That's funny. Ya know, if you have post-natal depression and you kill your baby, you can't be convicted of a crime.
I wouldn't count on that. It strongly depends on how your jurisdiction handles the insanity defense with regards to homicide. The insanity defense is not a free and easy to use "get out of jail card" like a lot of people think it is, but due do that perception many jurisdictions don't even have an insanity defense anymore in the wake of the attempted assassination of Reagan (and instead have "guilty but mentally ill" which means that you serve your prison sentence once you're no longer insane).
And that ignores that there are several major different theories of the insanity defense which may treat post-natal depression differently. In the most common version, you must either not know that what you are doing is wrong or be unable to understand the nature and quality of your actions. Proving either for post-natal depression may be hard (and yes, as a collateral defense, the burden of persuasion is on the defense in many jurisdictions).
But I'm sure that the above was just a continuation of a tasteless joke about "traditional" values and not the result of watching too many TV dramas, right?
Weapons of Mass Effect is a broader term that encompasses bio/chem warfare, EMPS, dirty (radioactive) bombs, large conventional explosives, planes flying into buildings, etc.
And WME would also include things like botnets and malicious worms.
Meh. What defines a mass effect? If we reduce the term to just the effects it has on society, then anything could be a so-called WME.
If I shook hands with the President-elect, and then while I had a good grip on him grabbed a fork form the nearest table and jabbed it in his eye, then you bet your sweet butt that I would have just used a "weapon of mass effect." But should the country immediately rise up into a hysteria about banning forks?
Really, that's what this paper is about -- trying to stir up the same level of interest in preventing botnets as we have in preventing nukes. But all that serves to do is water down the attention given to nukes instead. No one is going to think the threat of a botnet is equal to a nuclear explosion, and shame on them for trying.
The fear of WMDs is about mass loss of life. Oh, sure, you can concoct some crazy scenario in which a botnet *could* *somehow* be used to cause loss of life, but not on anywhere near the same level, and all these scenarios are just as unrealistic fantasyland material as the ticking time bomb scenario used to justify torture. All botnets do is economic damage, and that's bad but frankly not worth near the same level of attention and worry.
So, no. Let's not redefine WMD to be all encompassing of every possible threat to someone somewhere by something. I'll keep my dinner forks, thanks.
How is taking down a single hospital the work of a Weapon of Mass Destruction?
Taking down a single hospital is nothing that you can't do with a simple truck bomb or even a smaller bomb on the backup generator's fuel supply. People need to remember that not EVERYTHING a terrorist can use to screw someone over is a WMD. Otherwise, most major cities have a WMD depot more commonly called an "airport."
The WMD thing is just buzzword use to try to trigger a hysterical over-response. I mean, when has a botnet does *mass* damage instead of just taking down a few servers belonging to an individual business or organization? It's not like it isn't a threat at all, but it isn't like botnets are something that can cause more than localized damage either.
Re:What masses, specifically, have botnets destroy
on
Botnets As "eWMDs"
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· Score: 1, Funny
The quality might not be up to par but you can not complain about the quantity...
No, I'm pretty sure that is what he's complaining about.
It's not. It very well may be, but I didn't follow SAC much, and the less I think about Innocence, the better. I also never read the mangas, so I wouldn't know.
Innocence was crap. I'd even agree to the "hyper-complicated trash" label there. SAC is very like the manga in terms of the mix between thought-provoking content and fan-pleasing action. The first movie is a little higher on the thought-provoking side (though a bit unsubtle about it). Innocence was just crap. (I thought it deserved to be mentioned twice.)
Still, all of it was SF.
It is clear from context that the acceptance is about good/bad sci-fi.
So then, do you accept that bad SF exists and is still SF?
If so, then why is GitS "not sci-fi" and not merely "bad sci-fi?" If not, then what is SF such that it can only be good?
(Also, "The Stars My Destination" and "The Demolished Man," by Alfred Bester.)
