That view is simply one of the most laughable ever. What do you think things would be like *without* the unions?
Here's a though that should provide an answer; bosses will never cut into their profits by paying a living wage if they don't have to. The self-interest that conservatives think makes the market so wonderful dictates that. That's one of the base features of capitalism.
Workers have to take concessions from the bosses via organized mass movements, and Unions are a powerful, and nessecary, tool of that struggle. Easy historical evidence of this is available; look up the Ludlow Massacre, the Teamster Rebellion of Minneapolis, or any one of the dozens of labor struggles in the depression-era U.S.
Hell, before that, the bosses profitted by exploiting the labor of *slaves* until they were forced to stop.
Because of one thing; the profit motive. They exist, and can only exist, to exploit the creators of their products.
"Profit" is created by selling something at more than the price expended in materials, labor, and distribution. This excess value, since it obviously does not come from the materials alone or the distribution, is nothing but the unpaid wages of the "laborers," "coders," or whoever.
While it can be argued that profit is nessecary so it can be reinvested, thus advancing the industry, that is a shallow analysis. The actual creators of the product are given no say in how this process, and indeed most of the excess value called profit is simply distributed to upper management and "shareholders" who have done effectively nothing to create that value.
It is in this way that capitalism is inherently harmful to the interests of real people, and when the working class finally cuts through the FUD and realizes it, that is when we will see a shift to a more just and equitable system that can fill societies needs on a grand scale.
Please, go ahead, show me the Linux solution that allows you to take all of your TV shows from your MediaCenter PC and watch it on your Creative Labs Nomad Media player wherever you want to. Or rebroadcast it to anywhere you want.
Show me the Microsoft solution that'll let you do all that, or the Microsoft technology that gives you even the slightest chance of coding your own tool to do it.
You probably forgot to deselect the "Add copy protection" checkbox on your Windows Media Player Rip settings, didn't you?
I've never used WMP a day in my life, but, if I can figure out what you were trying to say with that sentance, surely you can realize that it's not like any little WMP "copy protection" mechanism is going to mean a thing next to Palladium... or whatever they'll come up with for this "IPTV" venture.
3 standard TV signals, 1 HD channel, and high-speed Internet access all at the same time.
Gee whiz, TV from Microsoft. There goes any semblance of fair use rights, and hell, probably the ability to watch any given show without rebooting the TV three times.
The incentive argument for maintaining (or strengthening) copyright is patently and demonstrably false; music and art were being created for a long, long time before copyright "compensated" the creators.
Beethoven wrote some of the greatest music ever without being granted exclusive copyright until his death and, what, 90 years after, and without the benefit of massive distribution cartels.
Looking at music or art as something that benefits from, or even requires, exclusive copyright and monopoly exsistance in the mass market is far too simplistic a view.
Then what would the response be to the routine barbarity apparent in the horrific sancations on Cuba? What about the "economic pressure" on Iraq that the UNICEF study concluded took 500,000 lives? The disgrace in our support of attacks on civilian targets Nicaruagua? What about the inhumanity inherent in installing Sadaam Hussien as a ruler? The utter GENOCIDE of the indiginous people of the United States?
Saying "But Virginia, we are better than them!" is real, real easy when you only pick a few of the lightest examples we have to offer and compare them to the worst that somewhere else has to offer.
And look at some of the parent's own answers; It's a ready fact that the massive economic sanctions that the U.S. helped inpose in the wake of WW1 were more than a little bit responsibile for creating the conditions that allowed hitler to take power. That compassionate gift to the Jews dispossed an entire region of innocent people, and condemned them to the hell of being a stateless people, without rights, jobs, or prospects for the future. Good for the U.S! As for the comments about the death penalty... is your arguement really that our subjective criteria (That are often wrong - the Death Row DNA project has proved that dozens of times.) are better than China's? Perhaps in quantity, but it's still utter barbarism.
American blindness is almost...sad...to watch in action.
Yeah, I don't care if I'm burning Karma here. The parent makes alot more sense than the GP... it's sad that ideology is used as the basis moderation here, in place of science. This is evidence of impending catastrpohic ecological disaster here, not a pissing contest over gerrymandering.
I weep to think that the capitalists and thier supporters are going to doom the whole world, using logic like the GP's to avoid ever having to make sacrifices or curtail thier exploitive behavior.
