That's all fine and dandy until you're unemployed because someone with a lot of clout tells your boss that you're being "uncooperative".
If you have to go up against those kinds of people, you'd better have a comprehensive written security policy with the full backing of the entire IT department (and if that's just the one person, then the IT "person"'s boss as well), as well as the higher administration.
The use of what is called "serial commas" is dependent on which writing style you are following.
I think the AP style (Associated Press) calls for no serial commas, meaning that there is no comma before the "and" at the end of a list (a.k.a. a serial.) However, APA style and maybe others prescribe serial commas.
Sometimes which style you use is a personal preference, though you should be consistent through a single document. Other times, the style is assigned as policy by your editor.
No, that's mercury vapour lamps (don't get in my way, I just got off a 3-hour interferometry lab dealing with the bastards). Fluoresecnt tubes tend to be filled with noble gases, e.g. Neon.
Fluorescent lights are filled with a mercury vapor. So are "Mercury Vapor" lights. Though the two operate differently.
I suppose that depends on how much of an ass you want to be. You could either say "I have a degree in Computer Science/Engineering, so I know x, y, and z. I worked hard because I was interested in the material. Computer Science is a passion for me -- I would enjoy any job related to [programming|software engineering|etc]" or you could say "Don't even ask what I know, it should be obvious that I am an excellent employee because I chose to get a degree from [Cornell|Berkelely|etc]. I am interested in the highest-paying job you have -- I deserve it because I went to a school with a good reputation."
Note that the above is a blatant stereotype to make a point -- obviously the sentiments expressed are not exemplified by the majority of CS students anywhere.
Are you going to school in order to create a career for yourself that you enjoy and are passionate about? Are you going to school to impress friends, relatives, or potential employers? It cannot be said enough that the school's reputation has little bearing on the competency and attitude of the students. Employers are looking more for a positive attitude, appropriate skills, and a good investment for their company.
I know some folks who are currently in their undergraduate CS study and say things like "I could teach these classes! The only reason I am doing this at all is because the 'stupid' rules say I have to get a bachelor's degree before I get that Ph.D." Meanwhile, they are getting C's in those "easy" classes because their goal is the piece of paper and prestige (ego) rather than pursuing an activity or career they can be passionate about.
My best professors (in CS and otherwise) were those that began their careers in 'industry' and had a passion for engineering or CS and had excellent communication skills before moving into teaching/academia. Real-world experience is so much more useful than 'book-smarts' most of the time. (That's not to say that these professors weren't book-smart, too!)
Every signal transmission is analog at some point. That point is usually the "from here to there" point. Whether fiddling with (modulating) an alternating current signal to cause it to represent some datastream and then proceed to inducing electromagnetic waving of space or switching a voltage on or off, or high or low, electricity is analog. Light (including "radio") is analog.
I agree that BPL is going to die because of operational inefficiencies (i.e. it's not good technology), but of the reasons you list, "because it's analog" is not one of them.
One split was somewhere in the DOS 3.x world, where many ham operators now reside. Another split hit around Windows 95.
There's a lot of good software coming out now that works on Win2k and WinXP, since we've all figured out how to access hardware directly.
There's a small community that prefers Linux, but it always seems that there's a much larger quantity of ham-related software for Windows.
That said, Linux ham software works well and covers just about any function you could want. The hot thing today is soundcard-based digital modes followed by serial-port radio control (adjusting tuning, bands, transmitting by serial commands).
But you will still find a lot of high quality, oft-updated DOS-based software for Ham use -- it just works.
Note also that Ham equipment makers and experimenters appear reluctant to dump RS232 for USB, though there are some strides being made by individual kit-makers. Drivers are the main stumbling block, I think. There's just so many different drivers and USB-serial adapters out there and some allow direct-like control of the various pins and some assume that you only want to use serial for sending bytes. But Hams use the handshaking pins independently for various tasks.
We sort of have something like that in the Xastir project.
It true purpose is a client for the APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) used by Amateur Radio operators to do object tracking, but as a side-feature, it supports a multitude of map formats.
We're currently partway through integrating GDAL/OGR, which will add a couple dozen new map formats, including TIGER. TIGER support exists if you compile in GDAL/OGR, but it currently doesn't allow customizing of line widths/colors per layer. Fortunately, some users have converted all of the TIGER data to shapefiles, hosted at http://xastir.tamu.edu.
