You seem to be saying that if I kick over a bunch of paint cans, I'm going to get the same result every time. I'm not sure how you justify such an assumption, but I'm more than willing to take your money!
Either case means the same thing, that life can travel and spread
No, they don't mean the same thing. If life began once and was seeded via meteorites, then it's a giant crap-shoot, and the vast majority of solar-systems are probably sterile. On the other hand, if abiogenesis took place twice in a single solar system, then the universe is probably teeming with life.
If life evolved independently, we will have a much harder time mucking around there, especially colonizing it. Folks will want to leave it alone to its own devices.
Hardly. It might raise some ethical conundrums, but it certainly won't make colonization any more difficult.
If we ever colonize mars, we're going to start by building habitats. We'll have hundreds of years to live on a planet which we haven't even begun to terraform. That will give us plenty of time to have the People for the Ethical Treatment of Martian Lifeforms present a convincing case for why we should abandon an entire planet to a bunch of alien microbes. If they fail in convincing the rest of humanity, then we'll carry on with our terraforming effort, and the Martian bacteria will be relegated to sample jars, museums, and computer databases.
Ya know, every time I see one of your analogies it makes me think of a pizza with a giant turd on it. A big steaming coiler, with extra peanuts.
Maybe it's a result of watching "Drawn Together", but I'd like to think it's more due to being exposed to the constant repetition of something which wasn't very funny to begin with.
You would probably never see a human that is completely resistant to fire, but after a few generations I think you would certainly see humans with a greater ability to recuperate from burns. Over time you would absolutely see humans with skin and physiology more resistance to heat damage.
That's quite true. His example was a bad one because bacteria have inherent limitations which humans do not. Macroscopic organisms such as ourselves can develop hardened exteriors (shells/exoskeletons/hardened fire-resistant skin). Microscopic organisms don't really have that option. A strain of bacteria that evolved an exoskeleton would have to go through many other changes first, and in the end would no longer be a bacteria.
I just love that "conspiracy theory" automatically makes anyone who thinks there is something wrong with the official story some sort of fruitcake or worse.
I'm glad you agree!
Once upon a time, the official story was that the universe was created in a week or something like that.
Right. And then one day, a bunch of college dropouts made a crappy video which claimed that the universe was actually a giant conspiracy by the Illuminati, the NWO, and the Jooos. In reality, we're all living in an online world - a Matrix, if you will - while our eeeevil Zionist Space Lizard overlords harvest our true bodies for organs and nutrients. Ever since that day, we've known the TRUTH!
There are definitely some weird things about the official story that just don't seem to work well with reality as we know it.
It's not WHAT you question, but HOW you question it that matters. For instance, I have no problem with people questioning the theory of evolution - but when you start telling me that the Perfect Shape of the Banana proves that evolution never happened, I'm going to write you off as a complete moron. Likewise, 9/11 conspiracy theorists have shown by their actions that they are mostly either crazy, stupid, ignorant, delusional, or some combination of the four. There may be a few rational, informed, and intelligent ones out there.... but I've yet to meet any.
I think we need a counter-term for conspiracy theory... one that suggests an equal level of folly for believing everything that people in positions of authority tells us.
Anyone who dismisses conspiracy theorists on those grounds is every bit as stupid as the conspiracy theorists themselves... although probably not as crazy. They're the flip side of the same coin, really: the conspiracy theorists will accept any claim, no matter how ridiculous, as long as it runs counter to conventional wisdom, while the people you're referring to will accept any claim as long as it comes from a mainstream authority figure. They have a lot in common.
Officially, struck and damaged by debris from the collapse of towers one and two.
I LOVE the way you phrased that! You forgot to put the "officially" in scare-quotes, though. Could have used some italics tags, too. It's important to impress on people the idea that official=bad!
WTC-7 was a security hardened building with lots of extra steel and concrete
Wrong. It was actually a pretty shit design. It used a cantilever girder arrangement when it was built on top of an old con-ed substation. According to NIST, this design choice didn't really play a part in the collapse - however, your claim that the building was "hardened" is complete bullshit.
which makes the "flying debris" explanation questionable in some people's minds
Well that's good, because flying debris didn't do enough damage to cause collapse. It only started the fires which eventually brought down the building.
