China will be selling the 4 CPU chip for a fraction of what a 1 CPU chip from intel costs. In addition, it has the ability to shutdown all but 1 core, which leads to really low power requirement. China has been taught how to do all this by companies like Intel.
Do you honestly think those are tricks Intel can't match? Including the low price? Microchips aren't labor intensive so the Chinese labor cost advantage doesn't apply here. Companies like AMD don't sell their products for less because they want to, they do it because they have no choice and usually they have higher costs besides. Don't take my word for it, look at their financial statements. Intel has nine fab sites and is widely regarded as unmatched in their manufacturing and process technology. As an engineer who specializes in operations analysis I can tell you that their operations prowess is a powerful competitive advantage. The ONLY advantage Intel might not be able to match is Chinese government subsidies.
These chips will show up in small laptops within 2 years and those systems will be sold the world over for under $200.
That's impressively optimistic of you. More likely I think the chips will sell in the domestic Chinese market and maybe a few other low cost markets. New competitors come along all the time but success is hardly assured.
In fact, I suspect that Intel AND AMD will be in worse shape than America's steel and car industry within 2 years.
There is of course a chance you are right but I would happily make a financial wager that Intel will still be in fine shape in two years. Intel is a lot more like Toyota than Ford if you are going to make car analogies.
AMD? They're harder to predict but their problems are far more likely to come from competition from Intel and nVidia than from any Chinese upstarts. AMD has a long history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Will it pose a threat to Intel? In the short run absolutely not. It will require a truly massive investment, Intel isn't standing still, and the biggest problem is getting enough engineering talent. Furthermore just producing the chip isn't enough, there have to be boards to plug it into, software written to support the chip/boards, etc. True China is producing a lot of engineers but that by itself is entirely insufficient.
Long term - who knows? Talent can be developed/bought/hired, secrets learned/stolen, R&D can leapfrog, etc. It will be very difficult to displace Intel but it certainly isn't impossible. Andy Grove would probably be the first to admit that.
So the risk doesn't seem to have changed. If anything they are saying it is less risky.
For a single shuttle flight the risk will be unchanged or change only a little. However when you are talking about repeated flights, the risk of the shuttle blowing up across all of those flights is cumulative. Let's use your numbers to illustrate.
1/12 = 0.0833 = 8.33% 1/60 = 0.0167 = 1.67% This means a shuttle has roughly a 98.33% chance of a disaster free mission each time it goes up. But with repeated flights: Flight 1 - 98.33% Flight 2 = 96.69% Flight 3 = 95.08% ...
Flight 9 = 85.96% So by flight 9 using your numbers there is about a 1/12 chance of a shuttle disaster occurring. Might not happen at all or it might happen on the first flight. No way to know. But the risk is there. Incidentally with your numbers we should *expect* to see a shuttle blow up on average every 42 missions. So the real risk per mission is probably less than you are estimating - but not by much.
So you're fine with the statistic that 100% southern republicans are racist and 93% southern democrats are racist...but totally ignoring that it's 10 republicans verses 87 democrats. Statistics like that lie. You'd think based on 100% verses 93% that the republicans are bad--until you look at the actual numbers of 10 verses 87.
Assume (hypothetically) only 11 out of 91 southern democrats voted against the bill (that's 12%) which is still greater than the total number of southern republicans in 1964. It doesn't prove that a randomly chosen southern democrat in 1964 was more likely to be racist - it proves just the opposite. The fact that there were a larger absolute number of racist democrats at the time does nothing to change the conditional probabilities of a random southern congressman being a racist. Given that a 1964 congressman was a southerner, the probability that a randomly chosen democrat was racist was lower than the probability that a randomly chosen republican was racist. This can be formally proven with mathematics if you like. It's not "lying with statistics", it is a cold hard fact based on conditional probability.
If it helps you sleep better at night to revel in the fact that there were some asshole democrats who were/are racist that is pathetic but your choice. But you ought to actually understand statistics before you attempt to argue using them.
So you own link to wikipedia shows that more democrats were against the bill than republicans.
Not much on data analysis are you? The absolute numbers don't tell the story of which party and which regions are most racist. Look at the percentages and the location breakdown. Virtually all the democrats who voted against the bill were SOUTHERNERS. Many of them later switched party affiliation after this vote. Last time I checked the math 100% racist is greater than 95% racist.
Since this act passed the south has voted overwhelmingly republican. Racism had more than a little to do with that fact. The republicans reputation for being the more racist of the two parties hasn't been earned by accident. Not to say there aren't racist democrats as well but the voting records *clearly* support the hypothesis that the republicans are the party with the greater percentage of racist members. It's not even a debate.
Have any of you ever been to New Orleans? Met the people there? Know the history and the tradition of the place? Experienced the pride of people who have lived in a city with so much history?
Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. I've also been to places like China where they REALLY have a lot of history so a little perspective please?
What's next, are you going to tell the people in San Francisco they have to move because an earthquake is coming in a few years?
Building a major city on an active fault-line does not strike me as the brightest idea ever. Living there without proper planning is even dumber. Equally stupid is building a significant portion of an important port city below sea level when there is no actual need to build in that exact spot. They don't have to move but we (the taxpayers) shouldn't necessarily have to bail them out from their lack of foresight either when the inevitable comes. I do not support rebuilding the parts of New Orleans that are under sea level - it's just stupid and unnecessary. Other areas I'm fine with supporting, just not the egregiously stupid ones.
