Socialism is generally much better for the common people than unregulated capitalism. Even in the US we accept this with public schools, roads, medicare, etc. We just don't like to call it socialism because that's a naughty word.
That's not to say that pure communism isn't as bad as pure capitalism. I think we as a species need to understand that *any* ideology when followed to the extreme will result in an oligarchy. What works best is a system rooted in diversity and democracy, where government ensures that people have their basic rights protected and basic necessities like food, education, housing, and medical care provided (at least to a certain extent) and then steps out of the way.
Because Android is the main competitor to iOS. With the rise of mobile computing, phone/tablet operating systems are now extremely common, moving towards ubiquitous. It's likely that in the near future nearly everyone in the developed world will own a smartphone. Like it or not, that is the future of consumer-level computing. Smartphones and tablets can replace desktops for 95% of the people 95% of the time.
And it's obvious at this point that Apple is moving towards locking down all of their devices, not just the mobile devices. Right now you can install 3rd party software via other sources on a Mac, but it's pretty clear that Apple is trying to push that same iOS software model onto the desktop. They're not stupid enough to demand complete contral at this point, but that is where they are heading gradually. It's more profitable, and it's more secure.
How quickly and how completely they will push this on desktop users is anybody outside Apple's guess, but that's certainly what they would do if they could, and it's clear that is what they are trying to do.
The irony is that after two thousand years I'd say that most churches would be considered Pelagian these days.
Which Christian church does not believe in original sin? Which Christian church does not believe that unbaptized kids go to hell? I'm pretty sure the majority of Christian churches still agree with Augustine.
Well, we both do have a different view of what rights are. It's just that mine is the correct one:)
What you are talking about are natural rights. Natural rights are independent of location and are universal to all of humanity. But that's not the only type of right. There are other rights, like the right to vote, right to bear arms, and others that are determined culturally, through the legislature, etc. This isn't just my opinion. This is how the law works.
Since the original poster is an Australian citizen, he has the right to free health care. Since I am an American citizen who is above 18 and doesn't have a felony conviction, I have the right to vote. Since I am an American citizen above 21 without any felony convictiosn, I have the right to purchase a handgun. Just because these things are not universal does not make them rights. They're just a different classification of rights.
Take a look at this for more clarification since I'm not sure if I'm being very articulate in my argument:rights
The fact that Australia provides its citizens with health care doesn't make health care a right, even in Australia.
It does, actually. The fact that the Australian government is legally obliged to provide health service to every Australian equally is exactly what makes it a right. It's a claim right, in the same way that the right to vote or the right to free education is a claim right.
You are correct to make the distinction between something a government promises to provide and something the government *must* provide. There are some things that the government provides, but which are not actual rights guaranteed to each person equally. Like health care in the USA. Or police service, fire service, the right to vote, etc. But in Australia health care is a right. It is something guaranteed by the government to every person equally. In Australia, the government *must* provide free health care to every citizen.
I think what you are probably thinking is that health care is not a natural right. You are of the opinion that health care *shouldn't* be a right, because it's not something that is universally accepted as necessary of a democratic government. Which is certainly a valid opinion. But that doesn't change the fact that the provision of health care is a legal right in Australia and most other developed countries.
An analog is the right to bear arms. In the USA, we have the right to own weapons for our personal defense. But in most countries, that is not a right. In the USA, it is. The fact that most other countries don't have the right to bear arms does not make it any less of a right in the USA. Many countries provide free university education to their citizens. In those countries, that is a right. In the USA, it is not.
Actually, you're both correct. The original poster was correct to point out that health care is a right in Australia, because it is. Not all rights are natural rights like freedom of speech or freedom of religion. Natural rights are universal and have nothing to do with customs or societal standards. But there are other rights that are based upon societal standards and are not equal across all cultures. These include things like the right to vote, the right to free education, the right to trial by jury, etc. Just like free primary and secondary education is a right in the US, in most developed countries health care is a right. In the United States, it is not. (Well, it actually kind of is in a really messed up and inefficient way, but you get the idea).
You have the correct idea that there is a distinction between what the government grants as a claim and what you are guaranteed as a liberty, but your vocabulary is slightly off. Instead of liberties versus rights, what you're actually contrasting are claim rights and liberty rights. But both are still rights.
Just because machines are creating new efficiencies doesn't mean capitalism is dead and we're all going to be unemployed. This anti-progressive argument has been trotted out consistently since the beginning of the industrial era, and guess what? We're all still around, most of us have jobs, and nearly all of us are more well-off than our ancestors.
