Don't get your knickers in a knot, people compare energy costs with Iraq because that sneaky fucker Saddam hid our oil under his country. Do you really belive the US is pissed at Iran because of a few centrifuges that it has a right to operate under the NTP? Wake up and smell the oil.
"I've learned too much about history to hold any romantic notions about it."
I think you have your 'ages' mixed up, for example stone henge was built with stone age tech and the people who built it lived in thatched roundhouses, some up to 60' in diameter, they had pens for domesticated animals. Indoor heating and light came from a central fire and the roof had no hole since smoke passed straight thru the thatch.
There is no denying life was brutally uncomfortable (particularly in cold climates like the UK), but stone age man was intellectually no different to modern man. Even Neanderthals were more advanced than the picture you paint and they were a different species. Stone age people simply thought religion and science were the same thing, and a large chunk of humanity still thinks exactly the same way.
I'd argue the body count over the last 50yrs has been extrodinarily low in per capita terms. Another post alluded to the dark ages as an example. Perhaps the height of WW2/1 reached the same level of inhumanity as everday life in the dark ages but the rest of the century has been relatively peacefull in large parts of the planet.
As for inhuman weapons - Depends on what you mean by inhuman, before the invention of antibotics countless millions of walking war wounded died a slow and horrible death.
Yes the US is by far the largest donor to international humanitarian aid and as a non-american I for one applaude them for that. However I think it would be the US that suffered the most if it became radically isolationist. The US is rich because of trade not despite it, what is 'unfortunate' is that the benifits have often been one sided.
That used to be a common practice in a commercial setting for a reason. By putting his name on the document he was stamping it with his authority and taking resposibility, it's part of his job and is meant to be a sign of his approval. The correct way to track credit for commercial documents is to include both a document authour (you) and a document approver/owner (the boss). The boss need not understand a word of it to approve it, provided he sets up an appropriate review process amoungst those that can understand it.
OTOH: Having encoutered inumerable PHB's since the mid seventies myself, I don't want to come across as telling you how to suck eggs - I dare say there was more to it than just another PHB pissing on his territory.
What about China's reaction to unforseen disaster? Currently they are suffering a huge week long bizzard that has stranded millions of people who were travelling home for Chinese new year. At one station alone there were several hundered thousand people waiting several days for the trains to restart.
People stuck in a blizzard is nothing new in China, what I found interesting was the government has made a rare official appology to the people for being unprepared for the magnitude of this particular storm. Politicians are turning up at train stations and adressing the massive crowds with bullhorns, appologising profusely while explaining that the trains can't run until the power lines are back up and the tracks are cleared.
Some people were complaining, but the majority were spontaneously applauding and cheering the guy with the bullhorn.
BTW: I realise that the news from China is tainted with propoganda and a poloitician with a blowhorn won't get the trains back any faster. However, since they have a million troops working on the clean up, have hailed 6 electrical workers who died trying to restore power as national heros, plus the afforementioned apology for something they could not realistically prevent, I think the applause is not entirely hollow.
Did they use any of the three methods you listed to gaurd against bad science? For instance has anyone replicated their results?
Were any of the reports they looked at published in peer-reviewed journals or did they just go on hearsay and not bother pointing out where this theorised mass of bad data resides?
If these two scientists can show that half of all peer-reviewed papers use false data then why don't they refute them via publishing in the same journals?
And finally, why would anyone accept at face value that half the worlds scientists are cheats but these two guys are above reproach? - Me thinks you (and the mods) belive the NOVA episode because you want to, either that or you don't understand your own list.
Still, it was an embarrasing cock-up on my part and you were right to point it out. Normally I do read what I link to and view the SMH with a skeptical eye.
Just for the record, I'm an Aussie and vote Labor via green preferences.
Compare no, link yes! This is Mick trying to cover Mick's arse by blaming the media. Previously he has tried to blame scotland yard, Indian police, unidentified tipsters, the chief prosecuter, disloyal officers, and of course Haneef himself. Personly I am suprised he hasn't thought of pinning the mess on Corey
Mick's problem is not that he prostitutes his position to curry political favour, it's the fact that everyone knows it.