I don't accept SG-1. I accept early SG-1. I specifically point out how shit tends to get worse as it goes on longer., and use SG-1 as an example. I also mention that it's not an issue of suspending disbelief / accepting the tech/science/physics/etc. in a given universe, it's much more of an issue of the universe being inconsistent, retconned, etc.
Then how is GitS inconsistent or retconned?
And how is that relevant to whether or not something is SF or not?
Next episode, why they have braille on drive-thru ATMs.
Because it's a pointless expense for ATM manufacturers to purchase non-braille keypads for drive-thru models, to warehouse the separate parts until manufacture, and to separately market ATMs without them. Next?
Yes, but that has nothing to with why it's "not sci-fi." Saying it's "bad sci-fi" is different from "not sci-fi."
And besides, if he considers inconsistencies and one-upsmanship bad and yet accepts SG-1, he's a bleeding hypocrite because GitS is at least *consistent* with its vision of technology, setting, and theme because it has a single creator (with some collaboration in the movies and anime, but drawing from a consistent pool of authors the whole time). SG-1 is written by committee, like most TV shows, and the members change over time.
There are no "fallacies" in what I'm discussing, and pointing to a well-known "fallacy" that has a name is as much of a straw man as calling someone's argument a straw man.
The No True Scotsman Fallacy is basically a fallacy of definition. You say that "X can never be Y." When someone shows you X being Y, you simply state, "No true X can be Y." This is simply what you are doing. People have challenged you to explain why Ghost in the Shell isn't SF (or "sci-fi" as you insist on calling it). Instead of providing any kind of definition, you just simply say GitS isn't true SF.
And for reference, a straw man fallacy is when you present someone as making an argument that they aren't making (usually a parodied form of what they are saying), and then attack it in an attempt to discredit the other person. Since you're are clearly stating that GitS isn't true SF, that's not the case. Even if you are grossly ignorant of the meaning of the No True Scotsman fallacy. Just because you don't understand the argument doesn't make it a straw man.
But, hey, way to change the subject. You still haven't bothered to try to define SF. Stop name-calling and do so. Otherwise, you're still just trolling.
Random example of good Sci-Fi: The Thing
I like Campbell's original short story better. It's aged better with time.
Still, Carpenter's take on it was pretty good, so I'll play along. David Brin's "Kiln People."
Do hope none of you think my stick-people look a bit on the young side - hate to have my front door kicked down and be put on 'a list'
I see nothing wrong with your depiction of one person leaning their back against the knee of another and playing the harmonica while the other person claps.
Will these feminizing chemicals mean women who were already women end up with larger... tracks of land?
Can't say if this results in larger breasts *after* everyone is normally supposed to finish growing, but it certainly results in them before that point.
Early puberty for girls has been a cause of concern in recent decades as people have started to notice. Girls starting to develop breasts at age 2 and pubic hair at 4 are not unheard of now in poorer communities (which are likely to suffer from all of the potential risk factors: unhealthy diet & weight gain, low birth weight, exposure to pollutants, hormones in cheaper food, minority racial backgrounds, exposure to a hypersexualized culture, etc.).
Also, we don't have evidence that early physical sexualization has coincided with any earlier mental and emotional maturation. So, the old, "If there's grass on the field" half-joke has become a bit sicker in recent times.
I played with old electrical transformer as a kid, practically bathing in PCBs. It didn't hurt me any. People see me comin', and it's "Lock up your wives, your daughters and your good silver, Joe's a-comin!"
I'm the roughest, toughest, meanest, leanest, rootin-est, tootin-est, sharp-damned-shootin-est man you ever had the bad luck to meet! I can drink longer, fight harder, shout louder and piss further than any other man in the Yukon, and anyone who doesn't believe me can step outside!
Somebody's compensating for something. *Nudge, nudge, wink, wink*
Maybe it's not "news" in terms of being some sudden revelation, but it's "news" in the sense that it hasn't penetrated the consciousness of the public as a whole and is still "new" to them.
