Beck's base cannot be any more polarized, or rallied. They live in a fantasyland.
I keep hearing things like this. I'm not necessarily a Glenn Beck fan, but I have seen his show and used to enjoy "Moron Trivia" from his radio show. The thing that I don't understand is that Glenn gets on his show and shows video of some member of saying something like, "I used to be a communist. Now I'm a radical communist." and people attack Glenn Beck!!??!! The only refutations of what Glenn Beck says are personal insults against him and his viewers. I have never seen anyone refute what Glenn Beck is actually saying.
So, if you have a problem with what Glenn Beck says, refute it. Don't simply hurl personal insults as it only proves him right.
There's a Republican in upstate New York who's probably going to lose because she's not "conservative" enough...
I think the problem is that she was not conservative at all. To prove the point, she dropped out of the race and endorsed the Democrat that is running and losing by 14% points according to the latest poll.
Now, the other side..the people who actually think Socialism can work even though it has never before and big Government can solve our problems, have their own rabid beliefs.
Many counties in Europe have done quite well with limited Socialism. It's not the Socialism that's bad, it's the corruption and tyranny that almost always goes with it. The problem is that for Socialism to work, you need a powerful central government. And as we all know, power corrupts.
With that said, I'm a conservative because I prefer freedom and you can't have freedom without personal responsibility. The more the government gives you, the more they control. The more the government controls, the less YOU control, meaning you have less freedom. The government can not take away your ability to fail without taking away your ability to succeed. I mention this because in reading your post, it appears you have most conservatives all wrong. We don't care what "fags" (your word) do in their own homes. We just don't want them teaching elementary school kids about their lifestyle and how it's OK. While I agree that it's OK, that's for ME to teach my kids. As for gay marriage, I think the government should not recognize it. However, I feel that the government should not recognize ANY marriage. Why is the government in the business of marriage anyway? Convert all marriages to civil unions and allow anyone to enter them. If you want to get married, go ahead. No one will care since the government will not recognize it (again, civil unions for everyone who wants the legal benefits that are currently granted to married couples).
As for the baby killers comment: Part of government's responsibility is to protect its citizens. The Constitution goes further and spells out protections for people residing within the US, citizen or not. (This is why prisoners are at Guantanamo and not Leavenworth.) Are unborn children citizens? Are they people? I don't know for sure and neither do you. Should they receive Constitutional protection? "Innocent until proven guilty", "right to face your accuser", and other provisions prove that the founders intended for the Constitution to err on the side of caution. There are those of us that feel that children, born or not are just as much "people" as anyone else who is unable to care for themselves such as children, disabled, crippled or whoever needs constant care. Even if you don't THINK that unborn children are people, are you 100% positive? Do you KNOW that they are not people? Probably not. So, if you knew that people who are unable to care for or make decisions for themselves were being taken to a clinic to be ripped limb from limb and thrown into the biowaste dumpster, wouldn't you stand up and say something? That's how us redneck-conservatives see it. It's a human rights issue.
I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume.. an animal stops being a "pet". And would sure make an interesting dinner, as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.
That actually happened to my cousins. They raise cattle. It's not their primary source of income so it's not something they do a lot of. They had a cow. Its name was Hamburger. My aunt and uncle would take the kids out there to pet, feed and ride hamburger. He was kind of like a pet to them.
Eventually, the time came to send Hamburger to slaughter. The family kept the good pieces of meat and sold the rest. As they were eating steak one night, my aunt and uncle kept saying, "Hamburger is a lot better that I thought" and "Hamburger sure is tender". The kids would say, "this isn't hamburger, this is steak." Finally, it hit them. They pushed their plates away and went to bed without saying a word.
This actually happens more times that you'd think. Kids take FFA in high school tend to get attached to the livestock they are raising. My little brother for example raised a pig for FFA. After slaughter, he refused to eat any of the ham or bacon that came out of it.
What about market failures. The insurance industry is always rife with them, for instance flood insurance, or, as you point out, health insurance. The FDIC (another insurance system) is even heralded by conservatives as the most successful government run program in existence.
The USPS can take any random sheet of paper across the country to a specific person for less than the price of a coke, with door-to-door service.
First, the FDIC does so well because it's almost never used. The second banks start failing, the FDIC will go broke. The FDIC is called a success is because it gives consumers confidence in the banking system.
The USPS?!!? Sure, they can deliver a piece of paper across the country very cheaply. Well, it's cheap to the sender anyway. First, the USPS is government subsidized. That means that you are paying for those letters to be delivered whether you send them or not. Next, it seems that it's not so cheap after all. The USPS is losing billions of dollars yearly, just like any other government run institution, and would have gone under years ago if it were not for your tax dollars propping them up, keeping private companies from competing. The only reason that companies like UPS and Fedex are in business is because they do such a better job than the USPS. If you needed a heart to be shipped to you for your transplant overnight from NY to LA, how would you have it shipped?
Sorry, but the USPS is a piss-poor example of government success. It's a fine example of government failure. I went to the doctor for my child today. There were comfie chairs and couches in the waiting room with an HD TV showing children's programming. The lighting was warm and there was a fish tank. The wait was short and the staff and doctor were polite and went out of their way to take care of us. I went to the post office afterwards. I stood in a long line with nothing to look at but USPS boxes. By the time I made it to the front of the line, the next available clerk took a break and I had to wait longer. The clerk that did take my letter threw it on a dirty scale, weighed it and threw it into a slot after telling what my charge was. I paid and left without so much as a thank you from anyone there. Oh, and they are still losing money. My doctor makes a profit!
Personally, I don't want my doctors office looking like the post office and I don't want my doctor treating me or my family the same way the postal employees treat my letters!
