Sisyphus

So Texas conservatives think Thomas of Aquinas had more intellectual influence on the founding of the United States than Thomas Jefferson, who doesn't even warrant mention? Somehow, I doubt any of those jackasses have read much of either.

Yes, I know. "The year of our lord" is the same as giving the date as AD, just in English and unabbreviated. It is about as meaningful as "Thursday" is to Norse mythology.

I think it's all common sense except for the national ID card, which is pointless. We already have social security numbers, and every state issues identification cards. Illegal immigrants are not getting jobs by forging documents. They are getting jobs off the books, and their employers know perfectly well they're illegal. Still, I'm glad a consensus seems to be solidifying that actually makes sense. No plan is going to work without a path to citizenship for current illegals, and those conditions (paying back taxes, etc.) make sense. That said, actual implementation is much, much easier said than done, and the points are vague. "Tougher border security" could mean practically anything. We've been toughing up border security more and more for decades, and the stream of illegal immigration continues.

As an aside, has that been anyone's experience? They made us learn it by rote at age 5 or 6 or whatever, and say it every school day. But I don't think I actually thought about the words I was saying once, at least not while saying them. The whole idea of a daily pledge of allegience would be creepy if it wasn't silly. What does it accomplish, with or without the syllables "under God" included in the rote cadence?

We hear all the time from cultural conservatives that the United States was intended to be a Christian nation, because of references to "God" in early documents and the words of the founding fathers. Ironically, it's now established legal precedent that merely saying something like "under God" doesn't count as establishment of religion. Irrelevant? Or hilarious unintended consequence?

What's wrong with it is that this equation doesn't actually mean anything. What is universe/time? And you can't do arithmetic operations with infinity, so the right side doesn't mean anything either. You seem to be defining infinity as the age of the universe divided by the planck time, plus one. Correct? Well, that isn't what infinity means. That's a finite value, for any given age of the universe. It can be calculated. Or it could be, except that the age of the universe is not a single value , since it depends on frame of reference.

Who are Suzy and Jane? There's only person there. While before (according to the premise that a zygote is a person), there were two. Neither one died, so what happened?

Which costs more: building and maintaining a train track, or building and maintaining a highway? I don't know. Do trains cost more in energy and labor than cars, for how much use they get? Also, with the exception of dense cities, usually trains require an additional form of transportation at the origin and destination. (However, that's usually just a car or truck of some kind, which is what it's being compared against anyway.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis ^worth a read Life wouldn't have begun at one precise moment. Any "first organism" you choose is probably not going to look much like an organism. Or if it does, then so will it's "parent." Is a lipid bubble full of proteins an organism? Not really. But we're probably "descended from" something like that.

Chimeras are generally indistinguishable from non-chimeras without genetic testing. The phenomenon wasn't even known about before the advent of blood typing, when it was discovered that some people have more than one blood type. I don't think any reasonable person could call them two people, just because they developed from two zygotes.

They are, though, for many reasons. Trains don't have to brake and re-accelerate nearly as much, they get more direct routes, their shape cuts down enormously on wind resistance, and the steel wheels on steel track have far less rolling resistance than tires on pavement. And the electric trains, at least, don't have to take their power source with them. The only exception would be on nearly empty trains, since a few cars still take less energy than one train in most instances. One commonly cited statistic is that in 2007, trains in the U.S. moved freight 436 ton-miles per gallon of fuel consumed. (Each ton of freight moved 436 miles on average for every gallon.) To convert that to European measures, the equivalent would be about 0.6 liters per 100km for every metric ton of cargo. And that's the average, with our relatively outdated trains. Now granted, it is almost always going to be much more efficient to move cargo than people, but that does give you some idea of the efficiencies involved.

Hey, I’m plenty cynical. I don’t think any politician exists who always puts the public interest first. But do you really believe that politicians never believe that their constituencies will be better off because of their actions? I just don’t see what the ulterior motive is here. Eating a lot of salt is unhealthy. By restricting it, they hope to make people healthier. They seem to think this will work, and consider the end (healthier people) to justify the means. That seems to be as far as the thought process goes. What do you suppose the real motive is, if not that?

I agree that it's harmful, but it also seems to be motivated by good intentions. If the standard for "immoral" is just "does more harm than good," then in the case of legislation morality would just mean effectiveness, no?

It's certainly ridiculous. But why do you say it's immoral?

That would be interesting. It seems like situations where a powerful country allies with a weaker one because it opposes a stronger rival is repeated countless times throughout history, but it almost never seems to work out as planned. France supports the colonies to curb English power, but in doing so creates a monster that by its very existence calls into the question the legitimacy of the French monarchy. Doh!

Indeed. Experiments have shown that other primates also have complicated notions of "fairness," and ethics is really just that, but formalized and critically examined. Societies provide great benefit, but require rules.