What I can't get over is how stupid/ignorant/crazy/paranoid you'd have to be to believe that blowing up an empty building is just the kind of thing that the nefarious NWO would do. Why exactly would anyone want to do that? Nobody seems to be able to answer that question, although a few of the REALLY crazy fuckers have suggested that the CIA was too cheap to buy paper-shredders, and figured blowing up the building would be a good way to destroy their records. Makes perfect sense, if you're suffering from LSD flashbacks. Oh, and as an alternate explanation, the anti-semites like to push the JOOO connection by claiming that Larry Silverstein ordered the fire department to blow up the building so that he could get insurance money. I'm telling ya, these 9/11 goofers are nuttier than squirrel shit.
No, his whoosh was actually appropriate, because you clearly missed the fact that "SpaceLifeForm" was being sarcastic. I suggest you apologize to "pipedwho" for calling him an idiot.
How in the fuck does a comment which links to "patriotsquestion911" get modded +5 informative?
You're lying about what the commissioners said. You need to pull your head out of your ass and look at some credible sources, instead of getting all of your misinformation from the paranoid circle-jerk which the 9/11 goof movement has become. You also need to stop pretending that you want another investigation. You don't. What you want is a witch-hunt. Any investigation which disagrees with you will simply be dismissed as another coverup. If you expect to be taken seriously, you need to stop lying, and you need to stop misrepresenting your intentions. Until then, rational people will continue to dismiss you as a dishonest crank.
Not just IT - they're used for all sorts of standby positions, from search-and-rescue crews to base defense teams. If an emergency comes up it's much easier to fire off a bunch of identical pager notifications than it is to try and reach each person by phone.
Wars are only good for the economy when the average Joe believes in them. During WW2, millions of people sacrificed their own desires in order to "help the war effort". As a result, the economy exploded and productivity reached never-before-seen levels. Compare that to the current wars. Nobody fives a shit about them - in fact, half the American people just wants to see them done and over with, regardless of the result. For the majority of your populace, today's wars are nothing more than reality-tv.
Belief certainly is subject to logical trumps. All sane people are capable of modifying their beliefs when presented with a logical argument - or with evidence - which disproves their initial assumptions. We see this happen all the time. As one example, some of my co-workers believed that the H1N1 vaccine was untested, contained harmful toxins, and was likely to cause neurological damage or other debilitating conditions. I used logic and reason to address their concerns, and several of them changed their minds. Most of the rest also changed their minds after either doing more research, or speaking to a doctor to verify the things I had said to them. So yes, belief is subject to "logical trumps".
The only problem is that most people are willing to ignore logic and evidence when it comes to certain types of beliefs. Even in this case, though, most of them either don't realize that their beliefs are illogical, or are unwilling to admit it. That's why creationists are constantly attempting to challenge evolutionary theory - because as far as they're concerned, their beliefs are based in logic. They don't have the information required to properly asses the situation, so they're convinced that creationist beliefs are logical and that evolutionary theory is illogical or unsupported. If you can show them that they've got it backwards, most of them are quite capable of changing their minds. Some will undoubtedly chose not to, but that's a different matter entirely.
It's quite rare for a theistic person to truly accept that their beliefs are illogical. In such circumstances you may very well be right - you probably can't use logic to sway people who understand that their beliefs are illogical and unsupported yet still consciously cling to them. They are encouraged in this sort of behavior by our strange tendency to give religious claims a deference which would never be extended to beliefs of any other kind. If the rest of us weren't so quick to give religion a free pass, you'd probably see fewer and fewer people clinging to beliefs which they know to be irrational.
Actually, no, you haven't proven anything. The point I was making was that whether or not God, the Holy Milk Jug, the FSM, or anything else have any supernatural effect on our world is by definition unprovable. I hold that they are therefore irrelevant.
