Quote: "As part of our investigation, we attempted to determine i f data fabrication or falsification may have occurred and interviewed the subject, critics, and disciplinary experts in coming to our conclusions. As a result of our interviews we concluded: 1. The subject did not directly receive NSF research funding as a Principal Investigator until late 2001 or 2002. 2. The Subject's data is documented and available to researchers. 3. There are several concerns raised about the quality of the statistical analysis techniques that were used in the Subject's research. 4. There is no specific evidence that the Subject falsified or fabricated any data and no evidence that his actions amounted to research misconduct. 5. There was concern about how extensively the Subject's research had influenced the debate in the overall research field.
Analysis and Conclusion To recommend a finding of research misconduct, the preponderance of the evidence must show that with culpable intent the Subject committed an act that meets the definition of research misconduct (in this case, data fabrication or data falsification). The research in question was originally completed over 10 years ago. Although the Subject's data is still available and still the focus of significant critical examination, no direct evidence has been presented that indicates the Subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results. Much of the current debate focuses on the viability of the statistical procedures he eniployed, the statistics used to confirm the accuracy of the results, and the degree to which one specific set of data impacts the statistical results. These concerns are all appropriate for scientific debate and to assist the research community in directing future research efforts to improve understanding in this field of research. Such scientific debate is ongoing but does not, in itself, constitute evidence of research misconduct. Lacking any direct evidence of research misconduct, as defined under the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation, we are closing this investigation with no further action"
BASICALLY, they're saying that vague claims of misconduct are vague. Lacking specific allegations and further lacking a mandate (according to their rules) over his research, they simply closed the investigation.
That's a far f*cking cry from exoneration.
Is #2 even true? My understanding is that the raw data is missing.
Blame NPR for their shitty reporting and worthless web page that doesn't provide a link to the story, but to suggest that it wasn't a real study isn't very credible.
Tracing the researcher named in the NPR article, http://evolution-of-religion.com/team/ is the website for the team exploring the evolutionary consequence/value of religion - a subject I find fascinating and, due to the wide prevalence of religion across all human cultures, compelling.
The social value of 'religion' as a concept is well-proven.
At least one study has shown scientifically that people's behavior (in this case, children) was distinctly impacted positively by the concept of 'an invisible being watching me'. In the case I'm thinking of, children played a game that gave them both opportunities and rewards for cheating. Cheating, unsurprisingly, was endemic in the control group (no adult present). When an adult was present, the incidence of cheating was greatly reduced. When the children were told convincingly that there was an invisible person sitting in the same chair the adult had used, cheating was even LESS.
Further, there has been some discussion of the value of shared rites (usually religious) in predicting who will reliably follow a society's rules. If a person can't/won't reliably adhere to shared religious rites that supposedly are beneficial at little/no cost to the individual, this would predict that person will be unlikely to adhere to more important societal norms as well.
(One might further observe that this remains largely true, at least in the US. The left is politically characterized as individualist and chaotic, and the (religious) right as collectivist and 'marching in lockstep'. This has resulted in a balanced political landscape, despite a clear majority of voters self-identifying as Democrats (left of center).)
So the value of religion to early societies is pretty clear.
Nevertheless, I'd disagree with their conclusions here. They point to the rise of the great organized religions around the era of plague - this was also (unsurprisingly) the rise of widespread urbanization, probably something that I'd guess had more to do with both the spread of disease AND the rise of religion.
It doesn't take long reading through the daily news to see that - even if there was never a literal "fall" - that humanity needs some serious fucking redemption.
"...modern American anti-intellectual fundamentalism, while more noticeable to Americans, is neither the American nor the worldwide Christian norm"
One of the reasons for the misperception of how widespread this isn't, is deliberate: the secular Left and the media (also generally left-ish) find it...useful...to portray any churchgoer, any admitted Christian, as a fringe looney. It suits both their image of religion and, conveniently, their politics.
"1) YOU are the problem in this country right now. You and people like you. You can't be nothered with facts and any BS you hear is taken as absolute truth because you can't be bothered to think, or event RTFA. This was not a NASA study. This was done by some who happens to work at NASA," Let me quote the OP: "In a study carried out by NASA and Pennsylvania State University scientists". No, I didn't RTFA, but one could reasonably expect that the summary is well...consistently summarizing. If it was "some guy who works at NASA on his spare time" then I don't have any beef with it at all.
"2) A sci-fi story is not the same as a research. People who sai 'This author thought of it first" are clueless fucktwits." Apparently then "clueless fucktwits" are those who don't find a study interesting if it merely speculatively repeats what fiction has already explored. This just in: if Martians came to earth and were kicking our asses, they MIGHT be vulnerable to our diseases, maybe even the common cold! Is that really worth discussing?