Just because you're fed up with the politics of our current government, and our current economic situation is less than ideal, does not mean that machines are going to put everyone out of work and cause mass unemployment. What do corporate handouts, tax revenues, and the Arab Spring have to do with automated manufacturing?
The US still has a strong manufacturing industry (arguably the best in the world). Complaining about manufacturing jobs disappearing to automation is exactly the same as complaining about losses in agricultural work 75-100 years ago. So what if it used to be the main part of our economy? Things change. There's no shortage of work to be done and everyone will be fine.
While a third party candidate is most likely never going to win a US presidential election, that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't play an important role. Once a third party reaches a certain level of public support, their ideas (and even their politicians) are co-opted by the mainstream parties.
Most famously the 1992 presidential campaign by Ross Perot caused major changes in both the Republican and Democratic platforms for the rest of the 90's. Not many mainstream Republicans were making a big deal about budget deficits before then, now it's the defining economic issue for the party (although most Republicans conveniently ignored that for the 8 years of GW Bush).
The Green party has had huge influence on the policies of the Democratic party, especially regarding global warming, climate change, and environmental issues. The 2000 election was a major wake up call for them that they couldn't simply ignore the progressive/environmentalist wing of their party. Also in 1992, Vermont elected a Socialist Senator in Bernie Sanders and he has a considerable deal of power. So there is third party representation in Congress (although he's technically independent and caucuses with the Democrats).
So is a third party going to win the Presidency? Almost definitely not. But third parties and independents do play an important role in US politics.
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I had one physics teacher in high school that taught me about actual science. The scientific process, discovery, falsifiability, the historical context of major discoveries, etc. Every other teacher presented the subject as a series of facts that needed to be memorized. Sure the scientific process was in the first chapter of the textbook, but that's not really what the classes were about. They were about memorization and regurgitation.
I agree with most of what you said. But it is particularly difficult to study race in a way rooted in biology and genetics because race is a not a definition made by scientific but rather sociological factors. You could make general statements about "Africans" or "Asians" because African-Americans and Asian-Americans are thought of as a distinct racial group in this country, but what does that really mean?
Most African Americans are descended from West Africans brought over during the slave trade, but that is not absolutely true. Many come directly from Africa or are immigrants from other countries with populations descended from slaves. And African Americans descended from slaves have assimilated much of their genetic material from whites and non-white Americans for centuries. The genetic material of an African American descended from Ghanaian slaves and mixed with Taino and Spanish (a common mixture for descendants of Dominican slaves) differs greatly from the genetic material of an African American descended from Nigerian slaves and mixed with Cherokee and British genetics (like what might have been the case for a slave brought to the Deep South). A Mexican American with roots in the north of the country might have Spanish and other European ancestors with almost no Native American or African, but someone from the southeastern part of the country might be nearly 100% Native American or some mixture of Native, European, and African. And someone from Peru would have an entirely different range of ancestors. Yet in this country Hispanic or Latinos are generally thought of, at least in popular vernacular, as distinct races.
All Asians are grouped together, but from a scientific perspective you can't group together countries with such wildly different racial and genetic histories. There are hundreds of ethnic groups in China or India alone, not to mention the vast differences between the populations of Japan, the Phillipines, Vietnam, Pakistan, etc. that we lump all together as "Asian." Even reducing it further to South Asian, East Asian, Southeast Asian, etc. does not improve the specificity.
To try and separate the genetic differences and study it scientifically requires a specificity that popular racial definitions do not possess. The definitions we use are much too broad, and with little to no basis in modern science. In order to study it in detail and with proper rigor, you have to remove the common terms and use more scientific definitions. And to do that properly would more or less require us to sequence genomes on a worldwide scale. Certainly possible, especially in the future, but not for the armchair sociologist in today's world.
Why does it matter if they are "left-leaning" groups? The other three organizations endorsing the bill could also be described as left-leaning.
I think the more relevant breakdown is that all the groups endorsing the bill are corporate lobby groups and all the groups opposing are not. If a bill only has support from corporate lobby groups that stand to benefit from the change in law, that's a pretty clear indicator that something is wrong.
That's a gross oversimplification of history. The Reagan tax cuts did give us decent economic growth. But hardly decades long. It lasted for a few years until the economy went back into recession in the early 90's. And where did that growth go? It went into the hands of the rich. Median household income over the Reagan-Bush Sr. years was stagnant, despite the large growth in GDP and the stock market.
