At least admit that pure poll numbers are not relevant. The majority vote doesn't win in this country - and if you don't want to admit to that, then reconsider who is mentally incompetent.
I consider these views as wrong as the one about Iraq and 9/11.
Really? On what basis? The deal with Iraq and 9/11 is pretty solid; they had nothing to do with 9/11. It's a falsehood. On the other hand, many people disagree on the effect of taxing the rich.
For instance, the top tax bracket in the US is 35%, for everyone making more than roughly $350k. (Note that McCain doesn't think you're rich until you're making $500k, so technically the rich are being taxed the same as the upper middle class there - that both works for and against your argument.) Let us note that the Great Depression lasted from 1929 to the 1930s. Let us note that in the decade immediate prior, the 20s, the US top tax bracket was at 25%. From the mid thirties through to 1970 - over many eras of economic success - our top tax bracket was above 60%, often higher than 70% or 80%. In 1944-45, while we were paying for a large war, it was 94%.
Frankly, you can try and convince me that high taxes, and taxes alone, will prevent the country from having a vibrant economy - but I'm unlikely to buy it. We are stifled by debt (I think our #1 problem, economically and societally), due to overspending and a hugely expensive war, but we won't raise taxes, even a little bit. (In fact, the top tax bracket has decreased over the course of the Iraq war.) Our economy is dependent on a great many factors - it's a lie we're being fed that somehow, the people at the top need to retain as much cash as absolutely possible or we will all suffer. We should examine what people are claiming to be wrong views; you know, just to be fair.
1) There is no evidence that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Not a shred. Never been found. "Maybe not" doesn't cut it. If there is evidence Saddam knew of the attack, by all means cite a source. I've yet to hear a single credible, confirmed story.
2) Iraq may have been involved in state sponsored terrorism - at least so far as we claimed. But please, please cite some evidence showing they were involved, as a nation, in any of those attacks. That some of the attackers were Iraqis is not valid, unless you think that Greenpeace interfering with Japanese Whaling Vessels is equivalent to the US attacking Japan.
3) Clinton looks like a saint because Clinton didn't kill half a million people. Regardless of what Iraq did, the bloodshed we unleashed on that country is insane. There were 6k deaths in the WTC, deaths that arguably couldn't have been prevented. But we've knowingly killed 4k of our own people in Iraq. Clinton pulled out of Somalia after losing 18 soldiers - because that was too high a cost. Why does Clinton look like a saint? Because he's not bathing blood. And by the way - what does 'bomb them for 8 straight years' mean? We did not sustain an eight year constant bombing campaign. So what was it that Clinton really did?
4) Iraq was a real threat? To whom? Did we go in because of humanitarian reasons? (If so, why not Darfur?) Did we go in because of terrorist reasons? (If so, why not Saudi Arabia - which sponsors far more terrorism. Or Iran?) The fact of the matter is that regardless of the threat, we broke our own rule; never attack first. We had the high ground, sometimes tenuously (Korea, Vietnam, Cuba), since 1776. But we invaded that country, without waiting for UN approval, or sanctions to work, or anything.
5) "Threat or possible justification" is not, I repeat not sufficient for initiating an invasion of a foreign country. The threat must be great. It must be imminent. The justification must be strong - indeed, ironclad. If the threat is vague and indirect, if the justification is weak and does not hold up well, if at all, to scrutiny, then it is as no justification at all. Otherwise, we might as well say it's alright to use military force because we wanna. And there is simply no moral, ethical or legal reason to allow that.
The upshot is that, yeah, you should be labeled a troll for this. This is bupkiss.
Au contraire. McCain has always been representative of those of us Republicans that cheered when he condemned the extreme right for intolerance. There's plenty of people who have noticed that McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts and argued to pay off the federal debt instead, argued against expanding medicare when we can't pay for what we already had, argued against NCLB (well intended but ultimately a disaster)... and, of course, McCain made himself even more famous by arguing that the USA needed more troops in Iraq. Most damning of all, Woodward, hardly a fan of Republican politics, has McCain quoted storming out of the white house, saying, "All I get about the war is f--- spin."
These are all things McCain did before running for President, and especially before getting the nomination. Since that point he has swung hard to the Republican party lines, even to the point of saying he would not vote for bills he sponsored on immigration. He's backed away from his signature issue of finance reform, and despite being anti-war in the past, no one accuses him of that now.
The fact of the matter is that regardless of what McCain championed before, he's a different man now, with different positions. If you're voting for the McCain of 2000, or even 2004, you're voting for someone who doesn't exist.
Obama is doomed in this election. It's not even that he's black that's the problem, its his politics and his pick of VP. Then, there's a character test here. Obama's never really lost and one has to wonder if he will panic when McCain pulls ahead in the polls post convention.
