I'm know Hammas wants to eradicate Israel, but I'm not sure about the 'eradicating Jews as a people' bit. So Israel shouldn't negotiate with Hammas. Whic I agree with.
Grandparent poster was pretty reasonable. I know many Palestinians won't want to go for it, but the question is whether they'll still have the steam to fight, international support, etc. when they can't also go and say "The Israelis want to deport Palestinians to Egypt and Lebanon. We're going the way of the Native Americans unless you send your kids off as walking pipe bombs."
True. I was trying to respond to the criticism that gambling ads were somehow dishonest by showing some brutally honest advertising that casinos actually paid for.
or do you just plan on kicking them out of the way on your way to work?
I don't plan on doing anything with them at all. It's their life and you can't have freedom without responsibility. Your response is a perfect example of that.
When people gamble away their rent money they need to learn not to gamble away their rent money.
I'm fine with an extremly basic social safety net, but if a thing isn't physically addictive I don't see the justification to regulate it. People spend lots of money on lots of things that I consider stupid. Some folks go into debt to buy expensive cars which they don't have the cash to pay for and will just depreciate. What happens if they lose their job?
My point is, how do you define 'gambling' to separate it from other bad risks people take? If insurance is a bad risk, should it be illegal? Is anything that involves some skill not considered gambling? Isn't analyzing point spreads on football games, for instance, partially a matter of skill?
And hell, Australia has a government run lottery. If gambling is bad, so it's kindof talking out of both sides of its mouth.
I've read a fair bit of Peter Deusberg's theories.
To start off with, he's not a nutcase. He's done some important work with oncogenic viruses, and was the recipient of an outstanding investigator grant.
This grant was revoked because of purely political reasons, which is blatantly unethical.
My genetics professor for my senior year in college (2000) confirmed this when I talked to him about Deusberg, saying that Deusberg had been treated unfairly.
Of course, neither I nor my college professor agree with Deusberg's hypothesis, but the criticism of HIV research done by Deusberg and others has suffered a lot of political suppresion, particularly when HIV was first being discovered and people were in panic mode. Deusberg has not been treated fairly, and the political suppresion has had the effect that unjust censorship often does. If you want shoddy science, frankly, Fauci's early HIV research contains more than enough of it to go around. And the scanning electron microscope pictures of HIV attacking CD4 cells deserved to be questioned, since SEM photos are easily biased (take 100 photos and pick the one you want.)
AZT was approved for HIV treatment quicker than almost any drug in FDA history because it was rushed through. There's still no valid scientific study that I'm aware of that proves AZT extends lifespan, and the Concord Study was horribly flawed, with people in the experimental group sharing their medication with those in the control group to try and "help" them - a criticism of Deusberg's which is relevant to the current debate. As of 3-4 years ago, AZT was still a component in antiviral cocktails with scientists unwilling to do a controlled study for "ethical reasons" comparing it to the tuskeege institute study, etc. ( not sure about presently)
AZT is a highly toxic DNA chain terminator and was used some time ago as chemotherapy against cancer. Ironically, it's capable of simulating the effects of AIDS (i.e. immune suppression.) If you take AZT, you will get chemotheraputically induced immune suppression that mimics AIDS.
Further, almost none of the "AIDS" cases in Africa (possibly excluding S. Africa) are confirmed via western methods - i.e. either an ELISA test or PCR. If you have a disease associated with immune suppresion, you're assumed to have HIV. Starvation combined with other stressors can also cause immune suppression.
The grandparent poster was correct in that HIV almost never infects a person by itself - there's almost always some other co-infection, in part because HIV is such a weak virus. Deusberg's claim was that HIV was a marker virus, which remains an accurate description even if HIV does cause AIDS. HIV is almost always an indicator of other infections. Even people who have been subjected to HIV contaminated needlesticks are unlikely to actually get HIV. HIV is often an opportunistic infection itself, that takes advantage of a strained immune system or a break in the body's defenses.
