The problem with that argument is that it simultaneously tries to argue that there are human rights, but that these rights are limited to those that the author believes are important (i.e., in the previous post, those guaranteed by the Bill of Rights) as somehow natural.
But some set of 'natural' human rights would, by it's nature, not require a legal doctrine, even one so well written as the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The very concept of it fails - a "Natural" right to free speech would perforce indicate that it was no more possible to deprive someone of the right to speak than it was possible to deprive them of the 'right' to stand firmly on the ground held there by the curvature of space-time.
Plainly not the case. Those rights, like any other 'natural' human right are enforced instead by doctrines, passive and active, agreed to by society and with their principles clearly defined in the Constitution and bill of rights.
Which I'm fine with, right until someone deliberately confuses a set of rights we "naturally" wish to enforce with a set of rights "naturally" enforced and uses that equivocation to indicate that a set of rights some one else thinks we would naturally wish to enforce are somehow less natural than those he finds important.
Read the book - Julia Ecklar came up with the only version of Kirk 'Cheating' on the Kobayashi Maru that I can actually imagine not getting him court-martialed.
Anything less imaginative than her solution is unworthy - {G}.
I am *so* looking forward to this - a young Kirk shows his stuff before he becomes the legend he was in later life in a never before referenced adventure that completely ignores all prior continuity, but the entire crew of the Enterprise happens to be there for.
I especially waiting on the next one, "Star Fleet Babies" where the entire crew of the Enterprise, being kept by odd coincidence in a babysitting clinic run by Amanda Rogers in Iowa, save the young federation from a very young Trelane of Gothos and the baby borg he teleports in after baby Spock beats him at chess.
Much as I like the idea of decoupling money paid to the DoD from being counted as any benefit to the U.S., the money paid to soldiers and factory workers building planes spends just as well as the money paid to a museum curator.
The general economy improved after 1939 by all objectively measurable standards.
The recession is not, strictly speaking, actually the same as the Great Depression - although I'm not familiar with any definition of the Great Depression that extends it to 1946 either; typically 1939 is given as the end of the Depression.
I believe NEBR uses the "Two Quarters of Contraction" definition of a recession - so up and down periods and temporary upturns in the larger depression would mark smaller recessions within it.
Really? Preach it brother - Name Names of those conservative economists that were screaming about the problems, yet being ignored by the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress!
Because I never heard anything from any of them - possibly they were too busy talking about how lowering taxes on the wealthy was going to generate an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen.
So, from 1900 to 1929, there were eight recessions, only one under 12 months. From 1933 to 2001, there were 12 recessions, only three of which were *over* 12 months.
With apologies - you quite obviously don't really know anything about the history of recessions - look at the old recessions in U.S. History - they last *much* longer than what we call a recession today.
I could come up with a dozen arguments about why, ranging from crediting Keynes (I do) to increased speed of communication, mobility in the workforce, a stronger middle class, greater productivity, and I could come up with a dozen other things given time, but the historical fact is that depressions and recessions were longer and deeper prior to Keynes than they have been since.
Krugman's site at Princeton has a rather interesting semi-bio titled How I work that gives a pretty good breakdown of his use of models and simplifications, most of which I think can be boiled down to "Simplified Models are great, but don't confuse the map for the terrain".
This seems to be a careful attempt to read his books without studying both sides of the issues he presents.
Asimov posits both positive and negative issues resulting from the robot based society he has created - and you obviously went to a great deal of effort to ignore half his writing if you only saw him speaking of some wonderful liberal society rising from it.
Anyone that reads it otherwise, has a fairly obvious axe to grind.
Fundamentally the problem with your post(s), is that you are explaining that "It would never happen that way" in the face of two former NSA employees that are stating on the record that yeah, they were explicitly told to keep listening to Americans on phone calls completely outside purview that was explicitly promised by the administration.
So, maybe you're honest, maybe your not, maybe you do this for a living and you and your boss were doing it right.
