Wikipedia has an interesting article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity , which indicates that there are two schools of thought on this, which I'll call the gradualists and suddenists. The suddenists think Something Wonderful Happened ~50,000 years ago, so this discovery will make them have to move their date earlier. However, the gradualists think there are signs of modern behavior much earlier, so this news won't make them rethink anything. (Most likely they'll just say ITYS.)
IMO the suddenists are following the same kind of thinking that made people think Neanderthals were dumb brutes, that we're a lot more different than animals than we really are, etc. ISTM that there has always been some kind of... prejudice? conceit?... that makes a lot of people assume that we're a lot more special than we actually are.
I think you're deluded. The public knows what the Republicans are, and they like that.
I disagree. Most people think the Republican party is about social and fiscal conservatism, and traditional values. But if you watch what they do when they have power, it's obvious that they're just the plutocrat party.
People like what they *think* the Republicans are. But the plutocrats are just exploiting the knee jerks of bigots (Southern strategy, new Southwestern strategy) and people who want to force their religion on everyone else. They talk a lot and throw them a bone now and then, but don't ever act in a way that suggests that they actually give a shit.
Before the 2006 election, leaders of the religious right were complaining that they have been bringing lots of votes to the table and getting very little to show for it, even though Republicans had had full control of the government for the past 5+ years.
*That* is what Republican posturing is all about: get the votes by fair means or foul, then run the country into the ground for the short-term interests of the rich.
Unfortunately, they stuck that word "unreasonable" in there. All you have to do is assert reasonableness, and the whole thing goes away.
Well, if it had said "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against any searches and seizures, shall not be violated" you'd not be able to have much in the way of law enforcement, would you?
They could have rephrased the whole thing, along the lines of "The people's persons, houses, papers, and effects shall not be searched or seized without a warrant."
"We didn't appeal to our core. We didn't pick a conservative enough candidate." Fox news is already spouting this.
The civil war between the right wingers and the plutocrats will heat up. I expect a divorce before the end of the decade, though neither faction can win many elections without the other.
After World War 2, the USA convicted several Japanese soldiers of water boarding American and Allied prisoners of war. The US government hanged them for that crime.
US justice consistently ruled waterboarding a crime from the time of the Spanish-American War until this century. We have convicted foreign troops for doing it to ours, our own troops for doing it to foreigners, and even civilian law enforcement agents for doing it to criminals or suspected criminals.
But no one has the political courage to slap a President and Vice President in prison for it. We'll impeach a president for lying about an illicit blowjob, but not for authorizing war crimes.
ACA is a bridge to a other system at least in part
Actually it's what's left of what might have been a decent system, if the Democrats hadn't compromised on issue after issue to secure Republican votes. (And then the Republicans didn't vote for it anyway. I fear and detest them, but I don't call them stupid.)
I'm sure people remember where it was when Bush took office in Jan 2001. I'm sure people remember Iraq and pallets of US$100 bills which "disappeared, 4000+ Americans dead and a 2 trillion US$+ cost. I'm sure people remember the 2007-2008 crash. I'm sure people remember 9/11 which was on George Bush's watch. The US Deficit is a product of republicans and George Bush. They took 8 years to destroy the US. It will take more than 4, maybe 6, maybe 8 years to turn the time. Luckily Obama won. Mittens would have just turned around the good Obama and the democrats have done over the last 4 years and returned the US to it's downward spiral into oblivion. I'm not an Obama fan, but as always in US elections it's the lesser of 2 evils.
I have often found myself half-hoping that the Republicans would win big and get another eight years to finish running the country into the ground. Apparently that's what it's going to take to make the American public Wake TF Up and see the Republicans for what they are instead of what they claim to be.
>Both men were good men and would try to serve this country
Please tell me you're kidding. Mr. Romney has not denied bullying a classmate and shaving his head or transporting his dog on a vacation in a way most would consider abusive and was a professional corporate raider. While Mr. Obama is really not who I would prefer in office (I am a small-c conservative), Mr. Romney has shown a shocking lack of human decency in a variety of ways.
If anything, this election has shown that nearly half of the the United States is not just financially bankrupt but ethically bankrupt as well.
It astonishes me that this election was even close. As a small-l liberal, I don't have much higher opinion of Obama than you do. But Romney is a phoney even by the low standards we hold politicians to. Seriously, a 260,000,000aire putting on a flannel shirt and going to a steel works for a photo op telling the employees that he's one of them and feels their pain???
The only reason I can imagine the Republicans nominated him is in case anyone was paying so little attention in 2001-2008 that they still hadn't figured out that the Republican party is plutocratic rather than conservative.