That said, yes, there's research out there that has been there for years. But so what?
Don't we often complain how science journalism just grabs a study fresh off the press without having been properly vetted by the scientific community, thus giving the public the whole "eggs are bad, eggs are good, we're entering an ice age, oh look global warming, oh HELL THESE SCIENTISTS DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT!" mindset?
And then, when years and years of research finally pile up, and we've got a solid consensus to go on, we complain that it's "not news."
It's not the pollution that is the problem, its the nutcases that are out there in the green movement. The green movement has linked itself to a wide range of radical liberal issues that include an assault on christianity as one of its planks. For that, I think it reasonable for a cynical mind to question whether the environmental motives of the green movement are really just about the environment, or are part of an anti-american agenda.
There's just so much wrong here I don't know where to start.
First, are you suggesting that feminization problems (a) don't exist, or (b) are somehow *caused by* the green movement instead of oestrogenic chemicals whose effects have been documented for decades?
Second -- ignoring the delusion that the Left is all about destroying faith and America -- are you somehow saying that "assaulting Christianity" means that one can't like to have clean air and water for real? Are you somehow saying that wanting to be free from pollution arises not out of self-interest in being healthy but from "hating America?"
Third, what exactly is pro-America and pro-Christianity about ignoring our stewardship duties? God did not give us this world to make into our personal pigpen, for us to roll in our feces in a celebration of consumption over the health of ourselves, our neighbors, and our children. Saying that being anti-pollution and wanting to reign in industrial greed is anti-God means that you have forgotten that one cannot serve both God and Mammon. Guess which one you're actually advocating service to?
Many of us in the environmental movement are Christians, and we are passionate about the environment *because* of what Jesus taught us about our duties to least amongst us (who suffer the worst brunt of pollution) and because we believe that creation was not given to us to freely desecrate in the assumption that our generation is the last one that matters.
Fourth, who actually loves our country? People who want to whiz all over it in the hopes that God will end it all before the check is due or people who want to preserve our country and its people for generation and generation to come? A virulently "Me Generation" attitude or one that looks to help their fellow Americans? People who demand the *best* of their country or those that demand the *least* of it?
Still, for all of that, you see the pattern of the Republicans (except for W), being the party that actually gets major environmental legislation passed. Let's see:
EPA - founded by Nixon Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Nixon, then, extended by Bush Sr... Bush Jr - creates largest protected eco area around the Hawaiian islands.
Dear Lord, you have drank deeply of the Kool-Aid. Not surprising given the dreck above this that you're so far into delusional partisan land that not only do you declare environmentalists to all be evil destroyers of everything Good in life and yet their loyal opposition is the one who actually does all the good work (which isn't good when THEY want it done).
Nixon was president during one of the strongest eras of liberal politics in the nation, pre Goldwater revolution. People were predicting the death of the Republican party. He had a strong and powerful veto-proof Democratic majority Congress writing all of these laws. He had no choice but to sign them, especially with overwhelming public support behind them.
And if you honestly think that W. has been more in favor environmental regulation than an opponent, you are frankly delusional. Anyone remember early in his Presidency the move to rollback Clinton era limits to arsenic in the drinking water from mining run-off? How about deciding that mercury wasn't a pollutant under the Clean Air Act? Refusing to sign Kyoto and dragging his heels on climate change all while pushing us to drill and consume as much oil as possible? ("We need an energy plan that encourages consumption," remember?) The EPA dragging its heels on coming up with a
Seriously, all sorts of iron, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, methane, hydrogen, helium, chlorine, sodium (this one is explosive!!!!), potassium, nitrogen, fluorine, phosphorous, calcium, copper, nickel, gold, silver, zinc, aluminum, silicon, sulfur, and probably a lot more! With all these evil chemicals in her system, it's no wonder I'm this way!
