While the measured facts may be awfully tough for you to interpret, scientists have put quite a lot of work into successfully interpreting them
I doubt their interpretation, because I doubt their integrity. This particular aspect of science has immediate and vast political implications, which creates bias.
[...] the results of which, I would bet, you refuse to accept.
Just as those "right-wingers" and "fascists" did, who refused to accept Walter Duranty's reports as "facts", and thus rejected theories based on them.
Climatology is not a precise science, a lot of stuff is open to interpretation, and someone predisposed to see Capitalism as evil will likely find something to further their presupposition.
But the book portraits Republicans as "at war on science" does not limit itself to climate. Disciplines like bio-ethics are discussed too, and the Republican stance on them is also deemed anti-scientific. Do you have many facts on bio-ethics?
History itself is not a science and neither is bio-ethics.
None of the disciplines listed by Chris C. Mooney as attacked by Republicans qualify as "science" under your standard. Yet he accuses the party of waging the war on science (and a number of Slashdot-participants agree).
That his accusations reveal severe bias against Republican candidates, was the point of my posting, which started this thread.
Re:Social or physical sciences?
on
Science Debate 2008
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Global warming and the Holodom are entirely different things, disagreeing about the magnitude of historical facts may be a matter of opinion, but disagreeing about the magnitude of easily measurable physical facts is a matter of stupidity.
It follows very quickly from the theory of global warming (more specifically from the human responsibility for it), that the industrialized countries have to go through large pains and expenses to alter their behavior and lose some of their competitive advantage in the process. Inside those countries, "the rich" are also made to undertake the most changes to their lifestyles. It is not beyond reasonable to suspect, some of those conclusions are produced with "social justice" and similar crappy theories in mind... Facts? Yes, those are objective in themselves (unless fabricated), but their compilations usually aren't — a skillful omission here and there and you are good...
easily measurable physical facts
They are easy to measure, but hard to interpret. Physics does not (yet?) have all the answers. The Earth has undergone drastic changes in climate and otherwise long before humans even existed and some when we did exist, but were unable to affect the planet in a noticeable way. There is no proof, we are responsible for the warming weather today. Whether that is true or not, the debate has long ago gone political...
You're aware that there's a major difference between a HISTORIAN and a SCIENTIST, right?
History is no less a science than, say, bio-ethics, and much more of a science than "separation of church and state". Yet the book "The Republican War on Science" attacks Republicans for its stance on just that, among other things:
Mooney discusses the Republican party's stance on science, and in particular that of the George W. Bush administration, with regard to issues such as climate change, the evolution-creation controversy, bioethics, alternative medicine, pollution, separation of church and state
Re:"The Republican War on Science"?
on
Science Debate 2008
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· Score: 4, Insightful
When a political party takes consistently anti-science attitudes, there is no lack of objectivity in pointing that out.
Disagreeing with a scientist is not "anti-science" in itself. One may claim, that Republicans disagree with disproportionally many scientists, and that that is the evidence of contempt for science itself. However, that argument falls apart, when one realizes, that the vast majority of scientists work for the government and need government subsidies to do their work (and support their lifestyles). This provides them with a strong bias (for the scrupulous) and an even stronger incentive (for the less scrupulous) to support the political party, which stands for more intensive "wealth redistribution" (Democrats) and, consequently, to attack its opponents (Republicans).
The debate on climate, for example, still rages on, so I'll give you an example from an earlier era.
For decades the fans of Socialism/Communism among historians were dismissing "rumors" of Soviet atrocities as unsubstantiated attacks on the country of "workers and peasants". This was, in fact, the dominant opinion among professional historians (most of them were also government-paid)... Assistance by (Soviet-duped and/or Soviet-sponsored) journalists did not help either. Boy, did this "intellectuals" have a stinking rotten egg on their collective mugs, when the Soviet archives were (briefly) opened up to researchers in the early 1990ies, and the extents of Soviet crimes turned out to exceed, what even the most vicious "right wing" accusers have suspected!
Were those "right-wingers" anti-science? I don't think so... Were they called that on occasion by exasperated professional historians, pinko-journalists, and actual communists? Of course!
