In particular, small numbers of very vocal people file lawsuits against the majority to get them to do what they want.
Like what? Stop using the public schools to proselytize to a captive audience? Stop trying to teach ID as science? No one is trying to control the Christians, unless by "control" you mean "stop projecting your religion onto the rest of us."
Even the school prayer issue is overblown. Little Jane can pray silently to God all she wants, and God can hear her just fine. Her relationship with Christ cannot be threatened by the ACLU or any number of atheists. I can pray silently to Shiva or anyone I want at the beginning of the school day, before a test, or any other time, and that prayer is just as effective as if the teacher stopped class and led the rest of the kids in the prayer of my choice. Prayer in school is not about being Christian--it's about the government-funded school validating your religion by stopping what everyone is doing and praying the way you want to pray. That has more to do with pride than with spirituality. It's a pretty meager spirituality that needs validation by a government employee to avoid feeling persecuted.
On a side note, I'd agree that the Democrats are probably just as corrupt, on average. Just as unresponsive to voter desires. But it wasn't a Democratic president that signed off on torture, gutted habeus corpus, claims to be exempt from any laws he doesn't like, put Americans under surveillance in direct violation of written law, and started an open-ended war with no clearly defined objectives that, and which became a terrorist recruiter's wet dream. So the Republican party has the standard complement of corruption and hubris, true, but then you add in all this other stuff, and the "just as bad" warning rings a bit false. Corruption + "we have to redefine torture so what we're doing isn't torture" is not the same thing as corruption alone.
Religious discrimination is only against Christians these days.
I'm always fascinated by this mindset. About 85% of the population considers themselves Christian. Pastors fill stadiums with tens of thousands of people, and Christian merchandise flies off the shelves. Even small towns have Christian bookstores, and city after city has 24-hour Christian TV and radio channels. Every politician at every level takes pains to show that they believe in God. A few of those are Jewish, but the vast majority are Christian. People advertise their Christianity on bumper stickers, t-shirts, bracelets, and who knows what else.
Yet to hear it, Christians are a persecuted minority, defiantly worshiping God despite the oppression of the secular authorities. When 85% of the population is Christian, who discriminates against Christians? What you may have meant is that proseletyzing and evangelizing aren't welcomed in schools because many Americans, including many Christian Americans, don't want those things in schools--they think that spiritual matters belong at home or in the church, not in the building kids go to to learn the three Rs. Many American's don't want the school to push a particular faith, because they know that they may not share that faith, at least in the finer points. But instead of saying "evangelizing has been made unwelcome in schools," we hear "Christians are under attack!"
I do think that some schools went overboard in defanging the evangelicals by keeping all Christian matters out of the school. I too think that the treatment needs to be more even-handed. I'd love to see more taught about the religious aspects of American history--how Roger Williams, Isaac Backus, and other Baptists were key in formulating the separation of church and state that modern Baptists want to abandon (or deny the existence of altogether), or how Protestant Ministers were so active in the KKK, for a couple of examples. That stuff would be controversial, but people might have more perspective if they knew about it.
Even as an atheist, I do think that we have gone too far in taking historical aspects of the impact of religion on American life out of schools. But frankly the problem is, as in all countries, the fundamentalists. If that term is too broad, I do apologize. I'm aiming squarely at the biblical literalists, the ones whose worldviews are threatened by modern biology, geology, physics, cosmology, and basically everything from the Enlightenment on down. I don't mind at all if my neighbor believes that Jesus died for their sins, but I do mind if they want the school curriculum changed because they don't think that evolution or the heliocentric solar system can be reconciled with the bible. So if it makes you happy, you can blame the ACLU or a handful of atheists for taking Christianity out of the schools, but it was the nutjob minority within the Christian population that made that possible. Similarly, it's the nutjobs in the Islamic community that is making life so complicated for so many people. Personal faith is never the issue, and "being Christian" was never under attack. No one cares if you have a personal relationship with Jesus, or with Allah or anyone else.
Surely there are some conservatives/libertarians who actually believe in small government, but the mainstream Republicans are not among them. The Republican Party is up to its eyeballs in its own mythology--these catchphrases are bandied about, but they are code-words conveying a very specific message, and that message isn't "small government". Less money for the poor, less money for environmental protection, less money for education--yes, yes, and yes, but not less money for the arms contractors, not less money for Haliburton, not less money for handouts to evangelical groups.
