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What Did You Change Your Mind About in 2007?
chrisd writes "The Edge 2008 question (with answers) is in. This year, the question is: 'What did you change your mind about and why?'. Answers are featured from scientists as diverse as Richard Dawkins, Simon Baron-Cohen, George Church, David Brin, J. Craig Venter and the Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees, among others. Very interesting to read. For instance, Stewart Brand writes that he now realizes that 'Good old stuff sucks' and Sam Harris has decided that 'Mother Nature is Not Our Friend.' What did Slashdot readers change their minds about in 2007?"
Mother Nature is not now, nor has she ever been, looking out for us.
I would go further and say that, not only is she not looking out for us, but Mother Nature is a bitch.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I really wish I had eaten pizza last night instead of ordering takeout Chinese.
Other than that, I can't think of anything.
It has a disciplining effect on the entire organization since the punishment for immaturity is harsh and tangible.
An additional benefit is that it has a rather sobering effect on local know-it-all's when they see that their work is in fact inferior to what we can get from a third world sourcing partner. After this sort of ego bruising they are more ready to accept modern and mature practices.
TCAP-Abort
I changed my mind about the war in Iraq because of Ron Paul. I was always sympathetic to the idea of bringing liberty to those overseas, but it is clear now that the source of liberty is individual choices not government ones. Ron Paul made it clear and final that the war is not helping the freedom of the people over there, and it is obviously not helping the freedom of people over here, and is directly responsible for the rise of a police state mentality in the USA, and is contributing greatly to our ongoing economic collapse. As Ron Paul once said, if we want wars all over the planet and want the government babying people from cradle to grave - then we must have an IRS and massive debt. But if we want freedom and liberty, then yes we can get rid of them.
In a simple ceremony I married my sweet heart with whom we'd been together for 8 years. That was an achievement I guess.
I know everyone is complaining that oil and gas is way too expensive. They are wrong. I used to think the same way. I saw a nice chart showing gasoline prices adjusted for inflation over a period of about eighty years. You know what? It really hasn't changed that much. It was still higher in 1981 than it is now. What has changed is a decrease in our earning power.
Proof that gasoline is still too cheap: I still see tons of Hummers, Expeditions, Navigators, Armadas, Sequoias and other mondo SUVs (aka Urban Assault Vehicles) on the road.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I switched from XP to openSuSE in March, and decided it was too hard to work with, to the point that I pined for Window's familiarity. Temporarily lacking an XP CD, I downloaded Ubuntu as a stopgap. And decided I didn't need that XP CD after all.
it's not *all* that bad, actually
I am trolling
I finally realized that I was never going to have a flying car.
That is... "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters"
They are just out to control us all.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Calling David Brin a scientist is like calling Josef Stalin a humanitarian.
Brin is the King of Hacks.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I changed my mind about absolutely nothing. As I'm always confidant with what i want to believe/feel the first time.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
..who saw Sacha Baron-Cohen instead of Simon Baron-Cohen?
I've traditionally voted Republican because I'm a social conservative. In 2007, Bush and the Congressional Republicans behaved so irresponsibly that I wanted them out.
So I leaned Democrat. Until I saw that the Democratic Congress rolled over for Bush just as much as the Republicans did.
Now I don't know how to lean. Now I just despair.
can effect any type of meaningful change.
........ on and on
.... now in my 50's I see that this just a bunch of horse-shit. I'll still vote (as I have since I turned 18) .... but to invest any time, money, or emotion in the political process ----- fuck that shit.
Healthcare reform, acting on global warming, tax reform, ending a meaningless war, supporting the middle class, fighting terrorism at its roots ( in the Madrases ) and local Muslim populations (versus invading random countries like Iraq or Iran), energy independence
Since a teenager I've been at least tuned into the issues / politics - and would get wrapped up with one candidate or another
Its not the years, its the mileage
I realized that all the really smart people around are not that smart. They know some stuff but will not/cannnot apply it and so they squander their intelligence...
To see a few of my Android apps goto: www.hartwired.com
Nowhere in the summary did any of the links point to the bloody index!
Isn't it still generally accepted to start at the beginning when reading, or has digg finally removed all semblance of intelligence from the general public?
After this sort of ego bruising they are more ready to accept modern and mature practices. Play $DEITY somewhere else, not with workers. If one has to add fear (by offshoring) over their heads to drive a point, something is terribly wrong.
You're part of what makes people hate offshoring, you use it for fear, and not productivity.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
well, not willing to, more like "forced to" accept triple the workload they used to, resulting in fatigue around which an entire industry of pharmaceuticals arose to keep them up with stims rather than labor regulations to keep offshoring down so they can live healthy lives which involve rest and the possibility of actually speaking with and raising their kids.
and of course they have to accept the erosion of their middle class status to the point they will never ever retire and can't ever afford a house.. "as the rents go up, and job opportunities go down"
yes i'm sure our descent into third world status will "only" harm the "immature"
and where do you get off declaring what is and is not mature? did it ever occur to you that you may be the one who isn't mature. Usually the ones who believe themselves far enough above others to pronounce judgment are themselves the fools.
But yeah, go ahead and support the destruction of the middle class for your twisted sense of self righteousness regarding other people's maturity.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I changed my mind about religion, ironically it was because I started going back to church that I realized I didn't believe any of it.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
At the start of the year I still thought the big labels hadn't figured out to work with the internet and were going to litigate my favourite websites into submission, but they've finally got it and made deals instead of suing potential business partners. At the start of the year I was steadfast in my opinion that music labels were going to collapse, by the end of the year I've got the feeling that they might just make it through.
You're right. An actual advertisement might have been more convincing, rather than seeming like a misplaced answer to a question no one asked...
This slashdot-related signature is a stub. You can help kihjin by expanding it.
At the start of 2007 and after a Democratically controlled Congress was sworn into office I was of the opinion that impeachment should be off the table while Congress got down to some real business with a President that recognized the winds of change. I couldn't have been more wrong.
When Steven Colbert wasn't elected to the Republican ticket!
In the next 5-10 years it will be the place to live.
global warming will soften some of the colder months.
the CAD is already worth more than the USD
Canada is actually tech friendly, and looks like it will remain so for the forseeable future, so it will attract the talent the US has been crushing to death under IP laws.
Canada, land of the free, home of people with a spine, the future of north America.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Ron Paul is a dangerous fad. He does not believe in evolution and he wants to scrap what little healthcare the poor in the US have access to (bear in mind that the US already has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than European countries that spend less per capita on healthcare). His platform is yanking away what little social protections exist in the US so that the middle classes can pay less tax, and considering that the US isn't nearly as far from mass famine as you would think a developed country would be - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/7148880.stm - its a recipe for a Katrina-like failure on a far bigger scale.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Why not third party?
I'm a Government conservative and a social liberal (I think we should stop violating the Constitution, get rid of the IRS, stop these stupid wars, religion doesn't belong in Government, I don't give a rat's ass who you sleep with, and I don't see why gays can't get married). I vote third party and if there's not third party candidate, I abstain with the naive hope that the politicians will notice somehow.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Just because a candidate is somewhat religious, doesn't mean that they will impose their beliefs on everyone else, or whore out their religion to gain power. That is the difference between Obama and Huckabee.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
I am by nature a very tolerant person, but it is time for all good people to actively refute the ideas of the intolerant fundamentalists of all stripes. I am appalled that there are politicians in the USA who think it is OK to condemn people due to their religious beliefs, or lack of belief. For example, Bush isn't sure atheists are citizens. Some politicians think they should be able to tell you what you do in the privacy of your own home. But these guys are pikers compared to Religious fundamentalists. Even peaceful, tolerant Canada had to deal with this, Teen killed by father, and if we scoot over to Afghanistan we have the Taliban executing people who dare to try to educate girls.
Peaceful discourse is our best weapon.
Happy New year.
Anarchists never rule
1. O.K. I believe in global warming now. I heard a lot of dissenting evidence but it appears to be tainted.
2. Video Games do affect behavior in many children. Studies and family members in the field of education with years of observational experience have made me switch my opinion. I'm still not a big fan of government intervention on the subject, though.
3. Linux is ready for the desktop thanks to the EeePC. In fact, much of open source appears to be ready to eliminate the needs or even desire for a commercial alternative. Linux, OpenOffice, Firefox. I no longer feel like I'm having to settle for second rate in order to save money. I'd actually choose them even if the alternatives were free.
4. Slashdot is moderated largely by hypocritical children who will mod up popular opinion and mod down unpopular posts regardless of accuracy. I predict the slow demise of Slashdot as the comments area, a once fertile land of discussion and intelligent observation becomes a members only arena linux/mac fanboys and video gamers who can't envision anyone else's opinion being right other than theirs. It will be a place where where speaking ill of religion, republicans or windows will be given an automatic +2 informative while speaking ill social web sites, video games, or modding practices will be an auto -2 troll.
All four are great discoveries and lifestyle changes for me.
Happy New Year.