So, please, excuse me, if I'm skeptical of a scientist's opinion, when I'm implored to just believe him/her... They have "cried wolf" in the past.
It's made hotmail unusable, so I switched to yahoo... And not microsoft has the opportunity to break that, too. Antitrust officials? Bah... They're ignorant or this shit wouldn't happen.
Not sure, what you mean. Yahoo-video was not working with anything but Windows for ages, and now the only way to get it is through Flash (a real monopoly). New version of My Yahoo! is not only terribly slow on Firefox/X11, some aspects of it — like Avatars — required Windows or MacOS. That now requires Flash too, which simply does not exist for my FreeBSD/amd64.
Is that evidence of an illegal trust, or simply a legitimate decision to spend the most efforts addressing the needs of the most users?
"The Republican War on Science"?
on
Science Debate 2008
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· Score: 5, Insightful
linked up with Chapman and two other proponents, journalist Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science
Something makes me think, this will not be an entirely objective undertaking...
This sounds like you are suggesting that when people are poor for whatever reason they shouldn't get food or shelter or medical care?
No, I'm suggesting, they should not be getting a music-player to begin with. We are talking about government assistance to colleges here. What kind of students are these, who are receiving government money and yet have not only the players, but the time to pirate songs too?
As for food, shelter, medical care — or anything else — well, nobody should be getting it from others against their will (as the taxes are collected). But that's a different topic...
The new "basic" and indispensable appliance, is not it?
Let's see, the "poor" must be able to afford (at somebody else's dime, of course) food, shelter, medical care, a TV, and a car. Now the ability to "share" somebody else's music is also viewed as important by Slashdot's illiberal crowd...
What is "sacred" is fairness and decency and humanity and compassion and love of one's fellow man.
A man, who violates property rights, no longer qualifies as "fellow". There are good reasons, for example, why we deprive criminals of the sacred rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness...
If you think the creators of this music feel that the record companies are appropriate guardians of what should be done with their creations, you live in a reality which is entirely of your own 'creation'.
There is no law forcing anybody to do business with a record company. Thus any and all such business is volunteer. No musician is obligated to sell their wares to a "label", and no consumer is obligated to purchase from them.
Sometimes it can be immoral to try to crush other human beings in enforcing one's "legal" rights.
You are a lawyer — stick to legal terms. "Crushed" is not one of them.
before whatever traumatic thing happened to one of your photographs
Oh, yes, that's right. It must've been something happening to one of my own works, right? I mean, why else would somebody think of defending other people's rights? May I conclude, you are a profligate copier of other people's music — or would not be defending them so much, would you?
that you were a human being first.
I'm a lot more than a "human being". Among other things, I'm a citizen of country, which respects private property — intellectual property included. And I strongly prefer it that way...
What's mine is mine — no matter, how much better use you could've made of it, or how "useful" confiscating it from me would be to "the community" (and even to myself). But do keep yourself busy with mp3-sharing. One less of your kind to work on rent control and other — even graver — infringements on the property rights of others.
Put another way, not you, nor the government has the authority to tell the people what is "right". If the people desire it, the government's responsibility is to [...] deliver it.
Really? You did not think this through very well, did you? How about the majority voting to kill someone they dislike?..
In my opinion, there is nothing worse than someone badmouthing the country he was born in.
Really? Nothing worse? How about murder? Is not that worse than badmouthing a country?
People who are ashamed of who they are don't have the moral right to criticize anybody.
Says who?
Re:I don't understand...
on
The Future of XML
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Yes, it's easier on the eye
Except it is not even that! Even when nicely formatted, it is not... It sucks. It can't be processed with the likes of awk and sed. You can't print it. It takes A LOT more space (try compressing it) and it is hard to author. In addition it takes noticeable CPU-power to parse and application memory to store.
I'm forced to use it by the software vendor (who are stupid enough to use it even between their own components), and am fed up to the gills... These idiots use it for log-files, which they consequently don't write out, until a task is done, defeating most of the purpose of a log file.
Of course taxes pay for those things, d'uh. By somebody else's expense, you mean everybody's expense. The people that want them pay taxes to you know.
