We don't allow children to compete at that level because it can prematurely DESTROY THEIR BODIES.
This is really no great mystery.
With the simple inclusion of the word 'can' you open up a whole wide chasm of possible interpretation. On the one hand, measures can be taken to make sure that doesn't happen, right? On the other hand, so what? We let people destroy their bodies all the time. Why differentiate between children and adults when deciding who has the right to decide that? Or why remove parental right to how they raise their children?
To reiterate; I don't agree, there is no great mystery from my, or your, point of view. But their value system is clearly different, and different in a way that is not inherently unethical - except that they propagate it through an authoritarian regime and lie about. That is the point at which major ethical issue occurs, and is the point being protected by a 'rules' argument.
Let me just say, right out of the box, I appreciate that you started off with an ad hominem attack. It really supports your position, and lends credence to your rationale.
You are, however, absolutely correct; the same could be said about steroids. We absolutely have a choice to support the use of steroids and the lie to cover it up, or frown on the use of steroids but actively work to not cover it up. Bodies are ruined by steroids, as are lives, and we have a choice to partake in it or not. Everyone else has that same choice.
Where you start to put words in my mouth is the part about snapping off baby heads. (A minor aside; contrary to popular opinion, babies do not have milky insides.) We absolutely should strenuously object, and even take action against - perhaps even boycotting such multicultural events as the Olympics - people who are engaged in harmful activities against other people. This includes athletes who like the taste of baby meat for the 1% edge it gives them, and authoritarian regimes that raise athletes from birth for a specific event. What we should not do is ignore those actions, or the frameworks that allow for them, and instead focus on rules violation.
It is simply unacceptable that the anger here is at the fact that "China broke the rules!" and not at "China is ignoring human rights!" It's entirely wrongheaded, and why those underlying issues are never addressed.
Finally, since you seemed to not be able to catch my original meaning; I do not find that lying about rule breaking is right action. To the contrary, it's not acceptable. There is a value system, though, wherein it is, and the point in that value system wherein I diverge from having any further iota of agreement is where the decision to lie about the rulebreaking occurs.
To spell it out; I don't agree with having kids in these events - but other people, parents, children, athletes and cultures are going to disagree with this. It's a whole big issue that I'm not addressing. I do agree with breaking rules you find unjust. I don't agree with lying about it - and at that point, when you lie about it, you lose your right to claim a morally viable underlying framework.
One final point, because I feel that your straw man argument regarding the Russians can be turned to something worthwhile saying; if you are actively sabotaging other people - well, clearly you are capable of doing that, but it doesn't lend legitimacy to the victory. Therein lies the problem with China; because we're arguing about the lie, we're lending legitimacy to the way they go about the important things by putting pressure on the minor point; the rule breaking that is, at best, only debatable. If Russia were to grease a pommel horse, well, it would be clear and no one (ok, realistically, few) would count the victory legitimate. When we fail to act ethically we lend legitimacy to others acting unethically.
I'm not saying that China shouldn't be punished, even that the gold shouldn't be stripped, I'm just saying that there is a reasonable framework under which they could be operating - up to and not including the point wherein they lie about it. If they want to include underage gymnasts, they have that power - and should accept the consequences.
I one hundred percent agree that young folk should not participate at that level, that it is detrimental to them. However, you have to admit that there are conflicting viewpoints on the matter. For example; "The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very, very bright." There is merit to pushing someone to be the very best they can be. The question comes when you have to decide whether the benefit derived to pushing someone that hard is outweighed by the cost. China very clearly places a different value and cost to that equation.
I agree that a higher level of ethical activity is to abstain from participating in things you don't agree with. But if you assume participation (reasonable, I think, in this case), then when they break the rule they have but two choices; own it, hopefully with good reason, or lie about it. One of those is ethical, the other is not. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Your logic is weak; if you find the rule, "Thou shalt not kill", to be unreasonable, you should break it. If you find my existence unreasonable to the point that it makes transparent the weakness of the rule, then, yes, on that basis you should break it - but you have to make that connection first. Realize, of course, other people will quite reasonably react, and you have to accept the consequences that result. Just like China should accept the consequences of breaking a rule they don't believe in.
