Newton
Einstein
Plato
Socrates
Copernicus
Da Vinci
Franklin
Watt
Edison
Fulton
Dirac
Pauli
The list is nigh endless of those great thinkers and discoverers. who believed in magic, as well.
Yeah and how many were sent to the gallows for simply thinking that didn't make your list? What you've got is a list of people with scientific and some much needed political skill. What did the world miss out on with the people who were purely scientific, but never got an education or who were scientific but not political that ended up dead from questioning the church or some other power system? Your little list is cute, but it could be much longer.. I've often wondered how far science would be right now, but for the politics of domination and religious extremism that's probably held us back....oh say a THOUSAND years of progress....yeah think about that, buddy.
The governor adds: "However, I also don’t believe that it accomplishes anything that isn’t already acceptable in our schools."
So why don't you veto it to prevent cluttering up the lawbook with unnecessary laws?
Because he must pander to people who have had a poor education and can vote, but he's personally educated enough to know it's lunacy and he's probably personally a bit embarrassed. So in his institutional role, he must sign, but being a human, he must be embarrassed. What a precarious position to be in.
I think I have the definitions of fact and theory well in hand:
From Merriam Webster:
theory noun \th--r, thir-\
plural theories
Definition of THEORY
1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2: abstract thought : speculation
3: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art
4a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action
b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory
5: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena
6a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
b : an unproved assumption : conjecture
c : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject
See theory defined for English-language learners
See theory defined for kids
Examples of THEORY
a widely accepted scientific theory
Her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn.
There are a number of different theories about the cause of the disease.
She proposed a theory of her own.
Investigators rejected the theory that the death was accidental.
There is no evidence to support such a theory.
He is a specialist in film theory and criticism.
The immune surveillance theory of cancer holds that in a way we all do have cancer, that a healthy immune system fights off rogue cells as they appear. —Sallie Tisdale, Harper's, June 2007
[+]more
fact noun \fakt\
Definition of FACT
1: a thing done: as
a obsolete : feat
b : crime
c archaic : action
2 archaic : performance, doing
3: the quality of being actual : actuality
4a : something that has actual existence
b : an actual occurrence
5
: a piece of information presented as having objective reality
— in fact
: in truth
See fact defined for English-language learners
See fact defined for kids
Examples of FACT
Rapid electronic communication is now a fact.
The book is filled with interesting facts and figures.
He did it, and that's a fact.
Dictionary probably wasn't your best source in this case.
"A scientific theory is a set of principles that explain and predict phenomena. Scientists create scientific theories with the scientific method, when they are originally proposed as hypotheses and tested for accuracy through observations and experiments. Once a hypothesis is verified, it becomes a theory."
I think what you were trying to say is 'hypothesis'. A 'scientific theory' is what a lay person would call a fact, or closer to it than the term would imply. So yes, the things you don't agree with (evolution, climate change) are theories. If you don't agree, that's ok, but it does mean you're a flat earth, sun revolving around the earth type. Does that make more sense to you?
There is no reason to think/. is 'smarter'. Really, if you are interested in what smart people thing about this, there are sites of actual experts in the field. A genius Software Engineer is no more insightful to something outside her expertise then any one else.
"I think the number of technical stories have stayed about the same, but the number of overall sumissions has increased, so there's just more to read and some of it's what you'd consider junk."
by that reasoning, more of it is junk.
The WORST person to listen to is an inside "expert", unless you like totally status quo opinions. Yes, a genius software engineer is capable of actual critical thought and is much more insightful on any matter, including national politics. I'm not in the camp that believes you need some "specialized class" governing things. I guess we both have our opinions.
It looks to me like a lot of faggots here on Slashdot need killing for denigrating Rick Santorum using the terminology of that faggot Dan Savage.
Tie them to wooden fences in Wyoming and beat them to death.
No straight guy cares that much about "faggots" or what "faggots" do or if they're tied to a wooden fence (usually voluntarily, for pleasure). The people on/. are savvy enough to know what dedicated homophobes beat off to when they're alone, Mike.
Because if 'News for nerds' is 'News every nerd might be interested in, it becomes meaningless.
Might as well just read CNN.
I see your point, but it's at least interesting to see what other smart poeple are thinking on regular issues. They'd probably be discussing Santorum's hair on the CNN message boards. There are still plenty of technical stories and these are easily avoided. I think the number of technical stories have stayed about the same, but the number of overall sumissions has increased, so there's just more to read and some of it's what you'd consider junk.
Santorum never had a change because mainstream conservative thought really has moved on from the religious-crazy ideas that Santorum brought to the table - those might have worked 20 years ago, but thankfully times change.
Santorum was an embarassment to the GOP. He was the right-wing of our grandfathers, when what we desparately need now is a fiscal conservative, not a social conservative. Of course, finding a fiscal conservative with enough political savvy to avoid making an idiot of himself on camera is proving difficult - I guess once you've been in the game long enough, a less powerful government doesn't seem so appealing any more.
