You can't read Eich's mind. I am in favor of gay marriage but not in favor of the court's ruling against prop 8. Don't understand that? I didn't think so. There was a Constitutional amendment passed in the state that banned gay marriage, but somehow the courts decided that the amendment was unconstitutional! What?! You can't deny that the precedent set here is a terrifying one. The will of the people was thrown under the bus! I am a libertarian so I don't much care of some dude marries another dude, but I take issue with lawyers overriding Constitutional amendments! You can fight for your cause, but not like that, it erodes trust in our system. Today, the Constitution of California isn't worth the paper it's printed on thanks to a small group of people who felt their own right to marry was more important than the civil society itself.
The issue isn't as simple as you make it out to be.
Why, for example, is one getting into all sorts of trouble for opposing — not gay sex — gay marriage, but, for example, glamorizing Che Guevara is deemed perfectly acceptable?
Amen brother! Che was a despicable murderer that promoted a despicable murderer and a murderous ideology. People who sport the Che shirt usually not communists, just really, really stupid.
Odd, I thought being a CEO made you an employer, you know, one of those "job creators"
No, as the CEO you're an employee. You can be fired. Although you may have a say so in hiring decisions, you are not an employer and you don't sign pay checks. It would be like saying a department manager is an employer because he can hire or fire people.
By the way - one point a lot of people seem to be missing here is that as CEO Eich would have the power to decide how the company he heads throws its weight around in the political arena
So you're basically saying that he's guilty of maybe doing something in the future? There is no evidence to suggest that he would allow his personal views to influence his decisions as CEO. If follow that logic then nobody that has any sort of political affiliation should be in any sort of decision making position lest they allow their personal beliefs to influence decision making.
And funny how you've convicted him of this behavior in your mind before you have any sort of evidence to suggest that he would do that.
I find it rather ironic that the supposed champions of intolerance are the ones that are demonstrably the most intolerant.
On the other hand the "alarmist" logic is: "we already know the cause of the warming, it is humans saturating the atmosphere with too much CO2, we just need to gather and/or create the evidence to support this theory". That's called inductive logic, and is just as unscientific as what you describe coming from the "denialists".
"Real" science comes from gathering evidence and basing your theories on the evidence gathered. You then determine what it might take to falsify your theory and try as hard as possible to falsify it.
All I see from the "alarmist" camp is people trying to support their theories at all costs, calling things causation where there is barely correlation, and making very little if any effort to falsify their theories. This behavior is more akin to religion than any sort of science.
Refusing to look at alternative hypotheses speaks volumes of these "scientists". The reaction would be the same if a Catholic priest was asked to attempt to verify the existence of Vishnu.
AGW continues to be junk science by excluding itself from the scientific method. Scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable, when you conjure up a hypotheses that is not, you're not longer dealing in science, you're dealing in religion.
I personally think most employers should get out of the health care and retirement system altogether.
Because the single payer VA system has done such a poor job taking care of our war fighters?
Or maybe it's because Social Security is nothing but a ponzi scheme that's slated to be insolvent in a dozen years?
But no, I'm sure you have a ton of valid reasons why the government has done a spectacularly poor job with their existing "single payer" healthcare system and retirement system.
Why take a system where you're paying for your own retirement and attempt to filter it through the leviathan of the federal government? Let me guess, you don't have a 401k.
Why would you take a system that a vast majority of the population is satisfied with, massively increase the cost for the sake of a tiny minority who should already be covered by the existing Medicare system? Unless... you're only interested in having the government envelope more and more of the private economy, and you really have no interest in providing "cheaper" or "better" health care.
I think at this point we can agree that government run health care is more expensive and worse quality. If you ask for proof I give you the VA.
I would add that people give their information voluntarily to these third parties, while the government takes it using the threat of violence. People give their information to third parties because the third party offers a service for storing and distributing their information to select friends and acquaintances. The government takes and distributes information to an untold number of alphabet soup agencies for some abstract, unproven and unconstitutional notion of security.
