You can get these lectures on DVD from RichardDawkins.net or watch streaming versions on the computer.
I'd also recommend James Burke's "Connections" series; you can see them on YouTube, I would assume that you can get them on DVD. Fascinating stuff, watchable by bright kids and adults alike.
I have amblyopia, aka 'lazy eye' which is not all that uncommon. I don't see stereoscopically but I do see out of both eyes. The result is that any 3D system that relies on providing a slightly different image to each eye just disorients me and eventually gives me a splitting headache.
If Congress specifies how the funds have to be spent, then the President has exactly as much right to ignore that as he does to ignore the requirements of the FISA statute.
Yes, and in my charitable moments I think maybe that's why the Democratic COngress wasn't so aggressive about denying funding last year - afraid that Bush would simply spend any funds, regardless of whether they were designated for withdrawal or not, then dare them not to supply more. Still, doing that would at least have left some moral clarity, i.e. made it obvious that it was entirely the President's choice. In the end I think there just wasn't enough political courage there.
I do hope McCain doesn't win, because I really want our troops out, and it'll be at the very least far more difficult to make that happen with a President who is determined to stay. That's quite apart from the economic angle, in which regard I still believe he's as bad a choice as we're being offered... but I'll rest my case where it is. You seem an intelligent guy, though, so I would encourage you to examine those numbers and consider them - the link above gives a number of good starting places.
Well, my personal experience also differs from yours, but every anecdote has an antidote anecdote - that's why I prefer to go by numbers.
I do have to agree with you on your other point, though; Congress should have stopped funding this disaster long since, as it was obvious that the Executive wasn't going to take the responsible steps.
Both of the Democratic candidates have expressed the intentions of ending that Iraq money sink, and reversing the failed supply-sider tax changes. McCain has said in no uncertain terms that he intends to continue, and indeed exacerbate both. You are saying that you fear Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama may follow policies that may bankrupt the country, but the fact is that McCain's already stated policies are virtually guaranteed to do so.
The evidence is already in on those policies; they will, not may, will drive the economy toward bankruptcy. There are literally decades worth of clear evidence that this is the case; evidence, not ideology. Hard numbers, collected over multiple administrations, all the way back to Hoover, and the pattern is constant, it is clear, it is convincing to any objective observer. Every time those policies have been tried, without exception, they drove the economy down, as evidenced by multiple and deeply fundamental measures; GDP, debt both national and household, poverty levels, inflation-corrected wages, manufacturing capabilities, foreign vs. domestic ownership of assets... (and no doubt I'll think of some I missed after I hit submit!;)
It's far too coherent and pervasive a correlation to deny that causation is highly probable. Don't take my word for it, look the numbers up yourself; they fluctuate over short terms, of course, but the trends are overwhelmingly obvious and impossible for an honest judge to deny. Maybe there are other reasons to vote for McCain, but national fiscal responsibility is not one of them. Don't kid yourself. If the policies he espouses are implemented (or rather, continue to be implemented), then we can't expect anything but accelerating economic disaster.
Well, getting out of Iraq would free up about 9 billion dollars a month. Hillary's a lot less determined to move quickly on that front than Obama, but McCain has absolutely no intention whatever of ceasing to throw money into the hole in the sand; he plans to accelerate the process.
That's on top of pursuing supply-side theories that have failed spectacularly each and every time they were implemented. If bankrupting the country is something you want to avoid, McCain is decidedly not the person to vote for.
He plans to pursue the same policies as Bush, Reagan and Bush - policies which, in case you hadn't noticed, have been a fiscal disaster for this country.
http://doctor-frog.dailykos.com/
...If the latter then his entire "vote for me I have better judgment" pitch evaporates... it was monumental bad judgment not to distance himself from this reverend long ago, not when the issue blows up in the media.
Puh-leeze... failing to dissociate yourself from a logtime friend who occasionally says dumb stuff does not even remotely compare to supporting the Iraq war.
