Religion claims truth and since it's devinely ordained truth, contra-evidence cannot change it.
While that might be some people's view of religion it is not borne out by the available evidence. You only have to look at Christianity 6-700 years ago vs. today to see that religions do change and adapt to contra-evidence. Certainly not at the speed of science and perhaps not as much as some would like but it does slowly happen.
It's true that there are some fundamentalist nutters who eschew any sort of sensible science but that is not a fair picture of religion any more than the radical environmentalist's view that all scientists are scheming to destroy the planet is a fair picture of us.
You come up with a hypothesis, then you test the hypothesis and resulting theories by experimentation designed to disprove said hypothesis or theory.
i.e. you come up with a story about how things work, figure out the implications assuming it is true and then act on them and see if those implications hold. As scientists we rarely, if ever, set out to prove ourselves wrong but to prove ourselves right (and probably someone else wrong!).
It's not just flying - there have already been attacks on trains and mass-transit systems. How long before large, but not necessarily high-profile, sporting events are targets? There are hundreds of different ways that terrorists can attack us - the only way have any chance of beating them is with better intelligence to capture and stop them regardless of however they try to do it.
This would work up until the point terrorists realize they should recruit suicide bombers who don't fit the profile of a terrorist.
Nothing is foolproof. However surely it is harder for them to recruit from the non-traditional terrorist population which would reduce their ability to carry out such attacks and isn't that a worthwhile result as part of a more comprehensive approach?
Airport security in Canada is relatively consistent and extremely polite. However your plan still involves crossing the US border so expect large delays when entering the US by car only now with the added fun that they have a car to search. In addition there is an entry fee for the US if you are not US or Canadian so you will have to get out of your car and have your fingerprints and photo taken after which you'll get charged for the privilege. Sadly travel to the US via any means has become so unpleasant that I now avoid it if it is in any way possible.
...when was the last time you heard about a successfully thwarted attempt? You offer lack of evidence to the contrary as proof, which is utterly absurd.
While I agree with your points I think the real issue here is the definition of "effective". In this context it does not simply mean stopping terrorist acts it means stopping them with minimal impact to air travel. After all you could stop all terrorist attacks on planes by banning all commercial air travel - but this is hardly an effective solution. The reason that TSA are ineffective is that they cause a massive inconvenience for travellers and, of all the terrorist plots caught, none (to my knowledge) have been caught by their security measures and all have been caught by better intelligence. This is clear evidence that intelligence is the most effective way to solve the problem since it has close to zero impact on the traveller and has been shown to work.
Wow - I had not realized the traffic deaths were so hugely different. While what you mention are certainly plausible factors it would be interesting to know if the total rate of vehicle collisions is different. The UK has horrendous traffic congestion problems so while it is easier to find another car or pedestrian to hit it is also (I assume) more likely that you are not travelling very fast when you do which will greatly reduce the number of casualties.
we've been unable to prove anything so far, but here's a story pulled out of the collective asses of village elders 3000 years ago...
Actually, if you replace "village elders" with "theorists" and 3,000 years with "several" this is almost exactly like science: we come up with a theory which we have not yet proved and then act on it as if it were true to see what the implications are and then test those implications. The slight, but very important, difference being that if someone manages to prove the "story" wrong we'll listen to them, give them a nobel prize and rewrite the story whereas religion has a bad track record of burning them at the stake (although even science's record is not blemish free).
Actually since life expectancy is better in the UK I suspect that since they only look at older people there is a filter effect in that those without healthcare are less likely to make it to the age they start the survey at. However those with healthcare probably do better than in the UK because there are far more resources available per patient simply because access is limited and the expense is higher. I also suspect that the far higher murder rate in the US will not not help since, while only a tiny fraction of the population, the age of death is far lower which will magnify the statistical affect on average life expectancy.
Maybe it eats the light in part of the spectrum we can't see.
