I'm not sure exactly what your point is, but your statement is a bit misleading. As such, I'm not sure why it's +5 Informative. If you are trying to say that cutting calories alone could lead to a slower metabolism causing lethargy and thus lead one to exercise less and therefore lose muscle mass due to atrophy, then yes... that's a possibility, but it's not a common occurrence and would depend on how extreme the calorie reduction was (and it would depend on how far their calorie intake was below the number of calories required for an individual to maintain their current weight given age, gender, muscle mass, fat percentage, activity level, etc).
You're quite right that the body isn't a simple machine. It's extremely complex and still mysterious in many ways, but it does conform to the laws of physics. In this case, energy in (Calories) - energy burned (Calories) = energy gained or lost in the form of fat (Calories).
"Resting metabolism" may change somewhat initially as one's body switches from predominantly burning sugars to burning a mixture of sugars and fats, but as a percentage of daily calories burned, it's very minor. An individual may feel more lethargic, but it still takes about the same number of calories for them to walk, talk, eat, breathe, heat their bodies to 98.6 degrees, maintain bodily functions and provide fuel to all their cells, etc. Unless one takes in such few sugar calories that their brains cannot function properly (the brain requires sugar to function.... fats don't cross the blood/brain barrier), this is really more of a mood issue than a change in how well one can burn calories. As one loses weight, resting calories burned (not overall metabolism) always drops unless muscle is gained. Less mass, less energy required to support the body.
You say that "how much you eat impacts how much you use..." I'm not sure what you mean by this. Olympic athletes easily eat 3 to 10 times the number of calories of your average person, but so do morbidly obese individuals. Their use is entirely different. Granted, you didn't say there was a significant correlation, simply that there's an impact... but as long as one takes in more than 30% less than their daily caloric needs, there really isn't much impact assuming they have fat reserves to burn.
Now about metabolizing muscle... Again, if you mean to say that muscle will atrophy if it isn't used, then yes, that is absolutely correct... but "metabolized" usually refers to breaking something down for a purpose -- like for fuel. The body will NOT cannibalize muscle or proteins for energy until all sugar and fat reserves are depleted.
So, to break things down if I take your post literally and not for what I assume you might mean:
Your body is not a simple machine. Yes, it's a complicated machine
How much you eat impacts how much you use Not really, except in extreme cases
; simply cutting calorie intake will just cause your resting metabolism to drop. No, not really.... it's not significant
Worse, you might start metabolizing muscle. No, you'd have to be extremely malnourished with zero body fat for this to happen
Normally I don't reply to trolls, but I found your post spectacularly wrong in so many ways, yet peppered with enough economic and statistical jargon that you might actually convince some people of your false logic should they read it.
First, you fail at economics. Clearly you've taken an undergrad course and heard a few terms. I encourage you to go back and take a few masters level courses so that you understand them a bit better. You also fail at psychology if you truly believe there will be rioting and assassination attempts over the tripling of the price of anything which has substitutes in the marketplace. Just as an example, gasoline has extremely inelastic demand and has quadrupled in price over a few years without any rioting in the streets. Sure, there have been congressional hearings about gas prices because speculators have manipulated the pricing more than OPEC ever has of late, but there are no riots over congresses inaction in passing legislation to encourage the price of gasoline to go down (lower fed. tax rate, drill for more oil, give tax breaks to build a new gasoline refinery, make it illegal to hold futures contracts without a location to store the oil, etc. etc.).
"Meat" includes many products which will be affected differently by any price increase because they will have different elasticities of demand... however, since you've mentioned steak, I thought I'd point out that most economics professors would indeed classify a "standard steak" as a luxury good. It's not as much of a luxury good as say... lobster, but it's up there. Bologna would not be considered a luxury good, but it is a meat product. If a pack of bologna were to triple in cost from $1 to $3, demand would likely drop somewhat and shift to other cheaper sources of protein like soy products. If steak were to also triple from $12 per serving to $36 per serving, demand would likely fall more drastically and shift to other cheaper sources of protein... perhaps even bologna, hot dogs, and hamburgers instead of steak.
You make a LOT of assumptions. I have no idea what sort of tax would have to be imposed on meat products to include the full cost to society and environmental damage, but you assume it would triple the cost of meat in general (wild assumption... could be only a 10% increase which would have little economic impact.) You also assume surpluses and shortages and prices rising or falling, but don't state time frames. In economics, short term, long term, and extreme long term results for shifts can be very different, so your post is vague and sounds a bit like gibberish when you discuss these things. You assume that meat substitute prices will skyrocket without any facts to back up that hypothesis, then go on to say that they may become scarce with a shortage so some people will be forced to buy meat at high prices (another assumption). Do you realize that soy products are cheap and could easily provide a meat substitute even if demand for soy skyrocketed at a very reasonable price? even in the short-term? Have you even heard of price elasticity of demand? Did they not teach you that term in undergrad econ?
On a personal note, I am definitely a fan of meat... but I'm also a fan of taxing the hell out of things that have hidden environmental costs. You'd be surprised at how quickly businesses change their processes to produce less waste when they actually have to pay to clean up that waste. There are economical ways for all businesses to clean up their environmental waste and have a reduced impact on the environment (Note that 100% cleanup would likely cost an infinite amount of money because it is difficult to have exactly zero waste, but perhaps an 85 to 95% reduction might be feasible for some businesses). Yes, prices might rise on goods as companies pass along environmental cleanup costs, but I have no idea how much -- and nor do you unless you've done an environmental impact study on the matter.
Frankly, when you remove the gibberish and wild speculation from your post, it simply reads as "Waaahhhh... I love my meat and I don't want to have to pay more for it!" As you've posted as an anonymous coward, perhaps you already know this is the case.
This is exactly what I use tabs for -- loading a lot of pages like comics at once, then I read and close each one out one by one.
I also read articles and open links that look interesting in new tabs while I continue reading the page I am currently reading. This allows me to continue my reading enjoyment while loading other pages that might interest me.
At any given time, I have 4 or more windows of firefox open each with 20 or more tabs in a related subject. (window with 20 comic strips open in tabs, another window with social networking sites like facebook in tabs, yet another window with work-related info in 30 tabs, and another with news aggregators with articles open in 50 or more tabs).
I often browse FARK and right-click to open interesting articles in new windows while I scroll down the links for the day. Sometimes I'll have 100 or more tabs open from FARK links.
Why is the firefox team looking to reinvent the wheel again? I already change the default behavior of closing each tab with an X to having an X at the END of all tabs (like they used to have as default) to make my browsing faster and more sane. (off topic, but why on earth do we need an X on every single tab? Why doesn't one X for closing the current tab work better? *shrugs*)
Tabs are fantastic... if they change the behavior without an option to revert back, I hope someone forks the code. There's a reason firefox, opera, IE, and others have tabs and while I welcome innovation in this area, the user should have the option of using whatever method works best for them. Please don't remove my awesome tabs guys!
Sun could just as easily match the trade-in for services. Sun could even offer a trade-in for IBM's hardware or service contracts. IBM is being aggressive, but not anti-competitive. If IBM were a monopoly, then there might be anti-trust issues, but for right now, it's perfectly legal and not very uncommon. For instance, Cable companies often have deals where you can turn in your old satellite dish for money off your cable bill.
What the heck? There are half a dozen other posts saying the same thing I did and they're modded as "3" and "4" insightful. This wasn't a troll... it's perfectly true in the legal and business world in the USA. I hope whoever modded me as Troll gets their mod points removed permanently by meta-mods.
