Now, most of the food in Spain except for the ham, seafood and churros is bordering on objectively disgusting, but everyone I saw over there is very thin.
What do you mean "but"?
If most food were "bordering on objectively disgusting" in the US, folks would eat less of it and be thinner.
I think this is the #1 cause of obesity. Our food is damn tasty by any standard. And even though tastes differ, there's something great for everyone. Eating food in the US is a positive experience beyond satisfying hunger. So people eat it past the point where they are hungry for it. And they get fat.
You know what is all about body weight? Body weight.
So if someone wants to lose weight, the stuff that's not about body weight is somewhat beside the point. It's really easy to "eat healthy" and get fatter as a result.
Did you know that you leave fingerprints on everything you touch? Anyone can track you anywhere you go!!! All they have to do is "lift" the prints off the surface. It's a privacy nightmare.
This is incorrect. Conservatives know what they believe. Conservatives can say what they believe. No conservative would ever say "conservatism is about conserving the past". We aren't secretly thinking it either. It's simply an incorrect definition.
Put down the dictionary and listen to what people actually say.
And, true to its name, that means keeping established business and religious interests in power,
Religious interests have no power. Business has less and less. The "establishment" is the government, education, and the media. The "establishment" is anti-conservative.
... while interfering with the free market...
This is 180 degrees wrong. Conservatism is pro free-market. It's like we're not even talking about the same thing at all.
I'm talking about modern American Conservatism in the USA -- Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.
What country and time period are you talking about? I'm not really going to respond any more until this is cleared up. I think you might be talking about Europe or some time in the 1930s or something. It's truly strange.
You have an interesting definition of force. Apparently hearing something is "force" in this definition. Therefore, censoring is "protecting" from force. That's pretty empowering for the censors, I guess.
The government shouldn't be telling me what the "gold standard" for families or anything else is.
So the government shouldn't say it includes gay couples.
...the government should extend equal laws to everyone.
The laws are already equal. Every individual has precisely the same choices of a spouse. Restrictions like "not your sister or mother" and "not someone of the same sex" are the same kind of restriction. You want to get rid of all of them or just the ones that leftist interest groups don't like?
Why shouldn't a society get to choose what it thinks is a marriage and what it thinks isn't a marriage? Should every tiny segment of society always get to choose for the rest of society? What if the rest of society resists? Should the majority be forced by the minority?
How does this belief system work? Does it follow any logical rules, or is it just "say anything to gain power"?
Do you have a point? Why is it bad to censor Sesame Street but good to censor Intelligent Design? Who else should be denied an opportunity to have their views considered in schools?
I'm wondering who the Intelligent Design proponents harmed or forced to act against their will? But you brought it up, not me. So why does it apply to the discussion?
-No teaching of evolution (later scaled back to putting warning stickers that evolution was "only" a theory and trying to give equal time to Intelligent Design, as if it had equal credibility).
Who was "forced" in this example? What were they forced to do?
I understand that you want religious messages censored. I'm wondering why not censoring them is considered force.
-Posting the 10 commandments in schools and courthouses, presumably to give the impression that they have the weight of official government policy behind them.
Who was forced? What were they forced to do?
-School children should be lead by teachers in pledging themselves to a nation "under God", (originally compulsory, after complaints it was scaled back to they must stand respectfully and watch all their all peers pledge themselves).
I actually agree with you there. My solution is school choice. The government schools are outmoded. About 80% of what they do at the government schools is not education and they ought to stop it.
-Marriage can only be between a man and a woman (some compromise and allow calling it Civil Unions, but stating that 1 man/1 woman and having kids is the "gold standard"). Constitutional amendments even proposed to this end.
Who was forced? What were they forced to do?
Why should society have to recognize any given relationship as a marriage? What if we don't agree that it's a marriage?
A marriage is what it has always been throughout history in all societies. It's not a definition created by "the right". There are hundreds of thousands of years of history on this in all societies and all religions throughout the world. No gay marriages in that history -- until about 12 years ago.
. -Teachers and coaches leading students in prayer at school events, designated school "prayer time", ect.
So does the political right; that's why the right is trying to restrict pornography, abortions, drug use, sex, sex education, not to mention numerous "smaller" issues.
This is cartoon analysis. Both sides agree on drug use. There have been no new laws on the rest.
On both sides of the political spectrum, many people call for "the government to do something about it" when their fellow citizens aren't behaving the way they think they ought to behave.
It's mostly leftists. And when leftists call for government intervention, it actually happens. The anti-smoking laws are the most obvious example. Lots of times, leftists get this stuff done using the courts -- with no democratic involvement at all.