It's the same when they say "we believe in religious freedom!" -- what they mean is "We believe in the right of Christians to discriminate against non-Christians in hiring, housing, and so on," NOT "people should be free to practice their own religion." The phrase you're looking for is "glittering generalities." No one is going to argue against freedom, just as few will argue for big government. When you actually get down to what they really believe, it's pretty repugnant at times. These phrases get thrown around because they sound good and they build a false sense of consensus.
Meaning what? You've done climatalogical research? You've read the peer-reviewed papers published by the scientific community? Or that you listen to Rush Limbaugh and you're "skeptical" of what the "scientists" tell you?
none of which have jeopardized the existence of man.
Ah, so you're one of those. Link to an article where mainstream science, or Al Gore for that matter, said global warming would "jeapardize the existence of man." You're creating a classic strawman argument. By pretending that the scientists investigating global warming are all alarmist hand-wavers, you have identified what your "research" consisted of. You read a bunch of conservative talking points saying that "alarmist" scientists think that global warming will wipe out all life, and since it won't, we can't trust them. But that isn't the mainstream scientific position, and anyone who has "researched" this would know that.
Do you also feel qualified to "research" the germ theory and weigh in with your insights? How damned arrogant can you really be? Can I do a bit of reading in my study, ponder a bit, and just expect to wash away plate tectonics, the heliocentric model of the solar system, the germ theory, the atomic theory, or other mainstream scientific theories? No, and only an arrogant ass would think that their opinion, based on a bit of half-assed "research" on conservative blogs, was more informed that the entire damned scientific community. Could you possibly have a higher opinion of yourself?
It's possible, but not probable. The probability of any digit (or any finite sequence) approaches 1 (but never reaches it) as the number of digits approaches infinity. At least that's what I'm saying--whether or not it's mathematically correct is another question. So yes, it's possible that any digit or sequence thereof is absent, but the probability continues to go up as you get a larger pool of digits. There are pages where you can download megabytes of pi or other irrational numbers.
Pick a sequence, say "9999999999" and if you get a large enough chunk of numbers, random or just a section of an irrational number, the sequence you picked will be there. I've found 000000000 and other seemingly improbable sequences, only by using ctrl-f and starting with a big enough chunk of pi. The chance of a 9-digit number being 000000000 is small, but the chance of finding that sequence in a 10-million random (or nonrepeating) sequence is much higher.
If a sequence is infinite and random, it would seem to include all finite sequences in there somewhere. Actually it would seem to include them occurring an infinite number of times. Even if the probability of a sequence occurring isn't 1, it approaches one as the containing sequence approaches infinity. The probability of finding the sequence 0123456789 may be small in a 10-digit randomly selected number, but in a billion-digit number, that sequence is very likely to occur somewhere. Shouldn't that logic extrapolate to larger sequences found within larger sequences?
But I'm not all that good at math, so please correct me if I'm wrong. I just find irrational numbers elegant.
There you go--a 2-letter (or one, depending on the alphabet) representation of a number that contains ALL information. Can't get more compressed than that. Of course, which decimal places to start and end with, that's the question. How many irrational numbers are there? Can I patent one of them?
Well thought-out responses are better than those that aren't. Detailed, thoughtful articles are better than shallow sloganeering. This is why I subscribe to The New Yorker, The Economist, New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, and Harpers. If you want to know what's going on, read a news magazine, and I don't mean Newsweek. Blogs are great for up-to-the-minute current affairs, but the purpose and function are different from that of magazines, much less books.
TV is worse than any and all of the above. Blogs may fail to inform you (usually by the selectivity of their outrage--Drudge is great for that), but TV actually makes you more dumb than when you started. I may deplore an argument I see on Redstate (or Daily Kos, for that matter), but at least an argument, however specious, was made, whereas TV news actually undermines the very existence of coherent argument.
You can recognize people who rely completely on TV to inform them because they can't formulate a logical idea at all, much less respond to yours. They rely on slogans and ad hominem attacks, and get tripped up by even the most obvious questions. By comparison, the most vacuous blogs are vastly superior. Even a deceptive, simplistic article must follow a chain of logic and facts that can, at least in principle, be addressed and refuted.
Angkor Wat is the largest religious building on the planet. It's larger than St. Paul's Cathedral. It's the only monument at which I've ever wept. Well, actually it was at Preah Khan, but that's part of the Angkor complex as well, so it counts. So calling it my favorite falls somewhat short of the superlatives it deserves. Western cathedrals move me as well, but there is something special about the Angkor temples.