Tragedies happen but maybe we should try to avoid some of the more predictable major ones? Or failing that, at least do a competent job of planning for them. Sometimes people have to live in a dangerous place but there is no excuse for stupid zoning (below sea level!) and a lack of planning for predictable natural disasters. Live in a tornado zone? Have a underground shelters nearby everywhere. Earthquake prone? Enforce appropriate building codes and tear down dangerous structures even if they are old and historic. Sentiment has a time and place but not when lives are at risk.
I'm just waiting for when Miami inevitably gets leveled by a hurricane. It will happen sooner or later.
What jackass modded the parent flamebait? Giving a ring isn't a selfless sacrifice and never has been. There is a reason it is called a marriage contract - both sides get something. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Check the vote breakdown by party and region. It was predominantly SOUTHERNERS of BOTH parties who opposed the bill. Remember them? They were the folks who started a civil war to keep slavery around. The vote breakdown was very clearly along regional lines not party lines.
However if you insist on defending the republicans on this issue, a few southern democrats actually voted for the act - no southern republicans did. Furthermore most of the northerners who voted against the act were republicans. So yeah, in general if someone was racist in 1964 odds were better that they were republican than democrat. Odds also tell us they were likely from the south regardless of party affiliation.
This isn't a troll, I'm really interested in having the discussion with someone who chose a small 15-minute in-jeans ceremony. Because, I consider myself to be married, yet legally my wife and I are common-law.
While I didn't do the vegas thing we didn't spend a lot on our wedding either. Why do it? Partly for the tax, insurance and other benefits married couples enjoy. It was also a really nice way to tell each other and everyone else how much we care for each other and have a nice party in the process. But it didn't change anything about our relationship. For all practical purposes we were "married" long before we actually were. The piece of paper isn't what makes a good relationship. I always tell people that they are ready to get married when getting married will change nothing whatsoever in their lives.
Girls also care deeply about the being married part, but the getting married part is much higher on their list of important events than it is for guys. Someday you'll grow up and realize that this is a pretty much universal truth that reflects not one bit on how selfish the girl might be.
Please. It is 100% about how selfish the girl might be. Getting married requires you to go down to the court and get a marriage license and an appropriate legal authority to declare your marriage valid. Total cost is less than $200 almost anywhere. Anything beyond that is about showing off in front of friends and family and IS selfish. If that is what you both want there is nothing wrong with that but don't have any illusions about what your bride is doing if she demands that sort of wedding.
Yes I'm married. My wife was appalled by the idea of a large wedding where she would be on display. So we had a nice small ceremony in a nice location and genuinely enjoyed ourselves. More than I can say for many other couples.
Ours cost around $20,000 and it was in a registry office with only about a dozen people.
We had our wedding at Lake Louise and for plane fair, a full week of accommodations and the wedding, and about 12 people (yes small group) we spent less than $10,000 including the dress, honeymoon and reception. I'm not criticizing what you spent (so long as you enjoyed it) but a wedding does not *have* to be expensive. Basically it only gets expensive when you go for all the cliched traditional stuff and don't care about the cost. $5000 for a dress is frivolous. She may want it and if you've got the money you'll hear no argument from me - but don't think for a moment that spending $5000 is a requirement no matter what she says.
Children on the other hand are a different matter...
However, for an engagement ring (and other rare circumstances) spending a lot of money demonstrates selfless sacrifice.
"Selfless sacrifice"? Seriously? From one married guy to another you are downing the cool-aid a bit too deeply. It would be only selfless if you got nothing out of the deal. Presumably you are married to someone you actually like so there are, ahem... benefits for you too. Furthermore I've yet to meet a guy who was *really* sacrificing to buy a ring for his gal. Yeah they're expensive but cutting back on the number of video games you buy doesn't count as a sacrifice.
The point was that with the stroke of a pen, Congress can supersede treaties.
The can but they haven't. The Constitution itself can be changed so it's not clear exactly what you are getting at. We are still party to the Geneva Convention and bound to it's provisions until we decide otherwise. It's useless to argue based on what Congress might hypothetically do in the future.
whereas POWs would sit in a camp until the war is over. Irrational.
That's the main flaw in your argument. This "war" will never be over. There is no clearly defined end point and in fact cannot be. 9/11 was a violent criminal act that supposedly had a political motivation - though exactly what the hijackers were intending to accomplish has never been 100% clear. There will never be a surrender treaty so we are not talking the same situation as POWs in a declared war. That logically means we need to treat them differently than POWs in a traditional war. Humanely differently. If we need to pass new laws to deal with the situation appropriately, that's fine as long as they are reasonable, civilized and humane.
The obvious answer is to treat them as we would other criminals - that is why we have a justice system after all. There may be other solutions as well and I'm open to ideas. But just putting someone in a dungeon without any due process and throwing away the key forever is and should always be beneath our dignity. Even POWs and common criminals know what the end point is though it may be far away. If we are going to keep these people detained forever then we need to be clear about that and clear about why. If they are genuinely deserving of lifetime imprisonment I have no philosophical problem with such punishment. But I want to know and they deserve to know what they did and why they are being punished for it.