Are you joking? The right-wing of our grandfathers? The right-wing of our grandfathers was Hitler...we didn't even have that extreme here (in the mainstream) until the last 40 years or so. Conservatives USED to be conservative...you know like conserve...not send troops all over, highy protectionist, isolationist (anti NAFTA) conserve the environment. It's only the last 40 years or so that these lunatic neo cons (there's a reason it's called NEO) started cropping up. Do you realize that by these people's standards Nixon was a massive liberal? Reagan would never be able to get the nomination these days; he'd look more like Obama. I don't know what history books you're reading, but they're off by a long shot. Oh, and all these ridiculous "social" issues also barely came up. Gay rights and contraception. Issues meant to distract and appeal to people's emotions, not help them make a rational decision that's in their best interest. That's all a new marketing thing. Go back to our grandfathers time and you'll find a lot more honesty and a lot less political marketing. "would you have a beer with him"...that's new. That's why we're in for a fascist dictator one day because people can't vote their own interest anymore. That's why life in America is sucking more and more. People vote for the guy they "like" and who appeals to their emotions. Try balancing your checkbook spending on emotions...it doesn't work. At some point you have to take a cold, hard look at the candiate and that's just not possible anymore. W'e're in for MORE radical right wingers, not less.
I was really worried this guy was going to try to keep going. The way he speaks reminds me of Hitler, in both subject matter and candor. This whole business of fighting the good culture warrior fight makes me very nervous. I don't like Romney either, but he doesn't scare the bejeepers out of me the way Santorum did.
I worry at signs that the USA is headed toward fascism, but some browsing on Wikipedia about Germany in the 1920s reveals that we've still got a long way to go yet.
Political murders by gangs of thugs (from all shades of the political spectrum) was almost the norm. Here political murders are still pretty rare, and mostly carried out by individuals or small groups of thugs, rather than by nation-wide organizations.
You can't go by political murders, you mostly go by the sheer stupidity of the average voter...like the fact that Santorum was running at all. We're one massive economic collapse away from fascism and there are choirs of economists predicting one. We're living in late Weimar Germany...I have zero doubt. I think the government knows it, too, which is why the Utah data center and everything else that's going on.
The big hang-up for me about Santorum aside from the majority of his views was his daughters health. She is unfortunately constantly in and out of the hospital and I just dont think its smart to take on what has been called the most stressful job in the world while you're also worried about your childs health.
I hope that didnt come across as too harsh.
If that's the only reason you decided not to support Santorum, harsh is the least of your worries. How about being a moron? I hope that didn't come across as too harsh.
At what point do you people just admit it's a story book written by a bunch of old, establishment men about 1800 years ago and nothing more?
Lots of people have reached that point, and still believe in God.
Lots of people believe in God that never even had the Bible as a starting point.
Then that's not a "religious worshiper" or nececarily a 'worshiper' at all. Simply having a feeling there is a God or acknowledging the fact that we can't know, doesn't make anybody a worshiper, much less a religious worshiper. I'd accept agnostic or passive believer, but that's not how you worded it.
Four legs good! Two Legs Better!
Four legs good! Two Legs Better!
Vigilante Justice is all well and good, but revolution is best accomplished democratically. Bullets should be reserved for supplementing a non-functional justice system.
Trouble with Vigilante Justice is that it is administered by the "simple solutions to complex problems" type of person who would become a Vigilante. That makes it's probability of improving the justice landscape vs. making it worse very unlikely.
Did Joesph Stack really take issue with the IRS in general? Or did he just manage to get sucked in to a personality conflict with some petty dictator?
Anger and revenge need to be focused to pin point resolution like a laser to inspire violent retribution. The Jews, the Pigs, the IRS, the Supreme Court, etc. These are all small ideas that the anger and frustration in life can be attributed to as a source. It would all be lollipop fields and gumdrops "IF ONLY [insert confirmation bias scapegoat] were removed from the picture!".
Given a little bit of wisdom & perspective, the hatred loses it's focus and sharp point as it dithers in to the fog of non-black and white thinking.
My belief is that the ability of a person to accomplish evil is proportional to how much power they are given to wield without oversight. When political power becomes centralized and concentrated, the amount of evil shit it takes to remove the administrator increases proportionally with the difficulty of finding a qualified candidate to replace them. It's a lack of competition for power because fewer and fewer people are available or seen as qualified to fill the big chair.
The idea of focusing hatred on executive roles seems great in concept, because based on the idea that "shit rolls downhill", everything can be blamed on failures in leadership, however at the end of the day the leaders themselves are frequently victims of the terrain of the field and have limitations to their maneuvering room which would allow them to change things for the better.
All of this culminates in a desire to curl up on an island(remote from civilization), drink a beer, and bask in a proper case of Weltschmerz & islomania.
Then again, it's also possible that I'm too quick to relieve leadership of accountability as animals helpless to their circumstances. Perhaps I'm the type of person who would have argued against assassinating Hitler as I watched fascism goose-stepping through my living room to haul away my fiance.
