Another example is an ant nest (or beehive). The nest as a whole behaves as an intelligent and highly resilient organisim, the individual insects are little more than automotons.
"To gain victory over any given enemy- you must sink to his moral level....Sun Tzu recognized that 6000 years ago"
I have read "The Ancient Art of War", the message I got from the text was that force should be used intelligenly and sparingly. The classic senario of Sun Tzu is the story of the 100 conqubines and the greedy emporer. "Sinking to the enemy's moral level" is in my mind the basic point where we differ and is NOT advocated by Sun Tzu's teachings.
"We've failed at being a great civilization, almost from the outset. I can name no great civilizations based on that definition [resisting the impulse to kill others]; not a single one in the history of the world. Such a value makes a civilization WEAK, not strong."
Ever hear of a thing called the cold war? Complete anhilation of an opposing civilization is in fact very rare, just as rare as complete harmony between the two. The "reality" you speak of lies somewhere between the two extremes.
BTW: Your final point depends on your definition of winning.
That's a "test" I have used when interviewing programmers in the past, drill down on some esoteric crap until they say "I don't know", bonus points for saying "I would have to look it up". Bullshit answers means the interview will be short.
You don't have to know everything to use this test, every programmer carries several API's around in their head that they used last week or whatever, thing is: it's unusual for two programmers to carry the same API's at the same time.
"Longbows took years of training and thus were in limited supply."
At the peak of their use, virtualy every male peasant in britain practised archery with a longbow, archery was viewed as both a sport and a duty to the crown. A properly constructed longbow (using layers of different wood) has a greater range than a manually drawn crossbow and can be reloaded much faster. Mechanically drawn crossbows had a better range but reloading was painfully slow. Crossbows are certainly more accurate but that is a moot point when you are firing 100,000+ arrows per minute.
Naturally I posted first and looked up the definition of WMD later. Turns out the definition is very fuzzy (ie: The term is a propagandist's delight).
From the above link: The US civil defense includes "cactus needles coated with botulin toxin" as an example of a WMD. And, "The US FBI also considers conventional weapons (i.e. bombs) as WMD: "A weapon crosses the WMD threshold when the consequences of its release overwhelm local responders"."
Seems to me an Aussie arsonist with a box of matches and a hot NW wind can easily "overwhelm local responders".
Propaganda and hyperbole aside: The basic point is that Saddam's unconventional weapons were at no time worthy of the "strong" WMD tag because he lacked the ability to deploy them as such. It could be argued that the gas attack on the Kurds that killed up to 10% of the city's population was such a deployment. However "at best" they were comprable to some weapons recently used by the US, the thermobaric weapons used in Afghanistan come to mind.
Returning to propaganda mode and the point made by the original poster: If the US insists on labeling Saddam's unconventional weapons as WMD's, they open themselves up to similar critisims when they use "unusual" weapons of comprable force (eg: thermobaric, WP), or lasting impact (eg: DU, UXB's). Personaly I think the critisim is valid but it can cloud the central issue, ie: Saddam's genocidal intentions.
Yes it was Armitage, the GP is also confusing Kurds (North) with Shia (South). Speaking of Powell, I would love to know what was said when Powell visited Arrafat's besieged HQ.
"Pakistan doesn't get much respect for it's nukes - remember Powell threatened..."
The "threat" to/from Pakistan was from nuclear armed India not the US, India has certainly changed it's attitude and the US won't violate their airspace let alone "bomb them back to the stone age". The main "threat" from/to NK is Okinawa (sic?).
I don't think any of the Iraqi people want the US involved. Saddam lost control over the northern Kurds long ago, it was the "aborted" Shite rebellion in the south that made the US unpopular there and is the reason why the British took control of the south in the current debacle.
"It is a well known fact that during the middle ages and before then, during an attack on a city, the sieging army would catapult into cities corpses with the plague, or dead animals, in attempts to spread disease/plague that would decimate populations."
It's also well known that apes throw shit at each other. Handling the ammunition for a bio-catapult was just as deadly as it landing in your front yard.
"10,000 longbows ~ hardly!" - How does one get thy army to the city walls of thy enemy to fling thy evil shit.
