Sisyphus

I agree with ParanoiA that those positions don't seem especially "conservative" to me. Securing the border is, perhaps, a higher priority for the right, but it's still a non-controversial and bipartisan issue. Instead, the contrast between left and right can be seen in the question of what to do about illegals who are already here (Amnesty? Public schools? Vast witchhunt?), and in policies on legal immigration ("preserve American culture" vs. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."). As for Iran, hawkish policies and "regime changes" are certainly a staple of neocon thought, but "peacekeeping" and the like are liberal ambitions. The isolationism shared by libertarians and paleoconservatives alike is opposed to both world-conquering neocons and cosmopolitan, interventionist liberals. Also, what nation is more right-wing than freaking Iran? They're a perfect liberal villain.

I don't understand what you're talking about. Who's moving to the left?

I disagree. I'd say that kind of thinking hit its apex with the Twinkie defense, and is very much in decline, except in the form of persistent straw men and conservative mythology. Complaining about that is like complaing about "political correctness." You're like 15 years behind the times, dude. Which is why we do... I'd say there's plenty of blame to go around.

Ok. Are there statistics for that, then? I completely agree. I just don't know if a) it IS a "gun culture" (you're talking to an American, here), and b) whether that's the sort of problem that can be solved with reactionary measures. Hey, I think it's great that you guys don't feel the need to have all your policemen packing heat. I really do. I'm just saying I don't understand it. Maybe it's just because I come from a country where there are so many more guns, but to me it seems a very unreasonable thing to ask of police officers not to be armed. It is, after all, their job to intentionally put themselves in harm's way in between armed bad guys and civilians, and it seems crazy to deny them the ability to defend themselves and others in that situation. On the other hand, apparently it works for you, I guess since there are just a lot fewer armed bad guys. It occurs to me that maybe there's a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy at work - armed policemen means more civilians feel the need to arm themselves for protection, and more criminals feel the need to match the firepower of both. That seems a reasonable enough theory to be wary of arming your cops, especially since it seems like the sort of thing that can't be reversed. (Of course, I'm sure there's much more to it than that - whole generations raised on gun-fetishist cowboy shows probably has something to do with why so many Americans are packing, as well...)

I don't understand. That graph seems to show that it isn't a trend, it's just a coincidence. (Unless I'm missing something?) While taking steps to reduce gun violence is obviously a good idea (though I'm not really sure what those steps would be), it's also important not not blow things out of proportion and overreact. There's no way arming police is going to reduce violence, but then again, I don't know how you could expect police to go unarmed in the first place.

With the exception of the Ameglian Major cow (which not only wants to be eaten but can state so clearly and concisely) and certain male insects (which only want to be eaten by certain female insects), I think the basic principles of natural selection render that extremely unlikely.

Alright, fair enough. There is some impact. I don't know how big it is, but we agree it's not even enough to noticably slow the rate at which traffic is ncreasing, so I think of it more as a possible factor in the future than anything significant right now. Yes, I would. Energy consumption and land usage are two different (but obviously related) issues. Some places, sure. And yeah, they definitely abuse the hell out of the land they actually occupy. It's just that, per capita, they occupy a miniscule fraction of the average. Yes, wildly wrong, actually. For one thing, I only drink black coffee. You are correct in that I find exurbia aesthetically ugly in several different ways in addition to the environmental and economic stuff. But trying to impose my aesthetics on the rest of the country is itself aesthetically offensive to me, and that's not at ALL what this is about. Like I said, cities like New York really occupy the land they occupy. Well actually, probably not as much as you imagine, but I'll happily concede it's intense. But if that same population was spread out, we're talking thousands of square miles of land. Manhatten alone has 1.5 million permanent residents, using up only 20 square miles (including parks!). You're not going to find anyone with a smaller ecological footprint than a Manhattenite. As per energy consumption, I suppose it's possible to use less, but only if you revert to pre-industrial society. Since most of us don't want to live in some hippy commune, then I'm afraid high density cities are by far your best bet, at least so far. I mean, I'm open to possibilities, of course, but the fact remains that the average American literally uses eight times as much energy as the average Manhattenite. Yes, and all of that is admirable. And, since not everyone can live in cities, those that can't should have similar considerations in mind. And hey, if there were 10 million people in the country instead of 300 million, that might be a reasonable goal for everyone. I can't really imagine anyplace less "generic" than New York, but I guess that's pretty subjective. And again with the lattes. What the hell do you imagine my life is like? Because I'm concerned about the environmental, economic, and national security issues that result from endless sprawl, I have to be some kind of hipster/yuppy doofus? Maybe you've just been watching Friends.