Those poor people don't pay enough taxes to cover the costs of those things. They need richer people to help them pay for it. That's the point — her promise to provide ever more of those things (US already more per pupil than most countries, for example) at the rich minority's expense is extremely appealing to the poorer majority. But one person — one vote, so the minority loses... Slowly.
Everyone needs schools. [...] regardless if the have children or not.
That may or not be a valid argument, but it is an off-topic one. Hillary's support base is among people, who need those service for themselves and/or their children. It is bad enough when some rose-eyed idiot votes to increase everybody's taxes to help someone else. But it is the worst, when "those in need" have the power over "the rich" purses themselves.
Which is why I have this disenfranchising proposal: if you are now, or have been within the past 5 years a recipient of public assistance, you are not entitled to vote. This may not eliminate the beneficiaries of school subsidies, but, at least, the more egregious cases of Welfare and MedicAid recipients will not be deciding, whether their own incomes should be increased.
Here is a question for you:
Indeed: Have you ever knowingly and volunteerely paid more in taxes, than you had to?
Wow! A real Commie-agitator on Slashdot... Somewhere an empty noose is swinging on a lamp-post waiting for you...
In other words, people's wishes are for a more socialist society.
Yes, there is a strong push towards it. Those "wishes" don't make it right, however.
You know, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
No, you are confusing things. "To each according to his need" is a Communist, rather than Socialist ideal. Nothing wrong with it in itself, except that all known attempts to achieve it in practice involved mass-murder on unprecedented scale. Which is why you belong on that lamp-post I mentioned at the beginning.
There is nothing wrong with having free higher education, nationalized medical care, better public transportation system, or affordable and accessible childcare.
There is nothing wrong, except "free" is impossible. Somebody (the rich minority) is paying for it. But the majority is voting for it so, of course, the boiling will only get worse — it is self-perpetuating. The only thing stopping the majority from voting themselves more and more of the minority's money, are some scruples and the minority's protests. Those barriers continue to erode as the temperature in the pot is rising.
You were a child once, remember?
Yes, I was. And the only reason, I lived my childhood in a "free" kindergarten, was that our Commie-government would not let us escape to this "brutal" Capitalist world. It was not until 1990-ies, that we were able to emigrate.
When I speak against Socialism, I know, what I'm talking about. You, on the other hand, are posting out of your ass.
Because "we the people" not just let it — we demand it to, and vote out people, who are opposed to it...
When the Federal Income Tax was first introduced in 1864, it was only 3%. We are now boiled up 35% (having touched 88% in 1942) and you don't seem to scream.
So, pardon me, if I don't object to Customs Agents copying (not "confiscating") data for examination too much — they've been searching through travelers' material possessions since their "service" was introduced...
We are now facing a very real danger of Ms. Clinton getting elected — because, as analysts say, of support for her among single women, who "desperately need" the "schools, mass transit, childcare", that she promises to deliver them. What those analysts — and everyone else — omit, is that those women want all of these benefits "for free", or, as we know, at somebody else's expense.
In other words, don't accuse the government — it just follows the people's wishes...
Police state anyone? Things are getting worse and worse.
Their authority to search you has been established since forever. Their copying (not, as the headline claims "confiscating") of your data for examination is only logical...
Yes, with balances like that a very little bit of fraud can really go far. Such fraud can be performed with or without the hackable voting machines. Like I said, I am not sure, the Diebold machines being discussed make the situation noticeably worse...
I'd like to think, it is the Americans — plugging eavesdropping equipment onto those cables. It is a technically challenging thing with optical "wires", hence the disruptions.
That's my theory, although I realize, that expecting such level of competence and determination from the government of our present size is rather optimistic of me...
But instead, this story will become a footnote. Precisely because there's an election going on. An election that is threatened by these untrustworthy machines.
Although, indeed, appalling, the threat is overblown. AFAIU, it would still require someone to visit each machine in person in order to affect its results. This simply is not enough to sway the overall results of an important election.
Even if the "swingiest" district of the "swingiest" State is attacked via this exploit, the "winner" would still need to really win in a great many other places. This happened before. For example, in 1960:
[...]
Fannin County, Texas had only 4,895 registered voters. BUT 6,138 votes were cast, 75% of which went to Kennedy.
