Obviously, we should not be able to fly, as the human body has not come up with a solution to that either. Only humans create artificial rivers and lakes just so they can shit in them. Let me know when the bears come up with toilets, as last I checked, their still shitting in the woods. Stupid bears. We should shoot them. Hah hah, opposable thumbs! Bang Bang!
But I guess that from tjstork's typical "conservative" response that he'd consider the NYT to be part of the "liberal elite" and that fox news is the "real" news.
Yeah, I'd say the NYT is liberal trash, and the real news would be the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily... and as far as broadcast journalism goes, Fox actually has more reporters than CBS does.
And with this, you kissed any credibility good bye.
No, actually, you proved my point even more. You're calling me stupid? Man, if I was the NYT, I think I'd be advertising having all of this local writers and NOT being an AP feed site like every other news site is.
Its interesting that no matter how much knowledge, data, statistics, etc, are gathered, there will always be those that are never convinced. Be the subject, evolution, global warming, or that the earth is round.
What you don't understand, as you triumph evolution or the round earth, is how many times scientists have been WRONG. Before the earth was round, it was flat, it's been shaped like a disk. It's been hollow, filled with magma, it's had a liquid core, a solid core, and now it might have two cores orbiting each other.
First we heard that mega-disasters could not happen and the dinosaurs died of disease because mega-disasters are bible thumping things, and then we find a comet smashed into the earth, and then it is possible that not only did a comet smash into the earth, but the siberian traps exploded at the same time and then maybe there was a big disease after all or maybe just rats ate all the damn dino eggs.
And don't even get me started on diseases... first you bleed people and then you got some guy sticking his finger into Lincoln's brain and then you got a cure for all bacteria and soon viruses and cancer then woops we're nowhere on cancer and viruses and bacteria are going to win after all.
Hot damn.
But, before you go on about how science progresses and is never wrong, let's apply that same standard of excellence to our former President? I mean, George Bush wasn't wrong when he invaded Iraq. He merely learned that Saddam did not have WMD, and the original plans for the invasion needed to be revised to consider an increased number of soldiers. He wasn't wrong... he just learned!
Now, my point is really this. The ratio of right to wrong in science will most definitely approach 0, but, the consequences of each step will also approach 0. Basically, the big stuff smart people figured out long time ago, fire, food, water, and that had big consequences. Then lesser consequences as more was learned, different kinds of fire, food, water... the air... and we keep drilling down and also learn about things that don't matter as much... the earth is flat / round. really, if you are a 10th century farmer, why care? Doesn't matter. Same thing today... the Higgs is X ev or Y ev, is that going to make my dick bigger? It might, down the road, but the dirty secret of science is that the more we know, the less it matters, and, since we know so much, and invalidate so much, scientists are pretty increasing the probability of being wrong.
So, rather than worry about whether or not there's global warming, I'd build a fire, have a drink and a cigar, and don't sweat it. Science has given you enough to have a pretty darned good life, anything else it gives you is nice to know but probably obsolete as soon as you hear it, so why bother with it?
I mean, seriously. You rail on the ignorant, but, look at what science says : the ignorant are everywhere, so obviously, they must be better than you... that's what Darwin says.
presume by "they", you mean atmospheric scientists? Presumably, they'd follow the scientific method and adjust their theories to fit the new data.
Or, they would have just been wrong. Hansen, Gore, etc, wrong. Just like everyone else who gets up on the soap box, makes a statement about the universe, and comes back down smacked down by reality. Wrong.
If you fall into the latter camp, I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Hey, I'm hanging onto my lack of sunspots. 2008 came in cooler, and we'll see how 2009 does.
The hallmark of a mercantile nation is hoarding. One nation hoards the payments of another nation to attempt to gain a sort of a balance. I agree completely, this behavior is bad because ultimately money is only really beneficial when it is being spent... simply hanging onto it, as a mercantile nation does, doesn't do any good. A genuinely free trading nation would spend that money, in some way.
So, if China were really trading fairly, she would be spending that money around the globe and those dollars would ultimately work their way back to the US economy. Instead, China hoards them, the very same mercantile way that Great Britain hoarded gold in the old days of the gold standard. It's a good position to put yourself in, to be sitting on a big stack of loot, but, ultimately, that wealth doesn't do too much when its just sitting in banks.
