Certain changes that occur in pregnancy make it more likely that any underlying problems, including diabetes, would show up, so I'm not sure that gestational diabetes should be considered a different type per se. I had it myself, but after 3 months in normal range I ended up with type 1. Not unexpected given how much insulin I was having to take in the last trimester, and previous years of rather frequent hypoglycemia. For many others, though, it indicates a risk for type 2 in the future.
There is, however, another major category called MODY (Maturity Onset Diabetes in Youth) of which so far more than a half-dozen subtypes have been identified. They are caused by specific genetic mutations (autosomal dominant), but AFAIK testing for these types isn't done very often.
Or it could be maternal health and nutrition, which doesn't require a lot of extra details to support a biological mechanism, if an alternative were proposed, for this type of selection. More males than females are produced overall, yet there are also more poor individuals overall--and the poor aren't having trouble reproducing.
If every conception resulted in a live birth, would the difference hold?
One of the most celebrated principles in evolutionary biology, the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, states that wealthy parents of high status have more sons, while poor parents of low status have more daughters. This is because children generally inherit the wealth and social status of their parents. . . . So natural selection designs parents to have biased sex ratio at birth depending upon their economic circumstances--more boys if they are wealthy, more girls if they are poor. (The biological mechanism by which this occurs is not yet understood.)
Your question was answered a few times already, but I just found the explanation exceptionally bizarre, even compared to the rest of the garbage. Is the long-held idea that males tend to be a bit less hardy than females in the womb not "politically incorrect" enough for this article? Do they suppose sperm check their parents' wallets to see which ones should forge ahead and which ones to hold back? Natural selection doesn't "design"; it culls.
That agreement apparently refers to a different site:
In January, Odyssey won permission from the Spanish government to resume a suspended search for the wreck of the HMS Sussex, which was leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for a war against France in 1694 when it sank in a storm off Gibraltar.
Historians believe the almost-50-metre warship was carrying more than eight tonnes of gold coins to buy the loyalty of the Duke of Savoy, a potential ally in southeastern France. Odyssey believes those coins could also fetch more than $500 million.
But under the terms of an agreement, Odyssey will have to share any finds with the British government. The company will get 80 per cent of the first $45 million and about 50 per cent of proceeds thereafter.
I was having trouble getting it to load at first (Gentoo/Firefox 2.0.0.3/Flash 9), so I checked to be sure it was accepting cookies/javascipt and refreshed several times. Nothing: most of the page wasn't visible, no links worked, just the menu image and "loading..." text. Next I checked the source, cried a little, then changed the user agent. The page changed finally, to insist I needed IE (no mention of firefox), so I set it back to default, closed the tab, hit the link again and...it loaded up fine. I watched a few minutes of the video, decided enough of that, then tried to close it, close it, crash. It works for me, sorta, but I still have no idea what happened there.
Punishment is subjective, but not a necessary remedy anyway. That there is a consequence to what would otherwise be considered a basic right, such as liberty, suffices to demonstrate that people do indeed expect reciprocation. The "profoundly handicapped" have little if any freedom to begin with, though. But the idea that certain people *can't* reciprocate makes no sense to me: violating a person's rights requires action, while respecting rights requires...nothing. I can respect the rights of everyone on the planet even while I sleep, iow.
I do consider the contractarian argument (as it's usually argued) very weak, but not because there is some class of persons incapable of reciprocation. The generalization argument and argument from marginal cases often used by animal rights proponents are rather weak, too.
Somone who is profoundly handicaped has rights. Those rights do not depend on them respecting or even understanding your rights. You are obliged to respect their rights, though they are not even expected to respect yours.
How do they fail to respect the rights of others, though? If these obligations are positive, then all of us would necessarily fail at some point. If they entail *not* doing certain things, then anyone could meet that obligation regardless of his ability to understand it, else face consequences. The consequences may differ according to the actor's ability (and the particular action in question), but that does not mean that those less able or unable to distinguish right and wrong aren't expected to respect others' rights all the same. For example, if I killed a mentally disabled person, I would (hopefully) be caught, tried, and face prison or death - i.e., unless someone drops the ball, steps will be taken to protect the public from me. But if a mentally disabled person killed me, would he then be free to kill others because no one has rights with respect to this person? Kant pointed out that a being with rights but no duties is God, while a being with only duties and no rights is a slave. Are there gods among us?
