Except on the fact it is not an inevitability for it to turn into a flame war.
Oh, come on. If you've read/. for more than a month you've seen it happen more than once. At this point, it's like predicting that the sun will come up in the east tomorrow morning sometime around sunrise. Or that dropping a hammer on your foot will hurt because gravity sucks.
Of course, it ignored the fact that people have this desire to know those very pieces of irrelevant information --
Nope, didn't ignore that at all. For those folks there are the news websites. All the information you'll get here will be either blatant supposition ("It was probably a teapublican..." one commenter says) or second hand ("over on CNN they say...").
People are free to read multiple websites. The reason for specialization is so that not everyone has stuff they don't have any interest in they have to sort through.
Now, to be honest. Shots fired at US capitol? That's news.
Didn't say it wasn't. But for at least me, I say... so what? There is nothing in that "news" that has any direct impact on me right now, and I can easily wait until I read the paper or pull pull up a news website to learn about it. By that time, all the initial nonsense reporting will have died down and there will be a good idea of what happened. I won't get drawn into speculation about Muslims and he/she and/or kid in the car or/and an escaping driver and how many shots were or weren't fired.
If you can honestly say that immediate knowledge of every supposition and clue as it comes in is important to you, I'd guess that it isn't because you are a nerd, it's because you are close to the action and need to duck.
Why would it ever reach a political flame war is beyond me (if I assume, of course, that we always behave rationally),
And I predicted that the only result of this discussion would be flaming. This is a mild example of what I found later down the page.
It's actually the people who created the "SS generation" that got us into this. "We will take money from your paycheck today and give you money when you retire" made the mess, not the people who say "you took money from me for thirty years and now tell me you don't want to provide the support you promised?"
If you want to give everyone who paid into SS their money back, with interest, ok. If you just want to blame the people who are trying to recover on the promise that was made to them for all their working lives, not so ok. One would be an honest admission that "hey, this Ponzi scheme isn't working out like we hoped it would, we'll make you whole", the other is "tough shit for believing us, we got your money and now we don't care" dishonest.
Ok, that seems not to include the armed forces, but it does say people are working without pay.
Then they will have a wonderful lawsuit under labor standards federal law that makes it a crime to force people to volunteer for unpaid employment. Federal employees are very good at knowing they can't be forced to volunteer.
They may not get their regular paycheck on the regular day, depending on when that happens to be, but they can be reasonably sure that the pay is accruing and will be given to them as soon as the checks can be cut. If they get paid at the end of the month and the shutdown ends in ten days, they'll get paid as usual. Nothing different at all. Work thirty days, get paid for all thirty on day thirty. Bi-weekly payrolls may be delayed if the shutdown lasts that long, but they'll still happen.
But putting it as "they're working for no pay!" is a good way to scaremonger and hype the political side of the issue.
Several federal employees who are on the job today are only getting paid once an appropriation is approved. Until that time there is no paycheck coming.
You seriously believe there will be no appropriation bill passed?
I get paid on the last working day of the month. If I were to start complaining that I'm not paid to work the other days because I didn't immediately get handed a check at the end of each day, and had to instead depend on a promise to be paid at the end of the month for work I do today, everyone would laugh in my face.
When someone says that they are paid to work, they don't mean there is a small cash dispenser ticking out nickels consistently as they do their job, they mean that they get paid at some point in time. Unless they are a government worker trying to claim that they aren't being paid for having to show up while the shutdown is in progress. Then it's "we're being forced to work for no pay!"
As are other essential or outside funded employees. It is against federal law to force people to volunteer their time as employees. If a federal worker is on the job today, he's being paid.
Because this matters, and frankly I prefer to discuss this sort of thing with my fellow slashdotters.
Why? Not why do you prefer, but why at all?
This isn't a technical issue where debate can come to a good understanding of a problem, or resolve some issue for someone who has a question. The only possible outcome from discussing this here is the inevitable flame war when it turns political. Each side will score points for their side, leaving the people in the middle wondering why this kind of stuff is relevant to techies in general and why does it always devolve into flames and insults.
Who done it and why isn't the topic for a debate. Who done it won't change if someone makes a really good point about reaction of the suppressed masses or creates a fictional similarity to some other even at some other time. Why it was done won't change, only points will be scored by the "Republicans drove her to it" (she drove herself, pun intended) or "racism" or "tea party this or that" sides as they award themselves points for one-upmanship.