This needs to be stopped, both on the left and on the right, and it's actually a bigger problem on the right.
Except the right hasn't passed any of these laws for 50 or 60 years. It was a bigger problem "on the right" 80 years ago. Not any more. (Also, "the right" had a different philosophy back then that isn't really the same as today's conservatism.)
--
Maybe we can agree on smaller government? Fewer laws regulating individual behavior. Fewer laws regulating corporations. Lower taxes and less government-enforced transfer from earners to consumers. That's what conservatism is.
That's what folks on "the right" believe -- sometimes with one single exception for abortion. (Beliefs differ somewhat, but that's the core of conservatism.)
Spend a little quality time with Wikipedia, and look up the Scopes Trial, for a start.
Wikipedia says the Scopes Trial happend in 1925. That was over 80 years ago. Everyone involved died a long time ago. Why are you still threatened by long-dead religious leaders? If I had a time machine and planned to travel back to the 1920s, I might worry about religious folks forcing their choices on me. But I don't live in the past.
This Sesame Street anti-smoking-nazi stuff is from this year -- 2007.
Do you have any current examples of religious folks forcing people to do things?
OK, lets say you are right. What do you want to do and how do you want to get it done?
The folks who say "it is not left or right, it is both sides" generally don't have any solutions to any problems. Or they are leftists who are trying to hide their real goals.
There's one side that wants to take over industries and control things and one side that wants smaller government and less interference in people's lives. I'm on the right, so I want smaller, less intrusive government. To get that, I'm trying to get people who agree with me elected. Those people call themselves "conservatives" in the US.
So I repeat the question: What do you want to do and how do you want to get it done?
But this isn't a left-vs-right issue. The right wing in the US has its very own "political correctness" (namely, conformance with Christian ideals)
This is a fantasy. Even the most devout Christian knows he falls short of the ideal. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Also, what's the penalty for saying something "offensive" to a Christian? (None.) And how about when you say the same thing to a minority or a feminist? (You get sued for sexual harassment or lose your job or are generally forced, using government coercion, to shut up.)
and its very own "nanny state" policies (ranging from school prayer to extrajudicial renditions).
When was the last time a child was punished for not saying a prayer in school? Fifty years ago?
As to your characterization of "extrajudicial renditions" as "nanny-state policies"... I hated it when I was a kid and my nanny deported me. It was a major bummer because it was extrajudicial. The other kids' nannies had them deported too, but at least a court was involved. That made it OK. Those nannies sure were mean though.
PC nanny staters" is usually a codeword used by the American right to complain about the American left.
Specifically, it's for when leftists want to use government power to be everyone's mom.
So, if you want to contribute to this debate, why don't you start by avoiding slogans created by one party to smear the other one? Both the Democrats and the Republicans are to blame for this bullshit.
It's not a partisan issue. It's a philosophical one. The left (not "the Democrat Party", the left) looks at ordinary people as incapable. The ordinary folks can't take care of themselves and need the leftist to control things -- so the ordinary people can get health care and education and food and children can be raised. Without the leftists, ordinary people would die of starvation and leave their children to wander the streets fighting dogs for the contents of trash cans.
I see a lot of this revisionism as pandering to the religious right, and conservatives in general.
Actually no. The religious right is against things they think are wrong. No religion suggests grouchiness is wrong. Also, no mainstream Christian religions have a prohibition on pipe-smoking.
The anti-smoking nazis are almost universally leftists.
They want to control your behavior. They know better than you so they will make your life choices for you. They know what your money should be spent on, so they'll take it from you. They know how every industry should be run, so they regulate it.
They know how every child should be raised, so they're there with bureaucrats to "help" it be done right. Home visits, "soft" censorship of TV, mandatory government education with all alternatives discouraged, textbooks scoured of anything that any interest group could possibly object to, prohibitions on games of "tag" and other "violent" games, and the sexual-harassment panda are all tools their toolbox.
Conservatives support individual freedom and limited government in general. The "religious right" wants to live their lives without having to bow to the totalitarian left's new government rules.
There may have been a time when the "religious right" wanted more than that, but that was before leftists gained control of every institution in society: government, education, media, non-profits, courtrooms, and increasingly corporations and churches. Now folks on the "religious right" are struggling to keep themselves from being made second-class citizens in the new big-government leftist "utopia".
Additionally, even mildly bad weather would kill hundreds of flying-car drivers.
I'm talking about bad weather like fog or 25 MPH winds or heavy rain. Any weather that even slows down road traffic will kill the "drivers" of flying cars. The wings will ice up, the low visibility will lead to crashes into other flying cars and ground-based obstacles, the wind will cause stalls or blow the drivers into things, hail will damage the wings, etc.