Any amount is NOT negligible.
on
No Pictures, Thanks
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Victoria Snelgrove, murdered by the Boston police this past October would probably disagree with the parent poster about the idea that police misconduct is "negligible." So would Abadou Diallo. And Abner Louima. Google the name Clifford Glover. While you're there, look up Eleanor Bumpers, too. I'd mention Rodney King yet again in this thread, but that'd be trite.
Let's not go around espousing the idea that because recent history has seen a lull in police brutality in the United States, that it isn't a problem, or that it's acceptable in any way.
And, especially, let's not go around supporting the curtailment of technologies that can keep these abuses in check.
You want to believe that they can predict the weather 100 years from now?
Yes, I do believe it, and so should you; it's far, far easier to predict something averaged over a wide scale, over a long period of time than it is to predict relatively minute, localized changes on a day to day basis.
It's sad to see so many people bury their heads in the sand and come up with all kinds of reasons to ignore this kind of data, simply because they don't like the implications.
It's been studied many, many times, and reported many, many different ways; massive ecological damage is occuring, and it could very well snowball out of control unless something changes, and soon. Ignoring it and coming up with baseless reasons to ignore the warnings isn't going to help.
Precisely; and that pressure to practically give the product away keeps competitors from getting together enough capital to create a truly better product; the consumers get screwed in the end. Top that off with closed file formats, like you mentioned, and wham, the consumers' interests aren't going to see actual, beneficial competition, ever.
Adam Smith never thought through to the end of his ideas. At least in this market, software, open-source has the potential to be a truly competitive factor, even at almost 0-cost.
Actually, what you can't do is perform *any* kind of research on new stem cells without having *all* federal funding yanked from whatever organization or institution you're a part of.
Any way you'd like to cut it, that's tantamount to a ban.
And as for that ignorant crack about Dan Rather; most know that what went down there (I.e.. ABC not having the exact letter they used verified, when in the end the "author" admitted to writing a practically identical letter.) and participating in continuing these smears against Dan Rather, given the triviality of the mistake, his most likely limited personal involvement, and the scope of his long career is just a sympton of a fragile, knee-jerk ideology.
Okay, first up, it's "Grammar is what sets us apart from the script kiddies."
Second, grammar is not what sets "us" (Interesting term to use on a board as big and heterogeneous as Slashdot. You really think that there aren't script kiddies here?) apart from the script kiddies; intelligence, ethics, and skill are what set "us" apart from "them."
...works out like that. A company will produce cheaper, lower quality products the moment it's done away with any real competition. This allows it to maximize profits, as it isn't really forced to expend anything on innovation and yet it sells a huge number at low prices. The low prices also serve to lock out future competition.
*NOTHING* about a monopoly ends up being good for consumers, ever. Even apparent gains in prices are only made up for by poor quality and lack of innovation.
Yet another example of a mainstream politician acting in the interests of the wealthy, and only the wealthy. How is this newsworthy? It happens every single day in every nation.
Don't spew that shit about "survival of the fitest." Being locked into proprietary products does not, ever, support the public's interests. Dependance on closed source, whether applications or formats, only restricts the masses; it does not enable them, no matter how good the exploitation fueled products are.
It's real nice of Timothy to post an article submission that mocks the struggle of real people to earn a decent, dignified living. Real, real nice.
Even if technology nessecarily and unavoidably suplanted those jobs, the desire of real working people to maintain thier livlihoods, and have them be equitable enough to provide for themselves amd their families, is not a thing that should be mocked, ever.
The fact that Verisign is still allowed to bid for.net highlights the precise problem with capitalism; even when the company has shown itself to work against the public interest, Verisign's money is all that counts.
And yet, this is just one of the smallest examples of capitalism's rule of profit over people. Heh.
In most ways, right down to average lifespan, China has already blown the doors off of India, a Democratic nation that began industrialization at the same time.
Google will turn up the relevant Quality of Life Indicator data.
Interesting related note: The offers of tenure to women professors at Harvard have decreased durring each of Summer's three years as president, down to 4 of 32 last year.
If a "loser pays" sysem is implemented, it's a disincentive against any individual who might sue a large corporation, a wealthy person (Such as a doctor.) or even the goverment.
What good is a system where someone who has been wronged and disadvantaged, who isn't gaurunteed to win, perhaps because the grounds the suit is based on is highly technical, like say medive, is chancing being injured further by seeking redress? That's a ridiculous tenent to base a justice system on, and it's why such ideas are routinely rejected, again and again.
