I didn't know about Shiner Bock (I moved away from Texas back in '96 and it wasn't big back then).
And y'all don't have a monopoly on Roller Derby. They play Roller Derby right down the road in Denver every year (fun to watch folks if you haven't seen it before).
False dichotomy (and missing the intent of the grandparent poster). The grandparent poster was referring to the people that did not believe Obama believe in the religion he claims to believe in.
While most of the people certainly can be wrong, it doesn't mean the majority is always wrong.
That is not a mainstream branch of economics (for a darn good reason). It's for similar reasons that they support that derivatives weren't regulated in the first place.
Most people agreed with Greenspan that derivatives shouldn't be regulated. Greenspan himself no longer has that view (and he's a staunch libertarian).
Most people (in America) thought there were WMDs in Iraq before the invasion.
Most people opposed the $700 billion bailout. I've yet to find a serious economist or capitalist who believes that no action was a valid alternative--we were a hair away from a complete financial halt in the credit/security market which would have quickly halted our entire economy. But, of course, most people haven't taken basic economic courses (much less advanced ones).
And so on. This is why we don't live in a pure Democracy but elect our peers to lead the rest of us for a number of years--the majority isn't always right.
They have great ice cream (Blue Bell), great water parks (Schlitterbahn), nice lakes and neat caverns. But they also have a lot of insular communities in the country (I grew up in one...not fun if you disagree with the pack/herd).
Yea, like multiple desktops actually works without bugs in Linux. I really hope they get Spaces fixed one of these days. Ever try using X apps with Spaces? Don't.
Unfortunately, unlike you and I, most "greens" are dead set against expanding nuclear power. They seem to think wind/solar/"biofuel" will be able to get the job done (no, covering the surface of the Earth with solar panels or wind farms is not practical, feasible or desirable). Most of them don't bother to think of the logic behind their positions so it's no wonder they don't have an answer to where all this new electricity will come from. All they know is that their trendy new EV doesn't burn any evil hydrocarbons.
As someone who has worked in Boulder, CO for years I can attest to the truth of your statement. There certainly are greens that don't think nuclear should be used at all and isn't needed. I've tried several times to convince them that it's possible to construct a nuclear plant that cannot have a melt down and certainly could not explode Chernobyl-style. I may as well be talking to a wall. And trying to convince them that wind and solar alone is insufficient also doesn't work.
However, I think I'm the exception to the rule in that I'm very much in favor of green power, drive a Prius and am in most ways the stereotypical green type of person. I'm just one of the rare ones that didn't stop cheering when Obama mentioned in his acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium that he was in favor of constructing safe nuclear plants. (I remember one Democrat volunteer near me ask in shock, "Did he say nuclear??").
You're right, I wasn't being precise. The correct thing would have been to say that Guam was put under civilian control via executive order. Control of the island was transferred from the navy to the Secretary of the Interior by Truman's executive order 10077. I would still argue that's a pretty powerful thing to do by one person, transferring control of a territory from military to civilian leadership.
Of course it's not a state, but that doesn't mean it's not part of America. Puerto Rico also doesn't have state status but is a territory of the US just as Guam is. For a large part of the history of the US territories have existed that certainly were considered parts of America. Most current states were first territories at some point and people in those territories certainly considered themselves to be a part of America.
You're correct, he certainly didn't invent it (although it is a fairly recent development for all practical purposes, with only 75 being written before Reagan).
It certainly has become controversial with Bush because he has challenged so many laws and tried to use it as a line-item veto tool. See here for more details.
Theoretically yes. However, the president can also make signing statements that can dramatically effect how the law is interpreted and this president has used that power more than any other.
The president also makes executive orders which can be quite powerful. Guam became a part of the US via an executive order for example.
As for making laws, in modern history the initial budget proposals start in the executive wing and then are passed to their party's congressional leaders to revise before putting them to a vote. That's why we call the tax cuts 'Bush' tax cuts because they were proposed by his administration.
That's a bit of an exaggeration. My congressman was saying on Meet the Press last Sunday that he was getting flooded with calls to his office by his constituents and that they fell into two categories (talking about the bailout plan):
"No" and "Hell no"
To be fair, he did vote against it. Personally I think that's the wrong vote to make since something drastic needs to be done. But he can truthfully claim that he was doing what the people he represents want.
Given the proportion of politicians who made the practice of law their previous profession, I doubt this will ever change.