Technically, those are all elements, not chemicals, the way you are using them. "A chemical" is not "a molecule" but generally is a fuzzier term, like "bug," "vermin," "natural," or "rhythm" which are hard to nail down technically and deterministically.
And you know damned good and well there's a difference between C2H5OH and CH3OH on the human body despite being nothing but carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.
("Widespread chemicals" indeed... I weep for our science-fearing society)
Who fears science more? Those who use science to ensure their safety or those who disregard science when it threatens their modern conveniences?
I went to Elizabethtown College (PA) and even though there were 2 girls for every guy, I still found it difficult to gain entrance into that "sanctuary" known as the female dorm room. I think the women tended to ignore the man and find comfort in each other.
Unless the college was completely closed off from the surrounding community, I think you overestimate the importance of the on-campus ratio.
'Least, going to a 4:1 male:female school, I noticed that most of the women were still interested in the off-campus guys despite the better chances on-campus. "The odds are good, but the goods are odd," and all that.
You accuse me of talking out of my ass and armchair quarterbacking when you are doing EXACTLY the same thing. Your only logic is 'he's a doctor, so he must have been right.'
1) Most people typically consider "armchair quarterbacking" to be second-guessing someone and saying how they would've done it better.
2) My logic is displayed in the above post. He not only successfully carried out the surgery (proving that his decision was right), but the type of information he chose to get from his colleague -- two long messages before the surgery and none during -- put to lie the idea that he needed instant feedback.
If he was asking a nurse to constantly text messages while the kid was under the knife, you might have a point that verbal communication would be superior, but for the type of information he needed, it was a pointless waste of money. However, he's a surgeon with decades of experience, and obviously more knowledgeable about his needs than *you*.
3) You also disregard the advantages to having the information in text format -- reviewability, for one -- in lieu of the criteria you find most desirable as an ignorant bystander. Second, the other surgeon might not even be *available* for a multi-hour phoen call from Africa. But, hey, if you aren't running up a several hundred dollar phone bill to be babysat by another surgeon who is now unable to operate on anyone back home, you must be a "bad doctor," right?
And you'd lose that bet. People can do whatever they want with their money, it doesn't bother me one bit if they give $1 or a million. Or nothing.
And yet you don't see the parallel between that and sneering at the doctor for not being willing to spend the money on a phone call to get the same information -- for being fiscally responsible.
People like you are why medical costs are so high. Why spend $20 for something when you can spend $2000 and get marginally better service? Who cares if that makes care unavailable for some people; if you don't do that, then you're giving cut-rate medicine, right? It's caviar or starve. Feh.
No, I'm living in the real world where 99% of everything out of hollywood or the media in general is pure, refined, feces.
So? What does quality have to do with genre? Sturgeon's Law, no matter how crudely put, doesn't eliminate the majority of bad SF from still being SF.
Random example of good sci-fi: Andromeda Strain.
You mean the book with the energy converting crystal "virus" that ended with a deus ex machina spontaneous conversion of the escaping threat which would supposedly wipe out all of humanity to a rubber-eating virus (all at once and with no worries of converting back)? Like most of Crichton's work, it was too impressed with itself, with the bits of research he'd done on the background material, ignorant of the gaping holes in its own science, and good at building up suspense but terrible at delivering a climax and satisfying resolution.
Andromeda Strain was mediocre unless you stopped reading about 30 pages before the end.
I'll give you another random example for every retarded reply you post. Figuring out what sci-fi is is left as an exercise for the reader.
i.e. You're trolling. If you can't define what the genre is, then you're just engaging in the No True Scotsman's fallacy, and your opinions can safely be disregarded as ignorant posturing.
Slashdot Mirror
That's funny. Ya know, if you have post-natal depression and you kill your baby, you can't be convicted of a crime.
