If you prefer, I'll call them Muslim extremists. However, there has been groups of Muslims dedicated to killing those who do not adhere to their understanding of what it means to be Muslim since almost the time of Mohamed (and one could argue even to the time of Mohamed, these very extremists would so claim). Of course, I understand, it must be those evil Europeans (and Americans) who are to blame for the Middle East and North Africa going from among the most advanced part of the world in 500 to 600 AD to among the most backward today. It couldn't have anything to do with Muslims oppressing other Muslims. I mean look how evil those Europeans were, they launched the Crusades against the Muslims and did horrible things (lets just ignore the fact that Muslims were conducting wars of conquest against Europeans and had conquered as far as southern France in the west and Vienna in the east). I mean the Muslims are absolutely right to be offended that the Europeans fought back.
My belief in Muslim extremists who want to kill all non-Muslims who do not submit to their rule is based on a study of the history of Islam. Islam has for its entire history sought the conquest of all others. Can you name a single time in history when a Muslim nation was at peace with its weaker (and not protected by a stronger more distant nation) non-Muslim neighboring nation?
I am already a Muslim. I don't want to kill you because you are non-Muslim, but if Fox News tells you I do, feel free to cross the street if you see me coming. I won't take offense. Perhaps, you do not. The Muslim terrorists, however, do. They have repeatedly said so.
Did they tell you that you would be working a 40 hour work week when they hired you? If you think that your compensation(pay plus benefits) is inadequate for the work you do, look for another job. There are lots of companies willing to pay value for good people.
Terrorist deaths are preventable in a similar manner to car crash deaths, i.e., by looking at the source of the problem rather than the symptom. In other words, asking "Why do they want to kill us?" instead of "How much should we sacrifice to fight them?". And don't go giving me that "they hate our freedom" crap. So, when are you converting to Islam? They want to kill us because we are not Muslim.
Then the question is; whose definition of "conservative" and "liberal"? The answer to what is a "conservative" and what is a "liberal" is very subjective. How important is opposition to taxes? How important is support for small government? What role does religion play in the definition? I am sorry, but "conservative" and "liberal" are terms that are too subjective to be criteria in a scientific study.
"Awful science"? How so? Care to point out the flaws in the study?
Hmmmmmm? I will point out the flaw, "conservative" and "liberal" are subjective labels. How do you objectively decide that someone is conservative or liberal? Do you go by their self identification? If so, how do you select your candidates? Are the subjects of your study representative of all people who self identify that way? I can go on. There are so many variables about people that trying to determine differences in cognitive ability based on political leanings is junk.
I have read the Bible through several times and I believe that, taken in context, it promotes thinking for oneself. However, it is possible to use certain parts to promote rigid controls. It is not possible to use the four Gospels to promote rigid control. Repeatedly in the Gospels, Jesus condemns people who insist on rigid control. You mention that you were catholic (I assume by this that you mean a member of the Roman Catholic Church, not that you were universal), one of the major flaws of the Catholic Church is that its structure allows priests who wish control to encourage people to not study on their own, but merely listen to the priest's interpretation. The New Testament strongly encourages people to study on their own (it also encourages them to temper their conclusions by discussing with others).
evil is a relative term, it varies according to culture. Some people for example believe it is evil for a woman to express a desire for independence. This is nonsensical for other people, but usually accepted as fact by religious groups.
The term evil is most often used as a means to differentiate one group from another, most often when the groups involved want what the other has.
The gospels are fine if what you want is a rigidly controlled society. History has shown us that such cultures rarely thrive. Sorry, but the gospels do not promote a rigidly controlled society. In order to promote a rigidly controlled society from the Bible you must place greater emphasis on other parts of the Bible than the Gospels.
As for evil being relative, C.S. Lewis did a great job of demonstrating that, if you look closely, while one culture may view an act as evil and another view it as good, that is a result of different understandings of what that act means and what motivates it. If one looks at what the two cultures view as evil in a more abstract sense, one discovers that it is the same. If I remembered which of his books it was in, I would go pull it off the shelf and give a better summation of the argument.
