, not competition, that is the foundation of civilization.
In short, I'm sick and tired of being a part of an ever less civilized society, and I am deeply ashamed of what idealogues such as yourself, and the complacent and cowardly fools who follow you, have made America into.
I'm not planning to emigrate anytime soon (I have a job I like and work with good people
And should I lose my job like so many millions of others have (most of whome conviniently no longer appear in the unemployment statistic now that their benefits have expired) I probably will emigrate, assuming any country on the planet will have anything to do with displaced citizens of a toxic, militaristic, and irresponsible superpower as it fades from prominence, probably with similiar results but none of the grace, of Russia.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Clicked on the link in the summary, went to the Nature page, cliced on the link to the "interactive feature" and just ended up at a bunch of links to editorials and analysis.
Where are the actual questions and answers?
Bush has increased stem cell research funding every single year he's been in office, and clearly says he'll continue to do so, and clearly says how important it is...
Now that's just being disingenuous. Of course when you're starting with a new area of research, you expect funding to grow. But it also ignores that by limiting the number of cell lines to the 40 original cell lines, he's almost doomed that research in this country to failure. He has apparently no intention in allowing researchers to obtain new cell lines if it turns out that those cell lines are inadequate, as was virtually certain to be the case by limiting the lines to a few that were created at the very outset of research.
Look at Reagan's speech at the DNC about how the research might have helped his father... you could have replaced the "m" for millions with a "b" and Ronald Reagan would never have been saved.
I just don't get this. Are you saying the Reagan family is incapable of feeling empathy for some family that may be going through the same experience they did in a few years?
This "emotional manipulation" argument is just another shamelessly dishonest straw man argument. Nobody said that stem cell research could reach back in time and save Reagan's brain. This just shows the twisted and hypocritical way that the administration twists people's words to suit their agenda. It also shows their complete heartlessness to do this to the family of their party's most beloved leader.
Nobody says we're guaranteed to have therapies in ten years, or even ever. Certainly not the scientists who are pissed over this administration's stem cell policies. But stem cell research is currently the most promising area of focus we have to develop a new class of therapies. You don't get the chance to open up a new front on the war on disease every day, and you can't count on it coming more than once in a career or a lifetime.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I read Kerry's quote. "My administration would never utilize biased advice..." About fell out of my chair laughing at that one.
Old AWOL always has an excuse!
I'm used to "the companies are BIG BAD EVIL FOLK!" books, but this one seems like it might come from someone with some actual knowledge rather than just rhetoric. Definitely something to pick up.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
No we can't burn it. However it can be recycled, and in the process we get more energy than we got the first time around!
Eventially there is still waste, but not nearly as much.
OMFG, you're my new best friend.
(groveling) I'm not worthy...
(groveling) I'm not worthy...
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Did John Kerry actually write his answers in ink, or did he use pencil for later waffling?
Actually, CBS found his answers in secret memoes written around 1972 on an amazingly advanced Selectric Typewriter.
No, seriously, he probably just submitted his list of questions to the UN, so they could tell him how to answer.
(Hey, it's as 'insightful' as the previous response.)
-Styopa
The Orthodox and Catholic Bibles have 73 books, while the Protestant Bibles only 66.
I remember vaguely that Martin Luther left out 7 books from his German translation of the bible because they were not considered genuine by the Jewish scholars of the time.
Which are the real Bibles? those made up of 66 books or 73 books?
Bush increases funds for important science: Like Creationism,
and cuts wasteful spending - like medicare and social security!
you guys might hate me for saying this but i am pulling for Bush.. i want to see what happens in the debates. i think i read some where they are gonna have like 3 debates. is this true?
www.angelfire.com/dc2/stockman/index.html http://www.FreeFlatScreens.com/default.aspx?refer
I read through the first ten questions. I was surprised -- Bush was aware of the issues and gave pretty good answers. However, his answers contradict what his actions have been. Kerry, on the other hand, often avoided answering the question. For example, the question about whether Americans should consume less, he answered that we should be diligent about avoiding pollution. I prefer Kerry's approach -- if he's bothering to weasel, that probably means what he says has some bearing on what he'll do.
I'm impressed by just how many topics they manage to be aware of and have an opinion on.
Yep, Bush went AWOL.
Here's the proof!
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Voters in this country have chosen third-party candidates, and even elected one. Go back to pre-civil war times and look up the name of an obscure third-party of the time and an obscure candidate for president. He ran on an issue of moral importance, something we take for granted nowadays but was a truly revolutionary concept.
If a third-party candidate wants to succeed today, they have to find an issue that the majority of Americans support, that is more important than any other single issue, and that the two parties refuse to address properly. Running on this one issue will be enough to garner enough support to take the election.
However, there are no issues of supreme importance that the candidates aren't addressing. Right now, our number one priority is defense. We are at war with terrorist Islamists. The second most important issue is how to sustain consistent growth in the economy and smooth out the natural cycles. This is what the American people say are important, so there's no arguing with that.
If you're wondering who I was talking about above, the obscure third party was the Republican party. The candidate was Abraham Lincoln. The issue was slavery - was the African race equal with the Caucasion races, or were they merely sub-humans? If they were equal, was it right to free them from slavery and grant them equal rights? Doesn't our nation's Declaration of Independence declare "All men are equal" and talk about God-given rights that no government can take away rightly?
You know the rest of the story, but remember what caused the war.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Hilter had no devotion to anything but his own ego.
Being unable to accept new ideas that differ from your preconceived notions is incompatible with science. It's not just a religous attitude, some of the mosed learned scientists are just as guilty. If a scientist writes a paper that challenges the status quo, they are usually ridiculed and torn apart by their peers. Even when faced with the absolute proof of something, they refuse to accept that they are wrong. People like that exist everywhere not just churches.
I'm more interested on why people assume that it has to be creationism OR evolution.
There's no such thing as "creationism" in science. Science is merely an epistomology that stresses experimentation, prediction, data gathering, and objective analysis. The fundamentals of science is simply this: an hypothesis must be falsifiable, or it is merely conjecture and flights of fancy.
I can assert there are invisible pink unicorns all around us, helping us every day. There are only two way to prove this assertion: present all these pink unicorns, or create an experiment that tests for the *nonexistence* of pink unicorns, and have that experiment present negative results. (That's a double-negative, which is a positive. Don't do that in English.)
Also, the ideal scientist will not set out to "prove" or "disprove" an hypothesis. They set out in search of the truth of the matter. An hypothesis is merely one step on the way to that truth, and they set out to test that hypothesis. As soon as they attempt to "prove" a particular hypothesis, their interpretation of the data becomes biased and skewed. (For example, check out Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box.)