I wish this type of tech would develop into something in the form factor of the minidisc. I still have my music mindiscs, some of them about 10 years old. There's something about that size, the protective case, and even the colors that makes the form factor interesting. I'd love to be able to have a ~300GB Truecrypt container on a rewritable minidisc-type thing.
I've always found DVDs/CDs too large. Yes, they make mini-cdrs and mini-dvds (I used to have a Sony CD Mavica) but they don't have the protective case the minidiscs had. Some things are just ergonomically right, and I regret that we didn't go a little further in that direction.
What's with honor killings? Even if a woman is known as an all-out slut, the village bicycle, why would you want to kill her? I can understand why other women would want to, but men? For quite obvious reasons, I think promiscuous women are pretty cool. I never understand why men would criticize them. They even criticize them after they sleep with them. What the hell? None of this makes sense.
If you have an dirty pictures or movies that aren't encrypted, shame on you. You could die tomorrow--after the will gets sorted out, do you want your mom|sister|kids|whoever finding your smut? Everyone may suspect that I watch porn, but I certainly don't have to let them browse through my collection of underage llama porn for verification. Private stuff should be private. Make an effort, people.
About 70% of the people who are released from death row after being exonerated by DNA evidence were convicted on eyewitness testimony. The death penalty is bad because witnesses lie or are mistaken, cops lie or are mistaken, cops torture/beat confessions out of people, jailhouse snitches are allowed to testify to reduce their own sentence, evidence is planted (or hidden, if exculpatory), and so on.
We think we have a god's-eye view and we just know that someone is guilty, but the case is stacked to look that way, and we don't really know, not definitively. Very seldom is there videotape of a crime like this--usually we have to rely on people whose careers are built on getting an arrest and a conviction. People will send you to death row just to help their own careers, even if they have to intimidate witnesses, supress contradictory testimony, or reduce someone else's sentence for their "testimony" about the night you confessed to them.
I work in a hospital, and ER docs like to swap stories. The worst I've heard is of a woman who was kidnapped, beaten, repeatedly raped, and thrown into a ditch to die. She didn't die, but she did land on a fire ant mound, where she stayed until someone found her, which was not enough time for her to die. Tragedy happens, crime happens, but sometimes you just have to think "that's not fair." I always think of that story when I hear someone say "well, everything happens for a reason."
No, many of us are aware that terrorism has skyrocketed since Bush took office. Many around the world believe that his policies are fueling the increase. Many government studies have noted that our actions are making terrorism worse.
I know you meant that linking Bush to increased terrorism is just liberal Bush-hating, but to do so you'd have to be pretty ignorant of all the studies and articles pointing out that our actions in Iraq, the secret torture prisons around the world, the renditions, the detention without trial, etc are galvanizing the islamacist community and are basically a terrorist recruiter's wet dream. We're doing a better job than they are of making the USA look evil
I'm always amused when people criticize the ACLU for their ambivalence towards the 2nd Amendment. Usually (not always), it comes from pro-NRA people. Though I do wish the ACLU pushed for gun rights too, my math says that championing 9/10 of the Bill of Rights is 900% as good as championing 1/10 of the Bill of Rights, as the NRA does. So the ACLU is only 9 times as faithful to the Bill of Rights as the NRA.
The ACLU doesn't oppose gun rights, just as the NRA doesn't oppose the other 9 Amendments, but if someone is faulting the ACLU for being selective, it seems they'd be much more critical of the NRA. But the aren't, and we don't see the same argument used against the NRA, even though it would be vastly more appropriate for them. Why?
Perhaps because many NRA members happen to believe that warrantless surveillance is okay, torture-induced confessions should be allowed, prayer should be part of the school day, habeus corpus only helps the terrorists, and so on? Not all pro-gun people are like that, but if you're around long enough you see a rough correlation between being pro-gun and a certain tepidness towards aggressive defense of the 9/10 of the Bill of Rights that the ACLU champions.
Similarly, ACLU types (myself included) are generally skeptical that guns need to be as available as they are. So though charges are bandied about of whom is more faithful to the Bill of Rights and who isn't, it still falls out along political lines. But even so, 9/10 is still a larger number than 1/10.
The problem with Fred Thompson running for President is that people will ask him questions. He may have a strong demeanor, but little has indicated that he is all that special. Obama has a good speaking voice too, as does Hillary. And the voice/presence combo rarely elects Presidents--backing does.