This seems to imply that saboteurs and spies, the foreign asshats the GP mentioned, don't have rights under the Geneva Convention.
If you read the article you linked to you'll see that there is considerable dispute regarding whether Ex parte Quirin is a legitimate basis for the non-lawful combatants argument.
The Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v Rumsfeld that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions applies to detainees in the war on terror.
From TFA: "The Quirin case, however, does not stand for the proposition that detainees may be held incommunicado and denied access to counsel"
One could argue the Military Detainee Act supersedes Geneva, assuming Geneva even applies.
There is no "Military Detainee Act" that I am aware of. Perhaps you are referring to the Detainee Treatment Act or maybe the Military Commissions Act of 2006? These at most supplement the Third Geneva Convention and do not contradict it as far as I can tell. If you are referring to a specific instance of the Geneva Convention being superseded you'll have to point it out before I concede the point.
Unlawful combatants are only granted "humane treatment," not the other POW privileges.
Which is a bizarre argument designed to skirt the spirit of the treaty even if we concede the legitimacy of the "unlawful combatants" argument - which I do not. Furthermore torture under any definition is inhumane treatment and in violation of both the Geneva convention as well as US law. Whatever other legal issues are in play it seems clear that prisoners are not always being treated humanely.
The "loophole" you mention is a contrivance by the Bush administration to behave in ways that if they were a small nation could have them brought up on charges for crimes against humanity. I'm not so naive as to think that behind closed doors the "rules of war" get followed reliably but official US policy has been anything but civilized nor has it been a model for the rest of the world to follow. Frankly I expect our leaders to behave better.
The great irony is that treating unlawful combatants better than POW's seems to be what people here are advocating, which runs contrary to the spirit of Geneva.
Who is advocating that? Insisting that we not torture people and granting some sort of legal status instead of holding prisoners in a legal limbo for all eternity is not remotely close treating them better than POWs.
Constitution say, US Citizens have rights. Foreign POWs, foreign invaders, and foreign asshats on foreign soil bringing foreign bombs to soldiers deployed in foreign countries don't.
Wrong. Treaties cannot take precedence over the Constitution but properly ratified treaties are the supreme law of the land in the US. Despite what Bush would have you believe, POWs do have rights under US law via the Geneva convention which is - you guessed it - a treaty. The United States is party to numerous treaties some of which explicitly grant certain rights to some of those "foreign asshats" under various circumstances. Granted there are also cases where those same "foreign asshats" don't have rights but you'll have to get specific about when and where and what circumstances.
Ok, I live in england, and I'm pretty sure our house prices are way higher than the states
That depends entirely on where you live in the US versus where you live in England. Some places yes, some places no. Live in Manhattan or parts of Connecticut and you'll find prices as high as anywhere in the world. Go more rural and you can live much less expensively, albeit with some trade offs. (not necessarily bad ones either)
Whether you need two incomes to buy a house depends very much on the size of the first income and the location and lifestyle you choose to live. You'll have a hard time convincing me that there is no place in all of England that you could not buy a house with just a single income. Might not be where you prefer but I'm pretty sure it's possible.
Because we're required to pay into what is effectively a Ponzi scheme (Social Security) and welfare and medicare taxes. Get rid of them all.
And replace it with what? Yep, the funding model for social security is stupid. It's also not going away since a LOT of people depend on it, probably including some of your relatives. So what's so solution Mr. Smartypants? Have people starving in the streets and let the old folks die because screw-em if they can't afford proper care?
It's fine to rant against social security but only if you have an actual solution to the real world problem in mind.
(Possibly require a self-funded 401k equivalent if people are too stupid to save for themselves.)
Ha! You've never worked in finance have you? I have and most people are terrible investors. I wouldn't trust my own mother to make sensible investments in a million years. There was a time before about 1930 when the government wasn't involved with people's savings and only lightly regulated the financial sector. Then a little thing called the Great Depression hit and it occurred to some folks that maybe helping each other out and keeping an eye on the excesses of Wall Street wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.
Why should I have to involuntarily pay for things other people take advantage of and I don't? E.g. welfare, medicare, social security, and the list goes on and on. I pay way more into the system than I get back.
Really? You're sure you pay more than you get back? Prove it. And be sure to count the indirect benefits as well as the direct ones.
Look, I'm no fan of our social security system & medicare system either and I certainly wouldn't argue that they are any sort of model of well managed programs but there are benefits I receive now and others I get later. Right now it keeps some of my older relatives from depending on me directly for financial support beyond my immediate ability to pay. You'll have a hard time convincing me that bankrupting a lot of families could in any way benefit either one of us. Through a system where we all pay to help each other when we need it, we all (theoretically) benefit. Just not all at once and not necessarily at the time we pay in. Benefits are not always direct but that doesn't mean they aren't there. Life's more complicated than the number of zeros in your bank account.
Later on I expect I'll receive some benefit of my own directly. (how much is another question...)
You obviously haven't been married long if at all...the correct answer is "huh?" as you look aimlessly elsewhere:-)
Known my wife 20 years and been married for most of them. Fortunately she's not the sort to bait me with that sort of question.
You never HAVE to answer anything if you don't want to.
