Questioning your source is not attacking the messenger.
My point was this: in the current political environment, when someone shows up with a completely alternate set of facts, my bullshit detector wakes up. When the source for those "facts" is a single book by a right-wing author, it goes up a notch. When there is no other credible source supplied, alarm bells go off.
The fact is, a lot of right wing authors are getting published lately, with theories and arguments that don't pass the most rudimentary sniff test but support the Republican party with theories such as:
- "Shadow War : The Untold Story of How Bush is Winning the War on Terror"
or
- "Losing Bin Laden : How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror"
etc. Those are two other books published by the author you cite. Looks to me like the work of yet another Republican mouthpiece.
It's not practical for me to dig into the book you cite and disprove the "facts". I don't have that kind of time. I don't buy your "facts" because I don't buy your source. Can you quote another source or not?
Wow, that's amazing! I really follow this stuff closely and had no idea Iraq had such an arsenal. In fact, that's so counter to my own information that I wonder about your source.
Let's just hop over to Amazon and check out "Disinformation":
Customers who bought this item also bought
* Do As I Say (Not As I Do) : Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter Schweizer
* The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) by Robert Spencer
* Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild by Michelle Malkin
* Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror by Richard Miniter
* The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? by Tony Blankley
Michelle Malkin? Tony Blankley? I'm not going to judge this book by its cover, but I will judge it by the company it keeps.
Got anything to back up your assertions that isn't a right-wing screed? I'm afraid this one source is simply not credible.
You're absolutely right, the opinion was a beautiful piece of work and a huge relief to those of us who think ignorance is NOT a desirable state for society.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media feels compelled to provide a "balanced" story including both sides of an issue, even when a little basic research would prove one side utterly wrong. This means ID has been given far more respectful treatment in the press than it has deserved, and gained credibility as a result (not unlike the Swift Boat liars in the last presidential election).
I do think the press has given its head a shake on the topic of ID though - the NYT ran a front-page article on the "missing link" fossil discovery announced today. I suspect 6 months ago they'd have buried the story on page A24 to avoid angering the creationists.
You know, I'm pretty good with th'readin' and th'writin', and I stand by what I wrote. I understood your post just fine, thanks, and in no way did I materially misrepresent it. I suggest you reread your own post before accusing me of restating it incorectly.
Frankly, you sounded like a (right-wing) astroturfer yourself - attacking the messenger with words like "kook", unprovable accusations of nefarious motives like moneymaking (and yes, you actually did say that), no links to support your claims...
To your credit, you've told me where I could presumably find some discussion of this woman's kookiness and motivation, so I don't think we're actually that far apart here, that's essentially what I was looking for.
But next time you try to communicate, consider your tone. There's no need to insult my intelligence fer chrissake, and keep your opinions about MY motivations ("No offense, but you are not interested in hearing the truth") to yourself. No offense my ass.
- BBV are "kooks" and only in it for the money - They've been disowned even by other "fringe" groups - The EFF was tricked into giving them "some" award - They engage in astroturfing - This article was planted by BBV as part of an astroturf campaign.
Can you provide any backup for these claims?
(For the record: I have nothing to do with BBV, I don't know anyone who does and I'm a Canadian living in Canada. Don't want to be accused of astroturfing myself...)
All I know is that if FDR had received a memo reading "Japan determined to attack Pearl Harbour", he would have done *something*.
Bush? He continued his 5-week vacation on his "ranch".
I don't understand why people trust Bush on national security when he dropped the ball through sheer laziness/incompetence/incuriousness. The question is not whether he could have prevented the attacks, it's whether he even tried.
Do you have any data at all to back this up, or are you just spouting what you heard on Fox news?
The Republicans tend to be better for the economy
Let's look at growth. The first chart here shows quarter-over-quarter economic growth since 1992. If you take out a few quarters for each president (recessions happen), Bush and Clinton had fairly comparable growth.
What's the difference? Clinton achieved this growth while simultaneously *eliminating* the deficit he'd inherited from two prior Republican presidents. Bush achieved this growth through the largest deficits in the history of the world.