Yes, I think they do. One should object proportional to offense; and he has leveled quite an offense not only on the People of the United States (never mind the rest of the world), but against the fabric of our government. To cease doing so is to let sloth overtake your better judgment. To cease being interested is to let apathy and personal comfort rule. It is up to everyone to make transparent those injustices that occur, and not to be silent - even if they continue to occur and everyone knows it.
The way I see it, it is possible that China is acting within an ethical framework - albeit one that most Western societies don't agree with. From their point of view, they're putting their best athlete forward - and doing so seems natural. The age restriction is something that is there to satisfy Western mores; that children should not be competing at that level. Actually, I think our objection there is rather poorly defined. Why don't we allow children to compete?
From that point of view, China is adhering to the idea that you break rules you find unreasonable. What makes their actions unethical is that they're not owning them - presumably out of desire for the gold. They could very easily say "Yes, the girl is 14, but she won - the rule is bad." The IOC could take away the gold at that point (would possibly have to), but that is all the more reason that China could give as to why the rest of the world is not as awesome as they are; that they have to take away gold medals from true winners and hide behind some sort of age discrimination.
What is the correct western action? I actually think it's to embrace the idea that not sending children to the Olympics is a value we find important, and a rule we will adopt for ourselves - in our regional or country Olympic Committees - and not attempt to enforce on other contestants. It speaks much louder to say, "We could put forth an underage contestant but we find that unpalatable. Therefore we will act in accordance with our beliefs and put in only older athletes." Of course, the consequence to both ethical actions is fewer gold medals.
That the argument becomes about whether or not China adhered to an arbitrary rule set for, you have to admit, somewhat obfuscated reasons is a travesty. What is really objectionable to the West is how they treat people; they raise their athletes in creches, training them from birth to be the best they can possibly be in the one thing - but never giving them a choice. Our fault here is that we allow ourselves to shift the argument to whether a rule was broken, obscuring the actual actions that matter by talking about the lie.
The worst part about that is it follows our general trend of failing to get at the root issues that are of true concern; people suffering under an authoritarian regime is of real concern. That regime lying is, well, almost to be expected. Yet, of these two issues, the lie is the thing we will argue endlessly about - and throw our hands up at the actual suffering. The deepest part of the cut, though, is that we do this so that we can sate our own egos; we refuse to take a high moral stance because we're too concerned ourselves with getting gold medals to do so. The medals, and arguments over them, become a proxy for the real conflicts in values. But it's a meaningless proxy, and not one worth our time or emotional energy - nevermind the loss of character we incur when we ignore actual wrongdoing for the sake of winning a contest.
"Authoritarian" tyranny. China is not ruled by capitalist trends, though they use that as leverage. It is ruled by a strong, centralized political apparatus.
Or, more accurately, his Administration is tyrannical. It's no Genghis Khan, or Caligula, or even Napolean, but between describing the administration as benevolent and thinking first and foremost of the people or as authoritarian and largely out for the ends of a few the latter clearly wins out.
The guy may not be entirely unredeemable, but it is not inappropriate to (constantly!) remind everyone living under his Administration that he ain't no nice guy.
You actually make a really good point; what about poison? If one were to discover a poison or pathogen that might kill a human, were it to be utilized or delivered, along with the reasons why and the possible delivery methods, no one would object to sharing that information with doctors.
Further, no one would claim that you were doing something illegal by spreading that information. Ironically, nor would anyone blame the human body for having that weakness; it wasn't planned for, developed around, whatever.
The fact of the matter is that the system is there, it's vulnerable, and we know how it's vulnerable. There is no convincing reason to try and quash that knowledge - if that is even possible. It is immaterial that it took bright people to figure it out. It is immaterial that without a fix money might be lost. What is material is recognizing things for what they are and reacting to the truth of the situation, not trying to maintain a status quo.
