Think about it... if praying for someone's recovery actually makes things worse, then it seems there's something at work here rather than just prayer. If we assume God exists, it's illogical to think that prayers would make the subject worse. If there's no God and prayers are no more than positive thoughts, it's still illogical to think that such positive thoughts would make the subject worse.
Whether or not God exists, it seems the results are illogical and there must be some other variable in play. While I guess that could be the subject of some other study, it would seem worthwhile with such an illogical result that the investigators would more carefully review their processes to try to figure out what other variable is in play.
I saw this article a few days ago. My opinion was "so what?" I'm a Christian and I do believe in prayer. However, this study was inherently suspect. The study basically had a prayer group that apparently didn't know the subject praying (or not) for their recovery. For moral and ethical reasons, they didn't ask those that were close to the subject to stop praying. So you have a group of people that don't know the subject praying, along with the subject's family and friends that are already praying--it's not surprising that the unknown group of strangers had little or no effect beyond that of the people that were already praying for the subject.
The only way to really test this study would be to have everyone (including close family and friends) withhold prayer (or not) and measure the difference. But, as this study said, that would raise a whole mess of moral and ethical complications.
It's always entertaining that the same people that criticize others for not using their brains are the same people who believe in the controlled demolition 9/11 theory. It's mostly unintelligent, anti-Bush people with a distinct incapability of understanding chemistry and physics. Yet somehow they criticize others for not using their brains. Amazing.
I recently had to decide on whether or not to get a Treo 650. I had read all the complaints but also knew someone that had a Treo 600 (600 no less!) and couldn't say enough good things about it. So I made the plunge.
I absolutely love my Treo. I use it as my exclusive personal line--I don't have a home phone line. It just works. I can browse the web, use all the Palm apps I'm used to using, use Bluetooth, use it to let my laptop get to the Internet if I do not have Internet connectivity.
It has reset once, but that was because I was using a third-party multi-protocol stay-resident instant messaging app. I found I didn't use that much anyway so I deleted it and haven't had any problems since.
I agree that stability problems seem to be third party apps rather than the phone or OS itself. In any case, I wouldn't swap my Treo for a Blackberry if you paid me.
Bush has the worst national security record since Pearl Harbor, and he's considered one of the most conservative presidents since Reagan.
There have been three presidents since Reagan. GWB is really the only president we've had since Reagan that even comes close to being conservative. Saying he's one of the "most conservative presidents since Reagan" when that subset of presidents includes his father (which many consider to be the end of the Reagan era and the beginning of the Clinton era), Clinton (which no-one claims was conservative), and GWB himself, is a nonsensical statement to make. Your above statement just reads funny since the expression would normally imply that GWB is far more conservative than a relatively large set of presidents to which you are comparing him to show just how extreme GWB is. The fact is, you're only comparing him with two other presidents and neither were conservative at all... so suggesting that he is far more conservative when the other two weren't conservative at all is a silly statement.
Thanks for the early-AM entertainment, though.
As for preferring a liberal approach to national security, let's just say that after Pearl Harbor was attacked I'm glad we didn't sit around wondering if we would offend the Japanese or Germans by taking up arms or think that, by doing so, we'd raise their ire and surmise that we'd be better off not doing anything so that we would be better liked. Doing nothing to protect ourselves does not guarantee that we will be better liked or that terrorists will be any less offended by our support of Israel or presence in the Persian Gulf.
Interesting that RFID usually seems to be part of the evil things Slashdot hates (Microsoft, SCO, patents, privacy violations with RFID, etc.), but as soon as it's brought up in a religious context, suddenly RFID is not evil... religion is evil and RFID is defended.
So get a cheap throw-away phone and a real smartphone/Treo. When you're going to go camping, etc. just take the chip out of your smartphone and put it in the throw-away phone. Problem solved.
Your point of wanting to not have to worry about it is very valid. I have a Treo and while I'd have no trouble taking it to a party or camping, I might not want take it to a hike in the sand dunes. So for that I have an extra throw-away phone and I can just slap my SIM chip in there if I'm going somewhere I don't want to have to be concerned for the Treo's wellbeing.
Get a Treo. It's a Palm with an integrated phone, but you definitely don't lose any of the Palm-ness. It's been one of the best pieces of electronics I've bought in recent years.
