I've already replied to the other one. However, I do think that anyone on the internet who admits to being wrong on any level whatsoever, on even the most trivial sub-point, should be modded up.
Spraying enough to eradicate Zika in the USA (and then relying on testing and years from now perhaps vaccination to keep it at bay) is a short term thing and if we focus most of our efforts on wherever concentrations of humans live near mosquitoes, it seems pretty unlikely to permanently damage any native species. I think that's what most people are primarily discussing here: an immediate short-term campaign, on the order of a few years, with the goal of eliminating known and potential Zika reservoirs. Mass area mosquito spraying in the southeast has been going on periodically for decades now. If you're arguing we should stop this longtime practice, I have to say "let's wait a couple years instead of stopping right in the middle of a serious disease outbreak that's still small enough to potentially be eradicated" is the only defensible position I can see.
Spraying enough to eradicate entire mosquito species is probably impossible. Even attempting to do such a thing would cost tens of billions of dollars and almost certainly have significant negative effects on the environment. However, it may well be possible to eradicate certain invasive species through genetic modification and radiation based sterile insect techniques, but unfortunately there has been a strong Luddite opposition to these measures for years now despite the fact that they are both incredibly safe technologies. More to the point, sterile insect techniques and genetic modification can selectively target only the most problematic species, including the invasive African species, Aedes egypti. This rather bellies your concern about harming the great food web, doesn't it? There are many of species of mosquito for native American fauna to dine on but only a few highly problematic disease vector species--so why on Earth would we want or need to preserve an invasive species like A. egypti, which humans introduced to the new world?
If the technology does evolve to the point where eradication is possible it becomes a slightly more nuanced question when someone proposes to use it in Africa to eradicate the A. egypti there[1]... but nevermind that, the Luddites are already out in force against anything being done today, in America. They were present and vocal even before the Zika outbreak in places like Key West, where they have actually protested the effort to eradicate non-native mosquito species with technologies that would leave all other flora and fauna entirely unharmed.
I applaud your concessions about your errors and I'm happy to see the conversation has remained honest and reasonable. I'm not a anti-environmentalist maniac. But this is, in fact, a serious public emergency and I believe any sane weighing of the costs and risks involved here will indicate that an aggressive (but targeted) spraying response in the short term, with large scale species-targeted projects over the long term are the way to go.
1. I think most people who might be opposed to eliminating disease-carrying mosquitoes in Africa would be quickly swayed by numbers and images showing the damage being done, and if it seemed like the African ecology were truly in danger they could always import some mosquito species not known to be especially problematic and hope for the best.
Every single person in SC has been tested for Zika? You have a quarantine at the border preventing people from Florida from entering SC? Is there a giant mosquito-proof fence in-between SC and GA? Is the whole state climate-controlled to prevent random surges in mosquito populations that can periodically occur due to climate and species fluctuations?
Do you realize how many people have to be infected by Zika for a positive test result to show up on the radar? Even with aggressive testing it will be in the hundreds. You can't stop this through tentative half-measures.
If they feel they must use insecticides, they could use ground spraying to limit the coverage to just around the victims' homes.
Wow. Just... wow. Are you trolling me? I just stared at the screen for 45 seconds solid, trying to come up with a more polite way of saying "nobody could be that ignorant." Mosquitoes can travel, and people (such as those infected) can travel much, much farther than the mosquitoes. And as I've already explained, for every person sick enough with Zika to go to the hospital and be tested there will be hundreds (possibly thousands) more who only feel mild symptoms. Pregnant women may not know they were ever infected until after they've given birth.
How about this, if you "feel" that we shouldn't use insecticides then why don't you provide a reasonable data-driven argument why we shouldn't the compares the negatives of relatively short term spraying vs. reasonable projections of permanent mental retardation caused by Zika over the next 50 years? The burden of proof is on you to show why an aggressive response isn't desirable, since every new infection (known and unknown) in a mosquito-prone area increases the reservoir for the virus and makes it that much harder to eradicate.
If you really despise 'teh chemicals' so much, without differentiating between the different ones available (for example, some are designed to only prevent larva growth in standing water and have little to no effect on other insects), might I suggest you have a word with all of the crazies opposing sterile insect technique and genetic mosquito control efforts? I fully agree that those would be more desirable and, if deployed on a large enough scale, probably more effective. But most of the loudmouths I've seen have been more concerned with sticking their head in the sand than suggesting actual alternative solutions.
I've no idea why I bothered typing all of that. I've just replied to someone who doesn't understand or care about the reservoir effect of insect vector-bourne diseases, doesn't understand or care about how hard it is to measure the spread of Zika and even appears to believe that some kind of extremely localized insecticide applied only around the residences of those known to be infected would be effective.
That's like discouraging condom use among everyone (tested and untested), except among those who have received a positive test result for an STD. Except stupider, because AIDS doesn't have a willing carrier vessel capable of flying miles away.
Honeybees aren't a "key species." They are non-native to North America. You also said "already stressed" but the CCD phenomenon has been limited (from my understanding) to honeybees, not native bumblebees or other native pollinators. I'm sure you're perfectly well-intentioned here but it's getting quite depressing to watch this ignorant Captain Planet neo-Luddite nonsense get modded up again and again on an ostensibly pro-science website, especially on an issue that requires clear thinking and quick action like the current Zika outbreak.
So, let's be absolutely clear here: Yes, CCD is a problem for honeybees and honeybees are often used by humans for pollination. However, honeybee species are native to Europe and Africa and perhaps parts of Asia, but not the Americas. The way in which they're used in modern agriculture is actually rather unnatural. Saturation pollination involves, from my understanding, moving so many beehives into an area that they're basically forced into some kind of low level starvation mode so that they become less picky about the flowers they visit. This maximizes yield for the farmer and allows for the creation of a more desirable monofloral honey. Please realize that if a limited number of agricultural honeybees are accidentally caught in some mosquito spray (and yes, 2.5M is actually quite limited), absolutely nothing is affected in the local environment and there are so many bees used by farmers nationwide (we're talking about bees that have been intentionally bred by beekeepers, not naturally occurring bees) that a few million dead here and there due to increased mosquito spraying is of no significance.
Furthermore, a large proportion of our staple crops (rice, wheat, corn, oats, etc.) do not depend on insect pollinators of any sort, and of the ones that do depend on insect pollination there are usually multiple species that are up for the task. Yes, the honeybee has fallen on hard times lately but even if every honeybee in the world was killed, there's definitely not going to be any sort of famine and no plants native to North America would die off as a result.
