Well, I also grew up poor and worked my way through college. For most of my life I believed as you do. Having seen my parents work their way up the ladder from nothing, and having made my own way in the world, I thought I could weather anything: even if I lost everything I owned, I could still work my way back up again. Then I got a big surprise: I became disabled, just when a number of other things in my life fell apart. I was cheated out of my disability insurance, and, though I paid a fortune into Social Security, it takes years to get through that system. Commitments that were not only perfectly reasonably against the income I had (and could reasonably expect to get for decades), but even negligible, were now far above my means (which were about zero). In the process, I learned a lot about how people end up in bad situations, and you are right, some of them are just deadbeats. Many of them just have no way out. Some of them find a way out after years of struggle.
Things change. Sometimes they change too rapidly to do anything about, no matter how resourceful you are, no matter how much you prepared, no matter how much you try. If things change rapidly enough, any planning you can do goes to hell, and even what you could conceivably have taken care of gets lost. How do you track bank statements when you move three times in six months? When you are very ill, but your insurance routinely denies payment and requires you to contest each and every bill just because they can? When your records have been eaten by mice? How do you keep up with bills when you don't have food, water, sanitation, medicine? How do you "live within your means" when there is no low cost housing available? When the people who had generously let you a room have just lost their home? How do you fight the bank when they refuse to honor the insurance you had against your debts, and you are living in a field? How do you work with government agencies who send you back and forth with paperwork (when you cannot afford gas, copies, and faxes, and that is why you are there in the first place) with directly conflicting requirements? When your unemployment check is deposited two weeks late and they just say "oops" and go on?
How do you pay a bill when you simply have no income? Not "little income", but none? When you committed to the bill making $100,000 a year? When I ran my business, I got dozens of resumes from people with multiple PHDs who had just been making six figures--- for receptionist positions, who had been out of work for over a year. People would not hire them because they were "overqualified". How do you sell your house to get out of a mortgage when *everyone else* is doing the same thing and no one is buying? When prices have dropped so far that even if it does sell, you still have a mortgage to pay? I have even seen people who had their house nearly paid for had it foreclose and still end up with a debt they could not pay because their income and the market had dropped so quickly. In many of these areas, developers were still *building* houses on existing contracts while laid-off employees could not dump their homes for a fraction of their purchase price.
Many, many people got too far into debt, put too much stock into the future, didn't save for bad times. However, quite a few people in trouble out there made quite reasonable choices, were quite frugal, and just couldn't dodge the bullet. And don't worry, it *can* happen to you.
In some sense, he is (or could be) correct here. While I in no way support cross burning and personally believe it crosses the line on free speech, Ron Paul's position is valid. Other expressions of free speech fall in various places on this gray belt, including flag burning, hanging the flag upside down, beneath other flags, flying the Southern Cross (which is not, incidentally, the "Confederate Flag", that is the "Stars and Bars," but it ended up being confusing on the battlefield), and a whole host of expressions of protest, or simply of opposing tradition. Drawing a line is not easy. As an example, the Southern Cross was displayed by someone in my school (a long time ago) in their dorm room. They had ancestors who died at Gettysburg. A black student was "terrorized" by this, and it erupted into a school-wide conflict. Do the emotions of the viewer trump those of the displayer? How about the swastika which is an ancient symbol of Jainism?
I think it is unequivocal, however, that once they cross the line from expression to action, or to specific or generalized threat of harm, that all of the force of the state come down on them.
"The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life."
This is also arguably correct. The founding fathers littered the government process with Christian rhetoric and apparently thought nothing wrong with it ("God save the United States and this Honorable Court!"). The oath on the Bible in court is also traditional. This has come up in discussion before the Supreme Court justices on several occasions. There *is* no basis in founding works for that rigid separation. This is a separate issue from whether their *should* be such a separation. Even if we presumed that the country were entirely Christian (which it clearly is not), the extremes of belief and morality within just this one religion would argue for strong protections against persecution on the basis of religion. Establishing religious practice within the government de facto persecutes by making people of other religious stripes (or none) uncomfortable about participating in procedures or expressing different traditions, and this is the tack the Supreme Court has largely taken, except to preserve a small number of specific long standing traditions. This, however, is a development from the Constitution, not a strict adherence to it.
Great candidate you have there.
Personally, I don't know what candidate I endorse at the moment. All candidates have serious flaws. Their beliefs are not the problem per se, but their integrity and the degree to which they feel the need to impose those beliefs on others. That is the serious flaw with Bush II. He not only has strong beliefs, but accepts no others and any such professed beliefs are traitorous. Many of Ron Paul's Constitutional beliefs are a breath of fresh air after over a century of extreme federalism. Others are borderline but defensi
This is simply not true, because people living "off the grid" in the USA really aren't "off the grid". They are still indirectly consuming vast resources, like the resources the government and business is spending to support their non-third world lifestyle. Simply turning off your refrigerator doesn't make a MAJOR impact. That doesn't mean you don't save some energy, but it's certainly not "an order of magnitude" and it's certainly not enough to cause major changes to energy production needs.
The insight that reducing electrical usage (what we were discussing, OK, I did slip and say 'energy' once) doesn't reduce usage elsewhere is staggering. First of all, it obviously reduces electrical usage. Second, do you think that reducing electrical consumption is all they do? That they do not reduce trash output, consume less goods, buy in bulk to reduce packaging and trips to town? Do you think someone off-grid is likely to have a new large screen TV and stereo? That they don't work where they live? I am in the city myself at the moment. I use less than a third of the average household electrical consumption (without suffering for it, and it will probably go down a bit more). I also consume less in a lot of other areas. There are things I can't do anything about at the moment, but I act where I can. The idea that this has no impact, or, more properly, would have no impact if done on a large scale (even if it won't happen) is ridiculous in the extreme.
I got a small dorm fridge to replace the full-sized fridge we were using for drinks. And we have a chest-style freezer. Windows leak heat unless made of very thick insulated glass, which is very expensive. That's why you only see windows in expensive European refrigerators. People are doing this for the simple reason of saving money. That's why we did it.
Money saving does sometimes drive things in a good direction. The problem with that is that the cultural image of 'success' is/becomes the ability to waste. As soon as energy prices drop a bit or people get a raise, it goes away. Witness gas consumption between this gas crisis and the last one. People have very short memories when it comes to thriftiness and do not plan ahead. Our political leaders, even the ones who 'support' the environment, waste ostentatiously because they need to look 'successful'. People pick on Edwards over his haircuts, but prudence does not win votes.
Most developers now choose to make the most effective use of SPACE in given lots. This relative density has it's own advantages. Floorplans have to consider other, more important, issues than conservation like safety and accessibility. Many new developments make use of solar power, solar heating, or other environmental technology. So this is certainly being implement where economical and practical.
It is in some areas, slowly, not widespread, and not at all here, but the trend is encouraging.
This is a political argument, not an environmental one. Whether or not our oranges are picked by unionized workers in the USA or poorly paid workers in foreign nations is not relavent to the laws of physics. And one could certainly argue that if the USA had direct imperial control over nations like Chile it would be better because the US could force regulation (like limiting industrial development) that would hurt Chile in the short term but aid the environment in the long term (and thereby aid the USA). Of course, maintaining a military force is expensive (both in terms of energy and currency) as well.
The idea that we have the right, let alone the ability, to form energy policy for Chile is astounding. Our own policy is held hostage to special interests and cut-throat politics. Besides, what in the world gives us the right to impose limitations on Chile we are not willing to accept ourselves? That is one of the underlying themes of this whole conversation is that Americans will seldom lift a finger to cut consumption, re
Melodramatic platitudes do not make for real solutions to power production. Nothing you mentioned results in significant net savings.
Being an ass does not mean real changes can't be made or that you aren't partly responsible for the situation. You define 'significant' according to your desired result. Obviously, if everyone cuts their net energy usage, net energy usage will be cut. People living off grid cut their energy usage by an order of magnitude. How is that not significant?
Really? Where's your patent? Contrary to what you might think there ARE engineers out there actually trying to design and build more efficient refrigeration.
Hmmm... let's see: smaller refrigerators, chest-style refrigerators, refrigerators with clear panels (so you don't have to open them to see in), insulated cold boxes for the cold season in applicable climates, cistern or spring house coolers, etc. All of these are used by people in off-grid situations to reduce consumption, in addition to the more expensive high efficiency refrigerators.
Yeah, nobody has drapes or blinds anymore. And, at least here in California, new homes have more power and especially heating efficiency than ever. So it's mainly poorer people that are living in the older "less efficient" homes. I suppose they'll just have to soak up the costs of remodeling.
Newer homes have more efficient insulation and appliances. They rarely make efficient use of landscaping, floorplan or other features for heating and cooling. Ever since brute force could overcome poor planning, it has. In many hot climates even new construction has little insulation since it is "not needed". That is very common here. I notice how you fail to read anything I wrote and then sarcastically focus on "drapes and blinds". Is this a natural talent or are you paid for it? As it happens, drapes and blinds are often mis or under used for heating and cooling.
And again, we're not even talking about industry here. Know what the largest consumer of AC power in California is? Datacenters. Are computers just supposed to magically "not get hot"? Yet people are working on more powerful, more power efficient, cooler components. But this DOESN'T mean that our power costs are going to go down because we want to have actual technological progress.
Let me see if I can follow your logic here: Because the largest user of power is datacenters and we can't change it, we might as well give up on efficiency anywhere else, oh, except they are trying to improve datacenters. So, because my rent is a fixed cost (at the moment), I can't save money and I should go out on the town tonight.
Not all of us live in a forest granola boy. However, my brother does and he heats his house with a wood stove. It's a lot of hard work chopping all that wood and feeding it into a stove, time that I think would be better spent doing other things but my brother insists it's a little cheaper. If you think it's a good idea for millions of people to be doing this, you're retarded. It's what caused the deforestation of Europe and is causing the deforestation of South America and Africa. North American forests are relatively untouched because we DON'T use wood for heat.
Because my chosen solution has been wood at various points, I am obviously recommending everyone burn wood? Thinking to the point that maybe there is more than *one* solution that might work for different people to improve efficiency across the board if the cared to do it is beyond your capacity? Again, you are either being deliberately obtuse or are an idiot. This is exactly the thinking that is the problem. Rather than face the idea that you might be able to do something, you will invent every conceivable obstacle to make it impossible. If you put a fraction of the creativity you use to misread my posts into actually thinking, we would be most of the way there.
And yes, I go to the farmer's market quite frequently. This does not make
Well, at the time, I also had a small generator, and could have refilled the battery bank at any point (It was technically an alternator, direct DC output, and really useful; I need to find one again). Also, we had DVDs, and had enough power to watch movies on a number of occasions, we just seldom did. Once you live in a situation where you are deprived of something you think is 'necessary' long enough to learn to adjust, you sometimes learn that the alternatives just aren't that bad. We had better things to do than sit and watch movies. Having the house relatively dark and quiet at night I have found keeps my internal clock working much better and is actually quite relaxing. Sure, people don't live that way because they choose it, but when you realize you do have a choice and can pick and choose the best of both worlds, your life ends up better for it.
Right now, I don't have to walk out into the snow to get kindling, wake up at 2am in a downpour to reinforce the dike or make sure the cachement system is working, or worry that the spring will dry up and I'll have to haul water a mile from the creek. I don't have to light the stone oven with damp wood in the rain. I don't have to check my bed or shoes for scorpions. I don't need to suspend milk jars (from the goat) in the spring to keep them cold. I don't need to worry about snakes in the outhouse. etc. etc. These are all very good things. I definitely appreciate modern conveniences in ways I never did before. But that does not mean that there were no good things or that I can't carry some of those lessons with me. We treat lots of things as necessities that are no such things, which is why people go ballistic when they lose those 'necessities' for even short times, like the ice storm that hit this winter. People panic so completely that they actually *put* their lives in danger.