Piloting an aircraft is a skill. Not crashing an aircraft is because of wise, disciplined decisions. There's a lot to learn in order to be a safe pilot.
It's simply not worth the effort for individuals driving to the office. Plus, it would be slower because of the pre-flight checks and all the rest of the preparation you need to do before you fly.
The press continues to miss the story on the PSP. The story is that Sony sold a lot of PSPs. Sony now shares the handheld market with Nintendo, instead of Nintendo more-or-less owning the entire market. That's a success. The PSP is a success with over 25 million sold so far.
Going forward, the PSP still has the technical capabilities and the software development to be a competitive product for 2-3 more years at least.
US Consumers Clueless about Missing Intergalactic Mass
"A study on consumer perceptions about missing intergalactic mass, undertaken by the Asimov Institute at the University of Phoenix Online and the Speilberg Space Policy Center, found that the average American consumer is largely unaware that some x-rays thought to come from intergalactic clouds of 'warm' gas are instead probably caused by lightweight electrons. Those surveyed showed little knowledge on the extent to which the mass of the universe was previously calculated. More than half of those surveyed -- about 55 percent -- falsely assumed that large amounts of extra 'soft' galaxy clusters were actually a light chocolatey candy....
Do you bother to make sure that the next day the sun will rise?
In this state, we have a whole government department dedicated to making it rise. Pepsico and TIAA/CREF almost stopped it from rising last year, but the budget was increased just in time and the Dept. of Light and Warmth fought them off.
This year, the cold-hearted forces of darkness want to cut the budget to only 129% of last year's budget. I'm worried about the sun's chances and I told them so when they surveyed me.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, most of the food in Spain except for the ham, seafood and churros is bordering on objectively disgusting, but everyone I saw over there is very thin.
What do you mean "but"?
If most food were "bordering on objectively disgusting" in the US, folks would eat less of it and be thinner.
I think this is the #1 cause of obesity. Our food is damn tasty by any standard. And even though tastes differ, there's something great for everyone. Eating food in the US is a positive experience beyond satisfying hunger. So people eat it past the point where they are hungry for it. And they get fat.
Health is not all about body weight.
You know what is all about body weight? Body weight.
So if someone wants to lose weight, the stuff that's not about body weight is somewhat beside the point. It's really easy to "eat healthy" and get fatter as a result.
No combination of those will result in your blanket statement.
The law of conservation of energy is sufficient to result in that blanket statement.
Did you know that you leave fingerprints on everything you touch? Anyone can track you anywhere you go!!! All they have to do is "lift" the prints off the surface. It's a privacy nightmare.
This is incorrect. Conservatives know what they believe. Conservatives can say what they believe. No conservative would ever say "conservatism is about conserving the past". We aren't secretly thinking it either. It's simply an incorrect definition.
Put down the dictionary and listen to what people actually say.
And, true to its name, that means keeping established business and religious interests in power,
Religious interests have no power. Business has less and less. The "establishment" is the government, education, and the media. The "establishment" is anti-conservative.
This is 180 degrees wrong. Conservatism is pro free-market. It's like we're not even talking about the same thing at all.
I'm talking about modern American Conservatism in the USA -- Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.
What country and time period are you talking about? I'm not really going to respond any more until this is cleared up. I think you might be talking about Europe or some time in the 1930s or something. It's truly strange.
The government shouldn't be telling me what the "gold standard" for families or anything else is.
So the government shouldn't say it includes gay couples.
The laws are already equal. Every individual has precisely the same choices of a spouse. Restrictions like "not your sister or mother" and "not someone of the same sex" are the same kind of restriction. You want to get rid of all of them or just the ones that leftist interest groups don't like?
Why shouldn't a society get to choose what it thinks is a marriage and what it thinks isn't a marriage? Should every tiny segment of society always get to choose for the rest of society? What if the rest of society resists? Should the majority be forced by the minority?
How does this belief system work? Does it follow any logical rules, or is it just "say anything to gain power"?
Do you have a point? Why is it bad to censor Sesame Street but good to censor Intelligent Design? Who else should be denied an opportunity to have their views considered in schools?
I'm wondering who the Intelligent Design proponents harmed or forced to act against their will? But you brought it up, not me. So why does it apply to the discussion?
-No teaching of evolution (later scaled back to putting warning stickers that evolution was "only" a theory and trying to give equal time to Intelligent Design, as if it had equal credibility).
Who was "forced" in this example? What were they forced to do?
I understand that you want religious messages censored. I'm wondering why not censoring them is considered force.