Evolution is a theory, yes; but in science, "theory" is a class of hypothesis that have passed experimentation. This means it has been backed up by evidence, not by personal belief or the assertions of ancient documents of questionable literal veracity. The basics of evolution by natural selection (generally what people mean when they talk about "evolution") have passed all tests so far. Since we can't easily directly test natural selection, these tests are mostly comprised of tests of the predictions and necessities of natural selection, such as the genetic relationships among species, or the filling-in of the fossil record.
The problem isn't a personal belief in creationism, or a higher being. (To have a creation, you must have a creator.) That is a very personal choice, and since there is no known way to prove or disprove the existence of a God, there is no way to prove or disprove creationism. And in this, I respect whichever side you choose.
However, to teach something that doesn't even rate the label of "hypothesis" as a competing theory to evolution is to ignore the fundamental philosophy of science: the doctrine of testability. This is why the proposition of teaching creationism in a science class is absurd.
Doing so would be a disservice to our children, our society, and our future.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I actually saw a bumper sticker that said "Keep America Safe for Terrorists: Kerry 04" What's wrong with people?
Lets look at some of the Business he [Bush]'s Administrated, shall we?
.502 winning percentage.
i) Arbusto Energy / Spectrum 7 (CEO, 1977-1986): Formed 1977, declared bankrupt, 1986.
ii) Harken Energy (director, 1986-1990) : GWB implicated for insider trading and accounting practices. 1992 SEC investigation still sealed. Made loss of over $20million.
iii) Texas Rangers baseball club (owner/managing partner, 1990-1994) : 383-379, for an entirely average
iv) The United States of America : GWB and his party, controlling all branches of government, took the treasury from record surpluses to record deficits in just two years, said deficits exceeding earlier records as they grew in the years following, while successfully outsourcing the bulk of the middle class economy and, according to census reports released a month early (prior to the republican convention) in order to be swept away from the public eye well before election time, creating an environment of a significantly shrunk middle class, record poverty, and unprecedented numbers of Americans with absolutely no health coverage whatsoever.
Looks to me like he's doing about average on his latest venture. It is a pity that this time the results affect us all, very detrimentally.
So, that's two unmitigated financial disasters and a ballclub that defines "league average". If that's a model Harvard MBA student, perhaps they should consider tightening their syllabus up a little bit.
Not to mention their admission standards.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
If the answers represent their policy instead of their own personal belief, than the answers are perfectly valid-- hopefully, more valid than if they were their personal belief.
I'd rather know about a candidate's proposed policy than their personal opinions or beliefs. As an example, if their personal belief is that a balanced budget is necessary for a stable economy, but their fiscal policy is one of massive overspending, I would be very, very concerned.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
...Both religionists and scientists have faith. It's just that the scientist's faith is backed up by observable phenomena.
Blar.
BUSH: Hey Cheney, I got a great idea to get me elected.
CHENEY: What's that?
BUSH: If I come off as a complete fool, then everyone will mock me and underestimate my ability to lead. So while I am outsmarting them at every political corner in the race, they will be talking about how stupid I am rather than their issues.
CHENEY: Won't that be bad? I mean, who would want to elect a deficient president?
BUSH: No, it'll be good in a few ways. For one thing, calling people stupid has never resonated with the electorate. They thought that President Reagan was stupid, but he still pulled off some of the most decisive victories in the history of the US. Earning the title as intelligent actually turns off voters. Look at Jimmy Carter. He was considered to be the brightest president we ever had, but he failed to earn a second term. He's still unpopular.
CHENEY: Humm, you're right. Americans don't want smart presidents. They want presidents that are leaders, that are decisive, and that won't cave in to our enemies.
BUSH: Exactly. Look at our most popular president ever - FDR. He earned that popularity by coming across as a fighter, not an intellectual. He had strong words, he rose to impossible challenges. He had real balls, if you know what I mean. Look at the other Roosevelt. He was a fighter as well, and very popular. Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, all of these were fighters.
CHENEY: Now that I think of it, remember the last debates with Gore? The ones you were supposed to get trounced in?
BUSH: Yep. I went into that debate armed with responses to all of Gore's criticisms. He didn't expect any new ideas of any of my responses. He didn't expect me to be able to think on my toes. He came in with the false idea of being a "great debater", but came our with his tail between his legs.
CHENEY: But isn't Kerry wiser about this? I am sure he is going to be ready.
BUSH: But see, I am giving him the false impression that I don't want to debate a "great" debater like him. I am holding off on signing up to the debates as long as possible. I am even trying to reduce the debates from three to two.
CHENEY: So he thinks you are actually afraid to debate. He thinks he can walk all over you in the debates.
BUSH: Yep. "Misunderestimate" sure is an appropriate word.
CHENEY: Well, shoo-ee. Mr. President, I think you have a fine plan there. Our should I say, Mr. "Stupid" President.
BUSH: Hehehe. Yep, all the way back to the White House. Thanks, Dick.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Most of the question answer pairs go something like this: Nature: If elected, how will you balance [some issue - e.g. the environment] with [some conflicting issue - e.g. industrial growth]? Candidate: I plan on a adressing [issue one] without sacrificing [issue two]. sadly this is probably too late on the board to save anyone the trouble of actually reading the pseudo-interview, but hey, I tried.
not everything is a science experiment!
Humans have existed for more than 100 000 years. Taking a strictly scientific view point, it would surprise me if there have never been a virgin birth during those years, chances are that the baby born would have been a girl though.
John Carmack fan, browsing at +5 since 1999.
You have right.. this could be a strong argument for his third mandate.
Before a non American makes such a stupid statement they read our counstitution and learn what winning an election means..
I agree that the world is a different place after the Cold War. Also, it's not likely that North Korea would launch a first strike at the U.S.
But what about Al Qaida, China, or some domestic terrorist? And what about during a declared war - a missile strike at Kansas City would have a lot of terror value.
"Questionable [science]" is redundant. All science is by its nature questionable; that's part of what makes it science.
There are more things to knock out of the sky than incoming SCUDs and ICBMs. Meteors (both of interstellar and manmade origin) are somewhat dangerous, and by the time we see one it will be too late to do basic research. I'm sure you'd agree that one of the best kinds of scientific research to fund is how to keep giant hunks of burning metal from hitting your roof.
Another, more practical way a missile defense system could be used is to wipe out an incoming airplane, ship, sub, or anything else before it comes in offensive range.
Remember the story about the Navy using rail guns? Those (both shipboard and land-based) would be part of an integrated missile defense.
sigs, as if you care.
I will not have my response censored while right-wing jerks moderate the above troll into the stratosphere.
... an island of sanity in a nation consumed with neurosis), but I fully empathize with the poster who has had enough and is leaving, and feel nothing but the deepest contempt and disgust for the toxic politics and philosophies of people like yourself that have made it necessary.
