Does this change in the least that Gov. Palin's privacy was rudely violated with a criminal act.
I, for one, hope both the hacker gets convicted AND wikileaks for aiding and abetting. Because that's what they did, they deserve to pay the piper.
Private email accounts, just like someone's post ARE OFF LIMITS. Mine is, yours is, and Gov. Palin's is too, obviously. What's next ? Her gynaecologist reports ? Are the obamatons truly that desperate ?
And... to be honest... don't you think that this display of utter lunacy is going to damage obama a lot ?
Pushing candidates forward with violence is something that works in the middle east among muslims. It will not work in America. In fact it will backfire badly.
People will start saying that obama has both a history and a current tendency to get lunatics violate people on his behalf. I mean an act like this makes it almost reasonable to send the FBI to go through every last paper and computer the Obama campaign touched, something that could, you know, easily take 2 months...
You know I do wonder that myself. All lunatics seem to be on Obama's side, and every calm, controlled, you know, normal person seems to be on McCain's side. And this idiotic act is going to make that perception a lot stronger, for obvious reasons.
This hacker deserves to get shot, for stupidity alone.
How does that work exactly? The government wants tax revenue and it wants votes, nothing else. Draconian regulation of tobacco reduces cigarette sales - otherwise what's the point? - and hence also reduces the tax revenue raised by that trade. And it upsets millions of voters who happen to enjoy smoking.
Bzzzzt. Wrong. The government neither wants tax revenue nor votes. It wants power. Power to regulate how people live their lives. Power to "organise" people's lives...
Why does the government jump on the GW bandwagon like islamic prophets jump on underage girls ? Simple : they get to regulate every powered system on the planet (otherwise why would anyone try to make the ridiculous point that nuclear is carbon-intensive ? The IPCC however, does).
Governments want power. Money and votes are the means, not the end. You should be careful about separating the two.
There were no weapons that were a threat to us or anyone else. The shells found were old shells we had given him long ago and the payload was dead, so thus he could not cause any harm with those shells.
"he could not cause any harm with those shells"... so people, remember : this is not harm :
Everyone remember Saddam executed some 30000 civilians with NON-EXISTING chemical weapons. If this is not true, the "Bush lied" meme is rather idiotic and lefties in general look bad. So these people were killed with weapons that DID NOT EXIST ! Everyone capiche ? Or do I have to call the thought police ?
P.S. Can you explain to me how exactly you do that ? Executing even a single person with non-existing weapons ?
Or anything that might have political ramifications as well. Does anyone in your research organization use stem cells that aren't from the the "right" source? No funds for you. Did your weather satellite see increased temperatures? Don't mention it in any of your papers, or you're fired.
Actually you might want to visit an actual research department. It's the reports of reduced temperatures (especially the reports of massively reduced temperatures in the sun's corona. (well yes, I know were talking 0.3-0.5% but given that tiny percentage that is enough to boil the oceans into space, it's still rather massive), and it's showing signs of cooling down further.
It has "something" to do with the sun's magnetic field (which has gone down a hell of a lot), but it seems only God has any ideas about the connection.
There's also the little, but very inconvenient truth, that the last "small" ice age (but more than large enough to render canada uninhabitable) was caused by a reduction in solar output that was at most 2%, but more likely something like 0.5-0.8%.
If the sun doesn't heat up soon (it's probably too late already), no amount of scientific shenanigans by the IPCC is going to cover the obvious truth : this winter is going to be a cold one, and the next one is going to be even colder, and this is going to keep going on for 10 years at least. It's probably going to change the average temperature more than 0.5 degrees too). And yes this sounds like a stupid joke, but Canadians best be prepared to either move or pay large, very large heating bills.
Perhaps the problem is the chances of realistically blaming Bush for a reduction in the sun's magnetic field are... somewhat remote.
The problem is that the "public sector" is amazing, first and foremost, in funding research... with specific outcomes. Confirming politician's views of things. There are actual Chinese papers, peer reviewed and everything, "proving" Tibet is not a country separate from China.
If you let public funding fund science, then you might as well kill the research in social studies, psychology, languages, ethnicities, and (soon to come) evolution, history... it will merely parrot the popular talkpoints of the day instead of science.
I'd like to agree with you, because you're right, private sector money is scarce and hard to come by, especially for pure research (then again, public money is not doing anywhere near enough to fund the only really pure science there is... mathematics), but really, public money is only useful in sciences were people are not involved at all. Stuff like particle physics (since no particles go on any type of jihad for any type of religion or poverty), astronomy or maths. Heck even chemistry is getting infected with politics (are drugs bad for you ? Do they badly affect others around drugged people ? have become politically incorrect questions, merely because the answer is yes).