At one point years ago during an extended outage, I had set up the next day making breakfast in the fireplace: eggs, bacon, toast, etc. Almost done when power came back. I calmly went into the kitchen, flipped the breaker, and served breakfast. Sometimes, 'problems' are just opportunities to experience new things. Sometimes it's taken a good bit of time afterwards to realize it.
When folks in third world countries use candles and oil lamps, they maximize their use of sunlight, only use light sources when necessary and often for task lighting, take advantage of full moons, and watch consumption closely.... It is not a matter of suffering or 'making do', but just finding you don't need as much as you thought you did.
No, it IS a matter of "making do". Do you think people in developing countries really want to live this way? Really, this whole notion that we can significantly cut power consumption in the United States just by making a few "lifestyle changes" is fucking ridiculous.
It's a matter of being aware of a wider variety of options and being aware of where things come from. I don't eat a lot of meat, not because there's a shortage, but because I have had to handle the whole process end to end. I have a lot more respect for the animals it comes from and no desire to waste it. I don't have any shortage of electricity or water right now, but, because of where I have been, I am aware of where it comes from when I flip a switch or turn a tap. I also know I have better options for entertainment than wasting them. My washer is set up to cycle rinse water from one load into the next load's wash water. It doesn't save me much money, but it does not cost me anything either. People do not appreciate what they have.
THE LIGHTS ARE NOT A MAJOR SOURCE OF POWER CONSUMPTION IN YOUR HOUSE. Read that last sentence again slowly. Whether you leave your lights on 24/7 or not will have little effect on your power bill. The BIG uses of electricity involve heating and cooling. In order, these tend to be the big uses:
Refrigerator: No refrigerated food for you!
I have to admit, my refrigerator was running when I made that post, though I have lived without it, I do prefer it. There are quite a few ways to do with less or make it more efficient.
Air Conditioner: You boil in the summer! Yay!
Don't have it, and this is a warm climate. Efficient construction, intelligent landscaping (e.g. deciduous trees on southern exposure), drapes, reduces much of the need; people don't bother anymore depending on air conditioning instead. It's amazing what minor, intelligent changes can do without 'suffering'. Bottom line: people don't care.
Electric heating: No heat for you! Hope you don't freeze to death in the winter.
Again, people have choices to reduce consumption. When the house gets cold, I put on a sweater. That was just the way it was done where I grew up (in the North). In the house I grew up in, we also had a large window on a southern exposure that directed sunlight onto a stone fireplace. The stonework heated all day and radiated back all night. It cut heating costs tremendously without a complex 'passive solar system'. Sure, I use heat, but am much more frugal with it than most people, not from some conscious need to pinch pennies (though it does help), but just out of inborn habit. Many people cool their homes in the summer to temperatures they cannot stand in the winter and heat to temperatures in the winter they complain about in the summer--- how does that make sense?
Electric stove: No cooking for you! Hope you can subsist wholly on raw foods.
Not wholly certainly, but certainly a good bit during the warm seasons, and as much as I can, food from local markets, not trucked half way across the continent. Do you even know where your local farmers' market is? During the cold months, I usually get at least several uses out of my heat energy, as I use a wood stove for area heating, cook on it, boil water, and use the potash for various things. If the wood comes from local culls and deadfall, it is CO2 neutral. Perfect, no. Better, yes.
Microwave: See above.
Computers and other appliances: No/. for you!
Electric lighting is much more efficient in terms of lumens per BTU than a candle or kerosene lamp, so one would think that people who get electricity and electric lighting to replace their candles and lamps reduce their energy usage. In fact, what happens is that their usage goes up by an order of magnitude. When folks in third world countries use candles and oil lamps, they maximize their use of sunlight, only use light sources when necessary and often for task lighting, take advantage of full moons, and watch consumption closely. With electricity, they use bright area lights for task work, leave lights on in adjacent (or even unoccupied) rooms, and other things unimaginable to them just months before.
The reverse case, living on a battery bank and solar panel, follows a similar pattern. When living on battery, tracking your power levels becomes second nature. You become much more aware of what you are using and start to make trade-offs in your mind: do I really want to watch that movie and draw down the battery bank when I could just as easily read a book (or go to bed at dark and get up earlier, or actually talk to my wife, or...) It is not a matter of suffering or 'making do', but just finding you don't need as much as you thought you did. In the summer when the battery banks are overflowing, you splurge, like running the ice cream maker.
Having gone back and forth between these worlds a few times, I am very aware of the power I expend. Right now, my wife and I have one light bulb (a CFL) on in the entire house. There have been times and places that even burning a single light this long after dark would have been unusual.
So, yes, solar panels can provide enough power to run your life, particularly if you make the logical adjustments to living with a variable and finite source of power. We get so used to flipping a switch and not thinking about where the power comes from, that we expect the exact same out of renewable power sources. It also means that we are horrible at dealing with emergencies or changes of fortune. But we don't have to live that way.
Some "tools" are inherently immoral. Chemical weapons such as nerve agents strke me as a unambigious example since there is no legitimate use of these kind of weapons. A weapons grade ebola virus would be another example. If you can't do anything "right" with a so-called "tool" then the creation, use and even the existance of said "tool" are all "wrong". Nerve agents? I have several cans under my sink. Organic phosphates (cholinesterase inhibitors) were invented to kill people. They are now, quite legitimately, used to kill bugs. I tend to use them as a tool of last resort (preferring Taro powder, et al), but they are certainly tools. There a number of chemical weapons in this category. Dynamite was *not* invented to kill people, but look where it has gotten us.
The problem is while agreeing wholly with your sentiment, in practice drawing the line is very hard. Weaponized forms of super-bugs I think is an unambiguous no-no, but *research* along that line is quite necessary, at the least so that someone has a chance of countering a bio-weapon when one is let loose. How do you loosen the cork without letting the genie out? Even relatively small labs now have the potential ability to create their own customized bugs and knowledge is in general circulation, so it is already too late to entirely prevent a future problem. Only mitigation is left.
It is unfortunate because, in many cases, I think we do need to put the breaks on a bit. Our track record with many kinds of meddling is poor, and we are doing so at an increasing rate; so quickly we cannot adequately measure effects to better target our meddling. In practice, however, stopping the train is not easy.
I don't think that could be more illogical and separated from the point. the people doing the job are doing great jobs at it. The top of the command might be whacked out but they are doing what they consider their best too.
I think the previous poster's point was that if the leadership has gotten you into a bad situation, with impossible or actually detrimental goals, through no fault of your own, doing your job, good or bad, is making things worse in the long run, which is a good reason to dramatically change those goals. When I was in the Pentagon, the general consensus was that the military was there to clean up the mess when the diplomats screwed up. Being able to clean up the mess assumes that at some point the diplomats *stop* screwing it up and making it worse.
Here is the problem, In the battlefield right now, Men and women are dieing because people like you say pull the troops out and leave our allies hanging. Now, this might not be exactly as your saying it but it is what is being heard in the places like Iraq where people who support our troops there are putting their life on the line in doing so. Do you wonder why the terrorist are killing more civilians in Iraq then soldiers? It isn't because the soldiers are cowards and hiding behind them, it is because the civilians are supporting them and they are being considered fair game as far as the enemy is concerned. When they hear "Lets support the troops and up and leave the fight" they are thinking if we lose because they desert us, I'm going to get killed, I have probably caused my families death too. So you little self righteous, "I support the troops but not the war" is getting the killed. If you want the war to end, support getting the tool and people necessary to get the job done so they can get out without abandoning those we are supposed to be helping or losing by default.
First of all, very few of these folks are for a total withdrawal, but rather a change of mission and partial re-deployment, one that takes into account logistical, political, and other realities that the current folks in charge are trying very hard to ignore, and things which the troops on the ground are not actually in contact with on a regular basis. As to disparity in deaths between civilians and troops, has it occurred to you that the troops are heavily armed, armored, and have air/artillery support which civilians lack? Has it occurred to you that the civilians in the region have been killing each other since the 1600's over issues that have little to do with us, but which our toppling of the government made much easier? Are you aware of the Iraqi police and army recruitment centers bombed on a regular basis? How are you going to 'win' and stop that violence? Even General Patraeus says it would take a 9-10 year commitment--- that's not a situation where we give the troops 'what they need to get the job done and get out'. Besides 'what they (you) need' fundamentally does not exist. There are no more troops to send, tours are already overextended (and we learned the cost of that in WWII, whatever the willingness of the soldiers), there is no more equipment, we no longer have the manufacturing capacity to replace it, and we don't have the capital to buy it. We are badly overextended and meanwhile other threats go unanswered, including response to stateside disasters. Part of good military leadership is knowing when a plan has failed and adjusting accordingly. No matter how worthwhile the goal, (though I would question the reasons for the invasion in the first place, it's a bit late to change that), failure is failure. Throwing more at it is sheer stupidity. So is turning tail and running, but an ordered change in overall strategy and re-deployment is not 'running' or 'losing by default'.
And the political situation, far from improving is deteriorating rapidly. Iraqi members of parliament are boycotting the process. No progress has been made on sharing oil revenue. (A portion of) Kurds are becoming *more* nationalist and Tur
From reading the Bible is seems to grow out of Paul and the Jewish idea of blood sacrifice. Sacrifice a good animal for this or that or the other. And, without it, the other parts don't make any sense. Jesus gets killed because... -- Doesn't seem to make any sense. I don't blame people for trying to explain it, it needs explaining. Certainly good people suffer, I daresay your average cancer suffer goes through worse than any crucified person does. God dies horribly for no reason at all. Why put one's head on the executioner's block at all? I think it's unworthy of any respect. If nobody is forcing you, don't do it.
Well, that is just the point. Many times people are forced into sacrifice. As Annie Dillard says (_Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_), we all live on the horns of the alter. Sometimes we have a choice, but once we realize it, it is too late. Meeting that fate with dignity is what is worthy of respect. In that sense, the principle that self-control and a recognition/acceptance of our inner being is the path to salvation is somewhat Jainist. The differences include that Christianity believes in a supreme being and does not believe in karma/reincarnation. It is also important to note that Jesus did not believe in austerity, self mortification, or self-deprivation. Pleasure is part of our being as well. John the Baptist lead an austere, isolated existence, and Jesus was explicit that both paths were acceptable. Accepting pain and suffering when necessary is one thing, but it is not necessary to cause it.
And even the little interesting parts are still less moral than Jainism. A Martin Luther King could have been created more easily via Jainism than Christianity, and actually he got his positions from Gandhi, and not Christianity. Gandhi coincidentally got his from Jainism. I don't see why, one should accept a story which makes little to no sense, when there are more moral philosophies out there for the taking. And, on a related note, I don't see how anybody can conclude the Bible is true to even make the offer worthwhile.
The story doesn't seem to work. The moral philosophy is subpar.
First of all, being Christian certainly does not rule out studying other philosophies and accepting the wisdom of them. In fact, I think being a good Christian requires it for putting into perspective one's own beliefs. Christ is not the first, last, or only teacher. Jainism's tenet that harming other life is never justified to me is not tenable on many levels. Jesus' preaches strongly at several points tolerance for slights against us and love of enemies and means it, but also demonstrates (by turning out the money changers at the temple, for instance), that action is sometimes required. Loving your enemies does not always mean not opposing them. Dietrich Bonhoffer, theologian, martyred in WWII, and author of _Cost of Discipleship_ wrestled with this dilemma in his opposition to the Nazis. Life requires difficult choices and there are no absolutes. I was vegetarian for years, for instance, but, as a small farmer now, have come around to a different way of thinking. It is not eating meat that is the problem, but the way that it is done and the respect that is paid to the life we take. We all have our place in the world and we accord others with the respect and dignity they are due regardless of our differences. When we do not play our part, we cause harm to ourselves and others. I now see that vegetarian/vegan agriculture can be actively damaging in many situations (separate from agribusiness, which is damaging period, whether concerning the raising of meat or vegetables), though ova-lacto vegetarianism more so.
