Sure, he may really mean he was responsible in an economic and legislative sense.
Which is pretty much how legislators are involved in creating things. I don't see anybody dumping on senators for taking credit for building a new highway when in fact, they didn't design the highway or even mix any of the cement. How in the world is this different?
Arabs did want Saddam (Sunni) out. Shi'ites (Iraq's majority) wanted him gone. And rised up against him after the first gulf war and asked for American Support to overthrow him. The U.S. said no and the rebellion was brutally smashed by Saddam.
Actually, as I understand it, the US basically said, "Go ahead and rise up. We've got your back," and then bailed, leaving the rebels to be slaughtered. No so great for the whole credibility thing, and definitely not so good if you want to try it again and get the locals to trust that you won't leave them hanging if they help you rebuild their country.
Well, the point is that property tax is just that--it's a tax on property. If we really meant for it to be a tax on people, we'd be taxing something other than property. As long as the tax on the property gets paid, there's really no reason to debate the semantics of who is paying it because the government's coffers are being filled the same amount either way. To me, property tax isn't a particularly useful measure of a person's contribution to the taxes because unless the property you're living on is owned by absolutely nobody, that tax will be paid by somebody somewhere as a necessary part of that property's existence.
The upshot of all of this is that we do really stupid things with property tax. We provide services whose costs are proportional to population (e.g. schools) and tie their revenue stream to something other than the size and productivity of the population--the value of a fixed amount of property in a fixed area. The way we use property taxes doesn't make a whole lot of sense from that perspective, but I suppose that government fiscal policies rarely do. How many times have you seen bonds floated to pay for recurring costs?
Let's do a quick breakdown using myself as an example. Up until recently, I did not pay property taxes, because I owned no property. I think most illegal immigrants would fit into this category.
I think that there's a correction that needs to be made on this point: You were paying your landlord's property taxes as part of your rent. It's no different from claiming that employees don't pay the "employer contribution" in social security taxes. They do, but it's taken out of their pay package before they even get the offer.
The message it sends is that you don't understand what true justice is.
Now we're definitely getting into philosophy, so let's do a thought experiment and make actions universal. What would happen if nobody went through normal immigration procedures and everybody just came and moved in without any immigration rules at all? I put it to you that the results would be nasty by most objective measures. So which is more just, rewarding a person for circumventing rules designed to promote an orderly society or rewarding a person who follows those rules?
Taken that way, I don't see much difference between this issue and the question of whether it's "just" for an individual to opt not to pay taxes. We all pay taxes in order to produce a healthy society. If one person doesn't pay taxes, it's only a few thousand dollars out of trillions, but it's obviously not the right thing to do. It's not "hazing" to want other people to pay taxes because I pay taxes. It's wanting people to do their fair share to keep our society healthy. Not following rules simply because they inconvenience you is typically regarded as a bad thing, especially when it's not a victimless crime. Circumventing immigration laws contributes to a "free rider" problem, which is definitely not just treatment of your fellow immigrants.
Yup, that's right. All the oil in Alaska at the moment is sold crude to Japan.
Given that oil is a worldwide market and any discrepancy in price will quickly be flattened out by arbitrage, how exactly is this a problem?
Because there are no refineries on the US East Coast and it is more expensive to ship it around through the Panama Canal to refine it than it is to simply sell it to Japan.
Why would they ship the oil from Alaska through the Panama Canal if there are no refineries on the east coast? Do you mean the west coast? I assure you that you're quite wrong on that point.
I keep hearing that there are no refineries on the west coast because of environmental craziness. Where do people get this crap? Do they even bother to check to see if it's true? Did Rush Limbaugh just make that up one day?
And what does losing 240 hours a year driving cost you?
In my area, I'd translate 240 hours a year of driving into 500-600 hours a year in public transit time. Definitely not a cost winner. If I was lucky enough to live wherever you live where public transit (apparently) gets you from point a to point b in zero time, I'd definitely jump on it.
