Ken Miller is the biologist brought to testify AGAINST creationism/intelligent design in Dover. He walks through ID quite clearly. Intelligent Design is repackaged creationism pure and simple. The notion that God influenced evolution is Theistic Evolution. So if you are going to insist on correct terminology then you should use it. The creators of ID are the ones that did the mass replacement of the Pandas and People book. They did this as the result of a court ruling that their book saying God/Creationism counted as religion and could not be taught. So they repackged it as the "science" of Intelligent Design and tried again.
It is upsetting to me to see people get wound up over stupid crap like this when much bigger things are the issue. I am 100% sure EA lied, I am 95% sure they knew it, I am 100% sure it had nothing to do with some ID conspiracy and everything to do with marketing hype. Remember, these are the same assholes that said "ok, you can install it 5 times now, see we fixed the DRM".
By the way...go look up the SNES game E.V.O. That was an "evolution game" that was clearly not really "evolution" but the difference is a game is supposed to be fun, a science book is supposed to be correct. People are getting upset wanting the games to be correct while letting the science books be raped and pillaged.
I don't care who people vote for because the choices suck. Thats the problem. We are only ever presented with "more of the same" type candidates. For a candidate to get enough exposure to actually have the whole "get out and vote" thing to make a difference they pretty much have to sell out to special interests and play dirty politics.
We are nowhere NEAR at the stage where we have to worry about voting. Right now we have to worry about getting people to understand how broken the political system is. Term limits, checks and balances, and all of that crap needs to be fixed first. TRANSPARENCY!!! People need to know what the hell is going on in DC without being legal experts themselves!
Newsflash...companies lie about their products all the time. The fact that they lied about this doesn't make it some vast ID conspiracy. It means a bunch of marketing clowns that are experts in selling shit and not experts in biology made statements to sell shit while pretending to be experts in biology.
Actually it seems you are mistaken about what ID is. Go watch Ken Millers presentation. The Panda's and People creationist book had a mass replacement of Creator/God and Intelligent Design/Creationism. Go look at the legal battles.
ID is creationism packaged in pseudoscientific terms to make it more appealing to people who don't understand what is happening. The core of Intelligent Design is that things are too complex to have evolved on their own and thus must have been magically created that complex. YOU are talking about Theistic Evolution, which is entirely different from ID. Theistic Evolution is basically says Evolution happened as described, but adds "because God guided it that way". So really Theistic Evolution doesn't attack the science at all, ID does.
Arguably soft science fiction is more valuable because it inspires the imagination more, which is ultimately where most hard science comes from.
That said...back to the game. It is a damned game that has nothing to do with that psychotic agenda of pushing ID. The guy went out and got a bunch of scientists to talk about real evolution and advances. The scientists were upset to learn that it was not a game and not a real scientific project. It was marketing. M A R K E T I N G! This is the same crowd of people that say "World Famous XYZ" when you probably couldn't find a single soul that has heard of the XYZ in question even in the next city over. Problems in marketing (and that is all this is) are completely tangent to the ID nonsense. The fact that a damned game is being trotted out as fodder in this is pathetic. Honestly, it makes people trying to defend evolution using this look like damned fools.
I mean really now...you play "God" in almost every game in this style of genre. Are they suddenly all ID propoganda? Holy shit Sim Earth isn't 100% accurate! Starcraft, Warcraft, Command & Conquer...you aren't actually a general and you have a supernatural view of the battlespace! Clearly this is religious propoganda! Look at Black and White...the horror...they even say that you play as God!
PLEASE...I beg of you...explain to me how exciting a game about evolution would be if you take out that "hand of God" that is the player. Load the game...and then watch your screen for the next few million years and hope that your single celled things mutate. Fascinating. But even then people would bitch because it wouldn't show the genesis moment where life came into creation.
Oh my God! Stop the presses! You mean that Evolution isn't "critters change"?! Seriously...blah blah blah whine whine whine Evolution vs ID. First and foremost the ID nonsense is about things being poof magically created whole and perfect, not gradual changes. Second...shock, awe, fear, run away...you mean a bunch of marketeers and game developers didn't have to write a doctorate thesis on evolution before comparing this game to evolution?!