I can agree that pen-based PDA-only devices might not last much longer, but pen-based phones seem entirely logical to me. The problem isn't the pen-based aspect of the PDA, it's that the PDA doesn't do anything else.
I bought a Palm a few years ago and used it actively for probably a couple of months. Then I just stopped. It just wasn't convenient to carry my cell phone and my PDA. The problem wasn't the pen, the problem was the extra device.
As I had to recently decide what kind of phone I was going to get, I decided to spring for the Treo and see if it would help me out. Ever since then, I can't imagine how I got along without it. It has a pen which I sometimes use, sometimes don't. Just depends on what I'm doing. But there are definitely many times that the pen is a lot easier to use than a keyboard.
I haven't read TFA and I don't plan to right now... but I'd just say that based on the summary, I'd be kind of suspicious of what we're being told. It speaks of many votes being cast with timestamps 2 weeks before the election in the middle of the night. If someone was going to do this, perhaps they'd set the clock to the day of the election to avoid that problem? And why wasn't the machine verified to be cleared prior to the election beginning? And if a machine was powered down 128 times (an interesting perfect factor of 2, by the way) on election day and if we assume that the election day lasted 12 hours, that's powering down more than 10 times per hour--or once every 6 minutes. Surely someone would have actually noticed that?
I'm not saying things went perfect on this (or any other) election day, and I'm against closed-source voting solutions that are difficult or impossible to audit. But unless this summary is completely out to lunch (wouldn't be the first time), I'd be as or more skeptical of this report than of the election itself.
Sure, over a sufficiently long time-line the balance is restored as newly skilled people enter the workforce, but that doesn't help the specific people that were displaced (they were put out of work!).
Maybe they should have spent some of their severely over-inflated union salary to continue their education and make them competitive in a changing world, realizing that $30/hr (or whatever it is they made/make) for fastening a door on a chasis isn't a gravy train that's going to last forever when you have Mexicans and Chinese available to work for dollars a day... or robots that are willing to work for even less.
People don't care that the economy is better or worse off due to globalisation: They just want their own paycheck to arrive every two weeks.
These people have to become more proactive about their jobs and life, and realize that there are other proactive people that will reap the benefits and leave them in the dust if they don't. Life isn't about getting a comfortable job and then becoming complacent for 40 years until you retire. If it ever was, it's not anymore.
My compliments on your choice to drive through Death Valley. One of the most amazing places in the country, though I'm sure your Mountain View to Las Vegas trip didn't take you to the most interesting parts of DV. Still, kudos to you for not avoiding the park entirely!:)
Problem is we don't know what exactly is sustainable, and we don't know how long it will take to get there. I think the current American lifestyle is unsustainable -- if everyone on the planet lived as we did it wouldn't work.
On one hand you say we don't know what exactly is sustainable, then you state that the American lifestyle isn't sustainable. So which is it?
Seriously, if everyone on the planet lived as we did, the gross economic output of the world would be an order of magnitude higher than it is now and it's entirely possible that it would work. Don't forget that not only do we consume more than other nations, we produce a hell of a lot more. If the entire world did that, things would not be as dire as many suspect.
This is not meant to be uncaring, racist, or crass, but there are a lot of nations that--even though they don't consume much--are a net drain on the world. This may be no fault of their own (though it probably is, in large part, the fault of their governments). But, for example, if we could make every nation in Africa as productive as the U.S., the world economy would probably overheat and we'd have to increase interest rates even further to keep uncontrolled growth in check.
You're right that if everyone in Africa continued to produce what they produce now but also lived an American lifestyle, that would be unsustainable. But if everyone consumed and produced like Americans, that's an entirely different story and it isn't reasonable to assume that it "wouldn't work."
Since when was Clinton a leftist? Was he for redistribution of wealth?
Uhhhh, YES.
Socialization of the means of production?
Who knows how far he would have gone if he thought he could get away with it, but attempting to socialize about 1/7th of the U.S. economy was definitely a good first step in that direction, don't you think?
Seriously, take a look at some truly left-leaning countries like Sweden or even France, and try to understand that we have NOTHING even on the left side of the fence in the US.