I doubt it, but it seems irrelavant in any case. Are you saying that advocating the assination of a sitting president is illegal?! (If so please reference the appropriate statute/case law.)
Actually doing it for anyone at all is illegal (and carries a criminal penalty). Doing it for the sitting, or any ex-president raises the maximum penalty to the death penalty.
You can get rewarded a hell of a lot for running against him, or campaigning against him. Advocating violence against his person however, is a grave offence. (advocating violence against any person without backing from a judge is a grave offence. Your victim does not need to be president for that)
And sorry to add this word, but you really deserve it... Obviously. Does it really need to be explained that violence or advocacy of violence against political parties has NO PLACE WHATSOEVER in a democracy ? I mean come on.
So you're actually blaming Bush for suspecting that someone who executed something like the halabja campaign might actually... have lied.
Are you totally insane ? Are you truly someone who would truly be surprised if a massacrer lies ? Any massacrer has pretty much proved he's not to be trusted.
Btw, the actual "rumour" is that he sold them (and the "recipe") to Syria after the invasion started. May God prevent them from getting fired at Beirut.
what happens when you disprove someone's religion?
What happens when you disprove atheism ? (non-dogmatism, the idea that because all rules are man made, which is true, means that they are negotiable, which is patently false. This is the real ideology of 99,99% of "atheists", and is extremely trivial to disprove (let's negotiate over the rule that killing "EccentricAnomaly" is wrong, after all nothing is inherently wrong, right ?), you could even do it "live" with Godel sentences in extreme cases, but you can do this intuitively).
I assume what will happen when a believer gets confronted with this depends on their ethics, right ? Since all religions push different ethics, let's enumerate.
1. an atheist : will declare you racist and intolerant, alternatively they might try the buddhist approach 2. a christian : will seek to convince you otherwise with patience "and good deeds" (whatever that means), ignoring any evidence that's inconvenient. They will also seek to build this evidence into the religion, and explain it "in Christian context" (e.g. the pope doesn't deny evolution, he merely states that it does not apply to humans. He does not believe humans are interlocked into an eternal extermination war for resources, and will not accept any evidence to the contrary as "inhumane". He is right in doing so imho (even though I don't agree with many other points)). If you truly don't respond to their attempts to convince you, Christians will shun you. 3. a muslim : will threaten you, then if that fails will physically attack you 4. a buddhist will declare you delusional for assuming that there is a real world in the first place, therefore claiming anything is proof is nonsensical 5. a hindu... see a chrisian (unless of course he considers you not brahmin, in that case he will use violence directly, esp. if you're considered dalit)
If you believe in evolution isn't this good ? I mean the fittest will survive.
If it turns out the fittest aren't western "progressives", who like to think and abhor dirty hands would you even be surprised at all ? Especially if they have to contend against a religion that starts by using violence, then goes on to use more violence ?
Clearly amongst muslims evolution isn't very fit at all. So it's extermination can only be a good thing right ? Thoughts and ideas are also subject to a kind of evolution, and so the fittest thoughts might turn out to be (violently) religious, and not scientific, nor peaceful. This would not be surprising in the least, at least not to me.
And what if it's right. You know there is a reason those muslims you know live in the west. That reason is that they don't want to live amongst muslims.
Why don't you seek out the truth ? Look up how their "prophet" dealt with scientists, and poets, etc. Google "asma bint marwan" for an introduction, but she's hardly alone.
Why don't you ask to your muslim "friends"* if this behavior is morally right or wrong ? Grow some balls man. You won't like the answer AT ALL.
* quran 5:51 any muslim who is friends with any infidel is himself an infidel, unless this is for deception**
** this rule implies that "true" friendship between a muslim and any non-muslim carries the death penalty in islam
The halabja campaign... a series of rocket-based poisonous gas attacks comitted by the Iraqi government (the fire order was given by the very son of Saddam) against it's own citizens. Nobody doubts it happened. But for conspiracy theorists it's a really very very very inconvenient truth.
After all, using those weapons obviously proves Saddam had rockets that distributed poisonous gas upon impact. Obviously every single weapon that does this is classified as WMD. It's true that they were not found. Given that Saddam actually USED those weapons that does NOT bring the question "did Bush lie ?", it merely brings the question "where are these weapons now ?". Unless you actually believe Saddam would shoot every last of his best weapons at unarmed civilians.
Can we please bring some common sense into this ? If we know a guy shot some children, then gets arrested with powder on his hands, but without a gun, that does not mean the witnesses who saw him shoot lied. It merely means we're short a gun. That would be a VERY good reason to search the neighbourhood for said gun (especially if the next door neighbour is a Jew hating theocratic massacrer like the Iranian government).