Just trying to be honest. I've almost completely cut sugar out of my diet, and I feel better to show for it.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Ubuntu 7.1 finally made me realize that it is actually possible to use Linux as a Desktop OS. For at least 10 years Linux had been the ugly OS I only accessed via SSH on my server.
Same time the Democrats did.
I didn't change my mind, I just rewrote my past comments.
Not because it applied, but because it would make you agree.
Why are they killing people? For liberty! We like liberty, so it makes it okay to kill people: it's for something we like!
You can't take the sky from me...
The less social "protections" we have, the better. Life expectancy is a personal choice, no amount of health care will fix someone eating crap.
Mass famine? We grow enough food to feed the world, let alone ourselves. Get real.
Gone!
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In early 2007 I thought I might be able to vote for Ron Paul against certain Democrats if it came down to that (unlikely).
After learning more about Dr. Paul: that he hasn't felt the need to educate himself about the scientific facts about evolution and rejects it, though wasn't willing to raise his hand during the televised debate where the candidates were asked that question; that he calls abortion "Murder"; and, most critically, that he wants to remove the ability of the federal government to intervene in violations of chuch/state separation.
If the founding fathers got nothing else right with our country, they got the separation of church and state right. Integrating religion and state power is a sure path to tyranny.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
No party should EVER control both the legislative and executive branch at the same time. Not the repub party, not the dem party, not the green party, not the communist party, not the toga party.
The more gridlock, the less that gets done. The less that gets done, the less we get screwed.
Gone!
You obviously don't know what you are talking about. The world produces enough to feed everyone but around 25,000 a day starve to death - its a distribution problem. And if you had troubled yourself to read the article I posted you would know there are millions who are food insecure across America.
The idea that life expectancy is a personal choice is one that could only be entertained by someone coddled by a privileged existence and having no concept of life outside such an upbringing. I notice you didn't have the nerve to mention the infant mortality I mentioned, so perhaps there is some hope for you taking off your middle-class blinkers and relating to the real world.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I finally changed my mind that 2007 will be the Year of Linux on the Desktop...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
No he isn't. A quick search reveals that he is a member of something called the United Church of Christ. This does not appear to be a Muslim denomination: the clue's in the word 'Christ'.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Mainly because I don't know anything about infant mortality, but I do know life expectancy.
Life expectancy in the US is mainly a choice. The leading cause of death is heart disease, which is commonly caused by obesity. Obesity is mostly a choice.
I am (and was) talking about the US. Are there hungry people in the US? Of course. Will it will anything like Africa? Not in my lifetime.
Gone!
It happened so that 2007 was a year in which many things went wrong, and I was really upset with my [lack of] performance. However, on December the 31st I concluded that everything can also be interpreted as good news, because after analyzing the failed projects, I noticed that the bottleneck was in me, and not in my colleagues, friends, or the environment.
:-) 2008 will tell.
In other words, things are [relatively] simple now, because I only have to focus on myself (there is no need to "change other people" or "alter my environment", etc). Of course, this may also be nothing but lying to myself and trying to excuse the poor results of 2007
The saddest poem
This will probably be out of place here amongst the /. crowd. But I met the absolutely most beautiful woman on the planet, inside much more so than outside this year. And the whole experience changed me and my mind on the value of emotion in general. I am still dealing with the fallout from realizing I have been an emotional equivalent to a black hole up until now.
:)
It used to be hard to say stuff like that, even to myself. But not any more, personal growth is always a good thing to achieve. And no she wasn't a girlfriend or anything like that either before anyone asks.
Oh and tv. It is now almost entirely out of my life, to be replaced by real life things like skydiving and adrenaline rushes.
That the local developers gets 'inspired' a bit is a secondary effect. It's not like their job is in danger since we're hiring like crazy. It's mostly management who's in hot water now and needs to wise up fast. This is poetic since they were the ones who started this outsourcing business.
I might be pompous but I sure as hell can spot both immature practices (by the organization) and developers who needs to get out of the 80's. I get solid CMMI 5 stuff from the sourcing partner. Some of our own stuff looks pretty pathetic in comparison.
TCAP-Abort
I read the interview-type-thing they had going on with Baron-Cohen (mainly because I've read some of his stuff, and his cousin is really funny). I worry about his attitude to equality though; perhaps this is just something which comes with age... he said;
"I still believe in it some aspects of the idea of equality, but I can no longer accept the whole package. The question is, is it worth holding on to some elements of the idea if you've given up other elements? Does it make sense to have a partial belief in equality? Do you have to either believe in all of it, or none of it? My mind has been changed from my youthful starting point where I might have hoped that equality could be followed in all areas of life, but I still see value in holding on to some aspects of the principle. Striving to give people equality of social opportunity is still a value system worth defending, even if in the realm of biology, we have to accept equality has no place."
It might be true that under his conception of biology equality has not place, but I think equality has more of a role to play that he seems to be allowing it. Firstly he could easily accept moral equality; that fits with his equality of social opportunity but also seems to fit nicely into a conception of "biological" equality. I also think if you take a commitment to equality of social opportunity then you'll probably have to bring in a great whack of economic equality because otherwise social situations just end up layered with complex social inequalities based on pride/respect people attach to themselves and others. Equality completely could still be achieved though through some kind of idea like Van-Parijs's "undominated diversity" could work (an idea, stated very basically, of "how much would we have to pay you to swap places with that person including all their physical defects") that way you have equality between complete endowments, even if not directly between each individual element.
But then again, I guess some people think other values are more important than equality - liberty seems to be a popular one (and in extremes they seem to me to be pretty opposed...), but I'm sure there are other principles as well people like; fraternity/community?
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I think everybody have changed their mind about multiple things, but don't actually remember what they thought about it a year ago. There may even be areas where we would be choked to find out what we were thinking a year ago. Sometimes experience can change your opinion faster than you would have thought possible without even noticing the change.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Whether or not nature is our friend, Sam Harris is still a divisive, cherrypicking, spitemongering tool.
I dislike Ron Paul, so I'm going to support him just like you.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Yes.
I definitely gave up on trying to find a Wii in a store in 2007. I'm hoping 2008 will be better. ;)
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_12.html#buss
I seem to be changing my mind about that one on a constant basis.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
I've decided that health care insurance should be purchased (or not) by individuals or families like any other insurance. There is nothing ethically intrinsic to health care that would mandate it as an entitlement either from our employers or the government. It certainly isn't the most basic need - food and housing seem more important to me.
We've grown accustom to having it provided to use but that is just a historical artifact. (Employers started providing health care benefits after WW2 when they were limited in their ability to offer higher salaries.)
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
Obama's not a Muslim--not now, never was. But thanks for getting in early on the 2008 Swiftboating.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
just start saving now, mr hiller has a flying car model in actual production for a couple mil.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Happy New Year 2002!
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
That's the thing about the growth of awareness. You either get with it, or you get left behind.
-FL
Can you name one realistic contender in this election cycle that doesn't profess belief in the great sky wizard?
Sadly, this is history repeating. Back in the early 80's I was a member of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery for you youngsters). It was a great resource for technical information then. But it was taken over by a crowd who used it as a platform for their political views. Within a couple of years ACM membership tanked and it never really recovered.
If you don't think Ron Paul isn't bone chilling, then you haven't been listening. He's probably the most frightening of them all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Penn & Teller's Bullshit! was very eye opening in regards to their episode on Recycling. Up until that point I thought that recycling was actually doing some good but after watching the show it looks like a lot of it is worse for the environment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit!
Every year, it sounds like a collection of trolls interspersed with a few insightful individuals. Some of these trolls use this annual interview as a platform for their beliefs, usually anti-faith. Yes, we realize that most scientists and "thinkers" are agnostics or atheists, and they are every year. How is this a change? We have David Bodanis calling the Bible "inane" based on an belief about the city of Jericho that is actually still subject to debate. We have Patrick Bateson begging questions about alleged biblical inconsistencies. And what is Alan Alda doing in there? I suppose they wanted a celebrity affirmation of their attitudes. It really doesn't make any sense; as the only person that doesn't seem to know that Alan Alda is, has been, and probably always will be agnostic, is Alan Alda. This isn't news.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It must be fascinating beliving an ideology so removed from reality. The only that keeps civilization going is the bread and the circuses. The Romans understood that, having experienced more than a few riots. Ron Paul is an idiot, a historical ignoramus who simply doesn't understand what civilization is and why it works. He's your standard over-the-top libertarian.
Fortunately he has absolutely no chance of becoming President.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The way I see it, one of three things can happen. . .
1. He'll be elected, and it'll be some form of, "Meet the new boss".
2. He'll be another also-ran, soon to be forgotten.
3. He'll board a small plane.
-FL
1. O.K. I believe in global warming now. I heard a lot of dissenting evidence but it appears to be tainted.
Glad to hear it. Now we need to figure out if we can stop it, slow it, or survive it. If the latter, it won't be superstorms and tsunamis that destroy the human race, it'll be lack of water and changing environmental landscapes that countries fight over that'll end humanity.
2. Video Games do affect behavior in many children. Studies and family members in the field of education with years of observational experience have made me switch my opinion. I'm still not a big fan of government intervention on the subject, though.