It is a damned game. What next, "violent killers say Manslaughter isn't accurate at all, demand refund!". Maybe we could go with "Hookers say GTA isn't accurate and that fucking them will not improve your health". The comparison is very apt only for the most militant twat bent on making an issue out of it. I imagine most IDers that have the same militant behavior wouldn't even let this game in their front door in the first place. The article is nothing more than a game review with their own insinuations and agendas attached. "See See...they said it was evolution and want it to be taught as evolution and destroy science!" rather than "Yet another company overhyping their product with insane marketing claims trying to make a quick buck".
Brace yourselves you whiney little geeks. Star Trek...BAD SCIENCE. Star Wars...BAD SCIENCE. Star Gate...BAD SCIENCE. In fact...damn near every science fiction game, movie, and most books involve BAD SCIENCE. Even Ringworld had a long series of sequels trying to undo another piece of bad science from the previous books! THIS IS ENTERTAINMENT YOU JACKASSES! Go read a physics book, chemistry book, or biology book if you want real science and leave entertainment alone for fucks sake.
One of my favorite stories was how you could extract one of those date rape drugs from a specific toy bead thing available at any Toys R Us. You know the sales people were concerned about why suddenly there were so many guys buying up those bead kit things.
Just goes to show why the whole memory erase thing is probably a bad thing.
Victims of rape seem to be one of the possible misuses. How tough would it be to get a conviction if the victim doesn't even remember it happened. Be it through treatment, or an erasing done by the rapist.
I am most certainly not advocating a revolution, but our own revolution turned out rather well so that is the mentality here in terms of revolution outcomes. You can't realistically compare completely different cultures reactions to events as if they should all be the same.
Honestly, anyone who wind up in office via power struggle, voting, or otherwise pretty much has a terribly high probability of being a criminal.
The people that hold the power are the people who control the information. I don't know why you think the voters have the power. Our problems have basically nothing to do with voting or not voting. Our problems stem directly from the fact that people are perfectly happy accepting whatever decisions are made in their name. You are under the misguided impression that fixing a symptom (not voting) will cure the disease or make some kind of difference. The problem you have to fix is to actually get the people monitoring those that they vote for. You have to get the people educated on what is actually happening at the government level instead of following along with whatever kneejerk bullshit their candidate of choice spews at them.
The McCain camp blathers on about socialism and his idiot supporters lap it up. That asshole voted for the bailout and the plan that is leading to the nationalization of our banks! What? We can't have nationalized healthcare because that is socialism, but we can have a nationalized bank because it is an economic emergency?
The Obama camp blathers on about freedom and hope and his idiot supporters lap it up. That clown has voted with Bush on half the things he campaigns against! Wait wait wait...I thought he hated the wiretapping, I thought he supported the constitution! Why would he vote in support of the wiretapping crap. Even if the wiretapping could be considered legal passing a law to grant immunity for it is unconstitutional. Ex post facto laws are specifically mentioned as unconstitutional.
Voting won't fix any of that. People just don't care. People see PATRIOT ACT and think it would be unpatriotic to vote against it. People see "Child Online Protection Act" and think that anyone who votes against it wants to protect pedophiles.
Come look me up when you fix the anti-intellectual problems in America and we can discuss voting issues. So long as people are happy to "do their civic duty and vote" and not actually watch what happens afterwards no amount of voting will make a difference.
How is Z supposed to get anywhere NEAR enough exposure without either being in the game for a long while or being a complete and total sellout. You really are living in fantasy land in that regard. Do you expect some monumental grass roots campaign to suddenly unite millions of voters with 0 expenditures and get enough votes to win? I bet if we all hold hands and sing kumbaya loud enough we will suddenly change the course of human history where those in power are suddenly beholden to those in not. It will be like a crazy opposite world. The only difference in other parts of the world is that some areas have leaders that are slightly less psychotic or at the very least less obvious about the power they hold over the populace.
I haven't watched TV in years. I actually prefer spending more time with my beloved family than wasting my time getting worked up over shit that has not and will not change for a long long time if ever at all. News flash...humanity is a shitty little monsterous creature full of greed and malice and no amount of voting will remove the sick and twisted fuck tendancies from our society as a whole. As much as I loathe what our loony tunes in office have been up to, it does not change the fact that any given American is infintitly more likely to be tortured, beaten, killed, raped, or otherwise have bad shit happen to them due to their fellow sick fuck citizens than any bastard leader with shitty policy.