The problem is that, given evolution, the superior theory is the one that survives. It is *not* at all a given that evolution will survive.
Not to give offence to anyone, but it has been all but extinguished in the entire muslim world, and it's slipping even in Turkey. (and not slipping like this message, but there is real, actual, physical violence from muslims attempting to enforce creationism in Turkey)
Exactly people should be confronted, as early as possible with both right AND wrong thoughts, and the evidence supporting them.
Of course, anybody can make a politic like this look bad by saying "look he's asking for creationism to be taught alongside evolution !". Of course ! How else do you suggest we teach children the difference.
Something like creationism is what a literal interpretation of the bible would yield. Distribute the first chapter of genesis, have students read it. Demand the children argue for and against at least 3 interpretations of the text, right there in biology class.
Explain the problems related to this (such as people like harun yahya using violence to enforce a similar view, the use of violence in this case is apparently mandatory for muslims). I mean this is a beautiful opportunity to explain the difference between a free society, like america, and let's say politely "the alternatives" (islamic states, communist states, dictatorships,...)
This might also be time to just research all the different versions (Christian, Jewish, islamic, buddhist, shinto, hindu,...), and how and why these are accepted (e.g. explain that in theory it's every muslims "sacred duty" to answer challenges to creationism with first a threat, then violence, explain how buddhism sees the world and why it doesn't have a real creation myth. Show them a few of the colorful hindu parades...
Then take creationism under the loop. The basic principle of eternal resource wars between races and even families. The fittest survive, when faced (in some way) with a resource shortage. Perhaps even give a demonstration with a genetic algorithm solving an actual problem (although this would require teachers with actual brains, so it may be a non-starter). Illustrate with the different stages of evolution, and please for once leave the dinosaurs out of it. The eye is a beautiful example since you might actually be able to actually show the different stages in real, live, touchable animals. Skin "vision" is something all humans have (e.g. you can easily detect infrared rays even behind you), but you can show it in many animals. "blind" moles can be shown to have basic focusing abilities without a lens. Then a basic simple eye like a crocodile or a lot of reptiles have, which lacks many parts a human eye has. Then human eyes. And then some animals having much, much better eyes than humans, like cats. It should be beyond obvious that all these are mere variations on a theme, and if you show it in live animals, is there really any argument left ?
Explain the problems creationism faces, such as there being some discussions relation to abiogenesis.
CONTRAST. Let people decide for themselves, having full information.
But obviously idiots will be able to say that "creationism is taught alongside evolution". And they'll be right. For that is the RIGHT way to do it.
(I do believe this is exactly how Gov. Palin "supports creationism" despite the knee-jerk press reaction against her)
How Many Jews Died in Holocaust -- without a question, every life is sacred, but why do Jews want to distort the count of victims in the Holocaust? How many people really died? Shouldnâ(TM)t statistics by IBM or even the Red Cross which show the numbers in the low hundred thousands ⦠not in the millions ⦠be given some credibility? Why is it that other groups, or even the 50 million Christians and Muslims civilian victims who were killed in World War II are never mentioned, no museums, no tributes. Isnâ(TM)t the Christian life or the Muslim Life is just as valuable as the Jewish life? Is there racism even in Death?
This illustrates another point : not only did hitler admire muslims (specifically their massacre of armenians in Turkey), but muslims admire hitler. Mein kampf is more popular than the quran in turkey, marokko *and* pakistan.
Because of the problems those methods of transport have. Trains can only go where rails have been laid (meaning expansion is slow and horribly expensive, esp. now metals are so high), and cannot have too many stops, or they'll both slow down and have less efficiency.
And someone really should create a train that actually does controlled (nearly constant second derivative of position vector) stopping of the train, so that passengers don't really notice them stopping and starting. (I truly hate the trains' stopping and starting behavior, and yes, they've tried to fix it by stopping "somewhat slower" but why not engineer the right solution ?)
Same for buses, they'll always be slower than cars, they will either drive empty most of the time, or will not be available for many people. Buses can work in dense sections of the city that are considered "safe", and therefore they should be provided there (pref. by a private enterprise with perhaps a minimal subsidy to get them to commit to certain lines). In suburbia, buses are hopeless due to the size.
Cars, individualised transportation, are a very good solution, allowing for a truly decentralized economy, allowing for both spacious living and working. In reality, cars are truly great inventions. Giving cars to just about anyone, as the ford model T did, was a very, very big improvement over previous conditions.