Coincidence is not causation. The rich have many advantages directly due to them having more money:
Access to better health care. Access to better schools and colleges. Access to better jobs via networking with other rich people. Access to better lawyers.
and so on.
That's part of what brought about the Marxist revolution back in the day. The rich have huge advantages over poorer people. But how can you stop the rich from having these advantages if you don't want to have some sort of Marxist society?
There is a partial countermeasure to rich people getting better lawyers, and that's pro-bono work by lawyers. While not every deserving person gets a lawyer to work for them pro-bono, at least some do which is better than nothing (or a law school washout public defender).
I tend to put myself in other people's shoes, and here I definitely feel I would feel miserable if my e-mails and family photos were exposed to the world. Not because I have something terrible to hide, but just because it's such a cruel thing to do.
Slashdot readers and posters are very big on privacy - well, this is one grave (and I think extremely insensitive) breach of a person's privacy.
Yea, but this is slashdot. Probably most of us here wouldn't be too bothered if everyone saw our private e-mail. You'd have to have a social life in order to have anything to be embarrassed about. If someone saw my private e-mail they'd just see forwarded e-mails, lots of ads and ticket confirmations. Sometimes it pays to be an anti-social nerd.
Summary: someone broke into her email, found absolutely nothing even vaguely incriminating or even embarassing, posted some stuff on Wikileaks claiming that it might somehow suggest something or other.
I don't know about that. They haven't posted anything damaging but that doesn't mean they didn't find anything that would be damaging. My bet is they are or will try to extort her. I hope not though.
I have no reason to believe that one would be more up to date on code than another based solely on whether one of them is certified or not. I haven't dealt with electricians but have had a bit of experience in plumbing. It isn't that hard to find out what the current code is (in most places) and make sure everything is done correctly. Just submit paperwork to your local city's building department to get the permits (if needed) or if you have any questions about your local code.
I replaced an electric water heater with a gas one at my home doing all of the work myself. The process was pretty easy:
1) Go to library to research the municipal code (took about 1 hour). Found out what diameter the ventilation pipe needed to be and how much open-air access was needed to the furnace room. 2) Contacted the building department, submitted draft plan for modification (this is required where I live) and got approval and a building permit. It cost about $50 I think and took about an hour or two to draw up and make any adjustments. The result: I needed to add an expansion tank to the system but otherwise everything was OK. 3) Buy the copper pipe, water heater, ventilation pipes, tools, expansion tank. Took another full evening. 4) Install the sucker. Took a full day (probably since I was a novice at sweating copper). 5) Get it inspected. The inspector checked it out and thought it was done well. In fact, he told me most contractors would not have bothered with getting the proper permit, inspection, expansion tank or creating heat traps out of the tank. Just goes to show that you probably can do it better yourself if you just take a little extra time to do it and will save a lot of money in the process. (I got one quote for the project that it would have cost at least $3000. I did it for about $600-$700, buying the best gas water heater at its capacity at Home Depot).
If I can do a project like that starting from a knowledge of roughly zero and still meet code, I'm sure a non-certified guy could as well if he was as diligent as I was. No guarantee there of course but there's no guarantee with a certified guy either.
Lets say he was able to help the community from within prison. Years later one of the developers working with him on Reiser decides to run for governor or president. I wouldn't be at all surprised if attack ads were made tying this developer to a 'heinous, convicted murderer' and hurt his own chances of winning the election. Lots of ifs, but I think it would be plausible, especially considering today's popular gotcha politics of guilt by association.
If teaching was done in the style of Socrates (a two-way conversation) then that would be awesome. Unfortunately that isn't generally possible for a number of reasons (costs -- would only work well with good teachers and small classes, time -- they are trying to cram a lot of information in a relatively short time nowadays, etc).
However, in a modern classroom there is little time or inclination for debate so even if they try to teach both there probably would not be sufficient time to discuss it well. Another problem with discussing this particular issue vs something like philosophy is that this really is science and there is an enormous amount of work that goes against creationism. It would take an inordinate amount of time to argue against all the claims of creationists for the nth time and some of the claims really need the knowledge of a scientist (not a student) to argue against. You can't expect students to learn university level microbiology when they are being taught basic biology for the first time.
Most alarming of all, a recent CNN poll revealed that 45% of Americans would not object to torturing someone if it would provide information about terrorism.