I'm not sure why you laugh off the "right to bear arms". Seems to me that every time a nation had a brief period where the citizens were empowered it immediately followed a period where the citizens armed themselves. You know...that pesky "Revolution" word that has popped up in a number of places throughout history. And every time I hear some fool talk about how the people can't resist such a large military force I point out that more than a few nations to include the US threw off the shackles of British imperialism when the British had one of the most powerful militaries of the day. Then I also like to point out the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan where a bunch of unorganized poorly armed rebels are making life very difficult for one of the most powerful militaries of the day.
This doesn't mean I don't make a bunch of noise when given the opportunity about the problem. But seriously...so long as every election continues to end with 2 candidates of equally dubious value then there is no point. You seem to think that Z will come out of thin air magically and people will flock to vote for Z and that is the only way to fix it. The real problem is getting Z to be a viable candidate which has NOTHING to do with voting and has to happen LONG before any voting happens.
You seem to be under the rather misguided impression that Z isn't a criminal too. You seem to hold the strange notion that the people in public office actually want to serve the public. You seem to be confused about "serve the public". It doesn't mean they serve the public like a servant would a master, it means they serve the public like a servant would a dinner to a master. We most certainly aren't the masters, we are the dinner. Good luck finding a candidate to run a campaign that won't become a servant to other masters in the process.
Oh yeah...and what does Jesus smell like?
I am torn between sort of a dusty smell or a 2000 year old zombie smell. I guess it depends on your take on the story. Even best case scenario of coming back non rotted they didn't exactly bathe much back then and washing feet was a big damned deal. No matter what, I can't imagine Jesus is a good smell. (love or hate the fan club, regardless of the divine/not divine, the J man was a cool guy...and thankfully he was a Jew so probably has a good sense of humor so I don't have to sweat it much if he was divine)
I can't bring myself to make a scented Palin joke.
Every time I get upset about the tremendous disaster that our modern voting is with the rampant election fraud I remind myself... I am getting upset over the fairness of a system that will only let me choose between two criminals for who should be the leader. It seems to me that getting up in arms about the whole voting trainwreck is pretty stupid considering what we are demanding our votes get counted for. When I am faced with a choice more complex than liar/asshole vs asshole/liar I will be more concerned about how my vote gets counted. As it stands now I can rest assured that no matter what I do my vote would go towards putting a liar and an asshole in office.
I mean really now...its like being lost in the woods and choosing if you want to wipe the shit off your ass with your left hand or your right hand. Which hand you choose is pretty tangent to the fact that you are lost in the damned woods. Seems to me we should be a little more concerned about getting out of the woods than to be upset about which hand got shit on it.
joe schmoe needs to touch and feel and smell his vote.
This certainly explains a lot. Apparently this is how we keep winding up with Republicans in office. If I had to sit and count poo streaks on a paper ballot all day I would demand E-voting too. There is clearly some confusion about what the booth is there for and what to do with the paper provided.
Wow, just wow. I mean I know people don't read the article, but you have outdone yourself by not even reading the summary. That is the whole point of the damned story and the summary seems to be fairly clear in indicating that.
no you missed the point. I am well aware that no real crypto system even in use today uses "written down" keys. But there are emissions at both ends of unencryoted data. One time pad all you want, your encryption means squat if it is still easy for me to get at your data in unencrypted form. It is way easier to trojanize Bobs computer with promises of naked Alice pictures than to pull a man in the middle attack or code breaking. If I can compromise your data with so many other cheap methods why would I ever care how strong your crypto is? I'm not going to invest in expensive, difficult, and time consuming efforts. He'll I could probably buy off both Alice and Bob for less than the price of anything that could break modern crypto in a reasonable time.
It is pointless. He is absolutely right and it isn't even remotely close to the space exploration issue. He didn't say the research was pointless, he said the practical application of the research is pointless. The crypto isn't the weak point, so making that point stronger is pointless.
You just spent a million dollars on your uber leet super crypto secure link to transmit your highly classified secret data to your home office. You also wrote the key down on a stickey note on the front of the device and left it posted on your monitor that faces a window. You might as well have used the cheapest encryption available because it isn't a math attack that is going to break it, its stupid user tricks.