Clinton's economic policies set the US up for long-term success while enabling growth. Bush enabled growth through disastrous fiscal policy that will continue to damage the US economy long after he's dragged his incompetent ass into retirement.
The Democrats have too many people eating out of the taxpayer coffers
Let's look at job growth under Bush. This report from the Economic Policy Institute argues that essentially all of the job growth under Bush is due to his massive growth in governments. Get that? If Bush hadn't exploded the size of the US government, there would have been almost no job growth over the last 5 years. And of course, he's borrowing money to pay for it all.
So tell me again that *Democrats* encourage people to feed at the public trough?
Honestly, this sort of uncritical thought is destroying America.
many Americans truly, honestly believed that Bush was the better candidate
What does that have to do with anything? Many Americans believed Ross Perot was the better candidate, but nobody argues that he deserved the job or - if he managed to force his way into office - that we should shut up about it.
I voted for Bush for various reasons
Ahh... now I see where you're coming from.
The fact is, about a half-million more Americans voted for Al Gore than for George Bush. As for who was more partisan, consider the relentless smear campaigns carried out against Bush opponents Anne Richards ("she's a lesbian!"), Al Gore (everything you can think of from "he claims to have invented the Internet" to "he grew up in a fancy Washington hotel"), and John Kerry (the Swift Boat liars).
Consider the shenanigans carried out in Florida in 2000 that exposed the weaknesses in American democracy and showed just how open to abuse the system is. The Republicans were simply more partisan, beating on the system without regard for the spirit and principle of the rules to get the result they wanted.
Consider the (more subtle) shenanigans in the 2004 election, particularly in Ohio, where voters in Democratic districts had to wait as much as 8 hours to vote and had their right to vote challenged in massive numbers by Republican partisans at the polling stations. This was made possible by Republicans in the Governor's office and Republicans in control of the election. Voters in Republican-leaning districts did not face these modern-day Jim Crow measures.
Now, consider all the shady stuff that's so difficult to prove - it took years just to get logs from these electronic voting machines, and they're FULL of suspicious data. Consider the 11th-hour "correction" in the voting data on election night 2004 - we're asked to accept that the exit polls were way off for the first time in history, and somehow the numbers jumped just enough in just the right places (all at the same time!) to put Bush over the top. Yet anyone who talks about this is smeared as a "nutjob"...
Who is more partisan? Republicans. One of the great failures of the Democratic party in the last 5 years has been to underestimate the ruthlessness and lack of principle on the part of the Republicans. Anybody who claims "well, both sides do it, everybody is partisan these days, a pox on both their houses" has either not been paying attention, or has drunk the Republican kool-aid.
Definitely. I just got my new Hyundai hybrid and I feel like the cat's ass... though my neighbour with the Prius seems unhappy with me for some reason.
The chief cause of global warming is not the heat produced by humanity (though I'm sure that's a factor), it's the ungodly amounts of carbon we've been dumping into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. This affects the amount of solar energy retained by the planet - this extra energy far outstrips the heat produced by humanity.
Worse, warmer air holds more water, which is itself a powerful greenhouse gas. It's a positive feedback cycle. I continue to be amazed at the supposedly technically adept Slashdotters who don't get that.
I like the methan hydrate where it is, deep down at ocean floors. We better not dig that up and disperse it in our environment.
Hear hear! It's bad enough that this might be pursued as yet another massive source of carbon, the methane hydrate itself is thought to hold the potential for catastrophic climate change: http://www.geotimes.org/nov04/feature_climate.html
Many SLR's actually perform in both modes - for slower shutter speeds, they open completely and then close. Beyond a certain shutter speed (called the x-sync, typically 1/60th sec) they switch to the leading/trailing curtain model you describe.
The x-sync is an important number - it's the fastest shutter speed on a given camera for which you can use a flash. Using a flash above the x-sync speed produces an illuminated band partway through the picture... this band is the open portion of the two shutters at the moment the flash goes off.
