The right is for an increased defense budget and capital punishment? Which right is that again? I'm right-wing, I'm not for either of these things.
Abortion, welfare, gay rights, school prayer, give me a fucking break. This article is shallow, useless and frivolous just like most of all political debate that goes on in the US.
Meanwhile fiat money central banking, military adventurism and torture remain untouched by any significant criticism and coverage.
And how misleading and stupid is a name like 'squatting'. He's not squatting. He paid for the domain, if anyone's trying to evict him from his property and squat in it are the Olympics thugs.
Brings other kinds of 'creative doubletalk' to mind, such as 'software pirates' and 'liberals' in America.
Ok, ok, granted, I exaggerated to make a point, 1% was as low as it got, but nevertheless, it was unrealistically low. And as they racked up the interest back up they shouldn't be surprised when people started defaulting on their loans.
If you want more of regulation, then you want more of this. Markets work to direct investment where it is needed pretty damn well, but if you have a central bank that keeps fiddling with the damn interest rates like a PS3 joystick, it is very unfair to point your finger at the 'free market' for fucking it up.
For a more graphical comparison check this little article from Mises.org. Not a close fit as South America and Africa, but close.
Nope, they failed because the Fed suddenly felt like lowering the interest rate to 1% for about 6 years after 9/11. Which sort of fucks up the market's signalling forces.
For more information look up the Austrian theory of the business cycle.
That is kind of their point. That the total electorate is a minority of the US citizens, and half of that electorate actually votes for a candidate because they think his adversary is worse, not because his candidate is good.
I'd recommend looking up the Ron Paul's press conference from yesterday, it's very interesting.
America truly needs to get the rascals out. Not Reps, not Dems, but both. I live abroad and I must say the current movement for removing the stranglehold of the two-party cartel on the political life is one of, if not _the_ most exciting things in US politics I've seen in my life.
That was a pretty darn good response. Ok then, I withdraw the fart theory, since it has been disproven.:-)
I don't think global warming is a lie. What I'm trying to fight here is the politics guised in 'science' that would have us freeze the developing world in time while carbon taxing the entire world to fill their environment-friendly pocket. That is dirty, dishonest and opportunistic crap.
There's no denying that the environmental movement has been hijacked by special interests. I think that's really bad. For science AND the environmental movement.
The best thing for the environment is technological progress. I mean, a car pollutes less than four horses, a locomotive pollutes less than, oh, a bunch of cars or trucks and taking a plane to Paris will certainly cost much less than a cab.
I did, after the sentence you quoted. Or do you not believe that tax burdens and regulatory nonsense hamper free enterprise and market barrier to entry?
So, you want no taxation? Absolutely no regulation? That basically means no government. That's a bit absurd.
Why is it absurd? Can you answer?
I don't want NO government, that'd be more than a bit utopian. But how do you suppose the US paid for government before 1913? That's when the IRS came to being.
I'd propose a low, non-protectionist tariff. That'd force government to cut its spending to the bare essentials of defense from foreign agression and preserving order at home.
So what I'm asking is that the Government actually BE restrained by the Constitution - the supreme law of the land. I know, absurd indeed.
Now, don't just make up facts.
What does land size, population size and urban percentage have anything to do with the argument again?
government is only efficient at mobilizing an economy for a single purpose - waging war
The "Free market rules all, regulation is evil" statement that I hear so often on this site has no addressable points. What is the systemic problem that you're implying but not specifying?
I did, after the sentence you quoted. Or do you not believe that tax burdens and regulatory nonsense hamper free enterprise and market barrier to entry?
Check out the wikipedia [wikipedia.org] article. Especially the telecom section. Its crazy.
Somalia is around 640,000 square kilometers, with a population of around 10 million. About a third of those people live in urban areas. Their private telecommunications rebuild was largely funded by the UN. I think you're comparing apples to oranges, if you're implying that starting up a functional and competitive telco in the U.S. would be anything even remotely close to doing the same in Somalia.
Now, don't just make up facts. The telecom industry in Somalia was funded by private enterprise.
What the UN did was sponsor an intermediation between companies on interconnection standards. And the important thing is, it does not carry force of law, and is not a regulatory agency. The companies agreed to it because it is in their best interests to provide the best possible service to their customers. After all, if two companies have interconnect standards you won't pay for a cell service that only allows you to call 8100**** numbers, as cheap as it might be.
What does land size, population size and urban percentage have anything to do with the argument again? If anything economic planning fares worse the more complex an economy becomes. The fact that government is only efficient at mobilizing an economy for a single purpose - waging war - is a strong argument for that premise.