There is a school of ethics that would argue that all animals are entitled to change the "terrain of the field" when the existing landscape threatens their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness(or the less lofty "self preservation"). That is pandora's box and opens the door for retribution in-kind. Sometimes, the economics are stacked against the probability of peaceful resolution as wills collide on increasing frequency for too limited of resources.
So do we look to Adam Smith to expand the scope of the market, or do we turn to Mars, the god of war, to purge the field of some actors?
What people do when presented with those choices will largely be determined by circumstances and incentives I predict. I'll note that the media is owned by defense contractors, not the Sperry Gyroscope Company or sextant manufacturers.
Whatever America decides to do with their destiny, I want no part of it. I've yet to see a president or congress in my lifetime worthy of power, and I blame the voter for that. I'm just looking for an exit, I suggest anyone reading this do the same.
Where would you go? Canada? We're building a highway through it and it's referred to as the 51st state for a reason. Mexico? The same, besides the fact that the US took control via the 'drug war' long ago. Europe? They're so much farther along with surveillance that the US government pales. China? Worse and you'd stick out like a sore thumb. Australia? Worse. Latin America? That place
Actually its been real for quite a long time, they just used the classic "use it against a bad guy and the populace won't scream..until its too late" trick and it worked quite well. There are two men currently in prison for thoughtcrime, there are probably more but there are at least two that i know of. 1 is the guy that wrote the 'pro pedo" book, this book is nothing but his thoughts on the subject, no pictures, no "hey you should go out and rape kids" incitement, just his thoughts written down, now he's in prison...thoughtcrime. The other wrote down his fantasies of having sex with 14 year old girls on the advice of his therapist who wanted him to write down his fantasies in detail so they could break them down in therapy, now he is in prison too. again no pictures, no evidence that he actually did anything other than write his thoughts down...thoughtcrime.
It never ceases to amaze me how much of the populace will let any trully horrific law through or allow virtually any crushing of our civil liberties as long as you make sure the FIRST few targets are of a group they hate, be it communists, racists, terrorists, pedos, etc. So sad that so many years after "first they came for the communists" was written so many still don't understand that this is a classic tactic, use the power against someone that nobody will defend and then by the time they use it on you its been part of the system so long nobody balks.
We have seen the enemy...and it is us. Too many simply won't stand up if the target is someone they can't stand so that all of this horrible shit can seep into the system and eventually be used against us all. Once upon a time the NSA was mainly tasked with rooting out foreign spies which at the time was a real and credible threat...now they are used against us. nobody watched them, or kept them in check, or complained when their powers grew, so here we are.
jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you’re trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them. -Noam Chomsky
You do realize that a better way to save money is to not spend it in the first place, right? People that purchase an item only because of the 'deal' they get on it are cattle. People that shop smart and look for coupons/deals/discounts on something they need anyway are smart. The breakdown comes because we've been trained to believe that wants are now needs.
West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996. An excerpt (pp. 56-59):
[The United Fruit] company claimed in its propaganda that its role was to instill consumer values among its workers. . . . In 1929, Crowther, another United Fruit biographer, explicitly explained the importance of the spread of a consumer mentality as he waxed eloquent on the virtues of capitalism and bemoaned the immoral effects of a subsistence economy: "The mozos or working people [in Central America] have laboured only when forced to and that was not often, for the land would give them what little they needed." But this could be changed, he explained, by infusing these laborers with the desire for upward mobility. "The desire for goods, it may be remarked, is something that has to be cultivated. In the United States this desire has been cultivated. . . . American movies, radio, and especially magazines were everywhere, and "our advertising is slowly having the same effect as in the United States -- and it is reaching the mozos. For when a periodical is discarded, it is grabbed up, and its advertising pages turn up as wall paper in the thatched huts. I have seen the insides of huts completely covered with American magazine pages. . . . All of this is having its effect in awakening desires."
I know this article will generate legions of flamewars and hostility. However, i would like to mention that belief in a God is not mutually exclusive with belief in science. Many religious worshipers don't think the world was literally created in 6 days, nor is 6000 years old, nor discard evolution.
That's because people pick and choose what they want to believe out of it. I'm not sure which is dumber, believing in the entire, ridiculous thing, word for word or just picking the parts that are socially acceptable for the time you live in and believing those. Do you just keep shedding peices of it as they become completely scientificically untenable, then pretend to be all enlightened? Or do you just continue to believe all of it in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? At what point do you people just admit it's a story book written by a bunch of old, establishment men about 1800 years ago and nothing more? You do realize that the very existence of Jesus is very much debateble, right? There's actually zero proof.
"But they're scared, people. They're scared what you might do with your little video tools. They're scared that you might catch them, film them, embarrass them, and therefore destroy them. "
Oh yeah, they're real scared. Make the little workers feel slightly empowered for a few minutes, so they'll feel better about running on their little hamster wheels . FYI...there's nothing you could ever do with any of it, because as an employee, you have virtually no legal rights. The most you and all your pitiful co workers might get is a much deserved giggle. Now get back to wage-slavery...the lot of you chattel.