As for this article, it seems a bit overblown to me. Scientists have been searching for an animal model for HIV for a while. I haven't kept up in the research recently, so what I'm saying is about 3 years behind the times or so, but frankly I'd be more impressed if human HIV was found to replicate inside crocodiles and cause illness rather than the opposite. There are plenty of animals which are not harmed by the HIV virus and the lack of effective animal models was a longtime problem in HIV research. Nothing new here.
I'm not so interested in crocodile antibodies, which I doubt would help humans. But if crocs have an interferon-like component to their blood, perhaps that could be useful.
I've seen ads for casinos touting.98 average payout on the dollar. If it's honesty you want, force casinos to tell their average rate of payout the same way that corporations are transparent and food products list their ingredients.
I'm all for informed consent, cigarette warning labels, etc. That's different than a ban. The standard here is really not consistant from one risky activity to another.
... Australians have been unable to access their various stock brokerages through Google.
Seriously, banning gambling has got to be one of the more evident forms of government paternalism. Business is about evaluating risks and taking them. It just happens that gambling is typically a bad risk.
And sure, some people can be habitual gamblers... but that applies to just about any other activity in life.
If you try and make stupidity illegal, you'll never want for laws.
What they should do is focus on movie-game mod packs for movies. Imagine a "lord of the rings" mod of James Bond complete with a multiplayer version of 'take the ring to mordor, orc generators, etc. I think it would satisfy the need for a tie-in without making the movie drive the game.
Fans would buy it for $10 or so. And it would be fairly cheap to make.
My neighiborhood could get together and install a windmill for electricity. Could yours install an oil refinery?
This makes a huge difference.
1. We don't want to be dependant on foreign oil, which is a non-renewable resource and politically disadvantageous to us.
2. Most renewable resources can't be used to power vehicles. Hydroelectric power can create electricity as can wind hydroelectric, solar and nuclear (not renewable but an alternative power source.) So the whole "how do we run a car on wind power" question is a big one. We're going to end up using them eventually. The question is 'how.'
3. Energy is more efficient when generated in a central power plant (carnot efficiency, since most power is just a means to drive a heat engine) even if the range that that electricty can be efficiently transported is limited.
4. Energy created in a central powerplant can be made to have less environmental impact. It's easier to install scrubbers on a power plant and avoid NOx emissions from a single location than from multiple locations.
5. Electricity can be locally produced, one way or another, at least giving us more alternatives for when the price of oil spikes, thereby preventing such spikes. It's easier to change the power source for a powerplant (which is common) than for a car which is uncommon. Electricity companies simply won't have the monopoly that the oil industry does since electricity can be locally produced by a variety of methods.
The problems with fossil fuels are real, and the complaints are legitamate. Environmentalists and the public in general are capable of understanding them and are not stupid.
While there may be a few people who just want the feeling of more control over their own lives in the face of an imposing world, electric vehicles are still the answer since they allow for a personalized solution if a person is really determined enough.
While Iraq as a nation was slowly weakening, Saddam was actually made politically stronger by the sanctions, since it made it harder for groups independant of the government to operate and he had a powerful external enemy to focus people's ill will on.
As mentioned, the great virtue of the gold standard was that it assured long-term price stability. Compare the aforementioned average annual inflation rate of 0.1 percent between 1880 and 1914 with the average of 4.2 percent between 1946 and 1990. (The reason for excluding the period from 1914 to 1946 is that it was neither a period of the classical gold standard nor a period during which governments understood how to manage monetary policy.)
Even Constantinople in medieval times had inflation problems
Caused by what, if I could ask? I can see inflation if there's a sudden influx of gold and you use a gold standard, but if the money supply is constant and based on a physical item of worth, how can you have inflation?
Imagine that catastrophe hits. The market is flooded with houses. More sellers than buyers, etc. and a limited time frame for selling (auction.) A person should be able to pick up some cheap houses, assuming that they have ready cash.
The NSA can take on technology based communications every which way from Sunday. Phones can be tapped. Computers can be monitored. Going head to head vs. the US using technology is like putting on a football helmet and trying to ram a bull. You're dealing with the creature where it's strongest.