If somebody farts it will smell even after the 1 or 2 seconds of the fart itself. Now move that to a giant Earthly asshole scale and wonder why the following statement is not exactly Nobel prize winning material.
And the Mauna Loa data set is itself independent of volcanic activity.
If they measure CO2 next to volcanos it obviously has something to do with global warming, or else they simply would take measurements elsewhere. Poster was attacking something the OP did not say.
'AC did not say what the poster refuted' == Straw man. It's not that hard. Try rubbing ice on forehead.
Give up man, it's pathetic. Admit that the AC didn't know what he/she was talking about and move on.
Actually pleading me to stop arguing instead of giving me an actual counter argument is pathetic.
I'm not going to be your conspiracy monkey, to paraphrase jon stewart. But will fill in some of your more glaring statements.
how nobody saw or heard explosives going off
There have been accounts of witnesses, firefighters included that heard loud explosions in the second tower BEFORE the aircraft hit it. Thing is, people now ignore them and call them crack addicts and conspiracy nuts.
how nobody found evidence for these explosives after the fact
Well, the fact that nobody was allowed to LOOK for evidence in ground zero while they were hurriedly cleaning the thing up can be blamed partially for it. But there were abnormally high temperature spots that indicated the presence of molten metal, such as produced by thermite steel cutting devices, long after the towers crashed. That was also ignored by the Commission.
What is a 'conventional explanation'. Can you define that for me?
What's really going on here is that there never was and never will be a debate about what really happened in 9/11. It's not about science, it's about dogma. Questioning the 9/11 comission report, even rationally and conservatively is grounds for 'excommunication'.
And don't group people who ask tough questions about 9/11 and holocaust deniers, I am not one and resent such dishonest sensationalist comparisons which have no value in an argument. Aren't you convinced of your explanation? No reason not to keep it classy, right?
Fireproofing is rated by the hour uh? How long did each tower burn? You think the world's biggest skyscrapers were rate for 1 hour of fire? That's a big vote of confidence on the firefighters.;-)
You see, the reason we openly mock those who swallow whole piles of bullshit whole is exactly the same! But factual in this case. Creationists are mocked because they take bible bullshit at face value. Science is conducted independently and can't make it's conclusions official and true by having the government write a book in red, blue and white with a big 9/11 on the cover. See the similarities there? Use the comparison if you like, but makes you look kinda bad.:-)
The Twin Towers would also be the first example in history of a steel building where the steel failed due to fire.
Maybe so, but it happened. Other examples would be the one I listed (although not a building) and WTC7.
In other words, "Truthers" are full of shit. They've been debunked countless times and they keep coming back. Accept it, you are wrong. There is no government conspiracy. There was no demolition. Terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into buildings where the heat from the fires caused them to collapse. That is FACT!
'But it happened', is that your argument? That's precisely what we're contesting here. Your circular 'logic' amazes me.
Writing it capitalized doesn't make it so. I'd happily 'accept that I was wrong' had there been at least two concurrent independent investigations who reached the same conclusions. That would be scientific and factual. What the 9/11 Comission Report did was political.
1. No steel builing has ever collapsed due to a fire.
2. The WTC 7 was not hit by a plane and collapsed, according to NIST 'due to a fire'.
These are facts; now as to things that cannot be explained by NIST.
1. The government explicitly forbit independent investigation of ground zero basically shipping most of the evidence on the site to be smelted - possibly to make the burden of proof on conspiracy theorists to be especially burdensome.
2. Several witnesses report hearing loud explosions on the WTC before any planes hit.
3. The opinions ( not fact, cause I can distinguish between those two ) of many engineers and scientists - none paid by the government, in stark contrast to 'not all paid by' - that it looked the textbook case of controlled demolition.
4. The 9/11 Comission report didn't even acknowledge WTC 7's existence. In a healthy democracy, that would be as admission of guilt, in my opinion. Since it's obvious that that part of the disaster DID NOT go according to plan.
Slashdot Mirror
The right is for an increased defense budget and capital punishment? Which right is that again? I'm right-wing, I'm not for either of these things.
Abortion, welfare, gay rights, school prayer, give me a fucking break. This article is shallow, useless and frivolous just like most of all political debate that goes on in the US.
Meanwhile fiat money central banking, military adventurism and torture remain untouched by any significant criticism and coverage.
Seconded.