Dear Jesus in heaven, thank you for giving America the brilliance to design (in California) such a wonderous device. Thank you for giving us the cunning to use filthy brown savages in the east to bring such a wonder to the (unwashed) masses at such a low price point. Please bless our heathen slaves understand that their lives are unimportant in the big picture...even more now that we're using iPad to glority You (we always intended to...it's just the fucking Bible apps are so tedious to write). I, pastor Doston, being of sound (right wing conservative) mind, promise never to use this device to download Grindr and seek out M2M action at rest stops and never to browse gay personals looking for that which I (oddly) RAIL against to my flock each Sunday. Please grant me the courage and to only use the toilet at any rest stops I may come across, the strength to hold the iPad and my shameful member at the same time and the wisdom to know the difference between a fellow worshiper and an undercover cop. Jesus, most important of all, grant me the ability to continue everything I do and still call myself a good Christian. Amen.
The poison in question is what is called "systemic". The husk doesn't matter, the poison leeches into every part of the plant. The roots are poisoned, the leaves are poisoned, the stems are poisoned, the husks are poisoned, the fruits are poisoned, the entire plant is poisoned. But since the levels are well below the lethal dose for humans, it is safe to eat! But it is classified as "moderately toxic" so foods must be tested to ensure that they are not toxic. The FDA randomly does this, and finds them in lots of foods, though they've never found widespread cases where they are considered "dangerous" to humans, though no chronic exposure tests have been done. At any rate, Bayer says that 20 BBP is "safe" for bees, and most HFCS tested is around that level. What TFA shows is that although 20 BBP is well below the LD50 for individual bees, it still is high enough to result in CCD 15 times out of 16, within 6 months of exposure. So, to repeat myself, they didn't test HFCS because the government does. How dare they trust the government? I don't know, but for whatever reason they don't suspect that the government is reporting greatly higher levels of poison in the food supply than are actually present.
I read this article yesterday when it was in Firehose. While it may be reasonable that this pesticide is causing the problems, the article failed to specifically show a link to HFCS as the source of the problem. In particular, they apparently made no attempt to test the HFCS itself for pesticide levels. It is more likely that bees would get the pesticide directly via the environment than via highly processed corn product. Not to mention that maize corn is inside a husk, which should reduce the amount of pesticide in the kernels to begin with.
It's the scientific equivalent of saying "smoking causes cancer" + "cigarettes are sold in grocery stores" = "you can get cancer from going to a grocery store".
They should test the corn syrup, of course, but your grocery store analogy is ridiculous. It would be closer to the study to say "cigarettes began selling at Safeway in 2005" + "Safeway customers who smoke started showing up in emergency rooms in 2006" + "You can get sick from buying cigarettes being sold at Safeway", which is pretty much how the CDC operates with any given outbreak. I guess they're real unscientific there and Harvard is just out to get "big corn", right? If I performed a Sendmail upgrade last Wednesday, then thousands of customers started calling into customer care complaining of SMTP connection failures last Thursday morning and I finally got wind of it the Monday after, I'd be sure to think it was something other than the Sendmail upgrade, right? Yeah, right. Time correlation and likely impact of changes matter....a lot.
While the pesticide stuff is pretty obvious, I'm more skeptical about the HFCS link, especially if they're claiming its Monstanto GMO corn causing it. Or something silly. Yes, sugar is a poison, and HFCS is vile, but it's going to take another few studies to convince me.
The story didn't say anything about GMO corn, it said that imidacloprid has gotten into HFCS because it's being sprayed on corn crops. Why bother commenting if you're only going to skim the article...the article recap at that? ADD much?
I don't think he wants to go back to the stone age, but the EPA and FDA flounder around regularly. They are understaffed for what they are expected to do, and like all politics it's a farce anyway. No ones required to tell you what they've done to the food they sell you, and the drugs on the market now-a-days carry more side affects than cures.
So we've got security theater, regulatory theater and probably cancer research theater, too, since I still, in 2012, walk around the local co-op and regularly see bald, pale cancer patients even after years of reading about wonderous new cancer discoveries. Remember that two statin combo that cured *all* forms of cancer (in mice) in the late 90s or early 2000s? Part of me thinks they'll never cure it and the whole point of all this is just to create "hope" so money will continue to pour in and researchers will have jobs. From what you'll hear from any lay person, there's no incentive to actually cure anything. Is that a fair assesssment or bordering on tinfoil helmet time?
Slashdot Mirror
Newton Einstein Plato Socrates Copernicus Da Vinci Franklin Watt Edison Fulton Dirac Pauli
The list is nigh endless of those great thinkers and discoverers. who believed in magic, as well.