Just because Europe does something doesn't mean that we should use it as the way things should be. Just because it seems that much of Europe has embraced the economic model they were supposedly resisting during the cold war doesn't make Clinton any less leftist. Clinton engaged in wealth redistribution and he attempted an unprecedented level of socialism in the economy. Luckily, the latter effort completely failed and the former effort was mostly undone by Bush.
If you want high taxes and socialism, there are plenty of places outside the U.S. that will give you exactly what you want.
There is nothing you can do to stop a well funded suicidally driven person. Period.
You can attempt to distract him so he's blowing things up on the other side of the world rather than in your neighborhood. And one thing you can't do is do nothing. Maybe it works for you, but sitting around waiting for some terrorist to kill me or someone I love is not an option.
Capitulation to the demands of the terrorists are, really, leaving Saudi Arabia (I have no problem with that) but more importantly abandoning our ally, Israel. The latter is not acceptable. So saying we should try to remove the reason they're mad at us is not something we can consider--we can't turn our back on an ally just because a bunch of terrorists want us to. Even if you don't personally like Israel, for better or worse they are our ally--and we can't let bands of thugs dictate who we choose to be our allies.
So given that we can't do nothing and we can't really make them happy without letting them dictate our foreign policy and choose our allies for us, what can we do?
I'm not saying the War in Iraq was necessary and I'm not saying there isn't a lot of B.S. involved in the War on Terror. But if we're going to paint it with a black and white brush, I think I'd prefer the brush Bush is using to the brush some people here would advocate using.
I have both audio and data CDs I burned way back in, what, 1996? They still work perfectly. The first audio CD I burned at that time has spent the last 10 years in my car in the heat of Mexico. Still works perfectly.
Then a disclosure of the following would silence the alien hunters:
No, nothing will silence the alien hunters. Conspiracy theorists believe what they believe on faith, not on fact. If the government issued the statement you suggested, the alien hunters/conspiracy theorists would certainly reply, "They're just saying that because that's what they want you to believe."
Just because someone/something doesn't often admit it's wrong doesn't mean they're right the rest of the time. Some of the people that were most wrong are those that will never retract or concede.
Not if you're in the minority, and the majority decides it doesn't like your kind.
Granted. And there should be checks on what the majority can do and how it can do it, that's why we have a Constitution and three branches to check each other. But if someone is going to be unjustly abused, I rather it be a minority than the majority. That doesn't make it any more right, but at least the number of people abused is less and at least it takes 50% + 1 to authorize the abuse. That's a lower risk than if it takes less than 50% to authorize the abuse.
Seriously, why would you choose Opera over Firefox?
I like the integrated browser and email. Although I liked it better before version 8.5 due to some weirdness they did about opening multiple mail windows, but that's another story. I still find that it takes less memory and is generally more efficient than having both Firefox and Evolution open on the desktop.
Opera may be a fine browser, but we already have a really good (and open) thing going on with Firefox.
True. I'd seriously consider Firefox if it had integrated and awesome email handling. The email features in Opera still feel like a work-in-progress but I wasn't much more impressed with Evolution so I just went with Opera and was able to run one less program at a time.
Personally I'd like to see Google purchase Opera. It might get some real development happening on Opera. And with Google backing Opera I won't run into the occasional site that only wants to work with IE or Mozilla for no particular reason. Granted, those are the minority and I've always been able to find a competitor that does work with Opera, but it's still annoying.
I've wondered the same thing. I've been living outside the US for the last decade in a third world country so a lot of the innovations in cellular technology have passed me by since they aren't available here.
But I'm about to move back to the U.S. and am starting to pay attention so I can buy the best option for me when I get there. I've been wondering what all the fuss was with Blackberry after seeing my friend's Treo with which he has connected to our server via SSH, got multiple chat clients working simultaneously, taking pictures, and sending them, etc. So I've been wondering why anyone would get a Blackberry and buy a separate Blackberry plan from Tmobile.
I personally think I'll be getting a Treo or something like that. I can't imagine any reason I'd be inclined to go with a proprietary Blackberry.
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Think about it... if praying for someone's recovery actually makes things worse, then it seems there's something at work here rather than just prayer. If we assume God exists, it's illogical to think that prayers would make the subject worse. If there's no God and prayers are no more than positive thoughts, it's still illogical to think that such positive thoughts would make the subject worse.