And how misleading and stupid is a name like 'squatting'. He's not squatting. He paid for the domain, if anyone's trying to evict him from his property and squat in it are the Olympics thugs.
Brings other kinds of 'creative doubletalk' to mind, such as 'software pirates' and 'liberals' in America.
Ok, ok, granted, I exaggerated to make a point, 1% was as low as it got, but nevertheless, it was unrealistically low. And as they racked up the interest back up they shouldn't be surprised when people started defaulting on their loans.
If you want more of regulation, then you want more of this. Markets work to direct investment where it is needed pretty damn well, but if you have a central bank that keeps fiddling with the damn interest rates like a PS3 joystick, it is very unfair to point your finger at the 'free market' for fucking it up.
For a more graphical comparison check this little article from Mises.org. Not a close fit as South America and Africa, but close.
Nope, they failed because the Fed suddenly felt like lowering the interest rate to 1% for about 6 years after 9/11. Which sort of fucks up the market's signalling forces.
For more information look up the Austrian theory of the business cycle.
Rama's coming, boys. :)
I'm a paladin you insensitive clod!
A poll from June last year on the issue: http://www.votepact.org/2008/08/evidence-of-a-trapped-electorate/
Yea, but history shows that 'pebble-made waves' have grown to be rogue waves in the past.
Anyway, I strongly disagree about their 'irrelevance'.
That is kind of their point. That the total electorate is a minority of the US citizens, and half of that electorate actually votes for a candidate because they think his adversary is worse, not because his candidate is good.
I'd recommend looking up the Ron Paul's press conference from yesterday, it's very interesting.
America truly needs to get the rascals out. Not Reps, not Dems, but both. I live abroad and I must say the current movement for removing the stranglehold of the two-party cartel on the political life is one of, if not _the_ most exciting things in US politics I've seen in my life.
Mod me redundant. I'd have Capitalism over capitalism any day.
That was a pretty darn good response. Ok then, I withdraw the fart theory, since it has been disproven. :-)
I don't think global warming is a lie. What I'm trying to fight here is the politics guised in 'science' that would have us freeze the developing world in time while carbon taxing the entire world to fill their environment-friendly pocket. That is dirty, dishonest and opportunistic crap.
There's no denying that the environmental movement has been hijacked by special interests. I think that's really bad. For science AND the environmental movement.
The best thing for the environment is technological progress. I mean, a car pollutes less than four horses, a locomotive pollutes less than, oh, a bunch of cars or trucks and taking a plane to Paris will certainly cost much less than a cab.
I did, after the sentence you quoted. Or do you not believe that tax burdens and regulatory nonsense hamper free enterprise and market barrier to entry?
So, you want no taxation? Absolutely no regulation? That basically means no government. That's a bit absurd.
Why is it absurd? Can you answer?
I don't want NO government, that'd be more than a bit utopian. But how do you suppose the US paid for government before 1913? That's when the IRS came to being.
I'd propose a low, non-protectionist tariff. That'd force government to cut its spending to the bare essentials of defense from foreign agression and preserving order at home.
So what I'm asking is that the Government actually BE restrained by the Constitution - the supreme law of the land. I know, absurd indeed.
Now, don't just make up facts.
What does land size, population size and urban percentage have anything to do with the argument again?
government is only efficient at mobilizing an economy for a single purpose - waging war
Why did I even bother?
I certainly won't
Maybe I will! :)
Ok, we agree to disagree then. :)
It's not ONE policy, it's and entire system.
The "Free market rules all, regulation is evil" statement that I hear so often on this site has no addressable points. What is the systemic problem that you're implying but not specifying?
I did, after the sentence you quoted. Or do you not believe that tax burdens and regulatory nonsense hamper free enterprise and market barrier to entry?
Check out the wikipedia [wikipedia.org] article. Especially the telecom section. Its crazy.
Somalia is around 640,000 square kilometers, with a population of around 10 million. About a third of those people live in urban areas. Their private telecommunications rebuild was largely funded by the UN. I think you're comparing apples to oranges, if you're implying that starting up a functional and competitive telco in the U.S. would be anything even remotely close to doing the same in Somalia.
Now, don't just make up facts. The telecom industry in Somalia was funded by private enterprise.
What the UN did was sponsor an intermediation between companies on interconnection standards. And the important thing is, it does not carry force of law, and is not a regulatory agency. The companies agreed to it because it is in their best interests to provide the best possible service to their customers. After all, if two companies have interconnect standards you won't pay for a cell service that only allows you to call 8100**** numbers, as cheap as it might be.