If you have an argument that anti-mosquito spraying is badly harming some other native pollinator then please, let's hear it. But first let's talk a bit more carefully about all of this, and please let's double-check our facts since the Luddites are out in full force arguing against every single technique, basically arguing that it's better to allow our babies suffer lifelong, debilitating conditions than try to check this Zika outbreak while it's still in its early stages.
For example of what I mean by talking carefully: Even if someone did find evidence that certain forms of spraying is severely affecting a species we care about, please take note that there are many different types of mosquito control chemicals and some of them target only the water-based larva stage that (among North American insects) is largely unique to mosquitoes.
You don't have to be an expert in epidemiology to understand that this stuff is much easier to prevent if you fight back in the early stages instead of waiting for the new organism to become established. If mosquitoes are beaten back long enough for the virus' life cycle to be broken, the virus will cease being transmitted and die off in that area of the world.
What you just said is akin to going back in time and saying "kudzu isn't a problem!" while there are just a couple plants in the wild in North America.
Seriously, what is with all of the neo-Luddites on Slashdot these days? You have a four digit ID so... have you lot aways been here trying to convince us of the errors of our ways? I can understand arguing for technique Y over technique X but a lot of people are just callously saying "oh no, we shouldn't do X because [insert ridiculous hyperbole, myth and/or stupid analogy here]."
But the secondary effect of not having any damned food just might turn out to be rather important.
Yes, it's such a pity all of our main staple crops like wheat are dependent on honeybee pollinators and that it's all being grown in Miami, the breadbasket of America.
Oh wait a second, absolutely none of that is true.
No, we don't. Many crops can self-pollinate, including most of our staples like wheat, corn and rice. Honeybees have been on the decline for decades anyway, meaning there's already been a lot of research into alternative insect pollinators.
Furthermore, I don't think the areas where zika has been detected or is in danger of spreading are especially known for being the breadbasket of America.
Kill them all. If you want a more selective technique, start pushing back against the anti-GMO psychopaths who mindlessly complain about sterile insect technique and various gene-based approaches. What is not reasonable is adopting The Guardian View that the best thing for us to do is stop trying to mess with nature and just accept that a lot more of our babies are going to be born with tiny heads.
As I said elsewhere, I'm not sure 100% of what he says is correct but most of it seems to be on-point criticism. One big thing a lot of people criticized Thunderf00t for was saying "vacuum" when it's actually 1/1000th of sea level atmosphere, which is an extremely pedantic and stupid objection as it changes nothing about his back-of-the-envelope calculations.
The big takeaways I saw: 1. Strong, expansion-resistant pipe is not going to be cheap, 2. A high-RPM jet engine on the nose of the thing isn't particularly cheap or conducive to reliability, 3. The forces created during a breech are significant and dangerous, which seems particularly relevant if the pipe is going to be near major highways. The three of these issues combined cast extreme doubt on the assertions that this thing would be cheaper or more convenient than other rail transport systems.
I suspect these points aren't addressed in Musk's cotton candy press releases.
If you've already set about putting a brand new Maglev train in place; the added cost of simply enclosing it in a large tube isn't likely to be very much in the grand scheme of things.
It's all very well and good for you to say that, but if that's true then why haven't they done so? The concept of a vacuum tube train isn't a new one.
You should watch the youtube video I linked. I'm not certain that every single one of Thunderf00t's criticisms are 100% valid, but they certainly seem plausible (and problematic) enough, and several of them had occurred to me long before I saw his video. Do you really think that 350 miles of airtight tubing at that diameter and capable of withstanding heat expansion isn't going to be expensive? Do you think the ultra high RPM jet engine on the nose of the thing (which the hyperloop car must have in addition to the linear induction motor) is going to be cheap and maintenance-free? Have you done the back-of-the-envelope estimates like Thunderf00t has to see what happens when a hyperloop car traveling at 600 MPH slams into thousands of pounds of air that will come rushing down the tube in the event of a breach?
No, it isn't. It really, really isn't. I don't care about whatever pipe dream figures Musk has given. Costs for new tech is always understated, often massively so. Let's look at a few of the details and maybe you could explain, in principle, why the hyperloop should be cheaper:
Both the hyperloop and Maglev use linear induction motors, and it's worth noting that the majority of energy used in a Maglev is NOT spent on levitating the thing (except at slower speeds.) In addition to the linear induction motors, the hyperloop cars further require a highly specialized, super high RPM jet engine on the nose. Super high RPM engines are cheap and easy to maintain, right?
Maglev track, while not cheap, has relatively loose tolerances and is extremely durable. Airtight tubes running for hundreds of miles are an unprecedented engineering challenge and it's laughable to pretend the full cost figures on that undertaking can be known. Yes, these tubes can (supposedly) be placed in locations where the Maglev track cannot, but the Maglev can haul many more people than the proposed hyperloop cars (and cost per person transported per year is what matters here, not the gross cost.)
This last point is the only even quasi-plausible explanation I've heard for the supposed cost-effectiveness of the hyperloop. But if it's true that we can run it alongside existing interstate highway land (and that this translates into massive savings) then that's where we should be focusing our attention. There are surely more conventional tracked vehicles that could be redesigned to take advantage of this cost savings. Trying to shave 30 minutes off of a commute by miniaturizing your Maglev train and then sticking it in an airtight tube and then sticking a jet engine on the front, and then expecting the tube to never be damaged in a car crash or terrorist attack seems... a bit less reasonable.
What makes you so certain it will fail spectacularly? It hasn't so far.
For someone with a four figure ID you seem remarkably credulous.
There has been no compelling evidence. There have been very, very small net thrusts measured that are not immediately explainable. These tiny anomalous thrusts measured by the independent research teams did not match in intensity, nor have the proposed quantum mechanical explanations accurately predicted the anomalies. Many of the earthbound tests were not properly controlled. Several weren't even conducted in a vacuum, proper calibration not done, etc. The one hard vacuum test I did read about recorded results that were within experimental error and they identified further factors that needed ruling out before the device could be said to be doing anything new or interesting.
We've already seen some venture capital type fundraising efforts surrounding some of these drives (not usually a good sign), and now they're talking about sending one to space? Not organizing a series of properly controlled tests here on Earth, not using some other microgravity-type setup with electromagnet levitation or something like the Vomit Comet, no, now we're jumping straight to testing in space? That's the stupidest thing I've heard this week. In space, you've got radiation belts and GR effects and even unexplained phenomena to deal with. But let me guess, sending it to space is going to cost a lot of money so now there will be some sort of a crowdfunding campaign that will really stick it to all us dull, dogmatic skeptics?