I'm in the reverse situation - I have a bunch of great Maxxum lenses and a really good flash (5400xi) as well as two film bodies. I've been waiting for a cheaper Maxxum digital body so I could dust it all off and get back to SLR photography.
Oh well, guess I'll have to buy the very good but very expensive Maxxum digital body now. I'm too deep into the Maxxum platform to switch at this point...
Did you RTFA? Unibody cars are much, much safer than body-on-frame cars because the unibody construction permits the car to deform and absorb the force of the collision where a rigid frame exposes occupants to the full force of the collision.
The "problem" is not cars moving to unibody - the improved safety and fuel economy drove that - the problem is millions of drivers using "light" trucks as their day-to-day vehicles, with no requirement that these trucks be designed with passenger car collisions in mind.
The good old days weren't as good as you say - body-on-frame collisions (such as the one I experienced in my dad's '74 Buick Centurion) were horrible compared to unibody-to-unibody collisions (such as the collision my wife experienced last month in her Hyundai Elantra.)
Actually, according to an article by Malcolm Gladwell, SUV's are actually far from the safest vehicles overall when measured in deaths per million vehicles.
Your best choices include the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and VW Jetta. The Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla have better survivability numbers than all but two sport-utes.
Read the article, it's engrossing (Gladwell is a great writer) and a great companion to TFA.
Did you RTFA? How could you find that hard to believe?
The Renault experienced a head-on collision, for which it had clearly been well-designed. There was lots of steel in front of the passenger compartment to crumple and absorb the energy of the crash.
The H2 took the collision on its side. Not only is there very little steel (and space) to absorb energy, it sounds like the impact was absorbed by a rigid frame. The only way the vehicle could dissapate energy was to roll away from the collision.
You're right that a head-on collision would be different, but not because the H2 is heavier. Rather, the problem is incompatibility between a high body-on-rigid-frame SUV and a lower unibody car. The SUV would make it difficult for the Renault to crumple in a head-on collision because it would probably impact much higher than the Renault's bumper and the SUV would not crumple itself.
It's no picnic for the SUV occupants either - that rigid frame exposes forces the whole vehicle (and its occupants) to decellerate at extremely rapid rates by not absorbing energy. If you take away the incompatibility (ie. car vs car or SUV vs SUV), you're much, much safer in a car.
Read the article. You're right to say that vehicle size is a major determining factor in survivability, but the article argues that is because there's more room for intrusions into the cab (including the Jaws of Life, great point). It's not about *mass* at all... in fact, the article found a closer correlation between blue book value of the vehicle and survivability.
the opponents believe that the least enemy victory will spell doom for their way of life
I dunno. This is totally subjective but I think it's more than a defensive initiative. It smells to me like a "they should do things our way" busybody approach. Especially given the "poor us, persecuted American Christians" bullshit that is so often spouted.
Once again it prooves the left has gone completely bonkers.
Heck, yeah, it's the *left* with the problem. All that (ongoing) torture, secret CIA prisons around the globe, American citizens being held indefinitely without charge or due process, manipulated intelligence leading into a disastrous war, the incompetent handling of the war itself, the president ordering the NSA to spy on American citizens on American soil... yep, the problem here is clearly the *left*, which has gone "bonkers".
Better hurry, Ann Coulter is on the Factor in ten minutes! There's just enough time to guzzle another glass of kool-aid before it starts!
I'd say it's more a statement that the current Administration has problems following its own rules - but, then, most Administrations run into that problem.
True, but I think we're beyond the point at which the Bush administration can be fairly compared with previous administrations. "Everybody does it" is no excuse when a president freely admits to violating the law and the forth amendment. And with the possible exception of Iran-Contra, I can't think of an administration that has so brazenly broken so many fundamental rules.
Slashdot Mirror
Questioning your source is not attacking the messenger.
My point was this: in the current political environment, when someone shows up with a completely alternate set of facts, my bullshit detector wakes up. When the source for those "facts" is a single book by a right-wing author, it goes up a notch. When there is no other credible source supplied, alarm bells go off.
