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FWD.us: GOP Voters To Be Targeted By Data Scientists
theodp writes: "We are excited to announce that FWD.us and Hackers/Founders are joining forces to host the 'DEBUG DC' Growthathon on June 21st & June 22nd," reads the blog over at FWD.us, the PAC whose Founders and Major Contributors include current and former CEOs from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn. "This is a unique opportunity to push the envelope in online advocacy for immigration reform." The blog entry explains, "The machine of government is wedged, and is in desperate need of debugging. How do we DEBUG DC? Step One: Target critical legislative districts. Step Two: Data mine these districts to find registered voters who are registered Republicans who we think are likely to support immigration reform. Step Three: Growth hack ways to motivate these people to effectively engage their legislators to tell them they want them to call for a vote on immigration reform. Step Four: Measure results. Step Five: Iterate." The Eventbrite invitation for the event includes a call for Data Scientists who are "pissed off about immigration and want to fix it," are "well versed in statistics and data analysis," and can "infer voter sentiment from sparse data." So, how does this jibe with the outrage expressed by the FWD.us supporters' companies over unauthorized government surveillance?
You average GOP voter strongly values privacy and will not look kindly at this kind of targeted approach.
That's right Republican voters! You too can help Microsoft and Google and Yahoo get immigration laws "reformed" so that we can stop this silly H1-B dance and REALLY start sucking up every warm body from India and the Philippines and anywhere else that thinks $14,000 a year is a hell of a lot of money!
It would be nice to debug DC, but it's all about the H1-Bs...
7. ???
8. Profit!
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
you are funny, Republicans pushed big science funding for decades, Democrats kill it.
I despise both parties, by the way, and generally don't vote at federal level for candidates from either one
What about american voters? The hostility towards immigration is cultural and it's widespread and it crosses party lines.
The only reason there any debate at all over the subject (let alone the billions of dollars in research spent to "move the issue forward") is because a bunch of big corporations want to flood the market with cheap foreign labor. The other 99.999 percent of the population isn't too keen on having their wages further lowered by imported competition. These are the same companies that have been pushing like crazy to move every factory job overseas for the past 30 years. We all saw what a wonderful effect that had on factory workers.
The second one of the parties gets behind protectionism is a big way, it's going to create a tidal wave.
Why don't these guys simply pay attention to a scientific poll that was already run in Eric Cantor's district to see how successful this idea is!
Sheesh!
First time in history that Majority leader of the House has lost his seat- all because he supported some form of immigration reform.
That worked well for him didn't it.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
I am Data Jesus and I have come to intelligently design a new kingdom by selecting leadership comprised of doomsday preppers, plumbers, and an Alaskan volleyball player.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Your average GOP voter is the same as your average democrat voter, with different parents and geography. I have never, personally, met more than one republican that didn't like science, and she was a nut-job. Also, republican or democrat is not the dividing line for individual privacy. That's a non-partisan issue (unless you're libertarian, in which case it's your quest in life to remove all privacy violations). I was skeptical, at first, about targeted approaches generated from big-data problems. Then I got on google fiber. There were some HUGE privacy concerns there, since they basically keep a tcpdump (minus packet contents) of all your internet history as part of your google-fiber profile for 3 days. Before that, they just knew that I was an adult male. After being on google fiber, all my internet ads changed from gaming and porno to high end computer hardware and data center products. As it turns out, I greatly prefer seeing computer hardware ads (particularly when I'm at work). Targeted approaches bred from privacy violations aren't necessarily a bad thing, it's what people do with them that's the problem. Technologies can be used effectively to make the world a better place, or abused to make it worse, it doesn't mean the technology is inherently evil. I don't think democrats would have problem being data-mined and invited to public events surrounding global warming policy, and I doubt these GOP voters will care that they were selected by a computer to be invited to take part in something that they're interested in.
This is really an effort by big multinationals to suppress tech job wages in the US by keeping up the H1B visa racket, and all the associated visa rackets.
http://cis.org/no-stem-shortag...
