I'm fully capable of reading at 1000+ words / minute and remembering the information, so next time you want to claim it can't be done, make sure you're not talking to someone who can.
If you're really a person who can do this, PLEASE volunteer for one of these studies, so we actually have some reliable evidence. Because basically every previous study on this stuff says comprehension goes significantly down as reading speed goes up.
Quite a few studies have shown this (some articles summarizing findings here, here, here, here), and the only ones that seem to ever disagree are those designed by the speed-reading course or software people. Even for professional high-volume readers and people who performed well in generic speed-reading tests showed a maximum of about 75% comprehension at 600 words/minute.
And there are loads of cognitive science studies that demonstrate why this must be so. Lots of research on eye movements during reading and the maximum possible speed they can take things in, the way our retinas work and focus, cognitive constraints on the extent and speed of our "working memory," etc.
By the time you get to your claimed speed of 1000 words/minute, I sincerely doubt you're getting anywhere close to 50% comprehension. Therefore, what you're doing is skimming, not reading.
There's nothing wrong with skimming. it's an incredibly useful skill which I really picked up in graduate school. I have used it all the time when teaching and (when preparing for class) needing to re-read an article I haven't looked at in a long time (and don't really remember) or a new article dealing with a subject I'm already familiar with. I can certainly skim at 1000 words/minute and be prepared to discuss a lot of important points of an article, but if a student queries me on something very specific, I guarantee that we'll have to slow down, I'll go back, and take a look at that specific passage. When you're already fairly familiar with the field or kind of material, you can often zoom on essential elements fairly quickly, and your comprehension rate gets higher -- but you're still not reading. And if you were reading something outside of your discipline, the comprehension would go WAY down at such speeds.
So -- sorry, but your claims to read at that speed and retain information have been debunked by many studies along with many other supporting cognitive science studies that basically show why it can't work.
If indeed you are some person with a freakish skill that you can demonstrate under controlled conditions, please volunteer for a study. Otherwise, I (and any other reasonable person here) should assume that what you're actually doing at 1000 words/minute is skimming, and you're probably only getting a small fraction of the total information.
If this "random position" requires skills which are taught in a specific discipline, hire someone who took that. If they're things you can absorb through doing other things, why hire someone with a degree at all?
Because I don't believe the purpose of college is a glorified trade school. I'm more interested in whether someone is smart and capable of learning than whether they have some specific degree or credential. The completion of a college degree from a reputable school implies that a person is at least capable of being responsible enough to jump through some intellectual hoops, which is one indicator (not the only one) of intelligence and responsibility. Someone who chooses a specific humanities field rather than a generic "business" degree probably was actually intellectually passionate about something -- enough so not to just choose the "default generic" degree path. I find that interesting, and I want to know more. I'm not saying it's a reason to reject the business student -- I'm saying the other humanities graduate has three useful boxes checked for me already: (1) responsible enough to complete a college degree, (2) probably has some decent communication or writing skills, (3) is curious enough and/or passionate enough about intellectual disciplines to pursue a niche degree, which means they are more likely to be interested in lifelong learning to begin with (which is likely to make them a more adaptable worker).
When a computer program can spout off gibberish on post modernism and get published, I distrust even the people who say it's such a specialized field of study that they don't even know what it means.
I think you're referring to the infamous Sokal Hoax, which... well, was propagated by an ACTUAL PERSON, i.e., the guy named "Sokal." He wrote the paper to perpetrate the hoax. I'm not defending those who published it, but I'm not aware of computer programs getting gibberish postmodernism published in journals. Are you?
However, there are plenty of reports of computer-generated nonsense getting accepted at science or engineering conferences (and then there's the published record of papers by the Bogdanov brothers...). Should we reject those disciplines too?
I'm not saying smart people don't take these disciplines. I am saying that I don't think a lot of hiring managers will look at your degree in medieval poetry as being particularly applicable to anything they need, and that a disproportionate number of these end up working as baristas or fast food servers.
Fine. And I'm saying that I think such a practice is misguided. I've taught at the university level. In elective courses, I've taught business majors. I've taught science and engineering major. I've taught humanities majors. I've met smart people and dumb people from all of these. I'm telling you that my anecdotal evidence is that the bulk of my worst-performing students often tend to be those who don't have a clear commitment or passion for learning, and a lot of those students disproportionately seem to come from business programs.
I've also found that the most creative people I have in classes tend to be engineers and some humanities people (at the top of the list is probably philosophy and comp. lit.).
And, until we start seeing job postings for someone who can do a deep analysis of Chaucer and relate that to, well, anything really... we appreciate that's what you studied in school, but we have no idea of how that helps us. We just have no idea of who is looking to hire that specific skillset or for what purposes.
Yeah, unfortunately you miss the entire point of what traditional liberal arts education is about. Let me put it in STEM terms you might understand: learning math requires a lot of time investment. Chances are most people -- even those in STEM fields -- are only going to use a very small set of speci
Cops are humans, and as such they don't want to have to be denigrated like that any more than you do.
Of course they don't. But they chose a profession that requires them to uphold a higher standard. Why? Well, for the idealistic rationale: because someone who chooses to be a policeman, they are presumed to prefer order and law over chaos. Thus, they are expected to be the guy who walks away from an insult rather than starting a barfight. If they don't have those sorts of ideals, they shouldn't become a cop.
The more practical reason? Because they usually carry deadly weapons or other arms that could seriously hurt people. The general public does not generally carry such weapons everywhere (except in Texas**). To be trusted to carry a deadly weapon and to act on behalf of the state, and person has to be able to contain his/her emotions and not allow those emotions to cause a random violent outburst... otherwise, innocent people could be seriously harmed or killed.
Think about this: If you deliberately provoke a reaction, do you think it's possible that you just might succeed in getting one?
Sure. But as a cop, you're not acting on behalf of your personal "honor" or emotions or whatever. You're an officer of the state, and you must be trained to follow orders and procedure, even when confronted with emotional or tense situations.
I'm amused by how you're critical of stereotyping humanities students, then move onto stereotyping business students.
You claim statistics supported your point, and that's exactly what I said as well. I never stereotyped business students -- in fact, I explicitly said there were smart business students as well. But, given otherwise equivalent resumes, I said I might think some other disciplines might have an edge. Why?
If you know anything about enrollment statistics at universities these days, you'd know that the "business degree" captures a huge number of undergrads in most schools. Any university official would tell you that it tends to be a "default degree" for a lot of undergrads who don't know what they want to do with their lives and just want to "get a college degree" because... well, it's supposed to be a good thing to do.
Statistically, it's very likely that there are more business majors who therefore have little passion for learning and don't belong in college -- just by the sheer numbers of people in those degrees compared to, say, history. But add the idea of a "default degree" to the mix, and the percentage is probably significantly higher. At least someone who chooses another major has expressed an interest in SOMETHING.
Again, there are a LOT of business majors who are strongly motivated, very intelligent, etc. Maybe even most of them. Statistically, though, we're probably likely to find a large number of people there who are not as suitable for college-leve reasoning skills. I was making a statistical statement about where we might most effectively target the rhetoric in the summary, not a stereotype.
Funny how you implicitly say that a business degree is a STEM degree. Because, you know, it really isn't...
Hilarious how a post about critical thinking skills and the humanities brings out a lot of people who can't read. Where did I say or even imply that a business degree is a STEM degree? I did NOT.
The summary picked on fields X and Y, implying that those people shouldn't go to college and instead should do skilled trades. I said that a higher percentage of people in skilled Z might be a better target for that argument. I never implied that fields X, Y, or Z were STEM fields or that the people involved in them should be in STEM fields.
But the people who do don't usually end up choosing a history or polysci major because they're the dumbest ones at college.
Wait, what? When I say it or the summary says it, it's deeply offensive. And then you close out your post by saying the exact same thing as I did?
I suggest you learn some critical reading skills. The sentence you quoted does not mean what you think it does. "Person A does not end up choosing X because they are dumb" does NOT necessary imply that person A is dumb. Instead, it could imply that person A is NOT dumb, and therefore chooses X rather than Y (i.e., if person A were dumb, they'd have chosen Y).
Sheesh. You want to get offended that I dare post an alternate view on Slashdot about the necessity of humanities degrees, and then you fail logical reasoning skills by interpreting a statement I made to mean the opposite of what it clearly meant in context... wow. I think you proved my point.
How many young people should be training for skilled manufacturing and service jobs rather than getting history or political science degrees?
