It depends on the state and school district. I certainly had fairly comprehensive sex education. It covered various types of protection, what types worked, how often they worked, the various diseases, methods of pregnancy... We also had a session where various myths were dispelled, such as double-wrapping. I'm not sure if federal laws have changed things in the past 10 years, but for the most part school curriculum are handled at a local and state level.
There was also the big child porn sting in England. Turns out that some of the accused had simply had their credit cards stolen. I think 7 or so of these innocent people killed themselves as a result of being accused. Being accused of rape is no laughing matter. It is an accusation that will come up in a google search, and it will haunt you for life.
What we have here is a relationship between two sexually mature people, who were both obviously capable of consent (confirmed by her father and any reasonable interpretation of consent), only one of the people was barely under the technical legal age of consent. For that "crime," he is lumped in the same category for people who forcibly rape children. As a result, he will be ostracized. At best, he will have to move. At worse it will follow him for the rest of his life. I don't think that's a fair punishment for what happened, and a glib "If you can't pay the time, don't do the crime," doesn't suffice.
If you think that a 17 year old is capable of understanding sex or consenting, by any interpretation other than the legal one, then you are stupendously naive. If you think destroying a person's life over such an indiscretion is acceptable... well that's far more fucked up than anything that couple did.
The police go over talk to them, decide that there isn't enough evidence, and they blow it off.
People are innocent until proven guilty. Even the scum of the earth deserve a fair trial, and to be proven guilty of the crimes they are accused of. If the evidence wasn't there, then what else can the police do? The fact that rape is horrible does not justify us becoming monsters ourselves.
The word of one person is simply not good enough to convict a person of a crime, especially when the consequences of even being accused of it are so serious.
So let me see if I understand you... you're blaming him, and me... people who have never raped a woman because we feel its wrong and highly immoral... for the crimes of other men, because somehow we pressured them into raping women? If this is correct, then you are fucked up. Seek help. Same goes if you are seriously suggesting that its ok that lives are destroyed from false accusations because rape is bad. What happened to you was a tragedy, but that does not excuse such ignorant, selfish, and pig-headed remarks.
It probably is bad luck. It seems to be a trend for me. Linux pretty much never installs cleanly on any of my systems, I've had video cards arrive defective, and myriad other problems. Its lucky I'm pretty handy with computers, because I think I'm cursed or something. About the only thing that's worked perfectly for me is Vista - proof that some evil deity is toying with me.
I don't know what you imagine I'm doing to my Apple gear, but its been normal use. The iPhone in question started locking up literally right after I left the Apple Genius Bar with a replacement. FYI, its a 2G iPhone, not the 3G, so first revision. The other myriad of problems happened randomly during normal use. And if you remember, the negative black issue was fairly widespread, due to a manufacturing defect. The Genius Bar had to go through two separate phones before they found one for me without the issue. As far as the MacBook goes, it was two months old when the fan started making noise. Its spent most of those two months sitting on a table. I'm not sure how you think I could mess with the internal fan, but I'd be interested in hearing the logic behind that one.
As the other poster said, its probably just terrible luck. But that terrible luck does give me pause before I consider slapping down another wad of cash for Apple products.
I'm seriously debating whether I want to stick with the iPhone myself. Its a great phone... when it works. I've already had to have it replaced by Apple four times for myriads of issues, including the negative black problem, dead zones on the touch screen rendering menus unusable, and consistent lock-ups during boot that would make my phone unusable for 12-hour stretches of time. I'd really like a phone with a great interface that just worked.
It doesn't help my opinion of Apple that my MacBook's internal fans are making an exceptional amount of noise. I really want to love these products, because they're neat, but I don't want to dump my cash into unreliable stuff.
I was about to ask what America he lives in. Granted, I mostly live in blue states, but no-one I've met has ever been afraid of expressing their dislike of Bush. Not in 2003, and certainly not in 2008. If you avoid being a dick about it, you'll probably be OK.
Again, the Dixie Chick thing was, in large part, because they expressed it in a very public venue on foreign soil, to a foreign audience.