Let's talk about VP picks first. Until Palin was picked we heard nothing from McCain or the right other than Obama was inexperienced. Palin is as inexperienced as national level politicians get. A governor of two years does not a VP make - and that's about her only credential. Biden may not be your favorite person, but he has a great deal of experience backing him. Further, he has a lot of blue collar people on his side - and has fought for that class well for a long time. He's not the terrible pick the right is making him out to be - to the contrary one has to wonder if they keep calling him a bad pick because he's a good one? This idea that no one likes him is demonstrably false - he's being elected time and again, so it can't be that no one likes him - just no one you like.
But this notion of a character test... where is that from? What makes you think that Obama is going to suddenly implode because of poll results? What, for that matter, makes you think his moves are desperate? Which moves, particularly? And why is it that being a 'classic class war candidate' so bad? Especially in an era when our middle and lower classes have been at the spear's point of the sacrifices our country has demanded?
He's got himself surrounded by so many leaches flocking to all that campaign money he's raising that he's becoming almost Carter like in his perceived obligation to take heed of all them.
Where are you getting this from? Is there any actual evidence he's being pulled in too many directions? Or is that just the spin right now on why Obama will never work? And where is this idea that he's swung to the left come from? Most on the left would actually say that Obama has swung towards the center (backing off on eliminating our commitment in Iraq, backing off the telecom amnesty) far more than he has taken up hard leftist issues (like... what? Nothing.)
What I hear consistently from the right is that Obama is 'maniacal', 'messianic', 'too leftist', 'egotistical', 'desperate'. Where these claims can be supported or refuted by evidence, they're refuted. His supporters on the left don't think he's left enough - only the right is trying to claim that he's left (presumably to sway the centrists to picking a right candidate). They talk about leeches on his campaign, but never about the fact that of McCain's top ten advisers, se
The situation in the Caucuses is a lot more complicated than simply writing it off to Georgian aggression. Note that South Ossetia is (was) officially part of Georgia; it was breaking away much the way the South broke away from the United States back in the 19th century. Georgia responded exactly like the US did back then, and any country does when part of it tries to secede. In that situation, though, South Ossetia was making their life particularly difficult, with military actions and direct support from Russia - which as we saw was quite quick to respond in force.
That is not to say that Georgia was in the right, or that the Western response (which seems rooted firmly in restoring a Cold War sort of world order) was appropriate. All around there was a failure of diplomatic action, because for whatever reason the various powers feel that going to the military option is the solution to any situation. Surely nothing about the actions during the last eight years of the world's largest superpower has nothing to do with that.
If you want change in foreign policy, then you need to elect congressmen willing to cut our military budget. As long as we fund that disproportionately more than any other initiative our country has, it will continue to dominate the way we interact with other countries. But how much chance is there that any of us are going to make that an issue?
While who is leading in the polls is one indicator of who might win, our system is somewhat more complicated than that - as proven by the fact that Gore lost, despite winning the popular vote.
The Daily Kos has an interesting analysis of the Electoral College votes, and the likely battleground states and challenges the contenders will face. From that perspective, Obama has a significant if not insurmountable lead.
Realize, though, that unions are not a strict consolidation of power. Over time this happens, just like in any institution. But what they do is fundamentally divide power between the institution they're unionizing against (in this case, the Police Force) and the Union. Over time both organizations will accrue more power (assuming they're otherwise healthy), and that will create more opportunity for abuse.
The alternative to spreading power out in that manner is strong, centralized loci of power. A lot of complain in the federal government can be tied to the loss, over the years of federalism. The power is all at the federal level; the states are enervated, and cannot really act on their own anymore, even to teach their children. Unions are a direct action against such pooling of power; but often, two pools are not much better than one.
I, of course, have no ideal solution. I think it runs along the lines of some framework that forces power apart as much as it accrues. But traditionally the cost for that is in the form of bureaucracy; unions, for instance, force a lot of rules that otherwise seem arbitrary but support the bureaucracy and the prevent of pooling of power. That slowness, which you also see in democracy, is the weak link; no one would complain about unions if you eliminated the speed and efficiency problems, because they're simply a more fair system. The cost is that it drains from the system as a whole, and no one likes that - least of all the people on top.
Which is another minor note, now that I think about it. IT workers are not the same class as workers who have traditionally unionized (leaving out the Medical and Legal professions, which clearly unionized in order to shut out people who claimed expertise on critical matters but had none - the IT industry has a certification framework that more or less covers this). Traditional unions cover people who are in the bottom half of the income spectrum, not the middle half. For that reason, I don't expect to see them unionize, even if it's a good thing.
Cops have been corrupt since time immemorial. In fact, any locus of power brings corruption to it. It is, in fact, why our founding fathers devised checks and balances; spreading out the power between three branches limits the degree to which it can be abused. The more people involved, the less abuse can happen.
Yeah, cops abuse their power. But I guarantee that there is far less abuse under police unions than without them. You have a high threshold to prove it otherwise.
They'll get the message, for sure. Rather than being obnoxious spammers operating out of a basement, they'll be obnoxious spammers operating out of a basement with lots and lots of guns.
So long as the incentive is there, you're going to have people incentivized by it. You can stack on as many penalties or consequences as you want, you'll still get a few people for whom it won't matter.