It's just an incentive program. Perfectly legal. Also, discriminatory pricing is completely legal in most cases as well (think movie theaters... one price for kids, another for adults, yet another for seniors... and other discounts for college kids and military)
It's not anti-competitive. It's actually aggressively competitive. Sun could match the discounts for new equipment or even raise them. Some companies do this for old products... return your old one for a certain percent or flat rate off the next purchase.
Not only is it legal and clearly NOT anti-competitive, but IBM is also not a monopoly. This is a strategic move by IBM to claim market share... which is what companies do. Like survival of the fittest in nature, there is no mercy for the weak in business. IBM is taking advantage of a competitor's weakness and using their own strengths to gain new customers. That's how capitalism works.
This bit on the Boston Tea Party simply isn't true. While the British did reduce taxes on the East India Trading Co. in Britain to help reduce losses due to the smuggling of tax-free tea from the Dutch, the Tea Party was actually in response to multiple factors including the Townshend Acts which levied NEW taxes on the colonies (including one on tea) by the British Empire.
The Boston Tea Party had little to do with smugglers and more to do with a tax imposed on the colonies by an empire in which they had no representation and the fact that the taxes were used to pay local officials (which made colonials question their loyalty b/c they were paid in part by the crown) and the monopoly on tea held by the East India Trading Co.
For further evidence, there were protests over the Stamp Act and other similar laws imposed on the colonials by the empire. To imply that the Tea Party was a response by smugglers over losing profits instead of the culmination of years of anger by protesters over taxation rights is a gross misrepresentation of history. I suppose next you'll blame cause of the American war for independence on the opium trade.
Your post is a bit simplistic. I'm not sure where you got the idea that providing dividends is "taking care of the shareholders."
Really, most MBAs would tell you that providing a dividend is the exact opposite.
Company management generally assumes that people invest in company stock for the long term in the hopes that the stock price will rise. This is known as "increasing shareholder value" which is the optimum theoretical prime motivation for every business decision. Also, the idea is that shareholders are investing in the stock because they believe that's the best place to put their money to earn the greatest return on that money (in addition to other stocks they own to create a balanced portfolio that eliminates unsystematic risk).
So now, given that... why would providing a shareholder with a dividend make any sense? The dividend is money that would have gone towards a re-investment in the company (an acquisition, an upgrade, or even a high-interest bearing account) which would increase the shareholder's wealth as much or more as the dividend amount. (It still belongs to the individual shareholders even if it's in a no-interest checking account... so the value of the stock in that case would go up by almost exactly the amount of the dividend).
So, instead of re-investing in the company tax-free, you think it's a better call to pay taxes on a dividend, then pay fees for purchasing more stock with the money you get than just allowing your stock value to go up without any fees or taxes and selling it at a much higher price in the future?
I could understand how someone on a fixed income might want a dividend paycheck to supplement other funds and not want to hassle with selling stock for cash, but really... dividends make very little business sense or much sense to an investor.
If you want to invest, buy stock or bonds... if you want a 3% return, get a money market account... not this hybrid crippling dividend bit.
Take Microsoft for example. They went for decades without a dividend and their stock prices soared. They weren't "not taking care of their shareholders" by not providing dividends. The only reason they started offering dividends is because they were throwing money into R&D projects left and right that didn't pan out and they had a HUGE stockpile of cash that wasn't doing anything for the company. People complained that if Microsoft wasn't going to use the money for reasonable investments, then they should give some of the money back to investors, which I completely agree with.
AMD can barely survive as it is without a dividend... and if it provided one, it would die b/c it's already losing money every quarter! Also, AMD does not care if you buy their stock unless they're issuing NEW shares. The stock floating around right now was bought long ago and AMD doesn't see a penny for any trades going on unless they're actually the ones selling the stock.
What a lot of scientific sounding gibberish. You are confusing "heat" and lack thereof with the terms "hot" and "cold."
Hot and cold are both relative terms. Absolute zero is a theoretical temperature at which there is a complete lack of heat. (I say theoretical because it may not be possible to even reach absolute zero in our universe.) While that would likely be described as cold compared to any other temperature, it is not the definition of "cold." If two objects were at absolute zero, then one would not be cold compared to the other. If there is a maximum theoretical temperature, that would also not be the definition of "hot."
Cold, warm, and hot are adjectives used to describe the heat of something in relative terms. Absolute terms would be exact temperatures.
To turn your argument on it's head, cold is not only not absolute, it doesn't even exist. It is a relative term describing a lack of heat. Heat exists and cold is merely a description of the lack of it relative to some other amount of heat. Heat in terms of temperature is absolute.
Actually, we haven't sent a manned space mission much farther than the far side of our moon. I don't know if you're aware, but our magnetosphere can extend to much farther beyond that, so I'm not sure if man has ever been outside of the magnetosphere -- if anyone has, it certainly wasn't for very long. Mangetosphere
The radiation outside of the magnetosphere would be lethal to anyone in current space vehicles and suits on a 2-3 month trip to Mars. It's also very costly to send up heavy metals like lead for shielding.
As a citizen of the United States of America, I don't take offense to your post. I do, however, disagree with you on your idea of what people from various countries and continents should be called... mostly based on common historical naming conventions.
For instance, you could refer to someone as either being a citizen from a country by referring to that country's name or abbreviated name OR you could refer to them as having come from a region or continent. As an example, you could refer to someone from The Federal Republic of Germany as a German or a European. You could refer to someone from The People's Republic of China as Chinese or Asian. Someone from The Commonwealth of Australia would simply be referred to as Australian (because its name includes the continent it is on).
The convention is to drop "the united states of" or "the people's republic of" or "the commonwealth of" and refer to the citizen as coming from whatever is left as the abbreviation.
A citizen of the United States of America should either be referred to as American or North American by that same convention.
America is not a continent. North America and South America are. We do refer to citizens of the Federative Republic of Brazil as either Brazilian or South American.
Also, there is no other country on earth that I know of that includes America in its name, but there are others that include the words "united" and "states." When other countries refer to the citizenship of someone from The United States of America, a few do refer to the person as having come from The United States (l'Etats Unit as the French say), but by and large, the person is referred to as an American citizen. As in, they'd say you came from the United States, but you ARE an American.
I'm not sure why you have such a chip on your shoulder about this, but it's accepted worldwide as being correct to call us Americans. It's even in accordance with the accepted convention of referring to people by their citizenship. In short, you're wrong.
As an aside, I have no idea what you're referring to about our "attitude" about "America" because there is no such place... unless you're referring to the Americas (plural), but by and large, Americans honestly don't think about South America on a regular basis. We mostly hear about Canada and Mexico in the news... sometimes a bit about Cuba, Brazil and rarely Chile, Argentina, or Columbia. Our government may be "intervening", but I can tell you the average American (yes, I said it! ha!) doesn't even know or care about those interventions. They'd be lucky to be able to point out countries in S. America on the map.... it's sad, really. It's a bit unfair to refer to "our attitude" when there are 300 million of us and we all have differing opinions about most things. I honestly think you are talking about a false perception you have of Americans that whatever news you listen to has given you. I personally do not want the US involved in any foreign conflicts unless we're in a state of war or allied with the country we're keeping a presence in.
The moon would have had to have formed from a molten blob to be spherical. Almost any explosion on the Earth that ejected enough material into high orbit would do. It really could be in any direction -- or all directions simultaneously like you see in a nova. The material in orbit would coalesce into a ring around the Earth and eventually into our moon... or if enough were in any one direction, a blob that would collect the material under its own gravity while in orbit creating our moon without much of a ring-stage required.