Furthermore, the very definition of sharing information at all requires that you do it with a third party. So does the ODNI suggest that the government be privy to communication between me and my doctor? Lawyer? Wife?! That we're even at the point that government officials are asking these questions is proof that the government has grown too big and powerful for the good of the people.
“When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.”
-Thomas Jefferson
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
-James Madison
Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.
Thanks for the helpful reply. A few things I'd like to point out about your comments.
You have to have a CC# and/or have an iTunes account to update? Nonsense
The following is from a reply I posted a little earlier to the same comment:
As soon as I received my computer (from my company) it was asking me to update three programs. One was the OS (I think) the other two were built in apps that required I put in my CC# to update. It did make me create an iTunes account (I have the spam to prove it), if there was a way to opt out of this it wasn't obvious and I looked hard. I think the apps were iphoto and imovie. I canceled out of giving my CC# several times, I didn't want to give it up for no reason, but I couldn't "activate" my account until I did, and until I activated the account I couldn't get rid of the "you need updates!" message. That I even need to create an account at all is pretty lame, that I have to enter a CC# to update other software is super lame.
As for my critique about the file system, I just wish/Users/ was/home/ really.
I have the full sized mac keyboard, and option does say alt on it but it doesn't behave like the alt key (maybe if I hold down the fn key that replaced insert?). When using emacs the alt (meta) key is essential. The removal of the other keys is pretty bad with insert at the top of that list.
Thanks for the informed reply. I'm happy you're trying to help and some of your suggestions will help me transition to the new system. That said, I have a few comments about your comments.
As of Lion, you sign in with an Apple ID. That is not iTunes, but iTunes also uses this ID. You do not need a credit card number [apple.com] to update your OS.
As soon as I received my computer (from my company) it was asking me to update three programs. One was the OS (I think) the other two were built in apps that required I put in my CC# to update. It did make me create an iTunes account (I have the spam to prove it), if there was a way to opt out of this it wasn't obvious and I looked hard. I think the apps were iphoto and imovie. I canceled out of giving my CC# several times, I didn't want to give it up for no reason, but I couldn't "activate" my account until I did, and until I activated the account I couldn't get rid of the "you need updates!" message. That I even need to create an account at all is pretty lame, that I have to enter a CC# to update other software is super lame.
It sounds like you are using the mini bluetooth wireless keyboard. You would probably prefer the full-size keyboard [apple.com] which has many of the keys you are concerned about.
I have the full sized keyboard. It lacks the keys I mentioned. I use emacs a lot and by using iterm2 I can replace option with alt, but that's hardly the same as having an alt key because it then disables option. It does not have an insert key, scroll lock, num lock, pause etc.. but it does have 19 F keys that have no apparent function. I tried switching to a PC keyboard, but it lacked the command key so that didn't work out very long. I've resolved to just getting used to it. But the lack of these keys is pretty crappy. Especially the insert key.
When you full screen an application, a virtual desktop for that application window is created on the fly. Your other windows are still there on their original desktop. You can still Opt-Tab back to them or use Mission Control/Expose. I don't understand what the issue is here?
The issue is that the button is useless. I don't know why anyone would ever use it given that it hides all the windows on your other screens. I don't much care what it technically does. What it effectively does isn't terribly useful. Seems a little like a crippled maximize button. How exactly is it useful?
This is another one those scenarios where you have to unlearn Microsoft paradigms. The green button is not a maximize button, and no one ever said it was. It is referred to as the "zoom" button [macyourself.com].
So it's called the zoom button, but it doesn't zoom? That really doesn't make any sense, but ok. It really should be optional how you want it to behave if anything. The unpredictable behavior makes me hesitant to use it. For example, on chrome it resizes vertically only (apparently no web pages can benefit from extra width?), but in my IRC client it resizes both. Why? Who knows? It just does. You're going to be flipping a coin on any new program you install as to what this button actually does. That, in my opinion, is bad design. It doesn't have a maximize button? Well it really should, that would be helpful.
It's not perfect or intuitive, but Command+Shift+G will bring up a dialogue to allow you to type in a path.