There are really only two options; remove the incentive. In this case, I have no idea how that works. Alternatively, work to minimize actual damage. Ironically, I think that spammers are likely to feed into anti-net-neutrality movements. When Comcast is filtering all your traffic, they can filter out virus payloads. Everyone is happy in 1984!
Are you for real? That means the woman would be pregnant for seven and a half years. How does that make sense in modern society? A better question; how does that supposition fit with the data? It doesn't. In high-resource societies people tend to have fewer children.
Let's turn to resources; you're saying that ten children with one wife isn't a drain on resources, but with ten wives it is? Who is watching these children? Teaching them? Is the wife suckling the youngest while helping the oldest with their homework? In truth, we outsource a lot of the work modern families can't handle on their own. You're probably spending as much money on that outsourcing as you would on ten wives.
Polygamy and monogamy are not mere game theory concepts. At best, I think you can call them guesses; I guess that if I sleep around, my genes will survive. That is probably still true in a non-violent society, even if in a violent society there is a definitive advantage to it. Much like it's still useful to walk, even in a society with wheelchairs.
Also, I have to plug the Head First series, which does a better job of explaining Java (and attendant CS theory) to visual learners than anything else I've run into, period.
As a Java developer for nigh on ten years now, and someone who painfully learned how to program database connections by hand, then use orms like Hibernate, I might caution against Struts (though the rest of your order-of-learning is excellent). Struts was definitely in my path of learning, but I am not sure what it offers these days that isn't done more comprehensively - and to my mind, more cleanly - with Spring.
Of course, there are a lot of legacy systems these days built on Struts - for good reason. So if you're looking to work on older code, it's not a bad thing. But if you're planning a career with stuff that is from scratch, I think that Spring forces one to code in a better manner than nearly any other framework out there.
It may be, of course, that I'm just in love with inversion of control - which I think is one of those things that, if you understand it, gives you a much better command of abstracted design.
One other thing I think is pretty cool is JavaBLACKbelt, which has a pretty good, community developed set of quizzes that are useful for gauging your own command of the language.
Rethink that from a more basic perspective. Are you saying that if you have 10,000 cards, you have an 80% chance of none of them failing?
It is not, actually an independent event. If you are rolling dice, and are looking for a given number, as the number of rolls increases so does the probability of your number occurring in the set of results. Naturally this changes once you roll - but that's not what we're talking about.
This is precisely why you have independent organizations capable of defending people who cannot defend themselves, when the issues of public interest become involved. I actually believe that the government should have to contribute to the ACLU in a mandatory fashion not alterable by the latest congress or budget for precisely this reason. It is in all our interests that we have institutions defending the public, not just the government or corporations.
I did not preach that posting on Slashdot was futile - I said that it did not count as an affirmative action. Discourse is fine, and on some level you can call it an 'action', and even define it as 'good'. But in no situation is discourse a sufficient condition for bringing about change.
Therefore, if you want to be part of the solution, posting on Slashdot or preaching to the choir does not count.
I have nothing against people posting on slashdot - oh, the hypocrisy if I did! But I do not count it, and do not think well of anyone who does count it, as an action that helps to materially improve the situation. Note that I did not call it wasted effort, as you claimed I did. I did not call it futile, as you claimed I did. You entirely decided on your own that was what I was saying without at all reading what I said. It is not futile; it's not (usually - in this case I'm beginning to wonder) wasted effort. It is, however, insufficient to the task of bringing about a change - on it's own. That is why I asked what that person was doing.
That is in general. Specifically, this holds double when the post has nothing to say, save to reinforce the idea that Americans are too lazy to do anything, so long as they have their TVs. In this, I think, I actually disproved what appears to be the main point you're pushing; that I'm cynical.
I'm happy that I've served as your springboard to shout from the rooftops how virtuous an activity posting on Slashdot is, but rhetorically your argument is weak, and philosophically it's vacuous. Come back when you bother to read people's posts, digest them as posts in their own right and not what you want them to be, and have something useful to say. Marks of a useful post; it doesn't resort to profanity to make it's point.
You're claiming that I am preaching actions are futile; a straw man argument. What I disagree with is when someone implies that a totally generically defined population will refuse to do anything, and so therefore they won't. Action starts with you; that is a message worth propagating. That 'Americans are too lazy to do anything' is not a message worth propagating. Neither is:
IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION, THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Until such time as you can answer that question for yourself, you have little ground to complain that other people aren't doing enough. All you've proven is that your initial statement that Americans will do nothing is true; after all, you yourself have not figured out what to do. It's ridiculous to indict others for not standing up for their rights if you, yourself, are unwilling to do so.
Worrying about what other people are doing about it will only go so far. What are you doing about it? Posting on Slashdot - or preaching to the choir - doesn't count as an affirmative action.
Climate change predictions have to do with tracking a wide variety of observable measures over a large area (ie, the globe), and noting that the patterns in given areas are changing significantly from what we've seen in the previous one hundred years.