You can probably make a lot of arguments that immigration is broken in many ways but I don't see how this automatically leads to the conclusion that the fixes for what's broken are in agreement, or, even necessarily agreement on what's broken.
On some level this feels a little like astroturfing for more H1Bs if so many big companies are behind it, maybe with a little feel-good "reform" directed at some of the hardships experienced by run-of-the-mill illegals from Latin America.
Advocacy is not a scientist's job. Scientists are to describe or model reality as best they can, not attempt to change it. Changing things with technology is "engineering", and changing people's opinions with technology is "social engineering".
Scientists should be careful not to taint their reputation for objective analysis.
Table-ized A.I.
While Republican voters might appear to be for immigration reform by the polls, their idea of reform is vastly different than what these people are proposing.
They first want a secure border... meaning no flood of new illegals, drugs, gangs, etc.
They clearly feel lied to by democrats saying the border is the most secure ever. Just look at the 50,000 children who have just crossed since January. If you can't stop children, how do you plan on stopping the "bad guys"?
Republicans would also support more work visas -- both skilled and unskilled. They don't care about having more immigrants here. They want an orderly process which no administration has been able to provide.
Obama's blanket amnesty isn't too popular but most Republicans would be up for the debate if they were confident the problem wouldn't keep compounding itself with new illegals.
As a habitually Republican leaning voter and a geek myself, I find this insulting. Of course being treated as an optimization problem for data analysts is something that happens all the time in commerce and advertising. But I am turned off by multiple disingenuous elements here. Let's name a few:
1. It isn't about "immigration reform", it's about amnesty. The Democrat agenda will do nothing to reduce illegal immigration, but rather increase it.
2. Bringing in lots of new workers is a direct cause of lower wages and more job competition and unemployment in the USA.
3. Really rich, corporate Republicans want more labor because it benefits them fiscally.
4. Lots of Democrats in general want more immigrants because it strengthens the power of the government and the welfare state, and shifts voting demographics favorably for them (e.g. when they turn Texas blue, they win the presidency for the foreseeable future).
5. So the bottom line is that when they approach a presumably low information Republican voter, they will have to lie their little tails off about their agenda to get him/her to go along with their so-called "immigration reform".
(Do I sound a little mad?)
So while I'm not a tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist, I do note amongst the young technorati something of a double-standard. Surveillance, big data and privacy violations are bad when they're used to infringe social rights, but GOOD when they're used to attack people perceived as infringing social rights... C'est la vie.
But more to the point, single-issue activists ALWAYS misunderstand the voting habits of multi-issue voters. Particularly Republicans, who are not just straight-up conservatives as they are often portrayed, but often socially liberal _fiscal_ conservatives who choose not to vote based on social policy. Turning multi-issue swing voters into single-issue activists isn't a straight-forward process, even if you identify who they are.
Finally, this kind of effort makes the assumption that such voters are simply awaiting the right contact or motivation to write their congressperson and demand action. Whereas, in reality, while activists often view the disengaged as "against the cause", the reality is, in most instances, such voters just don't care about that cause.
Notice: Your mouse has been moved. Windows will now restart so this change can take effect.
Just from the summary, I will infer that this entire discussion will be inferences made with sparse data.
More music, fewer hits
Second paragraph on the FWD.us page:
Our outdated immigration system does not meet Americaâ(TM)s workforce needs in a global economy. We have a system that tells talented immigrants that we don't welcome their contributions. It is a system that cannot keep the United States competitive in a global economy. The time is now for Congress to act on meaningful immigration reform that boosts the American economy and does right by American families.
This is not about amnesty for illegals, this is about H1B expansion.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
And then presumably the scientists get replaced by cheaper H1B "scientists"?
1) You're full of crap, because BOTH parties don't like anyone who isn't a lobbyist or fundraising donor.