Personally I think both first to invent and first to file are crap. If something is indpendently invented within such a short window that the difference between first to invent and first to file matters then IMO it doesn't deserve a patent. Except that sometimes it isn't independently invented. Let's say that an inventor is working on a design. He hires a machinist to manufacture some prototypes because he isn't quite sure how to get it to work and needs to try a couple of different designs to get it right. While the inventor is evaluating the prototypes before filing the patent, the machinist goes off and files a patent. Under first to file, the machinist gets the patent unless the inventor can prove that he stole it (and maybe not even then, depending on the wording of the law).
How is foxnews different from CNN (we could have told you about all the terrible things Saddam was doing, but then he might have kicked us out of his country, so we only told you the stuff he wanted you to know about) or CBS (Texas Air National Guard, "The documents are all forged, but the story is true")?
Re:The Saddam/911 myth persists because powerful
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Yes, Bush made a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, but that is quite different from saying or implying that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. The link that Bush made between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 was that Saddam would like to see a repeat of 9/11, that Saddam had provided material support to people who had used similar tactics (suicide attacks against civilian targets) to the 9/11 attackers, and that Saddam had contacts with the organization that claimed responsibility for 9/11. These were all true. These were also reason to consider that Saddam Hussein was a potential threat to national security. President Bush repeatedly made the case that it was unacceptable to wait until Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat, because by then it might be too late to prevent another 9/11 type of attack. I would like to know how you would make that case without saying things that people could misinterpret to mean that you were trying to imply that he was behind the 9/11 attack.
Those nations would have been well within the accepted practices of nations to do so, of course the fact that the US would have completely annihilated their armies should they have launched such an attack probably has something to do with why they didn't. Traditionally, whether or not an Act of War resulted in actual war depended on the relative strengths of the countries involved.
Re:Plausible deniability is PARAMOUNT
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OOOhhhhh, so close! If you hadn't had that last bit of honest thought in there, you could have defended the notion that the Bush administration did not systematically imply that Saddam was behind it.
The sponsor of terrorism, the killer of his own people, the clear and present threat to national security who met with Al Quaeda, he was never specifically said to have been the Bond-villain behind 9-11, but he was implied to be involved, systematically, for months.
Manipulating thought is a well researched field of study and has many useful applications, from marketing to nation building.
If they just put two and two next to each other and let you think "4" without saying it, then you can come post to slashdot and ask 'who in the administration said "four"?'... But you'll still have "4" in your head, even though no one can quote them saying it. So, because the Bush Administration said that Saddam Hussein was a sponsor of terrorism (which he most definitely was), that he was a potential threat(President Bush explicitly said that he was not an imminent--read present--threat) to national security (which he certainly sought to be), and that he had met with Al Queda (which his agents had), he was saying that he was behond 9/11. My recollection was that the Bush Administration was trying to tell people that Saddam Hussein would like to be behind the NEXT 9/11, while explicitly stating and avoiding saying that he was behind 9/11.
But then I am sure that many people on here believe that President Bush lied when he said in a State of the Union Address that British Intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein sought to purchase uranium in Africa, since Joe Wilson said that he didn't find any evidence that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger (despite the fact that the CIA report on Joe Wilson's trip says exactly the opposite).
It's funny. Republican-Americans were so proud of invading Iraq back in 2003. And now they're confused... They're afraid of defending all the claims that were made back then leading up to the war, but at the same time they're also afraid of admitting maybe they fucked up.
If Dick Cheney didn't mean to imply Hussein was behind 9/11, why did he keep repeating a claim that Iraqi intelligence had met with Muhammed Atta in Prague?
Two points. First, do you think the world would be a better place if Saddam Hussein was still in power in Iraq?
Second, maybe the reason Cheney kept telling people that Iraqi Intelligence met with Muhammed Atta in Prague was because Iraqi Intelligence had met with Muhammed Atta in Prague?
Re:The Saddam/911 myth persists because powerful
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Why Myths Persist
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So, saying that 9/11 demonstrates that the US cannot permit Iraq to attempt to obtain weapons of mass destruction is the same as saying that Saddam was behind 9/11?
And, what exactly do you think a blowjob is if it isn't sexual?
Re:The Saddam/911 myth persists because powerful
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· Score: 3, Interesting
What I want to know is, who in the Administration EVER said that Saddam plotted 9/11? I never heard that said. I have heard people who oppose the Bush Administration say that the Bush Administration said it, but I have never heard a quote from the Bush Administration saying (or implying) it.