We can't save 10%. Even one percent is utterly unattainable except in the extreme short run.
Therefore the smart money is in the expansion of energy generation.
Like another poster said. Nuclear can easily bring electricity down to 1 cent a kwh (for a chevvy volt this would mean 2.5 cents per 100 km)
A prius is currently using about 7cent/mile (and an SUV up to 25 cent/mile). A plug-in SUV would use about 0.4 cent/mile, or about 17 TIMES less than a prius. Any investment that brings electricity down to 1 ct/kwh is going to make the chevvy volt and it's colleagues conquer suburbia faster than bubba conquers the asshole of a 15-year old "peace out y'all" protestor in prison.
That is your great idea ? That accounts for less than a thousanth of a percent of energy usage.
We actually *use* energy you know. That's not to say we can't use it more efficiently, but stopping any of the really energy intensive processes in civilization is a non-starter.
Think about heating, you can do with slightly less, but not much. Everything above 50-55 degrees north would be utterly unliveable. Most of Europe would have to be abandoned.
Think about transportation, again a *little* less should be liveable. Any real reduction is totally out of the question. Cities 1% of the size of anything remotely resembling a metropolis would be out of the question, for way, WAY too expensive to maintain.
And of course the real energy sponges : The human body is about 6% efficient (energy intake vs energy expenditure), and eats either plants (themselves 2% efficient) but also has to eat meat (eating only meat gets us to about 8-9% efficiency) (and cows are some 12% efficient, eating 2% efficient plants). This is a very, very generous amount of efficiency to give the human body since it counts human body heat as work, and most factory floor supervisors will disagree with that being "useful labour" however if you take it out, even a tenth of a percent would barely be attainable for a human body)
Let's say you're a normal person. You eat 100 grams of meat for 900 grams of vegetables you eat. That means you're 90% * 6% * 2% + 10% * 8% * 12% * 2% efficient.
That means that all the energy you expend, running (200-300 watts), thinking (150-200 kcal/day), keeping your body at 37degrees, which feeds most of your cell processes (2200-3500 kilocalories per day) is 0.10992% efficient.
Suddenly that SUV that is about 12% efficient at 16 miles per gallon doesn't seem at all wasteful anymore. If you could somehow digest oil, you wouldn't be able to run half that distance, and certainly not with 500 kg of load on your back.
And the worst part of the human body. The total amount of human bodies in the world grows at 1.6% per year.
Energy conservation, making stuff more efficient is something we can do *once* and we can't make the human body any more efficient at all, we can only replace it. For everything else there are fundamental limits we cannot cross, any really big differences are either already caught, or will be caught the first time we try to fix things (ie. they've been caught in the last 4-5 years). We're not going to save much beyond that first drive.
Say the wet dream of every environmentalist comes true. God descends from heaven and says that all cars drive on electricity at 90% efficiency from now on. Great ! He's just saved us about 60% on the current energy cost of transportation. That will provide for "normal" economical growth without growing energy levels for... 10 years. There can be only one reasonable conclusion : we need *more* energy. Not less.
Conservation is hopeless. We need new energy sources (and nuclear will do very nicely thank you), and after that we need nuclear fusion, and move part of the species into space.
Btw, in case anybody likes to think "nature is so much better" well no, nature is actually worse, as in less efficient than civilization, in energy usage (incidentially that is why there is so very much oxygen, a (relatively) unstable chemical in the athmosphere in the first place, and so very, very little co2 (without nature, the "natural" state of the athmosphere would be to be so filled with co2 that humans (or animals for that matter) wouldn't be able to breathe).
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Software like this will be really useful, you can train yourself against it, killing any "little tells" along the way.
And become a complete, perfect lyer.
Then steal the nomination from Obama at the next democratic convention. "Yes I will make your policies work".
I can't even say it without laughing. Where's the download ?
So just because "other people are doing it too" a crime is okay ?
???
Does this change in the least that Gov. Palin's privacy was rudely violated with a criminal act.
I, for one, hope both the hacker gets convicted AND wikileaks for aiding and abetting. Because that's what they did, they deserve to pay the piper.
Private email accounts, just like someone's post ARE OFF LIMITS. Mine is, yours is, and Gov. Palin's is too, obviously. What's next ? Her gynaecologist reports ? Are the obamatons truly that desperate ?
And ... to be honest ... don't you think that this display of utter lunacy is going to damage obama a lot ?
Pushing candidates forward with violence is something that works in the middle east among muslims. It will not work in America. In fact it will backfire badly.
People will start saying that obama has both a history and a current tendency to get lunatics violate people on his behalf. I mean an act like this makes it almost reasonable to send the FBI to go through every last paper and computer the Obama campaign touched, something that could, you know, easily take 2 months ...
