Ah, and don't forget the National Missile Defense System. With a 20% chance of success at intercepting nuclear missiles and a 0% chance of intercepting nuclear briefcases. That is a complete waste of money. All it did was piss off the world as we backed out of several international treaties in order to put it in place.
I swear to God, this is what my wife told me. And the teacher verified it to me too.
In one her coworker's kindergarten classes was a kid named... let me pronounce it for you first.
Shuh-theed.
How was it spelled? Shithead. WTF was the mom thinking!?!
There is also another kid whose mom must have not known how to spell a common name. The type of thing where the kid is name Alijuh because they went on how is sounds rather than looking it up. But it was much worse. I wish I could remember it.
Oh, and when I was in 6th grade there was this stupid kid (he was almost 16) named Richard Woodcock. Why would you add a 3rd name for penis to the 2 he was already stuck with?
Yes you did. It is an inherent risk, whether you are willing to admit the risk or not. Just like walking around outside exposes you to possible death by beestings. Almost everything you do carries a risk. Filling up at the gas station? Possible cancer from the fumes. Eating out? Possible food poisoning, etc.?
That said, thank you sir for serving in our military. Your service is to be admired and respected. Your sacrafices allow the general public to live their lives without [much] fear. Thank you.
Yeah, if you are browsing at +1 and an AC posts between you and another person, it can be very confusing. There is a big gap in the discussion sometimes.
Actually, I never priotized this over anything. Yeah, it is definitely top 10. Top 5? I'm not sure if it is for me or not.
Also, I never even said the word Vietnam. (Are you reading my thoughts or something?) If you look back over my posts, I kept my argument limited to the math as much as possible.
Oh, and by the way, the economy ranks very high on my list. Depending on how you group the issues, it might occupy several ranks. This election is about a lot more than Iraq. This just seems to be the only thing that either party or the media talks about. On the one hand it is a moving target so it is somewhat newsworthy, but there is such little focus given to the myriad of other issues. Without knowing how the candidates stand on an issue, I have to assume that they fall along party lines.
My problem was with your comparison between the deaths in Iraq and driving a car. I am not going to be dragged into your irrelevant analogies and minimalization strategies.
You just got to fight ignorance sometimes. I usually attack claims that spin math the wrong way. Numbers are supposed to be irrefuatble, but some people try to present them in an incomplete way so as to further their position. Check this out. I just had to react to the first claim the guy made.
Oh, one more thing. I wasn't ranting about Bush v. Kerry or Vietnam v. Iraq or any political issues really. I was merely reacting to what I considered an absurd claim. I hate bad use of math.
I won't dispute your numbers, they're close enough to not matter, certainly.
Okay Logic wins out. The error in my numbers is far exceeded by the discrepancy between the death rates.
But all your math proves is that the military in Iraq is more dangerous than being in the US. No need to prove that, it's common sense.
Then why did you say it like this, "But you do realize that more people die in car accidents per month, than have died in Iraq, total?" You are implying that it is actually more dangerous to be in a car, aren't you?
What I had intended, was that from a reasonable perspective, more are dying in car wrecks than in military service over there. Which is also fairly obvious. If it were only 20 deaths in Iraq, that would still be higher than the numbers you chose (all lower than 20 per 100,000), would you still be ranting then? Or would the shock factor be so minimal that democrat ranters would have to latch onto something else?
(1) I didn't choose the numbers. They are fact.
(2) Without using rates, comparing numbers like that is like saying that since flying from NY to LA takes more time than driving from Baltimore to DC that it is faster to drive. You have to normalize that comparison by dividing by distance to have it make sense.
I didn't think going to Iraq was wise or useful, either before or afterward. I don't like Bush. But latching onto these numbers is just dumb, they're low by any standard worth considering.
I respect your opinion, but some of us like numbers because they represent fact. It's hard to spin numbers unless you use bad statistics or invalid comparisons.
statistics, please! when we talk about people dying, can we please use rates?!?