I would love to see some practical, revolutionary breakthroughs in physics in my lifetime. And that's exactly why I wish people would stop wasting so much money and attention on EmDrive. Don't feed the cynicism of starry-eyed youths by giving this thing the benefit of the doubt. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Tiny unexplained measurement errors that change from experiment to experiment and aren't accurately predicted by any theory do not constitute extraordinary evidence. At this point, the burden of evidence should remain with the creators, who've had 15 years to properly test the thing HERE ON EARTH.
It's a bit depressing the way so many otherwise intelligent people get starry-eyed about this impractical pipe dream. I get that the idea of a vacuum tube travel is awesome to think about, particularly for long distances, but the hyperloop has all kinds of issues that must be overcome so that... what? So that we can travel at a measly 2x faster than existing Maglev trains on a path that's just a few hundred miles long, in a tube that is much more expensive than Maglev track and is much more vulnerable to accidents or terrorist attacks?
Meh. Wake me up when they've figured out how to (economically) build a tube that can convey vehicles at 5,000 MPH all the way to Beijing.
Twitter has not demonstrated a strong willingness to combat the problem. Given the severity of terrorism it is difficult to see Twitter's quietness on the issue in a positive light.
Except in the light of my #2 explanation. If you don't think that Twitter is in constant contact with every major three letter agency in America (and MI5, and MI6, and at least half of the intelligence agencies across the Middle East), then you haven't been paying attention.
I'm not necessarily claiming that their strategy is the best strategy they could be pursuing, but it's absurd to assume that Twitter is pursuing these policies (and leaving themselves vulnerable public controversy and lawsuits such as this one) over the explicit objections of those agencies, whilst simultaneously going out of their way to ban people like Milo.
Some popular Arabic hashtags are overtly pro-violence and pro-ISIS with no alternative interpretation. Twitter has apparently not pursued the policy of auto-banning or even sending an automatic warning to anyone who says #KillAllAtheists, for example. "Cockup before conspiracy" is a fine guiding principle in life, but in this case I don't think it's sufficient.
Uh, I'm not sure why you and SvnLyrBrto think this is a hard problem. The people using Arabic twitter aren't being subtle about it. For example, the "#KillAllAtheists" hashtag was trending a while back.
Is there some hidden double meaning there that we're missing?
1. Run by delusional SJWs who refuse to ban people who support and praise the most unapologetically despicable quasi-state the modern world has ever seen (because any concession to Islamophobia would be worse.)
2. They are constantly being approached by three letter agencies who alternately beg and demand that they not ban these accounts so that the users can be traced, warrants can be generated (against anyone who likes or retweets them), closet jihadi sympathizers goaded into saying something stupid, etc. And NSLs prevent them from saying anything about it.
Now, I'm not saying that SJWish Islamophilia is never a problem in the West, but If you think the first possibility is more likely than the second... your tinfoil hat is on inside out.
First off, I'm not quite sure what to make of you calling Joanna a "shitlord". Has that epithet recently undergone a dramatic shift in meaning?
Now, do you actually expect the leader of a relatively small distro to personally audit everything upstream before every single release? Or were you just being rhetorical and you think that harsh criticism is always unwarranted? I do not have the time or expertise to vet anything personally, but Joanna's white papers and her philosophy for Qubes have almost always struck me as spot-on. Xen was initially chosen because it is a thin type-1 hypervisor with less than 150,000 lines of code[1]]. It has major corporate backers and it's been around for over a decade. If any massive holes turn up, I'm all for Joanna or anyone else yelling for a bit. I'm not sure that Torvalds-style management is always called for, but horrendous mistakes should not slip by with a shrug, especially in a major project that is small enough (in terms of lines of code) to make comprehensive security reviews feasible.
As it happens, Joanna already decided several years back that Qubes should not be wedded to Xen for all of time. Qubes 3.0 saw the introduction of the "Hypervisor Abstraction Layer", which was specifically intended to eventually allow Qubes to be ported to platforms. So, this isn't empty complaining we're talking about here... if the Qubes devs are dissatisfied with the direction Xen is headed, they can start looking for alternatives sooner rather than later.
Joanna is the head of a extremely interesting project that produces 100% open source code. (Their Windows guest tools, previously proprietary but free of charge for personal use, were released under the GPL v2 earlier this year.) I would rather she spend her limited time and money making Qubes more awesome. And I'd rather the Xen devs and their corporate backers spend their time and money making Xen more efficient and secure. Does that sound unreasonable to you?
Well, do you know what sounds unreasonable to me? Saying that Joanna should audit Xen before every Qubes release.
1. "but that's misleading! Dom0 should be considered part of the hypervisor attack surface as well!" That was what I'd always assumed as well, but she convinced me otherwise... first with her whitepaper and then with her product, which has already isolated several vulnerable components in de-privileged domains. In particular, the network card drivers and the firewall are in separate domains and Dom0 has no network connections whatsoever.
It's possible. I'm not a lawyer so, this is all based on what I happen to catch while reading for pleasure. But these are kinda key isssues here--freedom of (or from) religion and the role and powers of the federal government. If the man is cynical or hypocritical on these two points, I'm not sure if I care enough to split hairs and see whether he's better or worse than his colleagues. If they're all worse than him then it's not a matter of giving Scalia praise; it's a matter of calling them all out as atrociously bad and corrosive to our supposed system of checks and balances.
Honestly, the whole thing feels rather doomed to me due to the way SCOTUS is elevated above the other federal appeals courts, due to the very small size of SCOTUS, and due to the way the "standing" rules work. This ensures that actually testing a law is a very long and uncertain process, and by the time it comes up for review they have all of these very serious real world, 'on the ground' factors to consider. They shouldn't be considering them, but they do. They can't help it. Judicial activism is unfortunately an entirely natural consequence, and until we get some kind of system where a SCOTUS-like body rules on a bill (delivering a precedent that the actual SCOTUS will under normal circumstances respect) before it is passed, I can't see that changing.