But I am currently faced with believing two people I don't know who have only been vetted by ABC, or . . . believing an administration that has lied, threatened, and tried to be above the law on everything from weapons of mass destruction to failing to properly report a hunting accident.
I don't care if you believe the administration is honest, competent, or the exact opposite, but the fact is that I can't come up with a verifiably true statement in the history of the Bush Administration.
Only statements I have yet to see proven incorrect.
If the dice keep rolling snake eyes, perhaps it's *not* random chance.
"The unit didnâ(TM)t go down too much in size which is unfortunate, but then again, you want something pretty large so itâ(TM)s comfortable to read on. He says that the unit is a little wider and a little longer, but it should help those that thought the first unit was a little too awkwardly-shaped."
It didn't go down too much in size which is too bad . . . in fact it's both wider and longer, which is good?
I want a kindle myself - if I get ahead of the game next year it's my next priority after upgrading my PC, but who actually posted that?
Too bad it's not smaller, oh thank god it's bigger? That is either someone impossible or absurdly easy to please.
My version of Windows Vista came with a great downloader with all sorts of games on it, plus other software, an office suite, astronomy programs . . . I think everyone should get it, it seems a lot better than the ones they review here.
Even in Parody there is good and bad parody. It reminded me of when I was reading "Battlefield Earth" in High school - there's a lot of parody to it. Doesn't change the fact that it was written badly and never worked.
And just out of curiosity, why exactly is a listing of seven films someone liked on Blu-Ray (Score: 4 Informative), but disagreeing with one of them is (Score: 1 Offtopic)?
Logically, either we're both informative, or we're both offtopic - {G}.
All transfers of "The Fifth Element" are by definition inferior transfers.
"Hey, I'm the savior of the universe in this badly done live action version of 'Heavy Metal', the perfect woman, and you can play chopsticks on my ribcage 'cuz I weigh 90 lbs soaking wet."
I wanted so very badly to like that movie, but no, couldn't do it. It's not like I have taste - I mean, I have 'Hudson Hawk' on DVD - {G}
Pug
I think it's just a "No one cares" thing.
on
Bad Signs For Blu-ray
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
People were willing to upgrade from VCR tapes to DVD because of the range of advantages - smaller, better quality, you didn't have to rewind it, it almost never jams, if the machine *is* goofed up it doesn't shred your DVD, they have some rather nice special features like directors commentary.
Only the "Better Quality" option applies to Blue Ray - and the difference between DVD and Blue Ray *or* HD DVD is a *lot* less than the difference between DVD and VHS.
If it were just the quality issue, laserdisk would have beaten VHS a long time before DVD's were around. DVD's were superior on a number of fronts, and are 'good enuff' on anything for the moment.
One doesn't really need to be able to read the writing on the One Ring while Frodo's wearing the damn thing to enjoy LOTR - {G}.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with that argument is that it simultaneously tries to argue that there are human rights, but that these rights are limited to those that the author believes are important (i.e., in the previous post, those guaranteed by the Bill of Rights) as somehow natural.
But some set of 'natural' human rights would, by it's nature, not require a legal doctrine, even one so well written as the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The very concept of it fails - a "Natural" right to free speech would perforce indicate that it was no more possible to deprive someone of the right to speak than it was possible to deprive them of the 'right' to stand firmly on the ground held there by the curvature of space-time.
Plainly not the case. Those rights, like any other 'natural' human right are enforced instead by doctrines, passive and active, agreed to by society and with their principles clearly defined in the Constitution and bill of rights.
Which I'm fine with, right until someone deliberately confuses a set of rights we "naturally" wish to enforce with a set of rights "naturally" enforced and uses that equivocation to indicate that a set of rights some one else thinks we would naturally wish to enforce are somehow less natural than those he finds important.
Pug
Fortunately our Safety Inspector was able to assure us that the large electrical arcs and hole in the facility were perfectly okay.