As many as possible.
Frankly, as a fan of the humanities, I find the summary and this sort of response to be offensive. It presumes that the only people who get humanities degrees are those without the ability to do science or engineering. As someone who works in a field full of people who clearly have the aptitude to do STEM fields, but choose humanities pursuits instead, I can say this is definitely not true.
Don't pick on the history or political science degrees. Those -- along with English lit, classics, philosophy, etc. -- tended historically to produce lots of intelligent people with critical thinking skills. If I were looking to fill a random position in an area that didn't require STEM background, I'd much rather find someone with a history or political science degree than someone with a "business" degree. The business degree is where the real "dregs" of college often end up, who probably would be better off doing some sort of skilled labor or something. (Not saying that there aren't smart business majors, but percentage-wise, I'd say it's much more likely to find people there without any specific passion for learning, unlike those who end up in history or whatever.)
All those people who have exhaustively studied the post modernism and sexism as exemplified by 17th century Gaelic poets with no left hand but who hadn't gone bald yet... not so much. Because, as far as marketable skills go, some courses of study aren't exactly marketable at all.
Meh. This is an increasing problem in some humaniies departments that have been effectively converted into sociology departments, rather than history or literature or whatever. But someone trained in serious critical thinking about evaluating historical sources? Again, I'd definitely take that person over a similarly-qualified "business major" any day of the week... and if you wouldn't, perhaps you should talk to more historians.
For people without the aptitude or interest to spend a lot of time with math or science, but have good other qualities (e.g., interpersonal skills, management skills, good work ethic, critical thinking skills outside math -- yes those people do exist), I'd like to see their brains honed by some doing some work that requires intensive study, problem-solving, and critical thinking in an area that excites and interests them.
Personally, I think a lot of people shouldn't be encouraged to go to college who now are. Most people don't have the aptitude, interest, or skills to succeed in a traditional liberal arts curriculum. But the people who do don't usually end up choosing a history or polysci major because they're the dumbest ones at college.
Consenting adults should have the right to enter into any contract, regardless of gender.
If "consenting adults should have the right to enter into any contract," and the quest for gay marriage rights is about that equality, why have gay marriage advocates struggled so hard to differentiate their fight from polyamorists or even those accepting of incestuous unions?
There are two possible explanations: either they don't actually believe that consenting adults should be able to enter into any contract, or they are just taking a pragmatic stance that it would be difficult to argue in favor of polygamy and incest, so they're willing to throw those people under the bus to get their "equality." I.e., they recognize that true equality for all consenting adults to enter into any contract is -- as you say-- a "non-starter."
I'm not saying gay marriage advocates are wrong, nor am I saying they should be denied access to the benefits that others have on the basis of sexual orientation. But the issue is complex and not quite as idealistic as you state it.
If you're simply not very intelligent, but work really hard, would we put you in charge of things?
Depends on what the position is. Many jobs demand hard work. Fewer demand high intelligence. As long as you are intelligent enough to do the job, I'd often rather have a hard worker than a super smart lazy person.
The people at the top of the food chain are often not the smartest -- they're just somewhat smarter than average, but also have other talents or work very hard. The smartest people often tend to get bogged down in minutiae or some intellectual digressions, rather than having the kind of focused drive that, for example, many business execs do. Obviously there are exceptions, but smartness is often not the only thing that matters.
If we, as a society, really believe this reasoning
It's not a "reasoning" -- it's stating a fact. The people most likely to have lots of kids (or any at all) tend to be those without adequate resources for birth control, who are often poor or have other social pressures as well that are increasingly compounded by the kids.
there are ways to realign incentives, at least until someone screams: eugenics... because that's what it is.
Yes and no. I'm not advocating we selectively allow people to reproduce according to their genes or race or anything -- and I would NEVER advocate such a despicable practice.
In fact, my argument doesn't actually depend on genetics at all. Whether you believe that it's mostly "nature" or mostly "nurture" or some sort of mixture of the two, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why people are poor or uneducated or have few resources -- the simple fact is that kids born in such an environment are more likely to end up in that environment themselves. Personally, I think very little of it has to do with genetics, but more with cultural practices.
The point is that when the people who reproduce in your society are the ones in the worst conditions, it will have a tendency to expand the underclass. I'm not suggesting that we limit reproduction: I'm saying it presents a problem that we need to solve to avoid future imbalances. Giving incentives to rich smart people to reproduce is only one possible solution (and probably will be least effective)... we also need to consider how we can alter the environment of kids growing up in such situations so that the effects don't propagate.
In the US, the top 1% starts somewhere just under $350,000 in 2009 (down from $380k in 2008) - I couldn't find a reliable source for more recent data. That's really not that high, considering the majority of people in the 1% are also in areas with the highest cost of livings. I'm not saying $350k isn't enough for a life of relative luxury, but they're also not the ones with private yachts, planes or a dozen vacation homes.
The "top 1%" is, by definition, 1 out of 100 people. Does anyone seriously think that 1 out of every 100 people would be rich enough to own private jets and a "dozen vacation homes"? Imagine the way the economy would have to work for that to happen -- every 99 people have to work hard enough to generate enough wealth to pay the other 1 guy enough to buy lots of vacation homes and private planes. Does that sound like the math would work out?
Or, just think about your high school class. If you graduated with 300 people, do you really think 3 of them are rich enough (or will be rich enough) to own a private jet and/or a dozen vacation homes? (Just for the record, you're probably looking at $350k annual expenses just to maintain a private jet, and that's not for a large plane.) If you went to some elite private school, maybe (and certainly the numbers aren't too much higher than that even there)... but for the vast majority of schools, probably not.
So, yeah, the "top 1%" just simply can't be that rich... at least not most of them. It doesn't make any sense. It's just a convenient simple statistic. The point is that, for most people, when you reach the "top 1%" bracket, you probably start having enough disposable income that you can do some of the things rich people do, like buy a couple luxury items or donate enough money to something that you might actually have some minor influence (rather than being "just another donor").
The people with the private jets, etc. are a much smaller group... but that's pretty obvious if you take a moment and think about what "1%" means.
Hmm... quantitative comparisons (this type of problem) were eliminated from the SAT some years ago because they were too hard or too abstract or maybe because they required abstract reasoning which was not taught directly in schools or something.
Anyhow, now we've demonstrated that a trained monkey can do these kinds of questions. Anyone else wonder what that says about our expectations regarding abstract reasoning for even high school kids?
The "replenishment" argument has not made sense in centuries. Not having a baby is the most green thing one can do. Babies have bigger carbon footprints than *anything* else you can have and most probably (unless some revolution of green technologies hits soon) more than everything else you do.
This is certainly true. The question is -- if none of the people who want the world to be "greener" have babies, where will the environmentalists for the next generation come from?
I'm certainly NOT saying environmental consciousness is an inherited trait -- but it is a cultural one, and something that is distinctively shaped by the priorities of people around you when you grow up.
In today's developed countries, there are lots of benefits to not having kids, so people who are smart, intelligent, and wealthy are increasingly avoiding them. Meanwhile, the people likely to have the most kids are people who are less intelligent, poor, have less resources, etc. Their kids are increasingly likely to have a similar fate. And for most of these people -- particularly in less affluent countries -- environmentalism is hardly near the top of their list of things to be worried about. In the past, babies of poor stupid people died. Not so any longer. (I'm NOT suggesting they should -- just making an observation.)
Sci-fi writers have discussed this issue in the past (perhaps most famously in the recent movie Idiocracy), and perhaps it is exaggerated a bit. But at some point people may need to think about what "replenishment" means in terms of diversity of culture, ideas, and even intelligence (which seems to have at least some significant heritability). Perhaps it's an argument for environmentalists with no kids to take some of the vast amount of time and money and energy they save from not having kids, and making sure the next generation of other people's kids understand the issues involved. Otherwise, it risks being something like the lone pacifist at the front lines of war: it's great to say "I refuse to fight" in the hopes that others will follow, but if you're gunned down and nobody replaces you, your ideas die with you.
This thread would be hilarious, if all of the people on both sides weren't taking it so seriously.
You can't quote Dictionary.com to have an argument about what Ben Franklin (or whoever else) might have meant 200+ years ago. Language changes, but more importantly, the detailed connotations of words change.
I'm not AT ALL on the side of the Tea Party lunatics, nor do I want to repeal the 17th amendment. But people claiming that "It's supposed to be a Republic, not a Democracy" is meaningless or misguided are being a little ignorant of history.