9-11 did as much damage as it did, not because of the use of fancy gadgets or technology, but because they were about as high tech as Ted Kazinsky and slipped under the radar.
Because there are a large portion of traders who invest short term rather than long term.
Maybe it has somthing to do with inflation due to loans in the banking industry (which artificially increases the money supply beyond what actually exists by loaning out money which people consider as their assets) leading to people investing money that they don't really have, 100%. If you get too far ahead that way, the market collapses (People get called on their credit all at once and suddenly there's a lot less money around while everyone has spent their extra cash on durable goods, so after the crash there's less need for durable consumer goods, leading to further unemployment.)
This is just a shot in the dark, but maybe if the money supply were backed by a tangilble asset again (I vote for oil or electricity rather than gold or silver) then this wouldn't happen. Of course, the folks I've talked to claim that this wouldn't work. *shrugs* So what do I know.
Lets say a down payment is required for a house - 20% or so. Is there any way, if the bank forecloses on the loan, that you could make a deal with the bank to assume the mortgage?
Is there somthing that can be done involving the market for forclosed property?
Funny we're looking at all the same evidence and it all fits perfectly with creation, only difference is we have an eye witness account, evolution beliefs don't.
I'll respond even though you're posting anonymously.
If you were to take the matter to court, the theory of evolution could refer back to numerous cases of physical evidence.
The biblical "evidence" would fall under the legal definition of 'hearsay' rather than an eye witness account.
But even if that weren't true, 'eyewitness accounts' are notoriously unreliable when compared with physical evidence.
I'm not sure how you can claim that fossil strata, which were found before the theory of evolution even existed, fit with a creationist view. Unless you start claiming that fossils are there to test people's faith or somthing along those lines, which is the same as rejecting the evidence.
But the point of any theory is to be predictive. A good theory lets us make good guesses about physical phenomenon that we aren't aware of yet. The theory of evolution, for instance, can help us predict patterns in the evolution of infectious disease. (check out Ewald's "Evolution of Infectious Diseases" for support. It's a very good book when it comes to arguing for a particular position.)
What does the theory of creationism help us to predict, and how can we test those predictions?
I utterly despise sales people, or basically anybody that directly works for money.
This is an interesting comment. Care to elaborate?
Perhaps it would be better to say that you despise the way things are typically sold? Or the sacrifice of integrity which is often involved in sales?
Everyone who gets money has to 'sell' themselves one way or another. Programmers sell themselves in an inverview or sometimes beforehand by proving that their skills are valid and worth the asking price.
There are some salesmen who are similar, nurturing a few large contracts rather than many small ones.
The US is required to not recognize a particular religion or prevent the free exercise therof. I'm not clear to what degree this was altered by later case law.
"Separation of church and state" was a phrase Jefferson used. It describes his interpretation\intent of how things should be, but the phrase itself was not enacted into law.
Jefferson, like many of the founding fathers, was essentially Unitarian or Deist. He believed in God but not religion.
The way it's taught now, evolution isn't falsifiable either.
There's a difference between theory and how theory is taught.
Arguments from authority can sometimes be used to teach a falsifiable theory. Analogies can also be used to teach ideas which are already established, or that pass for established. Perhaps argments from authority are overused, but all the same...
Generally, this is how schoolkids are taught (i.e. the cambrian period occurred x million years ago) as opposed to discussing what the Cambrian period involved.
The whole origins thing is not worth spending immensely valuable class time on.
Slashdot Mirror
All Palestinians want this?
I'm know Hammas wants to eradicate Israel, but I'm not sure about the 'eradicating Jews as a people' bit. So Israel shouldn't negotiate with Hammas. Whic I agree with.
Grandparent poster was pretty reasonable. I know many Palestinians won't want to go for it, but the question is whether they'll still have the steam to fight, international support, etc. when they can't also go and say "The Israelis want to deport Palestinians to Egypt and Lebanon. We're going the way of the Native Americans unless you send your kids off as walking pipe bombs."