I'm just glad that also instilled in us is the restraint to not harm other people. TV and video games make us consider more "solutions" to problems than we might otherwise -- both violent or reasonable.
3. Linux is ready for the desktop thanks to the EeePC. In fact, much of open source appears to be ready to eliminate the needs or even desire for a commercial alternative. Linux, OpenOffice, Firefox. I no longer feel like I'm having to settle for second rate in order to save money. I'd actually choose them even if the alternatives were free.
I'm thinking it's the web browser that is making Linux more palatable. Many families don't care about XP/Linux/Mac so much as Gmail/Shutterfly/Online News. Now that applications aren't OS specific, as long as your OS has a browser and isn't ticking you off detecting devices, it's all good.
4. Slashdot is moderated largely by hypocritical children who will mod up popular opinion and mod down unpopular posts regardless of accuracy. I predict the slow demise of Slashdot as the comments area, a once fertile land of discussion and intelligent observation becomes a members only arena linux/mac fanboys and video gamers who can't envision anyone else's opinion being right other than theirs. It will be a place where where speaking ill of religion, republicans or windows will be given an automatic +2 informative while speaking ill social web sites, video games, or modding practices will be an auto -2 troll.
I think you're confusing Slashdot with the Internet in general. More people, more variety. Certain personalities wise up once they get a username and start getting called out for continuously trolling or being a jerk (as viewed in historical posts). Others...well, there's always the antagonizers.
Happy New Year!
For the last couple of years I had been quite excited about the upcoming "Longhorn" with its journaling file system et. al.; when "Vista" was finally released with all the good bits stripped out at a bewildering range of prices that all boiled down to "Pay the highest price you see or when you install it you'll find some random features disabled" I was hugely disappointed. I'm now a confirmed Linux user.
Which part is removed from reality? His talking about free markets? Minimal government? Austrian economics??? He has written a dozen books, many about foreign policy and economic history, and he was good friends with Milton Friedman, so I don't understand how you can call him a historical ignoramus.
My entire life I have been seeking happiness by default. In 2007, I made the choice to seek a more meaningful life, in spite of whatever happiness or misery it may bring.
This is a rewarding but challenging way to live.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Ron Paul has repeatedly said that some of his personal heroes are Martin Luther King Jr and Ghandi -- very odd choices for a white supremacist. He also said in an interview that he would consider someone like Walter Williams, a black economist, as his running mate.
The article posted has long since been dismissed as the writing of a ghost writer that was subsequently removed from his staff. His public life of service has shown no other evidence of any racism beyond this single article from the early nineties as was covered in Free Market News
From that article is the following quote by Ron Paul:
It really is amazing that in 10 terms in congress and being in the public spotlight for 30 years, this is the only thing that the media can dig up against Ron Paul.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
Also, that physical chemistry in love isn't something to be avoided. --I'd come to mistrust 'chemistry', considering it a type of trap designed to stick you with partners who were hell-bent on destroying you, and opted instead for people who I could be friends with. My humbling lesson of 2007 was that unless you have both chemistry and friendship, a relationship can't work very well, and that women who are out to destroy you are there because you seek them out. As always, internal work is the thing to focus on.
Also realized that it's not just okay to bear feelings of love for somebody society may not deem them appropriate for you to love, (affection for another man's wife/girlfriend, or somebody who isn't your parter etc.), but that it's a million times easier and less destructive than trying to deny those feelings. Instead you can say openly to all involved, "Hey, I love this woman!" and the world isn't going to end. Being in love doesn't mean you have to seek a relationship or even deepen the emotional ties, and just being open about it relieves all kinds of tensions. Everybody knows everything on some level anyway. I and several other people around me went through these tough lessons in 2007 to discover more about how it all works.
Also decided that brie is actually pretty great when you have it on bread.
-FL
United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline protestant denomination, tends to be somewhat Calvinistic in it's viewpoint, which makes it a close relative to Presbyterianism.
That generally makes them socially tolerant, if not socially active.
Theologically, Calvinist churches tend to be philosophical about spirituality, and are not generally on a mission to convert you to their particular denomination; in general, such attempts are considered somewhat out of character.
If Obama grew up in this tradition, he is likely to be Christian, but very tolerant of other people's beliefs, even if at odds with his own.
Your brain is not a computer.
I guess you could call that changing my mind.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
From the RSS feed, I thought this was lifehacker for a minute.
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
I've decided to like Microsoft.
NOT!
Table-ized A.I.
This shouldn't be surprising, even though it is. When you think about the human environment a little it suddenly seems inevitable.
Some decades ago, during the period where dolphin intelligence appeared to be an active topic in biology, at least from the point of view of a non-biologist, I recall reading an argument that the biggest force driving the evolution of the dolphin brain was other dolphins. That their society had become a feedback loop encouraging further changes.
What struck me at the time was that this was even more true for humans, that the biggest impact on the evolution of humans is other humans, especially since humans had these effective and efficient mechanisms for transmitting beliefs about other humans around... in words and later in writing. And they act on these beliefs in ways that impose heavy selection pressure on themselves and each other, through wars, religions, technology, and so on.
In fact a common metaphor for all these beliefs is that of "memes", mental genes. That these beliefs act *like* genetically transmitted material, that they compete and evolve. What this information is saying, to me at least, is that not only do they do that... but they also have an effect on genes as well. Now I'm not saying that memes are carried genetically... some memes even seem to have the effect of reducing the reproductive fitness of their carriers... but that their existence as a *common* selection mechanism for large groups of people is acting as a selection pressure for people who have the ability to survive and flourish in the presence of these memes. As memes change, then, the pressure changes, and other genetic factors become selected for.
The biggest force driving the evolution of the human species right now is other humans.
The transmission mechanism for this force is memes.
I went from being pro Fair Tax to being skeptical. There are a few questions I'd need to see satisfactorily answered to become pro Fair Tax again.
My biggest concern is that it would push American buyers of certain goods overseas and destroy our manufacturing capabilities in those areas. In the early 1990s, we had a luxury tax on new cars, boats, and jewelry over a certain value. Estimates were that we would raise something like six billion dollars in the first year. What really happened is that people quit buying those items in the United States and we only raised a few million in taxes on the items while gutting those industries. I think it especially hit the boat building industries hard. We certainly don't need to accelerate the rate at which we export our manufacturing overseas.
Another concern is that people will change their purchasing habits dramatically and the revenue raised will be far less than what is forecast. The result will be an escalating tax rate. The assumption that we won't change our purchasing behavior doesn't seem to be very likely.
Finally, of course, I think that it will push more and more of the taxes onto the middle and upper middle class. If you make ten million a year, and spend a million, you'd be paying about $300,000 in taxes for an effective tax rate on income is 3%. If you make a hundred thousand and spend seventy thousand on goods and services, you're going to be paying about $21,000 in taxes and the effective tax rate on income is 21%.
Even before this change, I considered a flat tax with NO exemptions the better method. I think that even more now.
Not much more to say than that.
"But thanks for getting in early on the 2008 Swiftboating."
Wrong terminology:
When Republicans do it to Democrats, it's called swiftboating.
When Democrats do it to Republicans, it's called borking.
When Democrats do it to fellow Democrats, like Hillary's campaign is doing to Obama, it's called taking off the kid gloves.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
"But it is nice to get a front-row seat to the new line in Republican FUD. Thanks!"
Funny, I thought it was the Clinton campaign that "disciplined" staffers for getting caught forwarding those emails.
Oh, I forgot - only Republicans use dirty tricks in elections. My bad.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
you making the assumption that the only way that you can believe is by going to church every sunday. that's not really true, a major reason for going to church is to worship with others and strengthen your faith. I did go to church when I was very young but to tell you the truth it never really did anything for me, it felt like a chore- like everyone went because they felt they needed to rather than wanting to srengthen their faith. it felt hollow to me and I choose to believe my own way, to read the bible myself rather than having everything dictated to me by someone else. years later, I went to college and met new friends, many of which were very religious and I decided to go with them to church again. I thought it would be different this time but it wasn't. going to church and worshipping with them made me re-evaluate what I believed and why I believed it. It was out of a curiousity and respect for religion that I attempted to strengthen my beliefs in church which ironically lead me to reject the entire faith. the church its self really wasn't the problem, it just lead me to examine what I believed in greater detail.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The following are my personal notes on the article, written and organized as I read it:
This is a really good article, though like past years, you can know the general lean (political, philosophical and scientific) of the participants before you begin. However, there are always answers that go up against the grain, and these are the ones I find most interesting. Some of the answers are pretty fascinating, like this one from Joseph Ledoux:
What's so fascinating about this answer to me is that it is something that's been clear to me, upon reflection, for many years. I have a clear "memory" of my second birthday, even though this is a time from which most persons don't have memories. Now, it's known that that being able to form sentences early (which I was able to do) helps in the creation of memory; being able to "narrate" thought allows us to construct some sort of record of events better. However, around the age of 11 or so, I began to realize that I was not remembering the event so much as my prior recollection of it. This meant I began to be very careful about my use of memory and how much I trusted my own mind, which I know to play tricks on me at times. It's known that, even for a mentally well person, a long-held falsehood can become true for the person simply because they create a memory of the false event. Also, philosophy has been aware of the importance of this sort of trick of the mind for some time. It's interesting to see science just now approach it, and it is instructive in how scientific paradigm (e.g., that memory functions like a hard drive) can override the obvious conclusions of self-reflection.
