It's debateable whether a fetus or embryo counts as 'human', but it certainly isn't debateable that either is alive. An intelligent pro-choice person needs a better line of argument than to say that a fetus is 'not ALIVE'.
A 1-second old zygote is alive in the same sense that any other single-celled organism is. Bacteria are certainly alive. It's not clear whether this is actually relevant to the abortion debate.
It would be more productive to simply design the page using standards-compliant CSS and HTML without regard for whether IE will render it correctly, and provide a link to places where one can download a standards-compliant browser. There should never be a need to check what browser is being used and render customized code for that browser. Once you do that, you have already crossed over to the Dark Side.
Everything you have said is true, and yet completely irrelevant. I have no idea how you thought this example would help. Go back and re-read the original post to which I was replying.
Saying that an object 'wants' to fall to the ground is worse than the usual 'Pathetic Fallacy', in that it also gets the cause and effect backward. The object does not cause itself to fall to the ground. The ground pulls the object toward it. (Although one could also justifiably say that the object pulls the Earth towards itself.)
Um, no. Objects don't fall toward the 'center' of the Earth. Objects are pulled on by all the mass of the Earth (and everything else). The 'ground' is the outer surface of the mass that is pulling on the object. It is explicitly part of the process, not merely 'in the way'. Furthermore, since the ground is closest to the object, it exerts more force on the object than any other similar mass of material in the Earth. The force exerted by the ground is proportionally the strongest gravitational force acting on the object. (Of course it is still an insignificant portion of the total force. The Earth is big.)
What gets people in a lather is the potential of every employer having such clauses in their contracts. If every company that employs people in your field of work has such a clause, then you really don't have a choice about signing such a contract. While this might be perfectly valid contract law, nobody is happy about the possibility of, at some point in the future, being forced to choose between signing such a contract and starving.
I believe car dealers have to report anyone who uses more than $10,000 cash in purchasing a car. I suspect the limitation applies to all commercial transactions, but it's possible the government only placed this burden on financial institutions and car dealerships. I don't know.
Keep in mind that if Bush's administration authorized the construction of new nuclear plants tomorrow, they would not enter service (and would not have any radioactive material in them) for many years after Bush left office. The idea that nuclear plants might be targeted by Bush-hating terrorists is not a good reason to not build more plants.
Sorry, but orbital mechanics just doesn't work that way. You don't just 'point the shuttle in the right direction' and wait. Everything in the solar system follows an orbital path, usually a closed roughly-elliptical orbit around the Sun. If you want to get to Mars you have to use your engines to put your ship in an orbit (about the Sun) that reaches Mars. The shuttle doesn't carry enough fuel for that. And the shortest path accessible with current technology takes two years, so you need a lot of food and supplies (like oxygen). The shuttle just isn't even close to big enough for the trip. It's like trying to cross the Atlantic in a canoe.
I'm sure we can get there if we try, but it's not anywhere near as easy as you suggest. Building a ship capable of carrying people to Mars and back will be a massive engineering project. We should really team up with some other countries.
No difference. If the police have a search warrant they are free to take and/or open the box. I don't know if the police have the power to make you unlock the box for them, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to consider giving them this power. Not sure how to deal with the case where the suspect claims not to have the key, though.
Besides, if someone wants to carry that amount of cash around on them, it isn't anyone's business except their own.
That used to be true, but isn't the case any longer. If someone wants to carry $9000 around with them, that's their own business. If they want to carry $10,000 or more, the federal government is (by law), involved.
Hmmm. I think he's right that oil production is going to begin to decline relatively soon and that that will have a huge impact on world (and especially U.S.) economy and culture. I think he has way overestimated the impact, though, largely because he overestimates how quickly oil will become scarce. I'm no expert, but I suspect things will evolve more slowly than that. If we're lucky, increasing energy prices will push people to make different lifestyle choices (hybrid cars, no SUVs, living closer to work, building nuclear plants, etc.) quickly enough to prevent the complete devastation he predicts. It's still going to be a painful transition, though. Oil is still going to be available for a long time. It's just going to be much more expensive than we are used to. Countries that are less suburbanized and more nuclearized will be impacted less and will have an advantage in the new worldwide economy.
Actually, that's a myth. Look it up on Google. Farmers have generally been opposed to DST. It doesn't help them harvest their crops in the summer because they work from sunrise to sunset regardless. It does cause them inconvenience however because they have to adjust their schedule for milking cows, feeding livestock, etc. The animals don't do DST.
DST has always been much more about the needs of urban people who work 9 to 5.
Not to mention that the slight delay in checking the batteries is not a big deal anyway. Most smoke detectors will run for much longer than half a year on a battery, and will warn you by beeping if the battery is running low. I am very safety conscious, but I don't change my smoke detector batteries every time we do the DST change. I just test each of the detectors to make sure that the batteries haven't failed silently and leave it at that.
The IAFC are a bunch of idiots if they are opposing this change because waiting until November is 'too late'.
IIRC, PHWR's also have a safety advantage over PLWR's: they aren't as likely to melt down since the cooling water in the reactor core is also the moderator that allows the fission reaction to occur in natural uranium. If the coolant leaks out, the fission reaction shuts itself down. (Not that this wouldn't still be a crisis, but still better than in a PLWR.) Am I misremembering?
I wonder what other countries are doing for nuclear waste disposal. Do they just store it in the plants the way the U.S. does, or has somebody actually built a long-term storage site?
Just use Hibernate instead of Shut Down. On modern computers it works great. You can also configure the power button to put the computer into Hibernation, so a single press puts it to sleep and another wakes it up.
Sure. If you have a modern PC with Windows XP, just open the Power Options control panel. Select the 'Advanced' tab. In the 'Power button' section select either 'Shut down' or 'Hibernate'. Click 'Ok'.