The fact is, a lot of right wing authors are getting published lately, with theories and arguments that don't pass the most rudimentary sniff test but support the Republican party with theories such as:
- "Shadow War : The Untold Story of How Bush is Winning the War on Terror"
or
- "Losing Bin Laden : How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror"
etc. Those are two other books published by the author you cite. Looks to me like the work of yet another Republican mouthpiece.
It's not practical for me to dig into the book you cite and disprove the "facts". I don't have that kind of time. I don't buy your "facts" because I don't buy your source. Can you quote another source or not?
Wow, that's amazing! I really follow this stuff closely and had no idea Iraq had such an arsenal. In fact, that's so counter to my own information that I wonder about your source.
Let's just hop over to Amazon and check out "Disinformation":
Customers who bought this item also bought
* Do As I Say (Not As I Do) : Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter Schweizer
* The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) by Robert Spencer
* Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild by Michelle Malkin
* Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror by Richard Miniter
* The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? by Tony Blankley
Michelle Malkin? Tony Blankley? I'm not going to judge this book by its cover, but I will judge it by the company it keeps.
Got anything to back up your assertions that isn't a right-wing screed? I'm afraid this one source is simply not credible.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media feels compelled to provide a "balanced" story including both sides of an issue, even when a little basic research would prove one side utterly wrong. This means ID has been given far more respectful treatment in the press than it has deserved, and gained credibility as a result (not unlike the Swift Boat liars in the last presidential election).
I do think the press has given its head a shake on the topic of ID though - the NYT ran a front-page article on the "missing link" fossil discovery announced today. I suspect 6 months ago they'd have buried the story on page A24 to avoid angering the creationists.
You know, I'm pretty good with th'readin' and th'writin', and I stand by what I wrote. I understood your post just fine, thanks, and in no way did I materially misrepresent it. I suggest you reread your own post before accusing me of restating it incorectly.
Frankly, you sounded like a (right-wing) astroturfer yourself - attacking the messenger with words like "kook", unprovable accusations of nefarious motives like moneymaking (and yes, you actually did say that), no links to support your claims...
To your credit, you've told me where I could presumably find some discussion of this woman's kookiness and motivation, so I don't think we're actually that far apart here, that's essentially what I was looking for.
But next time you try to communicate, consider your tone. There's no need to insult my intelligence fer chrissake, and keep your opinions about MY motivations ("No offense, but you are not interested in hearing the truth") to yourself. No offense my ass.
So we're clear:
- BBV are "kooks" and only in it for the money
- They've been disowned even by other "fringe" groups
- The EFF was tricked into giving them "some" award
- They engage in astroturfing
- This article was planted by BBV as part of an astroturf campaign.
Can you provide any backup for these claims?
(For the record: I have nothing to do with BBV, I don't know anyone who does and I'm a Canadian living in Canada. Don't want to be accused of astroturfing myself...)
Dammit, I usually win UID wars.
;)
Respect, old man
4. Virtual PBX to simulate phones and modems (modified asterisk?)
t ml#voip
et voila: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/community.h
All I know is that if FDR had received a memo reading "Japan determined to attack Pearl Harbour", he would have done *something*.
Bush? He continued his 5-week vacation on his "ranch".
I don't understand why people trust Bush on national security when he dropped the ball through sheer laziness/incompetence/incuriousness. The question is not whether he could have prevented the attacks, it's whether he even tried.
Do you have any data at all to back this up, or are you just spouting what you heard on Fox news?
The Republicans tend to be better for the economy
Let's look at growth. The first chart here shows quarter-over-quarter economic growth since 1992. If you take out a few quarters for each president (recessions happen), Bush and Clinton had fairly comparable growth.
What's the difference? Clinton achieved this growth while simultaneously *eliminating* the deficit he'd inherited from two prior Republican presidents. Bush achieved this growth through the largest deficits in the history of the world.
Clinton's economic policies set the US up for long-term success while enabling growth. Bush enabled growth through disastrous fiscal policy that will continue to damage the US economy long after he's dragged his incompetent ass into retirement.