We could go the alternate route and use massive amounts of a natural resource that has tremendous intrinsic value (meaning we can do actual useful stuff with it) as a token for exchange of goods--a task that could just as easily be performed by a material that doesn't have anything better to do. I don't think that's a particularly practical way to go, personally.
The only downside to that would be completely unpredictable results and burning fuel all over the place. They're not paying for the collapse. That's the easy part. They're paying for a high degree of certainty that the collapse won't be a total disaster.
So why is most news coverage about the war anti-war?
It is now that it's becoming obvious what colossal clusterfuck the whole thing is. Pointing out that things are going badly is no longer a ratings death sentence. When the war was starting, nobody really wanted to talk about the potential costs and downsides. Reports sounded more like, "Won't this be fun? We're really going to kick ass!" and, "Saddam Hussein is an evil man, and George Bush is the decisive no-nonsense cowboy who's going to take him out!" The pro-war side had their day in the media spotlight when the decision was being made and anybody who was against it was a coward and an appeaser. Don't get all upset that the anti-war side is being heard now that it's too late to avoid the whole thing and it's becoming obvious that they were basically right.
Anyway, it's just hard to make chaos, anarchy, and death look like a positive outcome, even with neat graphics and a snazzy crawler.
You Americans have 'black' colleges and 'white' colleges?
Please explain, because that sounds pretty evil. It's the same reason why we have Chinese, Italian, Greek, etc. neighborhoods. Historical populations plus natural social dynamics. Nobody's being herded into trains and relocated.
A while ago somebody here proposed auctioning off the visas. I think that's a fascinating idea, as it would guarantee that nobody was hired simply because they were available below market rates. The auction process would immediately make the median wage equal to or greater than the market wage. At that point, the companies do battle over how special their special talent is.
Another positive effect would be that the people who actually are most valuable will get the visas rather than the people who got lucky in the lottery. Imagine a brilliant person whose employer would gladly pay $500K to sponsor getting sent home because some other average schmuck got the visa. Kind of sucks for everybody but the schmuck. That's not exactly what we were hoping for when the program was instituted.
No, I'm asserting that congress cannot pass a law that impedes the presidents constitutional abilities, obligation and responsibilities. The difference between your wording and mine is that what he is doing has to be directly related to that duty or protection.
My point is simply that what you're saying is not universally true. The President could justify immunity from just about any law he wanted if that were the case. Certainly, if it can be demonstrated that he simply cannot do something he's required to do because of a law that Congress passed, then the law is unconstitutional. That doesn't mean that we should give him any power he wants simply because he claims to need it to do his job. No sweeping up entire cities' worth of US citizens for torture and questioning? Impedes the Commander in Chief. No summary executions? Impedes the Commander in Chief. Limitation on military spending? Impedes the Commander in Chief. All of those powers would definitely be useful and enable a Commander in Chief to do his job well, but he can still do his job without them, so I see no reason to think that legislation to that effect is unconstitutional.
It is illegal to arrest or detain or impede any member of congress on their way to session. This is a constitutional provision and no one can make a rule/law otherwise. If you set up a road block to stop some congressman from arriving to congress and someone ends up dead because of the way they attempted to get around it, you cannot charge them or hold them for it. This portion of the constitution has just as much weight as the freedom of speech or right to be treated equally under the law.
And this is exactly my point. Your reading of that part of the Constitution is far too sweeping. Let me quote Aritcle 1, Section 6: They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same.... A senator can't simply plow through pedestrians on his way to a legislative session and justify his actions using that clause. It was clearly written to prevent people from interfering with the legislative session and not to grant broad immunity or special powers. Likewise, mandating that the President has to do certain things does not necessarily mean that he gets anything he claims to need in order to do those things.
And yes, Needing to do something to do a constitutional duty is the same thing as the constitution giving power to do it.
Let me rephrase my claim as your response to my original wording is totally correct. Claiming to need to do something in order to do a constitutional duty is not the same as thing as having the Constitution explicitly grant you the power to do it.