I wish that were true. Sometimes not answering really is not a viable option. Plus sometimes silence speaks louder than any answer. Then there are lies of omission where saying nothing is misleading. I wish I shared your conviction that telling the absolute truth (as we see it) all the time was the right thing all the time. Life would be a lot easier if I really believed that.
The truth is that everyone will die eventually. Lieing to someone to spare their feelings usually just helps keep them deluded and prevents them from addressing the problem...whether it is solvable or not.
Let me state up front that I agree with you the vast majority of the time. Just not in absolutely every case. It isn't always about death - there are plenty of situations where death never enters into it. I guess I believe basically in the approach doctors take. Do no harm. Occasionally the truth does more harm than a lie. I just wish it was always easy to tell when ahead of time.
If you follow the bible than she is doing nothing wrong
You're missing the point. I'm not trying to argue the morality of abortion one way or the other. Merely pointing out that honest people can have an honest disagreement about the morality ("goodness") of the act.
We are each born with a blank slate...sinless. It is for our own sins that we must answer and no one else.
That is only a consensus in some parts of the christian world. There is considerable dispute on this matter and has been for some time.
The intention to miss-lead is a sin
There you and I disagree unless you are talking about some lawyerly technical definition of sin.
I have yet to find a situation where a lie is honestly necessary.
Tell me that the next time your wife asks you "does this make me look fat".:-)
Seriously however, I frequently find it necessary in compassionate care situations. The truth can often cause considerable unnecessary harm. I do not regard telling a lie to avoid harming someone to be a sin or morally wrong in any way. The truth is normally better and more morally correct, but not always.
What is the basic difference between an atheist and a Christian, well simple : -> a Christian works to advance the glory of God ("be merry and fertile", the ten commandments, "love thy neighbour",...) -> an atheist works to advance himself, without open regard for others (this does not mean he has to be a murderer, just that he does not see the need to consider the effect on strangers before deciding on a course of actio
Wow. Bad premise for an argument. I can easily argue that christians work solely to keep themselves from going to hell. The fact that this happens to advance the "glory of god" is incidental. In fact I find that to be a much more logical argument than yours. Furthermore positing that everything an atheist does is self motivated and does not consider effects on others is demonstrably wrong - not to mention offensive.
Atheist morality is whatever any single atheist comes up with, therefore it isn't even possible to give a workable definition
Since christians can't seem to agree on a common definition of morality your logic is on pretty weak ground here. Sure they have the bible (with numerous different versions that don't match) but it gets interpreted in as many different ways as there are christians. There is no unified definition of christian morality despite whatever you've convinced yourself of.
any atheists disagree about even trivial basic parts of atheist morality. Not so for Christians and muslims. Yes there are arguments. But a lot (I'd even say most) issues are considered beyond argument, say abortion.
Hogwash. I can introduce you to countless christians (and muslims) who disagree on the morality of abortion, homosexuality, and a host of other morality topics. There are huge swaths of the American population that are on either side of the abortion fence, far more than the total number of atheists. So clearly there is nothing remotely resembling a consensus among christians on their supposed morality.
Actually, you're messing up 2 different things, religion and philosophy.
A religion is just a philosophy that doesn't rely on logic or (necessarily) consistency. Instead it relies on faith.
I'd be hard-pressed in thinking that he's using religious dogma to justify that statement, but your answer to it is very interesting. By disagreeing, you do believe there are good people, but confusingly say that is the reason you're not a christian?
To my mind being "good" does not require one to be a christian nor does being a christian preclude one from being a "good" person. It's irrelevant to the arguments I made.
If you are interested in your own self-discovery, I'd suggest a firm philosophical base, and start with the simple one which will last you your whole lifetime: Are you good?
What makes you think I haven't done exactly what you say? I don't need a religion to have a philosophical base. Am I "good"? Depends on your definition of good.
The grandfather mist-stated however. I think what he meant to say is that there cannot be a "Good enough" person.
A distinction without a difference unless you can define good. A hypothetical to illustrate. Let's say a woman has an abortion. Some people say she is doing nothing wrong, others disagree strongly. Who is right? Is she "good"? There is no objective answer to that question so the entire argument about everyone not being "good enough" is ridiculous and unanswerable.
And yes I more or less understand the concept of original sin and I do not accept it as the premise for any rational discussion - so don't bother trying.
However when compared to perfect I fall woefully short and I know it. I do tell white lies.
Why would a white lie necessarily be bad? If someone asks me where my family is and I suspect they want to harm them, it isn't a bad thing if I don't tell the truth. Lies often are bad but not always.
Have you ever actually read the bible cover to cover? Just a thought.
Despite being a somewhat die hard agnostic (or atheist if you prefer), yes I have actually read the old and new testaments cover to cover. Also some of the koran and a few other important texts as well. It was a long time ago and not something I care to repeat but yes I can honestly claim to have read the texts in question.
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China will be selling the 4 CPU chip for a fraction of what a 1 CPU chip from intel costs. In addition, it has the ability to shutdown all but 1 core, which leads to really low power requirement. China has been taught how to do all this by companies like Intel.