Scalia's full opinion on the matter was given outside of the courtroom in a speech (google "scalia atheist" for sources). I do hazily recall there being at least one case (possibly in his pre-SCOTUS days) where his anti-First Amendment views specifically had bearing on the rights of an atheist plaintiff but I can't find it at the moment. The only thing I'm seeing is the Michael Newdow Pledge of Allegiance case, where Scalia actually recused himself after Newdow accused him of uttering unduly prejudicial remarks.
[Scalia] told the audience at Archbishop Rummel High School that there is "no place" in the country's constitutional traditions for the idea that the state must be neutral between religion and its absence.
"To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from?" he said. "To be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't favor religion over non-religion?"
He elsewhere asserted that atheism was the work of Satan.
My ideal court would have 4 originalists who generally defer to precedent, 4 orginalists who prefer to fix precedents, and one swing voter who's good at balancing the two and maybe even has some compassion. I used to describe it as 4 Scalias, 4 Thomases and someone else.
Your ideal SCOTUS is somewhat attractive except for the undue influence of the single swing voter. Unless you can find a perfect human being, I would rather all of them be open to changes in precedent, but on different issues and to differing extents.
I would also prefer the court to be less sensitive to pragmatic concerns, less beholden to that ominous "the Constitution is not a suicide pact" aphorism. Gonzales v. Raich was an astonishing expansion of power that seems absurd until you recognize the pragmatic concerns underlying it: First, allowing the government to continue its war on drugs (something most of the justices wanted, I'm sure). But the second and much more important implication I'm sure was in their minds was that actually upholding the tenth amendment (even if they kept Wickard v. Filburn intact) would have huge and far-reaching consequences. The federal government that has been acting like it has virtually unlimited authority for a very long time now. If SCOTUS actually said that the federal government couldn't overrule the will of the states (and/or people) except as explicitly permitted by the constitution, who knows what the collateral damage would be? Depending on how Wickard v. Filburn was clarified, dozens of federal agencies might have been destroyed outright or (if they were less considerate of individual rights but still sensitive to states' rights) rendered ineffective in specific rebellious states. I don't think they wanted that on their conscience, but it's their job to be impartial. it's a very dark and treacherous path, once you start allowing concerns for the status quo to shape your rulings.
Without necessarily being in favor of the wholesale destruction of large chunks of the federal government (I've some strong libertarian tendencies, but I'm not a deranged scorched earth libertarian), I do agree that as a matter of general principle the court should not be thinking about the big picture when they are sensibly interpreting laws as they are written; that's what the legislature is for. I just disagree that Scalia was a good example of this ideal.
I meant Scalia as an actual tie breaking swing voter, not a handful of cases where he was merely one of several conservatives or conservative-leaning moderates who sided with the majority (with one or two conservatives dissenting.) A quick check reveals there were two other conservative justices who sided with Scalia against flag burning prohibition, and the same was true of Gonzales v. Raich. I suspect the same is true of some of the other cases Slate mentions. The SCOTUS isn't quite as depraved as Congress. They do have some principle left, and a little bit of foresight about how something might come back to bite them in the ass. That's why Scalia only thought it was permissible to discriminate against atheists but not against members of another religion; Catholics are a minority in this country. You didn't address that point of mine, by the way. It is not a reasonable reading of either the original text or the jurisprudence to say that the government can discriminate against atheists.
I mentioned the commerce clause marijuana case in tandem with Obamacare for a reason. They both involved the same core issue: what the federal government does and does not have the power to do. In addition to pointing out how he seemed happy to ignore the Sixteenth Amendment, I was also showing how the man obviously had no solid macro principle at work, because no one against federal government overreach, no one with even a hint of originalism in their blood would be in favor of even greater expansion of the already-stretched commerce clause. Yes, I do say that Gonzales v. Raich was a significant expansion because:
1. Wickard v. Filburn was not an instance of the federal government overriding the express wishes of a state. In Wickhard v. Filburn, only individuals' rights vs. the federal government's powers were involved. In Gonzales v. Raich, it was the rights and powers of the states plus individuals' rights vs. the power of the federal government, which is as clear an invocation of the Tenth Amendment as you can possibly get.
2. Wickard v. Filburn didn't go so far as to define outright banning a substance everywhere as being an act of regulating interstate commerce. The government framed their case in the context of price stabilization of wheat, which is actually a reasonable (if insufficient, in my opinion) argument for the applicability of the commerce clause. But the issue of price stabilization of marijuana was not involved in Gonzales v. Raich. They even acknowledged this difference in the majority opinion: "While the diversion of homegrown wheat tended to frustrate the federal interest in stabilizing prices by regulating the volume of commercial transactions in the interstate market, the diversion of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the federal interest in eliminating commercial transactions in the interstate market in their entirety." By this reasoning, the federal government can literally ban anything because it's possible for anything to be bought or sold.
Just because the man had a couple pet issues that he "voted liberal" on (and I think you'll find plenty of otherwise conservative justices at all levels in the country will vote "liberal" on free speech and warrantless searches. It's when the equal protection clause gets brought up that they begin to truly dither) doesn't mean he's a highly principled, very consistent literalist. A principled literalist would find himself constantly at odds with both sides, because both the left and the right have sections of the constitution (and precedent) they prefer to ignore.
I'm not sure how anyone can still believe this propaganda.
Scalia was not only against the establishment clause in the constitution, he went a step further and argued that the government had the right (and the duty, he implied) to discriminate against atheists. Do you think that's an honest reading of the First Amendment and the centuries of jurisprudence that followed it?
When the question of medical marijuana (in states that have legalized it) was brought up, Scalia had a very expansive view of the commerce clause that allowed for the government to ban substances that were not produced or consumed across state lines--in other words, he seemed pretty content to simply toss the Tenth Amendment in the trash. But when the question of Obamacare came up, apparently decided that it was a massive overreach of the federal government's authority to levy a tax contingent on whether or not someone had purchased health insurance. (There are multiple parts of the constitution that allow the federal government to levy taxes.)
Can you come up with multiple instances where he opposed the other right-leaning justices and sided with the left-leaning ones? If not, what on Earth prompts you to make this assessment? The man was a walking cliche--a textbook loudmouthed reactionary from the right wing of the Catholic church.
Mod parent up. I can only assume the mods wrongly believe that only public universities were examined (actually, private universities make up two thirds of the list.)
How is it flamebait to point out that most of the ultra-conservative religious universities in this country are probably considerably worse than the ones mentioned in the article? BYU is a large and fully accredited university and academic freedom there is abysmal. FIRE did list three religious schools, but they were all Catholic.
