The reason 'regular guys' like you vote against environmentalists is your immense ignorance and unwillingness to learn anything. Sorry.
Active sonar is *extremely* loud and concentrated sound. It kills. Using such in fish spawning grounds and near whale gathering places is *stupid* and a criminal waste of resources.
"We're fine, we're fine, everything's fine, nothing to see here..."
Five years later:
"How could we not have seen this coming?!"
You either fight for your rights while you still have them, or you lose them. When they are lost, the fight is going to be a lot harder.
But hey, keep fiddling.
-Kristian da Mjaum
Science is not the process of getting things right. It is the process of getting things wrong.
Every theory, once proven to be wrong, is exchanged for a new and better theory. However, the old theory was still a useful and necessary stepping-stone towards the next one.
Evolution is useful because it allows us to understand the world better than we would without it. It is a stepping-stone towards an even better understanding. This new understanding, however, is very likely to keep most of the parts of evolutionary theory intact.
The creation stories in the bible was once our best theory as to how the world had come to be. They are, in that way, a part of the scientific legacy. However, we have, luckily, moved far away from these in the last few thousand years. Now we know more, and we can see that these stories do not in any way explain the universe as we see it. Thus, claiming that these ancient and disproved theories should still be taught as science is stupid. To teach every theory about the universe that has cropped up in the last few thousand years serves no purpose in a science class.
One does not 'believe' in science. Science is a tool that we use to understand the universe. To find the answers to the questions we ask. Religion cannot be used for this purpose because it claims to already have all the answers.
ID searches for the questions that need the answer which ID has already provided. The problem is that *any* question can be answered with 'someone did it'. It is the easiest, simplest, most general answer imaginable. But it explains nothing. "The butler did it" does not make a good detective story. We want to know why he did it, and how, and with what. Because then we can *understand*, and not just *believe*.
There *are* laws covering the separation of corporation and state. They are the ones that talk about 'corruption'.
Unfortunately, your lawmakers then turned around and defined any money they receive that they will use to further their own political careers as *not* corruption.
It seems to be symptomatic of the state of the US today that to change something bad into something good, the only thing you need do is change the label.
You've got the wrong end of the stick here, laddie.
Europe wants you to succeed.
We want you to win the war on terror, we want you to create a stable and democratic middle east, we want you to have good and honest elections.
What we have a problem with is how you are going about it.
If we are going to win the war on terror, then the root causes of terror have to be removed. Throwing bombs at the terrorist's cousin's sister's brother-in-law's two-year-old daughter is not going to do that. Neither is ignoring intelligence and claiming that we're in a 'clash of civilizations'.
If we're going to create a stable and democratic middle east, then supporting Israel *no matter what they do* is bad policy. It *is* still terrorism, even if it's done with tanks.
And if you're going to have proper, fair elections, well, what about letting the rest of the world vote, too? If you're going to have this much of an impact, then we all ought to get a say too...
Slashdot Mirror
The reason 'regular guys' like you vote against environmentalists is your immense ignorance and unwillingness to learn anything. Sorry.
Active sonar is *extremely* loud and concentrated sound. It kills. Using such in fish spawning grounds and near whale gathering places is *stupid* and a criminal waste of resources.
Environmentalists oppose this waste of resources.
-Kristian da Mjaum
"We're fine, we're fine, everything's fine, nothing to see here..." Five years later: "How could we not have seen this coming?!" You either fight for your rights while you still have them, or you lose them. When they are lost, the fight is going to be a lot harder. But hey, keep fiddling. -Kristian da Mjaum
You have this quite backwards, dear.
Science is not the process of getting things right. It is the process of getting things wrong.
Every theory, once proven to be wrong, is exchanged for a new and better theory. However, the old theory was still a useful and necessary stepping-stone towards the next one.
Evolution is useful because it allows us to understand the world better than we would without it. It is a stepping-stone towards an even better understanding. This new understanding, however, is very likely to keep most of the parts of evolutionary theory intact.
The creation stories in the bible was once our best theory as to how the world had come to be. They are, in that way, a part of the scientific legacy. However, we have, luckily, moved far away from these in the last few thousand years. Now we know more, and we can see that these stories do not in any way explain the universe as we see it. Thus, claiming that these ancient and disproved theories should still be taught as science is stupid. To teach every theory about the universe that has cropped up in the last few thousand years serves no purpose in a science class.
One does not 'believe' in science. Science is a tool that we use to understand the universe. To find the answers to the questions we ask. Religion cannot be used for this purpose because it claims to already have all the answers.
ID searches for the questions that need the answer which ID has already provided. The problem is that *any* question can be answered with 'someone did it'. It is the easiest, simplest, most general answer imaginable. But it explains nothing. "The butler did it" does not make a good detective story. We want to know why he did it, and how, and with what. Because then we can *understand*, and not just *believe*.
-Mjaum
There *are* laws covering the separation of corporation and state. They are the ones that talk about 'corruption'. Unfortunately, your lawmakers then turned around and defined any money they receive that they will use to further their own political careers as *not* corruption. It seems to be symptomatic of the state of the US today that to change something bad into something good, the only thing you need do is change the label.
Europe wants you to succeed.
We want you to win the war on terror, we want you to create a stable and democratic middle east, we want you to have good and honest elections.
What we have a problem with is how you are going about it.
If we are going to win the war on terror, then the root causes of terror have to be removed. Throwing bombs at the terrorist's cousin's sister's brother-in-law's two-year-old daughter is not going to do that. Neither is ignoring intelligence and claiming that we're in a 'clash of civilizations'.
If we're going to create a stable and democratic middle east, then supporting Israel *no matter what they do* is bad policy. It *is* still terrorism, even if it's done with tanks.
And if you're going to have proper, fair elections, well, what about letting the rest of the world vote, too? If you're going to have this much of an impact, then we all ought to get a say too...
Europe does not *need* to embarass the United States of America.
The United States of America has already done that very, very well on its own.
"The emperor *still* has no fucking clothes on, ma!"
And this is *not* reductionism?
*grins*
Most amusing.
-da Mjaum