And I'm pretty sure I heard about a poll that had it over 50% but it is hard to find polls from 7 years ago.
He should have turned it into a campaign issue and beat McCain over the head with his cow towing to big corporate interests for the rest of the campaign.
It's probably a hard argument to make. McCain's people probably could find plenty of other bills that Obama has voted in favor of that support various corporate interests (this could probably be done for any senator) and respond with an attack ad to the effect that he's being a hypocrite and also not being tough on terrorists as well. Given that after 9/11 polls showed many (the majority?) Americans were indifferent at best about terrorist suspects being tortured I'm not sure how well Obama could counter such an ad.
I think his initial attempt to remove that provision was genuine but he's also a smart enough politician to know to pick his battles wisely.
On a side note: way to go Qwest for not cow-towing to the government and refusing their illegal wire tapping requests. Probably the one and only thing Qwest has ever done right but still, kudos to you!
Just for a defense for other Dems, we don't all think Bush Jr is a tyrant. I'm as big a supporter of Obama as anybody and have never, ever been in favor of Bush Jr (even when he had 90% approval) but to call him a tyrant is too much.
I think he probably is a likable enough guy personally, just as Jimmy Carter is. However, Carter should never have been elected president and neither should have Bush Jr. Nice guys shouldn't always be elected president if they don't have a good enough administration around to support them and/or are simply lacking in personal qualities to be president of the US (in Bush Jr's case simply not enough good judgment, in Carter's much the same but in different ways).
Practically any crime involving intimidation can be turned into terrorism if you consider that the criminal is trying to terrorize you. The armed burglar, mugger, etc. are all trying to scare you into giving them what they want. Doesn't make them terrorists though.
They already have hate crimes for things like this, no need to further stretch the 'terrorism' word further than it already has been.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll stand corrected when you find a link to a respectable economist that shares your sentiment.
I didn't know about Shiner Bock (I moved away from Texas back in '96 and it wasn't big back then).
And y'all don't have a monopoly on Roller Derby. They play Roller Derby right down the road in Denver every year (fun to watch folks if you haven't seen it before).
False dichotomy (and missing the intent of the grandparent poster). The grandparent poster was referring to the people that did not believe Obama believe in the religion he claims to believe in.
While most of the people certainly can be wrong, it doesn't mean the majority is always wrong.
That is not a mainstream branch of economics (for a darn good reason). It's for similar reasons that they support that derivatives weren't regulated in the first place.
So if Osama Bin Laden said McCain was a terrorist then he's a terrorist? Or if the Pope were to say McCain is a Catholic he's a Catholic?
You seem to have the detective skills of the fictional Scotland Yard detectives in the Sherlock Holmes stories (and that's being generous).
Boy, that's easy. Let me count the ways:
Most people agreed with Greenspan that derivatives shouldn't be regulated. Greenspan himself no longer has that view (and he's a staunch libertarian).
Most people (in America) thought there were WMDs in Iraq before the invasion.
Most people opposed the $700 billion bailout. I've yet to find a serious economist or capitalist who believes that no action was a valid alternative--we were a hair away from a complete financial halt in the credit/security market which would have quickly halted our entire economy. But, of course, most people haven't taken basic economic courses (much less advanced ones).
And so on. This is why we don't live in a pure Democracy but elect our peers to lead the rest of us for a number of years--the majority isn't always right.
Texas is a whole 'nother country.
They have great ice cream (Blue Bell), great water parks (Schlitterbahn), nice lakes and neat caverns. But they also have a lot of insular communities in the country (I grew up in one...not fun if you disagree with the pack/herd).
You can also watch it on C-SPAN's website.
Yea, like multiple desktops actually works without bugs in Linux. I really hope they get Spaces fixed one of these days. Ever try using X apps with Spaces? Don't.
Unfortunately, unlike you and I, most "greens" are dead set against expanding nuclear power. They seem to think wind/solar/"biofuel" will be able to get the job done (no, covering the surface of the Earth with solar panels or wind farms is not practical, feasible or desirable). Most of them don't bother to think of the logic behind their positions so it's no wonder they don't have an answer to where all this new electricity will come from. All they know is that their trendy new EV doesn't burn any evil hydrocarbons.