Bye! Don't let the door hit you on your ass on the way out, you spineless worm. If you don't like something in your country, take a stand and try to change it.
I can't speak for the guy going to Vancouver (I'm actually going there on vacation next month, and may even get a summer home there if I like it enough), but I've been fighting the pendulum swing to the right since I first started voting in '84. Twenty years later, and the nonsense I keep hearing about "the pendulum will swing back eventually" rings truly hollow. It may be true in the very long term, but it sounds more like the Jews telling themselves "this too shall pass" (it did, but not until after most of those telling themselves that had been murdered). [cue the usual Godwin's law trolls]
I'm tired of fighting a losing battle against mindlessly nationalistic, irrationally religious idealogues, and other right wing zealots like yourself.
I'm tired of contributing to a society whose international agenda can only be described as toxic and deeply irresponsible.
I'm tired of living among people whose politics and philosophies I have learned over the years and decades to despise.
I'm sick of seeing a country I love destroy itself from within so profoundly and so completely.
I'm sick of a culture that has chosen, systematically, and with ever more zeal, to sell out its basic ideals (freedom, human rights, free expression, and so on) in exchange for short term profits and greed.
Indeed, I'm sick of being a part of a culture that has deified greed and disregarded basic human cooperation and caring, having forgotten that it is cooperation, not competition, that is the foundation of civilization.
In short, I'm sick and tired of being a part of an ever less civilized society, and I am deeply ashamed of what idealogues such as yourself, and the complacent and cowardly fools who follow you, have made America into.
I'm not planning to emigrate anytime soon (I have a job I like and work with good people
And should I lose my job like so many millions of others have (most of whome conviniently no longer appear in the unemployment statistic now that their benefits have expired) I probably will emigrate, assuming any country on the planet will have anything to do with displaced citizens of a toxic, militaristic, and irresponsible superpower as it fades from prominence, probably with similiar results but none of the grace, of Russia.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I'm an Arizonan and I'm voting against McCain in the next senatorial election.
.. no.
He's pro internet censorship, is anti-private sale of firearms, and pro USA Patriot Act (note the correct spelling of the USAPA).
Why do people like this guy? Oh yeah, he's so bipartisan (pro censorship == republican, anti-gun == democrat, pro USAPA == bipartisan). What a swell guy
And by the way, do you have any evidence it was Karl Rove who did the fake poll about McCain's adopted child?
For those who don't know, SOMEONE in South Carolina started calling random numbers pretending to do a poll in which one of the questions was "What do you think about McCain adopting a black baby?" (or something to that effect, in reference to McCain adopting a child from Bangladesh). McCain lost the primary, and consequently we get to hear about every lame excuse and nit-picking research into every single thing that happened, regardless of who did it and how many people were called.
Is it so hard to imagine that someone wouldn't vote for McCain, even over a douche like Bush?
Must you republicrats constantly bicker about this crap? You guys rig the freakin elections both in finance and locking down the debates and we STILL hear complaining about OTHERS getting special treatment? Be happy with what you have.
I'm voting Libertarian, btw.
Latewire
There were a lot of prophets when Jesus was around. Most of them claimed they could deliver the Jews from the Romans, but when they failed, they were run off or killed. I believe Jesus existed, and professed to be the son of God. But instead of declaring that he would win a military victory against the Romans while he was alive, he broke ranks and smartly declared that he would be victorious AFTER they killed him.
It's an old game. If I say, "You'll find out I'm right after you've died" then I can say anything I bloody well please, can't I? So the promise of religion, in our modern world of technology that would provide the ability to reliably record a miracle, must always be after death.
You might say because God doesn't need to prove himself, but I'll say it's because the miracles never happened in the first place.
Who's right? We'll find out after we die.
I'm surprised most of Bush's answers don't blame witchcraft, knowing how superstitious he is.
Well, I thought that Kerry's answers were generally a stark contrast to Bush's.
Nonsuch. There was hardly anything that could be called unambiguous in either set of answers, much less "stark". The following verbage is meaningless in the mouth of a politician: supported, called for, committed, initiated, negotiated, encouraged, improved, assured, believe, considered, consulted, explore, take action, approved, studied, refocus, assist, study, and develop.
If they want my vote, let them talk to me about banned, prohibited, restricted, eliminated, allowed, ordered, funded, taxed, signed, vetoed, and, maybe, voted for.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I bet George doesn't know the difference. It would explain a lot.
That this sort of bigotry is considered "insightful" is just pathetic.
Yeah, darn those bigots who criticize Bush's policies. Now let's go propose a constitutional amendment that takes rights away from gays because we hate them.
"Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel."
First of all, LORD has replaced Jehovah, Yahweh, or YHVH. This was done by the English church to give more respect to British Lords, in honor of a child molester known as King James. Why was it changed? Why did God allow this? Who knows. But I digress...
The bias in this passage is apparent. An enemy of Isreal is the enemy of God. The Amorites deserved their slaughter. God even stops the sun so Joshua can complete it.
Does this look like the work of a being who loves everyone? Why does he hate Amorites? Is a person evil because they are Irish, Hindu, or if they have a tendency to have blonde hair? The God of this passage seems to believe this, but I do not.
Now, is the passage reliable? I can find no motive, no moral other than, "You'll be massacred if you're not Jewish." I have never witnessed the sun stop, and as I understand it, that would require freezing the earth in place in it's motion around the sun, and in it's rotation around it's own axis. Who knows what consequences that would have on the weather, the tides, and the animals? Perhaps there were accounts across the globe about this miraculous event, and they just didn't survive.
So no, I don't believe the passage is reliable, based on my own experience and knowledge.
The question is, why do you want to believe the passage is true? If I traded "God" for "Allah," "Joshua" for "Mohommad," "Amorites" for "Americans," and "Israel" for "Islam," would it be extremist propoganda or the word of God?
Honestly people, the most those bozos have done is flying 3 planes. Their high tech? cutting blades.
As for China, yeah, that would be a great move: bomb your best consumer!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... is a very intelligent man, versed in literature, cinema, music and philosophy.
;-)
He also played baseball
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
North Korea says they have nuclear weapons.
No wonder after seeing what ahppened to countries that do not have them.
And in any case they may have one or two. How are they going to deliver them to US soil? By burro?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yes, the word "literally" is misused literally (sic) all the time. Everybody knows what people mean. If I say I ain't never gonna do something, are you going to tell me that I'm using a double negative?
... than you think you do.
Most of us don't come out and say: "nice to meet you; there is no god".
I'd bet a lot of people who you know, who are morally "normal", are atheists and you just haven't realized it.