And that is why it's perceived that the MBTA is in error here; they're trying to live in a world where the exploit doesn't exist. But that world itself does not exist.
As we all know, any single password used across multiple sites is terribly insecure. In a way, that response, 'Judy Garland', is less secure; it may be counterintuitive to someone guessing your password, but once they have that key, they have all your keys.
Worse, arbitrary selections for your responses means that if you ever do change it for security reasons, you're not guaranteed to remember it. For this reason biometric or, as suggested in TFA, cognitive-metric information is useful because it's likely to be unique, hard to guess, varied and hard to 'forget'.
Actually, it is a fair bit more than that. The Constitution was declared legitimate by all of the states' representatives, who in term were elected by their states. Though the agreement was placed in written words on paper (the Constitution itself), the Constitution is actually embodying a set of rules that all agreed to (give or take - representative democracy has it's flaws). In sixth grade I wrote up my own constitution, but despite 'signing' it, or having a bunch of my friends signing it, it is in no way is legitimized because neither myself nor them is backed by constituencies that trust our judgment regarding what rules to agree to. Similarly, we have no power to enforce or even encourage our set of rules.
So, in truth, the Constitution actually is a great deal more; it's the channeling of a vast amount of influence along an agreed set of lines. Understanding that fundamental mandate and underpinning of government is important for anyone to navigate it well.
The vehicle is your property (presumably); typically speaking the police need a warrant to search your car, or your property - and they certainly need a warrant to say, put cameras in your house.
IANAL, but I think that there are three major concerns here; damage to your property, self-incrimination and the more nebulously defined set of privacy rights. Note, that while the police can follow you around all day, they can't trespass or otherwise break the law to do so.
If you check to see if your call-center is a help desk, but carry the overriding assumption that all call-centers ARE help desks, then your check will always return 'true'. In the case you cite, the question you're actually asking is 'Is the call center 0, or false?' But because the help desk is valued at 0, or false, or whatever equivalent of that value and you're subsequently assigning that same value to the call center, your test will return 'true', as it turns out that false is, in fact, false.
But it is enough to back up, take a deep breath, ignore implementation and look at what the folks are actually doing; that is, they are making an assumption and calling it an observation. And that's causing their analysis of situations to be buggy.
First of all, while I accept that you might carry around an extra battery for everything, not everyone does. It is, arguably, a vast waste of resources for most people. That you do it is purely anecdotal and thus not convincing evidence.
As you yourself state, though, the iPhone - any cell phone, really - is not a mission critical device. To think most of the market needs this 'feature' is ridiculous. I agree, it's a nice to have, but it's far from a poor design choice.
Thirdly, all cell phones - indeed, nearly everything - is disposable. No one is replacing their iPhone any faster than other people are replacing their cell phones. To put the sins of the whole market on the iPhone is silly.
Finally, they make rapid chargers for iPhones. You plug it in, it juices it up. Not great on the efficiency end of things, but solutions do exist - it just requires you to think beyond a narrow focus of 'replacing the battery'.
Frank Lloyd Wright never did anything unique, from a functionality perspective. But he's still hailed as an amazing architect because he focused on design; making things look good, feel good and accessible. It's fine to say, "The iPhone doesn't do anything unique" - even 'true'. But the way it allows you to do all of those non-unique things is way, way better. You say it yourself; the iPhone has fewer buttons/keys. Perfect! The threshold of use is lower - and that is, actually, a good thing.
In short, you're right but you're missing the point of why the iPhone is doing well. The battery is not the issue - that's sort of like saying that when the hammer has no haft, it's useless. Of course it is. But why worry about that first? Is it functional? Is it easy to use? I don't have a problem charging my phone's battery. Do you? The elevation of small quibbles is not a reasonable way to objectively determine the worth of something.
...that it's not actually about their privacy, then. I mean, they know that eventually people are going to forget about their place, because there is nothing else interesting about it. In the meantime, there is a bankable opportunity...