A lot of the answers touch on classic issues in the philosophy of science, a field some scientists love (most geologists, theoretical physicists) and others hate (most biologists). Karl Sabbagh's answer about expertise is right and wrong in equally interesting measures (yes, one should not trust experts unguarded, but, no, your judgement is not as good as an expert's in an area of their expertise, per se). Piet Hut's answer about explanations is sort of trivial for anyone who knows philosophy of science, but a good example of the problem (or explanation--hah!) for the neophyte. Colin Tudge's answer about the limits of science is simillarly instructive and worth repeating (in part):
got my divorce sorted out on christmas day. about time as well. crazy bitch was getting on my nerves
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Seriously. ALSA is a mistake and should be treated as such. Get OSS4 instead.
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
The question that is rarely asked of self-proclaimed advocates of personal liberty, is what persons they want liberty for. The poor are so because they are forcibly denied access to material goods, by the institution of property. Why should they accept such a system? Many don't and millions of them are dragged through the 'justice' system because of it. So you create a social safety net, so that those who for whatever reason can't make it on their own, and thus treated more fairly the poor and needy are more likely to accept the system. Note the comparatively minuscule prison populations in Europe.
But libertarians like Ron Paul don't agree. They want to tear up this social contract because there is a financial cost to it, and this cost is being paid in taxes by wealthier members of society. Their liberty is being infringed a little, I grant you - but doing so provides greater liberty for the more numerous poor in that they are not forced to occupy all their time working to survive and queuing for food. Libertarians only support liberty for people who are rich or at least comfortable (as they invariably are).
Total free markets have been tried before - and they resulting in horrific poverty, famine and economic collapse.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
So if they spend less on socialized healthcare than we do, yet they're doing better, then obviously the amount we're spending is not the problem, and perhaps if we spent less and changed some things at the same time, maybe our situation would get better.
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
The Obligations and Responsibilities of The Scientist:
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_3.html#lederman
Dr. Lederman is the Nobel laureate who was interviewed on Slashdot several years ago. If you haven't read that interview, you owe it to yourself to do so now.
Link: http://slashdot.org/interviews/00/01/14/0948201.shtml
I wasn't advocating spending more, I was advocating the US joining the great mass of civilised countries in providing free healthcare at the point of delivery. My personal experience of the NHS (as a patient and a worker) and the experiences of my friends and family at the hands of the US healthcare system back up the assessment.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Because he fantasizes about the essentially Madisonian-Jeffersonian state, which was, as a little thing called the Civil War, demonstrated.
I suspect that Ron Paul is among that group of absolute historical fools who actually believes the Civil War was about slavery.
And as to books. Van Daniken wrote lots of those too. It's the quality of the ideas that counts.
What is it with you Ron Paul cultists anyways?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm still confused as to why him being a Muslim would be such a bad thing if it were true?...
Your stance against property ensures that your philosophy will have limited applicability towards meaningful change. Even after the US is humbled by the developing financial crisis, the vast majority of people will still want to be sure that they can call their junk theirs. That is why capitalism endures: even though it visibly sucks, the common man believes it to be the only system under which there are guaranteed provisions for individual rights and private property. If you want true social change in America, you cannot put collectivism forward as the only, or even the best, alternative to capitalism. That is why I embrace the Ron Paul campaign, warts and all. Most of his supporter base will probably never progress beyond Objectivist bullcrap or the Mises Institute's party line, but there will be people left over with a genuine interest in developing individualism as a rigorous social theory. In fact, there are already people out there thinking along these lines, but they don't get much exposure because they're diametrically opposed to capitalists and state-socialists both. For instance, I recommend this book by an ex-World Bank speechwriter named David Ellerman: http://ellerman.org/Davids-Stuff/Books/p&c.htm
Along the same lines, the "social contract" is not a very good metaphor. Could you show me this contract? What are the terms? Who drafted it? Who signed it? Why doesn't everybody carry around a wallet-sized copy for reference purposes? Of course, the standard Ron Paul supporter answer would be that the Constitution is the only social contract we have, and in terms of legal documents, they'd be right. Social contract ideology muddles the definition of the word "contract" in an attempt to counter capitalist rhetoric, but it falls flat with the people it's trying to convert. If you wish to present poverty and inequality as inevitable consequences of capitalism, you're far better off doing so in a deliberative, logical fashion; even if the average American does have the attention span of a newt. The "social contract" is a woeful attempt to package all that logic into a sound bite, and just like sound bites in popular politics, it lowers the overall level of debate.
What liberty is being infringed upon by the rich paying more taxes? They have a representative government. They can certainly afford to buy candidates, giving them much more real influence than Joe Average.
The alternative is what caused so many horrible revolutions in Europe starting with the French Revolution; wealth and power concentrated in an elitist aristocracy that was completely out of touch with the working classes, and whole bunches of them lost their heads, or at least their homelands.
That's what made all those European leaders during the mid-19th century take notice; start creating constitutional governments, formalized various poor laws and began setting up early social safety nets. They weren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. The alternative was further revolutions.
What is scary about guys like Ron Paul and their swirley-eyed supporters is that they are fanatical about their ideologies, which is precisely the lesson that history should have taught us not to be. Don't be so fiscal a conservative that you don't realize that giving government assistance to the destitute doesn't at least stabilize the underbelly of society. Don't be so much a socialist that you disregard the necessity of largely free markets.
As to Libertarians, they're just a pack of "me-first" greedy sonsofbitches who reject the social contract, despise civilization, and make up a self-serving ideology in the hopes that enough people are blind enough not see them for what they truly are.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If no Democrat is able to be elected, I'd rather have ANY other Republican as President. A Ron Paul America would be very good for a small amount of people in the short term and completely disastrous for the rest of the country (You may know them as the poor and middle class). And in the long run, we'd have complete economic meltdown, environmental protection would the thrown to the wind, national defense would be gone, and even basic things like infrastructure and education would be either literally non-existent or economically out of reach for the average person--which amounts to the same thing. You'd have his "free market" capitalist anarchy to thank for all of that. Absent any form of government responsible to, and run by, THE PEOPLE the power vacuum would be filled by conglomerate corporations beholden only to the dollar, and their shareholders.
Luckily for America he has no chance of winning, or even being nominated. The man sure can raise money though, I'll give him that.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Wow, I gotta admit - that is a very large collection of what amounts to mini essays by a very very large number of people, from a very diverse range of disciplines and backrounds. I really recommend randomly clicking through large number of pages they have, all filled with thoughts and essays from a whole wodge of people in, and in orbit around, science. I accidentally blew through an hour on that list.
There is no cult involved. It's very simple.
I don't believe the government should have the power to regulate the economy, nor do I believe that it is capable of regulating it correctly given the chance.
The government should PROMOTE the general welfare, never PROVIDE.
My destiny should be in my hands, not in the hands of elected officials.
Let local governments do their job and get the federal government out of the way.
The United States is based on our constitution; follow it.
Gone!
I thought the Democrats would at least attempt to do what they were elected to do by all the Americans who surprisingly voted for them, causing a Democratic takeover of Congress: end the Iraq War. But instead, the Dumbocrats haven't done anything of the sort, and have gone along with every funding request by Bush so far, and have done nothing to hold him accountable for human rights abuses (waterboarding/torture), or for unconstitutional things like domestic surveillance. In short, the Dumbocrats have shown that they and the Bush-controlled Republicans are really just two sides of the same, pro-war party.
The only solution is to elect Ron Paul. If we elect anyone else, there's going to be an invasion of Iran at best, or nuking of Iran at worst.
Soundbite? Yeah, I'm sure thats what Jean-Jaques Rousseau was thinking when he came up with the phrase in the 18th century. You can't throw around the term 'collectivism' at anybody who doesn't see private property as an institution ordained by nature itself, and at the same time condemn your fellow Paulists as being stuck on 'Objectivist bullshit'. You seem quite fluent yourself.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I do hope you realize you're pretty much aping the very core beliefs of the Confederacy. That was their defense for everything, that they were following the true intent of the Founding Fathers and that the Yankee abolitionists and their political supporters were violating the very core of the Constitution by doing something so ghastly as working towards a *Federal* ban on slavery.
The sheer ignorance of history that you and the rest of the Ron Paul cultists exhibit is breathtaking.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sheer ignorance? I can guarantee that I know more about the civil war than 95% of the population. That is not the point though as social issues are way down on my list of political interest. I have a minor in economics (my major was chemistry), so that is where my interest lie. I also have a firm belief that many (not all, but many) social issues will fix themselves in a correctly functioning economy.
Some things should be handled by the federal government, slavery being one of them. Most things shouldn't be. Back to the economy, the federal government doesn't have the ability to correctly control the economy, no matter how much anyone wants them to. Adam Smith was a genius.