I am an athiest and independant of that, I realize that the world works better when:
You treat others as you would like to be treated...
Nothing that does no harm can be wrong...
and a few other guidlines.
So I try to live that way. In my experience, most athiest are of a similar mind.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I'm an athiest, yet I don't need a set of rules written down in a book to know what is right and wrong. My morals are consistent also.
I've heard this argument before, but I just don't get it. Do you honestly feel that an athiest is some kind of wild-man who runs around in a totally sociopathic way?
As an agnostic (with admittedly athiestic leanings) whose immediate family has been enamoured with christianity for a number of decades, I can tell you that most religious people simply cannot imagine people having ethics and morals without a big, threatening God standing over them, bullwhip in hand and using the threat of eternal immolation to ensure adherance.
They balk at the notion that we can ponder and come up with ethical systems based upon what is best for civilization and human kind (treating one another with respect and kindness) without living in abject fear of their God.
Which says a lot more about the ethical and moral grounding of most religious zealots (requiring threats of a particularly horrific kind to do what is right by others) than it does about the ethics and morality of athiest (which have historically been quite decent when compared to the behavior of the world's great religions, notable imperfections notwithstanding.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
*In some ways our 2 party system works well, because picture that we had 10 (viable) parties, and let's say one of the parties was called the "Party of God" you could have people like Falwell controlling the all branches of government, because you only need 10% to win. It would give rise to extreme opinions because you have to find your niche. Even with our system, we still haven't had the winner of the last few elections grab more than 50% of the votes (I doubt this will be different).
Thats why you use runoffs, instant runoffs, or concordiate. Then you can't win just by getting 1% more, you truely need the majority to prefer you to almost any other candidate.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
In some ways our 2 party system works well, because picture that we had 10 (viable) parties, and let's say one of the parties was called the "Party of God" you could have people like Falwell controlling the all branches of government, because you only need 10% to win. It would give rise to extreme opinions because you have to find your niche. Even with our system, we still haven't had the winner of the last few elections grab more than 50% of the votes (I doubt this will be different).
In ">2" party systems you have two rounds of the elections, in the second people choose between two most successful candidates from the first round. If an extremist candidate got to the second round, people would vote against him, rather then for his opponent, and elect the opponent. This is how Chirac became president in France (his opponent was right-wing extremist Le Pen).
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
Moderator: Please summarize why the American people should choose you as their President.
Bush: Kerry looks French so vote for me because I'm more American.
Kerry: Bush is a cowboy running around the globe causing trouble so vote for me because I'll quit pissing everyone off.
Bush: Oh yeah! At least the boogie man will not hurt us on my watch because I was in the National Guard.
Kerry: I got more Purple Hearts than you do so I'm not afraid of the boogie man and I'll protect us from him too. Besides you never showed up for duty.
Moderator: Enough of that! What are your views on the environment?
Bush: I like going on campouts, and I'll make sure that the American people are safe when they go camping.
Kerry: I'd like to help companies move manufacturing offshore to better help our environment. If there are no companies here to pollute the environment then it will be safe.
Moderator: Lastly, your views on the economy.
Bush: The economy is doing fine. Since we've reclassified chefs and short order cooks as product assemblers, our manufacturing sector has grown tremendously. But we have to keep those jobs safe from terrorists by conducting regular background checks.
Kerry: I would help the economy by encouraging companies to stay here in America instead of offshoring. This would stop the drain of jobs and help boost our economy.
Vote a 3rd party - any party. I'm also voting Liberatian. If there was a large enough protest vote then maybe the Democrats and Republicans would wake up.
Hmmm...
Yeah, just like the government's UL regulatory group keeps all our electric wires and appliances from just catching on fire.
Wait, you mean the UL isn't part of the government? But I thought all good things come from the government, and anything commercial is bad?
Here's a brief synopsis of Kerry's Senate accomplishments:
Instrumental in passing most recent minimum wage increase; introduced bill to significantly increase commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS; passed law addressing nurse shortage; expanded early childhood development efforts; introduced plan that expanded children's health insurance coverage; stood with consumers against big banks on the bankruptcy bill and led and won the fight to pass the anti-money laundering act to stop terrorist and drug financing; secured assistance for families of Agent Orange; and led inquiry into savings and loan cleanup.
To keep things fair and balanced, here's a view from a Kerry-Edwards site, and one from Fox News.
Since I'm on the fence like the typical mugwump, I wouldn't have minded reading the (probably non-)answers from these two jokers.
But all I get is an instant white screen and the single word "done" in the mozilla status bar.
Ypu'd think those folks, as ofetn as they've been slashdotted before, would by now have enough iron to serve the masses who are interested far more in the man today, that what he was in 'nam, forgeries by CBS notwithstanding.
Seriously, if this little hoohah doesn't send a message to TPTB at CBS News that the general public isn't going to led around by their latest model of a Judas Goat, I don't know what will.
Frankly, I'm sick of the attitude that people in power think the Bill of Rights only applies to them, and not to the masses who often as not, vote with the tv remote until such time as they can step into the voting booth for real and throw the bums out.
Cheers, Gene
Americans are pathetic.
The Chinese are going to kick your ass in the 21st century.
Ugh, no thanks. Runoff, IRV, and Condorcet are all too complicated and IRV can actually lead to one of the least popular candidates being elected (because of the way the elimination rounds operate). The best alternative to the current one-person-one-vote system is Approval Voting, where you vote for as many as you want and the one with the most votes win. With approval voting there is no "spoiler" problem and there is an incentive to treat ideological allies well (to encourage their voters to vote for you as well, if for no other reason than to defeat a common foe).
an interesting atricle. Most of Bush's responses were that things are pretty good now. Most of Kerry's responses were that we are going to increase spending. So, we have a poor to middleing president (about like Clinton) who had several blunders to show for 4 yers in office, and the usual Democrat tax raiser. If this information really gets out before November, Bush might carry 48 states. that would be a shame.
It would be nice to see a real choice with someone who was moral and visionary, but I guess the system just won't allow that.
For thousands of years nearly every culture on earth has understood, at least in general terms, that first comes conception and then nine months later a baby pops out. And yet no person on earth celebrates they day anything is concieved. Yet they all celebrate birthdays, remembering the day when a person was first welcomed into the community. It's not a coincidence. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, and don't count babies before they're born.
To bring this back to the original topic, another part of the distortion of science by the current administration is the deliberate use of a false dichotomy between science and religion as a calculated wedge issue to whip up the evangelical base. Again, this is not a simple partisan assertion. Neither Bush senior nor Bush junior's Republican challenger, John McCain, did this sort of thing. This is a specific criticism of the current Bush administration and its terrible distortion of science.