While you're right in a purely technical sense, such a belief system is eminently impractical. The biggest problem I have with it is that it encourages irrational beliefs and behavior. The most famous religious example is Pascals Wager. To use a secular example, a similar line of thought is used as a critique of the LHC experiments. It goes something like this:
"You can't prove that the LHC won't create a black hole which can destroy the earth. Since the consequences of that scenario are so extreme, it doesn't matter that the likelihood may be low - we should dismantle the LHC!"
Of course, such an argument completely ignores the fact that there is a non-zero probability of a black hole popping out of my ass the next time I fart. It's simply an emotional appeal based on a poor understanding of logic and probability.
In all practicality, idea and beliefs have to be considered untrue until some evidence is shown which supports them. Such evidence doesn't have to be conclusive or even thoroughly persuasive, but we need something. In the absence of any evidence the rational response is to reject the claim. Otherwise you could never say that "Santa Claus does not exist" because you have no evidence to support that statement, and you don't accept the lack of evidence as grounds for rejecting any claim.
Which is all a long-winded way of saying that your request - for the GP to prove that God "had nothing to do with it" - is either irrational or pedantic, depending on why you're making it.
That doesn't stop me from using the "If God had intended..." structure in a figurative sense.
Of course not. Einstein was famous for using references to god, even though he didn't believe in any deities. Many atheists will speak in a similar manner simply because religious references are part of our culture. There's nothing wrong with that. After all, I can make Simpsons references without having to believe that Homer is a real individual.
Ah, yes, an argument from authority followed by an "I know you are but what am I" style attack. Bravo. Thank you for conceding defeat in such a graceless manner. Goodbye.
Ok. I'm God. You can't prove that I'm not. And I say I had nothing to do with any of this. Therefore, I've proven that God had nothing to do with any of this.
As far as autism goes, the accepted explanation in the medical community is that the rates are increasing because the categories are being redefined to include more symptoms, and because more patients are being checked for it than in the past. It's only the anti-vaccine nutters who are latching on to they hypothesis that the actual incidence rates are going up.
I half agree with you. Half. None of our grandchildren are ever going to fly at 600 miles per hour. There isn't enough energy, and they won't be able to afford to use it. We're burning all the cheap energy there's ever going to be, right now.
I'm sure someone made the same argument back when horse-drawn carriages were the height of technology. Fortunately, "cheap" is a relative term. As our technology improves, things which would have been astronomically expensive - or completely impossible - a hundred years become commonplace today. The same will happen for your grandchildren. We have enough conventional oil stores to last for decades. We have enough oil sands and shales to last for centuries. Even if we just stick to conventional energy sources, we won't be running out of "cheap energy" any time soon.
Your analogy only makes logical sense if breaking a leg was a consequence of playing baseball, and then the geezers would be right to say "I told you so".
Nonsense. Your excuse only makes sense if you assume that the current economic decline in the US is a direct result of the rejection of "softer" policies - an assumption which both you and the GP have put forward without providing a shred of evidence.
Go tell that to the "free-market, no regulation, anything goes" crowd.
They generally understand it.
The current world financial system is not sustainable and if it's kept, all mankind will lose.
Another ridiculous, baseless assertion. You may as well be saying that unicorns have the prettiest toenails. Do you really expect a response?
1) universal default applies not to only if you're late on a payement to them, but if you're late on a payment to ANYONE ELSE, including completely unrelated companies, even including if that late payment showed up on your credit report in error due to a processing delay or computer glitch.
Yes, I know, I'm just not sure what your point is.
2) Credit us? unlikely. Errors on your credit report? 80% of americans will have at least 1 falsely reported itewms on their credit report
Yet 80% of Americans don't get hit with the universal default clause so, once again, what's your point?
3) credit card company have a misbilling, incorrectly calculate interest based on grace periods, add "protection services" to your account, change your interest rate, add an annual fee, yea, they do that... Ive had a few make the corrections. Others I have to cancel and leave, but that means getting another card to replace it. Do that just 2-3 times a year and you're knocking 60-100 points of your mean beacon score. That's gonna cost you hundreds on a car loan or thousands on a house next time you go to finance something. It is NOT worth the risk.