There are certain high level posts in the various executive branch agencies that are tagged 'political appointments'. These jobs, which steer those agencies, can be determined based on politics.
For everything else, such discrimination is illegal. It is assumed, by the law, that people are professional enough to do their job regardless of who is in charge - and anyway, they can be fired if they intentionally sabotage the agency without legal cause.
Only recently, since the Neocons took over, has it even been an issue that 'attorneys hate' the people they work for. I mean, really, is such harsh language remotely accurate? Or is it being used as a boogie man in order to make an end-run around very wise laws; laws that prevent the government from swinging to extremes with every change in the administration.
(And lets not even bring up the fiscal nightmare it must be if agencies have to rehire everyone every eight years...)
Now, with my straight face: Clinton did NOT weed out conservatives from executive branch jobs. He in fact explicitly hired many people across the aisle, for better or for worse. The idea that you never hire people who disagree with you is one that has only seen it's heyday in the last eight years. It's actually often a very good idea.
Because people don't try it, you don't realize how much better PostgreSQL really is.
If this were really true then a sufficient community of people looking to make it accessible would grow up around it. A common complaint is lack of easy tools to use with PostgreSQL - a reasonable complaint because there is no point in everyone wasting their time using backwards tools.
The fact of the matter is that MySQL does what the vast majority wants it to do, and has better accessibility. Only functionality that is an order of magnitude better is going to overcome that - and while PostgreSQL may be better, it's simply not that much better.
I don't see it as being relevant whether it's Obama or Bush (though, for the record, I think Bush is worse); it's a corruption of the democracy to pool too much power in one place, especially at the expense of individual rights.
You have a very evidence-conforming viewpoint there. I don't even particularly object to it. But it's not how everyone views spirituality or religion. At the very least, you use very aggressive definitions of what Magicians and Priests are out to do.
I simply think you're missing something by having decided, rigorously, what faith, spirituality and religion are - in your view, have to be - for everyone involved. I think those things do not do so well to have a very empirically defined purpose.
He voted FOR the bill. Nevermind he said that he would never vote for a bill that granted immunity. Nevermind that this bill is the last chance at exposing Bush's misdoings regarding the wiretapping scandal. The key is that it undermines individual protections; and he voted for it in favor of executive branch power.
He did NOT need to vote for the bill. The idea that law enforcement is denied 'precious' tools has been debunked time and again. All it denies is oversight - which is a terrible, terrible idea. The original FISA bill allowed for wiretaps with warrants, warrants that are easy to get, even after the fact. Instead, he has opted for blind trust in the executive branch.
There is always something you can do; he didn't need to vote for the bill. It would have been an easy thing to do - the bill still would have gone through. Make no bones about it; he's shifting to the middle in hopes of picking up swing voters who swallow the purple punch and believe the current Administration's rhetoric about how this is 'vital' to national security, or we're all DOOMED. It's overblown propaganda, and people need to recognize that.
Finally, let me note that he's not 'biding his time'. There is nothing he can do now; the bill has to be repealed by Congress or the Supreme Court. It's not like once he's President he can wave a magic wand and make the bad thing go away. More to the point, even if he could, voting for the bill does nothing to increase his ability to do so. It's entirely gutless move.
First, I highly recommend you read "Finding Darwin's God" by Dr. Ken Miller for an interesting treatise on the interplay between the realms of science and faith.
But more than that I recommend that rather than shoehorning the idea of spiritual faith into an idea of science you accept that for most people faith has little to do with making a metaphorical reference to natural phenomenon. It may turn out that you're precisely correct - that the idea of 'God' is best equated to the idea of the 'Universe as a whole'.
It may be - and probably is - that spiritual faith has little to do with 'using scientific tools' at all. It doesn't have to do with equations or with rigorous processes. Indeed, if you compare the modern conception of science to Buddhism's Noble Eight-fold Path, it fits pretty well into step five; begging the question of what the others are, or are for?