"3) The odds that life exists out there has gone up considerable in the last 20 years. Are there other technical issue? certainly. At least from our current technology." The real odds that life actually exists out there are essentially UNCHANGED from 20, 100, or 5000 years ago. It's our understanding of the universe and our understanding of the realities of the chances, that has changed.
"4) I'm not sure why you trhink man isn't effecting tyhe climate and why it's OCD egoism to want to take action against it." I just recognize that man's history is to assume he's the center of the universe, until proven otherwise. I see a great parallel in the AGW discussion, where one side INSISTS that what we're seeing climatologically is "our fault", when a) looking at the history of the planet, insofar as we can tell, there have been cyclical jumps in temperature just about every 150-200 kiloyears. At least 4-5 cycles, perhaps more. We're actually overdue for the next one. b) the overwhelming impact of global-warming gasses is in WATER VAPOR, not CO2, and the human contribution of CO2 is a tiny, tiny percent. It seems particularist on the face of it to assert that we just 'happen' to be at the exact fulcrum of the system so that our 0.1% impact is the critical bit that pushes the system out of whack c) repeated historical surges in temperature have always been subsequently moderated. We're asserting with no evidence that this time, it apparently won't. To get back to the point, I see one side insisting we're the causal driver when it seems to me that it's more a systemic thing. We need an environmental Copernicus to prove that the system happens without us and whatever impact we're having is pretty much just lost in the static of random variation.
The reason China has a near-monopoly on rare earths isn't primarily economic, it's due to the heavy enviro restrictions on the mining (and more significantly) processing needed to get rare earths from their ore? substrate?.
A number of countries can develop a rare earths industry and have it be competitive, there just has to be an acceptance that it's a polluting industry.
1) this is a "study"? REALLY? And people wonder why our government is out of money, when bullshit like this rates the scientific focus of NASA? Please, let's have another article on how scientists are baffled that people are taking science less seriously following this one?
2) this is a relatively old trope from science fiction. Nothing new here at all. I can think of at least one AE van Vogt short story from the 1960s that had a similar theme.
3) if we're talking about it seriously, the likelihood of us encountering a spacefaring civilization within say, 500,000 years of tech development of us are vanishingly small. Beyond that, would either of us really even care the other exists? Or notice? I'm not going to go into it unless someone asks, but the math on this is at least as solid as the Drake equation.
4) this is a neat psychological extrapolation of the sort of OCD egoism that's driving much of the consensus around climate change today. The idea that some civilization penned in on some rocky world orbiting a peripheral average star might actually matter to a starfaring civilization is absurd, gross narcissism. We're still using CHEMICAL rockets - pretty much glorified fireworks - to get off our planet, for pete's sake.
To suggest that harsh penalties don't work as a deterrent flies in the face of all common sense. You're saying that the entire idea of graduated punishment simply doesn't work?. Do we implement life sentences for jaywalking? How about an hour of detention for serial rape and murder? Of course we don't - the punishment is scaled to fit the perceived significance of the crime, and if this is harsh enough, it of course will influence rational potential offenders.
Now, if the punishment is trivial, or the justice system is perceived to be so broken that the likelihood of actually being punished is small (or the jail time is so comfortable), then no, there's no deterrent effect.
Certain studies have suggested that CAPITAL offenses don't deter criminals on certain impulse crimes, studies themselves that are dubious - not taking into account that the actual rate of execution of death row inmates has never been higher than 1 in 1000, more like winning (losing) the lottery, and thus subject to reasonable doubt if such penalties would ever really be implemented from the view of a single individual criminal.
For that matter, let's flip to the other side of the coin - if the penalty for speeding was summary execution by the officer on the spot, are you really suggesting that wouldn't impact people's behavior? I know I'd be driving about half the speed limit and only drive when I possibly had to.
Secondly, yes, I think there's a reasonable presumption that rioters - seeing the success of the flashmob riots at overwhelming the capabilities of local law enforcement that's already being copied in the US - may try it again. Threatening to punish the ORGANIZERS severely strikes directly at the assholes that plan this stuff.
Read the OP. Hyperbole-poster said "Cops don't get fired for beating *and killing* peons like you and me."
In this case, nobody was killed. Mentioning it has no more relevance than asserting (wrongly) that 'cops don't get fired for committing genocide against Tutsis'.
Using such throwaway comments to amp-up the emotional response to an incident by implying something more significant happened is just a cheap rhetorical appeal to emotion.