Yeah and how many were sent to the gallows for simply thinking that didn't make your list? What you've got is a list of people with scientific and some much needed political skill. What did the world miss out on with the people who were purely scientific, but never got an education or who were scientific but not political that ended up dead from questioning the church or some other power system? Your little list is cute, but it could be much longer.. I've often wondered how far science would be right now, but for the politics of domination and religious extremism that's probably held us back....oh say a THOUSAND years of progress....yeah think about that, buddy.
The governor adds: "However, I also don’t believe that it accomplishes anything that isn’t already acceptable in our schools."
So why don't you veto it to prevent cluttering up the lawbook with unnecessary laws?
Because he must pander to people who have had a poor education and can vote, but he's personally educated enough to know it's lunacy and he's probably personally a bit embarrassed. So in his institutional role, he must sign, but being a human, he must be embarrassed. What a precarious position to be in.
I think I have the definitions of fact and theory well in hand:
From Merriam Webster:
theory noun \th--r, thir-\ plural theories Definition of THEORY 1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another 2: abstract thought : speculation 3: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art 4a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory 5: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena 6a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b : an unproved assumption : conjecture c : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject See theory defined for English-language learners See theory defined for kids Examples of THEORY
a widely accepted scientific theory Her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn. There are a number of different theories about the cause of the disease. She proposed a theory of her own. Investigators rejected the theory that the death was accidental. There is no evidence to support such a theory. He is a specialist in film theory and criticism. The immune surveillance theory of cancer holds that in a way we all do have cancer, that a healthy immune system fights off rogue cells as they appear. —Sallie Tisdale, Harper's, June 2007 [+]more
fact noun \fakt\ Definition of FACT
1: a thing done: as a obsolete : feat b : crime c archaic : action 2 archaic : performance, doing 3: the quality of being actual : actuality 4a : something that has actual existence b : an actual occurrence 5 : a piece of information presented as having objective reality — in fact : in truth See fact defined for English-language learners See fact defined for kids Examples of FACT
Rapid electronic communication is now a fact. The book is filled with interesting facts and figures. He did it, and that's a fact.
Dictionary probably wasn't your best source in this case.
"A scientific theory is a set of principles that explain and predict phenomena. Scientists create scientific theories with the scientific method, when they are originally proposed as hypotheses and tested for accuracy through observations and experiments. Once a hypothesis is verified, it becomes a theory."
I think what you were trying to say is 'hypothesis'. A 'scientific theory' is what a lay person would call a fact, or closer to it than the term would imply. So yes, the things you don't agree with (evolution, climate change) are theories. If you don't agree, that's ok, but it does mean you're a flat earth, sun revolving around the earth type. Does that make more sense to you?
Can they teach the controversy that George Bush stole in 2000 election?
But that's not controversial in Tennessee!
There is no reason to think /. is 'smarter'. Really, if you are interested in what smart people thing about this, there are sites of actual experts in the field. A genius Software Engineer is no more insightful to something outside her expertise then any one else.
"I think the number of technical stories have stayed about the same, but the number of overall sumissions has increased, so there's just more to read and some of it's what you'd consider junk."
by that reasoning, more of it is junk.
The WORST person to listen to is an inside "expert", unless you like totally status quo opinions. Yes, a genius software engineer is capable of actual critical thought and is much more insightful on any matter, including national politics. I'm not in the camp that believes you need some "specialized class" governing things. I guess we both have our opinions.
It looks to me like a lot of faggots here on Slashdot need killing for denigrating Rick Santorum using the terminology of that faggot Dan Savage.
Tie them to wooden fences in Wyoming and beat them to death.
No straight guy cares that much about "faggots" or what "faggots" do or if they're tied to a wooden fence (usually voluntarily, for pleasure). The people on /. are savvy enough to know what dedicated homophobes beat off to when they're alone, Mike.
Because if 'News for nerds' is 'News every nerd might be interested in, it becomes meaningless.
Might as well just read CNN.
I see your point, but it's at least interesting to see what other smart poeple are thinking on regular issues. They'd probably be discussing Santorum's hair on the CNN message boards. There are still plenty of technical stories and these are easily avoided. I think the number of technical stories have stayed about the same, but the number of overall sumissions has increased, so there's just more to read and some of it's what you'd consider junk.
Santorum never had a change because mainstream conservative thought really has moved on from the religious-crazy ideas that Santorum brought to the table - those might have worked 20 years ago, but thankfully times change.
Santorum was an embarassment to the GOP. He was the right-wing of our grandfathers, when what we desparately need now is a fiscal conservative, not a social conservative. Of course, finding a fiscal conservative with enough political savvy to avoid making an idiot of himself on camera is proving difficult - I guess once you've been in the game long enough, a less powerful government doesn't seem so appealing any more.