I tend to take a different point of view. For example, if amazon can track the millions of customers, purchases, orders, etc., with minimal errors (most folks tend to get what they ordered and charged the proper amount), why can't evoting on the same scale work?
How well do you think Amazon would do if they were forbidden by law to know the identity of the people ordering the books? Elections are anonymous - the analogy doesn't hold.
On the face of it, this machine took one Democratic vote and assigned it to the Republican column. Now, in this case it's two separate primary elections, and posters above have suggested possible innocent reasons for it (which still smack of incompetence, mind), but it's no stretch of the imagination to see it doing the same thing in the general election.
Old-stlye diesel engines run equally well on either type, but modern high-pressure diesel injection systems have experienced problems with certain types of biodiesel forming parafin-like deposits in the injectors, which can clog them or even cause overheating and subsequent damage. (I work at a Bosch plant which manufactures these systems.)
Contrary to a previous rather alarmist post I have never heard of a customer having to replace an engine for one of these problems, though the injection system may require extensive repair/replacement.
Non-marital sex, aka adultery, is illegal for members of the US Military under the Uniform Code OF Military Justice, and yes, they do still sometimes enforce it.
Is your car crippled, because you are not allowed to drive faster than the speed limit? Are you crippled, because you're not allowed to cross the street when the light is red?
If you would otherwise be capable of doing those things, are you crippled? Yes! You are disabled, by any rational application of the term.
Does it matter? Only if there are any possible circumstances under which you might need to drive faster than the speed limit or ignore a red light.
I do agree with you that the V scenario, where the aliens come to steal food and water, is pretty stupid.
IIRC, in Larry Niven's original storyline the V were descendants of intelligent dinosaurs who had tried and failed to colonize Alpha Centauri, escaping catastrophic climate change on Earth. It made a lot more sense and was a much more interesting storyline, so the TV executives scrapped it.
Of course if you have ever been in an argument with a female SO, you'll know that women's brains already perfectly record every ill you've ever done them... maybe it's not such a good idea after all...
Or, quite possibly, if you make a hard record of significant events you may find that the female brain doesn't record with perfect fidelity after all.
Of course, being able to prove her wrong doesn't necessarily make it a good idea either...
I suspect it has more to do with a lack of customer "demand" in the first place. Most customers will choose from a menu but don't demand anything which isn't already on the menu.
Remember, allofmp3.com was legal under Russian law. Your scheme also sounds legal, but they will find a way of defining this as "piracy on the high seas" one way or another.
Off topic, that's what really annoys me about the new FBI "Anti-Piracy"warning on DVDs. I can understand the MPAA and similar organizations misusing words like "stealing" and "piracy" because they're more interested in polemical wattage than legal accuracy, but the FBI is a law enforcement agency for crying out loud; they have no excuse for misapplying legal terms to the wrong crimes. Illegal copying is copyright infringement, it is neither piracy nor simple theft.
Actually Dennis Kucinich also voted against the war, so Paul was one of two there.
Ron Paul was also one of two to vote against the Emmet Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, the other being Georgia's Lynn Westmoreland. The other 422 voting (including Kucinich, FWIW) thought it good to investigate hate crime murder cases from the Civil Rights era. Unlike his earlier circulation of blatantly racist pamphlets, Ron Paul can't blame this one on a staffer. (Which, even if true, only makes him incompetent - who signs lengthy letters intended for widespread direct mail distribution without reading them?)
Quite apart from his history of racism and the fact his economic ideas are about a century out of date, Ron Paul is an even more extreme case than the current Republican crop of a would-be governor who doesn't believe in government. Instead of merely starving agencies of funds and using them as sinecures for cronies, Paul says he wants to simply eliminate them. New Orleans provides a good example of what happens when you make government "small enough to drown in the bathtub." What I want is good government, not no government.
Even if he had a snowball's chance of winning the Presidency, which he doesn't thank Ghu, he would not be able to accomplish all the dismantling he'd like to - but he'd cause an awful lot of damage trying. People who hate government don't govern well, and I'm glad that despite his noisy Internet fanboys Ron Paul is not ever going to be President. I've had enough of extreme ideologues with overly simplistic worldviews in that job to last me a lifetime.