You know I do wonder that myself. All lunatics seem to be on Obama's side, and every calm, controlled, you know, normal person seems to be on McCain's side. And this idiotic act is going to make that perception a lot stronger, for obvious reasons.
This hacker deserves to get shot, for stupidity alone.
How does that work exactly? The government wants tax revenue and it wants votes, nothing else. Draconian regulation of tobacco reduces cigarette sales - otherwise what's the point? - and hence also reduces the tax revenue raised by that trade. And it upsets millions of voters who happen to enjoy smoking.
Bzzzzt. Wrong. The government neither wants tax revenue nor votes. It wants power. Power to regulate how people live their lives. Power to "organise" people's lives ...
Why does the government jump on the GW bandwagon like islamic prophets jump on underage girls ? Simple : they get to regulate every powered system on the planet (otherwise why would anyone try to make the ridiculous point that nuclear is carbon-intensive ? The IPCC however, does).
Governments want power. Money and votes are the means, not the end. You should be careful about separating the two.
There were no weapons that were a threat to us or anyone else. The shells found were old shells we had given him long ago and the payload was dead, so thus he could not cause any harm with those shells.
"he could not cause any harm with those shells" ... so people, remember : this is not harm :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack
Everyone remember Saddam executed some 30000 civilians with NON-EXISTING chemical weapons. If this is not true, the "Bush lied" meme is rather idiotic and lefties in general look bad. So these people were killed with weapons that DID NOT EXIST ! Everyone capiche ? Or do I have to call the thought police ?
P.S. Can you explain to me how exactly you do that ? Executing even a single person with non-existing weapons ?
Or anything that might have political ramifications as well. Does anyone in your research organization use stem cells that aren't from the the "right" source? No funds for you. Did your weather satellite see increased temperatures? Don't mention it in any of your papers, or you're fired.
Actually you might want to visit an actual research department. It's the reports of reduced temperatures (especially the reports of massively reduced temperatures in the sun's corona. (well yes, I know were talking 0.3-0.5% but given that tiny percentage that is enough to boil the oceans into space, it's still rather massive), and it's showing signs of cooling down further.
It has "something" to do with the sun's magnetic field (which has gone down a hell of a lot), but it seems only God has any ideas about the connection.
There's also the little, but very inconvenient truth, that the last "small" ice age (but more than large enough to render canada uninhabitable) was caused by a reduction in solar output that was at most 2%, but more likely something like 0.5-0.8%.
If the sun doesn't heat up soon (it's probably too late already), no amount of scientific shenanigans by the IPCC is going to cover the obvious truth : this winter is going to be a cold one, and the next one is going to be even colder, and this is going to keep going on for 10 years at least. It's probably going to change the average temperature more than 0.5 degrees too). And yes this sounds like a stupid joke, but Canadians best be prepared to either move or pay large, very large heating bills.
Perhaps the problem is the chances of realistically blaming Bush for a reduction in the sun's magnetic field are ... somewhat remote.
The problem is that the "public sector" is amazing, first and foremost, in funding research ... with specific outcomes. Confirming politician's views of things. There are actual Chinese papers, peer reviewed and everything, "proving" Tibet is not a country separate from China.
If you let public funding fund science, then you might as well kill the research in social studies, psychology, languages, ethnicities, and (soon to come) evolution, history ... it will merely parrot the popular talkpoints of the day instead of science.
I'd like to agree with you, because you're right, private sector money is scarce and hard to come by, especially for pure research (then again, public money is not doing anywhere near enough to fund the only really pure science there is ... mathematics), but really, public money is only useful in sciences were people are not involved at all. Stuff like particle physics (since no particles go on any type of jihad for any type of religion or poverty), astronomy or maths. Heck even chemistry is getting infected with politics (are drugs bad for you ? Do they badly affect others around drugged people ? have become politically incorrect questions, merely because the answer is yes).
I am going to shoot your wife. After a while the police will come, and will find an empty gun in my hands, and 7 "inert" shells on the floor.
At the trial I am going to argue that I did not have a weapon. I did not have a weapon, after all, just "inert capsules".
And since you believe me, you will agree there is no evidence whatsoever linking me and the crime.
Clearly you will agree with me at the trial that There was no weapon found in his hands. Period, and will convince the jury of this.
Correct ? Or do you see a problem here ?
Nevertheless, they were WMD's. So this does indeed disprove the claim that "no WMD's were found in Iraq".
Reality ... welcome ... yes we're aware of just how ugly it is, thank you very much. You have to go in anyway.