Which would be halfway good if it showed the path to the folder you were currently in or had tab completion. As it is, Finder really sucks and I'll more often than not just use the console. I don't really like nuCommander either.
If you don't like the Apple Magic Mouse, you aren't forced to use it.
Yeah... I sort of am forced to use it, for now. It's provided by the company I work for. I don't think they'
Yeah, because that was my only complaint./s My point was there was a lot of unused keys and they've removed a lot of keys that are very useful (alt, scroll lock, insert, num lock). But you're free to try and spin my comments however you like.
Yeah, I'm going to end up doing that. This mouse was provided by the company so I'm stuck with it until I get another one. The critiques are still valid I think.
I've recently been made to switch from a Win8 machine to a brand new OSX machine. The Win8 machine has three monitors, 256ssd, 16bg ram, i7. The OSX machine is a Macbook Pro Retina i7 256ssd, 16bg ram with two external monitors. There are some cool things about OSX but there are many stupid things about OSX. And they're not stupid like "this is different" stupid, they're stupid like "this shit is stupid". Because I'm feeling verbose I'll list the really stupid low hanging fruit. And at the end I'll list what I really enjoy about it.
OSX
* I have to sign up for iTunes to keep my computer updated!?
* I HAVE TO GIVE ITUNES MY CC# TO KEEP MY COMPUTER UPDATED!?
* I have to restart my computer to keep it updated? I thought this was Unix?
Keyboard (external mac? keyboard)
* Why is the keyboard all fucked up? Two keys labeled delete? Is there some aversion to calling a backspace key a backspace key?
* Where the fuck did insert go!? You know some people actually use insert!
* For that matter where is num lock and scroll lock? Again, I use those keys!
* Why redesign the num pad into a Apple(TM) num pad and move all the keys around?
* The behavior of the home and end key is stupid! They jump to the end and beginging of the document instead of the end and begining of the line! What gives them the right?!
* They remove essential keys like insert but I have F1-F19!? And an eject key on a system that doesn't even have an optical drive? (not that they knew that about my system, so a small pass there.)
* Seriously? No Alt key? WTF, I thought this was UNIX! How the fuck am I supposed to use EMACS!?
OSX Windows
* WIndows present resize mouse cursors on some windows edges that cannot be resized! Inexcusable! I should be able to resize the window from any edge. And for god sakes, if I can't resize it from that edge don't show me a fucking resize cursor and make me think I'm losing my mind.
* What the hell is up with this full screen arrow. Useless shit. It removes all the windows from my other screens and throws up a lame gray background. Lame.
* Is this green control box maximize or what!? It seems like sometimes it wants to maximize height and width, and other times it will only maximize height. Be consistant. No, actually, always maximize both!
* I would be so happy if when I resize the top edge of the window to the top of the screen if the bottom would snap to the bottom of the screen like win7/8. I'm not saying this makes all the difference in the world, but when you make it difficult to resize (my first point on windows) this is even more important.
* More customization of color and style would be nice, but I'm not going to cry about too long about that.
OSX Finder
* Seriously? This is the worst piece of shit file manager I've ever seen. Apple has a lot of talented people, money and has had plenty of time to make something wonderful and they made this? As quickly as I could I replaced it, I'm using nuCommander now. Get your shit together Apple.
* I can't remove this POS from my dock without doing some serous surgery to the OS. Even if I do get it removed, it'll come back and stick there until I restart if I open it somehow. Grow up finder, not everyone should be forced to use you. But then, this is Apple, home of "we force you to use shit" so I shouldn't be surprised.
* I can't type a path in here? Fuck that! That alone makes this program trash. Really, a lot of the "finder replacements" are trash for the same reason. Are people afraid to have a path bar you can type in?
Apple Magic Mouse
* RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON!!!! Oh my god! I can't click this right mouse button like 90% of the time. Oh there's a right mouse button, but when you try and click it, it produces a left mouse click. You have to remove y
It doesn't matter if it was "not motivated by political bias", a claim which itself is highly suspect, it was de facto political bias. Some groups withdrew their tax exempt status when illegally asked for donor lists. This surely had an impact on their operations and subsequently influenced the vote outcome. But it only happened to "right wing" groups so somehow it's OK because they want lower taxes. . This logic is sickening. I would argue that the fact they are critical of the IRS or the government would be a good reason to be very careful about such audits less they appear biased. That they are in fact biased confirms the conspiracy theories put forth by these groups.