The problem with bio and chem weapons as WMD's is the difficulty in "weaponising" them.
BTW: Great links even though you neglected the Monty Python reference.
Hmmm, on that basis why stop at NK, why not blow up all the weak countries while your at it. After all someone, somewhere, might think about obtaining weapons that could be used in a suicidal attack against you.
As I see it there isn't (as yet) any confirmation that they actually detonated a nuke. NK are renowned for grandiose BS, it wouldn't surprise me to find a few trainloads of explosives was the real cause of the earthquake.
The parent makes an excellent point: Any weapon can be considered a WMD. (eg:box of matches).
Saddams use of chemical weapons in the 80's was a crime against humanity but the same can be said about the use of Napalm by the US in the 60's & 70's. None of the actual events could realistically be described as "using a WMD". A credible example of "using a WMD" would be something like the nuking of Hiroshima, Holocaust gas chambers, firebombing Dressden, carpet bombing Cambodia. A WMD is characterised by how swiftly it can kill large numbers of people, "nerve gas" cannot be used as a WMD without a great deal of infrastructure, planes, rockets, ect).
In the middle ages 10,000 longbows firing a dozen arrows a minute was the pinicale of WMD technology, control of such a "weapon" commanded inter-fifedom "respect". Here in the atomic age, a nuke on top of a long range missle is the only weapon that commands international "respect" (eg: Pakistan). In other words, international politics is mearly inter-fifedom politics wearing an expensive suit.
And yes, it is very difficult to use a box of matches as a WMD. OTOH: Arsonists still get their kicks by deliberately lighting massive bushfires here in Australia, and the energy released by some of those fires dwarfs the yeild of the largest H bombs ever built.
I refuse to get into long drawn out arguments about climate myths that have already been debunked, I simply post a link to realclimate (and encourage others to do likewise). The people who created and run the site are some of the best climate researchers on the planet.
The irony is that to protect those freedoms for the majority, certain minorities that are not compatible with those freedoms must be outcast.
You start from the assumption that humans form into incompatible groups that must anihlate each other in order to progress some ill-defined set of "values". I am not denying that humans display this behaviour, I just happen think that one the "values" that makes a civilization great is resisting the instinct to kill those that are different.
You justify yourself by appealing to a myopic history while chanting the magic words "freedom" and "democracy", all I see is a scared little man that would rather use nukes in a genocidal attack than live in a world with different "values". The real irony is that your "values" (in respect to human life) are no different to those you despise.
"I've been following global warming for a long time now doing a lot research on the side for the last couple of years. Here are some facts about global warming. Some of which you hear and don't hear from the main stream media"
Just in case you actually belive your "research", here is a handy mythbuster. A bit of research on that site will set you straight, the link itself points to a search on the word "myth", I'm confident the results will cover your objections and questions.
BTW: If you can come up with an original myth I'm sure the boffins at realclimate will be happy to try and bust it for you, if they can't then you may just end up famous.
"because nothing less will disuade a group of people who believe they can bring justice to an unjust world by forcing conversion at the point of a sword."
If you want to rid the world of these kind of people, feel free to start with yourself.
"Any country within that border gaining nukes, that's when you use nukes."
Just one example of your idiocy is that Pakistan and Isreal already have nukes. Put your dick back in your pants and engage your brain. If you can't find your dick ( and/or your brain ) then at least take a look at a political map before advocating the most vile terrorist act of all time.
"I'm sure democrates[sic] will try to use the slant on this to make republicans look bad but repulican voters tend to look at all the information and see the entire picture so it is sure to infuriate them enough to show up."
I would suggest that the above remark from one of your earlier posts is one reason people think you are "anti-democrat". You clearly belive that a persons ability to judge "truth" can be determined by the colour of ones vote.
Disclaimer: I am not American and couldn't care less if your country went to hell in a hand basket, except perhaps for the real risk that you will take the rest of us with you.
"I'm not a mathematician, either, just a lawyer, which is why I tend to adopt Kennedy's approach and appeal to more knowledgeable authorities in order to promote an argument. It's Kennedy's language that I'm more concerned about, but that doesn't mean that I am not willing to hear any reasoned arguments against the procedure used to analyze poll data that he cites to in his first article."
