"I could easily come up with dozens of scientific theories and concepts that are certainly more important to be taught than evolution.... The theory of evolution is just not that important."
No you couldn't. It really is that important. Evolution is science at its most perfect, in method, reason, prediction, confirmation and deduction. Hit has led to more useful and productive advances in civilization than any previous discovery of mankind. Any modern adult who does not understand it will have a stunted life experience, being unable to appreciate what he sees around him. It would be a form of blindness.
For God's sake. The bible does not say anywhere that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Some 19th century Anglican minister with too much time on his hands added up the begats in genesis and came to that figure. Well bugger me? How good is that? The Bible has some of those dudes living for centuries and the book of Genesis was written in the Bronze age by people claiming to have memories going back through the generations for thousands of years. Even the United Kingdom can't trace their royal family much further back than Billy of Normandy. Most of us can't trace our own family for more than four generations - and that is with 21st century information age resources, not the mud tablets and oral history of the bronze age.
This is an absurdity that only the dumbest of the American protestant sects can take seriously. They like it because it is so obviously wrong that it gives their faith heroic status as an enemy of science.
If this were an experiment, could it support the hypothesis that red light cameras cause accidents? We would need some scientific method and statistical analysis to support that conclusion. Were all the other variables controlled? Was the rate of increase in accidents zero before the experiment, was traffic, and hence risk increasing, was the duration long enough to show the trend.
Anyway, let's suppose it did prove that many bad drivers can ignore stoplights and avoid accidents, I am still in favor of catching these bastards each and every time that they do it and punishing them hard. Zero tolerance works. Crack down consistently on trivial offenses and you will get fewer serious ones. These are most likely the same drivers who exceed the speed limit and change lanes unsafely in their passion to save a few minutes off their commute. They are happy to risk your life, and also that of your family. Catching them for those more serious offenses often requires dangerous driving by cops. It is better to catch them when they are going slower and under conditions that are easier for gathering the evidence. An automated camera is the perfect way, because it is fair, consistent, and safe, and produces incontrovertible evidence.
I am OK with it being a revenue raising tax too. Bad driving costs us all money, so let the ones who do it pay.
We need more red light cameras.
When asked for a reference for someone who has been hopeless, I use the old formula:
"You will be lucky to get this person to work for you."
Its true, but reflects the constraints on your honesty. Some employers, and some employees, will understand the warning.
He can't really afford a red button. The procedure is actually to light the blue touch-paper, grab your beer, jump back in the pick-up truck, and get the hell outa therel.
This is one little blue pixel in the grim red global warming picture. We like its blue colour rather than all those scary red pixels. So let's decide that therefore the whole picture must really be blue.
Or, we could grow up, look around and understand that deciding this for ourselves is way too hard. Climate science involves some very complex mathematics that we can't do because we are not smart enough. Let's leave the assessment of the evidence and the conclusions to the experts. Its OK to get angry with those who try to distort the science to support their investments and selfish interests. Even moreso if they are just political conservatives who are stuffing up the proper reaction to this massive human problem for ideological reasons. Our lives and the future of our children are at stake so we have a life and death imperative to reject bad science and amateur interpretation of a tiny bit sof evidence like this one. For all we know this Roman evidence is a sign of a fluctuating global temperature trend that is risinfg steadily but unevenly across history and geography.
The atmosphere is fragile. The human- usable part is up to 10000 feet (two miles) from the ground. The Earth is about 8000 miles in diameter, So if Earth was an onion, the relative atmosphere would be thinner than the outer layer of skin. Fuck this up and we are all dead. Global warming was first noticed by scientists who were looking at the surface of Mars for signs of warming and they got a hell of a shock when they turned their instruments on Earth. The scientists called it what it is "global warming", but this scared too many American conservatives so they invented the euphemism "climate change" and made the PC term. See the Hansen Ted Talk, and be very afraid.
You're all brainwashed. Tom has a master's degree from a Scientology university. He did his thesis on the evils of psychiatry. So, he knows much more about this stuff than we do. He even has superpowers. If you get hurt in a car accident, don't call for a doctor, call for Super Tom.
The real reason that the East Coast of the USA is still having frequent power outages in the twenty first century is the lack of adequate planning porovisions by the electricity suppliers. And, the reason for that is the creation of a market for electricity. Now the mantra is that "the market will provide" to meet any demand. Well the market does not always provide for all contingencies unless someone installs the necessary infrastructure. That happened best when electricity supply was treated as a natural monopoly. Most developed nations have a more reliable electricity supply than the USA and this is because they are not so hung up on competition
I think it is an indication of how we need more federal government intervention in education because the states cannot be trusted to follow adequate standards.
It must be really tough to teach kids who know how to think, if you are as dumb ass a horse's ass yourself.
