Sisyphus

It's not talking about money. If it were, it would be contradicting Congress's power to levy taxes, and for that matter government as a whole.

So nobody believes in the "it's funny because it's self-consciously stupid on multiple levels" philosophy? I guess it's not the South Park generation after all.

The air force is "land or naval forces." They've got to land sometime, right?

I don't know anyone in real life who would actually find that offensive when it was clearly a joke.

A Canadian living in the U.S. who has no sense of humor about Canadian jokes? Seriously, how in the world have you survived? And, um, congratulations, I guess...

Non-sequitor for IMM: Sorry if you've already dealt with this (I only scanned the thread), but what about "where do you draw the line" arguments? That is to say, where do you draw the line? It seems to me that a chimpanzee would indeed have "morally relevant characteristics," but, for example, a grasshopper would not. The problem I see arises from the fact that there is no clear line to be drawn somewhere between grasshopper and chimp (or grasshopper and human), that rather, it is more of a continuum with animals that can think and have emotion and understand at one end, and utterly mindless creatures at the other. What this leaves me with is the conclusion that yes, animals have moral value if we do. However it simultaneously leaves me with the conclusion that they do not all have the same moral value. That a human is more important than a chimp, which is more important than a dog, which is more important than a chicken, etc. This kind of moral arithmetic might seem distasteful, but distasteful =/ illogical. Alternatively, to say, for example, that a chimp has the same moral value as a human, is necessarily either a) to include ALL animal life as equal, i.e. to say destroying a city is no worse than destroying an ant's nest, or b) to draw a completely arbitrary (and therefore not logic-based) line somewhere on this continuum. So I guess my question is, do you subscribe to a), b), or something else I haven't thought of?

Yes, that was the whole point, and I'm suggesting it was a mistake. The more relevant question is how did the non-Jews living there feel about giving the Jews "a place to call their own." I would have been pretty damn angry, myself. As for how Jews would have felt if that didn't happen, well, why would they be upset? I don't understand your question.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine! Ahem. Er, so why exactly does "not caring what other people think" = "intentionally isolating yourself from human contact?" If you have to do the latter, then you obviously haven't even come close to getting over the former. Personally, I also find social interaction exhausting. Parties, for example. Hate them. But I still have friends, people I hang out with an enjoy the company of. People who are my friends because I can be as comfortable with them as when I'm alone. So in short, isolation is NOT the answer, and you'll really regret it if you stick with it. I'm a senior in college myself, and even though I do have friends, I tended to avoid other social activity, and I regret even that, when I think of all the really interesting people I've barely gotten to know.

Indeed. Any gravitational orbit is a demonstration of this.

Well you're wrong about that, because I'm an American, and I don't think either one of those is remotely true. It's not a separate entity. There's not a "government caste" and a "citizen caste." We ARE the government.

I see that as different because in the case of the Revolution, the colonies played no part in the government that was ruling them. No representation in Parliament, etc. At the time of the Civil War, the federal government was primarily a group of state governments, some of whom tried to leave the group. At the end of the Civil War, however, it's certainly arguable that the South was ruled by foreigners. Certainly most Southerners felt that way.

You do realize that "the government" is not some separate entity, right? It's a government of the people. So a rebellion of "the people vs. the government" is a nonsensical phrase. Factions can exist, and maybe one faction controls the government another other decides to raise arms against that government, but that's not "the people." The American Revolution was different. Yes, we were technically citizens of the British Empire, but for all practical purposes we were a people ruled by a foreign government.

Well, for one thing, the magnets are metal. Also, if it's "see through," then you've got photons coming in, being, absorbed, reflected, reradiated. For that matter, if you can detect that it's moving at all, it's not isolated. And exposed to a vacuum, plexiglass is going to ever-so-slightly decay and release particles into that vacuum. Plus there's gravitational influences, especially since you're moving stuff around.

"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed..."

Perpetual motion machines can work, theoretically, you just can't get more energy out than you put in. But if something isn't using any energy to keep moving (and motion itself doesn't inherently require energy, just acceleration), then sure, it can be perpetual. However, in practice, that's never actually going to happen, since there's no such thing as a completely isolated system.

