The only people I trust less than qualified, vetted, officials is uneducated jackasses pretending to understand the world around them when really they are just ignorant twits. There is a mantra from conservatives "They think they know better than you!". Um, yep. I think the scientists and knowledgeable health professionals "know better" than the backward backwater assholes who raise their children as if it were the year 1512.
I am very much pro-vaccination. I do have to point out it wasn't a "uneducated conservative" who started this mess, but Andrew Wakefield who was considered a "knowledgeable scientist and health professional". And there are thousands of examples where the scientists and medical professionals were wrong and/or completely changed their consensus (ex. breastfeeding bad/good). Someone breastfeeding in 1969/1970 may have been considered a ignorant, backwater redneck for choosing archaic breastfeeding over the scientifically developed, precision method of delivering nutrition that is Infant Formula.
But I do think billion-dollar estates should be taxed--a lot. The wife and kids (if any) did not create wealth. They deserve money, but so do we.
1. Using the term wife and not spouse or partner is sexist and assumes that only men can create large value estates. 2. You cannot assume that a spouse or partner did not assist in the creation of wealth. In divorce proceedings, there is something called "Reimbursement Alimony" whereby the spouse is compensated for their contribution to the other spouse's career. 3. Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery. You do not "deserve" anyone else's money.
Slightly off-topic but if you are asking "what can I do" and you want to get at the root cause, not the symptom, you might want to check out the Move to Amend.
Do you realize if the "Move to Amend" passed, then what Google/Amazon/etc are doing could and would be illegal! Heck, this very Slashdot post would be illegal since it could be construed to influence an election and a forum could be argued as not meeting the criteria as "press".
The thing is, it's only Republican legislaters that are so darn against the millionaire's surtax.
Actually, the money is coming out of Social Security not the general budget. The argument for SS is that it is a government managed retirement fund and that what you get out is based on what you put in. Receiving SS benefits is equivalent to a 401k or pension in that you get what you earned.
Making millionaires contribute to SS is changing the meaning of what it is, from something I earned to getting other peoples' money. This actually makes it less secure because it takes away the moral aspect of receiving SS benefits. It goes from something I earned to wanting other peoples' money. Which makes it easier for politicians to cut benefits in the future.
Isn't the White House saying $40 / paycheck or did I miss something? For those of us who have real jobs, we get paid once every 2 weeks. Hence, $40 / paycheck is just over $1000 / year.
A more important deception is that it is a reduction in the amount taxpayers pay into Social Security--NOT the general budget. This is more akin to reducing the amount of 401k withholdings than a tax break because you will have to make it up later one way or another--either through reduced SS benefits or increased SS taxes to make up for the deficit.
You have to put this into context... Students around the country are being priced out of an education, while banks are getting filthy rich enslaving entire generations of young people with crushing debt attempting to chase the American Dream. All this happening while School Chancellors are retiring on multimillion dollar pensions and salaries that are growing astronomically every year. When such a vanishingly few seem to grow wealthy on the backs of those they should be serving how can you honestly say students shouldn't exercise their fair and legal right to protest publicly.
Wait, I thought the protest was called "Occupy Wall Street" not "Occupy the Overpriced Universities". Sadly, while I keep hearing about the 1% and evil Capitalists I don't hear anything about the Universities charging hundreds of thousands for a worthless piece of paper and a watered-down education.
Governments do not want a critically thinking populace. Just suck up the bullshit they, the bought dogs of the corporate states of America, want you to think and believe. Science and math require a solid foundation in the basics. With a solid foundation, politicians, corporate thugs and banksters cannot sway the public. Bread and circuses brought down the Roman Empire in approximately 200 years. This country is next.
1. Since when do corporations control education? Education is dominated by liberal progressives who are, if anything, anti-corporate. If anything, it is the generally left-wing educational establishment which is discouraging critical thinking. See http://thefire.org/ for numerous examples of the suppression of free speech at college campuses. 2. The term "Bread and Circuses" refers to the Roman government buying off the citizens, and is more analogous to politicians buying off their constituency with pork and other handouts than anything else.
Your body is ~60% water, but you can die by drinking too much: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication. Every day we are bathed in DNA-damaging ionizing radiation called sunlight, yet we somehow don't all get skin cancer. And yes, you can drink safe amounts of water and receive unsafe amounts of radiation. But understanding the difference between A causing B "always" and the messy reality that it involves a safe and unsafe range is the difference between being a paranoid lunatic and a sane and educated person.
According to Cornell, yes. It's getting expensive to keep up with hiring better, more educated faculty, to maintain more expensive equipment to further their research and academic programs.
