But as you can see, it is working and we are winning the peace... With entire provinces starting to expel insurgents and Al Qeada members, giving coalition troops warnings of road side bombs, and pointing the finger to the people who planted them, it looks like the Iraqi government is doing just that.
I seriously question your assessment of the situation. You can't point to a few anecdotes where Iraqis turned against foreign fighters and then conclude that the situation as a whole is improving when foreign fighters never were and still aren't the major problem. The elephant in the room here is that Iraq is in the middle of a civil war. Despite their rhetoric about Al Qaeda in Iraq and "other extremists," the Bush administration knows this. But instead of addressing it head on, for short-term political gain, they made the situation even worse by separating and arming both sides. All this accomplished was temporarily lowering the bodycounts so political hay could be made from the "surge." But in the long run, now that the Sunni's and Shia barely interact beyond blowing each other up, political reconciliation is even harder and their newfound weapons virtually ensure that the bloodbath everyone is worried about is inevitable.
Iraq has a long way to go but politically, they are more advanced then Germany was after WWII.
Bullshit. First of all, the German people are totally different from Iraqis. For Iraqis (and many middle eastern societies) the scars of European colonialism run deep, which, combined with their religiosity, honor-bound warrior culture, and ethnic tensions, makes it truly unlikely that we'll have anything like the success we had in rebuilding Germany even in the most optimistic of views. Secondly, post-WW2 Germany did not have the political chaos we see today in Iraq. Sure, there were killings bombs and generalized strife for about 5 years, but nothing on the same level. What happened in Germany was a (semi-)organized resistance. Iraq today is just pure bedlam with the vast majority of the violence being not even criminal but random in nature. In Iraq most families have have had at least one relative kidnapped for ransom. Car bombs go off not in military bases but in street markets and religious ceremonies. Lastly, the foreign military presence in Germany was much larger per capita and pervasive than what we have in Iraq, even if you count our mercenaries (which do almost as harm as good). We simply don't have the number of boots on the ground required to lock-down the country and create a stable security situation. Pre-war estimates put this number as 500,000 combat troops. The only way we could achieve that number (even if it still applies; I've heard some experts who think it no longer does) is if we had a draft or an unprecedented amount of international support. Neither of those looks likely.
BTW, the real reason Iraq invaded Kuwait, According to Saddam himself, was because a Kuwaiti official described Iraqi women as ten dollar prostitutes or something like that. Read the second page about Kuwait and it will give you everything about it.
Iraq invaded Kuwait because of its oil and the geopolitical importance the oil gives it. Furthermore, the Kuwaitis had been building oil drills at an angle along the Iraqi border to specifically tap into Iraqi oil reservoirs, which (rightfully) upset the Iraqis. You're kidding yourself if you think an opportunist like Saddam would invade Kuwait simply over a silly insult.
Like I said, the road map to defeat, or the time line, is more of a political ploy to get [elected].
And endlessly repeating the rather hollow phrase "winning the peace" isn't?
I can appreciate that you're truly interested in learning all you can about the Iraq conflict. Unfortunately, the facts referenced and even tone and structure of your post suggest to me that you only get y
I forgot to capitalize "Homeland" in my third tip. This was truly a mistake, and I apologize to any who were offended. I have already self-reported this infraction of Emergency Order 158-F but if anyone else feels compelled to also report this, I understand.
Well, we all realize it's very important for everyone (especially young children) to learn that being watched at all places and all times is normal and important for the functioning of civilizations. Airplane cabins are a convenient place to start since some people are sufficiently scared of flying to accept surveilance there.
Indeed. For the children's sake alone, I think it's best that I compile the list of some helpful tips to best aid all good citizens in this important time of transition from the lawlessness of the past into the new-freedom of the future:
While it's important not to make angry or scary faces, it might not be immediately obvious to some that one also needs to avoid any facial expressions or displays of excessive happiness. Such displays might flag you for suspicion of being one of the many evil enemies of the Homeland who are diligently try to avoid our detection methods. In general, a stoic demeanor at all times is best. In fact, having an emotionless facial expression is actually a good opportunity for you to display your patriotism and love of our Glorious Leaders as doing so decreases computing cycles which further helps identify enemies of the state.
Traveling overseas for non-party purposes should be avoided as much as possible if not entirely. Ours is the best nation in the world; a place of order, peace, and prosperity. There is no legitimate reason why anyone would need or want anything outside of the Homeland. Interest in other cultures and lands is a misguided, subversive thing.
Different is bad. Clothes such as head scarves and turbans are strange and have no place in the homeland. Wearing clothes such as this might delay your trip or be grounds for revoking your passport. In general, traditional jeans and a baseball cap are good a good place to begin when choosing your attire. Those looking for more guidelines for what to wear can always, of course, consult their Citizens Handbook under chapter 12 subsection C.
Remember, the Panopticon is for your safety. Until we win the war, it's important that all citizens comply fully with these temporary security measures. Criticism of or lack of cooperation with security procedures only serves our enemies. I encourage all of you to post more tips if you can think of them!
You can state your opinion that "these people would simply find another method," but empirically, while those who attempt suicide are statistically fairly likely to try again, the number of successful suicides even given repeated attempts is still lower when guns aren't accessible.