The Democrats have too many people eating out of the taxpayer coffers
Let's look at job growth under Bush. This report from the Economic Policy Institute argues that essentially all of the job growth under Bush is due to his massive growth in governments. Get that? If Bush hadn't exploded the size of the US government, there would have been almost no job growth over the last 5 years. And of course, he's borrowing money to pay for it all.
So tell me again that *Democrats* encourage people to feed at the public trough?
Honestly, this sort of uncritical thought is destroying America.
many Americans truly, honestly believed that Bush was the better candidate
What does that have to do with anything? Many Americans believed Ross Perot was the better candidate, but nobody argues that he deserved the job or - if he managed to force his way into office - that we should shut up about it.
I voted for Bush for various reasons
Ahh... now I see where you're coming from.
The fact is, about a half-million more Americans voted for Al Gore than for George Bush. As for who was more partisan, consider the relentless smear campaigns carried out against Bush opponents Anne Richards ("she's a lesbian!"), Al Gore (everything you can think of from "he claims to have invented the Internet" to "he grew up in a fancy Washington hotel"), and John Kerry (the Swift Boat liars).
Consider the shenanigans carried out in Florida in 2000 that exposed the weaknesses in American democracy and showed just how open to abuse the system is. The Republicans were simply more partisan, beating on the system without regard for the spirit and principle of the rules to get the result they wanted.
Consider the (more subtle) shenanigans in the 2004 election, particularly in Ohio, where voters in Democratic districts had to wait as much as 8 hours to vote and had their right to vote challenged in massive numbers by Republican partisans at the polling stations. This was made possible by Republicans in the Governor's office and Republicans in control of the election. Voters in Republican-leaning districts did not face these modern-day Jim Crow measures.
Now, consider all the shady stuff that's so difficult to prove - it took years just to get logs from these electronic voting machines, and they're FULL of suspicious data. Consider the 11th-hour "correction" in the voting data on election night 2004 - we're asked to accept that the exit polls were way off for the first time in history, and somehow the numbers jumped just enough in just the right places (all at the same time!) to put Bush over the top. Yet anyone who talks about this is smeared as a "nutjob"...
Who is more partisan? Republicans. One of the great failures of the Democratic party in the last 5 years has been to underestimate the ruthlessness and lack of principle on the part of the Republicans. Anybody who claims "well, both sides do it, everybody is partisan these days, a pox on both their houses" has either not been paying attention, or has drunk the Republican kool-aid.
The real question is 'what is the net effect'?
By creating a giant ice surface, we may be able to reflect far more solar energy than was expended creating the ice in the first place.
Challenger destroyed our sense of competence
Good point. And you could argue that the bungled non-response to Hurricane Katrina shattered the world's view of US competence.
What about a Hybrid car, will that help me?
Definitely. I just got my new Hyundai hybrid and I feel like the cat's ass... though my neighbour with the Prius seems unhappy with me for some reason.
pfft. Happened to me this morning.
Just how the hell did I become 35?
How did this get modded 'insightful'?
The chief cause of global warming is not the heat produced by humanity (though I'm sure that's a factor), it's the ungodly amounts of carbon we've been dumping into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. This affects the amount of solar energy retained by the planet - this extra energy far outstrips the heat produced by humanity.
Worse, warmer air holds more water, which is itself a powerful greenhouse gas. It's a positive feedback cycle. I continue to be amazed at the supposedly technically adept Slashdotters who don't get that.
I like the methan hydrate where it is, deep down at ocean floors. We better not dig that up and disperse it in our environment.
l
Hear hear! It's bad enough that this might be pursued as yet another massive source of carbon, the methane hydrate itself is thought to hold the potential for catastrophic climate change: http://www.geotimes.org/nov04/feature_climate.htm
Leave it alone, we have enough problems.
Great post.
Many SLR's actually perform in both modes - for slower shutter speeds, they open completely and then close. Beyond a certain shutter speed (called the x-sync, typically 1/60th sec) they switch to the leading/trailing curtain model you describe.
The x-sync is an important number - it's the fastest shutter speed on a given camera for which you can use a flash. Using a flash above the x-sync speed produces an illuminated band partway through the picture... this band is the open portion of the two shutters at the moment the flash goes off.