In truth, this event has very little impact on techies per se, even if a few care a lot because they live in their parent's basement which is next door to the White House. We've lost the concept that every topic isn't technical in nature just because someone who is technically inclined finds it interesting. I'm sure that some./ers knit, but that doesn't make the latest news about knitting either "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters (to nerds)."
Grants aren't to prove that X is true, they are to explore the factors relating to X.
Which has an implicit assumption that X is true. For AGW, a grant to explore means of preventing AGW by carbon sequestration assumes that AGW is actually happening and needs to be mitigated. A grant from Xerxes to study the effectiveness of whipping the waves into submission assumes that you can whip the waves into submission, you just don't know which technique is the most effective.
None of the research about AGW is to determine if it is true. The fact is irrefutable and the debate is over according to the scientists who have grants to study this stuff. They can't give positive reviews to any proposal that questions this because that would show that the fact of AGW isn't irrefutable and the debate is still worth having.
The AGW example is particularly silly, because fields where there is deep division in the scientific community are the ones where it is easiest to get funding, as everyone wants to know which competing theory is correct (or that they're both wrong).
Unfortunately for science, some science funding is not based on an innate desire to know the truth, it's a desire to "do something" about a hot topic. "We have a crisis and we need to know how to solve it...". Without AGW, I doubt there would be much money for studies on how to use iron seeding to turn the oceans into a better carbon sink. We wouldn't want to play with the oceans like that except for the predictions of impending doom if we don't.
Funding agencies are even explicit about the difference. Office of Naval Research differentiates between pure and applied science in their granting. "Pure" is the "truth" part; "applied" is the "how do we best use that which we know is true"?
So, if someone came out tomorrow with proof that AGW was nonexistent, there would be a lot of grant money that dries up. It wouldn't even take proof, just convincing the public. (This is why letters to the editor can have an effect.) The public would want to know why congress was funneling money into NSF etc. for research on a problem that doesn't exist. The congressmen would want to know from NSF etc why they were granting money for this.
Most climate scientists I've met would love for there to be some strong, evidence-backed, scientific theories countering their work, because then their next grant application practically writes itself.
Maybe, but the chances of it being funded, given the limited pot of money available and large number of applicants who would be seeking money for more urgent problems (and there are always urgent problems looking for more money) is very small. The reviewers for such grants would question the need for a study to disprove the irrefutable. If being able to write a grant proposal were all it took to get grant money, then grants would be horses and beggars would ride.
It is the fact that all scientists know the political part of the grant process that makes AGW such a hot button. Once the crisis is over the money goes away. Once Xerxes realizes the waves are beyond the control of a whip, the money to study techniques for using whips on the waves dries up.
If you doubt this, then explain the surge in atmospheric and climate science funding in the last decade or so. Do you believe that nobody really wondered how the atmosphere worked before that? That the climate was just something that happened without anyone wondering why? The pure science quest has been there all along, it's the crisis that brought the boatloads of cash, and if the crisis goes away the boats and the case leave port for more interesting climes.
Now, we've wandered quite a distance from the original reason I commented. Someone made the claim that scientists respect or ignore dissenting opinions. It is an observable fact that they do not ignore dissenting opinions, especially when they appear in public as, e.g., letters to the editor. My pointing out that fact is "flamebait" to some people, but the fact remains.
If I walk into a bank and claim to be Bill Gates and start withdrawing funds you think that is fraud against Mr.Gates or the bank?
Both.
But most identity theft crimes are not about Bill Gates. They involve someone who has worked hard to get where they are, including a good credit rating and a functional ability to borrow. The identify thief often ruins that credit rating and ties up the victim's money at best, and at worst they are simply out the money.
To pretend that the subject of the identity theft isn't a victim is just ridiculous.
You seem to be mixing up the two positions - just because I don't know about the history about voting shouldn't make me ineligible to vote on ANY issue,
If you don't know the history and background for what you are doing, how can you do it intelligently? That's your goal, to stop people who don't know what you think they should know from voting. Well, I happen to think that knowing that requiring a literacy test prior to being allowed to vote is unconstitutional is something you should know before you can vote. It's not two positions, it is one position, consistently and clearly stated.
But I'll add a second reason. You want to take the right to vote away from people because you don't like how they use it, therefore you should have yours taken away, too.
Basically, I'm talking Direct Democracy mixed with the current system.