Going to the FISA court won't make any difference. The Fisa court has a lesser amount of people then the congressional inteligence comities do. And you aren't supposed to know who the members are and everything brought before them is classified too. Your in no different shape on any of those concerns. The difference is timing, efficiency and leaks that can be controlled until the democrats needed a campaign issue.
No, the major difference is that the correct place for determining burdens of proof are in the courts. I'm not claiming that the FISA courts do or should provide any transparency. They can't do so by their very definition. Courts are, however, the traditional venue for deciding whether or not a government official has overstepped his bounds and whether sufficient evidence or compelling reason exists to do a search or perform a wiretap.
The claimed problems with the FISA court are a red herring, IMO. If there isn't enough manpower, increase the manpower. This is important. Don't skimp on it like it's optional. I don't see how the system could be any less
The mechanics of that analogy, and probably the same reason people still don't like what Bush has done is because you don't have to care about the FISA court or a wire tap in that situation. Congress cannot punish you for doing something you have a constitutional right or obligation. Thats why they cannot make laws that are against the constitution.
You seem to be asserting that since Bush is carrying out constitutionally required duties, he's allowed to do whatever he wants in the process. That's the reason people dislike what he's doing: they don't agree with that sentiment. Members of Congress can't run red lights and kill people on the way to the office simply because it enables them to pass a budget as they're constitutionally mandated. It's their job to pass a budget and follow the law while doing it. Now I agree that there are cases when it's not clear what powers a branch of government has (and this is arguably one of them), but the idea that simply claiming "I need to do this in order to do my constitutional duty" is not the same as saying "The Constitution gives me the power to do this."
Thats why they cannot make laws that are against the constitution. The whole Idea of you could have called later is nonsensical. But it isn't like Bush didn't tell anyone. The intelligence committees in congress knew all about it from the start. They even got quarterly reports with no objections until after the news leaked to the papers and some saw the publics initial reaction.
Yes, the intelligence committees knew what was going on, but are you actually claiming that they were providing timely oversight on each case of wiretapping to determine whether it was justifiable? I highly doubt that. That's what courts are for, and that's all I advocate. I don't care if a small committee generally approved of the idea of warrantless wiretaps. I want a neutral third party to examine the merits of each particular case in a timely fashion and put a stop to that particular wiretap if it's not justified. Without that kind of oversight, we're writing a very dangerous blank check.
It is the same with the president, They kept records of who and when and why. It isn't that they just started randomly listening into your support calls or Aunt Susie's award winning peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That is unless you were talking to someone from another country and the foreign call had to be made by someone who was suspected of being connected to a terrorist group even if by mistake. This all can be found by people who really wish to review it.
How sure are you of that? Where are those records? I'm almost certain they're classified and we have only the word of a handful of congressmen that everything is peachy. The key in all of this is how one becomes "suspected of being connected to a terrorist group." Most of us seem to think that a judge should look at the reasoning and decide whether it's good enough to continue with a wiretap. Is the adminstration's definition "lives in the same city as somebody who once called somebody who once called a suspected terrorist"? We don't know, and we never will. If they have a good reason to believe that there's a connection, they can show it to a judge and get the nod. It's not like FISA requests have a history of being turned down.
The fact that FISA warrants are so easy to get is what has me suspicious of this whole operation to begin with. The only reason for the administration to "rock the boat" in this case is because they either plan to lower the burden of proof for a wiretap so low that a judge would never go along with it, or they want to start wiretapping people without it being on record with a branch of government that they don't control. Both of those ideas worry me more than terrorism does.
The major democrats and republicans in the intelligence comities had access to it and knew about it from day one.
Now, if the consitution said in emergencies, you had to run redlights to get there as fast as possible, and the law said you have to stop at red light and wait until it turned green, would you think stopping would be necessary? Now what if someone passed a law that said you have to stop, call a number, and tell them every time you run a red light either before or directly after you run it. It times of emergencies, would you think you have to stop, call and report your running a red light?