What does "when guns aren't accessible" mean? When someone is under suicide watch? When somebody is in a hospital, prison, or psychiatric facility? I think statistical correlations like these are inflated by other factors that are completely unrelated to the presence or lack of a firearm.
You might not think this is a compelling reason to oppose gun ownership, but GP's claim was substantially correct.
It's not a compelling reason to oppose gun ownership among healthy, stable people. Such arguments posit that the theoretical decrease in negative outcomes among an incredibly small minority of people (those who attempt suicide, or 4.6% of the general population** according to one study ) is a valid reason for the very real violation of the rights of healthy, law-abiding gun-owners.
-Grym
** I just wanted to note that those who attempt suicide are much more likely to have co-morbid psychiatric disorders compared to the general population and, thus, would already be unable to legally obtain firearms anyway. Thus, of the people who could legally own firearms, the lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts is logically much lower than even this 4.6% figure.
Studies do show a definite increase in suicide with gun ownership (seems obvious).
But what does a positive correlation between suicide and gun ownership really mean? Do guns cause people to commit suicide? Or do suicidal people actively seek guns? Furthermore, if suicidal people were unable to obtain guns, does such a correlation imply that they would then NOT commit suicide? Or is it possible that these people would simply find another method?
Some studies have found the likelihood of being murdered also increases.
Again, what does this correlation mean? Are guns causing these people to be murdered? Isn't it possible that people more likely to be murdered (because of their career, neighborhood, lifestyle, etc.) own guns out of the legitimate fears for their safety? Furthermore, if these people did not own guns, does such a correlation suggest that lives would have been saved? (I personally find it hard to believe that someone would kill you simply because you owned a gun, but I digress...)
Simply pointing to the correlation between gun ownership and suicide or the likelihood of being murdered as arguments against gun ownership are rather weak and generally an intellectually dishonest tactic to imply conclusions that don't actually fit the data.
... That post never talks about Intelligent Design. It talks about Creationists, which, as I understand it, Intelligent Design proponents are most certainly not.
You're the one who first mentioned intelligent design when you identified yourself as an "ID'er. Why is it that you think his attacks against Creationists were a reference to Intelligent Design? Is that because you (an "ID'er") yourself view Intelligent Design as a form of Creationism?
The way I see it, this puts you in an interesting quandary:
Either I'm wrong, and Intelligent Design is indeed a form of Creationism.
Or, you're wrong, and you're the one who brought up Intelligent Design first.
You guys (yeah, generalizing here) are really fixated on ID, aren't you? Why is that?
To be clear, you're the one who brought up intelligent design. But, to answer your question, I think many people are just sick of the ID movement. Being that its thesis is neither predictive or falsifiable, it effectively adds nothing to any discernible body of scientific knowledge.
That might be excusable in that wrong-headed ideas are relatively common, but the ire surrounding intelligent design truly has to do with its supporters who make every attempt to be absolutely insufferable. They deliberately obfuscate both their motives and their beliefs. And because of their persecution-complex propaganda which wildly distorts the issues, ID among the layman has become a badge of honor of sorts--a way of implying that they are independent-thinkers who are both worldly and faithful.
According to the theory of evolution, everything develops because it randomly mutates and gives an individual some sort of reproductive advantage that increases its chances of reproducing and passing the trait along.
No. See, your problem stems from your lack of understanding of what evolution is and what its implications are. You are viewing evolution as a type of applied engineering where stepwise improvements lead to new features and, eventually, the next species. This is not the case at all. Evolution is far more basic than that. It is simply population genetics over time. That's it; nothing more, nothing less. And yet, when we look at it this way instead of the popular misconception of evolution, we notice some very profound things:
Most beneficial mutations in stable, numerous populations are lost. Why? They're simply drowned out in the noise. Unless a mutation offers a significant selective advantage for the population, it is far more likely than not to simply get fixed out, or lost.
On the same note, very small populations can be drastically affected by sample size error, leading to the unwarranted propagation of "bad" genes. This is usually called random drift, but it's really just the Law of Small numbers of statistics. The typical way in which this is demonstrated is through the founder effect, but it also has implications for speciation as well, because it almost guarantees that a newly divergent species will undergo sample size error.
But this being slashdot ill probably get flamed for criticizing evolution and defending intelligent design.
Evolution is real. In fact, given the phenomenological way in which evolution is described, it can't be disputed. Those who attempt to de-legitimize or disprove evolution do so out of their own ignorance. Don't expect any sympathy.
That is probably the problem the Missouri prosecutors had, they couldn't show that Lori Drew should have reasonably expected her behavior to possibly cause Meghan's suicide. And no, telling someone to die doesn't generate sufficient expectation...
But that's not quite what she did. She established an emotionally exploitative relationship with a disturbed minor and then dug the knife in when the girl was at her lowest at most distressed. To me, it seems that the woman knew exactly how to push this girl's buttons and, as such, is likely to have known that her committing suicide in response was a reasonable possibility.
Sure, it may not be a clearcut case, but given the woman's generally defiant attitude and attempts to destroy evidence, I think the prosecutor has every reason to throw the book at the bitch. I seriously doubt this is going to establish any far sweeping caselaw precedent. It's a very exceptional and qualified case. A properly worded verdict would make it impossible to apply to any and every forum troll like what's being suggested.