Eminent qualifications for a Judge, I wish you well.
I'm not an expert on stats, I'm not a Chem. Eng, nor a lawyer or even an American, I do hold a BSc with majors in computer science and operations research ( lots of esoteric stats techniques that I have long since forgotten ).
Your lawyer "nose" is correct in smelling a rat from the article, the paper IMHO is solid. The GP is the one making an incorrect assumption, however he admits he failed to properly read TFP (again!). As far as I can tell the GP belives that: Because the selection of polling places was non-random, then you cannot possibly select random voters and treat the distribution of said voters as random.
I have seen the same argument several times in this thread and it is simply wrong. However it becomes confusing very quickly since most of the posts (willfully?) don't understand the argument they are offering and they regularly interchange exit polls with the overall statistics used in mass-media predictions. Exit polls are only part of the overall stats but they are both mathematically and emprically the most reliable.
What you cannot do is extrapolate an exit poll from one place to another because that would break the "random selection of voters" assumption. Since that was not the case the statistical technique is valid. More impressive in my mind is the study showing 99.0% confidence that "anomolus" exit polls were coincident with electronic voting machines. Drug companies invest billions on far worse odds than that.
Credibility: Kennedy quotes real "scientists" with real "published papers", not only that but the "scientists" he quotes are are in the top echelon of their respective ( and relevant ) fields. The opposing argument is ridicule and a genuine lack of physical evidence. Regardless of who is correct/corrupt the answer to the "credibility in voting" problem is deceptively simple. A paper trail would remove a serious doubt about the validity of the count, ie: the failed bill should be reintroduced in time for 2008.
Slashdot Mirror
Another example is an ant nest (or beehive). The nest as a whole behaves as an intelligent and highly resilient organisim, the individual insects are little more than automotons.
"To gain victory over any given enemy- you must sink to his moral level....Sun Tzu recognized that 6000 years ago"
I have read "The Ancient Art of War", the message I got from the text was that force should be used intelligenly and sparingly. The classic senario of Sun Tzu is the story of the 100 conqubines and the greedy emporer. "Sinking to the enemy's moral level" is in my mind the basic point where we differ and is NOT advocated by Sun Tzu's teachings.
"We've failed at being a great civilization, almost from the outset. I can name no great civilizations based on that definition [resisting the impulse to kill others]; not a single one in the history of the world. Such a value makes a civilization WEAK, not strong."
Ever hear of a thing called the cold war? Complete anhilation of an opposing civilization is in fact very rare, just as rare as complete harmony between the two. The "reality" you speak of lies somewhere between the two extremes.
BTW: Your final point depends on your definition of winning.
That's a "test" I have used when interviewing programmers in the past, drill down on some esoteric crap until they say "I don't know", bonus points for saying "I would have to look it up". Bullshit answers means the interview will be short.
You don't have to know everything to use this test, every programmer carries several API's around in their head that they used last week or whatever, thing is: it's unusual for two programmers to carry the same API's at the same time.
"Longbows took years of training and thus were in limited supply."
At the peak of their use, virtualy every male peasant in britain practised archery with a longbow, archery was viewed as both a sport and a duty to the crown. A properly constructed longbow (using layers of different wood) has a greater range than a manually drawn crossbow and can be reloaded much faster. Mechanically drawn crossbows had a better range but reloading was painfully slow. Crossbows are certainly more accurate but that is a moot point when you are firing 100,000+ arrows per minute.
Naturally I posted first and looked up the definition of WMD later. Turns out the definition is very fuzzy (ie: The term is a propagandist's delight).
From the above link: The US civil defense includes "cactus needles coated with botulin toxin" as an example of a WMD. And, "The US FBI also considers conventional weapons (i.e. bombs) as WMD: "A weapon crosses the WMD threshold when the consequences of its release overwhelm local responders"."
Seems to me an Aussie arsonist with a box of matches and a hot NW wind can easily "overwhelm local responders".
Propaganda and hyperbole aside: The basic point is that Saddam's unconventional weapons were at no time worthy of the "strong" WMD tag because he lacked the ability to deploy them as such. It could be argued that the gas attack on the Kurds that killed up to 10% of the city's population was such a deployment. However "at best" they were comprable to some weapons recently used by the US, the thermobaric weapons used in Afghanistan come to mind.