Do you think that the mechanics of that analogy might change a bit if you were allowed to call the number after you ran the red light and got to where you were going? The problem with this debate is that there are already ways to get wiretaps done quickly in an emergency. As far as I can tell, all the administration wants to do is avoid the one step that forces them to go on record about having done it. That's highly disturbing to me.
I think that the point that a lot of people are missing is this: Any system that causes one to make decisions based on the whims of a deity's arbitrary rules is a very effective way of making people do things that they might not otherwise be inclined to do, but that's about all such a system is good for. Whether those actions are "good" or "bad" is a completely orthogonal to whether the idea of actions that ignore objective reality are a good idea in general. If you stop making decisions for yourself and start following an unchanging set of rules, your behavior will simply be as "good" as those rules.
As it happens, most of the popular religions generally have rules that are good for society at large. I don't think that this is a coincidence as religious beliefs that do more harm than good tend not to spread very effectively. I don't think that religion in general can really take credit for that as much as thousands of years trial and error when it comes to codes of conduct. One might say that the fact that there's no religion that advocates horse theft is a point in favor of religion in general, but I tend to think that any religion that did so would be stamped out pretty quickly in societies that value their horses.
To me, most religions seem to be refined codes of conduct with an added uncertainty factor--the one that causes people to act without seriously considering objective reality. That the uncertainty factor tends to work out OK is not a point in favor of religion as afar as I am concerned. The fact that rules like "Don't steal things" tend to float to the top is fine (and not particularly surprising), but the fact that rules like "Don't flip light switches on certain days" still hang around is worrisome and indicative of serious potential for problems.
Don't forget the fact that he threw a shit fit (as he often does) over the proposal to divert the funds for that bridge to Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.
Re:They always forget the two less chromosomes
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I love how these articles about Human vs Great Ape DNA always ignore the fact that Humans have 46 chromosome and Great Apes have 48.
The phrase you'll want to google for is "Robertsonian translocation". HTH.
Re:What about the rest of your evolutionism?
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You need a supernova to fuse past iron. This requires a star that is already formed...
Errr... yes. Are you claiming that stars and supernovae don't exist?
How did that star form anyway? Has anyone ever observed a star forming?
Massive clouds of hydrogen combined with the magic of gravity. Theory describes it and observations bear the theory out nicely. The answer to your question is YES. We have observed stars forming. Astronomers look at things that are millions or billions of light years away, which means that they're looking at stars as they looked millions or billions of years ago. They see "stellar nurseries" where clouds of gas are at various stages of coalescing into stars. Asking an astronomer something like "Have you observed X happening" where X is something that happened a long time ago is usually answered in the affirmative. Astronomy is an amazing field when it comes to looking back in time and testing the really important theories of physics having to do with gravity and the speed of light.
Here's a question that follows naturally: How did light traverse the vast emptiness of space to reach our telescopes in just a few thousand years? The only explanation I can think of is that it didn't. Your alternate theory is...?
Define information in this context. Seriously. How do we measure it? No creationist has been able to back up the "information loss" argument with any numbers. Information is quantifiable, so put your money where your mouth is. Let's talk about how we would measure the information content of DNA.
Fish having gills isn't a mutation, they were designed that way.
Ahh. Magic. That's clearly the most parsimonious explanation. How silly of me.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i3/bacter ia.asp Your nylon eating bacteria have been observed changing a bunch of times. They simply have a built in mechanism that makes them quickly adapt to changing food sources, it is not mutation.
So what you're saying is that the DNA changes (read: mutates), and the bacterium gains a new ability (read: benefits from the mutation) and that's "adapting to changing foods sources" not a "beneficial mutation." I salute your ability to define yourself into correctness. How exactly is a change in DNA that results in different traits not a mutation?