"Why do we only find the branches? Why have not found a single spot where these branches meet?"
Why do you think there must be a single spot where they meet? Chances are it's not the case where things like mammals had offspring, of which one offspring went on to create one species and another created another, because a few generations down the line, a decendant of one of the original offspring may mate with a decendant of the other. The change from one species to another therefore cannot be tracked to a single animal, as it was more a blurring effect, as genes from one side start to be displaced as decendants of group A mate less and less with group B.
But, that of course doesn't mean that all decendants of either group A remain in group A, or those in group B remain in group B.
Still, regardless of the blurring, all species should be able to trace their lineage back to a single grandparent. I understand that an ant-eater did not give birth to an elephant, but all elephants should be able to trace their ancestry back to a single creature that is NOT an elephant. Sure, that grandparent will have cousins whose offspring went extinct or evolved into other special branches, but there is still that great^X grandpa/grandma. If you go back further, you should find a common ancestor of two differing species. I used the beginning the Tertiary period as an example because that's when mammals appeared, but even those mammals had non-mammal ancestors, meaning all mammals should be able to trace lineage to reptiles or whatever mammals evolved from. You could go back further still and possibly find the great grandpa of all life (assuming that life started at one spot and time and did not erupt from several separate instances... but evolution is about the evolution of species, not their creation so it belongs to a different discussion.)
I just want a fossil of one of those grandparents. Now, I'm not looking for the Eve of all mammals, but at least a fossil of the species that rodent-Eve belong to.
The "0%" is a lie, or a willful lack of knowledge. There are many transitional fossils that have been discovered, including dozens of specimens that illustrate the progress of humankind as a species. Only the American Taliban seriously regard the evolutionary theory as anything but well-founded science.
I never said it wasn't "well founded science", but it is certainly not complete. For that matter it never will be complete as time has wiped out much of the data.
Now, I've already said that the fossil record shows a definite progression, "trend" was the word used, but every fossil found has been a relative of a modern species. No kidding, EVERY LIVING AND EXTINCT SPECIES IS A RELATIVE!!! Show me a DIRECT special ancestor between two different species, not a cousin of that direct ancestor.
So by the fact that I'm asking should prove that this is not a "willful lack of knowledge" and the fact that you can't provide me with an answer proves it not a lie, at least not on MY part.
Oh, and I wouldn't throw around the "taliban" quote around so lightly... well, unless someone in America has banned your wife/mother/daughter from doing things like driving, leaving the house without a man, going to school and so on. Using the Taliban in that way is a merely a slight variation of Godwin's law and really just shows a bigotry and ignorance from you that evangelists can only dream of.
If you logically think about what you said the answer would become apparent. For a common ancestor to be both in its original form as a bookmark for when a species split off AND still alive today it would mean that the niche it occupies (and has adapted to) has not changed since whenever the species split off.
Right. Cats are a good example. Your N. American Cougar is closely related to any other big cat, but still separate enough to be different species. If I understand evolution correctly, many generations ago, there was a cat, probably a big cat, who had kittens (big kittens?). One of those kittens is the evolutionary parent of the cougars, another is evolutionary parent of the leopards. But there were many changes that happened between these two siblings and their respective modern species. I would guess that through many of those changes, interbreeding would have still been biologically possible, but prohibited due to geographical barriers.
Still, you would think that if we could not find the fossils of the mother's species, we should be able to find a fossil of at least one of the many different speciations that occurred between the common mother cat and all of the modern day big cats. Not only did this happen with big cats, but all species. While we see closely related cousins in living species, we only find other cousins in the fossil record. Why have we never found a direct descendant?
Your statement that every fossil is from an evolutionary dead end is wrong however - as there are plenty of 'missing-link' fossils that are found that have a (very likely) lineage (as a species rather than individuals) to current species.
Excellent. That is exactly what I'm looking for. Is there a link (URL, not "missing":-)
Not true. You are posing the missing link myth. There are in fact good lines of fossils showing evolutionary trends in species for many different species in the fossil record.
Indeed, the fossil records show a definite trend dating back to the earliest records we have of life, but we only have slices of the tree. Surely we should have fossils from two concurrent species. If not that, shouldn't we have fossils from a species whose ancestors are alive today?
While no we do not and never will have a direct individual by individual line of fossils simply because most creatures that lived on this earth were eaten, rotted and NOT fossilized. Fossilization also did not occur uniformly through all species or stages of evolution, it was collection of many random processes, and thus one would expect gaps in the fossil record. Also most fossils on earth have not been dug up and analyzed by scientists, we only have a small fraction of the record out there and already we can see clear patterns of what is loosely called evolutionary trends.
Right. However, evolution has never stopped. It took 65 million years to get from the first mammals to every living mammal live today. While 65,000,000 years is a really long time, it still seems like a fairly short time when you consider that every living mammal today should be traced back to a single Tertiary rodent, each step of the way having only two parents. The only way for that to happen is if evolution is fairly rapid. That kind of change should be noticeable in at least a recent fossil record. We've found whole carcasses of mammoths and many other creatures dating as far back 10000 years ago. Shouldn't one of those be evolutionarily successful enough to have offspring alive today? They all seem to be cousins of whatever creature evolved.
Also just because one species "evolves" from another doesn't mean that the so-called "parent" species stops evolving.
Exactly! It's likely that a "parent" species would branch to several different species. My question is, "Why do we only find the branches? Why have not found a single spot where these branches meet?"
If you really want an example of diverging species look at the Great Dane and Chihuahua or nearly any other domestic species, such as the cow, that has shown great variations between breeds. In the former example mating is nearly impossible. Don't like that? What about Horses/Donkeys? No we don't have records old enough to historically prove it, but the evidence is there.