Are you saying that more people per capita die in car wrecks in the US then soldiers dying in Iraq?
In an article from April they said that there were 700 deaths for 135,000 troops. That was 13 months. That gives 479 deaths per 100,000. However, I am not sure whether that includes the war (I figured in the 1.5 months just in case). Let's try again. Here's a timeline. "Major Combat Operations" ended on 5/1/2003. On 9/7/2004, 1000th soldier was killed. That's 16.2 months, so using the same troop count (please feel free to correct me on this*), that gives 549 troop deaths per 100,000!
Yes, there may be more people dying per month in the US, but not per capita! You have to normalize these things to have a valid comparison. That's why we use rates! And 15 or 16 people dying per 100,000 is far, far, far less than 549 per 100,000!!! Please, check your logic and your math and think about it.
* If you correct my numbers, please show how the totals change. Thank you.
(1) I wish I had mod points so I could move you up.
(2) I wish your parent post would try to respond to your logic. I hate it when people make all of these extreme complaints yet will not support them with any evidence and then they are modded up!
(3) I wouldn't even give him credit for the MLK Jr. thing. His post was written to imply that Kerry was still in the US when it happened (rather than active duty near Vietnam). It was deceptively and maliciously worded. I would say that about the only thing he was right on was that Kerry signed up for the swift boats.
I hate to say it, but that's 4 years old now. It's time that we turn all our anger and frustration from what happened then into positive energy to unelect Bush. Get everyone you know that hates Bush to vote. Pure and simple.
Harris and the activist stand to make millions from the suit if they and the state win their case.
Why the [fh][eu][cl][kl] would he get any money? This is like a whistleblower suing a company for fleecing its investors and paying all the money to him instead of the investors.
Yes, definitely offtopic (this is/., right?). I don't want to see it disappear, I just recognize that there are problems. I just hate that it has become one of the many 3rd rails in politics.
Recently, NPR reported that expats primarily vote Republican, although no one knows the correct numbers for expat population or their political ideology. That being said, there are action groups for both parties trying to get out their vote overseas. After all, the overseas vote helped tip Florida to Bush at the end.
Opinion: If you were to put this to a [unbiased] poll, I'd bet that your statement was wrong. None of my smart friends* have ever talked about leaving the US over issues like this.
*This is not an opportunity to attack my ability to decide whether my friends are intelligent.
(Agreeing with you, but attempting to add.)
Don't forget that in rural areas, people tend* to practice a much more conservative form of religion (which aligns better with the Republicans), are anti-abortion, hawkish, pro-NRA. I'd say that they line up pretty good with social issues and foreign affairs as well. Fear of terrorist attack is not what separates them, but rather their opinions of how to handle the problem (kill 'em over there instead of over here).
Social security is basically* a way for your grandkids to help pay for your retirement. As long as the population was growing quickly (baby boom) the younger generation did not suffer greatly. However, now there is a great number of people reaching retirement age and the ratio of people collecting social security versus the people paying into social security is starting to/
about to crash.
So far the only actions that have been taken to "fix" this is to raise the age to collect retirement benefits. (I have heard this refered to derisively as the biggest pyramid scheme ever.) Now don't get me wrong, I lean a little in the liberal, socialist, and statist directions. I understand the need fot a social safety net for the poor and the old (and especially those who are both). It's just that this has become so broken and the people who get out to vote the best (the elderly and soon-to-be elderly) are the same ones who don't want to see any changes. They are effectively pushing the problem to successive generations (just like the enviroment, global warming, depletion of natural resources, extinction of fauna/flora, national debt, etc.).
Extorting the environment for short-term profits is akin to social security and the [US] national deficit. It is a tax on the youth (or unborn). We are shifting our problems to the future so our kids and their kids will have to fix them. Same as our parents did to us.
Unfortunately, it will probably take a combination of government regulation and the pressures of capitalism to force us to clean up any of it. Until then, there are just too many people who don't seem to care. As long as people care more about their rights to own their automatic weapons (for hunting?) than the environment and the deficit we will continue to snowball downhill.