So what you're saying is... never use credit... because it might impact your credit rating?
Huh???
Besides, debit is free, and, for every $40K i run through the card (every 7 mopnths on my current pace), I get a $100 gift card to a store of my choice.
For me debit isn't free, but credit is, and every time I use $10,000 I get $100 cash, so I think I have you beat by about 400%.
Now, are you going to present an actual argument to show why credit is bad, or are you just going to continue spraying out FUD in every direction?
Implications for solar car races? None. You may as well look at a sail-boat and ask "what are the implications for powerboats?". An aircraft with a large enough wing-span can stay airborne for days on end just by gliding, whereas cars tend not to move much without an engine.
Here's proof of how sleazy the credit card industry is: Universal Default.
What's sleazy about it? The terms are laid out in your contract. If you don't like it, don't get a credit card, or don't carry a balance. I don't think the word "sleazy" means what you think it means.
Let us suppose that... you are reported to a credit bureau as missing a house payment... all your other creditors jump on that foul up on your credit report and jack up your rates.
Well if we're supposing that, then we can also suppose that your CC company accidentally credits you with 20 million dollars, and all your other creditors automatically follow suit. Both scenarios seem equally likely.
Seriously, you're making up nightmare scenarios in an effort to discredit the entire industry. In reality, most creditors will give you plenty of leeway (ie, you'll have to default on payments for months before they do anything), and many won't exercise the universal default option at all. While I cannot say that the scenario you described would never happen, it's unlikely enough that only Ron Paul disciples would worry about it. I've got better odds of being killed by lightning.
Using a credit card is like walking a bridge dangling over a river of lava. One slip up and you are toast as they slam you with a shitload of fees.
In an average month I spend maybe $2,000 on my CC. Even at a high interest rate, the most they'll get out of me is maybe $40 before I realize what's going on. Maybe $80 if I'm really not paying attention. At that point I'll either get them to correct the error - in which case I lose nothing - or they'll refuse to correct it, I'll pay the $40, cancel my credit card, and find a more reasonable company.
I actually HAVE had a CC company make such a mistake with my account. I called them up, they looked over my credit rating and purchase history, and promptly came to the conclusion that they would like to retain my business. The error was corrected immediately, I received dozens of apologies, and it never impacted my credit rating or any of my other accounts. So no, using a credit card is nothing like "walking a bridge dangling over a river of lava", unless you're the kind of fool who lives paycheque-to-paycheque while keeping his credit-card maxed out. As long as you have enough money saved at any given time to be able to pay off your CC balance immediately, your risk is negligible.
Although Americans once laughed at Europeans for favoring kinder, gentler labor policies that "hindered" economic growth, the Europeans now have the last laugh: the unemployment rate in America now exceeds the rate in several European countries.
lol
In the same light... the young kids in my neighbourhood used to laugh at the old folks, because of their inability to play baseball. Now the old folks have the last laugh, because one of the kids broke his leg.
Seriously, WTF dude? Is that what you consider a logical train of thought?
In this context, we should not judge the morality of stealing sensitive data from your previous employer. If he fired you in response to the recession, then you should do whatever you need to do to survive. You should live by Darwinian rules. You do whatever you need to do and whenever you need to do "it".
There ARE no Darwinian rules. This is what theists/creationists often fail to understand, and why they come to such ridiculous conclusions. Evolution doesn't mean that everyone has to be a dick; in fact, co-operation tends to increase the odds of gene survival/propogation. How the fuck do you think we got this far?
Ah. So you're a stuck-up snob who gets a joy out of abusing her staff. Nice. Sorry for disturbing ya, ma'am, I didn't mean to interrupt your masturbatory orgy of self-congratulation.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll take that bet!
You seem to be saying that if I kick over a bunch of paint cans, I'm going to get the same result every time. I'm not sure how you justify such an assumption, but I'm more than willing to take your money!