The same group of people who say "this is OK" would be crying bloody murder if the tables were turned.
THIS! THIS 1000x! Damn, I was about to drop a comment about The Forever War. What a complete and marvelous book! The entire life span of humanity in war experienced in one lifetime, by someone who saw action in Vietnam. Not only was it believable it was scientifically possible! Best Sci-Fi I've ever read. And I read a lot.
That said, Card's Ender's Game is not bad at all, I'll surely see it when it hits the DVD shelves (and someone rips it for my lazy ass).
DDT has a long history and nowhere in it is actual proof of causation of any of the aforementioned ailments. The best anti-DDT activists could prove is correlation and linking to diseases, never causation, in spite of decades of trying. So much of this "scientific research" was done trying to affirm the positive idea that DDT caused disease. Weak inductive logic has no place in actual scientific research! "Affirming the positive" is a huge problem with so much of science. You don't create "scientific facts". You only create theories that hold up to repeated attempts to falsify them. This is never the case with the anti-DDT research. It's always about affirming the "scientific fact" that DDT is evil. In the 50's and 60s people virtually bathed in this stuff. Big trucks would billow out DDT into parks to kill off mosquitoes, and all this time no ill effects were ever proven to be caused by DDT. And thanks to DDT the US is free of malaria.
Because of anti-DDT activists and the pseudo-scientific FUD created by them 3rd world countries have had to deal with the scourge of malaria that kills over a million every year, and tens of millions over decades. If you want funding from the US you had better not use DDT, oh sure we did and eliminated the threat of malaria in our country, but we learned the errors of our ways by great pseudoscientists like Rachel Carson that using DDT can have unclear and unknown effects to the thickness of egg shells in some avian species, so you know, let everyone die from malaria, this egg shell stuff is pretty serious.
People using weak inductive logic claming harm to the environment to prevent the use of life saving procedures make me sick. Rachel Carson and people like her have blood on their hands and will never feel guilty for the tens of millions of deaths caused and the hundreds of millions of lives forever changed. If there was justice in this world (and there never was) Rachel Carson would be made to live in a country where DDT has never been used. Let her sleep under a mosquito net forever afraid of a malaria infected bite. No, she slept in great comfort in a place where DDT had already wiped out the scourge of malaria.
Only as recently as 2007 has this anti-DDT hysteria subsided and the use of DDT has begun again. If it is so damn harmful why is it OK now? Of course it's a good thing they're using it again, but it's far too late to save the lives of the millions of people who could have been saved.
Wikipedia is a funny place. You can see the fights between editors that occur right in the article. In the section "Criticism of restrictions on DDT use" the same over zealous anti-DDT editors just couldn't help themselves. By god they weren't going to let these criticisms of the restriction of DDT go unchallenged! They'll insert quotes of someone's opinion to refute the critical assertions in the same paragraph as the criticisms. That'll show the critics what's up! And, no, nobody will ever venture to think that there is any sort of unfair bias in the article!
Chemists who create chemicals to save people's lives are not mad scientists and these anti-DDT activists are not all knowing supermen come to save the planet. So many of these activists just know, without need for proof, that DDT is bad. Why? Why, because it's a chemical, and chemicals are bad! And look at these ignorant people spraying chemicals without knowing what us activists know.
Everything is a chemical. You can die from cyanide poising from eating too many almonds or apple seeds, but you'll never die from DDT.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, but 10 simultaneous HDD failures of key individuals related to the targeting scandal? Seems like quite the coincidence.