Returning to propaganda mode and the point made by the original poster: If the US insists on labeling Saddam's unconventional weapons as WMD's, they open themselves up to similar critisims when they use "unusual" weapons of comprable force (eg: thermobaric, WP), or lasting impact (eg: DU, UXB's). Personaly I think the critisim is valid but it can cloud the central issue, ie: Saddam's genocidal intentions.
I get your point, NK is a credible threat to Okinawa (sic?) but politicians will emphasize the threat to major cities such as Tokyo.
Yes it was Armitage, the GP is also confusing Kurds (North) with Shia (South). Speaking of Powell, I would love to know what was said when Powell visited Arrafat's besieged HQ.
Yes, and much like the bio-catapult (another post) the people handling DU ammo are also likely to be affected.
"The pinnacle of liberalism: redefining the terms until they fit your own world view."
The twin peaks of ignorance: No definition, no point.
"Pakistan doesn't get much respect for it's nukes - remember Powell threatened..."
The "threat" to/from Pakistan was from nuclear armed India not the US, India has certainly changed it's attitude and the US won't violate their airspace let alone "bomb them back to the stone age". The main "threat" from/to NK is Okinawa (sic?).
I don't think any of the Iraqi people want the US involved. Saddam lost control over the northern Kurds long ago, it was the "aborted" Shite rebellion in the south that made the US unpopular there and is the reason why the British took control of the south in the current debacle.
"It is a well known fact that during the middle ages and before then, during an attack on a city, the sieging army would catapult into cities corpses with the plague, or dead animals, in attempts to spread disease/plague that would decimate populations."
It's also well known that apes throw shit at each other. Handling the ammunition for a bio-catapult was just as deadly as it landing in your front yard.
"10,000 longbows ~ hardly!" - How does one get thy army to the city walls of thy enemy to fling thy evil shit.
The problem with bio and chem weapons as WMD's is the difficulty in "weaponising" them.
BTW: Great links even though you neglected the Monty Python reference.
Hmmm, on that basis why stop at NK, why not blow up all the weak countries while your at it. After all someone, somewhere, might think about obtaining weapons that could be used in a suicidal attack against you.
As I see it there isn't (as yet) any confirmation that they actually detonated a nuke. NK are renowned for grandiose BS, it wouldn't surprise me to find a few trainloads of explosives was the real cause of the earthquake.
The parent makes an excellent point: Any weapon can be considered a WMD. (eg:box of matches).
Saddams use of chemical weapons in the 80's was a crime against humanity but the same can be said about the use of Napalm by the US in the 60's & 70's. None of the actual events could realistically be described as "using a WMD". A credible example of "using a WMD" would be something like the nuking of Hiroshima, Holocaust gas chambers, firebombing Dressden, carpet bombing Cambodia. A WMD is characterised by how swiftly it can kill large numbers of people, "nerve gas" cannot be used as a WMD without a great deal of infrastructure, planes, rockets, ect).
In the middle ages 10,000 longbows firing a dozen arrows a minute was the pinicale of WMD technology, control of such a "weapon" commanded inter-fifedom "respect". Here in the atomic age, a nuke on top of a long range missle is the only weapon that commands international "respect" (eg: Pakistan). In other words, international politics is mearly inter-fifedom politics wearing an expensive suit.
And yes, it is very difficult to use a box of matches as a WMD. OTOH: Arsonists still get their kicks by deliberately lighting massive bushfires here in Australia, and the energy released by some of those fires dwarfs the yeild of the largest H bombs ever built.
I refuse to get into long drawn out arguments about climate myths that have already been debunked, I simply post a link to realclimate (and encourage others to do likewise). The people who created and run the site are some of the best climate researchers on the planet.
The irony is that to protect those freedoms for the majority, certain minorities that are not compatible with those freedoms must be outcast.
You start from the assumption that humans form into incompatible groups that must anihlate each other in order to progress some ill-defined set of "values". I am not denying that humans display this behaviour, I just happen think that one the "values" that makes a civilization great is resisting the instinct to kill those that are different.