Thank god for that right!
Pug
Read the book - Julia Ecklar came up with the only version of Kirk 'Cheating' on the Kobayashi Maru that I can actually imagine not getting him court-martialed.
Anything less imaginative than her solution is unworthy - {G}.
Pug
I am *so* looking forward to this - a young Kirk shows his stuff before he becomes the legend he was in later life in a never before referenced adventure that completely ignores all prior continuity, but the entire crew of the Enterprise happens to be there for.
I especially waiting on the next one, "Star Fleet Babies" where the entire crew of the Enterprise, being kept by odd coincidence in a babysitting clinic run by Amanda Rogers in Iowa, save the young federation from a very young Trelane of Gothos and the baby borg he teleports in after baby Spock beats him at chess.
Pug
I work nights - used it at work yesterday, checked it today when I got into work, haven't had an issue?
Pug
I have read the article.
I do not think it says what you thinks it says.
But it makes a dandy excuse for not mentioning a single conservative economist that was talking about the housing crisis - {G}.
Pug
Much as I like the idea of decoupling money paid to the DoD from being counted as any benefit to the U.S., the money paid to soldiers and factory workers building planes spends just as well as the money paid to a museum curator.
The general economy improved after 1939 by all objectively measurable standards.
Pug
The recession is not, strictly speaking, actually the same as the Great Depression - although I'm not familiar with any definition of the Great Depression that extends it to 1946 either; typically 1939 is given as the end of the Depression.
I believe NEBR uses the "Two Quarters of Contraction" definition of a recession - so up and down periods and temporary upturns in the larger depression would mark smaller recessions within it.
Pug
If your economy is hanging on by a hair, it's pretty damn important which hairs you split.
Pug
Really? Preach it brother - Name Names of those conservative economists that were screaming about the problems, yet being ignored by the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress!
Because I never heard anything from any of them - possibly they were too busy talking about how lowering taxes on the wealthy was going to generate an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen.
Pug
So, from 1900 to 1929, there were eight recessions, only one under 12 months. From 1933 to 2001, there were 12 recessions, only three of which were *over* 12 months.
Pug
Just because I hate making blanket assertions:
From coverage of a Ben Bernanke talk last year.
Original stats from NBER
Recessions of the 20th Century
Date Range & Duration (In months)
Sept. 1902-Aug. 1904 23
May 1907-June 1908 13
Jan. 1910-Jan. 1912 24
Jan. 1913-Dec. 1914 23
Aug. 1918-March 1919 7
Jan. 1920-July 1921 18
May 1923-July 1924 14
Oct. 1926-Nov. 1927 13
Aug. 1929-March 1933 43
May 1937-June 1938 13
Feb. 1945-Oct. 1945 8
Nov. 1948-Oct. 1949 11
July 1953-May 1954 10
Aug. 1957-April 1958 8
April 1960-Feb. 1961 10
Dec. 1969-Nov. 1970 11
Nov. 1973-March 1975 16
Jan. 1980-July 1980 6
July 1981-Nov. 1982 16
July 1990-March 1991 8
March 2001-Nov. 2001 8
With apologies - you quite obviously don't really know anything about the history of recessions - look at the old recessions in U.S. History - they last *much* longer than what we call a recession today.
I could come up with a dozen arguments about why, ranging from crediting Keynes (I do) to increased speed of communication, mobility in the workforce, a stronger middle class, greater productivity, and I could come up with a dozen other things given time, but the historical fact is that depressions and recessions were longer and deeper prior to Keynes than they have been since.
Saying otherwise is simple historical ignorance.
Pug
Krugman's site at Princeton has a rather interesting semi-bio titled How I work that gives a pretty good breakdown of his use of models and simplifications, most of which I think can be boiled down to "Simplified Models are great, but don't confuse the map for the terrain".
Pug
This seems to be a careful attempt to read his books without studying both sides of the issues he presents.