Whether or not God exists, it seems the results are illogical and there must be some other variable in play. While I guess that could be the subject of some other study, it would seem worthwhile with such an illogical result that the investigators would more carefully review their processes to try to figure out what other variable is in play.
The only way to really test this study would be to have everyone (including close family and friends) withhold prayer (or not) and measure the difference. But, as this study said, that would raise a whole mess of moral and ethical complications.
I absolutely love my Treo. I use it as my exclusive personal line--I don't have a home phone line. It just works. I can browse the web, use all the Palm apps I'm used to using, use Bluetooth, use it to let my laptop get to the Internet if I do not have Internet connectivity.
It has reset once, but that was because I was using a third-party multi-protocol stay-resident instant messaging app. I found I didn't use that much anyway so I deleted it and haven't had any problems since.
I agree that stability problems seem to be third party apps rather than the phone or OS itself. In any case, I wouldn't swap my Treo for a Blackberry if you paid me.
There have been three presidents since Reagan. GWB is really the only president we've had since Reagan that even comes close to being conservative. Saying he's one of the "most conservative presidents since Reagan" when that subset of presidents includes his father (which many consider to be the end of the Reagan era and the beginning of the Clinton era), Clinton (which no-one claims was conservative), and GWB himself, is a nonsensical statement to make. Your above statement just reads funny since the expression would normally imply that GWB is far more conservative than a relatively large set of presidents to which you are comparing him to show just how extreme GWB is. The fact is, you're only comparing him with two other presidents and neither were conservative at all... so suggesting that he is far more conservative when the other two weren't conservative at all is a silly statement.
Thanks for the early-AM entertainment, though.
As for preferring a liberal approach to national security, let's just say that after Pearl Harbor was attacked I'm glad we didn't sit around wondering if we would offend the Japanese or Germans by taking up arms or think that, by doing so, we'd raise their ire and surmise that we'd be better off not doing anything so that we would be better liked. Doing nothing to protect ourselves does not guarantee that we will be better liked or that terrorists will be any less offended by our support of Israel or presence in the Persian Gulf.
Your point of wanting to not have to worry about it is very valid. I have a Treo and while I'd have no trouble taking it to a party or camping, I might not want take it to a hike in the sand dunes. So for that I have an extra throw-away phone and I can just slap my SIM chip in there if I'm going somewhere I don't want to have to be concerned for the Treo's wellbeing.
I bought a Palm a few years ago and used it actively for probably a couple of months. Then I just stopped. It just wasn't convenient to carry my cell phone and my PDA. The problem wasn't the pen, the problem was the extra device.
As I had to recently decide what kind of phone I was going to get, I decided to spring for the Treo and see if it would help me out. Ever since then, I can't imagine how I got along without it. It has a pen which I sometimes use, sometimes don't. Just depends on what I'm doing. But there are definitely many times that the pen is a lot easier to use than a keyboard.
I'm not saying things went perfect on this (or any other) election day, and I'm against closed-source voting solutions that are difficult or impossible to audit. But unless this summary is completely out to lunch (wouldn't be the first time), I'd be as or more skeptical of this report than of the election itself.
Maybe they should have spent some of their severely over-inflated union salary to continue their education and make them competitive in a changing world, realizing that $30/hr (or whatever it is they made/make) for fastening a door on a chasis isn't a gravy train that's going to last forever when you have Mexicans and Chinese available to work for dollars a day... or robots that are willing to work for even less.
People don't care that the economy is better or worse off due to globalisation: They just want their own paycheck to arrive every two weeks.
These people have to become more proactive about their jobs and life, and realize that there are other proactive people that will reap the benefits and leave them in the dust if they don't. Life isn't about getting a comfortable job and then becoming complacent for 40 years until you retire. If it ever was, it's not anymore.
On one hand you say we don't know what exactly is sustainable, then you state that the American lifestyle isn't sustainable. So which is it?
Seriously, if everyone on the planet lived as we did, the gross economic output of the world would be an order of magnitude higher than it is now and it's entirely possible that it would work. Don't forget that not only do we consume more than other nations, we produce a hell of a lot more. If the entire world did that, things would not be as dire as many suspect.