-Posting the 10 commandments in schools and courthouses, presumably to give the impression that they have the weight of official government policy behind them.
Who was forced? What were they forced to do?
-School children should be lead by teachers in pledging themselves to a nation "under God", (originally compulsory, after complaints it was scaled back to they must stand respectfully and watch all their all peers pledge themselves).
I actually agree with you there. My solution is school choice. The government schools are outmoded. About 80% of what they do at the government schools is not education and they ought to stop it.
-Marriage can only be between a man and a woman (some compromise and allow calling it Civil Unions, but stating that 1 man/1 woman and having kids is the "gold standard"). Constitutional amendments even proposed to this end.
Who was forced? What were they forced to do?
Why should society have to recognize any given relationship as a marriage? What if we don't agree that it's a marriage?
A marriage is what it has always been throughout history in all societies. It's not a definition created by "the right". There are hundreds of thousands of years of history on this in all societies and all religions throughout the world. No gay marriages in that history -- until about 12 years ago.
. -Teachers and coaches leading students in prayer at school events, designated school "prayer time", ect.
Who was forced? What were they forced to do?
So we have a story about Sesame Street being censored because the smoking is a message not fit for children.
And now you're saying that not censoring the Intelligent Design message (because it's unfit for children) is an example of the same thing.
Hmm.
So does the political right; that's why the right is trying to restrict pornography, abortions, drug use, sex, sex education, not to mention numerous "smaller" issues.
This is cartoon analysis. Both sides agree on drug use. There have been no new laws on the rest.
On both sides of the political spectrum, many people call for "the government to do something about it" when their fellow citizens aren't behaving the way they think they ought to behave.
It's mostly leftists. And when leftists call for government intervention, it actually happens. The anti-smoking laws are the most obvious example. Lots of times, leftists get this stuff done using the courts -- with no democratic involvement at all.
This needs to be stopped, both on the left and on the right, and it's actually a bigger problem on the right.
Except the right hasn't passed any of these laws for 50 or 60 years. It was a bigger problem "on the right" 80 years ago. Not any more. (Also, "the right" had a different philosophy back then that isn't really the same as today's conservatism.)
--
Maybe we can agree on smaller government? Fewer laws regulating individual behavior. Fewer laws regulating corporations. Lower taxes and less government-enforced transfer from earners to consumers. That's what conservatism is.
That's what folks on "the right" believe -- sometimes with one single exception for abortion. (Beliefs differ somewhat, but that's the core of conservatism.)
Spend a little quality time with Wikipedia, and look up the Scopes Trial, for a start.
Wikipedia says the Scopes Trial happend in 1925. That was over 80 years ago. Everyone involved died a long time ago. Why are you still threatened by long-dead religious leaders? If I had a time machine and planned to travel back to the 1920s, I might worry about religious folks forcing their choices on me. But I don't live in the past.
This Sesame Street anti-smoking-nazi stuff is from this year -- 2007.
Do you have any current examples of religious folks forcing people to do things?
This country has a LONG history of blue laws.
Yes. History. Blue laws are from the past. Most of them are from more than 50 years ago and they're slowly getting repealed.
What about something that didn't happen 50 years ago?
All the leftist restrictions on freedom are current, not some relic of the distant past.
They also seek to abuse the power of government to enforce their superstition on others.
Do you have an example of this "enforcement"? Who was forced? What were they forced to do?
OK, lets say you are right. What do you want to do and how do you want to get it done?
The folks who say "it is not left or right, it is both sides" generally don't have any solutions to any problems. Or they are leftists who are trying to hide their real goals.
There's one side that wants to take over industries and control things and one side that wants smaller government and less interference in people's lives. I'm on the right, so I want smaller, less intrusive government. To get that, I'm trying to get people who agree with me elected. Those people call themselves "conservatives" in the US.
So I repeat the question: What do you want to do and how do you want to get it done?
But this isn't a left-vs-right issue. The right wing in the US has its very own "political correctness" (namely, conformance with Christian ideals)
... I hated it when I was a kid and my nanny deported me. It was a major bummer because it was extrajudicial. The other kids' nannies had them deported too, but at least a court was involved. That made it OK. Those nannies sure were mean though.
This is a fantasy. Even the most devout Christian knows he falls short of the ideal. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Also, what's the penalty for saying something "offensive" to a Christian? (None.) And how about when you say the same thing to a minority or a feminist? (You get sued for sexual harassment or lose your job or are generally forced, using government coercion, to shut up.)
and its very own "nanny state" policies (ranging from school prayer to extrajudicial renditions).