The problem is the stickers fade so fast. Just a few weeks and the red color of the text is very faded!
That's a bummer. If I had a faded bumpersticker/sign that I wanted to keep but couldn't be assured that a replacement wouldn't also fade, I'd retouch it myself with acrylics. I have a personal quirk about wanting to paint *everything*, though.
Atheists were lumped in with agnostics, so the 40% perhaps represents those who claimed to be agnostic but forgot they were supposed to say "Don't know".
Question 12: Which one of the following statements come closest to your views about the origin and development of human beings? Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process (or) Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process (or) God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so?
13% of agnostics/atheists chose "God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so". The 48% probably comes from the total for that response from all groups, not the question about whether it is well-supported by evidence/accepted by scientists.
(i) Performance is each instance in which any portion of a sound recording is publicly
performed to a Listener by means of a digital audio transmission (e.g., the delivery of any portion
of a single track from a compact disc to one Listener) but excluding the following:
(1) A performance of a sound recording that does not require a license (e.g., a sound
recording that is not copyrighted);
(2) A performance of a sound recording for which the service has previously obtained a
license from the Copyright Owner of such sound recording; and
(3) An incidental performance that both:
(i) Makes no more than incidental use of sound recordings including, but not limited to,
brief musical transitions in and out of commercials or program segments, brief performances
during news, talk and sport programming, brief background performances during disk jockey
announcements, brief performances during commercials of sixty seconds or less in duration, or
brief performances during sporting or other public events and
(ii) Other than ambient music that is background at a public event, does not contain an
entire sound recording and does not feature a particular sound recording of more than thirty
seconds (as in the case of a sound recording used as a theme song).
Farmers say they need the subsidies because otherwise food would be too cheap, and you use it as an argument to say that food would be too expensive without illegal workers!
You're talking about cheap/expensive to different groups of people, though, and different kinds of crops. The subsidies guarantee a price floor for the farmer to encourage him to overproduce while reaping an inflated price that the market itself wouldn't support. So subsidies actually make the prices seem cheap for the buyers but not the sellers, as the selling price is effectively higher than the purchase price. I say "seem cheap" because, obviously, the taxpayers are paying the difference. However, in the US the main subsidized crops are corn, soy, rice, wheat and cotton, not peaches and such. These are mechanized crops, and of those crops that require seasonal farm labor for harvest, any increased costs passed on to the (average) American consumer would be negligible, not only because labor cost is a rather small percentage of the total price as it is, but because spending on these fresh fruits and vegetables is quite low anyway.
They have been removing a lot of the propaganda/snuff vids, but users have to find and flag them first. And they quickly get resubmitted under different names. From the NYT article linked on the blog:
In recent weeks, YouTube has removed dozens of the videos from its archives and suspended the accounts of some users who have posted them, a reaction, it said, to complaints from other users.
More than four dozen videos of combat in Iraq viewed by The New York Times have been removed in recent days, many after The Times began inquiries.
But many others remain, some labeled in Arabic, making them difficult for American users to search for. In addition, new videos, often with the same material that had been deleted elsewhere, are added daily.
It's unfortunate that this sort of thing happens, but it isn't fair to say YouTube (or Google, which the article also mentions) is therefore supporting Islamic fundamentalism. It's a problem of any "democratic" system: you have to find a fair way to moderate the hordes of jerks out there that have the same access as everyone else. The service wouldn't be as popular (or profitable) if they had to review each video before it's posted, and people will of course take advantage of that. Additional checks may be needed.
I also saw the removed MM video, and IIRC, it did intersperse a number of the "offensive" cartoon images between images of angry mobs. An important (American) conservative* value is that people have the right to express whatever idea they want, but no one is obligated to provide a forum or an audience for that expression.
*Not that it's an exclusively conservative value, of course.