Yes, that amusing thought briefly occurred me as well, but I think we'll have made tremendous strides as a nation when we reach the point where "niggers" is considered a mere a micro-aggression by 'ultra-leftists'.
I'm genuinely curious about what the expression was. I'm thinking it's more likely to be referring to a female, but offhand I can't think of one that is particular to rural Appalachia. Biddy, maybe?
Slashdot Mirror
I've already replied to the other one. However, I do think that anyone on the internet who admits to being wrong on any level whatsoever, on even the most trivial sub-point, should be modded up.
Spraying enough to eradicate Zika in the USA (and then relying on testing and years from now perhaps vaccination to keep it at bay) is a short term thing and if we focus most of our efforts on wherever concentrations of humans live near mosquitoes, it seems pretty unlikely to permanently damage any native species. I think that's what most people are primarily discussing here: an immediate short-term campaign, on the order of a few years, with the goal of eliminating known and potential Zika reservoirs. Mass area mosquito spraying in the southeast has been going on periodically for decades now. If you're arguing we should stop this longtime practice, I have to say "let's wait a couple years instead of stopping right in the middle of a serious disease outbreak that's still small enough to potentially be eradicated" is the only defensible position I can see.
Spraying enough to eradicate entire mosquito species is probably impossible. Even attempting to do such a thing would cost tens of billions of dollars and almost certainly have significant negative effects on the environment. However, it may well be possible to eradicate certain invasive species through genetic modification and radiation based sterile insect techniques, but unfortunately there has been a strong Luddite opposition to these measures for years now despite the fact that they are both incredibly safe technologies. More to the point, sterile insect techniques and genetic modification can selectively target only the most problematic species, including the invasive African species, Aedes egypti. This rather bellies your concern about harming the great food web, doesn't it? There are many of species of mosquito for native American fauna to dine on but only a few highly problematic disease vector species--so why on Earth would we want or need to preserve an invasive species like A. egypti, which humans introduced to the new world?
If the technology does evolve to the point where eradication is possible it becomes a slightly more nuanced question when someone proposes to use it in Africa to eradicate the A. egypti there[1]... but nevermind that, the Luddites are already out in force against anything being done today, in America. They were present and vocal even before the Zika outbreak in places like Key West, where they have actually protested the effort to eradicate non-native mosquito species with technologies that would leave all other flora and fauna entirely unharmed.
I applaud your concessions about your errors and I'm happy to see the conversation has remained honest and reasonable. I'm not a anti-environmentalist maniac. But this is, in fact, a serious public emergency and I believe any sane weighing of the costs and risks involved here will indicate that an aggressive (but targeted) spraying response in the short term, with large scale species-targeted projects over the long term are the way to go.
1. I think most people who might be opposed to eliminating disease-carrying mosquitoes in Africa would be quickly swayed by numbers and images showing the damage being done, and if it seemed like the African ecology were truly in danger they could always import some mosquito species not known to be especially problematic and hope for the best.
s/AIDS/HIV
Do you realize how many people have to be infected by Zika for a positive test result to show up on the radar? Even with aggressive testing it will be in the hundreds. You can't stop this through tentative half-measures.
If they feel they must use insecticides, they could use ground spraying to limit the coverage to just around the victims' homes.
Wow. Just... wow. Are you trolling me? I just stared at the screen for 45 seconds solid, trying to come up with a more polite way of saying "nobody could be that ignorant." Mosquitoes can travel, and people (such as those infected) can travel much, much farther than the mosquitoes. And as I've already explained, for every person sick enough with Zika to go to the hospital and be tested there will be hundreds (possibly thousands) more who only feel mild symptoms. Pregnant women may not know they were ever infected until after they've given birth.
How about this, if you "feel" that we shouldn't use insecticides then why don't you provide a reasonable data-driven argument why we shouldn't the compares the negatives of relatively short term spraying vs. reasonable projections of permanent mental retardation caused by Zika over the next 50 years? The burden of proof is on you to show why an aggressive response isn't desirable, since every new infection (known and unknown) in a mosquito-prone area increases the reservoir for the virus and makes it that much harder to eradicate.
If you really despise 'teh chemicals' so much, without differentiating between the different ones available (for example, some are designed to only prevent larva growth in standing water and have little to no effect on other insects), might I suggest you have a word with all of the crazies opposing sterile insect technique and genetic mosquito control efforts? I fully agree that those would be more desirable and, if deployed on a large enough scale, probably more effective. But most of the loudmouths I've seen have been more concerned with sticking their head in the sand than suggesting actual alternative solutions.
I've no idea why I bothered typing all of that. I've just replied to someone who doesn't understand or care about the reservoir effect of insect vector-bourne diseases, doesn't understand or care about how hard it is to measure the spread of Zika and even appears to believe that some kind of extremely localized insecticide applied only around the residences of those known to be infected would be effective.
That's like discouraging condom use among everyone (tested and untested), except among those who have received a positive test result for an STD. Except stupider, because AIDS doesn't have a willing carrier vessel capable of flying miles away.
Honeybees aren't a "key species." They are non-native to North America. You also said "already stressed" but the CCD phenomenon has been limited (from my understanding) to honeybees, not native bumblebees or other native pollinators. I'm sure you're perfectly well-intentioned here but it's getting quite depressing to watch this ignorant Captain Planet neo-Luddite nonsense get modded up again and again on an ostensibly pro-science website, especially on an issue that requires clear thinking and quick action like the current Zika outbreak.
So, let's be absolutely clear here: Yes, CCD is a problem for honeybees and honeybees are often used by humans for pollination. However, honeybee species are native to Europe and Africa and perhaps parts of Asia, but not the Americas. The way in which they're used in modern agriculture is actually rather unnatural. Saturation pollination involves, from my understanding, moving so many beehives into an area that they're basically forced into some kind of low level starvation mode so that they become less picky about the flowers they visit. This maximizes yield for the farmer and allows for the creation of a more desirable monofloral honey. Please realize that if a limited number of agricultural honeybees are accidentally caught in some mosquito spray (and yes, 2.5M is actually quite limited), absolutely nothing is affected in the local environment and there are so many bees used by farmers nationwide (we're talking about bees that have been intentionally bred by beekeepers, not naturally occurring bees) that a few million dead here and there due to increased mosquito spraying is of no significance.