No, you are rather obviously talking "literacy test" with questions that filter out things you think shouldn't be allowed. Like voting a creationist into congress because he might be voted into a scientific committee. You don't vote for scientific committees in congress, you vote for your guy and the other guys who are elected with him create the committees.
I have to be eligible to vote on certain issues (kind of like a literacy test),
Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Kind of like a literacy test? Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, bottoms up when it dines or sups like a duck? It's a duck.
You are absolutely free not to believe in gravity.
Huh?
Anyway, this is now very off-topic.
I'd say so. Gravity?
I learnt something new about how defense budgets work, which is why, in general, I come here.
Why yes, defense budgets are the prime topic for a group that is supposed to be "news for nerds". That's why I come here every ten minutes, to learn about defense budgets. I would never think of going to a website that deals in defense budgets for that.
I was about to disagree, then I recalled that I got tagged by some high intensity 60Hz non-ionizing radiation a while back. Luckly, exposure was brief, so I just ended up with a numb finger for about a minute.
It isn't radiation if it is electrons in the wire and isn't being radiated. High intensity 60Hz non-ionizing radiation would be what you get when you wrap your hand around the insulated power wire, not when you stick a fork in it.
Scientists getting grumpy about anti climate change letters to the editor have nothing to do about funding.
You didn't read what I wrote. I said that the original comment (letter to the editor, in this case) could have an impact on the funding, not how grumpy the scientist is. Yes, indeed, if a well written letter can create a response of "why are we spending so much money on this" or "that makes sense" in the public, then that can have a negative impact on funding.
They have everything to do about the fact that no serious scientific discussion goes on in letters to the editor.
You're right. No discussion takes place. Someone tries but the "scientists" respond with either "you aren't a climate scientist and therefore have nothing useful to say about science" or "the question has been settled and there is no more debate", or both. Sometimes if the author can be identified as working for "the wrong people", the claim that their opinion has been bought and paid for is the insult used by the "scientists" who are ignoring dissenting opinions.
You aren't exactly getting novel scientific ideas in letters to the editor in your local paper.
Only in the realm of modern AGW research is it considered a "novel scientific idea" to have more than correlation to back up a theory. But then, the claim was that scientists ignore such dissenting opinions, and the truth in the real world is much much different.
Scientists just don't like being called out as incompetent at their job by people who generally have no idea of what they are talking about, which is generally what you have with letters to the editor on climate change.
Not always, but the response is usually the same. And questioning the science didn't used to be considered calling someone incompetent. Science used to be above that. I've seen it in areas that don't involve AGW. A lot of areas that don't involve AGW.
well if you don't do it, then clearly it's 'stupid'.
I think I was pretty explicit in what I wrote that it's stupid because it's done for the wrong reason and the results can be so embarrassing or worse when the "like" goes away, as most "likes" of that kind do. Whether I do it or not has nothing to do with it.
Ok. But then you defend it by talking about the spending and not the literacy test you propose to allow people to vote. That's the part that disqualifies you from voting -- you don't know voting history.
The problem with the literacy test (in your link) is the questions are arbitrary.
As would any literacy test be. Someone gets to pick the questions. What's the relevant issue when deciding if someone knows enough to vote for a Senator? Which of the candidate's policies are important, which are not? And how do you word the questions? What is the correct answer?
You apparently don't know that polling is a science, and that the appropriate questions can evoke the desired result. "Are you aware that candidate X is a homophobe?" Gee, did he actually say that or is that your interpretation of a position he takes that you think is anti-homosexual? Does he really hate the people you think he does, or is the reason for his vote something else?
The process of writing an unbiased description of a ballot measure can be nearly impossible; you expect that unbiased questions testing the voter's knowledge of candidates for a political office will be trivial?
But the other extreme - where a creationist gets on the science commitee is a perversion of the system as well.
I see. The only "science committee" can think of that you may be referring to is a house or senate committee. Therefore, you have just told us that creationists should not be elected to congress at all because they may be elected by their peers (not you) to a science committee of some kind.
Yes, you've proven beyond a shadow of doubt that you know so little about the history and privilege of voting that you should be kept far away from the ballot box -- under your own proposed rule.
You think that the FBI and ATF are staffed, trained, and equipped to patrol federal parks?
Now I know you are writing just to hear the clicks coming from your keyboard. I said nothing of the sort.
The park service law enforcement becomes non-essential as soon as you close the parks.