What does land size, population size and urban percentage have anything to do with the argument again? If anything economic planning fares worse the more complex an economy becomes. The fact that government is only efficient at mobilizing an economy for a single purpose - waging war - is a strong argument for that premise.
If somebody farts it will smell even after the 1 or 2 seconds of the fart itself. Now move that to a giant Earthly asshole scale and wonder why the following statement is not exactly Nobel prize winning material.
And the Mauna Loa data set is itself independent of volcanic activity.
If they measure CO2 next to volcanos it obviously has something to do with global warming, or else they simply would take measurements elsewhere. Poster was attacking something the OP did not say.
'AC did not say what the poster refuted' == Straw man. It's not that hard. Try rubbing ice on forehead.
Give up man, it's pathetic. Admit that the AC didn't know what he/she was talking about and move on.
Actually pleading me to stop arguing instead of giving me an actual counter argument is pathetic.
I'm not going to be your conspiracy monkey, to paraphrase jon stewart. But will fill in some of your more glaring statements.
how nobody saw or heard explosives going off
There have been accounts of witnesses, firefighters included that heard loud explosions in the second tower BEFORE the aircraft hit it. Thing is, people now ignore them and call them crack addicts and conspiracy nuts.
how nobody found evidence for these explosives after the fact
Well, the fact that nobody was allowed to LOOK for evidence in ground zero while they were hurriedly cleaning the thing up can be blamed partially for it. But there were abnormally high temperature spots that indicated the presence of molten metal, such as produced by thermite steel cutting devices, long after the towers crashed. That was also ignored by the Commission.
What is a 'conventional explanation'. Can you define that for me?
What's really going on here is that there never was and never will be a debate about what really happened in 9/11. It's not about science, it's about dogma. Questioning the 9/11 comission report, even rationally and conservatively is grounds for 'excommunication'.
And don't group people who ask tough questions about 9/11 and holocaust deniers, I am not one and resent such dishonest sensationalist comparisons which have no value in an argument. Aren't you convinced of your explanation? No reason not to keep it classy, right?
Yes it did. If it did not, no measurements would be taken there in the first place.
He did not say that. Straw man again.
This is Slashdot man. We can read what he posted and what you posted. You can get away with this, stop trying.
By Dr. Kevin Forster / Floyd Ferris
Fireproofing is rated by the hour uh? How long did each tower burn? You think the world's biggest skyscrapers were rate for 1 hour of fire? That's a big vote of confidence on the firefighters. ;-)
You see, the reason we openly mock those who swallow whole piles of bullshit whole is exactly the same! But factual in this case. Creationists are mocked because they take bible bullshit at face value. Science is conducted independently and can't make it's conclusions official and true by having the government write a book in red, blue and white with a big 9/11 on the cover. See the similarities there? Use the comparison if you like, but makes you look kinda bad. :-)
The Twin Towers would also be the first example in history of a steel building where the steel failed due to fire.
Maybe so, but it happened. Other examples would be the one I listed (although not a building) and WTC7.
In other words, "Truthers" are full of shit. They've been debunked countless times and they keep coming back. Accept it, you are wrong. There is no government conspiracy. There was no demolition. Terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into buildings where the heat from the fires caused them to collapse. That is FACT!
'But it happened', is that your argument? That's precisely what we're contesting here. Your circular 'logic' amazes me.
Writing it capitalized doesn't make it so. I'd happily 'accept that I was wrong' had there been at least two concurrent independent investigations who reached the same conclusions. That would be scientific and factual. What the 9/11 Comission Report did was political.
Understand the difference?
arguments that can't be explained without one.
1. No steel builing has ever collapsed due to a fire.
2. The WTC 7 was not hit by a plane and collapsed, according to NIST 'due to a fire'.
These are facts; now as to things that cannot be explained by NIST.
1. The government explicitly forbit independent investigation of ground zero basically shipping most of the evidence on the site to be smelted - possibly to make the burden of proof on conspiracy theorists to be especially burdensome.
2. Several witnesses report hearing loud explosions on the WTC before any planes hit.
3. The opinions ( not fact, cause I can distinguish between those two ) of many engineers and scientists - none paid by the government, in stark contrast to 'not all paid by' - that it looked the textbook case of controlled demolition.
4. The 9/11 Comission report didn't even acknowledge WTC 7's existence. In a healthy democracy, that would be as admission of guilt, in my opinion. Since it's obvious that that part of the disaster DID NOT go according to plan.