True, though that's kind of the point. It's very adamantly nonspecific, i.e. most definitely not a specifically Christian organization. It's inherently inclusive, and the common denominator, as it were, is basically Deism. In other words, someone who didn't believe in a kind of unity of monotheism wouldn't be a member.

It's hard to say, since there wasn't really any explicit public discussion about it. Jefferson and Franklin can safely be said to be at least non-Christian, or "Christian" in a very unorthodox way (that is, not believing in the divinity of Jesus). Pretty much all of them were Freemasons, an organization dedicated to benevolent and naturalistic search for truth. More relevantly, they were Deists, meaning they believed in some kind of supreme, governing power, but not in miracles or any kind of divine revelation. From the Wikipedia article on Deism: "In America, Deists played a major role in creating the principle of separation of church and state, and the religious freedom clauses of the First Amendment of the Constitution. American Deists include John Quincy Adams, Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and (by most accounts) George Washington. Thomas Paine published The Age of Reason, a treatise that helped to popularize deism throughout America and Europe."

I think Cap'n Refsmmat means that time doesn't occur "frame by frame," it's continuous. Hence you couldn't get "out of 'sync."

As Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan prepares to step down, Shinzo Abe has definitively gained the support of the Liberal Democratic Party, which controls the lower house of Parliament and therefore the election of the Prime Minister. Abe has managed this without publically explaining very many actual policies at all, with the notable exception of a promise to spearhead an amendment to the Japanese constitution that would allow for an offensive and independent military. He is also known for his vocal belligerence towards China and North Korea, and the controversy surrounding his repeated visits to Shinto shrines honoring WW2 dead, including 14 acknowledged war criminals. Interestingly, he will also be the first Prime Minister born after the end of WW2. So should we be worried? Streaks of aggression and nationalism seem like they must be bad news for Japan, which has so far been the most stabile nation in a delicately balanced region. Koizumi was always adept at appearing strong but not aggressive, which served the region well. With Sino-Japanese relations at the worst they've been in a while, and slow, fragile progress being made between North and South Korea as well as China and Taiwan, this hardly seems the time for unchecked bravado from an unproven leader. If Japan continues as it has been, a stronger military could be a great stabilizing force. But change is certainly in the air. Anyway, thoughts? Better insights than mine?

Technically you can vote for anyone for president, so it's not just two options. Oftentimes there will also be multiple third parties on the ballots, from the likes of the Green Party, Reform Party, Libertarian Party, and assorted wackos who managed to get enough signatures.

I don't really like the name. "Theology" is only one branch of philosophy, that is, investigating the nature of God. Naming it that sounds like that's all we're interested in, even if the forum policies say otherwise. I don't think I would be interested in a "theology forum" if I just happened to come across it. On the other hand, it might actually attract some, you know, theologians, although I'm not sure whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

But people who claim to see ghosts see them in 3D, right? Even if a flatlander gained the ability to see in 3D, it wouldn't take the form of him seeing squares other flatlanders couldn't see. He'd be seeing cubes.

Even slime wouldn't be that big of a problem on the fins themselves because they'll be moving most of the time. And really, the fins are the only parts where staying clean is important.

It's true, I have no idea what he's actually thinking, either. I suspect that might be part of the strategy. Taken individually, most of the things he says are perfectly reasonable. The problems are a) the things that aren't reasonable, are really unreasonable, and b) he's so unpredictable, and so full of weird contradictions, that we have no idea how much of what he says is what he thinks, or what he's doing. For example, we (the U.S. and Europe) demand Iran stops its nuclear weapons program, but we say it's fine if they have a peaceful nuclear program. Ahmadinejad says they don't have a nuclear weapons program and don't want a nuclear weapons program. That "nuclear weapons are only for killing people, and we don't want to kill people." If they then develop nuclear weapons, wouldn't he be condemning himself? Is that enough? He says it would be good if Israel was destroyed, but never explicitly says that he wants to do it himself. There's never anything concrete that you can point to and say "he is a danger to the world," yet we're all afraid, and probably (but not definitely!) with good reason. Clearly a much subtler and more formidable character than the likes of Saddam Hussein could ever be.

350 million? Then who's left to fight against?