You can't read Eich's mind. I am in favor of gay marriage but not in favor of the court's ruling against prop 8. Don't understand that? I didn't think so. There was a Constitutional amendment passed in the state that banned gay marriage, but somehow the courts decided that the amendment was unconstitutional! What?! You can't deny that the precedent set here is a terrifying one. The will of the people was thrown under the bus! I am a libertarian so I don't much care of some dude marries another dude, but I take issue with lawyers overriding Constitutional amendments! You can fight for your cause, but not like that, it erodes trust in our system. Today, the Constitution of California isn't worth the paper it's printed on thanks to a small group of people who felt their own right to marry was more important than the civil society itself.
The issue isn't as simple as you make it out to be.
Amen brother! Che was a despicable murderer that promoted a despicable murderer and a murderous ideology. People who sport the Che shirt usually not communists, just really, really stupid.
No, as the CEO you're an employee. You can be fired. Although you may have a say so in hiring decisions, you are not an employer and you don't sign pay checks. It would be like saying a department manager is an employer because he can hire or fire people.
So you're basically saying that he's guilty of maybe doing something in the future? There is no evidence to suggest that he would allow his personal views to influence his decisions as CEO. If follow that logic then nobody that has any sort of political affiliation should be in any sort of decision making position lest they allow their personal beliefs to influence decision making.
And funny how you've convicted him of this behavior in your mind before you have any sort of evidence to suggest that he would do that.
I find it rather ironic that the supposed champions of intolerance are the ones that are demonstrably the most intolerant.
On the other hand the "alarmist" logic is: "we already know the cause of the warming, it is humans saturating the atmosphere with too much CO2, we just need to gather and/or create the evidence to support this theory". That's called inductive logic, and is just as unscientific as what you describe coming from the "denialists".
"Real" science comes from gathering evidence and basing your theories on the evidence gathered. You then determine what it might take to falsify your theory and try as hard as possible to falsify it.
All I see from the "alarmist" camp is people trying to support their theories at all costs, calling things causation where there is barely correlation, and making very little if any effort to falsify their theories. This behavior is more akin to religion than any sort of science.
Good to know! I guess I can stop paying my federal income tax then!
Refusing to look at alternative hypotheses speaks volumes of these "scientists". The reaction would be the same if a Catholic priest was asked to attempt to verify the existence of Vishnu.
AGW continues to be junk science by excluding itself from the scientific method. Scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable, when you conjure up a hypotheses that is not, you're not longer dealing in science, you're dealing in religion.
Because the single payer VA system has done such a poor job taking care of our war fighters?
Or maybe it's because Social Security is nothing but a ponzi scheme that's slated to be insolvent in a dozen years?
But no, I'm sure you have a ton of valid reasons why the government has done a spectacularly poor job with their existing "single payer" healthcare system and retirement system.
Why take a system where you're paying for your own retirement and attempt to filter it through the leviathan of the federal government? Let me guess, you don't have a 401k.
Why would you take a system that a vast majority of the population is satisfied with, massively increase the cost for the sake of a tiny minority who should already be covered by the existing Medicare system? Unless... you're only interested in having the government envelope more and more of the private economy, and you really have no interest in providing "cheaper" or "better" health care.
I think at this point we can agree that government run health care is more expensive and worse quality. If you ask for proof I give you the VA.
"savings"
I would add that people give their information voluntarily to these third parties, while the government takes it using the threat of violence. People give their information to third parties because the third party offers a service for storing and distributing their information to select friends and acquaintances. The government takes and distributes information to an untold number of alphabet soup agencies for some abstract, unproven and unconstitutional notion of security.
Furthermore, the very definition of sharing information at all requires that you do it with a third party. So does the ODNI suggest that the government be privy to communication between me and my doctor? Lawyer? Wife?! That we're even at the point that government officials are asking these questions is proof that the government has grown too big and powerful for the good of the people.
“When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.” -Thomas Jefferson
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." -James Madison
Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.
While node.js may not be supported by a big company, the JS engine the runs node.js (V8) is run by Google.
The following is from a reply I posted a little earlier to the same comment:
/Users/ was /home/ really.
