If free trade were so good, economists would be forcasting a date when the trade deficit will be balanced.
This is an example for which the phrase "non sequitur" is a perfect fit.
The presence or absence of a trade deficit has very little to do with "goodness". Free trade has value because it allows people to obtain goods from the most efficient producer. This is to their personal advantage (WalMart's "pay less, live better"). From a large perspective, it promotes efficiency, which is to say it discourages waste.
Let's take the position that "free trade is bad and must be prohibited" and see where it leads. If free trade on the scale of US-China should be prohibited and doing so makes people's lives better, then it should be true also on a smaller scale. People in California should be prohibited from trading with people in Connecticut. That must be good, so we should also prohibit trade between Hartford and New Haven. We should prohibit trade between people in the north part of Hartford with people in the center of the city. People in the center of the city should be prohibited from trading with people a block away. People on the same street should be prohibited from trading with their neighbor, all for their own good. I should be prohibited from trading with other people in my family; it's in my self interest to make everything I'm ever going to use by myself. Using just my wits and the soil beneath my feet, I'm going to make how many transistors?
Or perhaps your brand of politics is nationalism, "my country is the only good and nothing else matters."
In New York City, from memory: The New York Times, The Sun, The Telegram, The World, The Herald, The Daily News, The Post, The Journal, The American, The Tribune. Ten newspapers that at one time all simultaneously existed. Most large cities had more than one profitable newspaper, catering to various preferences, from political views to comics.
Adblock only works because sites are set up to include the url of the ad provider. Anyone who took the trouble to code around this could defeat adblock.
Personally, I only use adblock to stop flashing and animation. Once an ad agency annoys me like that, it's gone forever, no second chance.
I don't know what portion of their income comes from print and what from online, but Investor's Business Daily http://www.investors.com/ provides news, comment, and proprietary rankings.
It's my understanding that the Wall Street Journal also charges.
I very much doubt that Murdoch has as his principal goal advancing conservatism, given how weakly, inconsistently, and illogically Fox promotes it. Consider O'Reilly: It's painful to watch his ugly face voice populist grumblings about how bad people and things are today. O'Reilly interviews people whose views he opposes. If Murdoch were trying to advance conservatism, he'd have only attractive people cogently expressing conservative views without contradictory guests.
Note that Rush Limbaugh occasionally complains about Fox presenting a news story with a leftward bias.
Murdoch saw a market niche and moved to fill it in a fairly competent manner. It's unlikely that a "me too" Fox News could have succeeded.
And then, they hire Karl Rove, of all people, the prince of fucking darkness itself, as one of their payroll spinmeisters.
I see your Karl Rove and raise you a Dick Morris.
even centrists (such as Clinton, Kerry and Obama) are tagged with that tired old canard, pinko communists.
I don't recall people on Fox or conservatives generally calling Clinton communist. He had serious flaws both in his political views and his personal actions (rapist) that should have excluded him from the presidency.
Kerry wasn't a good guy either; like so many others he was after nothing but power. Like Clinton, he was leftist, even if you can't see it.
Obama is unquestionably far left in his policies and votes, hiding it behind a nice smile and reassuring language. Geez, he's in the process of turning Chrysler over to the UAW. Of all the people on earth, the people who've spent a half century trying to destroy the company have the least rational claim to it.
N.B. Talk of state secession is out there independent of Fox, I've heard of active movements in at least 2 states.
Due to your post, I went back and quickly reread about a third of the book, and I have to admit that I was wrong as far as I can tell. I can't find any bias, and the science was better than I remembered.
I did find two errors. On page 157 and onward, Bryson claims that airborne lead is forever. Actually, airborne lead has fallen dramatically in recent decades, probably by more than 90% in cities. On page 217, he repeats the claim that glass flows at room temperature.
Bryson is a swell writer -- informative and funny -- but his grip on the science he writes about is marginal. His politics are moderate-left, which biasses his writing somewhat.
This is what happens when you let the government in to places where it shouldn't be. There shouldn't be a state record of prescriptions, in fact the entire idea of government restricting the sale of certain chemicals to a doctor-monopoly is wrong. You statists are getting what you deserve; unfortunately the rest of us have to pay for it too.
Oh boy, what a pack of lies and false alternatives.
But the harsh reality is very few of the 1.1 million children being legally homeschooled will receive such treatment, and many enter into lives of crime or violence(reaction to isolation and strict rule, or heavily religious environments), or become socially isolated and fail to compete in the workplace.
Citation?