Let me be abundantly clear: - I think MA's wiretapping law is stupid. That's the problem here. - I think the police used excessive force in that video (insofar as I can tell what was happening. Mr Jones tried to flee officers, but that doesn't justify the beatdown he got). Asher is clearly a racist (looking at his history), and should lose his retirement pension, if not face prosecution. The police should not be above the law, but I DO believe that they are entitled to the benefit of the doubt. - I think Mr Jones is a scum-sucking, bottom-feeding, habitual criminal who could be thrown into a wood-chipper and the world wouldn't miss him. Mr. Jones, who was being arrested for selling crack has - since 11/2009 - accumulated 2 shoplifting arrests and a domestic abuse arrest. He's 30, and has been before a judge on criminal matters 18 times since turning 18. He's a worthless human being who will do nothing but cause trouble and make more worthless humans until he's killed in some crime-related incident.
Instead of saying "PCs are dead" more likely it's a matter where the processing power of small, handheld devices is finally reaching a point where applications that are MOST useful when personally portable (scheduler, contact list, etc) are now, in fact, portable.
Desktop PCs will continue to grow in power, and be used for ever broader applications.
Consoles will continue to grow in power, and single-niche lower-priced cousins of their more flexible, more expensive PC relations.
The congress allocates funds. The PRESIDENT would decide to whom (specifically) we would default.
If the markets got spooked that we were considering default, that cannot be placed at the feet of congress, not at all.
(And I'd argue then that the real culprit is the Democratic media machine, and the guzzling media outlets; I 100% believe that there is no way that Obama seriously would have defaulted on any payments....something else would have been shorted. But it was politically necessary for the Democrats to increase the FUD level about the crisis, the fear of debt and the likelihood of default to try to force the Teabaggers to the negotiating table. So, who was really shouting FIRE in the theater and who was making sure every single theatergoer got the message at maximum possible volume? Again, it wasn't the Tea Party.)
"...we had 50+ US congressmen arguing that a sovereign default was either no big deal or desirable..."
I think this is a misstatement.
We had 50+ congressmen who asked the credible question: why SHOULD we have a AAA rating when we cannot spend within our means?
I don't think that question has been faced.
Essentially what we had was congress racing to try to prevent the credit ratings agencies from SEEING how parlous our financial affairs were. So they concocted the current BS deal, and said 'voila! we're FINE!'.
I *understand* that the consequences of a de-rating of our credit were probably significant and expensive. Now I guess we get to see if that was true or just a load of politically-motivated crap, don't we? Because the credit company didn't buy our tissue-paper explanation "the check's in the mail!" and is still going to ding us.
One might ask if there is any problem in the world that gets BETTER if it's pushed off until later? Congresses in decades past haven't had the courage to face the issue and make hard choices, it's clear that this one doesn't either.
The teabaggers or whatever they're called, are being made out to be the pariahs for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. The democrats' argument, seemingly, was that we need to keep pretending, and the mainstream republicans pretty much agreed.
The fact is that your 'model' fails miserably - the simile you propose would be if the wealthy somehow were drawing the bulk of the costs spent by the US govt.
In fact, the "Bush Tax Cuts" (why are they still called that when we all know Democrats controlled congress AND the presidency 2008-2010 and could have erased them with the trivial swipe of a pen?) were widely discussed as 'benefiting the wealthy'. To continue my $200 dinner example for 10 friends, 5 friends paid nothing, 1 paid $140, and the other 4 paid $60. The Bush tax cuts gave back $35 to the "rich guy", $15 to the other 4, and none to the guys who paid nothing. $35>$15>0 = "tax breaks for the rich".
The left would have preferred the tax cuts to just hand $5 back to everyone, despite $25 of it then going "back" to people WHO NEVER PAID TAXES IN THE FIRST PLACE.
And I'd bet that most of the people you're talking about are really, truly trying to get work, and will eventually find it. They may have to move. They may have to change careers, but they are working individuals who are ashamed of taking the government's handouts and are trying like hell to get off those rolls.
THAT'S NOT AT ALL WHO I'M TALKING ABOUT.
I'm talking about the LONG term dependents - those on welfare for 9+ months, those who (despite being on government handouts) have more children, those who generation after generation live off the public tit.
If you threw a party that cost more than you could afford, and it went on day after day after day and everyone that came enjoyed it, of COURSE you'd be pissed when the nerd shows up and says, "Er, your credit cards are maxed, you're deep in debt... maybe we should turn the music down, close the open bar, and start figuring out how to pay for this?"
Why does someone who is making $50,000/year vote to help someone making $500,000/year?
I understand that it may be baffling to you, but let me try to explain. It's a two-fold response.
If I and my 9 buddies go to dinner, and the tab is $200, we each throw in $20.