Re:Tag this article deathofcreationism
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Why are you shifting the burden of proof to me? Is there any reason to expect that it is nonlinear?
Because the equation that describes gravitational attraction are not linear with respect to distance. Look it up. The idea that the recession would be linear isn't borne out by elementary (read: high school level) physics.
So what is your proof that the magnetic field is cyclical? Please don't use the weak argument that there are field reversals in sub-oceanic rock either. That is clearly garbage since they assumed that declining strength was pole reversal.
No, the underlying theory that describes how the magnetic field is generated describes cyclical behavior.
Radiometric dating is garbage as well. All that tells you is that there is a ratio, all these morons posing as real scientists somehow liken that to years. You assume that the rock formed without any isotope present. It is also laughable how you get the date from the ratio.
Your complaint doesn't apply to isochron dating. That's what the link I pointed you toward describes. There's no assumption about the beginning ratios or quantities of isotopes. If you think differently, please explain how isochron dating really works. I think you've been sold a bill of goods.
As usual, you evolutionists use your same old tactics in a sad attempt to justify your wicked life. I wouldn't have any problem with your dumb religion if my tax dollars weren't supporting it.
Now I'm pretty sure that you're just trolling, but I suppose this nonsense needs to be answered. If you sound angry enough about something, people might take it as a sign that you're somehow authoritative and not just full of crap.
Re:Tag this article deathofcreationism
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Ok then... one simple question then. If evolution is true, how do you tell right from wrong?
It's a simple question, but a totally nonsensical question. If relativity is true, how do you tell right from wrong? Biological theories are objective descriptions of the natural world, not prescriptions for morality.
Personally, I generally tell whether an action is right or wrong by asking myself whether I would like it if everybody else acted the same way. That generally works pretty well.
Re:Tag this article deathofcreationism
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The offer is still on the table I am sure. His ministry still has the rest of his staff there. It is a shame that he didn't pay his employees' payroll taxes, but he wasn't even allowed to defend his position at the trial. There's the justice system for ya.
Hovind's "defense" started with a plea of "subornation of false muster" which, as far as anybody can tell, is something that he made up himself. This is about par for the course for a man who never makes any effort to understand what he's getting into but instead simply makes up stuff that sounds good. His infractions included things like creating an entity called KENT HOVIND (note the caps--he seems to think they're significant, and that as long as he didn't answer mail sent to KENT HOVIND, he was off the hook) to avoid paying taxes, claiming that the money wasn't his but rather God's, and repeatedly attempting to sue the IRS and its representatives. He wasn't shy about spreading information about how he "beat" the system, but as far as I can tell, almost none of his tax evasion techniques have any basis in real tax law. Basically, the man is a nut and shows it in almost everything he does.
Time, space and matter came into existance by themselves? That sounds more like religion than what I believe! If you have something semi-intelligent to say I would like to hear it.
I think that you missed the central points of my post (aside from the fact that Hovind is clearly a crank who can't really be trusted to make such an offer in good faith): 1) Evolutionary theory is a biological theory and has nothing to do with that claim. 2) Nobody could reasonably prove any empirical claim to the standards Hovind requires, and even if it were possible, the challenge is arbitrated by him and a secret panel (once again, probably just him). You couldn't prove that you were born based on those standards. There's no point in accepting the challenge because, like most of his other ideas, it's completely nuts. The fact that it hasn't been met is not surprising or meaningful.
Otherwise I will just assume that you believe in evolution because if God owns the world, he has the right to judge it. That means that you are accountable for your sin.
That's kind of a silly leap to make. How about this: I assume that the only reason you don't believe in the Aztec god Chicomecoatl is because it would require you to sacrifice a girl every September. Deep down, you know that Chicomecoatl exists, but you're just too lazy to decapitate a girl once a year. Does that make any sense?
I am sure that you would rather be a heap of random chemicals with no reason to exist other than to feel good until you die and rot 6 ft under ground.