As it happens, I have over the past several years been giving a cycle of lay-led sermons in my church on the connections between my field (biomedical science) and spirituality. Interested parties can get them from my
http://homepage.mac.com/colgrove
In the "sermons" folder. My next sermon is coming up October 3rd (on "Death"), and you are all welcome
http://www.tparkerchurch.org/
n/t
...for catching that.
"I'll take 'Bill of Rights' for 100, Alex."
Honesty. Loyalty. Kindness. Laughter. Generosity. Magic!
One person is not an entire culture. Did the children of Amorites deserve to die? Why?
You have chosen to reject this passage on moral grounds rather than factual. This seems, to me, quite odd and blatently unscientific.
Sure! Just tell me the last time the sun stopped, or as we say in the 21st Century, the earth stopped revolving around the sun and rotating around it's own axis. I know it's terribly unscientific and everything.
A religious politician (one who always spews "God bless" this and that) is never good for science.
For example, Bush's limitations on stem cell research..
Quite frankly, I think it's about time we actually separate church and state. I'm sick of politican's personal religious beliefs affecting something that effects everyone else.
If you don't believe in stem cell research because you feel that scientists are playing god, well, then it's kinda tough shit, because science really needs something like this.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I know several radicals/lefties/activists who have had their phones tapped, have been followed and tracked by law enforcement, and some have had their houses/apartments/infoshops broken into, presumably by the cops. (Usually, nothing of value is missing, but papers and items seem to have been rumaged through... now who would do that?)
In case you didn't know, the new head of the CIA is considering consolidating the FBI with the CIA for better 'information sharing'. This is extremely dangerous to our privacy as citizens because by law, the CIA is forbidden from domestic spying (that is, compiling dossiers on US citizens). Combining these agencies will give the new intelligence agency all sorts of powers to invade your life. Imagine if COINTELPRO had the power of the CIA behind it...
I thought that was the republican party.
This is actually pretty common; administrations usually circulate a series of talking points that are often quoted verbatim. The words likely were written by neither Bush nor Abraham, but an aide. You can find many examples in the Clinton administration too (as well as Reagan, Bush 1, etc.)
Page done in Macromedia Flash (for no reason)
Idiots.
gewg_
I'm sorry; I missed that. When did Iraq attack the United States?
yes bush will not fund stem-cell research with the the public dollor....but kerry wishes to outlaw stem cell research into human cloning...i ask although bush will not fund it for theroputic or human cloaning he does not advicate outlawing it....why does bush get the short end of the stick here?
It seems to me that Kerry's position is the more absolutly restrictive and essentialy uses the same argument that Bush uses...That it is immoral...the diferance being that Kerry wishes to impose his morality onto people's choices and codify it into LAW while Bush just doesn't want the government to pay for it.
stendec@gmail.com
About half way down the page is a is a section titled Head to Head Bush vs Kerry where they both got a chance to answer fifteen science related questions. I found this part to be the most interesting as you get to hear their answers in their own words instead of the usual "iffy" synopsis about what they think from some talking head with an axe to grind that never took a science class in his life.
As an example of this in the stem cell section at the top of the page the editors say:
"
research...Scientists have been frustrated by this rule for three years..
They say that it is slowing progress in stem-cell research,..."
While in the q and a section Bush says:
"I am committed to pursuing stem-cell research without crossing a
fundamental line and I am the first president to provide federal funding
for human embryonic stem-cell research.
government invested $25million in embryonic stem-cell research and
nearly $191 million in adult stem-cell research. My administration
is also creating a national embryonic stem-cell bank . These efforts
are providing a boost to research while not providing taxpayer funding
that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos.
My policy makes it possible for federally funded researchers to explore
the potential of embryonic stem-cells, while respecting the ethical and
moral implications associated with this research."
Not really the same thing at all.
I really hate that about our news. They tell us their version of what someone said instead of just quoting them in context so that we can see what they really said.
Most of the time I am convinced that our so called "objective news reporting" is anything but. Don't these people believe in the integraty of the news anymore?. Aren't reporters taught to be fair, objective, and complete anymore? It used to be that a reporters integrity and accuracy was his most valuable asset. People would talk to reporters like Walter Cronkite because they knew the man would report the facts as they happened without trying to put his own spin on things.
Anyway what does the
I think that it would be an interesting read.
Every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward - T. Edison
Ah, but the thing is
What has actually happened is that the US government with some legal interpretations that say they are allowed to detain people they claim did bad things for an indefinite period of time without any required legal process.
Essentially these people are held without any real representation, explaination of what they are assumed to have done, and held in a facilty which may or may not be encouraging abuses of these people.
Even the Supreme Court has said that decision may not be based on anything valid in law.
In effect the US administration has two things: US law doesn't apply because we say so, and since we say they're unlawful combatants, international law doesn't apply either.
These people most decidedly have not been 'charged' with anything. They are merely being held under suspicions and accusations, but in such a way as to not be definitevely legal under international treaties and the like.
Trying to change the wording to something that makes it all sound nice and legal has no bearing on the actual legality. It's just fiddling with words to try and hide what has actually happened.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You realize that it was the Times that broke the Whitewater story when Clinton was president.
AC makes a good point. The NYT was also the paper that unscrupulously backed every single one of the White House's faulty reasons for invading Iraq during the runup to the war.
Leftist paper. Sure. The truth is the mainstream media has been guilty of mindlessly parroting White House talking points ever since 9/11.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
For Question 6, regarding support for the proposed ITER fusion resaerch facility, Bush responded that, "ITER is a critically important experiment to test the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a source of electricity and hydrogen."
"...and hydrogen.
I'm hard-pressed to come up with a better example of the vast chasm between science and the Bush administration.
Dear George, hydrogen is what a fusion reaction "BURNS", not what it PRODUCES.
What's particularly disturbing is that Bush's answers were very clearly vetted by someone with decent communication skills and some understanding of science. How did such a glaring error slip past the vetting process?
Karma
Many of you nerds formed and expressed an opinion based on the answers that were given. But few seem to have the intelect to ponder, let alone to discover the reasons behind their answers. I guess I sometimes just expect too much from those who often claim that they have all the answers.
-MerkX
Personally, I prefer to know where my news comes from; I read subjective news from many different points of view.
I've never seen a truly "NPOV" newscast in my life. So why pretend?
While the media's portrayal of Christians may be skewed, ask your Christian friends whether they consider themselves to be Republican or Democratic and whom they will vote for this year. After they tell you they are Republican, ask them what the Republican party would have to do to lose their vote, or what the Democratic party would have to do to gain it. Now weigh their answer against the probability of those reasons ever happening. This is the real point, and the politicians know it.