As for Labour sticking with Mick, not a chance! Remeber in 2000 the AFP raided the home of a Labour MP's adviser in what amounted to a fishing expedition on opposition foreign policy of the time. Labour will relish doing Mick slowly and publicly with the promised full blown inquiry. As for Labour being any better, well soak in the irony of Rudd suggesting Mick's opinion on censorship should be censored.
Regarding #1 on your list - How do you think Saddam consistently got 99% of the popular vote? Despots and dictators implement the public disclosure part by having the 1% who get it wrong dissapear.
"The answer is:" - To fully understand why it's been practically impossible to rig an election in places such as the UK and Australia for well over a century now.
E-voting seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to the 2000 election but before re-inventing democratic elections a second time in a single decade please take a look at the existing designs that have withstood the test of time and two world wars.
Party politics at the simplest level is two or more people who agree with each other. Too many parties and you end up changing governments more often than underwear (re: Italy), not enough and you end up with no genuine choice (re: US).
Yes something perverse has happened to the entire system since I was in an Aussie HS during the 70's. Wether it was law or conventional wisdom I don't know but I was taught that patents were not granted for discoveries, regardles of wether they were physical (drugs) or mathematical (software), these things were called trade secrets.
The whole idea of the state regulating what I can put in my body gives me the creeps, it's the claims of suppliers and actions of the user that should be regulated.
"The truth is that the thousands of Chinese students are here for one reason, and one reason only: to pick our brains, and suck all the oxygen out of higher education in the United States (every U.S. student that can't find a spot because a Chinese student took it is to China's advantage.) They have no interest in having anything whatsoever to do with American culture... "
They are buying a western education, or is capitalisim no longer part of 'American culture'?
Precisely, this is why some TV programs over here warn aboriginal and torres straight islanders that "this program may contain images of deceased persons".
I think you missed the point, here in Oz I can quote what person X said about person Y provided I can demonstrate they said it.
Eg: I cannot say "Protester's carried banners denouncing Howard's war crimes" because it assumes Howard has commited war crimes, but I can quote what the banners say or what the protesters/police allege. The laws of deformation target the person making the allegation not the media that are often too weak to report it.
As for the parliment, every word uttered is written down in a public record known as "hansard". Politicians have what is known as "parlimentry privlage", this gives them a right to say whatever the fuck the want while speaking in the house provided they are not intentionally misleading parliment (difficult to prove, no?). Paul Keating for one made ample use of this by refering to his opponets both in and out of politics as "scumbags" (except for Peacock who he called a "souflay" [sic]).
I agree with you, but the reason I call him a "rabid capitialist" is that people who behave like Gordon justify their actions with capitalistic rhetoric. After all a rabid dog does not act like a normal dog.
The movie may have lost something in context over the years but I was well in my late 20's when it came out, the politics it was commenting on was the rise of the service industry and the death of western manafacturing as promoted by M.Thatcher, et al. The main two characters are Gordon and an old guy who controls an antiquated but asset rich manafacturing bussiness. The "greed is good" speech is made at a stockholders meeting where the two protaginists espouse their worldviews in an effort to win control. Thing is, following either path to it's logical conclusion will ultimately kill the company.
One message I see in the movie is that capitialisim cannot exist without cooperation and compromise, the exact opposite of the "dog eat dog" world that the OP's, Gordon and the old man all percieve, (for better or worse), as the dominant state of human interaction.
The quote Gordon Geko is famous for is "greed is good", but like I said I don't agree with either of the previous posters myopic worldviews.
"The end result is that the worlds poor and the worlds "progressives" have brainwashed each other into believing that the creation of wealth is evil, because being rich must means you're exploiting someone else"
The word for those people is "envious", and I don't think it correlates with either a lack of money or a particular political outlook.
"Gordon Gekko seems to be a socialists caricature of a modern businessman"
Close, it's a caricature of a rabid capitalist, it's also based on a real person who was locked up for insider trading.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't get your knickers in a knot, people compare energy costs with Iraq because that sneaky fucker Saddam hid our oil under his country. Do you really belive the US is pissed at Iran because of a few centrifuges that it has a right to operate under the NTP? Wake up and smell the oil.
"I've learned too much about history to hold any romantic notions about it."
I think you have your 'ages' mixed up, for example stone henge was built with stone age tech and the people who built it lived in thatched roundhouses, some up to 60' in diameter, they had pens for domesticated animals. Indoor heating and light came from a central fire and the roof had no hole since smoke passed straight thru the thatch.