What I would "rather" be true has no bearing on what actually appears to be true. I'd rather have a long and happy afterlife than go nowhere. I'd rather have $100M in my bank account. I'd rather be immune to all forms of disease. That doesn't mean it's rational for me to believe those things. Evidence is that there isn't $100M in my bank account, no matter how much I'd like there to be. Evidence indicates that I'm susceptible disease. No real evidence points to an afterlife. I'm not going to force myself to believe those things just because it would be nice if they were true.
Slashdot Mirror
Where?
Well, the point is that property tax is just that--it's a tax on property. If we really meant for it to be a tax on people, we'd be taxing something other than property. As long as the tax on the property gets paid, there's really no reason to debate the semantics of who is paying it because the government's coffers are being filled the same amount either way. To me, property tax isn't a particularly useful measure of a person's contribution to the taxes because unless the property you're living on is owned by absolutely nobody, that tax will be paid by somebody somewhere as a necessary part of that property's existence.
The upshot of all of this is that we do really stupid things with property tax. We provide services whose costs are proportional to population (e.g. schools) and tie their revenue stream to something other than the size and productivity of the population--the value of a fixed amount of property in a fixed area. The way we use property taxes doesn't make a whole lot of sense from that perspective, but I suppose that government fiscal policies rarely do. How many times have you seen bonds floated to pay for recurring costs?
Taken that way, I don't see much difference between this issue and the question of whether it's "just" for an individual to opt not to pay taxes. We all pay taxes in order to produce a healthy society. If one person doesn't pay taxes, it's only a few thousand dollars out of trillions, but it's obviously not the right thing to do. It's not "hazing" to want other people to pay taxes because I pay taxes. It's wanting people to do their fair share to keep our society healthy. Not following rules simply because they inconvenience you is typically regarded as a bad thing, especially when it's not a victimless crime. Circumventing immigration laws contributes to a "free rider" problem, which is definitely not just treatment of your fellow immigrants.
Why would they ship the oil from Alaska through the Panama Canal if there are no refineries on the east coast? Do you mean the west coast? I assure you that you're quite wrong on that point.
I keep hearing that there are no refineries on the west coast because of environmental craziness. Where do people get this crap? Do they even bother to check to see if it's true? Did Rush Limbaugh just make that up one day?
We could go the alternate route and use massive amounts of a natural resource that has tremendous intrinsic value (meaning we can do actual useful stuff with it) as a token for exchange of goods--a task that could just as easily be performed by a material that doesn't have anything better to do. I don't think that's a particularly practical way to go, personally.
The only downside to that would be completely unpredictable results and burning fuel all over the place. They're not paying for the collapse. That's the easy part. They're paying for a high degree of certainty that the collapse won't be a total disaster.
Silly you. That's all just part of the conspiracy. The link in my .sig makes it all clear.
Anyway, it's just hard to make chaos, anarchy, and death look like a positive outcome, even with neat graphics and a snazzy crawler.
Please explain, because that sounds pretty evil. It's the same reason why we have Chinese, Italian, Greek, etc. neighborhoods. Historical populations plus natural social dynamics. Nobody's being herded into trains and relocated.
A while ago somebody here proposed auctioning off the visas. I think that's a fascinating idea, as it would guarantee that nobody was hired simply because they were available below market rates. The auction process would immediately make the median wage equal to or greater than the market wage. At that point, the companies do battle over how special their special talent is.
Another positive effect would be that the people who actually are most valuable will get the visas rather than the people who got lucky in the lottery. Imagine a brilliant person whose employer would gladly pay $500K to sponsor getting sent home because some other average schmuck got the visa. Kind of sucks for everybody but the schmuck. That's not exactly what we were hoping for when the program was instituted.