Then in the mid to late 90's we experienced very strong economic growth, but it had hardly anything at all to do with tax policies. It was from the boom in the software and computer industries. Again, almost nothing of that gain went to the average person. Median household income remained stagnant.
Under Bush Jr., we experienced massive growth in the GDP and stock market (fueled by the finance boom), followed by yet another crash. Again, almost none of that wealth actually made it to the average American family. Median household income when adjusted for inflation is essentially the same as it it was 40 years ago, despite massive gains in productivity and economic growth.
If you think any presidential administration has been effective job at increasing the wealth of the average American in modern times, your are deluded to say the least. Republican or Democrat, they have all made the rich quite a bit richer, and done jack squat for the middle and lower classes.
I've tried explaining to people why it is that in reality we live in a Police State that is little better than the former East Germany, but most people still don't get it.
Maybe they don't get it because you're being more than a little hyperbolic there?
In 2012, I may just throw my vote away in the presidential election and vote my heart, it can't possible get any worse.
Um, it can, and probably will get much worse than this. Hell, at least in this situation we know that they are wiretapping us and for most or all of them it was for legitimate reasons. The NSA wiretapping fiasco shows that we're not very many steps away from an actual police state.
Canajin56 is correct. The six states in the case can still pass laws requiring the power companies to cut their emissions further than federal regulation currently states, but it only applies to plants that operate within their borders. Any further reduction in emissions for power plants operating outside the states' borders must be addressed through the Congress and the EPA.
Radiohead is a bad example, but that doesn't mean you're correct. You don't need a major record label to become famous.
REM did it back in the 80's. The Arcade Fire has done it. They've been indie their whole career and their latest album debuted at #1 in the US, UK, Australia, and Ireland. Death Cab for Cutie did it although they eventually went major. Panic! At the Disco have had some really popular albums and major radio play without being on a major. The Offspring sold 12 million copies of Smash back in the 90's, and that was released on an indie label. The White Stripes got popular on an indie label, White Blood Cells sold 500,000 copies and that was recorded and released for Sympathy Records. The Arctic Monkeys in the UK went 4x platinum with their debut album on an indie.
There's a million more bands than that. These are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Nowadays if you're into rock, hip-hop, or anything other than top 40 or country then a lot of your favorite bands are probably not on a major label. Independent record labels are kicking ass, and it's really commonplace for a band to become famous well before they sign onto a major label, if they ever actually do so.
Geeks usually do not take into account the fact that a high amount of education in one field does not automatically grant you the same amount of knowledge and experience for every other field. We can't all be experts at everything, and being an expert at *something* often gives you false confidence about your ability in other fields, even if you do not have very much knowledge or experience.
Last Thanksgiving I met a friend of my uncle that received a PHD from MIT and was a tenured professor at Northwestern University for decades. This man was absolutely adamant that Obama was a Muslim that was not born in the United States, and that the only reason he was successful at Harvard Law and beyond was because of affirmative action. So he's a giant moron in that respect, but judging by his education and experience I'm sure the man was quite proficient and knowledgeable at his job.
Progressivism. College education even for STEM majors is seriously diluted with idiotic courses in multiculturalism. The XXX-studies, sociology, and all of all the other leftist propaganda courses have displaced important core courses.
Um...progressivism? Seriously? And what you are saying is not actually true, at least for the schools with which I am familiar.
Let's take a look at the current CS curriculum for the school I attended, the University of Utah (which has an above average but not exceptional CS department). I imagine other similar universities have similar requirements.
CS Requirements:
5 pre-major classes (3 CS, 2 Calculus, 1 Intro to Unix) total 19.5 credits
7 core CS classes, total 25 credits
7 elective CS classes, total 21 credits
1 capstone (either thesis or lab) 3 credits
Math/Science Requirements:
Physics for Sci. and Engineers, 3 credits
2 Math Courses chosen out of Calc 3, Diff. Equations & Linear Algebra, and Eng. Probability and Statistics, total 6 or 7 credits
3 Math/Science Electives, total 9-12 credits
General Education Requirements:
2 writing courses, total 6 credits
1 American History, total 3 credits
2 Fine Arts, 2 Humanities, 2 Social/Behavioral Science, 18-20 credits
And that usually doesn't add up to the total required number of credits, so you are free to take a couple other electives to fill out the schedule. So for a regular plain vanilla CS degree you would end up taking 86.5 to 90.5 credits of CS/Math/Science and 27-29 credits general education. And of the general education, only 18-20 are in the "leftist propaganda courses." My "leftist propaganda courses" consisted of Intro to Music Theory, Survey of Jazz, World Geography, Microeconomics, and two world history courses.
