The ipod isn't all that great either. It is a serious pain to navigate with 8000 mp3s from 500+ artists. Really ought to be an option to add another menu level that groups artists and songs by the first letter or first couple letters.
Wow, that sounds like alphabatizing. Which the Apple has done beginning with the first iPod. So you are complaining about...what exactly?
This is obviously all hypothetical, but of course no place is perfectly safe from disasters, but that doesn't mean you should just ignore it altogether and go live someplace that floods every year with certainty, or something like that. That's like deciding you're going to leave your Mercedes' windows open and doors unlocked with the keys inside because it isn't possible to completely protect against theft. It's defeatist and insane.
Sure, but I can't think of anyone who that would apply to, aside from rich people who really want their waterfront property. But how many times has New Orleans flooded remotely this badly? All we should need are some good building codes and a dose of common sense, and not go hog wild one way or the other.
Say it with me: regulations, regulations, regulations.
The problem is that there hasn't been enough regulation, not that there has been too much. If the FCC had decided on a single standard, we wouldn't have the GSM vs CDMA mess. If the market were totally deregulated, the problem of mutliple frequencies would be WORSE, not better.
Contrary to decades of Republican propaganda, government regulation can be beneficial for both manufacturers and consumers, and the dogma of "let the marketplace decide" can waste billions of dollars. Consumers don't want to commit to paying high early adopter fees for a standard that might not be around in a year, so manufacuters don't commit to mass production. DVD standards and HDTV's are prefect examples of this. If the FCC would come out and say "this is the standard. You can add to it or do your own thing, but this is the standard you should use if you expect to make any money," it would allow manufacturers and consumers to commit to new devices. We could have seen HDTV adoption soar ten years ago instead of watching it trickle today.
The reason I hope you are right is that from time to time I drop my mobile, but it keeps on working.
Heh. I never, ever seem to drop my keys when taking them out of my pocket, but manage to drop my phone seemingly every other day. Good thing Samsung makes resonably sturdy phones.
Any place can get a meteor impact, but if one hits, it'll probably take out most of a continent, if not the whole planet (because of climate change).
Not necessarily. It would be perfectly possible for a meteor to be of sufficient size to wipe out Phoenix but not the entire Southwest.
meteors won't even affect the comparison since most points on the planet are equally likely to be impacted.
Which was my point: there is no area that can be safe from disasters. But while Arizona might be safer than other places, it's not really feasible to move 300 million people to a state that has to borrow water from other states to support it's existing population.
If the right doesn't like a scientific opinion, especially one held by an overwhelming majority of scientists, they try to make it appear that there is a "controversy" surrounding an issue, and demand "balanced coverage" of their position, which Fox happily provides them. Because if there is a controversy, "it does not make sense" to make a policy decision in favor of one position or the other.
This is most obvious when it comes to evolution and global warming. The first attack is usually based around a claim that evloutionary theory can't explain $X, right now, so...intelligent design! Bush said as much recently, stating that we ought to "teach the controversy" in classrooms. I found a nice quote on the subject of ID from a Jason Rosenhouse:
The main argument made by ID proponents in this regard is based on the idea of irreducible complexity. Michael Behe coined this term in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box. He defined a system to be irreducibly complex if it consisted of several, well-matched parts each of which was essential for the system to function properly. It was his assertion that such a system could not evolve by gradual accretion, because any intermediate structures would have to be nonfunctional. Since there are plenty of biological systems that fit Behe's definition, the conclusion is that there are complex biological systems whose formation simply can not be attributed to prolonged selection, regardless of any other evidence. If Behe were right, the observation of irreducible complexity would instantly trump whatever circumstantial evidence I could provide in favor of natural selection. But he is not right. Immediately after Behe's book hit the stores, scientists took up the thankless task of stating the obvious:
irreducible complexity in the present tells us nothing about functional precursors in the past. (emphasis mine)Dismissals of global warming, which virually all scientists agree is happening and is being accelerated by human activities, generally involve something like "Global warming can't be making $x worse, because we already had bad $x happen decades ago! Therefore, global warming is nonsense!"