Not in this thread, but every time an Android or iPhone story hits people start launching into tyraids about how evil Apple is, or how Apple is the bestest thing evar!.
The funny thing is I never was fond of Apple until I actually sat and played with a MBP for a while. I always thought it was just over hyped over priced stuff not terribly different than any other laptop. After playing with one for a while (and eventually buying a refurb one) there is a tremendous amount of thought and design that went into the hardware. They go way beyond comparing processor and memory.
Apple haters - quit bitching
Apple fanboys - quit bitching
Let me explain this in very simple economic terms. Right now lots of people produce widgets, but Apple has made a Super Widget. Well they are the only big production makers of the Super Widget at the moment so they get to control the field. This isn't monopoly, this is normal economics. Now, Android, OpenMoko, and so on are gearing up to also build Super Widgets. This means there will be competition in the Super Widget sector. Competition means that ALL of the Super Widget makers are going to have to work harder to make their Super Widget the Super Widget of choice. This benefits everyone. Even as an iPhone owner I am happy that these things are picking up steam because of this.
We don't have fast computers simply because science has made it so. We have fast computers on the shelves and in our homes because the people selling computers always need a way to edge ahead of the competitions sales. This is why AMD redid their whole naming for their processors because people assumed lower clock speed = slower.
Anti-intellectualism is HARDLY restricted to religious circles and I would even go so far as to say there are probably just as many if not more non-religious folk that fall into that anti-intellectualism crowd. I don't assume that all athiests are arrogant pricks because people like Dawkins are, nor do I assume that all religious folks are ignorant bigots just because people like Phelps are. To be honest, as much as I loathe the anti-intellectualism amonsgt certain religious circles at least they have a belief "reason", everyone else that falls into that realm are just intellectually lazy pricks that can't be bothered to think for themselves with no kind of belief or conviction to justify it.
My point is that you were the one that injected the notion that this is somehow a midwestern religious freak problem and that the intellgent folks are outside the midwest and not religious. Your original point about diversity may be true, but it is along the same line of "America is terribly diverse, for every dumb black criminal in the south there is another intelligent productive white kid in the north". You are trying to present a case for "see how we really aren't ignorant" with a statement that is terribly ignorant. The midwest most certainly does not have a lock on anti-intellectualism or religious folk. Religious folk certainly do not have a lock on anti-intellectualism. The most I will give you on that is that they tend to be the loudest about it, but that has more to do with the belief piece, the rest of the anti-intellectualism crowd can't be bothered to pull themselves away from the TV or whatever to do much of anything. Seriously...look at the bailout... We have wiretaps, we have illegal laws granting amnesty, we have secret courts, secret prisons, secret laws, and what does everyone suddenly get pissed about? The fact that they are going to bail out wallstreet with their tax dollars. It takes a lot of rhetoric and fear to get these people moving...the anti-intellectual trends in America are absolutely not restricted to the religious crowd.
Funny, Ken Miller, the biologist that has quite the crusade against ID and has an amazing 2hr presentation on youtube regarding the Dover trial and tearing apart the whole ID thing, specifically says he is Roman Catholic. So simply grouping religious people with anti-intellectualism is again a pretty broad stereotype. Francis Collins, director of National Human Genome Research Instituion wrote a book called Language of God, and also rejects creationism and Intelligent Design. I personally know a great deal of very intelligent religious folk with incredible math and science aptitudes that are most certainly not anti-intellectuals.
So no...it most certainly does not go without saying that religious folk fall on the side of anti-intellectualism. I will never understand why so many atheists dedicate so much of their lives to being pricks about peoples beliefs when it has precious little bearing on their own lives. I loathe the fundamentalist crap trying to creep into the science room, but I also think it is equally assinine to sue a school for having a moment of silence (no guided prayer, no forced prayer, no nothing, just silence).
Your leap was not of logic, it was of your own intollerence towards people you perceive to be less intelligent than you through your own broad stereotypes.
Why else would they have flashlights other than to see in the dark closet?
That being said, I wouldn't say all fundies think it is learned. I remember not so long ago there was a fairly large push to "cure" the gay gene by some of their think tanks.
