Dak

yes, exactly. you don't have a right to a job, but you have a right to persue a job; which kinda requires that there are enough jobs for everyone to persue. most people can't rely on inheritance or lottery for their money, so it's a job or nothing (i'm counting being a self-employed buisness owner as a job). maybe not officially, but most people consider basic safety a right. wether or not economics are involved is irrelevent to the basic 'right' people have to actually be able to survive by working within the confines of their society. which is just a poncy way of saying that if people are limited to 'survival by enployment', then they can claim the right to the enployment opertunities that they need to survive. well, for an extreme example, take the wall-street crash, which threw squillions of americans into poverty; they couldn't get jobs, and so survival became hard. given that american society was such that getting (the now rare) jobs was the only way to survive, it was the american govournments responsibility to fix the situation so that all these americans could actually get jobs, and actually survive in the only way that the american society allows. ultimately, this is what the US govournment did. I don't really think that anyone can say that those squillions of americans had no 'right' to demand that their govournment fixed stuff, or that they were in any way to blame, nor that they should just be left to suffer due to their inability to get a non-existant job. basically, many of these americans couldn't afford food/shelter/etc due to the fact that there was no job for them to get, in a society that was structured such that they needed a job. in other words, the had no food/shelter because of the way that their society was at that point. it was societies fault. hence, society had an obligation to provide job-opertunities, so that they could fix their lifes in the only way that society allows them to. imagine that scaled down, and thats the situation that exists today; we still must have jobs to get before it can be required that we get them, if that makes sense? i dont think thats 'PC' in any way, shape, or form, and it's not like the weather in that it can actually be controlled (see the wall street crash again, for a pretty majour provision of job oppertunities by the govournment) ----- actually, 'society must provide job opertunities' is a bit of an over-simplification. if society limits us to getting a job as the 1 way of suviving, then society has an onus to either ensure that we can actually get a job, or 'let us off' if we cannot due to the fact that they are not there (i.e., welfare).

The only way you can survive in society is with money, and the only (legal) source of money is having a job. by putting us in a situation whereby we need a job in order to survive, yes, a job becomes a right, simply because if our society demands we do something 'or else', it must also provide the ability for us to actually comply with it's demand; putting people in a situation whereby they must do something to survive, but not actually ensuring that its even theryoretically possible for them to do it is unnaceptable. otoh, this doesn't mean that people shouldn't have to earn their job. So, imo the oppertunity to get a job is a right, whilst having a job is not. by which i mean that it's the govournments responsability to ensure that everyone can get a job (eg, no job shortages); however, if you're going to be unreliable and incompetent, no-one's obliged to actually give you a job. that you have the ability to pull yourself together and get a job is enough. I also don't see any potential for hypocracy atwix drug and job policy

it seems that you're claiming that global warming will/might be a balanced mix of good and bad. do you have any studies/models/predictions etc that project environmental changes that will/might be a balanced mix of good and bad (or is that not what you meant)?

screw teenagers, i want one did i miss something, or does it not actually mention the efficiency?

tho there seems to be no disagreement that antrhopogenic forses are a predominant driving forse. umm, can you support that? I know science doesn't make any ethical claims, so science per se cannot state that global warming will 'be bad', but i'm not aware of any predictions that allow for the situation to be such that any sane metric could judge it as anything other than 'overall bad'...

hmm... worked for me up untill the recent server change...