Ah, analog technology...
I'm in the reverse situation - I have a bunch of great Maxxum lenses and a really good flash (5400xi) as well as two film bodies. I've been waiting for a cheaper Maxxum digital body so I could dust it all off and get back to SLR photography.
Oh well, guess I'll have to buy the very good but very expensive Maxxum digital body now. I'm too deep into the Maxxum platform to switch at this point...
On the other hand, some of us have been known to get *into* bed for much, much less than a petabyte...
As usual, The Onion has anticipated this and mocked it for you. One of their better pieces, of late.
Did you RTFA? Unibody cars are much, much safer than body-on-frame cars because the unibody construction permits the car to deform and absorb the force of the collision where a rigid frame exposes occupants to the full force of the collision.
The "problem" is not cars moving to unibody - the improved safety and fuel economy drove that - the problem is millions of drivers using "light" trucks as their day-to-day vehicles, with no requirement that these trucks be designed with passenger car collisions in mind.
The good old days weren't as good as you say - body-on-frame collisions (such as the one I experienced in my dad's '74 Buick Centurion) were horrible compared to unibody-to-unibody collisions (such as the collision my wife experienced last month in her Hyundai Elantra.)
Actually, according to an article by Malcolm Gladwell, SUV's are actually far from the safest vehicles overall when measured in deaths per million vehicles.
Your best choices include the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and VW Jetta. The Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla have better survivability numbers than all but two sport-utes.
Read the article, it's engrossing (Gladwell is a great writer) and a great companion to TFA.
Did you RTFA? How could you find that hard to believe?
The Renault experienced a head-on collision, for which it had clearly been well-designed. There was lots of steel in front of the passenger compartment to crumple and absorb the energy of the crash.
The H2 took the collision on its side. Not only is there very little steel (and space) to absorb energy, it sounds like the impact was absorbed by a rigid frame. The only way the vehicle could dissapate energy was to roll away from the collision.
You're right that a head-on collision would be different, but not because the H2 is heavier. Rather, the problem is incompatibility between a high body-on-rigid-frame SUV and a lower unibody car. The SUV would make it difficult for the Renault to crumple in a head-on collision because it would probably impact much higher than the Renault's bumper and the SUV would not crumple itself.
It's no picnic for the SUV occupants either - that rigid frame exposes forces the whole vehicle (and its occupants) to decellerate at extremely rapid rates by not absorbing energy. If you take away the incompatibility (ie. car vs car or SUV vs SUV), you're much, much safer in a car.
Read the article. You're right to say that vehicle size is a major determining factor in survivability, but the article argues that is because there's more room for intrusions into the cab (including the Jaws of Life, great point). It's not about *mass* at all... in fact, the article found a closer correlation between blue book value of the vehicle and survivability.
the opponents believe that the least enemy victory will spell doom for their way of life
I dunno. This is totally subjective but I think it's more than a defensive initiative. It smells to me like a "they should do things our way" busybody approach. Especially given the "poor us, persecuted American Christians" bullshit that is so often spouted.
Food for thought.
Once again it prooves the left has gone completely bonkers.
Heck, yeah, it's the *left* with the problem. All that (ongoing) torture, secret CIA prisons around the globe, American citizens being held indefinitely without charge or due process, manipulated intelligence leading into a disastrous war, the incompetent handling of the war itself, the president ordering the NSA to spy on American citizens on American soil... yep, the problem here is clearly the *left*, which has gone "bonkers".
Better hurry, Ann Coulter is on the Factor in ten minutes! There's just enough time to guzzle another glass of kool-aid before it starts!
I'd say it's more a statement that the current Administration has problems following its own rules - but, then, most Administrations run into that problem.
True, but I think we're beyond the point at which the Bush administration can be fairly compared with previous administrations. "Everybody does it" is no excuse when a president freely admits to violating the law and the forth amendment. And with the possible exception of Iran-Contra, I can't think of an administration that has so brazenly broken so many fundamental rules.