What this statement really means -- to those who actually know something about history and what those terms meant in the 18th century -- is that the U.S. was founded as something closer to the Roman Republic, and less like direct democracy (a la Athens or something). Those were the models the Founders were often discussing.
It does NOT mean that a republic can't be a democracy or whatever -- it means that the terms had (and still have, to some extent) default connotations that put them at somewhat different places on the government spectrum of where power lies. You can see this if you actually spend time reading what the Founders wrote, where they often tend to qualify the word "democracy" with "representative democracy." They did this because saying the word "democracy" by itself had connotations more connected with direct democracy.
It's kind of like the word "bachelor." Does it just mean "an unmarried man"? Well, is a divorced man a "bachelor"? Some people say no, others say "sometimes." The word "bachelor" also has historical connections to eligibility for marriage, not just marital status (hence "eligible bachelor"), and historically divorced men were uncommon. Now divorced men are common, and they are often considered eligible for marriage. So, can they be "bachelors"? Certainly they can have a "bachelor pad" or behave in ways that are "bachelor-like" (yet another connotation of the word, having to do with certain behaviors, rather than marital status).
All-in-all, language is complicated. Words have default connotations, and when we start arguing about word meanings over time or boundary cases, we're bound to have disagreements. For example, in the 18th century, a "republic" couldn't mean a communist republic, since communism didn't yet exist in the form we talk about today. Acting like that has something to do with the 18th century meaning is a little bizarre.
By the mid-1800s or so, language had evolved to the point that "democracy" and "republic" had enough default connotations in common that they could often be used interchangably in the U.S. But that doesn't mean we can't still mean something by saying that the Founders intended to have [something closer to their stereotypical version of] a Republic rather than [something closer to their stereotypical version of] a Democracy.
There has been a gradual shift over the past centuries in the U.S. moving closer toward a direct democracy, which is not in-line with the (pseudo-Roman) Republican tendencies of the Founders. For a few examples:
"Roman Republican" Founders: suffrage should generally be limited to people entitled to make decisions because of their positions and assets, i.e., free male landowners. Modern-day "more Democratic" ideal: suffrage should be nearly universal, excepting only minors and maybe felons.
"Roman Republican" Founders: many offices should be filled by indirect elections or appointments, isolated from direct democratic interventions -- such as having senators elected by state governments or presidents by an "electoral college." Modern-day "more Democratic" ideal: senators are elected by direct popular vote; the electoral college is viewed with great suspicion, along with other indirect election or appointment methods.
- A boiled potato with a slice of American cheese
- A cup of white rice with a handful of peanuts
For nutrition's sake, I'd highly recommend adding some things with a little more protein, as well as fruits/veggies. Better to mix in some beans or lentils with the rice or potato. Dry beans and lentils are incredibly cheap in bulk, and last forever -- lentils cook faster than beans, so they'll be ready about as fast as your rice would be, if that's a concern. (Canned beans cost a little more, but get the giant cans if needed, and eat them over a week.)
As for veggies, there's often a big bag of frozen mixed vegetables on sale, or some other giant bag of something. It's not a good idea to live for years on potatoes, white rice, and American cheese. Add in a giant can of cheap olive oil for loads of relatively cheap calories. Buying in bulk is your friend. (Some would go for the cheaper bottle of vegetable oil, but if you can afford it, go for what's tastier, most versatile, and nutritious.)
If you're willing to spend just a little time in the kitchen, you'd be amazed what you can do by adding in a (cheap) large sack of flour -- fresh bread, pizza, etc. can be easily done these days with little work (no kneading necessary, with even a small fridge, you can make it easy to bake on whatever schedule you have, etc.). Add in a few of those giant cheap bags of spices from the Indian or Chinese grocery, and pretty soon you'll be grilling up fresh naan with your lentil curry and rice or something.
Seriously -- when I was in graduate school, a friend and I thought of trying to write a cookbook for people like starving students. It is possible to balance nutrition and frugality, along with very ease or low maintenance recipes for busy students (or minimum-wage workers).
It's not about amassing wealth, it's about quality of life. Reaching 70 with a half million dollar fortune
A half million dollars is hardly a "fortune" these days for retirement. Having about 20 times your annual living expenses in the bank to retire at age 60-65 is a pretty reasonable goal. $500,000 / 20 = $25,000. While many people tend to spend less in retirement, $25,000/year is not exactly extravagant living. Many people don't manage to save that much, but anyone who is middle-class or above should probably be targeting something like that or more... unless you're one of the rare people these days with a guaranteed pension or something.
just means you missed out on those enjoyable things in life that depreciate or have negative ROI, like movies and concerts or eating out or holidays. Exchanging enjoyment and variety in life for a pile of money when you are probably too old to really enjoy it anyway doesn't seem like a good way to live.
You're presenting a false dichotomy. It's not like you have to choose between living on rice and beans every day to maximize the pile of coins in your "moneybin" OR you get to go out to movies and eat out every night and enjoy life. There's a lot between those extremes.
The prudent thing is always to be prepared for emergencies. So, personally, I'd put a pretty big priority on making sure I have adequate insurance (including disability, etc.) and an emergency fund with about a year's living expenses that I can draw on if I lose a job or something. I'm not saying you need forego all eating out or movies or whatever, but many people would be surprised how fast you can save money if you just stop buying lattes every day or every other day, or if you only ate out for lunch once per week instead of most days.
If you're not prepared for emergency situations, you're just not living rationally. Most people will have some sort of crisis happen at some point in their lives, and having at least a small "cushion" in the bank is just a necessary thing... like having a few cans of soup in your pantry in the winter in case a snowstorm comes and you need to stay home for a day.
As for saving for retirement and so forth, I think you're also missing out on one important element: the more you save, the quicker you become financially independent. That means you have more choices and can decide to do enjoyable things when you want, rather than just when you get your tax refund or are lucky enough to get a bonus.
Some extreme people save enough of their income and live so frugally that they can retire by age 40 or 45, so they get to spend the rest of their lives -- including most of middle age -- doing what they want.
An intermediate course is to put some money away, but continue to enjoy some of the things you mention. That way you trade a little flexibility now for a lot more flexibility later on.
Anyway, what happened to the concept of being rewarded for working hard?
Both of my sets of grandparents came from lower class backgrounds (three of their families had been immigrants). They lived life well, had most of the nice things that "middle-class" people have, and for one set of them actually had significantly more nice things than most middle-class people, even on blue-collar salaries. They had fewer things, but the things they had were top quality.
But they also saved -- to my knowledge they always bought cars in cash, they might have taken a mortgage for a while, but otherwise never had a loan in their lives (definitely never any credit card debt). They had plenty of money in the bank to retire, and when they died, they passed on a decent sum to the kids and grandkids.
So, it is possible to be "rewarded for working hard" and also save money, assuming you have a decent middle-class job. People are just stupid and think you have to live within your "income group." If you make $200k per year, but live li
So, for example, in Wickard v. Filburn the Supreme Court didn't say "we're going to change the meaning of the constitution and make a new law and allow Congress to regulate this thing that was previously illegal", they instead said. "You know what, Congressional regulation of this thing is *already* legal. We know that people are arguing that the Constitution says they can't, but we've looked at it and discovered that it really doesn't say that, and *never did*."
This is all a nice story, but the boat had already sailed before Wickard. Wickard was just the place where federal power effectively was freed from all reasonable limits. To find the real source of the issue in this thread, you'd have to back up 4 or 5 years, to the "switch in time that saved nine," i.e., the place where FDR was fed up with the Supremes saying that expansions of federal power were unconstitutional (as they pretty much did for the first 150 years or so of the Constitution's existence). So, FDR threatened to enlarge the court by packing it with his cronies (since the size of the Supreme Court isn't actually mentioned in the Constitution).
Magically, the Supreme Court then started approving of expansions of federal power.
So, in Wickard, it was more like: "The meaning of the Constitution changed a few years ago, because otherwise the Executive Branch was threatening to take over the Judicial Branch, so this thing is now legal... and we discovered that we could reinterpret words in the Constitution so that the enumerated powers clause now has no meaning."
We are not a purely common law system -- there is a Constitution that sets limits on the direction that legal precedent can take. But that system broke in the 1930s (though it had broken down in various places before then too, the late 30s ruling culminating Wickard was the largest shift).
Brewers get $30 a ton for the waste from beer manufacturing. Per can/bottle of beer, that's negligible.