As for the rest of it, yes, sanctioning lawyers that repeatedly bring frivilous lawsuits would be a good thing. But that already occurs.
Everytime I hear that precise arguement on the gun issue, I really just have to ask... why is it that the pro-gun activists completely ignore the data from places like Australia or any of the Scandanavian nations that have IMMENSELY fewer handgun deaths each year?
It's not like they've never heard those stats before, either. You want to protect the American public, or jsut yourself? Throw out your gun. Period. It's the only course backed by the data.
And yet, even after FDR was gonem no successive supremem court struck down the new deal. Interesting fact that, and it highlights something very important than alot of people seem to miss; interpretations of the constitution can change. Most people these days wouldn't disagree with the idea that the government should help out the disadvantaged members of society, even if they might see the current insitutions as flawed. That includes both liberals and conservatives; look at how no one campaigns on "Stopping Social Security" no matter what the conservative talking heads are saying at the moment.
While this doesn't sit well with the richest members of our society, that's too bad. They got rich off the labor of those who NEED programs like SS, or SSDI, or Unemployment, or Welfare to survive.
Go back to your puritan church; the inhuman and spoiled need not discuss the issues of the day.
That's what they call it. They've been at it for years, and it's essentially so they can shut down any kind of social welfare programs, and, once those programs aren't around, pass huge tax cuts as they're no longer required for anything.
"Starving the Beast - so rich people can keep more of the money they make from the labor of working people!"
Okay, sure, plenty of people have enough extra to save for thier own reitrement. But a vastly larger section simply doesn't have the resources to do that. Alot of people, right here in the United States, are scrapping to get by, even to the point of working two jobs. These are people that are going to starve to death as senior citizens... and most of them never had access to the oppertunities that those who can afford to save for thier retirement did. How much do you think a waitress, who's family couldn't afford to send her to college, who went to a substandard school and thus didn't have a fair crack at a scholarship (That she might not have gotten anyways.) can really afford to set aside? It's not that they are irresponsible; thier situation is in many ways simply not thier fault.
The same goes for immigrants to this country, probably even more so. What chances does a 40 year-old hispanic janitor, who spent everything he had to come here, have to establish even a survivable retirement?
All that ending social security will do is shift a burden onto the poor's children, and in the so doing, strip economic oppertunities away from them. It's hard to go to college when you need to work to keep your elder family memebers from dying of exposure, after all. Then the cycle repeats, getting worse and worse.
Societal factors play HUGE roles in whether or not people are wealthy enough to pay for thier own retirement. Society ought to look out for those so disadvantaged. (And, of course, those who pay into the fund now will reap benefits later, with only minor tweaks to the system, *gasp*, a slightly higher tax rate on those profiting from the labor of the poor.) Anything less would be inhuman, honestly.
It takes an immense level of intellectual dishonesty to think that the goverment does nothing well.
One word: roads. There you go, that's one prime example of something done well by the government. They work well and they're highly effiecient overall. And as for incentive to improve.... it's called public accountability. Most democratic form of government are weak to it. The united states less than the vast majority of other democricies that use proportional representation systems, but hey.
Oh, and here's two other words for you: Health Care. That right there is a prime example of something that private enterprise does awfully, with terrible repurcussions for the people.
Heh. I wish conservatives and libertarians weren't so willfully ignorant.
If he was only discussing hypothesis, he shouldn't be asserting ones he apparently knew to be unproven and baseless at current, and definately should be advancing it as a rationale for not being concerned with women's underrespresentation in the fields discussed. It's worth noting, that there are different hypthesis, ones with actual studies backing them up, that he didn't bring up. You know, like the one that says the underrepresentation of women in these fields are caused by how women are socialized. How is highlighting an unproven theory, one that others in the conference said had already been refuted that day, not a biased, provocation-only comment that he shouldn't have made? Where was I offtopic there? Did *you* even read the article?
Now, did you even read my comment? From your comment, you agreed that his one example said "innate difference." One anecodtal example still does not proof make.You and Summers seem to have the same failing there. Wanting to see more detail doesn't make it anymore valid, and it fails to make it his comments unbigoted or appropriate for use at time. Period. Now, where was I being irrelevant again?
Get off your high-horse. Read TFA again, read my FC, and try thinking about it before you post knee-jerk defenses.