You have it backwards. The parks could have been kept open had the federal law enforcement that covers that territory been deemed essential. That's all it would have required. Since they were deemed non-essential, they could try to close the parks.
Of couse they aren't going to use FBI to do that. But if they can deem one federal law enforcement agency non-essential, why not others? The implication is that since the park enforcement is non-essential, then maybe they could make FBI and ATF and DEA and ICE and all the others non-essential, too.
It is in no way "essential" for a person to visit a park.
You can put up barricades to keep vehicles from entering through the main entrance, but many parks have many back ways in, and people can walk in without a car. So, the people can be there and there is no law enforcement to stop criminal activities. Kind of makes the law enforcement function of the park service essential for the protection of the public and the public lands. That's certainly true if you have any hope of enforcing a closure of a park.
And federal monuments are in federal parks and federal parks are often designated as monuments.
Scientists, in my experience, typically respect dissident thought. (I am not going to say that good dissident ideas are always embraced, but they are generally listened to if there is serious thought behind them.) Dissident speech devoid of thought, on the other hand, is generally ignored in science. (It is, after all, not a democracy.)
My mileage varies. If your "dissident thought" would negatively impact funding, like the study of AGW, scientists neither respect "good dissident ideas" nor do they ignore them. They are, in fact, quite abrasive about it. I've seen this is the local papers especially. Someone writes a letter to the editor about AGW that the scientists don't like and there are immediate public responses shouting them down.
It will never happen to me because I set the bar for sending naked pictures of myself to someone a bit higher than "like". As in, "it's stupid to do that, whatever emotional attachment you think will be created by doing it is not worth having, and it could turn out badly when they get tired of liking me, which they will, because they clearly only like me because I sent them a naked picture."
If you decide to make friends "love" you by sending dirty pictures to them, then you made a bad decision and as an adult you shouldn't be protected from yourself by the nanny state.
The very definition of having too much money in the budget is having to work and find places to spend it all so you don't lose it.
What you missed, because knowing the truth would have ruined a good anti-government rant, is that half of the money they counted in this "more than $5 billion" end of year spending spree is actually money from next year. The $2.5 billion to Pratt and Whitney is money from FY2014, which is RIGHT NOW, not last year (two days ago.) And that money covers five years of spare parts.
You don't have to work very hard at all to know you need to buy spare parts for your jet engines. Only a moron would wake up on the last day of the fiscal year and say "gee, I wonder if we need spare parts for the jet engines?"
Keeping a website up costs money in terms of bandwidth and electricity. If they have no money to pay for either of those and they haven't paid in advance, it actually could cause a site to go down...
You seriously think that the US Government isn't going to pay it's internet and electric bill because of the shutdown?
State and local law enforcement services are not staffed, trained, or equipped to patrol massive parks.
Who is talking about state and local law enforcement? You were referring to the closure of federal parks "so those parks don't get covered in trash, graffiti, and meth labs while nobody is available to patrol them." I commented, based on that, that "federal law enforcement" is not considered essential.
You justified closing national parks (even though the parent referred to monuments) because
nobody is available to patrol them. Nobody is available to patrol them because the people that would patrol them are considered non-essential and thus on furlough. This isn't a case of "guides and emptying wastebaskets" that truly is non-essential, it is patrols to deal with criminal activity.
The implication is that other federal law enforcement is non-essential, since the enforcement of laws in the parks is non-essential.
Covering a park in trash, building a meth lab, spraying graffiti -- all are violations of law. The OP wasn't talking about maintenance, he was talking about criminal acts. Yes, I agree that law enforcement is an essential service, but apparently not to the government since dealing with criminals in the parks isn't.
There's also the strong possibility that the order came down to shut down the whole data center, rather than just the Panda Cam.
Of course. It's better to inconvenience as many people as you can when you are taking advantage of a crisis.
As I understand, though, there is still the threat of layoffs in several places, since the budget that does eventually pass is a pretty wild unknown.
The "budget" that passed both houses was a continuing resolution. The difference was funding for ACA. If it passed the first time, chances are good it will pass again. The benefit is that there will be more money for salaries because the first few days weren't spent on those.
Slashdot Mirror
Except on the fact it is not an inevitability for it to turn into a flame war.
Oh, come on. If you've read /. for more than a month you've seen it happen more than once. At this point, it's like predicting that the sun will come up in the east tomorrow morning sometime around sunrise. Or that dropping a hammer on your foot will hurt because gravity sucks.