You'll have to forgive me, since you seem to have a specific religious notion in mind that I'm not familiar with, so I don't really know what you're talking about here. So your notion of a soul is just nature and not nurture? The "real you" is totally unaffected and unrelated to the life you live? Alright. I still don't see what this has to do with anything. Talk about a ridiculous strawman. If you don't believe in supernatural, unchanging souls, you're a murderer? Or something? Unless you mean "doesn't believe that a person deserving of human rights exists immediately after fertilization," in which case, you are once again begging the question. It's not a waste of a person if it isn't a person. Do you really not understand that the argument is not about whether to kill people, but whether it IS a person? Really? Genes determine eye color. What color eyes do zygotes have? Begging the question again, in the same way, by establishing the beginning of "nurture" at that point, and not before or after. Why? Because you have already defined the beginning of personhood as that moment. But that is precisely what is at issue. Do you see the circular logic? I don't. I'm interested in what a person is, not how they came to be that way. However, I suppose I could go back to the beginning of the universe, to trace back a chain of causality that leads to what you and I are today. And again... Or beginning! Agreed! That's what the whole debate is about. Defining what a person is, and what moral significance personhood holds. And I similarly hold if self-evident that a single-celled organism is not in the same moral category as a person. However, I don't have to prove that to you, since my position does not demand that everyone be forced into the exact same moral viewpoint, just that they acknowledge that there is no single, objectively correct viewpoint. The "selfhood" is not lost in abortion, since that requires thought and awareness, and what is destroyed has never possessed those things. If it was, I would support outlawing it. But again, I don't know why you're bringing legal precedent into this. This is about what laws ought to exist, not what laws do exist. I say that pro-lifers want the government to define a specific point when life begins, and enforce it for everyone. You say, no they don't! They want the government to define a specific point when life begins, and enforce it for everyone! What? You're saying exactly what I'm saying you're saying, and exactly what you (bizarrely) accused pro-choice advocates of doing. Your only argument here seems to be, "but I'm RIGHT!"

I'm just looking it up myself, but the sources seem to say oceanwide tsunamis occur an average of every 15 years or so, and 80% of these are in the Pacific. That doesn't speak to severity, though - if 2004-sized tsunamis were happening every 15 years in the Pacific, it seems like all those low-lying Pacific islands would constantly be getting wiped out. So does just a couple feet, like that experienced after the Chilean earthquake, count?

I'm not sure what you mean by "soul," but if you're talking about a supernatural entity, then what does that have to do with anything? Would not a soul also be a product of what it is "to begin with," and the sum of its experiences? I suppose you could say that, if "nature portion" refers solely to a particular string of A's, G's, C's, and T's and not what that string will come to represent. Begging the question. Pre-defines person as existing from conception (to death, but that's not pertinent). But in fact what anything is is determined by its nature and what happens to it, even inanimate objects. And further, events that occured long before my parents were born still have an effect on who I am. Really? How so? I don't accept your premises, but if I did, the logic would seem to conclude that it isn't a person, just one of the components of a person (while the other develops over time). I disagree. The abortion debate is not based on the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and I don't consider it to be a moral, legal, or scientific authority. Yes, you assert it. Rather a strawman. Pro-choicers are not pro-choice because of legal precedent. If we have to play this game (and we don't), then I guess definition 5 most closely represents the issue. But it does so poorly. Actually, you have that exactly backwards. That's precisely what pro-life advocates want: the government defining a specific point when a person begins. Pro-choice, by definition, puts the moral decision in individual hands. (Up to a point, obviously, but the difference is one of limited individual discretion vs. no individual discretion.) I agree. The attempts by pro-lifers to legally enforce their moral certitude is distressing. And dogs, and trees, and medical waste. Why not throw a Godwin in there, while you're at it? Vice versa, actually. And more begging the question. Whether it's an "individual" in the sense of a human being deserving of rights is the issue. What does democracy have to do with it?

You're talking about people whose homes are one room bamboo huts (or something equivalent - I don't know what kind of structures people that poor live in in that part of the world). You want everybody to have their own bunker? As something that might save them in a highly unusual natural disaster?

I'm guessing a response to the injury. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Neither.

Not at all. The United States was founded essentially as an experiment in all the fashionable philosophical ideas of the time of European liberal intellectuals. Locke and Rousseau and all that. It was unprecedented in scope of "putting their money where their mouths were," so to speak, but the ideas themselves were not revolutionary (except in the literal sense of requiring a revolution!). Further, concepts of rights and limited powers of government had been gradually evolving for hundreds of years in Europe, and of course were fundamental to various ancient societies, like many Greek city-states, or the Roman Republic. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedTo address the actual question, I don't see why you couldn't argue for radical change. Why might that be considered wrong in all circumstances?

If that's all it is, then it certainly doesn't count. The equation looks the same, but it's not saying remotely the same thing.

What this tells me is that De Pretto was a time traveller. He'd heard of the equation, but didn't understand where it came from, and thought he could get credit for discovering it anyway.

Hypothermia of any degree does damage your immune system, but that's different from just being out in the cold. Being out in the cold can also cause cold-like symptoms, or make the symptoms of your actual cold temporarily worse. But no, by definition, a cold is caused by a virus, and simply being out in the cold doesn't make you more susceptible. "Cold season" exists because the viruses spread more easily in low humidity and poor ventilation. However, I'm not sure what your comment about the immune system means. Yes, it can prevent you from getting sick.