While that may be true, the cost would inevitably be higher that merely profits lost -- even assuming they don't pay for expensive processing equipment to turn it into feed. If they weren't able to even give it away as feed, they'd probably have to pay to dispose of it in landfills or something, which would add further costs. Presumably some farmers who want to use the stuff and essentially get it for free maybe even pay for transport costs and so forth, which would now be on the brewers to pay to get it to a landfill or wherever else.
But, to me, it seems like TFA is missing the point a bit. It's mostly a "woe is me!" tale from the brewers who might lose some very tiny amount of profit, but what about the farmers and animals who don't get this food for low prices? (This is only mentioned in passing in TFA.) It seems to me that the increased costs would be much more greatly felt in costs for milk and meat from farmers who have previously acquired free (or nearly free) animal feed. Given that beer-making with each batch is a single process that then is disposed of, while animals require daily feeding, the costs of less feed could be magnified in consumer price shifts for milk and meat.
You make an interesting complaint but you provide no argument or evidence that the government doesn't have a good reason to propose this rule.
But you see that is exactly his point, he should not have to present anything in order to prevent the government enacting a new rule.
Umm, but his posting on Slashdot is not intended "to prevent the government enacting a new rule." His post here is presumably to participate in a reasonable discussion or debate about the subject in question. Ideally, many of us come here to read insightful and informed comments that elucidate some elements of the TFA. With this in mind, it would be more helpful to give a few details or arguments along with your rant.
You're right that government should be required to have a strong justification for action, and this particular rule has some questionable qualities.
But GGP is not arguing with the government here. He's participating in a discussion -- and many of us would like to understand WHY this rule might not make any sense (as well as why it might). As far as I can tell, GGP's post was simply a rant about government regulation in general -- perhaps a justified one -- as is yours.
But it would be more on topic and actually lead to an interesting and informed discussion HERE to have posts that "provide argument of evidence" (in the GP's words) about why this rule may be good (i.e., why it was proposed in the first place) AND what it may be bad... rather than just a standard Slashdot pile-on of "Get 'dat dag-gone gub'ment outa' my life!" I have libertarian tendencies too, but reading crap like this without any further substance can get boring.
Look at places where Christianity is NOT the major religion, this kind of artificial genital alteration are NOT generally practiced.
Huh? You do know that circumcision is primarily associated with Jewish and Muslim practice, right? It wasn't until the past 150 years or so with supposed "hygienic" movements that Christians became circumcised in some countries. It was doctors driving the practice, not religion... in fact, for centuries it was considered a mortal sin in Catholicism to circumcise anyone.
The funny thing is that this sort of mathematical and reductionist take on font "design" is precisely what modernism and then postmodernism did to other art forms â" by stripping a tradition of its presupposed axioms, picking a certain point as a "first principle", establishing an alternative deriviation from it, and then calling that "art".
Umm, I don't think you know what postmodernism is. You're actually describing something closer to "modernism" in most art forms, which was generally about rejecting traditional aesthetic criteria and founding new systems. Postmodernism, as a broad artistic idea, is largely a reaction against these "modernist" systems, often drawing on older, more traditional techniques and styles, perhaps in novel or eclectic ways.
For example, you include "post-tonal music" as your only representative art form, but many postmodernist composers (or at least composers who would be identified as such) actually tend to write tonal music of various sorts. It may not always sound like Bach or Beethoven, but it's more likely to connect with older traditions or to develop older tonal systems than the complete break with the past that is often associated with "modernist" music.
As for sociology and continental philosophy -- well, one could argue that continental philosophy has turned all humanities departments into sociologists, rather than literature scholars or historians or whatever. It's true that "postmodernism" as an academic and philosophical idea may seem a bit different, but it was essentially about tearing down the novel systematizing impulses from the early 1900s in areas like logic and epistemology in a similar fashion to what artists did in questioning these systems in the arts.
The apparent conflict is that a lot of scientists and philosophers actually still find the systems of the early 1900s to be useful in those fields, so postmodernism there seems to be a rejection of the "useful" strands of modernism. But in the arts, the "modernist" systems were and often still are a harder sell for aesthetic appreciation... so "postmodern" art, architecture, and music is actually much more palatable to most audiences.
If you're paying more than $1,500/month rent to live in a one bedroom apartment anywhere in the US, you're very rich.
A decade or so ago, I knew a number of graduate students living in Boston (mostly Cambridge) who were paying well over $1000/month for one-bedroom apartments -- while living on graduate stipends of something like $20k per year. Definitely a few paying $1200 or $1250. (Maybe they made $25k.) A decade later, I assume rents may have risen by a couple hundred dollars in places, so it gets to your range.
Anyhow, these people were NOT "very rich" or even "rich." They were often struggling. BUT - If you were going to school in Boston or Cambridge, your choice was often to rent a place way out of the way and spend hundreds of dollars per month on commuting passes and/or parking, and perhaps spend an hour or more each way getting to school... or you could basically pay just a little more (or even the same) and live in a convenient place with an insane rent. Either way, between housing and commuting expenses, you'd be spending well over 50% of your income.
Of course, the alternative would be to live in some sort of 4-person roommate situation and have more beer money and be able to eat more than rice and beans. Some people did that; others found having their own place to be worth it for various reasons.
I'm not speaking of the San Francisco situation, and I don't know the dynamics there. But there are plenty of people I know who have lived in places like Boston and New York and were shelling out loads of money on rent because on-balance it made sense in their years as a starving artist or graduate student or whatever. Not all people who pay high rents are "very rich" or even "mildly rich." You can call these people "insane" for paying so much for housing compared to the rest of the country -- and perhaps they are -- but that insanity is simply a fact of life in some places.
You are getting your own money back without interest.
Actually, for the past couple years, you can actually earn a sort of "interest" on your refund, for example in TurboTax's partnership with Amazon, which will give you a 10% bonus on your federal refund in the form of an Amazon gift card. Granted, for this privilege you'd have to pay for TurboTax, but even so, if you actually buy a lot from Amazon, you're getting a much better guaranteed return than a bank account or CD.
It would be better to owe $2K each year than to expect refunds.
Or you could turn a $2K refund into $2200 of buying power... assuming you buy from Amazon. Amazon is the only place I've heard of this kind of benefit, but I assume others will try to do this sort of thing.
While you are "required" to file if your income is above a certain amount, the IRS has stated repeatedly that there is no actual late penalty for failing to file a return that qualifies for a refund. I'd be interested if you have something that says otherwise.
The real question is who added this particular provision, and are they still in office? I'm not sure how to dig up that crucial bit of info.
This takes a bit of digging. I believe the provision in question is H.R. 2419, Sec. 14219. "Elimination of statute of limitations applicable to collection of debt by administrative offset."
It was added as part of a list of amendments suggested by a committee report (House Report 110-261). The specific amendment regarding the statute of limitations was entered into the Congressional Record at H9049.
The slate of amendments (H.Amdt.714) from the report were introduced to a full house vote (see Congressional Record H8763) by Rep. Collin Peterson (Minnesota 7th), then chairman of the House Agricultural Committee. Rep. Peterson should probably not be taken to be the main proponent of this measure, since this was part of a slate of amendments introduced in the committee report, which were then offered up to the full house for approval. (A number of members of the Agricultural Committee spoke for this slate of amendments, though it doesn't seem anyone spoke in support of the specific provision for eliminating this statute of limitations -- this provision was included among a whole bunch of other random things in the bill.)
The specific amendment (the 29th on the slate to be considered) did not actually name the elimination of statute of limitations sections as its primary purpose (listed as Sec. 3005, the "Reauthorization of McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program"), so one might argue that this section was buried as an added clause within an amendment which was buried within a slate of amendments.
In any case, the house agreed to these amendments offered en bloc by voice vote on July 27, 2007, so there's no record of who voted for or against (though the assumption is it was more-or-less unanimous, since it was approving something recommended from the committee who was trying to produce a bill which could be passed by the full house).
(Of course, as is typical, the amendment was not actually read in full to the house, and only entered later into the Congressional record as an "omission" for the day, which is why the page number for the amendment is later than the page on which it is approved.)
It's possible you might find something about who actually wanted this provision by digging into records of committee meetings, but I somewhat doubt it. This slate of amendments was part of an ENORMOUS bill, and it looks like this list of amendments was a compiled list of crap the committee needed to put in just to get it to the next stage of legislation.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm fully capable of reading at 1000+ words / minute and remembering the information, so next time you want to claim it can't be done, make sure you're not talking to someone who can.