"Especially in the internet age?" Are you implying that everyone works from home now so there aren't big commutes? Even if that were true (and it isn't), people obviously drive for other reasons. I know this because I've seen the endless swaths of parking lots in those huge, soulless, low-density commercial districts. The more spread out they are, the more they drive. And about those parking lots. All that uneccesarily paved land. A few miles of freeway, hundreds of acres of parking lot and strip malls, and a handful of housing developments would all just be one subway stop in a real city. And "urban packing" most certainly IS more efficient energy usage. Manhatten has one EIGHTH the national average per capita energy consumption, and a far, far smaller fraction of land usage. There are lots of reasons for that, which all tend to reinforce one another. Large apartment buildings are much more energy efficient than houses, and allow people to live close together, which means travel distances are that much shorter. Which in turn means we can easily walk most places we need to go, and for those times we can't, the efficiency (and convenience) of public transportation increases exponentially with population density. I agree land doesn't have to be public in order to be saved. That's just one way, and probably not even the best way. I imagine most of it could be accomplished if our zoning laws had even a little foresight, instead of being motivated by local governments' shortsighted visions of property tax revenue. So yeah, I guess we do part company....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/12/dolphins.sealions.ap/index.html By far the best part: "Sea lions can carry in their mouths special cuffs attached to long ropes. If the animal finds a rogue swimmer, it can clamp the cuff around the person's leg. The individual can then be reeled in for questioning."

I agree, it would be to everyone's long-term benefit to emphasize things like energy efficiency and land conservation over pure consumer power, even if it means significantly less growth in the short term. I support government-based encouragement and regulation in these areas, since it is not something the market can take care of, itself. From my limited experience, I also share your curiosity about European approaches. When I was living in the UK, it seemed like there must have been far, far stricter zoning laws for land use than the U.S. High density village and town centers, surrounded by sharp borders of basically rural areas. This stands in sharp contrast to the huge, horrible swaths of exurban sprawl we see in so many areas of America. I think we would be very wise to push towards similar policies. The British model is much higher efficiency, preserves land, and is a lot more pleasant. Exurbia, on the other hand, embodies all the very worst aspects of American shortsightedness, wastefulness, and unrestrained capitalism. Strip malls and McMansion developments are the worst possible thing for the environment, and are an economic hole that eventually we're going to have to dig ourselves out of, at terrible cost. (Incidentally, if I'm wrong about what most of UK is like, then we would still be wise to push towards my misconception.)

Pangloss: Just as an aside, the goal of narrowing the gap between have and have-not (or, if you prefer, have and have-more) has nothing (or little) to do with compassion. I, too, couldn't give a damn whether everyone can afford an XBox. I certainly can't, and I don't resent that. I've knowingly chosen extensive education in less-than-lucrative fields, and I know I'm never going to be rich unless I sell out and go to law school. Such is how it should be. ANYWAY. As I said, it's not about compassion for those specific individuals. It's cruel, cold economics. Conditions that favor a narrowing gap, and a bigger, wealthier middle class, means more consumption and a strong economy. A thousand middle class people is an infinitely stronger economy than one multi-millionaire and thousand serfs. The same for a thousand millionaires vs. one billionaire. A narrowing gap is good for everyone except the super-rich in the short term, and everyone including the super-rich (or at least their children) in the long term.

Right, it increases the total amount of material wealth. But if the population is growing at the same rate, then I'm not any wealthier, I just have more neighbors like me, fouling up my air and making me compete harder for the same space. Unfortunately, the way unrestrained capitalism works, an economy does need perpetual expansion to stay prosperous, a problem that both Adam Smith and Karl Marx (that is, the two economists I've read...) saw as grave, since it can't go on forever and it does lead to overpopulation and exhaustion of resources. Neither gave a real solution. Well, communism is a "solution," but for Marx, communism was a long-term prediction, not an immediate suggestion. It's very counterintuitive, since you would think that if we're prosperous in 2006, and there's 0% growth, we'll still be prosperous in 2007 - after all, there's the same amount of stuff. But, unfortunately, it doesn't really work that way, and economies which don't grow tend to become more stratified in terms of rich-poor gap, which in turn leads to the shrinkage of the economy, since there simply aren't as many significant consumers. The "expand of die" phenomenon is, I agree, surely the mark of a doomed idealogy, if history is any tutor... But then, maybe there have been advances in economics in the last few hundred years. Maybe a more "sane idealogy" is possible, wherein a slower-growing (or "stagnant") economy - that is, one that is actually indefinitely sustainable yet beneficial to individual prosperity - can be maintained. Surely they give out those Nobel prizes in economics for something...

Bettina, are you talking about Iraq or Afghanistan?

No, I think he's trying to say that the population is shrinking but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In other words, the traditional measure of prosperity as growth in all things (like GDP) is inherently flawed, since a bigger economy is not necessarily a better one in terms of things like individual happiness and long-term sustainability. Norman, is that about right?