Neutron microscopes aren't something you can buy in Wal*Mart. Computer labs require a lob of energy and time to maintain. Updating buildings built decades ago is not cheap.
Whether their arguments are bullshit or not, I cannot speak to. Even still, is it really so shocking that modern society costs a lot? Progress costs money.
Wait, computer labs? Your kidding right? Because for 150K of debt, you think that a school could afford 1/100th of it to get each student a very nice 1000 laptop. Neuton microscope? Ha, I'm sure universities are buying dozens. Can't actually find one (they are still experimental), but you can get a scanning electron microscope for 350K http://www.technicalsalessolutions.com/item_description.php?IID=155. That would take a whole 10 students at Harvard to fund. http://www.gse.harvard.edu/admissions/financial_aid/tuition/
Meanwhile, how many undergrad students actually benefit from a Neuton microscope? Has to be close to zero, unless they are doing very advanced grad research. So the university is making students take out the equivalent of a house mortgage for something that has absolutely no benefit for them. This higher-ed bubble is about to bust, and I'm glad because my kids won't be subjected to these inflated prices.
Just because you have a giant endowment doesn't necessarily mean you can write checks off of it. They're likely tied to stipulations regarding their use.
Yes, like paying for buildings or funding Departmental Chair, etc. All things that tuition would be paying for if the money wasn't endowed. If endowments are not used towards university education, what good are they?
It's becoming more expensive because costs have gone up, more people are attending (in general due to population increases, more people are "college age" than before but also enrollment goes up when the economy goes down).
1. College tuition inflation has been going up 2x to 4x the rate of inflation since the early 80s good or bad economy. http://www.finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation.phtml. So don't blame "the economy". 2. Are you actually arguing that the AVERAGE tuition per student should go 2x to 4x over the rate of inflation because more people are entering college? Education, like all other information fields, benefits from economies of scale. What is actually happening is that universities are gouging students because of the rise of demand.
Second, the economic depression has been on for a while now and wiped out emergency funds and other savings they'd accrued. There was a lot of money lost in investments that are now worthless, largely thanks to the gambling by our financial industry, but not exclusively.
They were jacking up the cost of tuition well before their investments were wiped out, and would still jack them up even if they weren't. And there are 63! universities whose endowments are > 1 Billion dollars. http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=192&f=2495&t=7127853.
Finally, just because information is easier to come by doesn't mean it's all valuable. The more information there is, the more work involved in organizing the useful bits from the shit.
Our economy is a web of interconnections. It's not at all as simple as you make it sound.
Are you kidding me? Really? Yea, the universities are spending tens of billions sifting through information to present just the interesting points to students? Have you actually been to a class the past 15 years? You are lucky to actually be taught by a professor rather than a TA who barely speaks English and is making less than minimum wage. And while I'm sure "womyn's studies" may have changed a great deal there hasn't been much change in Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, etc. I would bet a lot of money that the vast majority of professors barely change their curriculum from year to year.
You are being duped by an industry even greedier than any corporation. They prey on people's dreams, take all the money they possibly can, and don't care if you spent 150K on a degree that is worthless. Universities should be forced to back student loans--if a student defaults it is the university who is responsible. Instead of holding them accountable, people like you are part of the problem by being their apologists.
Populist rage of the disaffected, only these are unemployed college grads instead of moderately racist suburbanites. And while this group lacks coherent talking points, at least they are angry at the right people.
Really? Then why aren't the protesting their University for putting them tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree that isn't worth a tenth of that? You know, the universities sitting on multi-billion dollar endowments yet are raising tuition many times the rate of inflation? In an age where information is vastly cheaper and easier to acquire, they are making it much harder and more expensive.
The fact they are blaming Wall St, which has absolutely nothing to do with their degrees' cost, shows their university did not provide them with the necessary critical thinking skills to make it in the world.
If you think *that's* funny, do you know who Google recently hired as head of their Apps security division? If you guessed "a former TV-psychic" congrats, you win!!!
Wow, I cannot believe this distortion got marked as "Informative". By saying "TV-psychic" it makes it sound like he was a 1-800 number psychic and he was chosen for that ability. It would be more accurate to describe him as competing on a magician/illusionist game show/reality TV show.
I don't know how good of a security researcher he is, but I sure as heck hope you don't judge everyone this way. His abilities as a security expert are completely unrelated to his abilities as an illusionist. To think otherwise is just ugly prejudice. Just because you are a techie, doesn't mean that if you have a non-tech related hobby you lose your "tech card". In fact, it opens your mind to an entirely different world---and maybe his knowledge of misdirection and subtle deception gives him a different way of thinking about security.