If you're really a person who can do this, PLEASE volunteer for one of these studies, so we actually have some reliable evidence. Because basically every previous study on this stuff says comprehension goes significantly down as reading speed goes up.
Quite a few studies have shown this (some articles summarizing findings here, here, here, here), and the only ones that seem to ever disagree are those designed by the speed-reading course or software people. Even for professional high-volume readers and people who performed well in generic speed-reading tests showed a maximum of about 75% comprehension at 600 words/minute.
And there are loads of cognitive science studies that demonstrate why this must be so. Lots of research on eye movements during reading and the maximum possible speed they can take things in, the way our retinas work and focus, cognitive constraints on the extent and speed of our "working memory," etc.
By the time you get to your claimed speed of 1000 words/minute, I sincerely doubt you're getting anywhere close to 50% comprehension. Therefore, what you're doing is skimming, not reading.
There's nothing wrong with skimming. it's an incredibly useful skill which I really picked up in graduate school. I have used it all the time when teaching and (when preparing for class) needing to re-read an article I haven't looked at in a long time (and don't really remember) or a new article dealing with a subject I'm already familiar with. I can certainly skim at 1000 words/minute and be prepared to discuss a lot of important points of an article, but if a student queries me on something very specific, I guarantee that we'll have to slow down, I'll go back, and take a look at that specific passage. When you're already fairly familiar with the field or kind of material, you can often zoom on essential elements fairly quickly, and your comprehension rate gets higher -- but you're still not reading. And if you were reading something outside of your discipline, the comprehension would go WAY down at such speeds.
So -- sorry, but your claims to read at that speed and retain information have been debunked by many studies along with many other supporting cognitive science studies that basically show why it can't work.
If indeed you are some person with a freakish skill that you can demonstrate under controlled conditions, please volunteer for a study. Otherwise, I (and any other reasonable person here) should assume that what you're actually doing at 1000 words/minute is skimming, and you're probably only getting a small fraction of the total information.
If this "random position" requires skills which are taught in a specific discipline, hire someone who took that. If they're things you can absorb through doing other things, why hire someone with a degree at all?
Because I don't believe the purpose of college is a glorified trade school. I'm more interested in whether someone is smart and capable of learning than whether they have some specific degree or credential. The completion of a college degree from a reputable school implies that a person is at least capable of being responsible enough to jump through some intellectual hoops, which is one indicator (not the only one) of intelligence and responsibility. Someone who chooses a specific humanities field rather than a generic "business" degree probably was actually intellectually passionate about something -- enough so not to just choose the "default generic" degree path. I find that interesting, and I want to know more. I'm not saying it's a reason to reject the business student -- I'm saying the other humanities graduate has three useful boxes checked for me already: (1) responsible enough to complete a college degree, (2) probably has some decent communication or writing skills, (3) is curious enough and/or passionate enough about intellectual disciplines to pursue a niche degree, which means they are more likely to be interested in lifelong learning to begin with (which is likely to make them a more adaptable worker).
When a computer program can spout off gibberish on post modernism and get published, I distrust even the people who say it's such a specialized field of study that they don't even know what it means.
I think you're referring to the infamous Sokal Hoax, which... well, was propagated by an ACTUAL PERSON, i.e., the guy named "Sokal." He wrote the paper to perpetrate the hoax. I'm not defending those who published it, but I'm not aware of computer programs getting gibberish postmodernism published in journals. Are you?
However, there are plenty of reports of computer-generated nonsense getting accepted at science or engineering conferences (and then there's the published record of papers by the Bogdanov brothers...). Should we reject those disciplines too?
I'm not saying smart people don't take these disciplines. I am saying that I don't think a lot of hiring managers will look at your degree in medieval poetry as being particularly applicable to anything they need, and that a disproportionate number of these end up working as baristas or fast food servers.
Fine. And I'm saying that I think such a practice is misguided. I've taught at the university level. In elective courses, I've taught business majors. I've taught science and engineering major. I've taught humanities majors. I've met smart people and dumb people from all of these. I'm telling you that my anecdotal evidence is that the bulk of my worst-performing students often tend to be those who don't have a clear commitment or passion for learning, and a lot of those students disproportionately seem to come from business programs.
I've also found that the most creative people I have in classes tend to be engineers and some humanities people (at the top of the list is probably philosophy and comp. lit.).
And, until we start seeing job postings for someone who can do a deep analysis of Chaucer and relate that to, well, anything really ... we appreciate that's what you studied in school, but we have no idea of how that helps us. We just have no idea of who is looking to hire that specific skillset or for what purposes.
Yeah, unfortunately you miss the entire point of what traditional liberal arts education is about. Let me put it in STEM terms you might understand: learning math requires a lot of time investment. Chances are most people -- even those in STEM fields -- are only going to use a very small set of speci
Cops are humans, and as such they don't want to have to be denigrated like that any more than you do.
Of course they don't. But they chose a profession that requires them to uphold a higher standard. Why? Well, for the idealistic rationale: because someone who chooses to be a policeman, they are presumed to prefer order and law over chaos. Thus, they are expected to be the guy who walks away from an insult rather than starting a barfight. If they don't have those sorts of ideals, they shouldn't become a cop.
The more practical reason? Because they usually carry deadly weapons or other arms that could seriously hurt people. The general public does not generally carry such weapons everywhere (except in Texas**). To be trusted to carry a deadly weapon and to act on behalf of the state, and person has to be able to contain his/her emotions and not allow those emotions to cause a random violent outburst... otherwise, innocent people could be seriously harmed or killed.
Think about this: If you deliberately provoke a reaction, do you think it's possible that you just might succeed in getting one?
Sure. But as a cop, you're not acting on behalf of your personal "honor" or emotions or whatever. You're an officer of the state, and you must be trained to follow orders and procedure, even when confronted with emotional or tense situations.
[** That was a joke.]
I'm amused by how you're critical of stereotyping humanities students, then move onto stereotyping business students.
You claim statistics supported your point, and that's exactly what I said as well. I never stereotyped business students -- in fact, I explicitly said there were smart business students as well. But, given otherwise equivalent resumes, I said I might think some other disciplines might have an edge. Why?
If you know anything about enrollment statistics at universities these days, you'd know that the "business degree" captures a huge number of undergrads in most schools. Any university official would tell you that it tends to be a "default degree" for a lot of undergrads who don't know what they want to do with their lives and just want to "get a college degree" because... well, it's supposed to be a good thing to do.
Statistically, it's very likely that there are more business majors who therefore have little passion for learning and don't belong in college -- just by the sheer numbers of people in those degrees compared to, say, history. But add the idea of a "default degree" to the mix, and the percentage is probably significantly higher. At least someone who chooses another major has expressed an interest in SOMETHING.
Again, there are a LOT of business majors who are strongly motivated, very intelligent, etc. Maybe even most of them. Statistically, though, we're probably likely to find a large number of people there who are not as suitable for college-leve reasoning skills. I was making a statistical statement about where we might most effectively target the rhetoric in the summary, not a stereotype.
Funny how you implicitly say that a business degree is a STEM degree. Because, you know, it really isn't...
Hilarious how a post about critical thinking skills and the humanities brings out a lot of people who can't read. Where did I say or even imply that a business degree is a STEM degree? I did NOT.
The summary picked on fields X and Y, implying that those people shouldn't go to college and instead should do skilled trades. I said that a higher percentage of people in skilled Z might be a better target for that argument. I never implied that fields X, Y, or Z were STEM fields or that the people involved in them should be in STEM fields.
But the people who do don't usually end up choosing a history or polysci major because they're the dumbest ones at college.
Wait, what? When I say it or the summary says it, it's deeply offensive. And then you close out your post by saying the exact same thing as I did?
I suggest you learn some critical reading skills. The sentence you quoted does not mean what you think it does. "Person A does not end up choosing X because they are dumb" does NOT necessary imply that person A is dumb. Instead, it could imply that person A is NOT dumb, and therefore chooses X rather than Y (i.e., if person A were dumb, they'd have chosen Y).
Sheesh. You want to get offended that I dare post an alternate view on Slashdot about the necessity of humanities degrees, and then you fail logical reasoning skills by interpreting a statement I made to mean the opposite of what it clearly meant in context... wow. I think you proved my point.
How many young people should be training for skilled manufacturing and service jobs rather than getting history or political science degrees?
As many as possible.