As you can probably imagine, these six courses instantly turned me into a transgender radical feminist atheist anarcho-syndicalist.
You might be being a little bit hyperbolic in your statements. Maybe.
The Peace Prize has always been more about politics than anything else. They gave the Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat, an infamous terrorist and a man that started more than a few armed conflicts in the Middle East (not that I'm totally pro-Israel, but the man definitely was not a peaceful person). It was given to Anwar El Sadat, for the Camp David Accords, even though Sadat had initiated a couple wars with Israel. It was given to Henry Kissinger, even though Kissinger masterminded the invasion and bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War (which was instrumental in allowing the Khmer Rouge to take power).
So if you were taking the Nobel Peace Prize very seriously before they gave it to Obama, you were a little deluded anyway. It's always been that way. At least Obama didn't get it for starting and then stopping a war.
I would disagree with you that the main effect of the internet in Egypt has been to deliver news to outsiders. While internet access is blocked now, the use of social media has been instrumental in informing the population and organizing protests for quite a while. See the April 6 Youth Movement. (Sorry, my work blocks most sites so I can't give a more informative reference than that wikipedia article).
This is a movement that has been years in the making. I imagine a large number of the people involved in the protests (who are largely young, educated people who would have internet access) became interested and involved well before the protests of the last few days.
I can't imagine that somebody who set up a wireless mesh network or hacked his satellite TV is going to be very focused on reporting the technical details of what he's doing to the foreign press. There's a revolution happening and the Egyptian government is cracking down hard on protesters.
What you're talking about is redistribution of the wealth by force. Historically the American economy has outperformed all others because it embraces laissez faire capitalism that allows people to accumulate wealth. Having failed in the old Soviet Union, been abandoned by the Chinese, and having caused stagnation throughout Central and South America, the idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor still persists among those who choose to ignore history. Redistribution of the wealth has _never_ worked as an economic policy. It prohibits economic growth which means the poor just get poorer. This is the kind of thing Hugo Chavez does. You're all gonna end up like Venezuela if you're not careful.
How about Northern and Western Europe? Redistribution of wealth has worked quite successfully there.
Economics is horribly complicated business. It seems IMHO that the failure of socialism in Central and South America has more to do with weak national institutions and rampant corruption within government rather than a fundamental flaw in socialism.
Not that I endorse a peasant uprising to instill a socialist system anywhere. But progressive taxation which supports a government that provides a welfare state while still maintaining a fundamentally capitalist economy? That seems like a system that works. Maybe not universally, but you are obviously being quite hyperbolic, if not downright disingenuous, in your statments.
Google for Geni Coefficient before you assume that wealth disparity is historically more disproportionate today than it's ever been or that the gap is any wider in the US than it is anywhere else
Turns out you're talking out of your ass. Income inequality in the US has been growing steadily since the late 1960's. Which just happens to be right around the last time we had extremely progressive taxation in the US. There is an even more dramatic rise since the 1980's, which is when we underwent Reagan's economic liberalization (ie implementing a more laissez faire system). Similarly look at the graph for the UK, which followed a similar liberalization policy as the US. During that same time, other countries that have implemented a social democrat style welfare state (most of Europe, Canada) saw their Gini Coefficient drop or remain stable.
Income inequality *is* higher in the US than in other highly developed economies. We are not in the company of Europe, Canada, and Australia. We are in the company of Mexico and China (we're even worse than Russia in this regard).
So please, before you start spouting off some more ignorant nonsense, do the research you ask others to do. Google is your friend.
Not sure what GP meant by saying the "hijackers" were Egyptian, but many of al Qaeda's leadership are either Egyptian or were educated in Egypt. Most famously Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is the operational leader of al Qaeda. Bin Laden is the political and financial leader, but Zawahiri is really the one who runs al Qaeda on a functional level. Zawahiri's group Egyptian Islamic Jihad was very powerful in its own right, and merged with al-Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks.
Egypt has historically been the center of Muslim intellectualism and fundamentalism (in modern times at least). It's one of the most populous countries in Africa and the most populous in the Middle East(depending on how you define the Middle East). It's a very well-educated country, and the population is almost entirely Muslim.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the world's oldest Islamist political group, and certainly the most influential in Muslim countries. Al-Qaeda's philosophy can sort-of, kind-of, in an extremely simplistic way be described as a blend of the teachings of Hassan al-Banna and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The teachings of al-Banna are generally given more credence from Muslim scholars, but the Saudis spend ridiculous amounts of money funding Wahhabist schools and are similarly influential. And many of the individuals who hold power in radical Islamist organizations around the Middle East and N. Africa were educated in madrassas devoted to these schools of thought. (If anybody's interested I can find some more specific references about individuals involved with al-Qaeda, but I'm at work right now and can't really look it up).