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Ken Miller is the biologist brought to testify AGAINST creationism/intelligent design in Dover. He walks through ID quite clearly. Intelligent Design is repackaged creationism pure and simple. The notion that God influenced evolution is Theistic Evolution. So if you are going to insist on correct terminology then you should use it. The creators of ID are the ones that did the mass replacement of the Pandas and People book. They did this as the result of a court ruling that their book saying God/Creationism counted as religion and could not be taught. So they repackged it as the "science" of Intelligent Design and tried again.
It is upsetting to me to see people get wound up over stupid crap like this when much bigger things are the issue. I am 100% sure EA lied, I am 95% sure they knew it, I am 100% sure it had nothing to do with some ID conspiracy and everything to do with marketing hype. Remember, these are the same assholes that said "ok, you can install it 5 times now, see we fixed the DRM".
By the way...go look up the SNES game E.V.O. That was an "evolution game" that was clearly not really "evolution" but the difference is a game is supposed to be fun, a science book is supposed to be correct. People are getting upset wanting the games to be correct while letting the science books be raped and pillaged.
I don't care who people vote for because the choices suck. Thats the problem. We are only ever presented with "more of the same" type candidates. For a candidate to get enough exposure to actually have the whole "get out and vote" thing to make a difference they pretty much have to sell out to special interests and play dirty politics.
We are nowhere NEAR at the stage where we have to worry about voting. Right now we have to worry about getting people to understand how broken the political system is. Term limits, checks and balances, and all of that crap needs to be fixed first. TRANSPARENCY!!! People need to know what the hell is going on in DC without being legal experts themselves!
Newsflash...companies lie about their products all the time. The fact that they lied about this doesn't make it some vast ID conspiracy. It means a bunch of marketing clowns that are experts in selling shit and not experts in biology made statements to sell shit while pretending to be experts in biology.
Actually it seems you are mistaken about what ID is. Go watch Ken Millers presentation. The Panda's and People creationist book had a mass replacement of Creator/God and Intelligent Design/Creationism. Go look at the legal battles.
ID is creationism packaged in pseudoscientific terms to make it more appealing to people who don't understand what is happening. The core of Intelligent Design is that things are too complex to have evolved on their own and thus must have been magically created that complex. YOU are talking about Theistic Evolution, which is entirely different from ID. Theistic Evolution is basically says Evolution happened as described, but adds "because God guided it that way". So really Theistic Evolution doesn't attack the science at all, ID does.
Arguably soft science fiction is more valuable because it inspires the imagination more, which is ultimately where most hard science comes from.
That said...back to the game. It is a damned game that has nothing to do with that psychotic agenda of pushing ID. The guy went out and got a bunch of scientists to talk about real evolution and advances. The scientists were upset to learn that it was not a game and not a real scientific project. It was marketing. M A R K E T I N G! This is the same crowd of people that say "World Famous XYZ" when you probably couldn't find a single soul that has heard of the XYZ in question even in the next city over. Problems in marketing (and that is all this is) are completely tangent to the ID nonsense. The fact that a damned game is being trotted out as fodder in this is pathetic. Honestly, it makes people trying to defend evolution using this look like damned fools.
I mean really now...you play "God" in almost every game in this style of genre. Are they suddenly all ID propoganda? Holy shit Sim Earth isn't 100% accurate! Starcraft, Warcraft, Command & Conquer...you aren't actually a general and you have a supernatural view of the battlespace! Clearly this is religious propoganda! Look at Black and White...the horror...they even say that you play as God!
PLEASE...I beg of you...explain to me how exciting a game about evolution would be if you take out that "hand of God" that is the player. Load the game...and then watch your screen for the next few million years and hope that your single celled things mutate. Fascinating. But even then people would bitch because it wouldn't show the genesis moment where life came into creation.
Oh my God! Stop the presses! You mean that Evolution isn't "critters change"?! Seriously...blah blah blah whine whine whine Evolution vs ID. First and foremost the ID nonsense is about things being poof magically created whole and perfect, not gradual changes. Second...shock, awe, fear, run away...you mean a bunch of marketeers and game developers didn't have to write a doctorate thesis on evolution before comparing this game to evolution?!