Frankly, as a fan of the humanities, I find the summary and this sort of response to be offensive. It presumes that the only people who get humanities degrees are those without the ability to do science or engineering. As someone who works in a field full of people who clearly have the aptitude to do STEM fields, but choose humanities pursuits instead, I can say this is definitely not true.
Don't pick on the history or political science degrees. Those -- along with English lit, classics, philosophy, etc. -- tended historically to produce lots of intelligent people with critical thinking skills. If I were looking to fill a random position in an area that didn't require STEM background, I'd much rather find someone with a history or political science degree than someone with a "business" degree. The business degree is where the real "dregs" of college often end up, who probably would be better off doing some sort of skilled labor or something. (Not saying that there aren't smart business majors, but percentage-wise, I'd say it's much more likely to find people there without any specific passion for learning, unlike those who end up in history or whatever.)
All those people who have exhaustively studied the post modernism and sexism as exemplified by 17th century Gaelic poets with no left hand but who hadn't gone bald yet ... not so much. Because, as far as marketable skills go, some courses of study aren't exactly marketable at all.
Meh. This is an increasing problem in some humaniies departments that have been effectively converted into sociology departments, rather than history or literature or whatever. But someone trained in serious critical thinking about evaluating historical sources? Again, I'd definitely take that person over a similarly-qualified "business major" any day of the week... and if you wouldn't, perhaps you should talk to more historians.
For people without the aptitude or interest to spend a lot of time with math or science, but have good other qualities (e.g., interpersonal skills, management skills, good work ethic, critical thinking skills outside math -- yes those people do exist), I'd like to see their brains honed by some doing some work that requires intensive study, problem-solving, and critical thinking in an area that excites and interests them.
Personally, I think a lot of people shouldn't be encouraged to go to college who now are. Most people don't have the aptitude, interest, or skills to succeed in a traditional liberal arts curriculum. But the people who do don't usually end up choosing a history or polysci major because they're the dumbest ones at college.
Consenting adults should have the right to enter into any contract, regardless of gender.
If "consenting adults should have the right to enter into any contract," and the quest for gay marriage rights is about that equality, why have gay marriage advocates struggled so hard to differentiate their fight from polyamorists or even those accepting of incestuous unions?
There are two possible explanations: either they don't actually believe that consenting adults should be able to enter into any contract, or they are just taking a pragmatic stance that it would be difficult to argue in favor of polygamy and incest, so they're willing to throw those people under the bus to get their "equality." I.e., they recognize that true equality for all consenting adults to enter into any contract is -- as you say-- a "non-starter."
I'm not saying gay marriage advocates are wrong, nor am I saying they should be denied access to the benefits that others have on the basis of sexual orientation. But the issue is complex and not quite as idealistic as you state it.
If you're simply not very intelligent, but work really hard, would we put you in charge of things?
Depends on what the position is. Many jobs demand hard work. Fewer demand high intelligence. As long as you are intelligent enough to do the job, I'd often rather have a hard worker than a super smart lazy person.
The people at the top of the food chain are often not the smartest -- they're just somewhat smarter than average, but also have other talents or work very hard. The smartest people often tend to get bogged down in minutiae or some intellectual digressions, rather than having the kind of focused drive that, for example, many business execs do. Obviously there are exceptions, but smartness is often not the only thing that matters.
If we, as a society, really believe this reasoning
It's not a "reasoning" -- it's stating a fact. The people most likely to have lots of kids (or any at all) tend to be those without adequate resources for birth control, who are often poor or have other social pressures as well that are increasingly compounded by the kids.
there are ways to realign incentives, at least until someone screams: eugenics... because that's what it is.
Yes and no. I'm not advocating we selectively allow people to reproduce according to their genes or race or anything -- and I would NEVER advocate such a despicable practice.
In fact, my argument doesn't actually depend on genetics at all. Whether you believe that it's mostly "nature" or mostly "nurture" or some sort of mixture of the two, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why people are poor or uneducated or have few resources -- the simple fact is that kids born in such an environment are more likely to end up in that environment themselves. Personally, I think very little of it has to do with genetics, but more with cultural practices.
The point is that when the people who reproduce in your society are the ones in the worst conditions, it will have a tendency to expand the underclass. I'm not suggesting that we limit reproduction: I'm saying it presents a problem that we need to solve to avoid future imbalances. Giving incentives to rich smart people to reproduce is only one possible solution (and probably will be least effective)... we also need to consider how we can alter the environment of kids growing up in such situations so that the effects don't propagate.
In the US, the top 1% starts somewhere just under $350,000 in 2009 (down from $380k in 2008) - I couldn't find a reliable source for more recent data. That's really not that high, considering the majority of people in the 1% are also in areas with the highest cost of livings. I'm not saying $350k isn't enough for a life of relative luxury, but they're also not the ones with private yachts, planes or a dozen vacation homes.
The "top 1%" is, by definition, 1 out of 100 people. Does anyone seriously think that 1 out of every 100 people would be rich enough to own private jets and a "dozen vacation homes"? Imagine the way the economy would have to work for that to happen -- every 99 people have to work hard enough to generate enough wealth to pay the other 1 guy enough to buy lots of vacation homes and private planes. Does that sound like the math would work out?
Or, just think about your high school class. If you graduated with 300 people, do you really think 3 of them are rich enough (or will be rich enough) to own a private jet and/or a dozen vacation homes? (Just for the record, you're probably looking at $350k annual expenses just to maintain a private jet, and that's not for a large plane.) If you went to some elite private school, maybe (and certainly the numbers aren't too much higher than that even there)... but for the vast majority of schools, probably not.
So, yeah, the "top 1%" just simply can't be that rich... at least not most of them. It doesn't make any sense. It's just a convenient simple statistic. The point is that, for most people, when you reach the "top 1%" bracket, you probably start having enough disposable income that you can do some of the things rich people do, like buy a couple luxury items or donate enough money to something that you might actually have some minor influence (rather than being "just another donor").
The people with the private jets, etc. are a much smaller group... but that's pretty obvious if you take a moment and think about what "1%" means.
Hmm... quantitative comparisons (this type of problem) were eliminated from the SAT some years ago because they were too hard or too abstract or maybe because they required abstract reasoning which was not taught directly in schools or something.
Anyhow, now we've demonstrated that a trained monkey can do these kinds of questions. Anyone else wonder what that says about our expectations regarding abstract reasoning for even high school kids?
The "replenishment" argument has not made sense in centuries. Not having a baby is the most green thing one can do. Babies have bigger carbon footprints than *anything* else you can have and most probably (unless some revolution of green technologies hits soon) more than everything else you do.
This is certainly true. The question is -- if none of the people who want the world to be "greener" have babies, where will the environmentalists for the next generation come from?
I'm certainly NOT saying environmental consciousness is an inherited trait -- but it is a cultural one, and something that is distinctively shaped by the priorities of people around you when you grow up.
In today's developed countries, there are lots of benefits to not having kids, so people who are smart, intelligent, and wealthy are increasingly avoiding them. Meanwhile, the people likely to have the most kids are people who are less intelligent, poor, have less resources, etc. Their kids are increasingly likely to have a similar fate. And for most of these people -- particularly in less affluent countries -- environmentalism is hardly near the top of their list of things to be worried about. In the past, babies of poor stupid people died. Not so any longer. (I'm NOT suggesting they should -- just making an observation.)
Sci-fi writers have discussed this issue in the past (perhaps most famously in the recent movie Idiocracy), and perhaps it is exaggerated a bit. But at some point people may need to think about what "replenishment" means in terms of diversity of culture, ideas, and even intelligence (which seems to have at least some significant heritability). Perhaps it's an argument for environmentalists with no kids to take some of the vast amount of time and money and energy they save from not having kids, and making sure the next generation of other people's kids understand the issues involved. Otherwise, it risks being something like the lone pacifist at the front lines of war: it's great to say "I refuse to fight" in the hopes that others will follow, but if you're gunned down and nobody replaces you, your ideas die with you.
Let's try this, shall we?
From Dictionary.com:
This thread would be hilarious, if all of the people on both sides weren't taking it so seriously.
You can't quote Dictionary.com to have an argument about what Ben Franklin (or whoever else) might have meant 200+ years ago. Language changes, but more importantly, the detailed connotations of words change.
I'm not AT ALL on the side of the Tea Party lunatics, nor do I want to repeal the 17th amendment. But people claiming that "It's supposed to be a Republic, not a Democracy" is meaningless or misguided are being a little ignorant of history.