Of course, it ignored the fact that people have this desire to know those very pieces of irrelevant information --
Nope, didn't ignore that at all. For those folks there are the news websites. All the information you'll get here will be either blatant supposition ("It was probably a teapublican..." one commenter says) or second hand ("over on CNN they say ...").
People are free to read multiple websites. The reason for specialization is so that not everyone has stuff they don't have any interest in they have to sort through.
Now, to be honest. Shots fired at US capitol? That's news.
Didn't say it wasn't. But for at least me, I say ... so what? There is nothing in that "news" that has any direct impact on me right now, and I can easily wait until I read the paper or pull pull up a news website to learn about it. By that time, all the initial nonsense reporting will have died down and there will be a good idea of what happened. I won't get drawn into speculation about Muslims and he/she and/or kid in the car or/and an escaping driver and how many shots were or weren't fired.
If you can honestly say that immediate knowledge of every supposition and clue as it comes in is important to you, I'd guess that it isn't because you are a nerd, it's because you are close to the action and need to duck.
Why would it ever reach a political flame war is beyond me (if I assume, of course, that we always behave rationally),
Welcome to /.
It's the SS generation that got us into this.
And I predicted that the only result of this discussion would be flaming. This is a mild example of what I found later down the page.
It's actually the people who created the "SS generation" that got us into this. "We will take money from your paycheck today and give you money when you retire" made the mess, not the people who say "you took money from me for thirty years and now tell me you don't want to provide the support you promised?"
If you want to give everyone who paid into SS their money back, with interest, ok. If you just want to blame the people who are trying to recover on the promise that was made to them for all their working lives, not so ok. One would be an honest admission that "hey, this Ponzi scheme isn't working out like we hoped it would, we'll make you whole", the other is "tough shit for believing us, we got your money and now we don't care" dishonest.
Ok, that seems not to include the armed forces, but it does say people are working without pay.
Then they will have a wonderful lawsuit under labor standards federal law that makes it a crime to force people to volunteer for unpaid employment. Federal employees are very good at knowing they can't be forced to volunteer.
They may not get their regular paycheck on the regular day, depending on when that happens to be, but they can be reasonably sure that the pay is accruing and will be given to them as soon as the checks can be cut. If they get paid at the end of the month and the shutdown ends in ten days, they'll get paid as usual. Nothing different at all. Work thirty days, get paid for all thirty on day thirty. Bi-weekly payrolls may be delayed if the shutdown lasts that long, but they'll still happen.
But putting it as "they're working for no pay!" is a good way to scaremonger and hype the political side of the issue.
Several federal employees who are on the job today are only getting paid once an appropriation is approved. Until that time there is no paycheck coming.
You seriously believe there will be no appropriation bill passed?
I get paid on the last working day of the month. If I were to start complaining that I'm not paid to work the other days because I didn't immediately get handed a check at the end of each day, and had to instead depend on a promise to be paid at the end of the month for work I do today, everyone would laugh in my face.
When someone says that they are paid to work, they don't mean there is a small cash dispenser ticking out nickels consistently as they do their job, they mean that they get paid at some point in time. Unless they are a government worker trying to claim that they aren't being paid for having to show up while the shutdown is in progress. Then it's "we're being forced to work for no pay!"
As are other essential or outside funded employees. It is against federal law to force people to volunteer their time as employees. If a federal worker is on the job today, he's being paid.
Because this matters, and frankly I prefer to discuss this sort of thing with my fellow slashdotters.
Why? Not why do you prefer, but why at all?
This isn't a technical issue where debate can come to a good understanding of a problem, or resolve some issue for someone who has a question. The only possible outcome from discussing this here is the inevitable flame war when it turns political. Each side will score points for their side, leaving the people in the middle wondering why this kind of stuff is relevant to techies in general and why does it always devolve into flames and insults.
Who done it and why isn't the topic for a debate. Who done it won't change if someone makes a really good point about reaction of the suppressed masses or creates a fictional similarity to some other even at some other time. Why it was done won't change, only points will be scored by the "Republicans drove her to it" (she drove herself, pun intended) or "racism" or "tea party this or that" sides as they award themselves points for one-upmanship.
In truth, this event has very little impact on techies per se, even if a few care a lot because they live in their parent's basement which is next door to the White House. We've lost the concept that every topic isn't technical in nature just because someone who is technically inclined finds it interesting. I'm sure that some ./ers knit, but that doesn't make the latest news about knitting either "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters (to nerds)."