Your post is rather smug, yet you fail to explain your reasoning. If the grandparent post is incorrect, why not explain why he or she is wrong rather than acting condescending without supporting your argument that the poster is incorrect?
The core of the grandparent's post seems correct. Many diseases do not develop major symptoms or even show up at all until old age -- some because of the time they take to progress far enough for symptoms to be noticed, some because they are simply age-related diseases. It makes sense to me that as peoples' life spans increase, there would be a larger percentage of older people, thus a larger percentage of age-related diseases. The GP did say hundreds of years -- and life expectancy worldwide just a hundred years ago was only 40. Now it is 66.
That's not to say that I completely agree with the grandparent poster. Medical science has progressed a lot during the past 100 years as well and medical screenings and diagnosis have improved to the point where we may be seeing more cases because we are simply better at screening and diagnosing illnesses where as a hundred years ago, many people may have died from illnesses that went unnoticed and their deaths were decided to be because of old age. Also misdiagnosis was likely common because so many diseases have similar symptoms and without today's medical labs to do testing, it's quite possible many patients were misdiagnosed before modern analysis was prevalent.
FF3 has been out for 6 months... longer than that if you include the betas. I wouldn't call it "unproven." If plugins you use don't work under FF3, it's the plugin developer's fault and the plugins may be abandoned projects. I've had 4 plugins discontinue working under FF3 because they were abandoned. One works, but has some features that do not work because it hasn't been updated in years. I have 12 others that are still running just fine, though -- because their authors actually bothered to update them to work with the betas and the final FF3.
I've come across the exception thing you've mentioned maybe twice in the past 6+ months and in at least one case, it was because the site was impersonating another site... kind of a phishing thing, I guess.
Your mileage may vary, but I surf the web a lot with 50+ tabs open at any given time from pages from all over the world (USA, Japan, Russia, Germany, etc)... and I've only had FF3 crash less than a dozen times since its release (after the most recent flash and FF3 update within the past few weeks, it crashed 3 times while watching hours of streaming video from ABC and CBS, but I can't say whether that's FF3's fault or the plugins for the sites)
Firefox does update quite a lot. I like that. The updates are mostly to patch browser exploits. FF2 will no longer be getting those as it's at end-of-life.
You can continue using FF2 for as long as you like, but sooner or later, you'll need to switch to another browser for some feature you need -- whether that's FF3 or Opera or whatever is your choice. Your experience with FF3 is likely atypical... at least it's nothing like my own experience with FF3 or that of my family and friends that switched many months ago.
I think the idea is that since they aren't going to offer any more updates to the software, anyone using FF 2.0 is going to be vulnerable to future browser exploits and rendering issues which will not ever be patched (unless someone forks the code), so from a user-safety perspective and a public relations perspective, Mozilla needs to strongly persuade people to move away from the old version.
The reasons to upgrade are the same as for any software. Sooner or later, FF3 or higher will have features that FF2 does not have and that you will need or wish you had. Whether that's patches, plug-ins, or new features, I can't say... but it is coming. Maybe a new version of HTML or a new scripting language... maybe a plugin that only works with 3.0 or higher for web pages you need access to -- who knows.
As for why they choose to turn the anti-phishing off rather than move to the next version, I think it's fair to say that turning off something is easier than re-coding it to work with something new. Also, why code it to work with the new Google version when you're discontinuing support? At some point, Google's API will change and FF 2 users will be left without a working anti-phishing engine again -- only without any warning because Mozilla will have moved on to FF 4 or beyond by then.
You are, of course, welcome to continue to use FF 2 if you enjoy the product, but it is not Mozilla's responsibility to continue to support it once they've moved on to a newer version.
You are correct that Mozilla could wait until Google discontinues its service to turn off the feature, but that is only prolonging the inevitable. They likely want the upgrade in place before Google shuts down its service so that users have advanced warning. If I were Mozilla, I'd even put up a splash screen upon installing the update to warn people that the anti-phishing no longer works and to upgrade to FF 3 if they wish to continue using the feature.
I'm not exactly sure what you're arguing. It sounds as if you're upset that Mozilla is "pushing" people to FF3 by discontinuing a feature in FF2, but really it's Google that's changing and Mozilla is reacting to that change by turning off the feature in advance in an effort to control the situation. It's not as if Mozilla turned off FF2's ability to use tabs or plugins or other features to intentionally cripple FF2.
Honestly, your post sounds a bit like a rant that eventually you'll have to move to something other than FF2 and you're upset that the reasons to move have only just begun to pile up. I can understand that you like the software and believe it is still worth supporting and/or forking to continue updating, but apparently Mozilla isn't going to be the one to do that for you.
I agree with you for the most part, but the parent poster does have a point. Someone guessed (I'm sure it was a very scientific wild ass guess) that the failure rate was 1 out of 6, but the data had a success rate of 11 out of 11. If the proposed failure rate was correct, that occurrence had a 13% chance of happening which means there was around a 87% chance that at least one of those rockets would have killed someone. It's possible that the proposed failure rate is perfectly correct, but I agree that the data given shows that is unlikely.
Since you've studied advanced statistics, you know that there's always a chance something could occur -- according to the math. Because it did occur, you can always say that the math allowed for it to occur a certain percentage of the time and this may just have been one of those unlikely occurrences. This would be true whether it was 13% or 0.000009% likely to happen.
My point is that what we would have expected to happen according to the statistics didn't happen. We expect that out of 11 rocket launches, 1 or 2 should be fatal, given the statistics. That didn't happen... and that means that either something unlikely happened (they got really lucky) or the statistics that tell us what was likely to happen were simply wrong. We can't really tell from this trial, but if we had say... 20 or 30 consecutive flawless launches with 2.5% and 0.4% chances of occurrence, respectively; We'd really have a case for the stats on failure rates being incorrect.
I'm not sure which "unnecessary tax refund" you're talking about, but if you mean the refund checks nearly everyone in the US got so long as they applied for one (including people who paid NO taxes and earned NO income, but yet for some insane reason were allowed to get a "refund" anyway), that particular legislation sailed through both the senate and house with bi-partisan approval before Bush signed it. It wasn't just for the really rich. (If you're referring to tax cuts overall for "the rich", then likely you're falling into the trap of democratic rhetoric which defines most people who actually pay taxes as "the rich." Or perhaps you're viewing it as a whole on a percentage basis where a billionaire gets millions back and a "thousandaire" gets hundreds back so the rich get "more money" back simply because they got money back in proportion to what they made. If that's the case, then there's another theory that says if people have more money, they spend more of it which improves the economy as well, but that's for another day)
Whether or not the refund checks were necessary is a matter of opinion, but it is a basic macro-economic fact that giving citizens more money like that should normally increase the level of spending and ease a recession. The real question is: "Was it enough money?" Most people got a few hundred dollars which they put into paying for more gas at the pump and towards paying off some of their debts which didn't help the economy much. It was those few who spent their checks on purchases that lifted the economy briefly or at least slowed its tumble. The downside is that giving back tax money can temporarily increase inflation. If they had given everyone in the US 2 or 3 thousand dollars each, we'd have seen more spending, but I couldn't say whether or not that would've been a "good thing." Like most economic tools, what helps in the short run can have serious long-term side-effects.
The economy is too complex to point fingers at any one individual as being at fault for its troubles. Bush did what economists, democrat and republican alike, recommended when he gave out tax refund checks. Now, the war spending and other such expenses are a different story. He could definitely be blamed for scaring the US into starting wars and pushing for more funding for them. That money could have been put to better use here at home.