Xastir uses an awk-like language that we call dbfawk for describing the attributes of line segments in shapefiles, which allows you to set the display to look like whatever you like, with some work.
Be default it does GPS tracking -- that's the initial purpose. If you're a Ham radio operator, you can even rig it up to a radio and TNC (radio modem) and see what other hams in your area are up to.
It can also download raster maps on-the-fly from various sources including the TIGER map server, TERRAserver, and maybe another. A "GEO" file describes the raster image source as well as the tiepoints (pixel->real coordinate) for ANY OTHER raster image you have. And the image source can be a local file or a remote file via HTTP -- so getting live radar background to your GPS tracking is a snap.
Items not yet added, but requested: routing, speed limit display, and 3D views -- all those were also requested by our users.
It has extensive documentation and includes explicit instructions on running it on MacOS X.
Obviously you're not putting thousands of hours of time into your latest creations... If you did, maybe someone would be interested in buying it/them...
I've also thought about this and when it comes down to it, you come to a point where you just need lots and lots of labor.
Following Gingery's book, you can create nearly anything. However, where are you going to get the metal from which to create these works of art/machinery? You have to find and dig ore and refine it into metals. What do you start digging with?
I think the original bootstrap for metal (used for work, not money) was copper found in nuggets. These days it's much harder to find natural nuggets of metal -- everyone who came before has already found them!
So you need to dig with wood, stone, and flesh tools. Find enough ore to make a shovel's worth of metal. Grind a large stone into a bowl and melt the ore. Hot fires can be created with coal and hollow reeds blowing air into them -- make sure you have plenty! Once your ore is melted, drain off the top stuff and you're left with the metal. A shovel can be hammered out of your ingot with a stone, so that's essentially the starting point of your metal tools.
Using your more efficient metal shovel, dig more ore -- make more shovels -- find friends to help dig.
Now, let's say you've obtained enough metal to build your lathe. How do you get it to turn? Steam engine? Nope, you don't have a running lathe yet to help you build one! One could create a large, cast metal flywheel and have your friends (and how gracious you must be to have friends like this!!) keep it going -- that will give you enough power (or rather momentum, stored energy from your friends) to turn metal on your lathe. Your two choices of high-density material are metal and stone. If you choose a metal flywheel, you and your friends have got a lot more digging to do! If you choose stone, you have to cast a few stoneworking tools, but that's probably easier than digging enough ore for 100 lbs of metal.
Gingery's book just has you go find/buy an electric motor.;-)
In other words, if you *really* want to re-enact the industrial revolution, you need to be patient and have plenty of labor. The key is all in the raw materials and the labor to extract it.
The Supreme Court did not say "Bush won Florida". The Supreme Court handed a decision down that stated that the recount rules that were in place before the whole election started would be the recount rules used. In other words, no changing the rules in the middle of the election.
Your sarcasm was noted... I just picked a semi-random post to reply to since my reply was related to the topic of the thread, not a particular post. Yours was interesting;-)
I am uninformed on what the "format" of most nuclear waste is, so I probably shouldn't have brought that part up. Know of a reliable source of that information?
can't we just turn it into depleted uranium/platonium shells for raging the next US war?
Why yes, yes we can -- the process exists. See http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf69.htm. But no, no we can't. See that same link for information on why the U.S. does not perform reprocessing -- non-proliferation treaties.
I will also point out that reprocessing allows us to recover unspent fuel from the used fuel rods, which reduces the volume of nuclear waste, but does not eliminate the waste. In a nuclear reactor for energy production, the fuel rods become less efficient as the byproducts of fission "clog up" the works. Reprocessing recovers the 90-something percent of un-used source product that still exists in the fuel rods that we call "waste".
Reprocessing lets us be more efficient in the use of our fuel, but does not completely eliminate the waste. From the article I linked, it looks like the final form of the waste is in a borosilicate glass, which is a solid and will not "leak" out of containers. I think our current un-processed nuclear waste is also in this form. Barrels with green goo coming out of them are not what nuclear waste looks like, even though it may be a common mental image, unfortunately.
At my polling place (College Station, TX), the election officials aren't letting any more than about 10 people inside the voting room at one time. You go to the roster and an official finds your name on the registration list, and then gives you a blue piece of paper with your polling district (there are about 30 polling places in the county).
That blue paper is your "authorization" to obtain a 4-digit PIN from a nearby election official who operates a machine that generates the random numbers. You then take this new slip of paper with a 4 digit number to one of the approx. 10 e-Slate voting machines and enter your PIN and then you may begin voting.