Grants aren't to prove that X is true, they are to explore the factors relating to X.
Which has an implicit assumption that X is true. For AGW, a grant to explore means of preventing AGW by carbon sequestration assumes that AGW is actually happening and needs to be mitigated. A grant from Xerxes to study the effectiveness of whipping the waves into submission assumes that you can whip the waves into submission, you just don't know which technique is the most effective.
None of the research about AGW is to determine if it is true. The fact is irrefutable and the debate is over according to the scientists who have grants to study this stuff. They can't give positive reviews to any proposal that questions this because that would show that the fact of AGW isn't irrefutable and the debate is still worth having.
The AGW example is particularly silly, because fields where there is deep division in the scientific community are the ones where it is easiest to get funding, as everyone wants to know which competing theory is correct (or that they're both wrong).
Unfortunately for science, some science funding is not based on an innate desire to know the truth, it's a desire to "do something" about a hot topic. "We have a crisis and we need to know how to solve it...". Without AGW, I doubt there would be much money for studies on how to use iron seeding to turn the oceans into a better carbon sink. We wouldn't want to play with the oceans like that except for the predictions of impending doom if we don't.
Funding agencies are even explicit about the difference. Office of Naval Research differentiates between pure and applied science in their granting. "Pure" is the "truth" part; "applied" is the "how do we best use that which we know is true"?
So, if someone came out tomorrow with proof that AGW was nonexistent, there would be a lot of grant money that dries up. It wouldn't even take proof, just convincing the public. (This is why letters to the editor can have an effect.) The public would want to know why congress was funneling money into NSF etc. for research on a problem that doesn't exist. The congressmen would want to know from NSF etc why they were granting money for this.
Most climate scientists I've met would love for there to be some strong, evidence-backed, scientific theories countering their work, because then their next grant application practically writes itself.
Maybe, but the chances of it being funded, given the limited pot of money available and large number of applicants who would be seeking money for more urgent problems (and there are always urgent problems looking for more money) is very small. The reviewers for such grants would question the need for a study to disprove the irrefutable. If being able to write a grant proposal were all it took to get grant money, then grants would be horses and beggars would ride.
It is the fact that all scientists know the political part of the grant process that makes AGW such a hot button. Once the crisis is over the money goes away. Once Xerxes realizes the waves are beyond the control of a whip, the money to study techniques for using whips on the waves dries up.
If you doubt this, then explain the surge in atmospheric and climate science funding in the last decade or so. Do you believe that nobody really wondered how the atmosphere worked before that? That the climate was just something that happened without anyone wondering why? The pure science quest has been there all along, it's the crisis that brought the boatloads of cash, and if the crisis goes away the boats and the case leave port for more interesting climes.
Now, we've wandered quite a distance from the original reason I commented. Someone made the claim that scientists respect or ignore dissenting opinions. It is an observable fact that they do not ignore dissenting opinions, especially when they appear in public as, e.g., letters to the editor. My pointing out that fact is "flamebait" to some people, but the fact remains.
If I walk into a bank and claim to be Bill Gates and start withdrawing funds you think that is fraud against Mr.Gates or the bank?
Both.
But most identity theft crimes are not about Bill Gates. They involve someone who has worked hard to get where they are, including a good credit rating and a functional ability to borrow. The identify thief often ruins that credit rating and ties up the victim's money at best, and at worst they are simply out the money.
To pretend that the subject of the identity theft isn't a victim is just ridiculous.
Why is it, then, that I have never seen/heard about NSF distributing large sums/grants on the last day of the fiscal year?
Because, for the most part, NSF is out of money by the middle of the year, and has been rejecting a lot of grant requests already.
You seem to be mixing up the two positions - just because I don't know about the history about voting shouldn't make me ineligible to vote on ANY issue,
If you don't know the history and background for what you are doing, how can you do it intelligently? That's your goal, to stop people who don't know what you think they should know from voting. Well, I happen to think that knowing that requiring a literacy test prior to being allowed to vote is unconstitutional is something you should know before you can vote. It's not two positions, it is one position, consistently and clearly stated.
But I'll add a second reason. You want to take the right to vote away from people because you don't like how they use it, therefore you should have yours taken away, too.
Basically, I'm talking Direct Democracy mixed with the current system.