No, but a great dane and chihuahua can breed (hope the chihuahua pitches!) and should share a "normal" sized ancestor somewhere up the chain, but it's still a dog. And why are there no "near" dogs that evolved from dogs, but are just out of special reach? Why has the K9 branch of the evolutionary tree not branched? A better example may have been cats since a Lion and Tiger can't breed (as far as I know). But still, the now extinct Liger hasn't been found.
And horses and donkeys can breed. That's where mules come from. While it is an excellent example, a common ancestor between the two should have not died off that long ago (in thousands of years). That "honkey's" fossils wouldn't be that old and should be much easier to find than that of Sue, for example. Where is that "honkey"?
A species observed to lose reproductive compatibility between populations separated by geographic barriers.
Great. There are salamanders that are very close cousins. Can you point me grandpa? I'm not saying he doesn't exist, but where is he?
Evolution is supposed to be gradual. Everything alive today evolved from something else. So far, 100% of those evolutionary ancestors went extinct. Why? So far, we have found the fossils from 0% of them. Why? Shouldn't a gradual evolution would leave a trail of breadcrumbs telling where every creature came from?
Of course not. That's kind of like pointing to two leaves on a tree and saying one leaf came from the other. It doesn't work that way. They are both on the terminations of the branches, and the node where they branched into two is in the past. Ordinarily, the common ancestor is long dead.
No, the common ancestor is always extinct. Why?
Mammals formed in the Tertiary period, about 65 million years ago. Every mammal alive today evolved from these rodents, possibly, a single rodent. That means that every elephant alive today, evolved from a small rat-like creature 65 million years ago. We should be able to track a single line from any elephant back to a single rodent. Each generation having only two parents. There are a LOT of changes that had to happen between this little rodent and your modern day pachyderm. For every few changes, we have a different species. Each of those species thrived well enough to pass their genes on. Each of those species more than likely were the parents of several different species, some that survived, some that did not. We have found many of those that didn't survive, but we have yet to find a single fossil from any of those creatures whose offspring evolved into elephants, or any other creature for that matter.
In other words, every fossil was from a creature that was an evolutionary dead end. We have never found the fossil from a creature whose offspring evolved into something that's still around. If the strong survive and the weak die off, it makes sense that the strong would survive long enough to evolve. Shouldn't there be MORE of these fossils? Why do we only find the dead end?
They already demonstrated the E.Coli bacterium evolving the ability to metabolize citric acid... that makes it a new kid of bacterium (the inability of E.Coli to metabolize citric acid is one of its defining characteristics).
And the color white was a "defining characteristic" of swans until they found a black one.
Look, I believe in evolution, but never has there been found a parent species to something alive today. In other words, scientists can not point at any two distinct species, living or extinct, plant or animal, and say that this species evolved directly from that one. Sure, they can say that this dog is bigger or a different than it's ancestors, but it's still a dog. Show me the fossils of the prehistoric rodent that evolved directly to today's rabbit or rat and the debate will end.
They may have spent more money, but that money was targetted towards religious groups that promoted abstinence. The abstinence programs have been shown to have an actual NEGATIVE effect towards reducing AIDS in every country where they have been tried without actively promoting condom/vaginal-barrier use as the primary method of AIDS prevention.
Read the comment above yours. It appears you are wrong.
Sure, the program does teach abstinence over condoms, it still teaches condoms. And if the Guardian is so upset about the US not giving more condoms to Africa, maybe they should petition their host government, the UK, to pick up the slack and send some condoms themselves. You can do the same as a private citizen or whatever country you are from.
I hate people that sit around and bitch about other people not doing more while they do nothing themselves!
Bush did more to stop AIDS in Africa than any person in the world, anywhere at any time.
Really! How? Did he promote condoms? I thought he was all about abstinence-only education
Sorry, but you've been misinformed. It's a lot more than abstinence-only education. Neither condoms nor abstinence will help you once you have AIDS. The don't do much against malaria either. From HERE:
The malaria program complements the president's largest global health initiative, the $15 billion, five-year plan known as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Under the program, about 800,000 Africans are receiving drugs that enable them to live longer with the disease and help to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus.
The plan you speak of is called PEPFAR (U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). What do they teach?
PEPFAR follows an ABC strategy through "population-specific interventions" that emphasise:
* A bstinence for youth, including the delay of sexual debut and abstinence until marriage
* B eing tested for HIV and being faithful in marriage and monogamous relationships
* C orrect and consistent use of condoms for those who practice high-risk behaviours.
On the voting-around-the-world thing, you're being a bit naive. Being able to walk into a voting booth and cast a ballot isn't democracy, it's just marking some paper. Democracy comes from informed voters casting informed votes.
Um, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan has state controlled media as the only source of information. Also, women are able to go to school for the first time in their lives. Teachers are able to teach without a government or religious official looking over their shoulders. So, uh... I'd say these countries are making greater strides towards informing voters than at any point in their recent histories. Although, the Code Pink hippies (peace, man) will tell you that voting doesn't matter over there for a variety of reasons and you fell for it hook, line and sinker.
it's more a matter of luck, stealing, and hypocrisy.
Like how we stole Iraq's oil? I'm still waiting for $0.50/gallon gas. You dumbasses kept saying that we are spilling blood for oil. Where is it? Or were you dead fucking wrong... AGAIN!!??!! Hmmm... Seems to be a pattern of ignorance.
How much did Bush spend blowing the ever-loving shit out of countries?
How much is the right to vote worth? How much are women's rights worth? How much is the freedom of the press worth? What's it worth to not have your Olympic football team playing for their lives (literally!)? What is it worth to NOT fill mass graves with the bodies of men, women and children (although, they did have the respect to shoot the mothers and their toddler children at a separate mass grave site than the men)?