In his defense, I suspect that the dog-on-roof thing was mere cluelessness rather than wickedness. He really comes across as a 13-year-old boy who never grew up.
Exactly. It occurred to me the other day: Did the Founding Fathers intend for there to be so many exceptions to the plainly written rules in the Constitution? I mean, take the 4th amendment. It says right there, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." I don't see the part where it says, "Except when we're crossing the border or getting on an airplane." So why is it that the DHS can treat us any old way they want to, just because we're crossing back into this country or traveling somewhere?
This is just one example among many.
Unfortunately, they stuck that word "unreasonable" in there. All you have to do is assert reasonableness, and the whole thing goes away.
That worked super well this past 4 years. They won back the Presidency and gained ground in the Senate.
Oh, wait. That's the opposite of what happened.
I didn't say it would work; I said it's what they would do.
I can also confidently predict that the Democrats will spend the next four years doing almost nothing, and getting outsmarted by the Republicans every time they do try to do something.
The behavior of political parties is an observable phenomenon. Ignore their marketing pitch and watch what they actually do, and you may develop an entirely new view of what US politics is all about.
We choose between the party that taxes us to subsidize farmers and hollywood, or the party that taxes us to subsidize banks and oil companies. You may claim there is a difference, but I don't see enough of one for it to matter.
Geez. Anyone can list some things that they don't like and both parties do. Do you seriously generalize that to no meaningful differences at all?
And there are also matters of degree. For example, I think Obama is a jerk (or criminal) for allowing the drone attacks to continue and even escalate, but at least he's not trying to rush is into a war with Iraq.
Your values may be very different from mind, but you can easily spot topics where the parties differ significantly, if you pay attention and think for yourself instead of joining in the knee-jerking.
Vote the worst bastards out, then start working on the next layer.
Are you serious??!?!?? Of all the things to criticize about Mitt Romney you chose underwear? How is that even relevant. Go after his foreign policy or his lack of information on how he would carry out his Economic plans, but your comment is just plain stupid and ignorant.
A cynic might also ask how "magic underwear" is any different from the things more popular religions claim.
Obama may not be perfect, but at least he doesn't wear magic underpants. I don't think america's reputation would recover if they handed control of their nuclear arsenal over to _that_ particular flavour of crazy.
Hey, don't knock magic undies. I traded an excellent sword for my +7 Knickers of Protection, Levitation, and Seduction.
Only problem is that they can only provide two benefits at a time, so I have to avoid some of the obvious things that come to mind.
Not sure whether I consider that a good thing or not; but at least somebody did something about the health care problems the USA has and maybe the conservatives will work a little bit with him now to improve it, rather than just chanting to repeal it like some kind of mantra.
No, the Republicans will spend the next four years obstructing anything and everything in order to make the government look dysfunctional and Obama look bad, just to improve their chances of winning next time.
They didn't ask me for an ID. But they had me sign their sheet, and visually compared my signature to one they had on their computer, presumably obtained from my registration.
Maybe that visual comparison isn't particularly rigorous, but it also takes a lot of interpretation to decide whether a photo ID matches the person standing there.
I recall that several countries wanted to send election monitors to oversee the vote, and that at least one Republican AG was trying to prevent that happening. What happened with that?
From what I've read, the UN has been monitoring US elections for about a decade. This is just the first time the politicians latched on to it as something to scream about.
There's likely no conspiracy, just a few crappy uncalibrated voting machines out there
Supposedly someone has posted a video showing them working the way down the screen with the pointer, looking for the calibration bounds, and it turned out that a solid block over the two major-party candidates always cast a vote for the same one, but on the two third-party candidates it worked perfectly.
I still firmly believe that open, tracable trackable voting will fix all of the current problems. And cause no new problems that aren't possible under today's system.
If that's what the legislatures demand. But until they quit trying to subsidize their cronies who make voting machines, or getting all dizzy at the sight of a slick sales glossy, it ain't gonna happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia has an interesting article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity , which indicates that there are two schools of thought on this, which I'll call the gradualists and suddenists. The suddenists think Something Wonderful Happened ~50,000 years ago, so this discovery will make them have to move their date earlier. However, the gradualists think there are signs of modern behavior much earlier, so this news won't make them rethink anything. (Most likely they'll just say ITYS.)
IMO the suddenists are following the same kind of thinking that made people think Neanderthals were dumb brutes, that we're a lot more different than animals than we really are, etc. ISTM that there has always been some kind of ... prejudice? conceit? ... that makes a lot of people assume that we're a lot more special than we actually are.
cute editing work right there :)
Not as cute as Colbert's "tarnish Silver's sterling reputation".