Traditionally the answer to that has been a very personal one. But I encourage you to recognize that while you can say that science is a way of examining God, this is not true for all people - that spirituality has little to do with the explanation of the material experience. Until there is that general acceptance there will be a great deal to fight about.
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We don't allow children to compete at that level because it can prematurely DESTROY THEIR BODIES.
This is really no great mystery.
With the simple inclusion of the word 'can' you open up a whole wide chasm of possible interpretation. On the one hand, measures can be taken to make sure that doesn't happen, right? On the other hand, so what? We let people destroy their bodies all the time. Why differentiate between children and adults when deciding who has the right to decide that? Or why remove parental right to how they raise their children?
To reiterate; I don't agree, there is no great mystery from my, or your, point of view. But their value system is clearly different, and different in a way that is not inherently unethical - except that they propagate it through an authoritarian regime and lie about. That is the point at which major ethical issue occurs, and is the point being protected by a 'rules' argument.
Let me just say, right out of the box, I appreciate that you started off with an ad hominem attack. It really supports your position, and lends credence to your rationale.
You are, however, absolutely correct; the same could be said about steroids. We absolutely have a choice to support the use of steroids and the lie to cover it up, or frown on the use of steroids but actively work to not cover it up. Bodies are ruined by steroids, as are lives, and we have a choice to partake in it or not. Everyone else has that same choice.
Where you start to put words in my mouth is the part about snapping off baby heads. (A minor aside; contrary to popular opinion, babies do not have milky insides.) We absolutely should strenuously object, and even take action against - perhaps even boycotting such multicultural events as the Olympics - people who are engaged in harmful activities against other people. This includes athletes who like the taste of baby meat for the 1% edge it gives them, and authoritarian regimes that raise athletes from birth for a specific event. What we should not do is ignore those actions, or the frameworks that allow for them, and instead focus on rules violation.
It is simply unacceptable that the anger here is at the fact that "China broke the rules!" and not at "China is ignoring human rights!" It's entirely wrongheaded, and why those underlying issues are never addressed.
Finally, since you seemed to not be able to catch my original meaning; I do not find that lying about rule breaking is right action. To the contrary, it's not acceptable. There is a value system, though, wherein it is, and the point in that value system wherein I diverge from having any further iota of agreement is where the decision to lie about the rulebreaking occurs.
To spell it out; I don't agree with having kids in these events - but other people, parents, children, athletes and cultures are going to disagree with this. It's a whole big issue that I'm not addressing. I do agree with breaking rules you find unjust. I don't agree with lying about it - and at that point, when you lie about it, you lose your right to claim a morally viable underlying framework.
One final point, because I feel that your straw man argument regarding the Russians can be turned to something worthwhile saying; if you are actively sabotaging other people - well, clearly you are capable of doing that, but it doesn't lend legitimacy to the victory. Therein lies the problem with China; because we're arguing about the lie, we're lending legitimacy to the way they go about the important things by putting pressure on the minor point; the rule breaking that is, at best, only debatable. If Russia were to grease a pommel horse, well, it would be clear and no one (ok, realistically, few) would count the victory legitimate. When we fail to act ethically we lend legitimacy to others acting unethically.
I'm not saying that China shouldn't be punished, even that the gold shouldn't be stripped, I'm just saying that there is a reasonable framework under which they could be operating - up to and not including the point wherein they lie about it. If they want to include underage gymnasts, they have that power - and should accept the consequences.
I one hundred percent agree that young folk should not participate at that level, that it is detrimental to them. However, you have to admit that there are conflicting viewpoints on the matter. For example; "The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very, very bright." There is merit to pushing someone to be the very best they can be. The question comes when you have to decide whether the benefit derived to pushing someone that hard is outweighed by the cost. China very clearly places a different value and cost to that equation.