Angelina County, Texas: In one precinct, only 86 people voted yet the final tally was 147 for Kennedy, 24 for Nixon.
[...] found a cemetary in one Chicago precinct where the names on the head stones were registered voters who had actually voted!
[...] visited the Chicago address where 56 Kennedy voters listed their address. What he found was an abandoned, demolished house.
It did affect the outcome, but only because Nixon's real win was razor-thin to begin with... Unless a truly major force (like a foreign government) is financing the nation-wide hacking, the "razor-thin" is still a required quality. And a major force will, likely, find it easier to spend its money and efforts via (largely) legal covert and overt media-campaigning, rather than the highly illegal hacking.
I wish such fraud was completely gone, but that may be impossible. Whether Diebold-machines make the situation worse is not immediately obvious...
For us, since we can't guarantee our users store their confidential data in any particular location
How do your users manage to put their files outside of where you permit them (plus/tmp and/var/tmp)?
There are large swathes of directories, where no user's stuff can be saved. These can be made accessible directly — without encryption and the associated performance penalty.
I realize, that it may be simpler (and still within budget) for you to just use a hardware solution to encrypt everything — my point is, that is not the only option. What I'm describing is a workable compromise...
A reasonable compromise would be to encrypt only the "interesting" data — such as the/home partition and, maybe, the/var/log (or simply make sure the particular log-files you wish to protect — such as maillog — reside on the encrypted/home).
Whoever tries to crack your laptop is unlikely to be interested in the standard-issue binaries you may have installed...
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt their interpretation, because I doubt their integrity. This particular aspect of science has immediate and vast political implications, which creates bias.
Just as those "right-wingers" and "fascists" did, who refused to accept Walter Duranty's reports as "facts", and thus rejected theories based on them.
Climatology is not a precise science, a lot of stuff is open to interpretation, and someone predisposed to see Capitalism as evil will likely find something to further their presupposition.
But the book portraits Republicans as "at war on science" does not limit itself to climate. Disciplines like bio-ethics are discussed too, and the Republican stance on them is also deemed anti-scientific. Do you have many facts on bio-ethics?
None of the disciplines listed by Chris C. Mooney as attacked by Republicans qualify as "science" under your standard. Yet he accuses the party of waging the war on science (and a number of Slashdot-participants agree).
That his accusations reveal severe bias against Republican candidates, was the point of my posting, which started this thread.
It follows very quickly from the theory of global warming (more specifically from the human responsibility for it), that the industrialized countries have to go through large pains and expenses to alter their behavior and lose some of their competitive advantage in the process. Inside those countries, "the rich" are also made to undertake the most changes to their lifestyles. It is not beyond reasonable to suspect, some of those conclusions are produced with "social justice" and similar crappy theories in mind... Facts? Yes, those are objective in themselves (unless fabricated), but their compilations usually aren't — a skillful omission here and there and you are good...
They are easy to measure, but hard to interpret. Physics does not (yet?) have all the answers. The Earth has undergone drastic changes in climate and otherwise long before humans even existed and some when we did exist, but were unable to affect the planet in a noticeable way. There is no proof, we are responsible for the warming weather today. Whether that is true or not, the debate has long ago gone political...
History is no less a science than, say, bio-ethics, and much more of a science than "separation of church and state". Yet the book "The Republican War on Science" attacks Republicans for its stance on just that, among other things:
Disagreeing with a scientist is not "anti-science" in itself. One may claim, that Republicans disagree with disproportionally many scientists, and that that is the evidence of contempt for science itself. However, that argument falls apart, when one realizes, that the vast majority of scientists work for the government and need government subsidies to do their work (and support their lifestyles). This provides them with a strong bias (for the scrupulous) and an even stronger incentive (for the less scrupulous) to support the political party, which stands for more intensive "wealth redistribution" (Democrats) and, consequently, to attack its opponents (Republicans).
The debate on climate, for example, still rages on, so I'll give you an example from an earlier era.
