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So is this a new kind of crime? Shuttling Under the Influence?

A moral, thematic, or allegorical journey are typical components of literature, yes. This is the typical means by which a literary work communicates an ineffible message. I've seen several works of that nature. Perhaps the foremost in my mind is Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series. The effect was perhaps inadvertent: after the introduction of Gentry Lee as the series coauthor, the themes grew increasingly more mature. But yes, in its own way, that is brilliant. Rowling has created what is essentially a Bildungsroman authored in such a way that the character ages with the reader. It's certainly better than other exhaustive fantasy series I read as a child, such as Redwall or Dragonlance, which turned into a bland mush after so long. So great! Except for it to work you must start reading Harry potter at age 11. Want a better, more adult-oriented Bildungsroman? Consider A Remembrance of Things Past. I will challenge ANY Harry Potter fan to produce a single scene from the series which remotely rival's Proust's description of Madelines. Having been beseiged by Harry Potter fans loitering outside my local pub, I think had I enlisted James Joyce to help me kick their asses he would've gladly obliged.

That avatar is more a statement on post-9/11 hysteria than it is on ATHF, but interpret as you will. That said, you think ATHF is a children's show? Do you think it'd be a good idea to expose, say, a 13 year old child to the hand banana? Perhaps airing on "Adult Swim" is a signal that the show is not intended for children I'm trying to judge based on content, and in the case of Harry Potter I'm judging via metadata rather than my personal interpretation. I think "cultural infantalism" summed it up nicely. Or perhaps the "repetitive plots, the static characters, the pedestrian prose, the wit-free tone, the derivative themes" I've been drawn into this sort of battle before, and at the behest of the people involved it lead to me reading the book I was attempting to criticize. In the previous case it was Robert Jordan's "The Eye of the World", the first book in the Wheel of Time series. I got perhaps halfway through before deciding I couldn't take anymore, and spent the next several weeks comparing Jordan's writing to the Eye of Argon. I have no desire to attempt this with Harry Potter. I am quite confident to judge from metadata instead of direct interpretation. Call it snobbery if you will. I'll assert my own observations of Harry Potter's cultish status among its fans.

I've had the same experience with people who read Harry Potter versus those who purposely eschew it. You might class the latter as "literature snobs", but they are certainly much smarter than my friends who read Harry Potter.

I have but the New York Times on my side, who decided to factor out children's books from their bestseller list when 3 Harry Potter books were on it. And the WP critic cited above who feels the same way. Consider it the opinion of an elitist snob. Just adding it up, the series weighs in at 3,571 pages. That represents a considerable time investment. Not to be a snob, but I agree with the WT literary critic who called it a case of "cultural infantalism" Actually, that's the case among a number of my friend. And the opinion of the literary critics who run the NYT bestseller list... and the WP critic I posted above... and countless other critics. My contention is there's a mountainous volume of adult-oriented fiction which is substantially better than Harry Potter. Having not read the Harry Potter books myself, I admit I'm relying on literary criticism. I don't read many "popular books". I could care less about the latest Danielle Steele, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, or Dean Koontz novels. These novels are probably just as deserving of criticism as Harry Potter. I'm singling Harry Potter out due to the recent publicity. As someone who's reading queue is constantly backlogged with 20 books or more, I'd say 3,571 pages of crap would set me back considerably. I will happily assert that there are better books than Harry Potter, per the collective opinion of people who devote their lives to studying this sort of thing. My contention is that you're wasting time better spent reading better books. I get the "popcorn argument". Right now I'm reading a sci-fi novel. It's good, but not great. I'm doing so after just finishing a mound of extremely heavy nonfiction. I felt like some light, fast reading. That works to a point. 3,571 pages is past that point. Because people who can't select books don't read No, I'm saying teachers who depend on Harry Potter to turn kids into lifelong readers rather than teach kids how to become lifelong readers are causing children to lose out. This isn't a problem with Harry Potter per say, more with Harry Potter hype. Let me quote some relevant excerpts from the Washington Post's literary critic, Ron Charles: And here's the issue that really hit home for me. I work in Long Tail markets, and so far we have seen the nicheification of the movie market, television market, and music market, but no so with books:

To address the point of children's literature, I'd suggest the following: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH Flowers for Algernon Watership Down To Kill a Mockingbird