First, we don't tell the poorest 5 that they don't need to pay anything. Everyone pitches in. If someone can't manage it, they eat less (and generally everyone accepts that they're going to pay a smaller share) or make other arrangements.
So the first point is that taking charity is demeaning, and a sign (if it's not just a transient thing) that you are a *failure* as a human being - you cannot provide for yourself. You're a freeloader, and you suck. *and please, don't go off on the misfortunate poor. The actual misfortunate poor are a tiny minority - the bulk of the poor are there because of some shitty life-choice they made, be it addiction, dropping out of school, or early father/motherhood.
Taking welfare should be equally insulting.
Second, we don't tell the richest guy at the table that he needs to pay $140.
This isn't because all the other guys at the table "hope" to be him someday. It's simply because IT'S UNFAIR. I don't vote as an extension of my narcissism, I try to vote on what's best for all - regardless of how it affects me.
And I'll say it - I'm as vulnerable to class-envy as the next guy. I'd love to be rich. But to steal it from people at the barrel of the government's gun is no more legitimate (to me) than if I were to steal it with my own gun.
That said, after watching Inside Job, I admit it would be nice to see someone simply start killing some of these guys - they are immune to social pressure, will never be punished, and smugly lounge enjoying the benefits of their rapacious greed.
(the shares of payment illustrated here are representative of the actual US federal income tax burden as of 2008: the top 10% pay 70%, the bottom 50% pay essentially none)
"Anonymity" is a nonsense commodity generated by the information age, and which has had much emo-currency invested in it by those with vested interests, but which is a complete sham.
Until the age of the telephone, anonymity was a rare and unusual thing. You were known by what you said, and your words carried meaning. Because of the general immobility of the population, these words hung around you like a cloud, which then made up (along with deeds) your 'reputation'. This could last GENERATIONS.
Like playing with a loaded gun, people generally realized that they needed to be cautious with their words, lest it boomerang unexpectedly on them or their descendants.
That '26 year old single nerd' is perfect example of the intellectual crusader mentality so perfectly captured by xkcd: http://xkcd.com/386/
If you're not one of them, you're not going to put up with the bullshit necessary to edit articles.
Further, have you ever tried to edit Wiki? It's not just a matter of posting some new text into a text box, there are all sorts of damn tags, etc that just make it too much of a nuisance to bother, even if I know a fact could be better corrected.
Perhaps it would have been more accurate for me to say instead "victim flavor of the month". My point is that with broad enough rationalizations and definitions, ANYONE is a "victim" - which seems to suit both sides of the political fence. Certainly they have been victims. But to suggest that 'white males' somehow float through life on a cushion of privilege, power, and ease is farcical. As far as the last time a straight white mail was harmed by his skin color? How about 20 recent examples sustained by the USSC? http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-new-haven-firefighters-20110729,0,7391797.story To suggest that white males aren't harmed by minority/gender hiring quotas - primarily the domain of government/education - is prima facie absurd. Of course, the rebuttal is that it's 'compensatory' which is a pretty damn slippery slope. As far as less-formal matters, I'd challenge any white guy to walk through Compton at night. As a black man I *might* make it. Whitey? No chance.
The point is that ANYONE can be a victim, if you're enough of a narcissist. Find me an American-born black today that's actually 'suffered' from Slavery - that doesn't stop it broadly being used for crass politics and the culture of victimhood useful to the black political leadership (on the left - there is none on the right, AFAIK). For what it's worth, whites were bought and sold as chattel slaves in the North African markets into the 19th century. http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Slaves-Muslim-Masters-Mediterranean/dp/1403945519
I couldn't care less about his skin color, frankly. The PC pandering I see here is the suggestion that they might make him gay - from the Archie comic, to metrosexuals, to Hollywood, to Dumbledore, there's a clear trend toward 'gaying up' everything pop culture. Whether this is simply a sort of race among the superficial to be au courant, or indicative of a directed effort at 'mainstreaming' homosexuality is unclear.
Slashdot Mirror
The NSF just exonerated Michael Mann for doing the same thing with climate data, I'm not sure why the SEC wouldn't be allowed to do it too?
LOL, did anyone actually READ the report?
Quote:
"As part of our investigation, we attempted to determine i f data fabrication or falsification may have occurred and interviewed the subject, critics, and disciplinary experts in coming to our conclusions. As a result of our interviews we concluded:
1. The subject did not directly receive NSF research funding as a Principal Investigator until late 2001 or 2002.
2. The Subject's data is documented and available to researchers.
3. There are several concerns raised about the quality of the statistical analysis techniques that were used in the Subject's research.
