Without making a statement on the virtues of the heathcare law in question, I'd point you to a post by ep32g79 that gives the case law providing the federal government with the powers in question. You may reply that it's just from an "activist judge," but remember that the constitution gives the power to interpret the law to the judiciary.
Y'know, the greatest threat to US security might be the US government.
In a sense I agree. We the people are the government, and we the people are generally apathetic, under educated, idiots. I believe the war on curiosity, as a grandparent poster said, is the fear of "main street" Americans of everything they don't understand. Technology is scary, so we have to keep he evil hackers at bay. Those Ai-rabs are funny looking and scary as well, so we have to attack them before they attack us. Or, worse, make "our" gas prices higher. There are large segments of the population that hold ignorance and staying inline w/ the the "right" (as in correct) thinking of the community to be paramount.
"Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
-- H. L. Mencken
[snip] If one looks at Christianity from circa 1550 they will see atrocities, brutalizing of the irreverent, and murdering of heretics. Sometimes en masse. [snip]
Yeah, and there has been a lot of repair work done to civilization since the Renaissance. We've pretty much gotten back to end of the Roman empire when Christians started mucking things up. Now, it would be irresponsible to let someone come along and vandalize it all over again.
And before you say, 'yeah but this is 2010, they should be over that in these modern times!', remember that the real world is not like a game of Civilization; not all cultures started at the same time. In a few centuries, or less, Islam will be mellowed out.
Actually, every culture is continuous from day to day. So culture did start at the same time and has been going ever since. It just changes locally over time. That's the thing about humans: we don't do very well without culture, so everyone has one... and every "peoples" has had one. What do you think the arab people we doing before Mo came along?
There's no good reason to believe that any particular culture will mimic that of Western culture like a blueprint. Western culture is the way it is because of internal and external pressures over its history. Christianity won out over a more tolerant society at its beginning and so can fundamentalist Islam now.
The only question is how much pressure can those of us who value liberty put on it, and where should it be pressed.
Oh yeah, and calculators are very useful when you're not testing a student's ability to do arithmetic, but rather seeing how they approach "real" math problems (Of course, my Topology professor simply didn't add any problems that required other than basic arithmetic).
In Western culture, pull a string on a Barbie and she'll say "Math is hard!"
My TA in upper division probability used to say that on the more difficult questions during office hours. The most hilarious part about that is that all us mathematicians were in agreement with Barbie.
...and then we make them waste hellish years of their lives studying shit like anatomy that most doctors never use...
OMG, this made me laugh. The unnerving part is someone (accidentaly?) modded this as "interesting" instead of "funny."
But then, I think you're way off with "Really it isn't that hard to be a doctor..." I'd suggest that you're next phrase, "and in my experience most of these guys aren't that good anyway", could be considered evidence that it really is difficult to troubleshoot an malfunctioning human.
"...it's sending the message "look we're a little bit naughty because we pick locks" as a distraction instead of sending the message that there are evil out of control bastards torturing people to death."
I'd have guess it's "...evil out of control bastards threatening to torture people's children. Yes, independed of the unsubstantiated allegation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed there's the implied threat of kidnapping someone's family until they do what you want. Particularly, "According to former Bush administration advisor John Yoo, the president has the legal power, in some circumstances, to order that children's testicles be crushed in front of their parents."
"...You may like to argue that a baby is just a zygote, blastocyst, embryo, or whatever stage of development it is in, but the truth of the matter is that there is no point in time scientifically where you can say that a fertilized egg is not a human being."
The logical form you're using would mean that an acorn is an oak tree. In California, we have laws against cutting down or killing oak trees. If I crush a bunch of acorns, am I violating the law? A seed is not the same thing as the grown organism.
Funny joke, but pi is provably a transcendental number, which means it's irrational. Transcendental numbers are numbers that aren't the root an any rational polynomial. So, it's a mathematical proof, not a scientific theory. Big difference.
If you care to check for yourself, Johann Heinrich Lambert has a proof of it that I've never read. I hear it's painfully long.
That's the great thing about math: unless it says "conjecture" it's provably true or false.
"...those who are out to teach instead of to get rich."