Of all the Christians I personally know, only one has already decided to cross the party line this year to vote non-Republican. He has decided that opposing Bush's policies on revitalizing US imperialism, ignoring UN entirely before invading Iraq, ignoring the 1997 Kyoto Treaty, reckless governmental spending, doing virtually everything possible to support big business (especially the oil industry), helping to screw the 40 hour work week, and countless others, are more important than supporting his Christian-based issues of anti-abortion, anti-gay/lesbian , anti-non-Christian religions, etc.
Granted, I haven't conducted a Gallup Poll, but I would certainly like to see the demographic breakdown. What do you think: 90% of people who identify themselves as Christian (not just religious, but Christian) vote Republican? More? Less? Anyone have access to this poll or this one?
Turambar
------------------------------
Common sense is not so common.
--Voltaire
The US House of Representatives' Committee on Government Reform has compiled a list of the W. Bush Administration's attacks on the scientific community on their Politics and Science website.
...]
In addition, the social psychological community has been feeling the government burn recently because the US House of Representatives passed a vocal vote on 9/9/04 to block future funding of two currently approved NIH and NIMH grants (Click here for that article). This creates an unsettling precedent allowing governing bodies to trump the peer review process. [Sigh
" the phraseology of "coming on clouds" "
heh
Naughty, naughty, naughty! You filthy old soomka!
that sounds so cool. i wish i was jesus
The point remains that Kerry has avoided the press for over a month. That's quite odd, and should make anyone interested in his positions suspicious.
Bush hasn't held a press conference since April and you're bashing the other guy for not holding one in "over a month"?
As opposed to Kerry, who tries to affiliate himself with the Catholic Church to garner votes,
Gee, he's only a life-long Catholic. He doesn't need to "try to affiliate himself", he's been well-affiliated with the Catholic Church for decades.
only to be told by the Church itself to buzz off.
A few right-wing cranks in the Church hierarchy are trying to score some political points over abortion. Notice how they don't say anything about pro-choice Republican politicians. Notice how they don't say anything about pro-death penalty Republican politicians.
And unless the Pope has come down on high and said Kerry needs to "buzz off:, the Church itself hasn't said anything.
I also believe the war was over control of the oil.
But if the politicians and such had been honest with themselves (and the US people), most people would have realized the two obvious problems there.
#1. Iraq is too far away, with too many potential enemies, who are too committed to their own goals for us to ever control it. We can kill them, but we cannot rule them. We've already shown this in Afghanistan.
#2. If we're willing to trade US troop's lives for oil, then it's time we got off the oil addiction. It may be hard and it may be expensive, but it will completely remove the "threat" of someone denying us oil. And because of #1, there will always be that threat.
George Bush is the stupidest human being I have ever seen. Even the crack addicts who beg for money downtown seem to have better sense than this moron.
As far as science, he has done everything in his power to fight against it. Especially the environment; check out bushgreenwatch if you don't believe me. My favorite things he does is to rewrite environmental reports, giving the opposite conclusion on pollution in the environment - the latest is that mercury pollution is GOOD for you.
How can anybody in the know vote for this guy? He should be sent to jail just for all the crimes he has committed against humanity.
FreeUser sure seems too lazy to pull himself up by the bootstraps and make his life better. Move to Canada if you don't like it in America, I'm sure Canada would *LOOOVE* to have another whiny leftie Yank from America to clog up their "free" healthcare system and to smoke all of thier weed and get even less motivated. Has Slashdot become like K5 now, where any whiney leftie's post is modded as "+2 Insightful" while a rebuttal to that statement is modded as "flamebait"? I thought those on the left were all about "compassion" and "tolerance"? I guess not. If you aren't willing to help yourself, don't expect anyone else to either.
I have not RTFA, so take this for what it's worth. It pisses me off that the federal government has anything at all to say about scientific advancement. Usually, we're not even arguing about advancing science, we're arguing about having access to Other People's Money (OPM) to spend on our research. Granted the occasional government ban on this or that specific area of research is something to debate, but being able to steal (by proxy) somebody's money to further your research isn't something I care to hear any candidate talk much about.
Well, all I can really do is pull the lever for Badnarik.
Independents try to sign YOU up to vote!
Oh, wait...but its true! Damn canvasers; can't walk 10 feet without being harassed.
It looks like Science, the -other- premier research journal also gave questionnaires to the candidates. Their responses are available here.
Some of the responses are copied-and-pasted, but the Science questionnaire also covers issues like Creationism, NSF funding, and their "top three priorities in science and technology," which the Nature article doesn't cover.
I found their top 3 priorities in science and technology particularly interesting:
Bush: ensure every American as access to affordable broadband by 2007, perform next-generation hydrogen research, and recruit science and technology to combat terrorism
Kerry: restore and sustain preeminence of American science and technology, ensure Americans prepared for jobs of future, and ensure that his administration's decisions are informed by the best possible science and technology advice
thx
You have not herd about recent moves to legalize anyone that steps across the border as citizens and provide social security, health care, and education (in the USA not worth much) to all illegal aliens. Also, the new electronic election machines here will allow anyone to get a vote in if they can figure out the default password for the machine, or hack a little code, or ....
...) contact voters registration (use the internet websites) in that state and ask for an absentee ballot ... I am sure many would receive an absentee ballot to vote in the USA Congressional and Presidential election.
... we can outsource the vote with no real obvious problems from the special interest politicians.
The easier way (won't even cost airfare):If everyone around the world would just pick their own favorite state (California, New York, Texas, Alabama, Virginia, Florida,
If they really wanted folks in the USA to vote, they would have made a national voting holiday and/or mandated fines for non-voters. This is Corporate America not Democratic America
PLEASE, REMEMBER TO VOTE IN OUR NEXT ELECTION.
OldHawk777
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
SCotUS
SCotUS looks too much like SCrotUM.
"My admministration is now well along in implementing a comprehensive climate-change strategy to advance the science, expand the use of transformational energy and carbon sequestration technologies, and mitigate the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States and in partnership with other nations."
I know the candidates have professionals to write the responses to these types of inquires, but did anyone else get the feeling that some of the 'Bush Responses' consisted of words I cannot imagine our Prez could pronounce, let alone understand?
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
AWOL BUSH was PROVEN AWOL again!
everyone brings to their reading of a text a raft of presuppositions about fairness, justice, and what God is/may/might/was like or should be like. But the reason you think the passage is biased is that it represents a worldview different from your own
That's nice. Usually, I express genocide as "mass murder" not a "different worldview." I think it's wrong in _any_ case. Again, infants and children were killed because they were Amorites. Why?
The reliability of the text depends on the reliability of the source.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I know you've heard it, but that doesn't mean it's not a valid point. If I outline the workings of gravity, and then say, "By the by, I can levitate things with my mind," I may have a very reliable source with an untrue statement. Adding someone's God to the mix suspends that disbelief for some reason.