The theme of this thread is really threefold: Book selection: I'm confused why any adult would select Harry Potter over the mountainous volume of better books they could be reading. Defense of Harry Potter for being something it's not: Harry Potter is a children's book. If you're an adult reading it, keep that in mind. Being popular does not improve its overall quality, which is great for a series targeted at children, but substantially inferior to a massive quantity of other books available. Trust in books like Harry Potter to solve the reading dilemma: When I see teachers lauding Harry Potter as some sort of universal panacea for the waning national interest in adult literature, I'm annoyed. And the studies I linked show it doesn't work. This really goes back to point #1: there are books which are aimed at adults, just as readable (probably, I'm judging in ignorance here), and of a quality I'd judge to be substantially higher. I recently broached this issue with a friend of mine who had been reading the Harry Potter series. I suggested that he read the cyberpunk classic Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson before he reads another Harry Potter book (Snow Crash made the Time 100 list). He's reading it right now in lieu of Harry Potter, and has thanked me a couple times now for suggesting it. Here you're getting my points confused. I'm primarily arguing that there are better books for adults to be reading than Harry Potter. In regard to children my argument is that book selection skills aren't getting taught. After all, why would kids need to learn them when they're happily reading Harry Potter? Then the kids grow up, and this lack of education thus spurns point #1.

Many of the climate scientists I used to work with had a Bachelors or Masters in statistics. When that isn't the case, statistics is still an integral part of the curriculum.

There are 17 known carcinogens in cigarettes. Most chewing tobacco contains nitrosamine, a result of direct fire curing of tobacco. Companies like Swedish Snus produce chewing tobacco without nitrosamine which they claim are safe and do not cause cancers.

So hey, yeah, I'm a layman, but I'm interested in the debate amongst the scientific community which I am far too tangential to be a part of. So let me ask the following questions: Which theory has put out the most papers YTD? Which theory is presently the most progressive? Which theory is presently the most predictive in terms of real-world phenomena, or presently on its way to publishing a paper which may make it predictive?

I'd choose the unpopular option of: Neither, they both suck, however you have thankfully provided me a Foundation option which I ended up going for. Hope I'm not the only one.

Fake Also: I want a hardcopy terminal

I'd say "scientific fact" is a shorter way of expressing a well-substantiated, uncontroversial theory. Ultimately, science is all theory, but then again, all personal knowledge is ultimately belief.

I don't think appeal to authority necessarily applies to scientific research which has undergone methodological peer review. For starters, there is no authority: the authority comes from the ability of the information itself to pass the scrutiny of several experts who have been offered the chance to give criticism. It's different than, say, the opinion of an individual or a group, in that there is no sort of check on what an individual or group can say at their own behest. Peer reviewed research can be held to a higher standard, because it has specifically undergone the criticism of experts in the field.

Because the books are trumpeted as a panacea to the problem of kids not reading, when really the effect is only temporary. Teachers should be teaching children how to enjoy reading, and that includes how to find books they think they might be interested in. If they're only interested in Harry Potter, this skill is never developed, and then no wonder they don't read: they don't know how to figure out what to read. I've recently resumed reading fiction after a long period of eschewing it. While I learned a lot reading non-fiction, the act of reading fiction is a completely different experience. Reading a work that uses allegory and symbolism for its underlying theme or moral value is completely different from reading a non-fiction work which is intentionally pedantic. There are works of non-fiction such as the Seven Pillars of Wisdom (which you can surely count on as being quasi-fictionalized) which accomplish the same thing, but they simply don't compare to the majority of fiction out there.

Nope, but I'll keep the recommendation in mind. Haha That doesn't contradict the conclusions of the referenced study. Here's another article on it: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/11/arts/11potter.php It does result in a temporary improvement in reading, however: The real problem is the "Harry Potter effect" goes away. Going back to the New York Times article, the literary critic author suggests that teachers are using Harry Potter as a panacea and not helping children figure out how to identify books they want to read on their own. So, the kids just stop reading.