According to Wikipedia (a good-looking article on this - IF you understand the bracket notation):
The uncertainty principle does not just apply to position and momentum. In its general form, it applies to every pair of conjugate variables. An example of a pair of conjugate variables is the x-component of angular momentum (spin) vs. the y-component of angular momentum.
I seem to recall that the components of the magnetic spin were pretty important. Can anyone who works with this on a daily basis please clarify?
Slashdot Mirror
Not an urban legend.
Ah, and don't forget the National Missile Defense System. With a 20% chance of success at intercepting nuclear missiles and a 0% chance of intercepting nuclear briefcases. That is a complete waste of money. All it did was piss off the world as we backed out of several international treaties in order to put it in place.
I swear to God, this is what my wife told me. And the teacher verified it to me too.
In one her coworker's kindergarten classes was a kid named... let me pronounce it for you first. Shuh-theed.
How was it spelled? Shithead. WTF was the mom thinking!?!
There is also another kid whose mom must have not known how to spell a common name. The type of thing where the kid is name Alijuh because they went on how is sounds rather than looking it up. But it was much worse. I wish I could remember it.
Oh, and when I was in 6th grade there was this stupid kid (he was almost 16) named Richard Woodcock. Why would you add a 3rd name for penis to the 2 he was already stuck with?
Yes you did. It is an inherent risk, whether you are willing to admit the risk or not. Just like walking around outside exposes you to possible death by beestings. Almost everything you do carries a risk. Filling up at the gas station? Possible cancer from the fumes. Eating out? Possible food poisoning, etc.?
That said, thank you sir for serving in our military. Your service is to be admired and respected. Your sacrafices allow the general public to live their lives without [much] fear. Thank you.
Ah, by replacing it with the tyranny of the minority?
Yeah, if you are browsing at +1 and an AC posts between you and another person, it can be very confusing. There is a big gap in the discussion sometimes.
My bad. I didn't see that a stupid AC had posted. It looked like your post was in response to mine, because the AC's post was hidden. Sorry.
Who are you responding to? I said none of those things.
Actually, I never priotized this over anything. Yeah, it is definitely top 10. Top 5? I'm not sure if it is for me or not.
Also, I never even said the word Vietnam. (Are you reading my thoughts or something?) If you look back over my posts, I kept my argument limited to the math as much as possible.
Oh, and by the way, the economy ranks very high on my list. Depending on how you group the issues, it might occupy several ranks. This election is about a lot more than Iraq. This just seems to be the only thing that either party or the media talks about. On the one hand it is a moving target so it is somewhat newsworthy, but there is such little focus given to the myriad of other issues. Without knowing how the candidates stand on an issue, I have to assume that they fall along party lines.
My problem was with your comparison between the deaths in Iraq and driving a car. I am not going to be dragged into your irrelevant analogies and minimalization strategies.
You just got to fight ignorance sometimes. I usually attack claims that spin math the wrong way. Numbers are supposed to be irrefuatble, but some people try to present them in an incomplete way so as to further their position. Check this out. I just had to react to the first claim the guy made.
Oh, one more thing. I wasn't ranting about Bush v. Kerry or Vietnam v. Iraq or any political issues really. I was merely reacting to what I considered an absurd claim. I hate bad use of math.
(2) Without using rates, comparing numbers like that is like saying that since flying from NY to LA takes more time than driving from Baltimore to DC that it is faster to drive. You have to normalize that comparison by dividing by distance to have it make sense. I respect your opinion, but some of us like numbers because they represent fact. It's hard to spin numbers unless you use bad statistics or invalid comparisons.
Are you saying that more people per capita die in car wrecks in the US then soldiers dying in Iraq?