I think you're deluded. The public knows what the Republicans are, and they like that.
I disagree. Most people think the Republican party is about social and fiscal conservatism, and traditional values. But if you watch what they do when they have power, it's obvious that they're just the plutocrat party.
People like what they *think* the Republicans are. But the plutocrats are just exploiting the knee jerks of bigots (Southern strategy, new Southwestern strategy) and people who want to force their religion on everyone else. They talk a lot and throw them a bone now and then, but don't ever act in a way that suggests that they actually give a shit.
Before the 2006 election, leaders of the religious right were complaining that they have been bringing lots of votes to the table and getting very little to show for it, even though Republicans had had full control of the government for the past 5+ years.
*That* is what Republican posturing is all about: get the votes by fair means or foul, then run the country into the ground for the short-term interests of the rich.
If you think being poor and getting help is better than being middle-class and having loans, then you have never been poor before.
No, but not having the incorrect ancestry and/or not having been born a male certainly doesn't hurt.
Apparently two wrongs do make a right.
Would you prefer to have different ancestry and a different gender, just to get a break on a few things?
Unfortunately, they stuck that word "unreasonable" in there. All you have to do is assert reasonableness, and the whole thing goes away.
Well, if it had said "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against any searches and seizures, shall not be violated" you'd not be able to have much in the way of law enforcement, would you?
They could have rephrased the whole thing, along the lines of "The people's persons, houses, papers, and effects shall not be searched or seized without a warrant."
The party will go further right.
"We didn't appeal to our core. We didn't pick a conservative enough candidate." Fox news is already spouting this.
The civil war between the right wingers and the plutocrats will heat up. I expect a divorce before the end of the decade, though neither faction can win many elections without the other.
Bush was a madman who screwed up this country far more then any other president in recent history
No, IMO he was a witless tool who let his handlers screw the country up.
After World War 2, the USA convicted several Japanese soldiers of water boarding American and Allied prisoners of war. The US government hanged them for that crime.
US justice consistently ruled waterboarding a crime from the time of the Spanish-American War until this century. We have convicted foreign troops for doing it to ours, our own troops for doing it to foreigners, and even civilian law enforcement agents for doing it to criminals or suspected criminals.
But no one has the political courage to slap a President and Vice President in prison for it. We'll impeach a president for lying about an illicit blowjob, but not for authorizing war crimes.
ACA is a bridge to a other system at least in part
Actually it's what's left of what might have been a decent system, if the Democrats hadn't compromised on issue after issue to secure Republican votes. (And then the Republicans didn't vote for it anyway. I fear and detest them, but I don't call them stupid.)
I'm sure people remember where it was when Bush took office in Jan 2001. I'm sure people remember Iraq and pallets of US$100 bills which "disappeared, 4000+ Americans dead and a 2 trillion US$+ cost. I'm sure people remember the 2007-2008 crash. I'm sure people remember 9/11 which was on George Bush's watch. The US Deficit is a product of republicans and George Bush. They took 8 years to destroy the US. It will take more than 4, maybe 6, maybe 8 years to turn the time. Luckily Obama won. Mittens would have just turned around the good Obama and the democrats have done over the last 4 years and returned the US to it's downward spiral into oblivion. I'm not an Obama fan, but as always in US elections it's the lesser of 2 evils.
I have often found myself half-hoping that the Republicans would win big and get another eight years to finish running the country into the ground. Apparently that's what it's going to take to make the American public Wake TF Up and see the Republicans for what they are instead of what they claim to be.
>Both men were good men and would try to serve this country
Please tell me you're kidding. Mr. Romney has not denied bullying a classmate and shaving his head or transporting his dog on a vacation in a way most would consider abusive and was a professional corporate raider. While Mr. Obama is really not who I would prefer in office (I am a small-c conservative), Mr. Romney has shown a shocking lack of human decency in a variety of ways.
If anything, this election has shown that nearly half of the the United States is not just financially bankrupt but ethically bankrupt as well.
It astonishes me that this election was even close. As a small-l liberal, I don't have much higher opinion of Obama than you do. But Romney is a phoney even by the low standards we hold politicians to. Seriously, a 260,000,000aire putting on a flannel shirt and going to a steel works for a photo op telling the employees that he's one of them and feels their pain???
The only reason I can imagine the Republicans nominated him is in case anyone was paying so little attention in 2001-2008 that they still hadn't figured out that the Republican party is plutocratic rather than conservative.