Still, deficits and debts are not always a bad thing -- in the same sense that having a mortgage isn't a "bad thing." Loans allow organizations and people to invest and have a better quality of life now while making payments over the long term. If the country had zero debt, I'd say that the government likely wasn't doing its job investing in our future needs.
I can't stand Bush and I can't wait for his term to be over, but unless you have a Ph.D. in economics, you don't really have a lot of credibility in saying the debt was caused by reducing taxes or giving a tax refund check. Those are things that usually increase Real Gross Domestic Product, raise incomes, and often cause the government to bring in more money in total for taxes than before the rate cut. (for example, 10% of 200,000 is more than 12% of 150,000) Even if you HAVE a Ph.D in Macro Economics, you'd have a difficult time proving your theory. I'd love to see the mathematical proof if you have one on hand b/c there's a giant body of evidence in macro-economics that is completely party-neutral that would tend to prove otherwise.
How is your grandma new technology if she's still using analog? pfft. You're right, I'm not going to switch to her. I'll keep my own grandma who has a computer, cable modem, and digital cable. She's 82 years old by the way. OK so I'm having a little fun at the expense of your grammar. hehehe.
Still, broadcast TV has to go to digital by February 2009. Many stations have already made the switch and are broadcasting over the airwaves in 1080i. Most cable subscribers I know in my area have a digital box and only use the analog for the extra TVs they don't want to pay for another box to use. I don't know what area you're in, but most people in the southeast (SC, GA, FL, VA, TN, etc) have access to high def TV through cable and broadband. My father got a high-def capable TV 5 or 6 years ago. I got one 2 years ago. This is not "new" technology for us... and I live in South Carolina!
I'm not sure why you think we're guinea pigs. The technology has been around for a long time and high-def programming and TVs will soon be in the majority. Even my slow-to-move to new tech friends are thinking of buying blu-ray players if/when they reach the $200 range! Blockbuster already has shelves of blu-ray titles in their stores! They plan to phase out regular DVDs for them.
Now, granted, HDTV is just a step on the road to streaming media through the internet (like hulu.com ), but it's not some new-fangled technology that hardly anyone is using. Practically every TV in stores is now HD and there are a lot of people who have them already. The change is just a matter of time, and frankly... I don't know anyone in my family or any of my friends that don't already own an HDTV -- including grandma.
It's possible that the movie theater may go the way of the dodo just like the drive-in theater. Big-screen TVs and X.1 surround sound systems are becoming the norm in houses. I have several family members with literally home theater systems. I mean they have a place in the house with rows of couches and chairs, excellent lighting and sound, a huge TV -- either plasma, LCD or a projector, and even a little popcorn machine and lighting strips lining the hallway to the room. The walls even have carpet and/or drapes and have soundproofing.
It may be a while before the average person has that setup, but... just imagine people never dreamed we'd have televisions and computers in every room. I prefer to watch movies on my home theater system. It's a lot cheaper for 5-10 of my friends to chip in for a rental DVD than for each of us to pay for movie tickets these days.
I'd argue that no one forced you to download illegal content, but why bother. Just FYI, Hulu.com and others offer movies online for free with limited commercial interruptions and decent quality. I'm hoping that trend continues.
It would be interesting to find out whether that's because the US has too many strict laws or broad reasons to incarcerate people or if other nations are simply lax on incarceration terms. Perhaps many countries simply execute their prisoners. I believe the UK has very short prison sentences due to prison overcrowding. Maybe the US can afford to build more jails than other countries. Maybe it has a better police force to catch more criminals. Maybe it doesn't have anywhere near the execution rate of other countries? If your statistics are correct, it'd be very interesting to know why. I'm sure some is due to drug and prostitution laws which aren't present in many countries. It'd make a fascinating research paper.
I don't think that's what the gp poster was implying at all -- it was a question. If there is an absence of proof or even any evidence at all, is there some logical reason/theory to suspect that there is some energy that is unaccounted for after death that could be the soul?
The conversation goes like this:
There's energy loss unaccounted for that could be the soul escaping the body!
No... we've never found any evidence for that.
We may just not have discovered it yet! We may not have the technical means to detect it!
Then... if there's no evidence for that theory, what makes you think it's even a possibility?
I would say it's a fair question. We're pretty good at detecting and measuring all kinds of energy. There is no known energy that is unaccounted for after death. What would make you believe in something like an energy escaping the body as evidence of the soul... when there's no evidence of that potential evidence?
It would be as if I proposed that there's evidence of God's existence because whatever room I'm praying in fills with a bright light (light is a form of energy), and then the scientists show up with photon detectors and see no difference in illumination in the room... after which, I proceed to tell them that I've never actually seen the light, but that the light could be in the non-visible light range and that their photon detectors might not be able to detect photons of that energy level. Or maybe they're photons from another dimension that play by different rules of the known universe, so you can't detect them. It's crazy talk. The fragile theory with no evidence has to stretch itself to the limits of believability (and beyond perhaps) just to maintain that it has a remote possibility of being true.
In the real, rational world... if there's no evidence for something AT ALL and you don't even have a plausible theory for why it could be possible, it's usually accepted to be very unlikely if not completely false.
Also, personally... I would propose that IF the soul were identifiable as a form of energy present in the body that leaves after death, the soul would have a finite lifespan of its own as an energy form. Energy can't be created or destroyed (other than conversion to matter and back), so any time this energy being called the soul did anything, energy would be drained from the soul. If it moved an object, attempted communication with someone, even had a single thought, it would lose energy in the process according to the laws of conservation of energy. Over time, a soul would use up all of its energy and cease to exist if it had no source for new energy. To extend this idea, a soul would need to enter a new body to use as a source of energy to continue to exist which would be reincarnation (or find some other source of energy). Because there are more living people now than have ever existed in the history of mankind, imagine the warfare between souls to inhabit a new body if the population drops.
Taking things to another level, if there were a "heaven" in an afterlife, every soul would need energy to continue to exist... and that energy must come from a source. Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, that energy source would eventually fail to provide power -- unless you're assuming that "God" can make energy... in which case, you have a perpetual power source which would defy the laws of physics.
So... if you were to say that the soul (which would logically require an energy source to continue its existence like any other living entity) will have a perpetual source of energy in heaven, you'd make the leap from science to mystical, religious magic explaining everything. (not that I'm saying that is your position... just speaking in hypothetical terms. I don't mean to put words into your mouth or speculate on your position on religion.)
The argument gets worse:
"hey! we can use science to detect the soul as a form of energy lost at the moment of death!"
"We've tri
So, you're saying that without malaria, the world would be even more overpopulated? I guess there's another benefit to not having toxic DDT in our environment. Not that I think dying from malaria is a fun thing and I'm playing devil's advocate for a bit... but if we're truly going to look at the big picture here, putting poisons into the water we drink and killing animals using toxins that kill or mutate animals further up the food chain is a terrible outcome from long term use of such poisons. Also, people die every day from all sorts of things. That's part of the human condition. We have to put such things into perspective. Long term, if it weren't for diseases, the world's population would be too massive for Earth's biomass to sustain it. We'd all starve from over fishing and overfarming the same land, poison ourselves with more pollution, and probably kill the planet by destroying all the rain forests and start a chain reaction killing the food chain from the bottom up until the planet is completely dead. War and murder keep the population in check somewhat, but it's still exploding. Sooner or later, people are going to have to learn to live in harmony with their environment again - and that means putting checks on how many offspring we have... and being careful about what we put into our environment so that we don't get harmful things back from it later.