True. I was trying to respond to the criticism that gambling ads were somehow dishonest by showing some brutally honest advertising that casinos actually paid for.
or do you just plan on kicking them out of the way on your way to work?
I don't plan on doing anything with them at all. It's their life and you can't have freedom without responsibility. Your response is a perfect example of that.
When people gamble away their rent money they need to learn not to gamble away their rent money.
I'm fine with an extremly basic social safety net, but if a thing isn't physically addictive I don't see the justification to regulate it. People spend lots of money on lots of things that I consider stupid. Some folks go into debt to buy expensive cars which they don't have the cash to pay for and will just depreciate. What happens if they lose their job?
My point is, how do you define 'gambling' to separate it from other bad risks people take? If insurance is a bad risk, should it be illegal? Is anything that involves some skill not considered gambling? Isn't analyzing point spreads on football games, for instance, partially a matter of skill?
And hell, Australia has a government run lottery. If gambling is bad, so it's kindof talking out of both sides of its mouth.
I've read a fair bit of Peter Deusberg's theories.
To start off with, he's not a nutcase. He's done some important work with oncogenic viruses, and was the recipient of an outstanding investigator grant.
This grant was revoked because of purely political reasons, which is blatantly unethical.
My genetics professor for my senior year in college (2000) confirmed this when I talked to him about Deusberg, saying that Deusberg had been treated unfairly.
Of course, neither I nor my college professor agree with Deusberg's hypothesis, but the criticism of HIV research done by Deusberg and others has suffered a lot of political suppresion, particularly when HIV was first being discovered and people were in panic mode. Deusberg has not been treated fairly, and the political suppresion has had the effect that unjust censorship often does. If you want shoddy science, frankly, Fauci's early HIV research contains more than enough of it to go around. And the scanning electron microscope pictures of HIV attacking CD4 cells deserved to be questioned, since SEM photos are easily biased (take 100 photos and pick the one you want.)
AZT was approved for HIV treatment quicker than almost any drug in FDA history because it was rushed through. There's still no valid scientific study that I'm aware of that proves AZT extends lifespan, and the Concord Study was horribly flawed, with people in the experimental group sharing their medication with those in the control group to try and "help" them - a criticism of Deusberg's which is relevant to the current debate. As of 3-4 years ago, AZT was still a component in antiviral cocktails with scientists unwilling to do a controlled study for "ethical reasons" comparing it to the tuskeege institute study, etc. ( not sure about presently)
AZT is a highly toxic DNA chain terminator and was used some time ago as chemotherapy against cancer. Ironically, it's capable of simulating the effects of AIDS (i.e. immune suppression.) If you take AZT, you will get chemotheraputically induced immune suppression that mimics AIDS.
Further, almost none of the "AIDS" cases in Africa (possibly excluding S. Africa) are confirmed via western methods - i.e. either an ELISA test or PCR. If you have a disease associated with immune suppresion, you're assumed to have HIV. Starvation combined with other stressors can also cause immune suppression.
The grandparent poster was correct in that HIV almost never infects a person by itself - there's almost always some other co-infection, in part because HIV is such a weak virus. Deusberg's claim was that HIV was a marker virus, which remains an accurate description even if HIV does cause AIDS. HIV is almost always an indicator of other infections. Even people who have been subjected to HIV contaminated needlesticks are unlikely to actually get HIV. HIV is often an opportunistic infection itself, that takes advantage of a strained immune system or a break in the body's defenses.
As for this article, it seems a bit overblown to me. Scientists have been searching for an animal model for HIV for a while. I haven't kept up in the research recently, so what I'm saying is about 3 years behind the times or so, but frankly I'd be more impressed if human HIV was found to replicate inside crocodiles and cause illness rather than the opposite. There are plenty of animals which are not harmed by the HIV virus and the lack of effective animal models was a longtime problem in HIV research. Nothing new here.
I'm not so interested in crocodile antibodies, which I doubt would help humans. But if crocs have an interferon-like component to their blood, perhaps that could be useful.