Wait, what? You consider taking a breathalyzer test to be an unreasonable search? Or do the cops in the US do weird things with their drunk driver policing?
It sounds unreasonable, right? I mean, who could possibly be against checkpoints and, by extension, approve of drunk-driving? It sounds ridiculous--that's the point.
And yet, personally, just a few years ago, I dutifully stopped at at a Virginia DWI checkpoint thinking that since I was sober I had nothing to fear. And then I got ticketed for improper tinting on my windows. The guy in front of me? Something was wrong with his exhaust. During the 10 minutes I was pulled over, there must have been at least 5 other people pulled over like me and none of them were getting arrested, just ticketed for minor violations. It was complete bullshit, and (foolishly) I let the officer know as much. They weren't trying to catch drunk drivers. They were using the DWI checkpoint as an innocent-person traffic stop.
Don't think that because I have a love for the truth and recognize the wisdom of cutting our losses that, by extension, I lack pride. I want us (the U.S.) to "win." I supported this war initially (based upon what we now know to be a pack of lies) and held out hope for quite a long time after it was warranted that we would succeed in creating a functional, Islamic democracy in the center of the middle east. I still argue that it might have worked, if the Bush administration hadn't been so damned incompetent in managing the post-invasion affairs. If the administration had just listened to the State Department and Military experts who learned how to make it work first-hand in the Balkans (a success, like you mentioned), we probably wouldn't be in this mess.
As someone who grew up with servicemen in Iraq fighting now, words fail me in expressing my frustration and disappointment in this failed war that has been paid largely in the blood of my generation and bankrolled on debts that I will inevitably end up paying.
Deliberately or not, you're confusing the distinction between worship (religion) and any realistic fear-based enterprise. While there might be some similarities depending upon the religious doctrine in question and how literal it is taken by its followers, political fear and worship are fundamentally different.
Chinese physicists didn't dispute what Mao said because they believed it to be unquestionably true words from the mouth of God himself. They kept their mouths shut because they didn't want to end up in a re-education center or killed. Most Russian scientists didn't dare to publicly dispute Lysenko (early on) because he had the ear of Stalin, a ruthless dictator who wouldn't hesitate to mistreat those who displeased or embarrassed him. In fact, after Stalin died Lysenko became quite an unpopular person as his theories (not surprisingly) failed to deliver the agricultural yields seen by their Western counterparts.
Right now in Iraq, the bad guys can turn on CNN and see that America is teetering on the decision to give up and leave. That fact alone keeps them going -- they know that they just have to hold on a little bit longer and then they'll have it... while our soldiers are still in danger, and while the bad guys are still watching our media to see if they are wearing us down, will you please shut the hell up and cheer for our side?!
What you're saying might be true for a traditional, (a)symmetrical war. The problem with Iraq War is that as a direct result of improper post-invasion planning, the situation has gotten out of control; anyone's control. Foreign fighters are only a minor fraction of those committing the violence in Iraq. Most of the violence is from an ongoing civil war that the U.S. media and Bush administration has failed to acknowledge.
Not acknowledging that Iraq is in a civil war is that it leads to all kinds of incorrect conclusions. First of all, given our current troop strength and moral stance, we can't realistically kill our way to victory. Our success is ultimately limited by the Iraqi people's capacity to forgive and forget hundreds of years of animosities and grievances, and for whatever reason, they aren't willing or able to do it. Now, we could technically take the Iraqis out of the equation, by either casting our lot in with a particular faction and committing ethnic genocide ourselves or locking down the country so hard that an insurgency isn't possible. The first would be immoral and geopolitically problematic. The latter would likely require a tripling or quadrupling of our troop presence (> 500,000 combat troops, according to prewar estimates, which might not even apply now) which would require a draft, unprecedented amount of international support, and a huge increases in spending.
Simply acknowledging the fact that Iraq is in a state of civil war also greatly informs our endgame view. The people fighting in Iraq aren't going to cheer, declare a victory, and just stop if--when--we leave. Oh, no, it's going to be a mess and nobody is going to be a be able to claim a victory. This includes Al Qaeda, a Sunni organization whose kinsmen will likely be marginalized and ethnically cleansed. Furthermore, we can't wait this out. Whether we stay in Iraq for 16 months or 100 years, unless we do something to dramatically alter the underlying conflict, there will be violence and instability when we leave. A better way to look at this is through a cost-benefit analysis. Does a prolonged U.S. presence in Iraq realistically offer a better outcome and does this justify the cost in money and U.S. serviceman lives over such a longer period? I hate to say it, but the math doesn't add up.
2-3 cm seems to be rather large, especially since it has to go through the skull - can anyone comment on this ?
I can believe it. In the area of the forehead they are discussing, there is a large hollow space known as the frontal sinus. Even a simple doctor's penlight (which is about as bright as a single LED) can be used medically in what's called "frontal sinus transillumination" to check for fluid or pus in this space. It seems quite reasonable that a much brighter light could penetrate enough to visualize even further.