I haven't been able to use that line on my kid ever since the Turkish sheep incident. She just replies, "If the bodies are piled high enough to cushion my fall, then sure!"
To me the change appears to emphasize something a bit different, from "encourag[ing] the creation of incentives to promote the development of open-source and open-content projects" to "the creation of incentives to promote the development of information-technology-based collaborative tools and capabilities . . . . Both commercial development and new collaborative paradigms such as open source . . .."
Maybe that's their problem, the promotion of anything other than commercial development?
It's a touch ironic that the secret hold issue was taken up back in March with the Wyden-Grassley amendment to prohibit secret holds (SA 2944), which passed with a Yea-Nay vote of 84-13. It was an amendment to S.2349, Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006.
I would have hoped that, if you were to reply, you would have addressed what had actually been said, and not go off on a tangent. While I appreciate the thought you put into your essay, your attempt to edify what you consider my immature world-view is misplaced. Again you leap to these astounding conclusions about me, with no basis in anything I've actually said. And you presume, in this condescending manner, to teach me something. Well rest assured, you have. Incidentally, one of the techniques I noticed from some animal rights advocates (although it certainly isn't unique to these individuals), when engaged in debate, was the propensity to pile on reams of irrelevant material (an ocean of red herring, if you will). Whether they actually believed it had anything to do with the topic at hand or were hoping that their opponent would simply give up, I just don't know.
Now, I hope you have a good night, or morning, afternoon, whatever the case may be, and feel free to pat yourself on the back that you sure showed me; I'm done.
Facts: (F1) So-and-so scientist cause animals to suffer. (F2) There may be other ways to learn what is needed, without inflicting harm on animals.
F1 is an assumption, which may or may not be supported by facts. F2 is a proposition, which may or may not be supported by facts.
Logic? "It's bad to cause unnecessary suffering. So-and-so scientist causes animals to suffer, in the name of science. But there may be other ways to learn what is needed, without inflicting harm on animals. The scientist should explore other ways, and not cause animals to suffer."
You've certainly provided an example of bad AR logic, presenting an argument that is loaded with unsupported assumptions, neglects relevant information, and fails to support the conclusion.
Sure, from the semantics point of view, that is "reasoning": poor reasoning that doesn't meet the criteria I have for "real reasoning" any more than "simple majority" met your criteria--whatever that may be--when you used the phrase in the first place. (Not that referring to "normal people" as opposed to the insane has anything to do with an "appeal to simple majority", of course.) Double-standard?
If I would just open my eyes I'd see the light, huh? Having rejected their arguments as lacking "real reasoning", that shows that I'm "just [not] listening"? Wow. As if there could be no other explanation for rejecting it.
Actually, I have been listening to animal rights activists for decades. I have engaged them in debate, asked them questions. I have pored over every reference that these activists have cited to me, everything from philosophical treatises to the citations they use to support their claims about animal research, veganism, farming, wildlife management, etc. I have listened to lectures, read their pamphlets and newsletters. I have a keen interest in the subject for personal reasons, but not from a position of preformed bias. I was a vegetarian for many years and very open to ideas about animal rights from the start, so it wasn't as if I had already concluded they were nuts and dismissed all evidence to the contrary. Rather, I was terribly enlightened: apart from the emotional appeals and the circular moral judgments (at some point, to support a moral judgment requires accepting the judgment as a given), "real reasoning" is missing. Intellectual honesty is missing. Facts and logic--missing. I don't know what you mean by the phrase, but these are basic requirements from my point of view. And I repeat: I certainly haven't seen any examples of "real reasoning"; quite the opposite, in fact. Does this say that "real reasoning" isn't possible? Or does it say that, in my experience, and I do have quite a bit of experience here, I have not seen any examples?