If, however, that you think that we can somehow predict the weather given an entirely new pattern of measurements, then you've never, ever, watched the nightly news weather segment. We're terrible at predicting weather, because it's an incredibly complex system. That does not, in and of itself, suggest that the system is as stable as it has ever been.
What I don't understand is why, given the immense amount of production we are capable of, people seem to cling to this idea that we can never, ever, possibly change the planet's weather. Is it really rational to say that, given everything we dump into the atmosphere, nothing would change?
By 'not owning it' I mean that they have not admitted to cheating. It is possible to believe that the ethical action is to break the rules. Rules are not ethics; they're more malleable, and need to be challenged from time to time in different ways. It's valid to intentionally break a rule, at times.
However, you still have to accept the consequences. It is not valid to break a rule and then claim you didn't, and try to cover it up to avoid those consequences. The Chinese are way off the reservation there.
With all due respect, my original post was in direct response to it's parent, positing a situation in which the Chinese are not acting out of pure desire to be bastards, but rather an ethical framework - however corrupt by our standards - that is governing their actions in a consistent and therefore understandable way. With all due respect, the subtle ad-hominem attack suggests that you're not 100% comfortable with your assessment either of my viewpoint or that what I was saying was off topic. In fact, given the moderation, I think that no one saw it as particularly off topic - just that my argument was threadbare.
And, given that, I have definitely come to believe I did not articulate what I was saying very well. I definitely think that the issue at hand became confused, and you are correct in suggesting there are two thrusts. But the second thrust had nothing to do with rewarding China for cheating - rather it had to do with understanding the behavior, and how our obsession with the symptom of the underlying behavioral model was trumping our ability to understand that model. I'm not sure where this idea that I wanted to reward China for cheating came from, other than to suggest they have a right to cheat, and accept the results of that action - in fact, only if they accept those results.
I have to seriously disagree that the only route to getting the Chinese to treat their citizens better is highlighting embarrassment. For that matter, it's their embarrassment over the issue that is spurring on such destructive behavior as the deletion of news archives. Regardless, highlight away - just so long as you're not putting a D misdemeanor on the same scale as an A felony.
And why we put them away. Because we all recognize that the right thing to do when someone comes to the conclusion that killing is alright is to remove the ability for them to carry through such an action.
I find that when I start a 100 meter dash a minute before everyone else I usually win. The rule that says all contestants have to start at the same time, is a bad rule, therefore I feel free to ignore it. Does that sound like a reasonable statement to you?
Yes, because the resultant consequence is that you don't win. You're disqualified. Ethically, if the rule is unjust, then you should still break it, and still be disqualified. That is the ethical course - not the course that will win you the race.
I'm not arguing that the breakage of the rule is not, on it's face, bad. I'm arguing that it's a minor issue compared to the far bigger issues that led to the breaking of the rule. We're dealing with China here, which to our way of thinking, is entirely off the hook. Yet we do it anyway - allow them to compete, to even set the rules - because we want to win. My argument is that the discussion of the rule breakage is insignificant compared to the other problems - a symptom, if you will, of corrupt government, one that we condone and legitimize by dealing with them; by saying their biggest sin is breaking an age restriction rule.
Irrelevant. Cheating is cheating. They are aware of the rules and have made a conscious effort to hide their actions - which makes them guilty. They may believe that the rule is bogus but I don't buy for a second that Chinese culture sees deception on the world stage as moral or honorable. If they believe the rule should be changed the only responsible course is to present their case to the IOC. It's been done before (1997).
I did not make the point that the Chinese found deception to be moral. I made the point that they may find the inclusion of a younger athlete moral, but unethically chose to lie about it - undermining their case that it's moral.
Any reasonably insightful individual can see why allowing countries to abuse their citizens for any gain is bad for humanity on all levels.
But we let China do this anyway. The slap on the wrist by the IOC - or even the loss of a medal is no great victory against the actual horribleness that they commit. We are entirely lying to ourselves if we believe otherwise - especially because they can entirely justify their action to their own people.
The objective is to bring the world together under a common standard - not to win at all costs.
Precisely. But the IOC is clearly not doing that. Their demand of proof of age is a government issued document by the government sending the competitor. It is a weak constraint, not meant to actually enforce any rule. We argue about the rule, but haven't taken due diligence to see that it was going to reasonably be met. It's like a bartender not asking for id to see if you're 21. Yet, the United States and nearly every other nation despite the lack of sufficient IOC standardschooses to compete, knowing full well that unscrupulous competitors will use younger athletes. To us, the win is a bigger concern than the conditions under which the contest took place.
If we allow countries to lie in international games such as this - which is the same as cheating - then we allow and enable them to continue behaving in an objectionable manner.
I never said we should let China lie about it. In fact, we should encourage them to be honest about it. To do otherwise, and to not put at risk our own ambitions to win in order to have that fair contest, defeats the whole purpose.
This actually illustrates why it is that this is unclear; several people are arguing destruction of the athlete's bodies (the issue I think is worse), and you point out that young gymnasts have an advantage because of the size to strength ratio. So is it one, the other, both? Result: Obfuscated.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, come on!