I wouldn't count on that. It strongly depends on how your jurisdiction handles the insanity defense with regards to homicide. The insanity defense is not a free and easy to use "get out of jail card" like a lot of people think it is, but due do that perception many jurisdictions don't even have an insanity defense anymore in the wake of the attempted assassination of Reagan (and instead have "guilty but mentally ill" which means that you serve your prison sentence once you're no longer insane).
And that ignores that there are several major different theories of the insanity defense which may treat post-natal depression differently. In the most common version, you must either not know that what you are doing is wrong or be unable to understand the nature and quality of your actions. Proving either for post-natal depression may be hard (and yes, as a collateral defense, the burden of persuasion is on the defense in many jurisdictions).
But I'm sure that the above was just a continuation of a tasteless joke about "traditional" values and not the result of watching too many TV dramas, right?
Weapons of Mass Effect is a broader term that encompasses bio/chem warfare, EMPS, dirty (radioactive) bombs, large conventional explosives, planes flying into buildings, etc.
And WME would also include things like botnets and malicious worms.
Meh. What defines a mass effect? If we reduce the term to just the effects it has on society, then anything could be a so-called WME.
If I shook hands with the President-elect, and then while I had a good grip on him grabbed a fork form the nearest table and jabbed it in his eye, then you bet your sweet butt that I would have just used a "weapon of mass effect." But should the country immediately rise up into a hysteria about banning forks?
Really, that's what this paper is about -- trying to stir up the same level of interest in preventing botnets as we have in preventing nukes. But all that serves to do is water down the attention given to nukes instead. No one is going to think the threat of a botnet is equal to a nuclear explosion, and shame on them for trying.
The fear of WMDs is about mass loss of life. Oh, sure, you can concoct some crazy scenario in which a botnet *could* *somehow* be used to cause loss of life, but not on anywhere near the same level, and all these scenarios are just as unrealistic fantasyland material as the ticking time bomb scenario used to justify torture. All botnets do is economic damage, and that's bad but frankly not worth near the same level of attention and worry.
So, no. Let's not redefine WMD to be all encompassing of every possible threat to someone somewhere by something. I'll keep my dinner forks, thanks.
How is taking down a single hospital the work of a Weapon of Mass Destruction?
Taking down a single hospital is nothing that you can't do with a simple truck bomb or even a smaller bomb on the backup generator's fuel supply. People need to remember that not EVERYTHING a terrorist can use to screw someone over is a WMD. Otherwise, most major cities have a WMD depot more commonly called an "airport."
The WMD thing is just buzzword use to try to trigger a hysterical over-response. I mean, when has a botnet does *mass* damage instead of just taking down a few servers belonging to an individual business or organization? It's not like it isn't a threat at all, but it isn't like botnets are something that can cause more than localized damage either.
The quality might not be up to par but you can not complain about the quantity...
No, I'm pretty sure that is what he's complaining about.
It's not. It very well may be, but I didn't follow SAC much, and the less I think about Innocence, the better. I also never read the mangas, so I wouldn't know.
Innocence was crap. I'd even agree to the "hyper-complicated trash" label there. SAC is very like the manga in terms of the mix between thought-provoking content and fan-pleasing action. The first movie is a little higher on the thought-provoking side (though a bit unsubtle about it). Innocence was just crap. (I thought it deserved to be mentioned twice.)
Still, all of it was SF.
It is clear from context that the acceptance is about good/bad sci-fi.
So then, do you accept that bad SF exists and is still SF?
If so, then why is GitS "not sci-fi" and not merely "bad sci-fi?"
If not, then what is SF such that it can only be good?
(Also, "The Stars My Destination" and "The Demolished Man," by Alfred Bester.)
I don't accept SG-1.
I accept early SG-1. I specifically point out how shit tends to get worse as it goes on longer., and use SG-1 as an example. I also mention that it's not an issue of suspending disbelief / accepting the tech/science/physics/etc. in a given universe, it's much more of an issue of the universe being inconsistent, retconned, etc.
Then how is GitS inconsistent or retconned?
And how is that relevant to whether or not something is SF or not?