My point is simply that what you're saying is not universally true. The President could justify immunity from just about any law he wanted if that were the case. Certainly, if it can be demonstrated that he simply cannot do something he's required to do because of a law that Congress passed, then the law is unconstitutional. That doesn't mean that we should give him any power he wants simply because he claims to need it to do his job. No sweeping up entire cities' worth of US citizens for torture and questioning? Impedes the Commander in Chief. No summary executions? Impedes the Commander in Chief. Limitation on military spending? Impedes the Commander in Chief. All of those powers would definitely be useful and enable a Commander in Chief to do his job well, but he can still do his job without them, so I see no reason to think that legislation to that effect is unconstitutional.
And this is exactly my point. Your reading of that part of the Constitution is far too sweeping. Let me quote Aritcle 1, Section 6: They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same.... A senator can't simply plow through pedestrians on his way to a legislative session and justify his actions using that clause. It was clearly written to prevent people from interfering with the legislative session and not to grant broad immunity or special powers. Likewise, mandating that the President has to do certain things does not necessarily mean that he gets anything he claims to need in order to do those things.
Let me rephrase my claim as your response to my original wording is totally correct. Claiming to need to do something in order to do a constitutional duty is not the same as thing as having the Constitution explicitly grant you the power to do it.
No, the major difference is that the correct place for determining burdens of proof are in the courts. I'm not claiming that the FISA courts do or should provide any transparency. They can't do so by their very definition. Courts are, however, the traditional venue for deciding whether or not a government official has overstepped his bounds and whether sufficient evidence or compelling reason exists to do a search or perform a wiretap.
The claimed problems with the FISA court are a red herring, IMO. If there isn't enough manpower, increase the manpower. This is important. Don't skimp on it like it's optional. I don't see how the system could be any less
You seem to be asserting that since Bush is carrying out constitutionally required duties, he's allowed to do whatever he wants in the process. That's the reason people dislike what he's doing: they don't agree with that sentiment. Members of Congress can't run red lights and kill people on the way to the office simply because it enables them to pass a budget as they're constitutionally mandated. It's their job to pass a budget and follow the law while doing it. Now I agree that there are cases when it's not clear what powers a branch of government has (and this is arguably one of them), but the idea that simply claiming "I need to do this in order to do my constitutional duty" is not the same as saying "The Constitution gives me the power to do this."
Yes, the intelligence committees knew what was going on, but are you actually claiming that they were providing timely oversight on each case of wiretapping to determine whether it was justifiable? I highly doubt that. That's what courts are for, and that's all I advocate. I don't care if a small committee generally approved of the idea of warrantless wiretaps. I want a neutral third party to examine the merits of each particular case in a timely fashion and put a stop to that particular wiretap if it's not justified. Without that kind of oversight, we're writing a very dangerous blank check.
How sure are you of that? Where are those records? I'm almost certain they're classified and we have only the word of a handful of congressmen that everything is peachy. The key in all of this is how one becomes "suspected of being connected to a terrorist group." Most of us seem to think that a judge should look at the reasoning and decide whether it's good enough to continue with a wiretap. Is the adminstration's definition "lives in the same city as somebody who once called somebody who once called a suspected terrorist"? We don't know, and we never will. If they have a good reason to believe that there's a connection, they can show it to a judge and get the nod. It's not like FISA requests have a history of being turned down.
The fact that FISA warrants are so easy to get is what has me suspicious of this whole operation to begin with. The only reason for the administration to "rock the boat" in this case is because they either plan to lower the burden of proof for a wiretap so low that a judge would never go along with it, or they want to start wiretapping people without it being on record with a branch of government that they don't control. Both of those ideas worry me more than terrorism does.
I think that the point that a lot of people are missing is this: Any system that causes one to make decisions based on the whims of a deity's arbitrary rules is a very effective way of making people do things that they might not otherwise be inclined to do, but that's about all such a system is good for. Whether those actions are "good" or "bad" is a completely orthogonal to whether the idea of actions that ignore objective reality are a good idea in general. If you stop making decisions for yourself and start following an unchanging set of rules, your behavior will simply be as "good" as those rules.