Either case means the same thing, that life can travel and spread
No, they don't mean the same thing. If life began once and was seeded via meteorites, then it's a giant crap-shoot, and the vast majority of solar-systems are probably sterile. On the other hand, if abiogenesis took place twice in a single solar system, then the universe is probably teeming with life.
If life evolved independently, we will have a much harder time mucking around there, especially colonizing it. Folks will want to leave it alone to its own devices.
Hardly. It might raise some ethical conundrums, but it certainly won't make colonization any more difficult.
If we ever colonize mars, we're going to start by building habitats. We'll have hundreds of years to live on a planet which we haven't even begun to terraform. That will give us plenty of time to have the People for the Ethical Treatment of Martian Lifeforms present a convincing case for why we should abandon an entire planet to a bunch of alien microbes. If they fail in convincing the rest of humanity, then we'll carry on with our terraforming effort, and the Martian bacteria will be relegated to sample jars, museums, and computer databases.
Ya know, every time I see one of your analogies it makes me think of a pizza with a giant turd on it. A big steaming coiler, with extra peanuts.
Maybe it's a result of watching "Drawn Together", but I'd like to think it's more due to being exposed to the constant repetition of something which wasn't very funny to begin with.
You would probably never see a human that is completely resistant to fire, but after a few generations I think you would certainly see humans with a greater ability to recuperate from burns. Over time you would absolutely see humans with skin and physiology more resistance to heat damage.
That's quite true. His example was a bad one because bacteria have inherent limitations which humans do not. Macroscopic organisms such as ourselves can develop hardened exteriors (shells/exoskeletons/hardened fire-resistant skin). Microscopic organisms don't really have that option. A strain of bacteria that evolved an exoskeleton would have to go through many other changes first, and in the end would no longer be a bacteria.
Uhuh. And where does non-baryonic matter fit in?
I just love that "conspiracy theory" automatically makes anyone who thinks there is something wrong with the official story some sort of fruitcake or worse.
I'm glad you agree!
Once upon a time, the official story was that the universe was created in a week or something like that.
Right. And then one day, a bunch of college dropouts made a crappy video which claimed that the universe was actually a giant conspiracy by the Illuminati, the NWO, and the Jooos. In reality, we're all living in an online world - a Matrix, if you will - while our eeeevil Zionist Space Lizard overlords harvest our true bodies for organs and nutrients. Ever since that day, we've known the TRUTH!
There are definitely some weird things about the official story that just don't seem to work well with reality as we know it.
It's not WHAT you question, but HOW you question it that matters. For instance, I have no problem with people questioning the theory of evolution - but when you start telling me that the Perfect Shape of the Banana proves that evolution never happened, I'm going to write you off as a complete moron. Likewise, 9/11 conspiracy theorists have shown by their actions that they are mostly either crazy, stupid, ignorant, delusional, or some combination of the four. There may be a few rational, informed, and intelligent ones out there .... but I've yet to meet any.
I think we need a counter-term for conspiracy theory... one that suggests an equal level of folly for believing everything that people in positions of authority tells us.
Anyone who dismisses conspiracy theorists on those grounds is every bit as stupid as the conspiracy theorists themselves ... although probably not as crazy. They're the flip side of the same coin, really: the conspiracy theorists will accept any claim, no matter how ridiculous, as long as it runs counter to conventional wisdom, while the people you're referring to will accept any claim as long as it comes from a mainstream authority figure. They have a lot in common.
Officially, struck and damaged by debris from the collapse of towers one and two.
I LOVE the way you phrased that! You forgot to put the "officially" in scare-quotes, though. Could have used some italics tags, too. It's important to impress on people the idea that official=bad!
WTC-7 was a security hardened building with lots of extra steel and concrete
Wrong. It was actually a pretty shit design. It used a cantilever girder arrangement when it was built on top of an old con-ed substation. According to NIST, this design choice didn't really play a part in the collapse - however, your claim that the building was "hardened" is complete bullshit.
which makes the "flying debris" explanation questionable in some people's minds
Well that's good, because flying debris didn't do enough damage to cause collapse. It only started the fires which eventually brought down the building.