In any case, people will always argue about morality. It is not meant to be easy. There was a philosopher that described moral development as a stepladder, zigzagging around a central line. As we learn more about certain things, our beliefs advance to new levels, but also shift from side to side. Sometimes we seem to come back to the same point, but our reasons are v
So why bother with the whole death thing? I understand the added baggage of the blood sacrifice, but the entire exercise seems futile if it's done for no reason at all. Wouldn't it have spared people a lot of grief to just ascend to heaven without the whole death thing. I understand the desire to ignore the stupid parts, but they do seem to tie together in the larger theology. And the entire death for sin sake seems to require a literal Adam and Eve story, a literal Jesus, and a literal death (at least for a couple days). There's something noble about remaking your religion into a form you can show your neighbors without too much embarrassment, but I've always thought that if you're throwing out the baby... there's no point keeping the bathwater.
It isn't that this seems to be a small subsection of Christian theology... it seems to be the core.
Well, as I said, the whole "Blood Sacrifice" thing grew up in the Middle Ages, so it is not a matter of remaking the religion to make it acceptable, but a matter of trying to get rid of some baggage that was laid on top of it. There is some connection with Jesus as sacrifice in the New Testament itself and is important, but it is connected to Old Testament symbolism of the Passover and the Temple and meaningless out of context. Part of the reason the "Blood Sacrifice" doctrine came along is that it was much less work for medieval theologians to explain the crucifixion by that route, and the whole original sin-blood sacrifice-redemption doctrine fit very well with a centralized, guilt-operated, hierarchical church.
Even as a sacrifice, Jesus' death was horrible, but not unique. People die horrible deaths every day. Some perhaps even worse than being tortured and crucified (though how you rate things at that level I am not sure). Many of these people could certainly be considered "innocent" in many ways, particularly, say, infants starving to death. Without a nebulous concept of "original sin" tainting even these, Jesus' sacrifice, again, is not unique. In fact, it might be noted that good people, especially activists, such as Gandhi and MLK, suffer violent deaths more often than not. Terrible, often undeserved, suffering is part of the human condition.
As for "Salvation," I don't believe in it as the easy way out many people take it as. Whether death leads to the Long Night or Immortality, it is bound to be transformative and lead to a type of existence now unknown to us and which we are incapable of understanding from this side of the door. Like birth or the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, much of what has gone before becomes irrelevant or immaterial. Our need to preserve "self," our personality, and our fear of the destruction of the ego, is not served by a promise of life after death. No matter what we believe in, we need faith, trust, courage, whatever, to face the darkness with some measure of dignity. Choosing to put our faith in God and turn ourselves over to His care is not self-preserving but self-destructive and transformative: in Christian terms, "dieing to self and allowing Christ to live in us." This is an acceptance that God is a part of us and vice-versa, and that being in tune with this fact requires stripping away layers of self-deception, fear, and vanity, being part of something greater than ourselves. Christ clearly demonstrates the possible consequences.
Jesus' teachings about "Turning the other cheek," and similar admonishments to not seek vengeance or strike out at enemies takes somewhat of a twist from similar teachings elsewhere. This is not taught from the position of the nobility of sacrifice (indeed, Jesus is accused by peers as being epicurean) but from the idea that we have better things to worry about. We do not know the hour when we will be called and need to be prepared; vengeance, hate, pettiness, are dangerous distractions from what is truly important.
The meaning of the death and resurrection *are* difficult to understand (which is why many shortcuts have been taken over
And to a lesser extent, I am opposed to the idea that this suicidal deity didn't stay dead. I'm to believe that All Mighty God lost the metaphysical equivalent of a round of counterstrike then screams "You did this"-- and I am suppose to love this character for it? And if I don't, he's going to rejoin the server someday 'soon' (though that was a few thousand years ago) and pwn everybody. I'm sorry, I am a devout Christian, but I have to say this is one of the most amusing ways I have ever seen it put. That and the "magic dead Jew on a stick" from a few posts below had me nearly spewing my drink on the keyboard. Obviously, that isn't the way I see it, no. Christianity has gathered a lot of epistemological cruft over the last 2K years, much of it in the early Middle Ages, which makes things hard to unravel even for studied Christians, let alone outsiders. Even worse, much of the cruft is what rabid believers bandy about with the most energy without giving a lot of thought to what they are really implying. Reactions like yours are exactly what people sometimes need to force the incongruity.
The focus on "Salvation" began with Paul's ministry after Christ's death. The detailed focus on the "Blood Sacrifice" was a construction of the early Middle Ages. These are present in Jesus' teachings, but are blown out of proportion and lose their context. When these are banked down some, the teachings become a good bit more coherent, subtler, and more disturbing: disturbing in the sense that they require one to change one's life and make tough moral choices to follow. This last I think is why many people prefer *not* to put that much thought into it. It is much more comforting to think you can make a feudal bargain with an irrational God and get immortality out of the deal. That is largely the way our government seems to work, why not the universe?
Context is everything. The Bible, Old and New Testament, has an enormous amount that goes along with it, some of which is quite confusing or even contradictory, and is not for the faint of heart.
The interesting part is that Thor's bug is in the way iframes handle URLs. This suggests that the code to parse and evaluate URLs is not uniform. That itself is a bad mark and is unlikely to be an underlying Windows bug. The problem with the lack of taint checking may be an API bug, but, in a cross platform browser, it may not be prudent to trust the platform API to do this reliably. I am paranoid, but I would normally generate specific test cases for this (to see if the underlying API works and see if it stops working from API release to release) and probably add my own library function to be linked in where needed (basic autoconf hell). It looks like they may have gone with paranoia in some cases but not others.
Additionally, Thor claims the exploit executes on OS X (albeit with a safer exec call). He is right that a general solution to external protocol handling and security needs to be developed or this general class of bug will keep cropping up in one place or another.
As for Maynor's handling of disclosure (or lack thereof) it is unprofessional and not helpful.
That the reason they do it is because statistically a percentage of people don't make a given flight. Sometimes it ends up in conflicts, especially since they tend to err on the side of being full rather than no conflicts, but there is good reason to do it. If 100% of people who wanted on a flight showed up, they'd never overbook. However about 10-15% of people cancel their reservations or otherwise fail to show. Thus it makes sense to overbook the aircraft.
That might almost be an excuse except that they sell non-refundable "you die, you fly" tickets, supposedly for the exact same reason. Those empty seats are already paid for. They are trying to make additional money off of them at the cost of double booking. Like most businesses, they get you both ways and make you deal with the mistakes and inconvenience.
Doesn't sound like you need cameras. Sounds like you need competent police. If they cannot be bothered to interview witnesses and investigate the crime, what makes you think that they will do substantially better with the video? They would still have to track down the actual offenders and tie them to the scene, and that takes work. You yourself said that video won't do any good if no one actually gets hurt. I'll bet that if someone does get hurt, they'll nail the first poor sod to the wall that matches their fuzzy video image regardless of whether they can actually tie them to the scene or put a weapon in their hand--- easier that way, better for the media.
The cameras are not there to make people safer, they are there to make law enforcement lazier, to keep them from having to do real investigation. In some places I have lived in, the police would put armed plain-clothes officers (often women) on the street in question to be there when the robbers showed up. End of problem. They could also patrol the street on a regular basis to discourage attacks. Your bobbies aren't doing their jobs.
Incidentally, this kind of situation is one of the reasons for a right to bear arms in the US. When the police are unwilling or unable to provide protection (often enough), at least the individual can defend their own life in the last extreme. In the rural area I live in, any attack would be long over by the time the police arrive. It is unconscionable for the state to say to someone: "We won't defend you or your family, but don't you dare stand up for yourself!" The right to bear arms, admittedly, causes a host of other issues, but there are underlying reasons.
I used a Toshiba Libretto and later a Sony Picturebook for quite a while. Both very similar, pocket-sized but full function laptops. With a smart phone and a portable printer, I could get a portable office and development environment in under five pounds and in carry-on luggage. With a battery upgrade, I got 8-12 hours use. I also had network diagnostic tools and adapters. It was not for heavy work, but for getting things done when I was stuck unexpectedly one place or another and I did not want to lug a lot of equipment. I could pull it out of a pocket, work on something for a few minutes, then just close the lid and slip it away. I generally had a full-sized workstation at my own office and at client sites. If not, a couple adapters at least let me steal a keyboard and monitor. Very versatile.
This form factor is not at all new or special. Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, probably others as well. Several problems with this one: not open-- can't necessarily install own apps; price too high-- apparently more like $7-800. Battery life not impressive for the form factor.
Yes, and to emphasize LordVader's comment, there is no guarantee their model is the correct one. If there is a large range of probable input parameters which was does not show the observed output, then it is likely that the *chosen model* is not the correct one. Perhaps the theory can be improved to not be as sensitive to inputs. More work can be done to show that those inputs are correct (for all three cases). Other theories or models can be developed which better explain the phenomena. Choosing your parameters to match the observation is not bad for a first step, but it is not an ending point for good science.
There is no reason to believe the assumptions underlying their models, and therefore, no reason to believe its output, that the impact lead to total collapse. Obviously, the building *did* collapse, but given that they were tasked to find out *why* means that the anthropic principle does not save their model. By succumbing to laziness, they completely ignore other causes or possible contributing circumstances:
1) Were there unexpected failures of design redundancies and over-engineering? Why did the design models fail? How do they need to be corrected?
2) Were there substandard materials or technologies present in the building? Were these materials properly installed and inspected? (FEMA did bring to light issues with the foam, but even they did not believe it was a major contributor) Who might have been responsible? How can the system be corrected to prevent this?
3) Did materials or technologies age, weather, or corrode in an unexpected fashion? Were they recently inspected? What does this mean for new building structures? (debris could have been examined for signs of corrosion or other problems)
4) Are there signs of other kinds of sabotage beside the obvious? Did the attackers take steps to maximize damage? (e.g. a basement bomb timed to coincide roughly with the impact, sabotaging fire-suppression systems, etc.)
These are not "extra credit" questions. They go to the core of what NIST was tasked to do and are largely unanswered. In many cases, the answer would have been "no," but clearly something had to be "yes." The building was designed with enough over-engineering, for instance, that the trusses could have magically disappeared and the building(s) should have supported itself between the core, the outer frame, and the cross ties. NIST only supposes that some load bearing members were materially weakened. The core itself should have stood no matter what the rest of the building did. Something caused the building and/or design to fail; it was their job to investigate.
As an aside, there is a barn in a pasture near here that has been abandoned for quite a while. It is a two story oak structure. The external load bearing members are completely rotted. They don't even touch the foundation any more. The entire barn is supported by a one-story interior wall which holds up the sills for the second floor. The sills, in turn, hold up the planking, the second floor walls, the roof, and hold the first floor suspended above the ground. It's been like that for years apparently. I had bets that it was going to fall this winter, but it is still there. It is amazing what a little over-engineering will do.
Yeah, I've been through the NIST numbers a few times. Regardless of the reason the buildings fell: Poor work. They set their model inputs to give them their expected outputs. If I had done that in the Pentagon and published it, I hope they would have shot me.
1) Less than a gallon of jet fuel per *ton* of steel. The steel was interconnected and would dissipate heat rapidly. That's like throwing an oil lamp in the back of my truck and watching it come apart.
2) No evidence whatsoever that the fires were that hot for any length of time, especially near to the time of collapse. Their numbers assume steady oxygen flow, which a hole in the top of the building and thick, black smoke does not indicate. Nor does a fireman climbing past the level of the impact and radioing down that the fires were controllable (in one of the two towers). In their 'test', they provided oxygen to get it to the temperature they wanted. They spend no time whatsoever justifying their assumptions or showing how their model responds to different regimes. When the model generated what they wanted, that was 'proof'. The reason they did not is because their numbers don't work without those assumptions. Why would all three buildings be driven into the same failure mode? Why would differences in temperature, structural damage, contents, construction, etc., not cause different failures? Perhaps their model could be made to work, but they never *tried*. What process (or flaw, other than the foam, which was just a redundancy anyway) forced all three buildings into that failure mode and prevented them from failing in other ways? It's the difference between a diagnosis and a description.