Sometimes the truth is just so inconvenient, people choose subconsciously to reject it. Climate change is a very good example of this. If the claims of scientists are true, then something has to be done - and whatever the something is will be horribly expensive, economically disadvantagious, personally inconvenient for millions of people and politically difficult in a time when any form of regulation meets with popular resistance. Far easier simply to deny anything is wrong, and thus remove the need to do anything. It isn't even something people realise they are doing.
There are several reasons that people are skeptical of global warming:
1. The current global warming evangelists are the equivalent of a Christian televangelist who gets caught with hookers and blow. If you believe that carbon is killing the planet, then don't buy giant mansions and yachts and have Global Warming conferences in Cancun. Live in modest houses and teleconference.
2. Environmentalists should go out of their way in supporting every alternate energy source, including nuclear. However, instead of working on answers they are always presenting roadblocks--even in technologies like wind and solar. http://solarpowernews.org/environmentalists-mojave-desert/ If you are serious about global warming, you will take some risks on desert animals to save all the rest of them.
3. Climate science seems like a bit circular---All scientists believe in AGW, but to be accepted as a scientist you need to believe in AGW. And it isn't a "hard" science in that you can experiment and see the results because, well, if AGW is occurring you can't wait till everyone is dead. On the other hand, we are aware of significant climate change in relatively recent human history (Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, etc) that are not related to humans. And AGW isn't a new idea--Edward Gibbon blamed deforestation for Germany's warming in HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
Personally, when I hear the science is settled, everyone agrees 100%, and if you don't believe you are like a holocaust denier I get quite skeptical because NOTHING in science is that clear cut. It feels like all this pressure to agree and submit is because someone is hiding something.
4. Based on above, AGW seems to many like a profit scam and a means to control people. It is a little too convenient that some of the evangelists are getting very rich off of AGW and also a convenient way of keeping people "in their place". Gore and Bono can fly private jets, because they are important. I can't, because I'm not. The lesser classes can't have too much or otherwise the planet with burst into flames. The rich, however, never need to change--they just way their indulgences and go on their merry way.
I personally actually *believe* that we need to be carbon neutral, and am angry that the very people who should be moving society in that direction are some of the biggest obstacles to change. If environmentalists can't tell a bunch of obscenely rich and powerful people in Nantucket to suck it up and allow a wind farm to be built to help save the planet, how can you ask millions to reduce their entire standard of living to do the same?
C'mon. How often did we read this stuff? How often will we keep reading it again?
For over 100 years now, miracle batteries for electric cars have been supposed to be just around the corner.
Can't just finally file them right next to the perpetuum mobile cranks and move on until somebody actually delivers on those stupid promises?
From the article: "If you were to put the lithium-ion battery of the Nissan Leaf in the 1908 Fritchle, the vehicle would have a range of about 644 km (400 miles). "
Don't be so negative. It hasn't that battery tech hasn't advanced in 100 years, it's that it hasn't kept pace with the demand for faster, safer, bigger vehicles. The advancement in any technology is rarely a big bang. Take the lithium-ion battery in this laptop I am typing on for example, and look at the series of advanced necessary to give me a 6 hour battery in a high performance laptop: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#History. From wikipedia:
"In 1979, John Goodenough demonstrated a rechargeable cell with high cell voltage in the 4V range using lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) as the positive electrode and lithium metal as the negative electrode."
"In 1991, Sony and Asahi Kasei released the first commercial lithium-ion battery."
It took 12 years from discovery to the first commercial battery, and another 5 to 10 years for them to be widely used. Yet on a supposed "tech" site all I read about are people critiquing any battery tech discovery as lame if it doesn't allow for a plug-in to be driven 500 miles on a charge. This discovery may turn out to not be practical, or may turn out to be THE discovery that leads to a battery revolution.
And even if we didn't get a 500 mile per charge battery, but instead got some tech that allowed the Volt to be at the same price point as a current Prius? Or even got it from 40 miles to 60 miles in a charge. These relatively modest advancements could start a major revolution where liquid fuels are only used for long-haul travel.
As we have seen the Republicans and the TEA Party are working hard to take things away from you.
Yea, that's it. Those evil "Tea Party" people don't want people to have jobs and want to legalize rape. They are evil, scheming people who hold secret meetings on how to destroy America and must be stopped at all costs. They are ignorant, racist bigots who are probably inbred who must be stopped before they enslave America!
Or not. You know what the problem is in America? People like you, who instead of listening and understanding the other side simply demagogue people into caricatures that you can hate as easily as a Comic Book villain. You would fit right in blaming the Jews in Germany in the 30s or Tutsi in Rwanda in the 90s. Politicians love people like you because you are so easy to control and manipulate. You think you are different because your side is "right" and the other side is "wrong", but you in many ways are no different from the Rush fan who believe all Democrats are plotting to destroy capitalism.