Not according to the article. It absorbes visible light but only at the edges of a small honeycomb structure. This leads me to think that if will only be useful as a replacement for tinted windows and not fully transparent ones.
Who said the Cuban teams only have to have Cubans on them?
I like the MLB's model: take the best players from the whole world and mix them into one league.
...that is based in the US. Seems very nationalistic to me and I am completely unaware of any other "world" championship that has such nationalistic restrictions.
Well, that's obvious. There are a ton of Cuban defectors that play in Major League Baseball.
I might not know about baseball but I do know about english and I wrote TEAM not PLAYER which is not the same thing. Last I knew baseball was a team sport so, if you call it the World Series you need to have the best teams in the world. It might be that they are already there but if Cuban teams are excluded how would you know?
The major part of the annoyance is that Hulu would be a really nice service to be able to access from elsewhere since in many places there is no decent internet TV service. So it is particularly annoying to have your hopes raised and then dashed.
Or was that not the response you were trying to provoke?
No, I was simply trying to remind those in the US that they are actually part of a larger world and that larger world might actually be very interested in a service like Hulu and then get annoyed when they find it is still not available to them.
...said "BBC online out of beta and available for all" I'd glue two neurons together and get that they weren't talking about people from the US or Mongolia or wherever.
It helps if you use functioning neurons: the BBC has a world service and even special channels for certain regions of the world like BBC America.
The story was only aimed at current users of Hulu.
Really? How from the headline "Hulu Plus Now Available To All — But Be Warned" did you figure that? You see, as someone not in the US this suggested that, while Hulu itself was US limited, that perhaps when paying for content the license to distribute might allow international use since real money is involved so rights owners would be being recompensed.
Using 'us', if the writer was from the US, would be imprecise but not wrong.
Why would it be wrong?
not: negation of a word or group of words as in "not wrong"
So then you equally whine about stories that are only relevant to people in the UK?...
You are missing the point. It is not the relevance at issue, it is the assumption that 'all' means just the US which is an attitude sadly only too common in the US.
Last time I looked Cuba was part of this 'world' but somehow none of their teams are allowed to play despite the fact that (as I understand it knowing very little about baseball) they are supposedly better than many US teams.
If, as you claim, the best players all play in the US then what's the harm in having them compete against you. I mean a US team would win all the time right? Having a national championship is fine but calling it the world series would be like Britain calling the F.A. cup the "World Cup" in football.
Or it's that the target audience of the story is American users of Hulu
If the story was posted on a Hulu user site that might be excusable. Using 'us', if the writer was from the US, would be imprecise but not wrong. Were I posting on a site specifically linked to one country then yes, use of 'all' to mean 'all in that country' would be fine too. However using 'all' on an internationally read site to mean "only US" is just wrong. This site is supposed to be "News for nerds. Stuff that matters" not "News for US nerds. Stuff that matters to americans." If it were I would not be reading it.
...and what about those people in South America, Canada, Mexico, Africa, Asia, Australia etc. etc.? I'm glad you've heard of Europe as well as the US but the world is even bigger than that....
...and the motivating factor of most "religious" wars/conflicts is the preservation of the political power of leaders who followed that relgion. Given the already existing evidence I don't see that atheist leaders will be any different.
FUCK YOU for telling us how to manage "free speech". It's why we are Americans and not British.
My apologies, of course the UK government clearly forgot that the correct American approach to "free speech" is only to try to take down videos released via Wikileaks and not You Tube. How silly of them not to realize the important difference.
Be fair. Technically they do have freedom of speech...it just that will all their corporations and lawyers that freedom is often too expensive for them to actually use it in any meaningful way.
Atheists don't kill in the name of... well, nothing. There has never been a war to un-convert people.
Give it time. Atheism has only gained a large number of adherents within the past few decades. It took christianity ~1,300 years to get as far as the crusades and atheism has already made a start down that road.
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Religion claims truth and since it's devinely ordained truth, contra-evidence cannot change it.