As it happens, most of the popular religions generally have rules that are good for society at large. I don't think that this is a coincidence as religious beliefs that do more harm than good tend not to spread very effectively. I don't think that religion in general can really take credit for that as much as thousands of years trial and error when it comes to codes of conduct. One might say that the fact that there's no religion that advocates horse theft is a point in favor of religion in general, but I tend to think that any religion that did so would be stamped out pretty quickly in societies that value their horses.
To me, most religions seem to be refined codes of conduct with an added uncertainty factor--the one that causes people to act without seriously considering objective reality. That the uncertainty factor tends to work out OK is not a point in favor of religion as afar as I am concerned. The fact that rules like "Don't steal things" tend to float to the top is fine (and not particularly surprising), but the fact that rules like "Don't flip light switches on certain days" still hang around is worrisome and indicative of serious potential for problems.
Don't forget the fact that he threw a shit fit (as he often does) over the proposal to divert the funds for that bridge to Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.
Massive clouds of hydrogen combined with the magic of gravity. Theory describes it and observations bear the theory out nicely. The answer to your question is YES. We have observed stars forming. Astronomers look at things that are millions or billions of light years away, which means that they're looking at stars as they looked millions or billions of years ago. They see "stellar nurseries" where clouds of gas are at various stages of coalescing into stars. Asking an astronomer something like "Have you observed X happening" where X is something that happened a long time ago is usually answered in the affirmative. Astronomy is an amazing field when it comes to looking back in time and testing the really important theories of physics having to do with gravity and the speed of light.
Here's a question that follows naturally: How did light traverse the vast emptiness of space to reach our telescopes in just a few thousand years? The only explanation I can think of is that it didn't. Your alternate theory is...?
Ahh. Magic. That's clearly the most parsimonious explanation. How silly of me.
So what you're saying is that the DNA changes (read: mutates), and the bacterium gains a new ability (read: benefits from the mutation) and that's "adapting to changing foods sources" not a "beneficial mutation." I salute your ability to define yourself into correctness. How exactly is a change in DNA that results in different traits not a mutation?
No, the underlying theory that describes how the magnetic field is generated describes cyclical behavior.
Your complaint doesn't apply to isochron dating. That's what the link I pointed you toward describes. There's no assumption about the beginning ratios or quantities of isotopes. If you think differently, please explain how isochron dating really works. I think you've been sold a bill of goods.
Now I'm pretty sure that you're just trolling, but I suppose this nonsense needs to be answered. If you sound angry enough about something, people might take it as a sign that you're somehow authoritative and not just full of crap.
Personally, I generally tell whether an action is right or wrong by asking myself whether I would like it if everybody else acted the same way. That generally works pretty well.
I think that you missed the central points of my post (aside from the fact that Hovind is clearly a crank who can't really be trusted to make such an offer in good faith): 1) Evolutionary theory is a biological theory and has nothing to do with that claim. 2) Nobody could reasonably prove any empirical claim to the standards Hovind requires, and even if it were possible, the challenge is arbitrated by him and a secret panel (once again, probably just him). You couldn't prove that you were born based on those standards. There's no point in accepting the challenge because, like most of his other ideas, it's completely nuts. The fact that it hasn't been met is not surprising or meaningful.
That's kind of a silly leap to make. How about this: I assume that the only reason you don't believe in the Aztec god Chicomecoatl is because it would require you to sacrifice a girl every September. Deep down, you know that Chicomecoatl exists, but you're just too lazy to decapitate a girl once a year. Does that make any sense?
What I would "rather" be true has no bearing on what actually appears to be true. I'd rather have a long and happy afterlife than go nowhere. I'd rather have $100M in my bank account. I'd rather be immune to all forms of disease. That doesn't mean it's rational for me to believe those things. Evidence is that there isn't $100M in my bank account, no matter how much I'd like there to be. Evidence indicates that I'm susceptible disease. No real evidence points to an afterlife. I'm not going to force myself to believe those things just because it would be nice if they were true.