2) This is a dangerous precedent, no matter who does it or they target - I get enough political spam as it is. Last thing I need is for a bunch of politically-motivated ideologues to harass me in a targeted way** because they think I might be a useful-but-unwitting pawn in their efforts. If you think this will stop with some party faction looking for like-minded people, you're deluded. Next they'll reach out to independents and no-party types, and possibly even further out.
3) As a result of 2: Fuck that, and fuck them.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
good ol' voter pattern research to hound the rascals out. everybody does it these days, not just the parties.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
urgh - formatting sucks:
The ** up there means I'd be the perfect demographic for TFA, in spite of being registered as "no party" in my state. My religious persuasion is shared with most Hispanic folks, so yeah - I can see 'em bugging the hell out of me to follow whatever soundbites they want concerning immigration. Again, and I reiterate: I'll do my own thinking and actions, so fuck them.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You mean you're NOT already targeted? I get about fifty emails every day along the lines of OMG HELP US WITH THIS ISSUE. I'm too lazy to block them.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Surveillance by government is scary because the power and resources of the government. Data collection by large private corporations is scary because these corporations have privacy rights and their profit motive to get you every which way and how. Data collection of underfunded powerless advocacy group should not be compared to the first two.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...and an Alaskan volleyball player.
If she's cute, you may just get most of /. to vote for your proposal (hot grits petrification optional).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I am Data Jesus and I have come to intelligently design a new kingdom....
Hey, there are plenty of Christians who have no problem with the idea that the classification algorithms use evolutionary algorithms to optimize their results. It's just that they're unwilling to assume that the objective function is undesigned.
This sounds like an interesting method by which individual problems, such as immigration reform, might be solved, but we must recognize that the root cause of disfunction in DC today is money; that bribery in US politics is now legal and that the politicians see it as the norm. As a result, they -- particularly those in the federal government -- almost never care about what their constituents think: in 94-95% of all cases all they have to do is raise more money than their political opponents so that they can outspend them all in every next election.
When seen in this light, it becomes clear that issues such as immigration reform are not going to be solved unless those who fund our politicians also agree. Those donors are big corporations and very rich people, and in this case they seem to think that immigration reform will likely lead to higher wages and thus less profit, so they will tell the politicians to vote aginst any such reform or else their money will diverted to the next politician in line who will vote against it. The politicians think they have no choice in the matter, but that's also how they got elected in the first place (by doing what their donors told them to do).
So, anyone who thinks that the politicians they vote for should be acting primarily in the interests of their constituents, instead of the rich and powerful, should realize that we first all need to act together to get money our of politics. And it can be done! After that DC will once again start to get things done.
-1 or Poe's Law?
A transparently cynical ploy to increase their pipeline of Asian / Indian H1B visa slave labor. DIAF.
The "good", young, hip little liberals have, in the name of being "good", made themselves into a volunteer army of porpagandists and manipulatos in the service of big government and giant multi-billion-dollar multi-mational corporations who are desperate to push down wages of the middle class. Lenni Riefenstahl would be so very proud of them and their support for fascism.
Someday, when they realize just how completely they were duped into helping manipulate people into supporting evil policies that are tearing the country apart and doing real severe harm to middle class families, for the banefit of multi-billionares like Zuckerberg, all across the country some of them will have the common decency to be ashamed. Unfortunately, the supremely morally-blind and fiscally-ignorant among them will continue to call for "taxing the rich" (never noticing that those tax hikes only hit the middle class and are always dodged by Zuck, Soros, Gates, Bloomberg, Buffet, etc), screeching about "evil rich Republicans", and falling into the Alinsky-predicted path of the stupid - calling for more and more government to "solve" the problems that very government is creating to cause the problems that drive the stupid into its "loving embrace" in the first place...
This is a dangerous precedent
As disgusting as it is, it's not a precedent. Party apparatus, political consultants, PAC's, lobbyists, etc. have been doing this for years, and have plenty of money to throw at it. Other than that it's the usual Silicon Valley hype. Since it comes from SV they (and people who fall for it) go ooh, ahh if it's from SV it must be some brilliantly innovative idea. It's an open question whether or not the SV hype artists believe it themselves. Scarily, I suspect they do, but if you want actual expertise in this area, get thee to D.C.