3) Even if the temperature were that high at the top, how does a weakening at the *top* of the structure explain the complete disintegration of the rest of the structure? Their numbers and their model completely ignores most of the integrity and redundancy of the design, particularly in sections *undamaged* by fire or impact. It's like a model of dominoes, except that, in real life, the dominoes are glued together. There is no explanation whatsoever for the fall straight down, into the intact structure, instead of the damaged section falling to one side, where there was no resistance. In one building, without further explanation, that might be a fluke. In three buildings, that's worthy of serious questions. Anything is possible, but *why*? Again, what process, action, or flaw, forced the buildings into that failure mode and barred all others?
Even without being fodder for conspiracy theorists, the study is obviously shoddy and incomplete. Even without positing additional sabotage, the fact that the failure of every redundancy and every safety system of a building *designed to withstand aircraft strikes* was not better investigated is criminally negligent. Buildings are still being constructed essentially the same way worldwide. If the NIST report is right, then there needs to be a massive overhauling of building codes and material standards (exactly what many industry comments to the report stated) because a fundamental understanding of construction is flawed. The fact that only minor changes have resulted says to me that the government doesn't believe the results either.
As far as talk of demolition goes, it explains the collapse as well or better than NISTs simulation, if only because NIST did such a half-hearted job and because, at this point, there is no longer any physical evidence to examine. It's not just "conspiracy nuts" criticizing them, but also qualified professionals. The way the buildings fell is a legitimate question; some people go too far looking for answers and the people paid to do it did not look far enough.
The big problem is that the incident was not a single collapse, but a series of collapses with an identical progression and only two of them sharing an initial cause (yes, I am aware of the generators in Building 7). NIST approached it the same way doctors often approach a single, isolated death ("It was raining a
Well, not saying I believe in one particular theory or another, but I find it interesting when people use this argument since they usually use it to invalidate the evidence that is there or declare the people who do come forward to be 'nutjobs', thus closing the possibility of anything other than the official explanation.
In reality, governments do occasionally pull off rather large conspiracies of this order *precisely because* of this sentiment. The burning of the Reichstag springs to mind, or, on the other side, the rather large conspiracy *against* Hitler in the German military intelligence department. Such efforts seem so improbable that no one believes them even when faced with quite direct evidence. In fact, the Abwher conspiracy in Germany demonstrates exactly the scale of a military/government conspiracy which 9/11 theorists allege. In the end, it did not fail due to infiltration or bad security, but due to simple bad luck (Hitler survived the bomb).
Secondly, if your theory is correct, that it is not possible for a large organization to keep a secret, how did a large international terrorist organization do it? How does organized crime work? Both require deep hooks into government to function and often carry out quite bold acts in broad daylight. The police knew full well the acts that Capone was responsible for but could not prove it, and he was so skilled in playing the media that much of the public refused to believe the charges as well. They do not need to keep a secret, they (whoever 'they' are) just need to get enough conflicting information out to muddy the waters. Real conspiracies, large and small, happen every day, and the bad guys do not wear black hats.
The government's explanation is also a "conspiracy theory," and, a priori, deserves no more nor less consideration than any other.
When I was actively doing business travel, online collaborative apps were a supplement to applications on the desktop, given that the online apps were trustworthy (controlled by my own business). I never had any desire to get rid of local applications, especially since I had to be able to do office work, development and other tasks on the go, with no network access, expensive network access, insecure network access, or unreliable network access. If the "network applications" are downloadable and cached for off-line use, then you have nothing new, that's just semi-automated deployment and update. When it comes to that, externally controlled auto-update is a bad thing in many environments. I want to control when I upgrade, after I know the update is not going to break something. I don't want to log on, find out I can't access an old file, and have no way to restore the previous version of the application. Web services are continuously in beta.
Currently, I have absolutely no need for remote apps. I do all of my work locally and live rurally. Why would I want my applications and/or data externally controlled and unaccessible if I don't have a connection? I have full-featured applications (which would take considerable time to download). I pay for them once (if I have to at all). I have low latency. I can pick and choose which applications I use. I can have multiple versions installed if I need to for compatibility reasons. I control encryption and backups when I need it. What advantage does a "network desktop" get me?
I haven't actually put a commercial CD into a drive in a year or more, and all the ones I still own are long since ripped. I was thinking about selling all my CDs, but then my ripped copies would be illegal, and I'm one of those weirdoes who actually likes to pay fairly for what they have. So what do I do if I don't want the clutter? Throw them all into a landfill?...snip...
You can string them on wire over your chicken run to keep hawks away. They actually work pretty well for that. With the help of a dowel, a washer, and a cup hook, my wife makes them into bottom-whirl drop-spindles (for turning wool into yarn?). I've also seen people turn them into clocks. Nifty if you can read analog time.
Have you READ the RealID act? Fixing the base documents IS the first step- it really tightens up the requirments.
Existing documents aren't good enough, documents like birth certificates which are easy to forge and easy to obtain. You can't just tighten up the requirements when issuing ID based on it because the base documents (and processes producing them) aren't good enough. You would end up denying millions of existing legitimate documents as unverifiable--- because they are. Fixing that takes time (like decades) and Real ID is useless until that happens.
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3) Electronic transactions. An ID won't help you in electronic communications. You can't present your ID to a web page. They might start collecting Real ID numbers, but, like SS numbers, they can be stolen.
Not if you index it to a fingerprint scanner- cheap enough these days, I have one on my cell phone.
Useless. A fingerprint is just data; there's no magic. It can be copied like anything else. How does an online bank know whether someone is really using a fingerprint scanner or just sending a data stream of a fingerprint they captured? For that matter, the scanners themselves can be fooled in any number of ways. Unlike a CC number, you can't change your biometrics once they're misused. Because people believe biometrics are magic, it will be a lot harder to prove you've been defrauded. No one will believe you.
4) Lack of verification even in person. Right now, businesses and agencies are not required (and don't have the ability) to check the information that is there, like the fact that a given Social Security number belongs to a two year-old girl, not a thirty year-old man applying for a job. This is the source of a lot of fraud.
This is also a MAJOR part of the RealID act- instant web verification, like the banks already do on SSNs.
Yes, it is a target, but not given enough focus. Effort is being spent on a lot of other (expensive and unreliable) garbage rather than simple, effective solutions based on data already available, cleaning up existing processes, and making incremental improvements at the bottom end (the issuing and validation of base documents). They'll have a large, insecure, unreliable, expensive database of poorly validated data delivered much later than needed. Cleaning up this validation process, at least to catch 90%+ of fraud, doesn't need Real ID or any reasonable fraction of what they are trying to throw at it. What Real ID does do is create a centralized database which government loves but can never seem to secure, and enrich a lot of tech companies for technology which has never been vetted.
Once the system can catch the majority of fraud early, the rest of it can be handled and cleaned up by existing methods and good old-fashioned detective work. Expecting the system to catch more than that automatically, at any expense, is pure fantasy and ignores centuries of experience in intelligence and counter-intelligence.
Even if I agreed with the idea of a national ID (I don't). Taking all of the government assumptions at face value, the plan still won't touch identity theft. Why not?
1) Base documents. How will you get a Real ID? You will have to present base documents (driver's license, birth certificate, passport, social security card, proof of address, whatever) to prove your identity. These can already be forged and already are to get perfectly valid driver's licenses. Without fixing the base documents, there is no foundation for Real ID. Someone can quite happily get the fake documents they need to get a very real document which will be accepted for a gold standard. What does someone do when they go to the government to get their Real ID, and someone says "Can't, someone's already got one."?
2) Existing identity theft. Issuing a new ID won't straighten out the existing tangled records. Which fraudulent credit lines go to which real person? How about income taxes and criminal records? You can't fix IDs that have already been stolen with a new document based on the already bad information.
3) Electronic transactions. An ID won't help you in electronic communications. You can't present your ID to a web page. They might start collecting Real ID numbers, but, like SS numbers, they can be stolen.
4) Lack of verification even in person. Right now, businesses and agencies are not required (and don't have the ability) to check the information that is there, like the fact that a given Social Security number belongs to a two year-old girl, not a thirty year-old man applying for a job. This is the source of a lot of fraud.
What you *might* be able to do is focus on fixing base documents, like fixing birth certificates, Social Security cards, and voter registrations. If those were harder to forge, easier to verify, it would be harder to get a fake ID of any kind. Once you had a significant chunk of the population with good base documents, people who currently have ****ed identities will eventually die off. Then, maybe, *maybe* a Real ID would make sense, but I think there are still better ways.
Right now, they're focusing on the wrong end of things. Probably because a real solution takes time, care, and won't be done before they leave office. A bad solution looks good now, and won't be discovered bad until long after they care.
Banks and some other places don't allow weapons by policy, even where otherwise legal. In some places I need to leave my knife (just a small belt knife) in the car or check it with security. Not a big deal. As far as effectiveness, do you think its being illegal is going to stop a bank robber from carrying a gun into a bank? They already intend to break the law. The fact that guns were not allowed on VA Tech campus did little to stop Cho; he was not bothered by the consequences. The fact is that in many cases, the rule of law is upheld by common consent and a common intent to abide by the law. People do not avoid gunning down bank employees because they do not have guns, they don't do it because they have no intention of robbing a bank. Criminals, obviously, don't fit that equation.
The "Wild West" was not necessarily bad because of the presence of guns, but because of the absence of law. What law was there was often corrupt and in league with organized crime. Any frontier is first peopled by con-artists, smugglers, and racketeers. Anybody with a need to start fresh, no conscience, and who wants to make a buck. Getting a badge is a great path to power. There were probably just as many guns in the South (note that many confederates provided their own guns during the war), but law and culture was better established. Similarly, here in a rural farm belt, there are guns all over, but very few shootings compared to urban areas where carrying firearms is illegal.
In a lot of "Third World" areas (I hate that term), including Iraq, the situation is similar--- no law or corrupt law. A police chief in the Anbhar province of Iraq recently said that a third of his police force was untrustworthy and in league with either organized crime or insurgents. In that kind of situation, everyone fends for themselves and no one knows who is really dangerous. In those situations, legal or not, people will die rather than give up their guns, because it is a matter of life or death that they have them. Look at Rwanda and other places, too. Look at Chicago during prohibition, where there was widespread corruption.
1) Having the weapon concealed freaks less people out. Because of the unreasoning fear of guns, an unconcealed weapon can cause a public disturbance, even though the carrier is well within their rights. Many areas have an ordinance about "Armed to the fear of the people" which is subjectively defined. Look at the current incident. If less people were irrational, I think that unconcealed weapons would be more common.
I went armed at points in Arlington (could not in DC), not with a firearm but a sword cane, partly because I needed a cane at the time and it was a salve to pride and partly because I had still not recovered from my distaste for guns, was a proficient fencer, and had to walk through violent neighborhoods. I could not have carried a sword at my hip without drawing negative attention. In some nearby areas people had been mugged even when not alone and hurt even when not resisting (generally with knives or other low-tech weapons, not firearms, perhaps because of noise). Also, contrary to people's fascination with them, guns are not necessarily good at close quarters when fast-reactions are needed.
I was getting used to the weight of chainmail at the time (re-enactment) and sometimes wore a mail shirt under my sweats when walking at night. I occasionally thought of one of our members who had an encounter in Central Park when returning from an event and was mugged while wearing armor under her cloths and carrying a broadsword (she was a master fencer). The mugger, who tried to stab her, got a nasty surprise. Generally, I would prefer to avoid an encounter entirely rather than play the hero, but sometimes escape is not an option, particularly with a bum leg. Even if slim, a fighting chance is a chance.