4. There is no specific evidence that the Subject falsified or fabricated any data and no evidence that his actions amounted to research misconduct.
5. There was concern about how extensively the Subject's research had influenced the debate in the overall research field.
Analysis and Conclusion
To recommend a finding of research misconduct, the preponderance of the evidence must show that with culpable intent the Subject committed an act that meets the definition of research misconduct (in this case, data fabrication or data falsification).
The research in question was originally completed over 10 years ago. Although the Subject's data is still available and still the focus of significant critical examination, no direct evidence has been presented that indicates the Subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results. Much of the current debate focuses on the viability of the statistical procedures he eniployed, the statistics used to confirm the accuracy of the results, and the degree to which one specific set of data impacts the statistical results. These concerns are all appropriate for scientific debate and to assist the research community in directing future research efforts to improve understanding in this field of research. Such scientific debate is ongoing but does not, in itself, constitute evidence of research misconduct.
Lacking any direct evidence of research misconduct, as defined under the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation, we are closing this investigation with no further action"
BASICALLY, they're saying that vague claims of misconduct are vague. Lacking specific allegations and further lacking a mandate (according to their rules) over his research, they simply closed the investigation.
That's a far f*cking cry from exoneration.
Is #2 even true? My understanding is that the raw data is missing.
15,000 stories posted...114,000 articles.
How many Library of Congresses of that? How many football fields would it cover? American football or European football?
I'm bereft of scale!
Google is your friend? It was pretty easy to find:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129528196
Blame NPR for their shitty reporting and worthless web page that doesn't provide a link to the story, but to suggest that it wasn't a real study isn't very credible.
Tracing the researcher named in the NPR article, http://evolution-of-religion.com/team/ is the website for the team exploring the evolutionary consequence/value of religion - a subject I find fascinating and, due to the wide prevalence of religion across all human cultures, compelling.
The social value of 'religion' as a concept is well-proven.
At least one study has shown scientifically that people's behavior (in this case, children) was distinctly impacted positively by the concept of 'an invisible being watching me'. In the case I'm thinking of, children played a game that gave them both opportunities and rewards for cheating. Cheating, unsurprisingly, was endemic in the control group (no adult present). When an adult was present, the incidence of cheating was greatly reduced. When the children were told convincingly that there was an invisible person sitting in the same chair the adult had used, cheating was even LESS.
Further, there has been some discussion of the value of shared rites (usually religious) in predicting who will reliably follow a society's rules. If a person can't/won't reliably adhere to shared religious rites that supposedly are beneficial at little/no cost to the individual, this would predict that person will be unlikely to adhere to more important societal norms as well.
(One might further observe that this remains largely true, at least in the US. The left is politically characterized as individualist and chaotic, and the (religious) right as collectivist and 'marching in lockstep'. This has resulted in a balanced political landscape, despite a clear majority of voters self-identifying as Democrats (left of center).)
So the value of religion to early societies is pretty clear.
Nevertheless, I'd disagree with their conclusions here. They point to the rise of the great organized religions around the era of plague - this was also (unsurprisingly) the rise of widespread urbanization, probably something that I'd guess had more to do with both the spread of disease AND the rise of religion.
It doesn't take long reading through the daily news to see that - even if there was never a literal "fall" - that humanity needs some serious fucking redemption.
"...modern American anti-intellectual fundamentalism, while more noticeable to Americans, is neither the American nor the worldwide Christian norm"
One of the reasons for the misperception of how widespread this isn't, is deliberate: the secular Left and the media (also generally left-ish) find it...useful...to portray any churchgoer, any admitted Christian, as a fringe looney. It suits both their image of religion and, conveniently, their politics.
"1) YOU are the problem in this country right now. You and people like you. You can't be nothered with facts and any BS you hear is taken as absolute truth because you can't be bothered to think, or event RTFA. This was not a NASA study. This was done by some who happens to work at NASA,"
Let me quote the OP: "In a study carried out by NASA and Pennsylvania State University scientists". No, I didn't RTFA, but one could reasonably expect that the summary is well...consistently summarizing. If it was "some guy who works at NASA on his spare time" then I don't have any beef with it at all.
"2) A sci-fi story is not the same as a research. People who sai 'This author thought of it first" are clueless fucktwits."
Apparently then "clueless fucktwits" are those who don't find a study interesting if it merely speculatively repeats what fiction has already explored. This just in: if Martians came to earth and were kicking our asses, they MIGHT be vulnerable to our diseases, maybe even the common cold! Is that really worth discussing?
"3) The odds that life exists out there has gone up considerable in the last 20 years. Are there other technical issue? certainly. At least from our current technology."