Just because the South was completely wrong on one issue (slavery) does not mean everything that believed was wrong. Of course even suggesting that the Confederacy had one good idea is non-P.C. and can't be tolerated.
Ron Paul isn't right on everything by any means, but anyone who is willing to give the power back to the people and follow the constitution is golden in my book. Individualism is all we have, without that, what is the point?
Gone!
Up until this year, I regarded virtualization asjust another buzzword, and a cheap and easy way to avoid having to think through and develop good IT policies and get good admins and other support people.
After having worked with someone who really knew their stuff as far as virtualization was concerned, I now realize that I was wrong, and that virtualization is a powerful and very useful tool to have in one's arsenal.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
The aeolian harp in my backyard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4rBbMc59M
I finally got it: the richness of the harmonics, the music in its cycles and the feeling of being bathed in low frequencies. Everyone should have one, it's like a radio that trains you to hear pop music in the drone of the fridge or the ceiling fan.
I used to ignore them ... let them slowly accumulate until new ones weren't noticeable.
This year I realized that GCC wasn't trying to annoy me. It was trying to help.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
If you had RTFA, you'd know that not all 20 pages are online, yet. So you really read all 16 pages. ;)
In 1980, film critic Roger Ebert http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/ rated "The Whole Shootin' Match" three stars. In 2007, after the indy film's creator Eagle Pennell had died of being a drunk, Ebert added a star. The film was the inspiration for Robert Redford's sundance festival and for Richard Linklater's (dazed and confused, slacker) becoming a filmmaker.
Perhaps the most beautiful girl in the room. And depending on the street, probably top three.
To do list for Windows
I changed my mind on the way I influence things:
I am lving in a foreign Asian country. Whether from my upbringing or my natural principles, I believed in being very passive
in terms of how I influence a foreign culture. My original point of view was that I should fully respect ALL
of the foreign culture as a macro entity, and never complain about or try to change things at a micro level. This is very important IMO. You should not take yourself too seriously in life. We are all tiny grains in this universe. But, we should remember that we are part of mankind ( a sligtly bigger grain in the universe) and that our everyday decisions and influences do add up each day. Collectively if something changes, it is often as a result of the efforts of many people - not just one person. I believe in people power so long as we are not all sheep. We should be able to lead ourselves. My point is that we have to be careful with our influennces and desire for change:
My original point of view was that 'If I change things at a micro level, then maybe I will affect the whole macro entity.'
My point of view has changed a little. I still believe it's wrong to try and influence or change someone elses culture,
but you should complain or influence things a little. This is because if we don't, we deny our human spirit.
It's natural for a spirit to want to participate, and be involved in the society they live in as a minority.
So, I am a minority resident in S. Korea. Now, I use my voice a little more.
There's some more interesting (scientific) commentary on this on the Cosmic Variance blog:
http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/01/01/what-have-you-changed-your-mind-about/
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
...remember the saying...you don't need a conspiracy when incompetency will suffice.
All that happened was a few volunteers (I think it was three different people in separate instances) in Iowa were DUMB ENOUGH to forward a hoax email.
Its crunch time for the candidates in Iowa and they'll take pretty much any idiot off the street as a volunteer.
I'm surprised stuff like this doesn't happen more often.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
I am just stunned someone who compared the NHS with the Nazi party got modded 'Insightful'.
Now its my turn to correct your laughably misguided information. I live in the UK, and I have been both a patient and an admin worker for the NHS. I thus have in depth knowledge of one of the largest 'socialised' healthcare systems in the world.
It works fine. When it does fuck up, its normally because they've been forced to use an outside contractor for something (MRSA wasn't really a problem until some genius in Whitehall suggested we get private contractors to clean hospitals). It hasn't ruined our economy or spawned a fascist regime as your inherited republican wisdom would suggest.
May I kindly suggest that until you can educate yourself beyond the editorial section of Soldier of Fortune you quit posting on slashdot and go back to sitting on your porch, cleaning your guns and chewing tobacco.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
You suspect? you mean you are making these conclusions about him without any knowledge of his beliefs except that he's a libertarian/constitutionalist. The reason for these "cultists" is that people are tired with politicians who are pushing their own agendas. Everyone knows where Ron Paul stands and his beliefs are firmly rooted, unlike any other politician. He is very intelligent, and a true student of economics and history. I'm not going to try to convince you, all I can recommend is to do your own research. There is a reason that his message is so popular.
Um - no he's not. But even if he was - so what?
I suspect that Ron Paul is among that group of absolute historical fools who actually believes the Civil War was about slavery.
You might have fun watching this interview.
My worst enemy gave me a copy of Windows for Christmas.
Yep. After paying for PClinuxOS, installing it (after reading glowing reports), then deciding it looked to much like Windows, reverted back to Ubuntu.
Why?
Well if a desktop looks too similar to your standard XP gui, you half expect to get property sheets and other info. The gui is made to look like XP, but doesn't react the same. Windows is always there in the back of your head when your operating PC/OS.
Ubuntu's gui on the other hand is different enough that you have to learn the way the gui operates. Its easier to do that than learn an XP variant.
Maybe it's the difference between KDE and Gnome?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
... welcome our Ron Paul overlords.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I don't think honesty matters that much when you're talking about a crazy person. I think we should expect more from our politicians - like being honest and sane.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I didn't not think he wasn't, but then again, it's been awhile since I haven't not completely failed to ignore the race, and his campaign hasn't exactly been the least unsuccessful at not being not covered in the media.
You can't have liberty when you're dead... or up to your armpits in sick people. Healthcare is a pretty damn good supporter of freedom. As is education. The result of Ron Paul's policies would be virtual slavery to the wealthy, not personal liberty (unless you're a millionaire).
... and then they built the supercollider.
Engineers have lost control of their IT departments. In truth, this might have happened long ago, but as the topic suggests, I've just come to that conclusion this (now past) year.
For a long time now MBA's, and management types in general have struggled to understand, cut costs, and in general quantify something that is not quantifiable. After all, if a system administrator does their job correctly, you never know they're doing their job at all.
So the management types end up coming up with obtuse questions for which they expect hard answers. How many trouble tickets a day should a system administrator be able to close? Why didn't you have a "satisfactory" response from the end user when you closed the ticket? What justifies "spending extra time" on a problem? Why wasn't something done to prevent the problem?
These are all arbitrary questions that can't be answered with simple solutions. More importantly, these are all arbitrary questions that can't be quantified. They don't fit well into a spreadsheet. They don't take into account being woken up in the middle of the night, and prodded for an answer. They don't take into account carrying a pager 24/7. They don't take into account someone saying something to you in a hall way, and expecting you to remember it like your life depends on it. And they certainly don't take into account the basic fact that computer administration is an art, not a science.
So the MBA's of the world have started "laying down the law." Everyone must start work at 8AM, no exceptions (we don't care when you were paged). You must track all of your time spent through out the day (no potty breaks for you!). You must close X amount of tickets a day. You must carry on doing the work of the department, even though we have cut half the positions in an attempt to bolster the management bonuses. You must keep abreast of all current changes in technology, in your personal time. You will be expected to be able to answer about any new technical matter, but you can not spend work time learning about it, unless it was approved in writing first.
System administration in the way that I know it, having grown up in Bell Labs (literally), will go the way of the computer operator. There will be set shifts. There will be a union. There will be no creativity. Everything will be done in an organized fashion, and signed in triplicate.
No exceptions.
People tend to treat culture as if it's some holy system deserving of respect. Culture is a label slapped on the status quo of an arbitrarily defined subset of people at any given point - and is constantly in flux. If your own sense of logic and decency say something's right, then try and convince others - those others are people to, and as such are capable of deciding whether they want to incorporate your ideas into their lives. Don't worry so much about contamination. It's really a non-issue.
That being said, there's nothing wrong with respecting the existence of traditions and subjective preferences - but there's also nothing wrong with introducing your own previously foreign experience into the mix.
Of course, it sounds like you're beginning to come around to that view. Don't be afraid to go all-out with it.
Really, the whole issue of health care in the US is a big mess:
1. We want a capitalist system (at least we say so), so government health care is looked at as "bad" by most people (thats why we don't have it). Capitalist health care can be shown to provide better services, and provide faster technological growth. At the very least this is taken as truth for everything outside of healthcare, and so presumably would apply.
2. We don't have a capitalist system:
a) Most people have "insurance", at least partially paid for by employers. The end user never faces the supply/demand curve when getting medical services.
b) For the obvious reason, it is illegal for a hospital to turn someone away due to inability to pay. So hospitals have to provide free service for the poor anyway, but have no ability to tax others to pay for this care.
c) Medical "Insurance" is not insurance. It is fraud to buy insurance that you expect to use! What we really have are opt-in tax plans, where you opt-in to have some amount deducted from your paycheck (or work for slightly less, whatever) - in return, you get socialized medicine within certain parameters. Many people choose not to buy insurance, for many reasons (including "it costs too much")
Because of this situation, costs are obviously going to spiral up. Think about it - your personal out of pocket doesn't change no matter what is done. Obviously, you choose to have the most expensive (and therefor presumably best) procedures. If your current doctor doesn't recommend it, then you find one that does!