Yes, the idea of taking away individual liberty by force for the "public good" (as defined by the people using the force). Sounds pretty damned scary to me.
I think those that benefit from society should pay back in order to maintain society. I don't view my tax money as wasted. I view it as buying a safe, harmonious, and beneficial society in which I can use my skills to benefit myself. Helping the public good has a lot of direct benefits on myself, in the form of safer streets, educated coworkers, and a supply of skilled labor to accomplish the myriad of things that I cannot do on my own.
Police department absolutely is not. You're not understanding the concept. It is acceptable for government to take a small piece of your liberty in order to protect your individual rights, because that is the only way society can work.
[snip]
Similarly, as any fire the Fire Department is needed for is a danger to everyone, a Fire Department is not socialism.
You start out by saying that its wrong to take individual liberty for the greater good, followed up by saying that its OK if its for protecting individual rights, and end with saying that, its ok if its for the common good (its a danger to everyone). Anyone can get cancer, so its a danger to everyone. I guess universal health care and government funded cancer research would be OK, by your own logic. I notice you didn't address the interstate highway system.
I agree that having the government take away some liberty to enforce individual rights (in other words, the military, courts, and police) is not socialism. But once you get into the fire department, you've stepped out of individual-rights land and are now firmly in common-good land. The only difference between you and I is that we disagree on the degree that is appropriate.
As far as you know. Again, while I agree there's no evidence of this, if it were the other way around people on the left would say "of course McCain's campaign was behind it."
And I would call them stupid too. I repeatedly pointed out that there was no evidence that Republican's were behind the swift-boating, back in the day.
Obama invoked Joe's name quite a bit in that one debate, and in speeches around the same time.
Ok. As far as I can reasonably ascertain, McCain still used it more. And given that Joe launched a very public website, he seems to enjoy the publicity. Doesn't make the privacy invasion right, but it does mean that no one person is to "blame" for making Joe a public figure. I say we should lay the blame on the press and individuals that took it too far.
The way to do that is not jacking up marginal tax rates, but going to a flat tax. The problem is, you're only looking at the aggregate data: many people in the top income levels DO pay higher effective tax rates. Think of all the rich people who pay virtually no tax: that means many other "rich" people make up for it, because by far more tax revenue comes from the top quintile.
Hey, you want to argue a flat tax? I'm all for that. I think that's the fairest way, assuming that we make sure not to dick over people under the poverty line. I've also seen the "fair tax," which is based on sales. My only problem with that is that it could be regressive if done improperly.
When Obama talks about "fairness" he doesn't mean that everyone pays the same amount, or percentage, of their income. He means that the rich should pay a greater percentage.
Maybe so, but to a great deal of people, a progressive tax system is fair. I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment, but its hard to argue that its easier for a rich man to pay 30 percent of his income in taxes than it is for a middle class man to pay 20 percent of his income in taxes.
Well, yes, our rights are only ours to practice as long as we protect them. I don't see how that's relevant to the Dixie Chick's case. They expressed their opinion in a way that pissed a lot of people off. Those pissed off people have their right to speech. The problem, it seems, is that you don't agree with their disagreement. Unfortunately, free speech doesn't guarantee that your message is listened to and reacted to in the way you want.
Sure, the fact that people can shout you down for being "disloyal" can be a problem. It could allow a government to get away with a lot. However, if you limit their ability to express disapproval at your disapproval, then you have taken away their right to speech. I don't see how that's any better than the alternative.
Obama didn't put Joe under intense investigation. The press and the public did. Obama did explain how his plan would help Joe, but the McCain campaign did far, far more promotion of Joe than Obama did. And Joe hardly turned down the publicity. Being a public figure means you're going to be under scrutiny. That doesn't make the violations of his privacy OK, but its dishonest to paint the situation as Obama putting Joe under investigation.
Good. Obama is a socialist, and his socialism is scary.
Socialism is just an idea. If you make it into an idealogy and apply it to everything, then yeah its scary. Mixing it in where appropriate is not, and is beneficial. Our interstate highway system, fire departments, and police departments are examples of socialism properly applied.