Really, what is the value in dollars for stopping all that. At what point does it become too expensive?
leading to the current situation where Iran is trying to stop getting fucked with?
Funny. The last time there was a US military strike on Iran was under Jimmy Carter. Didn't he win a Nobel Peace Prize as well?
Other than that, the only country fucking with Iran was Iraq, and we took care of that problem. So, I'm sorry, whose fucking with Iran again?
Oh, and your sticking up for Iran? That country that hangs gays in the streets, and threatens to "erase other countries from history"? Nice!
Not at all - I'm a middle of the road kind of person.. I tend to hold both sides accountable, and don't give free passes because of -any- political side..
I simply meant that anyone that currently uses the excuse "He is crap because he hasn't done anything" isn't remembering when it was someone else's turn last time, they weren't singing the same tune..
That's all.. Apparently someone didn't get the point, as they modded it flamebait because they either didn't understand the point, or didn't agree.. Another wonderful slashdot mod moment..
Fair enough. However, keep in mind that at this point in Bush's Presidency, his "no nation building" pledge had been shattered a month earlier on 9-11. Suddenly Bush realized that people wanted to kill the very people he was charged with protecting. While I won't say that Bush did a whole lot more than Obama by Sept 10 of their first presidencies, you can not deny that by this point, Bush had done a whole hell of a lot more than Obama has, even though it was not by choice. I don't think Bush wanted the presidency he got. By 9-10-2001, Bush had met with world leaders and was starting to build relationships. He even saw good in Putin of all people and high hopes for rebuilding the US relationships both in Europe, but especially in the Americas.
So on 9-10 of this year, Obama's Presidency was about the same as Bush's on 9-10-2001. The only difference between Bush and Obama at that point was the letter after their names. Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize because he has a D. Bush was called stupid by Canadian government officials because he had an R. Both had accomplished the exact same thing... nothing.
Your opinion of the war is irrelevant. What matters in this case is that the GP said that the US does nothing that doesn't benefit the US. If this were true, we would have handed over Iraq/Afghanistan to the strongest thug that wouldn't bother us and give us great deals on oil (for Iraq) or... whatever Afghanistan has of value. We didn't do that. We are still spilling blood and treasure over there to make sure that these countries don't fall back into the "thugocracies" they were when we got there.
Premature? Hah. They gave Arafat the peace prize 1994, and he was later one of the biggest hindrances for peace, more interested in his political survival than actual peace.
Just one more thing that Obama has in common with Carter.
Considering the first year of his predecessor, not doing even one thing could actually in theory be considered doing the right thing at this point..
It seems just, oh, 8 years ago, that people were saying the president wasn't doing anything, etc, and everyone cried "he's just getting started!" - Now those
same people who cried it out back then, are on the other side this time accusing Obama of not doing anything yet..
Pot, meet kettle.
On a seperate note, WONDERFUL Sneakers reference in the sig.
Are you saying that Bush should have won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001?
A lot premature. Barack has accomplished very little in terms of peace. They could have just waited 10 years and then give him a prize if he really did anything good. They've been giving many of these prizes years after the actual achievements, so what's the rush?
I'm actually shocked that this was not given out in October of 2012, a month before the next presidential election. I guess he'll get the newly formed Nobel Prize for Awesomeness then. (They'll probably call it the Prize for Obamaness after that)
because that administration didn't do ANYTHING for the world, unless the US directly benefited somehow.
First, that's not true. Bush did more to stop AIDS in Africa than any person in the world, anywhere at any time. The US has spent and done more on this front than any other country on Earth. Tell me how the US directly benefits from that? Shouldn't Bush get a Nobel Prize for that? Obama got one for merely talking about doing stuff.
How many women in the world legally voted for the first time in their lives thanks to America? Tell me how those feminine purple fingers benefited the US directly.
Next, there is a logical flaw in your argument: The US is still on Earth. That meas that anything the US does for the WORLD (which as I previously stated, the US is still a part of), the US benefits from.
Finally, why the hell else would we do it? It's not the US's job to make every place other than the US better. You want your country to be better? Make it that way yourself. What has the world done to make the US better? Maybe I've missed the food and medicine packets from Somalia being dropped on poor areas of our country.
Why? Most homes would have a larger screen available, with better placement for viewing than a laptop would provide. Most offices or other commercial places/organisations wouldn't let you plug in a console, pull out a controller and start gaming, even if the console did have a laptop format. Don't get me wrong, it's a neat project, but I'm just saying it's not very practical.
Actually, most places will let you plug in. When traveling, I almost never ran my notebook off the battery. The airport, coffee shops or just about any other place where I could actually sit down and use my notebook would have a plug available for me to access. I see this as being no different.
And, sure, while nearly all homes will have a bigger screen, they may not have a better screen. Many homes still have old, non-hi-def CRT TV's plugged into their cable boxes, or have the cable plugged directly to the TV's.
Finally, I don't think practicality was the point. Sure, it's a nice feature, but this guy made this simply because he could. That was the whole point.
Slashdot Mirror
Beck's base cannot be any more polarized, or rallied. They live in a fantasyland.
I keep hearing things like this. I'm not necessarily a Glenn Beck fan, but I have seen his show and used to enjoy "Moron Trivia" from his radio show. The thing that I don't understand is that Glenn gets on his show and shows video of some member of saying something like, "I used to be a communist. Now I'm a radical communist." and people attack Glenn Beck!!??!! The only refutations of what Glenn Beck says are personal insults against him and his viewers. I have never seen anyone refute what Glenn Beck is actually saying.