Bill Clinton was an exception, because he's charismatic and people just like him (conservatives notwithstanding). Bush is an embarassing speaker, but the Evangelicals decided he was anointed by God, and the money men bought off on him, so his backing, not his speaking, got him to the White House. But what does Fred Thompson have? He has that fake folksy good-ol-boy thing going, but he also has a trophy wife who looks a little too trophyish. He has the voice, but that doesn't do much if you can't weigh in on important issues. Fox News may decide to push him as their candidate, but it all comes down to Dobson and the Evangelical vote. Without them, no Republican can get elected.
I'd say that commucating face to face or by phone is a great way to minimize a written record of what you've said. Too bad about all that video and congressional testimony, though.
For me, its principal virtue is that it serves as a record of what I actually said, and what was said to me. I want taskings and requirements in writing. I'm okay with them changing, as long as I have a record of what I was originally asked so we can track the change in objectives.
I have waaaaay too many memories of supervisors saying "I never said that." Of course, I still have supervisors who want every encounter face-to-face, ostensibly because they feel that email is impersonal. Guess which supervisors have rather flexible memories when it comes to what they did and didn't say to me?
I'll even type up what we discussed right after the meeting and pass it by them to "make sure I understood," and they just reply with "see me." But I push for written records as often as I can. Only weasels and illiterates hate email.
I didn't say anything was "wrong" with it. Just pointing out that different people spend their money differently. My $100 Ikea bed works quite well. After we've secured survival, everything else is luxury, and your priorities may be different than mine.
Obeying government censorship laws is still censorship. It doesn't stop being censorship just because you become a party to it. Selling a copy of Ulysses or Tropic of Cancer was illegal for decades in the USA, and publishers/booksellers did censor those books, for that reason.
Censoring child porn is still censorship. It's just that the line is moved. It's all about the line of acceptability, as people who want to censor more know full well. Those who want to ban all pornography try to conflate child porn with adult porn, because they see no moral distinction. Our efforts to redefine "censorship" to pretend that censoring what we find objectionable isn't censorship undermines our own logic system.
Yes, I'm an American, and your use of the that filthy word sent sixteen people straight to hell. If I were to look at your posting history, I'm sure I'd find that you're also a Darwinist who goes around telling people that global warming is an established fact. By their works shall ye know them.
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Even the school prayer issue is overblown. Little Jane can pray silently to God all she wants, and God can hear her just fine. Her relationship with Christ cannot be threatened by the ACLU or any number of atheists. I can pray silently to Shiva or anyone I want at the beginning of the school day, before a test, or any other time, and that prayer is just as effective as if the teacher stopped class and led the rest of the kids in the prayer of my choice. Prayer in school is not about being Christian--it's about the government-funded school validating your religion by stopping what everyone is doing and praying the way you want to pray. That has more to do with pride than with spirituality. It's a pretty meager spirituality that needs validation by a government employee to avoid feeling persecuted.
On a side note, I'd agree that the Democrats are probably just as corrupt, on average. Just as unresponsive to voter desires. But it wasn't a Democratic president that signed off on torture, gutted habeus corpus, claims to be exempt from any laws he doesn't like, put Americans under surveillance in direct violation of written law, and started an open-ended war with no clearly defined objectives that, and which became a terrorist recruiter's wet dream. So the Republican party has the standard complement of corruption and hubris, true, but then you add in all this other stuff, and the "just as bad" warning rings a bit false. Corruption + "we have to redefine torture so what we're doing isn't torture" is not the same thing as corruption alone.
Yet to hear it, Christians are a persecuted minority, defiantly worshiping God despite the oppression of the secular authorities. When 85% of the population is Christian, who discriminates against Christians? What you may have meant is that proseletyzing and evangelizing aren't welcomed in schools because many Americans, including many Christian Americans, don't want those things in schools--they think that spiritual matters belong at home or in the church, not in the building kids go to to learn the three Rs. Many American's don't want the school to push a particular faith, because they know that they may not share that faith, at least in the finer points. But instead of saying "evangelizing has been made unwelcome in schools," we hear "Christians are under attack!"
I do think that some schools went overboard in defanging the evangelicals by keeping all Christian matters out of the school. I too think that the treatment needs to be more even-handed. I'd love to see more taught about the religious aspects of American history--how Roger Williams, Isaac Backus, and other Baptists were key in formulating the separation of church and state that modern Baptists want to abandon (or deny the existence of altogether), or how Protestant Ministers were so active in the KKK, for a couple of examples. That stuff would be controversial, but people might have more perspective if they knew about it.