I love how when Republicans do something, McCain was to blame, but when Dems do, Obama had nothing to do with it.
McCain and Palin were name-dropping Joe constantly. I'm not saying that they are responsible for the harassment of Joe, but rather trying to point out that it was their campaign that was making a big deal about Joe, not Obama's. Some republican fanboys try to portray it as the other way around: that Joe asked a question and the Obama campaign went crazy over it. Not true.
The people who are responsible for this are the press and the individual people who violated Joe's privacy. I am simply pointing out that you can't blame Obama for dragging him into the spotlight. McCain wanted the spotlight on Joe, and Joe was happy to oblige.
To summarize, I'm not blaming McCain for Joe's treatment. I'm trying to point out that blaming Obama for Joe's treatment is idiotic.
That said, I agree. Obama used Joe a lot, but not to smear him, but to try to make the case that his plan was GOOD for Joe, and even if not good for Joe, that's only because Joe was so well off he didn't need help. (A case which is essentially socialist in nature, of course.)
I honestly don't remember any of that from the Obama campaign, and I'm not sure how I missed that. I heard that a lot from friends and on Slashdot. It is pertinent whether Obama's plan will help Joe now, but its also pertinent to discuss how it would affect the theoretical business-owner Joe. People got caught up in the hypocrisy of the situation and tended to ignore the real issue.
FWIW, I tend to side with Obama. As a percentage of income, the tax burden is heaviest on the middle class. I'd like to see a little more fairness in the system, and I don't feel that asking for that is socialism.
The Dixie Chicks pissed off their core audience. Bush and the CIA were not out there telling people to shout down the Dixie Chicks, and its not their fault that people got upset by what the DCs said and how they said it. Last time I checked, people still had a right to disagree and be upset by what people say. Its not government oppression or suppression of free speech.
I don't see anything that suggests Obama had a problem with being asked a question. He handled it extremely well. The only problem is that he said "Share the wealth," which the Republicans and Libertarians twisted into "OMG Socialism! Obama is after your mooooniiiiiiiessssss!!11!one"
The issue is that the McCain campaign took that dialog with Joe and ran with it, and tried to make it a large part of their platform. The whole "socialism" scaremongering was coming from the Republicans. McCain, not Obama, was shoving Joe into the spotlight, name-dropping him in debates and rallies, in attempt to drum up support. And the press, loving a story that sells, ran with it. Turns out that Joe is a hypocrite, which is great news, when "news" is "shit that isn't important but sells lots of papers."
Maybe Obama could have said "Hey guys, knock it off." Maybe some of the Dems would have listened. But I'm not sure why you think that the press or McCain would care to listen. There's nothing that suggest that Obama drug Joe's name through the dirt. At best you had a couple of overzealous Dems acting independently. Trying to make him responsible for that is intellectually dishonest and unfair, especially when you overlook the way in which Joe and the Republicans were fanning the flames.
XBox Live has nothing to do with whether a game uses P2P or dedicated servers. Left 4 Dead, for example, uses dedicated servers on XBox. Developers tend to use P2P because its cheaper than dedicated servers and, contrary to popular belief, is usually pretty good.
Right, so, basically its what the XBox already had, only it only works for 10 games as opposed to EVERY game, plus a shitty 3D interface (yes Virginia, "virtual worlds" are a terrible replacement for a good menu), plus some extra marketing crap that any non-brainwashed human being shouldn't give a crap about.
Yeah, sounds fucking amazing. You'd have to be drinking a long drink from the kool-aid to think that sounded appealing. The fact that you're calling it "staggering" and "amazing" makes me think you're either paid or got hit in the head a few too many times.
Meh, when shopping for an engagement ring I was worried about spending too much money. My girl would kill me if I spend the suggested 3-months of salary on a piece of jewelry. I looked for something nice that I thought she would enjoy wearing. Not all women care about the bling.
There is a crowd of climate scientists who are discussing the evidence and combining that evidence with what we know about greenhouse gasses and our CO2 emissions. They then come up with predictions about global climate change and the degree of human impact upon that. Most scientific discussions I've seen allow for a range of impact, and are certainly willing to address skeptics arguments (with the result that most are debunked). Naturally, their results are refined and tweaked as new evidence and models become available.