I've seen ads for casinos touting .98 average payout on the dollar. If it's honesty you want, force casinos to tell their average rate of payout the same way that corporations are transparent and food products list their ingredients.
I'm all for informed consent, cigarette warning labels, etc. That's different than a ban. The standard here is really not consistant from one risky activity to another.
Considering I have to make stuff in flash (for e-learning. not ads) I didn't have much choice as to whether I wanted to install it or not.
... Australians have been unable to access their various stock brokerages through Google.
Seriously, banning gambling has got to be one of the more evident forms of government paternalism. Business is about evaluating risks and taking them. It just happens that gambling is typically a bad risk.
And sure, some people can be habitual gamblers... but that applies to just about any other activity in life.
If you try and make stupidity illegal, you'll never want for laws.
What they should do is focus on movie-game mod packs for movies. Imagine a "lord of the rings" mod of James Bond complete with a multiplayer version of 'take the ring to mordor, orc generators, etc. I think it would satisfy the need for a tie-in without making the movie drive the game.
Fans would buy it for $10 or so. And it would be fairly cheap to make.
Most people don't delete their flash shared objects, which can serve the same purpose as cookies.
So they're still screwed.
Does anyone know of a spyware removal program that kills shared object files?
My neighiborhood could get together and install a windmill for electricity. Could yours install an oil refinery?
This makes a huge difference.
1. We don't want to be dependant on foreign oil, which is a non-renewable resource and politically disadvantageous to us.
2. Most renewable resources can't be used to power vehicles. Hydroelectric power can create electricity as can wind hydroelectric, solar and nuclear (not renewable but an alternative power source.) So the whole "how do we run a car on wind power" question is a big one. We're going to end up using them eventually. The question is 'how.'
3. Energy is more efficient when generated in a central power plant (carnot efficiency, since most power is just a means to drive a heat engine) even if the range that that electricty can be efficiently transported is limited.
4. Energy created in a central powerplant can be made to have less environmental impact. It's easier to install scrubbers on a power plant and avoid NOx emissions from a single location than from multiple locations.
5. Electricity can be locally produced, one way or another, at least giving us more alternatives for when the price of oil spikes, thereby preventing such spikes. It's easier to change the power source for a powerplant (which is common) than for a car which is uncommon. Electricity companies simply won't have the monopoly that the oil industry does since electricity can be locally produced by a variety of methods.
The problems with fossil fuels are real, and the complaints are legitamate. Environmentalists and the public in general are capable of understanding them and are not stupid.
While there may be a few people who just want the feeling of more control over their own lives in the face of an imposing world, electric vehicles are still the answer since they allow for a personalized solution if a person is really determined enough.
P.S. The site seems to be completely dead.
Then it fits right in with Slashdot.
Saddam's power base was slowly weakening
While Iraq as a nation was slowly weakening, Saddam was actually made politically stronger by the sanctions, since it made it harder for groups independant of the government to operate and he had a powerful external enemy to focus people's ill will on.
Performance of the Gold Standard
t ml
As mentioned, the great virtue of the gold standard was that it assured long-term price stability. Compare the aforementioned average annual inflation rate of 0.1 percent between 1880 and 1914 with the average of 4.2 percent between 1946 and 1990. (The reason for excluding the period from 1914 to 1946 is that it was neither a period of the classical gold standard nor a period during which governments understood how to manage monetary policy.)
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GoldStandard.h
Even Constantinople in medieval times had inflation problems
Caused by what, if I could ask? I can see inflation if there's a sudden influx of gold and you use a gold standard, but if the money supply is constant and based on a physical item of worth, how can you have inflation?
Imagine that catastrophe hits. The market is flooded with houses. More sellers than buyers, etc. and a limited time frame for selling (auction.) A person should be able to pick up some cheap houses, assuming that they have ready cash.
The NSA can take on technology based communications every which way from Sunday. Phones can be tapped. Computers can be monitored. Going head to head vs. the US using technology is like putting on a football helmet and trying to ram a bull. You're dealing with the creature where it's strongest.