As someone who has worked in Boulder, CO for years I can attest to the truth of your statement. There certainly are greens that don't think nuclear should be used at all and isn't needed. I've tried several times to convince them that it's possible to construct a nuclear plant that cannot have a melt down and certainly could not explode Chernobyl-style. I may as well be talking to a wall. And trying to convince them that wind and solar alone is insufficient also doesn't work.
However, I think I'm the exception to the rule in that I'm very much in favor of green power, drive a Prius and am in most ways the stereotypical green type of person. I'm just one of the rare ones that didn't stop cheering when Obama mentioned in his acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium that he was in favor of constructing safe nuclear plants. (I remember one Democrat volunteer near me ask in shock, "Did he say nuclear??").
You're right, I wasn't being precise. The correct thing would have been to say that Guam was put under civilian control via executive order. Control of the island was transferred from the navy to the Secretary of the Interior by Truman's executive order 10077. I would still argue that's a pretty powerful thing to do by one person, transferring control of a territory from military to civilian leadership.
Of course it's not a state, but that doesn't mean it's not part of America. Puerto Rico also doesn't have state status but is a territory of the US just as Guam is. For a large part of the history of the US territories have existed that certainly were considered parts of America. Most current states were first territories at some point and people in those territories certainly considered themselves to be a part of America.
You're correct, he certainly didn't invent it (although it is a fairly recent development for all practical purposes, with only 75 being written before Reagan).
It certainly has become controversial with Bush because he has challenged so many laws and tried to use it as a line-item veto tool. See here for more details.
Theoretically yes. However, the president can also make signing statements that can dramatically effect how the law is interpreted and this president has used that power more than any other.
The president also makes executive orders which can be quite powerful. Guam became a part of the US via an executive order for example.
As for making laws, in modern history the initial budget proposals start in the executive wing and then are passed to their party's congressional leaders to revise before putting them to a vote. That's why we call the tax cuts 'Bush' tax cuts because they were proposed by his administration.
That's a bit of an exaggeration. My congressman was saying on Meet the Press last Sunday that he was getting flooded with calls to his office by his constituents and that they fell into two categories (talking about the bailout plan):
"No"
and
"Hell no"
To be fair, he did vote against it. Personally I think that's the wrong vote to make since something drastic needs to be done. But he can truthfully claim that he was doing what the people he represents want.
Given the proportion of politicians who made the practice of law their previous profession, I doubt this will ever change.
Coincidence is not causation. The rich have many advantages directly due to them having more money:
Access to better health care.
Access to better schools and colleges.
Access to better jobs via networking with other rich people.
Access to better lawyers.
and so on.
That's part of what brought about the Marxist revolution back in the day. The rich have huge advantages over poorer people. But how can you stop the rich from having these advantages if you don't want to have some sort of Marxist society?
There is a partial countermeasure to rich people getting better lawyers, and that's pro-bono work by lawyers. While not every deserving person gets a lawyer to work for them pro-bono, at least some do which is better than nothing (or a law school washout public defender).
I tend to put myself in other people's shoes, and here I definitely feel I would feel miserable if my e-mails and family photos were exposed to the world. Not because I have something terrible to hide, but just because it's such a cruel thing to do.
Slashdot readers and posters are very big on privacy - well, this is one grave (and I think extremely insensitive) breach of a person's privacy.
Yea, but this is slashdot. Probably most of us here wouldn't be too bothered if everyone saw our private e-mail. You'd have to have a social life in order to have anything to be embarrassed about. If someone saw my private e-mail they'd just see forwarded e-mails, lots of ads and ticket confirmations. Sometimes it pays to be an anti-social nerd.
Summary: someone broke into her email, found absolutely nothing even vaguely incriminating or even embarassing, posted some stuff on Wikileaks claiming that it might somehow suggest something or other.
I don't know about that. They haven't posted anything damaging but that doesn't mean they didn't find anything that would be damaging. My bet is they are or will try to extort her. I hope not though.
I have no reason to believe that one would be more up to date on code than another based solely on whether one of them is certified or not. I haven't dealt with electricians but have had a bit of experience in plumbing. It isn't that hard to find out what the current code is (in most places) and make sure everything is done correctly. Just submit paperwork to your local city's building department to get the permits (if needed) or if you have any questions about your local code.
I replaced an electric water heater with a gas one at my home doing all of the work myself. The process was pretty easy:
1) Go to library to research the municipal code (took about 1 hour). Found out what diameter the ventilation pipe needed to be and how much open-air access was needed to the furnace room.