Such is the case with Mr. Lowry. We had bad hurricanes in the 50's, therefore global warming has nothing to do with causing more hurricanes and/or making them worse today. And, lets throw in a cheap slam on Al Gore while we're at it. Now, I'm not a meteorologist or a climatologist, so I'm not qualified to write scientific papers on global warming or hurricanes. But neither is Rich Lowry. His main accomplishments seem to be writing the book "Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years" and attacking John Kerry over his statements on war crimes commited by U.S. troops in Vietnam. Now, war crimes are a given in any war, especially when the people you are supposed to protect are also the ones trying to kill you.
But I'm sure Rich was just being tough on another politician, as the press should be. So, I'm eagerly awaiting Rich's book on "Far Worse Legacy: The trillions Bush added to the national debt and losing thousands of American troops over an inexcusable misuse of intelligence". Because if there's one thing right wing pundits hate to do, it's holding their own party to far, far lower standards than their opponents. Otherwise Rich would just be a pathetic partisan hack.
I would think the rights of a few thousand people being forced to give up their livelihood would be kind of outweighed by a few million people being forced to move.
Care to know which states really deserve to complain about their tax dollars being handed out to others? That would be Wisconsin, Delaware, New York, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Nevada, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and the most robbed of all, New Jersey.
Yup, and for another funny statistic, the states with the highest divorce rates are red. Whoo hoo!
but it really bugs me when the federal government gives relief to people to rebuild in the same spot that got demolished.
It really bugs me when people say this when FEMA tries to avoid this. Check other threads; people have mentioned other floods where the gvt has bought out the land and turned it into parks rather than rebuild the lost housing.
Better blame the people who are pissed off that they are taxed too much.
I blame the people who are so self-centered that they can't see past their own noses.
I have a fundimental problem taxing people in North Dakota and Virginia to pay for protection for people who built homes below sea level.
Well I live in North Dakota, and I am glad people living in Virginia and Louisiana paid their taxes when the flood of 1997 wiped out much of Grand Forks.
Ya see, that's the point. There is no place you can be free from natual disasters, so quit whining about having to pay for them.
Well, one can pretty easily tell where volcanoes are - they're hiding underneath the big mountain of rock
What if the last eruption was 10,000 years ago? More to the point, if you wont live in an area that has had a natural disaster, just kill yourself right now, because that place doesn't exist.
I don't know if you have noticed, but America's left wing is _just_ as BIG GOVERNMENT as the right.
Meaningless ad hominem.
That is why I am personally a Libertarian.
Libertarianism works just fine in a small hamlet of a few people. In a nation pushing 300 million people, it would be a complete, utter disaster.
In a system of Socialism, the leaders always provide for themselves first and "the people" later.
And your basis for this is....?
Show me one active system of Socialism where those in power of that Socialist govt. are not _far_ better off financially than the average person living under that Socialist govt.
Big. Fucking. Deal. Even in socialist countries, you have to run for office. Running for office takes money. So, if a person has been elected for office, it probably means they have money. Now, would you like me to explain how 1 + 1 = 2?
In Cuba and Venezuela, those in power are extremely wealthy and well provided for, while the rest of those two nations suffers. To me that is _nothing_ like what a "text book" Socialist govt. should be. Do you think Mr. Chavez is suffering with his poor? Nope. Do you think Castro is suffering with his poor? Nope.
What a bunch of retarded crap. So, no person who is rich can try and help someone who is poor, without making their lives as bad as the ones they are trying to help, or they are just a phoney? How dumb are you?
It's a completely bullshit way of trying to supply charity.
You do know the sale was limited to local residents yes? Local residents means local taxpayers, which means they already paid for the laptops. Otherwise this would be exteremely negligent on the part of the city if they sold them way below cost with no auction.
Do you actually think that Saddam's actions played no part in America's decision?
It was about WMD's, period. Arguing that we should invade Iraq because Saddam was an evil dictator would have been a very hard sell, even post 9/11. That's why Bush said that Saddam was an immediate threat because of WMD's, and we had no choice but to take him out, right now. No amount of spinning from the Administration or Fox News that this was a war "to protect our freedom" or to "free the Iraqi's" does anything to change that fact.
Are you so set up in your beliefs that you have to create a strawman that America only went to war because of WMDs?
Straw man:As a rhetorical term, "straw man" describes a point of view that was created in order to be easily defeated in argument; the creator of a "straw man" argument does not accurately reflect the best arguments of his or her opponents, but instead sidesteps or mischaracterizes them so as to make the opposing view appear weak or ridiculous.