9-11 did as much damage as it did, not because of the use of fancy gadgets or technology, but because they were about as high tech as Ted Kazinsky and slipped under the radar.
>>I wonder why we get boom and bust cycles
In my totally uninformed opinion;
Because there are a large portion of traders who invest short term rather than long term.
Maybe it has somthing to do with inflation due to loans in the banking industry (which artificially increases the money supply beyond what actually exists by loaning out money which people consider as their assets) leading to people investing money that they don't really have, 100%. If you get too far ahead that way, the market collapses (People get called on their credit all at once and suddenly there's a lot less money around while everyone has spent their extra cash on durable goods, so after the crash there's less need for durable consumer goods, leading to further unemployment.)
This is just a shot in the dark, but maybe if the money supply were backed by a tangilble asset again (I vote for oil or electricity rather than gold or silver) then this wouldn't happen. Of course, the folks I've talked to claim that this wouldn't work. *shrugs* So what do I know.
Lets say a down payment is required for a house - 20% or so. Is there any way, if the bank forecloses on the loan, that you could make a deal with the bank to assume the mortgage?
Is there somthing that can be done involving the market for forclosed property?
If hindsight is 20/20, then why aren't we walking backwards?
If hindsight is 20/20 why do all these idiots talking out of their ass seem sound so blind.
Funny we're looking at all the same evidence and it all fits perfectly with creation, only difference is we have an eye witness account, evolution beliefs don't.
I'll respond even though you're posting anonymously.
If you were to take the matter to court, the theory of evolution could refer back to numerous cases of physical evidence.
The biblical "evidence" would fall under the legal definition of 'hearsay' rather than an eye witness account.
But even if that weren't true, 'eyewitness accounts' are notoriously unreliable when compared with physical evidence.
I'm not sure how you can claim that fossil strata, which were found before the theory of evolution even existed, fit with a creationist view. Unless you start claiming that fossils are there to test people's faith or somthing along those lines, which is the same as rejecting the evidence.
But the point of any theory is to be predictive. A good theory lets us make good guesses about physical phenomenon that we aren't aware of yet. The theory of evolution, for instance, can help us predict patterns in the evolution of infectious disease. (check out Ewald's "Evolution of Infectious Diseases" for support. It's a very good book when it comes to arguing for a particular position.)
What does the theory of creationism help us to predict, and how can we test those predictions?
I utterly despise sales people, or basically anybody that directly works for money.
This is an interesting comment. Care to elaborate?
Perhaps it would be better to say that you despise the way things are typically sold? Or the sacrifice of integrity which is often involved in sales?
Everyone who gets money has to 'sell' themselves one way or another. Programmers sell themselves in an inverview or sometimes beforehand by proving that their skills are valid and worth the asking price.
There are some salesmen who are similar, nurturing a few large contracts rather than many small ones.
The US is required to not recognize a particular religion or prevent the free exercise therof. I'm not clear to what degree this was altered by later case law.
"Separation of church and state" was a phrase Jefferson used. It describes his interpretation\intent of how things should be, but the phrase itself was not enacted into law.
Jefferson, like many of the founding fathers, was essentially Unitarian or Deist. He believed in God but not religion.
The way it's taught now, evolution isn't falsifiable either.
There's a difference between theory and how theory is taught.
Arguments from authority can sometimes be used to teach a falsifiable theory. Analogies can also be used to teach ideas which are already established, or that pass for established. Perhaps argments from authority are overused, but all the same...
Generally, this is how schoolkids are taught (i.e. the cambrian period occurred x million years ago) as opposed to discussing what the Cambrian period involved.
The whole origins thing is not worth spending immensely valuable class time on.
Are you for eliminating history as well?
If you don't want criticism, you shouldn't start a forum. If you want to edit your forum, it's not surprising if people call you on it.
There probably are some folks out there who don't know that the reviews are weeded. They deserve to know. That's what this discussion is documenting.
Amen!