More here.
What I can't get over is how stupid/ignorant/crazy/paranoid you'd have to be to believe that blowing up an empty building is just the kind of thing that the nefarious NWO would do. Why exactly would anyone want to do that? Nobody seems to be able to answer that question, although a few of the REALLY crazy fuckers have suggested that the CIA was too cheap to buy paper-shredders, and figured blowing up the building would be a good way to destroy their records. Makes perfect sense, if you're suffering from LSD flashbacks. Oh, and as an alternate explanation, the anti-semites like to push the JOOO connection by claiming that Larry Silverstein ordered the fire department to blow up the building so that he could get insurance money. I'm telling ya, these 9/11 goofers are nuttier than squirrel shit.
No, his whoosh was actually appropriate, because you clearly missed the fact that "SpaceLifeForm" was being sarcastic. I suggest you apologize to "pipedwho" for calling him an idiot.
How in the fuck does a comment which links to "patriotsquestion911" get modded +5 informative?
You're lying about what the commissioners said. You need to pull your head out of your ass and look at some credible sources, instead of getting all of your misinformation from the paranoid circle-jerk which the 9/11 goof movement has become. You also need to stop pretending that you want another investigation. You don't. What you want is a witch-hunt. Any investigation which disagrees with you will simply be dismissed as another coverup. If you expect to be taken seriously, you need to stop lying, and you need to stop misrepresenting your intentions. Until then, rational people will continue to dismiss you as a dishonest crank.
Not just IT - they're used for all sorts of standby positions, from search-and-rescue crews to base defense teams. If an emergency comes up it's much easier to fire off a bunch of identical pager notifications than it is to try and reach each person by phone.
Wars are only good for the economy when the average Joe believes in them. During WW2, millions of people sacrificed their own desires in order to "help the war effort". As a result, the economy exploded and productivity reached never-before-seen levels. Compare that to the current wars. Nobody fives a shit about them - in fact, half the American people just wants to see them done and over with, regardless of the result. For the majority of your populace, today's wars are nothing more than reality-tv.
You'd think they'd take their foot off the pedal and slow down a bit to address the #1 issue voters have right now, unemployment.
Yeah, that's exactly what you need - increased government employment!
Believe is not subject to logical trumps.
Belief certainly is subject to logical trumps. All sane people are capable of modifying their beliefs when presented with a logical argument - or with evidence - which disproves their initial assumptions. We see this happen all the time. As one example, some of my co-workers believed that the H1N1 vaccine was untested, contained harmful toxins, and was likely to cause neurological damage or other debilitating conditions. I used logic and reason to address their concerns, and several of them changed their minds. Most of the rest also changed their minds after either doing more research, or speaking to a doctor to verify the things I had said to them. So yes, belief is subject to "logical trumps".
The only problem is that most people are willing to ignore logic and evidence when it comes to certain types of beliefs. Even in this case, though, most of them either don't realize that their beliefs are illogical, or are unwilling to admit it. That's why creationists are constantly attempting to challenge evolutionary theory - because as far as they're concerned, their beliefs are based in logic. They don't have the information required to properly asses the situation, so they're convinced that creationist beliefs are logical and that evolutionary theory is illogical or unsupported. If you can show them that they've got it backwards, most of them are quite capable of changing their minds. Some will undoubtedly chose not to, but that's a different matter entirely.
It's quite rare for a theistic person to truly accept that their beliefs are illogical. In such circumstances you may very well be right - you probably can't use logic to sway people who understand that their beliefs are illogical and unsupported yet still consciously cling to them. They are encouraged in this sort of behavior by our strange tendency to give religious claims a deference which would never be extended to beliefs of any other kind. If the rest of us weren't so quick to give religion a free pass, you'd probably see fewer and fewer people clinging to beliefs which they know to be irrational.
Actually, no, you haven't proven anything. The point I was making was that whether or not God, the Holy Milk Jug, the FSM, or anything else have any supernatural effect on our world is by definition unprovable. I hold that they are therefore irrelevant.