Sounds very similar to your place of voting, except for the limiting of the number of people allowed in the "voting" room at one time.
Look up logorithms - log(10)=1, log(100)=2, log(1000)=3, etc.
It's a useful term because for some things, it doesn't matter what the actual number is, but whether it's closer to (on the order of...) 100 or 1,000,000. If that's what you care about, then whether it's 300 or 800 doesn't matter as much.
I tend to also thing of time-based values this way, too. I ask if we are expecting a response to a particular request in a day, a week, or a month, just to get a feel for the time frame.
I suppose if we were used to base 2, then an order of magnitude would be factors of 2. In fact, so many computer-related numbers come in such an orientation.
I suppose I was meaning the "official" name of the entity. But you're right - it's hardly a city in the popular sense.
Travis Co. (Where Austin is) did go to Bush in 2000. The only counties that went to Gore were the far South and far West (and a few outliers in the East). The folks that live there are generally the traditional Texas Yellow-Dog Democrats and would vote Democrat regardless of who the candidates are - just because that's the way it is. I think it has to do with Democrats being the party of the South, post-Civil War coupled with an odd connection with labels. The Democrats and Republicans of that time stood for very different values than today. The "Republicans" were the party that catered to the ex-Slaves, and so by default everyone else went Democrat.
It *is* odd that Travis County was as strong for Bush in 2000 as it was, considering that UT is closer to the "typical(?)" university profile of more-liberal students. Plus Austin has quite a few transplants from California.
Texas politics is an odd creature. The unofficial official periodical of Texas, _Texas Monthly_ is oddly a heavily left-leaning publication which doesn't represent the general population of Texas, but the smaller, elite rich group which consists of a lot of "old blood" Texans.
It's not really that strange when you look and see that it's not Brazos county that Gore won, but Robertson county, directly north of Brazos county. I want to know where the persn who stated that Brazos county went to Gore got their information!
Robertson county is home to the City of Hearne, which is known in the region as being nearly 100% corrupt and bass-ackwards;-)
Just kidding (though there *is* rampant corruption in the City of Hearne).
oh man... It was great when I was in school there (where you are)... It was about 2 years after they started wiring the dorms for student network access (ethernet anyway -- prior to that there were serial terminals...) So few people had computers in the dorms, coupled with the fact that the campus had not yet "shaped" all dorm traffic to a 100 Mbit virtual pipe. Student printing was not limited -- I printed over a dozen 500+ page programming books straight from the dorm to the Teague building without question from those in charge. (I might be a small part of the reason they did impose print limits, though.)
But even then CIS was stupid... Nothing's changed there!
Last I heard they were planning on getting a 10 Gbit pipe to the "regular" Internet and another 10 Gbit pipe to Internet2. Makes a DoS of one server on campus a large threat with that much incoming bandwidth.
It promotes love of those who are enemies. Spreading hatred only increases hatred.
That's not saying that we should condone or support things like abortion. But it is saying that we shouldn't judge them by our own hands. This includes things like humiliation and murdering of abortion doctors and their patients, in my interpretation.
Jesus didn't spread a message of intolerance or hate. If we are to fight those who perform and support abortions, we are to do it through prayer and allowing the Holy Spirit to soften hearts and change minds. How does one win someone to your cause by humiliation and denigration?
It's an ideal that we probably cannot achieve, but isn't it at least worth reaching for?
It seems to me that the basic, core ideas in Christianity do not match with what the "Christian Right" are pushing.
The Christian bible says "Love your neighbor", "Love your enemy", "Love you parents", "Love your children", etc.
It appears that some have distored Love by introducing hate. Hatred of doctors who perform abortions. Hatred of homosexuals. Hatred even of non-Christians. And this is coming out of the "baby-boomers" (i.e. ex-hippies, peaceniks, free love, etc. People you would think are left leaning.)
Coupled with general feeling that each of us does not have any personal responsibilities to ourselves and those we love, we end up with hateful people demanding government intervention in the name of love.
Something's not right here.
[Disclaimer: I am a conservative Christian living in the "Bible Belt" of the US. And I still don't agree with the actions of the "Christian Right".]
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That's all fine and dandy until you're unemployed because someone with a lot of clout tells your boss that you're being "uncooperative".
If you have to go up against those kinds of people, you'd better have a comprehensive written security policy with the full backing of the entire IT department (and if that's just the one person, then the IT "person"'s boss as well), as well as the higher administration.