It is a damned game. What next, "violent killers say Manslaughter isn't accurate at all, demand refund!". Maybe we could go with "Hookers say GTA isn't accurate and that fucking them will not improve your health". The comparison is very apt only for the most militant twat bent on making an issue out of it. I imagine most IDers that have the same militant behavior wouldn't even let this game in their front door in the first place. The article is nothing more than a game review with their own insinuations and agendas attached. "See See...they said it was evolution and want it to be taught as evolution and destroy science!" rather than "Yet another company overhyping their product with insane marketing claims trying to make a quick buck".
Brace yourselves you whiney little geeks. Star Trek...BAD SCIENCE. Star Wars...BAD SCIENCE. Star Gate...BAD SCIENCE. In fact...damn near every science fiction game, movie, and most books involve BAD SCIENCE. Even Ringworld had a long series of sequels trying to undo another piece of bad science from the previous books! THIS IS ENTERTAINMENT YOU JACKASSES! Go read a physics book, chemistry book, or biology book if you want real science and leave entertainment alone for fucks sake.
One of my favorite stories was how you could extract one of those date rape drugs from a specific toy bead thing available at any Toys R Us. You know the sales people were concerned about why suddenly there were so many guys buying up those bead kit things.
Just goes to show why the whole memory erase thing is probably a bad thing.
Victims of rape seem to be one of the possible misuses. How tough would it be to get a conviction if the victim doesn't even remember it happened. Be it through treatment, or an erasing done by the rapist.
I am most certainly not advocating a revolution, but our own revolution turned out rather well so that is the mentality here in terms of revolution outcomes. You can't realistically compare completely different cultures reactions to events as if they should all be the same.
Honestly, anyone who wind up in office via power struggle, voting, or otherwise pretty much has a terribly high probability of being a criminal.
The people that hold the power are the people who control the information. I don't know why you think the voters have the power. Our problems have basically nothing to do with voting or not voting. Our problems stem directly from the fact that people are perfectly happy accepting whatever decisions are made in their name. You are under the misguided impression that fixing a symptom (not voting) will cure the disease or make some kind of difference. The problem you have to fix is to actually get the people monitoring those that they vote for. You have to get the people educated on what is actually happening at the government level instead of following along with whatever kneejerk bullshit their candidate of choice spews at them.
The McCain camp blathers on about socialism and his idiot supporters lap it up. That asshole voted for the bailout and the plan that is leading to the nationalization of our banks! What? We can't have nationalized healthcare because that is socialism, but we can have a nationalized bank because it is an economic emergency?
The Obama camp blathers on about freedom and hope and his idiot supporters lap it up. That clown has voted with Bush on half the things he campaigns against! Wait wait wait...I thought he hated the wiretapping, I thought he supported the constitution! Why would he vote in support of the wiretapping crap. Even if the wiretapping could be considered legal passing a law to grant immunity for it is unconstitutional. Ex post facto laws are specifically mentioned as unconstitutional.
Voting won't fix any of that. People just don't care. People see PATRIOT ACT and think it would be unpatriotic to vote against it. People see "Child Online Protection Act" and think that anyone who votes against it wants to protect pedophiles.
Come look me up when you fix the anti-intellectual problems in America and we can discuss voting issues. So long as people are happy to "do their civic duty and vote" and not actually watch what happens afterwards no amount of voting will make a difference.
How is Z supposed to get anywhere NEAR enough exposure without either being in the game for a long while or being a complete and total sellout. You really are living in fantasy land in that regard. Do you expect some monumental grass roots campaign to suddenly unite millions of voters with 0 expenditures and get enough votes to win? I bet if we all hold hands and sing kumbaya loud enough we will suddenly change the course of human history where those in power are suddenly beholden to those in not. It will be like a crazy opposite world. The only difference in other parts of the world is that some areas have leaders that are slightly less psychotic or at the very least less obvious about the power they hold over the populace.
I haven't watched TV in years. I actually prefer spending more time with my beloved family than wasting my time getting worked up over shit that has not and will not change for a long long time if ever at all. News flash...humanity is a shitty little monsterous creature full of greed and malice and no amount of voting will remove the sick and twisted fuck tendancies from our society as a whole. As much as I loathe what our loony tunes in office have been up to, it does not change the fact that any given American is infintitly more likely to be tortured, beaten, killed, raped, or otherwise have bad shit happen to them due to their fellow sick fuck citizens than any bastard leader with shitty policy.