While you're right in a purely technical sense, such a belief system is eminently impractical. The biggest problem I have with it is that it encourages irrational beliefs and behavior. The most famous religious example is Pascals Wager. To use a secular example, a similar line of thought is used as a critique of the LHC experiments. It goes something like this:
"You can't prove that the LHC won't create a black hole which can destroy the earth. Since the consequences of that scenario are so extreme, it doesn't matter that the likelihood may be low - we should dismantle the LHC!"
Of course, such an argument completely ignores the fact that there is a non-zero probability of a black hole popping out of my ass the next time I fart. It's simply an emotional appeal based on a poor understanding of logic and probability.
In all practicality, idea and beliefs have to be considered untrue until some evidence is shown which supports them. Such evidence doesn't have to be conclusive or even thoroughly persuasive, but we need something. In the absence of any evidence the rational response is to reject the claim. Otherwise you could never say that "Santa Claus does not exist" because you have no evidence to support that statement, and you don't accept the lack of evidence as grounds for rejecting any claim.
Which is all a long-winded way of saying that your request - for the GP to prove that God "had nothing to do with it" - is either irrational or pedantic, depending on why you're making it.
That doesn't stop me from using the "If God had intended..." structure in a figurative sense.
Of course not. Einstein was famous for using references to god, even though he didn't believe in any deities. Many atheists will speak in a similar manner simply because religious references are part of our culture. There's nothing wrong with that. After all, I can make Simpsons references without having to believe that Homer is a real individual.
Ah, yes, an argument from authority followed by an "I know you are but what am I" style attack. Bravo. Thank you for conceding defeat in such a graceless manner. Goodbye.
Ok. I'm God. You can't prove that I'm not. And I say I had nothing to do with any of this. Therefore, I've proven that God had nothing to do with any of this.
As far as autism goes, the accepted explanation in the medical community is that the rates are increasing because the categories are being redefined to include more symptoms, and because more patients are being checked for it than in the past. It's only the anti-vaccine nutters who are latching on to they hypothesis that the actual incidence rates are going up.
He recommended only one or two showers a week
Ah yes, the basement nerds favorite diagnosis. "I'm not a smelly slob, I have a medical condition!"
I half agree with you. Half. None of our grandchildren are ever going to fly at 600 miles per hour. There isn't enough energy, and they won't be able to afford to use it. We're burning all the cheap energy there's ever going to be, right now.
I'm sure someone made the same argument back when horse-drawn carriages were the height of technology. Fortunately, "cheap" is a relative term. As our technology improves, things which would have been astronomically expensive - or completely impossible - a hundred years become commonplace today. The same will happen for your grandchildren. We have enough conventional oil stores to last for decades. We have enough oil sands and shales to last for centuries. Even if we just stick to conventional energy sources, we won't be running out of "cheap energy" any time soon.
Your analogy only makes logical sense if breaking a leg was a consequence of playing baseball, and then the geezers would be right to say "I told you so".
Nonsense. Your excuse only makes sense if you assume that the current economic decline in the US is a direct result of the rejection of "softer" policies - an assumption which both you and the GP have put forward without providing a shred of evidence.
Go tell that to the "free-market, no regulation, anything goes" crowd.
They generally understand it.
The current world financial system is not sustainable and if it's kept, all mankind will lose.
Another ridiculous, baseless assertion. You may as well be saying that unicorns have the prettiest toenails. Do you really expect a response?
1) universal default applies not to only if you're late on a payement to them, but if you're late on a payment to ANYONE ELSE, including completely unrelated companies, even including if that late payment showed up on your credit report in error due to a processing delay or computer glitch.
Yes, I know, I'm just not sure what your point is.
2) Credit us? unlikely. Errors on your credit report? 80% of americans will have at least 1 falsely reported itewms on their credit report
Yet 80% of Americans don't get hit with the universal default clause so, once again, what's your point?