Regardless, I just wanted to add that back-of-the-table-napkin math is fine in my book. Expecting everyone to reference journals or primary sources for non-profit, non-academic purposes would be silly. But, the results of such calculations should always be treated with skepticism and prefaced with uncertainty--you did neither and even further claimed an extraordinary amount of precision. The faith that you have in your model (even now, after the hysteria has faded) is troubling. Do you really think that if you had just gotten the "right" numbers that such an analysis would successfully predict the likelihood of said events? Have you even considered the possibility that any organization sophisticated enough to cut undersea cables could simply choose to avoid creating such patterns?
Please, don't respond. Those were just rhetorical questions; food for thought. Perhaps you'll settle for me admitting that because I came up with a few unlikely explanations that, in the end, we were both wrong, okay?
You mean "disingenuously imply a false appeal to authority". One who speaks or write things "implies" things, those reading or listening "infer". To use the term correctly, for example, one would correctly say that you consistently infer a lot of meaning where there is none. Along with writing more carefully...
LOL Okay, I mistakenly used the word infer rather than imply. Got it.
If you compare yours to mine, you will see that I give all of my assumptions and quantify them and repeatedly ask what assumptions you would make. You never gave any.
I didn't give you values to input into your model because the entire purpose of my post (and I thought I was clear on this) was: (1) the premise behind your analysis was flawed (2) that it was an inappropriate context to try and apply Bayes theorem, and (3) that, even still, the values you chose were not based upon any hard, observable data but rather what you assumed to be reasonable numbers.
Worse yet, you use this thread to propagate some dichotomy wherein the impounding of a couple of boats "prove" you "right" and me "wrong".
No, I'm only attempting the latter. The GP was questioning my judgment, so I responded with other news articles containing more detailed information.
I can't be proven "right," because I never claimed to know what happened to the cables. In fact, I proposed a number of alternative hypotheses other than commercial ships. The essence of our disagreement comes with my skepticism as to the methods and supposed certainty of your prediction.
I still assert my math was correct.
Okay.
The assumptions may have been wrong
It's interesting that you say your assumptions are the cause of your flawed result when, at the time, you dismissed such concerns right off the bat as negligible. "At this point, it doesn't really matter too much what the prior is, just that we have one. We'll see that after a few rounds of calculations, this prior washes out pretty quickly."
I defended [my assumptions] with the best knowledge I could find.
Did you? From what I can tell you just went to wikipedia and, from the hodgepodge of data there, made some calculations. The funny thing is now you're mad at me for pointing out earlier that that just isn't good enough (when it wasn't), especially as a basis for basically asserting with virtual certainty a highly controversial and admittedly unlikely event.
Well, first of all, one of the ships' anchors was found caught on one of the damaged cables. But I think the best proof lies in the fact that one of the companies in question paid for the damages to the cables. Unless there is a better explanation presented or more evidence to the contrary, I think it's reasonable to assume that the mystery is solved, no?
The truth of the matter was that I had no idea what happened and, thus, no real opinion either way. I was merely skeptical that a conspiracy was responsible, which I think is an entirely reasonable position in this context. Plus it irks me when people mis-apply scientific/mathematical principals principals in everyday discussions to disingenuously infer a false appeal to authority.
And here I was being made to feel like a regular fool for not being 99.99% positive (as "proven" by Bayes' theorem, no less) that the U.S. government (or others) were intentionally disrupting internet services to presumably stop the Iranian Oil Bourse.
I'll never understand how a technical-minded group such as slashdot that prides itself on objectivity and generally mocks blind faith can, at times, get so easily carried away.
You know, I'm not going to refute much of what you said. It's true: Modern political discourse on such topics as gun control is rife with hyperbole and the statements of ignorance.
Pro-gun types actually beleive that guns have magical powers to imbue people with good judgment, so if guns are given to THEM, they will somehow magically be immune from ever 'misusing' it or using it 'accidentally'.
My personal experience has been quite the opposite. Pro-gun control people are, generally, less personally experienced with firearms and more likely to hold unrealistic or unfounded beliefs regarding firearms for the simple reason that their primary exposure is from dramatized movies and TV shows in which firearms are deus-ex-machina plot-devices or talismans of power which can only exist in the hands of "Bad Guys" and the police. Things like the Brady Bill only confirm this belief in that they ban what laypeople THINK makes a firearm dangerous (foldable stocks, pistol grips, bayonets, black stocks, etc.) and not what actually DOES make them dangerous (kinetic energy, accuracy, training, etc.)
come to think of that, I never heard of a case of some burglar/rapist/robber breaking into a house at night when he might run the risk of beeing surprised by one of the inhabitants. So that gun that protects against robbers is the same as the stone that protects against tigers.
This is self-defeating argument. You're saying that because deterrence prevents crimes from ever occurring in the first place that self-defense firearms serve no purpose... even if they play a role in said deterrence.
Besides, your analogy of a (probably superstitious) tiger-proofing stone to firearms is laughable. Modern firearms are a very realistic way of defending oneself--no superstition required. A belief that one stands a better chance armed with a firearm is certainly more realistic than any security system, lock on the door, bat/knife under the bed, martial arts training, or samurai sword zip-tied to the bedpost, as another poster described.
See, it's stuff like that which keeps me from owning a gun. Takes to long to get ready and if you have one ready, somebody's kid might shoot themselves.