Do you honestly think those are tricks Intel can't match? Including the low price? Microchips aren't labor intensive so the Chinese labor cost advantage doesn't apply here. Companies like AMD don't sell their products for less because they want to, they do it because they have no choice and usually they have higher costs besides. Don't take my word for it, look at their financial statements. Intel has nine fab sites and is widely regarded as unmatched in their manufacturing and process technology. As an engineer who specializes in operations analysis I can tell you that their operations prowess is a powerful competitive advantage. The ONLY advantage Intel might not be able to match is Chinese government subsidies.
These chips will show up in small laptops within 2 years and those systems will be sold the world over for under $200.
That's impressively optimistic of you. More likely I think the chips will sell in the domestic Chinese market and maybe a few other low cost markets. New competitors come along all the time but success is hardly assured.
In fact, I suspect that Intel AND AMD will be in worse shape than America's steel and car industry within 2 years.
There is of course a chance you are right but I would happily make a financial wager that Intel will still be in fine shape in two years. Intel is a lot more like Toyota than Ford if you are going to make car analogies.
AMD? They're harder to predict but their problems are far more likely to come from competition from Intel and nVidia than from any Chinese upstarts. AMD has a long history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Will it pose a threat to Intel? In the short run absolutely not. It will require a truly massive investment, Intel isn't standing still, and the biggest problem is getting enough engineering talent. Furthermore just producing the chip isn't enough, there have to be boards to plug it into, software written to support the chip/boards, etc. True China is producing a lot of engineers but that by itself is entirely insufficient.
Long term - who knows? Talent can be developed/bought/hired, secrets learned/stolen, R&D can leapfrog, etc. It will be very difficult to displace Intel but it certainly isn't impossible. Andy Grove would probably be the first to admit that.
Historically speaking there has been 2 crews lost in 123 launches (121 success) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_shuttle [wikipedia.org] Thats about one out of 60.
So the risk doesn't seem to have changed. If anything they are saying it is less risky.
For a single shuttle flight the risk will be unchanged or change only a little. However when you are talking about repeated flights, the risk of the shuttle blowing up across all of those flights is cumulative. Let's use your numbers to illustrate.
1/12 = 0.0833 = 8.33%
...
1/60 = 0.0167 = 1.67%
This means a shuttle has roughly a 98.33% chance of a disaster free mission each time it goes up. But with repeated flights:
Flight 1 - 98.33%
Flight 2 = 96.69%
Flight 3 = 95.08%
Flight 9 = 85.96%
So by flight 9 using your numbers there is about a 1/12 chance of a shuttle disaster occurring. Might not happen at all or it might happen on the first flight. No way to know. But the risk is there. Incidentally with your numbers we should *expect* to see a shuttle blow up on average every 42 missions. So the real risk per mission is probably less than you are estimating - but not by much.
So you're fine with the statistic that 100% southern republicans are racist and 93% southern democrats are racist...but totally ignoring that it's 10 republicans verses 87 democrats. Statistics like that lie. You'd think based on 100% verses 93% that the republicans are bad--until you look at the actual numbers of 10 verses 87.
What you have just described is called the base rate fallacy. You also appear to have a confirmation bias and are anchoring when choosing your data to examine. Most importantly you completely fail to understand the concept of conditional probability.
Assume (hypothetically) only 11 out of 91 southern democrats voted against the bill (that's 12%) which is still greater than the total number of southern republicans in 1964. It doesn't prove that a randomly chosen southern democrat in 1964 was more likely to be racist - it proves just the opposite. The fact that there were a larger absolute number of racist democrats at the time does nothing to change the conditional probabilities of a random southern congressman being a racist. Given that a 1964 congressman was a southerner, the probability that a randomly chosen democrat was racist was lower than the probability that a randomly chosen republican was racist. This can be formally proven with mathematics if you like. It's not "lying with statistics", it is a cold hard fact based on conditional probability.
If it helps you sleep better at night to revel in the fact that there were some asshole democrats who were/are racist that is pathetic but your choice. But you ought to actually understand statistics before you attempt to argue using them.
So you own link to wikipedia shows that more democrats were against the bill than republicans.
Not much on data analysis are you? The absolute numbers don't tell the story of which party and which regions are most racist. Look at the percentages and the location breakdown. Virtually all the democrats who voted against the bill were SOUTHERNERS. Many of them later switched party affiliation after this vote. Last time I checked the math 100% racist is greater than 95% racist.
Since this act passed the south has voted overwhelmingly republican. Racism had more than a little to do with that fact. The republicans reputation for being the more racist of the two parties hasn't been earned by accident. Not to say there aren't racist democrats as well but the voting records *clearly* support the hypothesis that the republicans are the party with the greater percentage of racist members. It's not even a debate.
Have any of you ever been to New Orleans? Met the people there? Know the history and the tradition of the place? Experienced the pride of people who have lived in a city with so much history?
Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. I've also been to places like China where they REALLY have a lot of history so a little perspective please?
What's next, are you going to tell the people in San Francisco they have to move because an earthquake is coming in a few years?
Building a major city on an active fault-line does not strike me as the brightest idea ever. Living there without proper planning is even dumber. Equally stupid is building a significant portion of an important port city below sea level when there is no actual need to build in that exact spot. They don't have to move but we (the taxpayers) shouldn't necessarily have to bail them out from their lack of foresight either when the inevitable comes. I do not support rebuilding the parts of New Orleans that are under sea level - it's just stupid and unnecessary. Other areas I'm fine with supporting, just not the egregiously stupid ones.