We all suspected that texas' lawmakers are ignorant and stupid, but did they have to go and prove it so thoroughly.
You Americans are very funny. This does seem to be an exclusively USA issue. I have not encountered it during my many travels throughout Europe, Asia, or where I live in Australia. No doubt there are some small pockets where evangelising missionaries from the fundamentalist American Protestant sects have managed to scare a few unsophisticated people into these extreme creationist beliefs, but I have not yet seen any evidence of this.
Why is this so? Given the percentage of the US population that is supposed to believe this nonsense, there must be an explanation relating to the environment of your country. Perhaps it is a reflection on your decrepit education system, rooted in conservative state governments. It seems to me that it is more likely that the number of simple-minded Christians is so large in the USA, and the system of government is so open to "respecting" the beliefs of everyone, that these deniers of the most wonderful and productive branch of science in the last 200 years have to be comforted.
My own theory is that this is really about fear. Genesis, in all its innocent antediluvian ignorance, is necessary to support a belief in eternal damnation and salvation, and hence in the need for a Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. These people sincerely believe that they will suffer in agony for eternity unless they hold to a belief in this salvation. This is very effective mind control, and it is reinforced by learned pastors who they hold in high esteem. We won't change that by more demonstrations of the power of genetics. Unprogramming these suckers is going to be extremely difficult because they are very afraid, and are immune to reason.
Should we bother with them? They are really only a harmless and fascinating anacronism that reminds us of the horrors of medieval Christianity, and perhaps we need such a reminder.
Does anyone have any ideas how it could be done? My suggestion is satire. As this thread shows, creationist beliefs can be hilarious, and these are vey insecure people. There is a problem with Poe's Law, because any attempt to parody outspoken creationists will be undone when a true believer who is even funnier opens up, There is the challenge.
Australian Aboriginals, "modern humans" go back 40,000 years of living in Australia, and they had cave art. Some were still living in the same old way until only about 100 years ago.
Spaniards, neaderthals? What's the difference?
He simply said that in law you don't have a legal right to private conversations when you are in a public place. He would be wrong about that in many countries. In the USA this is state law (unless you are using a telecommunications service), and the laws vary.
You may have you own "expectation" of privacy but that may not always be protected by the law. It is a better approach to make our own provisions for privacy rather than relying on the law.
Canada Border Services can make regulations only according to the powers given to it in its legislation. Those powers would have been constructed with compliance to treaty obligations in mind. Listening Device legislation usually makes use by anyone a criminal offence unless it done with the knowloedge of those recorded, or is covered by a judicial warrant. Presumably the CBS does not have the power to get a warrant, and anyway it could not get one in relation to unidentified people milling around an airport. There is no loss of soverignty because citizens are bound only by the laws of their own country.
At least this is the way it should be. There was a case a few years ago where an Australian in his home violated a US DRM law regarding copying protected music without breaking any Australian law. The American music publisher protested and he was extradited to the USA to face a prison sentence. If you can be punished in another country for something that you did in your own country which was not a crime there, then there is definitely a loss of soverignty.
At that time Australia had a pathetic conservative government that was grovelling to the G W Bush Administration in a totally disgraceful fashion. They even permitted an Australian to be incarcerated for years in the Guantanamo gulag in violation of all of his citizenship rights.
"International laws and treaties are binding even above the US constitution."
A common misconception.
There are no actual international laws. There are treaty agreements made by ministers or officials at some meeting. They have no effect until they are later ratified by national governments. Then a domestic law, or regulation under an existing law, is produced to implement the agreement, or parts of it depending on ammendments during the passage of the bill through the legislature, Then this local law is binding on the citizens of that country, with the priority relative to the Constitution or other laws given in the Act.
"International law" is a loose general term used to refer to thebulk body of treaty agreements and implementation laws in various countries. When considering what is permissable, it is usually more expedient to check the treaty rather than the detail of the laws of the countries concerned.
There are no international police either. Interpol is just a message switch.
In this case it could easily be argued that the privacy invasion is necessary to provide air safety - much like opening a bag to look for a bomb. Dubious, I know, but the public interest case usually wins.
There is probably an ICAO treaty regarding the obligations of member nations to do their utmost to protect air safety. I doubt if there is a treaty protecting the right of citizens to private conversations - particularly at airports.
Obviously it is a fishing expedition, It is efficient because this way they can avoid the expensive and time consuming preliminary investigation that could lead to getting a warrant on a particular person. I'm fine with that, We need to catch as many of these welfare cheats as quickly as we can.
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"I could easily come up with dozens of scientific theories and concepts that are certainly more important to be taught than evolution. ... The theory of evolution is just not that important."