Easy. Get a biometric gun safe for self-defense handguns and a large safe and/or trigger locks for sporting arms.
By the way, if you're worried about what someone's(your own?) kid might do, you might be interested to know that more children die every year from accidental drownings, poisonings, fires, falls, and automobile accidents individually than from firearms. And yet, you don't see national campaigns against residential pools, stairways, outdoor decks, or "unsecured" antifreeze, Draino, or matches. Why do you think that is?
"THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" == The new battle-cry of authoritarianism.
As I understand it, aliasing in it's most obvious form, "jaggies," is more of a problem in lower resolution renderings than higher resolution ones, simply because each pixel represents less and less of a percent of the overall scene.
From that, one could infer that if ray-tracing were to take off and dramatically improve performance on large resolution renderings (because of parallelization), the problem of aliasing would eventually solve itself or, at the very least, be highly outweighed by the awesomeness (yes, that's the technical term =) of photo-realistic lighting effects.
If it's just access to the machine that you need, then have you considered the obvious option taking the laptop home with you? A good laptop case with a spare pocket for your USB hard drive sounds like a winner to me.
Now if you're doing all this to access some local network resource (you weren't clear as to why you needed to remote desktop), then you do realize there are better ways to do this, right? There's a reason why servers are in locked boxes with backup power supplies...
...until some law-abiding citizen going about his lawful business gets stopped and accosted for no reason beyond "the machine said so" during a routine blanket surveillance sweep. Enjoy the slide into a police state.
For all the arbitrary reasons that the police can pull you over for anyway, emitting large amounts of radiation is probably one of the most understandable. It's certainly more specific than the damn "metal"-detecting wand they use at airports. Considering the potential damage and misery a nuclear-based (dirty or fission) weapon can do, I think such a trivial infringement on our select few irradiated citizens' rights is, by far, better than risking not having any domestic nuclear security surveillance at all.
IF the OP drinks milk, gets sick, then stops drinking milk, and does not get sick, and can REPEAT that process, his getting sick from drinking milk is a FACT.
No, the statement "he gets sick FROM milk" is a conclusion (not a fact) based upon an anecdote or, at best, a series of repeatable but uncontrolled experiments. Because no effort has been made to disprove the null hypothesis (that that getting sick and milk are a coincidence), the best that can be said is that there is a correlative relationship.
What you are doing is putting your own mental blinders on, not thinking that something can be factual because it disagrees with your own sense of what is, and then you use science as an excuse to do it!
Alright, whatever. This is basic stuff, man. What I'm describing is simple, high-school level science material; the type of thinking that makes modern life possible. You don't have to be thankful for it. You don't even have to practice it yourself. But don't try and argue that it doesn't work.
Slashdot Mirror
I seriously question your assessment of the situation. You can't point to a few anecdotes where Iraqis turned against foreign fighters and then conclude that the situation as a whole is improving when foreign fighters never were and still aren't the major problem. The elephant in the room here is that Iraq is in the middle of a civil war. Despite their rhetoric about Al Qaeda in Iraq and "other extremists," the Bush administration knows this. But instead of addressing it head on, for short-term political gain, they made the situation even worse by separating and arming both sides. All this accomplished was temporarily lowering the bodycounts so political hay could be made from the "surge." But in the long run, now that the Sunni's and Shia barely interact beyond blowing each other up, political reconciliation is even harder and their newfound weapons virtually ensure that the bloodbath everyone is worried about is inevitable.
Bullshit. First of all, the German people are totally different from Iraqis. For Iraqis (and many middle eastern societies) the scars of European colonialism run deep, which, combined with their religiosity, honor-bound warrior culture, and ethnic tensions, makes it truly unlikely that we'll have anything like the success we had in rebuilding Germany even in the most optimistic of views. Secondly, post-WW2 Germany did not have the political chaos we see today in Iraq. Sure, there were killings bombs and generalized strife for about 5 years, but nothing on the same level. What happened in Germany was a (semi-)organized resistance. Iraq today is just pure bedlam with the vast majority of the violence being not even criminal but random in nature. In Iraq most families have have had at least one relative kidnapped for ransom. Car bombs go off not in military bases but in street markets and religious ceremonies. Lastly, the foreign military presence in Germany was much larger per capita and pervasive than what we have in Iraq, even if you count our mercenaries (which do almost as harm as good). We simply don't have the number of boots on the ground required to lock-down the country and create a stable security situation. Pre-war estimates put this number as 500,000 combat troops. The only way we could achieve that number (even if it still applies; I've heard some experts who think it no longer does) is if we had a draft or an unprecedented amount of international support. Neither of those looks likely.
Iraq invaded Kuwait because of its oil and the geopolitical importance the oil gives it. Furthermore, the Kuwaitis had been building oil drills at an angle along the Iraqi border to specifically tap into Iraqi oil reservoirs, which (rightfully) upset the Iraqis. You're kidding yourself if you think an opportunist like Saddam would invade Kuwait simply over a silly insult.
And endlessly repeating the rather hollow phrase "winning the peace" isn't?
I can appreciate that you're truly interested in learning all you can about the Iraq conflict. Unfortunately, the facts referenced and even tone and structure of your post suggest to me that you only get y
I forgot to capitalize "Homeland" in my third tip. This was truly a mistake, and I apologize to any who were offended. I have already self-reported this infraction of Emergency Order 158-F but if anyone else feels compelled to also report this, I understand.