The real odds that life actually exists out there are essentially UNCHANGED from 20, 100, or 5000 years ago. It's our understanding of the universe and our understanding of the realities of the chances, that has changed.
"4) I'm not sure why you trhink man isn't effecting tyhe climate and why it's OCD egoism to want to take action against it."
I just recognize that man's history is to assume he's the center of the universe, until proven otherwise. I see a great parallel in the AGW discussion, where one side INSISTS that what we're seeing climatologically is "our fault", when
a) looking at the history of the planet, insofar as we can tell, there have been cyclical jumps in temperature just about every 150-200 kiloyears. At least 4-5 cycles, perhaps more. We're actually overdue for the next one.
b) the overwhelming impact of global-warming gasses is in WATER VAPOR, not CO2, and the human contribution of CO2 is a tiny, tiny percent. It seems particularist on the face of it to assert that we just 'happen' to be at the exact fulcrum of the system so that our 0.1% impact is the critical bit that pushes the system out of whack
c) repeated historical surges in temperature have always been subsequently moderated. We're asserting with no evidence that this time, it apparently won't.
To get back to the point, I see one side insisting we're the causal driver when it seems to me that it's more a systemic thing. We need an environmental Copernicus to prove that the system happens without us and whatever impact we're having is pretty much just lost in the static of random variation.
The reason China has a near-monopoly on rare earths isn't primarily economic, it's due to the heavy enviro restrictions on the mining (and more significantly) processing needed to get rare earths from their ore? substrate?.
A number of countries can develop a rare earths industry and have it be competitive, there just has to be an acceptance that it's a polluting industry.
1) this is a "study"? REALLY? And people wonder why our government is out of money, when bullshit like this rates the scientific focus of NASA? Please, let's have another article on how scientists are baffled that people are taking science less seriously following this one?
2) this is a relatively old trope from science fiction. Nothing new here at all. I can think of at least one AE van Vogt short story from the 1960s that had a similar theme.
3) if we're talking about it seriously, the likelihood of us encountering a spacefaring civilization within say, 500,000 years of tech development of us are vanishingly small. Beyond that, would either of us really even care the other exists? Or notice? I'm not going to go into it unless someone asks, but the math on this is at least as solid as the Drake equation.
4) this is a neat psychological extrapolation of the sort of OCD egoism that's driving much of the consensus around climate change today. The idea that some civilization penned in on some rocky world orbiting a peripheral average star might actually matter to a starfaring civilization is absurd, gross narcissism. We're still using CHEMICAL rockets - pretty much glorified fireworks - to get off our planet, for pete's sake.
To suggest that harsh penalties don't work as a deterrent flies in the face of all common sense. You're saying that the entire idea of graduated punishment simply doesn't work?. Do we implement life sentences for jaywalking? How about an hour of detention for serial rape and murder? Of course we don't - the punishment is scaled to fit the perceived significance of the crime, and if this is harsh enough, it of course will influence rational potential offenders.
Now, if the punishment is trivial, or the justice system is perceived to be so broken that the likelihood of actually being punished is small (or the jail time is so comfortable), then no, there's no deterrent effect.
Certain studies have suggested that CAPITAL offenses don't deter criminals on certain impulse crimes, studies themselves that are dubious - not taking into account that the actual rate of execution of death row inmates has never been higher than 1 in 1000, more like winning (losing) the lottery, and thus subject to reasonable doubt if such penalties would ever really be implemented from the view of a single individual criminal.
For that matter, let's flip to the other side of the coin - if the penalty for speeding was summary execution by the officer on the spot, are you really suggesting that wouldn't impact people's behavior? I know I'd be driving about half the speed limit and only drive when I possibly had to.
Secondly, yes, I think there's a reasonable presumption that rioters - seeing the success of the flashmob riots at overwhelming the capabilities of local law enforcement that's already being copied in the US - may try it again. Threatening to punish the ORGANIZERS severely strikes directly at the assholes that plan this stuff.
Read the OP.
Hyperbole-poster said "Cops don't get fired for beating *and killing* peons like you and me."
In this case, nobody was killed. Mentioning it has no more relevance than asserting (wrongly) that 'cops don't get fired for committing genocide against Tutsis'.
Using such throwaway comments to amp-up the emotional response to an incident by implying something more significant happened is just a cheap rhetorical appeal to emotion.
"Cops don't get fired for beating and killing peons like you and me."
Well, except when they do.
Jeffrey Asher, the cop who beat him, was in fact fired. For beating Mr. Jones. (Not KILLING him, but what's a little hyperbole when you're outraged?)
This is a cop who was standing by and didn't stop it, who is pursuing charges against the videographer.