Tragedies happen but maybe we should try to avoid some of the more predictable major ones? Or failing that, at least do a competent job of planning for them. Sometimes people have to live in a dangerous place but there is no excuse for stupid zoning (below sea level!) and a lack of planning for predictable natural disasters. Live in a tornado zone? Have a underground shelters nearby everywhere. Earthquake prone? Enforce appropriate building codes and tear down dangerous structures even if they are old and historic. Sentiment has a time and place but not when lives are at risk.
I'm just waiting for when Miami inevitably gets leveled by a hurricane. It will happen sooner or later.
What jackass modded the parent flamebait? Giving a ring isn't a selfless sacrifice and never has been. There is a reason it is called a marriage contract - both sides get something. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights act?
Check the vote breakdown by party and region. It was predominantly SOUTHERNERS of BOTH parties who opposed the bill. Remember them? They were the folks who started a civil war to keep slavery around. The vote breakdown was very clearly along regional lines not party lines.
However if you insist on defending the republicans on this issue, a few southern democrats actually voted for the act - no southern republicans did. Furthermore most of the northerners who voted against the act were republicans. So yeah, in general if someone was racist in 1964 odds were better that they were republican than democrat. Odds also tell us they were likely from the south regardless of party affiliation.
This isn't a troll, I'm really interested in having the discussion with someone who chose a small 15-minute in-jeans ceremony. Because, I consider myself to be married, yet legally my wife and I are common-law.
While I didn't do the vegas thing we didn't spend a lot on our wedding either. Why do it? Partly for the tax, insurance and other benefits married couples enjoy. It was also a really nice way to tell each other and everyone else how much we care for each other and have a nice party in the process. But it didn't change anything about our relationship. For all practical purposes we were "married" long before we actually were. The piece of paper isn't what makes a good relationship. I always tell people that they are ready to get married when getting married will change nothing whatsoever in their lives.
Girls also care deeply about the being married part, but the getting married part is much higher on their list of important events than it is for guys. Someday you'll grow up and realize that this is a pretty much universal truth that reflects not one bit on how selfish the girl might be.
Please. It is 100% about how selfish the girl might be. Getting married requires you to go down to the court and get a marriage license and an appropriate legal authority to declare your marriage valid. Total cost is less than $200 almost anywhere. Anything beyond that is about showing off in front of friends and family and IS selfish. If that is what you both want there is nothing wrong with that but don't have any illusions about what your bride is doing if she demands that sort of wedding.
Yes I'm married. My wife was appalled by the idea of a large wedding where she would be on display. So we had a nice small ceremony in a nice location and genuinely enjoyed ourselves. More than I can say for many other couples.
Ours cost around $20,000 and it was in a registry office with only about a dozen people.
We had our wedding at Lake Louise and for plane fair, a full week of accommodations and the wedding, and about 12 people (yes small group) we spent less than $10,000 including the dress, honeymoon and reception. I'm not criticizing what you spent (so long as you enjoyed it) but a wedding does not *have* to be expensive. Basically it only gets expensive when you go for all the cliched traditional stuff and don't care about the cost. $5000 for a dress is frivolous. She may want it and if you've got the money you'll hear no argument from me - but don't think for a moment that spending $5000 is a requirement no matter what she says.
Children on the other hand are a different matter...
However, for an engagement ring (and other rare circumstances) spending a lot of money demonstrates selfless sacrifice.
"Selfless sacrifice"? Seriously? From one married guy to another you are downing the cool-aid a bit too deeply. It would be only selfless if you got nothing out of the deal. Presumably you are married to someone you actually like so there are, ahem... benefits for you too. Furthermore I've yet to meet a guy who was *really* sacrificing to buy a ring for his gal. Yeah they're expensive but cutting back on the number of video games you buy doesn't count as a sacrifice.
The point was that with the stroke of a pen, Congress can supersede treaties.
The can but they haven't. The Constitution itself can be changed so it's not clear exactly what you are getting at. We are still party to the Geneva Convention and bound to it's provisions until we decide otherwise. It's useless to argue based on what Congress might hypothetically do in the future.
whereas POWs would sit in a camp until the war is over. Irrational.
That's the main flaw in your argument. This "war" will never be over. There is no clearly defined end point and in fact cannot be. 9/11 was a violent criminal act that supposedly had a political motivation - though exactly what the hijackers were intending to accomplish has never been 100% clear. There will never be a surrender treaty so we are not talking the same situation as POWs in a declared war. That logically means we need to treat them differently than POWs in a traditional war. Humanely differently. If we need to pass new laws to deal with the situation appropriately, that's fine as long as they are reasonable, civilized and humane.
The obvious answer is to treat them as we would other criminals - that is why we have a justice system after all. There may be other solutions as well and I'm open to ideas. But just putting someone in a dungeon without any due process and throwing away the key forever is and should always be beneath our dignity. Even POWs and common criminals know what the end point is though it may be far away. If we are going to keep these people detained forever then we need to be clear about that and clear about why. If they are genuinely deserving of lifetime imprisonment I have no philosophical problem with such punishment. But I want to know and they deserve to know what they did and why they are being punished for it.