Which is actually a perfectly legitimate reason to invade Iraq. George W Bush's Dad is a former President of the US, attempting to have him assassinated was an Act of War. Despite the personal nature of it for George W. Bush, it is a perfectly valid rationale.
Probably the one who pled guilty, not the one who's crimes have yet to be confirmed by anyone but a right wing attack dog. I'm not quite sure what you mean. Barney Frank's boyfriend was convicted of running a prostitution ring. Larry Craig plead guilty to being very creepy, although from the general tenet of conversation on here, I don't understand why most of the people complaining on here think he did anything wrong. I mean it is just about sex, what's the big deal?
Which gay Senator? The Republican who resigned or the Democrat whose boyfriend was running a prostitution ring out of his apartment (who is still serving several terms later)?
In Pa, and NJ you can refuse the breathalyzer and submit to a blood test (I am pretty sure that this is still true of Va as well). I am pretty sure that this is true in most states, but I only know this for sure of these two (and that it used to be true of Va). Also, in Pa I am pretty sure that only applies when you are driving not when, for example, you are the passenger in a car.
There are two things that bother me about the discussion of what percentage of accidents are alcohol related. The first has been alluded to by an earlier poster; if you have had one drink and are parked in a legal parking space alongside the road and someone stone cold sober plows into you, it is considered an alcohol related accident. The second is that when you examine the statistics about serious accidents that genuinely involve someone with too much to drink being in a serious accident, you discover that the overwhelming majority of those accidents are caused by people who were blind stinking drunk (0.12 or higher BAC).
we're not made to read text off a slide and hear someone talk at the same time
This is actually the interpretation of the study. The actual study only showed that using Powerpoint presentations interfered with learning the material being presented. The above quoted is merely a paraphrase of the researchers' attempt to explain the results of their study. Blackboards have been used in education for well over 100 years, thus it is a proven technology that helps learning. It is quite likely that many teachers do not use blackboards in the best manner, but the continued use indicates that it obviously works much of the time.
I think that the original poster illustrates much of what has gone wrong in education in the last 50 or so years (although the OP may not actually be guilty of it himself). Every 10 or so years a new theory of education comes along and it is mass adopted by the majority of educators (sometimes there are two or more competing new ideas that the overwhelming majority of educators divide up among). This/these new idea(s) are implemented on a wide scale replacing whatever methodology was used before. The problem with this system is it takes no less than 12 years and quite possibly as many as 30 years to truly understand the outcomes of any new effective education methodology. But we don't wait that long to implement the new idea. A new idea comes along and is quickly spread through much of the education system in 5 to 10 years, becoming fully implemented right about the time that its shortcomings become apparent.
You ask why so many nerds are libertarians and then say that you are a leftist. By typical usage in the US (and from what I can tell of Europe) it is the left that favors greater government regulation. Libertarians favor reduced (or eliminated) government regulation. It is the left that favors telling me what I can and can't do with my private property (I can't smoke in my privately owned restaurant, I can't build on my privately owned property if it has "wetlands"). It is the left that has introduced "speech codes" onto college campuses and elsewhere. I am not a libertarian, but it was my libertarian tendencies that led me from leaning left to leaning right.
As far as novels that do a good job of presenting libertarian philosophy, I happen to think that L. Neil Smith is among the best. His novels are very entertaining and well written. They, also, cling to a very libertarian perception of the world. They presented a very good concept of libertarianism and helped me realize where my world view diverged from libertarianism (before reading them, I considered myself a libertarian. After reading them, I realized that understanding of how the world works diverged significantly from a libertarian understanding).
My suspicion is it wouldn't. The passenger knows why you stopped talking, and likewise shuts up. The person on the other end of the phone continues to shout at you "Are you still there?!?"/quote
If you noticed a problem and shut up, the conversation hasn't interfered with your driving. The studies I have seen indicate that talking on the cell phone causes people to be less alert and miss things they might otherwise notice, why would a conversation with someone in the car (who you can be tempted to turn and make eye contact with) be any less distracting. I have known several people who would turn and make eye contact with me while they were driving, they are much safer when they are talking on a cell phone than when they are talking to a passenger.