Are you joking? The right-wing of our grandfathers? The right-wing of our grandfathers was Hitler...we didn't even have that extreme here (in the mainstream) until the last 40 years or so. Conservatives USED to be conservative...you know like conserve...not send troops all over, highy protectionist, isolationist (anti NAFTA) conserve the environment. It's only the last 40 years or so that these lunatic neo cons (there's a reason it's called NEO) started cropping up. Do you realize that by these people's standards Nixon was a massive liberal? Reagan would never be able to get the nomination these days; he'd look more like Obama. I don't know what history books you're reading, but they're off by a long shot. Oh, and all these ridiculous "social" issues also barely came up. Gay rights and contraception. Issues meant to distract and appeal to people's emotions, not help them make a rational decision that's in their best interest. That's all a new marketing thing. Go back to our grandfathers time and you'll find a lot more honesty and a lot less political marketing. "would you have a beer with him"...that's new. That's why we're in for a fascist dictator one day because people can't vote their own interest anymore. That's why life in America is sucking more and more. People vote for the guy they "like" and who appeals to their emotions. Try balancing your checkbook spending on emotions...it doesn't work. At some point you have to take a cold, hard look at the candiate and that's just not possible anymore. W'e're in for MORE radical right wingers, not less.
I was really worried this guy was going to try to keep going. The way he speaks reminds me of Hitler, in both subject matter and candor. This whole business of fighting the good culture warrior fight makes me very nervous. I don't like Romney either, but he doesn't scare the bejeepers out of me the way Santorum did.
I worry at signs that the USA is headed toward fascism, but some browsing on Wikipedia about Germany in the 1920s reveals that we've still got a long way to go yet.
Political murders by gangs of thugs (from all shades of the political spectrum) was almost the norm. Here political murders are still pretty rare, and mostly carried out by individuals or small groups of thugs, rather than by nation-wide organizations.
You can't go by political murders, you mostly go by the sheer stupidity of the average voter...like the fact that Santorum was running at all. We're one massive economic collapse away from fascism and there are choirs of economists predicting one. We're living in late Weimar Germany...I have zero doubt. I think the government knows it, too, which is why the Utah data center and everything else that's going on.
The big hang-up for me about Santorum aside from the majority of his views was his daughters health. She is unfortunately constantly in and out of the hospital and I just dont think its smart to take on what has been called the most stressful job in the world while you're also worried about your childs health.
I hope that didnt come across as too harsh.
If that's the only reason you decided not to support Santorum, harsh is the least of your worries. How about being a moron? I hope that didn't come across as too harsh.
It looks to me like a lot of faggots here on Slashdot need killing for denigrating Rick Santorum using the terminology of that faggot Dan Savage.
Tie them to wooden fences in Wyoming and beat them to death.
You mean frothy, shitty santorum? Too bad your frothy shitty loser lost to a zillionaire ken doll.
There's a whole spectrum of faith between deciding the Bible is just a book, and going full agnostic or "passive believer"
For example, lots of people have decided the Bible is just a book, but still pray, and seek communion with God.
And birds go tweet! :)
At what point do you people just admit it's a story book written by a bunch of old, establishment men about 1800 years ago and nothing more?
Lots of people have reached that point, and still believe in God.
Lots of people believe in God that never even had the Bible as a starting point.
Then that's not a "religious worshiper" or nececarily a 'worshiper' at all. Simply having a feeling there is a God or acknowledging the fact that we can't know, doesn't make anybody a worshiper, much less a religious worshiper. I'd accept agnostic or passive believer, but that's not how you worded it.
Four legs good! Two Legs Better! Four legs good! Two Legs Better!
Vigilante Justice is all well and good, but revolution is best accomplished democratically. Bullets should be reserved for supplementing a non-functional justice system.
Trouble with Vigilante Justice is that it is administered by the "simple solutions to complex problems" type of person who would become a Vigilante. That makes it's probability of improving the justice landscape vs. making it worse very unlikely.
Did Joesph Stack really take issue with the IRS in general? Or did he just manage to get sucked in to a personality conflict with some petty dictator?
Anger and revenge need to be focused to pin point resolution like a laser to inspire violent retribution. The Jews, the Pigs, the IRS, the Supreme Court, etc. These are all small ideas that the anger and frustration in life can be attributed to as a source. It would all be lollipop fields and gumdrops "IF ONLY [insert confirmation bias scapegoat] were removed from the picture!".
Given a little bit of wisdom & perspective, the hatred loses it's focus and sharp point as it dithers in to the fog of non-black and white thinking.
My belief is that the ability of a person to accomplish evil is proportional to how much power they are given to wield without oversight. When political power becomes centralized and concentrated, the amount of evil shit it takes to remove the administrator increases proportionally with the difficulty of finding a qualified candidate to replace them. It's a lack of competition for power because fewer and fewer people are available or seen as qualified to fill the big chair.
The idea of focusing hatred on executive roles seems great in concept, because based on the idea that "shit rolls downhill", everything can be blamed on failures in leadership, however at the end of the day the leaders themselves are frequently victims of the terrain of the field and have limitations to their maneuvering room which would allow them to change things for the better.
All of this culminates in a desire to curl up on an island(remote from civilization), drink a beer, and bask in a proper case of Weltschmerz & islomania.