There is no denying life was brutally uncomfortable (particularly in cold climates like the UK), but stone age man was intellectually no different to modern man. Even Neanderthals were more advanced than the picture you paint and they were a different species. Stone age people simply thought religion and science were the same thing, and a large chunk of humanity still thinks exactly the same way.
I'd argue the body count over the last 50yrs has been extrodinarily low in per capita terms. Another post alluded to the dark ages as an example. Perhaps the height of WW2/1 reached the same level of inhumanity as everday life in the dark ages but the rest of the century has been relatively peacefull in large parts of the planet.
As for inhuman weapons - Depends on what you mean by inhuman, before the invention of antibotics countless millions of walking war wounded died a slow and horrible death.
Yes the US is by far the largest donor to international humanitarian aid and as a non-american I for one applaude them for that. However I think it would be the US that suffered the most if it became radically isolationist. The US is rich because of trade not despite it, what is 'unfortunate' is that the benifits have often been one sided.
Who says we didn't ;)
That used to be a common practice in a commercial setting for a reason. By putting his name on the document he was stamping it with his authority and taking resposibility, it's part of his job and is meant to be a sign of his approval. The correct way to track credit for commercial documents is to include both a document authour (you) and a document approver/owner (the boss). The boss need not understand a word of it to approve it, provided he sets up an appropriate review process amoungst those that can understand it.
OTOH: Having encoutered inumerable PHB's since the mid seventies myself, I don't want to come across as telling you how to suck eggs - I dare say there was more to it than just another PHB pissing on his territory.
"Sheesh, when's that going to be applied to Man-Is-The-Cause-Of-Global-Warming?"
You can start anytime you like.
What about China's reaction to unforseen disaster? Currently they are suffering a huge week long bizzard that has stranded millions of people who were travelling home for Chinese new year. At one station alone there were several hundered thousand people waiting several days for the trains to restart.
People stuck in a blizzard is nothing new in China, what I found interesting was the government has made a rare official appology to the people for being unprepared for the magnitude of this particular storm. Politicians are turning up at train stations and adressing the massive crowds with bullhorns, appologising profusely while explaining that the trains can't run until the power lines are back up and the tracks are cleared.
Some people were complaining, but the majority were spontaneously applauding and cheering the guy with the bullhorn.
BTW: I realise that the news from China is tainted with propoganda and a poloitician with a blowhorn won't get the trains back any faster. However, since they have a million troops working on the clean up, have hailed 6 electrical workers who died trying to restore power as national heros, plus the afforementioned apology for something they could not realistically prevent, I think the applause is not entirely hollow.
Yes, the Age is definitely our best rag, it's probably why I took the headline at face value.
As for the Hun, Andrew Bolt is the only journalist who's writing consistently makes me want to beat the author into a bloody pulp.
I'm amazed that you figured out how to post flamebait on slashdot.
Who the fuck marked that as flaimbait?
Did they use any of the three methods you listed to gaurd against bad science? For instance has anyone replicated their results?
Were any of the reports they looked at published in peer-reviewed journals or did they just go on hearsay and not bother pointing out where this theorised mass of bad data resides?
If these two scientists can show that half of all peer-reviewed papers use false data then why don't they refute them via publishing in the same journals?
And finally, why would anyone accept at face value that half the worlds scientists are cheats but these two guys are above reproach? - Me thinks you (and the mods) belive the NOVA episode because you want to, either that or you don't understand your own list.
Still, it was an embarrasing cock-up on my part and you were right to point it out. Normally I do read what I link to and view the SMH with a skeptical eye.
Just for the record, I'm an Aussie and vote Labor via green preferences.
Fair point but it was unintentional, in my defense I point out that the headline of the linked article reads "Rudd blacks out Keelty's opinion".
Compare no, link yes! This is Mick trying to cover Mick's arse by blaming the media. Previously he has tried to blame scotland yard, Indian police, unidentified tipsters, the chief prosecuter, disloyal officers, and of course Haneef himself. Personly I am suprised he hasn't thought of pinning the mess on Corey
Mick's problem is not that he prostitutes his position to curry political favour, it's the fact that everyone knows it.