What this statement really means -- to those who actually know something about history and what those terms meant in the 18th century -- is that the U.S. was founded as something closer to the Roman Republic, and less like direct democracy (a la Athens or something). Those were the models the Founders were often discussing.
It does NOT mean that a republic can't be a democracy or whatever -- it means that the terms had (and still have, to some extent) default connotations that put them at somewhat different places on the government spectrum of where power lies. You can see this if you actually spend time reading what the Founders wrote, where they often tend to qualify the word "democracy" with "representative democracy." They did this because saying the word "democracy" by itself had connotations more connected with direct democracy.
It's kind of like the word "bachelor." Does it just mean "an unmarried man"? Well, is a divorced man a "bachelor"? Some people say no, others say "sometimes." The word "bachelor" also has historical connections to eligibility for marriage, not just marital status (hence "eligible bachelor"), and historically divorced men were uncommon. Now divorced men are common, and they are often considered eligible for marriage. So, can they be "bachelors"? Certainly they can have a "bachelor pad" or behave in ways that are "bachelor-like" (yet another connotation of the word, having to do with certain behaviors, rather than marital status).
All-in-all, language is complicated. Words have default connotations, and when we start arguing about word meanings over time or boundary cases, we're bound to have disagreements. For example, in the 18th century, a "republic" couldn't mean a communist republic, since communism didn't yet exist in the form we talk about today. Acting like that has something to do with the 18th century meaning is a little bizarre.
By the mid-1800s or so, language had evolved to the point that "democracy" and "republic" had enough default connotations in common that they could often be used interchangably in the U.S. But that doesn't mean we can't still mean something by saying that the Founders intended to have [something closer to their stereotypical version of] a Republic rather than [something closer to their stereotypical version of] a Democracy.
There has been a gradual shift over the past centuries in the U.S. moving closer toward a direct democracy, which is not in-line with the (pseudo-Roman) Republican tendencies of the Founders. For a few examples:
"Roman Republican" Founders: suffrage should generally be limited to people entitled to make decisions because of their positions and assets, i.e., free male landowners.
Modern-day "more Democratic" ideal: suffrage should be nearly universal, excepting only minors and maybe felons.
"Roman Republican" Founders: many offices should be filled by indirect elections or appointments, isolated from direct democratic interventions -- such as having senators elected by state governments or presidents by an "electoral college."
Modern-day "more Democratic" ideal: senators are elected by direct popular vote; the electoral college is viewed with great suspicion, along with other indirect election or appointment methods.
"Roman Rep
Ah spaghetti and ketchup. Nice combo.
Some of my favorites from my college days were:
- A boiled potato with a slice of American cheese
- A cup of white rice with a handful of peanuts
For nutrition's sake, I'd highly recommend adding some things with a little more protein, as well as fruits/veggies. Better to mix in some beans or lentils with the rice or potato. Dry beans and lentils are incredibly cheap in bulk, and last forever -- lentils cook faster than beans, so they'll be ready about as fast as your rice would be, if that's a concern. (Canned beans cost a little more, but get the giant cans if needed, and eat them over a week.)
As for veggies, there's often a big bag of frozen mixed vegetables on sale, or some other giant bag of something. It's not a good idea to live for years on potatoes, white rice, and American cheese. Add in a giant can of cheap olive oil for loads of relatively cheap calories. Buying in bulk is your friend. (Some would go for the cheaper bottle of vegetable oil, but if you can afford it, go for what's tastier, most versatile, and nutritious.)
If you're willing to spend just a little time in the kitchen, you'd be amazed what you can do by adding in a (cheap) large sack of flour -- fresh bread, pizza, etc. can be easily done these days with little work (no kneading necessary, with even a small fridge, you can make it easy to bake on whatever schedule you have, etc.). Add in a few of those giant cheap bags of spices from the Indian or Chinese grocery, and pretty soon you'll be grilling up fresh naan with your lentil curry and rice or something.
Seriously -- when I was in graduate school, a friend and I thought of trying to write a cookbook for people like starving students. It is possible to balance nutrition and frugality, along with very ease or low maintenance recipes for busy students (or minimum-wage workers).
It's not about amassing wealth, it's about quality of life. Reaching 70 with a half million dollar fortune
A half million dollars is hardly a "fortune" these days for retirement. Having about 20 times your annual living expenses in the bank to retire at age 60-65 is a pretty reasonable goal. $500,000 / 20 = $25,000. While many people tend to spend less in retirement, $25,000/year is not exactly extravagant living. Many people don't manage to save that much, but anyone who is middle-class or above should probably be targeting something like that or more... unless you're one of the rare people these days with a guaranteed pension or something.
just means you missed out on those enjoyable things in life that depreciate or have negative ROI, like movies and concerts or eating out or holidays. Exchanging enjoyment and variety in life for a pile of money when you are probably too old to really enjoy it anyway doesn't seem like a good way to live.
You're presenting a false dichotomy. It's not like you have to choose between living on rice and beans every day to maximize the pile of coins in your "moneybin" OR you get to go out to movies and eat out every night and enjoy life. There's a lot between those extremes.
The prudent thing is always to be prepared for emergencies. So, personally, I'd put a pretty big priority on making sure I have adequate insurance (including disability, etc.) and an emergency fund with about a year's living expenses that I can draw on if I lose a job or something. I'm not saying you need forego all eating out or movies or whatever, but many people would be surprised how fast you can save money if you just stop buying lattes every day or every other day, or if you only ate out for lunch once per week instead of most days.
If you're not prepared for emergency situations, you're just not living rationally. Most people will have some sort of crisis happen at some point in their lives, and having at least a small "cushion" in the bank is just a necessary thing... like having a few cans of soup in your pantry in the winter in case a snowstorm comes and you need to stay home for a day.
As for saving for retirement and so forth, I think you're also missing out on one important element: the more you save, the quicker you become financially independent. That means you have more choices and can decide to do enjoyable things when you want, rather than just when you get your tax refund or are lucky enough to get a bonus.
Some extreme people save enough of their income and live so frugally that they can retire by age 40 or 45, so they get to spend the rest of their lives -- including most of middle age -- doing what they want.
An intermediate course is to put some money away, but continue to enjoy some of the things you mention. That way you trade a little flexibility now for a lot more flexibility later on.
Anyway, what happened to the concept of being rewarded for working hard?
Both of my sets of grandparents came from lower class backgrounds (three of their families had been immigrants). They lived life well, had most of the nice things that "middle-class" people have, and for one set of them actually had significantly more nice things than most middle-class people, even on blue-collar salaries. They had fewer things, but the things they had were top quality.
But they also saved -- to my knowledge they always bought cars in cash, they might have taken a mortgage for a while, but otherwise never had a loan in their lives (definitely never any credit card debt). They had plenty of money in the bank to retire, and when they died, they passed on a decent sum to the kids and grandkids.
So, it is possible to be "rewarded for working hard" and also save money, assuming you have a decent middle-class job. People are just stupid and think you have to live within your "income group." If you make $200k per year, but live li
So, for example, in Wickard v. Filburn the Supreme Court didn't say "we're going to change the meaning of the constitution and make a new law and allow Congress to regulate this thing that was previously illegal", they instead said. "You know what, Congressional regulation of this thing is *already* legal. We know that people are arguing that the Constitution says they can't, but we've looked at it and discovered that it really doesn't say that, and *never did*."
This is all a nice story, but the boat had already sailed before Wickard. Wickard was just the place where federal power effectively was freed from all reasonable limits. To find the real source of the issue in this thread, you'd have to back up 4 or 5 years, to the "switch in time that saved nine," i.e., the place where FDR was fed up with the Supremes saying that expansions of federal power were unconstitutional (as they pretty much did for the first 150 years or so of the Constitution's existence). So, FDR threatened to enlarge the court by packing it with his cronies (since the size of the Supreme Court isn't actually mentioned in the Constitution).
Magically, the Supreme Court then started approving of expansions of federal power.
So, in Wickard, it was more like: "The meaning of the Constitution changed a few years ago, because otherwise the Executive Branch was threatening to take over the Judicial Branch, so this thing is now legal... and we discovered that we could reinterpret words in the Constitution so that the enumerated powers clause now has no meaning."
We are not a purely common law system -- there is a Constitution that sets limits on the direction that legal precedent can take. But that system broke in the 1930s (though it had broken down in various places before then too, the late 30s ruling culminating Wickard was the largest shift).