Focusing on the deaths of a small portion of the human population to justify contaminating the ecosystem we ALL need to survive is short-sighted. Perhaps you value the lives of those who die from malaria more than the lives of all the human beings and other living things in the future who will have to suffer the consequences of having toxins in their environment for however long it takes for the earth to clean up the mess, but I don't. Earth is going to be here for a very, very long time and I'd like for our future generations to not curse us for the condition of the planet they inherited.
Would you honestly endorse the use of a chemical like DDT that is KNOWN to reduce bird populations because of thinning egg shells... and to be toxic to not just birds but "also highly toxic to aquatic life, including crayfish, daphnids, sea shrimp and many species of fish" and "moderately toxic to some amphibian species, especially in the larval stages." It also builds up in the food chain to toxic levels as more is accumulated and stored in the fat of animals. It's half life is long enough to where it'd easily be picked up by just about any ecosystem, build up over time, and kill the ecosystem. We don't even know what the long-term effects on humans would be. Something tells me it's going to be worse than malaria if it's use is continued and constant. DDT Wikipedia
Having said that, these genetically engineered mosquitoes sound great. They're a biological, biodegradable, non-toxic solution to the overpopulation of mosquitoes. Sure, the drop in the mosquito population may affect birds, bats, and other animals further up the food chain, but probably not to any noticeable degree considering most animals that eat mosquitoes have other food sources. I'd say investing in mosquito netting for the areas effected would also be a good idea -- along with mosquito traps if they can afford them.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure exactly what your point is, but your statement is a bit misleading. As such, I'm not sure why it's +5 Informative. If you are trying to say that cutting calories alone could lead to a slower metabolism causing lethargy and thus lead one to exercise less and therefore lose muscle mass due to atrophy, then yes... that's a possibility, but it's not a common occurrence and would depend on how extreme the calorie reduction was (and it would depend on how far their calorie intake was below the number of calories required for an individual to maintain their current weight given age, gender, muscle mass, fat percentage, activity level, etc).
You're quite right that the body isn't a simple machine. It's extremely complex and still mysterious in many ways, but it does conform to the laws of physics. In this case, energy in (Calories) - energy burned (Calories) = energy gained or lost in the form of fat (Calories).
"Resting metabolism" may change somewhat initially as one's body switches from predominantly burning sugars to burning a mixture of sugars and fats, but as a percentage of daily calories burned, it's very minor. An individual may feel more lethargic, but it still takes about the same number of calories for them to walk, talk, eat, breathe, heat their bodies to 98.6 degrees, maintain bodily functions and provide fuel to all their cells, etc. Unless one takes in such few sugar calories that their brains cannot function properly (the brain requires sugar to function.... fats don't cross the blood/brain barrier), this is really more of a mood issue than a change in how well one can burn calories. As one loses weight, resting calories burned (not overall metabolism) always drops unless muscle is gained. Less mass, less energy required to support the body.
You say that "how much you eat impacts how much you use..." I'm not sure what you mean by this. Olympic athletes easily eat 3 to 10 times the number of calories of your average person, but so do morbidly obese individuals. Their use is entirely different. Granted, you didn't say there was a significant correlation, simply that there's an impact... but as long as one takes in more than 30% less than their daily caloric needs, there really isn't much impact assuming they have fat reserves to burn.
Now about metabolizing muscle... Again, if you mean to say that muscle will atrophy if it isn't used, then yes, that is absolutely correct... but "metabolized" usually refers to breaking something down for a purpose -- like for fuel. The body will NOT cannibalize muscle or proteins for energy until all sugar and fat reserves are depleted.
So, to break things down if I take your post literally and not for what I assume you might mean:
Your body is not a simple machine. Yes, it's a complicated machine
How much you eat impacts how much you use Not really, except in extreme cases
; simply cutting calorie intake will just cause your resting metabolism to drop. No, not really.... it's not significant
Worse, you might start metabolizing muscle. No, you'd have to be extremely malnourished with zero body fat for this to happen
Normally I don't reply to trolls, but I found your post spectacularly wrong in so many ways, yet peppered with enough economic and statistical jargon that you might actually convince some people of your false logic should they read it.
First, you fail at economics. Clearly you've taken an undergrad course and heard a few terms. I encourage you to go back and take a few masters level courses so that you understand them a bit better. You also fail at psychology if you truly believe there will be rioting and assassination attempts over the tripling of the price of anything which has substitutes in the marketplace. Just as an example, gasoline has extremely inelastic demand and has quadrupled in price over a few years without any rioting in the streets. Sure, there have been congressional hearings about gas prices because speculators have manipulated the pricing more than OPEC ever has of late, but there are no riots over congresses inaction in passing legislation to encourage the price of gasoline to go down (lower fed. tax rate, drill for more oil, give tax breaks to build a new gasoline refinery, make it illegal to hold futures contracts without a location to store the oil, etc. etc.).
"Meat" includes many products which will be affected differently by any price increase because they will have different elasticities of demand... however, since you've mentioned steak, I thought I'd point out that most economics professors would indeed classify a "standard steak" as a luxury good. It's not as much of a luxury good as say... lobster, but it's up there. Bologna would not be considered a luxury good, but it is a meat product. If a pack of bologna were to triple in cost from $1 to $3, demand would likely drop somewhat and shift to other cheaper sources of protein like soy products. If steak were to also triple from $12 per serving to $36 per serving, demand would likely fall more drastically and shift to other cheaper sources of protein... perhaps even bologna, hot dogs, and hamburgers instead of steak.
You make a LOT of assumptions. I have no idea what sort of tax would have to be imposed on meat products to include the full cost to society and environmental damage, but you assume it would triple the cost of meat in general (wild assumption... could be only a 10% increase which would have little economic impact.) You also assume surpluses and shortages and prices rising or falling, but don't state time frames. In economics, short term, long term, and extreme long term results for shifts can be very different, so your post is vague and sounds a bit like gibberish when you discuss these things. You assume that meat substitute prices will skyrocket without any facts to back up that hypothesis, then go on to say that they may become scarce with a shortage so some people will be forced to buy meat at high prices (another assumption). Do you realize that soy products are cheap and could easily provide a meat substitute even if demand for soy skyrocketed at a very reasonable price? even in the short-term? Have you even heard of price elasticity of demand? Did they not teach you that term in undergrad econ?
On a personal note, I am definitely a fan of meat... but I'm also a fan of taxing the hell out of things that have hidden environmental costs. You'd be surprised at how quickly businesses change their processes to produce less waste when they actually have to pay to clean up that waste. There are economical ways for all businesses to clean up their environmental waste and have a reduced impact on the environment (Note that 100% cleanup would likely cost an infinite amount of money because it is difficult to have exactly zero waste, but perhaps an 85 to 95% reduction might be feasible for some businesses). Yes, prices might rise on goods as companies pass along environmental cleanup costs, but I have no idea how much -- and nor do you unless you've done an environmental impact study on the matter.
Frankly, when you remove the gibberish and wild speculation from your post, it simply reads as "Waaahhhh... I love my meat and I don't want to have to pay more for it!" As you've posted as an anonymous coward, perhaps you already know this is the case.
odd... I always use the keypad for numbers, but I worked in data entry for a year and we had a LOT of numbers to enter :-)
This is exactly what I use tabs for -- loading a lot of pages like comics at once, then I read and close each one out one by one.
I also read articles and open links that look interesting in new tabs while I continue reading the page I am currently reading. This allows me to continue my reading enjoyment while loading other pages that might interest me.