This isn't a football or baseball game. We have an extremely complex set of problems to resolve that we cannot fix without some form of cooperation between both sides. Change begins at an individual level. Start by understanding and trying to relate to the other side, even if you feel like they are not giving you the same consideration. Don't pin yourself down into a simplistic label like liberal or conservative--look at each issue individually, look at both sides, and think for yourself. But don't degrade yourself by relying on inane one-line talking points.
I noticed that this website is in English, German, Spanish, French, and Italian--meaning it is mostly directed to the west. The fact that it doesn't even have Mandarin or Cantonese despite China's 1.3 Billion tells you that he is more interested in extracting money from guilt-laden westerners than solving any problems. French! Less than 2% of the earth speak French as their native language. Heck, more people speak Bengali or Telugu or even Marathi than the entire population of France!
Most of the western countries are stable or have declining populations. The United States is an exception, however much of that is due to immigration. Yet you have India with 1.2 Billion and growing, Indonesia with 237 million and growing, Nigeria with 158 million and growing, Bangladesh with 150 million and growing---and the site is dedicated to telling Westerners why it is all their fault. Solving the real problem, 3rd world population growth, isn't going to get done by telling Westerners to reduce their "footprint".
Why do you assume they didn't try to capture him? We captured saddam hussein after all. Unlike action movies, you can't just go in with Tranq darts and subdue everyone peacefully. Bin Laden wasn't going to let himself be captured if he could in any way help it.
Justice Roberts once again proves his obedience to his corporate masters. Once upon a time the SCOTUS was seen as above such petty matters. Now it is clearly the pawn of the corporations - and this has been obvious ever since the ruling which allowed the corporations unlimited access to fund/bribe politicians.
The SCOTUS's job isn't to strike down laws they think are "unfair", their job is rule on the law. You don't like the ruling? Then work to get federal arbitration law revoked. Because last I checked, the one thing the "Commerce Clause" does regulate is interstate commerce. And California's regulation of lawsuits of a Dallas company sure as heck sounds like something that falls under federal jurisdiction.
The app is ignorant and bigoted and offensive, as well as pushing an agenda based on hatered and lies. That honestly sounds like 'good natured fun' to you? Really? I agree with you that the app is absurd. But I don't find it particularly hilarious, especially knowing the number of people damaged and even driven to suicide by anti-gay "ex-gay" programs. There's a real human cost here, and I just can't laugh at that.
Then don't download the app. Neither you nor anyone else has the right to decide what speech is damaging. The human cost for the suppression of free speech is far far greater than anything this app could possible do.
If this country oppressed free speech, then slavery may not have ended, Jim Crow may not have been defeated, and homosexuality may still have remained in the DSM as a mental disorder. At the time, speech proposing the end of any of those items was considered ignorant, offensive, and pushing an agenda based on lies.
Moralities change in this country, and what is considered offensive, dangerous, and disgusting evolve and change. But through it all, we retain the right to speech and that is--more than anything else--what allows us to evolve as a society. It is the thin layer separating us as a free society from an oppressed one where some self-imposed leader decides what is right and what is wrong.
I honestly could go on and on and on. Just do some basic Google searches.
Seriously, how must hate was spewed by the left against Bush during his entire administration? Why wasn't Al Gore blamed for the Discovery Channel hostage situation? Truth is, you just want to twist a mentally disturbed individual's actions in order to score political points. And that makes you part of the problem in this country.
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The only people I trust less than qualified, vetted, officials is uneducated jackasses pretending to understand the world around them when really they are just ignorant twits. There is a mantra from conservatives "They think they know better than you!". Um, yep. I think the scientists and knowledgeable health professionals "know better" than the backward backwater assholes who raise their children as if it were the year 1512.
I am very much pro-vaccination. I do have to point out it wasn't a "uneducated conservative" who started this mess, but Andrew Wakefield who was considered a "knowledgeable scientist and health professional". And there are thousands of examples where the scientists and medical professionals were wrong and/or completely changed their consensus (ex. breastfeeding bad/good). Someone breastfeeding in 1969/1970 may have been considered a ignorant, backwater redneck for choosing archaic breastfeeding over the scientifically developed, precision method of delivering nutrition that is Infant Formula.
But I do think billion-dollar estates should be taxed--a lot. The wife and kids (if any) did not create wealth. They deserve money, but so do we.