Slashdot Mirror
That view is simply one of the most laughable ever. What do you think things would be like *without* the unions?
Here's a though that should provide an answer; bosses will never cut into their profits by paying a living wage if they don't have to. The self-interest that conservatives think makes the market so wonderful dictates that. That's one of the base features of capitalism.
Workers have to take concessions from the bosses via organized mass movements, and Unions are a powerful, and nessecary, tool of that struggle. Easy historical evidence of this is available; look up the Ludlow Massacre, the Teamster Rebellion of Minneapolis, or any one of the dozens of labor struggles in the depression-era U.S.
Hell, before that, the bosses profitted by exploiting the labor of *slaves* until they were forced to stop.
- why do all companies have to be evil
Because of one thing; the profit motive. They exist, and can only exist, to exploit the creators of their products.
"Profit" is created by selling something at more than the price expended in materials, labor, and distribution. This excess value, since it obviously does not come from the materials alone or the distribution, is nothing but the unpaid wages of the "laborers," "coders," or whoever.
While it can be argued that profit is nessecary so it can be reinvested, thus advancing the industry, that is a shallow analysis. The actual creators of the product are given no say in how this process, and indeed most of the excess value called profit is simply distributed to upper management and "shareholders" who have done effectively nothing to create that value.
It is in this way that capitalism is inherently harmful to the interests of real people, and when the working class finally cuts through the FUD and realizes it, that is when we will see a shift to a more just and equitable system that can fill societies needs on a grand scale.
Please, go ahead, show me the Linux solution that allows you to take all of your TV shows from your MediaCenter PC and watch it on your Creative Labs Nomad Media player wherever you want to. Or rebroadcast it to anywhere you want.
Show me the Microsoft solution that'll let you do all that, or the Microsoft technology that gives you even the slightest chance of coding your own tool to do it.
You probably forgot to deselect the "Add copy protection" checkbox on your Windows Media Player Rip settings, didn't you?
I've never used WMP a day in my life, but, if I can figure out what you were trying to say with that sentance, surely you can realize that it's not like any little WMP "copy protection" mechanism is going to mean a thing next to Palladium... or whatever they'll come up with for this "IPTV" venture.
Get back under your bridge, troll.
3 standard TV signals, 1 HD channel, and high-speed Internet access all at the same time.
Gee whiz, TV from Microsoft. There goes any semblance of fair use rights, and hell, probably the ability to watch any given show without rebooting the TV three times.
Seesh.
The incentive argument for maintaining (or strengthening) copyright is patently and demonstrably false; music and art were being created for a long, long time before copyright "compensated" the creators.
Beethoven wrote some of the greatest music ever without being granted exclusive copyright until his death and, what, 90 years after, and without the benefit of massive distribution cartels.
Looking at music or art as something that benefits from, or even requires, exclusive copyright and monopoly exsistance in the mass market is far too simplistic a view.
Then what would the response be to the routine barbarity apparent in the horrific sancations on Cuba? What about the "economic pressure" on Iraq that the UNICEF study concluded took 500,000 lives? The disgrace in our support of attacks on civilian targets Nicaruagua? What about the inhumanity inherent in installing Sadaam Hussien as a ruler? The utter GENOCIDE of the indiginous people of the United States?
Saying "But Virginia, we are better than them!" is real, real easy when you only pick a few of the lightest examples we have to offer and compare them to the worst that somewhere else has to offer.
And look at some of the parent's own answers; It's a ready fact that the massive economic sanctions that the U.S. helped inpose in the wake of WW1 were more than a little bit responsibile for creating the conditions that allowed hitler to take power. That compassionate gift to the Jews dispossed an entire region of innocent people, and condemned them to the hell of being a stateless people, without rights, jobs, or prospects for the future. Good for the U.S! As for the comments about the death penalty... is your arguement really that our subjective criteria (That are often wrong - the Death Row DNA project has proved that dozens of times.) are better than China's? Perhaps in quantity, but it's still utter barbarism.
American blindness is almost...sad...to watch in action.
Yeah, I don't care if I'm burning Karma here. The parent makes alot more sense than the GP... it's sad that ideology is used as the basis moderation here, in place of science. This is evidence of impending catastrpohic ecological disaster here, not a pissing contest over gerrymandering. I weep to think that the capitalists and thier supporters are going to doom the whole world, using logic like the GP's to avoid ever having to make sacrifices or curtail thier exploitive behavior.