I agree that a higher level of ethical activity is to abstain from participating in things you don't agree with. But if you assume participation (reasonable, I think, in this case), then when they break the rule they have but two choices; own it, hopefully with good reason, or lie about it. One of those is ethical, the other is not. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Your logic is weak; if you find the rule, "Thou shalt not kill", to be unreasonable, you should break it. If you find my existence unreasonable to the point that it makes transparent the weakness of the rule, then, yes, on that basis you should break it - but you have to make that connection first. Realize, of course, other people will quite reasonably react, and you have to accept the consequences that result. Just like China should accept the consequences of breaking a rule they don't believe in.
Yes, I think they do. One should object proportional to offense; and he has leveled quite an offense not only on the People of the United States (never mind the rest of the world), but against the fabric of our government. To cease doing so is to let sloth overtake your better judgment. To cease being interested is to let apathy and personal comfort rule. It is up to everyone to make transparent those injustices that occur, and not to be silent - even if they continue to occur and everyone knows it.
The way I see it, it is possible that China is acting within an ethical framework - albeit one that most Western societies don't agree with. From their point of view, they're putting their best athlete forward - and doing so seems natural. The age restriction is something that is there to satisfy Western mores; that children should not be competing at that level. Actually, I think our objection there is rather poorly defined. Why don't we allow children to compete?
From that point of view, China is adhering to the idea that you break rules you find unreasonable. What makes their actions unethical is that they're not owning them - presumably out of desire for the gold. They could very easily say "Yes, the girl is 14, but she won - the rule is bad." The IOC could take away the gold at that point (would possibly have to), but that is all the more reason that China could give as to why the rest of the world is not as awesome as they are; that they have to take away gold medals from true winners and hide behind some sort of age discrimination.
What is the correct western action? I actually think it's to embrace the idea that not sending children to the Olympics is a value we find important, and a rule we will adopt for ourselves - in our regional or country Olympic Committees - and not attempt to enforce on other contestants. It speaks much louder to say, "We could put forth an underage contestant but we find that unpalatable. Therefore we will act in accordance with our beliefs and put in only older athletes." Of course, the consequence to both ethical actions is fewer gold medals.
That the argument becomes about whether or not China adhered to an arbitrary rule set for, you have to admit, somewhat obfuscated reasons is a travesty. What is really objectionable to the West is how they treat people; they raise their athletes in creches, training them from birth to be the best they can possibly be in the one thing - but never giving them a choice. Our fault here is that we allow ourselves to shift the argument to whether a rule was broken, obscuring the actual actions that matter by talking about the lie.
The worst part about that is it follows our general trend of failing to get at the root issues that are of true concern; people suffering under an authoritarian regime is of real concern. That regime lying is, well, almost to be expected. Yet, of these two issues, the lie is the thing we will argue endlessly about - and throw our hands up at the actual suffering. The deepest part of the cut, though, is that we do this so that we can sate our own egos; we refuse to take a high moral stance because we're too concerned ourselves with getting gold medals to do so. The medals, and arguments over them, become a proxy for the real conflicts in values. But it's a meaningless proxy, and not one worth our time or emotional energy - nevermind the loss of character we incur when we ignore actual wrongdoing for the sake of winning a contest.
"Authoritarian" tyranny. China is not ruled by capitalist trends, though they use that as leverage. It is ruled by a strong, centralized political apparatus.
Or, more accurately, his Administration is tyrannical. It's no Genghis Khan, or Caligula, or even Napolean, but between describing the administration as benevolent and thinking first and foremost of the people or as authoritarian and largely out for the ends of a few the latter clearly wins out.
The guy may not be entirely unredeemable, but it is not inappropriate to (constantly!) remind everyone living under his Administration that he ain't no nice guy.
You actually make a really good point; what about poison? If one were to discover a poison or pathogen that might kill a human, were it to be utilized or delivered, along with the reasons why and the possible delivery methods, no one would object to sharing that information with doctors.
Further, no one would claim that you were doing something illegal by spreading that information. Ironically, nor would anyone blame the human body for having that weakness; it wasn't planned for, developed around, whatever.