well, if a drug was addictive, and 100% of all people who use it end up wishing they hadn't, then i dont think anyone would have any trouble with removing peoples right to do it in order to protect them. the only reason it's complicated is because drugs don't have a 100% regret rate... but, what rate is enough to justify banning it? 80%? don't forget, we take this attetude with kids all the time. kids cant drink alcohol, or smoke, or have sex, or live on their own, or choose wether they wish to go to school or not, because, at the end of the day, they're too stupid to make their own desisions without screwing up in these areas, so we make their desicions for them. sure, a few kids are sensible enough to make their own desisions reguarding alcohol, and drink sensibly; however, their right to make their own desision is taken away for the protection of the whole from their own stupidity, due to the fact that most kids cannot choose wizely when it comes to alcohol (etc). the fallicy is in assuming that the same shouldn't apply to adults. we allow adults to drink, but not kids, not because adults 'deserve the right to be stupid', but because, in reguards to alcohol, adults (unlike kids) are generally more likely to be able to make a desision that they wont later wish that they'd been prevented from making on alcohol consumption. if theres a drug that is to adults like alcohol is to kids (i.e., they're largely incapable of making their own desisions wizely in reguards to it), then why shouldn't they be prevented from making their desision and just denied access to the drug?

you might wanna either change the 'forum' folder to 'forums', or set 'forums' up as a synonym or something... my SFN bookmark (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums) gives a 404, and old posts like this that link to other posts/threads are borked, 'cos they refer to 'forums'.

yes, there is a lot of disagrement about the magnitude of warming that we can expect. i'm not, for example, trying to argue that in 50 years time the temperature will have gone up 3.5C. however, i'm pretty sure that you won't find any model that predicts anything better than, say, a 1C rise in temperature if we don't cut back on GHGs. eg, from wiki's IPCC report article, it seems that the lowest model examined by them predicts a rise of 1.8C (within 100 years, afaict). so, can we say we currently have consensus that global warming is going to occour to a degree where bad things will happen? or do you disagree that the world will neccesarily rise in temperature enough to cause bad things to happen?

the middle east is this guilty part of the world that the big mean US is kicking about. I'm surprised no-ones mentioned the head-scarf that the bird was forsed to wear. or the fact that she was, afaict, the boss.

red on blue looks horrid. tho, kudos to whoever had the crazy idea of setting mods to be blue on blue. i wouldn't have thought itd work, but it does

yes, and there are a few other unnacounted factors. iirc, the problem with the clouds is that clouds act as a blanket, keeping heat in and contributing to warming. climate changes could make significantly more or less clouds, which could, then, have a knock-on effect of increasing the temperature more or less than we assumed. it is unknown what effect clouds will have. there are also some theories on climate 'buffers', which could be acting to mask/counter-balance the effects of global warming, complete with the alarming possibility of becoming 'over-loaded', and thus instigating a period of even faster than expected warming (these account for some of the higher predictions of increases in the vasinity of 8C) all of this makes predictions of the amount of climate change that will occour somewhat unreliable. however, a few things are pretty certain: global warming is occouring. it is being driven mainly by anthropogenic GHG it will continue to get hotter the amount by which it will get hotter will be enough to cause certain things that will 'suck'. so, argumentation about specifics aside, we can all agree that global warming is going to cause a crap amount of warming. how crap, or wether crap amount = 2C or 10C, is not entirely certain, but that it will be crap is pretty well established. hence, with reguards to your earlyer comment about 'global warming alarmists'... if i say "OMFG OMFG MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE **** **** **** AAAAARG", then you wouldn't fobb me off as a 'my house is on fire alarmist'. you would, instead, probably accept that my house was on fire, and agree that i was justified in being alarmed. similarly, 'global warming alarmists' are just people that accept the science, and are justifyably alarmed, not people to be mistrusted 'because they're panicing'. ---------------- one thing i'd like to point out is that none of us have brought up anything that the climate scientists are unlikely to have thought of, and climate scientists are a lot more capable of making judjments reguarding global warming than we are. so, yeah, if you disagree with the consensus oppinion, you're almost certainly just plain wrong. simple as that. same as if you come out with 'hey, guys, evolution must be wrong because of blah', where 'blah' is, in all likelyhood, something that evolutionists are aware of, and yet still accept evolution.

yeah, but alcohol also has that risk. i'm not trying to say it's not a problem. coked-up thugs are definately a problem, for example.