Victoria Snelgrove, murdered by the Boston police this past October would probably disagree with the parent poster about the idea that police misconduct is "negligible." So would Abadou Diallo. And Abner Louima. Google the name Clifford Glover. While you're there, look up Eleanor Bumpers, too. I'd mention Rodney King yet again in this thread, but that'd be trite.
Let's not go around espousing the idea that because recent history has seen a lull in police brutality in the United States, that it isn't a problem, or that it's acceptable in any way.
And, especially, let's not go around supporting the curtailment of technologies that can keep these abuses in check.
You want to believe that they can predict the weather 100 years from now?
Yes, I do believe it, and so should you; it's far, far easier to predict something averaged over a wide scale, over a long period of time than it is to predict relatively minute, localized changes on a day to day basis.
It's sad to see so many people bury their heads in the sand and come up with all kinds of reasons to ignore this kind of data, simply because they don't like the implications.
It's been studied many, many times, and reported many, many different ways; massive ecological damage is occuring, and it could very well snowball out of control unless something changes, and soon. Ignoring it and coming up with baseless reasons to ignore the warnings isn't going to help.
Precisely; and that pressure to practically give the product away keeps competitors from getting together enough capital to create a truly better product; the consumers get screwed in the end. Top that off with closed file formats, like you mentioned, and wham, the consumers' interests aren't going to see actual, beneficial competition, ever.
Adam Smith never thought through to the end of his ideas. At least in this market, software, open-source has the potential to be a truly competitive factor, even at almost 0-cost.
Actually, what you can't do is perform *any* kind of research on new stem cells without having *all* federal funding yanked from whatever organization or institution you're a part of.
Any way you'd like to cut it, that's tantamount to a ban.
And as for that ignorant crack about Dan Rather; most know that what went down there (I.e.. ABC not having the exact letter they used verified, when in the end the "author" admitted to writing a practically identical letter.) and participating in continuing these smears against Dan Rather, given the triviality of the mistake, his most likely limited personal involvement, and the scope of his long career is just a sympton of a fragile, knee-jerk ideology.
Okay, first up, it's "Grammar is what sets us apart from the script kiddies."
Second, grammar is not what sets "us" (Interesting term to use on a board as big and heterogeneous as Slashdot. You really think that there aren't script kiddies here?) apart from the script kiddies; intelligence, ethics, and skill are what set "us" apart from "them."
Silly grammar nazi.
...works out like that. A company will produce cheaper, lower quality products the moment it's done away with any real competition. This allows it to maximize profits, as it isn't really forced to expend anything on innovation and yet it sells a huge number at low prices. The low prices also serve to lock out future competition.
*NOTHING* about a monopoly ends up being good for consumers, ever. Even apparent gains in prices are only made up for by poor quality and lack of innovation.
Yet another example of a mainstream politician acting in the interests of the wealthy, and only the wealthy. How is this newsworthy? It happens every single day in every nation.
Don't spew that shit about "survival of the fitest." Being locked into proprietary products does not, ever, support the public's interests. Dependance on closed source, whether applications or formats, only restricts the masses; it does not enable them, no matter how good the exploitation fueled products are.
It's real nice of Timothy to post an article submission that mocks the struggle of real people to earn a decent, dignified living. Real, real nice.
Even if technology nessecarily and unavoidably suplanted those jobs, the desire of real working people to maintain thier livlihoods, and have them be equitable enough to provide for themselves amd their families, is not a thing that should be mocked, ever.
The fact that Verisign is still allowed to bid for .net highlights the precise problem with capitalism; even when the company has shown itself to work against the public interest, Verisign's money is all that counts.
And yet, this is just one of the smallest examples of capitalism's rule of profit over people. Heh.
In most ways, right down to average lifespan, China has already blown the doors off of India, a Democratic nation that began industrialization at the same time.
Google will turn up the relevant Quality of Life Indicator data.
Interesting related note: The offers of tenure to women professors at Harvard have decreased durring each of Summer's three years as president, down to 4 of 32 last year.
If a "loser pays" sysem is implemented, it's a disincentive against any individual who might sue a large corporation, a wealthy person (Such as a doctor.) or even the goverment.
What good is a system where someone who has been wronged and disadvantaged, who isn't gaurunteed to win, perhaps because the grounds the suit is based on is highly technical, like say medive, is chancing being injured further by seeking redress? That's a ridiculous tenent to base a justice system on, and it's why such ideas are routinely rejected, again and again.