Slashdot Mirror
If you prefer, I'll call them Muslim extremists. However, there has been groups of Muslims dedicated to killing those who do not adhere to their understanding of what it means to be Muslim since almost the time of Mohamed (and one could argue even to the time of Mohamed, these very extremists would so claim). Of course, I understand, it must be those evil Europeans (and Americans) who are to blame for the Middle East and North Africa going from among the most advanced part of the world in 500 to 600 AD to among the most backward today. It couldn't have anything to do with Muslims oppressing other Muslims. I mean look how evil those Europeans were, they launched the Crusades against the Muslims and did horrible things (lets just ignore the fact that Muslims were conducting wars of conquest against Europeans and had conquered as far as southern France in the west and Vienna in the east). I mean the Muslims are absolutely right to be offended that the Europeans fought back. My belief in Muslim extremists who want to kill all non-Muslims who do not submit to their rule is based on a study of the history of Islam. Islam has for its entire history sought the conquest of all others. Can you name a single time in history when a Muslim nation was at peace with its weaker (and not protected by a stronger more distant nation) non-Muslim neighboring nation?
Did they tell you that you would be working a 40 hour work week when they hired you? If you think that your compensation(pay plus benefits) is inadequate for the work you do, look for another job. There are lots of companies willing to pay value for good people.
Then the question is; whose definition of "conservative" and "liberal"? The answer to what is a "conservative" and what is a "liberal" is very subjective. How important is opposition to taxes? How important is support for small government? What role does religion play in the definition? I am sorry, but "conservative" and "liberal" are terms that are too subjective to be criteria in a scientific study.
Hmmmmmm? I will point out the flaw, "conservative" and "liberal" are subjective labels. How do you objectively decide that someone is conservative or liberal? Do you go by their self identification? If so, how do you select your candidates? Are the subjects of your study representative of all people who self identify that way? I can go on. There are so many variables about people that trying to determine differences in cognitive ability based on political leanings is junk.
I have read the Bible through several times and I believe that, taken in context, it promotes thinking for oneself. However, it is possible to use certain parts to promote rigid controls. It is not possible to use the four Gospels to promote rigid control. Repeatedly in the Gospels, Jesus condemns people who insist on rigid control. You mention that you were catholic (I assume by this that you mean a member of the Roman Catholic Church, not that you were universal), one of the major flaws of the Catholic Church is that its structure allows priests who wish control to encourage people to not study on their own, but merely listen to the priest's interpretation. The New Testament strongly encourages people to study on their own (it also encourages them to temper their conclusions by discussing with others).
The term evil is most often used as a means to differentiate one group from another, most often when the groups involved want what the other has.
The gospels are fine if what you want is a rigidly controlled society. History has shown us that such cultures rarely thrive. Sorry, but the gospels do not promote a rigidly controlled society. In order to promote a rigidly controlled society from the Bible you must place greater emphasis on other parts of the Bible than the Gospels. As for evil being relative, C.S. Lewis did a great job of demonstrating that, if you look closely, while one culture may view an act as evil and another view it as good, that is a result of different understandings of what that act means and what motivates it. If one looks at what the two cultures view as evil in a more abstract sense, one discovers that it is the same. If I remembered which of his books it was in, I would go pull it off the shelf and give a better summation of the argument.
How is foxnews different from CNN (we could have told you about all the terrible things Saddam was doing, but then he might have kicked us out of his country, so we only told you the stuff he wanted you to know about) or CBS (Texas Air National Guard, "The documents are all forged, but the story is true")?
Yes, Bush made a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, but that is quite different from saying or implying that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. The link that Bush made between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 was that Saddam would like to see a repeat of 9/11, that Saddam had provided material support to people who had used similar tactics (suicide attacks against civilian targets) to the 9/11 attackers, and that Saddam had contacts with the organization that claimed responsibility for 9/11. These were all true. These were also reason to consider that Saddam Hussein was a potential threat to national security. President Bush repeatedly made the case that it was unacceptable to wait until Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat, because by then it might be too late to prevent another 9/11 type of attack. I would like to know how you would make that case without saying things that people could misinterpret to mean that you were trying to imply that he was behind the 9/11 attack.
Those nations would have been well within the accepted practices of nations to do so, of course the fact that the US would have completely annihilated their armies should they have launched such an attack probably has something to do with why they didn't. Traditionally, whether or not an Act of War resulted in actual war depended on the relative strengths of the countries involved.