As soon as I received my computer (from my company) it was asking me to update three programs. One was the OS (I think) the other two were built in apps that required I put in my CC# to update. It did make me create an iTunes account (I have the spam to prove it), if there was a way to opt out of this it wasn't obvious and I looked hard. I think the apps were iphoto and imovie. I canceled out of giving my CC# several times, I didn't want to give it up for no reason, but I couldn't "activate" my account until I did, and until I activated the account I couldn't get rid of the "you need updates!" message. That I even need to create an account at all is pretty lame, that I have to enter a CC# to update other software is super lame.
As for my critique about the file system, I just wish
I have the full sized mac keyboard, and option does say alt on it but it doesn't behave like the alt key (maybe if I hold down the fn key that replaced insert?). When using emacs the alt (meta) key is essential. The removal of the other keys is pretty bad with insert at the top of that list.
As soon as I received my computer (from my company) it was asking me to update three programs. One was the OS (I think) the other two were built in apps that required I put in my CC# to update. It did make me create an iTunes account (I have the spam to prove it), if there was a way to opt out of this it wasn't obvious and I looked hard. I think the apps were iphoto and imovie. I canceled out of giving my CC# several times, I didn't want to give it up for no reason, but I couldn't "activate" my account until I did, and until I activated the account I couldn't get rid of the "you need updates!" message. That I even need to create an account at all is pretty lame, that I have to enter a CC# to update other software is super lame.
I have the full sized keyboard. It lacks the keys I mentioned. I use emacs a lot and by using iterm2 I can replace option with alt, but that's hardly the same as having an alt key because it then disables option. It does not have an insert key, scroll lock, num lock, pause etc.. but it does have 19 F keys that have no apparent function. I tried switching to a PC keyboard, but it lacked the command key so that didn't work out very long. I've resolved to just getting used to it. But the lack of these keys is pretty crappy. Especially the insert key.
The issue is that the button is useless. I don't know why anyone would ever use it given that it hides all the windows on your other screens. I don't much care what it technically does. What it effectively does isn't terribly useful. Seems a little like a crippled maximize button. How exactly is it useful?
So it's called the zoom button, but it doesn't zoom? That really doesn't make any sense, but ok. It really should be optional how you want it to behave if anything. The unpredictable behavior makes me hesitant to use it. For example, on chrome it resizes vertically only (apparently no web pages can benefit from extra width?), but in my IRC client it resizes both. Why? Who knows? It just does. You're going to be flipping a coin on any new program you install as to what this button actually does. That, in my opinion, is bad design. It doesn't have a maximize button? Well it really should, that would be helpful.
Which would be halfway good if it showed the path to the folder you were currently in or had tab completion. As it is, Finder really sucks and I'll more often than not just use the console. I don't really like nuCommander either.
Yeah... I sort of am forced to use it, for now. It's provided by the company I work for. I don't think they'
Yeah, because that was my only complaint./s My point was there was a lot of unused keys and they've removed a lot of keys that are very useful (alt, scroll lock, insert, num lock). But you're free to try and spin my comments however you like.
Yeah, I'm going to end up doing that. This mouse was provided by the company so I'm stuck with it until I get another one. The critiques are still valid I think.
I've recently been made to switch from a Win8 machine to a brand new OSX machine. The Win8 machine has three monitors, 256ssd, 16bg ram, i7. The OSX machine is a Macbook Pro Retina i7 256ssd, 16bg ram with two external monitors. There are some cool things about OSX but there are many stupid things about OSX. And they're not stupid like "this is different" stupid, they're stupid like "this shit is stupid". Because I'm feeling verbose I'll list the really stupid low hanging fruit. And at the end I'll list what I really enjoy about it.
OSX
Keyboard (external mac? keyboard)
OSX Windows
* Is this green control box maximize or what!? It seems like sometimes it wants to maximize height and width, and other times it will only maximize height. Be consistant. No, actually, always maximize both!
OSX Finder
Apple Magic Mouse
It doesn't swirl at all, it's frozen.