Asimov posits both positive and negative issues resulting from the robot based society he has created - and you obviously went to a great deal of effort to ignore half his writing if you only saw him speaking of some wonderful liberal society rising from it.
Anyone that reads it otherwise, has a fairly obvious axe to grind.
Pug
Mine do tricks, code, solve NP problems . . . hell it's not like they have anything *else* to do . . .
Pug
It's not dead till I buy one dammit!
Pug
Fundamentally the problem with your post(s), is that you are explaining that "It would never happen that way" in the face of two former NSA employees that are stating on the record that yeah, they were explicitly told to keep listening to Americans on phone calls completely outside purview that was explicitly promised by the administration.
So, maybe you're honest, maybe your not, maybe you do this for a living and you and your boss were doing it right.
But I am currently faced with believing two people I don't know who have only been vetted by ABC, or . . . believing an administration that has lied, threatened, and tried to be above the law on everything from weapons of mass destruction to failing to properly report a hunting accident.
I don't care if you believe the administration is honest, competent, or the exact opposite, but the fact is that I can't come up with a verifiably true statement in the history of the Bush Administration.
Only statements I have yet to see proven incorrect.
If the dice keep rolling snake eyes, perhaps it's *not* random chance.
Pug
Nice - you should be able to setup a Firefox keyword search for anything you want from there!
Pug
"The unit didnâ(TM)t go down too much in size which is unfortunate, but then again, you want something pretty large so itâ(TM)s comfortable to read on. He says that the unit is a little wider and a little longer, but it should help those that thought the first unit was a little too awkwardly-shaped."
It didn't go down too much in size which is too bad . . . in fact it's both wider and longer, which is good?
I want a kindle myself - if I get ahead of the game next year it's my next priority after upgrading my PC, but who actually posted that?
Too bad it's not smaller, oh thank god it's bigger? That is either someone impossible or absurdly easy to please.
Pug
My version of Windows Vista came with a great downloader with all sorts of games on it, plus other software, an office suite, astronomy programs . . . I think everyone should get it, it seems a lot better than the ones they review here.
Pug
Even in Parody there is good and bad parody. It reminded me of when I was reading "Battlefield Earth" in High school - there's a lot of parody to it. Doesn't change the fact that it was written badly and never worked.
And just out of curiosity, why exactly is a listing of seven films someone liked on Blu-Ray (Score: 4 Informative), but disagreeing with one of them is (Score: 1 Offtopic)?
Logically, either we're both informative, or we're both offtopic - {G}.
Pug
And more interestingly, the study says that most users are in fact *not* idiots, but that a distressingly high percentage (almost half) are.
Not that I have any objections towards a happy pattern of contempt toward everyone, but I prefer my contempt be fact based - {G}.
Pug
All transfers of "The Fifth Element" are by definition inferior transfers.
"Hey, I'm the savior of the universe in this badly done live action version of 'Heavy Metal', the perfect woman, and you can play chopsticks on my ribcage 'cuz I weigh 90 lbs soaking wet."
I wanted so very badly to like that movie, but no, couldn't do it. It's not like I have taste - I mean, I have 'Hudson Hawk' on DVD - {G}
Pug
People were willing to upgrade from VCR tapes to DVD because of the range of advantages - smaller, better quality, you didn't have to rewind it, it almost never jams, if the machine *is* goofed up it doesn't shred your DVD, they have some rather nice special features like directors commentary.
Only the "Better Quality" option applies to Blue Ray - and the difference between DVD and Blue Ray *or* HD DVD is a *lot* less than the difference between DVD and VHS.
If it were just the quality issue, laserdisk would have beaten VHS a long time before DVD's were around. DVD's were superior on a number of fronts, and are 'good enuff' on anything for the moment.
One doesn't really need to be able to read the writing on the One Ring while Frodo's wearing the damn thing to enjoy LOTR - {G}.
Pug