The use of what is called "serial commas" is dependent on which writing style you are following.
I think the AP style (Associated Press) calls for no serial commas, meaning that there is no comma before the "and" at the end of a list (a.k.a. a serial.) However, APA style and maybe others prescribe serial commas.
Sometimes which style you use is a personal preference, though you should be consistent through a single document. Other times, the style is assigned as policy by your editor.
Fluorescent lights are filled with a mercury vapor. So are "Mercury Vapor" lights. Though the two operate differently.
See http://science.howstuffworks.com/question293.htm
I suppose that depends on how much of an ass you want to be. You could either say "I have a degree in Computer Science/Engineering, so I know x, y, and z. I worked hard because I was interested in the material. Computer Science is a passion for me -- I would enjoy any job related to [programming|software engineering|etc]" or you could say "Don't even ask what I know, it should be obvious that I am an excellent employee because I chose to get a degree from [Cornell|Berkelely|etc]. I am interested in the highest-paying job you have -- I deserve it because I went to a school with a good reputation."
Note that the above is a blatant stereotype to make a point -- obviously the sentiments expressed are not exemplified by the majority of CS students anywhere.
Are you going to school in order to create a career for yourself that you enjoy and are passionate about? Are you going to school to impress friends, relatives, or potential employers? It cannot be said enough that the school's reputation has little bearing on the competency and attitude of the students. Employers are looking more for a positive attitude, appropriate skills, and a good investment for their company.
I know some folks who are currently in their undergraduate CS study and say things like "I could teach these classes! The only reason I am doing this at all is because the 'stupid' rules say I have to get a bachelor's degree before I get that Ph.D." Meanwhile, they are getting C's in those "easy" classes because their goal is the piece of paper and prestige (ego) rather than pursuing an activity or career they can be passionate about.
My best professors (in CS and otherwise) were those that began their careers in 'industry' and had a passion for engineering or CS and had excellent communication skills before moving into teaching/academia. Real-world experience is so much more useful than 'book-smarts' most of the time. (That's not to say that these professors weren't book-smart, too!)
I bet the bookstore might have something like that in its stock... ;-)
Think about no-camera-phone policies in the R&D department of Nokia...
:-)
I once was an intern at a Nokia R&D center and that was a policy. At the time I was there, the "hot new" project was a camera-phone.
Every signal transmission is analog at some point. That point is usually the "from here to there" point. Whether fiddling with (modulating) an alternating current signal to cause it to represent some datastream and then proceed to inducing electromagnetic waving of space or switching a voltage on or off, or high or low, electricity is analog. Light (including "radio") is analog.
I agree that BPL is going to die because of operational inefficiencies (i.e. it's not good technology), but of the reasons you list, "because it's analog" is not one of them.
And changing every week. I've been using it since around 2000 and it's gotten quite a bit better since then.
There's even a few lines of my code inside it!
One split was somewhere in the DOS 3.x world, where many ham operators now reside. Another split hit around Windows 95.
There's a lot of good software coming out now that works on Win2k and WinXP, since we've all figured out how to access hardware directly.
There's a small community that prefers Linux, but it always seems that there's a much larger quantity of ham-related software for Windows.
That said, Linux ham software works well and covers just about any function you could want. The hot thing today is soundcard-based digital modes followed by serial-port radio control (adjusting tuning, bands, transmitting by serial commands).
But you will still find a lot of high quality, oft-updated DOS-based software for Ham use -- it just works.
Note also that Ham equipment makers and experimenters appear reluctant to dump RS232 for USB, though there are some strides being made by individual kit-makers. Drivers are the main stumbling block, I think. There's just so many different drivers and USB-serial adapters out there and some allow direct-like control of the various pins and some assume that you only want to use serial for sending bytes. But Hams use the handshaking pins independently for various tasks.
We sort of have something like that in the Xastir project.
It true purpose is a client for the APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) used by Amateur Radio operators to do object tracking, but as a side-feature, it supports a multitude of map formats.
We're currently partway through integrating GDAL/OGR, which will add a couple dozen new map formats, including TIGER. TIGER support exists if you compile in GDAL/OGR, but it currently doesn't allow customizing of line widths/colors per layer. Fortunately, some users have converted all of the TIGER data to shapefiles, hosted at http://xastir.tamu.edu.
Xastir uses an awk-like language that we call dbfawk for describing the attributes of line segments in shapefiles, which allows you to set the display to look like whatever you like, with some work.