The sponsor of terrorism, the killer of his own people, the clear and present threat to national security who met with Al Quaeda, he was never specifically said to have been the Bond-villain behind 9-11, but he was implied to be involved, systematically, for months.
Manipulating thought is a well researched field of study and has many useful applications, from marketing to nation building.
If they just put two and two next to each other and let you think "4" without saying it, then you can come post to slashdot and ask 'who in the administration said "four"?'... But you'll still have "4" in your head, even though no one can quote them saying it. So, because the Bush Administration said that Saddam Hussein was a sponsor of terrorism (which he most definitely was), that he was a potential threat(President Bush explicitly said that he was not an imminent--read present--threat) to national security (which he certainly sought to be), and that he had met with Al Queda (which his agents had), he was saying that he was behond 9/11. My recollection was that the Bush Administration was trying to tell people that Saddam Hussein would like to be behind the NEXT 9/11, while explicitly stating and avoiding saying that he was behind 9/11.
But then I am sure that many people on here believe that President Bush lied when he said in a State of the Union Address that British Intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein sought to purchase uranium in Africa, since Joe Wilson said that he didn't find any evidence that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger (despite the fact that the CIA report on Joe Wilson's trip says exactly the opposite).
If Dick Cheney didn't mean to imply Hussein was behind 9/11, why did he keep repeating a claim that Iraqi intelligence had met with Muhammed Atta in Prague?
Two points. First, do you think the world would be a better place if Saddam Hussein was still in power in Iraq?
Second, maybe the reason Cheney kept telling people that Iraqi Intelligence met with Muhammed Atta in Prague was because Iraqi Intelligence had met with Muhammed Atta in Prague?
So, saying that 9/11 demonstrates that the US cannot permit Iraq to attempt to obtain weapons of mass destruction is the same as saying that Saddam was behind 9/11? And, what exactly do you think a blowjob is if it isn't sexual?
What I want to know is, who in the Administration EVER said that Saddam plotted 9/11? I never heard that said. I have heard people who oppose the Bush Administration say that the Bush Administration said it, but I have never heard a quote from the Bush Administration saying (or implying) it.
Which is actually a perfectly legitimate reason to invade Iraq. George W Bush's Dad is a former President of the US, attempting to have him assassinated was an Act of War. Despite the personal nature of it for George W. Bush, it is a perfectly valid rationale.
Which gay Senator? The Republican who resigned or the Democrat whose boyfriend was running a prostitution ring out of his apartment (who is still serving several terms later)?
In Pa, and NJ you can refuse the breathalyzer and submit to a blood test (I am pretty sure that this is still true of Va as well). I am pretty sure that this is true in most states, but I only know this for sure of these two (and that it used to be true of Va). Also, in Pa I am pretty sure that only applies when you are driving not when, for example, you are the passenger in a car.
There are two things that bother me about the discussion of what percentage of accidents are alcohol related. The first has been alluded to by an earlier poster; if you have had one drink and are parked in a legal parking space alongside the road and someone stone cold sober plows into you, it is considered an alcohol related accident. The second is that when you examine the statistics about serious accidents that genuinely involve someone with too much to drink being in a serious accident, you discover that the overwhelming majority of those accidents are caused by people who were blind stinking drunk (0.12 or higher BAC).
It was referenced here on slashdot http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/04/131924 7
You ask why so many nerds are libertarians and then say that you are a leftist. By typical usage in the US (and from what I can tell of Europe) it is the left that favors greater government regulation. Libertarians favor reduced (or eliminated) government regulation. It is the left that favors telling me what I can and can't do with my private property (I can't smoke in my privately owned restaurant, I can't build on my privately owned property if it has "wetlands"). It is the left that has introduced "speech codes" onto college campuses and elsewhere. I am not a libertarian, but it was my libertarian tendencies that led me from leaning left to leaning right.
As far as novels that do a good job of presenting libertarian philosophy, I happen to think that L. Neil Smith is among the best. His novels are very entertaining and well written. They, also, cling to a very libertarian perception of the world. They presented a very good concept of libertarianism and helped me realize where my world view diverged from libertarianism (before reading them, I considered myself a libertarian. After reading them, I realized that understanding of how the world works diverged significantly from a libertarian understanding).