In a capitalist system, this doesn't happen because you pay your expected costs, and use insurance only to pay for unexpected stuff. In a socialist system, this doesn't happen because the doctors do not answer to the patient - so if they say no ultrasound, it's no ultrasound.
Ways to fix it: Either go full capitalist (with options for state-provided unexpected care, if desired), or go full socailist (with a parrallel capitalist system, if desired). But this current half-socialist stuff just doesn't work...
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I agree with your sentiment overall, but don't you worry that some quieter traditions will die out if they're not protected? Certain memes are insidiously catchy, but not necessarily beneficial.
In other words, how ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
Agreed. His up-front position on health care and indeed, his belief in a totally mercantilist approach to running a country is crazy. I've visited a number of states which allow the spirit of competition to dictate even simple things like zoning laws, and I must say having seen chemical factories leaking across the street from kindergartens and gun shops in largely residential areas offered just about the most intensely insane experience I've ever had the misfortune of living through. --And the people living there for the most part didn't even have the perspective to realize that the reason the levels of fear and anxiety, (which were right through the roof by contrast to where I live in the Great White North), were directly related to this sort of misguided belief in some kind of half-baked Darwinism. The reason we don't live in the jungle anymore is that we have evolved the ability to make rational decisions and to set order in places of chaos. If people refuse to use their ability to do this, then maybe they deserve to revert to living like savages in a kill-or-be-killed jungle environment which ruthlessly punishes everybody but that very small percentage occupying the top rung of the food chain. --And people wonder why there are such high rates of violent crime in the U.S. Seemed pretty obvious to me. I was glad to get out of there.
If somebody grafted Ron Paul and Michael Moore into one politician, then maybe there would be some hope for the U.S., but as it stands, it's just heartbreaking to see Ron Paul as the one guy in the running who is sparking real hope in so many people.
-FL
Again, I fail to see how the Democrats aren't to blame for this. To stop the war, all Congress has to do is pull the funding. This doesn't require a 2/3 vote; this only requires not passing a new spending bill! (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) So all the Dems had to do was deadlock all action in Congress, and bring the government to a halt, instead of trying to "work with" the Republicans to get things done. The American People didn't want anything to get done; they wanted the war stopped.
Moreover, the Democrats now have the power to push for impeachment of Bush and Cheney, and Kucinich is trying to do this, but the rest of the Dems (particularly those at the top, like Pelosi) aren't helping out here at all; instead they're at Bush's beck and call.
So as far as I'm concerned, the Democrats have utterly failed in the mission they were given by the American people when they were elected into Congress in '06.
Ron Paul bone chilling? Only if you're dumb enough to support the Iraq War, or you're some loony leftist who thinks the answer to our governmental problems is an even bigger, more intrusive Federal government which gets us involved in even more foreign wars.
and only the Republican who isn't bone chilling frightening is Ron Paul. When did the Republicans becomes Fascists?
Here's a hint: Ron Paul isn't really a Republican (at least not a modern Republican). He's really a Libertarian disguising himself as a Republican, because it's a lot easier to get votes when you claim to be in one of the two mainstream parties, even if your platform is completely different. For instance, the Green Party candidates would probably win a lot more elections if they just decided to call themselves Democrats instead, and attempted to take over the Democratic party, rather than trying to be a separate party.
I made the account in fall 03 if memory serves me correctly.
4 years at 365 days a year = 1460 days.
This means 1.36 posts a day on average.
that's sure a lot of leisure time!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
That is a really REALLY silly point of view.
It assumes that culture is something static, external to us, that we at best leave alone, lest we inadvertently damage it somehow.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Culture is what we do and why we do it. If everyone acted like you -- careful not to work for change, then we'd still be living in caves and still perform whatever cultural rituals our ancestors did back then, in the caves.
No, a living culture needs the oposite: People who are creative. People who are passionate. People who figth for what they believe in. People who create something NEW. People who critisize old habits that they find faults with. People who use their voice.
The fact that you're living as a minority makes no difference whatsoever, cultures where *always* formed in no small part trough influences from travellers and immigrants. More variation, new impulses, a fresh look on things is a strong -plus- for a culture, not a minus. Even though yes it often leads to increased friction in the short term. (all change comes with friction so this is non-surprising).
It's hardly an accident that so much new art, new music, new literary works, new architecture, new religions, whatever sprang up exactly where diverse people-groups rubbed up against eachother. It's no -accident- that islam, judaism and christianity arose where they did, to take one random example -- that *IS* where Africa, Asia and Europe rubs into eachother.
Has everyone noticed that Simon Baron-Cohen is in fact the cousin of Sacha?
Though I'm sure he's done plenty of important work of his own...
I love Dawkins' point about the difference in how we view politicians vs scientists who change their minds. I never did understand why some people criticize politicians for changing direction- that should be a virtue.
Am i the only one who misread that and was eager for a comment? I need more coffee these mornings...
The American Dream, pre-marketing myth, was that anyone could come to America, no matter how poor, how little they understand English, whatever their religion, etc., and try to succeed and keep the fruits of their labor. The American Dream was that if you worked hard, you could succeed to the best of your ability.
:)
In America, any Native Son could grow up and become the President of the United States. The Head of State COULD be anyone. In Europe, to be Head of State, the best solution was for your father to be Head of State, and be the oldest son. Any other path involved being related to the Head of State, and the right people dying off. You can joke all you want about Bush being President because his father was, but only TWO Presidents are the son's of other Presidents in the US... what percentage of Monarchs are related to the previous Monarch?
Before the New Deal and the "New American Dream," there was no IRS, INS, W-2, W-4, 1099, I-9, SSA, etc. You wanted work, you got up early and looked for work. Some jobs lasted a day, some a week, some months, but whatever your wages were, you kept them. The Media loves to mock the "Mexican Day Laborer" that stands around at Home Depot looking for work for a day... my grandfather was telling me that during the Great Depression, that's how his father got work essentially. There was no "employment law," you went and got work.
This was in contrast to Europe (particularly England) where all national wealth either theoretically belonged to the Crown or was owned by a small class of aristocrats. In the US, not everyone owned land, but everyone COULD own land. Sure they might not be able to afford it, but you could legally buy land. You didn't have to be the Heir to the the current Heir to the old Feudal Lord that owned the land and just rented it out to the people.
After WWII, the suburbs were created because massive numbers of men ages 18-30 showed back up, got married, and wanted houses quickly. The rest of the country felt that nothing was too good for the men returning victorious, and numerous benefits were created for Vets (and a desire to keep them from immediately flooding the labor market and causing massive unemployment, so the Gov't got some to go to college, etc.). America had unprecedented wealth, both because WWII R&D translated into massive improvements in manufacturing creating massive wealth, and as a percentage of global wealth, America exploded because it hadn't just had its cities leveled for the second time in 30 years. This resulted in massive money for conveniences (kitchen appliances that we take for granted generally date to the 1950s through 1970s), freeing up leisure time.
The middle class as a concept, spoiled, pampered, wealthy, was founded in this time frame. Wealth exploded, and the "Greatest Generation" happened to be in the position to move up with it. They gave their children unprecedented advantages, and the Baby Boomers became the first generation to define education as lasting through age 22. Public education started with 1-8, then 1-10, 1-12 and K-12, and now Pre-K:16. What happens as things become standard, they stop attracting a premium. A high school diploma received a premium wage when most people went through 8th grade, college did as the diploma was normal.
The fact is, unless you "NEED" the education (technical, specialized education), the ever increasing baseline of education to signal "I'm
My biggest realization is related to this as well. 2007 was the year where I realized that I will not adapt and have no desire to engage with "the next generation" who is now online. I personally can't stand seeing online discussions filled with nothing but people chiming in without anything to say. I don't know if it's self absorption, arrogance, or something else entirely, but why post comments that only say LOL, OMG, QFT, FTMFW, etc? I used to love reading message boards for the variety of ideas and arguments. While there have always been trolls and garbage to sift through, you could still get to decent content. Now I've stopped reading a number of sites I used to enjoy because all I see are people who post their acronymed reactions and insults that they think are arguments. Slashdot has held up so far, but you can certainly notice a shift towards this trend in both the comments and the moderating. I'm hoping the trend doesn't continue, but it probably will unless adjustments are made to the moderating system.
2007 was the year that I decided that I'm an Online Curmudgeon. Now get off my lawn.
You decided this last year? Seriously? I felt this way five years ago. Maybe more. I finally just realized that it's Sturgeon's Law at work: 90% of the comments will be crap (mostly of the varieties you describe) but 10% of them are genuinely interesting, informative, or insightful. So when I've got time to spare, I'll wade through the 90% to get to the 10%. Other times, it's just not worth it. But I don't think slashdot itself has changed that much in this past year, or even the past five.
There's at least one area where good ol' stuff doesn't suck, which many people discovered during the big ice storm last month. An acquaintance related how the power went out at her office building. They had a generator, but it only powered the phones and the computers, which left them trying to work in the dark. But that wasn't the problem. A disaster of a sorts quickly became apparent as they discovered that their automatic, electrically-operated flush toilets no longer functioned.