No, you are rather obviously talking "literacy test" with questions that filter out things you think shouldn't be allowed. Like voting a creationist into congress because he might be voted into a scientific committee. You don't vote for scientific committees in congress, you vote for your guy and the other guys who are elected with him create the committees.
I have to be eligible to vote on certain issues (kind of like a literacy test),
Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Kind of like a literacy test? Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, bottoms up when it dines or sups like a duck? It's a duck.
You are absolutely free not to believe in gravity.
Huh?
Anyway, this is now very off-topic.
I'd say so. Gravity?
I learnt something new about how defense budgets work, which is why, in general, I come here.
Why yes, defense budgets are the prime topic for a group that is supposed to be "news for nerds". That's why I come here every ten minutes, to learn about defense budgets. I would never think of going to a website that deals in defense budgets for that.
Guns don't kill people, it's husbands coming home in the middle of the afternoon finding the mailman in the "mailbox", so to speak, that do.
I was about to disagree, then I recalled that I got tagged by some high intensity 60Hz non-ionizing radiation a while back. Luckly, exposure was brief, so I just ended up with a numb finger for about a minute.
It isn't radiation if it is electrons in the wire and isn't being radiated. High intensity 60Hz non-ionizing radiation would be what you get when you wrap your hand around the insulated power wire, not when you stick a fork in it.
Stop being silly.
I've seen it happen much more than once.
Scientists getting grumpy about anti climate change letters to the editor have nothing to do about funding.
You didn't read what I wrote. I said that the original comment (letter to the editor, in this case) could have an impact on the funding, not how grumpy the scientist is. Yes, indeed, if a well written letter can create a response of "why are we spending so much money on this" or "that makes sense" in the public, then that can have a negative impact on funding.
They have everything to do about the fact that no serious scientific discussion goes on in letters to the editor.
You're right. No discussion takes place. Someone tries but the "scientists" respond with either "you aren't a climate scientist and therefore have nothing useful to say about science" or "the question has been settled and there is no more debate", or both. Sometimes if the author can be identified as working for "the wrong people", the claim that their opinion has been bought and paid for is the insult used by the "scientists" who are ignoring dissenting opinions.
You aren't exactly getting novel scientific ideas in letters to the editor in your local paper.
Only in the realm of modern AGW research is it considered a "novel scientific idea" to have more than correlation to back up a theory. But then, the claim was that scientists ignore such dissenting opinions, and the truth in the real world is much much different.
Scientists just don't like being called out as incompetent at their job by people who generally have no idea of what they are talking about, which is generally what you have with letters to the editor on climate change.
Not always, but the response is usually the same. And questioning the science didn't used to be considered calling someone incompetent. Science used to be above that. I've seen it in areas that don't involve AGW. A lot of areas that don't involve AGW.
well if you don't do it, then clearly it's 'stupid'.
I think I was pretty explicit in what I wrote that it's stupid because it's done for the wrong reason and the results can be so embarrassing or worse when the "like" goes away, as most "likes" of that kind do. Whether I do it or not has nothing to do with it.
I stand by my statement.
Ok. But then you defend it by talking about the spending and not the literacy test you propose to allow people to vote. That's the part that disqualifies you from voting -- you don't know voting history.
The problem with the literacy test (in your link) is the questions are arbitrary.
As would any literacy test be. Someone gets to pick the questions. What's the relevant issue when deciding if someone knows enough to vote for a Senator? Which of the candidate's policies are important, which are not? And how do you word the questions? What is the correct answer?
You apparently don't know that polling is a science, and that the appropriate questions can evoke the desired result. "Are you aware that candidate X is a homophobe?" Gee, did he actually say that or is that your interpretation of a position he takes that you think is anti-homosexual? Does he really hate the people you think he does, or is the reason for his vote something else?
The process of writing an unbiased description of a ballot measure can be nearly impossible; you expect that unbiased questions testing the voter's knowledge of candidates for a political office will be trivial?
But the other extreme - where a creationist gets on the science commitee is a perversion of the system as well.
I see. The only "science committee" can think of that you may be referring to is a house or senate committee. Therefore, you have just told us that creationists should not be elected to congress at all because they may be elected by their peers (not you) to a science committee of some kind.
Yes, you've proven beyond a shadow of doubt that you know so little about the history and privilege of voting that you should be kept far away from the ballot box -- under your own proposed rule.
You think that the FBI and ATF are staffed, trained, and equipped to patrol federal parks?
Now I know you are writing just to hear the clicks coming from your keyboard. I said nothing of the sort.