There's also a crowd that reads these summaries, understands them, and concludes that certain actions may or may not be warranted in order to curb that impact. Some of these people think that we should just accept it and deal with it, while others think we should transition to new fuels.
Then there's the vocal crowd. The one that treat science as a religion and the scientists as the priest. Any dissenting opinion is shouted down as being against the consensus without addressing the actual science.
The first group is looking at the evidence and drawing conclusions. They are not trying to make the evidence fit the hypothesis. The second is looking at a summary of those conclusions. That requires some faith in the consensus and process, yes. The third group is willing to ignore any arguments that may contradict their bias, so they are really no different from the truthers or creationists.
Of course, there are plenty of "scientists" in the third group too. You just tend to not see their work as much, because they are not doing science.
Well its kind-of a self-perpetuating problem. They are able to exercise these powers (and thus have them), because the American believe that they do have the legal authority, and elect the politicians because they claim that they will use these powers to benefit their constituents.
It would be nice if we reigned in the power grabs and limited the federal government to that which they only had the legal authority to do. Unfortunately, its unlikely to happen, because we'd likely need several constitutional amendments to do some of the things that the American people want the government to do. Its easier to just ignore the US Constitution.
There was a lot of debris and the hole was large. The truthers tend to show pictures that omit a large part of the debris, obscure the hole with smoke, show the field after cleanup had commenced, show awkward angles, etc. If you google around for actual pictures and testimony, you will see that there is a lot of debris strewn about, a lot of it was stuck inside the pentagon, and the hole was actually fairly large.
Like I said, truthers selectively seek evidence that seems to support their hypothesis and ignore that which does not.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends on the state and school district. I certainly had fairly comprehensive sex education. It covered various types of protection, what types worked, how often they worked, the various diseases, methods of pregnancy... We also had a session where various myths were dispelled, such as double-wrapping. I'm not sure if federal laws have changed things in the past 10 years, but for the most part school curriculum are handled at a local and state level.
There was also the big child porn sting in England. Turns out that some of the accused had simply had their credit cards stolen. I think 7 or so of these innocent people killed themselves as a result of being accused. Being accused of rape is no laughing matter. It is an accusation that will come up in a google search, and it will haunt you for life.
Its not what she said but how she said it. The amount of vitriol is almost palpable, and she has been steadily making it worse as the thread wears on.
What we have here is a relationship between two sexually mature people, who were both obviously capable of consent (confirmed by her father and any reasonable interpretation of consent), only one of the people was barely under the technical legal age of consent. For that "crime," he is lumped in the same category for people who forcibly rape children. As a result, he will be ostracized. At best, he will have to move. At worse it will follow him for the rest of his life. I don't think that's a fair punishment for what happened, and a glib "If you can't pay the time, don't do the crime," doesn't suffice.
If you think that a 17 year old is capable of understanding sex or consenting, by any interpretation other than the legal one, then you are stupendously naive. If you think destroying a person's life over such an indiscretion is acceptable... well that's far more fucked up than anything that couple did.
The police go over talk to them, decide that there isn't enough evidence, and they blow it off.
People are innocent until proven guilty. Even the scum of the earth deserve a fair trial, and to be proven guilty of the crimes they are accused of. If the evidence wasn't there, then what else can the police do? The fact that rape is horrible does not justify us becoming monsters ourselves.
The word of one person is simply not good enough to convict a person of a crime, especially when the consequences of even being accused of it are so serious.
So let me see if I understand you... you're blaming him, and me... people who have never raped a woman because we feel its wrong and highly immoral... for the crimes of other men, because somehow we pressured them into raping women? If this is correct, then you are fucked up. Seek help. Same goes if you are seriously suggesting that its ok that lives are destroyed from false accusations because rape is bad. What happened to you was a tragedy, but that does not excuse such ignorant, selfish, and pig-headed remarks.
Nono, the real conspiracy is that Obama is a cylon!