2) An unconcealed weapon makes you an immediate target in an incident. Whether this reason counters the possibility that a displayed weapon might deter an incident in the first place I am not sure, but I think that the possibility that someone might be carrying in CCW areas probably gives some second thoughts.
Anyway, there are all kinds of questions, many of them carry to beyond guns, and the first step in getting answers is admitting that there *are* questions.
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Well, I also grew up poor and worked my way through college. For most of my life I believed as you do. Having seen my parents work their way up the ladder from nothing, and having made my own way in the world, I thought I could weather anything: even if I lost everything I owned, I could still work my way back up again. Then I got a big surprise: I became disabled, just when a number of other things in my life fell apart. I was cheated out of my disability insurance, and, though I paid a fortune into Social Security, it takes years to get through that system. Commitments that were not only perfectly reasonably against the income I had (and could reasonably expect to get for decades), but even negligible, were now far above my means (which were about zero). In the process, I learned a lot about how people end up in bad situations, and you are right, some of them are just deadbeats. Many of them just have no way out. Some of them find a way out after years of struggle.
Things change. Sometimes they change too rapidly to do anything about, no matter how resourceful you are, no matter how much you prepared, no matter how much you try. If things change rapidly enough, any planning you can do goes to hell, and even what you could conceivably have taken care of gets lost. How do you track bank statements when you move three times in six months? When you are very ill, but your insurance routinely denies payment and requires you to contest each and every bill just because they can? When your records have been eaten by mice? How do you keep up with bills when you don't have food, water, sanitation, medicine? How do you "live within your means" when there is no low cost housing available? When the people who had generously let you a room have just lost their home? How do you fight the bank when they refuse to honor the insurance you had against your debts, and you are living in a field? How do you work with government agencies who send you back and forth with paperwork (when you cannot afford gas, copies, and faxes, and that is why you are there in the first place) with directly conflicting requirements? When your unemployment check is deposited two weeks late and they just say "oops" and go on?
How do you pay a bill when you simply have no income? Not "little income", but none? When you committed to the bill making $100,000 a year? When I ran my business, I got dozens of resumes from people with multiple PHDs who had just been making six figures--- for receptionist positions, who had been out of work for over a year. People would not hire them because they were "overqualified". How do you sell your house to get out of a mortgage when *everyone else* is doing the same thing and no one is buying? When prices have dropped so far that even if it does sell, you still have a mortgage to pay? I have even seen people who had their house nearly paid for had it foreclose and still end up with a debt they could not pay because their income and the market had dropped so quickly. In many of these areas, developers were still *building* houses on existing contracts while laid-off employees could not dump their homes for a fraction of their purchase price.
Many, many people got too far into debt, put too much stock into the future, didn't save for bad times. However, quite a few people in trouble out there made quite reasonable choices, were quite frugal, and just couldn't dodge the bullet. And don't worry, it *can* happen to you.
Yeah, let's vote for the guy who believes that cross-burning is free speech* and that there shouldn't be a separation from church and state: "Cross burning could be a crime if they were violating somebody's property rights,'' he said during his campaign. But if you go out on your farm some place and it's on your property and you put two sticks together and you burn it, I am not going to send in the federal police."
In some sense, he is (or could be) correct here. While I in no way support cross burning and personally believe it crosses the line on free speech, Ron Paul's position is valid. Other expressions of free speech fall in various places on this gray belt, including flag burning, hanging the flag upside down, beneath other flags, flying the Southern Cross (which is not, incidentally, the "Confederate Flag", that is the "Stars and Bars," but it ended up being confusing on the battlefield), and a whole host of expressions of protest, or simply of opposing tradition. Drawing a line is not easy. As an example, the Southern Cross was displayed by someone in my school (a long time ago) in their dorm room. They had ancestors who died at Gettysburg. A black student was "terrorized" by this, and it erupted into a school-wide conflict. Do the emotions of the viewer trump those of the displayer? How about the swastika which is an ancient symbol of Jainism?
I think it is unequivocal, however, that once they cross the line from expression to action, or to specific or generalized threat of harm, that all of the force of the state come down on them.
"The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life."
This is also arguably correct. The founding fathers littered the government process with Christian rhetoric and apparently thought nothing wrong with it ("God save the United States and this Honorable Court!"). The oath on the Bible in court is also traditional. This has come up in discussion before the Supreme Court justices on several occasions. There *is* no basis in founding works for that rigid separation. This is a separate issue from whether their *should* be such a separation. Even if we presumed that the country were entirely Christian (which it clearly is not), the extremes of belief and morality within just this one religion would argue for strong protections against persecution on the basis of religion. Establishing religious practice within the government de facto persecutes by making people of other religious stripes (or none) uncomfortable about participating in procedures or expressing different traditions, and this is the tack the Supreme Court has largely taken, except to preserve a small number of specific long standing traditions. This, however, is a development from the Constitution, not a strict adherence to it.
Great candidate you have there.
Personally, I don't know what candidate I endorse at the moment. All candidates have serious flaws. Their beliefs are not the problem per se, but their integrity and the degree to which they feel the need to impose those beliefs on others. That is the serious flaw with Bush II. He not only has strong beliefs, but accepts no others and any such professed beliefs are traitorous. Many of Ron Paul's Constitutional beliefs are a breath of fresh air after over a century of extreme federalism. Others are borderline but defensi
This is simply not true, because people living "off the grid" in the USA really aren't "off the grid". They are still indirectly consuming vast resources, like the resources the government and business is spending to support their non-third world lifestyle. Simply turning off your refrigerator doesn't make a MAJOR impact. That doesn't mean you don't save some energy, but it's certainly not "an order of magnitude" and it's certainly not enough to cause major changes to energy production needs.
The insight that reducing electrical usage (what we were discussing, OK, I did slip and say 'energy' once) doesn't reduce usage elsewhere is staggering. First of all, it obviously reduces electrical usage. Second, do you think that reducing electrical consumption is all they do? That they do not reduce trash output, consume less goods, buy in bulk to reduce packaging and trips to town? Do you think someone off-grid is likely to have a new large screen TV and stereo? That they don't work where they live? I am in the city myself at the moment. I use less than a third of the average household electrical consumption (without suffering for it, and it will probably go down a bit more). I also consume less in a lot of other areas. There are things I can't do anything about at the moment, but I act where I can. The idea that this has no impact, or, more properly, would have no impact if done on a large scale (even if it won't happen) is ridiculous in the extreme.
I got a small dorm fridge to replace the full-sized fridge we were using for drinks. And we have a chest-style freezer. Windows leak heat unless made of very thick insulated glass, which is very expensive. That's why you only see windows in expensive European refrigerators. People are doing this for the simple reason of saving money. That's why we did it.
Money saving does sometimes drive things in a good direction. The problem with that is that the cultural image of 'success' is/becomes the ability to waste. As soon as energy prices drop a bit or people get a raise, it goes away. Witness gas consumption between this gas crisis and the last one. People have very short memories when it comes to thriftiness and do not plan ahead. Our political leaders, even the ones who 'support' the environment, waste ostentatiously because they need to look 'successful'. People pick on Edwards over his haircuts, but prudence does not win votes.
Most developers now choose to make the most effective use of SPACE in given lots. This relative density has it's own advantages. Floorplans have to consider other, more important, issues than conservation like safety and accessibility. Many new developments make use of solar power, solar heating, or other environmental technology. So this is certainly being implement where economical and practical.
It is in some areas, slowly, not widespread, and not at all here, but the trend is encouraging.
This is a political argument, not an environmental one. Whether or not our oranges are picked by unionized workers in the USA or poorly paid workers in foreign nations is not relavent to the laws of physics. And one could certainly argue that if the USA had direct imperial control over nations like Chile it would be better because the US could force regulation (like limiting industrial development) that would hurt Chile in the short term but aid the environment in the long term (and thereby aid the USA). Of course, maintaining a military force is expensive (both in terms of energy and currency) as well.
The idea that we have the right, let alone the ability, to form energy policy for Chile is astounding. Our own policy is held hostage to special interests and cut-throat politics. Besides, what in the world gives us the right to impose limitations on Chile we are not willing to accept ourselves? That is one of the underlying themes of this whole conversation is that Americans will seldom lift a finger to cut consumption, re
Melodramatic platitudes do not make for real solutions to power production. Nothing you mentioned results in significant net savings.
Being an ass does not mean real changes can't be made or that you aren't partly responsible for the situation. You define 'significant' according to your desired result. Obviously, if everyone cuts their net energy usage, net energy usage will be cut. People living off grid cut their energy usage by an order of magnitude. How is that not significant?
Really? Where's your patent? Contrary to what you might think there ARE engineers out there actually trying to design and build more efficient refrigeration.
Hmmm... let's see: smaller refrigerators, chest-style refrigerators, refrigerators with clear panels (so you don't have to open them to see in), insulated cold boxes for the cold season in applicable climates, cistern or spring house coolers, etc. All of these are used by people in off-grid situations to reduce consumption, in addition to the more expensive high efficiency refrigerators.
Yeah, nobody has drapes or blinds anymore. And, at least here in California, new homes have more power and especially heating efficiency than ever. So it's mainly poorer people that are living in the older "less efficient" homes. I suppose they'll just have to soak up the costs of remodeling.
Newer homes have more efficient insulation and appliances. They rarely make efficient use of landscaping, floorplan or other features for heating and cooling. Ever since brute force could overcome poor planning, it has. In many hot climates even new construction has little insulation since it is "not needed". That is very common here. I notice how you fail to read anything I wrote and then sarcastically focus on "drapes and blinds". Is this a natural talent or are you paid for it? As it happens, drapes and blinds are often mis or under used for heating and cooling.
And again, we're not even talking about industry here. Know what the largest consumer of AC power in California is? Datacenters. Are computers just supposed to magically "not get hot"? Yet people are working on more powerful, more power efficient, cooler components. But this DOESN'T mean that our power costs are going to go down because we want to have actual technological progress.
Let me see if I can follow your logic here: Because the largest user of power is datacenters and we can't change it, we might as well give up on efficiency anywhere else, oh, except they are trying to improve datacenters. So, because my rent is a fixed cost (at the moment), I can't save money and I should go out on the town tonight.
Not all of us live in a forest granola boy. However, my brother does and he heats his house with a wood stove. It's a lot of hard work chopping all that wood and feeding it into a stove, time that I think would be better spent doing other things but my brother insists it's a little cheaper. If you think it's a good idea for millions of people to be doing this, you're retarded. It's what caused the deforestation of Europe and is causing the deforestation of South America and Africa. North American forests are relatively untouched because we DON'T use wood for heat.
Because my chosen solution has been wood at various points, I am obviously recommending everyone burn wood? Thinking to the point that maybe there is more than *one* solution that might work for different people to improve efficiency across the board if the cared to do it is beyond your capacity? Again, you are either being deliberately obtuse or are an idiot. This is exactly the thinking that is the problem. Rather than face the idea that you might be able to do something, you will invent every conceivable obstacle to make it impossible. If you put a fraction of the creativity you use to misread my posts into actually thinking, we would be most of the way there.
And yes, I go to the farmer's market quite frequently. This does not make
Well, at the time, I also had a small generator, and could have refilled the battery bank at any point (It was technically an alternator, direct DC output, and really useful; I need to find one again). Also, we had DVDs, and had enough power to watch movies on a number of occasions, we just seldom did. Once you live in a situation where you are deprived of something you think is 'necessary' long enough to learn to adjust, you sometimes learn that the alternatives just aren't that bad. We had better things to do than sit and watch movies. Having the house relatively dark and quiet at night I have found keeps my internal clock working much better and is actually quite relaxing. Sure, people don't live that way because they choose it, but when you realize you do have a choice and can pick and choose the best of both worlds, your life ends up better for it.