As for the rest of it, yes, sanctioning lawyers that repeatedly bring frivilous lawsuits would be a good thing. But that already occurs.
Everytime I hear that precise arguement on the gun issue, I really just have to ask... why is it that the pro-gun activists completely ignore the data from places like Australia or any of the Scandanavian nations that have IMMENSELY fewer handgun deaths each year?
It's not like they've never heard those stats before, either. You want to protect the American public, or jsut yourself? Throw out your gun. Period. It's the only course backed by the data.
And yet, even after FDR was gonem no successive supremem court struck down the new deal. Interesting fact that, and it highlights something very important than alot of people seem to miss; interpretations of the constitution can change. Most people these days wouldn't disagree with the idea that the government should help out the disadvantaged members of society, even if they might see the current insitutions as flawed. That includes both liberals and conservatives; look at how no one campaigns on "Stopping Social Security" no matter what the conservative talking heads are saying at the moment.
While this doesn't sit well with the richest members of our society, that's too bad. They got rich off the labor of those who NEED programs like SS, or SSDI, or Unemployment, or Welfare to survive.
Go back to your puritan church; the inhuman and spoiled need not discuss the issues of the day.
That's what they call it. They've been at it for years, and it's essentially so they can shut down any kind of social welfare programs, and, once those programs aren't around, pass huge tax cuts as they're no longer required for anything.
"Starving the Beast - so rich people can keep more of the money they make from the labor of working people!"
Okay, sure, plenty of people have enough extra to save for thier own reitrement. But a vastly larger section simply doesn't have the resources to do that. Alot of people, right here in the United States, are scrapping to get by, even to the point of working two jobs. These are people that are going to starve to death as senior citizens... and most of them never had access to the oppertunities that those who can afford to save for thier retirement did. How much do you think a waitress, who's family couldn't afford to send her to college, who went to a substandard school and thus didn't have a fair crack at a scholarship (That she might not have gotten anyways.) can really afford to set aside? It's not that they are irresponsible; thier situation is in many ways simply not thier fault.
The same goes for immigrants to this country, probably even more so. What chances does a 40 year-old hispanic janitor, who spent everything he had to come here, have to establish even a survivable retirement?
All that ending social security will do is shift a burden onto the poor's children, and in the so doing, strip economic oppertunities away from them. It's hard to go to college when you need to work to keep your elder family memebers from dying of exposure, after all. Then the cycle repeats, getting worse and worse.
Societal factors play HUGE roles in whether or not people are wealthy enough to pay for thier own retirement. Society ought to look out for those so disadvantaged. (And, of course, those who pay into the fund now will reap benefits later, with only minor tweaks to the system, *gasp*, a slightly higher tax rate on those profiting from the labor of the poor.) Anything less would be inhuman, honestly.
It takes an immense level of intellectual dishonesty to think that the goverment does nothing well.
One word: roads. There you go, that's one prime example of something done well by the government. They work well and they're highly effiecient overall. And as for incentive to improve.... it's called public accountability. Most democratic form of government are weak to it. The united states less than the vast majority of other democricies that use proportional representation systems, but hey.
Oh, and here's two other words for you: Health Care. That right there is a prime example of something that private enterprise does awfully, with terrible repurcussions for the people.
Heh. I wish conservatives and libertarians weren't so willfully ignorant.
If he was only discussing hypothesis, he shouldn't be asserting ones he apparently knew to be unproven and baseless at current, and definately should be advancing it as a rationale for not being concerned with women's underrespresentation in the fields discussed. It's worth noting, that there are different hypthesis, ones with actual studies backing them up, that he didn't bring up. You know, like the one that says the underrepresentation of women in these fields are caused by how women are socialized. How is highlighting an unproven theory, one that others in the conference said had already been refuted that day, not a biased, provocation-only comment that he shouldn't have made? Where was I offtopic there? Did *you* even read the article?
Now, did you even read my comment? From your comment, you agreed that his one example said "innate difference." One anecodtal example still does not proof make.You and Summers seem to have the same failing there. Wanting to see more detail doesn't make it anymore valid, and it fails to make it his comments unbigoted or appropriate for use at time. Period. Now, where was I being irrelevant again?
Get off your high-horse. Read TFA again, read my FC, and try thinking about it before you post knee-jerk defenses.