You justify yourself by appealing to a myopic history while chanting the magic words "freedom" and "democracy", all I see is a scared little man that would rather use nukes in a genocidal attack than live in a world with different "values". The real irony is that your "values" (in respect to human life) are no different to those you despise.
"I've been following global warming for a long time now doing a lot research on the side for the last couple of years. Here are some facts about global warming. Some of which you hear and don't hear from the main stream media"
Just in case you actually belive your "research", here is a handy mythbuster. A bit of research on that site will set you straight, the link itself points to a search on the word "myth", I'm confident the results will cover your objections and questions.
BTW: If you can come up with an original myth I'm sure the boffins at realclimate will be happy to try and bust it for you, if they can't then you may just end up famous.
"because nothing less will disuade a group of people who believe they can bring justice to an unjust world by forcing conversion at the point of a sword."
If you want to rid the world of these kind of people, feel free to start with yourself.
"Any country within that border gaining nukes, that's when you use nukes."
Just one example of your idiocy is that Pakistan and Isreal already have nukes. Put your dick back in your pants and engage your brain. If you can't find your dick ( and/or your brain ) then at least take a look at a political map before advocating the most vile terrorist act of all time.
"I'm sure democrates[sic] will try to use the slant on this to make republicans look bad but repulican voters tend to look at all the information and see the entire picture so it is sure to infuriate them enough to show up."
I would suggest that the above remark from one of your earlier posts is one reason people think you are "anti-democrat". You clearly belive that a persons ability to judge "truth" can be determined by the colour of ones vote.
Disclaimer: I am not American and couldn't care less if your country went to hell in a hand basket, except perhaps for the real risk that you will take the rest of us with you.
"I'm not a mathematician, either, just a lawyer, which is why I tend to adopt Kennedy's approach and appeal to more knowledgeable authorities in order to promote an argument. It's Kennedy's language that I'm more concerned about, but that doesn't mean that I am not willing to hear any reasoned arguments against the procedure used to analyze poll data that he cites to in his first article."
Eminent qualifications for a Judge, I wish you well.
I'm not an expert on stats, I'm not a Chem. Eng, nor a lawyer or even an American, I do hold a BSc with majors in computer science and operations research ( lots of esoteric stats techniques that I have long since forgotten ).
Your lawyer "nose" is correct in smelling a rat from the article, the paper IMHO is solid. The GP is the one making an incorrect assumption, however he admits he failed to properly read TFP (again!). As far as I can tell the GP belives that: Because the selection of polling places was non-random, then you cannot possibly select random voters and treat the distribution of said voters as random.
I have seen the same argument several times in this thread and it is simply wrong. However it becomes confusing very quickly since most of the posts (willfully?) don't understand the argument they are offering and they regularly interchange exit polls with the overall statistics used in mass-media predictions. Exit polls are only part of the overall stats but they are both mathematically and emprically the most reliable.
What you cannot do is extrapolate an exit poll from one place to another because that would break the "random selection of voters" assumption. Since that was not the case the statistical technique is valid. More impressive in my mind is the study showing 99.0% confidence that "anomolus" exit polls were coincident with electronic voting machines. Drug companies invest billions on far worse odds than that.
Credibility: Kennedy quotes real "scientists" with real "published papers", not only that but the "scientists" he quotes are are in the top echelon of their respective ( and relevant ) fields. The opposing argument is ridicule and a genuine lack of physical evidence. Regardless of who is correct/corrupt the answer to the "credibility in voting" problem is deceptively simple. A paper trail would remove a serious doubt about the validity of the count, ie: the failed bill should be reintroduced in time for 2008.
What a fantasically informative post. Exit polls are not exit polls and actual result dissagree with exit polls that were not conducted!
Pity that such ignorance of statistics is modded +5 informative.
"Decimating means destroying nine out of ten"
Decimating originaly meant 1 in 10, not 9 in 10. Inflation perhaps?
Please explain how demographics alter an EXIT poll?
edit: "Considering that it's kept white-christian-hetrosexual-males democratic and free for 219 years"
"with the hippies. Now a days, we call them yuppies"
WTF??? How many yuppies hitch-hike, or drive barefoot in a hand painted combi van?