So even though GP was misleading a little bit, he's still on to the right path. Egypt has as much to do with worldwide Islamist militarism as anybody, including the Saudis and the Pakistanis.
Slashdot Mirror
Socialism is generally much better for the common people than unregulated capitalism. Even in the US we accept this with public schools, roads, medicare, etc. We just don't like to call it socialism because that's a naughty word.
That's not to say that pure communism isn't as bad as pure capitalism. I think we as a species need to understand that *any* ideology when followed to the extreme will result in an oligarchy. What works best is a system rooted in diversity and democracy, where government ensures that people have their basic rights protected and basic necessities like food, education, housing, and medical care provided (at least to a certain extent) and then steps out of the way.
Because Android is the main competitor to iOS. With the rise of mobile computing, phone/tablet operating systems are now extremely common, moving towards ubiquitous. It's likely that in the near future nearly everyone in the developed world will own a smartphone. Like it or not, that is the future of consumer-level computing. Smartphones and tablets can replace desktops for 95% of the people 95% of the time.
And it's obvious at this point that Apple is moving towards locking down all of their devices, not just the mobile devices. Right now you can install 3rd party software via other sources on a Mac, but it's pretty clear that Apple is trying to push that same iOS software model onto the desktop. They're not stupid enough to demand complete contral at this point, but that is where they are heading gradually. It's more profitable, and it's more secure.
How quickly and how completely they will push this on desktop users is anybody outside Apple's guess, but that's certainly what they would do if they could, and it's clear that is what they are trying to do.
Which Christian church does not believe in original sin? Which Christian church does not believe that unbaptized kids go to hell? I'm pretty sure the majority of Christian churches still agree with Augustine.
Whoops, I accidentally hit submit. This is the link I meant to put at the end.
Well, we both do have a different view of what rights are. It's just that mine is the correct one :)
:rights
What you are talking about are natural rights. Natural rights are independent of location and are universal to all of humanity. But that's not the only type of right. There are other rights, like the right to vote, right to bear arms, and others that are determined culturally, through the legislature, etc. This isn't just my opinion. This is how the law works.
Since the original poster is an Australian citizen, he has the right to free health care. Since I am an American citizen who is above 18 and doesn't have a felony conviction, I have the right to vote. Since I am an American citizen above 21 without any felony convictiosn, I have the right to purchase a handgun. Just because these things are not universal does not make them rights. They're just a different classification of rights.
Take a look at this for more clarification since I'm not sure if I'm being very articulate in my argument
Small correction, I shouldn't have put the right to vote in the second paragraph.
It does, actually. The fact that the Australian government is legally obliged to provide health service to every Australian equally is exactly what makes it a right. It's a claim right, in the same way that the right to vote or the right to free education is a claim right.
You are correct to make the distinction between something a government promises to provide and something the government *must* provide. There are some things that the government provides, but which are not actual rights guaranteed to each person equally. Like health care in the USA. Or police service, fire service, the right to vote, etc. But in Australia health care is a right. It is something guaranteed by the government to every person equally. In Australia, the government *must* provide free health care to every citizen.
I think what you are probably thinking is that health care is not a natural right. You are of the opinion that health care *shouldn't* be a right, because it's not something that is universally accepted as necessary of a democratic government. Which is certainly a valid opinion. But that doesn't change the fact that the provision of health care is a legal right in Australia and most other developed countries.
An analog is the right to bear arms. In the USA, we have the right to own weapons for our personal defense. But in most countries, that is not a right. In the USA, it is. The fact that most other countries don't have the right to bear arms does not make it any less of a right in the USA. Many countries provide free university education to their citizens. In those countries, that is a right. In the USA, it is not.
Actually, you're both correct. The original poster was correct to point out that health care is a right in Australia, because it is. Not all rights are natural rights like freedom of speech or freedom of religion. Natural rights are universal and have nothing to do with customs or societal standards. But there are other rights that are based upon societal standards and are not equal across all cultures. These include things like the right to vote, the right to free education, the right to trial by jury, etc. Just like free primary and secondary education is a right in the US, in most developed countries health care is a right. In the United States, it is not. (Well, it actually kind of is in a really messed up and inefficient way, but you get the idea).