While that might be some people's view of religion it is not borne out by the available evidence. You only have to look at Christianity 6-700 years ago vs. today to see that religions do change and adapt to contra-evidence. Certainly not at the speed of science and perhaps not as much as some would like but it does slowly happen.
It's true that there are some fundamentalist nutters who eschew any sort of sensible science but that is not a fair picture of religion any more than the radical environmentalist's view that all scientists are scheming to destroy the planet is a fair picture of us.
You come up with a hypothesis, then you test the hypothesis and resulting theories by experimentation designed to disprove said hypothesis or theory.
i.e. you come up with a story about how things work, figure out the implications assuming it is true and then act on them and see if those implications hold. As scientists we rarely, if ever, set out to prove ourselves wrong but to prove ourselves right (and probably someone else wrong!).
It's not just flying - there have already been attacks on trains and mass-transit systems. How long before large, but not necessarily high-profile, sporting events are targets? There are hundreds of different ways that terrorists can attack us - the only way have any chance of beating them is with better intelligence to capture and stop them regardless of however they try to do it.
This would work up until the point terrorists realize they should recruit suicide bombers who don't fit the profile of a terrorist.
Nothing is foolproof. However surely it is harder for them to recruit from the non-traditional terrorist population which would reduce their ability to carry out such attacks and isn't that a worthwhile result as part of a more comprehensive approach?
Drive to Canada, and fly from there?
Airport security in Canada is relatively consistent and extremely polite. However your plan still involves crossing the US border so expect large delays when entering the US by car only now with the added fun that they have a car to search. In addition there is an entry fee for the US if you are not US or Canadian so you will have to get out of your car and have your fingerprints and photo taken after which you'll get charged for the privilege. Sadly travel to the US via any means has become so unpleasant that I now avoid it if it is in any way possible.
...when was the last time you heard about a successfully thwarted attempt? You offer lack of evidence to the contrary as proof, which is utterly absurd.
While I agree with your points I think the real issue here is the definition of "effective". In this context it does not simply mean stopping terrorist acts it means stopping them with minimal impact to air travel. After all you could stop all terrorist attacks on planes by banning all commercial air travel - but this is hardly an effective solution. The reason that TSA are ineffective is that they cause a massive inconvenience for travellers and, of all the terrorist plots caught, none (to my knowledge) have been caught by their security measures and all have been caught by better intelligence. This is clear evidence that intelligence is the most effective way to solve the problem since it has close to zero impact on the traveller and has been shown to work.
Wow - I had not realized the traffic deaths were so hugely different. While what you mention are certainly plausible factors it would be interesting to know if the total rate of vehicle collisions is different. The UK has horrendous traffic congestion problems so while it is easier to find another car or pedestrian to hit it is also (I assume) more likely that you are not travelling very fast when you do which will greatly reduce the number of casualties.
we've been unable to prove anything so far, but here's a story pulled out of the collective asses of village elders 3000 years ago...
Actually, if you replace "village elders" with "theorists" and 3,000 years with "several" this is almost exactly like science: we come up with a theory which we have not yet proved and then act on it as if it were true to see what the implications are and then test those implications. The slight, but very important, difference being that if someone manages to prove the "story" wrong we'll listen to them, give them a nobel prize and rewrite the story whereas religion has a bad track record of burning them at the stake (although even science's record is not blemish free).
Actually since life expectancy is better in the UK I suspect that since they only look at older people there is a filter effect in that those without healthcare are less likely to make it to the age they start the survey at. However those with healthcare probably do better than in the UK because there are far more resources available per patient simply because access is limited and the expense is higher. I also suspect that the far higher murder rate in the US will not not help since, while only a tiny fraction of the population, the age of death is far lower which will magnify the statistical affect on average life expectancy.
Maybe it eats the light in part of the spectrum we can't see.