It's no straw man to call a turkey a turkey, and WMD's was the justification for invading Iraq, end of story. Deal with it.
Oh boo fucking hoo. I know rural life can be far from a paradise, and was expecting to be regaled with a story of a gang killing, school violence or methamphetamines. But smoking pot? Please. If bullies were the ones smoking the pot, your stepson was actually safer on that bus because pot makes you happy and docile. What's your next story, that there was too much dancing and rock music going on, Reverend Moore?
Guess what? In a global economy, you are competing with people who will work for $4.00/hr.
Except that only applies to the working stiff. You don't see top executives being replaced with cheap M.B.A's from India. You don't see the C.E.O. taking a lower salary and benefits package to help the bottom line, if they can fire a few thousand American workers instead. You don't see investors willing to take a lower ROE to compete with a cheaper company in southeast Asia.
The middle class worker is the only one expected to step up his game while making sacrifices, while the weathiest 1% of the population has seen its income skyrocket over the last few years. That is complete and unadulterated bullshit, anyway you shake it.
I have a cousin who lives in a very nice neighborhood in Minneapolis, and there are a couple of real assholes in his homeowners association. One of his neighboors had a tree in his backyard blow over in a big storm, and they moved their trampoline from the backyard to one side of the house so a crew could get around the other side and cut down the tree. The assholes in the HOA actually bitched that a trampoline was visible from the side of the house (it wasn't even in the front), even though it was a very temporary placement.
Obviously, these people need to get a job, if they have so much time on their hands that all they do is sit around and think up ways to be complete dicks to their neighboors, rather than minding their own damn business/bills/kids etc like normal people.
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The ipod isn't all that great either. It is a serious pain to navigate with 8000 mp3s from 500+ artists. Really ought to be an option to add another menu level that groups artists and songs by the first letter or first couple letters.
Wow, that sounds like alphabatizing. Which the Apple has done beginning with the first iPod. So you are complaining about...what exactly?
This is obviously all hypothetical, but of course no place is perfectly safe from disasters, but that doesn't mean you should just ignore it altogether and go live someplace that floods every year with certainty, or something like that. That's like deciding you're going to leave your Mercedes' windows open and doors unlocked with the keys inside because it isn't possible to completely protect against theft. It's defeatist and insane.
Sure, but I can't think of anyone who that would apply to, aside from rich people who really want their waterfront property. But how many times has New Orleans flooded remotely this badly? All we should need are some good building codes and a dose of common sense, and not go hog wild one way or the other.
Say it with me: regulations, regulations, regulations.
The problem is that there hasn't been enough regulation, not that there has been too much. If the FCC had decided on a single standard, we wouldn't have the GSM vs CDMA mess. If the market were totally deregulated, the problem of mutliple frequencies would be WORSE, not better.
Contrary to decades of Republican propaganda, government regulation can be beneficial for both manufacturers and consumers, and the dogma of "let the marketplace decide" can waste billions of dollars. Consumers don't want to commit to paying high early adopter fees for a standard that might not be around in a year, so manufacuters don't commit to mass production. DVD standards and HDTV's are prefect examples of this. If the FCC would come out and say "this is the standard. You can add to it or do your own thing, but this is the standard you should use if you expect to make any money," it would allow manufacturers and consumers to commit to new devices. We could have seen HDTV adoption soar ten years ago instead of watching it trickle today.
The reason I hope you are right is that from time to time I drop my mobile, but it keeps on working.
Heh. I never, ever seem to drop my keys when taking them out of my pocket, but manage to drop my phone seemingly every other day. Good thing Samsung makes resonably sturdy phones.
Any place can get a meteor impact, but if one hits, it'll probably take out most of a continent, if not the whole planet (because of climate change).
Not necessarily. It would be perfectly possible for a meteor to be of sufficient size to wipe out Phoenix but not the entire Southwest.
meteors won't even affect the comparison since most points on the planet are equally likely to be impacted.
Which was my point: there is no area that can be safe from disasters. But while Arizona might be safer than other places, it's not really feasible to move 300 million people to a state that has to borrow water from other states to support it's existing population.
If the right doesn't like a scientific opinion, especially one held by an overwhelming majority of scientists, they try to make it appear that there is a "controversy" surrounding an issue, and demand "balanced coverage" of their position, which Fox happily provides them. Because if there is a controversy, "it does not make sense" to make a policy decision in favor of one position or the other.