-Grym
Indeed. For the children's sake alone, I think it's best that I compile the list of some helpful tips to best aid all good citizens in this important time of transition from the lawlessness of the past into the new-freedom of the future:
Remember, the Panopticon is for your safety. Until we win the war, it's important that all citizens comply fully with these temporary security measures. Criticism of or lack of cooperation with security procedures only serves our enemies. I encourage all of you to post more tips if you can think of them!
-Grym
What does "when guns aren't accessible" mean? When someone is under suicide watch? When somebody is in a hospital, prison, or psychiatric facility? I think statistical correlations like these are inflated by other factors that are completely unrelated to the presence or lack of a firearm.
It's not a compelling reason to oppose gun ownership among healthy, stable people. Such arguments posit that the theoretical decrease in negative outcomes among an incredibly small minority of people (those who attempt suicide, or 4.6% of the general population** according to one study ) is a valid reason for the very real violation of the rights of healthy, law-abiding gun-owners.
-Grym
** I just wanted to note that those who attempt suicide are much more likely to have co-morbid psychiatric disorders compared to the general population and, thus, would already be unable to legally obtain firearms anyway. Thus, of the people who could legally own firearms, the lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts is logically much lower than even this 4.6% figure.
But what does a positive correlation between suicide and gun ownership really mean? Do guns cause people to commit suicide? Or do suicidal people actively seek guns? Furthermore, if suicidal people were unable to obtain guns, does such a correlation imply that they would then NOT commit suicide? Or is it possible that these people would simply find another method?
Again, what does this correlation mean? Are guns causing these people to be murdered? Isn't it possible that people more likely to be murdered (because of their career, neighborhood, lifestyle, etc.) own guns out of the legitimate fears for their safety? Furthermore, if these people did not own guns, does such a correlation suggest that lives would have been saved? (I personally find it hard to believe that someone would kill you simply because you owned a gun, but I digress...)
Simply pointing to the correlation between gun ownership and suicide or the likelihood of being murdered as arguments against gun ownership are rather weak and generally an intellectually dishonest tactic to imply conclusions that don't actually fit the data.
-Grym
... That post never talks about Intelligent Design. It talks about Creationists, which, as I understand it, Intelligent Design proponents are most certainly not.
You're the one who first mentioned intelligent design when you identified yourself as an "ID'er. Why is it that you think his attacks against Creationists were a reference to Intelligent Design? Is that because you (an "ID'er") yourself view Intelligent Design as a form of Creationism?
The way I see it, this puts you in an interesting quandary:
Which do you suppose it is?
-Grym
To be clear, you're the one who brought up intelligent design. But, to answer your question, I think many people are just sick of the ID movement. Being that its thesis is neither predictive or falsifiable, it effectively adds nothing to any discernible body of scientific knowledge.
That might be excusable in that wrong-headed ideas are relatively common, but the ire surrounding intelligent design truly has to do with its supporters who make every attempt to be absolutely insufferable. They deliberately obfuscate both their motives and their beliefs. And because of their persecution-complex propaganda which wildly distorts the issues, ID among the layman has become a badge of honor of sorts--a way of implying that they are independent-thinkers who are both worldly and faithful.
-Grym
No. See, your problem stems from your lack of understanding of what evolution is and what its implications are. You are viewing evolution as a type of applied engineering where stepwise improvements lead to new features and, eventually, the next species. This is not the case at all. Evolution is far more basic than that. It is simply population genetics over time. That's it; nothing more, nothing less. And yet, when we look at it this way instead of the popular misconception of evolution, we notice some very profound things:
Evolution is real. In fact, given the phenomenological way in which evolution is described, it can't be disputed. Those who attempt to de-legitimize or disprove evolution do so out of their own ignorance. Don't expect any sympathy.
-Grym
But that's not quite what she did. She established an emotionally exploitative relationship with a disturbed minor and then dug the knife in when the girl was at her lowest at most distressed. To me, it seems that the woman knew exactly how to push this girl's buttons and, as such, is likely to have known that her committing suicide in response was a reasonable possibility.
Sure, it may not be a clearcut case, but given the woman's generally defiant attitude and attempts to destroy evidence, I think the prosecutor has every reason to throw the book at the bitch. I seriously doubt this is going to establish any far sweeping caselaw precedent. It's a very exceptional and qualified case. A properly worded verdict would make it impossible to apply to any and every forum troll like what's being suggested.
-Grym
It sounds unreasonable, right? I mean, who could possibly be against checkpoints and, by extension, approve of drunk-driving? It sounds ridiculous--that's the point.
And yet, personally, just a few years ago, I dutifully stopped at at a Virginia DWI checkpoint thinking that since I was sober I had nothing to fear. And then I got ticketed for improper tinting on my windows. The guy in front of me? Something was wrong with his exhaust. During the 10 minutes I was pulled over, there must have been at least 5 other people pulled over like me and none of them were getting arrested, just ticketed for minor violations. It was complete bullshit, and (foolishly) I let the officer know as much. They weren't trying to catch drunk drivers. They were using the DWI checkpoint as an innocent-person traffic stop.