Furthermore, a large proportion of our staple crops (rice, wheat, corn, oats, etc.) do not depend on insect pollinators of any sort, and of the ones that do depend on insect pollination there are usually multiple species that are up for the task. Yes, the honeybee has fallen on hard times lately but even if every honeybee in the world was killed, there's definitely not going to be any sort of famine and no plants native to North America would die off as a result.
If you have an argument that anti-mosquito spraying is badly harming some other native pollinator then please, let's hear it. But first let's talk a bit more carefully about all of this, and please let's double-check our facts since the Luddites are out in full force arguing against every single technique, basically arguing that it's better to allow our babies suffer lifelong, debilitating conditions than try to check this Zika outbreak while it's still in its early stages.
For example of what I mean by talking carefully: Even if someone did find evidence that certain forms of spraying is severely affecting a species we care about, please take note that there are many different types of mosquito control chemicals and some of them target only the water-based larva stage that (among North American insects) is largely unique to mosquitoes.
You don't have to be an expert in epidemiology to understand that this stuff is much easier to prevent if you fight back in the early stages instead of waiting for the new organism to become established. If mosquitoes are beaten back long enough for the virus' life cycle to be broken, the virus will cease being transmitted and die off in that area of the world.
What you just said is akin to going back in time and saying "kudzu isn't a problem!" while there are just a couple plants in the wild in North America.
Seriously, what is with all of the neo-Luddites on Slashdot these days? You have a four digit ID so... have you lot aways been here trying to convince us of the errors of our ways? I can understand arguing for technique Y over technique X but a lot of people are just callously saying "oh no, we shouldn't do X because [insert ridiculous hyperbole, myth and/or stupid analogy here]."
But the secondary effect of not having any damned food just might turn out to be rather important.
Yes, it's such a pity all of our main staple crops like wheat are dependent on honeybee pollinators and that it's all being grown in Miami, the breadbasket of America.
Oh wait a second, absolutely none of that is true.
No, we don't. Many crops can self-pollinate, including most of our staples like wheat, corn and rice. Honeybees have been on the decline for decades anyway, meaning there's already been a lot of research into alternative insect pollinators.
Furthermore, I don't think the areas where zika has been detected or is in danger of spreading are especially known for being the breadbasket of America.
Kill them all. If you want a more selective technique, start pushing back against the anti-GMO psychopaths who mindlessly complain about sterile insect technique and various gene-based approaches. What is not reasonable is adopting The Guardian View that the best thing for us to do is stop trying to mess with nature and just accept that a lot more of our babies are going to be born with tiny heads.
That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard.
As I said elsewhere, I'm not sure 100% of what he says is correct but most of it seems to be on-point criticism. One big thing a lot of people criticized Thunderf00t for was saying "vacuum" when it's actually 1/1000th of sea level atmosphere, which is an extremely pedantic and stupid objection as it changes nothing about his back-of-the-envelope calculations.
The big takeaways I saw: 1. Strong, expansion-resistant pipe is not going to be cheap, 2. A high-RPM jet engine on the nose of the thing isn't particularly cheap or conducive to reliability, 3. The forces created during a breech are significant and dangerous, which seems particularly relevant if the pipe is going to be near major highways. The three of these issues combined cast extreme doubt on the assertions that this thing would be cheaper or more convenient than other rail transport systems.
I suspect these points aren't addressed in Musk's cotton candy press releases.
If you've already set about putting a brand new Maglev train in place; the added cost of simply enclosing it in a large tube isn't likely to be very much in the grand scheme of things.
It's all very well and good for you to say that, but if that's true then why haven't they done so? The concept of a vacuum tube train isn't a new one.
You should watch the youtube video I linked. I'm not certain that every single one of Thunderf00t's criticisms are 100% valid, but they certainly seem plausible (and problematic) enough, and several of them had occurred to me long before I saw his video. Do you really think that 350 miles of airtight tubing at that diameter and capable of withstanding heat expansion isn't going to be expensive? Do you think the ultra high RPM jet engine on the nose of the thing (which the hyperloop car must have in addition to the linear induction motor) is going to be cheap and maintenance-free? Have you done the back-of-the-envelope estimates like Thunderf00t has to see what happens when a hyperloop car traveling at 600 MPH slams into thousands of pounds of air that will come rushing down the tube in the event of a breach?
No, it isn't. It really, really isn't. I don't care about whatever pipe dream figures Musk has given. Costs for new tech is always understated, often massively so. Let's look at a few of the details and maybe you could explain, in principle, why the hyperloop should be cheaper:
Both the hyperloop and Maglev use linear induction motors, and it's worth noting that the majority of energy used in a Maglev is NOT spent on levitating the thing (except at slower speeds.) In addition to the linear induction motors, the hyperloop cars further require a highly specialized, super high RPM jet engine on the nose. Super high RPM engines are cheap and easy to maintain, right?
Maglev track, while not cheap, has relatively loose tolerances and is extremely durable. Airtight tubes running for hundreds of miles are an unprecedented engineering challenge and it's laughable to pretend the full cost figures on that undertaking can be known. Yes, these tubes can (supposedly) be placed in locations where the Maglev track cannot, but the Maglev can haul many more people than the proposed hyperloop cars (and cost per person transported per year is what matters here, not the gross cost.)
This last point is the only even quasi-plausible explanation I've heard for the supposed cost-effectiveness of the hyperloop. But if it's true that we can run it alongside existing interstate highway land (and that this translates into massive savings) then that's where we should be focusing our attention. There are surely more conventional tracked vehicles that could be redesigned to take advantage of this cost savings. Trying to shave 30 minutes off of a commute by miniaturizing your Maglev train and then sticking it in an airtight tube and then sticking a jet engine on the front, and then expecting the tube to never be damaged in a car crash or terrorist attack seems... a bit less reasonable.
What makes you so certain it will fail spectacularly? It hasn't so far.
For someone with a four figure ID you seem remarkably credulous.
There has been no compelling evidence. There have been very, very small net thrusts measured that are not immediately explainable. These tiny anomalous thrusts measured by the independent research teams did not match in intensity, nor have the proposed quantum mechanical explanations accurately predicted the anomalies. Many of the earthbound tests were not properly controlled. Several weren't even conducted in a vacuum, proper calibration not done, etc. The one hard vacuum test I did read about recorded results that were within experimental error and they identified further factors that needed ruling out before the device could be said to be doing anything new or interesting.