It's interesting to note, that, those "New Deal" era reforms made by Roosevelt that were successful are those that tend to increase the velocity of money, require it to be spent. And those that are less successful are those that encourage hoarding.
Obviously, all taxes are bad in some theoretical sense, but if you were going to tax -effectively-, and raise revenue to do what it is that governments do, then, the things to tax would be hoards. Capital Gains taxes are the -worst- form of taxes because they encourage hoarding. On the other hand, sales taxes are pretty terrible too because they discourage spending, and that ultimately lowers the velocity of money.
OMFG!!! Obama's going to raise the marginal tax rate by a few of percentage points
Actually, the total effect of all his tax increases and environmental legislation will be rather more substantial. Now, he could get away with raising the marginal rate, IF he committed to a balanced budget. See then, people wouldn't flock to treasuries as a safe haven and would have to invest in the markets. That worked pretty well for Bill Clinton, who, along with the 1994 Congress, were undeniably the best leadership this country had in 50 years when it comes to fiscal responsibility. What I think you are seeing now, is that people thought Obama would be like a Clinton, but he's not.
just so I'm clear. we should hold Obama responsible for things that happened before he was even in office, but let Bush off the hook for stuff (9/11)that happened 8 months after he took office? just checking.
What do you mean let Bush off the hook for 9/11? Democrats didn't let Bush off of the hook for anything. Welcome to the driver's seat dudes.
But seriously, why would you invest your money with someone that hates rich people, that investing should be taxed more, and whose environmental plans constitute a certain economic risk. Of course people are pulling out of the market because of Obama. And the thing is, he doesn't care, because he's a liberal. If the whole capitalist system crashes down, it suits him fine because he's ultimately against capitalism. The thing is, everyone in the country who had their retirements wiped out is going to be pretty pissed at this change of affairs.
Yes, it's funny what happens to the stock market when 8 years of fiscal skulduggery comes to light all at once.
I was thinking, that, its funny what happens to the market when you have someone running around saying that he was going to triple taxes on the sales of stock. Of course everyone's going to sell and put their money in places where investments won't be taxed as much.
The NYT already tried this, failed and moved back to an ad-based free sit
The NYT is primarily an AP feed site for news, so of course there was no point. But the WSJ has a lot of original content, and they are doing ok. Indeed, original content is what you need to survive.
P.S. you might want to amend your signature, the current situation is hardly Obama's fault: From the day Bush took office to the day he left office, the Dow dropped a net of 2,306 points,
The DOW was up 4000 pts from swearing in to when it was evident that Obama was going to win. Since Obama's victory became more likely, then apparent, then actual, to his swearing in, the DOW has dropped in half.
As far as Obama's budget goes, he's already borrowed in his first 30 days more money than Bush did in his first 3 years, and, I would further add, that Obama's own deficit target is to be at just 500 billion, or higher than any of Bush's deficits ever were.
AP has to do this. This is what is killing newspapers. If you want real news, you will need to pay. Next stop, minimum payments for news on all major sites that use AP news stories.
That is right. Iran is bad, and the USA is good. The USA has a greater degree of economic and political freedom, and Iran does not. The USA put its people on the nuclear firing line to get freedom for eastern europe, and its sons at normandy before that for western europe, and stopped the japanese from a genocidal war against china.
The USA has cured numerous diseases, opens it doors to educate the world at its universities, tolerates political dissent that would draw death sentences and crackdowns in Iran.
What has Iran done? Nothing.
Seriously, if you think the USA is the same as Iran, go ahead and stand in downtown Washington DC and announce you are a Jew that hates the President. Heck, plenty of people did that over the last year. Now, repeat that same experiment in Iran, and let me know how it goes.
If you have a problem with that, take it up with them.
And, during Bush's term, he established that it did not.
Again, you miss my point, that, you aren't arguing something on its merits, only on the strength of the people that you like or some citation of law that you agree with. That's not making a case by its merits.... its just parroting.
How so many people can argue that the 4th amendment implies a right to privacy in everything, argue that Commerce clause gives the government the right to regulate CO2, but, that little phrase "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", somehow does not imply an individual right to keep and bear arms. My point is that everyone twists around the Constitution to mean what they want these days, and if you wanted to make a case for a civil right, you should do so not because it says that it is the law, but on the basis of some other reason.