No you couldn't. It really is that important. Evolution is science at its most perfect, in method, reason, prediction, confirmation and deduction. Hit has led to more useful and productive advances in civilization than any previous discovery of mankind. Any modern adult who does not understand it will have a stunted life experience, being unable to appreciate what he sees around him. It would be a form of blindness.
I believe this, therefore you must do that. WTF?
For God's sake. The bible does not say anywhere that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Some 19th century Anglican minister with too much time on his hands added up the begats in genesis and came to that figure. Well bugger me? How good is that? The Bible has some of those dudes living for centuries and the book of Genesis was written in the Bronze age by people claiming to have memories going back through the generations for thousands of years. Even the United Kingdom can't trace their royal family much further back than Billy of Normandy. Most of us can't trace our own family for more than four generations - and that is with 21st century information age resources, not the mud tablets and oral history of the bronze age. This is an absurdity that only the dumbest of the American protestant sects can take seriously. They like it because it is so obviously wrong that it gives their faith heroic status as an enemy of science.
Who cares about difficulties for vending machine folks?
Europe is not a federation. The USA is one country, so no big feat there.
Why don't we convert to metric measures at the same time? Because this is a deeply conservative country.
"Dollar coins at the strip club sounds both dangerous and hilarious." The correct method is to insert them in the slot, but don't expect change.
If this were an experiment, could it support the hypothesis that red light cameras cause accidents? We would need some scientific method and statistical analysis to support that conclusion. Were all the other variables controlled? Was the rate of increase in accidents zero before the experiment, was traffic, and hence risk increasing, was the duration long enough to show the trend. Anyway, let's suppose it did prove that many bad drivers can ignore stoplights and avoid accidents, I am still in favor of catching these bastards each and every time that they do it and punishing them hard. Zero tolerance works. Crack down consistently on trivial offenses and you will get fewer serious ones. These are most likely the same drivers who exceed the speed limit and change lanes unsafely in their passion to save a few minutes off their commute. They are happy to risk your life, and also that of your family. Catching them for those more serious offenses often requires dangerous driving by cops. It is better to catch them when they are going slower and under conditions that are easier for gathering the evidence. An automated camera is the perfect way, because it is fair, consistent, and safe, and produces incontrovertible evidence. I am OK with it being a revenue raising tax too. Bad driving costs us all money, so let the ones who do it pay. We need more red light cameras.
The man who invented algorithims will always get my vote.
When asked for a reference for someone who has been hopeless, I use the old formula: "You will be lucky to get this person to work for you." Its true, but reflects the constraints on your honesty. Some employers, and some employees, will understand the warning.
He can't really afford a red button. The procedure is actually to light the blue touch-paper, grab your beer, jump back in the pick-up truck, and get the hell outa therel.
This is one little blue pixel in the grim red global warming picture. We like its blue colour rather than all those scary red pixels. So let's decide that therefore the whole picture must really be blue. Or, we could grow up, look around and understand that deciding this for ourselves is way too hard. Climate science involves some very complex mathematics that we can't do because we are not smart enough. Let's leave the assessment of the evidence and the conclusions to the experts. Its OK to get angry with those who try to distort the science to support their investments and selfish interests. Even moreso if they are just political conservatives who are stuffing up the proper reaction to this massive human problem for ideological reasons. Our lives and the future of our children are at stake so we have a life and death imperative to reject bad science and amateur interpretation of a tiny bit sof evidence like this one. For all we know this Roman evidence is a sign of a fluctuating global temperature trend that is risinfg steadily but unevenly across history and geography. The atmosphere is fragile. The human- usable part is up to 10000 feet (two miles) from the ground. The Earth is about 8000 miles in diameter, So if Earth was an onion, the relative atmosphere would be thinner than the outer layer of skin. Fuck this up and we are all dead. Global warming was first noticed by scientists who were looking at the surface of Mars for signs of warming and they got a hell of a shock when they turned their instruments on Earth. The scientists called it what it is "global warming", but this scared too many American conservatives so they invented the euphemism "climate change" and made the PC term. See the Hansen Ted Talk, and be very afraid.
You're all brainwashed. Tom has a master's degree from a Scientology university. He did his thesis on the evils of psychiatry. So, he knows much more about this stuff than we do. He even has superpowers. If you get hurt in a car accident, don't call for a doctor, call for Super Tom.
The real reason that the East Coast of the USA is still having frequent power outages in the twenty first century is the lack of adequate planning porovisions by the electricity suppliers. And, the reason for that is the creation of a market for electricity. Now the mantra is that "the market will provide" to meet any demand. Well the market does not always provide for all contingencies unless someone installs the necessary infrastructure. That happened best when electricity supply was treated as a natural monopoly. Most developed nations have a more reliable electricity supply than the USA and this is because they are not so hung up on competition
Might be useful if you ever need to drive your guided missile frigate up Broadway, but what if you are trying to find Midway Island.