Brewers get $30 a ton for the waste from beer manufacturing. Per can/bottle of beer, that's negligible.
While that may be true, the cost would inevitably be higher that merely profits lost -- even assuming they don't pay for expensive processing equipment to turn it into feed. If they weren't able to even give it away as feed, they'd probably have to pay to dispose of it in landfills or something, which would add further costs. Presumably some farmers who want to use the stuff and essentially get it for free maybe even pay for transport costs and so forth, which would now be on the brewers to pay to get it to a landfill or wherever else.
But, to me, it seems like TFA is missing the point a bit. It's mostly a "woe is me!" tale from the brewers who might lose some very tiny amount of profit, but what about the farmers and animals who don't get this food for low prices? (This is only mentioned in passing in TFA.) It seems to me that the increased costs would be much more greatly felt in costs for milk and meat from farmers who have previously acquired free (or nearly free) animal feed. Given that beer-making with each batch is a single process that then is disposed of, while animals require daily feeding, the costs of less feed could be magnified in consumer price shifts for milk and meat.
You make an interesting complaint but you provide no argument or evidence that the government doesn't have a good reason to propose this rule.
But you see that is exactly his point, he should not have to present anything in order to prevent the government enacting a new rule.
Umm, but his posting on Slashdot is not intended "to prevent the government enacting a new rule." His post here is presumably to participate in a reasonable discussion or debate about the subject in question. Ideally, many of us come here to read insightful and informed comments that elucidate some elements of the TFA. With this in mind, it would be more helpful to give a few details or arguments along with your rant.
You're right that government should be required to have a strong justification for action, and this particular rule has some questionable qualities.
But GGP is not arguing with the government here. He's participating in a discussion -- and many of us would like to understand WHY this rule might not make any sense (as well as why it might). As far as I can tell, GGP's post was simply a rant about government regulation in general -- perhaps a justified one -- as is yours.
But it would be more on topic and actually lead to an interesting and informed discussion HERE to have posts that "provide argument of evidence" (in the GP's words) about why this rule may be good (i.e., why it was proposed in the first place) AND what it may be bad... rather than just a standard Slashdot pile-on of "Get 'dat dag-gone gub'ment outa' my life!" I have libertarian tendencies too, but reading crap like this without any further substance can get boring.
Look at places where Christianity is NOT the major religion, this kind of artificial genital alteration are NOT generally practiced.
Huh? You do know that circumcision is primarily associated with Jewish and Muslim practice, right? It wasn't until the past 150 years or so with supposed "hygienic" movements that Christians became circumcised in some countries. It was doctors driving the practice, not religion... in fact, for centuries it was considered a mortal sin in Catholicism to circumcise anyone.
The funny thing is that this sort of mathematical and reductionist take on font "design" is precisely what modernism and then postmodernism did to other art forms â" by stripping a tradition of its presupposed axioms, picking a certain point as a "first principle", establishing an alternative deriviation from it, and then calling that "art".
Umm, I don't think you know what postmodernism is. You're actually describing something closer to "modernism" in most art forms, which was generally about rejecting traditional aesthetic criteria and founding new systems. Postmodernism, as a broad artistic idea, is largely a reaction against these "modernist" systems, often drawing on older, more traditional techniques and styles, perhaps in novel or eclectic ways.
For example, you include "post-tonal music" as your only representative art form, but many postmodernist composers (or at least composers who would be identified as such) actually tend to write tonal music of various sorts. It may not always sound like Bach or Beethoven, but it's more likely to connect with older traditions or to develop older tonal systems than the complete break with the past that is often associated with "modernist" music.
As for sociology and continental philosophy -- well, one could argue that continental philosophy has turned all humanities departments into sociologists, rather than literature scholars or historians or whatever. It's true that "postmodernism" as an academic and philosophical idea may seem a bit different, but it was essentially about tearing down the novel systematizing impulses from the early 1900s in areas like logic and epistemology in a similar fashion to what artists did in questioning these systems in the arts.
The apparent conflict is that a lot of scientists and philosophers actually still find the systems of the early 1900s to be useful in those fields, so postmodernism there seems to be a rejection of the "useful" strands of modernism. But in the arts, the "modernist" systems were and often still are a harder sell for aesthetic appreciation... so "postmodern" art, architecture, and music is actually much more palatable to most audiences.
If you're paying more than $1,500/month rent to live in a one bedroom apartment anywhere in the US, you're very rich.
A decade or so ago, I knew a number of graduate students living in Boston (mostly Cambridge) who were paying well over $1000/month for one-bedroom apartments -- while living on graduate stipends of something like $20k per year. Definitely a few paying $1200 or $1250. (Maybe they made $25k.) A decade later, I assume rents may have risen by a couple hundred dollars in places, so it gets to your range.
Anyhow, these people were NOT "very rich" or even "rich." They were often struggling. BUT - If you were going to school in Boston or Cambridge, your choice was often to rent a place way out of the way and spend hundreds of dollars per month on commuting passes and/or parking, and perhaps spend an hour or more each way getting to school... or you could basically pay just a little more (or even the same) and live in a convenient place with an insane rent. Either way, between housing and commuting expenses, you'd be spending well over 50% of your income.
Of course, the alternative would be to live in some sort of 4-person roommate situation and have more beer money and be able to eat more than rice and beans. Some people did that; others found having their own place to be worth it for various reasons.
I'm not speaking of the San Francisco situation, and I don't know the dynamics there. But there are plenty of people I know who have lived in places like Boston and New York and were shelling out loads of money on rent because on-balance it made sense in their years as a starving artist or graduate student or whatever. Not all people who pay high rents are "very rich" or even "mildly rich." You can call these people "insane" for paying so much for housing compared to the rest of the country -- and perhaps they are -- but that insanity is simply a fact of life in some places.
You are getting your own money back without interest.
Actually, for the past couple years, you can actually earn a sort of "interest" on your refund, for example in TurboTax's partnership with Amazon, which will give you a 10% bonus on your federal refund in the form of an Amazon gift card. Granted, for this privilege you'd have to pay for TurboTax, but even so, if you actually buy a lot from Amazon, you're getting a much better guaranteed return than a bank account or CD.
It would be better to owe $2K each year than to expect refunds.
Or you could turn a $2K refund into $2200 of buying power... assuming you buy from Amazon. Amazon is the only place I've heard of this kind of benefit, but I assume others will try to do this sort of thing.
While you are "required" to file if your income is above a certain amount, the IRS has stated repeatedly that there is no actual late penalty for failing to file a return that qualifies for a refund. I'd be interested if you have something that says otherwise.
The real question is who added this particular provision, and are they still in office? I'm not sure how to dig up that crucial bit of info.
This takes a bit of digging. I believe the provision in question is H.R. 2419, Sec. 14219. "Elimination of statute of limitations applicable to collection of debt by administrative offset."
It was added as part of a list of amendments suggested by a committee report (House Report 110-261). The specific amendment regarding the statute of limitations was entered into the Congressional Record at H9049.
The slate of amendments (H.Amdt.714) from the report were introduced to a full house vote (see Congressional Record H8763) by Rep. Collin Peterson (Minnesota 7th), then chairman of the House Agricultural Committee. Rep. Peterson should probably not be taken to be the main proponent of this measure, since this was part of a slate of amendments introduced in the committee report, which were then offered up to the full house for approval. (A number of members of the Agricultural Committee spoke for this slate of amendments, though it doesn't seem anyone spoke in support of the specific provision for eliminating this statute of limitations -- this provision was included among a whole bunch of other random things in the bill.)
The specific amendment (the 29th on the slate to be considered) did not actually name the elimination of statute of limitations sections as its primary purpose (listed as Sec. 3005, the "Reauthorization of McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program"), so one might argue that this section was buried as an added clause within an amendment which was buried within a slate of amendments.
In any case, the house agreed to these amendments offered en bloc by voice vote on July 27, 2007, so there's no record of who voted for or against (though the assumption is it was more-or-less unanimous, since it was approving something recommended from the committee who was trying to produce a bill which could be passed by the full house).
(Of course, as is typical, the amendment was not actually read in full to the house, and only entered later into the Congressional record as an "omission" for the day, which is why the page number for the amendment is later than the page on which it is approved.)
It's possible you might find something about who actually wanted this provision by digging into records of committee meetings, but I somewhat doubt it. This slate of amendments was part of an ENORMOUS bill, and it looks like this list of amendments was a compiled list of crap the committee needed to put in just to get it to the next stage of legislation.