True fiscal conservatism is often at odds with social conservatism. True fiscal conservatism isn't a bad thing - I think many Dems would actually lean more toward a purely fiscally based Republican party, but the social issues keep everyone split into their respective camps despite the similarities in fiscal policy. For example, a true free market conservative has no problem with abortion clinics. They provide a service for which there is a demand. No federal dollars are permitted to go to abortion services, although the clinics also provide everything from well baby services to OB/GYN services in rural areas that require some community funding to fully support (since it's not profitable to operate a small clinic in the middle of nowhere that only half the population + children will use.) Still, it makes monetary sense to fund those clinics at nominal levels rather than have pregnant women dying because they were unaware of ectopic pregnancies, so again, it's government money well spent. A social conservative looks at the clinic though and sees a horrible infestation of sin upon the world and has the urge to bomb it.
Another example would be the mandatory drug testing put in place in Florida for food stamp benefits. After the pilot program in which less than 2% of those tested failed the drug test and were denied benefits, it became clear that the state was losing money and the program should have been halted. (I believe it cost them $100,000 more than they saved to test everyone, even charging some people a fee for the test.) A business minded fiscal conservative would have killed the program because it cost more than it saved. A social conservative would freak out because The Undeserving could get free food if the program was cancelled.
It's this divide in thought between the two wings of the party that drives the fiscally conservative Democrats crazy. They might be willing to compromise with the Republican fiscal wing on some things, but the social wings of either party cannot compromise because they each think the other is Satan.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
These folks simply do not understand that the underlying goal is to drive U.S. wages to third world levels by introducing large labor surpluses. Not just unskilled/low skill labor, either. They want to greatly expand work visas for skilled and highly skilled workers to reduce labor costs and increase profits. Anyone who does not understand this needs to take some J.C. basic Economics courses. And, for those who talk about expanding the economy to accommodate millions of new workers; how's that working for you?
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
By big science, you mean weapons development.
To the exclusion of everything else.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Republicans already support immigration reform: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/la...
For some reason the media, the left and even republican leadership think immigration reform requires amnesty. You'll never get the law and order republican types to agree that those who broke the law should benefit where those who obeyed the law get stuck in south America. It's just not going to happen. Leave amnesty off the table and immigration reform would pass like grease lighting.
well there are other things though one can always wonder if they thought the programs might be someday be weaponizable, e.g. particle accelerators
I doubt many GOPers would vote for something that might shed light on the mysteries of the atom/universe/big bang. Even if they could eventually weaponize it.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
but the Republican did just that, but the Democrats killed the US particle accelerator program. I was one (of hundreds) working on the SSC design at the time by the way. Of course, the SSC was located in Texas.....
Well, if there's one thing that the GOPs hold in higher regard than religion, it's money.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Well, if there's one thing that the GOPs hold in higher regard than religion, it's money.
Well, finally! Something D's and R's can agree on - how much more important money is than anything else.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
As a bi-racial, bisexual, agnostic, transgender, Alaskan basketball player, I thought it was hilarious.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
I am Data Jesus and I have come to intelligently design a new kingdom....
Hey, there are plenty of Christians who have no problem with the idea that the classification algorithms use evolutionary algorithms to optimize their results. It's just that they're unwilling to assume that the objective function is undesigned.
Since believing that the objective function is undesigned is an assumption, and believing that it is designed is also an assumption, seems to me that either belief structure would be equally valid.
Personally, I don't care if a person thinks all existence is the result of a Tolkien-esque dwarf wiping his ass with an orc's favorite axe handle, so long as they aren't trying to force me to believe the same thing.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
well, maybe power more valuable to them. Get the power, you get the money, then you get the women (and if a Republican also the occasional man by toe-tapping in the washroom stall)
> something that might shed light on the mysteries of the atom/universe/big bang.
Something like the Super Collider? That would be the archetypal Republican, Ronald Reagan. The space station? Reagan again. Increased funding for the national science foundation? Reagan. Research tax credits? Reagan.