1. Using the term wife and not spouse or partner is sexist and assumes that only men can create large value estates.
2. You cannot assume that a spouse or partner did not assist in the creation of wealth. In divorce proceedings, there is something called "Reimbursement Alimony" whereby the spouse is compensated for their contribution to the other spouse's career.
3. Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery. You do not "deserve" anyone else's money.
Slightly off-topic but if you are asking "what can I do" and you want to get at the root cause, not the symptom, you might want to check out the Move to Amend.
Do you realize if the "Move to Amend" passed, then what Google/Amazon/etc are doing could and would be illegal! Heck, this very Slashdot post would be illegal since it could be construed to influence an election and a forum could be argued as not meeting the criteria as "press".
The thing is, it's only Republican legislaters that are so darn against the millionaire's surtax.
Actually, the money is coming out of Social Security not the general budget. The argument for SS is that it is a government managed retirement fund and that what you get out is based on what you put in. Receiving SS benefits is equivalent to a 401k or pension in that you get what you earned.
Making millionaires contribute to SS is changing the meaning of what it is, from something I earned to getting other peoples' money. This actually makes it less secure because it takes away the moral aspect of receiving SS benefits. It goes from something I earned to wanting other peoples' money. Which makes it easier for politicians to cut benefits in the future.
Isn't the White House saying $40 / paycheck or did I miss something? For those of us who have real jobs, we get paid once every 2 weeks. Hence, $40 / paycheck is just over $1000 / year.
Quote from Obama
"[On] Tuesday, we asked folks to tell us what would it be like to lose $40 out of your paycheck every week. "
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/22/president-obama-discusses-what-40-means-americans-families
A more important deception is that it is a reduction in the amount taxpayers pay into Social Security--NOT the general budget. This is more akin to reducing the amount of 401k withholdings than a tax break because you will have to make it up later one way or another--either through reduced SS benefits or increased SS taxes to make up for the deficit.
You have to put this into context... Students around the country are being priced out of an education, while banks are getting filthy rich enslaving entire generations of young people with crushing debt attempting to chase the American Dream. All this happening while School Chancellors are retiring on multimillion dollar pensions and salaries that are growing astronomically every year. When such a vanishingly few seem to grow wealthy on the backs of those they should be serving how can you honestly say students shouldn't exercise their fair and legal right to protest publicly.
Wait, I thought the protest was called "Occupy Wall Street" not "Occupy the Overpriced Universities". Sadly, while I keep hearing about the 1% and evil Capitalists I don't hear anything about the Universities charging hundreds of thousands for a worthless piece of paper and a watered-down education.
Crab fishing? Ice road trucking? Paranormal investigation?
Governments do not want a critically thinking populace. Just suck up the bullshit they, the bought dogs of the corporate states of America, want you to think and believe.
Science and math require a solid foundation in the basics. With a solid foundation, politicians, corporate thugs and banksters cannot sway the public. Bread and circuses brought down the Roman Empire in approximately 200 years. This country is next.
1. Since when do corporations control education? Education is dominated by liberal progressives who are, if anything, anti-corporate. If anything, it is the generally left-wing educational establishment which is discouraging critical thinking. See http://thefire.org/ for numerous examples of the suppression of free speech at college campuses.
2. The term "Bread and Circuses" refers to the Roman government buying off the citizens, and is more analogous to politicians buying off their constituency with pork and other handouts than anything else.
The dose makes the poison. http://learn.caim.yale.edu/chemsafe/references/dose.html
Your body is ~60% water, but you can die by drinking too much: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication. Every day we are bathed in DNA-damaging ionizing radiation called sunlight, yet we somehow don't all get skin cancer. And yes, you can drink safe amounts of water and receive unsafe amounts of radiation. But understanding the difference between A causing B "always" and the messy reality that it involves a safe and unsafe range is the difference between being a paranoid lunatic and a sane and educated person.
According to Cornell, yes. It's getting expensive to keep up with hiring better, more educated faculty, to maintain more expensive equipment to further their research and academic programs.
Neutron microscopes aren't something you can buy in Wal*Mart. Computer labs require a lob of energy and time to maintain. Updating buildings built decades ago is not cheap.
Whether their arguments are bullshit or not, I cannot speak to. Even still, is it really so shocking that modern society costs a lot? Progress costs money.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov06/tuition.so.much.sl.html
Wait, computer labs? Your kidding right? Because for 150K of debt, you think that a school could afford 1/100th of it to get each student a very nice 1000 laptop. Neuton microscope? Ha, I'm sure universities are buying dozens. Can't actually find one (they are still experimental), but you can get a scanning electron microscope for 350K http://www.technicalsalessolutions.com/item_description.php?IID=155. That would take a whole 10 students at Harvard to fund. http://www.gse.harvard.edu/admissions/financial_aid/tuition/
Meanwhile, how many undergrad students actually benefit from a Neuton microscope? Has to be close to zero, unless they are doing very advanced grad research. So the university is making students take out the equivalent of a house mortgage for something that has absolutely no benefit for them. This higher-ed bubble is about to bust, and I'm glad because my kids won't be subjected to these inflated prices.