The fact of the matter is that the system is there, it's vulnerable, and we know how it's vulnerable. There is no convincing reason to try and quash that knowledge - if that is even possible. It is immaterial that it took bright people to figure it out. It is immaterial that without a fix money might be lost. What is material is recognizing things for what they are and reacting to the truth of the situation, not trying to maintain a status quo.
And that is why it's perceived that the MBTA is in error here; they're trying to live in a world where the exploit doesn't exist. But that world itself does not exist.
As we all know, any single password used across multiple sites is terribly insecure. In a way, that response, 'Judy Garland', is less secure; it may be counterintuitive to someone guessing your password, but once they have that key, they have all your keys.
Worse, arbitrary selections for your responses means that if you ever do change it for security reasons, you're not guaranteed to remember it. For this reason biometric or, as suggested in TFA, cognitive-metric information is useful because it's likely to be unique, hard to guess, varied and hard to 'forget'.
So, in truth, the Constitution actually is a great deal more; it's the channeling of a vast amount of influence along an agreed set of lines. Understanding that fundamental mandate and underpinning of government is important for anyone to navigate it well.
The vehicle is your property (presumably); typically speaking the police need a warrant to search your car, or your property - and they certainly need a warrant to say, put cameras in your house.
IANAL, but I think that there are three major concerns here; damage to your property, self-incrimination and the more nebulously defined set of privacy rights. Note, that while the police can follow you around all day, they can't trespass or otherwise break the law to do so.
You're over-thinking it.
If you check to see if your call-center is a help desk, but carry the overriding assumption that all call-centers ARE help desks, then your check will always return 'true'. In the case you cite, the question you're actually asking is 'Is the call center 0, or false?' But because the help desk is valued at 0, or false, or whatever equivalent of that value and you're subsequently assigning that same value to the call center, your test will return 'true', as it turns out that false is, in fact, false.
But it is enough to back up, take a deep breath, ignore implementation and look at what the folks are actually doing; that is, they are making an assumption and calling it an observation. And that's causing their analysis of situations to be buggy.
The sad part is most companies seem to think call center = help desk.
Aha! There is your problem. It's: call center == help desk, otherwise your test will always return true; a self fulfilling test, if you will.
First of all, while I accept that you might carry around an extra battery for everything, not everyone does. It is, arguably, a vast waste of resources for most people. That you do it is purely anecdotal and thus not convincing evidence.
As you yourself state, though, the iPhone - any cell phone, really - is not a mission critical device. To think most of the market needs this 'feature' is ridiculous. I agree, it's a nice to have, but it's far from a poor design choice.
Thirdly, all cell phones - indeed, nearly everything - is disposable. No one is replacing their iPhone any faster than other people are replacing their cell phones. To put the sins of the whole market on the iPhone is silly.
Finally, they make rapid chargers for iPhones. You plug it in, it juices it up. Not great on the efficiency end of things, but solutions do exist - it just requires you to think beyond a narrow focus of 'replacing the battery'.
Frank Lloyd Wright never did anything unique, from a functionality perspective. But he's still hailed as an amazing architect because he focused on design; making things look good, feel good and accessible. It's fine to say, "The iPhone doesn't do anything unique" - even 'true'. But the way it allows you to do all of those non-unique things is way, way better. You say it yourself; the iPhone has fewer buttons/keys. Perfect! The threshold of use is lower - and that is, actually, a good thing.
In short, you're right but you're missing the point of why the iPhone is doing well. The battery is not the issue - that's sort of like saying that when the hammer has no haft, it's useless. Of course it is. But why worry about that first? Is it functional? Is it easy to use? I don't have a problem charging my phone's battery. Do you? The elevation of small quibbles is not a reasonable way to objectively determine the worth of something.
...that it's not actually about their privacy, then. I mean, they know that eventually people are going to forget about their place, because there is nothing else interesting about it. In the meantime, there is a bankable opportunity...
There are certain high level posts in the various executive branch agencies that are tagged 'political appointments'. These jobs, which steer those agencies, can be determined based on politics.