So, if you have a problem with what Glenn Beck says, refute it. Don't simply hurl personal insults as it only proves him right.
This is good science. In 1924 we didn't have any strong reasons to think that there wasn't intelligent life on Mars.
Well, of course not. Where do you think M&M's come from?
There's a Republican in upstate New York who's probably going to lose because she's not "conservative" enough...
I think the problem is that she was not conservative at all. To prove the point, she dropped out of the race and endorsed the Democrat that is running and losing by 14% points according to the latest poll.
Now, the other side..the people who actually think Socialism can work even though it has never before and big Government can solve our problems, have their own rabid beliefs.
Many counties in Europe have done quite well with limited Socialism. It's not the Socialism that's bad, it's the corruption and tyranny that almost always goes with it. The problem is that for Socialism to work, you need a powerful central government. And as we all know, power corrupts.
With that said, I'm a conservative because I prefer freedom and you can't have freedom without personal responsibility. The more the government gives you, the more they control. The more the government controls, the less YOU control, meaning you have less freedom. The government can not take away your ability to fail without taking away your ability to succeed. I mention this because in reading your post, it appears you have most conservatives all wrong. We don't care what "fags" (your word) do in their own homes. We just don't want them teaching elementary school kids about their lifestyle and how it's OK. While I agree that it's OK, that's for ME to teach my kids. As for gay marriage, I think the government should not recognize it. However, I feel that the government should not recognize ANY marriage. Why is the government in the business of marriage anyway? Convert all marriages to civil unions and allow anyone to enter them. If you want to get married, go ahead. No one will care since the government will not recognize it (again, civil unions for everyone who wants the legal benefits that are currently granted to married couples).
As for the baby killers comment: Part of government's responsibility is to protect its citizens. The Constitution goes further and spells out protections for people residing within the US, citizen or not. (This is why prisoners are at Guantanamo and not Leavenworth.) Are unborn children citizens? Are they people? I don't know for sure and neither do you. Should they receive Constitutional protection? "Innocent until proven guilty", "right to face your accuser", and other provisions prove that the founders intended for the Constitution to err on the side of caution. There are those of us that feel that children, born or not are just as much "people" as anyone else who is unable to care for themselves such as children, disabled, crippled or whoever needs constant care. Even if you don't THINK that unborn children are people, are you 100% positive? Do you KNOW that they are not people? Probably not. So, if you knew that people who are unable to care for or make decisions for themselves were being taken to a clinic to be ripped limb from limb and thrown into the biowaste dumpster, wouldn't you stand up and say something? That's how us redneck-conservatives see it. It's a human rights issue.
I think when your ultimate goal is to slaughter and consume .. an animal stops being a "pet". And would sure make an interesting dinner, as your daughter chokes down Fluffy, her pet rabbit.
That actually happened to my cousins. They raise cattle. It's not their primary source of income so it's not something they do a lot of. They had a cow. Its name was Hamburger. My aunt and uncle would take the kids out there to pet, feed and ride hamburger. He was kind of like a pet to them.
Eventually, the time came to send Hamburger to slaughter. The family kept the good pieces of meat and sold the rest. As they were eating steak one night, my aunt and uncle kept saying, "Hamburger is a lot better that I thought" and "Hamburger sure is tender". The kids would say, "this isn't hamburger, this is steak." Finally, it hit them. They pushed their plates away and went to bed without saying a word.
This actually happens more times that you'd think. Kids take FFA in high school tend to get attached to the livestock they are raising. My little brother for example raised a pig for FFA. After slaughter, he refused to eat any of the ham or bacon that came out of it.
What about market failures. The insurance industry is always rife with them, for instance flood insurance, or, as you point out, health insurance. The FDIC (another insurance system) is even heralded by conservatives as the most successful government run program in existence.
The USPS can take any random sheet of paper across the country to a specific person for less than the price of a coke, with door-to-door service.
First, the FDIC does so well because it's almost never used. The second banks start failing, the FDIC will go broke. The FDIC is called a success is because it gives consumers confidence in the banking system.
The USPS?!!? Sure, they can deliver a piece of paper across the country very cheaply. Well, it's cheap to the sender anyway. First, the USPS is government subsidized. That means that you are paying for those letters to be delivered whether you send them or not. Next, it seems that it's not so cheap after all. The USPS is losing billions of dollars yearly, just like any other government run institution, and would have gone under years ago if it were not for your tax dollars propping them up, keeping private companies from competing. The only reason that companies like UPS and Fedex are in business is because they do such a better job than the USPS. If you needed a heart to be shipped to you for your transplant overnight from NY to LA, how would you have it shipped?
Sorry, but the USPS is a piss-poor example of government success. It's a fine example of government failure. I went to the doctor for my child today. There were comfie chairs and couches in the waiting room with an HD TV showing children's programming. The lighting was warm and there was a fish tank. The wait was short and the staff and doctor were polite and went out of their way to take care of us. I went to the post office afterwards. I stood in a long line with nothing to look at but USPS boxes. By the time I made it to the front of the line, the next available clerk took a break and I had to wait longer. The clerk that did take my letter threw it on a dirty scale, weighed it and threw it into a slot after telling what my charge was. I paid and left without so much as a thank you from anyone there. Oh, and they are still losing money. My doctor makes a profit!
Personally, I don't want my doctors office looking like the post office and I don't want my doctor treating me or my family the same way the postal employees treat my letters!
"Why do we only find the branches? Why have not found a single spot where these branches meet?"
Why do you think there must be a single spot where they meet? Chances are it's not the case where things like mammals had offspring, of which one offspring went on to create one species and another created another, because a few generations down the line, a decendant of one of the original offspring may mate with a decendant of the other. The change from one species to another therefore cannot be tracked to a single animal, as it was more a blurring effect, as genes from one side start to be displaced as decendants of group A mate less and less with group B.