Socialization is the boogeyman of public school advocates, and it's completely bogus. During most of the time spent in school, teachers are insisting upon children being silent and obedient. Much of the time in homeschooling is spent talking with (not at) the pupil, and that is social. Social activity is proper for playtime after school. Museum trips and other such garbage rarely exceed 2 a year in public school, and are generally worthless excuses for a fun time replacing learning.
To shorten your English samples:
I woke up. -> I woke.
I ate in the afternoon. -> I lunched.
I am talking on the telephone with my friend in Tokyo. -> I'm phoning my Tokyo pal.
Thoreau and Emerson are not modern; Harvard has changed for the worse. Yo Yo Ma is a musician, irrelevant to the current context. Which Kennedy? Obama and W.E.B. DuBois are leftists bent on the destruction of the U.S.. None of this is relevant to MBAs from Harvard.
The reason that Fox news appears biassed is that everyone is used to the left-wing vitriol that's been spewing from CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and NPR for as long as most of us have been alive. If you consider the standard air media as truthful because they're in agreement, it's no wonder that the only one who stands out seems biassed.
1. "Radio Amateur's Handbook"
2. old, but "Wave Generation and Shaping" by Leonard Strauss
Generally, you want to consider something that you'd like to build, then write out a circuit on paper. Fill in component values, do the math to see if it will work. Look up characteristics of devices you'd like to use on manufacturer's data sheets, check again more carefully to see if it'll still work. Change what needs to be changed. Build it and try to figure out why it doesn't work; fix it.
You'll need to buy parts and breadboards, and buy/build power supplies. Solder, wire, soldering iron. Multimeter, oscilloscope. Unless you are doing only digital design, you need hardware experience to be a good designer.
SPICE is free and open-source, but you only need be concerned that it is free.
Nice tale, but a Z80 at 4 MHz would routinely outpace the 8088 at 4.77 MHz unless the code was heavy with multiplies. The Z80's second register set and some of its extended (beyond 8080) instructions gave it the additional power to beat the higher-clocked 8088.
Well, maybe.
I see this as an issue of malice or "criminal intent". The rock-kicker meant no harm. Even someone who fires a gun into the air is unlikely to be intending harm. A virus-writer is out to do damage and seldom cares who he hurts. That he didn't intend to cause a death might be adequate to prevent life imprisoment, but the punishment should be quite harsh.
I suppose I'm just being an old fogey here, but I think life-critical medical equipment code should be written in assembler. No code lying around doing nothing. No variables the programmer isn't aware of. And for goodness sake, no damn operating system at all. Sensor data in, massaged data out, and nothing else.
Many if the problems in this debate are due to bad (sometimes deliberately bad) definitions.
The question that needs to be answered is when does human life begin?
The answer to your question as you stated it is "Several tens of thousands of years ago." I think you asked the wrong question.
A better question is "When does a human individual come into existence?" and it requires a rational and scientifically testable definition for human and individual. Note that there are complications in the definition of individual; that a cluster of cells may split and eventually become two individuals, and that same cluster which has split may in some cases recombine and become only one individual. The complications in defining "individual" are trivial compared to defining "human".
Only when people are using words to mean the same thing can the discussion advance, and there are plenty of people on both sides that don't want that day to come.
Even when the definitions are in place there are plenty of other issues that are relevant. For instance, even in the absence of birth control or abortion fewer than half of all fertilised eggs result in live births. Some fertilised eggs develop into nothing but tissue masses that are not recognizably human. What about ancephalic fetuses or completely brainless ones?
*** On another issue... ***
By definition, conservatives are always looking to the past for future solutions.
Please do not confuse the property of a political movement deriving from its name with the entire contents of that movement. This error would lead you to incorrectly believe that progressives are for progress, liberals for liberty, or centrists for something other than power.
If a corporation gets into a position where it can bargain with a state on whether it follows the rules or not, we are *all* in serious trouble...
OK, first you have to take off your blinders and realize that almost everything that runs up against the law is subject to negotiation. Ever hear of plea bargains?
Second, although rule of law is preferable to rule by arbitrary force, the Procrustean approach is not a good thing. There are bad laws, and I would argue that most laws are severely defective or evil by design. We are in serious trouble, and much of the cause is bad law.
Intel could stop doing business directly in Europe, shutting down all plants and relying instead on distributors to sell product in Europe. No physical presence in Europe makes Intel very difficult to attack by law. Intel wins by causing Europeans to lose jobs, thereby punishing the government more than it can ever hope to punish Intel.