All this crap we heard about Bush, and as we speak the UK is threatening to sink because of the weight of all its cameras, and now the EU wants to spy on everyone.
This sounds like some sort of a advertisement, and unfortunately, the game sounds pretty gay. People see this game, and they will immediately shut NASA down. Nothing turned me off to climate science more than the Science channel pseudo drama about the guys in a space station inventing some new energy source. IT was a TV show bad, that I was rooting for humanity to just end.
It seems too many want to ridicule a proposal without making their own
My proposal is that the USA should cut off free trade with nations that adopt mercantile policies. Hoarding of dollars and adopting import restrictions as done by asian countries is mercantile. We shouldn't be begging the Chinese for a loan. Rather, they should be spending those dollars for their people.
On the other hand, I would like to see trade expanded between the USA, Canada, and the European Union, and I would even envision a common tax structure and currency to eliminate speculation and reduce tax shopping between those nations.
When was this? Certainly not when protectionists passed
Actually, protectionism in the USA worked extremely well in the period from 1820s up through the Wilson administration. In particular, study how much the South absolutely hated the North for imposing tariffs on British goods, at a time when the Brits really were the best in the world at manufacturing. But protectionism gave the north the industrial base with which it needed to win the civil war, crush opposition to slave labor and free trade, both of which create a bigger demand for manufactured goods that the north happened to make.
Protectionism also worked really well for the British too. They locked out foreign manufacturers and built themselves a nice little empire. The problem with protectionism is that it leads to empire building - and the British were really the best at it. They wound up locking out the rest of Europe from access to raw materials and world markets. That triggered, well, World War I, when Germany wanted the same access, as did Japan. It was the USA that imposed free trade postwar, and a decolonialization, largely to prevent another all out industrial war and that policy has been stunningly successful.
In short, protectionism does work really well, but ultimately, it can cause wars if countries perceive that they are being starved of raw materials.
2000 years from now we'll probably still be talking about Nazi Germany
Will we? Hitler doesn't get 2000 years of fame unless he would have conquered Russia too and at least introduced something of cultural use. Then, even if his empire were short lived, the sheer scale of it would have been impressive and the leaving of some sort of law would have left a legacy to consider positively.
So, in the grand scheme of things, if you had to remember one conquering unifier of Europe, you would have to probably study Napolean more than Hitler because Napoleanic law still has some basis for the present French law, and Napolean was not only the head of state, but also a brilliant field general. Napolean won Austerlitz for himself, but Guderian won France for Hitler.
There's a lot out there. If you want to follow the WSJ, you can go there through the back issues, all the way back to when Fannie Mae, during the time of Clinton way back when, announced it would make a trillion dollars worth of home loans available due to some new fancy instrument. I remember hearing it in a bar and actually bought a round of drinks because I thought it was a great thing to put everyone into houses. I guess I still do, but damn the WSJ the very next day said it was a stupid idea, and have been saying it ever since.
And half of the Republicans if you want to be that way.
Yeah, well, you would be right. I mean, I remember Reagan promising that free trade would improve American companies and instead, over the last thirty years, it has utterly destroyed them. And Republicans still keep pushing that free trade button with every dictatorship to all we have left is our secretary of state heading off to China to go publicly beg for money. That's pathetic.
And, really, its criminal, that a political party that waves the flag as much as Republicans do doesn't seem to remember that at least some of those stars and stripes are for the Americans who used to build the cars and trucks and computers and aircraft and guns and every other thing this country used to build.
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Obviously, we should not be able to fly, as the human body has not come up with a solution to that either. Only humans create artificial rivers and lakes just so they can shit in them. Let me know when the bears come up with toilets, as last I checked, their still shitting in the woods. Stupid bears. We should shoot them. Hah hah, opposable thumbs! Bang Bang!
But I guess that from tjstork's typical "conservative" response that he'd consider the NYT to be part of the "liberal elite" and that fox news is the "real" news.
Yeah, I'd say the NYT is liberal trash, and the real news would be the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily... and as far as broadcast journalism goes, Fox actually has more reporters than CBS does.