Not according to the article. It absorbes visible light but only at the edges of a small honeycomb structure. This leads me to think that if will only be useful as a replacement for tinted windows and not fully transparent ones.
I like the MLB's model: take the best players from the whole world and mix them into one league.
I said team, not player. How about a link to all the Cuban teams taking part in the World Series?
Well, that's obvious. There are a ton of Cuban defectors that play in Major League Baseball.
I might not know about baseball but I do know about english and I wrote TEAM not PLAYER which is not the same thing. Last I knew baseball was a team sport so, if you call it the World Series you need to have the best teams in the world. It might be that they are already there but if Cuban teams are excluded how would you know?
The major part of the annoyance is that Hulu would be a really nice service to be able to access from elsewhere since in many places there is no decent internet TV service. So it is particularly annoying to have your hopes raised and then dashed.
Or was that not the response you were trying to provoke?
No, I was simply trying to remind those in the US that they are actually part of a larger world and that larger world might actually be very interested in a service like Hulu and then get annoyed when they find it is still not available to them.
...said "BBC online out of beta and available for all" I'd glue two neurons together and get that they weren't talking about people from the US or Mongolia or wherever.
It helps if you use functioning neurons: the BBC has a world service and even special channels for certain regions of the world like BBC America.
The story was only aimed at current users of Hulu.
Really? How from the headline "Hulu Plus Now Available To All — But Be Warned" did you figure that? You see, as someone not in the US this suggested that, while Hulu itself was US limited, that perhaps when paying for content the license to distribute might allow international use since real money is involved so rights owners would be being recompensed.
Using 'us', if the writer was from the US, would be imprecise but not wrong.
Why would it be wrong?
not: negation of a word or group of words as in "not wrong"
So then you equally whine about stories that are only relevant to people in the UK?...
You are missing the point. It is not the relevance at issue, it is the assumption that 'all' means just the US which is an attitude sadly only too common in the US.
Since when did "US-centric" mean "US-only"?
Last time I looked Cuba was part of this 'world' but somehow none of their teams are allowed to play despite the fact that (as I understand it knowing very little about baseball) they are supposedly better than many US teams.
If, as you claim, the best players all play in the US then what's the harm in having them compete against you. I mean a US team would win all the time right? Having a national championship is fine but calling it the world series would be like Britain calling the F.A. cup the "World Cup" in football.
Or it's that the target audience of the story is American users of Hulu
If the story was posted on a Hulu user site that might be excusable. Using 'us', if the writer was from the US, would be imprecise but not wrong. Were I posting on a site specifically linked to one country then yes, use of 'all' to mean 'all in that country' would be fine too. However using 'all' on an internationally read site to mean "only US" is just wrong. This site is supposed to be "News for nerds. Stuff that matters" not "News for US nerds. Stuff that matters to americans." If it were I would not be reading it.
...and what about those people in South America, Canada, Mexico, Africa, Asia, Australia etc. etc.? I'm glad you've heard of Europe as well as the US but the world is even bigger than that....
What is the definition of all here?
It's the US definition, similar in meaning to their definition of 'world' in 'world series baseball'.
...and the motivating factor of most "religious" wars/conflicts is the preservation of the political power of leaders who followed that relgion. Given the already existing evidence I don't see that atheist leaders will be any different.
FUCK YOU for telling us how to manage "free speech". It's why we are Americans and not British.
My apologies, of course the UK government clearly forgot that the correct American approach to "free speech" is only to try to take down videos released via Wikileaks and not You Tube. How silly of them not to realize the important difference.
No, you don't.
Be fair. Technically they do have freedom of speech...it just that will all their corporations and lawyers that freedom is often too expensive for them to actually use it in any meaningful way.
Atheists don't kill in the name of... well, nothing. There has never been a war to un-convert people.
Give it time. Atheism has only gained a large number of adherents within the past few decades. It took christianity ~1,300 years to get as far as the crusades and atheism has already made a start down that road.