But, that of course doesn't mean that all decendants of either group A remain in group A, or those in group B remain in group B.
Still, regardless of the blurring, all species should be able to trace their lineage back to a single grandparent. I understand that an ant-eater did not give birth to an elephant, but all elephants should be able to trace their ancestry back to a single creature that is NOT an elephant. Sure, that grandparent will have cousins whose offspring went extinct or evolved into other special branches, but there is still that great^X grandpa/grandma. If you go back further, you should find a common ancestor of two differing species. I used the beginning the Tertiary period as an example because that's when mammals appeared, but even those mammals had non-mammal ancestors, meaning all mammals should be able to trace lineage to reptiles or whatever mammals evolved from. You could go back further still and possibly find the great grandpa of all life (assuming that life started at one spot and time and did not erupt from several separate instances... but evolution is about the evolution of species, not their creation so it belongs to a different discussion.)
I just want a fossil of one of those grandparents. Now, I'm not looking for the Eve of all mammals, but at least a fossil of the species that rodent-Eve belong to.
The "0%" is a lie, or a willful lack of knowledge. There are many transitional fossils that have been discovered, including dozens of specimens that illustrate the progress of humankind as a species. Only the American Taliban seriously regard the evolutionary theory as anything but well-founded science.
I never said it wasn't "well founded science", but it is certainly not complete. For that matter it never will be complete as time has wiped out much of the data.
Now, I've already said that the fossil record shows a definite progression, "trend" was the word used, but every fossil found has been a relative of a modern species. No kidding, EVERY LIVING AND EXTINCT SPECIES IS A RELATIVE!!! Show me a DIRECT special ancestor between two different species, not a cousin of that direct ancestor.
So by the fact that I'm asking should prove that this is not a "willful lack of knowledge" and the fact that you can't provide me with an answer proves it not a lie, at least not on MY part.
Oh, and I wouldn't throw around the "taliban" quote around so lightly... well, unless someone in America has banned your wife/mother/daughter from doing things like driving, leaving the house without a man, going to school and so on. Using the Taliban in that way is a merely a slight variation of Godwin's law and really just shows a bigotry and ignorance from you that evangelists can only dream of.
If you logically think about what you said the answer would become apparent. For a common ancestor to be both in its original form as a bookmark for when a species split off AND still alive today it would mean that the niche it occupies (and has adapted to) has not changed since whenever the species split off.
Right. Cats are a good example. Your N. American Cougar is closely related to any other big cat, but still separate enough to be different species. If I understand evolution correctly, many generations ago, there was a cat, probably a big cat, who had kittens (big kittens?). One of those kittens is the evolutionary parent of the cougars, another is evolutionary parent of the leopards. But there were many changes that happened between these two siblings and their respective modern species. I would guess that through many of those changes, interbreeding would have still been biologically possible, but prohibited due to geographical barriers.
Still, you would think that if we could not find the fossils of the mother's species, we should be able to find a fossil of at least one of the many different speciations that occurred between the common mother cat and all of the modern day big cats. Not only did this happen with big cats, but all species. While we see closely related cousins in living species, we only find other cousins in the fossil record. Why have we never found a direct descendant?
Your statement that every fossil is from an evolutionary dead end is wrong however - as there are plenty of 'missing-link' fossils that are found that have a (very likely) lineage (as a species rather than individuals) to current species.
Excellent. That is exactly what I'm looking for. Is there a link (URL, not "missing":-)
Not true. You are posing the missing link myth. There are in fact good lines of fossils showing evolutionary trends in species for many different species in the fossil record.
Indeed, the fossil records show a definite trend dating back to the earliest records we have of life, but we only have slices of the tree. Surely we should have fossils from two concurrent species. If not that, shouldn't we have fossils from a species whose ancestors are alive today?
While no we do not and never will have a direct individual by individual line of fossils simply because most creatures that lived on this earth were eaten, rotted and NOT fossilized. Fossilization also did not occur uniformly through all species or stages of evolution, it was collection of many random processes, and thus one would expect gaps in the fossil record. Also most fossils on earth have not been dug up and analyzed by scientists, we only have a small fraction of the record out there and already we can see clear patterns of what is loosely called evolutionary trends.
Right. However, evolution has never stopped. It took 65 million years to get from the first mammals to every living mammal live today. While 65,000,000 years is a really long time, it still seems like a fairly short time when you consider that every living mammal today should be traced back to a single Tertiary rodent, each step of the way having only two parents. The only way for that to happen is if evolution is fairly rapid. That kind of change should be noticeable in at least a recent fossil record. We've found whole carcasses of mammoths and many other creatures dating as far back 10000 years ago. Shouldn't one of those be evolutionarily successful enough to have offspring alive today? They all seem to be cousins of whatever creature evolved.
Also just because one species "evolves" from another doesn't mean that the so-called "parent" species stops evolving.
Exactly! It's likely that a "parent" species would branch to several different species. My question is, "Why do we only find the branches? Why have not found a single spot where these branches meet?"
If you really want an example of diverging species look at the Great Dane and Chihuahua or nearly any other domestic species, such as the cow, that has shown great variations between breeds. In the former example mating is nearly impossible. Don't like that? What about Horses/Donkeys? No we don't have records old enough to historically prove it, but the evidence is there.
No, but a great dane and chihuahua can breed (hope the chihuahua pitches!) and should share a "normal" sized ancestor somewhere up the chain, but it's still a dog. And why are there no "near" dogs that evolved from dogs, but are just out of special reach? Why has the K9 branch of the evolutionary tree not branched? A better example may have been cats since a Lion and Tiger can't breed (as far as I know). But still, the now extinct Liger hasn't been found.