At least admit that pure poll numbers are not relevant. The majority vote doesn't win in this country - and if you don't want to admit to that, then reconsider who is mentally incompetent.
I consider these views as wrong as the one about Iraq and 9/11.
Really? On what basis? The deal with Iraq and 9/11 is pretty solid; they had nothing to do with 9/11. It's a falsehood. On the other hand, many people disagree on the effect of taxing the rich.
For instance, the top tax bracket in the US is 35%, for everyone making more than roughly $350k. (Note that McCain doesn't think you're rich until you're making $500k, so technically the rich are being taxed the same as the upper middle class there - that both works for and against your argument.) Let us note that the Great Depression lasted from 1929 to the 1930s. Let us note that in the decade immediate prior, the 20s, the US top tax bracket was at 25%. From the mid thirties through to 1970 - over many eras of economic success - our top tax bracket was above 60%, often higher than 70% or 80%. In 1944-45, while we were paying for a large war, it was 94%.
Frankly, you can try and convince me that high taxes, and taxes alone, will prevent the country from having a vibrant economy - but I'm unlikely to buy it. We are stifled by debt (I think our #1 problem, economically and societally), due to overspending and a hugely expensive war, but we won't raise taxes, even a little bit. (In fact, the top tax bracket has decreased over the course of the Iraq war.) Our economy is dependent on a great many factors - it's a lie we're being fed that somehow, the people at the top need to retain as much cash as absolutely possible or we will all suffer. We should examine what people are claiming to be wrong views; you know, just to be fair.
1) There is no evidence that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Not a shred. Never been found. "Maybe not" doesn't cut it. If there is evidence Saddam knew of the attack, by all means cite a source. I've yet to hear a single credible, confirmed story.
2) Iraq may have been involved in state sponsored terrorism - at least so far as we claimed. But please, please cite some evidence showing they were involved, as a nation, in any of those attacks. That some of the attackers were Iraqis is not valid, unless you think that Greenpeace interfering with Japanese Whaling Vessels is equivalent to the US attacking Japan.
3) Clinton looks like a saint because Clinton didn't kill half a million people. Regardless of what Iraq did, the bloodshed we unleashed on that country is insane. There were 6k deaths in the WTC, deaths that arguably couldn't have been prevented. But we've knowingly killed 4k of our own people in Iraq. Clinton pulled out of Somalia after losing 18 soldiers - because that was too high a cost. Why does Clinton look like a saint? Because he's not bathing blood. And by the way - what does 'bomb them for 8 straight years' mean? We did not sustain an eight year constant bombing campaign. So what was it that Clinton really did?
4) Iraq was a real threat? To whom? Did we go in because of humanitarian reasons? (If so, why not Darfur?) Did we go in because of terrorist reasons? (If so, why not Saudi Arabia - which sponsors far more terrorism. Or Iran?) The fact of the matter is that regardless of the threat, we broke our own rule; never attack first. We had the high ground, sometimes tenuously (Korea, Vietnam, Cuba), since 1776. But we invaded that country, without waiting for UN approval, or sanctions to work, or anything.
5) "Threat or possible justification" is not, I repeat not sufficient for initiating an invasion of a foreign country. The threat must be great. It must be imminent. The justification must be strong - indeed, ironclad. If the threat is vague and indirect, if the justification is weak and does not hold up well, if at all, to scrutiny, then it is as no justification at all. Otherwise, we might as well say it's alright to use military force because we wanna. And there is simply no moral, ethical or legal reason to allow that.
The upshot is that, yeah, you should be labeled a troll for this. This is bupkiss.
Au contraire. McCain has always been representative of those of us Republicans that cheered when he condemned the extreme right for intolerance. There's plenty of people who have noticed that McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts and argued to pay off the federal debt instead, argued against expanding medicare when we can't pay for what we already had, argued against NCLB (well intended but ultimately a disaster)... and, of course, McCain made himself even more famous by arguing that the USA needed more troops in Iraq. Most damning of all, Woodward, hardly a fan of Republican politics, has McCain quoted storming out of the white house, saying, "All I get about the war is f--- spin."
These are all things McCain did before running for President, and especially before getting the nomination. Since that point he has swung hard to the Republican party lines, even to the point of saying he would not vote for bills he sponsored on immigration. He's backed away from his signature issue of finance reform, and despite being anti-war in the past, no one accuses him of that now.
The fact of the matter is that regardless of what McCain championed before, he's a different man now, with different positions. If you're voting for the McCain of 2000, or even 2004, you're voting for someone who doesn't exist.
Obama is doomed in this election. It's not even that he's black that's the problem, its his politics and his pick of VP. Then, there's a character test here. Obama's never really lost and one has to wonder if he will panic when McCain pulls ahead in the polls post convention.
Let's talk about VP picks first. Until Palin was picked we heard nothing from McCain or the right other than Obama was inexperienced. Palin is as inexperienced as national level politicians get. A governor of two years does not a VP make - and that's about her only credential. Biden may not be your favorite person, but he has a great deal of experience backing him. Further, he has a lot of blue collar people on his side - and has fought for that class well for a long time. He's not the terrible pick the right is making him out to be - to the contrary one has to wonder if they keep calling him a bad pick because he's a good one? This idea that no one likes him is demonstrably false - he's being elected time and again, so it can't be that no one likes him - just no one you like.