And with this, you kissed any credibility good bye.
No, actually, you proved my point even more. You're calling me stupid? Man, if I was the NYT, I think I'd be advertising having all of this local writers and NOT being an AP feed site like every other news site is.
Bad marketing on their part.
The WSJ is a better paper anyway.
Its interesting that no matter how much knowledge, data, statistics, etc, are gathered, there will always be those that are never convinced. Be the subject, evolution, global warming, or that the earth is round.
What you don't understand, as you triumph evolution or the round earth, is how many times scientists have been WRONG. Before the earth was round, it was flat, it's been shaped like a disk. It's been hollow, filled with magma, it's had a liquid core, a solid core, and now it might have two cores orbiting each other.
First we heard that mega-disasters could not happen and the dinosaurs died of disease because mega-disasters are bible thumping things, and then we find a comet smashed into the earth, and then it is possible that not only did a comet smash into the earth, but the siberian traps exploded at the same time and then maybe there was a big disease after all or maybe just rats ate all the damn dino eggs.
And don't even get me started on diseases... first you bleed people and then you got some guy sticking his finger into Lincoln's brain and then you got a cure for all bacteria and soon viruses and cancer then woops we're nowhere on cancer and viruses and bacteria are going to win after all.
Hot damn.
But, before you go on about how science progresses and is never wrong, let's apply that same standard of excellence to our former President? I mean, George Bush wasn't wrong when he invaded Iraq. He merely learned that Saddam did not have WMD, and the original plans for the invasion needed to be revised to consider an increased number of soldiers. He wasn't wrong... he just learned!
Now, my point is really this. The ratio of right to wrong in science will most definitely approach 0, but, the consequences of each step will also approach 0. Basically, the big stuff smart people figured out long time ago, fire, food, water, and that had big consequences. Then lesser consequences as more was learned, different kinds of fire, food, water... the air... and we keep drilling down and also learn about things that don't matter as much... the earth is flat / round. really, if you are a 10th century farmer, why care? Doesn't matter. Same thing today... the Higgs is X ev or Y ev, is that going to make my dick bigger? It might, down the road, but the dirty secret of science is that the more we know, the less it matters, and, since we know so much, and invalidate so much, scientists are pretty increasing the probability of being wrong.
So, rather than worry about whether or not there's global warming, I'd build a fire, have a drink and a cigar, and don't sweat it. Science has given you enough to have a pretty darned good life, anything else it gives you is nice to know but probably obsolete as soon as you hear it, so why bother with it?
I mean, seriously. You rail on the ignorant, but, look at what science says : the ignorant are everywhere, so obviously, they must be better than you... that's what Darwin says.
presume by "they", you mean atmospheric scientists? Presumably, they'd follow the scientific method and adjust their theories to fit the new data.
Or, they would have just been wrong. Hansen, Gore, etc, wrong. Just like everyone else who gets up on the soap box, makes a statement about the universe, and comes back down smacked down by reality. Wrong.
If you fall into the latter camp, I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Hey, I'm hanging onto my lack of sunspots. 2008 came in cooler, and we'll see how 2009 does.
How are you using mercantile [onelook.com]?
The hallmark of a mercantile nation is hoarding. One nation hoards the payments of another nation to attempt to gain a sort of a balance. I agree completely, this behavior is bad because ultimately money is only really beneficial when it is being spent... simply hanging onto it, as a mercantile nation does, doesn't do any good.
A genuinely free trading nation would spend that money, in some way.
So, if China were really trading fairly, she would be spending that money around the globe and those dollars would ultimately work their way back to the US economy. Instead, China hoards them, the very same mercantile way that Great Britain hoarded gold in the old days of the gold standard. It's a good position to put yourself in, to be sitting on a big stack of loot, but, ultimately, that wealth doesn't do too much when its just sitting in banks.
It's interesting to note, that, those "New Deal" era reforms made by Roosevelt that were successful are those that tend to increase the velocity of money, require it to be spent. And those that are less successful are those that encourage hoarding.
Obviously, all taxes are bad in some theoretical sense, but if you were going to tax -effectively-, and raise revenue to do what it is that governments do, then, the things to tax would be hoards. Capital Gains taxes are the -worst- form of taxes because they encourage hoarding. On the other hand, sales taxes are pretty terrible too because they discourage spending, and that ultimately lowers the velocity of money.