what clout? what success for iran? START: iran: britain invaded our waters, and we demand an apology UK: no. also, it was a mistake END: iran: ok, it was a mistake. britain aren't apologising, but they can have their troops back anyway. UK: it was a mistake. i don't see how iran came out of this looking strong or cloutful? anyway, everyone seems to be overlooking the possibility that this was a genuine mistake on irans part, and they just took the easyest way out when they realised. whatever, i'm glad it was resolved without violence.

as a practicle point, iirc there are no easy 'cannabis breathalysers', so enforsing the no drugged driving laws would be a pita. this only works with certain drugs. the majority of people who 'take nicotine' want to stop but can't, so you'd be somewhat justified in stopping people from making that mistake by illegalising ciggarettes. the same can't be said of stuff like cannabis. and, like i said, places like holand where drugs are legal generally have lower rates of drug abuse, even for stuff like heroine...

britain is undisputably stronger than iran. however, the iranian navai forse in the area was undisputably stronger than the british naval forse in the area. when you're out-gunned, surrender is the best option. unless you'd rather have seen the british sailers martyrd. the only 'consessions' that he's making are that, possibly, iran is genuinly mistaken. we're not apologising, and i doubt that any of irans desired 'assuranses' that this'll never happen again will be forthcoming, as that'd be out-of-line with our official stance that it was their fault. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6523729.stm see, we're not being as pusy-footed as you think. the 'increasingly tougher descisions' bit, imo, isn't overtly aggressive, but definately hints at the possibility that we'll take some kind of military action if they don't give them back. well, it is possible that iran are genuinly mistaken, and it's only fair to grant them the benifit of the doubt. imo, it's certainly not clear that they knowingly entered iraqi waters to yoink our troops. somewhat relatedly, i'm interested where the 'making a public spectacle of the troops was in violation of the geneva convention' aspect will go; wether, and how much, we'll critisize them for it.

indeed. i'm not sure were you're getting this from, bettina: britain has specifically refused to appologise ---------- with reguards to the soldures 'confession': might it be an idea to make our policy simply be that soldures should say whatever their captors want them to? i.e., no bothering with trying to avoid co-ersion, just 'admit' to whatever they tell you to. that way, as long as we make it clear that this is our policy, our soldures can avoid having to go through any torture/coersion/etc by just saying whatever, and we can just deny it by pointing out that they're instructed to say whatever their captor tells them to? i.e., any 'admissions' gained from captives will be completely hollow.

that's true. but, at the same time, we're sure enough that global warming is happening, and we're sure enough that human-made CO2 emissions are contributing significantly, that we can kinda justify actually starting to take mesures, rather than waiting around for the certainty to go up a few % so that we're 100% certain that CO2 emissions are partially to blame. does anyone have a link to what's being discussed? i thought the ipcc released their 4th thingy recently?

hmm, fair enough. iirc, the govournment stepped in and bitch-slapped the banks, capping interest rates and whatnot. maybe it worked?

gypsycake:if savings rate is what it sounds like, then i sincerely doubt that the UK has a positive savings rate. a couple of years ago, our national debt (as in, the combined debt of all our citisens, not the money britain owes other countries) exceeded £1trillion. which, for you non-brits, yes, is a staggering amount. its possible that things have changed since then, but i'd doubt the 3.7% figure...

actually, one gripe -- could you switch the 'poster' and timestamp/report post/post number around? it's annoying having the picture on the right, but the name on the left.

the 'collapse/expand forum' buttons look silly square. here's some circly ones, if you want 'em: (also, I think you forget the favicon?)

might wanna delete the 'welcome, creationists' stickies now that ID is taboo, and maybe put a sub-forum under 'genetics' linking out to originsdebate?

ditto "current affairs"; i take it that the name change from politics isn't intended to mean that we can't discuss general politics in that forum? e.g., a thread discussing tecnocracy would still be appropriate in that forum, even tho it's not current-affairsy?

Doesn't cover the SFN logo any more, but doesn't exactly look completely proper. can't upload pix in this forum, so: http://www.theologyforums.net/showthread.php?p=2566#post2566 btw, that 'jpeg' was a '.png' when i uploaded it to TFN