For decades the fans of Socialism/Communism among historians were dismissing "rumors" of Soviet atrocities as unsubstantiated attacks on the country of "workers and peasants". This was, in fact, the dominant opinion among professional historians (most of them were also government-paid)... Assistance by (Soviet-duped and/or Soviet-sponsored) journalists did not help either. Boy, did this "intellectuals" have a stinking rotten egg on their collective mugs, when the Soviet archives were (briefly) opened up to researchers in the early 1990ies, and the extents of Soviet crimes turned out to exceed, what even the most vicious "right wing" accusers have suspected!
Were those "right-wingers" anti-science? I don't think so... Were they called that on occasion by exasperated professional historians, pinko-journalists, and actual communists? Of course!
So, please, excuse me, if I'm skeptical of a scientist's opinion, when I'm implored to just believe him/her... They have "cried wolf" in the past.
Not sure, what you mean. Yahoo-video was not working with anything but Windows for ages, and now the only way to get it is through Flash (a real monopoly). New version of My Yahoo! is not only terribly slow on Firefox/X11, some aspects of it — like Avatars — required Windows or MacOS. That now requires Flash too, which simply does not exist for my FreeBSD/amd64.
Is that evidence of an illegal trust, or simply a legitimate decision to spend the most efforts addressing the needs of the most users?
Something makes me think, this will not be an entirely objective undertaking...
No, I'm suggesting, they should not be getting a music-player to begin with. We are talking about government assistance to colleges here. What kind of students are these, who are receiving government money and yet have not only the players, but the time to pirate songs too?
As for food, shelter, medical care — or anything else — well, nobody should be getting it from others against their will (as the taxes are collected). But that's a different topic...
The new "basic" and indispensable appliance, is not it?
Let's see, the "poor" must be able to afford (at somebody else's dime, of course) food, shelter, medical care, a TV, and a car. Now the ability to "share" somebody else's music is also viewed as important by Slashdot's illiberal crowd...
A man, who violates property rights, no longer qualifies as "fellow". There are good reasons, for example, why we deprive criminals of the sacred rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness...
There is no law forcing anybody to do business with a record company. Thus any and all such business is volunteer. No musician is obligated to sell their wares to a "label", and no consumer is obligated to purchase from them.
You are a lawyer — stick to legal terms. "Crushed" is not one of them.
Oh, yes, that's right. It must've been something happening to one of my own works, right? I mean, why else would somebody think of defending other people's rights? May I conclude, you are a profligate copier of other people's music — or would not be defending them so much, would you?
I'm a lot more than a "human being". Among other things, I'm a citizen of country, which respects private property — intellectual property included. And I strongly prefer it that way...
What's mine is mine — no matter, how much better use you could've made of it, or how "useful" confiscating it from me would be to "the community" (and even to myself). But do keep yourself busy with mp3-sharing. One less of your kind to work on rent control and other — even graver — infringements on the property rights of others.
Imaginary Property? You at the wrong forum to express worries about that...
Really? You did not think this through very well, did you? How about the majority voting to kill someone they dislike?..
Really? Nothing worse? How about murder? Is not that worse than badmouthing a country?
Says who?
Except it is not even that! Even when nicely formatted, it is not... It sucks. It can't be processed with the likes of awk and sed. You can't print it. It takes A LOT more space (try compressing it) and it is hard to author. In addition it takes noticeable CPU-power to parse and application memory to store.
I'm forced to use it by the software vendor (who are stupid enough to use it even between their own components), and am fed up to the gills... These idiots use it for log-files, which they consequently don't write out, until a task is done, defeating most of the purpose of a log file.
I wish, it was never invented...
Those poor people don't pay enough taxes to cover the costs of those things. They need richer people to help them pay for it. That's the point — her promise to provide ever more of those things (US already more per pupil than most countries, for example) at the rich minority's expense is extremely appealing to the poorer majority. But one person — one vote, so the minority loses... Slowly.
That may or not be a valid argument, but it is an off-topic one. Hillary's support base is among people, who need those service for themselves and/or their children. It is bad enough when some rose-eyed idiot votes to increase everybody's taxes to help someone else. But it is the worst, when "those in need" have the power over "the rich" purses themselves.
Which is why I have this disenfranchising proposal: if you are now, or have been within the past 5 years a recipient of public assistance, you are not entitled to vote. This may not eliminate the beneficiaries of school subsidies, but, at least, the more egregious cases of Welfare and MedicAid recipients will not be deciding, whether their own incomes should be increased.