We've already seen some venture capital type fundraising efforts surrounding some of these drives (not usually a good sign), and now they're talking about sending one to space? Not organizing a series of properly controlled tests here on Earth, not using some other microgravity-type setup with electromagnet levitation or something like the Vomit Comet, no, now we're jumping straight to testing in space? That's the stupidest thing I've heard this week. In space, you've got radiation belts and GR effects and even unexplained phenomena to deal with. But let me guess, sending it to space is going to cost a lot of money so now there will be some sort of a crowdfunding campaign that will really stick it to all us dull, dogmatic skeptics?
I would love to see some practical, revolutionary breakthroughs in physics in my lifetime. And that's exactly why I wish people would stop wasting so much money and attention on EmDrive. Don't feed the cynicism of starry-eyed youths by giving this thing the benefit of the doubt. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Tiny unexplained measurement errors that change from experiment to experiment and aren't accurately predicted by any theory do not constitute extraordinary evidence. At this point, the burden of evidence should remain with the creators, who've had 15 years to properly test the thing HERE ON EARTH.
It's a bit depressing the way so many otherwise intelligent people get starry-eyed about this impractical pipe dream. I get that the idea of a vacuum tube travel is awesome to think about, particularly for long distances, but the hyperloop has all kinds of issues that must be overcome so that... what? So that we can travel at a measly 2x faster than existing Maglev trains on a path that's just a few hundred miles long, in a tube that is much more expensive than Maglev track and is much more vulnerable to accidents or terrorist attacks?
Meh. Wake me up when they've figured out how to (economically) build a tube that can convey vehicles at 5,000 MPH all the way to Beijing.
Twitter has not demonstrated a strong willingness to combat the problem. Given the severity of terrorism it is difficult to see Twitter's quietness on the issue in a positive light.
Except in the light of my #2 explanation. If you don't think that Twitter is in constant contact with every major three letter agency in America (and MI5, and MI6, and at least half of the intelligence agencies across the Middle East), then you haven't been paying attention.
I'm not necessarily claiming that their strategy is the best strategy they could be pursuing, but it's absurd to assume that Twitter is pursuing these policies (and leaving themselves vulnerable public controversy and lawsuits such as this one) over the explicit objections of those agencies, whilst simultaneously going out of their way to ban people like Milo.
Some popular Arabic hashtags are overtly pro-violence and pro-ISIS with no alternative interpretation. Twitter has apparently not pursued the policy of auto-banning or even sending an automatic warning to anyone who says #KillAllAtheists, for example. "Cockup before conspiracy" is a fine guiding principle in life, but in this case I don't think it's sufficient.
Uh, I'm not sure why you and SvnLyrBrto think this is a hard problem. The people using Arabic twitter aren't being subtle about it. For example, the "#KillAllAtheists" hashtag was trending a while back.
Is there some hidden double meaning there that we're missing?
Either Twitter is:
1. Run by delusional SJWs who refuse to ban people who support and praise the most unapologetically despicable quasi-state the modern world has ever seen (because any concession to Islamophobia would be worse.)
2. They are constantly being approached by three letter agencies who alternately beg and demand that they not ban these accounts so that the users can be traced, warrants can be generated (against anyone who likes or retweets them), closet jihadi sympathizers goaded into saying something stupid, etc. And NSLs prevent them from saying anything about it.
Now, I'm not saying that SJWish Islamophilia is never a problem in the West, but If you think the first possibility is more likely than the second... your tinfoil hat is on inside out.
First off, I'm not quite sure what to make of you calling Joanna a "shitlord". Has that epithet recently undergone a dramatic shift in meaning?
Now, do you actually expect the leader of a relatively small distro to personally audit everything upstream before every single release? Or were you just being rhetorical and you think that harsh criticism is always unwarranted? I do not have the time or expertise to vet anything personally, but Joanna's white papers and her philosophy for Qubes have almost always struck me as spot-on. Xen was initially chosen because it is a thin type-1 hypervisor with less than 150,000 lines of code[1]]. It has major corporate backers and it's been around for over a decade. If any massive holes turn up, I'm all for Joanna or anyone else yelling for a bit. I'm not sure that Torvalds-style management is always called for, but horrendous mistakes should not slip by with a shrug, especially in a major project that is small enough (in terms of lines of code) to make comprehensive security reviews feasible.
As it happens, Joanna already decided several years back that Qubes should not be wedded to Xen for all of time. Qubes 3.0 saw the introduction of the "Hypervisor Abstraction Layer", which was specifically intended to eventually allow Qubes to be ported to platforms. So, this isn't empty complaining we're talking about here... if the Qubes devs are dissatisfied with the direction Xen is headed, they can start looking for alternatives sooner rather than later.
Joanna is the head of a extremely interesting project that produces 100% open source code. (Their Windows guest tools, previously proprietary but free of charge for personal use, were released under the GPL v2 earlier this year.) I would rather she spend her limited time and money making Qubes more awesome. And I'd rather the Xen devs and their corporate backers spend their time and money making Xen more efficient and secure. Does that sound unreasonable to you?
Well, do you know what sounds unreasonable to me? Saying that Joanna should audit Xen before every Qubes release.
1. "but that's misleading! Dom0 should be considered part of the hypervisor attack surface as well!" That was what I'd always assumed as well, but she convinced me otherwise... first with her whitepaper and then with her product, which has already isolated several vulnerable components in de-privileged domains. In particular, the network card drivers and the firewall are in separate domains and Dom0 has no network connections whatsoever.
It's possible. I'm not a lawyer so, this is all based on what I happen to catch while reading for pleasure. But these are kinda key isssues here--freedom of (or from) religion and the role and powers of the federal government. If the man is cynical or hypocritical on these two points, I'm not sure if I care enough to split hairs and see whether he's better or worse than his colleagues. If they're all worse than him then it's not a matter of giving Scalia praise; it's a matter of calling them all out as atrociously bad and corrosive to our supposed system of checks and balances.
Honestly, the whole thing feels rather doomed to me due to the way SCOTUS is elevated above the other federal appeals courts, due to the very small size of SCOTUS, and due to the way the "standing" rules work. This ensures that actually testing a law is a very long and uncertain process, and by the time it comes up for review they have all of these very serious real world, 'on the ground' factors to consider. They shouldn't be considering them, but they do. They can't help it. Judicial activism is unfortunately an entirely natural consequence, and until we get some kind of system where a SCOTUS-like body rules on a bill (delivering a precedent that the actual SCOTUS will under normal circumstances respect) before it is passed, I can't see that changing.