Proverbs 21:19
It (fairly reliably) sifts out the good 10% (or at least the top 5).
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I have worked in many countries, in different continents (more than a couple of days, mind you) and never ever in all my years had worked more than 7 or 8 hours a day regularly. I also visited many offices (US included) and while there was the typical workaholic plenty of people left the office at 17:00 or 18:00 sharp every day.
There is the odd day everything goes bananas, but that is a very rare exception, not the rule.
If you are not able to put limits and to enter into a fair relationship with your employer, don't blame the world economy, blame is closer to home. No, actually it lives with you. Stop feeding it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm curious here. Go back to the Constitution and tell me why slavery is some sort of a special case? I would dearly love to know this answer, because, well, ya know, that was kind of the problem at the time, and the South in all its states-rights-libertarian flutter, certainly seemed to be on the right side Constitutionally.
And yes, I know you probably believe that the market is some magic place where only good comes until the evil ol' government interferes. Fortunately, for most of us, we watched Enron scam the good people of California, and realize that the government very much has a job in the economy. Of course, 1929 ought to have been enough to demonstrate that, but Libertarians tend to be so ignorant and so ideological that facts like that are conveniently dispensed with.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And look, the Ron Paul worshipping cultists come out again. Ron Paul supports a version of the United States that tore itself to pieces by the middle of the 19th century.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I was struck by Terrence Sejnowski's observation that cortical neurons (in humans) are "more capable" than we ever thought, an observation drawn from fly neurons orders of magnitude less numerous than ours, yet just as able for their assigned tasks.
If we've learned anything from computers, it's that B. F. Skinner's reflexology is not only bunk, but trivial, uninteresting bunk. Look what a dragonfly, e.g., does: Its "brain" is in its eyes, and scarcely anywhere else, and yet it can patrol an area larger than Kansas City (relative to itself), seek, acquire and target an object which is taking evasive action, pursue and kill (or pursue and mate with) it, eat, seek a reed tip to refuel, clean and maintain itself, then relaunch and do the same thing again, exceeding Department of Defense mean times to failure by a factor of ten or a hundred thousands. Also, a dragonfly can compensate for external conditions -- a barn swallow attack, e.g. -- without ever being programmed for it. Dragonflies were shaped by 300 million years of evolution to fill a particular niche, and anyone who comments blithely about "instinct" is simply not aware of what the beastie is doing.
When it comes to Skinner and his pigeon boxes, the best that can be said is that the man achieved tenure in his milieau with a laughably inappropriate and minimalist appreciation of reality. Bad old stuff sucks, for sure. The best of the oldschool behaviorists, such as Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz, were at least looking in the right direction.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Where did you see anything about a clergyman or a bureaucrat? Marriage is a ceremony where you and a partner confirm and celebrate your love, possibly in front of friends. If a clergyman was involved, that was a personal choice to put the celebration in a religious context. No one said the clergyman was there to sanctify their togetherness, if he was there it was because the two people involved already have religious feelings and likely most of their friends and family do too. If this was a state sanctified marriage, more than likely the bureaucrat was there to sanctify the tax write off, not their love.
In short, you are trying to make some silly point about individualism by pissing all over something that obviously made this guy happy. That's a really crass and disrespectful thing to do.
By the way, are you single?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
then obviously the amount we're spending is not the problem
Did anyone say that was the problem? No. That's flat out ridiculous. How could spending more money inherently be the problem? No, the amount of money spent relative to the health of the people is merely a symptom of systemic failure. It's evidence that, despite the magic "free market" mantra being touted, the resultant system is far *less* efficient (as measured by dollars spent versus overall population health) than a centralized system.
And sure, you could try and somehow fix the system. Although, how you'll magically remove all the overhead and profiteering, not to mention alter an insurance industry actively encouraged by the invisible hand to withhold treatment, I don't know. I suppose you could deregulate further and see what happens... hardcore capitalists seem to enjoy such experiments (though they love to ignore the Enron-style failures).
Alternatively, you could choose a system that's proven to work the world over: centralized, government-administered healthcare (possibily privately delivered).
'course, I'm not so deluded as to ever believe the US ever would, or could, implement such a thing... there simply isn't the political will (after all, the people most negatively affected by the current system are the same people who are deeply neglected in US politics: the poor). Of course, the situation isn't helped by a medical-industrial complex that's heavily invested in keeping the status quo.
Life expectancy in the US is mainly a choice. The leading cause of death is heart disease, which is commonly caused by obesity. Obesity is mostly a choice.
Obesity is also a function of food quality. And when the only food cheap enough to afford is of low quality, surprise surprise, the poor will ultimately end up in poorer health. And guess what the cheapest food is? Yup, fast food junk. And don't get me started on the function of education (which itself is a function of income) in dietary choice.
No, I think the GP has it right. You really are "someone coddled by a privileged existence and having no concept of life outside such an upbringing." Seriously, try looking past your own limited horizon, you might learn something.
Traditions die off all the time. Sometimes, there's really a loss; sometimes nostalgia just makes it feel as though there is. But that's life. Society doesn't stand still - it never has, and never will.
Or if your someone who knows that Ron Paul's America was wiped out by Lincoln, mainly because it was unsustainable.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Jobs are an economic commodity, not the base of dreamy prospectus about how life should be.
You ignore that at your own peril.
In any case, what you describe as thee American Dream was built in ferocious militarism and enforced economic inequality.
It could not last and in general terms the ending of it will be seen as a good riddance, even by US historians in the future (honestly pal, do you think it is ethical that every time you have nothing to do with your military industry you go and kill hundreds of thousands of people so you can enjoy an unsustainable level of comfort?)
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Many people in rich countries do not know what poverty is, even people considered poor there.
I will tell you what it is: having to bury you mother in a communal grave because you don't have money.
Think about that before repeating such idiotic asseverations.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
2007 was my first full year as an atheist. I had been Christian for 25 years.
Why was it "unsustainable"? It's working just fine in Europe right now.
I'm sorry, but if you think that smaller countries/states with more power, and weaker federal governments can't work, and that we need powerful, centralized governments, then it logically follows that you must also believe that we ultimately need a single, powerful, global government. I and most other Americans, I think, will absolutely reject that notion.
Nothing like a strawman. Par for the course for Ron Paul cultists.
It didn't work because, when it came up against a major issue like slavery, where on the one side you had a technically correct Constitutional position put forward by the slave states against the states that refused slavery, and clauses like Interstate Commerce came into play (ever heard of a little ol' case called Dred Scott), the Federal government could come to no conclusion that actually worked.
To be sure Lincoln certainly violated basic precepts that the Founding Fathers had put into play, but the only other choice was to see the dissolution of the Union.
In short, it worked only because no one had the balls to either overthrow States Rights on a key issue or to simply accept that the Federal government had little or nothing to say on the matter.
Lincoln killed Ron Paul's vision of America. I mean, the very idea of occupying the defeated Confederate states most assuredly would have had Jefferson and Madison rolling their graves. They saw the US much as Paul does.
And what the hell does the EU have to do with this? Even its theorists, proponents and critics are realizing that you really can't have a super-state that isn't centralized. It is, in fact, a cause of major grief for those who object to the growing power of the EU.
Open up a newspaper once in a while, and put down the religious tracts that the Ron Paulite Squad puts out. Libertarianism is a failed ideology. No one would stand for it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Mass famine? We grow enough food to feed the world, let alone ourselves. Get real.
A good number of historians have point out that, according to all their evidence, this is true and has always been true. In studying the historical food shortages and famines, the conclusion seems to be that there was always plenty of food, but people starved because they couldn't get the food. This was sometimes due to poor distribution technology, but it was mostly due to the effects of the powerful people who controlled the distribution system. That is, people starve to death due to the actions of other people, not because there's no food.
One of the best-documented textbook cases was the Irish "potato famine" in the middle 1800s. There is copious historic documentation showing that during this time, Ireland exported a lot of food to England. But the Irish peasants who grew the food couldn't afford to buy it themselves. This was entirely due to the social order that kept them effectively in a state of slavery to the landowners. Similar situations have been documented in many other parts of the world, especially China and India. And, of course, the Soviet Union back in the 1930s when Stalin starved the Ukranian population into submission, and somewhere around 10 million of them died.
An interesting side issue has come up here in a couple of the OLPC discussions. Inevitably, people say that the poor parts of the world don't need laptops; they need food. Other people have pointed out that this has always been a problem, and food aid programs haven't done much good. The problem really is that the local power structure is keeping those people poor and starving. One approach that just may work is to break this stranglehold via education and communication, which is what the OLPC project is trying to supply. It's a lot harder to oppress educated people.
But this is just one experimental approach which may or may not work. In some areas, the power structure will probably wise up and block such attempts to end their control. And people will remain poor, ignorant and starving in a world of plenty. This might be part of what's going on in Nigeria right now with the LANCOR story.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I think we should expect more from our politicians - like being honest and sane.