Be default it does GPS tracking -- that's the initial purpose. If you're a Ham radio operator, you can even rig it up to a radio and TNC (radio modem) and see what other hams in your area are up to.
It can also download raster maps on-the-fly from various sources including the TIGER map server, TERRAserver, and maybe another. A "GEO" file describes the raster image source as well as the tiepoints (pixel->real coordinate) for ANY OTHER raster image you have. And the image source can be a local file or a remote file via HTTP -- so getting live radar background to your GPS tracking is a snap.
Items not yet added, but requested: routing, speed limit display, and 3D views -- all those were also requested by our users.
It has extensive documentation and includes explicit instructions on running it on MacOS X.
Obviously you're not putting thousands of hours of time into your latest creations... If you did, maybe someone would be interested in buying it/them...
Ah. Good point. I didn't think about natural rotational energy sources.
;-)
I suppose I wouldn't survive too long trying to build my machine shop
I've also thought about this and when it comes down to it, you come to a point where you just need lots and lots of labor.
;-)
Following Gingery's book, you can create nearly anything. However, where are you going to get the metal from which to create these works of art/machinery? You have to find and dig ore and refine it into metals. What do you start digging with?
I think the original bootstrap for metal (used for work, not money) was copper found in nuggets. These days it's much harder to find natural nuggets of metal -- everyone who came before has already found them!
So you need to dig with wood, stone, and flesh tools. Find enough ore to make a shovel's worth of metal. Grind a large stone into a bowl and melt the ore. Hot fires can be created with coal and hollow reeds blowing air into them -- make sure you have plenty! Once your ore is melted, drain off the top stuff and you're left with the metal. A shovel can be hammered out of your ingot with a stone, so that's essentially the starting point of your metal tools.
Using your more efficient metal shovel, dig more ore -- make more shovels -- find friends to help dig.
Now, let's say you've obtained enough metal to build your lathe. How do you get it to turn? Steam engine? Nope, you don't have a running lathe yet to help you build one! One could create a large, cast metal flywheel and have your friends (and how gracious you must be to have friends like this!!) keep it going -- that will give you enough power (or rather momentum, stored energy from your friends) to turn metal on your lathe. Your two choices of high-density material are metal and stone. If you choose a metal flywheel, you and your friends have got a lot more digging to do! If you choose stone, you have to cast a few stoneworking tools, but that's probably easier than digging enough ore for 100 lbs of metal.
Gingery's book just has you go find/buy an electric motor.
In other words, if you *really* want to re-enact the industrial revolution, you need to be patient and have plenty of labor. The key is all in the raw materials and the labor to extract it.
The Supreme Court did not say "Bush won Florida". The Supreme Court handed a decision down that stated that the recount rules that were in place before the whole election started would be the recount rules used. In other words, no changing the rules in the middle of the election.
Your sarcasm was noted... I just picked a semi-random post to reply to since my reply was related to the topic of the thread, not a particular post. Yours was interesting ;-)
I am uninformed on what the "format" of most nuclear waste is, so I probably shouldn't have brought that part up. Know of a reliable source of that information?
In the U.S., it's culturally impolite to cut the cheese. That's why it comes pre-cut and wrapped. ;-P
Why yes, yes we can -- the process exists. See http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf69.htm. But no, no we can't. See that same link for information on why the U.S. does not perform reprocessing -- non-proliferation treaties.
I will also point out that reprocessing allows us to recover unspent fuel from the used fuel rods, which reduces the volume of nuclear waste, but does not eliminate the waste. In a nuclear reactor for energy production, the fuel rods become less efficient as the byproducts of fission "clog up" the works. Reprocessing recovers the 90-something percent of un-used source product that still exists in the fuel rods that we call "waste".
Reprocessing lets us be more efficient in the use of our fuel, but does not completely eliminate the waste. From the article I linked, it looks like the final form of the waste is in a borosilicate glass, which is a solid and will not "leak" out of containers. I think our current un-processed nuclear waste is also in this form. Barrels with green goo coming out of them are not what nuclear waste looks like, even though it may be a common mental image, unfortunately.
At my polling place (College Station, TX), the election officials aren't letting any more than about 10 people inside the voting room at one time. You go to the roster and an official finds your name on the registration list, and then gives you a blue piece of paper with your polling district (there are about 30 polling places in the county).