But this notion of a character test... where is that from? What makes you think that Obama is going to suddenly implode because of poll results? What, for that matter, makes you think his moves are desperate? Which moves, particularly? And why is it that being a 'classic class war candidate' so bad? Especially in an era when our middle and lower classes have been at the spear's point of the sacrifices our country has demanded?
He's got himself surrounded by so many leaches flocking to all that campaign money he's raising that he's becoming almost Carter like in his perceived obligation to take heed of all them.
Where are you getting this from? Is there any actual evidence he's being pulled in too many directions? Or is that just the spin right now on why Obama will never work? And where is this idea that he's swung to the left come from? Most on the left would actually say that Obama has swung towards the center (backing off on eliminating our commitment in Iraq, backing off the telecom amnesty) far more than he has taken up hard leftist issues (like... what? Nothing.)
What I hear consistently from the right is that Obama is 'maniacal', 'messianic', 'too leftist', 'egotistical', 'desperate'. Where these claims can be supported or refuted by evidence, they're refuted. His supporters on the left don't think he's left enough - only the right is trying to claim that he's left (presumably to sway the centrists to picking a right candidate). They talk about leeches on his campaign, but never about the fact that of McCain's top ten advisers, se
The situation in the Caucuses is a lot more complicated than simply writing it off to Georgian aggression. Note that South Ossetia is (was) officially part of Georgia; it was breaking away much the way the South broke away from the United States back in the 19th century. Georgia responded exactly like the US did back then, and any country does when part of it tries to secede. In that situation, though, South Ossetia was making their life particularly difficult, with military actions and direct support from Russia - which as we saw was quite quick to respond in force.
That is not to say that Georgia was in the right, or that the Western response (which seems rooted firmly in restoring a Cold War sort of world order) was appropriate. All around there was a failure of diplomatic action, because for whatever reason the various powers feel that going to the military option is the solution to any situation. Surely nothing about the actions during the last eight years of the world's largest superpower has nothing to do with that.
If you want change in foreign policy, then you need to elect congressmen willing to cut our military budget. As long as we fund that disproportionately more than any other initiative our country has, it will continue to dominate the way we interact with other countries. But how much chance is there that any of us are going to make that an issue?
While who is leading in the polls is one indicator of who might win, our system is somewhat more complicated than that - as proven by the fact that Gore lost, despite winning the popular vote.
The Daily Kos has an interesting analysis of the Electoral College votes, and the likely battleground states and challenges the contenders will face. From that perspective, Obama has a significant if not insurmountable lead.
Realize, though, that unions are not a strict consolidation of power. Over time this happens, just like in any institution. But what they do is fundamentally divide power between the institution they're unionizing against (in this case, the Police Force) and the Union. Over time both organizations will accrue more power (assuming they're otherwise healthy), and that will create more opportunity for abuse.
The alternative to spreading power out in that manner is strong, centralized loci of power. A lot of complain in the federal government can be tied to the loss, over the years of federalism. The power is all at the federal level; the states are enervated, and cannot really act on their own anymore, even to teach their children. Unions are a direct action against such pooling of power; but often, two pools are not much better than one.
I, of course, have no ideal solution. I think it runs along the lines of some framework that forces power apart as much as it accrues. But traditionally the cost for that is in the form of bureaucracy; unions, for instance, force a lot of rules that otherwise seem arbitrary but support the bureaucracy and the prevent of pooling of power. That slowness, which you also see in democracy, is the weak link; no one would complain about unions if you eliminated the speed and efficiency problems, because they're simply a more fair system. The cost is that it drains from the system as a whole, and no one likes that - least of all the people on top.
Which is another minor note, now that I think about it. IT workers are not the same class as workers who have traditionally unionized (leaving out the Medical and Legal professions, which clearly unionized in order to shut out people who claimed expertise on critical matters but had none - the IT industry has a certification framework that more or less covers this). Traditional unions cover people who are in the bottom half of the income spectrum, not the middle half. For that reason, I don't expect to see them unionize, even if it's a good thing.
Cops have been corrupt since time immemorial. In fact, any locus of power brings corruption to it. It is, in fact, why our founding fathers devised checks and balances; spreading out the power between three branches limits the degree to which it can be abused. The more people involved, the less abuse can happen.
Yeah, cops abuse their power. But I guarantee that there is far less abuse under police unions than without them. You have a high threshold to prove it otherwise.
They'll get the message, for sure. Rather than being obnoxious spammers operating out of a basement, they'll be obnoxious spammers operating out of a basement with lots and lots of guns.
So long as the incentive is there, you're going to have people incentivized by it. You can stack on as many penalties or consequences as you want, you'll still get a few people for whom it won't matter.