Right now, I don't have to walk out into the snow to get kindling, wake up at 2am in a downpour to reinforce the dike or make sure the cachement system is working, or worry that the spring will dry up and I'll have to haul water a mile from the creek. I don't have to light the stone oven with damp wood in the rain. I don't have to check my bed or shoes for scorpions. I don't need to suspend milk jars (from the goat) in the spring to keep them cold. I don't need to worry about snakes in the outhouse. etc. etc. These are all very good things. I definitely appreciate modern conveniences in ways I never did before. But that does not mean that there were no good things or that I can't carry some of those lessons with me. We treat lots of things as necessities that are no such things, which is why people go ballistic when they lose those 'necessities' for even short times, like the ice storm that hit this winter. People panic so completely that they actually *put* their lives in danger.
At one point years ago during an extended outage, I had set up the next day making breakfast in the fireplace: eggs, bacon, toast, etc. Almost done when power came back. I calmly went into the kitchen, flipped the breaker, and served breakfast. Sometimes, 'problems' are just opportunities to experience new things. Sometimes it's taken a good bit of time afterwards to realize it.
When folks in third world countries use candles and oil lamps, they maximize their use of sunlight, only use light sources when necessary and often for task lighting, take advantage of full moons, and watch consumption closely. ... It is not a matter of suffering or 'making do', but just finding you don't need as much as you thought you did.
No, it IS a matter of "making do". Do you think people in developing countries really want to live this way? Really, this whole notion that we can significantly cut power consumption in the United States just by making a few "lifestyle changes" is fucking ridiculous.
It's a matter of being aware of a wider variety of options and being aware of where things come from. I don't eat a lot of meat, not because there's a shortage, but because I have had to handle the whole process end to end. I have a lot more respect for the animals it comes from and no desire to waste it. I don't have any shortage of electricity or water right now, but, because of where I have been, I am aware of where it comes from when I flip a switch or turn a tap. I also know I have better options for entertainment than wasting them. My washer is set up to cycle rinse water from one load into the next load's wash water. It doesn't save me much money, but it does not cost me anything either. People do not appreciate what they have.
THE LIGHTS ARE NOT A MAJOR SOURCE OF POWER CONSUMPTION IN YOUR HOUSE. Read that last sentence again slowly. Whether you leave your lights on 24/7 or not will have little effect on your power bill. The BIG uses of electricity involve heating and cooling. In order, these tend to be the big uses: Refrigerator: No refrigerated food for you!
I have to admit, my refrigerator was running when I made that post, though I have lived without it, I do prefer it. There are quite a few ways to do with less or make it more efficient.
Air Conditioner: You boil in the summer! Yay!
Don't have it, and this is a warm climate. Efficient construction, intelligent landscaping (e.g. deciduous trees on southern exposure), drapes, reduces much of the need; people don't bother anymore depending on air conditioning instead. It's amazing what minor, intelligent changes can do without 'suffering'. Bottom line: people don't care.
Electric heating: No heat for you! Hope you don't freeze to death in the winter.
Again, people have choices to reduce consumption. When the house gets cold, I put on a sweater. That was just the way it was done where I grew up (in the North). In the house I grew up in, we also had a large window on a southern exposure that directed sunlight onto a stone fireplace. The stonework heated all day and radiated back all night. It cut heating costs tremendously without a complex 'passive solar system'. Sure, I use heat, but am much more frugal with it than most people, not from some conscious need to pinch pennies (though it does help), but just out of inborn habit. Many people cool their homes in the summer to temperatures they cannot stand in the winter and heat to temperatures in the winter they complain about in the summer--- how does that make sense?
Electric stove: No cooking for you! Hope you can subsist wholly on raw foods.
Not wholly certainly, but certainly a good bit during the warm seasons, and as much as I can, food from local markets, not trucked half way across the continent. Do you even know where your local farmers' market is? During the cold months, I usually get at least several uses out of my heat energy, as I use a wood stove for area heating, cook on it, boil water, and use the potash for various things. If the wood comes from local culls and deadfall, it is CO2 neutral. Perfect, no. Better, yes.
Microwave: See above. Computers and other appliances: No /. for you!
Sure, on the other hand, I don't have a qua
Electric lighting is much more efficient in terms of lumens per BTU than a candle or kerosene lamp, so one would think that people who get electricity and electric lighting to replace their candles and lamps reduce their energy usage. In fact, what happens is that their usage goes up by an order of magnitude. When folks in third world countries use candles and oil lamps, they maximize their use of sunlight, only use light sources when necessary and often for task lighting, take advantage of full moons, and watch consumption closely. With electricity, they use bright area lights for task work, leave lights on in adjacent (or even unoccupied) rooms, and other things unimaginable to them just months before.
The reverse case, living on a battery bank and solar panel, follows a similar pattern. When living on battery, tracking your power levels becomes second nature. You become much more aware of what you are using and start to make trade-offs in your mind: do I really want to watch that movie and draw down the battery bank when I could just as easily read a book (or go to bed at dark and get up earlier, or actually talk to my wife, or...) It is not a matter of suffering or 'making do', but just finding you don't need as much as you thought you did. In the summer when the battery banks are overflowing, you splurge, like running the ice cream maker.
Having gone back and forth between these worlds a few times, I am very aware of the power I expend. Right now, my wife and I have one light bulb (a CFL) on in the entire house. There have been times and places that even burning a single light this long after dark would have been unusual.
So, yes, solar panels can provide enough power to run your life, particularly if you make the logical adjustments to living with a variable and finite source of power. We get so used to flipping a switch and not thinking about where the power comes from, that we expect the exact same out of renewable power sources. It also means that we are horrible at dealing with emergencies or changes of fortune. But we don't have to live that way.
The problem is while agreeing wholly with your sentiment, in practice drawing the line is very hard. Weaponized forms of super-bugs I think is an unambiguous no-no, but *research* along that line is quite necessary, at the least so that someone has a chance of countering a bio-weapon when one is let loose. How do you loosen the cork without letting the genie out? Even relatively small labs now have the potential ability to create their own customized bugs and knowledge is in general circulation, so it is already too late to entirely prevent a future problem. Only mitigation is left.
It is unfortunate because, in many cases, I think we do need to put the breaks on a bit. Our track record with many kinds of meddling is poor, and we are doing so at an increasing rate; so quickly we cannot adequately measure effects to better target our meddling. In practice, however, stopping the train is not easy.
I don't think that could be more illogical and separated from the point. the people doing the job are doing great jobs at it. The top of the command might be whacked out but they are doing what they consider their best too.
I think the previous poster's point was that if the leadership has gotten you into a bad situation, with impossible or actually detrimental goals, through no fault of your own, doing your job, good or bad, is making things worse in the long run, which is a good reason to dramatically change those goals. When I was in the Pentagon, the general consensus was that the military was there to clean up the mess when the diplomats screwed up. Being able to clean up the mess assumes that at some point the diplomats *stop* screwing it up and making it worse.
Here is the problem, In the battlefield right now, Men and women are dieing because people like you say pull the troops out and leave our allies hanging. Now, this might not be exactly as your saying it but it is what is being heard in the places like Iraq where people who support our troops there are putting their life on the line in doing so. Do you wonder why the terrorist are killing more civilians in Iraq then soldiers? It isn't because the soldiers are cowards and hiding behind them, it is because the civilians are supporting them and they are being considered fair game as far as the enemy is concerned. When they hear "Lets support the troops and up and leave the fight" they are thinking if we lose because they desert us, I'm going to get killed, I have probably caused my families death too. So you little self righteous, "I support the troops but not the war" is getting the killed. If you want the war to end, support getting the tool and people necessary to get the job done so they can get out without abandoning those we are supposed to be helping or losing by default.
First of all, very few of these folks are for a total withdrawal, but rather a change of mission and partial re-deployment, one that takes into account logistical, political, and other realities that the current folks in charge are trying very hard to ignore, and things which the troops on the ground are not actually in contact with on a regular basis. As to disparity in deaths between civilians and troops, has it occurred to you that the troops are heavily armed, armored, and have air/artillery support which civilians lack? Has it occurred to you that the civilians in the region have been killing each other since the 1600's over issues that have little to do with us, but which our toppling of the government made much easier? Are you aware of the Iraqi police and army recruitment centers bombed on a regular basis? How are you going to 'win' and stop that violence? Even General Patraeus says it would take a 9-10 year commitment--- that's not a situation where we give the troops 'what they need to get the job done and get out'. Besides 'what they (you) need' fundamentally does not exist. There are no more troops to send, tours are already overextended (and we learned the cost of that in WWII, whatever the willingness of the soldiers), there is no more equipment, we no longer have the manufacturing capacity to replace it, and we don't have the capital to buy it. We are badly overextended and meanwhile other threats go unanswered, including response to stateside disasters. Part of good military leadership is knowing when a plan has failed and adjusting accordingly. No matter how worthwhile the goal, (though I would question the reasons for the invasion in the first place, it's a bit late to change that), failure is failure. Throwing more at it is sheer stupidity. So is turning tail and running, but an ordered change in overall strategy and re-deployment is not 'running' or 'losing by default'.
And the political situation, far from improving is deteriorating rapidly. Iraqi members of parliament are boycotting the process. No progress has been made on sharing oil revenue. (A portion of) Kurds are becoming *more* nationalist and Tur
From reading the Bible is seems to grow out of Paul and the Jewish idea of blood sacrifice. Sacrifice a good animal for this or that or the other. And, without it, the other parts don't make any sense. Jesus gets killed because... -- Doesn't seem to make any sense. I don't blame people for trying to explain it, it needs explaining. Certainly good people suffer, I daresay your average cancer suffer goes through worse than any crucified person does. God dies horribly for no reason at all. Why put one's head on the executioner's block at all? I think it's unworthy of any respect. If nobody is forcing you, don't do it.
Well, that is just the point. Many times people are forced into sacrifice. As Annie Dillard says (_Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_), we all live on the horns of the alter. Sometimes we have a choice, but once we realize it, it is too late. Meeting that fate with dignity is what is worthy of respect. In that sense, the principle that self-control and a recognition/acceptance of our inner being is the path to salvation is somewhat Jainist. The differences include that Christianity believes in a supreme being and does not believe in karma/reincarnation. It is also important to note that Jesus did not believe in austerity, self mortification, or self-deprivation. Pleasure is part of our being as well. John the Baptist lead an austere, isolated existence, and Jesus was explicit that both paths were acceptable. Accepting pain and suffering when necessary is one thing, but it is not necessary to cause it.
And even the little interesting parts are still less moral than Jainism. A Martin Luther King could have been created more easily via Jainism than Christianity, and actually he got his positions from Gandhi, and not Christianity. Gandhi coincidentally got his from Jainism. I don't see why, one should accept a story which makes little to no sense, when there are more moral philosophies out there for the taking. And, on a related note, I don't see how anybody can conclude the Bible is true to even make the offer worthwhile.
The story doesn't seem to work. The moral philosophy is subpar.
First of all, being Christian certainly does not rule out studying other philosophies and accepting the wisdom of them. In fact, I think being a good Christian requires it for putting into perspective one's own beliefs. Christ is not the first, last, or only teacher. Jainism's tenet that harming other life is never justified to me is not tenable on many levels. Jesus' preaches strongly at several points tolerance for slights against us and love of enemies and means it, but also demonstrates (by turning out the money changers at the temple, for instance), that action is sometimes required. Loving your enemies does not always mean not opposing them. Dietrich Bonhoffer, theologian, martyred in WWII, and author of _Cost of Discipleship_ wrestled with this dilemma in his opposition to the Nazis. Life requires difficult choices and there are no absolutes. I was vegetarian for years, for instance, but, as a small farmer now, have come around to a different way of thinking. It is not eating meat that is the problem, but the way that it is done and the respect that is paid to the life we take. We all have our place in the world and we accord others with the respect and dignity they are due regardless of our differences. When we do not play our part, we cause harm to ourselves and others. I now see that vegetarian/vegan agriculture can be actively damaging in many situations (separate from agribusiness, which is damaging period, whether concerning the raising of meat or vegetables), though ova-lacto vegetarianism more so.