Even as an atheist, I do think that we have gone too far in taking historical aspects of the impact of religion on American life out of schools. But frankly the problem is, as in all countries, the fundamentalists. If that term is too broad, I do apologize. I'm aiming squarely at the biblical literalists, the ones whose worldviews are threatened by modern biology, geology, physics, cosmology, and basically everything from the Enlightenment on down. I don't mind at all if my neighbor believes that Jesus died for their sins, but I do mind if they want the school curriculum changed because they don't think that evolution or the heliocentric solar system can be reconciled with the bible. So if it makes you happy, you can blame the ACLU or a handful of atheists for taking Christianity out of the schools, but it was the nutjob minority within the Christian population that made that possible. Similarly, it's the nutjobs in the Islamic community that is making life so complicated for so many people. Personal faith is never the issue, and "being Christian" was never under attack. No one cares if you have a personal relationship with Jesus, or with Allah or anyone else.
It's the same when they say "we believe in religious freedom!" -- what they mean is "We believe in the right of Christians to discriminate against non-Christians in hiring, housing, and so on," NOT "people should be free to practice their own religion." The phrase you're looking for is "glittering generalities." No one is going to argue against freedom, just as few will argue for big government. When you actually get down to what they really believe, it's pretty repugnant at times. These phrases get thrown around because they sound good and they build a false sense of consensus.
Ah, so you're one of those. Link to an article where mainstream science, or Al Gore for that matter, said global warming would "jeapardize the existence of man." You're creating a classic strawman argument. By pretending that the scientists investigating global warming are all alarmist hand-wavers, you have identified what your "research" consisted of. You read a bunch of conservative talking points saying that "alarmist" scientists think that global warming will wipe out all life, and since it won't, we can't trust them. But that isn't the mainstream scientific position, and anyone who has "researched" this would know that.
Do you also feel qualified to "research" the germ theory and weigh in with your insights? How damned arrogant can you really be? Can I do a bit of reading in my study, ponder a bit, and just expect to wash away plate tectonics, the heliocentric model of the solar system, the germ theory, the atomic theory, or other mainstream scientific theories? No, and only an arrogant ass would think that their opinion, based on a bit of half-assed "research" on conservative blogs, was more informed that the entire damned scientific community. Could you possibly have a higher opinion of yourself?
Pick a sequence, say "9999999999" and if you get a large enough chunk of numbers, random or just a section of an irrational number, the sequence you picked will be there. I've found 000000000 and other seemingly improbable sequences, only by using ctrl-f and starting with a big enough chunk of pi. The chance of a 9-digit number being 000000000 is small, but the chance of finding that sequence in a 10-million random (or nonrepeating) sequence is much higher.
Is "nonrepeating" the word I was looking for?
But I'm not all that good at math, so please correct me if I'm wrong. I just find irrational numbers elegant.
There you go--a 2-letter (or one, depending on the alphabet) representation of a number that contains ALL information. Can't get more compressed than that. Of course, which decimal places to start and end with, that's the question. How many irrational numbers are there? Can I patent one of them?
TV is worse than any and all of the above. Blogs may fail to inform you (usually by the selectivity of their outrage--Drudge is great for that), but TV actually makes you more dumb than when you started. I may deplore an argument I see on Redstate (or Daily Kos, for that matter), but at least an argument, however specious, was made, whereas TV news actually undermines the very existence of coherent argument.
You can recognize people who rely completely on TV to inform them because they can't formulate a logical idea at all, much less respond to yours. They rely on slogans and ad hominem attacks, and get tripped up by even the most obvious questions. By comparison, the most vacuous blogs are vastly superior. Even a deceptive, simplistic article must follow a chain of logic and facts that can, at least in principle, be addressed and refuted.
Angkor Wat is the largest religious building on the planet. It's larger than St. Paul's Cathedral. It's the only monument at which I've ever wept. Well, actually it was at Preah Khan, but that's part of the Angkor complex as well, so it counts. So calling it my favorite falls somewhat short of the superlatives it deserves. Western cathedrals move me as well, but there is something special about the Angkor temples.
I've always found DVDs/CDs too large. Yes, they make mini-cdrs and mini-dvds (I used to have a Sony CD Mavica) but they don't have the protective case the minidiscs had. Some things are just ergonomically right, and I regret that we didn't go a little further in that direction.
What's with honor killings? Even if a woman is known as an all-out slut, the village bicycle, why would you want to kill her? I can understand why other women would want to, but men? For quite obvious reasons, I think promiscuous women are pretty cool. I never understand why men would criticize them. They even criticize them after they sleep with them. What the hell? None of this makes sense.