I can't believe I just read "teach" and "get rich" in the same sentence. As the son of a teacher I can tell you authoritatively that in the vast majority of school districts teachers don't make a living wage. Also, in LAUSD, for example, getting "expelled" usually means an OT - Opportunity Transfer. They get dumped into another school. They tend to get dumped into the schools of the richer communities (e.g. Taft and El Camino Real) where they regularly degrade the performance of their fellow students - both those bussed in with them who want to learn as well as those from the local community. It isn't easy kicking a kid out of a public school district.
All this with the back drop that teachers who haven't been working for most of their life get payed pretty close to the poverty line. Maybe if teaching was a reasonably paid profession we'd get more reasonably skilled people.
...we're all supposed to be these over-sexed, drooling things, according to what you see in media.
Not just in the media. If you look in history books and literature, you'll see that we've always been these "over-sexed, drooling things" you describe. Islam actually codifies it (see 37:40-48, 44:51-55, 55:56-57, 52:17-20, 55:72 among many others). A big part of war in a historical sense has been rape and obtaining women (see the Iliad's openning argument for an example). Humans are sexual. From the moment of puberty (and possibly before) we are all sexual creatures. Any one and anything that wasn't got pushed out of existence by those critters that were.
It just so happens that a lot of the sexual responses that are so deeply rooted in male humans tend to be visually stimulated.
As for the reference to "Religion is the opiate of the masses" I completely agree. Religion is like any other drug. In practice, it makes the user feel good and keeps them addicted. In effect on the brain, it inhibits the areas associated with location and orientation while pumping the mind full of euphoria. To avoid getting off topic, I'll table my usual rant about monotheism and its negative effect on society. The best parts of religions seem to occur in the breach of their rules. The most damage to society seem to be in their observance - like the suppression of human sexuality.
Right, that's only the historical perspective. I can start a religion based on soap and sandpaper and claim it has the same base as Christinity. Doesn't make it so.
can someone please tell him it's the same god... ?
No we can't, because they arent the same and never have been. The Muslim god, Allah, is based off of a member of the local pantheon at the time their prophet. The Christian god is a bastardization of the Hebrew god which is the result of a Monotheistic push from a violence minority starting roughly around the time of the biblical exodus. Some theorise that is was the result of the Egyptian cult of Aton, started by Akhenaton, that drove a murderous sect of Judeism (see Mose's responce to the Hebrews' rejection of his 10 commandments) to become Monotheistic.
So you see, there's good evidence that, although they all hold the same philosophy on rigorism, the various branches of monotheism are only related by their violent means of enforcing believe (whether used internally or externally)
Sereiously, not to impune anyone, but businesses exist to make $$$. To think otherwise is Hippy wishful thinking.
My problem with taking this view without following it is that it ignores the assumptions that western business needs to be conducted in a free market supported by a democratic society. A business that seeks a short term gain by supporting a local totalitarian may find that all of their profits are lost when their successful company is confiscated for "the good of the state."
Even in a smaller way, a company gets its workers and customers largely from the comunity where it exists - even outsourced products tend to have a "community" of customers. Doing not just what's best for the company, but what's best for the company and the community it serves makes good sense. It's the foundation of modern game theory. Hell, watch "A Beautiful Mind" for a pedestrian version of this idea.
If business, as a whole, works off of ancient economic theory that asserts maximum profit happens when everyone works for themselves, then we may all find outselves in a negitive sum game.
Slashdot Mirror
I would much rather be driving an overpowered death trap. It's much more fun and doesn't waste time killing you.
..the middle class have excellent health care through...
Middle class? What the hell is that?
When Congress was debating this bill, its proponents were very emphatic that this provision was not a tax. Now, you want to argue that it is a tax?
I suspect the OP would claim that they were not one of those debating in Congress.
Without making a statement on the virtues of the heathcare law in question, I'd point you to a post by ep32g79 that gives the case law providing the federal government with the powers in question. You may reply that it's just from an "activist judge," but remember that the constitution gives the power to interpret the law to the judiciary.
Incidentally, dogs are actually smart enough to intentionally deceive their owners.