I doubt it, but it seems irrelavant in any case. Are you saying that advocating the assination of a sitting president is illegal?! (If so please reference the appropriate statute/case law.)
Actually doing it for anyone at all is illegal (and carries a criminal penalty). Doing it for the sitting, or any ex-president raises the maximum penalty to the death penalty.
You can get rewarded a hell of a lot for running against him, or campaigning against him. Advocating violence against his person however, is a grave offence. (advocating violence against any person without backing from a judge is a grave offence. Your victim does not need to be president for that)
And sorry to add this word, but you really deserve it ... Obviously. Does it really need to be explained that violence or advocacy of violence against political parties has NO PLACE WHATSOEVER in a democracy ? I mean come on.
So you're actually blaming Bush for suspecting that someone who executed something like the halabja campaign might actually ... have lied.
Are you totally insane ? Are you truly someone who would truly be surprised if a massacrer lies ? Any massacrer has pretty much proved he's not to be trusted.
Btw, the actual "rumour" is that he sold them (and the "recipe") to Syria after the invasion started. May God prevent them from getting fired at Beirut.
ROCKETS that distribute large doses of chlorine upon impact ARE WMD's.
And yes if your chemistry teacher were to make a rocket like that, that would be a WMD.
what happens when you disprove someone's religion?
What happens when you disprove atheism ? (non-dogmatism, the idea that because all rules are man made, which is true, means that they are negotiable, which is patently false. This is the real ideology of 99,99% of "atheists", and is extremely trivial to disprove (let's negotiate over the rule that killing "EccentricAnomaly" is wrong, after all nothing is inherently wrong, right ?), you could even do it "live" with Godel sentences in extreme cases, but you can do this intuitively).
I assume what will happen when a believer gets confronted with this depends on their ethics, right ? Since all religions push different ethics, let's enumerate.
1. an atheist : will declare you racist and intolerant, alternatively they might try the buddhist approach ... see a chrisian (unless of course he considers you not brahmin, in that case he will use violence directly, esp. if you're considered dalit)
2. a christian : will seek to convince you otherwise with patience "and good deeds" (whatever that means), ignoring any evidence that's inconvenient. They will also seek to build this evidence into the religion, and explain it "in Christian context" (e.g. the pope doesn't deny evolution, he merely states that it does not apply to humans. He does not believe humans are interlocked into an eternal extermination war for resources, and will not accept any evidence to the contrary as "inhumane". He is right in doing so imho (even though I don't agree with many other points)). If you truly don't respond to their attempts to convince you, Christians will shun you.
3. a muslim : will threaten you, then if that fails will physically attack you
4. a buddhist will declare you delusional for assuming that there is a real world in the first place, therefore claiming anything is proof is nonsensical
5. a hindu
If you believe in evolution isn't this good ? I mean the fittest will survive.
If it turns out the fittest aren't western "progressives", who like to think and abhor dirty hands would you even be surprised at all ? Especially if they have to contend against a religion that starts by using violence, then goes on to use more violence ?
Clearly amongst muslims evolution isn't very fit at all. So it's extermination can only be a good thing right ? Thoughts and ideas are also subject to a kind of evolution, and so the fittest thoughts might turn out to be (violently) religious, and not scientific, nor peaceful. This would not be surprising in the least, at least not to me.
Isn't evolution grand ?
And what if it's right. You know there is a reason those muslims you know live in the west. That reason is that they don't want to live amongst muslims.
Why don't you seek out the truth ? Look up how their "prophet" dealt with scientists, and poets, etc. Google "asma bint marwan" for an introduction, but she's hardly alone.
Why don't you ask to your muslim "friends"* if this behavior is morally right or wrong ? Grow some balls man. You won't like the answer AT ALL.
* quran 5:51 any muslim who is friends with any infidel is himself an infidel, unless this is for deception**
** this rule implies that "true" friendship between a muslim and any non-muslim carries the death penalty in islam
"Saddam had no WMD's"
It's funny, and hypocritical in the extreme how everybody keeps claiming that.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is doubting even in the slightest that Saddam did this :
http://pukmedia.com/kurdish/images/stories/news_small/m4.2008/halabja%20kolag.jpg
The halabja campaign ... a series of rocket-based poisonous gas attacks comitted by the Iraqi government (the fire order was given by the very son of Saddam) against it's own citizens. Nobody doubts it happened. But for conspiracy theorists it's a really very very very inconvenient truth.
After all, using those weapons obviously proves Saddam had rockets that distributed poisonous gas upon impact. Obviously every single weapon that does this is classified as WMD. It's true that they were not found. Given that Saddam actually USED those weapons that does NOT bring the question "did Bush lie ?", it merely brings the question "where are these weapons now ?". Unless you actually believe Saddam would shoot every last of his best weapons at unarmed civilians.