This is most obvious when it comes to evolution and global warming. The first attack is usually based around a claim that evloutionary theory can't explain $X, right now, so...intelligent design! Bush said as much recently, stating that we ought to "teach the controversy" in classrooms. I found a nice quote on the subject of ID from a Jason Rosenhouse: The main argument made by ID proponents in this regard is based on the idea of irreducible complexity. Michael Behe coined this term in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box. He defined a system to be irreducibly complex if it consisted of several, well-matched parts each of which was essential for the system to function properly. It was his assertion that such a system could not evolve by gradual accretion, because any intermediate structures would have to be nonfunctional. Since there are plenty of biological systems that fit Behe's definition, the conclusion is that there are complex biological systems whose formation simply can not be attributed to prolonged selection, regardless of any other evidence. If Behe were right, the observation of irreducible complexity would instantly trump whatever circumstantial evidence I could provide in favor of natural selection. But he is not right. Immediately after Behe's book hit the stores, scientists took up the thankless task of stating the obvious: irreducible complexity in the present tells us nothing about functional precursors in the past. (emphasis mine)Dismissals of global warming, which virually all scientists agree is happening and is being accelerated by human activities, generally involve something like "Global warming can't be making $x worse, because we already had bad $x happen decades ago! Therefore, global warming is nonsense!"
Such is the case with Mr. Lowry. We had bad hurricanes in the 50's, therefore global warming has nothing to do with causing more hurricanes and/or making them worse today. And, lets throw in a cheap slam on Al Gore while we're at it. Now, I'm not a meteorologist or a climatologist, so I'm not qualified to write scientific papers on global warming or hurricanes. But neither is Rich Lowry. His main accomplishments seem to be writing the book "Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years" and attacking John Kerry over his statements on war crimes commited by U.S. troops in Vietnam. Now, war crimes are a given in any war, especially when the people you are supposed to protect are also the ones trying to kill you.
But I'm sure Rich was just being tough on another politician, as the press should be. So, I'm eagerly awaiting Rich's book on "Far Worse Legacy: The trillions Bush added to the national debt and losing thousands of American troops over an inexcusable misuse of intelligence". Because if there's one thing right wing pundits hate to do, it's holding their own party to far, far lower standards than their opponents. Otherwise Rich would just be a pathetic partisan hack.
No.
You are sure of this because...? Googling for "national guard troop levels 1990..2005" turned up squat.
We never get natural disasters here: hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis, earthquakes, ice/snow storms, etc.
Tornadoes can happen anywhere on the planet, not just in Kansas. Besides, Arizona could always get nailed by a second one of these.
I would think the rights of a few thousand people being forced to give up their livelihood would be kind of outweighed by a few million people being forced to move.
But they've been shrinking faster, no? And with good reason.
Care to know which states really deserve to complain about their tax dollars being handed out to others? That would be Wisconsin, Delaware, New York, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Nevada, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and the most robbed of all, New Jersey.
Yup, and for another funny statistic, the states with the highest divorce rates are red. Whoo hoo!
but it really bugs me when the federal government gives relief to people to rebuild in the same spot that got demolished.
It really bugs me when people say this when FEMA tries to avoid this. Check other threads; people have mentioned other floods where the gvt has bought out the land and turned it into parks rather than rebuild the lost housing.
Better blame the people who are pissed off that they are taxed too much.
I blame the people who are so self-centered that they can't see past their own noses.
I have a fundimental problem taxing people in North Dakota and Virginia to pay for protection for people who built homes below sea level.
Well I live in North Dakota, and I am glad people living in Virginia and Louisiana paid their taxes when the flood of 1997 wiped out much of Grand Forks.
Ya see, that's the point. There is no place you can be free from natual disasters, so quit whining about having to pay for them.
Well, one can pretty easily tell where volcanoes are - they're hiding underneath the big mountain of rock
What if the last eruption was 10,000 years ago? More to the point, if you wont live in an area that has had a natural disaster, just kill yourself right now, because that place doesn't exist.
I don't know if you have noticed, but America's left wing is _just_ as BIG GOVERNMENT as the right.
Meaningless ad hominem.
That is why I am personally a Libertarian.
