Actually, Greenpeace is actively opposed to fusion research, saying that ""Governments should not waste our money on a dangerous toy" and claiming that it "has all the problems of nuclear power, including producing nuclear waste and the risks of a nuclear accident".
New York is demanding sales tax for all out-of-state purchases of goods or services. Since they know nobody is going to remember to save their receipts, they set it up so you can elect to give them a percentage of your income based on your tax bracket. I guess they're relying on random audits to keep people from just claiming they made no out-of-state purchases.
The most ridiculous part is that you owe taxes on every out-of-state purchase, be they via online, via catalog, or even in person. If you drive to another state and fill up your gas tank while you're there you owe New York State sales tax. You can get a tax deduction for the sales tax you already paid in the other state, but that assumes you kept your receipts.
On the other hand we need some sort of standards to ensure things are being taught right. Without some form of standards you'd have students being taught that we didn't land on the moon, JFK was assassinated by a magic bullet, and that God created the Jesusaurus Rex on the 6th day of creation, right before he made man out of a lump of mud. I myself experienced this when my high school biology teacher repeatedly stated that she did not agree with evolution, did not understand how it could possibly make sense, and was only teaching it because it was required for the New York State Regents Exam.
Believe me, I'm no fan of standardized tests. Like you said, they stifle creative teaching. But they also stifle incorrect teaching. Some sort of balance needs to be struck between the two. I just have no idea where...
Crap. I succumbed to the same trap as the GP. You write something, then you revise it over and over, but these little bits get stuck between edits. I need to reread my tweaks more than once...
Honestly, I wasn't trying to be pedantic so much as trying to come up with a plausible reason he put down "spurned". Given "spurred" and "spurned" are only one letter off I thought it was a more likely mistake to switch an "r" out for an "n" than to have intended a totally different word of opposite meaning. Not that I've never been a grammar and spelling pedant in the past...
But anyway, I agree with you. The technical work on Tron was definitely ahead of its time. It's too bad the story wasn't quite up to the same standard. Kinda like if Avatar hadn't been as successful. Of course I've heard Tron didn't do as well as it could because Disney screwed up on the marketing. On the other hand, right before it came out you could barely walk two feet without bumping into an ad for Avatar.
...slap a deposit on it and any place that sells it must take it back and refund said deposit.
We have a five cent deposit on soda here in New York State. Half the people I see just throw their cans and bottles in the garbage can anyway. Amusingly, it's often the people with the lower incomes who are the ones just tossing that money in the trash. Though maybe we need a deposit larger than 5 cents...
Also, a lot of religious people have objected to same-sex marriages on the grounds that they believe marriage should only be between people capable of having children together. This will resolve that road-block so they can be okay with same-sex marriage.
It's not just the ability-to-have-children thing. There's also a biblical justification:
"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination." -Leviticus 18:22 KJV
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." -Leviticus 20:13 KJV
You're also forgetting that this is the same crowd that opposes the adoption of children by homosexual couples, partly on the grounds that the children will be indoctrinated into some sort of grand international homosexual conspiracy to destroy America, Freedom, and apple pie. Yes, this sort do believe that marriage and sex are intended by God purely for the purposes of producing children. But then why do they not also oppose marriage involving people who are infertile or sterile, only marriage between homosexuals?
No, all they have is "bigger" toys, but the POWER that comes with riches is gone - reserved by governments only.
Unless you count their ability to "campaign finance" the legislation they want that benefits them and their business interests.
So yeah, there might be more zeroes at the end of the net worth of rich people than there were before, but considering that "poor" people and "middle class" people usually have shelter, television, transport (private or public), food, etc, it's actually the poor who are better off than ever before.
And more and more people have to work two or three jobs to keep those things, because the rich people are paying workers less and charging more for goods and services in order to keep adding those extra zeroes.
Slavery is the ownership of a person, not a body. Yes, body and person are intrinsic, but only until death. After that the person ceases to be (or exits the body, if you believe in an afterlife), leaving only the empty shell of the body.
i choose 3: fuck flying. taking the airplane is a burdensome horrendous experience that just keeps getting worse and worse. it makes driving 20 hours seem more attractive than flying 4 hours
Screw driving. Take the train. It's faster and more comfortable than driving. In some cases it's even faster than plane, especially since you have to spend four hours waiting in line to get a two-bit handjob from a rent-a-cop. It's less speedy for cross-country, impossible for over seas travel, and more expensive than driving (but cheaper than plane!), but it sure beats driving.
True, and I agree with you. But in the end your definition of reasonable might not be shared by the police and the prosecutor's office. And if they convince the jury to see it their way, well, you're in trouble.