I'm not sure why you laugh off the "right to bear arms". Seems to me that every time a nation had a brief period where the citizens were empowered it immediately followed a period where the citizens armed themselves. You know...that pesky "Revolution" word that has popped up in a number of places throughout history. And every time I hear some fool talk about how the people can't resist such a large military force I point out that more than a few nations to include the US threw off the shackles of British imperialism when the British had one of the most powerful militaries of the day. Then I also like to point out the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan where a bunch of unorganized poorly armed rebels are making life very difficult for one of the most powerful militaries of the day.
This doesn't mean I don't make a bunch of noise when given the opportunity about the problem. But seriously...so long as every election continues to end with 2 candidates of equally dubious value then there is no point. You seem to think that Z will come out of thin air magically and people will flock to vote for Z and that is the only way to fix it. The real problem is getting Z to be a viable candidate which has NOTHING to do with voting and has to happen LONG before any voting happens.
You seem to be under the rather misguided impression that Z isn't a criminal too. You seem to hold the strange notion that the people in public office actually want to serve the public. You seem to be confused about "serve the public". It doesn't mean they serve the public like a servant would a master, it means they serve the public like a servant would a dinner to a master. We most certainly aren't the masters, we are the dinner. Good luck finding a candidate to run a campaign that won't become a servant to other masters in the process.
Oh yeah...and what does Jesus smell like?
I am torn between sort of a dusty smell or a 2000 year old zombie smell. I guess it depends on your take on the story. Even best case scenario of coming back non rotted they didn't exactly bathe much back then and washing feet was a big damned deal. No matter what, I can't imagine Jesus is a good smell. (love or hate the fan club, regardless of the divine/not divine, the J man was a cool guy...and thankfully he was a Jew so probably has a good sense of humor so I don't have to sweat it much if he was divine)
I can't bring myself to make a scented Palin joke.
Every time I get upset about the tremendous disaster that our modern voting is with the rampant election fraud I remind myself... I am getting upset over the fairness of a system that will only let me choose between two criminals for who should be the leader. It seems to me that getting up in arms about the whole voting trainwreck is pretty stupid considering what we are demanding our votes get counted for. When I am faced with a choice more complex than liar/asshole vs asshole/liar I will be more concerned about how my vote gets counted. As it stands now I can rest assured that no matter what I do my vote would go towards putting a liar and an asshole in office.
I mean really now...its like being lost in the woods and choosing if you want to wipe the shit off your ass with your left hand or your right hand. Which hand you choose is pretty tangent to the fact that you are lost in the damned woods. Seems to me we should be a little more concerned about getting out of the woods than to be upset about which hand got shit on it.
joe schmoe needs to touch and feel and smell his vote.
This certainly explains a lot. Apparently this is how we keep winding up with Republicans in office. If I had to sit and count poo streaks on a paper ballot all day I would demand E-voting too. There is clearly some confusion about what the booth is there for and what to do with the paper provided.
Wow, just wow. I mean I know people don't read the article, but you have outdone yourself by not even reading the summary. That is the whole point of the damned story and the summary seems to be fairly clear in indicating that.
no you missed the point. I am well aware that no real crypto system even in use today uses "written down" keys. But there are emissions at both ends of unencryoted data. One time pad all you want, your encryption means squat if it is still easy for me to get at your data in unencrypted form. It is way easier to trojanize Bobs computer with promises of naked Alice pictures than to pull a man in the middle attack or code breaking. If I can compromise your data with so many other cheap methods why would I ever care how strong your crypto is? I'm not going to invest in expensive, difficult, and time consuming efforts. He'll I could probably buy off both Alice and Bob for less than the price of anything that could break modern crypto in a reasonable time.
It is pointless. He is absolutely right and it isn't even remotely close to the space exploration issue. He didn't say the research was pointless, he said the practical application of the research is pointless. The crypto isn't the weak point, so making that point stronger is pointless.
You just spent a million dollars on your uber leet super crypto secure link to transmit your highly classified secret data to your home office. You also wrote the key down on a stickey note on the front of the device and left it posted on your monitor that faces a window. You might as well have used the cheapest encryption available because it isn't a math attack that is going to break it, its stupid user tricks.