(BTW: "Lord of Light," by Roger Zelazny.)
Next episode, why they have braille on drive-thru ATMs.
Because it's a pointless expense for ATM manufacturers to purchase non-braille keypads for drive-thru models, to warehouse the separate parts until manufacture, and to separately market ATMs without them. Next?
Yes, but that has nothing to with why it's "not sci-fi." Saying it's "bad sci-fi" is different from "not sci-fi."
And besides, if he considers inconsistencies and one-upsmanship bad and yet accepts SG-1, he's a bleeding hypocrite because GitS is at least *consistent* with its vision of technology, setting, and theme because it has a single creator (with some collaboration in the movies and anime, but drawing from a consistent pool of authors the whole time). SG-1 is written by committee, like most TV shows, and the members change over time.
Technically, those are all elements, not chemicals, the way you are using them.
Except methane. I missed that one on first reading. Rest of the post still stands.
Man, you are mentally retarded.
There are no "fallacies" in what I'm discussing, and pointing to a well-known "fallacy" that has a name is as much of a straw man as calling someone's argument a straw man.
The No True Scotsman Fallacy is basically a fallacy of definition. You say that "X can never be Y." When someone shows you X being Y, you simply state, "No true X can be Y." This is simply what you are doing. People have challenged you to explain why Ghost in the Shell isn't SF (or "sci-fi" as you insist on calling it). Instead of providing any kind of definition, you just simply say GitS isn't true SF.
And for reference, a straw man fallacy is when you present someone as making an argument that they aren't making (usually a parodied form of what they are saying), and then attack it in an attempt to discredit the other person. Since you're are clearly stating that GitS isn't true SF, that's not the case. Even if you are grossly ignorant of the meaning of the No True Scotsman fallacy. Just because you don't understand the argument doesn't make it a straw man.
But, hey, way to change the subject. You still haven't bothered to try to define SF. Stop name-calling and do so. Otherwise, you're still just trolling.
Random example of good Sci-Fi: The Thing
I like Campbell's original short story better. It's aged better with time.
Still, Carpenter's take on it was pretty good, so I'll play along. David Brin's "Kiln People."
I wouldn't brag.
O
|=
|~O--
|_,|`"`|_
Do hope none of you think my stick-people look a bit on the young side - hate to have my front door kicked down and be put on 'a list'
I see nothing wrong with your depiction of one person leaning their back against the knee of another and playing the harmonica while the other person claps.
Will these feminizing chemicals mean women who were already women end up with larger... tracks of land?
Can't say if this results in larger breasts *after* everyone is normally supposed to finish growing, but it certainly results in them before that point.
Early puberty for girls has been a cause of concern in recent decades as people have started to notice. Girls starting to develop breasts at age 2 and pubic hair at 4 are not unheard of now in poorer communities (which are likely to suffer from all of the potential risk factors: unhealthy diet & weight gain, low birth weight, exposure to pollutants, hormones in cheaper food, minority racial backgrounds, exposure to a hypersexualized culture, etc.).
Also, we don't have evidence that early physical sexualization has coincided with any earlier mental and emotional maturation. So, the old, "If there's grass on the field" half-joke has become a bit sicker in recent times.
Be nice. He worked on a farm with a lot of chemicals when he was younger. /ducks
Now we know how the world will really end.
I'm pretty sure that's not what Thomas Friedman meant when he wrote the book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded."
Whoosh!
I played with old electrical transformer as a kid, practically bathing in PCBs. It didn't hurt me any. People see me comin', and it's "Lock up your wives, your daughters and your good silver, Joe's a-comin!"
I'm the roughest, toughest, meanest, leanest, rootin-est, tootin-est, sharp-damned-shootin-est man you ever had the bad luck to meet! I can drink longer, fight harder, shout louder and piss further than any other man in the Yukon, and anyone who doesn't believe me can step outside!