You have the correct idea that there is a distinction between what the government grants as a claim and what you are guaranteed as a liberty, but your vocabulary is slightly off. Instead of liberties versus rights, what you're actually contrasting are claim rights and liberty rights. But both are still rights.
No, but there are real Hawaiian burger joints and you can get Hawaiian burgers at pretty much any Hawaiian fast food restaurant I've been to.
This post has been sponsored by the year 1922.
Just because machines are creating new efficiencies doesn't mean capitalism is dead and we're all going to be unemployed. This anti-progressive argument has been trotted out consistently since the beginning of the industrial era, and guess what? We're all still around, most of us have jobs, and nearly all of us are more well-off than our ancestors.
Just because you're fed up with the politics of our current government, and our current economic situation is less than ideal, does not mean that machines are going to put everyone out of work and cause mass unemployment. What do corporate handouts, tax revenues, and the Arab Spring have to do with automated manufacturing?
The US still has a strong manufacturing industry (arguably the best in the world). Complaining about manufacturing jobs disappearing to automation is exactly the same as complaining about losses in agricultural work 75-100 years ago. So what if it used to be the main part of our economy? Things change. There's no shortage of work to be done and everyone will be fine.
While a third party candidate is most likely never going to win a US presidential election, that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't play an important role. Once a third party reaches a certain level of public support, their ideas (and even their politicians) are co-opted by the mainstream parties.
Most famously the 1992 presidential campaign by Ross Perot caused major changes in both the Republican and Democratic platforms for the rest of the 90's. Not many mainstream Republicans were making a big deal about budget deficits before then, now it's the defining economic issue for the party (although most Republicans conveniently ignored that for the 8 years of GW Bush).
The Green party has had huge influence on the policies of the Democratic party, especially regarding global warming, climate change, and environmental issues. The 2000 election was a major wake up call for them that they couldn't simply ignore the progressive/environmentalist wing of their party. Also in 1992, Vermont elected a Socialist Senator in Bernie Sanders and he has a considerable deal of power. So there is third party representation in Congress (although he's technically independent and caucuses with the Democrats).
So is a third party going to win the Presidency? Almost definitely not. But third parties and independents do play an important role in US politics.
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I had one physics teacher in high school that taught me about actual science. The scientific process, discovery, falsifiability, the historical context of major discoveries, etc. Every other teacher presented the subject as a series of facts that needed to be memorized. Sure the scientific process was in the first chapter of the textbook, but that's not really what the classes were about. They were about memorization and regurgitation.
I agree with most of what you said. But it is particularly difficult to study race in a way rooted in biology and genetics because race is a not a definition made by scientific but rather sociological factors. You could make general statements about "Africans" or "Asians" because African-Americans and Asian-Americans are thought of as a distinct racial group in this country, but what does that really mean?
Most African Americans are descended from West Africans brought over during the slave trade, but that is not absolutely true. Many come directly from Africa or are immigrants from other countries with populations descended from slaves. And African Americans descended from slaves have assimilated much of their genetic material from whites and non-white Americans for centuries. The genetic material of an African American descended from Ghanaian slaves and mixed with Taino and Spanish (a common mixture for descendants of Dominican slaves) differs greatly from the genetic material of an African American descended from Nigerian slaves and mixed with Cherokee and British genetics (like what might have been the case for a slave brought to the Deep South). A Mexican American with roots in the north of the country might have Spanish and other European ancestors with almost no Native American or African, but someone from the southeastern part of the country might be nearly 100% Native American or some mixture of Native, European, and African. And someone from Peru would have an entirely different range of ancestors. Yet in this country Hispanic or Latinos are generally thought of, at least in popular vernacular, as distinct races.
All Asians are grouped together, but from a scientific perspective you can't group together countries with such wildly different racial and genetic histories. There are hundreds of ethnic groups in China or India alone, not to mention the vast differences between the populations of Japan, the Phillipines, Vietnam, Pakistan, etc. that we lump all together as "Asian." Even reducing it further to South Asian, East Asian, Southeast Asian, etc. does not improve the specificity.
To try and separate the genetic differences and study it scientifically requires a specificity that popular racial definitions do not possess. The definitions we use are much too broad, and with little to no basis in modern science. In order to study it in detail and with proper rigor, you have to remove the common terms and use more scientific definitions. And to do that properly would more or less require us to sequence genomes on a worldwide scale. Certainly possible, especially in the future, but not for the armchair sociologist in today's world.
Why does it matter if they are "left-leaning" groups? The other three organizations endorsing the bill could also be described as left-leaning.