2) Contacted the building department, submitted draft plan for modification (this is required where I live) and got approval and a building permit. It cost about $50 I think and took about an hour or two to draw up and make any adjustments. The result: I needed to add an expansion tank to the system but otherwise everything was OK.
3) Buy the copper pipe, water heater, ventilation pipes, tools, expansion tank. Took another full evening.
4) Install the sucker. Took a full day (probably since I was a novice at sweating copper).
5) Get it inspected. The inspector checked it out and thought it was done well. In fact, he told me most contractors would not have bothered with getting the proper permit, inspection, expansion tank or creating heat traps out of the tank. Just goes to show that you probably can do it better yourself if you just take a little extra time to do it and will save a lot of money in the process. (I got one quote for the project that it would have cost at least $3000. I did it for about $600-$700, buying the best gas water heater at its capacity at Home Depot).
If I can do a project like that starting from a knowledge of roughly zero and still meet code, I'm sure a non-certified guy could as well if he was as diligent as I was. No guarantee there of course but there's no guarantee with a certified guy either.
Lets say he was able to help the community from within prison. Years later one of the developers working with him on Reiser decides to run for governor or president. I wouldn't be at all surprised if attack ads were made tying this developer to a 'heinous, convicted murderer' and hurt his own chances of winning the election. Lots of ifs, but I think it would be plausible, especially considering today's popular gotcha politics of guilt by association.
If teaching was done in the style of Socrates (a two-way conversation) then that would be awesome. Unfortunately that isn't generally possible for a number of reasons (costs -- would only work well with good teachers and small classes, time -- they are trying to cram a lot of information in a relatively short time nowadays, etc).
However, in a modern classroom there is little time or inclination for debate so even if they try to teach both there probably would not be sufficient time to discuss it well. Another problem with discussing this particular issue vs something like philosophy is that this really is science and there is an enormous amount of work that goes against creationism. It would take an inordinate amount of time to argue against all the claims of creationists for the nth time and some of the claims really need the knowledge of a scientist (not a student) to argue against. You can't expect students to learn university level microbiology when they are being taught basic biology for the first time.
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/dec/02/humanrights.usa (December 2001)
Most alarming of all, a recent CNN poll revealed that 45% of Americans would not object to torturing someone if it would provide information about terrorism.
And I'm pretty sure I heard about a poll that had it over 50% but it is hard to find polls from 7 years ago.
He should have turned it into a campaign issue and beat McCain over the head with his cow towing to big corporate interests for the rest of the campaign.
It's probably a hard argument to make. McCain's people probably could find plenty of other bills that Obama has voted in favor of that support various corporate interests (this could probably be done for any senator) and respond with an attack ad to the effect that he's being a hypocrite and also not being tough on terrorists as well. Given that after 9/11 polls showed many (the majority?) Americans were indifferent at best about terrorist suspects being tortured I'm not sure how well Obama could counter such an ad.
I think his initial attempt to remove that provision was genuine but he's also a smart enough politician to know to pick his battles wisely.
On a side note: way to go Qwest for not cow-towing to the government and refusing their illegal wire tapping requests. Probably the one and only thing Qwest has ever done right but still, kudos to you!
That could be the next slashdot poll, an actual survey:
What's your status?
a) Single
b) Married
c) Divorced
d) Divorced x2
e) Divorced x3
f) Widow/widower
g) Deceased
Be interesting to see how many people would vote themselves as being ghosts.
Just for a defense for other Dems, we don't all think Bush Jr is a tyrant. I'm as big a supporter of Obama as anybody and have never, ever been in favor of Bush Jr (even when he had 90% approval) but to call him a tyrant is too much.
I think he probably is a likable enough guy personally, just as Jimmy Carter is. However, Carter should never have been elected president and neither should have Bush Jr. Nice guys shouldn't always be elected president if they don't have a good enough administration around to support them and/or are simply lacking in personal qualities to be president of the US (in Bush Jr's case simply not enough good judgment, in Carter's much the same but in different ways).
Practically any crime involving intimidation can be turned into terrorism if you consider that the criminal is trying to terrorize you. The armed burglar, mugger, etc. are all trying to scare you into giving them what they want. Doesn't make them terrorists though.
They already have hate crimes for things like this, no need to further stretch the 'terrorism' word further than it already has been.