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You can get these lectures on DVD from RichardDawkins.net or watch streaming versions on the computer. I'd also recommend James Burke's "Connections" series; you can see them on YouTube, I would assume that you can get them on DVD. Fascinating stuff, watchable by bright kids and adults alike.
I have amblyopia, aka 'lazy eye' which is not all that uncommon. I don't see stereoscopically but I do see out of both eyes. The result is that any 3D system that relies on providing a slightly different image to each eye just disorients me and eventually gives me a splitting headache.
If Congress specifies how the funds have to be spent, then the President has exactly as much right to ignore that as he does to ignore the requirements of the FISA statute.
Yes, and in my charitable moments I think maybe that's why the Democratic COngress wasn't so aggressive about denying funding last year - afraid that Bush would simply spend any funds, regardless of whether they were designated for withdrawal or not, then dare them not to supply more. Still, doing that would at least have left some moral clarity, i.e. made it obvious that it was entirely the President's choice. In the end I think there just wasn't enough political courage there. I do hope McCain doesn't win, because I really want our troops out, and it'll be at the very least far more difficult to make that happen with a President who is determined to stay. That's quite apart from the economic angle, in which regard I still believe he's as bad a choice as we're being offered... but I'll rest my case where it is. You seem an intelligent guy, though, so I would encourage you to examine those numbers and consider them - the link above gives a number of good starting places.
Well, my personal experience also differs from yours, but every anecdote has an antidote anecdote - that's why I prefer to go by numbers. I do have to agree with you on your other point, though; Congress should have stopped funding this disaster long since, as it was obvious that the Executive wasn't going to take the responsible steps.
Both of the Democratic candidates have expressed the intentions of ending that Iraq money sink, and reversing the failed supply-sider tax changes. McCain has said in no uncertain terms that he intends to continue, and indeed exacerbate both. You are saying that you fear Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama may follow policies that may bankrupt the country, but the fact is that McCain's already stated policies are virtually guaranteed to do so.
;)
The evidence is already in on those policies; they will, not may, will drive the economy toward bankruptcy. There are literally decades worth of clear evidence that this is the case; evidence, not ideology. Hard numbers, collected over multiple administrations, all the way back to Hoover, and the pattern is constant, it is clear, it is convincing to any objective observer. Every time those policies have been tried, without exception, they drove the economy down, as evidenced by multiple and deeply fundamental measures; GDP, debt both national and household, poverty levels, inflation-corrected wages, manufacturing capabilities, foreign vs. domestic ownership of assets... (and no doubt I'll think of some I missed after I hit submit!
It's far too coherent and pervasive a correlation to deny that causation is highly probable. Don't take my word for it, look the numbers up yourself; they fluctuate over short terms, of course, but the trends are overwhelmingly obvious and impossible for an honest judge to deny. Maybe there are other reasons to vote for McCain, but national fiscal responsibility is not one of them. Don't kid yourself. If the policies he espouses are implemented (or rather, continue to be implemented), then we can't expect anything but accelerating economic disaster.
Well, getting out of Iraq would free up about 9 billion dollars a month . Hillary's a lot less determined to move quickly on that front than Obama, but McCain has absolutely no intention whatever of ceasing to throw money into the hole in the sand; he plans to accelerate the process. That's on top of pursuing supply-side theories that have failed spectacularly each and every time they were implemented. If bankrupting the country is something you want to avoid, McCain is decidedly not the person to vote for.
McCain was not the victim of drive-by endorsements. He actively sought out Hagee's endorsement.
He plans to pursue the same policies as Bush, Reagan and Bush - policies which, in case you hadn't noticed, have been a fiscal disaster for this country. http://doctor-frog.dailykos.com/
Maybe it's a feature... but, y'know, one the voting public wasn't supposed to know about.
On the face of it, this machine took one Democratic vote and assigned it to the Republican column. Now, in this case it's two separate primary elections, and posters above have suggested possible innocent reasons for it (which still smack of incompetence, mind), but it's no stretch of the imagination to see it doing the same thing in the general election.