-Grym
Don't think that because I have a love for the truth and recognize the wisdom of cutting our losses that, by extension, I lack pride. I want us (the U.S.) to "win." I supported this war initially (based upon what we now know to be a pack of lies) and held out hope for quite a long time after it was warranted that we would succeed in creating a functional, Islamic democracy in the center of the middle east. I still argue that it might have worked, if the Bush administration hadn't been so damned incompetent in managing the post-invasion affairs. If the administration had just listened to the State Department and Military experts who learned how to make it work first-hand in the Balkans (a success, like you mentioned), we probably wouldn't be in this mess.
As someone who grew up with servicemen in Iraq fighting now, words fail me in expressing my frustration and disappointment in this failed war that has been paid largely in the blood of my generation and bankrolled on debts that I will inevitably end up paying.
-Grym
Deliberately or not, you're confusing the distinction between worship (religion) and any realistic fear-based enterprise. While there might be some similarities depending upon the religious doctrine in question and how literal it is taken by its followers, political fear and worship are fundamentally different.
Chinese physicists didn't dispute what Mao said because they believed it to be unquestionably true words from the mouth of God himself. They kept their mouths shut because they didn't want to end up in a re-education center or killed. Most Russian scientists didn't dare to publicly dispute Lysenko (early on) because he had the ear of Stalin, a ruthless dictator who wouldn't hesitate to mistreat those who displeased or embarrassed him. In fact, after Stalin died Lysenko became quite an unpopular person as his theories (not surprisingly) failed to deliver the agricultural yields seen by their Western counterparts.
-Grym
What you're saying might be true for a traditional, (a)symmetrical war. The problem with Iraq War is that as a direct result of improper post-invasion planning, the situation has gotten out of control; anyone's control. Foreign fighters are only a minor fraction of those committing the violence in Iraq. Most of the violence is from an ongoing civil war that the U.S. media and Bush administration has failed to acknowledge.
Not acknowledging that Iraq is in a civil war is that it leads to all kinds of incorrect conclusions. First of all, given our current troop strength and moral stance, we can't realistically kill our way to victory. Our success is ultimately limited by the Iraqi people's capacity to forgive and forget hundreds of years of animosities and grievances, and for whatever reason, they aren't willing or able to do it. Now, we could technically take the Iraqis out of the equation, by either casting our lot in with a particular faction and committing ethnic genocide ourselves or locking down the country so hard that an insurgency isn't possible. The first would be immoral and geopolitically problematic. The latter would likely require a tripling or quadrupling of our troop presence (> 500,000 combat troops, according to prewar estimates, which might not even apply now) which would require a draft, unprecedented amount of international support, and a huge increases in spending.
Simply acknowledging the fact that Iraq is in a state of civil war also greatly informs our endgame view. The people fighting in Iraq aren't going to cheer, declare a victory, and just stop if--when--we leave. Oh, no, it's going to be a mess and nobody is going to be a be able to claim a victory. This includes Al Qaeda, a Sunni organization whose kinsmen will likely be marginalized and ethnically cleansed. Furthermore, we can't wait this out. Whether we stay in Iraq for 16 months or 100 years, unless we do something to dramatically alter the underlying conflict, there will be violence and instability when we leave. A better way to look at this is through a cost-benefit analysis. Does a prolonged U.S. presence in Iraq realistically offer a better outcome and does this justify the cost in money and U.S. serviceman lives over such a longer period? I hate to say it, but the math doesn't add up.
-Grym
I can believe it. In the area of the forehead they are discussing, there is a large hollow space known as the frontal sinus. Even a simple doctor's penlight (which is about as bright as a single LED) can be used medically in what's called "frontal sinus transillumination" to check for fluid or pus in this space. It seems quite reasonable that a much brighter light could penetrate enough to visualize even further.
-Grym
Oops.. hit submit instead of preview earlier.
Regardless, I just wanted to add that back-of-the-table-napkin math is fine in my book. Expecting everyone to reference journals or primary sources for non-profit, non-academic purposes would be silly. But, the results of such calculations should always be treated with skepticism and prefaced with uncertainty--you did neither and even further claimed an extraordinary amount of precision. The faith that you have in your model (even now, after the hysteria has faded) is troubling. Do you really think that if you had just gotten the "right" numbers that such an analysis would successfully predict the likelihood of said events? Have you even considered the possibility that any organization sophisticated enough to cut undersea cables could simply choose to avoid creating such patterns?
Please, don't respond. Those were just rhetorical questions; food for thought. Perhaps you'll settle for me admitting that because I came up with a few unlikely explanations that, in the end, we were both wrong, okay?
-Grym
LOL Okay, I mistakenly used the word infer rather than imply. Got it.
I didn't give you values to input into your model because the entire purpose of my post (and I thought I was clear on this) was: (1) the premise behind your analysis was flawed (2) that it was an inappropriate context to try and apply Bayes theorem, and (3) that, even still, the values you chose were not based upon any hard, observable data but rather what you assumed to be reasonable numbers.
No, I'm only attempting the latter. The GP was questioning my judgment, so I responded with other news articles containing more detailed information.