I think the more relevant breakdown is that all the groups endorsing the bill are corporate lobby groups and all the groups opposing are not. If a bill only has support from corporate lobby groups that stand to benefit from the change in law, that's a pretty clear indicator that something is wrong.
That's a gross oversimplification of history. The Reagan tax cuts did give us decent economic growth. But hardly decades long. It lasted for a few years until the economy went back into recession in the early 90's. And where did that growth go? It went into the hands of the rich. Median household income over the Reagan-Bush Sr. years was stagnant, despite the large growth in GDP and the stock market.
Then in the mid to late 90's we experienced very strong economic growth, but it had hardly anything at all to do with tax policies. It was from the boom in the software and computer industries. Again, almost nothing of that gain went to the average person. Median household income remained stagnant.
Under Bush Jr., we experienced massive growth in the GDP and stock market (fueled by the finance boom), followed by yet another crash. Again, almost none of that wealth actually made it to the average American family. Median household income when adjusted for inflation is essentially the same as it it was 40 years ago, despite massive gains in productivity and economic growth.
If you think any presidential administration has been effective job at increasing the wealth of the average American in modern times, your are deluded to say the least. Republican or Democrat, they have all made the rich quite a bit richer, and done jack squat for the middle and lower classes.
Maybe they don't get it because you're being more than a little hyperbolic there?
Um, it can, and probably will get much worse than this. Hell, at least in this situation we know that they are wiretapping us and for most or all of them it was for legitimate reasons. The NSA wiretapping fiasco shows that we're not very many steps away from an actual police state.
Canajin56 is correct. The six states in the case can still pass laws requiring the power companies to cut their emissions further than federal regulation currently states, but it only applies to plants that operate within their borders. Any further reduction in emissions for power plants operating outside the states' borders must be addressed through the Congress and the EPA.
Radiohead is a bad example, but that doesn't mean you're correct. You don't need a major record label to become famous.
REM did it back in the 80's. The Arcade Fire has done it. They've been indie their whole career and their latest album debuted at #1 in the US, UK, Australia, and Ireland. Death Cab for Cutie did it although they eventually went major. Panic! At the Disco have had some really popular albums and major radio play without being on a major. The Offspring sold 12 million copies of Smash back in the 90's, and that was released on an indie label. The White Stripes got popular on an indie label, White Blood Cells sold 500,000 copies and that was recorded and released for Sympathy Records. The Arctic Monkeys in the UK went 4x platinum with their debut album on an indie.
There's a million more bands than that. These are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Nowadays if you're into rock, hip-hop, or anything other than top 40 or country then a lot of your favorite bands are probably not on a major label. Independent record labels are kicking ass, and it's really commonplace for a band to become famous well before they sign onto a major label, if they ever actually do so.
Geeks usually do not take into account the fact that a high amount of education in one field does not automatically grant you the same amount of knowledge and experience for every other field. We can't all be experts at everything, and being an expert at *something* often gives you false confidence about your ability in other fields, even if you do not have very much knowledge or experience.
Last Thanksgiving I met a friend of my uncle that received a PHD from MIT and was a tenured professor at Northwestern University for decades. This man was absolutely adamant that Obama was a Muslim that was not born in the United States, and that the only reason he was successful at Harvard Law and beyond was because of affirmative action. So he's a giant moron in that respect, but judging by his education and experience I'm sure the man was quite proficient and knowledgeable at his job.
Um...progressivism? Seriously? And what you are saying is not actually true, at least for the schools with which I am familiar.
Let's take a look at the current CS curriculum for the school I attended, the University of Utah (which has an above average but not exceptional CS department). I imagine other similar universities have similar requirements.
CS Requirements:
5 pre-major classes (3 CS, 2 Calculus, 1 Intro to Unix) total 19.5 credits
7 core CS classes, total 25 credits
7 elective CS classes, total 21 credits
1 capstone (either thesis or lab) 3 credits
Math/Science Requirements:
Physics for Sci. and Engineers, 3 credits
2 Math Courses chosen out of Calc 3, Diff. Equations & Linear Algebra, and Eng. Probability and Statistics, total 6 or 7 credits
3 Math/Science Electives, total 9-12 credits
General Education Requirements:
2 writing courses, total 6 credits
1 American History, total 3 credits
2 Fine Arts, 2 Humanities, 2 Social/Behavioral Science, 18-20 credits
And that usually doesn't add up to the total required number of credits, so you are free to take a couple other electives to fill out the schedule. So for a regular plain vanilla CS degree you would end up taking 86.5 to 90.5 credits of CS/Math/Science and 27-29 credits general education. And of the general education, only 18-20 are in the "leftist propaganda courses." My "leftist propaganda courses" consisted of Intro to Music Theory, Survey of Jazz, World Geography, Microeconomics, and two world history courses.