Then again, it's also possible that I'm too quick to relieve leadership of accountability as animals helpless to their circumstances. Perhaps I'm the type of person who would have argued against assassinating Hitler as I watched fascism goose-stepping through my living room to haul away my fiance.
There is a school of ethics that would argue that all animals are entitled to change the "terrain of the field" when the existing landscape threatens their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness(or the less lofty "self preservation"). That is pandora's box and opens the door for retribution in-kind. Sometimes, the economics are stacked against the probability of peaceful resolution as wills collide on increasing frequency for too limited of resources.
So do we look to Adam Smith to expand the scope of the market, or do we turn to Mars, the god of war, to purge the field of some actors?
What people do when presented with those choices will largely be determined by circumstances and incentives I predict. I'll note that the media is owned by defense contractors, not the Sperry Gyroscope Company or sextant manufacturers.
Whatever America decides to do with their destiny, I want no part of it. I've yet to see a president or congress in my lifetime worthy of power, and I blame the voter for that. I'm just looking for an exit, I suggest anyone reading this do the same.
Where would you go? Canada? We're building a highway through it and it's referred to as the 51st state for a reason. Mexico? The same, besides the fact that the US took control via the 'drug war' long ago. Europe? They're so much farther along with surveillance that the US government pales. China? Worse and you'd stick out like a sore thumb. Australia? Worse. Latin America? That place
Actually its been real for quite a long time, they just used the classic "use it against a bad guy and the populace won't scream..until its too late" trick and it worked quite well. There are two men currently in prison for thoughtcrime, there are probably more but there are at least two that i know of. 1 is the guy that wrote the 'pro pedo" book, this book is nothing but his thoughts on the subject, no pictures, no "hey you should go out and rape kids" incitement, just his thoughts written down, now he's in prison...thoughtcrime. The other wrote down his fantasies of having sex with 14 year old girls on the advice of his therapist who wanted him to write down his fantasies in detail so they could break them down in therapy, now he is in prison too. again no pictures, no evidence that he actually did anything other than write his thoughts down...thoughtcrime.
It never ceases to amaze me how much of the populace will let any trully horrific law through or allow virtually any crushing of our civil liberties as long as you make sure the FIRST few targets are of a group they hate, be it communists, racists, terrorists, pedos, etc. So sad that so many years after "first they came for the communists" was written so many still don't understand that this is a classic tactic, use the power against someone that nobody will defend and then by the time they use it on you its been part of the system so long nobody balks.
We have seen the enemy...and it is us. Too many simply won't stand up if the target is someone they can't stand so that all of this horrible shit can seep into the system and eventually be used against us all. Once upon a time the NSA was mainly tasked with rooting out foreign spies which at the time was a real and credible threat...now they are used against us. nobody watched them, or kept them in check, or complained when their powers grew, so here we are.
jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you’re trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them. -Noam Chomsky
You do realize that a better way to save money is to not spend it in the first place, right? People that purchase an item only because of the 'deal' they get on it are cattle. People that shop smart and look for coupons/deals/discounts on something they need anyway are smart. The breakdown comes because we've been trained to believe that wants are now needs.
West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996. An excerpt (pp. 56-59): [The United Fruit] company claimed in its propaganda that its role was to instill consumer values among its workers. . . . In 1929, Crowther, another United Fruit biographer, explicitly explained the importance of the spread of a consumer mentality as he waxed eloquent on the virtues of capitalism and bemoaned the immoral effects of a subsistence economy: "The mozos or working people [in Central America] have laboured only when forced to and that was not often, for the land would give them what little they needed." But this could be changed, he explained, by infusing these laborers with the desire for upward mobility. "The desire for goods, it may be remarked, is something that has to be cultivated. In the United States this desire has been cultivated. . . . American movies, radio, and especially magazines were everywhere, and "our advertising is slowly having the same effect as in the United States -- and it is reaching the mozos. For when a periodical is discarded, it is grabbed up, and its advertising pages turn up as wall paper in the thatched huts. I have seen the insides of huts completely covered with American magazine pages. . . . All of this is having its effect in awakening desires."
I know this article will generate legions of flamewars and hostility. However, i would like to mention that belief in a God is not mutually exclusive with belief in science. Many religious worshipers don't think the world was literally created in 6 days, nor is 6000 years old, nor discard evolution.
That's because people pick and choose what they want to believe out of it. I'm not sure which is dumber, believing in the entire, ridiculous thing, word for word or just picking the parts that are socially acceptable for the time you live in and believing those. Do you just keep shedding peices of it as they become completely scientificically untenable, then pretend to be all enlightened? Or do you just continue to believe all of it in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? At what point do you people just admit it's a story book written by a bunch of old, establishment men about 1800 years ago and nothing more? You do realize that the very existence of Jesus is very much debateble, right? There's actually zero proof.