In any case, people will always argue about morality. It is not meant to be easy. There was a philosopher that described moral development as a stepladder, zigzagging around a central line. As we learn more about certain things, our beliefs advance to new levels, but also shift from side to side. Sometimes we seem to come back to the same point, but our reasons are v
So why bother with the whole death thing? I understand the added baggage of the blood sacrifice, but the entire exercise seems futile if it's done for no reason at all. Wouldn't it have spared people a lot of grief to just ascend to heaven without the whole death thing. I understand the desire to ignore the stupid parts, but they do seem to tie together in the larger theology. And the entire death for sin sake seems to require a literal Adam and Eve story, a literal Jesus, and a literal death (at least for a couple days). There's something noble about remaking your religion into a form you can show your neighbors without too much embarrassment, but I've always thought that if you're throwing out the baby... there's no point keeping the bathwater.
It isn't that this seems to be a small subsection of Christian theology... it seems to be the core.
Well, as I said, the whole "Blood Sacrifice" thing grew up in the Middle Ages, so it is not a matter of remaking the religion to make it acceptable, but a matter of trying to get rid of some baggage that was laid on top of it. There is some connection with Jesus as sacrifice in the New Testament itself and is important, but it is connected to Old Testament symbolism of the Passover and the Temple and meaningless out of context. Part of the reason the "Blood Sacrifice" doctrine came along is that it was much less work for medieval theologians to explain the crucifixion by that route, and the whole original sin-blood sacrifice-redemption doctrine fit very well with a centralized, guilt-operated, hierarchical church.
Even as a sacrifice, Jesus' death was horrible, but not unique. People die horrible deaths every day. Some perhaps even worse than being tortured and crucified (though how you rate things at that level I am not sure). Many of these people could certainly be considered "innocent" in many ways, particularly, say, infants starving to death. Without a nebulous concept of "original sin" tainting even these, Jesus' sacrifice, again, is not unique. In fact, it might be noted that good people, especially activists, such as Gandhi and MLK, suffer violent deaths more often than not. Terrible, often undeserved, suffering is part of the human condition.
As for "Salvation," I don't believe in it as the easy way out many people take it as. Whether death leads to the Long Night or Immortality, it is bound to be transformative and lead to a type of existence now unknown to us and which we are incapable of understanding from this side of the door. Like birth or the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, much of what has gone before becomes irrelevant or immaterial. Our need to preserve "self," our personality, and our fear of the destruction of the ego, is not served by a promise of life after death. No matter what we believe in, we need faith, trust, courage, whatever, to face the darkness with some measure of dignity. Choosing to put our faith in God and turn ourselves over to His care is not self-preserving but self-destructive and transformative: in Christian terms, "dieing to self and allowing Christ to live in us." This is an acceptance that God is a part of us and vice-versa, and that being in tune with this fact requires stripping away layers of self-deception, fear, and vanity, being part of something greater than ourselves. Christ clearly demonstrates the possible consequences.
Jesus' teachings about "Turning the other cheek," and similar admonishments to not seek vengeance or strike out at enemies takes somewhat of a twist from similar teachings elsewhere. This is not taught from the position of the nobility of sacrifice (indeed, Jesus is accused by peers as being epicurean) but from the idea that we have better things to worry about. We do not know the hour when we will be called and need to be prepared; vengeance, hate, pettiness, are dangerous distractions from what is truly important.
The meaning of the death and resurrection *are* difficult to understand (which is why many shortcuts have been taken over
...And to a lesser extent, I am opposed to the idea that this suicidal deity didn't stay dead. I'm to believe that All Mighty God lost the metaphysical equivalent of a round of counterstrike then screams "You did this"-- and I am suppose to love this character for it? And if I don't, he's going to rejoin the server someday 'soon' (though that was a few thousand years ago) and pwn everybody. I'm sorry, I am a devout Christian, but I have to say this is one of the most amusing ways I have ever seen it put. That and the "magic dead Jew on a stick" from a few posts below had me nearly spewing my drink on the keyboard. Obviously, that isn't the way I see it, no. Christianity has gathered a lot of epistemological cruft over the last 2K years, much of it in the early Middle Ages, which makes things hard to unravel even for studied Christians, let alone outsiders. Even worse, much of the cruft is what rabid believers bandy about with the most energy without giving a lot of thought to what they are really implying. Reactions like yours are exactly what people sometimes need to force the incongruity.
The focus on "Salvation" began with Paul's ministry after Christ's death. The detailed focus on the "Blood Sacrifice" was a construction of the early Middle Ages. These are present in Jesus' teachings, but are blown out of proportion and lose their context. When these are banked down some, the teachings become a good bit more coherent, subtler, and more disturbing: disturbing in the sense that they require one to change one's life and make tough moral choices to follow. This last I think is why many people prefer *not* to put that much thought into it. It is much more comforting to think you can make a feudal bargain with an irrational God and get immortality out of the deal. That is largely the way our government seems to work, why not the universe?
Context is everything. The Bible, Old and New Testament, has an enormous amount that goes along with it, some of which is quite confusing or even contradictory, and is not for the faint of heart.
The interesting part is that Thor's bug is in the way iframes handle URLs. This suggests that the code to parse and evaluate URLs is not uniform. That itself is a bad mark and is unlikely to be an underlying Windows bug. The problem with the lack of taint checking may be an API bug, but, in a cross platform browser, it may not be prudent to trust the platform API to do this reliably. I am paranoid, but I would normally generate specific test cases for this (to see if the underlying API works and see if it stops working from API release to release) and probably add my own library function to be linked in where needed (basic autoconf hell). It looks like they may have gone with paranoia in some cases but not others.
Additionally, Thor claims the exploit executes on OS X (albeit with a safer exec call). He is right that a general solution to external protocol handling and security needs to be developed or this general class of bug will keep cropping up in one place or another.
As for Maynor's handling of disclosure (or lack thereof) it is unprofessional and not helpful.
That might almost be an excuse except that they sell non-refundable "you die, you fly" tickets, supposedly for the exact same reason. Those empty seats are already paid for. They are trying to make additional money off of them at the cost of double booking. Like most businesses, they get you both ways and make you deal with the mistakes and inconvenience.
Doesn't sound like you need cameras. Sounds like you need competent police. If they cannot be bothered to interview witnesses and investigate the crime, what makes you think that they will do substantially better with the video? They would still have to track down the actual offenders and tie them to the scene, and that takes work. You yourself said that video won't do any good if no one actually gets hurt. I'll bet that if someone does get hurt, they'll nail the first poor sod to the wall that matches their fuzzy video image regardless of whether they can actually tie them to the scene or put a weapon in their hand--- easier that way, better for the media.
The cameras are not there to make people safer, they are there to make law enforcement lazier, to keep them from having to do real investigation. In some places I have lived in, the police would put armed plain-clothes officers (often women) on the street in question to be there when the robbers showed up. End of problem. They could also patrol the street on a regular basis to discourage attacks. Your bobbies aren't doing their jobs.
Incidentally, this kind of situation is one of the reasons for a right to bear arms in the US. When the police are unwilling or unable to provide protection (often enough), at least the individual can defend their own life in the last extreme. In the rural area I live in, any attack would be long over by the time the police arrive. It is unconscionable for the state to say to someone: "We won't defend you or your family, but don't you dare stand up for yourself!" The right to bear arms, admittedly, causes a host of other issues, but there are underlying reasons.
I used a Toshiba Libretto and later a Sony Picturebook for quite a while. Both very similar, pocket-sized but full function laptops. With a smart phone and a portable printer, I could get a portable office and development environment in under five pounds and in carry-on luggage. With a battery upgrade, I got 8-12 hours use. I also had network diagnostic tools and adapters. It was not for heavy work, but for getting things done when I was stuck unexpectedly one place or another and I did not want to lug a lot of equipment. I could pull it out of a pocket, work on something for a few minutes, then just close the lid and slip it away. I generally had a full-sized workstation at my own office and at client sites. If not, a couple adapters at least let me steal a keyboard and monitor. Very versatile.
This form factor is not at all new or special. Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, probably others as well. Several problems with this one: not open-- can't necessarily install own apps; price too high-- apparently more like $7-800. Battery life not impressive for the form factor.
Yes, and to emphasize LordVader's comment, there is no guarantee their model is the correct one. If there is a large range of probable input parameters which was does not show the observed output, then it is likely that the *chosen model* is not the correct one. Perhaps the theory can be improved to not be as sensitive to inputs. More work can be done to show that those inputs are correct (for all three cases). Other theories or models can be developed which better explain the phenomena. Choosing your parameters to match the observation is not bad for a first step, but it is not an ending point for good science.
There is no reason to believe the assumptions underlying their models, and therefore, no reason to believe its output, that the impact lead to total collapse. Obviously, the building *did* collapse, but given that they were tasked to find out *why* means that the anthropic principle does not save their model. By succumbing to laziness, they completely ignore other causes or possible contributing circumstances:
1) Were there unexpected failures of design redundancies and over-engineering? Why did the design models fail? How do they need to be corrected?
2) Were there substandard materials or technologies present in the building? Were these materials properly installed and inspected? (FEMA did bring to light issues with the foam, but even they did not believe it was a major contributor) Who might have been responsible? How can the system be corrected to prevent this?
3) Did materials or technologies age, weather, or corrode in an unexpected fashion? Were they recently inspected? What does this mean for new building structures? (debris could have been examined for signs of corrosion or other problems)
4) Are there signs of other kinds of sabotage beside the obvious? Did the attackers take steps to maximize damage? (e.g. a basement bomb timed to coincide roughly with the impact, sabotaging fire-suppression systems, etc.)
These are not "extra credit" questions. They go to the core of what NIST was tasked to do and are largely unanswered. In many cases, the answer would have been "no," but clearly something had to be "yes." The building was designed with enough over-engineering, for instance, that the trusses could have magically disappeared and the building(s) should have supported itself between the core, the outer frame, and the cross ties. NIST only supposes that some load bearing members were materially weakened. The core itself should have stood no matter what the rest of the building did. Something caused the building and/or design to fail; it was their job to investigate.
As an aside, there is a barn in a pasture near here that has been abandoned for quite a while. It is a two story oak structure. The external load bearing members are completely rotted. They don't even touch the foundation any more. The entire barn is supported by a one-story interior wall which holds up the sills for the second floor. The sills, in turn, hold up the planking, the second floor walls, the roof, and hold the first floor suspended above the ground. It's been like that for years apparently. I had bets that it was going to fall this winter, but it is still there. It is amazing what a little over-engineering will do.
Yeah, I've been through the NIST numbers a few times. Regardless of the reason the buildings fell: Poor work. They set their model inputs to give them their expected outputs. If I had done that in the Pentagon and published it, I hope they would have shot me.
1) Less than a gallon of jet fuel per *ton* of steel. The steel was interconnected and would dissipate heat rapidly. That's like throwing an oil lamp in the back of my truck and watching it come apart.
2) No evidence whatsoever that the fires were that hot for any length of time, especially near to the time of collapse. Their numbers assume steady oxygen flow, which a hole in the top of the building and thick, black smoke does not indicate. Nor does a fireman climbing past the level of the impact and radioing down that the fires were controllable (in one of the two towers). In their 'test', they provided oxygen to get it to the temperature they wanted. They spend no time whatsoever justifying their assumptions or showing how their model responds to different regimes. When the model generated what they wanted, that was 'proof'. The reason they did not is because their numbers don't work without those assumptions. Why would all three buildings be driven into the same failure mode? Why would differences in temperature, structural damage, contents, construction, etc., not cause different failures? Perhaps their model could be made to work, but they never *tried*. What process (or flaw, other than the foam, which was just a redundancy anyway) forced all three buildings into that failure mode and prevented them from failing in other ways? It's the difference between a diagnosis and a description.