I liked the bit in 'Soap' where Bert got kidnapped by aliens and met a 6000-year-old Jewish author...
Bert: "You mean to tell me you wrote Genesis?"
Sol: "You mean to tell me you've read it?"
Old-stlye diesel engines run equally well on either type, but modern high-pressure diesel injection systems have experienced problems with certain types of biodiesel forming parafin-like deposits in the injectors, which can clog them or even cause overheating and subsequent damage. (I work at a Bosch plant which manufactures these systems.)
Contrary to a previous rather alarmist post I have never heard of a customer having to replace an engine for one of these problems, though the injection system may require extensive repair/replacement.
Encryption doesn't matter for a passport...if you are hunting Americans and Americans are the only ones who have RFIDs in their passports.
My Irish passport, issued June of 2006, has RFID. My American one, issued six months earlier but valid until 2015, does not.
Yank-hunters might have to be a bit more sophisticated than that.
I am lving in a foreign Asian country.
All Asian countries are foreign... unless, of course, you're living in one.
Non-marital sex, aka adultery, is illegal for members of the US Military under the Uniform Code OF Military Justice, and yes, they do still sometimes enforce it.
I do agree with you that the V scenario, where the aliens come to steal food and water, is pretty stupid.
IIRC, in Larry Niven's original storyline the V were descendants of intelligent dinosaurs who had tried and failed to colonize Alpha Centauri, escaping catastrophic climate change on Earth. It made a lot more sense and was a much more interesting storyline, so the TV executives scrapped it.
Of course if you have ever been in an argument with a female SO, you'll know that women's brains already perfectly record every ill you've ever done them... maybe it's not such a good idea after all...
Or, quite possibly, if you make a hard record of significant events you may find that the female brain doesn't record with perfect fidelity after all.
Of course, being able to prove her wrong doesn't necessarily make it a good idea either...
I, for one, welcome our new consumer-friendly overlords.
I suspect it has more to do with a lack of customer "demand" in the first place. Most customers will choose from a menu but don't demand anything which isn't already on the menu.
Remember, allofmp3.com was legal under Russian law. Your scheme also sounds legal, but they will find a way of defining this as "piracy on the high seas" one way or another.
Off topic, that's what really annoys me about the new FBI "Anti-Piracy"warning on DVDs. I can understand the MPAA and similar organizations misusing words like "stealing" and "piracy" because they're more interested in polemical wattage than legal accuracy, but the FBI is a law enforcement agency for crying out loud; they have no excuse for misapplying legal terms to the wrong crimes. Illegal copying is copyright infringement, it is neither piracy nor simple theft.
Actually Dennis Kucinich also voted against the war, so Paul was one of two there.
Ron Paul was also one of two to vote against the Emmet Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, the other being Georgia's Lynn Westmoreland. The other 422 voting (including Kucinich, FWIW) thought it good to investigate hate crime murder cases from the Civil Rights era. Unlike his earlier circulation of blatantly racist pamphlets, Ron Paul can't blame this one on a staffer. (Which, even if true, only makes him incompetent - who signs lengthy letters intended for widespread direct mail distribution without reading them?)
Quite apart from his history of racism and the fact his economic ideas are about a century out of date, Ron Paul is an even more extreme case than the current Republican crop of a would-be governor who doesn't believe in government. Instead of merely starving agencies of funds and using them as sinecures for cronies, Paul says he wants to simply eliminate them. New Orleans provides a good example of what happens when you make government "small enough to drown in the bathtub." What I want is good government, not no government.
Even if he had a snowball's chance of winning the Presidency, which he doesn't thank Ghu, he would not be able to accomplish all the dismantling he'd like to - but he'd cause an awful lot of damage trying. People who hate government don't govern well, and I'm glad that despite his noisy Internet fanboys Ron Paul is not ever going to be President. I've had enough of extreme ideologues with overly simplistic worldviews in that job to last me a lifetime.