In any case, the video is here.
http://videos.masslive.com/republican/2010/01/uncut_video_arrest_of_melvin_j.html
Let me be abundantly clear:
- I think MA's wiretapping law is stupid. That's the problem here.
- I think the police used excessive force in that video (insofar as I can tell what was happening. Mr Jones tried to flee officers, but that doesn't justify the beatdown he got). Asher is clearly a racist (looking at his history), and should lose his retirement pension, if not face prosecution. The police should not be above the law, but I DO believe that they are entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
- I think Mr Jones is a scum-sucking, bottom-feeding, habitual criminal who could be thrown into a wood-chipper and the world wouldn't miss him. Mr. Jones, who was being arrested for selling crack has - since 11/2009 - accumulated 2 shoplifting arrests and a domestic abuse arrest. He's 30, and has been before a judge on criminal matters 18 times since turning 18. He's a worthless human being who will do nothing but cause trouble and make more worthless humans until he's killed in some crime-related incident.
Instead of saying "PCs are dead" more likely it's a matter where the processing power of small, handheld devices is finally reaching a point where applications that are MOST useful when personally portable (scheduler, contact list, etc) are now, in fact, portable.
Desktop PCs will continue to grow in power, and be used for ever broader applications.
Consoles will continue to grow in power, and single-niche lower-priced cousins of their more flexible, more expensive PC relations.
It's almost like it's not zero-sum. /sarcasm.
So one side playing political brinksmanship is 'irresponsible', the other side doing it isn't?
Sure, that makes a ton of sense.
Again, then, why blame the Teabaggers?
The congress allocates funds.
The PRESIDENT would decide to whom (specifically) we would default.
If the markets got spooked that we were considering default, that cannot be placed at the feet of congress, not at all.
(And I'd argue then that the real culprit is the Democratic media machine, and the guzzling media outlets; I 100% believe that there is no way that Obama seriously would have defaulted on any payments....something else would have been shorted. But it was politically necessary for the Democrats to increase the FUD level about the crisis, the fear of debt and the likelihood of default to try to force the Teabaggers to the negotiating table. So, who was really shouting FIRE in the theater and who was making sure every single theatergoer got the message at maximum possible volume? Again, it wasn't the Tea Party.)
"...we had 50+ US congressmen arguing that a sovereign default was either no big deal or desirable..."
I think this is a misstatement.
We had 50+ congressmen who asked the credible question: why SHOULD we have a AAA rating when we cannot spend within our means?
I don't think that question has been faced.
Essentially what we had was congress racing to try to prevent the credit ratings agencies from SEEING how parlous our financial affairs were. So they concocted the current BS deal, and said 'voila! we're FINE!'.
I *understand* that the consequences of a de-rating of our credit were probably significant and expensive. Now I guess we get to see if that was true or just a load of politically-motivated crap, don't we? Because the credit company didn't buy our tissue-paper explanation "the check's in the mail!" and is still going to ding us.
One might ask if there is any problem in the world that gets BETTER if it's pushed off until later? Congresses in decades past haven't had the courage to face the issue and make hard choices, it's clear that this one doesn't either.
The teabaggers or whatever they're called, are being made out to be the pariahs for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. The democrats' argument, seemingly, was that we need to keep pretending, and the mainstream republicans pretty much agreed.
Nice to post AC. That's always helpful.
The fact is that your 'model' fails miserably - the simile you propose would be if the wealthy somehow were drawing the bulk of the costs spent by the US govt.
In fact, the "Bush Tax Cuts" (why are they still called that when we all know Democrats controlled congress AND the presidency 2008-2010 and could have erased them with the trivial swipe of a pen?) were widely discussed as 'benefiting the wealthy'. To continue my $200 dinner example for 10 friends, 5 friends paid nothing, 1 paid $140, and the other 4 paid $60. The Bush tax cuts gave back $35 to the "rich guy", $15 to the other 4, and none to the guys who paid nothing.
$35>$15>0 = "tax breaks for the rich".
The left would have preferred the tax cuts to just hand $5 back to everyone, despite $25 of it then going "back" to people WHO NEVER PAID TAXES IN THE FIRST PLACE.
And I'd bet that most of the people you're talking about are really, truly trying to get work, and will eventually find it. They may have to move. They may have to change careers, but they are working individuals who are ashamed of taking the government's handouts and are trying like hell to get off those rolls.
THAT'S NOT AT ALL WHO I'M TALKING ABOUT.
I'm talking about the LONG term dependents - those on welfare for 9+ months, those who (despite being on government handouts) have more children, those who generation after generation live off the public tit.