It probably is bad luck. It seems to be a trend for me. Linux pretty much never installs cleanly on any of my systems, I've had video cards arrive defective, and myriad other problems. Its lucky I'm pretty handy with computers, because I think I'm cursed or something. About the only thing that's worked perfectly for me is Vista - proof that some evil deity is toying with me.
I don't know what you imagine I'm doing to my Apple gear, but its been normal use. The iPhone in question started locking up literally right after I left the Apple Genius Bar with a replacement. FYI, its a 2G iPhone, not the 3G, so first revision. The other myriad of problems happened randomly during normal use. And if you remember, the negative black issue was fairly widespread, due to a manufacturing defect. The Genius Bar had to go through two separate phones before they found one for me without the issue.
As far as the MacBook goes, it was two months old when the fan started making noise. Its spent most of those two months sitting on a table. I'm not sure how you think I could mess with the internal fan, but I'd be interested in hearing the logic behind that one.
As the other poster said, its probably just terrible luck. But that terrible luck does give me pause before I consider slapping down another wad of cash for Apple products.
I used to be an iPhone fanboy. Now.. meh...
I'm seriously debating whether I want to stick with the iPhone myself. Its a great phone... when it works. I've already had to have it replaced by Apple four times for myriads of issues, including the negative black problem, dead zones on the touch screen rendering menus unusable, and consistent lock-ups during boot that would make my phone unusable for 12-hour stretches of time. I'd really like a phone with a great interface that just worked.
It doesn't help my opinion of Apple that my MacBook's internal fans are making an exceptional amount of noise. I really want to love these products, because they're neat, but I don't want to dump my cash into unreliable stuff.
I was about to ask what America he lives in. Granted, I mostly live in blue states, but no-one I've met has ever been afraid of expressing their dislike of Bush. Not in 2003, and certainly not in 2008. If you avoid being a dick about it, you'll probably be OK.
Again, the Dixie Chick thing was, in large part, because they expressed it in a very public venue on foreign soil, to a foreign audience.
Yes, the idea of taking away individual liberty by force for the "public good" (as defined by the people using the force). Sounds pretty damned scary to me.
I think those that benefit from society should pay back in order to maintain society. I don't view my tax money as wasted. I view it as buying a safe, harmonious, and beneficial society in which I can use my skills to benefit myself. Helping the public good has a lot of direct benefits on myself, in the form of safer streets, educated coworkers, and a supply of skilled labor to accomplish the myriad of things that I cannot do on my own.
Police department absolutely is not. You're not understanding the concept. It is acceptable for government to take a small piece of your liberty in order to protect your individual rights, because that is the only way society can work.
[snip]
Similarly, as any fire the Fire Department is needed for is a danger to everyone, a Fire Department is not socialism.
You start out by saying that its wrong to take individual liberty for the greater good, followed up by saying that its OK if its for protecting individual rights, and end with saying that, its ok if its for the common good (its a danger to everyone). Anyone can get cancer, so its a danger to everyone. I guess universal health care and government funded cancer research would be OK, by your own logic. I notice you didn't address the interstate highway system.
I agree that having the government take away some liberty to enforce individual rights (in other words, the military, courts, and police) is not socialism. But once you get into the fire department, you've stepped out of individual-rights land and are now firmly in common-good land. The only difference between you and I is that we disagree on the degree that is appropriate.
As far as you know. Again, while I agree there's no evidence of this, if it were the other way around people on the left would say "of course McCain's campaign was behind it."
And I would call them stupid too. I repeatedly pointed out that there was no evidence that Republican's were behind the swift-boating, back in the day.
Obama invoked Joe's name quite a bit in that one debate, and in speeches around the same time.
Ok. As far as I can reasonably ascertain, McCain still used it more. And given that Joe launched a very public website, he seems to enjoy the publicity. Doesn't make the privacy invasion right, but it does mean that no one person is to "blame" for making Joe a public figure. I say we should lay the blame on the press and individuals that took it too far.