For example, the guy in Long Island who, back in September, was confronted at his home by 20 or so violent gang members threatening to kill his family. He fired four rounds into a lawn from his legally owned AK-47, scaring the gang members away. He was initially charged with felony reckless endangerment, as the law only allows a proportionate response (ie. he could only pull a gun if they pulled a gun first). (Caveats: I don't know the current status of the charges. Also, none of the reports mention any witnesses besides the family, and at least one report has him firing into both the lawn and the air.)
That's no talking point at all! Many Republicans would agree that condoms encourage fornication, which, again, most of them would be against. Also, as the GP said, giving them food encourages them to breed, thus fulfilling God's first command after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, namely "be fruitful and multiply". That and they'd probably say social programs are "communist", too, so even if they're demonstrably better than churches they're automatically evil anyway.
Leaving out the question allows them to shape the story to their own will, generate more controversy (and thus more viewers/readers), and twist facts support a particular agenda. They won't learn to include the question because they learned not to, as it gives them a greater advantage.
That's the one where they steal your cellphone number, and use it to track your movements, then wait until you're all alone and kidnap you, taking you to the desert and forcing you to build giant pyramids all day, right?
Actually, I was taught about the Japanese internment camps in high school. On a side note, I think I remember the teacher noting that it wouldn't have been as bad if the Germans and Italians were put in camps too, since it "wouldn't have been racist" or something like that. Years later I learned that they were put in camps, albeit in much smaller numbers. Interestingly enough, a number of German internment camps were kept open until 1948. This was because the camps mixed members of the German-American Bund (a pro-Nazi German-American culture organization) with non-Bund Germans, prompting fears that the camps were becoming Bund recruitment and training grounds. And so the camps were kept open out of fear of releasing a bunch of Nazis into the streets. Meanwhile, the Italians were let out in 1943, after the Italian surrender, and most of the Japanese were let out in early 1945, before the war was even over (with the exception of at least one camp with detainees from Peru that was open until some time in 1946).
Implied teleology aside, there's no reason both ideas can't be true. You'll note that I never disagreed with you on controlling exponential population growth and resource usage. Self-destruction is a bad way to avoid extinction. What I disagree with is your apparent belief that eventual extinction is preferable to attempting to ensure survival by getting off the planet. It just seems, to me, to be a position as ridiculous as killing ourselves with overpopulation.
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Actually, Greenpeace is actively opposed to fusion research, saying that ""Governments should not waste our money on a dangerous toy" and claiming that it "has all the problems of nuclear power, including producing nuclear waste and the risks of a nuclear accident".
The best part is that a list of dates in the YYYYMMDD format, when sorted alphabetically, is automatically sorted by date.
New York is demanding sales tax for all out-of-state purchases of goods or services. Since they know nobody is going to remember to save their receipts, they set it up so you can elect to give them a percentage of your income based on your tax bracket. I guess they're relying on random audits to keep people from just claiming they made no out-of-state purchases.
The most ridiculous part is that you owe taxes on every out-of-state purchase, be they via online, via catalog, or even in person. If you drive to another state and fill up your gas tank while you're there you owe New York State sales tax. You can get a tax deduction for the sales tax you already paid in the other state, but that assumes you kept your receipts.
Yes, they do represent someone. They just don't represent the people.
On the other hand we need some sort of standards to ensure things are being taught right. Without some form of standards you'd have students being taught that we didn't land on the moon, JFK was assassinated by a magic bullet, and that God created the Jesusaurus Rex on the 6th day of creation, right before he made man out of a lump of mud. I myself experienced this when my high school biology teacher repeatedly stated that she did not agree with evolution, did not understand how it could possibly make sense, and was only teaching it because it was required for the New York State Regents Exam.
Believe me, I'm no fan of standardized tests. Like you said, they stifle creative teaching. But they also stifle incorrect teaching. Some sort of balance needs to be struck between the two. I just have no idea where...
Since when has that ever stopped the cops?
Crap. I succumbed to the same trap as the GP. You write something, then you revise it over and over, but these little bits get stuck between edits. I need to reread my tweaks more than once...
Honestly, I wasn't trying to be pedantic so much as trying to come up with a plausible reason he put down "spurned". Given "spurred" and "spurned" are only one letter off I thought it was a more likely mistake to switch an "r" out for an "n" than to have intended a totally different word of opposite meaning. Not that I've never been a grammar and spelling pedant in the past...
But anyway, I agree with you. The technical work on Tron was definitely ahead of its time. It's too bad the story wasn't quite up to the same standard. Kinda like if Avatar hadn't been as successful. Of course I've heard Tron didn't do as well as it could because Disney screwed up on the marketing. On the other hand, right before it came out you could barely walk two feet without bumping into an ad for Avatar.