Voila, now when you push the power button your machine cleanly shuts down. Push it again and the machine starts up. If you selected 'Hibernate' rather than 'Shut down', the machine starts up in a few seconds.
Mine would be fine. Lots of jobs. Good for the local economy, and much cleaner for the environment than a coal-burning plant. Lower radiation emissions, too.
Of course, I would prefer that the plant were based on Canadian or European nuclear technology. The U.S. has allowed its nuclear industry to become technologically outdated due to not building any plants for decades.
I agree with most of what you wrote, but I have to respond to your comment about students asking "when are we going to use [history]?" This is a perfectly fair question for students to ask, and if you can't explain to your students why it is valuable for them to learn history, then you are simply not a good teacher. If you can't convince a learner that a subject is worth learning, then you cannot effectively teach that subject.
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But of course if the Earth's atmosphere had 30% oxygen content, whatever vegetation evolved here would be fireproof.
A 1-second old zygote is alive in the same sense that any other single-celled organism is. Bacteria are certainly alive. It's not clear whether this is actually relevant to the abortion debate.
It would be more productive to simply design the page using standards-compliant CSS and HTML without regard for whether IE will render it correctly, and provide a link to places where one can download a standards-compliant browser. There should never be a need to check what browser is being used and render customized code for that browser. Once you do that, you have already crossed over to the Dark Side.
Everything you have said is true, and yet completely irrelevant. I have no idea how you thought this example would help. Go back and re-read the original post to which I was replying.
Saying that an object 'wants' to fall to the ground is worse than the usual 'Pathetic Fallacy', in that it also gets the cause and effect backward. The object does not cause itself to fall to the ground. The ground pulls the object toward it. (Although one could also justifiably say that the object pulls the Earth towards itself.)
Um, no. Objects don't fall toward the 'center' of the Earth. Objects are pulled on by all the mass of the Earth (and everything else). The 'ground' is the outer surface of the mass that is pulling on the object. It is explicitly part of the process, not merely 'in the way'. Furthermore, since the ground is closest to the object, it exerts more force on the object than any other similar mass of material in the Earth. The force exerted by the ground is proportionally the strongest gravitational force acting on the object. (Of course it is still an insignificant portion of the total force. The Earth is big.)
And rightfully so. Prematurely releasing a discovery of this magnitude would be very bad scientific procedure.
Remember that Mars also has carbon dioxide ice, and you have to be able to tell the difference to know that you have found a lake of water ice.
What gets people in a lather is the potential of every employer having such clauses in their contracts. If every company that employs people in your field of work has such a clause, then you really don't have a choice about signing such a contract. While this might be perfectly valid contract law, nobody is happy about the possibility of, at some point in the future, being forced to choose between signing such a contract and starving.
That's right. It's not.
I believe car dealers have to report anyone who uses more than $10,000 cash in purchasing a car. I suspect the limitation applies to all commercial transactions, but it's possible the government only placed this burden on financial institutions and car dealerships. I don't know.
Keep in mind that if Bush's administration authorized the construction of new nuclear plants tomorrow, they would not enter service (and would not have any radioactive material in them) for many years after Bush left office. The idea that nuclear plants might be targeted by Bush-hating terrorists is not a good reason to not build more plants.
I'm sure we can get there if we try, but it's not anywhere near as easy as you suggest. Building a ship capable of carrying people to Mars and back will be a massive engineering project. We should really team up with some other countries.
No difference. If the police have a search warrant they are free to take and/or open the box. I don't know if the police have the power to make you unlock the box for them, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to consider giving them this power. Not sure how to deal with the case where the suspect claims not to have the key, though.
That used to be true, but isn't the case any longer. If someone wants to carry $9000 around with them, that's their own business. If they want to carry $10,000 or more, the federal government is (by law), involved.
Hmmm. I think he's right that oil production is going to begin to decline relatively soon and that that will have a huge impact on world (and especially U.S.) economy and culture. I think he has way overestimated the impact, though, largely because he overestimates how quickly oil will become scarce. I'm no expert, but I suspect things will evolve more slowly than that. If we're lucky, increasing energy prices will push people to make different lifestyle choices (hybrid cars, no SUVs, living closer to work, building nuclear plants, etc.) quickly enough to prevent the complete devastation he predicts. It's still going to be a painful transition, though. Oil is still going to be available for a long time. It's just going to be much more expensive than we are used to. Countries that are less suburbanized and more nuclearized will be impacted less and will have an advantage in the new worldwide economy.
DST has always been much more about the needs of urban people who work 9 to 5.
The IAFC are a bunch of idiots if they are opposing this change because waiting until November is 'too late'.
I wonder what other countries are doing for nuclear waste disposal. Do they just store it in the plants the way the U.S. does, or has somebody actually built a long-term storage site?
Just use Hibernate instead of Shut Down. On modern computers it works great. You can also configure the power button to put the computer into Hibernation, so a single press puts it to sleep and another wakes it up.
Voila, now when you push the power button your machine cleanly shuts down. Push it again and the machine starts up. If you selected 'Hibernate' rather than 'Shut down', the machine starts up in a few seconds.
Of course, I would prefer that the plant were based on Canadian or European nuclear technology. The U.S. has allowed its nuclear industry to become technologically outdated due to not building any plants for decades.
Actually, Canadians prefer Peace, Order, and Good Government.
I agree with most of what you wrote, but I have to respond to your comment about students asking "when are we going to use [history]?" This is a perfectly fair question for students to ask, and if you can't explain to your students why it is valuable for them to learn history, then you are simply not a good teacher. If you can't convince a learner that a subject is worth learning, then you cannot effectively teach that subject.
Welcome to the real world.