When was the last time a child was punished for not saying a prayer in school? Fifty years ago?
As to your characterization of "extrajudicial renditions" as "nanny-state policies"
PC nanny staters" is usually a codeword used by the American right to complain about the American left.
Specifically, it's for when leftists want to use government power to be everyone's mom.
So, if you want to contribute to this debate, why don't you start by avoiding slogans created by one party to smear the other one? Both the Democrats and the Republicans are to blame for this bullshit.
It's not a partisan issue. It's a philosophical one. The left (not "the Democrat Party", the left) looks at ordinary people as incapable. The ordinary folks can't take care of themselves and need the leftist to control things -- so the ordinary people can get health care and education and food and children can be raised. Without the leftists, ordinary people would die of starvation and leave their children to wander the streets fighting dogs for the contents of trash cans.
Sesame street is a huge profitable enterprise. What do they need taxpayer subsidies for?
I see a lot of this revisionism as pandering to the religious right, and conservatives in general.
Actually no. The religious right is against things they think are wrong. No religion suggests grouchiness is wrong. Also, no mainstream Christian religions have a prohibition on pipe-smoking.
The anti-smoking nazis are almost universally leftists.
They want to control your behavior. They know better than you so they will make your life choices for you. They know what your money should be spent on, so they'll take it from you. They know how every industry should be run, so they regulate it.
They know how every child should be raised, so they're there with bureaucrats to "help" it be done right. Home visits, "soft" censorship of TV, mandatory government education with all alternatives discouraged, textbooks scoured of anything that any interest group could possibly object to, prohibitions on games of "tag" and other "violent" games, and the sexual-harassment panda are all tools their toolbox.
Conservatives support individual freedom and limited government in general. The "religious right" wants to live their lives without having to bow to the totalitarian left's new government rules.
There may have been a time when the "religious right" wanted more than that, but that was before leftists gained control of every institution in society: government, education, media, non-profits, courtrooms, and increasingly corporations and churches. Now folks on the "religious right" are struggling to keep themselves from being made second-class citizens in the new big-government leftist "utopia".
The story is about doing it over fiber optics -- using an optical signal instead of an electrical one.
It seems like something that might be useful 20 years from now.
I think the key to FPS without a mouse is to not give up after 3 minutes. You get used to it and it's fun.
Additionally, even mildly bad weather would kill hundreds of flying-car drivers.
I'm talking about bad weather like fog or 25 MPH winds or heavy rain. Any weather that even slows down road traffic will kill the "drivers" of flying cars. The wings will ice up, the low visibility will lead to crashes into other flying cars and ground-based obstacles, the wind will cause stalls or blow the drivers into things, hail will damage the wings, etc.
Piloting an aircraft is a skill. Not crashing an aircraft is because of wise, disciplined decisions. There's a lot to learn in order to be a safe pilot.
It's simply not worth the effort for individuals driving to the office. Plus, it would be slower because of the pre-flight checks and all the rest of the preparation you need to do before you fly.
Thanks. Everyone was wondering what the Sony-haters were thinking on this. Turns out they were thinking "I hate Sony". Who could have guessed?
Sony says 25 million shipped as of March 31, 2007.
I guess technically that's a "shipped" number, but technically, it was also 6 months ago and Sony has sold some PSPs since then.
The press continues to miss the story on the PSP. The story is that Sony sold a lot of PSPs. Sony now shares the handheld market with Nintendo, instead of Nintendo more-or-less owning the entire market. That's a success. The PSP is a success with over 25 million sold so far.
Going forward, the PSP still has the technical capabilities and the software development to be a competitive product for 2-3 more years at least.
US Consumers Clueless about Missing Intergalactic Mass
...
"A study on consumer perceptions about missing intergalactic mass, undertaken by the Asimov Institute at the University of Phoenix Online and the Speilberg Space Policy Center, found that the average American consumer is largely unaware that some x-rays thought to come from intergalactic clouds of 'warm' gas are instead probably caused by lightweight electrons. Those surveyed showed little knowledge on the extent to which the mass of the universe was previously calculated. More than half of those surveyed -- about 55 percent -- falsely assumed that large amounts of extra 'soft' galaxy clusters were actually a light chocolatey candy.
Do you bother to make sure that the next day the sun will rise?
In this state, we have a whole government department dedicated to making it rise. Pepsico and TIAA/CREF almost stopped it from rising last year, but the budget was increased just in time and the Dept. of Light and Warmth fought them off.
This year, the cold-hearted forces of darkness want to cut the budget to only 129% of last year's budget. I'm worried about the sun's chances and I told them so when they surveyed me.