This seems to imply that saboteurs and spies, the foreign asshats the GP mentioned, don't have rights under the Geneva Convention.
If you read the article you linked to you'll see that there is considerable dispute regarding whether Ex parte Quirin is a legitimate basis for the non-lawful combatants argument.
The Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v Rumsfeld that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions applies to detainees in the war on terror.
From TFA: "The Quirin case, however, does not stand for the proposition that detainees may be held incommunicado and denied access to counsel"
One could argue the Military Detainee Act supersedes Geneva, assuming Geneva even applies.
There is no "Military Detainee Act" that I am aware of. Perhaps you are referring to the Detainee Treatment Act or maybe the Military Commissions Act of 2006? These at most supplement the Third Geneva Convention and do not contradict it as far as I can tell. If you are referring to a specific instance of the Geneva Convention being superseded you'll have to point it out before I concede the point.
Unlawful combatants are only granted "humane treatment," not the other POW privileges.
Which is a bizarre argument designed to skirt the spirit of the treaty even if we concede the legitimacy of the "unlawful combatants" argument - which I do not. Furthermore torture under any definition is inhumane treatment and in violation of both the Geneva convention as well as US law. Whatever other legal issues are in play it seems clear that prisoners are not always being treated humanely.
The "loophole" you mention is a contrivance by the Bush administration to behave in ways that if they were a small nation could have them brought up on charges for crimes against humanity. I'm not so naive as to think that behind closed doors the "rules of war" get followed reliably but official US policy has been anything but civilized nor has it been a model for the rest of the world to follow. Frankly I expect our leaders to behave better.
The great irony is that treating unlawful combatants better than POW's seems to be what people here are advocating, which runs contrary to the spirit of Geneva.
Who is advocating that? Insisting that we not torture people and granting some sort of legal status instead of holding prisoners in a legal limbo for all eternity is not remotely close treating them better than POWs.
Constitution say, US Citizens have rights. Foreign POWs, foreign invaders, and foreign asshats on foreign soil bringing foreign bombs to soldiers deployed in foreign countries don't.
Wrong. Treaties cannot take precedence over the Constitution but properly ratified treaties are the supreme law of the land in the US. Despite what Bush would have you believe, POWs do have rights under US law via the Geneva convention which is - you guessed it - a treaty. The United States is party to numerous treaties some of which explicitly grant certain rights to some of those "foreign asshats" under various circumstances. Granted there are also cases where those same "foreign asshats" don't have rights but you'll have to get specific about when and where and what circumstances.
Ok, I live in england, and I'm pretty sure our house prices are way higher than the states
That depends entirely on where you live in the US versus where you live in England. Some places yes, some places no. Live in Manhattan or parts of Connecticut and you'll find prices as high as anywhere in the world. Go more rural and you can live much less expensively, albeit with some trade offs. (not necessarily bad ones either)
Whether you need two incomes to buy a house depends very much on the size of the first income and the location and lifestyle you choose to live. You'll have a hard time convincing me that there is no place in all of England that you could not buy a house with just a single income. Might not be where you prefer but I'm pretty sure it's possible.
Because we're required to pay into what is effectively a Ponzi scheme (Social Security) and welfare and medicare taxes. Get rid of them all.
And replace it with what? Yep, the funding model for social security is stupid. It's also not going away since a LOT of people depend on it, probably including some of your relatives. So what's so solution Mr. Smartypants? Have people starving in the streets and let the old folks die because screw-em if they can't afford proper care?
It's fine to rant against social security but only if you have an actual solution to the real world problem in mind.
(Possibly require a self-funded 401k equivalent if people are too stupid to save for themselves.)
Ha! You've never worked in finance have you? I have and most people are terrible investors. I wouldn't trust my own mother to make sensible investments in a million years. There was a time before about 1930 when the government wasn't involved with people's savings and only lightly regulated the financial sector. Then a little thing called the Great Depression hit and it occurred to some folks that maybe helping each other out and keeping an eye on the excesses of Wall Street wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.
Why should I have to involuntarily pay for things other people take advantage of and I don't? E.g. welfare, medicare, social security, and the list goes on and on. I pay way more into the system than I get back.
Really? You're sure you pay more than you get back? Prove it. And be sure to count the indirect benefits as well as the direct ones.
Look, I'm no fan of our social security system & medicare system either and I certainly wouldn't argue that they are any sort of model of well managed programs but there are benefits I receive now and others I get later. Right now it keeps some of my older relatives from depending on me directly for financial support beyond my immediate ability to pay. You'll have a hard time convincing me that bankrupting a lot of families could in any way benefit either one of us. Through a system where we all pay to help each other when we need it, we all (theoretically) benefit. Just not all at once and not necessarily at the time we pay in. Benefits are not always direct but that doesn't mean they aren't there. Life's more complicated than the number of zeros in your bank account.
Later on I expect I'll receive some benefit of my own directly. (how much is another question...)
You obviously haven't been married long if at all...the correct answer is "huh?" as you look aimlessly elsewhere :-)
Known my wife 20 years and been married for most of them. Fortunately she's not the sort to bait me with that sort of question.
You never HAVE to answer anything if you don't want to.