So that was his shit. That damn dog! I guess I own the mail man an apology.
As my sibling poster said, you beat me to it. I do wish I had mod points.
Y'know, the greatest threat to US security might be the US government.
In a sense I agree. We the people are the government, and we the people are generally apathetic, under educated, idiots. I believe the war on curiosity, as a grandparent poster said, is the fear of "main street" Americans of everything they don't understand. Technology is scary, so we have to keep he evil hackers at bay. Those Ai-rabs are funny looking and scary as well, so we have to attack them before they attack us. Or, worse, make "our" gas prices higher. There are large segments of the population that hold ignorance and staying inline w/ the the "right" (as in correct) thinking of the community to be paramount.
"Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
-- H. L. Mencken
[snip] If one looks at Christianity from circa 1550 they will see atrocities, brutalizing of the irreverent, and murdering of heretics. Sometimes en masse. [snip]
Yeah, and there has been a lot of repair work done to civilization since the Renaissance. We've pretty much gotten back to end of the Roman empire when Christians started mucking things up. Now, it would be irresponsible to let someone come along and vandalize it all over again.
And before you say, 'yeah but this is 2010, they should be over that in these modern times!', remember that the real world is not like a game of Civilization; not all cultures started at the same time. In a few centuries, or less, Islam will be mellowed out.
Actually, every culture is continuous from day to day. So culture did start at the same time and has been going ever since. It just changes locally over time. That's the thing about humans: we don't do very well without culture, so everyone has one... and every "peoples" has had one. What do you think the arab people we doing before Mo came along?
There's no good reason to believe that any particular culture will mimic that of Western culture like a blueprint. Western culture is the way it is because of internal and external pressures over its history. Christianity won out over a more tolerant society at its beginning and so can fundamentalist Islam now.
The only question is how much pressure can those of us who value liberty put on it, and where should it be pressed.
The same people who buy Priuses or other hybrids because they are cool, when in fact they are too underpowered for US and European highway traffic.
I live in Los Angeles, and the 5-25 mph freeway speeds work perfectly well for my Toyota Highlander Hybrid.
Oh yeah, and calculators are very useful when you're not testing a student's ability to do arithmetic, but rather seeing how they approach "real" math problems (Of course, my Topology professor simply didn't add any problems that required other than basic arithmetic).
In Western culture, pull a string on a Barbie and she'll say "Math is hard!"
My TA in upper division probability used to say that on the more difficult questions during office hours. The most hilarious part about that is that all us mathematicians were in agreement with Barbie.
I see that finishing a project appears to be a foreign concept to you.
I work in medical research. Projects never end, they only pause while the spec is changed.
"Christians and Hindus believe him, Jesus, to be God..."
Hindus? Could you give us some references to support a polytheist religion believing a monotheist god?
...and then we make them waste hellish years of their lives studying shit like anatomy that most doctors never use...
OMG, this made me laugh. The unnerving part is someone (accidentaly?) modded this as "interesting" instead of "funny."
But then, I think you're way off with "Really it isn't that hard to be a doctor..." I'd suggest that you're next phrase, "and in my experience most of these guys aren't that good anyway", could be considered evidence that it really is difficult to troubleshoot an malfunctioning human.
"...it's sending the message "look we're a little bit naughty because we pick locks" as a distraction instead of sending the message that there are evil out of control bastards torturing people to death."
I'd have guess it's "...evil out of control bastards threatening to torture people's children. Yes, independed of the unsubstantiated allegation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed there's the implied threat of kidnapping someone's family until they do what you want. Particularly, "According to former Bush administration advisor John Yoo, the president has the legal power, in some circumstances, to order that children's testicles be crushed in front of their parents."
Given that they are admitting to planning murder and more its hard to see the big faults that they are hiding.
Everything's a matter of scale.
"...You may like to argue that a baby is just a zygote, blastocyst, embryo, or whatever stage of development it is in, but the truth of the matter is that there is no point in time scientifically where you can say that a fertilized egg is not a human being."
The logical form you're using would mean that an acorn is an oak tree. In California, we have laws against cutting down or killing oak trees. If I crush a bunch of acorns, am I violating the law? A seed is not the same thing as the grown organism.