At any given time, I have 4 or more windows of firefox open each with 20 or more tabs in a related subject. (window with 20 comic strips open in tabs, another window with social networking sites like facebook in tabs, yet another window with work-related info in 30 tabs, and another with news aggregators with articles open in 50 or more tabs).
I often browse FARK and right-click to open interesting articles in new windows while I scroll down the links for the day. Sometimes I'll have 100 or more tabs open from FARK links.
Why is the firefox team looking to reinvent the wheel again? I already change the default behavior of closing each tab with an X to having an X at the END of all tabs (like they used to have as default) to make my browsing faster and more sane. (off topic, but why on earth do we need an X on every single tab? Why doesn't one X for closing the current tab work better? *shrugs*)
Tabs are fantastic... if they change the behavior without an option to revert back, I hope someone forks the code. There's a reason firefox, opera, IE, and others have tabs and while I welcome innovation in this area, the user should have the option of using whatever method works best for them. Please don't remove my awesome tabs guys!
Sun could just as easily match the trade-in for services. Sun could even offer a trade-in for IBM's hardware or service contracts. IBM is being aggressive, but not anti-competitive. If IBM were a monopoly, then there might be anti-trust issues, but for right now, it's perfectly legal and not very uncommon. For instance, Cable companies often have deals where you can turn in your old satellite dish for money off your cable bill.
What the heck? There are half a dozen other posts saying the same thing I did and they're modded as "3" and "4" insightful. This wasn't a troll... it's perfectly true in the legal and business world in the USA. I hope whoever modded me as Troll gets their mod points removed permanently by meta-mods.
It's just an incentive program. Perfectly legal. Also, discriminatory pricing is completely legal in most cases as well (think movie theaters... one price for kids, another for adults, yet another for seniors... and other discounts for college kids and military)
It's not anti-competitive. It's actually aggressively competitive. Sun could match the discounts for new equipment or even raise them. Some companies do this for old products... return your old one for a certain percent or flat rate off the next purchase.
Not only is it legal and clearly NOT anti-competitive, but IBM is also not a monopoly. This is a strategic move by IBM to claim market share... which is what companies do. Like survival of the fittest in nature, there is no mercy for the weak in business. IBM is taking advantage of a competitor's weakness and using their own strengths to gain new customers. That's how capitalism works.
This bit on the Boston Tea Party simply isn't true. While the British did reduce taxes on the East India Trading Co. in Britain to help reduce losses due to the smuggling of tax-free tea from the Dutch, the Tea Party was actually in response to multiple factors including the Townshend Acts which levied NEW taxes on the colonies (including one on tea) by the British Empire.
The Boston Tea Party had little to do with smugglers and more to do with a tax imposed on the colonies by an empire in which they had no representation and the fact that the taxes were used to pay local officials (which made colonials question their loyalty b/c they were paid in part by the crown) and the monopoly on tea held by the East India Trading Co.
For further evidence, there were protests over the Stamp Act and other similar laws imposed on the colonials by the empire. To imply that the Tea Party was a response by smugglers over losing profits instead of the culmination of years of anger by protesters over taxation rights is a gross misrepresentation of history. I suppose next you'll blame cause of the American war for independence on the opium trade.
Really, most MBAs would tell you that providing a dividend is the exact opposite.
Company management generally assumes that people invest in company stock for the long term in the hopes that the stock price will rise. This is known as "increasing shareholder value" which is the optimum theoretical prime motivation for every business decision. Also, the idea is that shareholders are investing in the stock because they believe that's the best place to put their money to earn the greatest return on that money (in addition to other stocks they own to create a balanced portfolio that eliminates unsystematic risk).
So now, given that... why would providing a shareholder with a dividend make any sense? The dividend is money that would have gone towards a re-investment in the company (an acquisition, an upgrade, or even a high-interest bearing account) which would increase the shareholder's wealth as much or more as the dividend amount. (It still belongs to the individual shareholders even if it's in a no-interest checking account... so the value of the stock in that case would go up by almost exactly the amount of the dividend).
So, instead of re-investing in the company tax-free, you think it's a better call to pay taxes on a dividend, then pay fees for purchasing more stock with the money you get than just allowing your stock value to go up without any fees or taxes and selling it at a much higher price in the future? I could understand how someone on a fixed income might want a dividend paycheck to supplement other funds and not want to hassle with selling stock for cash, but really... dividends make very little business sense or much sense to an investor.
If you want to invest, buy stock or bonds... if you want a 3% return, get a money market account... not this hybrid crippling dividend bit.
Take Microsoft for example. They went for decades without a dividend and their stock prices soared. They weren't "not taking care of their shareholders" by not providing dividends. The only reason they started offering dividends is because they were throwing money into R&D projects left and right that didn't pan out and they had a HUGE stockpile of cash that wasn't doing anything for the company. People complained that if Microsoft wasn't going to use the money for reasonable investments, then they should give some of the money back to investors, which I completely agree with.
AMD can barely survive as it is without a dividend... and if it provided one, it would die b/c it's already losing money every quarter! Also, AMD does not care if you buy their stock unless they're issuing NEW shares. The stock floating around right now was bought long ago and AMD doesn't see a penny for any trades going on unless they're actually the ones selling the stock.
Hot and cold are both relative terms. Absolute zero is a theoretical temperature at which there is a complete lack of heat. (I say theoretical because it may not be possible to even reach absolute zero in our universe.) While that would likely be described as cold compared to any other temperature, it is not the definition of "cold." If two objects were at absolute zero, then one would not be cold compared to the other. If there is a maximum theoretical temperature, that would also not be the definition of "hot."
Cold, warm, and hot are adjectives used to describe the heat of something in relative terms. Absolute terms would be exact temperatures.
To turn your argument on it's head, cold is not only not absolute, it doesn't even exist. It is a relative term describing a lack of heat. Heat exists and cold is merely a description of the lack of it relative to some other amount of heat. Heat in terms of temperature is absolute.
Actually, we haven't sent a manned space mission much farther than the far side of our moon. I don't know if you're aware, but our magnetosphere can extend to much farther beyond that, so I'm not sure if man has ever been outside of the magnetosphere -- if anyone has, it certainly wasn't for very long. Mangetosphere The radiation outside of the magnetosphere would be lethal to anyone in current space vehicles and suits on a 2-3 month trip to Mars. It's also very costly to send up heavy metals like lead for shielding.
For instance, you could refer to someone as either being a citizen from a country by referring to that country's name or abbreviated name OR you could refer to them as having come from a region or continent. As an example, you could refer to someone from The Federal Republic of Germany as a German or a European. You could refer to someone from The People's Republic of China as Chinese or Asian. Someone from The Commonwealth of Australia would simply be referred to as Australian (because its name includes the continent it is on).
The convention is to drop "the united states of" or "the people's republic of" or "the commonwealth of" and refer to the citizen as coming from whatever is left as the abbreviation. A citizen of the United States of America should either be referred to as American or North American by that same convention.
America is not a continent. North America and South America are. We do refer to citizens of the Federative Republic of Brazil as either Brazilian or South American.
Also, there is no other country on earth that I know of that includes America in its name, but there are others that include the words "united" and "states." When other countries refer to the citizenship of someone from The United States of America, a few do refer to the person as having come from The United States (l'Etats Unit as the French say), but by and large, the person is referred to as an American citizen. As in, they'd say you came from the United States, but you ARE an American.
I'm not sure why you have such a chip on your shoulder about this, but it's accepted worldwide as being correct to call us Americans. It's even in accordance with the accepted convention of referring to people by their citizenship. In short, you're wrong.