This is $4 from every American, and the money goes to European governments to increase their abuse of both their own citizens and Americans. Everyone loses.
Slashdot Mirror
This is an example for which the phrase "non sequitur" is a perfect fit.
The presence or absence of a trade deficit has very little to do with "goodness". Free trade has value because it allows people to obtain goods from the most efficient producer. This is to their personal advantage (WalMart's "pay less, live better"). From a large perspective, it promotes efficiency, which is to say it discourages waste.
Let's take the position that "free trade is bad and must be prohibited" and see where it leads. If free trade on the scale of US-China should be prohibited and doing so makes people's lives better, then it should be true also on a smaller scale. People in California should be prohibited from trading with people in Connecticut. That must be good, so we should also prohibit trade between Hartford and New Haven. We should prohibit trade between people in the north part of Hartford with people in the center of the city. People in the center of the city should be prohibited from trading with people a block away. People on the same street should be prohibited from trading with their neighbor, all for their own good. I should be prohibited from trading with other people in my family; it's in my self interest to make everything I'm ever going to use by myself. Using just my wits and the soil beneath my feet, I'm going to make how many transistors?
Or perhaps your brand of politics is nationalism, "my country is the only good and nothing else matters."
Lets see, nobody wants those cars so zero have been sold, year after year. That must be why they keep producing them.
In New York City, from memory: The New York Times, The Sun, The Telegram, The World, The Herald, The Daily News, The Post, The Journal, The American, The Tribune. Ten newspapers that at one time all simultaneously existed. Most large cities had more than one profitable newspaper, catering to various preferences, from political views to comics.
Adblock only works because sites are set up to include the url of the ad provider. Anyone who took the trouble to code around this could defeat adblock.
Personally, I only use adblock to stop flashing and animation. Once an ad agency annoys me like that, it's gone forever, no second chance.
There it is, right there, I caught you. What part of "FREEDOM OF THE PRESS" do you not understand?
I don't know what portion of their income comes from print and what from online, but Investor's Business Daily http://www.investors.com/ provides news, comment, and proprietary rankings.
It's my understanding that the Wall Street Journal also charges.
I very much doubt that Murdoch has as his principal goal advancing conservatism, given how weakly, inconsistently, and illogically Fox promotes it. Consider O'Reilly: It's painful to watch his ugly face voice populist grumblings about how bad people and things are today. O'Reilly interviews people whose views he opposes. If Murdoch were trying to advance conservatism, he'd have only attractive people cogently expressing conservative views without contradictory guests.
Note that Rush Limbaugh occasionally complains about Fox presenting a news story with a leftward bias.
Murdoch saw a market niche and moved to fill it in a fairly competent manner. It's unlikely that a "me too" Fox News could have succeeded.
I see your Karl Rove and raise you a Dick Morris.
I don't recall people on Fox or conservatives generally calling Clinton communist. He had serious flaws both in his political views and his personal actions (rapist) that should have excluded him from the presidency.
Kerry wasn't a good guy either; like so many others he was after nothing but power. Like Clinton, he was leftist, even if you can't see it.
Obama is unquestionably far left in his policies and votes, hiding it behind a nice smile and reassuring language. Geez, he's in the process of turning Chrysler over to the UAW. Of all the people on earth, the people who've spent a half century trying to destroy the company have the least rational claim to it.
N.B. Talk of state secession is out there independent of Fox, I've heard of active movements in at least 2 states.
Due to your post, I went back and quickly reread about a third of the book, and I have to admit that I was wrong as far as I can tell. I can't find any bias, and the science was better than I remembered.
I did find two errors. On page 157 and onward, Bryson claims that airborne lead is forever. Actually, airborne lead has fallen dramatically in recent decades, probably by more than 90% in cities. On page 217, he repeats the claim that glass flows at room temperature.
My apologies to you and Mr. Bryson.
These are secondary, but I like them:
Men of Mathematics by E.T. Bell
Lectures on the Icosahedron and the Solution of the Fifth Degree by Felix Klein
Bryson is a swell writer -- informative and funny -- but his grip on the science he writes about is marginal. His politics are moderate-left, which biasses his writing somewhat.
This is what happens when you let the government in to places where it shouldn't be. There shouldn't be a state record of prescriptions, in fact the entire idea of government restricting the sale of certain chemicals to a doctor-monopoly is wrong. You statists are getting what you deserve; unfortunately the rest of us have to pay for it too.