Can we please bring some common sense into this ? If we know a guy shot some children, then gets arrested with powder on his hands, but without a gun, that does not mean the witnesses who saw him shoot lied. It merely means we're short a gun. That would be a VERY good reason to search the neighbourhood for said gun (especially if the next door neighbour is a Jew hating theocratic massacrer like the Iranian government).
The problem is that, given evolution, the superior theory is the one that survives. It is *not* at all a given that evolution will survive.
Not to give offence to anyone, but it has been all but extinguished in the entire muslim world, and it's slipping even in Turkey. (and not slipping like this message, but there is real, actual, physical violence from muslims attempting to enforce creationism in Turkey)
Exactly people should be confronted, as early as possible with both right AND wrong thoughts, and the evidence supporting them.
Of course, anybody can make a politic like this look bad by saying "look he's asking for creationism to be taught alongside evolution !". Of course ! How else do you suggest we teach children the difference.
Something like creationism is what a literal interpretation of the bible would yield. Distribute the first chapter of genesis, have students read it. Demand the children argue for and against at least 3 interpretations of the text, right there in biology class.
Explain the problems related to this (such as people like harun yahya using violence to enforce a similar view, the use of violence in this case is apparently mandatory for muslims). I mean this is a beautiful opportunity to explain the difference between a free society, like america, and let's say politely "the alternatives" (islamic states, communist states, dictatorships, ...)
This might also be time to just research all the different versions (Christian, Jewish, islamic, buddhist, shinto, hindu, ...), and how and why these are accepted (e.g. explain that in theory it's every muslims "sacred duty" to answer challenges to creationism with first a threat, then violence, explain how buddhism sees the world and why it doesn't have a real creation myth. Show them a few of the colorful hindu parades ...
Then take creationism under the loop. The basic principle of eternal resource wars between races and even families. The fittest survive, when faced (in some way) with a resource shortage. Perhaps even give a demonstration with a genetic algorithm solving an actual problem (although this would require teachers with actual brains, so it may be a non-starter). Illustrate with the different stages of evolution, and please for once leave the dinosaurs out of it. The eye is a beautiful example since you might actually be able to actually show the different stages in real, live, touchable animals. Skin "vision" is something all humans have (e.g. you can easily detect infrared rays even behind you), but you can show it in many animals. "blind" moles can be shown to have basic focusing abilities without a lens. Then a basic simple eye like a crocodile or a lot of reptiles have, which lacks many parts a human eye has. Then human eyes. And then some animals having much, much better eyes than humans, like cats. It should be beyond obvious that all these are mere variations on a theme, and if you show it in live animals, is there really any argument left ?
Explain the problems creationism faces, such as there being some discussions relation to abiogenesis.
CONTRAST. Let people decide for themselves, having full information.
But obviously idiots will be able to say that "creationism is taught alongside evolution". And they'll be right. For that is the RIGHT way to do it.
(I do believe this is exactly how Gov. Palin "supports creationism" despite the knee-jerk press reaction against her)
Or you could hack a digital picture frame :
http://picframe.spritesserver.nl/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Now *that* could be nice. Full color, tiny screen on the front of the device. Now make a touchscreen out of it and ...
Don't worry. A few months ago the terrorists got their own youtube channel :
http://muslimchannels.tv/
http://www.muslimchannels.tv/component/option,com_seyret/Itemid,61/id,390/task,videodirectlink/
quote from the site :
How Many Jews Died in Holocaust -- without a question, every life is sacred, but why do Jews want to distort the count of victims in the Holocaust? How many people really died? Shouldnâ(TM)t statistics by IBM or even the Red Cross which show the numbers in the low hundred thousands ⦠not in the millions ⦠be given some credibility? Why is it that other groups, or even the 50 million Christians and Muslims civilian victims who were killed in World War II are never mentioned, no museums, no tributes. Isnâ(TM)t the Christian life or the Muslim Life is just as valuable as the Jewish life? Is there racism even in Death?
This illustrates another point : not only did hitler admire muslims (specifically their massacre of armenians in Turkey), but muslims admire hitler. Mein kampf is more popular than the quran in turkey, marokko *and* pakistan.
Because of the problems those methods of transport have. Trains can only go where rails have been laid (meaning expansion is slow and horribly expensive, esp. now metals are so high), and cannot have too many stops, or they'll both slow down and have less efficiency.