The way to do that is not jacking up marginal tax rates, but going to a flat tax. The problem is, you're only looking at the aggregate data: many people in the top income levels DO pay higher effective tax rates. Think of all the rich people who pay virtually no tax: that means many other "rich" people make up for it, because by far more tax revenue comes from the top quintile.
Hey, you want to argue a flat tax? I'm all for that. I think that's the fairest way, assuming that we make sure not to dick over people under the poverty line. I've also seen the "fair tax," which is based on sales. My only problem with that is that it could be regressive if done improperly.
When Obama talks about "fairness" he doesn't mean that everyone pays the same amount, or percentage, of their income. He means that the rich should pay a greater percentage.
Maybe so, but to a great deal of people, a progressive tax system is fair. I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment, but its hard to argue that its easier for a rich man to pay 30 percent of his income in taxes than it is for a middle class man to pay 20 percent of his income in taxes.
Well, yes, our rights are only ours to practice as long as we protect them. I don't see how that's relevant to the Dixie Chick's case. They expressed their opinion in a way that pissed a lot of people off. Those pissed off people have their right to speech. The problem, it seems, is that you don't agree with their disagreement. Unfortunately, free speech doesn't guarantee that your message is listened to and reacted to in the way you want.
Sure, the fact that people can shout you down for being "disloyal" can be a problem. It could allow a government to get away with a lot. However, if you limit their ability to express disapproval at your disapproval, then you have taken away their right to speech. I don't see how that's any better than the alternative.
Obama didn't put Joe under intense investigation. The press and the public did. Obama did explain how his plan would help Joe, but the McCain campaign did far, far more promotion of Joe than Obama did. And Joe hardly turned down the publicity. Being a public figure means you're going to be under scrutiny. That doesn't make the violations of his privacy OK, but its dishonest to paint the situation as Obama putting Joe under investigation.
Good. Obama is a socialist, and his socialism is scary.
Socialism is just an idea. If you make it into an idealogy and apply it to everything, then yeah its scary. Mixing it in where appropriate is not, and is beneficial. Our interstate highway system, fire departments, and police departments are examples of socialism properly applied.
I love how when Republicans do something, McCain was to blame, but when Dems do, Obama had nothing to do with it.
McCain and Palin were name-dropping Joe constantly. I'm not saying that they are responsible for the harassment of Joe, but rather trying to point out that it was their campaign that was making a big deal about Joe, not Obama's. Some republican fanboys try to portray it as the other way around: that Joe asked a question and the Obama campaign went crazy over it. Not true.
The people who are responsible for this are the press and the individual people who violated Joe's privacy. I am simply pointing out that you can't blame Obama for dragging him into the spotlight. McCain wanted the spotlight on Joe, and Joe was happy to oblige.
To summarize, I'm not blaming McCain for Joe's treatment. I'm trying to point out that blaming Obama for Joe's treatment is idiotic.
That said, I agree. Obama used Joe a lot, but not to smear him, but to try to make the case that his plan was GOOD for Joe, and even if not good for Joe, that's only because Joe was so well off he didn't need help. (A case which is essentially socialist in nature, of course.)
I honestly don't remember any of that from the Obama campaign, and I'm not sure how I missed that. I heard that a lot from friends and on Slashdot. It is pertinent whether Obama's plan will help Joe now, but its also pertinent to discuss how it would affect the theoretical business-owner Joe. People got caught up in the hypocrisy of the situation and tended to ignore the real issue.
FWIW, I tend to side with Obama. As a percentage of income, the tax burden is heaviest on the middle class. I'd like to see a little more fairness in the system, and I don't feel that asking for that is socialism.
The Dixie Chicks pissed off their core audience. Bush and the CIA were not out there telling people to shout down the Dixie Chicks, and its not their fault that people got upset by what the DCs said and how they said it. Last time I checked, people still had a right to disagree and be upset by what people say. Its not government oppression or suppression of free speech.