I had to laugh a bit when I read your post, btw, as it reminds me of a discussion I participated in years ago. One woman, an animal welfare advocate who was staunchly opposed to the AR agenda and used very strong language in condemning them--particularly when they made their standard talking-point comparisons to slavery and genocide--was repeatedly criticized, her statements dismissed, because she had admitted to not reading very much of the literature, but that what she had seen, she despised. So I posed the question: "How much are we required to read before we can start vilifying it, and does this differ from the amount required for those who praise it?" (It turned out that the AR supporters had, collectively, read even less than she had!) As she later remarked: "This implies that if one only knows enough about AR, one must accept the AR beliefs. That there can be no rational reason for rejecting AR beliefs." Which, I suppose, would make it much easier to accept the proposition that, having been frustrated by their attempts to persuade others to their cause, they have no choice but to use intimidation and violence. It's for our own good, because we just won't listen to reason...
Two US Senate Committee hearings on eco-terrorism, which specifically addressed the issue of these campaigns against researchers, were held on May 18 and October 26, 2005. Read some of the opening statements and make a note of who downplayed the severity of the problem and who didn't. (The audio of the second hearing is available on the site as well, and I would recommend listening to it.)
Interestingly enough, this represents one of the splits the animal rights movement has with Peter Singer, who is widely credited with starting that movement in 1975 with his Animal Liberation (although his utilitarianism doesn't represent the 'rights' POV). In a piece titled "Humans Are Sentient Too", he states: "In a democratic society, change should come about through education and persuasion, not intimidation." He makes this even more clear in his "Animal Rights: The Right to Protest",
One thing that should be absolutely clear is that the democratic right of protest does not extend to the infliction of violence, or to making threats of violence, against any individual. The overwhelming majority of the animal movement is opposed to violence, and has dissociated itself from such tactics on innumerable occasions, from the time when violence first appeared in the movement, nearly 20 years ago. The use of violence discredits the animal movement, and it has no place in a society that has other channels for bringing about change.
I don't know where he gets that "overwhelming majority" bit, though. From what I've seen, even those who say they're opposed are quick to defend violent tactics as 'justified', because no matter how many people flat disagree with them, they're convinced their cause is just. If it is just, then why can't they use persuasion instead of intimidation? Maybe it isn't as persuasive as they think? I certainly haven't seen any examples of "real reasoning"; quite the opposite, in fact.
Slashdot Mirror
All the creationists I know are Democrats. Sadly, most of those are also public school teachers.
Certain changes that occur in pregnancy make it more likely that any underlying problems, including diabetes, would show up, so I'm not sure that gestational diabetes should be considered a different type per se. I had it myself, but after 3 months in normal range I ended up with type 1. Not unexpected given how much insulin I was having to take in the last trimester, and previous years of rather frequent hypoglycemia. For many others, though, it indicates a risk for type 2 in the future.
There is, however, another major category called MODY (Maturity Onset Diabetes in Youth) of which so far more than a half-dozen subtypes have been identified. They are caused by specific genetic mutations (autosomal dominant), but AFAIK testing for these types isn't done very often.
Or it could be maternal health and nutrition, which doesn't require a lot of extra details to support a biological mechanism, if an alternative were proposed, for this type of selection. More males than females are produced overall, yet there are also more poor individuals overall--and the poor aren't having trouble reproducing.
If every conception resulted in a live birth, would the difference hold?
Your question was answered a few times already, but I just found the explanation exceptionally bizarre, even compared to the rest of the garbage. Is the long-held idea that males tend to be a bit less hardy than females in the womb not "politically incorrect" enough for this article? Do they suppose sperm check their parents' wallets to see which ones should forge ahead and which ones to hold back? Natural selection doesn't "design"; it culls.
That agreement apparently refers to a different site:
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/215550
I was having trouble getting it to load at first (Gentoo/Firefox 2.0.0.3/Flash 9), so I checked to be sure it was accepting cookies/javascipt and refreshed several times. Nothing: most of the page wasn't visible, no links worked, just the menu image and "loading..." text. Next I checked the source, cried a little, then changed the user agent. The page changed finally, to insist I needed IE (no mention of firefox), so I set it back to default, closed the tab, hit the link again and...it loaded up fine. I watched a few minutes of the video, decided enough of that, then tried to close it, close it, crash. It works for me, sorta, but I still have no idea what happened there.