Not in this thread, but every time an Android or iPhone story hits people start launching into tyraids about how evil Apple is, or how Apple is the bestest thing evar!.
The funny thing is I never was fond of Apple until I actually sat and played with a MBP for a while. I always thought it was just over hyped over priced stuff not terribly different than any other laptop. After playing with one for a while (and eventually buying a refurb one) there is a tremendous amount of thought and design that went into the hardware. They go way beyond comparing processor and memory.
Apple haters - quit bitching
Apple fanboys - quit bitching
Let me explain this in very simple economic terms. Right now lots of people produce widgets, but Apple has made a Super Widget. Well they are the only big production makers of the Super Widget at the moment so they get to control the field. This isn't monopoly, this is normal economics. Now, Android, OpenMoko, and so on are gearing up to also build Super Widgets. This means there will be competition in the Super Widget sector. Competition means that ALL of the Super Widget makers are going to have to work harder to make their Super Widget the Super Widget of choice. This benefits everyone. Even as an iPhone owner I am happy that these things are picking up steam because of this.
We don't have fast computers simply because science has made it so. We have fast computers on the shelves and in our homes because the people selling computers always need a way to edge ahead of the competitions sales. This is why AMD redid their whole naming for their processors because people assumed lower clock speed = slower.
Anti-intellectualism is HARDLY restricted to religious circles and I would even go so far as to say there are probably just as many if not more non-religious folk that fall into that anti-intellectualism crowd. I don't assume that all athiests are arrogant pricks because people like Dawkins are, nor do I assume that all religious folks are ignorant bigots just because people like Phelps are. To be honest, as much as I loathe the anti-intellectualism amonsgt certain religious circles at least they have a belief "reason", everyone else that falls into that realm are just intellectually lazy pricks that can't be bothered to think for themselves with no kind of belief or conviction to justify it.
My point is that you were the one that injected the notion that this is somehow a midwestern religious freak problem and that the intellgent folks are outside the midwest and not religious. Your original point about diversity may be true, but it is along the same line of "America is terribly diverse, for every dumb black criminal in the south there is another intelligent productive white kid in the north". You are trying to present a case for "see how we really aren't ignorant" with a statement that is terribly ignorant. The midwest most certainly does not have a lock on anti-intellectualism or religious folk. Religious folk certainly do not have a lock on anti-intellectualism. The most I will give you on that is that they tend to be the loudest about it, but that has more to do with the belief piece, the rest of the anti-intellectualism crowd can't be bothered to pull themselves away from the TV or whatever to do much of anything. Seriously...look at the bailout... We have wiretaps, we have illegal laws granting amnesty, we have secret courts, secret prisons, secret laws, and what does everyone suddenly get pissed about? The fact that they are going to bail out wallstreet with their tax dollars. It takes a lot of rhetoric and fear to get these people moving...the anti-intellectual trends in America are absolutely not restricted to the religious crowd.
Why was noone executed for the termination of Ghost?
Funny, Ken Miller, the biologist that has quite the crusade against ID and has an amazing 2hr presentation on youtube regarding the Dover trial and tearing apart the whole ID thing, specifically says he is Roman Catholic. So simply grouping religious people with anti-intellectualism is again a pretty broad stereotype. Francis Collins, director of National Human Genome Research Instituion wrote a book called Language of God, and also rejects creationism and Intelligent Design. I personally know a great deal of very intelligent religious folk with incredible math and science aptitudes that are most certainly not anti-intellectuals.
So no...it most certainly does not go without saying that religious folk fall on the side of anti-intellectualism. I will never understand why so many atheists dedicate so much of their lives to being pricks about peoples beliefs when it has precious little bearing on their own lives. I loathe the fundamentalist crap trying to creep into the science room, but I also think it is equally assinine to sue a school for having a moment of silence (no guided prayer, no forced prayer, no nothing, just silence).
Your leap was not of logic, it was of your own intollerence towards people you perceive to be less intelligent than you through your own broad stereotypes.
Why else would they have flashlights other than to see in the dark closet?
That being said, I wouldn't say all fundies think it is learned. I remember not so long ago there was a fairly large push to "cure" the gay gene by some of their think tanks.
I find it terribly disturbing and I am the poster!
Though, to be serious, this type of science inevitably comes down to "cure those who are different".