Republicans oppose "give half a billion of taxpayer money to your largest campaign bundler's failing solar company", but that's not really research. That's more accurately termed a "slush fund".
Yes, republican presidents have their own slush funds. This president's slush fund just happens to be titled "alternative energy fund", but it has nothing to do with science.
BINGO!
What do I win?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The space station? No. It was a precursor to Star Wars, which the NSF was helping build. While tripling the national debt ($1T to $3T).
Yay 'conservative' president!
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Facebook's Wealth Demands Unlimited Slaves
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It wasn't a Republican president who told people to stop patronizing businesses.
It wasn't a Republican Congress that passed a law that canceled millions of affordable insurance policies.
But you know this already, and it makes no difference to you. Or, possibly, you don't accept reality.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
The party you are referring to exists - it's called the libertarian party - and it is mostly (but not entirely) ex-Republicans who think responsible adults should be treated like responsible adults -- e.g. left alone until they hurt somebody.
There _should_ be more liberals and democrats joining the libertarian cause, because the LP is much better than the dems on key issues dems claim to care about: anti-war, pro-civil liberties, anti-racism in law enforcement (especially the drug war), anti-corporatism..
So, I cannot tell you why there aren't more democrats who break ranks and join the libertarians.
One reason for that, I suspect, is that I simply cannot relate to democrats or understand how they came to be democrats in the first place. There are plenty of intelligent people who are democrats, but I've never been able to figure out how any of them "tick".
In any case, there are principled libertarians -- and that's how they've traditionally billed themselves. Principled in the sense that they think government morally/ethically should not do certain things.
Then there are pragmatic libertarians -- folks who figure government is _ineffective_ or even malicious at doing certain things, and therefore shouldn't do them. An example would be Gary Johnson.
The bottom line is that, if America were actually incredibly hungry for a fiscally conservative, socially permissive party -- that party has existed for decades. It has been getting more popular lately, but it's still basically a rounding error in most elections.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
This is disgusting and appalling. There is no shortage of workers. Studies have shown that there are in fact twice as many tech workers in the USA as there are jobs. These companies are basically funding all of this to increase their own profits while driving down the wages for workers by flooding the labor market with third world labor. This is devastating for American workers, if you are an American worker this means YOU will be laid off and lose your job to Indians who will gladly steal it from you. Do all you can to oppose Mark Suckerberg, Facebook and all the other large companies behind this obscene agenda to basically replace American citizens with foreign labor. All this is, is an effort by these large companies to dupe unsuspecting people into supporting policies which will harm workers, policies that actually run against our own best interests.
Remember that each one of these H1B visas means one fewer American without a job and it means lower wages for American workers. We must stop this immigration invasion and stop these corporations from manipulating the political system in this way.
...and an Alaskan volleyball player.
I know there's a joke to be made about balls shrinking in the cold but I don't have time right now...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
You left out Republican Ron Paul. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
if I get a call from any political org who does this kind of thing, I will go out of my way to vote for "the other guy" regardless of who the other guy is, hell he could be a KKK member or a feminazi but if i start getting targeted direction trying to get me to vote the way someone else wants me to, they got another thing coming
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I think that your comments describe a larger fissure within the Republican party. With respect to social conservatives and libertarian conservatives, there just isn't as much common ground as there needs to be in order to form a political party from both groups.
By way of example, is forbidding same-sex marriage a pro-individual freedom, small-government value? No, it is not. Are Second Amendment rights an Evangelical Christian value? No, they are not. But we libertarians are supposed to clam up about certain freedoms to avoid alienating the evangelicals, and you've got these church groups advocating for gun rights to appease the libertarians. It's starting to come apart at the seams, and has resulted in The Tea Party.