For everything else, such discrimination is illegal. It is assumed, by the law, that people are professional enough to do their job regardless of who is in charge - and anyway, they can be fired if they intentionally sabotage the agency without legal cause.
Only recently, since the Neocons took over, has it even been an issue that 'attorneys hate' the people they work for. I mean, really, is such harsh language remotely accurate? Or is it being used as a boogie man in order to make an end-run around very wise laws; laws that prevent the government from swinging to extremes with every change in the administration.
(And lets not even bring up the fiscal nightmare it must be if agencies have to rehire everyone every eight years...)
Now, with my straight face: Clinton did NOT weed out conservatives from executive branch jobs. He in fact explicitly hired many people across the aisle, for better or for worse. The idea that you never hire people who disagree with you is one that has only seen it's heyday in the last eight years. It's actually often a very good idea.
Because people don't try it, you don't realize how much better PostgreSQL really is.
If this were really true then a sufficient community of people looking to make it accessible would grow up around it. A common complaint is lack of easy tools to use with PostgreSQL - a reasonable complaint because there is no point in everyone wasting their time using backwards tools.
The fact of the matter is that MySQL does what the vast majority wants it to do, and has better accessibility. Only functionality that is an order of magnitude better is going to overcome that - and while PostgreSQL may be better, it's simply not that much better.
I don't see it as being relevant whether it's Obama or Bush (though, for the record, I think Bush is worse); it's a corruption of the democracy to pool too much power in one place, especially at the expense of individual rights.
You have a very evidence-conforming viewpoint there. I don't even particularly object to it. But it's not how everyone views spirituality or religion. At the very least, you use very aggressive definitions of what Magicians and Priests are out to do.
I simply think you're missing something by having decided, rigorously, what faith, spirituality and religion are - in your view, have to be - for everyone involved. I think those things do not do so well to have a very empirically defined purpose.
He voted FOR the bill. Nevermind he said that he would never vote for a bill that granted immunity. Nevermind that this bill is the last chance at exposing Bush's misdoings regarding the wiretapping scandal. The key is that it undermines individual protections; and he voted for it in favor of executive branch power.
He did NOT need to vote for the bill. The idea that law enforcement is denied 'precious' tools has been debunked time and again. All it denies is oversight - which is a terrible, terrible idea. The original FISA bill allowed for wiretaps with warrants, warrants that are easy to get, even after the fact. Instead, he has opted for blind trust in the executive branch.
There is always something you can do; he didn't need to vote for the bill. It would have been an easy thing to do - the bill still would have gone through. Make no bones about it; he's shifting to the middle in hopes of picking up swing voters who swallow the purple punch and believe the current Administration's rhetoric about how this is 'vital' to national security, or we're all DOOMED. It's overblown propaganda, and people need to recognize that.
Finally, let me note that he's not 'biding his time'. There is nothing he can do now; the bill has to be repealed by Congress or the Supreme Court. It's not like once he's President he can wave a magic wand and make the bad thing go away. More to the point, even if he could, voting for the bill does nothing to increase his ability to do so. It's entirely gutless move.
First, I highly recommend you read "Finding Darwin's God" by Dr. Ken Miller for an interesting treatise on the interplay between the realms of science and faith.
But more than that I recommend that rather than shoehorning the idea of spiritual faith into an idea of science you accept that for most people faith has little to do with making a metaphorical reference to natural phenomenon. It may turn out that you're precisely correct - that the idea of 'God' is best equated to the idea of the 'Universe as a whole'.
It may be - and probably is - that spiritual faith has little to do with 'using scientific tools' at all. It doesn't have to do with equations or with rigorous processes. Indeed, if you compare the modern conception of science to Buddhism's Noble Eight-fold Path, it fits pretty well into step five; begging the question of what the others are, or are for?
Traditionally the answer to that has been a very personal one. But I encourage you to recognize that while you can say that science is a way of examining God, this is not true for all people - that spirituality has little to do with the explanation of the material experience. Until there is that general acceptance there will be a great deal to fight about.