Just because you have a giant endowment doesn't necessarily mean you can write checks off of it. They're likely tied to stipulations regarding their use.
Yes, like paying for buildings or funding Departmental Chair, etc. All things that tuition would be paying for if the money wasn't endowed. If endowments are not used towards university education, what good are they?
It's becoming more expensive because costs have gone up, more people are attending (in general due to population increases, more people are "college age" than before but also enrollment goes up when the economy goes down).
1. College tuition inflation has been going up 2x to 4x the rate of inflation since the early 80s good or bad economy. http://www.finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation.phtml. So don't blame "the economy".
2. Are you actually arguing that the AVERAGE tuition per student should go 2x to 4x over the rate of inflation because more people are entering college? Education, like all other information fields, benefits from economies of scale. What is actually happening is that universities are gouging students because of the rise of demand.
Second, the economic depression has been on for a while now and wiped out emergency funds and other savings they'd accrued. There was a lot of money lost in investments that are now worthless, largely thanks to the gambling by our financial industry, but not exclusively.
They were jacking up the cost of tuition well before their investments were wiped out, and would still jack them up even if they weren't. And there are 63! universities whose endowments are > 1 Billion dollars. http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=192&f=2495&t=7127853.
Finally, just because information is easier to come by doesn't mean it's all valuable. The more information there is, the more work involved in organizing the useful bits from the shit.
Our economy is a web of interconnections. It's not at all as simple as you make it sound.
Are you kidding me? Really? Yea, the universities are spending tens of billions sifting through information to present just the interesting points to students? Have you actually been to a class the past 15 years? You are lucky to actually be taught by a professor rather than a TA who barely speaks English and is making less than minimum wage. And while I'm sure "womyn's studies" may have changed a great deal there hasn't been much change in Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, etc. I would bet a lot of money that the vast majority of professors barely change their curriculum from year to year.
You are being duped by an industry even greedier than any corporation. They prey on people's dreams, take all the money they possibly can, and don't care if you spent 150K on a degree that is worthless. Universities should be forced to back student loans--if a student defaults it is the university who is responsible. Instead of holding them accountable, people like you are part of the problem by being their apologists.
Populist rage of the disaffected, only these are unemployed college grads instead of moderately racist suburbanites. And while this group lacks coherent talking points, at least they are angry at the right people.
Really? Then why aren't the protesting their University for putting them tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree that isn't worth a tenth of that? You know, the universities sitting on multi-billion dollar endowments yet are raising tuition many times the rate of inflation? In an age where information is vastly cheaper and easier to acquire, they are making it much harder and more expensive.
The fact they are blaming Wall St, which has absolutely nothing to do with their degrees' cost, shows their university did not provide them with the necessary critical thinking skills to make it in the world.
If you think *that's* funny, do you know who Google recently hired as head of their Apps security division? If you guessed "a former TV-psychic" congrats, you win!!!
Wow, I cannot believe this distortion got marked as "Informative". By saying "TV-psychic" it makes it sound like he was a 1-800 number psychic and he was chosen for that ability. It would be more accurate to describe him as competing on a magician/illusionist game show/reality TV show.
I don't know how good of a security researcher he is, but I sure as heck hope you don't judge everyone this way. His abilities as a security expert are completely unrelated to his abilities as an illusionist. To think otherwise is just ugly prejudice. Just because you are a techie, doesn't mean that if you have a non-tech related hobby you lose your "tech card". In fact, it opens your mind to an entirely different world---and maybe his knowledge of misdirection and subtle deception gives him a different way of thinking about security.
Sometimes the truth is just so inconvenient, people choose subconsciously to reject it. Climate change is a very good example of this. If the claims of scientists are true, then something has to be done - and whatever the something is will be horribly expensive, economically disadvantagious, personally inconvenient for millions of people and politically difficult in a time when any form of regulation meets with popular resistance. Far easier simply to deny anything is wrong, and thus remove the need to do anything. It isn't even something people realise they are doing.
There are several reasons that people are skeptical of global warming:
1. The current global warming evangelists are the equivalent of a Christian televangelist who gets caught with hookers and blow. If you believe that carbon is killing the planet, then don't buy giant mansions and yachts and have Global Warming conferences in Cancun. Live in modest houses and teleconference.