I wish that were true. Sometimes not answering really is not a viable option. Plus sometimes silence speaks louder than any answer. Then there are lies of omission where saying nothing is misleading. I wish I shared your conviction that telling the absolute truth (as we see it) all the time was the right thing all the time. Life would be a lot easier if I really believed that.
The truth is that everyone will die eventually. Lieing to someone to spare their feelings usually just helps keep them deluded and prevents them from addressing the problem...whether it is solvable or not.
Let me state up front that I agree with you the vast majority of the time. Just not in absolutely every case. It isn't always about death - there are plenty of situations where death never enters into it. I guess I believe basically in the approach doctors take. Do no harm. Occasionally the truth does more harm than a lie. I just wish it was always easy to tell when ahead of time.
Been fun :)
Likewise!
If you follow the bible than she is doing nothing wrong
You're missing the point. I'm not trying to argue the morality of abortion one way or the other. Merely pointing out that honest people can have an honest disagreement about the morality ("goodness") of the act.
We are each born with a blank slate...sinless. It is for our own sins that we must answer and no one else.
That is only a consensus in some parts of the christian world. There is considerable dispute on this matter and has been for some time.
The intention to miss-lead is a sin
There you and I disagree unless you are talking about some lawyerly technical definition of sin.
I have yet to find a situation where a lie is honestly necessary.
Tell me that the next time your wife asks you "does this make me look fat". :-)
Seriously however, I frequently find it necessary in compassionate care situations. The truth can often cause considerable unnecessary harm. I do not regard telling a lie to avoid harming someone to be a sin or morally wrong in any way. The truth is normally better and more morally correct, but not always.
What is the basic difference between an atheist and a Christian, well simple : ...)
-> a Christian works to advance the glory of God ("be merry and fertile", the ten commandments, "love thy neighbour",
-> an atheist works to advance himself, without open regard for others (this does not mean he has to be a murderer, just that he does not see the need to consider the effect on strangers before deciding on a course of actio
Wow. Bad premise for an argument. I can easily argue that christians work solely to keep themselves from going to hell. The fact that this happens to advance the "glory of god" is incidental. In fact I find that to be a much more logical argument than yours. Furthermore positing that everything an atheist does is self motivated and does not consider effects on others is demonstrably wrong - not to mention offensive.
Atheist morality is whatever any single atheist comes up with, therefore it isn't even possible to give a workable definition
Since christians can't seem to agree on a common definition of morality your logic is on pretty weak ground here. Sure they have the bible (with numerous different versions that don't match) but it gets interpreted in as many different ways as there are christians. There is no unified definition of christian morality despite whatever you've convinced yourself of.
any atheists disagree about even trivial basic parts of atheist morality. Not so for Christians and muslims. Yes there are arguments. But a lot (I'd even say most) issues are considered beyond argument, say abortion.
Hogwash. I can introduce you to countless christians (and muslims) who disagree on the morality of abortion, homosexuality, and a host of other morality topics. There are huge swaths of the American population that are on either side of the abortion fence, far more than the total number of atheists. So clearly there is nothing remotely resembling a consensus among christians on their supposed morality.
In the case of Mary, I understand the word is "venerate" not "worship".
Sounds like a distinction without a difference to me.
Oh, you mean in the same way that there's no difference between 'sleep' and 'coma'?
Catholics worship Mary. Call it whatever you like but there is no real difference.
And since you brought it up, yes, venerate is a subset of worship and coma is a subset of sleep. Whatever that proves...
Actually, you're messing up 2 different things, religion and philosophy.
A religion is just a philosophy that doesn't rely on logic or (necessarily) consistency. Instead it relies on faith.
I'd be hard-pressed in thinking that he's using religious dogma to justify that statement, but your answer to it is very interesting. By disagreeing, you do believe there are good people, but confusingly say that is the reason you're not a christian?
To my mind being "good" does not require one to be a christian nor does being a christian preclude one from being a "good" person. It's irrelevant to the arguments I made.
If you are interested in your own self-discovery, I'd suggest a firm philosophical base, and start with the simple one which will last you your whole lifetime: Are you good?
What makes you think I haven't done exactly what you say? I don't need a religion to have a philosophical base. Am I "good"? Depends on your definition of good.
The grandfather mist-stated however. I think what he meant to say is that there cannot be a "Good enough" person.
A distinction without a difference unless you can define good. A hypothetical to illustrate. Let's say a woman has an abortion. Some people say she is doing nothing wrong, others disagree strongly. Who is right? Is she "good"? There is no objective answer to that question so the entire argument about everyone not being "good enough" is ridiculous and unanswerable.
And yes I more or less understand the concept of original sin and I do not accept it as the premise for any rational discussion - so don't bother trying.
However when compared to perfect I fall woefully short and I know it. I do tell white lies.
Why would a white lie necessarily be bad? If someone asks me where my family is and I suspect they want to harm them, it isn't a bad thing if I don't tell the truth. Lies often are bad but not always.
Have you ever actually read the bible cover to cover? Just a thought.
Despite being a somewhat die hard agnostic (or atheist if you prefer), yes I have actually read the old and new testaments cover to cover. Also some of the koran and a few other important texts as well. It was a long time ago and not something I care to repeat but yes I can honestly claim to have read the texts in question.