Punishment is subjective, but not a necessary remedy anyway. That there is a consequence to what would otherwise be considered a basic right, such as liberty, suffices to demonstrate that people do indeed expect reciprocation. The "profoundly handicapped" have little if any freedom to begin with, though. But the idea that certain people *can't* reciprocate makes no sense to me: violating a person's rights requires action, while respecting rights requires...nothing. I can respect the rights of everyone on the planet even while I sleep, iow.
I do consider the contractarian argument (as it's usually argued) very weak, but not because there is some class of persons incapable of reciprocation. The generalization argument and argument from marginal cases often used by animal rights proponents are rather weak, too.
Somone who is profoundly handicaped has rights. Those rights do not depend on them respecting or even understanding your rights. You are obliged to respect their rights, though they are not even expected to respect yours.
How do they fail to respect the rights of others, though? If these obligations are positive, then all of us would necessarily fail at some point. If they entail *not* doing certain things, then anyone could meet that obligation regardless of his ability to understand it, else face consequences. The consequences may differ according to the actor's ability (and the particular action in question), but that does not mean that those less able or unable to distinguish right and wrong aren't expected to respect others' rights all the same. For example, if I killed a mentally disabled person, I would (hopefully) be caught, tried, and face prison or death - i.e., unless someone drops the ball, steps will be taken to protect the public from me. But if a mentally disabled person killed me, would he then be free to kill others because no one has rights with respect to this person? Kant pointed out that a being with rights but no duties is God, while a being with only duties and no rights is a slave. Are there gods among us?
The problem is the stickers fade so fast. Just a few weeks and the red color of the text is very faded!
That's a bummer. If I had a faded bumpersticker/sign that I wanted to keep but couldn't be assured that a replacement wouldn't also fade, I'd retouch it myself with acrylics. I have a personal quirk about wanting to paint *everything*, though.
You can get them at bioliteracy.net.
Check the "Definitions" section:
You're talking about cheap/expensive to different groups of people, though, and different kinds of crops. The subsidies guarantee a price floor for the farmer to encourage him to overproduce while reaping an inflated price that the market itself wouldn't support. So subsidies actually make the prices seem cheap for the buyers but not the sellers, as the selling price is effectively higher than the purchase price. I say "seem cheap" because, obviously, the taxpayers are paying the difference. However, in the US the main subsidized crops are corn, soy, rice, wheat and cotton, not peaches and such. These are mechanized crops, and of those crops that require seasonal farm labor for harvest, any increased costs passed on to the (average) American consumer would be negligible, not only because labor cost is a rather small percentage of the total price as it is, but because spending on these fresh fruits and vegetables is quite low anyway.
They have been removing a lot of the propaganda/snuff vids, but users have to find and flag them first. And they quickly get resubmitted under different names. From the NYT article linked on the blog:
It's unfortunate that this sort of thing happens, but it isn't fair to say YouTube (or Google, which the article also mentions) is therefore supporting Islamic fundamentalism. It's a problem of any "democratic" system: you have to find a fair way to moderate the hordes of jerks out there that have the same access as everyone else. The service wouldn't be as popular (or profitable) if they had to review each video before it's posted, and people will of course take advantage of that. Additional checks may be needed.
I also saw the removed MM video, and IIRC, it did intersperse a number of the "offensive" cartoon images between images of angry mobs. An important (American) conservative* value is that people have the right to express whatever idea they want, but no one is obligated to provide a forum or an audience for that expression.
*Not that it's an exclusively conservative value, of course.
I haven't been able to use that line on my kid ever since the Turkish sheep incident. She just replies, "If the bodies are piled high enough to cushion my fall, then sure!"
Microsoft and Yahoo: soft, fluffy bodies?
So...children and prison laborers are taking American IT jobs?
To me the change appears to emphasize something a bit different, from "encourag[ing] the creation of incentives to promote the development of open-source and open-content projects" to "the creation of incentives to promote the development of information-technology-based collaborative tools and capabilities . . . . Both commercial development and new collaborative paradigms such as open source . . . ."
Maybe that's their problem, the promotion of anything other than commercial development?