Somebody's compensating for something. *Nudge, nudge, wink, wink*
Maybe it's not "news" in terms of being some sudden revelation, but it's "news" in the sense that it hasn't penetrated the consciousness of the public as a whole and is still "new" to them.
That said, yes, there's research out there that has been there for years. But so what?
Don't we often complain how science journalism just grabs a study fresh off the press without having been properly vetted by the scientific community, thus giving the public the whole "eggs are bad, eggs are good, we're entering an ice age, oh look global warming, oh HELL THESE SCIENTISTS DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT!" mindset?
And then, when years and years of research finally pile up, and we've got a solid consensus to go on, we complain that it's "not news."
*sigh*
It's not the pollution that is the problem, its the nutcases that are out there in the green movement. The green movement has linked itself to a wide range of radical liberal issues that include an assault on christianity as one of its planks. For that, I think it reasonable for a cynical mind to question whether the environmental motives of the green movement are really just about the environment, or are part of an anti-american agenda.
There's just so much wrong here I don't know where to start.
First, are you suggesting that feminization problems (a) don't exist, or (b) are somehow *caused by* the green movement instead of oestrogenic chemicals whose effects have been documented for decades?
Second -- ignoring the delusion that the Left is all about destroying faith and America -- are you somehow saying that "assaulting Christianity" means that one can't like to have clean air and water for real? Are you somehow saying that wanting to be free from pollution arises not out of self-interest in being healthy but from "hating America?"
Third, what exactly is pro-America and pro-Christianity about ignoring our stewardship duties? God did not give us this world to make into our personal pigpen, for us to roll in our feces in a celebration of consumption over the health of ourselves, our neighbors, and our children. Saying that being anti-pollution and wanting to reign in industrial greed is anti-God means that you have forgotten that one cannot serve both God and Mammon. Guess which one you're actually advocating service to?
Many of us in the environmental movement are Christians, and we are passionate about the environment *because* of what Jesus taught us about our duties to least amongst us (who suffer the worst brunt of pollution) and because we believe that creation was not given to us to freely desecrate in the assumption that our generation is the last one that matters.
Fourth, who actually loves our country? People who want to whiz all over it in the hopes that God will end it all before the check is due or people who want to preserve our country and its people for generation and generation to come? A virulently "Me Generation" attitude or one that looks to help their fellow Americans? People who demand the *best* of their country or those that demand the *least* of it?
Still, for all of that, you see the pattern of the Republicans (except for W), being the party that actually gets major environmental legislation passed. Let's see:
EPA - founded by Nixon
Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Nixon, then, extended by Bush Sr...
Bush Jr - creates largest protected eco area around the Hawaiian islands.
Dear Lord, you have drank deeply of the Kool-Aid. Not surprising given the dreck above this that you're so far into delusional partisan land that not only do you declare environmentalists to all be evil destroyers of everything Good in life and yet their loyal opposition is the one who actually does all the good work (which isn't good when THEY want it done).
Nixon was president during one of the strongest eras of liberal politics in the nation, pre Goldwater revolution. People were predicting the death of the Republican party. He had a strong and powerful veto-proof Democratic majority Congress writing all of these laws. He had no choice but to sign them, especially with overwhelming public support behind them.
And if you honestly think that W. has been more in favor environmental regulation than an opponent, you are frankly delusional. Anyone remember early in his Presidency the move to rollback Clinton era limits to arsenic in the drinking water from mining run-off? How about deciding that mercury wasn't a pollutant under the Clean Air Act? Refusing to sign Kyoto and dragging his heels on climate change all while pushing us to drill and consume as much oil as possible? ("We need an energy plan that encourages consumption," remember?) The EPA dragging its heels on coming up with a
Seriously, all sorts of iron, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, methane, hydrogen, helium, chlorine, sodium (this one is explosive!!!!), potassium, nitrogen, fluorine, phosphorous, calcium, copper, nickel, gold, silver, zinc, aluminum, silicon, sulfur, and probably a lot more! With all these evil chemicals in her system, it's no wonder I'm this way!