Any list of wonders that excludes Angkor Wat is a waste of time.
If you have an dirty pictures or movies that aren't encrypted, shame on you. You could die tomorrow--after the will gets sorted out, do you want your mom|sister|kids|whoever finding your smut? Everyone may suspect that I watch porn, but I certainly don't have to let them browse through my collection of underage llama porn for verification. Private stuff should be private. Make an effort, people.
We think we have a god's-eye view and we just know that someone is guilty, but the case is stacked to look that way, and we don't really know, not definitively. Very seldom is there videotape of a crime like this--usually we have to rely on people whose careers are built on getting an arrest and a conviction. People will send you to death row just to help their own careers, even if they have to intimidate witnesses, supress contradictory testimony, or reduce someone else's sentence for their "testimony" about the night you confessed to them.
I work in a hospital, and ER docs like to swap stories. The worst I've heard is of a woman who was kidnapped, beaten, repeatedly raped, and thrown into a ditch to die. She didn't die, but she did land on a fire ant mound, where she stayed until someone found her, which was not enough time for her to die. Tragedy happens, crime happens, but sometimes you just have to think "that's not fair." I always think of that story when I hear someone say "well, everything happens for a reason."
I know you meant that linking Bush to increased terrorism is just liberal Bush-hating, but to do so you'd have to be pretty ignorant of all the studies and articles pointing out that our actions in Iraq, the secret torture prisons around the world, the renditions, the detention without trial, etc are galvanizing the islamacist community and are basically a terrorist recruiter's wet dream. We're doing a better job than they are of making the USA look evil
The ACLU doesn't oppose gun rights, just as the NRA doesn't oppose the other 9 Amendments, but if someone is faulting the ACLU for being selective, it seems they'd be much more critical of the NRA. But the aren't, and we don't see the same argument used against the NRA, even though it would be vastly more appropriate for them. Why?
Perhaps because many NRA members happen to believe that warrantless surveillance is okay, torture-induced confessions should be allowed, prayer should be part of the school day, habeus corpus only helps the terrorists, and so on? Not all pro-gun people are like that, but if you're around long enough you see a rough correlation between being pro-gun and a certain tepidness towards aggressive defense of the 9/10 of the Bill of Rights that the ACLU champions.
Similarly, ACLU types (myself included) are generally skeptical that guns need to be as available as they are. So though charges are bandied about of whom is more faithful to the Bill of Rights and who isn't, it still falls out along political lines. But even so, 9/10 is still a larger number than 1/10.
Bill Clinton was an exception, because he's charismatic and people just like him (conservatives notwithstanding). Bush is an embarassing speaker, but the Evangelicals decided he was anointed by God, and the money men bought off on him, so his backing, not his speaking, got him to the White House. But what does Fred Thompson have? He has that fake folksy good-ol-boy thing going, but he also has a trophy wife who looks a little too trophyish. He has the voice, but that doesn't do much if you can't weigh in on important issues. Fox News may decide to push him as their candidate, but it all comes down to Dobson and the Evangelical vote. Without them, no Republican can get elected.
I'd say that commucating face to face or by phone is a great way to minimize a written record of what you've said. Too bad about all that video and congressional testimony, though.
I have waaaaay too many memories of supervisors saying "I never said that." Of course, I still have supervisors who want every encounter face-to-face, ostensibly because they feel that email is impersonal. Guess which supervisors have rather flexible memories when it comes to what they did and didn't say to me?
I'll even type up what we discussed right after the meeting and pass it by them to "make sure I understood," and they just reply with "see me." But I push for written records as often as I can. Only weasels and illiterates hate email.
I didn't say anything was "wrong" with it. Just pointing out that different people spend their money differently. My $100 Ikea bed works quite well. After we've secured survival, everything else is luxury, and your priorities may be different than mine.
Censoring child porn is still censorship. It's just that the line is moved. It's all about the line of acceptability, as people who want to censor more know full well. Those who want to ban all pornography try to conflate child porn with adult porn, because they see no moral distinction. Our efforts to redefine "censorship" to pretend that censoring what we find objectionable isn't censorship undermines our own logic system.
Yes, I'm an American, and your use of the that filthy word sent sixteen people straight to hell. If I were to look at your posting history, I'm sure I'd find that you're also a Darwinist who goes around telling people that global warming is an established fact. By their works shall ye know them.