This is not meant to be uncaring, racist, or crass, but there are a lot of nations that--even though they don't consume much--are a net drain on the world. This may be no fault of their own (though it probably is, in large part, the fault of their governments). But, for example, if we could make every nation in Africa as productive as the U.S., the world economy would probably overheat and we'd have to increase interest rates even further to keep uncontrolled growth in check.
You're right that if everyone in Africa continued to produce what they produce now but also lived an American lifestyle, that would be unsustainable. But if everyone consumed and produced like Americans, that's an entirely different story and it isn't reasonable to assume that it "wouldn't work."
Uhhhh, YES.
Socialization of the means of production?
Who knows how far he would have gone if he thought he could get away with it, but attempting to socialize about 1/7th of the U.S. economy was definitely a good first step in that direction, don't you think?
Seriously, take a look at some truly left-leaning countries like Sweden or even France, and try to understand that we have NOTHING even on the left side of the fence in the US.
Just because Europe does something doesn't mean that we should use it as the way things should be. Just because it seems that much of Europe has embraced the economic model they were supposedly resisting during the cold war doesn't make Clinton any less leftist. Clinton engaged in wealth redistribution and he attempted an unprecedented level of socialism in the economy. Luckily, the latter effort completely failed and the former effort was mostly undone by Bush.
If you want high taxes and socialism, there are plenty of places outside the U.S. that will give you exactly what you want.
You can attempt to distract him so he's blowing things up on the other side of the world rather than in your neighborhood. And one thing you can't do is do nothing. Maybe it works for you, but sitting around waiting for some terrorist to kill me or someone I love is not an option.
Capitulation to the demands of the terrorists are, really, leaving Saudi Arabia (I have no problem with that) but more importantly abandoning our ally, Israel. The latter is not acceptable. So saying we should try to remove the reason they're mad at us is not something we can consider--we can't turn our back on an ally just because a bunch of terrorists want us to. Even if you don't personally like Israel, for better or worse they are our ally--and we can't let bands of thugs dictate who we choose to be our allies.
So given that we can't do nothing and we can't really make them happy without letting them dictate our foreign policy and choose our allies for us, what can we do?
I'm not saying the War in Iraq was necessary and I'm not saying there isn't a lot of B.S. involved in the War on Terror. But if we're going to paint it with a black and white brush, I think I'd prefer the brush Bush is using to the brush some people here would advocate using.
No, nothing will silence the alien hunters. Conspiracy theorists believe what they believe on faith, not on fact. If the government issued the statement you suggested, the alien hunters/conspiracy theorists would certainly reply, "They're just saying that because that's what they want you to believe."
Granted. And there should be checks on what the majority can do and how it can do it, that's why we have a Constitution and three branches to check each other. But if someone is going to be unjustly abused, I rather it be a minority than the majority. That doesn't make it any more right, but at least the number of people abused is less and at least it takes 50% + 1 to authorize the abuse. That's a lower risk than if it takes less than 50% to authorize the abuse.
Opera may be a fine browser, but we already have a really good (and open) thing going on with Firefox.
True. I'd seriously consider Firefox if it had integrated and awesome email handling. The email features in Opera still feel like a work-in-progress but I wasn't much more impressed with Evolution so I just went with Opera and was able to run one less program at a time.
Personally I'd like to see Google purchase Opera. It might get some real development happening on Opera. And with Google backing Opera I won't run into the occasional site that only wants to work with IE or Mozilla for no particular reason. Granted, those are the minority and I've always been able to find a competitor that does work with Opera, but it's still annoying.
But I'm about to move back to the U.S. and am starting to pay attention so I can buy the best option for me when I get there. I've been wondering what all the fuss was with Blackberry after seeing my friend's Treo with which he has connected to our server via SSH, got multiple chat clients working simultaneously, taking pictures, and sending them, etc. So I've been wondering why anyone would get a Blackberry and buy a separate Blackberry plan from Tmobile.
I personally think I'll be getting a Treo or something like that. I can't imagine any reason I'd be inclined to go with a proprietary Blackberry.
Majority rule might not be perfect, but it's a lot better than minority rule.