OMFG!!! Obama's going to raise the marginal tax rate by a few of percentage points
Actually, the total effect of all his tax increases and environmental legislation will be rather more substantial. Now, he could get away with raising the marginal rate, IF he committed to a balanced budget. See then, people wouldn't flock to treasuries as a safe haven and would have to invest in the markets. That worked pretty well for Bill Clinton, who, along with the 1994 Congress, were undeniably the best leadership this country had in 50 years when it comes to fiscal responsibility. What I think you are seeing now, is that people thought Obama would be like a Clinton, but he's not.
just so I'm clear. we should hold Obama responsible for things that happened before he was even in office, but let Bush off the hook for stuff (9/11)that happened 8 months after he took office? just checking.
What do you mean let Bush off the hook for 9/11? Democrats didn't let Bush off of the hook for anything. Welcome to the driver's seat dudes.
But seriously, why would you invest your money with someone that hates rich people, that investing should be taxed more, and whose environmental plans constitute a certain economic risk. Of course people are pulling out of the market because of Obama. And the thing is, he doesn't care, because he's a liberal. If the whole capitalist system crashes down, it suits him fine because he's ultimately against capitalism. The thing is, everyone in the country who had their retirements wiped out is going to be pretty pissed at this change of affairs.
Yes, it's funny what happens to the stock market when 8 years of fiscal skulduggery comes to light all at once.
I was thinking, that, its funny what happens to the market when you have someone running around saying that he was going to triple taxes on the sales of stock. Of course everyone's going to sell and put their money in places where investments won't be taxed as much.
The NYT already tried this, failed and moved back to an ad-based free sit
The NYT is primarily an AP feed site for news, so of course there was no point. But the WSJ has a lot of original content, and they are doing ok. Indeed, original content is what you need to survive.
P.S. you might want to amend your signature, the current situation is hardly Obama's fault: From the day Bush took office to the day he left office, the Dow dropped a net of 2,306 points,
The DOW was up 4000 pts from swearing in to when it was evident that Obama was going to win. Since Obama's victory became more likely, then apparent, then actual, to his swearing in, the DOW has dropped in half.
As far as Obama's budget goes, he's already borrowed in his first 30 days more money than Bush did in his first 3 years, and, I would further add, that Obama's own deficit target is to be at just 500 billion, or higher than any of Bush's deficits ever were.
AP has to do this. This is what is killing newspapers. If you want real news, you will need to pay. Next stop, minimum payments for news on all major sites that use AP news stories.
Only the supreme ayatollah can give military orders, and he's kept his mouth shut for the most part.
âoeIt is incorrect, irrational, pointless and nonsense to say that we are friend of Israeli people,â said Khamenei
âoeTalks with the United States have no benefit for us and are harmful to us,â
"Ayatollah revives the death fatwa on Salman Rushdie,"
Just to name a few.
Yeah, Iran is bad and U.S.A is good
That is right. Iran is bad, and the USA is good. The USA has a greater degree of economic and political freedom, and Iran does not. The USA put its people on the nuclear firing line to get freedom for eastern europe, and its sons at normandy before that for western europe, and stopped the japanese from a genocidal war against china.
The USA has cured numerous diseases, opens it doors to educate the world at its universities, tolerates political dissent that would draw death sentences and crackdowns in Iran.
What has Iran done? Nothing.
Seriously, if you think the USA is the same as Iran, go ahead and stand in downtown Washington DC and announce you are a Jew that hates the President. Heck, plenty of people did that over the last year. Now, repeat that same experiment in Iran, and let me know how it goes.
The same? Hardly.
If you have a problem with that, take it up with them.
And, during Bush's term, he established that it did not.
Again, you miss my point, that, you aren't arguing something on its merits, only on the strength of the people that you like or some citation of law that you agree with. That's not making a case by its merits.... its just parroting.
So when the Iranians say that the USA is Satan, they mean it...
That's just apologies for them.
It's worse than that, they're hostile countries looking to harm our children
Well, they are. When the head of Iran says that he's going to get the bomb and the USA is as the Great Satan, do you suppose he's just joking around?