And horses and donkeys can breed. That's where mules come from. While it is an excellent example, a common ancestor between the two should have not died off that long ago (in thousands of years). That "honkey's" fossils wouldn't be that old and should be much easier to find than that of Sue, for example. Where is that "honkey"?
You know, it only took me 10 seconds to google for an example, you could have tried a bit harder. "speciation observed in salamanders":
http://www.santarosa.edu/lifesciences2/ensatina2.htm
A species observed to lose reproductive compatibility between populations separated by geographic barriers.
Great. There are salamanders that are very close cousins. Can you point me grandpa? I'm not saying he doesn't exist, but where is he?
Evolution is supposed to be gradual. Everything alive today evolved from something else. So far, 100% of those evolutionary ancestors went extinct. Why? So far, we have found the fossils from 0% of them. Why? Shouldn't a gradual evolution would leave a trail of breadcrumbs telling where every creature came from?
Of course not. That's kind of like pointing to two leaves on a tree and saying one leaf came from the other. It doesn't work that way. They are both on the terminations of the branches, and the node where they branched into two is in the past. Ordinarily, the common ancestor is long dead.
No, the common ancestor is always extinct. Why?
Mammals formed in the Tertiary period, about 65 million years ago. Every mammal alive today evolved from these rodents, possibly, a single rodent. That means that every elephant alive today, evolved from a small rat-like creature 65 million years ago. We should be able to track a single line from any elephant back to a single rodent. Each generation having only two parents. There are a LOT of changes that had to happen between this little rodent and your modern day pachyderm. For every few changes, we have a different species. Each of those species thrived well enough to pass their genes on. Each of those species more than likely were the parents of several different species, some that survived, some that did not. We have found many of those that didn't survive, but we have yet to find a single fossil from any of those creatures whose offspring evolved into elephants, or any other creature for that matter.
In other words, every fossil was from a creature that was an evolutionary dead end. We have never found the fossil from a creature whose offspring evolved into something that's still around. If the strong survive and the weak die off, it makes sense that the strong would survive long enough to evolve. Shouldn't there be MORE of these fossils? Why do we only find the dead end?
what you are asking for is exactly what this studied proved.
No. What this study provided are variations of E-coli.
They already demonstrated the E.Coli bacterium evolving the ability to metabolize citric acid... that makes it a new kid of bacterium (the inability of E.Coli to metabolize citric acid is one of its defining characteristics).
And the color white was a "defining characteristic" of swans until they found a black one.
Look, I believe in evolution, but never has there been found a parent species to something alive today. In other words, scientists can not point at any two distinct species, living or extinct, plant or animal, and say that this species evolved directly from that one. Sure, they can say that this dog is bigger or a different than it's ancestors, but it's still a dog. Show me the fossils of the prehistoric rodent that evolved directly to today's rabbit or rat and the debate will end.
Mac is like a high maintenance mistress...
Mac is like a really expensive whore;
Same thing.
First, that's not true. Bush did more to stop AIDS in Africa than any person in the world, anywhere at any time.
This is far from the truthe. The fact that Bush would not fund any help that included condoms as a means for reducing the spread of HIV actually hurt African AIDS efforts. US cuts in funding for condoms and an emphasis on promoting abstinence had contributed to a shortage of condoms in Uganda. AIDS actually spread significantly in Africa under Bush.
They may have spent more money, but that money was targetted towards religious groups that promoted abstinence. The abstinence programs have been shown to have an actual NEGATIVE effect towards reducing AIDS in every country where they have been tried without actively promoting condom/vaginal-barrier use as the primary method of AIDS prevention.
Read the comment above yours. It appears you are wrong.
Sure, the program does teach abstinence over condoms, it still teaches condoms. And if the Guardian is so upset about the US not giving more condoms to Africa, maybe they should petition their host government, the UK, to pick up the slack and send some condoms themselves. You can do the same as a private citizen or whatever country you are from.
I hate people that sit around and bitch about other people not doing more while they do nothing themselves!
Really! How? Did he promote condoms? I thought he was all about abstinence-only education
Sorry, but you've been misinformed. It's a lot more than abstinence-only education. Neither condoms nor abstinence will help you once you have AIDS. The don't do much against malaria either. From HERE:
The malaria program complements the president's largest global health initiative, the $15 billion, five-year plan known as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Under the program, about 800,000 Africans are receiving drugs that enable them to live longer with the disease and help to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus.
The plan you speak of is called PEPFAR (U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). What do they teach?
PEPFAR follows an ABC strategy through "population-specific interventions" that emphasise:
* A bstinence for youth, including the delay of sexual debut and abstinence until marriage
* B eing tested for HIV and being faithful in marriage and monogamous relationships
* C orrect and consistent use of condoms for those who practice high-risk behaviours.
On the voting-around-the-world thing, you're being a bit naive. Being able to walk into a voting booth and cast a ballot isn't democracy, it's just marking some paper. Democracy comes from informed voters casting informed votes.
Um, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan has state controlled media as the only source of information. Also, women are able to go to school for the first time in their lives. Teachers are able to teach without a government or religious official looking over their shoulders. So, uh... I'd say these countries are making greater strides towards informing voters than at any point in their recent histories. Although, the Code Pink hippies (peace, man) will tell you that voting doesn't matter over there for a variety of reasons and you fell for it hook, line and sinker.
it's more a matter of luck, stealing, and hypocrisy.
Like how we stole Iraq's oil? I'm still waiting for $0.50/gallon gas. You dumbasses kept saying that we are spilling blood for oil. Where is it? Or were you dead fucking wrong... AGAIN!!??!! Hmmm... Seems to be a pattern of ignorance.