I don't see anything that suggests Obama had a problem with being asked a question. He handled it extremely well. The only problem is that he said "Share the wealth," which the Republicans and Libertarians twisted into "OMG Socialism! Obama is after your mooooniiiiiiiessssss!!11!one"
The issue is that the McCain campaign took that dialog with Joe and ran with it, and tried to make it a large part of their platform. The whole "socialism" scaremongering was coming from the Republicans. McCain, not Obama, was shoving Joe into the spotlight, name-dropping him in debates and rallies, in attempt to drum up support. And the press, loving a story that sells, ran with it. Turns out that Joe is a hypocrite, which is great news, when "news" is "shit that isn't important but sells lots of papers."
Maybe Obama could have said "Hey guys, knock it off." Maybe some of the Dems would have listened. But I'm not sure why you think that the press or McCain would care to listen. There's nothing that suggest that Obama drug Joe's name through the dirt. At best you had a couple of overzealous Dems acting independently. Trying to make him responsible for that is intellectually dishonest and unfair, especially when you overlook the way in which Joe and the Republicans were fanning the flames.
XBox Live has nothing to do with whether a game uses P2P or dedicated servers. Left 4 Dead, for example, uses dedicated servers on XBox. Developers tend to use P2P because its cheaper than dedicated servers and, contrary to popular belief, is usually pretty good.
Right, so, basically its what the XBox already had, only it only works for 10 games as opposed to EVERY game, plus a shitty 3D interface (yes Virginia, "virtual worlds" are a terrible replacement for a good menu), plus some extra marketing crap that any non-brainwashed human being shouldn't give a crap about.
Yeah, sounds fucking amazing. You'd have to be drinking a long drink from the kool-aid to think that sounded appealing. The fact that you're calling it "staggering" and "amazing" makes me think you're either paid or got hit in the head a few too many times.
Meh, when shopping for an engagement ring I was worried about spending too much money. My girl would kill me if I spend the suggested 3-months of salary on a piece of jewelry. I looked for something nice that I thought she would enjoy wearing. Not all women care about the bling.
I think the vitriol was a bit excessive, but its easy to see why its there. The truthers are in grade-A denial.
I also liked Maddox's argument.
Depends on which crowd you mean.
There is a crowd of climate scientists who are discussing the evidence and combining that evidence with what we know about greenhouse gasses and our CO2 emissions. They then come up with predictions about global climate change and the degree of human impact upon that. Most scientific discussions I've seen allow for a range of impact, and are certainly willing to address skeptics arguments (with the result that most are debunked). Naturally, their results are refined and tweaked as new evidence and models become available.
There's also a crowd that reads these summaries, understands them, and concludes that certain actions may or may not be warranted in order to curb that impact. Some of these people think that we should just accept it and deal with it, while others think we should transition to new fuels.
Then there's the vocal crowd. The one that treat science as a religion and the scientists as the priest. Any dissenting opinion is shouted down as being against the consensus without addressing the actual science.
The first group is looking at the evidence and drawing conclusions. They are not trying to make the evidence fit the hypothesis. The second is looking at a summary of those conclusions. That requires some faith in the consensus and process, yes. The third group is willing to ignore any arguments that may contradict their bias, so they are really no different from the truthers or creationists.
Of course, there are plenty of "scientists" in the third group too. You just tend to not see their work as much, because they are not doing science.
Well its kind-of a self-perpetuating problem. They are able to exercise these powers (and thus have them), because the American believe that they do have the legal authority, and elect the politicians because they claim that they will use these powers to benefit their constituents.
It would be nice if we reigned in the power grabs and limited the federal government to that which they only had the legal authority to do. Unfortunately, its unlikely to happen, because we'd likely need several constitutional amendments to do some of the things that the American people want the government to do. Its easier to just ignore the US Constitution.
Check out the Loose Change guide: http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html
There was a lot of debris and the hole was large. The truthers tend to show pictures that omit a large part of the debris, obscure the hole with smoke, show the field after cleanup had commenced, show awkward angles, etc. If you google around for actual pictures and testimony, you will see that there is a lot of debris strewn about, a lot of it was stuck inside the pentagon, and the hole was actually fairly large.
Like I said, truthers selectively seek evidence that seems to support their hypothesis and ignore that which does not.