Indeed: Have you ever knowingly and volunteerely paid more in taxes, than you had to?
Wow! A real Commie-agitator on Slashdot... Somewhere an empty noose is swinging on a lamp-post waiting for you...
Yes, there is a strong push towards it. Those "wishes" don't make it right, however.
No, you are confusing things. "To each according to his need" is a Communist, rather than Socialist ideal. Nothing wrong with it in itself, except that all known attempts to achieve it in practice involved mass-murder on unprecedented scale. Which is why you belong on that lamp-post I mentioned at the beginning.
There is nothing wrong, except "free" is impossible. Somebody (the rich minority) is paying for it. But the majority is voting for it so, of course, the boiling will only get worse — it is self-perpetuating. The only thing stopping the majority from voting themselves more and more of the minority's money, are some scruples and the minority's protests. Those barriers continue to erode as the temperature in the pot is rising.
Yes, I was. And the only reason, I lived my childhood in a "free" kindergarten, was that our Commie-government would not let us escape to this "brutal" Capitalist world. It was not until 1990-ies, that we were able to emigrate.
When I speak against Socialism, I know, what I'm talking about. You, on the other hand, are posting out of your ass.
Because "we the people" not just let it — we demand it to, and vote out people, who are opposed to it...
When the Federal Income Tax was first introduced in 1864, it was only 3%. We are now boiled up 35% (having touched 88% in 1942) and you don't seem to scream.
So, pardon me, if I don't object to Customs Agents copying (not "confiscating") data for examination too much — they've been searching through travelers' material possessions since their "service" was introduced...
We are now facing a very real danger of Ms. Clinton getting elected — because, as analysts say, of support for her among single women, who "desperately need" the "schools, mass transit, childcare", that she promises to deliver them. What those analysts — and everyone else — omit, is that those women want all of these benefits "for free", or, as we know, at somebody else's expense.
In other words, don't accuse the government — it just follows the people's wishes...
Their authority to search you has been established since forever. Their copying (not, as the headline claims "confiscating") of your data for examination is only logical...
Oh, well, you should've started with this info. All bets are off, of course...
Yes, with balances like that a very little bit of fraud can really go far. Such fraud can be performed with or without the hackable voting machines. Like I said, I am not sure, the Diebold machines being discussed make the situation noticeably worse...
I'd like to think, it is the Americans — plugging eavesdropping equipment onto those cables. It is a technically challenging thing with optical "wires", hence the disruptions.
That's my theory, although I realize, that expecting such level of competence and determination from the government of our present size is rather optimistic of me...
Although, indeed, appalling, the threat is overblown. AFAIU, it would still require someone to visit each machine in person in order to affect its results. This simply is not enough to sway the overall results of an important election.
Even if the "swingiest" district of the "swingiest" State is attacked via this exploit, the "winner" would still need to really win in a great many other places. This happened before. For example, in 1960:
It did affect the outcome, but only because Nixon's real win was razor-thin to begin with... Unless a truly major force (like a foreign government) is financing the nation-wide hacking, the "razor-thin" is still a required quality. And a major force will, likely, find it easier to spend its money and efforts via (largely) legal covert and overt media-campaigning, rather than the highly illegal hacking.
I wish such fraud was completely gone, but that may be impossible. Whether Diebold-machines make the situation worse is not immediately obvious...
How do your users manage to put their files outside of where you permit them (plus /tmp and /var/tmp)?
There are large swathes of directories, where no user's stuff can be saved. These can be made accessible directly — without encryption and the associated performance penalty.
I realize, that it may be simpler (and still within budget) for you to just use a hardware solution to encrypt everything — my point is, that is not the only option. What I'm describing is a workable compromise...
Which part of A < B => B > A don't you understand?
A reasonable compromise would be to encrypt only the "interesting" data — such as the /home partition and, maybe, the /var/log (or simply make sure the particular log-files you wish to protect — such as maillog — reside on the encrypted /home).
Whoever tries to crack your laptop is unlikely to be interested in the standard-issue binaries you may have installed...