Technically, those are all elements, not chemicals, the way you are using them. "A chemical" is not "a molecule" but generally is a fuzzier term, like "bug," "vermin," "natural," or "rhythm" which are hard to nail down technically and deterministically.
And you know damned good and well there's a difference between C2H5OH and CH3OH on the human body despite being nothing but carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.
("Widespread chemicals" indeed... I weep for our science-fearing society)
Who fears science more? Those who use science to ensure their safety or those who disregard science when it threatens their modern conveniences?
I'm pretty sure she was a woman before.
I went to Elizabethtown College (PA) and even though there were 2 girls for every guy, I still found it difficult to gain entrance into that "sanctuary" known as the female dorm room. I think the women tended to ignore the man and find comfort in each other.
Unless the college was completely closed off from the surrounding community, I think you overestimate the importance of the on-campus ratio.
'Least, going to a 4:1 male:female school, I noticed that most of the women were still interested in the off-campus guys despite the better chances on-campus. "The odds are good, but the goods are odd," and all that.
And if that's no good, I can build her a machine. That's why I earned my EE degree. ;-)
I really hope you meant ME degree, 'cause otherwise -- ouch!
You accuse me of talking out of my ass and armchair quarterbacking when you are doing EXACTLY the same thing. Your only logic is 'he's a doctor, so he must have been right.'
1) Most people typically consider "armchair quarterbacking" to be second-guessing someone and saying how they would've done it better.
2) My logic is displayed in the above post. He not only successfully carried out the surgery (proving that his decision was right), but the type of information he chose to get from his colleague -- two long messages before the surgery and none during -- put to lie the idea that he needed instant feedback.
If he was asking a nurse to constantly text messages while the kid was under the knife, you might have a point that verbal communication would be superior, but for the type of information he needed, it was a pointless waste of money. However, he's a surgeon with decades of experience, and obviously more knowledgeable about his needs than *you*.
3) You also disregard the advantages to having the information in text format -- reviewability, for one -- in lieu of the criteria you find most desirable as an ignorant bystander. Second, the other surgeon might not even be *available* for a multi-hour phoen call from Africa. But, hey, if you aren't running up a several hundred dollar phone bill to be babysat by another surgeon who is now unable to operate on anyone back home, you must be a "bad doctor," right?
And you'd lose that bet. People can do whatever they want with their money, it doesn't bother me one bit if they give $1 or a million. Or nothing.
And yet you don't see the parallel between that and sneering at the doctor for not being willing to spend the money on a phone call to get the same information -- for being fiscally responsible.
People like you are why medical costs are so high. Why spend $20 for something when you can spend $2000 and get marginally better service? Who cares if that makes care unavailable for some people; if you don't do that, then you're giving cut-rate medicine, right? It's caviar or starve. Feh.
No, I'm living in the real world where 99% of everything out of hollywood or the media in general is pure, refined, feces.
So? What does quality have to do with genre? Sturgeon's Law, no matter how crudely put, doesn't eliminate the majority of bad SF from still being SF.
Random example of good sci-fi:
Andromeda Strain.
You mean the book with the energy converting crystal "virus" that ended with a deus ex machina spontaneous conversion of the escaping threat which would supposedly wipe out all of humanity to a rubber-eating virus (all at once and with no worries of converting back)? Like most of Crichton's work, it was too impressed with itself, with the bits of research he'd done on the background material, ignorant of the gaping holes in its own science, and good at building up suspense but terrible at delivering a climax and satisfying resolution.
Andromeda Strain was mediocre unless you stopped reading about 30 pages before the end.
I'll give you another random example for every retarded reply you post. Figuring out what sci-fi is is left as an exercise for the reader.
i.e. You're trolling. If you can't define what the genre is, then you're just engaging in the No True Scotsman's fallacy, and your opinions can safely be disregarded as ignorant posturing.