And someone really should create a train that actually does controlled (nearly constant second derivative of position vector) stopping of the train, so that passengers don't really notice them stopping and starting. (I truly hate the trains' stopping and starting behavior, and yes, they've tried to fix it by stopping "somewhat slower" but why not engineer the right solution ?)
Same for buses, they'll always be slower than cars, they will either drive empty most of the time, or will not be available for many people. Buses can work in dense sections of the city that are considered "safe", and therefore they should be provided there (pref. by a private enterprise with perhaps a minimal subsidy to get them to commit to certain lines). In suburbia, buses are hopeless due to the size.
Cars, individualised transportation, are a very good solution, allowing for a truly decentralized economy, allowing for both spacious living and working. In reality, cars are truly great inventions. Giving cars to just about anyone, as the ford model T did, was a very, very big improvement over previous conditions.
We can't save 10%. Even one percent is utterly unattainable except in the extreme short run.
Therefore the smart money is in the expansion of energy generation.
Like another poster said. Nuclear can easily bring electricity down to 1 cent a kwh (for a chevvy volt this would mean 2.5 cents per 100 km)
A prius is currently using about 7cent/mile (and an SUV up to 25 cent/mile). A plug-in SUV would use about 0.4 cent/mile, or about 17 TIMES less than a prius. Any investment that brings electricity down to 1 ct/kwh is going to make the chevvy volt and it's colleagues conquer suburbia faster than bubba conquers the asshole of a 15-year old "peace out y'all" protestor in prison.
That is your great idea ? That accounts for less than a thousanth of a percent of energy usage.
We actually *use* energy you know. That's not to say we can't use it more efficiently, but stopping any of the really energy intensive processes in civilization is a non-starter.
Think about heating, you can do with slightly less, but not much. Everything above 50-55 degrees north would be utterly unliveable. Most of Europe would have to be abandoned.
Think about transportation, again a *little* less should be liveable. Any real reduction is totally out of the question. Cities 1% of the size of anything remotely resembling a metropolis would be out of the question, for way, WAY too expensive to maintain.
And of course the real energy sponges : The human body is about 6% efficient (energy intake vs energy expenditure), and eats either plants (themselves 2% efficient) but also has to eat meat (eating only meat gets us to about 8-9% efficiency) (and cows are some 12% efficient, eating 2% efficient plants). This is a very, very generous amount of efficiency to give the human body since it counts human body heat as work, and most factory floor supervisors will disagree with that being "useful labour" however if you take it out, even a tenth of a percent would barely be attainable for a human body)
Let's say you're a normal person. You eat 100 grams of meat for 900 grams of vegetables you eat. That means you're 90% * 6% * 2% + 10% * 8% * 12% * 2% efficient.
That means that all the energy you expend, running (200-300 watts), thinking (150-200 kcal/day), keeping your body at 37degrees, which feeds most of your cell processes (2200-3500 kilocalories per day) is 0.10992% efficient.
Suddenly that SUV that is about 12% efficient at 16 miles per gallon doesn't seem at all wasteful anymore. If you could somehow digest oil, you wouldn't be able to run half that distance, and certainly not with 500 kg of load on your back.
And the worst part of the human body. The total amount of human bodies in the world grows at 1.6% per year.
Energy conservation, making stuff more efficient is something we can do *once* and we can't make the human body any more efficient at all, we can only replace it. For everything else there are fundamental limits we cannot cross, any really big differences are either already caught, or will be caught the first time we try to fix things (ie. they've been caught in the last 4-5 years). We're not going to save much beyond that first drive.
Say the wet dream of every environmentalist comes true. God descends from heaven and says that all cars drive on electricity at 90% efficiency from now on. Great ! He's just saved us about 60% on the current energy cost of transportation. That will provide for "normal" economical growth without growing energy levels for ... 10 years. There can be only one reasonable conclusion : we need *more* energy. Not less.
Conservation is hopeless. We need new energy sources (and nuclear will do very nicely thank you), and after that we need nuclear fusion, and move part of the species into space.
Btw, in case anybody likes to think "nature is so much better" well no, nature is actually worse, as in less efficient than civilization, in energy usage (incidentially that is why there is so very much oxygen, a (relatively) unstable chemical in the athmosphere in the first place, and so very, very little co2 (without nature, the "natural" state of the athmosphere would be to be so filled with co2 that humans (or animals for that matter) wouldn't be able to breathe).
I look forward to the Nvidia 3d card abaci ! Surely advanced technology like that will be able to run Crysis, right ?
I wonder what the framerate is. Do we have YPF as a measure yet ? Years per frame.
Several meters over the course of a millenium ????
to all slashdotters near the sea : RUN !!!!!