It doesn't matter if it was "not motivated by political bias", a claim which itself is highly suspect, it was de facto political bias. Some groups withdrew their tax exempt status when illegally asked for donor lists. This surely had an impact on their operations and subsequently influenced the vote outcome. But it only happened to "right wing" groups so somehow it's OK because they want lower taxes. . This logic is sickening. I would argue that the fact they are critical of the IRS or the government would be a good reason to be very careful about such audits less they appear biased. That they are in fact biased confirms the conspiracy theories put forth by these groups.
The same group of people who say "this is OK" would be crying bloody murder if the tables were turned.
I'm sure it costs a lot less than the damage to persons and equipment that it protects.
THIS! THIS 1000x! Damn, I was about to drop a comment about The Forever War. What a complete and marvelous book! The entire life span of humanity in war experienced in one lifetime, by someone who saw action in Vietnam. Not only was it believable it was scientifically possible! Best Sci-Fi I've ever read. And I read a lot. That said, Card's Ender's Game is not bad at all, I'll surely see it when it hits the DVD shelves (and someone rips it for my lazy ass).
Did you warn them!? About Haiti and Japan?!
DDT has a long history and nowhere in it is actual proof of causation of any of the aforementioned ailments. The best anti-DDT activists could prove is correlation and linking to diseases, never causation, in spite of decades of trying. So much of this "scientific research" was done trying to affirm the positive idea that DDT caused disease. Weak inductive logic has no place in actual scientific research! "Affirming the positive" is a huge problem with so much of science. You don't create "scientific facts". You only create theories that hold up to repeated attempts to falsify them. This is never the case with the anti-DDT research. It's always about affirming the "scientific fact" that DDT is evil. In the 50's and 60s people virtually bathed in this stuff. Big trucks would billow out DDT into parks to kill off mosquitoes, and all this time no ill effects were ever proven to be caused by DDT. And thanks to DDT the US is free of malaria.
Because of anti-DDT activists and the pseudo-scientific FUD created by them 3rd world countries have had to deal with the scourge of malaria that kills over a million every year, and tens of millions over decades. If you want funding from the US you had better not use DDT, oh sure we did and eliminated the threat of malaria in our country, but we learned the errors of our ways by great pseudoscientists like Rachel Carson that using DDT can have unclear and unknown effects to the thickness of egg shells in some avian species, so you know, let everyone die from malaria, this egg shell stuff is pretty serious.
People using weak inductive logic claming harm to the environment to prevent the use of life saving procedures make me sick. Rachel Carson and people like her have blood on their hands and will never feel guilty for the tens of millions of deaths caused and the hundreds of millions of lives forever changed. If there was justice in this world (and there never was) Rachel Carson would be made to live in a country where DDT has never been used. Let her sleep under a mosquito net forever afraid of a malaria infected bite. No, she slept in great comfort in a place where DDT had already wiped out the scourge of malaria.
Only as recently as 2007 has this anti-DDT hysteria subsided and the use of DDT has begun again. If it is so damn harmful why is it OK now? Of course it's a good thing they're using it again, but it's far too late to save the lives of the millions of people who could have been saved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Criticism_of_restrictions_on_DDT_use
Wikipedia is a funny place. You can see the fights between editors that occur right in the article. In the section "Criticism of restrictions on DDT use" the same over zealous anti-DDT editors just couldn't help themselves. By god they weren't going to let these criticisms of the restriction of DDT go unchallenged! They'll insert quotes of someone's opinion to refute the critical assertions in the same paragraph as the criticisms. That'll show the critics what's up! And, no, nobody will ever venture to think that there is any sort of unfair bias in the article!
Chemists who create chemicals to save people's lives are not mad scientists and these anti-DDT activists are not all knowing supermen come to save the planet. So many of these activists just know, without need for proof, that DDT is bad. Why? Why, because it's a chemical, and chemicals are bad! And look at these ignorant people spraying chemicals without knowing what us activists know.
Everything is a chemical. You can die from cyanide poising from eating too many almonds or apple seeds, but you'll never die from DDT.
You're such a brave little bigot aren't you.
You're a fucking troll! Chips and dip with coke and rum obviously best. Vegetables are what my food eats!
But I'm with you on these other guys, corn nuts? WTF!
Annoying as hell, but you can disable that behavior.