I can't be proven "right," because I never claimed to know what happened to the cables. In fact, I proposed a number of alternative hypotheses other than commercial ships. The essence of our disagreement comes with my skepticism as to the methods and supposed certainty of your prediction.
Okay.
It's interesting that you say your assumptions are the cause of your flawed result when, at the time, you dismissed such concerns right off the bat as negligible.
"At this point, it doesn't really matter too much what the prior is, just that we have one. We'll see that after a few rounds of calculations, this prior washes out pretty quickly."
Did you? From what I can tell you just went to wikipedia and, from the hodgepodge of data there, made some calculations. The funny thing is now you're mad at me for pointing out earlier that that just isn't good enough (when it wasn't), especially as a basis for basically asserting with virtual certainty a highly controversial and admittedly unlikely event.
Well, first of all, one of the ships' anchors was found caught on one of the damaged cables. But I think the best proof lies in the fact that one of the companies in question paid for the damages to the cables. Unless there is a better explanation presented or more evidence to the contrary, I think it's reasonable to assume that the mystery is solved, no?
The truth of the matter was that I had no idea what happened and, thus, no real opinion either way. I was merely skeptical that a conspiracy was responsible, which I think is an entirely reasonable position in this context. Plus it irks me when people mis-apply scientific/mathematical principals principals in everyday discussions to disingenuously infer a false appeal to authority.
-Grym
And here I was being made to feel like a regular fool for not being 99.99% positive (as "proven" by Bayes' theorem, no less) that the U.S. government (or others) were intentionally disrupting internet services to presumably stop the Iranian Oil Bourse.
I'll never understand how a technical-minded group such as slashdot that prides itself on objectivity and generally mocks blind faith can, at times, get so easily carried away.
-Grym
You know, I'm not going to refute much of what you said. It's true: Modern political discourse on such topics as gun control is rife with hyperbole and the statements of ignorance.
My personal experience has been quite the opposite. Pro-gun control people are, generally, less personally experienced with firearms and more likely to hold unrealistic or unfounded beliefs regarding firearms for the simple reason that their primary exposure is from dramatized movies and TV shows in which firearms are deus-ex-machina plot-devices or talismans of power which can only exist in the hands of "Bad Guys" and the police. Things like the Brady Bill only confirm this belief in that they ban what laypeople THINK makes a firearm dangerous (foldable stocks, pistol grips, bayonets, black stocks, etc.) and not what actually DOES make them dangerous (kinetic energy, accuracy, training, etc.)
-Grym
This is self-defeating argument. You're saying that because deterrence prevents crimes from ever occurring in the first place that self-defense firearms serve no purpose... even if they play a role in said deterrence.
Besides, your analogy of a (probably superstitious) tiger-proofing stone to firearms is laughable. Modern firearms are a very realistic way of defending oneself--no superstition required. A belief that one stands a better chance armed with a firearm is certainly more realistic than any security system, lock on the door, bat/knife under the bed, martial arts training, or samurai sword zip-tied to the bedpost, as another poster described.
-Grym
Easy. Get a biometric gun safe for self-defense handguns and a large safe and/or trigger locks for sporting arms.
By the way, if you're worried about what someone's(your own?) kid might do, you might be interested to know that more children die every year from accidental drownings, poisonings, fires, falls, and automobile accidents individually than from firearms. And yet, you don't see national campaigns against residential pools, stairways, outdoor decks, or "unsecured" antifreeze, Draino, or matches. Why do you think that is?
"THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" == The new battle-cry of authoritarianism.
-Grym
As I understand it, aliasing in it's most obvious form, "jaggies," is more of a problem in lower resolution renderings than higher resolution ones, simply because each pixel represents less and less of a percent of the overall scene.
From that, one could infer that if ray-tracing were to take off and dramatically improve performance on large resolution renderings (because of parallelization), the problem of aliasing would eventually solve itself or, at the very least, be highly outweighed by the awesomeness (yes, that's the technical term =) of photo-realistic lighting effects.
-Grym
If it's just access to the machine that you need, then have you considered the obvious option taking the laptop home with you? A good laptop case with a spare pocket for your USB hard drive sounds like a winner to me.
Now if you're doing all this to access some local network resource (you weren't clear as to why you needed to remote desktop), then you do realize there are better ways to do this, right? There's a reason why servers are in locked boxes with backup power supplies...
-Grym
For all the arbitrary reasons that the police can pull you over for anyway, emitting large amounts of radiation is probably one of the most understandable. It's certainly more specific than the damn "metal"-detecting wand they use at airports. Considering the potential damage and misery a nuclear-based (dirty or fission) weapon can do, I think such a trivial infringement on our select few irradiated citizens' rights is, by far, better than risking not having any domestic nuclear security surveillance at all.
-Grym
No, the statement "he gets sick FROM milk" is a conclusion (not a fact) based upon an anecdote or, at best, a series of repeatable but uncontrolled experiments. Because no effort has been made to disprove the null hypothesis (that that getting sick and milk are a coincidence), the best that can be said is that there is a correlative relationship.
Alright, whatever. This is basic stuff, man. What I'm describing is simple, high-school level science material; the type of thinking that makes modern life possible. You don't have to be thankful for it. You don't even have to practice it yourself. But don't try and argue that it doesn't work.
-Grym