2. Environmentalists should go out of their way in supporting every alternate energy source, including nuclear. However, instead of working on answers they are always presenting roadblocks--even in technologies like wind and solar. http://solarpowernews.org/environmentalists-mojave-desert/ If you are serious about global warming, you will take some risks on desert animals to save all the rest of them.
3. Climate science seems like a bit circular---All scientists believe in AGW, but to be accepted as a scientist you need to believe in AGW. And it isn't a "hard" science in that you can experiment and see the results because, well, if AGW is occurring you can't wait till everyone is dead. On the other hand, we are aware of significant climate change in relatively recent human history (Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, etc) that are not related to humans. And AGW isn't a new idea--Edward Gibbon blamed deforestation for Germany's warming in HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
Personally, when I hear the science is settled, everyone agrees 100%, and if you don't believe you are like a holocaust denier I get quite skeptical because NOTHING in science is that clear cut. It feels like all this pressure to agree and submit is because someone is hiding something.
4. Based on above, AGW seems to many like a profit scam and a means to control people. It is a little too convenient that some of the evangelists are getting very rich off of AGW and also a convenient way of keeping people "in their place". Gore and Bono can fly private jets, because they are important. I can't, because I'm not. The lesser classes can't have too much or otherwise the planet with burst into flames. The rich, however, never need to change--they just way their indulgences and go on their merry way.
I personally actually *believe* that we need to be carbon neutral, and am angry that the very people who should be moving society in that direction are some of the biggest obstacles to change. If environmentalists can't tell a bunch of obscenely rich and powerful people in Nantucket to suck it up and allow a wind farm to be built to help save the planet, how can you ask millions to reduce their entire standard of living to do the same?
From a few weeks back. XKCD even did a comic on it.
http://www.xkcd.com/938/
C'mon. How often did we read this stuff? How often will we keep reading it again?
For over 100 years now, miracle batteries for electric cars have been supposed to be just around the corner.
Can't just finally file them right next to the perpetuum mobile cranks and move on until somebody actually delivers on those stupid promises?
From the article:
"If you were to put the lithium-ion battery of the Nissan Leaf in the 1908 Fritchle, the vehicle would have a range of about 644 km (400 miles). "
Don't be so negative. It hasn't that battery tech hasn't advanced in 100 years, it's that it hasn't kept pace with the demand for faster, safer, bigger vehicles. The advancement in any technology is rarely a big bang. Take the lithium-ion battery in this laptop I am typing on for example, and look at the series of advanced necessary to give me a 6 hour battery in a high performance laptop: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#History. From wikipedia:
"In 1979, John Goodenough demonstrated a rechargeable cell with high cell voltage in the 4V range using lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) as the positive electrode and lithium metal as the negative electrode."
"In 1991, Sony and Asahi Kasei released the first commercial lithium-ion battery."
It took 12 years from discovery to the first commercial battery, and another 5 to 10 years for them to be widely used. Yet on a supposed "tech" site all I read about are people critiquing any battery tech discovery as lame if it doesn't allow for a plug-in to be driven 500 miles on a charge. This discovery may turn out to not be practical, or may turn out to be THE discovery that leads to a battery revolution.
And even if we didn't get a 500 mile per charge battery, but instead got some tech that allowed the Volt to be at the same price point as a current Prius? Or even got it from 40 miles to 60 miles in a charge. These relatively modest advancements could start a major revolution where liquid fuels are only used for long-haul travel.
Online education is ok, but there's no substitute for being able to ask questions in realtime and address issues with an actual teacher.
Then why not spend the Professor's time answering questions rather than regurgitating the same lecture over and over?
As we have seen the Republicans and the TEA Party are working hard to take things away from you.
Yea, that's it. Those evil "Tea Party" people don't want people to have jobs and want to legalize rape. They are evil, scheming people who hold secret meetings on how to destroy America and must be stopped at all costs. They are ignorant, racist bigots who are probably inbred who must be stopped before they enslave America!
Or not. You know what the problem is in America? People like you, who instead of listening and understanding the other side simply demagogue people into caricatures that you can hate as easily as a Comic Book villain. You would fit right in blaming the Jews in Germany in the 30s or Tutsi in Rwanda in the 90s. Politicians love people like you because you are so easy to control and manipulate. You think you are different because your side is "right" and the other side is "wrong", but you in many ways are no different from the Rush fan who believe all Democrats are plotting to destroy capitalism.
This isn't a football or baseball game. We have an extremely complex set of problems to resolve that we cannot fix without some form of cooperation between both sides. Change begins at an individual level. Start by understanding and trying to relate to the other side, even if you feel like they are not giving you the same consideration. Don't pin yourself down into a simplistic label like liberal or conservative--look at each issue individually, look at both sides, and think for yourself. But don't degrade yourself by relying on inane one-line talking points.