In his defense, I suspect that the dog-on-roof thing was mere cluelessness rather than wickedness. He really comes across as a 13-year-old boy who never grew up.
Exactly. It occurred to me the other day: Did the Founding Fathers intend for there to be so many exceptions to the plainly written rules in the Constitution? I mean, take the 4th amendment. It says right there, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." I don't see the part where it says, "Except when we're crossing the border or getting on an airplane." So why is it that the DHS can treat us any old way they want to, just because we're crossing back into this country or traveling somewhere?
This is just one example among many.
Unfortunately, they stuck that word "unreasonable" in there. All you have to do is assert reasonableness, and the whole thing goes away.
That worked super well this past 4 years. They won back the Presidency and gained ground in the Senate.
Oh, wait. That's the opposite of what happened.
I didn't say it would work; I said it's what they would do.
I can also confidently predict that the Democrats will spend the next four years doing almost nothing, and getting outsmarted by the Republicans every time they do try to do something.
The behavior of political parties is an observable phenomenon. Ignore their marketing pitch and watch what they actually do, and you may develop an entirely new view of what US politics is all about.
We choose between the party that taxes us to subsidize farmers and hollywood, or the party that taxes us to subsidize banks and oil companies. You may claim there is a difference, but I don't see enough of one for it to matter.
Geez. Anyone can list some things that they don't like and both parties do. Do you seriously generalize that to no meaningful differences at all?
And there are also matters of degree. For example, I think Obama is a jerk (or criminal) for allowing the drone attacks to continue and even escalate, but at least he's not trying to rush is into a war with Iraq.
Your values may be very different from mind, but you can easily spot topics where the parties differ significantly, if you pay attention and think for yourself instead of joining in the knee-jerking.
Vote the worst bastards out, then start working on the next layer.
Are you serious??!?!?? Of all the things to criticize about Mitt Romney you chose underwear? How is that even relevant. Go after his foreign policy or his lack of information on how he would carry out his Economic plans, but your comment is just plain stupid and ignorant.
A cynic might also ask how "magic underwear" is any different from the things more popular religions claim.
Obama may not be perfect, but at least he doesn't wear magic underpants. I don't think america's reputation would recover if they handed control of their nuclear arsenal over to _that_ particular flavour of crazy.
Hey, don't knock magic undies. I traded an excellent sword for my +7 Knickers of Protection, Levitation, and Seduction.
Only problem is that they can only provide two benefits at a time, so I have to avoid some of the obvious things that come to mind.
But is there any difference ?
Yes.
Now my turn for a question: do you pay the slightest attention to what our politicians do?
Not sure whether I consider that a good thing or not; but at least somebody did something about the health care problems the USA has and maybe the conservatives will work a little bit with him now to improve it, rather than just chanting to repeal it like some kind of mantra.
No, the Republicans will spend the next four years obstructing anything and everything in order to make the government look dysfunctional and Obama look bad, just to improve their chances of winning next time.
Hell hath no wrath like the elderly women proudly doing their quadrennial duties.
Please take two pairs of boxing gloves and a video camera along in 2016.
Our number one export apparently, in terms of money spent. And yet, we can't actually have democracy at home.
The joke at the time was, "And if it works in Iraq, we'll try it at home."
they said it was stupid that we didnt require ids to vote then media ignored them
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/06/foreign_election_officials_amazed_by_trust_based_us_voting_system
They didn't ask me for an ID. But they had me sign their sheet, and visually compared my signature to one they had on their computer, presumably obtained from my registration.
Maybe that visual comparison isn't particularly rigorous, but it also takes a lot of interpretation to decide whether a photo ID matches the person standing there.
I recall that several countries wanted to send election monitors to oversee the vote, and that at least one Republican AG was trying to prevent that happening. What happened with that?
From what I've read, the UN has been monitoring US elections for about a decade. This is just the first time the politicians latched on to it as something to scream about.
There's likely no conspiracy, just a few crappy uncalibrated voting machines out there
Supposedly someone has posted a video showing them working the way down the screen with the pointer, looking for the calibration bounds, and it turned out that a solid block over the two major-party candidates always cast a vote for the same one, but on the two third-party candidates it worked perfectly.
I still firmly believe that open, tracable trackable voting will fix all of the current problems. And cause no new problems that aren't possible under today's system.
If that's what the legislatures demand. But until they quit trying to subsidize their cronies who make voting machines, or getting all dizzy at the sight of a slick sales glossy, it ain't gonna happen.
There were similar probs with paper votes in Athens Tn in 1946.
Twenty-odd centuries earlier they voted by scratching a mark on a pottery fragment and dropping it into a bucket.