Can a man live inside of a huge fish? Can the earth freeze in space so the sun doesn't set? These are easy questions to answer by themselves. So why is the answer different when you *believe* that God was involved? These were facts for your church in the 1500s, because everyone was ignorant. It seems the more that our societies learns about the universe, the less likely God is to exist. Where is hell? It used to be "down." Where is heaven? It used to be "up." These are at best simple ideas from a simple culture.
You see the Bible as infallible, because you believe that God willed men to write it, and that it holds the key to eternal, supernatural existence. I see the Old Testament as one tribe's wish for a general that would allow them to defeat the other more advanced civilizations that were constanstly beating them at war. And the new Testament is the tale of one Messiah who finally did what he said he was going to do, that all other messiahs had done before him: he died. Meanwhile on that day millions of people hunted, fished, had sex, made war, forged tools, discovered, gave birth and died... all seemingly unaware that a man was crucified in a town on the outskirts of the vast Roman Empire.
And the only reason you believe he is different is because lot of other people do too, otherwise you'd just believe in your personal cult. And there's must be something to it. Right? It seems no matter how hard you pray, or how much fealty your churches show, they still need someones $20. They still need someone to work to provide for the hierarchy. Because they know, as sure as the sun won't stop the next day, money isn't just going to fall out of the sky. Churches aren't going to appear out of thin air. The soup kitchens won't magically have food in the fridge, and the church media conglomerates won't find AV equipment surrounding their alters.
If God truly provided, church would be seven days a week. But history has shown that to be unreliable, so you, and I, and the rest of the world, do something besides praying to sustain ourselves.
That was well said. Thank you for expressing so clearly in so few words what I attempted to express with a veritable book. Sincerely, I wish I could do that. Hopefully you won't mind being added to my friends list.
http://xkcd.com/386/
illegal alien amnesty
Illegal aliens are demographically Christian and more actively religious than the general USA population. Maybe the voting bloc called the "Christian Right" disapproves of them (for racist reasons?), but aliens are heavily Christian.
equivocation on supporting Israel
Bush seems pretty strong in support of Israel's administration. He brags he's been the first President to support a Palestinian state... which is funny, because he tries to spin it like that's pro-Palestine or pro-peace, when really it's just formalizing that the "Palestinans" will never be allowed back to the land conquered from them in Israel's "War for Independence"
because of the anti-Christian sentiment (accurately reflected in your post) in the Democratic party.
s s/duboa rd.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=1683346&mes g_id=1683346
For more evidence, go here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu
You might as well ask Blacks why they don't feel at home at KKK rallies. Maybe because they aren't being made to feel welcome?
BTW, moron, the 1997 Kyoto treaty was not ratified. In fact, the Senate voted it down 97-0.
How come we never hear about the wonderful advances being made with adult stem-cells? There are some, you know.
Why do they only count if we get the benefits from aborted babies?
It's like the only way to live forever is to eat our young. Maybe that's what Clinton was getting at?
As long as I'm here, why is immortality such a great idea anyway? Isn't there a growing problem with feeding the people we have now? Oh, maybe immortality will exclusively for the really special people, like Bill Clinton?
Keeper of the terrible karma ---
Kerry isn't a flip flopper, but he never gets out of Rhetoric Mode and never commits to anything. WTF do they have Edwards running around rural Ohio when he should be on the news networks 12 hours a day eviscerating the Bush administration is beyond me. He was a fucking trial lawyer for gods sakes, it should be trivial for him to put together a case against the Bush administration that was so tight that not even Rush Limbagh could find fault with it.
Even "red states" should be easy pickings for Kerry and Edwards, all they have to do is crush Bush's image as a real, traditional conservative. How about a return to fiscal responsiblity, a government that protects us without infringing on our rights, getting rid of unfunded mandates, and most obviously, not getting us into a massive, costly war that's not in our national interests.
WTF doesn't Kerry have an economic plan? WTF, for example, doesn't he propose a two year plan consisting of:
As if Christians haven't been doing things that would land them in hell as long as there's been Christianity. Crusades, Inquisition, the list goes on and on. And abortion during the first semester isn't killing a human being, its expelling a blob of cells.
I think you are making an assumption though about the capacity for dangerous nations to build enough missles to "overwhelm" a missle defense system.
Consider North Korea or Pakistan. The goal of a missle defense system may well be to protect neighbors from these two king of crazy nations. Well, how many nuclear missles might these two countried be able to build? Probably a lot less than the US could field if they wanted.
If it does lead to an escalation, then you might see some soviet-style breakdowns like the whole MAD thing led to. That would probably be an addition hope for a missile defense system.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
that Clinton opposed the war in Vietnam and avoided service while Bush supported the war in Vietnam and avoid service.
The difference is that the .223 has one hell of
a larger powder charge behind it. It can sure
as shit ruin your day, even if it is smaller than
some other cartridges (the main reason it was
kept small was to increase the number of rounds
that could be carried).
;)).
Semiautomatic weapons do make it easy to have a larger rate of fire, as there is no requirement of external action before the next round is ready (such as moving a bolt or similar). While not as rapidly firing as automatic weapons, they are usable in area denial/anti-crowd roles (e.g. when you want to stalk from cubicle to cubicle pumping round after round from your gas-operated semiautomatic AR-15 into the twitching bodies of your coworkers.
The ban was always fairly silly, and I say this as someone very left of center. The only portion that even made sense at all was the reduction of magazine capabilities, which was a functional way to reduce the effective rate of fire of the weapons.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
is this modd'ed up? I mean really... I will stop there
This was neither on topic or meaningful... rather a flount of everything that you are and the average person is not. I'm not sure if you cou could have name dropped any more or written any more 7+ letter words in a 4 paragraph statement.
When we can't definitively decide what is the dividing line between two consecutive time periods, like when a developing embryo becomes a human, we find a point on which we agree, like the human nature of babies at birth. Then we move the dividing line back to include more time, erring on the side of caution, if those who disagree that that extra margin is valid agree for practical purposes, like settling the dispute. And in the totally intractable area, we let the person whose actions caused the situation, and who will live with the consequences, decide for themselves. So we have laws preventing abortion in the third trimester, even though the human nature of 26 week old embryos is neither provable nor agreed. We can't pretend that there's proof, or even consensus, that would allow the state to determine this decision in many people's lives. That's how we deal with these fuzzy issues - acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, and accept that we live in a real, complex world where every day sees the dire consequences of treating these decisions as if they're some decidable ideal.