That blue paper is your "authorization" to obtain a 4-digit PIN from a nearby election official who operates a machine that generates the random numbers. You then take this new slip of paper with a 4 digit number to one of the approx. 10 e-Slate voting machines and enter your PIN and then you may begin voting.
Sounds very similar to your place of voting, except for the limiting of the number of people allowed in the "voting" room at one time.
Yes, it's because we work in base-10 math.
Look up logorithms - log(10)=1, log(100)=2, log(1000)=3, etc.
It's a useful term because for some things, it doesn't matter what the actual number is, but whether it's closer to (on the order of...) 100 or 1,000,000. If that's what you care about, then whether it's 300 or 800 doesn't matter as much.
I tend to also thing of time-based values this way, too. I ask if we are expecting a response to a particular request in a day, a week, or a month, just to get a feel for the time frame.
I suppose if we were used to base 2, then an order of magnitude would be factors of 2. In fact, so many computer-related numbers come in such an orientation.
I suppose I was meaning the "official" name of the entity. But you're right - it's hardly a city in the popular sense.
Travis Co. (Where Austin is) did go to Bush in 2000. The only counties that went to Gore were the far South and far West (and a few outliers in the East). The folks that live there are generally the traditional Texas Yellow-Dog Democrats and would vote Democrat regardless of who the candidates are - just because that's the way it is. I think it has to do with Democrats being the party of the South, post-Civil War coupled with an odd connection with labels. The Democrats and Republicans of that time stood for very different values than today. The "Republicans" were the party that catered to the ex-Slaves, and so by default everyone else went Democrat.
It *is* odd that Travis County was as strong for Bush in 2000 as it was, considering that UT is closer to the "typical(?)" university profile of more-liberal students. Plus Austin has quite a few transplants from California.
Texas politics is an odd creature. The unofficial official periodical of Texas, _Texas Monthly_ is oddly a heavily left-leaning publication which doesn't represent the general population of Texas, but the smaller, elite rich group which consists of a lot of "old blood" Texans.
It's not really that strange when you look and see that it's not Brazos county that Gore won, but Robertson county, directly north of Brazos county. I want to know where the persn who stated that Brazos county went to Gore got their information!
;-)
Robertson county is home to the City of Hearne, which is known in the region as being nearly 100% corrupt and bass-ackwards
Just kidding (though there *is* rampant corruption in the City of Hearne).
oh man... It was great when I was in school there (where you are)... It was about 2 years after they started wiring the dorms for student network access (ethernet anyway -- prior to that there were serial terminals...) So few people had computers in the dorms, coupled with the fact that the campus had not yet "shaped" all dorm traffic to a 100 Mbit virtual pipe. Student printing was not limited -- I printed over a dozen 500+ page programming books straight from the dorm to the Teague building without question from those in charge. (I might be a small part of the reason they did impose print limits, though.)
But even then CIS was stupid... Nothing's changed there!
Last I heard they were planning on getting a 10 Gbit pipe to the "regular" Internet and another 10 Gbit pipe to Internet2. Makes a DoS of one server on campus a large threat with that much incoming bandwidth.
I've read it. It is a good book.
It promotes love of those who are enemies. Spreading hatred only increases hatred.
That's not saying that we should condone or support things like abortion. But it is saying that we shouldn't judge them by our own hands. This includes things like humiliation and murdering of abortion doctors and their patients, in my interpretation.
Jesus didn't spread a message of intolerance or hate. If we are to fight those who perform and support abortions, we are to do it through prayer and allowing the Holy Spirit to soften hearts and change minds. How does one win someone to your cause by humiliation and denigration?
It's an ideal that we probably cannot achieve, but isn't it at least worth reaching for?
It seems to me that the basic, core ideas in Christianity do not match with what the "Christian Right" are pushing.
The Christian bible says "Love your neighbor", "Love your enemy", "Love you parents", "Love your children", etc.
It appears that some have distored Love by introducing hate. Hatred of doctors who perform abortions. Hatred of homosexuals. Hatred even of non-Christians. And this is coming out of the "baby-boomers" (i.e. ex-hippies, peaceniks, free love, etc. People you would think are left leaning.)
Coupled with general feeling that each of us does not have any personal responsibilities to ourselves and those we love, we end up with hateful people demanding government intervention in the name of love.
Something's not right here.
[Disclaimer: I am a conservative Christian living in the "Bible Belt" of the US. And I still don't agree with the actions of the "Christian Right".]
Take a look at http://www.opendebates.org/