3) Even if the temperature were that high at the top, how does a weakening at the *top* of the structure explain the complete disintegration of the rest of the structure? Their numbers and their model completely ignores most of the integrity and redundancy of the design, particularly in sections *undamaged* by fire or impact. It's like a model of dominoes, except that, in real life, the dominoes are glued together. There is no explanation whatsoever for the fall straight down, into the intact structure, instead of the damaged section falling to one side, where there was no resistance. In one building, without further explanation, that might be a fluke. In three buildings, that's worthy of serious questions. Anything is possible, but *why*? Again, what process, action, or flaw, forced the buildings into that failure mode and barred all others?
Even without being fodder for conspiracy theorists, the study is obviously shoddy and incomplete. Even without positing additional sabotage, the fact that the failure of every redundancy and every safety system of a building *designed to withstand aircraft strikes* was not better investigated is criminally negligent. Buildings are still being constructed essentially the same way worldwide. If the NIST report is right, then there needs to be a massive overhauling of building codes and material standards (exactly what many industry comments to the report stated) because a fundamental understanding of construction is flawed. The fact that only minor changes have resulted says to me that the government doesn't believe the results either.
As far as talk of demolition goes, it explains the collapse as well or better than NISTs simulation, if only because NIST did such a half-hearted job and because, at this point, there is no longer any physical evidence to examine. It's not just "conspiracy nuts" criticizing them, but also qualified professionals. The way the buildings fell is a legitimate question; some people go too far looking for answers and the people paid to do it did not look far enough.
The big problem is that the incident was not a single collapse, but a series of collapses with an identical progression and only two of them sharing an initial cause (yes, I am aware of the generators in Building 7). NIST approached it the same way doctors often approach a single, isolated death ("It was raining a
Well, not saying I believe in one particular theory or another, but I find it interesting when people use this argument since they usually use it to invalidate the evidence that is there or declare the people who do come forward to be 'nutjobs', thus closing the possibility of anything other than the official explanation.
In reality, governments do occasionally pull off rather large conspiracies of this order *precisely because* of this sentiment. The burning of the Reichstag springs to mind, or, on the other side, the rather large conspiracy *against* Hitler in the German military intelligence department. Such efforts seem so improbable that no one believes them even when faced with quite direct evidence. In fact, the Abwher conspiracy in Germany demonstrates exactly the scale of a military/government conspiracy which 9/11 theorists allege. In the end, it did not fail due to infiltration or bad security, but due to simple bad luck (Hitler survived the bomb).
Secondly, if your theory is correct, that it is not possible for a large organization to keep a secret, how did a large international terrorist organization do it? How does organized crime work? Both require deep hooks into government to function and often carry out quite bold acts in broad daylight. The police knew full well the acts that Capone was responsible for but could not prove it, and he was so skilled in playing the media that much of the public refused to believe the charges as well. They do not need to keep a secret, they (whoever 'they' are) just need to get enough conflicting information out to muddy the waters. Real conspiracies, large and small, happen every day, and the bad guys do not wear black hats.
The government's explanation is also a "conspiracy theory," and, a priori, deserves no more nor less consideration than any other.
I have no interest whatsoever.
When I was actively doing business travel, online collaborative apps were a supplement to applications on the desktop, given that the online apps were trustworthy (controlled by my own business). I never had any desire to get rid of local applications, especially since I had to be able to do office work, development and other tasks on the go, with no network access, expensive network access, insecure network access, or unreliable network access. If the "network applications" are downloadable and cached for off-line use, then you have nothing new, that's just semi-automated deployment and update. When it comes to that, externally controlled auto-update is a bad thing in many environments. I want to control when I upgrade, after I know the update is not going to break something. I don't want to log on, find out I can't access an old file, and have no way to restore the previous version of the application. Web services are continuously in beta.
Currently, I have absolutely no need for remote apps. I do all of my work locally and live rurally. Why would I want my applications and/or data externally controlled and unaccessible if I don't have a connection? I have full-featured applications (which would take considerable time to download). I pay for them once (if I have to at all). I have low latency. I can pick and choose which applications I use. I can have multiple versions installed if I need to for compatibility reasons. I control encryption and backups when I need it. What advantage does a "network desktop" get me?
Why bother?
You can string them on wire over your chicken run to keep hawks away. They actually work pretty well for that. With the help of a dowel, a washer, and a cup hook, my wife makes them into bottom-whirl drop-spindles (for turning wool into yarn?). I've also seen people turn them into clocks. Nifty if you can read analog time.
Existing documents aren't good enough, documents like birth certificates which are easy to forge and easy to obtain. You can't just tighten up the requirements when issuing ID based on it because the base documents (and processes producing them) aren't good enough. You would end up denying millions of existing legitimate documents as unverifiable--- because they are. Fixing that takes time (like decades) and Real ID is useless until that happens.
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3) Electronic transactions. An ID won't help you in electronic communications. You can't present your ID to a web page. They might start collecting Real ID numbers, but, like SS numbers, they can be stolen. Not if you index it to a fingerprint scanner- cheap enough these days, I have one on my cell phone.Useless. A fingerprint is just data; there's no magic. It can be copied like anything else. How does an online bank know whether someone is really using a fingerprint scanner or just sending a data stream of a fingerprint they captured? For that matter, the scanners themselves can be fooled in any number of ways. Unlike a CC number, you can't change your biometrics once they're misused. Because people believe biometrics are magic, it will be a lot harder to prove you've been defrauded. No one will believe you.
4) Lack of verification even in person. Right now, businesses and agencies are not required (and don't have the ability) to check the information that is there, like the fact that a given Social Security number belongs to a two year-old girl, not a thirty year-old man applying for a job. This is the source of a lot of fraud. This is also a MAJOR part of the RealID act- instant web verification, like the banks already do on SSNs.Yes, it is a target, but not given enough focus. Effort is being spent on a lot of other (expensive and unreliable) garbage rather than simple, effective solutions based on data already available, cleaning up existing processes, and making incremental improvements at the bottom end (the issuing and validation of base documents). They'll have a large, insecure, unreliable, expensive database of poorly validated data delivered much later than needed. Cleaning up this validation process, at least to catch 90%+ of fraud, doesn't need Real ID or any reasonable fraction of what they are trying to throw at it. What Real ID does do is create a centralized database which government loves but can never seem to secure, and enrich a lot of tech companies for technology which has never been vetted.
Once the system can catch the majority of fraud early, the rest of it can be handled and cleaned up by existing methods and good old-fashioned detective work. Expecting the system to catch more than that automatically, at any expense, is pure fantasy and ignores centuries of experience in intelligence and counter-intelligence.
Even if I agreed with the idea of a national ID (I don't). Taking all of the government assumptions at face value, the plan still won't touch identity theft. Why not?
1) Base documents. How will you get a Real ID? You will have to present base documents (driver's license, birth certificate, passport, social security card, proof of address, whatever) to prove your identity. These can already be forged and already are to get perfectly valid driver's licenses. Without fixing the base documents, there is no foundation for Real ID. Someone can quite happily get the fake documents they need to get a very real document which will be accepted for a gold standard. What does someone do when they go to the government to get their Real ID, and someone says "Can't, someone's already got one."?
2) Existing identity theft. Issuing a new ID won't straighten out the existing tangled records. Which fraudulent credit lines go to which real person? How about income taxes and criminal records? You can't fix IDs that have already been stolen with a new document based on the already bad information.
3) Electronic transactions. An ID won't help you in electronic communications. You can't present your ID to a web page. They might start collecting Real ID numbers, but, like SS numbers, they can be stolen.
4) Lack of verification even in person. Right now, businesses and agencies are not required (and don't have the ability) to check the information that is there, like the fact that a given Social Security number belongs to a two year-old girl, not a thirty year-old man applying for a job. This is the source of a lot of fraud.
What you *might* be able to do is focus on fixing base documents, like fixing birth certificates, Social Security cards, and voter registrations. If those were harder to forge, easier to verify, it would be harder to get a fake ID of any kind. Once you had a significant chunk of the population with good base documents, people who currently have ****ed identities will eventually die off. Then, maybe, *maybe* a Real ID would make sense, but I think there are still better ways.
Right now, they're focusing on the wrong end of things. Probably because a real solution takes time, care, and won't be done before they leave office. A bad solution looks good now, and won't be discovered bad until long after they care.
Banks and some other places don't allow weapons by policy, even where otherwise legal. In some places I need to leave my knife (just a small belt knife) in the car or check it with security. Not a big deal. As far as effectiveness, do you think its being illegal is going to stop a bank robber from carrying a gun into a bank? They already intend to break the law. The fact that guns were not allowed on VA Tech campus did little to stop Cho; he was not bothered by the consequences. The fact is that in many cases, the rule of law is upheld by common consent and a common intent to abide by the law. People do not avoid gunning down bank employees because they do not have guns, they don't do it because they have no intention of robbing a bank. Criminals, obviously, don't fit that equation.
The "Wild West" was not necessarily bad because of the presence of guns, but because of the absence of law. What law was there was often corrupt and in league with organized crime. Any frontier is first peopled by con-artists, smugglers, and racketeers. Anybody with a need to start fresh, no conscience, and who wants to make a buck. Getting a badge is a great path to power. There were probably just as many guns in the South (note that many confederates provided their own guns during the war), but law and culture was better established. Similarly, here in a rural farm belt, there are guns all over, but very few shootings compared to urban areas where carrying firearms is illegal.
In a lot of "Third World" areas (I hate that term), including Iraq, the situation is similar--- no law or corrupt law. A police chief in the Anbhar province of Iraq recently said that a third of his police force was untrustworthy and in league with either organized crime or insurgents. In that kind of situation, everyone fends for themselves and no one knows who is really dangerous. In those situations, legal or not, people will die rather than give up their guns, because it is a matter of life or death that they have them. Look at Rwanda and other places, too. Look at Chicago during prohibition, where there was widespread corruption.
My understanding of concealed carry is two-fold:
1) Having the weapon concealed freaks less people out. Because of the unreasoning fear of guns, an unconcealed weapon can cause a public disturbance, even though the carrier is well within their rights. Many areas have an ordinance about "Armed to the fear of the people" which is subjectively defined. Look at the current incident. If less people were irrational, I think that unconcealed weapons would be more common.
I went armed at points in Arlington (could not in DC), not with a firearm but a sword cane, partly because I needed a cane at the time and it was a salve to pride and partly because I had still not recovered from my distaste for guns, was a proficient fencer, and had to walk through violent neighborhoods. I could not have carried a sword at my hip without drawing negative attention. In some nearby areas people had been mugged even when not alone and hurt even when not resisting (generally with knives or other low-tech weapons, not firearms, perhaps because of noise). Also, contrary to people's fascination with them, guns are not necessarily good at close quarters when fast-reactions are needed.
I was getting used to the weight of chainmail at the time (re-enactment) and sometimes wore a mail shirt under my sweats when walking at night. I occasionally thought of one of our members who had an encounter in Central Park when returning from an event and was mugged while wearing armor under her cloths and carrying a broadsword (she was a master fencer). The mugger, who tried to stab her, got a nasty surprise. Generally, I would prefer to avoid an encounter entirely rather than play the hero, but sometimes escape is not an option, particularly with a bum leg. Even if slim, a fighting chance is a chance.
2) An unconcealed weapon makes you an immediate target in an incident. Whether this reason counters the possibility that a displayed weapon might deter an incident in the first place I am not sure, but I think that the possibility that someone might be carrying in CCW areas probably gives some second thoughts.
Anyway, there are all kinds of questions, many of them carry to beyond guns, and the first step in getting answers is admitting that there *are* questions.