Oh boy, what a pack of lies and false alternatives.
Citation?
Socialization is the boogeyman of public school advocates, and it's completely bogus. During most of the time spent in school, teachers are insisting upon children being silent and obedient. Much of the time in homeschooling is spent talking with (not at) the pupil, and that is social. Social activity is proper for playtime after school. Museum trips and other such garbage rarely exceed 2 a year in public school, and are generally worthless excuses for a fun time replacing learning.
Using only printing ASCII characters yields log2(96) = 6.6 bits/char.
To shorten your English samples:
I woke up. -> I woke.
I ate in the afternoon. -> I lunched.
I am talking on the telephone with my friend in Tokyo. -> I'm phoning my Tokyo pal.
Thoreau and Emerson are not modern; Harvard has changed for the worse. Yo Yo Ma is a musician, irrelevant to the current context. Which Kennedy? Obama and W.E.B. DuBois are leftists bent on the destruction of the U.S.. None of this is relevant to MBAs from Harvard.
The reason that Fox news appears biassed is that everyone is used to the left-wing vitriol that's been spewing from CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and NPR for as long as most of us have been alive. If you consider the standard air media as truthful because they're in agreement, it's no wonder that the only one who stands out seems biassed.
1. "Radio Amateur's Handbook"
2. old, but "Wave Generation and Shaping" by Leonard Strauss
Generally, you want to consider something that you'd like to build, then write out a circuit on paper. Fill in component values, do the math to see if it will work. Look up characteristics of devices you'd like to use on manufacturer's data sheets, check again more carefully to see if it'll still work. Change what needs to be changed. Build it and try to figure out why it doesn't work; fix it.
You'll need to buy parts and breadboards, and buy/build power supplies. Solder, wire, soldering iron. Multimeter, oscilloscope. Unless you are doing only digital design, you need hardware experience to be a good designer.
SPICE is free and open-source, but you only need be concerned that it is free.
Nice tale, but a Z80 at 4 MHz would routinely outpace the 8088 at 4.77 MHz unless the code was heavy with multiplies. The Z80's second register set and some of its extended (beyond 8080) instructions gave it the additional power to beat the higher-clocked 8088.
Well, maybe.
I see this as an issue of malice or "criminal intent". The rock-kicker meant no harm. Even someone who fires a gun into the air is unlikely to be intending harm. A virus-writer is out to do damage and seldom cares who he hurts. That he didn't intend to cause a death might be adequate to prevent life imprisoment, but the punishment should be quite harsh.
I suppose I'm just being an old fogey here, but I think life-critical medical equipment code should be written in assembler. No code lying around doing nothing. No variables the programmer isn't aware of. And for goodness sake, no damn operating system at all. Sensor data in, massaged data out, and nothing else.
The answer to your question as you stated it is "Several tens of thousands of years ago." I think you asked the wrong question.
A better question is "When does a human individual come into existence?" and it requires a rational and scientifically testable definition for human and individual. Note that there are complications in the definition of individual; that a cluster of cells may split and eventually become two individuals, and that same cluster which has split may in some cases recombine and become only one individual. The complications in defining "individual" are trivial compared to defining "human".
Only when people are using words to mean the same thing can the discussion advance, and there are plenty of people on both sides that don't want that day to come.
Even when the definitions are in place there are plenty of other issues that are relevant. For instance, even in the absence of birth control or abortion fewer than half of all fertilised eggs result in live births. Some fertilised eggs develop into nothing but tissue masses that are not recognizably human. What about ancephalic fetuses or completely brainless ones?
*** On another issue... ***
Please do not confuse the property of a political movement deriving from its name with the entire contents of that movement. This error would lead you to incorrectly believe that progressives are for progress, liberals for liberty, or centrists for something other than power.
OK, first you have to take off your blinders and realize that almost everything that runs up against the law is subject to negotiation. Ever hear of plea bargains?
Second, although rule of law is preferable to rule by arbitrary force, the Procrustean approach is not a good thing. There are bad laws, and I would argue that most laws are severely defective or evil by design. We are in serious trouble, and much of the cause is bad law.
Ballmer. Ellison.
Intel could stop doing business directly in Europe, shutting down all plants and relying instead on distributors to sell product in Europe. No physical presence in Europe makes Intel very difficult to attack by law. Intel wins by causing Europeans to lose jobs, thereby punishing the government more than it can ever hope to punish Intel.
This is $4 from every American, and the money goes to European governments to increase their abuse of both their own citizens and Americans. Everyone loses.