I noticed that this website is in English, German, Spanish, French, and Italian--meaning it is mostly directed to the west. The fact that it doesn't even have Mandarin or Cantonese despite China's 1.3 Billion tells you that he is more interested in extracting money from guilt-laden westerners than solving any problems. French! Less than 2% of the earth speak French as their native language. Heck, more people speak Bengali or Telugu or even Marathi than the entire population of France!
Most of the western countries are stable or have declining populations. The United States is an exception, however much of that is due to immigration. Yet you have India with 1.2 Billion and growing, Indonesia with 237 million and growing, Nigeria with 158 million and growing, Bangladesh with 150 million and growing---and the site is dedicated to telling Westerners why it is all their fault. Solving the real problem, 3rd world population growth, isn't going to get done by telling Westerners to reduce their "footprint".
Why do you assume they didn't try to capture him? We captured saddam hussein after all. Unlike action movies, you can't just go in with Tranq darts and subdue everyone peacefully. Bin Laden wasn't going to let himself be captured if he could in any way help it.
Justice Roberts once again proves his obedience to his corporate masters. Once upon a time the SCOTUS was seen as above such petty matters. Now it is clearly the pawn of the corporations - and this has been obvious ever since the ruling which allowed the corporations unlimited access to fund/bribe politicians.
The SCOTUS's job isn't to strike down laws they think are "unfair", their job is rule on the law. You don't like the ruling? Then work to get federal arbitration law revoked. Because last I checked, the one thing the "Commerce Clause" does regulate is interstate commerce. And California's regulation of lawsuits of a Dallas company sure as heck sounds like something that falls under federal jurisdiction.
The app is ignorant and bigoted and offensive, as well as pushing an agenda based on hatered and lies. That honestly sounds like 'good natured fun' to you? Really? I agree with you that the app is absurd. But I don't find it particularly hilarious, especially knowing the number of people damaged and even driven to suicide by anti-gay "ex-gay" programs. There's a real human cost here, and I just can't laugh at that.
Then don't download the app. Neither you nor anyone else has the right to decide what speech is damaging. The human cost for the suppression of free speech is far far greater than anything this app could possible do.
If this country oppressed free speech, then slavery may not have ended, Jim Crow may not have been defeated, and homosexuality may still have remained in the DSM as a mental disorder. At the time, speech proposing the end of any of those items was considered ignorant, offensive, and pushing an agenda based on lies.
Moralities change in this country, and what is considered offensive, dangerous, and disgusting evolve and change. But through it all, we retain the right to speech and that is--more than anything else--what allows us to evolve as a society. It is the thin layer separating us as a free society from an oppressed one where some self-imposed leader decides what is right and what is wrong.
Anyone have a 'Religiousness Cure' app handy that can help people become atheist? Would be fun to watch the reactions when Apple approve that one...
Apple has approved a number of atheist apps, including one using the mildly derogatory term "BibleThumper": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/technology/03atheist.html
Yep:
Atheist Pocket Debater:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/atheist-pocket-debater/id356411065?mt=8
BibleThumper:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/biblethumper/id334558214?mt=
Goes both ways. This was actually hosted on DailyKos (before they airbrushed it). http://twitpic.com/3o7s5c
If you think that the hate is limited to the Right, you are sadly mistaken:
Arsonist Strikes on Cape Cod, Leaves Calling Card: ‘F–k the Rich’.
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2010/12/arsonist-strikes-on-cape-cod-leaves.html
Kanjorski on Gov.-Elect Rick Scott: “Shoot Him.”
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/11/09/kanjorski-on-gov-elect-rick-sc
“A Madison man was arrested Tuesday in connection with a bomb threat Sunday afternoon that disrupted a town Republican fundraiser featuring Senate candidate Linda McMahon.”
http://insidemadison.com/index.php/2010/09/15/ssuspect-arrested-in-madison-bomb-threat
Gunman who took hostages at Discovery Channel inspired by Al Gore.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38957020/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
James Cameron: Shoot Climate 'Deniers,' Glenn Beck a 'F------ A--hole'
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/03/24/james-cameron-shoot-climate-deniers-glenn-beck-f-hole-0
I honestly could go on and on and on. Just do some basic Google searches.
Seriously, how must hate was spewed by the left against Bush during his entire administration? Why wasn't Al Gore blamed for the Discovery Channel hostage situation? Truth is, you just want to twist a mentally disturbed individual's actions in order to score political points. And that makes you part of the problem in this country.