Direct Links To Thomas Documents :-)
It's a touch ironic that the secret hold issue was taken up back in March with the Wyden-Grassley amendment to prohibit secret holds (SA 2944), which passed with a Yea-Nay vote of 84-13. It was an amendment to S.2349, Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006.
I would have hoped that, if you were to reply, you would have addressed what had actually been said, and not go off on a tangent. While I appreciate the thought you put into your essay, your attempt to edify what you consider my immature world-view is misplaced. Again you leap to these astounding conclusions about me, with no basis in anything I've actually said. And you presume, in this condescending manner, to teach me something. Well rest assured, you have. Incidentally, one of the techniques I noticed from some animal rights advocates (although it certainly isn't unique to these individuals), when engaged in debate, was the propensity to pile on reams of irrelevant material (an ocean of red herring, if you will). Whether they actually believed it had anything to do with the topic at hand or were hoping that their opponent would simply give up, I just don't know.
Now, I hope you have a good night, or morning, afternoon, whatever the case may be, and feel free to pat yourself on the back that you sure showed me; I'm done.
F1 is an assumption, which may or may not be supported by facts. F2 is a proposition, which may or may not be supported by facts.
You've certainly provided an example of bad AR logic, presenting an argument that is loaded with unsupported assumptions, neglects relevant information, and fails to support the conclusion.
Sure, from the semantics point of view, that is "reasoning": poor reasoning that doesn't meet the criteria I have for "real reasoning" any more than "simple majority" met your criteria--whatever that may be--when you used the phrase in the first place. (Not that referring to "normal people" as opposed to the insane has anything to do with an "appeal to simple majority", of course.) Double-standard?
If I would just open my eyes I'd see the light, huh? Having rejected their arguments as lacking "real reasoning", that shows that I'm "just [not] listening"? Wow. As if there could be no other explanation for rejecting it.
Actually, I have been listening to animal rights activists for decades. I have engaged them in debate, asked them questions. I have pored over every reference that these activists have cited to me, everything from philosophical treatises to the citations they use to support their claims about animal research, veganism, farming, wildlife management, etc. I have listened to lectures, read their pamphlets and newsletters. I have a keen interest in the subject for personal reasons, but not from a position of preformed bias. I was a vegetarian for many years and very open to ideas about animal rights from the start, so it wasn't as if I had already concluded they were nuts and dismissed all evidence to the contrary. Rather, I was terribly enlightened: apart from the emotional appeals and the circular moral judgments (at some point, to support a moral judgment requires accepting the judgment as a given), "real reasoning" is missing. Intellectual honesty is missing. Facts and logic--missing. I don't know what you mean by the phrase, but these are basic requirements from my point of view. And I repeat: I certainly haven't seen any examples of "real reasoning"; quite the opposite, in fact. Does this say that "real reasoning" isn't possible? Or does it say that, in my experience, and I do have quite a bit of experience here, I have not seen any examples?
I had to laugh a bit when I read your post, btw, as it reminds me of a discussion I participated in years ago. One woman, an animal welfare advocate who was staunchly opposed to the AR agenda and used very strong language in condemning them--particularly when they made their standard talking-point comparisons to slavery and genocide--was repeatedly criticized, her statements dismissed, because she had admitted to not reading very much of the literature, but that what she had seen, she despised. So I posed the question: "How much are we required to read before we can start vilifying it, and does this differ from the amount required for those who praise it?" (It turned out that the AR supporters had, collectively, read even less than she had!) As she later remarked: "This implies that if one only knows enough about AR, one must accept the AR beliefs. That there can be no rational reason for rejecting AR beliefs." Which, I suppose, would make it much easier to accept the proposition that, having been frustrated by their attempts to persuade others to their cause, they have no choice but to use intimidation and violence. It's for our own good, because we just won't listen to reason...
Two US Senate Committee hearings on eco-terrorism, which specifically addressed the issue of these campaigns against researchers, were held on May 18 and October 26, 2005. Read some of the opening statements and make a note of who downplayed the severity of the problem and who didn't. (The audio of the second hearing is available on the site as well, and I would recommend listening to it.)