Also, is there anyone who only eats fungus? If it's a set of people with zero members, does it need a name? If so, should there be a distinction between, say, "fungitarians," who merely don't fungus, and the aforementioned "fungans," who refrain from all fungus biproducts? As long as we're on the subject, does anyone else think there should be a name for a carnivore that only eats other carnivores? Being as high on the food chain as possible can be an ethos, can't it?

I guess if you can anthropomorphize a bee, you can anthropomorphize a brainless chicken.

Ok, I get it, "meat is murder." But vegans generally have a strict policy against all animal products too, right? What is the ethical problem with eating, say, organic eggs from free-range chickens? Or similarly with dairy products? I mean, chickens produce eggs, and cows produce milk, no matter what conditions they're under. Also, I was wondering, what's the general consensus on honey? Are the bees being "tortured?" For that matter, what's the policy on eating insects? I'm asking because I figure IMM will have answers (both for herself and for the "vegan community," inasmuch as such a thing exists), but I'm interested in anyone's input.

So, wait. You want to me to intentionally change my own perception of reality because it's too close to what the enemy wants me to believe? Isn't that a bit Orwellian? Not to mention ridiculous?

This is correct, it would be above the straight line, a shallower gradient in the less dense regions, and a steeper one in the more dense. This is because, in the less dense regions, the effect of putting more mass "overhead" is weaker compared with the effect of getting closer to the much denser core. As Martin said, this might even result in gravity increasing at first, similarly to how it would increase while descending through Earth's upper atmosphere, where the overhead mass is trivial compared with the approach to the center. I would also like to add that I don't think it would be a smooth curve at all, since the density would change in fairly well-defined layers instead of continuously. If I had to guess, I would say that it would look like a series of distinct, nearly flat (but still slightly downward curving) regions of progressively increasing steepness.

I drink a lot of both black and green tea, and I would never put milk or sugar in. THAT would make me want to throw up. Of course, I also take my coffee as strong and dark as possible with nothing in it (except espresso shots), so it could be I'm just more manly than all of you.

The press conference was the funniest part. Actually, the funniest part is that out of the entire hierarchy of whoever had to be involved in shutting down an entire city, nobody had any clue what either ATHF was or a litebrite was. Actually, maybe the funniest part was that the things were all over the city for three whole weeks, then all of sudden there's a mass panic. Actually, maybe the funniest part was all the ridiculous quotes from city officials who can't admite they made asses of themselves, like, "I can't imagine a more unconscionable act." WTF? Actually, maybe the funniest part was the AP photo of bomb squad guy holding, on the end of a pole, what is obviously a well known childrens toy from the 80s depicting a mooninite flipping him off.

It must be. If the defense spending is more or less steady in the long term, and it's not adjusted for inflation, then that means real spending has been steadily decreasing the past forty years, to a fraction of what it once was. However, that is obviously not true. I would like to compare this spending to the GDP, however.

You know, it occurs to me that this is being blown wildly out of proportion, and intentionally so. Yes, it would be a very stupid law. And it could be a dangerous precedent, if it actually survived the courts. But, as was pointed out, it's probably nothing more than a stunt, that nobody expects to stick. And it won't stick. And it's just one town in Texas. It just seems like Fox News' usual practice of finding small stories to blow way out of proportion so the viewers have something to feel outraged and superior about. The overall effect of lots of these stories is that we get the impression that there's some kind of big trend, when, in fact, it's just a few stupid things in isolated places, which in a big country are going to happen every day, no matter what.

But don't those things obviously depend on context? Screaming "nigger" at somebody on the street would already count as harrassment, and disturbing the peace, and fighting words. That being the case, this ordinance obviously goes beyond those things, and therefore beyond those loopholes into the realm of clear unconstitutionality.

Selective tax cuts are no different from tax hikes on everyone else. That was my point: don't be a hypocrite. Well, first of all, you should pay attention, because we were talking about private consumption. Currently fuel tax status is different for private and business consumption, and this might well continue. I'm open to different options. But let's be honest. We NEED to do everything we can to lower consumption of fossil fuels. I don't think I need to explain the many reasons why. Continuuing as present is NOT an option. The sooner we act, the less we're going to be hurt by this in the long term. But it IS going to hurt, no matter what. It's called damage control. So yes, people in the energy industry will lose jobs. People in energy-intensive industries will lose jobs. Businesses that adapt more quickly to become more efficient will profit enormously as their competition flounders. All told, it seems like there are a lot worse ways things could go down. Well, seeing as how it's not even paper just yet, I really don't know what you're talking about. Obviously this is something that would warrant a great deal of study before it was debated in a serious way. What I'm looking for is obvious flaws. No, of course it's not easy. It's not going to BE easy. Incidentally, since when does merely asking about the feasibility of something warrant the kind of abuse you've been trying to pile on me during this thread?