--
make install -not war
This question is +5, Insightful? Invisible Pink Unicorn is a goddess, therefore she can be both invisible and pink. Asking how can she be invisible and pink at the same time is equally meaningful as asking e.g. how any deity can be both transcendent and immanent at the same time. Logically, it obviously cannot. But by definition, someone who is an omnipotent supreme being is beyond any reason and understanding and therefore does not have to follow our rules of logic. Do you feel somehow obligated to point out logical inconsistencies and paradoxes in every religion? You may find it entertaining but some people might find it highly offensive. Actually, every truly religious person will most certainly find it offensive if not outrageous. Faith and reason are orthogonal phenomena. It is not only common for religious beliefs to be illogical, but it is actually a prerequisite of any faith system in the first place, since otherwise where any religion was logically consistent and provable or at least falsifiable, there would be no need for faith whatsoever and such a system would not be a religion any more.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Oh contraire. Hitler was a devout Catholic, praised by the pope of the day, revisionist historymongering by those uncomfortable with those facts notwithstanding.
Just a few of the plethora of references available on the subject:
You aren't doing yourself, the Catholic church, or the world any favors by trying to gloss over an unpleasant aspect of world history, merely because you find it distasteful.
It is America's ignorance of Hitler's religious fanatacism and the dangers it incorporates that has helped to allow a modern day religious fanatic to usurp the nation's highest office
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
If there was a large enough protest vote then maybe the Democrats and Republicans would wake up.
I doubt it unfortunately. A large protest vote for a third party would only provide an incentive for both Republican and Democrat parties to further tweak the electoral system (using excuses like, say, the Diebold debacle and Florida 2000/2004 debacles and the many 50-50 results) into an even more locked state.
What is needed is a large number of electoral wins for small libertarian candidates. That would have an immediate effect on the lives on many people.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
You say that you are an athiest, and I respect your beliefs and your freedom to have those beliefs.
I have a proposal for you: could you entertain the possibility, no matter how small it might be, that God could exist? If so, would you be willing to entertain even the slightest possibility that this God could hear and respond to prayer? If so, then why not take some "alone time" where you can be quiet and undisturbed, and pray to God asking him to reveal himself to you.
Prayer doesn't need to be fancy, ritualistic or religious--it's just a personal conversation between you and God. Just ask God, if he does exist, to open your heart and mind and reveal himself to you. Don't bargain asking for signs--that's not the point. Just ask him to reveal himself to you in a way that you can understand. Really, what would be the worst that happens other than you spent a few quiet minutes in contemplation?
Or more likely, about being caught like the liar you are, or, for those who are curious about the whole thing, the "executive summary"
I laugh at that every time I see it! And not just because I'm the one that crushed you into your blathering jibberish rant. I laugh because, whether On Lawn meant to or not, his stunt exposed you for the idiot you are! You fear the AC because when your argument gets totally crushed you can't collapse back on your personal attacks to prop up your pathetic spine. You can't run into a corner and yammer repeatedly "onlawn troll" "onlawn troll" like the frightened toddler you are pointing at the monster in the closet.
And just when I thought your humiliaation couldn't get any worse you light up a huge neon "MORON" sign above your head by calling peoples attention to it! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Too rich! The only thing funnier than seeing someone's guts ripped out with their own inadequate tool is when they're too stupid to know that's what happened.
Hey, Tom, see that blinking light out of the corner of your eye? It's the big flashing "Tom's a Moron!" sign you keep lighting up. Bwahahahahahahaha!!! Please, stop it some more!
Two neon signs!! Not only do you show yourself a complete idiot by saying people hardly ever declare victory on the internet (happens all the time, mushbrain), let alone slashdot (happens all the time), but you concoct a twisted use of Godwin's law that gets slapped down by Godwin's law itself.
Bwahahahahahaha! Please, please, my sides are starting to hurt. You've got to stop. And do you know what's the icing on the cake?? You prove you knew how completely stupid you were being when you set that JE up so nobody could reply!! That's right, you knew the journal would quickly fill up with people pointing at you and laughing so you wrapped your blanky around your head and sucked your thumb to drown it out! Bwahahahahahahaha! Well here's a newsflash, We're all laughing at you anyway! I can't tell you how many people I've pointed to that JE just to have a laugh at your expense. Now I get to point them to the parent post to show that you are so stupid you point people to it, too!! It's like watching those blooper videos of the guys getting whacked in the crotch by baseball bats and golf clubs...only you're the one doing the swinging at your own shrivelled balls!
I'm going to have to submit this thread to America's Funniest Journal Entries, this is cash in the bank!! You should really just stick to whining about your impotent life and pining for your ex. Whenever you try something else you just kick yourself in the crotch again. I've got all the comedy material I need.
GODWINS LAW I WIN!!!11!!111
And that he got caught.
As lots of people pointed out
HYBT NFO
You rang? Funny where this stuff pops up. Always quality entertainment when it does.
;) And no, Tom the mistake wasn't in not hitting the 'post anyonymously' button... You crack me up.
Hmmm, interesting JE indeed. I point people to it quite a bit myself. Tom and his posse spend 90+ posts astroturfing and trying to distract people from his failures, and it winds up backfiring.
I gained many friends that day. Mad Poster and Tom (if they are different people who have the same reflex to run to their Journals whenever anyone starts pounding on them) were the only ones that cared. And between them have spent around a dozen JE's on little old me.
Well and the AC cares, and who should deny AC such barrel-fish sport? As for the post in question, I still find it funny "I'm a different AC than the other post". Tom has such a fear of the AC (which is shown by PTDS reaction in this thread) that he litterally jumps whenever AC says 'boo'. Who wouldn't want in on the action?
All in all, I couldn't ask for a more fortunate mistake
Oh man, Tom, stop!! This is too much. Now you're posting as an AC! The very thing you accused OnLawn of doing! Bwahahahahahahahaha! Just when I thought you couldn't be any funnier.
Whooo. Whoo. I think I've got it now. No... Bwahahahahahahahahaha! I just can't stop laughing!
I'm telling you you've given me all the comedy material I need! Stick to feeling sorry for yourself. The rest of it just comes across as slap-stick pie-in-your-own-face comedy.
Now it's the plea to his sycophants to come bail him out! Too rich! Too rich! What's funnier the a hopeless boob tripping over his own landmines? The toadies with their lips surgically attached to his backside! Bwhahahahahahahahahaha! No, wait, what's funnier than that?? Haahahahahahhahhahhaaa! No, wait for it. What's funnier than that?? After he hits himself in the crotch, watching him trip over the pants around his ankles trying to get someone to kiss his butt! Bwahahahahahahahaha! I told you it was toooo funny. Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!! Man, oh, man! Tom, when I said you were like watching some guy whack himself in the nuts with a golf-club I was way wrong! You are much funnier than that!