Libertarianism works just fine in a small hamlet of a few people. In a nation pushing 300 million people, it would be a complete, utter disaster.
In a system of Socialism, the leaders always provide for themselves first and "the people" later.
And your basis for this is....?
Show me one active system of Socialism where those in power of that Socialist govt. are not _far_ better off financially than the average person living under that Socialist govt.
Big. Fucking. Deal. Even in socialist countries, you have to run for office. Running for office takes money. So, if a person has been elected for office, it probably means they have money. Now, would you like me to explain how 1 + 1 = 2?
In Cuba and Venezuela, those in power are extremely wealthy and well provided for, while the rest of those two nations suffers. To me that is _nothing_ like what a "text book" Socialist govt. should be. Do you think Mr. Chavez is suffering with his poor? Nope. Do you think Castro is suffering with his poor? Nope.
What a bunch of retarded crap. So, no person who is rich can try and help someone who is poor, without making their lives as bad as the ones they are trying to help, or they are just a phoney? How dumb are you?
So has anyone given you crap for "taking the name of that guy in that crappy movie" and then have to explain your moderatly low uid?
...if only because this means they wont be suing eachother on a quarterly basis.
It's a completely bullshit way of trying to supply charity.
You do know the sale was limited to local residents yes? Local residents means local taxpayers, which means they already paid for the laptops. Otherwise this would be exteremely negligent on the part of the city if they sold them way below cost with no auction.
Thank you. :)
Do you actually think that Saddam's actions played no part in America's decision?
It was about WMD's, period. Arguing that we should invade Iraq because Saddam was an evil dictator would have been a very hard sell, even post 9/11. That's why Bush said that Saddam was an immediate threat because of WMD's, and we had no choice but to take him out, right now. No amount of spinning from the Administration or Fox News that this was a war "to protect our freedom" or to "free the Iraqi's" does anything to change that fact.
Are you so set up in your beliefs that you have to create a strawman that America only went to war because of WMDs?
Straw man:As a rhetorical term, "straw man" describes a point of view that was created in order to be easily defeated in argument; the creator of a "straw man" argument does not accurately reflect the best arguments of his or her opponents, but instead sidesteps or mischaracterizes them so as to make the opposing view appear weak or ridiculous.
It's no straw man to call a turkey a turkey, and WMD's was the justification for invading Iraq, end of story. Deal with it.
Oh boo fucking hoo. I know rural life can be far from a paradise, and was expecting to be regaled with a story of a gang killing, school violence or methamphetamines. But smoking pot? Please. If bullies were the ones smoking the pot, your stepson was actually safer on that bus because pot makes you happy and docile. What's your next story, that there was too much dancing and rock music going on, Reverend Moore?
Nobody OWES you a job.
He NEVER said anyone did.
Guess what? In a global economy, you are competing with people who will work for $4.00/hr.
Except that only applies to the working stiff. You don't see top executives being replaced with cheap M.B.A's from India. You don't see the C.E.O. taking a lower salary and benefits package to help the bottom line, if they can fire a few thousand American workers instead. You don't see investors willing to take a lower ROE to compete with a cheaper company in southeast Asia.
The middle class worker is the only one expected to step up his game while making sacrifices, while the weathiest 1% of the population has seen its income skyrocket over the last few years. That is complete and unadulterated bullshit, anyway you shake it.
Perhaps invading Iraq wasn't a great decision, but at least America tries to do something about murderous tyrants.
No, it doesn't. The invasion was about WMD's, remember?
What is it with some people and antennas?
I have a cousin who lives in a very nice neighborhood in Minneapolis, and there are a couple of real assholes in his homeowners association. One of his neighboors had a tree in his backyard blow over in a big storm, and they moved their trampoline from the backyard to one side of the house so a crew could get around the other side and cut down the tree. The assholes in the HOA actually bitched that a trampoline was visible from the side of the house (it wasn't even in the front), even though it was a very temporary placement.
Obviously, these people need to get a job, if they have so much time on their hands that all they do is sit around and think up ways to be complete dicks to their neighboors, rather than minding their own damn business/bills/kids etc like normal people.
It's funny you say that. My sister's roomate just graduated with a mechanical engeneering degree, and right now is in India training workers.
What I would like to see, is a movie where a Fortune 500 company has all it's top executives fired and replaced with cheap M.B.A.'s from Bangladesh.