Except that one of the "bugs" in a democratic system is that it rewards politicians for dishonesty. The people tend to vote for the candidate that claims to support things that the people want. But a completely honest candidate has a disadvantage to a good liar who studies the people and tells them what they want to hear.
Historically, the main tool against such dishonesty has been a free press. When we had good investigative journalists, the candidates' actual action were often exposed. At other times, the media was in bed with the leading candidates, deceptive campaign claims went unreported, and people were suckered into voting for the dishonest candidates.
I'll let other fill in the names in the above over-simplified historical analysis. Well, maybe one good example might be far enough in the past that few people have an emotional reaction now: In 1964, we in the US saw the Johnson and Goldwater campaigns. A big part of Johnson's campaign ads were built on the idea that Goldwater was a warmonger, who among other things would lead us into a war in Vietnam. You can still find the infamous daisy/atomic-bomb ad online. Johnson won, of course - and he promptly started ramping up US forces in Vietnam. If you can dig up the old media coverage, you'll find here and there some of the evidence that this was Johnson's real intent. But the mass media mostly broadcast Johnson's ads uncritically, and the general population saw him as a peacemaker. Four years later, of course, this no longer worked, and Johnson lost to Nixon (who talked about ending the war, and then promptly escalated it once he was in office).
I'll avoid continuing the story with the 2000 election.
But it could be useful to find a good, permanent solution to the problem of the advantage to dishonesty in democratic elections.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
To affect is to effect an effect.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
For me, two things died over the last couple of years:
1) The ability to agree to disagree. You can't discuss politics in a group of anything but your closest friends. Not only is $MYSIDE correct, it's the only one that makes any sense whatsoever. Dissenting opinions need not apply. That's not healthy.
2) Any faith that the government, at any level, can do anything effectively. Katrina wasn't just a Federal failure, and one can argue there are even worse issues looming (mortgage bailout is S&Ls all over again, horrible problems in public schools and services, overweighted health insurance, I can keep going).
I think Zappa said that "government is the entertainment division of big business." It's beyond me how anybody can continue to believe the government is capable of anything beyond further screwing things up.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
You link to a BBC article about "possible" mass famine on a world-wide scale....and then suggest the US would be susceptible to somekind of famine?
;)
I have to ask: are you serious?
Say what you want about Ron Paul but your statement can't stand. The US - with all of those middle states (great for ag, btw) - and you insinuate we are going to starve to death? Seriously. There is almost zero chance of that happening. Why? I am glad you asked.
If there is one thing the US has plenty of - it's farmland. Land to grow things on. Land that, right now, the government pays you NOT to farm. Yes, you read that correctly...the US government still has the CRP Program And it's not some small program. Each state has their own version but the premise is basically the same: govt pays you not to farm your land. We have this program for a lot of different reasons but that's not the point. The point is, if you opened up the spigots and started growing as much as you could, we'd be up to our eyeballs in food. There is that much land in the USA. The question is: will you have a society in place that can deliver it to people?
Methinks you also need to read some US History and understand one of the things we've always been great at: Agriculture. Ever hear of John Deere? Or George Archer and John Daniels (Archer-Daniels Midland)? How about Texas Agriculture and Mechanical University (TX A&M)? The US are experts at producing food. We will be the last ones to starve in a worldwide famine of anykind.
I'm still confused as to why him being a Muslim would be such a bad thing if it were true?
;-). News from Muslim countries is easily available online, from local sources. They almost all publish in English and French as well as their local language. And, at least for now, the big companies and the government have stopped their attempts to block access to sites like aljazeera.com (or aljazeera.net, which has their elegant logo ;-).
;-). But it's interesting that they tend to listen now when she goes into excruciating detail about how the local people see various news stories. And she'd be much more likely to vote for a moderate Muslim candidate than someone like Romney or Huckabee.
Because he's running for president, and to a large part of the American population, all Muslims are jihadists, suicide bombers, and generally evil.
Funny thing is that there's a minority population that has reacted to the events of September 2001 rather differently. One change over the past couple decades has been the accessibility via the Internet of information that wasn't easily available earlier. I remember looking for information on Islam back in the 80s, out of general historical curiosity, and finding that very little was easily available. There was almost nothing in local libraries or bookstores, even here in Boston with its flock of universities. Now, it only takes seconds or minutes to locate more expert information online than you could read in a lifetime. It's easy to find detailed data on any Muslim sect you can name (and also all the misinformation about them
My wife and I are your typical American mongrels, with families from all over. Her family has a few Arabic-sounding names several generations back, and in Sept 2001, she decided it was time to tackle learning Arabic. She hadn't bothered earlier, because it had been just too difficult. But she quickly found good online sites, and is now routinely reading a number of Middle-Eastern news sources in Arabic rather than English. Some of her friends have been puzzled by this (especially as she claims to be an atheist
I know a lot of people with similar attitudes. But, of course, they aren't typical of the majority of Americans, who do mostly view Muslims as evil. Those "Obama's a Muslim" claims are aimed at that sort of ignorance. People who are knowledgeable on the topic wouldn't be effected, of course, because they'd consider it irrelevant as long as he's the Kennedy type who wouldn't try to impose his religion on the rest of us.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I am lving in a foreign Asian country.
All Asian countries are foreign... unless, of course, you're living in one.
David Gould
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To be sure Lincoln certainly violated basic precepts that the Founding Fathers had put into play, but the only other choice was to see the dissolution of the Union.
And why is this a problem? How is it in any way acceptable to have a war and kill people just because they don't want to be governed by you? I'm sorry, but I can't think of any case where this is ever acceptable. Otherwise, it should be OK for me to come to your house, demand "protection" money, and shoot your children when you refuse.
Lincoln killed Ron Paul's vision of America. I mean, the very idea of occupying the defeated Confederate states most assuredly would have had Jefferson and Madison rolling their graves. They saw the US much as Paul does.
And their vision was the correct one.
And what the hell does the EU have to do with this?
Simple: the EU resembles the original USA's union far more closely than the current state of the USA does. It's a league of separate nations who have formed an economic union where they share the same currency, and have free trade between member nations, but otherwise are sovereign and separate. With NATO, they're somewhat united in military matters as well, for mutual self-defense.
Even its theorists, proponents and critics are realizing that you really can't have a super-state that isn't centralized.
You state this as if it's a fact, but you give nothing whatsoever to support your position. I reject this notion that you can't have a super-state that isn't centralized. You simply can't have a government that's responsive to local needs and concerns when it's located thousands of miles away in a different place where the people are different and the culture is different; people need to govern themselves: this is something called democracy that most claim to support. You can't have democracy if you're being governed by other people, from other places.
Tell me, are you in favor of a North American union? Why not? How's that different from having a huge American federal government? If it's OK to have a huge Federal government, and being in a union is so important, why not include the Canadians and Mexicans in that union? Most Unionists seem to balk when I bring up the idea of uniting with Mexico for some reason. How about we unite with the rest of Central and South America too? After all, what's wrong with giving Castro and Chavez a say in the new "American_(continent)" government?
Open up a newspaper once in a while, and put down the religious tracts that the Ron Paulite Squad puts out. Libertarianism is a failed ideology. No one would stand for it.
More ridiculous assertions with nothing to back them up whatsoever. No one would stand for it? So no one wants liberty? Because that's what libertarianism is all about. If you're not in favor of it, it seems to follow that you're in favor of curtailing peoples' liberty. Are you in favor of Bush's new violations of civil liberties, such as the suspension of Habeus Corpus? What other liberties do we currently have that you think we don't really need?
FYI, Muslims believe that Christ (Isa) was a prophet, that he was the promised messiah, and that he will return again in the final days. I know absolutely nothing about mosque naming conventions, but given all that, it wouldn't be TOO surprising to see one named in Isa's honor.
Of course, Muhammad is revered above him and it's a sin to say that Jesus is the son of God, but it's still worth pointing out that there's a lot of overlap between the two religions there. If Judaism was a video game, Christianity and Islam would be mere expansion packs--not sequels.
It feels like there's nothing we can do to stop idiots like Ted Stevens from getting elected.
Did I miss something about Stevens? Did he say something outrageous like like propose logging every packet in order to help fight terrorism? I mean, it can't just be the "series of tubes" thing, right? Look, I like Jon Stewart as much as the next guy, probably more so, but continuing to make fun of him like that just seems to make it apparent that there really wasn't all that much to make fun of. I mean, the guy uses a perfectly reasonable analogy to convey the point that the Internet itself is merely a conduit of information, and is not responsible for the "dump-trucks" full of crap that are congesting it, and all of a sudden he becomes the poster-boy for elderly computer illiteracy? I don't get it.
Does anyone here really think Stevens was under the mistaken impression that the Internet is physically implmemented in the form of hollow cylindrical tubes through which we push little capsules containing IP packets written on paper, like at the drive-thru teller at the bank? Can I get a show of hands? Anybody?
Please, please, please tell me it's not just the tubes thing.
US already has lower life expectancy [...]
That's a tribute to our productivity. We can complete a lifetime in far less time than those european slackers.