How much did Bush spend blowing the ever-loving shit out of countries?
How much is the right to vote worth? How much are women's rights worth? How much is the freedom of the press worth? What's it worth to not have your Olympic football team playing for their lives (literally!)? What is it worth to NOT fill mass graves with the bodies of men, women and children (although, they did have the respect to shoot the mothers and their toddler children at a separate mass grave site than the men)?
Really, what is the value in dollars for stopping all that. At what point does it become too expensive?
leading to the current situation where Iran is trying to stop getting fucked with?
Funny. The last time there was a US military strike on Iran was under Jimmy Carter. Didn't he win a Nobel Peace Prize as well?
Other than that, the only country fucking with Iran was Iraq, and we took care of that problem. So, I'm sorry, whose fucking with Iran again?
Oh, and your sticking up for Iran? That country that hangs gays in the streets, and threatens to "erase other countries from history"? Nice!
Not at all - I'm a middle of the road kind of person.. I tend to hold both sides accountable, and don't give free passes because of -any- political side..
I simply meant that anyone that currently uses the excuse "He is crap because he hasn't done anything" isn't remembering when it was someone else's turn last time, they weren't singing the same tune..
That's all..
Apparently someone didn't get the point, as they modded it flamebait because they either didn't understand the point, or didn't agree.. Another wonderful slashdot mod moment..
Fair enough. However, keep in mind that at this point in Bush's Presidency, his "no nation building" pledge had been shattered a month earlier on 9-11. Suddenly Bush realized that people wanted to kill the very people he was charged with protecting. While I won't say that Bush did a whole lot more than Obama by Sept 10 of their first presidencies, you can not deny that by this point, Bush had done a whole hell of a lot more than Obama has, even though it was not by choice. I don't think Bush wanted the presidency he got. By 9-10-2001, Bush had met with world leaders and was starting to build relationships. He even saw good in Putin of all people and high hopes for rebuilding the US relationships both in Europe, but especially in the Americas.
So on 9-10 of this year, Obama's Presidency was about the same as Bush's on 9-10-2001. The only difference between Bush and Obama at that point was the letter after their names. Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize because he has a D. Bush was called stupid by Canadian government officials because he had an R. Both had accomplished the exact same thing... nothing.
Your opinion of the war is irrelevant. What matters in this case is that the GP said that the US does nothing that doesn't benefit the US. If this were true, we would have handed over Iraq/Afghanistan to the strongest thug that wouldn't bother us and give us great deals on oil (for Iraq) or... whatever Afghanistan has of value. We didn't do that. We are still spilling blood and treasure over there to make sure that these countries don't fall back into the "thugocracies" they were when we got there.
Premature? Hah. They gave Arafat the peace prize 1994, and he was later one of the biggest hindrances for peace, more interested in his political survival than actual peace.
Just one more thing that Obama has in common with Carter.
With the hope that, since people like him a lot more than Bush, he'll be able to do something toward reducing standing armies and promoting peace?
I'm certain he will reduce our own standing armies.
(OURS, meaning the US for you foreign folk)
Considering the first year of his predecessor, not doing even one thing could actually in theory be considered doing the right thing at this point..
It seems just, oh, 8 years ago, that people were saying the president wasn't doing anything, etc, and everyone cried "he's just getting started!" - Now those
same people who cried it out back then, are on the other side this time accusing Obama of not doing anything yet..
Pot, meet kettle.
On a seperate note, WONDERFUL Sneakers reference in the sig.
Are you saying that Bush should have won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001?
A lot premature. Barack has accomplished very little in terms of peace. They could have just waited 10 years and then give him a prize if he really did anything good. They've been giving many of these prizes years after the actual achievements, so what's the rush?
I'm actually shocked that this was not given out in October of 2012, a month before the next presidential election. I guess he'll get the newly formed Nobel Prize for Awesomeness then. (They'll probably call it the Prize for Obamaness after that)
because that administration didn't do ANYTHING for the world, unless the US directly benefited somehow.
First, that's not true. Bush did more to stop AIDS in Africa than any person in the world, anywhere at any time. The US has spent and done more on this front than any other country on Earth. Tell me how the US directly benefits from that? Shouldn't Bush get a Nobel Prize for that? Obama got one for merely talking about doing stuff.
How many women in the world legally voted for the first time in their lives thanks to America? Tell me how those feminine purple fingers benefited the US directly.
Next, there is a logical flaw in your argument:
The US is still on Earth. That meas that anything the US does for the WORLD (which as I previously stated, the US is still a part of), the US benefits from.
Finally, why the hell else would we do it? It's not the US's job to make every place other than the US better. You want your country to be better? Make it that way yourself. What has the world done to make the US better? Maybe I've missed the food and medicine packets from Somalia being dropped on poor areas of our country.
Why? Most homes would have a larger screen available, with better placement for viewing than a laptop would provide. Most offices or other commercial places/organisations wouldn't let you plug in a console, pull out a controller and start gaming, even if the console did have a laptop format. Don't get me wrong, it's a neat project, but I'm just saying it's not very practical.
Actually, most places will let you plug in. When traveling, I almost never ran my notebook off the battery. The airport, coffee shops or just about any other place where I could actually sit down and use my notebook would have a plug available for me to access. I see this as being no different.
And, sure, while nearly all homes will have a bigger screen, they may not have a better screen. Many homes still have old, non-hi-def CRT TV's plugged into their cable boxes, or have the cable plugged directly to the TV's.
Finally, I don't think practicality was the point. Sure, it's a nice feature, but this guy made this simply because he could. That was the whole point.