There are really only two options; remove the incentive. In this case, I have no idea how that works. Alternatively, work to minimize actual damage. Ironically, I think that spammers are likely to feed into anti-net-neutrality movements. When Comcast is filtering all your traffic, they can filter out virus payloads. Everyone is happy in 1984!
Are you for real? That means the woman would be pregnant for seven and a half years. How does that make sense in modern society? A better question; how does that supposition fit with the data? It doesn't. In high-resource societies people tend to have fewer children.
Let's turn to resources; you're saying that ten children with one wife isn't a drain on resources, but with ten wives it is? Who is watching these children? Teaching them? Is the wife suckling the youngest while helping the oldest with their homework? In truth, we outsource a lot of the work modern families can't handle on their own. You're probably spending as much money on that outsourcing as you would on ten wives.
Polygamy and monogamy are not mere game theory concepts. At best, I think you can call them guesses; I guess that if I sleep around, my genes will survive. That is probably still true in a non-violent society, even if in a violent society there is a definitive advantage to it. Much like it's still useful to walk, even in a society with wheelchairs.
Also, I have to plug the Head First series, which does a better job of explaining Java (and attendant CS theory) to visual learners than anything else I've run into, period.
As a Java developer for nigh on ten years now, and someone who painfully learned how to program database connections by hand, then use orms like Hibernate, I might caution against Struts (though the rest of your order-of-learning is excellent). Struts was definitely in my path of learning, but I am not sure what it offers these days that isn't done more comprehensively - and to my mind, more cleanly - with Spring.
Of course, there are a lot of legacy systems these days built on Struts - for good reason. So if you're looking to work on older code, it's not a bad thing. But if you're planning a career with stuff that is from scratch, I think that Spring forces one to code in a better manner than nearly any other framework out there.
It may be, of course, that I'm just in love with inversion of control - which I think is one of those things that, if you understand it, gives you a much better command of abstracted design.
One other thing I think is pretty cool is JavaBLACKbelt, which has a pretty good, community developed set of quizzes that are useful for gauging your own command of the language.
Rethink that from a more basic perspective. Are you saying that if you have 10,000 cards, you have an 80% chance of none of them failing?
It is not, actually an independent event. If you are rolling dice, and are looking for a given number, as the number of rolls increases so does the probability of your number occurring in the set of results. Naturally this changes once you roll - but that's not what we're talking about.
This is precisely why you have independent organizations capable of defending people who cannot defend themselves, when the issues of public interest become involved. I actually believe that the government should have to contribute to the ACLU in a mandatory fashion not alterable by the latest congress or budget for precisely this reason. It is in all our interests that we have institutions defending the public, not just the government or corporations.
I did not preach that posting on Slashdot was futile - I said that it did not count as an affirmative action. Discourse is fine, and on some level you can call it an 'action', and even define it as 'good'. But in no situation is discourse a sufficient condition for bringing about change.
Therefore, if you want to be part of the solution, posting on Slashdot or preaching to the choir does not count.
I have nothing against people posting on slashdot - oh, the hypocrisy if I did! But I do not count it, and do not think well of anyone who does count it, as an action that helps to materially improve the situation. Note that I did not call it wasted effort, as you claimed I did. I did not call it futile, as you claimed I did. You entirely decided on your own that was what I was saying without at all reading what I said. It is not futile; it's not (usually - in this case I'm beginning to wonder) wasted effort. It is, however, insufficient to the task of bringing about a change - on it's own. That is why I asked what that person was doing.
That is in general. Specifically, this holds double when the post has nothing to say, save to reinforce the idea that Americans are too lazy to do anything, so long as they have their TVs. In this, I think, I actually disproved what appears to be the main point you're pushing; that I'm cynical.
I'm happy that I've served as your springboard to shout from the rooftops how virtuous an activity posting on Slashdot is, but rhetorically your argument is weak, and philosophically it's vacuous. Come back when you bother to read people's posts, digest them as posts in their own right and not what you want them to be, and have something useful to say. Marks of a useful post; it doesn't resort to profanity to make it's point.
A well articulated response...?
You're claiming that I am preaching actions are futile; a straw man argument. What I disagree with is when someone implies that a totally generically defined population will refuse to do anything, and so therefore they won't. Action starts with you; that is a message worth propagating. That 'Americans are too lazy to do anything' is not a message worth propagating. Neither is:
IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION, THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP!
What do you propose I do about it then?
Until such time as you can answer that question for yourself, you have little ground to complain that other people aren't doing enough. All you've proven is that your initial statement that Americans will do nothing is true; after all, you yourself have not figured out what to do. It's ridiculous to indict others for not standing up for their rights if you, yourself, are unwilling to do so.
Worrying about what other people are doing about it will only go so far. What are you doing about it? Posting on Slashdot - or preaching to the choir - doesn't count as an affirmative action.
Climate change predictions have to do with tracking a wide variety of observable measures over a large area (ie, the globe), and noting that the patterns in given areas are changing significantly from what we've seen in the previous one hundred years.