Anyway, stealth technology does not work against HF radar - the preferred technology of coutries less sophisticated than the USA.
If we are not supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?
I think it is an indication of how we need more federal government intervention in education because the states cannot be trusted to follow adequate standards.
It must be really tough to teach kids who know how to think, if you are as dumb ass a horse's ass yourself. We all suspected that texas' lawmakers are ignorant and stupid, but did they have to go and prove it so thoroughly.
You Americans are very funny. This does seem to be an exclusively USA issue. I have not encountered it during my many travels throughout Europe, Asia, or where I live in Australia. No doubt there are some small pockets where evangelising missionaries from the fundamentalist American Protestant sects have managed to scare a few unsophisticated people into these extreme creationist beliefs, but I have not yet seen any evidence of this. Why is this so? Given the percentage of the US population that is supposed to believe this nonsense, there must be an explanation relating to the environment of your country. Perhaps it is a reflection on your decrepit education system, rooted in conservative state governments. It seems to me that it is more likely that the number of simple-minded Christians is so large in the USA, and the system of government is so open to "respecting" the beliefs of everyone, that these deniers of the most wonderful and productive branch of science in the last 200 years have to be comforted. My own theory is that this is really about fear. Genesis, in all its innocent antediluvian ignorance, is necessary to support a belief in eternal damnation and salvation, and hence in the need for a Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. These people sincerely believe that they will suffer in agony for eternity unless they hold to a belief in this salvation. This is very effective mind control, and it is reinforced by learned pastors who they hold in high esteem. We won't change that by more demonstrations of the power of genetics. Unprogramming these suckers is going to be extremely difficult because they are very afraid, and are immune to reason. Should we bother with them? They are really only a harmless and fascinating anacronism that reminds us of the horrors of medieval Christianity, and perhaps we need such a reminder. Does anyone have any ideas how it could be done? My suggestion is satire. As this thread shows, creationist beliefs can be hilarious, and these are vey insecure people. There is a problem with Poe's Law, because any attempt to parody outspoken creationists will be undone when a true believer who is even funnier opens up, There is the challenge.
Australian Aboriginals, "modern humans" go back 40,000 years of living in Australia, and they had cave art. Some were still living in the same old way until only about 100 years ago. Spaniards, neaderthals? What's the difference?
He simply said that in law you don't have a legal right to private conversations when you are in a public place. He would be wrong about that in many countries. In the USA this is state law (unless you are using a telecommunications service), and the laws vary. You may have you own "expectation" of privacy but that may not always be protected by the law. It is a better approach to make our own provisions for privacy rather than relying on the law.
Canada Border Services can make regulations only according to the powers given to it in its legislation. Those powers would have been constructed with compliance to treaty obligations in mind. Listening Device legislation usually makes use by anyone a criminal offence unless it done with the knowloedge of those recorded, or is covered by a judicial warrant. Presumably the CBS does not have the power to get a warrant, and anyway it could not get one in relation to unidentified people milling around an airport. There is no loss of soverignty because citizens are bound only by the laws of their own country. At least this is the way it should be. There was a case a few years ago where an Australian in his home violated a US DRM law regarding copying protected music without breaking any Australian law. The American music publisher protested and he was extradited to the USA to face a prison sentence. If you can be punished in another country for something that you did in your own country which was not a crime there, then there is definitely a loss of soverignty. At that time Australia had a pathetic conservative government that was grovelling to the G W Bush Administration in a totally disgraceful fashion. They even permitted an Australian to be incarcerated for years in the Guantanamo gulag in violation of all of his citizenship rights.
"International laws and treaties are binding even above the US constitution." A common misconception. There are no actual international laws. There are treaty agreements made by ministers or officials at some meeting. They have no effect until they are later ratified by national governments. Then a domestic law, or regulation under an existing law, is produced to implement the agreement, or parts of it depending on ammendments during the passage of the bill through the legislature, Then this local law is binding on the citizens of that country, with the priority relative to the Constitution or other laws given in the Act. "International law" is a loose general term used to refer to thebulk body of treaty agreements and implementation laws in various countries. When considering what is permissable, it is usually more expedient to check the treaty rather than the detail of the laws of the countries concerned. There are no international police either. Interpol is just a message switch. In this case it could easily be argued that the privacy invasion is necessary to provide air safety - much like opening a bag to look for a bomb. Dubious, I know, but the public interest case usually wins. There is probably an ICAO treaty regarding the obligations of member nations to do their utmost to protect air safety. I doubt if there is a treaty protecting the right of citizens to private conversations - particularly at airports.
Obviously it is a fishing expedition, It is efficient because this way they can avoid the expensive and time consuming preliminary investigation that could lead to getting a warrant on a particular person. I'm fine with that, We need to catch as many of these welfare cheats as quickly as we can.