The Tea Party isn't really a bunch of whack jobs like the media says. They're just Republicans who have been over-promised to and under-delivered to for too long. The libertarians are disaffected because the GOP is giving us big government after having promised us small. The Evangelicals are disaffected after having been promised abortion bans, faith-based initiatives, etc. You may not agree that any of the above policy goals are laudable, but you certainly have to admit that we've gotten the opposite of all that since Bush I. Can you blame Republican voters of all stripes for being fed up with the GOP establishment?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Supposedly in the US each person has the same rights as government or a large business. The ability to collect data should conform to the notion of equality. However in this case the goal of identifying republicans with certain beliefs need not be about immigration. Instead we could locate those with right wing beliefs and compel them to visit or remain in mental health facilities until such time as they are sane and able to think clearly. The real mental game of the right wing is to be deliberately blind to consequences. They do not follow this pattern ( action A combined with Action B will lead to result C). By not foreseeing result C they can justify all kinds of evils. For example burning coal and dumping pollutants into the air not only does not cause people to die in misery it particularly can not attack their own lungs or their favorite childs lungs and turn them into bed rot heading for a grave yard. Build those pipelines, frack your water supply and burn that coal!!!!
I'm the one holding the sword. ;^)
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
What issues are we demanding to get "our way" on that the right has offered to compromise on? Please enumerate.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Naw, a reduction in your potential consumer base is never a good thing, unless you run a mortuary or make coffins for a living. Also, fear of death erodes consumer confidence.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I think that's the only paragraph I've ever read that only had three commas and one set of quotes for its punctuation.
Nice job.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Except that they're not lower premiums. Other taxpayers are forced to subsidize the plans of many to make them affordable.
And let's not forget, "If you like your existing plan, you can keep it. Period."
Still believe that too?
and he could never get any of his spending cuts through the Democratic controlled Congress either which resulted in spending increases that outpaced the revenue increases.
I wonder how long it will take FWD.us to feel like they're paying to much to their American born Data Scientists and strive to replace them with H1B visa holders? Is that phase 6?
Your average GOP voter greatly values his privacy where the Government is involved. We all know that.
When it comes to private corporations however, your average GOP voter doesn't seem to worry overmuch. Even better, he/she tends to hold little sympathy towards attempts to restrict corporations in any way whatsoever.
As such, he/she takes a positively hostile position versus people who propose to regulate what data corporations can collect on you (and what they can do with it). Because that smacks of "expanding government". The number one red-flag issue for them.
So err does that mean that GOP voters will refrain from protesting as long as it's only honest for-profit corporations doing the data-mining? If only because for-profit corporations will be just as happy to profile/target the other side? Thereby evening the playing field as it were.
Of course GOP voters won't like the idea of being profiled with the express purpose of countering the political position they wish to see adopted any more than anybody else.
The rub is: what do they propose to do about it? Somehow I feel that they won't necessarily endorse additional legislation to that effect. Let alone government enforcement of the same. And by banning such practices, they would deprive themselves of the opportunity to use the same techniques.
What I think will happen is that GOP voters will ask themselves: will we benefit more from this technique than the opposition? If so, they'll oppose it only insofar and for as long as they feel they are currently lagging the opposition, and endorse it in every other respect.
You complete lack of scientific understanding seems only to be exceeded by your confidence in whatever source you cut and pasted that from..
Impressively wrong. Even in the basics.
Then again with the massively inconsistent bible considered a source of knowledge.. I guess what are we to expect.
Hints: forensic science has absolutely nothing to do with evolution at any level (one is a theory the other is a practice). Reasonable doubt has nothing to do with forensic science (it is a criminal legal position). Absolutely everything determined in the LHC is measured statistically. Core evolution can and has been scientifically demonstrated in many forms.
And those are just the obvious faults..
the theory of evolution is absolutely provable and has been proven with the scientific method. Lineages of many creatures at stages of evolution have been found in the fossil record.
Most Christians in the world accept the theory of evolution, by the way.
"Offtopic" - gee, I guess I hit a nerve with someone, huh?
can't believe the Huge Deluge of local Democratic ads on the side of this Slashdot page. URRGH
You're just certified and educated beyond your intelligence