As an aside, I have no idea what you're referring to about our "attitude" about "America" because there is no such place... unless you're referring to the Americas (plural), but by and large, Americans honestly don't think about South America on a regular basis. We mostly hear about Canada and Mexico in the news... sometimes a bit about Cuba, Brazil and rarely Chile, Argentina, or Columbia. Our government may be "intervening", but I can tell you the average American (yes, I said it! ha!) doesn't even know or care about those interventions. They'd be lucky to be able to point out countries in S. America on the map.... it's sad, really. It's a bit unfair to refer to "our attitude" when there are 300 million of us and we all have differing opinions about most things. I honestly think you are talking about a false perception you have of Americans that whatever news you listen to has given you. I personally do not want the US involved in any foreign conflicts unless we're in a state of war or allied with the country we're keeping a presence in.
The moon would have had to have formed from a molten blob to be spherical. Almost any explosion on the Earth that ejected enough material into high orbit would do. It really could be in any direction -- or all directions simultaneously like you see in a nova. The material in orbit would coalesce into a ring around the Earth and eventually into our moon... or if enough were in any one direction, a blob that would collect the material under its own gravity while in orbit creating our moon without much of a ring-stage required.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lifexpec.htm http://www.efmoody.com/estate/lifeexpectancy.html
That's not to say that I completely agree with the grandparent poster. Medical science has progressed a lot during the past 100 years as well and medical screenings and diagnosis have improved to the point where we may be seeing more cases because we are simply better at screening and diagnosing illnesses where as a hundred years ago, many people may have died from illnesses that went unnoticed and their deaths were decided to be because of old age. Also misdiagnosis was likely common because so many diseases have similar symptoms and without today's medical labs to do testing, it's quite possible many patients were misdiagnosed before modern analysis was prevalent.
I've come across the exception thing you've mentioned maybe twice in the past 6+ months and in at least one case, it was because the site was impersonating another site... kind of a phishing thing, I guess.
Your mileage may vary, but I surf the web a lot with 50+ tabs open at any given time from pages from all over the world (USA, Japan, Russia, Germany, etc)... and I've only had FF3 crash less than a dozen times since its release (after the most recent flash and FF3 update within the past few weeks, it crashed 3 times while watching hours of streaming video from ABC and CBS, but I can't say whether that's FF3's fault or the plugins for the sites)
Firefox does update quite a lot. I like that. The updates are mostly to patch browser exploits. FF2 will no longer be getting those as it's at end-of-life.
You can continue using FF2 for as long as you like, but sooner or later, you'll need to switch to another browser for some feature you need -- whether that's FF3 or Opera or whatever is your choice. Your experience with FF3 is likely atypical... at least it's nothing like my own experience with FF3 or that of my family and friends that switched many months ago.
The reasons to upgrade are the same as for any software. Sooner or later, FF3 or higher will have features that FF2 does not have and that you will need or wish you had. Whether that's patches, plug-ins, or new features, I can't say... but it is coming. Maybe a new version of HTML or a new scripting language... maybe a plugin that only works with 3.0 or higher for web pages you need access to -- who knows.
As for why they choose to turn the anti-phishing off rather than move to the next version, I think it's fair to say that turning off something is easier than re-coding it to work with something new. Also, why code it to work with the new Google version when you're discontinuing support? At some point, Google's API will change and FF 2 users will be left without a working anti-phishing engine again -- only without any warning because Mozilla will have moved on to FF 4 or beyond by then.
You are, of course, welcome to continue to use FF 2 if you enjoy the product, but it is not Mozilla's responsibility to continue to support it once they've moved on to a newer version.
You are correct that Mozilla could wait until Google discontinues its service to turn off the feature, but that is only prolonging the inevitable. They likely want the upgrade in place before Google shuts down its service so that users have advanced warning. If I were Mozilla, I'd even put up a splash screen upon installing the update to warn people that the anti-phishing no longer works and to upgrade to FF 3 if they wish to continue using the feature.
I'm not exactly sure what you're arguing. It sounds as if you're upset that Mozilla is "pushing" people to FF3 by discontinuing a feature in FF2, but really it's Google that's changing and Mozilla is reacting to that change by turning off the feature in advance in an effort to control the situation. It's not as if Mozilla turned off FF2's ability to use tabs or plugins or other features to intentionally cripple FF2.
Honestly, your post sounds a bit like a rant that eventually you'll have to move to something other than FF2 and you're upset that the reasons to move have only just begun to pile up. I can understand that you like the software and believe it is still worth supporting and/or forking to continue updating, but apparently Mozilla isn't going to be the one to do that for you.
No, that was Zathras, not Zathras... Zathras has many family -- names sound very similar. Ah... poor Zathras. Zathras will miss him.
Since you've studied advanced statistics, you know that there's always a chance something could occur -- according to the math. Because it did occur, you can always say that the math allowed for it to occur a certain percentage of the time and this may just have been one of those unlikely occurrences. This would be true whether it was 13% or 0.000009% likely to happen.
My point is that what we would have expected to happen according to the statistics didn't happen. We expect that out of 11 rocket launches, 1 or 2 should be fatal, given the statistics. That didn't happen... and that means that either something unlikely happened (they got really lucky) or the statistics that tell us what was likely to happen were simply wrong. We can't really tell from this trial, but if we had say... 20 or 30 consecutive flawless launches with 2.5% and 0.4% chances of occurrence, respectively; We'd really have a case for the stats on failure rates being incorrect.
Whether or not the refund checks were necessary is a matter of opinion, but it is a basic macro-economic fact that giving citizens more money like that should normally increase the level of spending and ease a recession. The real question is: "Was it enough money?" Most people got a few hundred dollars which they put into paying for more gas at the pump and towards paying off some of their debts which didn't help the economy much. It was those few who spent their checks on purchases that lifted the economy briefly or at least slowed its tumble. The downside is that giving back tax money can temporarily increase inflation. If they had given everyone in the US 2 or 3 thousand dollars each, we'd have seen more spending, but I couldn't say whether or not that would've been a "good thing." Like most economic tools, what helps in the short run can have serious long-term side-effects.
The economy is too complex to point fingers at any one individual as being at fault for its troubles. Bush did what economists, democrat and republican alike, recommended when he gave out tax refund checks. Now, the war spending and other such expenses are a different story. He could definitely be blamed for scaring the US into starting wars and pushing for more funding for them. That money could have been put to better use here at home.
Still, deficits and debts are not always a bad thing -- in the same sense that having a mortgage isn't a "bad thing." Loans allow organizations and people to invest and have a better quality of life now while making payments over the long term. If the country had zero debt, I'd say that the government likely wasn't doing its job investing in our future needs.
I can't stand Bush and I can't wait for his term to be over, but unless you have a Ph.D. in economics, you don't really have a lot of credibility in saying the debt was caused by reducing taxes or giving a tax refund check. Those are things that usually increase Real Gross Domestic Product, raise incomes, and often cause the government to bring in more money in total for taxes than before the rate cut. (for example, 10% of 200,000 is more than 12% of 150,000) Even if you HAVE a Ph.D in Macro Economics, you'd have a difficult time proving your theory. I'd love to see the mathematical proof if you have one on hand b/c there's a giant body of evidence in macro-economics that is completely party-neutral that would tend to prove otherwise.
Ludicrous speed!
Then they go the plaid!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB7tc9pVvYg
(link to Spaceballs clip on YouTube)
How is your grandma new technology if she's still using analog? pfft. You're right, I'm not going to switch to her. I'll keep my own grandma who has a computer, cable modem, and digital cable. She's 82 years old by the way. OK so I'm having a little fun at the expense of your grammar. hehehe.