- Auto Deaths for 2003
- Cars: 14.9 per 100,000
- SUVs: 16.4 per 100,000
- Pickup trucks: 15.2 per 100,000
- Vans: 11.2 per 100,000
In an article from April they said that there were 700 deaths for 135,000 troops. That was 13 months. That gives 479 deaths per 100,000. However, I am not sure whether that includes the war (I figured in the 1.5 months just in case). Let's try again. Here's a timeline. "Major Combat Operations" ended on 5/1/2003. On 9/7/2004, 1000th soldier was killed. That's 16.2 months, so using the same troop count (please feel free to correct me on this*), that gives 549 troop deaths per 100,000 !Yes, there may be more people dying per month in the US, but not per capita! You have to normalize these things to have a valid comparison. That's why we use rates! And 15 or 16 people dying per 100,000 is far, far, far less than 549 per 100,000!!! Please, check your logic and your math and think about it.
* If you correct my numbers, please show how the totals change. Thank you.
(1) I wish I had mod points so I could move you up.
(2) I wish your parent post would try to respond to your logic. I hate it when people make all of these extreme complaints yet will not support them with any evidence and then they are modded up!
(3) I wouldn't even give him credit for the MLK Jr. thing. His post was written to imply that Kerry was still in the US when it happened (rather than active duty near Vietnam). It was deceptively and maliciously worded. I would say that about the only thing he was right on was that Kerry signed up for the swift boats.
I hate to say it, but that's 4 years old now. It's time that we turn all our anger and frustration from what happened then into positive energy to unelect Bush. Get everyone you know that hates Bush to vote. Pure and simple.
Yes, definitely offtopic (this is /., right?). I don't want to see it disappear, I just recognize that there are problems. I just hate that it has become one of the many 3rd rails in politics.
Recently, NPR reported that expats primarily vote Republican, although no one knows the correct numbers for expat population or their political ideology. That being said, there are action groups for both parties trying to get out their vote overseas. After all, the overseas vote helped tip Florida to Bush at the end.
Opinion: If you were to put this to a [unbiased] poll, I'd bet that your statement was wrong. None of my smart friends* have ever talked about leaving the US over issues like this.
*This is not an opportunity to attack my ability to decide whether my friends are intelligent.
(Agreeing with you, but attempting to add.)
Don't forget that in rural areas, people tend* to practice a much more conservative form of religion (which aligns better with the Republicans), are anti-abortion, hawkish, pro-NRA. I'd say that they line up pretty good with social issues and foreign affairs as well. Fear of terrorist attack is not what separates them, but rather their opinions of how to handle the problem (kill 'em over there instead of over here).
*To ACs, this indicates that I am generalizing.
Social security is basically* a way for your grandkids to help pay for your retirement. As long as the population was growing quickly (baby boom) the younger generation did not suffer greatly. However, now there is a great number of people reaching retirement age and the ratio of people collecting social security versus the people paying into social security is starting to/ about to crash.
So far the only actions that have been taken to "fix" this is to raise the age to collect retirement benefits. (I have heard this refered to derisively as the biggest pyramid scheme ever.) Now don't get me wrong, I lean a little in the liberal, socialist, and statist directions. I understand the need fot a social safety net for the poor and the old (and especially those who are both). It's just that this has become so broken and the people who get out to vote the best (the elderly and soon-to-be elderly) are the same ones who don't want to see any changes. They are effectively pushing the problem to successive generations (just like the enviroment, global warming, depletion of natural resources, extinction of fauna/flora, national debt, etc.).
*has turned into
Extorting the environment for short-term profits is akin to social security and the [US] national deficit. It is a tax on the youth (or unborn). We are shifting our problems to the future so our kids and their kids will have to fix them. Same as our parents did to us.
Unfortunately, it will probably take a combination of government regulation and the pressures of capitalism to force us to clean up any of it. Until then, there are just too many people who don't seem to care. As long as people care more about their rights to own their automatic weapons (for hunting?) than the environment and the deficit we will continue to snowball downhill.
Why shouldn't he? That's what the Republicans and Democrats will be doing.