How so many people can argue that the 4th amendment implies a right to privacy in everything, argue that Commerce clause gives the government the right to regulate CO2, but, that little phrase "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", somehow does not imply an individual right to keep and bear arms. My point is that everyone twists around the Constitution to mean what they want these days, and if you wanted to make a case for a civil right, you should do so not because it says that it is the law, but on the basis of some other reason.
All this crap we heard about Bush, and as we speak the UK is threatening to sink because of the weight of all its cameras, and now the EU wants to spy on everyone.
Or allowing law abiding citizens to speak with their relatives in hostile countries without worry of big brother listening.
Well, they are hostile countries, you know.
Oh, wait...
Presidential politics in America has been a media show since at least the time of Jackson.
This sounds like some sort of a advertisement, and unfortunately, the game sounds pretty gay. People see this game, and they will immediately shut NASA down. Nothing turned me off to climate science more than the Science channel pseudo drama about the guys in a space station inventing some new energy source. IT was a TV show bad, that I was rooting for humanity to just end.
It seems too many want to ridicule a proposal without making their own
My proposal is that the USA should cut off free trade with nations that adopt mercantile policies. Hoarding of dollars and adopting import restrictions as done by asian countries is mercantile. We shouldn't be begging the Chinese for a loan. Rather, they should be spending those dollars for their people.
On the other hand, I would like to see trade expanded between the USA, Canada, and the European Union, and I would even envision a common tax structure and currency to eliminate speculation and reduce tax shopping between those nations.
When was this? Certainly not when protectionists passed
Actually, protectionism in the USA worked extremely well in the period from 1820s up through the Wilson administration. In particular, study how much the South absolutely hated the North for imposing tariffs on British goods, at a time when the Brits really were the best in the world at manufacturing. But protectionism gave the north the industrial base with which it needed to win the civil war, crush opposition to slave labor and free trade, both of which create a bigger demand for manufactured goods that the north happened to make.
Protectionism also worked really well for the British too. They locked out foreign manufacturers and built themselves a nice little empire. The problem with protectionism is that it leads to empire building - and the British were really the best at it. They wound up locking out the rest of Europe from access to raw materials and world markets. That triggered, well, World War I, when Germany wanted the same access, as did Japan. It was the USA that imposed free trade postwar, and a decolonialization, largely to prevent another all out industrial war and that policy has been stunningly successful.
In short, protectionism does work really well, but ultimately, it can cause wars if countries perceive that they are being starved of raw materials.
2000 years from now we'll probably still be talking about Nazi Germany
Will we? Hitler doesn't get 2000 years of fame unless he would have conquered Russia too and at least introduced something of cultural use. Then, even if his empire were short lived, the sheer scale of it would have been impressive and the leaving of some sort of law would have left a legacy to consider positively.
So, in the grand scheme of things, if you had to remember one conquering unifier of Europe, you would have to probably study Napolean more than Hitler because Napoleanic law still has some basis for the present French law, and Napolean was not only the head of state, but also a brilliant field general. Napolean won Austerlitz for himself, but Guderian won France for Hitler.
Citation needed
There's a lot out there. If you want to follow the WSJ, you can go there through the back issues, all the way back to when Fannie Mae, during the time of Clinton way back when, announced it would make a trillion dollars worth of home loans available due to some new fancy instrument. I remember hearing it in a bar and actually bought a round of drinks because I thought it was a great thing to put everyone into houses. I guess I still do, but damn the WSJ the very next day said it was a stupid idea, and have been saying it ever since.
And half of the Republicans if you want to be that way.
Yeah, well, you would be right. I mean, I remember Reagan promising that free trade would improve American companies and instead, over the last thirty years, it has utterly destroyed them. And Republicans still keep pushing that free trade button with every dictatorship to all we have left is our secretary of state heading off to China to go publicly beg for money. That's pathetic.
And, really, its criminal, that a political party that waves the flag as much as Republicans do doesn't seem to remember that at least some of those stars and stripes are for the Americans who used to build the cars and trucks and computers and aircraft and guns and every other thing this country used to build.
So you want to be part of the problem?
Yeah I do. Lock and load! :-) Just kidding.