The transmission of the ineffable through the medium of the written word, typically involving deep use of symbolism and allegory. Ulysses is perhaps one of the foremost examples of this. The problem is:kids who read Harry Potter read nothing but Harry Potter then stop reading altogether I'd argue the two are contextually metonymous

Last friday night I was at a bar that happened to be in front of a bookstore. This girl came up and asked my friend to borrow a cigarette. We were talking about Harry Potter. As someone who reads what I would consider to be literature, I was arguing that an adult is wasting their time by reading Harry Potter. There are so many good books that I want to read that children's books like Harry Potter certainly don't make it on my list. I've never read any of the Harry Potter books, so I'm judging them from ignorance. For some odd reason I've never felt the urge to read the books, nor do I feel like my time would be well spent doing so. Anyway, this girl and her two nearby friends, while apparently out at the bars as well and not there for the launch of the last Harry Potter book, began arguing with me about the worth of reading Harry Potter. After asserting several works I consider literature, the argument hinged upon that point: was Harry Potter literature? I argued no, but received a positively asserted "Yes!" from three girls who have never read: Ulysses A Remembrance of Things Past The Seven Pillars of Wisdom Love in the Time of Cholera The Sound and the Fury Gravity's Rainbow Naked Lunch Tropic of Cancer Question is: are the above books more worthy of the title of literature than Harry Potter? My assertion is a resounding yes.

I believe in free will in terms of the ultimate causes of our actions being for all intents and purposes effectively isolated from our actions. I think it's not improper to say that the totality of our memories cause our actions, and because this comprises so many events over such a long period of time with so much distortion in terms of the actual event versus the remembered one to say that they are, in effect, isolated. Dennett argues something similar: We have all the freedoms that matter. Consciousness is a strange but awesome thing which shouldn't be downplayed even if it can be deterministically reconciled in terms of purely material events.

Statistical analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error

Wrong See also: Wrong

I've always liked this idea. From the conclusion of A Brief History of Time:

In regard to that, I found Gwynne Dyer's take on the matter rather sobering: http://www.gwynnedyer.com/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%20Perspectives%20on%20Terrorism.txt To boil it down: Americans have no real perspective on terrorism. Major US cities were not bombed in WWII the way they were in Europe, and Europeans have actually been dealing with terror for far longer.

Funny, I don't trust the Administration's attentions Perhaps you should make that clearer... An ad hominem can be lodged against anyone, including Ahmadinejad. I believe Bush is an irrational tyrant I believe Bush will say one thing and do another concerning Iraq. And he actually has a track record we can scrutinize. Yours speculation is baseless. You mean that even Nixon realized that a withdrawal was the best option, and Bush absolutely refuses? So... Bush is stupider than Nixon, more corrupt, or both? If that's the case, the situation would deserve international attention... the kind America was unable to muster for the original invasion, which was ostensibly unwarranted. You want me to rehash that paragraph? You mean how we lingered in Vietnam even after Nixon declared the withdrawal, which eventually lead to the fall of Saigon? What do you want us to do, wait until the fall of Baghdad before withdrawing from Iraq? So are you saying that Fox News is a more reliable source of information than Al Jazeera? That's quite a tossup. That said Americans are directly exposed to American media outlets. I don't know what elaborate fantasy you've constructed in your head, but spin doctoring of American news takes place primarily in America. Fox News is a tool by which Rupert Murdoch frames the political landscape. Considering their reach, there's no way they can (even facetiously) be compared to a single pundit. They have a pundit army following a centrally dictated script. Al Jazeera practices journalism. CNN practices journalism. CBS practices journalism. Fox News is destroying journalism.

Your entire post seems to omit the fact they don't want us there. Withdrawal is all about giving Iraqis what they want: control of their own country and the absence of an occupying power. The question is: how to do that without plunging the entire country into chaos? Because the Iraq insurgency is a regional problem that needs a regional solution. Huh? Make it easier for who to take over? Iran is dominated by Shia Persians and Syria by Sunni Arabs. Iraq has a Shia Arab majority. Syria and Iran certainly aren't going to work together to conquer Iraq. The Sunni Arabs in Iraq are a minority... even if they worked with Syria they don't have the manpower to conquer the country. The Shia government may have ties to Iran but there are major cultural differences between the Arab and Persian communities. Are you suggesting they'd independently launch invasions, and may the best country win? You're making nonspecific propagandist claims with absolutely no factual backing whatsoever. If I were an irrational tyrant like Bush, I'd go around raping babies then spitting in their mom's faces. Yeah, baseless speculative ad hominems are fun. Operate according to a withdrawal timetable that can react to the situation. Are you aware of this thing called reality or do you get your facts exclusively from Fox News?