[Scalia] told the audience at Archbishop Rummel High School that there is "no place" in the country's constitutional traditions for the idea that the state must be neutral between religion and its absence. "To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from?" he said. "To be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't favor religion over non-religion?"
He elsewhere asserted that atheism was the work of Satan.
My ideal court would have 4 originalists who generally defer to precedent, 4 orginalists who prefer to fix precedents, and one swing voter who's good at balancing the two and maybe even has some compassion. I used to describe it as 4 Scalias, 4 Thomases and someone else.
Your ideal SCOTUS is somewhat attractive except for the undue influence of the single swing voter. Unless you can find a perfect human being, I would rather all of them be open to changes in precedent, but on different issues and to differing extents.
I would also prefer the court to be less sensitive to pragmatic concerns, less beholden to that ominous "the Constitution is not a suicide pact" aphorism. Gonzales v. Raich was an astonishing expansion of power that seems absurd until you recognize the pragmatic concerns underlying it: First, allowing the government to continue its war on drugs (something most of the justices wanted, I'm sure). But the second and much more important implication I'm sure was in their minds was that actually upholding the tenth amendment (even if they kept Wickard v. Filburn intact) would have huge and far-reaching consequences. The federal government that has been acting like it has virtually unlimited authority for a very long time now. If SCOTUS actually said that the federal government couldn't overrule the will of the states (and/or people) except as explicitly permitted by the constitution, who knows what the collateral damage would be? Depending on how Wickard v. Filburn was clarified, dozens of federal agencies might have been destroyed outright or (if they were less considerate of individual rights but still sensitive to states' rights) rendered ineffective in specific rebellious states. I don't think they wanted that on their conscience, but it's their job to be impartial. it's a very dark and treacherous path, once you start allowing concerns for the status quo to shape your rulings.
Without necessarily being in favor of the wholesale destruction of large chunks of the federal government (I've some strong libertarian tendencies, but I'm not a deranged scorched earth libertarian), I do agree that as a matter of general principle the court should not be thinking about the big picture when they are sensibly interpreting laws as they are written; that's what the legislature is for. I just disagree that Scalia was a good example of this ideal.
I meant Scalia as an actual tie breaking swing voter, not a handful of cases where he was merely one of several conservatives or conservative-leaning moderates who sided with the majority (with one or two conservatives dissenting.) A quick check reveals there were two other conservative justices who sided with Scalia against flag burning prohibition, and the same was true of Gonzales v. Raich. I suspect the same is true of some of the other cases Slate mentions. The SCOTUS isn't quite as depraved as Congress. They do have some principle left, and a little bit of foresight about how something might come back to bite them in the ass. That's why Scalia only thought it was permissible to discriminate against atheists but not against members of another religion; Catholics are a minority in this country. You didn't address that point of mine, by the way. It is not a reasonable reading of either the original text or the jurisprudence to say that the government can discriminate against atheists.
I mentioned the commerce clause marijuana case in tandem with Obamacare for a reason. They both involved the same core issue: what the federal government does and does not have the power to do. In addition to pointing out how he seemed happy to ignore the Sixteenth Amendment, I was also showing how the man obviously had no solid macro principle at work, because no one against federal government overreach, no one with even a hint of originalism in their blood would be in favor of even greater expansion of the already-stretched commerce clause. Yes, I do say that Gonzales v. Raich was a significant expansion because:
1. Wickard v. Filburn was not an instance of the federal government overriding the express wishes of a state. In Wickhard v. Filburn, only individuals' rights vs. the federal government's powers were involved. In Gonzales v. Raich, it was the rights and powers of the states plus individuals' rights vs. the power of the federal government, which is as clear an invocation of the Tenth Amendment as you can possibly get.
2. Wickard v. Filburn didn't go so far as to define outright banning a substance everywhere as being an act of regulating interstate commerce. The government framed their case in the context of price stabilization of wheat, which is actually a reasonable (if insufficient, in my opinion) argument for the applicability of the commerce clause. But the issue of price stabilization of marijuana was not involved in Gonzales v. Raich. They even acknowledged this difference in the majority opinion: "While the diversion of homegrown wheat tended to frustrate the federal interest in stabilizing prices by regulating the volume of commercial transactions in the interstate market, the diversion of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the federal interest in eliminating commercial transactions in the interstate market in their entirety." By this reasoning, the federal government can literally ban anything because it's possible for anything to be bought or sold.
Just because the man had a couple pet issues that he "voted liberal" on (and I think you'll find plenty of otherwise conservative justices at all levels in the country will vote "liberal" on free speech and warrantless searches. It's when the equal protection clause gets brought up that they begin to truly dither) doesn't mean he's a highly principled, very consistent literalist. A principled literalist would find himself constantly at odds with both sides, because both the left and the right have sections of the constitution (and precedent) they prefer to ignore.
I'm not sure how anyone can still believe this propaganda.
Scalia was not only against the establishment clause in the constitution, he went a step further and argued that the government had the right (and the duty, he implied) to discriminate against atheists. Do you think that's an honest reading of the First Amendment and the centuries of jurisprudence that followed it?
When the question of medical marijuana (in states that have legalized it) was brought up, Scalia had a very expansive view of the commerce clause that allowed for the government to ban substances that were not produced or consumed across state lines--in other words, he seemed pretty content to simply toss the Tenth Amendment in the trash. But when the question of Obamacare came up, apparently decided that it was a massive overreach of the federal government's authority to levy a tax contingent on whether or not someone had purchased health insurance. (There are multiple parts of the constitution that allow the federal government to levy taxes.)
Can you come up with multiple instances where he opposed the other right-leaning justices and sided with the left-leaning ones? If not, what on Earth prompts you to make this assessment? The man was a walking cliche--a textbook loudmouthed reactionary from the right wing of the Catholic church.
Mod parent up. I can only assume the mods wrongly believe that only public universities were examined (actually, private universities make up two thirds of the list.)
How is it flamebait to point out that most of the ultra-conservative religious universities in this country are probably considerably worse than the ones mentioned in the article? BYU is a large and fully accredited university and academic freedom there is abysmal. FIRE did list three religious schools, but they were all Catholic.
Yes, that amusing thought briefly occurred me as well, but I think we'll have made tremendous strides as a nation when we reach the point where "niggers" is considered a mere a micro-aggression by 'ultra-leftists'.
I'm genuinely curious about what the expression was. I'm thinking it's more likely to be referring to a female, but offhand I can't think of one that is particular to rural Appalachia. Biddy, maybe?