The park service law enforcement becomes non-essential as soon as you close the parks.
You have it backwards. The parks could have been kept open had the federal law enforcement that covers that territory been deemed essential. That's all it would have required. Since they were deemed non-essential, they could try to close the parks.
Of couse they aren't going to use FBI to do that. But if they can deem one federal law enforcement agency non-essential, why not others? The implication is that since the park enforcement is non-essential, then maybe they could make FBI and ATF and DEA and ICE and all the others non-essential, too.
It is in no way "essential" for a person to visit a park.
You can put up barricades to keep vehicles from entering through the main entrance, but many parks have many back ways in, and people can walk in without a car. So, the people can be there and there is no law enforcement to stop criminal activities. Kind of makes the law enforcement function of the park service essential for the protection of the public and the public lands. That's certainly true if you have any hope of enforcing a closure of a park.
And federal monuments are in federal parks and federal parks are often designated as monuments.
That's nice, but not really relevant.
Scientists, in my experience, typically respect dissident thought. (I am not going to say that good dissident ideas are always embraced, but they are generally listened to if there is serious thought behind them.) Dissident speech devoid of thought, on the other hand, is generally ignored in science. (It is, after all, not a democracy.)
My mileage varies. If your "dissident thought" would negatively impact funding, like the study of AGW, scientists neither respect "good dissident ideas" nor do they ignore them. They are, in fact, quite abrasive about it. I've seen this is the local papers especially. Someone writes a letter to the editor about AGW that the scientists don't like and there are immediate public responses shouting them down.
"I posted the pictures so that someone who needed pictures to catfish someone else could do it more easily."
You will understand once it happens to you.
It will never happen to me because I set the bar for sending naked pictures of myself to someone a bit higher than "like". As in, "it's stupid to do that, whatever emotional attachment you think will be created by doing it is not worth having, and it could turn out badly when they get tired of liking me, which they will, because they clearly only like me because I sent them a naked picture."
If you decide to make friends "love" you by sending dirty pictures to them, then you made a bad decision and as an adult you shouldn't be protected from yourself by the nanny state.
The very definition of having too much money in the budget is having to work and find places to spend it all so you don't lose it.
What you missed, because knowing the truth would have ruined a good anti-government rant, is that half of the money they counted in this "more than $5 billion" end of year spending spree is actually money from next year. The $2.5 billion to Pratt and Whitney is money from FY2014, which is RIGHT NOW, not last year (two days ago.) And that money covers five years of spare parts.
You don't have to work very hard at all to know you need to buy spare parts for your jet engines. Only a moron would wake up on the last day of the fiscal year and say "gee, I wonder if we need spare parts for the jet engines?"
+1000000000 insightful
-2000000 I don't agree
Keeping a website up costs money in terms of bandwidth and electricity. If they have no money to pay for either of those and they haven't paid in advance, it actually could cause a site to go down...
You seriously think that the US Government isn't going to pay it's internet and electric bill because of the shutdown?
State and local law enforcement services are not staffed, trained, or equipped to patrol massive parks.
Who is talking about state and local law enforcement? You were referring to the closure of federal parks "so those parks don't get covered in trash, graffiti, and meth labs while nobody is available to patrol them." I commented, based on that, that "federal law enforcement" is not considered essential.
You justified closing national parks (even though the parent referred to monuments) because nobody is available to patrol them. Nobody is available to patrol them because the people that would patrol them are considered non-essential and thus on furlough. This isn't a case of "guides and emptying wastebaskets" that truly is non-essential, it is patrols to deal with criminal activity.
The implication is that other federal law enforcement is non-essential, since the enforcement of laws in the parks is non-essential.
Covering a park in trash, building a meth lab, spraying graffiti -- all are violations of law. The OP wasn't talking about maintenance, he was talking about criminal acts. Yes, I agree that law enforcement is an essential service, but apparently not to the government since dealing with criminals in the parks isn't.
There's also the strong possibility that the order came down to shut down the whole data center, rather than just the Panda Cam.
Of course. It's better to inconvenience as many people as you can when you are taking advantage of a crisis.
As I understand, though, there is still the threat of layoffs in several places, since the budget that does eventually pass is a pretty wild unknown.
The "budget" that passed both houses was a continuing resolution. The difference was funding for ACA. If it passed the first time, chances are good it will pass again. The benefit is that there will be more money for salaries because the first few days weren't spent on those.