As you can probably imagine, these six courses instantly turned me into a transgender radical feminist atheist anarcho-syndicalist.
You might be being a little bit hyperbolic in your statements. Maybe.
The Peace Prize has always been more about politics than anything else. They gave the Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat, an infamous terrorist and a man that started more than a few armed conflicts in the Middle East (not that I'm totally pro-Israel, but the man definitely was not a peaceful person). It was given to Anwar El Sadat, for the Camp David Accords, even though Sadat had initiated a couple wars with Israel. It was given to Henry Kissinger, even though Kissinger masterminded the invasion and bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War (which was instrumental in allowing the Khmer Rouge to take power).
So if you were taking the Nobel Peace Prize very seriously before they gave it to Obama, you were a little deluded anyway. It's always been that way. At least Obama didn't get it for starting and then stopping a war.
I would disagree with you that the main effect of the internet in Egypt has been to deliver news to outsiders. While internet access is blocked now, the use of social media has been instrumental in informing the population and organizing protests for quite a while. See the April 6 Youth Movement. (Sorry, my work blocks most sites so I can't give a more informative reference than that wikipedia article).
This is a movement that has been years in the making. I imagine a large number of the people involved in the protests (who are largely young, educated people who would have internet access) became interested and involved well before the protests of the last few days.
I can't imagine that somebody who set up a wireless mesh network or hacked his satellite TV is going to be very focused on reporting the technical details of what he's doing to the foreign press. There's a revolution happening and the Egyptian government is cracking down hard on protesters.
How about Northern and Western Europe? Redistribution of wealth has worked quite successfully there.
Economics is horribly complicated business. It seems IMHO that the failure of socialism in Central and South America has more to do with weak national institutions and rampant corruption within government rather than a fundamental flaw in socialism.
Not that I endorse a peasant uprising to instill a socialist system anywhere. But progressive taxation which supports a government that provides a welfare state while still maintaining a fundamentally capitalist economy? That seems like a system that works. Maybe not universally, but you are obviously being quite hyperbolic, if not downright disingenuous, in your statments.
Ok, let's do that. Gini coefficient.
Turns out you're talking out of your ass. Income inequality in the US has been growing steadily since the late 1960's. Which just happens to be right around the last time we had extremely progressive taxation in the US. There is an even more dramatic rise since the 1980's, which is when we underwent Reagan's economic liberalization (ie implementing a more laissez faire system). Similarly look at the graph for the UK, which followed a similar liberalization policy as the US. During that same time, other countries that have implemented a social democrat style welfare state (most of Europe, Canada) saw their Gini Coefficient drop or remain stable.
Income inequality *is* higher in the US than in other highly developed economies. We are not in the company of Europe, Canada, and Australia. We are in the company of Mexico and China (we're even worse than Russia in this regard).
So please, before you start spouting off some more ignorant nonsense, do the research you ask others to do. Google is your friend.
Not sure what GP meant by saying the "hijackers" were Egyptian, but many of al Qaeda's leadership are either Egyptian or were educated in Egypt. Most famously Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is the operational leader of al Qaeda. Bin Laden is the political and financial leader, but Zawahiri is really the one who runs al Qaeda on a functional level. Zawahiri's group Egyptian Islamic Jihad was very powerful in its own right, and merged with al-Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks.
Egypt has historically been the center of Muslim intellectualism and fundamentalism (in modern times at least). It's one of the most populous countries in Africa and the most populous in the Middle East(depending on how you define the Middle East). It's a very well-educated country, and the population is almost entirely Muslim.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the world's oldest Islamist political group, and certainly the most influential in Muslim countries. Al-Qaeda's philosophy can sort-of, kind-of, in an extremely simplistic way be described as a blend of the teachings of Hassan al-Banna and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The teachings of al-Banna are generally given more credence from Muslim scholars, but the Saudis spend ridiculous amounts of money funding Wahhabist schools and are similarly influential. And many of the individuals who hold power in radical Islamist organizations around the Middle East and N. Africa were educated in madrassas devoted to these schools of thought. (If anybody's interested I can find some more specific references about individuals involved with al-Qaeda, but I'm at work right now and can't really look it up).
So even though GP was misleading a little bit, he's still on to the right path. Egypt has as much to do with worldwide Islamist militarism as anybody, including the Saudis and the Pakistanis.