"...: unless it says "conjecture" it's provably true or false."
For instance, that statement I made is totally false. How could I forget about Godel's theorem?
Oh well, at least I'm making my daily allowance of mistakes.
Funny joke, but pi is provably a transcendental number, which means it's irrational. Transcendental numbers are numbers that aren't the root an any rational polynomial. So, it's a mathematical proof, not a scientific theory. Big difference.
If you care to check for yourself, Johann Heinrich Lambert has a proof of it that I've never read. I hear it's painfully long.
That's the great thing about math: unless it says "conjecture" it's provably true or false.
"...those who are out to teach instead of to get rich."
I can't believe I just read "teach" and "get rich" in the same sentence. As the son of a teacher I can tell you authoritatively that in the vast majority of school districts teachers don't make a living wage. Also, in LAUSD, for example, getting "expelled" usually means an OT - Opportunity Transfer. They get dumped into another school. They tend to get dumped into the schools of the richer communities (e.g. Taft and El Camino Real) where they regularly degrade the performance of their fellow students - both those bussed in with them who want to learn as well as those from the local community. It isn't easy kicking a kid out of a public school district.
All this with the back drop that teachers who haven't been working for most of their life get payed pretty close to the poverty line. Maybe if teaching was a reasonably paid profession we'd get more reasonably skilled people.
The point being this is a business man, not an industry man. Many slashdotters have indicated that the BSA is an impediment to the industry.
...we're all supposed to be these over-sexed, drooling things, according to what you see in media.
Not just in the media. If you look in history books and literature, you'll see that we've always been these "over-sexed, drooling things" you describe. Islam actually codifies it (see 37:40-48, 44:51-55, 55:56-57, 52:17-20, 55:72 among many others). A big part of war in a historical sense has been rape and obtaining women (see the Iliad's openning argument for an example). Humans are sexual. From the moment of puberty (and possibly before) we are all sexual creatures. Any one and anything that wasn't got pushed out of existence by those critters that were.
It just so happens that a lot of the sexual responses that are so deeply rooted in male humans tend to be visually stimulated.
As for the reference to "Religion is the opiate of the masses" I completely agree. Religion is like any other drug. In practice, it makes the user feel good and keeps them addicted. In effect on the brain, it inhibits the areas associated with location and orientation while pumping the mind full of euphoria. To avoid getting off topic, I'll table my usual rant about monotheism and its negative effect on society. The best parts of religions seem to occur in the breach of their rules. The most damage to society seem to be in their observance - like the suppression of human sexuality.
Right, that's only the historical perspective. I can start a religion based on soap and sandpaper and claim it has the same base as Christinity. Doesn't make it so.
can someone please tell him it's the same god ... ?
No we can't, because they arent the same and never have been. The Muslim god, Allah, is based off of a member of the local pantheon at the time their prophet. The Christian god is a bastardization of the Hebrew god which is the result of a Monotheistic push from a violence minority starting roughly around the time of the biblical exodus. Some theorise that is was the result of the Egyptian cult of Aton, started by Akhenaton, that drove a murderous sect of Judeism (see Mose's responce to the Hebrews' rejection of his 10 commandments) to become Monotheistic.
So you see, there's good evidence that, although they all hold the same philosophy on rigorism, the various branches of monotheism are only related by their violent means of enforcing believe (whether used internally or externally)
But your milage may vary.
My problem with taking this view without following it is that it ignores the assumptions that western business needs to be conducted in a free market supported by a democratic society. A business that seeks a short term gain by supporting a local totalitarian may find that all of their profits are lost when their successful company is confiscated for "the good of the state."
Even in a smaller way, a company gets its workers and customers largely from the comunity where it exists - even outsourced products tend to have a "community" of customers. Doing not just what's best for the company, but what's best for the company and the community it serves makes good sense. It's the foundation of modern game theory. Hell, watch "A Beautiful Mind" for a pedestrian version of this idea.
If business, as a whole, works off of ancient economic theory that asserts maximum profit happens when everyone works for themselves, then we may all find outselves in a negitive sum game.