"But they're scared, people. They're scared what you might do with your little video tools. They're scared that you might catch them, film them, embarrass them, and therefore destroy them. " Oh yeah, they're real scared. Make the little workers feel slightly empowered for a few minutes, so they'll feel better about running on their little hamster wheels . FYI...there's nothing you could ever do with any of it, because as an employee, you have virtually no legal rights. The most you and all your pitiful co workers might get is a much deserved giggle. Now get back to wage-slavery...the lot of you chattel.
Dear Jesus in heaven, thank you for giving America the brilliance to design (in California) such a wonderous device. Thank you for giving us the cunning to use filthy brown savages in the east to bring such a wonder to the (unwashed) masses at such a low price point. Please bless our heathen slaves understand that their lives are unimportant in the big picture...even more now that we're using iPad to glority You (we always intended to...it's just the fucking Bible apps are so tedious to write). I, pastor Doston, being of sound (right wing conservative) mind, promise never to use this device to download Grindr and seek out M2M action at rest stops and never to browse gay personals looking for that which I (oddly) RAIL against to my flock each Sunday. Please grant me the courage and to only use the toilet at any rest stops I may come across, the strength to hold the iPad and my shameful member at the same time and the wisdom to know the difference between a fellow worshiper and an undercover cop. Jesus, most important of all, grant me the ability to continue everything I do and still call myself a good Christian. Amen.
The poison in question is what is called "systemic". The husk doesn't matter, the poison leeches into every part of the plant. The roots are poisoned, the leaves are poisoned, the stems are poisoned, the husks are poisoned, the fruits are poisoned, the entire plant is poisoned. But since the levels are well below the lethal dose for humans, it is safe to eat! But it is classified as "moderately toxic" so foods must be tested to ensure that they are not toxic. The FDA randomly does this, and finds them in lots of foods, though they've never found widespread cases where they are considered "dangerous" to humans, though no chronic exposure tests have been done. At any rate, Bayer says that 20 BBP is "safe" for bees, and most HFCS tested is around that level. What TFA shows is that although 20 BBP is well below the LD50 for individual bees, it still is high enough to result in CCD 15 times out of 16, within 6 months of exposure. So, to repeat myself, they didn't test HFCS because the government does. How dare they trust the government? I don't know, but for whatever reason they don't suspect that the government is reporting greatly higher levels of poison in the food supply than are actually present.
Sorry I read that wrong. You could be right.
I read this article yesterday when it was in Firehose. While it may be reasonable that this pesticide is causing the problems, the article failed to specifically show a link to HFCS as the source of the problem. In particular, they apparently made no attempt to test the HFCS itself for pesticide levels. It is more likely that bees would get the pesticide directly via the environment than via highly processed corn product. Not to mention that maize corn is inside a husk, which should reduce the amount of pesticide in the kernels to begin with.
It's the scientific equivalent of saying "smoking causes cancer" + "cigarettes are sold in grocery stores" = "you can get cancer from going to a grocery store".
They should test the corn syrup, of course, but your grocery store analogy is ridiculous. It would be closer to the study to say "cigarettes began selling at Safeway in 2005" + "Safeway customers who smoke started showing up in emergency rooms in 2006" + "You can get sick from buying cigarettes being sold at Safeway", which is pretty much how the CDC operates with any given outbreak. I guess they're real unscientific there and Harvard is just out to get "big corn", right? If I performed a Sendmail upgrade last Wednesday, then thousands of customers started calling into customer care complaining of SMTP connection failures last Thursday morning and I finally got wind of it the Monday after, I'd be sure to think it was something other than the Sendmail upgrade, right? Yeah, right. Time correlation and likely impact of changes matter....a lot.
While the pesticide stuff is pretty obvious, I'm more skeptical about the HFCS link, especially if they're claiming its Monstanto GMO corn causing it. Or something silly. Yes, sugar is a poison, and HFCS is vile, but it's going to take another few studies to convince me.
The story didn't say anything about GMO corn, it said that imidacloprid has gotten into HFCS because it's being sprayed on corn crops. Why bother commenting if you're only going to skim the article...the article recap at that? ADD much?
Not sure. Does Tin foil cause cancer?
Alzheimer's
I don't think he wants to go back to the stone age, but the EPA and FDA flounder around regularly. They are understaffed for what they are expected to do, and like all politics it's a farce anyway. No ones required to tell you what they've done to the food they sell you, and the drugs on the market now-a-days carry more side affects than cures.
So we've got security theater, regulatory theater and probably cancer research theater, too, since I still, in 2012, walk around the local co-op and regularly see bald, pale cancer patients even after years of reading about wonderous new cancer discoveries. Remember that two statin combo that cured *all* forms of cancer (in mice) in the late 90s or early 2000s? Part of me thinks they'll never cure it and the whole point of all this is just to create "hope" so money will continue to pour in and researchers will have jobs. From what you'll hear from any lay person, there's no incentive to actually cure anything. Is that a fair assesssment or bordering on tinfoil helmet time?
Should be called the Fleshlight! Yeah, since it's a flashlight to be used on the flesh, right? ;-) I wonder if it feels real good....