As for Labour sticking with Mick, not a chance! Remeber in 2000 the AFP raided the home of a Labour MP's adviser in what amounted to a fishing expedition on opposition foreign policy of the time. Labour will relish doing Mick slowly and publicly with the promised full blown inquiry. As for Labour being any better, well soak in the irony of Rudd suggesting Mick's opinion on censorship should be censored.
Regarding #1 on your list - How do you think Saddam consistently got 99% of the popular vote? Despots and dictators implement the public disclosure part by having the 1% who get it wrong dissapear.
"The answer is:" - To fully understand why it's been practically impossible to rig an election in places such as the UK and Australia for well over a century now.
E-voting seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to the 2000 election but before re-inventing democratic elections a second time in a single decade please take a look at the existing designs that have withstood the test of time and two world wars.
Party politics at the simplest level is two or more people who agree with each other. Too many parties and you end up changing governments more often than underwear (re: Italy), not enough and you end up with no genuine choice (re: US).
Yes something perverse has happened to the entire system since I was in an Aussie HS during the 70's. Wether it was law or conventional wisdom I don't know but I was taught that patents were not granted for discoveries, regardles of wether they were physical (drugs) or mathematical (software), these things were called trade secrets.
The whole idea of the state regulating what I can put in my body gives me the creeps, it's the claims of suppliers and actions of the user that should be regulated.
"The truth is that the thousands of Chinese students are here for one reason, and one reason only: to pick our brains, and suck all the oxygen out of higher education in the United States (every U.S. student that can't find a spot because a Chinese student took it is to China's advantage.) They have no interest in having anything whatsoever to do with American culture ... "
They are buying a western education, or is capitalisim no longer part of 'American culture'?
"A true civil libertarian (well-known as the shortened form, "libertarian")"
As a non-USAian I find nothing 'civil' about the anarchy espoused by many slashdotters who label themselves "libertarian".
BTW: Over here in Oz, the conservative party are called 'liberals', they are exceptionally good mates with GWB's administration.
Precisely, this is why some TV programs over here warn aboriginal and torres straight islanders that "this program may contain images of deceased persons".
"But those were F&R's words, not my own."
I think you missed the point, here in Oz I can quote what person X said about person Y provided I can demonstrate they said it.
Eg: I cannot say "Protester's carried banners denouncing Howard's war crimes" because it assumes Howard has commited war crimes, but I can quote what the banners say or what the protesters/police allege. The laws of deformation target the person making the allegation not the media that are often too weak to report it.
As for the parliment, every word uttered is written down in a public record known as "hansard". Politicians have what is known as "parlimentry privlage", this gives them a right to say whatever the fuck the want while speaking in the house provided they are not intentionally misleading parliment (difficult to prove, no?). Paul Keating for one made ample use of this by refering to his opponets both in and out of politics as "scumbags" (except for Peacock who he called a "souflay" [sic]).
I don't think I have ever agreed with anything you have ever posted, up 'till now. Nice post!
Selective hearing - Yes, how else would we get ANYTHING done at all?
I agree with you, but the reason I call him a "rabid capitialist" is that people who behave like Gordon justify their actions with capitalistic rhetoric. After all a rabid dog does not act like a normal dog.
The movie may have lost something in context over the years but I was well in my late 20's when it came out, the politics it was commenting on was the rise of the service industry and the death of western manafacturing as promoted by M.Thatcher, et al. The main two characters are Gordon and an old guy who controls an antiquated but asset rich manafacturing bussiness. The "greed is good" speech is made at a stockholders meeting where the two protaginists espouse their worldviews in an effort to win control. Thing is, following either path to it's logical conclusion will ultimately kill the company.
One message I see in the movie is that capitialisim cannot exist without cooperation and compromise, the exact opposite of the "dog eat dog" world that the OP's, Gordon and the old man all percieve, (for better or worse), as the dominant state of human interaction.
The quote Gordon Geko is famous for is "greed is good", but like I said I don't agree with either of the previous posters myopic worldviews.
"The end result is that the worlds poor and the worlds "progressives" have brainwashed each other into believing that the creation of wealth is evil, because being rich must means you're exploiting someone else"
The word for those people is "envious", and I don't think it correlates with either a lack of money or a particular political outlook.
"Gordon Gekko seems to be a socialists caricature of a modern businessman"
Close, it's a caricature of a rabid capitalist, it's also based on a real person who was locked up for insider trading.