3) credit card company have a misbilling, incorrectly calculate interest based on grace periods, add "protection services" to your account, change your interest rate, add an annual fee, yea, they do that... Ive had a few make the corrections. Others I have to cancel and leave, but that means getting another card to replace it. Do that just 2-3 times a year and you're knocking 60-100 points of your mean beacon score. That's gonna cost you hundreds on a car loan or thousands on a house next time you go to finance something. It is NOT worth the risk.
So what you're saying is ... never use credit ... because it might impact your credit rating?
Huh???
Besides, debit is free, and, for every $40K i run through the card (every 7 mopnths on my current pace), I get a $100 gift card to a store of my choice.
For me debit isn't free, but credit is, and every time I use $10,000 I get $100 cash, so I think I have you beat by about 400%.
Now, are you going to present an actual argument to show why credit is bad, or are you just going to continue spraying out FUD in every direction?
Implications for solar car races? None. You may as well look at a sail-boat and ask "what are the implications for powerboats?". An aircraft with a large enough wing-span can stay airborne for days on end just by gliding, whereas cars tend not to move much without an engine.
Don't excuse the sharks.
Here's proof of how sleazy the credit card industry is: Universal Default.
What's sleazy about it? The terms are laid out in your contract. If you don't like it, don't get a credit card, or don't carry a balance. I don't think the word "sleazy" means what you think it means.
Let us suppose that ... you are reported to a credit bureau as missing a house payment ... all your other creditors jump on that foul up on your credit report and jack up your rates.
Well if we're supposing that, then we can also suppose that your CC company accidentally credits you with 20 million dollars, and all your other creditors automatically follow suit. Both scenarios seem equally likely.
Seriously, you're making up nightmare scenarios in an effort to discredit the entire industry. In reality, most creditors will give you plenty of leeway (ie, you'll have to default on payments for months before they do anything), and many won't exercise the universal default option at all. While I cannot say that the scenario you described would never happen, it's unlikely enough that only Ron Paul disciples would worry about it. I've got better odds of being killed by lightning.
Using a credit card is like walking a bridge dangling over a river of lava. One slip up and you are toast as they slam you with a shitload of fees.
In an average month I spend maybe $2,000 on my CC. Even at a high interest rate, the most they'll get out of me is maybe $40 before I realize what's going on. Maybe $80 if I'm really not paying attention. At that point I'll either get them to correct the error - in which case I lose nothing - or they'll refuse to correct it, I'll pay the $40, cancel my credit card, and find a more reasonable company.
I actually HAVE had a CC company make such a mistake with my account. I called them up, they looked over my credit rating and purchase history, and promptly came to the conclusion that they would like to retain my business. The error was corrected immediately, I received dozens of apologies, and it never impacted my credit rating or any of my other accounts. So no, using a credit card is nothing like "walking a bridge dangling over a river of lava", unless you're the kind of fool who lives paycheque-to-paycheque while keeping his credit-card maxed out. As long as you have enough money saved at any given time to be able to pay off your CC balance immediately, your risk is negligible.
Although Americans once laughed at Europeans for favoring kinder, gentler labor policies that "hindered" economic growth, the Europeans now have the last laugh: the unemployment rate in America now exceeds the rate in several European countries.
lol
In the same light ... the young kids in my neighbourhood used to laugh at the old folks, because of their inability to play baseball. Now the old folks have the last laugh, because one of the kids broke his leg.
Seriously, WTF dude? Is that what you consider a logical train of thought?
In this context, we should not judge the morality of stealing sensitive data from your previous employer. If he fired you in response to the recession, then you should do whatever you need to do to survive. You should live by Darwinian rules. You do whatever you need to do and whenever you need to do "it".
There ARE no Darwinian rules. This is what theists/creationists often fail to understand, and why they come to such ridiculous conclusions. Evolution doesn't mean that everyone has to be a dick; in fact, co-operation tends to increase the odds of gene survival/propogation. How the fuck do you think we got this far?
Ah. So you're a stuck-up snob who gets a joy out of abusing her staff. Nice. Sorry for disturbing ya, ma'am, I didn't mean to interrupt your masturbatory orgy of self-congratulation.