If you threw a party that cost more than you could afford, and it went on day after day after day and everyone that came enjoyed it, of COURSE you'd be pissed when the nerd shows up and says, "Er, your credit cards are maxed, you're deep in debt ... maybe we should turn the music down, close the open bar, and start figuring out how to pay for this?"
Yeah, it's HIS fault. Let's blame him!
Why does someone who is making $50,000/year vote to help someone making $500,000/year?
I understand that it may be baffling to you, but let me try to explain. It's a two-fold response.
If I and my 9 buddies go to dinner, and the tab is $200, we each throw in $20.
First, we don't tell the poorest 5 that they don't need to pay anything. Everyone pitches in. If someone can't manage it, they eat less (and generally everyone accepts that they're going to pay a smaller share) or make other arrangements.
So the first point is that taking charity is demeaning, and a sign (if it's not just a transient thing) that you are a *failure* as a human being - you cannot provide for yourself. You're a freeloader, and you suck.
*and please, don't go off on the misfortunate poor. The actual misfortunate poor are a tiny minority - the bulk of the poor are there because of some shitty life-choice they made, be it addiction, dropping out of school, or early father/motherhood.
Taking welfare should be equally insulting.
Second, we don't tell the richest guy at the table that he needs to pay $140.
This isn't because all the other guys at the table "hope" to be him someday. It's simply because IT'S UNFAIR. I don't vote as an extension of my narcissism, I try to vote on what's best for all - regardless of how it affects me.
And I'll say it - I'm as vulnerable to class-envy as the next guy. I'd love to be rich. But to steal it from people at the barrel of the government's gun is no more legitimate (to me) than if I were to steal it with my own gun.
That said, after watching Inside Job, I admit it would be nice to see someone simply start killing some of these guys - they are immune to social pressure, will never be punished, and smugly lounge enjoying the benefits of their rapacious greed.
(the shares of payment illustrated here are representative of the actual US federal income tax burden as of 2008: the top 10% pay 70%, the bottom 50% pay essentially none)
I call BS.
"Anonymity" is a nonsense commodity generated by the information age, and which has had much emo-currency invested in it by those with vested interests, but which is a complete sham.
Until the age of the telephone, anonymity was a rare and unusual thing.
You were known by what you said, and your words carried meaning. Because of the general immobility of the population, these words hung around you like a cloud, which then made up (along with deeds) your 'reputation'. This could last GENERATIONS.
Like playing with a loaded gun, people generally realized that they needed to be cautious with their words, lest it boomerang unexpectedly on them or their descendants.
Are we better off today?
The profile says it all.
That '26 year old single nerd' is perfect example of the intellectual crusader mentality so perfectly captured by xkcd: http://xkcd.com/386/
If you're not one of them, you're not going to put up with the bullshit necessary to edit articles.
Further, have you ever tried to edit Wiki? It's not just a matter of posting some new text into a text box, there are all sorts of damn tags, etc that just make it too much of a nuisance to bother, even if I know a fact could be better corrected.
No way to send you a private message, I just wanted to say that was extremely cogent. I wish I could rate it up.
Perhaps it would have been more accurate for me to say instead "victim flavor of the month". My point is that with broad enough rationalizations and definitions, ANYONE is a "victim" - which seems to suit both sides of the political fence.
Certainly they have been victims. But to suggest that 'white males' somehow float through life on a cushion of privilege, power, and ease is farcical.
As far as the last time a straight white mail was harmed by his skin color? How about 20 recent examples sustained by the USSC? http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-new-haven-firefighters-20110729,0,7391797.story
To suggest that white males aren't harmed by minority/gender hiring quotas - primarily the domain of government/education - is prima facie absurd.
Of course, the rebuttal is that it's 'compensatory' which is a pretty damn slippery slope. As far as less-formal matters, I'd challenge any white guy to walk through Compton at night. As a black man I *might* make it. Whitey? No chance.
The point is that ANYONE can be a victim, if you're enough of a narcissist. Find me an American-born black today that's actually 'suffered' from Slavery - that doesn't stop it broadly being used for crass politics and the culture of victimhood useful to the black political leadership (on the left - there is none on the right, AFAIK). For what it's worth, whites were bought and sold as chattel slaves in the North African markets into the 19th century. http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Slaves-Muslim-Masters-Mediterranean/dp/1403945519
I couldn't care less about his skin color, frankly. The PC pandering I see here is the suggestion that they might make him gay - from the Archie comic, to metrosexuals, to Hollywood, to Dumbledore, there's a clear trend toward 'gaying up'
everything pop culture. Whether this is simply a sort of race among the superficial to be au courant, or indicative of a directed effort at 'mainstreaming' homosexuality is unclear.