Still, broadcast TV has to go to digital by February 2009. Many stations have already made the switch and are broadcasting over the airwaves in 1080i. Most cable subscribers I know in my area have a digital box and only use the analog for the extra TVs they don't want to pay for another box to use. I don't know what area you're in, but most people in the southeast (SC, GA, FL, VA, TN, etc) have access to high def TV through cable and broadband. My father got a high-def capable TV 5 or 6 years ago. I got one 2 years ago. This is not "new" technology for us... and I live in South Carolina!
I'm not sure why you think we're guinea pigs. The technology has been around for a long time and high-def programming and TVs will soon be in the majority. Even my slow-to-move to new tech friends are thinking of buying blu-ray players if/when they reach the $200 range! Blockbuster already has shelves of blu-ray titles in their stores! They plan to phase out regular DVDs for them.
Now, granted, HDTV is just a step on the road to streaming media through the internet (like hulu.com ), but it's not some new-fangled technology that hardly anyone is using. Practically every TV in stores is now HD and there are a lot of people who have them already. The change is just a matter of time, and frankly... I don't know anyone in my family or any of my friends that don't already own an HDTV -- including grandma.
It may be a while before the average person has that setup, but... just imagine people never dreamed we'd have televisions and computers in every room. I prefer to watch movies on my home theater system. It's a lot cheaper for 5-10 of my friends to chip in for a rental DVD than for each of us to pay for movie tickets these days.
I'd argue that no one forced you to download illegal content, but why bother. Just FYI, Hulu.com and others offer movies online for free with limited commercial interruptions and decent quality. I'm hoping that trend continues.
It would be interesting to find out whether that's because the US has too many strict laws or broad reasons to incarcerate people or if other nations are simply lax on incarceration terms. Perhaps many countries simply execute their prisoners. I believe the UK has very short prison sentences due to prison overcrowding. Maybe the US can afford to build more jails than other countries. Maybe it has a better police force to catch more criminals. Maybe it doesn't have anywhere near the execution rate of other countries? If your statistics are correct, it'd be very interesting to know why. I'm sure some is due to drug and prostitution laws which aren't present in many countries. It'd make a fascinating research paper.
I don't think that's what the gp poster was implying at all -- it was a question. If there is an absence of proof or even any evidence at all, is there some logical reason/theory to suspect that there is some energy that is unaccounted for after death that could be the soul?
The conversation goes like this:
There's energy loss unaccounted for that could be the soul escaping the body!
No... we've never found any evidence for that.
We may just not have discovered it yet! We may not have the technical means to detect it!
Then... if there's no evidence for that theory, what makes you think it's even a possibility?
I would say it's a fair question. We're pretty good at detecting and measuring all kinds of energy. There is no known energy that is unaccounted for after death. What would make you believe in something like an energy escaping the body as evidence of the soul... when there's no evidence of that potential evidence?
It would be as if I proposed that there's evidence of God's existence because whatever room I'm praying in fills with a bright light (light is a form of energy), and then the scientists show up with photon detectors and see no difference in illumination in the room... after which, I proceed to tell them that I've never actually seen the light, but that the light could be in the non-visible light range and that their photon detectors might not be able to detect photons of that energy level. Or maybe they're photons from another dimension that play by different rules of the known universe, so you can't detect them. It's crazy talk. The fragile theory with no evidence has to stretch itself to the limits of believability (and beyond perhaps) just to maintain that it has a remote possibility of being true.
In the real, rational world... if there's no evidence for something AT ALL and you don't even have a plausible theory for why it could be possible, it's usually accepted to be very unlikely if not completely false.
Also, personally... I would propose that IF the soul were identifiable as a form of energy present in the body that leaves after death, the soul would have a finite lifespan of its own as an energy form. Energy can't be created or destroyed (other than conversion to matter and back), so any time this energy being called the soul did anything, energy would be drained from the soul. If it moved an object, attempted communication with someone, even had a single thought, it would lose energy in the process according to the laws of conservation of energy. Over time, a soul would use up all of its energy and cease to exist if it had no source for new energy. To extend this idea, a soul would need to enter a new body to use as a source of energy to continue to exist which would be reincarnation (or find some other source of energy). Because there are more living people now than have ever existed in the history of mankind, imagine the warfare between souls to inhabit a new body if the population drops.
Taking things to another level, if there were a "heaven" in an afterlife, every soul would need energy to continue to exist... and that energy must come from a source. Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, that energy source would eventually fail to provide power -- unless you're assuming that "God" can make energy... in which case, you have a perpetual power source which would defy the laws of physics.
So... if you were to say that the soul (which would logically require an energy source to continue its existence like any other living entity) will have a perpetual source of energy in heaven, you'd make the leap from science to mystical, religious magic explaining everything. (not that I'm saying that is your position... just speaking in hypothetical terms. I don't mean to put words into your mouth or speculate on your position on religion.)
The argument gets worse:
"hey! we can use science to detect the soul as a form of energy lost at the moment of death!"
"We've tri
So, you're saying that without malaria, the world would be even more overpopulated? I guess there's another benefit to not having toxic DDT in our environment. Not that I think dying from malaria is a fun thing and I'm playing devil's advocate for a bit... but if we're truly going to look at the big picture here, putting poisons into the water we drink and killing animals using toxins that kill or mutate animals further up the food chain is a terrible outcome from long term use of such poisons. Also, people die every day from all sorts of things. That's part of the human condition. We have to put such things into perspective. Long term, if it weren't for diseases, the world's population would be too massive for Earth's biomass to sustain it. We'd all starve from over fishing and overfarming the same land, poison ourselves with more pollution, and probably kill the planet by destroying all the rain forests and start a chain reaction killing the food chain from the bottom up until the planet is completely dead. War and murder keep the population in check somewhat, but it's still exploding. Sooner or later, people are going to have to learn to live in harmony with their environment again - and that means putting checks on how many offspring we have... and being careful about what we put into our environment so that we don't get harmful things back from it later.
Focusing on the deaths of a small portion of the human population to justify contaminating the ecosystem we ALL need to survive is short-sighted. Perhaps you value the lives of those who die from malaria more than the lives of all the human beings and other living things in the future who will have to suffer the consequences of having toxins in their environment for however long it takes for the earth to clean up the mess, but I don't. Earth is going to be here for a very, very long time and I'd like for our future generations to not curse us for the condition of the planet they inherited.
Would you honestly endorse the use of a chemical like DDT that is KNOWN to reduce bird populations because of thinning egg shells... and to be toxic to not just birds but "also highly toxic to aquatic life, including crayfish, daphnids, sea shrimp and many species of fish" and "moderately toxic to some amphibian species, especially in the larval stages." It also builds up in the food chain to toxic levels as more is accumulated and stored in the fat of animals. It's half life is long enough to where it'd easily be picked up by just about any ecosystem, build up over time, and kill the ecosystem. We don't even know what the long-term effects on humans would be. Something tells me it's going to be worse than malaria if it's use is continued and constant.
DDT Wikipedia
Having said that, these genetically engineered mosquitoes sound great. They're a biological, biodegradable, non-toxic solution to the overpopulation of mosquitoes. Sure, the drop in the mosquito population may affect birds, bats, and other animals further up the food chain, but probably not to any noticeable degree considering most animals that eat mosquitoes have other food sources. I'd say investing in mosquito netting for the areas effected would also be a good idea -- along with mosquito traps if they can afford them.