If, however, that you think that we can somehow predict the weather given an entirely new pattern of measurements, then you've never, ever, watched the nightly news weather segment. We're terrible at predicting weather, because it's an incredibly complex system. That does not, in and of itself, suggest that the system is as stable as it has ever been.
What I don't understand is why, given the immense amount of production we are capable of, people seem to cling to this idea that we can never, ever, possibly change the planet's weather. Is it really rational to say that, given everything we dump into the atmosphere, nothing would change?
By 'not owning it' I mean that they have not admitted to cheating. It is possible to believe that the ethical action is to break the rules. Rules are not ethics; they're more malleable, and need to be challenged from time to time in different ways. It's valid to intentionally break a rule, at times.
However, you still have to accept the consequences. It is not valid to break a rule and then claim you didn't, and try to cover it up to avoid those consequences. The Chinese are way off the reservation there.
With all due respect, my original post was in direct response to it's parent, positing a situation in which the Chinese are not acting out of pure desire to be bastards, but rather an ethical framework - however corrupt by our standards - that is governing their actions in a consistent and therefore understandable way. With all due respect, the subtle ad-hominem attack suggests that you're not 100% comfortable with your assessment either of my viewpoint or that what I was saying was off topic. In fact, given the moderation, I think that no one saw it as particularly off topic - just that my argument was threadbare.
And, given that, I have definitely come to believe I did not articulate what I was saying very well. I definitely think that the issue at hand became confused, and you are correct in suggesting there are two thrusts. But the second thrust had nothing to do with rewarding China for cheating - rather it had to do with understanding the behavior, and how our obsession with the symptom of the underlying behavioral model was trumping our ability to understand that model. I'm not sure where this idea that I wanted to reward China for cheating came from, other than to suggest they have a right to cheat, and accept the results of that action - in fact, only if they accept those results.
I have to seriously disagree that the only route to getting the Chinese to treat their citizens better is highlighting embarrassment. For that matter, it's their embarrassment over the issue that is spurring on such destructive behavior as the deletion of news archives. Regardless, highlight away - just so long as you're not putting a D misdemeanor on the same scale as an A felony.
And why we put them away. Because we all recognize that the right thing to do when someone comes to the conclusion that killing is alright is to remove the ability for them to carry through such an action.
I find that when I start a 100 meter dash a minute before everyone else I usually win. The rule that says all contestants have to start at the same time, is a bad rule, therefore I feel free to ignore it. Does that sound like a reasonable statement to you?
Yes, because the resultant consequence is that you don't win. You're disqualified. Ethically, if the rule is unjust, then you should still break it, and still be disqualified. That is the ethical course - not the course that will win you the race.
I'm not arguing that the breakage of the rule is not, on it's face, bad. I'm arguing that it's a minor issue compared to the far bigger issues that led to the breaking of the rule. We're dealing with China here, which to our way of thinking, is entirely off the hook. Yet we do it anyway - allow them to compete, to even set the rules - because we want to win. My argument is that the discussion of the rule breakage is insignificant compared to the other problems - a symptom, if you will, of corrupt government, one that we condone and legitimize by dealing with them; by saying their biggest sin is breaking an age restriction rule.
Irrelevant. Cheating is cheating. They are aware of the rules and have made a conscious effort to hide their actions - which makes them guilty. They may believe that the rule is bogus but I don't buy for a second that Chinese culture sees deception on the world stage as moral or honorable. If they believe the rule should be changed the only responsible course is to present their case to the IOC. It's been done before (1997).
I did not make the point that the Chinese found deception to be moral. I made the point that they may find the inclusion of a younger athlete moral, but unethically chose to lie about it - undermining their case that it's moral.
Any reasonably insightful individual can see why allowing countries to abuse their citizens for any gain is bad for humanity on all levels.
But we let China do this anyway. The slap on the wrist by the IOC - or even the loss of a medal is no great victory against the actual horribleness that they commit. We are entirely lying to ourselves if we believe otherwise - especially because they can entirely justify their action to their own people.
The objective is to bring the world together under a common standard - not to win at all costs.
Precisely. But the IOC is clearly not doing that. Their demand of proof of age is a government issued document by the government sending the competitor. It is a weak constraint, not meant to actually enforce any rule. We argue about the rule, but haven't taken due diligence to see that it was going to reasonably be met. It's like a bartender not asking for id to see if you're 21. Yet, the United States and nearly every other nation despite the lack of sufficient IOC standards chooses to compete, knowing full well that unscrupulous competitors will use younger athletes. To us, the win is a bigger concern than the conditions under which the contest took place.
If we allow countries to lie in international games such as this - which is the same as cheating - then we allow and enable them to continue behaving in an objectionable manner.
I never said we should let China lie about it. In fact, we should encourage them to be honest about it. To do otherwise, and to not put at risk our own ambitions to win in order to have that fair contest, defeats the whole purpose.
This actually illustrates why it is that this is unclear; several people are arguing destruction of the athlete's bodies (the issue I think is worse), and you point out that young gymnasts have an advantage because of the size to strength ratio. So is it one, the other, both? Result: Obfuscated.