Sisyphus

Haha, I've long said the same thing about conventional zoos. I mean, what if somebody cuts the power!?

You can't travel at the speed of light, so the question doesn't make sense. However, if you were travelling at 99% the speed of light, the beam would look to me as if it were travelling at C, i.e. 0.01C faster than you, ahead of you. However, to you it would appear to be travelling at C faster than you.

You're not introducing a new dimension, you're taking one away. (The curved 2D plane of the trampoline is standing in for the curved 3D space) And what's wrong with that? Human beings can't think in more than 3 dimensions, and so something like the curvature of space needs to be reduced in order to be able to be visualized. It's just like the "inflating beachball" model for explaining the expansion of space. I really don't see what the problem is.

Of all the Jews I know (of which there are many - I grew up on Long Island), exactly one of them gives a damn about Zionism, so that's kind of an odd claim to make. As per the OP, I share your view that the ideal solution would be one state, and I believe that this will eventually be possible. However, I think it's pretty clear that that isn't going to work right now, and two truly independent states is probably the best hope for any kind of peace in the anywhere near future. Reunification is always an option later down the road.

While we're at it, I think we should eliminate the penny. They cost almost 2 cents each to make, you can't use them in any sort of vending machine, and most of them never even circulate. No disrespect to Mr. Lincoln, of course, but he's still got the five dollar bill. As for the actual point of this thread, do you really think taking it off is going to slow down the Sean Hannitys of this world? No, it shouldn't be on there, and it does offend me (a little!), but the backlash from the "persecuted" Christian right gives me a headache just imagining it.

Look, I'm not saying it's fair or admirable, but I don't think it's discriminatory in a way that should be illegal. They're not keeping anyone out. They're not putting up signs that say "nobody under 25." They ARE actively creating an environment to discourage a certain group (of which I am a member, if that matters) from doing something that they shouldn't be doing anyway. Making it slightly more annoying for young people to break the law than older people. It's not illegal to be racist, and this is not nearly as bad as racism. "Agism" is a real problem, but it's not quite as simple as something like racism. Children are clearly different from adults, for example, and are justly treated differently. The law (in the U.S.) doesn't see you as a fully rational person until you are at least 18, when you no longer have a legal guardian, are allowed to vote, etc., and some legal restrictions are even higher than that. 21 for purchasing alcohol, 25 for renting a car, 35 for becoming President, etc. To be consistent in the position that agism is equivalent to racism, you would have to challenge all these laws. Anyway, that's why I don't think this is a particularly big deal.

I'd be curious to see the results of number 4. Let us know how it works out.

I don't think it's equivalent to voice-recognition software. There's a big difference between performing complex tasks by literally explaining them out loud so a computer will understand and performing them just by imagining them done. As soon as the technology develops a couple more generations I have no doubt it will have as big an impact on society as the internet. However, I don't think this technology is as near readiness as bascule thinks. I'd give it a couple decades at least.

Well now wait a minute. It's not to keep them out, it's to make it annoying to loiter outside, which they aren't supposed to do, anyway.

Even if the comparison to racism was apt (which I don't think it is), it's still not illegal. A kind of precedent like "you're not allowed to be annoying to young people" is a ridiculous and dangerous road to go down.

Yeah, they develop before any difference between the sexes arises. ...now how in the world does it make sense for there to be females before males? They wouldn't be "female," then, they'd be assexual, and our closest assexual ancestors are a great deal older than mammals. Or did you mean something else?

Hehe. It's not like suddenly at 25 you lose the capacity to hear it. Human hearing range gradually narrows over our whole lives, and 25 just happens to be the average age at which this frequency becomes inaudible.

I was just curious if anyone here generates some or all of their own electricity through stuff wind turbines, PV cells, or some other means, or even just solar heating. If so, what's your setup? How's it working out? Would you recommend it to others?

Was he really apologizing for terrorists? He said bombing Islamic countries and (inadvertantly) killing civilians inspires terrorists to retaliate. Is that an inaccurate statement?

When was the last domestic attack prior to 9/11?

They are treated much the same as non-profit charitable organizations, but don't actually even have to do any charitable work to qualify. Also, charities still have to file for taxes, but the government is not allowed to even ask any religious institution about its finances.

So why don't they pay property taxes? Not that you could ever ever ever do away with the arrangement in a hundred years, but do any of you actually think this is right?

Yes Australia should go nuclear. We all should, really, but Australia especially, since they are apparently uniquely suited for it. AND they should invest in renewables like wind farms, which are always the cleanest option but are never reliable enough to be the sole source of power. "Nuclear" is in the same category as "cloning" in that people respond to the word instead of giving it any thought whatsoever.

Well, define "milking it." It would be ridiculous to say they're glad their husbands were killed, which is indeed what Ms. Coulter does say. If you mean they shouldn't have the special status they do, then fine, but I don't think they've done anything wrong. From the one event, they gained both a great deal of motivation and the visibility needed to do something about it. Unless you're going to say that people with any kind of celebrity shouldn't offer their political opinions, then they haven't done anything wrong except, of course, be liberals, which is the real capital offense in this case. It's not just a matter of lacking tact when speaking the truth. She clearly cares what they think, because she wants to hurt them, because she's a masochist, and she's speaking irrelevancies.

Is that what they've done? Seems like nobody has had a problem disagreeing with them, and I don't think that's really what this is about. It's just about provoking liberals into a sputtering rage, trying to get them to say something embarrassing. It's just what Coulter always does, and I doubt she actually believes much of it at all (the position is too absurd, the accusation too unnecessarily and ridiculously offensive, and the hypocrisy too blatant for me to believe it's what a presumably intelligent person actually thinks). It's got nothing to do with any real issue, which, Pangloss, is why it's different from the "bigot" thing, where whether or not it's bigotry is precisely the point. As an aside, here's the NY Times' account of Senator Clinton's response, and Coulter's oh-so-witty reply. Biased, perhaps, but it hardly needs to be...

I think the situation is such that the death of a single man cannot make any difference. It's no longer just Al Qaeda (itself a largely decentralized organization) or leftover Saddam supporters vs. the United States. It's ethnic pseudo-civil war, and the United States is just another faction. It's meaning is symbolic in the sense that it shows American power (although it certainly took us long enough), but it also sets him up as a martyr, instead of a guy who was starting to genuinely piss off ordinary Iraqis.

Is there a less insulting word for bigot?

Yeah, and not letting them vote would help us heterosexuals by giving us a proportionately larger say, but I think there's still something to be said for equality under the law. I'm all for "decodifying" marriage, too, but you can't possibly think a bigoted law is better than a fair one... can you?

What's so bad about those quotes?