We have a five cent deposit on soda here in New York State. Half the people I see just throw their cans and bottles in the garbage can anyway. Amusingly, it's often the people with the lower incomes who are the ones just tossing that money in the trash. Though maybe we need a deposit larger than 5 cents...
Perhaps you were meant to write "spurred"?
It's not just the ability-to-have-children thing. There's also a biblical justification:
You're also forgetting that this is the same crowd that opposes the adoption of children by homosexual couples, partly on the grounds that the children will be indoctrinated into some sort of grand international homosexual conspiracy to destroy America, Freedom, and apple pie. Yes, this sort do believe that marriage and sex are intended by God purely for the purposes of producing children. But then why do they not also oppose marriage involving people who are infertile or sterile, only marriage between homosexuals?
I know! They're more correctly referred to as "African-American holes".
They're working on it.
Unless you count their ability to "campaign finance" the legislation they want that benefits them and their business interests.
And more and more people have to work two or three jobs to keep those things, because the rich people are paying workers less and charging more for goods and services in order to keep adding those extra zeroes.
Pisano? Sounds like paisano to me! They really are the MAFIAA!
Slavery is the ownership of a person, not a body. Yes, body and person are intrinsic, but only until death. After that the person ceases to be (or exits the body, if you believe in an afterlife), leaving only the empty shell of the body.
Screw driving. Take the train. It's faster and more comfortable than driving. In some cases it's even faster than plane, especially since you have to spend four hours waiting in line to get a two-bit handjob from a rent-a-cop. It's less speedy for cross-country, impossible for over seas travel, and more expensive than driving (but cheaper than plane!), but it sure beats driving.
True, and I agree with you. But in the end your definition of reasonable might not be shared by the police and the prosecutor's office. And if they convince the jury to see it their way, well, you're in trouble.
For example, the guy in Long Island who, back in September, was confronted at his home by 20 or so violent gang members threatening to kill his family. He fired four rounds into a lawn from his legally owned AK-47, scaring the gang members away. He was initially charged with felony reckless endangerment, as the law only allows a proportionate response (ie. he could only pull a gun if they pulled a gun first). (Caveats: I don't know the current status of the charges. Also, none of the reports mention any witnesses besides the family, and at least one report has him firing into both the lawn and the air.)
That's no talking point at all! Many Republicans would agree that condoms encourage fornication, which, again, most of them would be against. Also, as the GP said, giving them food encourages them to breed, thus fulfilling God's first command after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, namely "be fruitful and multiply". That and they'd probably say social programs are "communist", too, so even if they're demonstrably better than churches they're automatically evil anyway.
But then again I'm a pessimist...
Reminds me of the Arthur C. Clarke story, Cruel Sky, where there's a whole hotel just short of the summit and tourists take daily trips up to the top.
That reminds me of that picture of the time traveling hipster from 1941 we saw back in April.
http://forgetomori.com/2010/fortean/time-traveler-caught-in-museum-photo/
And when they stop these ridiculous regulations will change. Or we're going to have to get used to doing less business overseas.
Leaving out the question allows them to shape the story to their own will, generate more controversy (and thus more viewers/readers), and twist facts support a particular agenda. They won't learn to include the question because they learned not to, as it gives them a greater advantage.
That's the one where they steal your cellphone number, and use it to track your movements, then wait until you're all alone and kidnap you, taking you to the desert and forcing you to build giant pyramids all day, right?
And make sure the system doesn't have any rounding errors, too!.
Actually, I was taught about the Japanese internment camps in high school. On a side note, I think I remember the teacher noting that it wouldn't have been as bad if the Germans and Italians were put in camps too, since it "wouldn't have been racist" or something like that. Years later I learned that they were put in camps, albeit in much smaller numbers. Interestingly enough, a number of German internment camps were kept open until 1948. This was because the camps mixed members of the German-American Bund (a pro-Nazi German-American culture organization) with non-Bund Germans, prompting fears that the camps were becoming Bund recruitment and training grounds. And so the camps were kept open out of fear of releasing a bunch of Nazis into the streets. Meanwhile, the Italians were let out in 1943, after the Italian surrender, and most of the Japanese were let out in early 1945, before the war was even over (with the exception of at least one camp with detainees from Peru that was open until some time in 1946).
Implied teleology aside, there's no reason both ideas can't be true. You'll note that I never disagreed with you on controlling exponential population growth and resource usage. Self-destruction is a bad way to avoid extinction. What I disagree with is your apparent belief that eventual extinction is preferable to attempting to ensure survival by getting off the planet. It just seems, to me, to be a position as ridiculous as killing ourselves with overpopulation.