lemur

What? I explained exactly how conservatives generate reduced spending in the economy generally. Why are you being so discursively strategic instead of just discussing the issues? The issue you don't seem to want to touch is the fact that republicanism still wants to hold onto the pre-capitalist belief that individuals can be totally responsible for their own economic welfare, whereas welfare-state approaches like Sweden have accepted capitalism as the absolute basis for all economic activity and thus totally rejected the idea of people managing their own welfare. Regardless of whether global socialism declares the US "psychotic," "delusionary," or whatever other descriptor you can come up with that assumes the correctness of the view you support, there will not cease to be a strong US resistance to centralizing economic control. You have to understand that there are many US people that cherish the value of independence above all, even though they are far from economically independent. These people will never relinquish the dream of republic, even when faced with enormous torture and humiliation (like Job in the bible). They believe they are suffering for freedom so they will go on suffering and the more their opponents chastize them for it, the more critical they will seek the flaws in those opponents (this actually happens in any situation where someone is chastized by opponents). Imo, if you really want to constructively address the opposition between central economic governance and republican decentralized economics/power, you should deconstruct the distinction between centralization and decentralization. Foucault/Deleuze is the philosophical "dynamic duo" that worked on this problem in the 70s/80s. If you don't, I think you will get endless stuck in the standoff between republican decentralization and authoritarian centralization. They are fundamentally logically opposed concepts and lend themselves to unresolvable debate.

The distinction between religion and "modern-rationality" is not really this clear cut. Many governing and scientific principles are derived from religious ideologies and then white-washed to make them appear objective while retaining core values of the religions. What's more, when religion is rejected in favor of modernity, it is often the replacement of Christianity with the type of nature-worship religion that preceded it. Nazism, for example, rejected Christianity as a form of Judaism and wanted to replace it with a more "ethically innate" Germanic religious ideology. Likewise, pre-Christian Roman and Greek culture were revived in art and popular ideology as well, I believe. This may be more pronounced than other forms of secular culture, but generally I do think people who consider themselves secular materialists hold values that go beyond pure rationality, and often those are more in line with pre-Christian beliefs and values in terms of worshipping things like pleasure and fertility. As for "America being the laughing stock of the developed world," this is an appropriate expression because it reflects the culture of modernist supremacy and its inability to affirmatively promote its own values, as Christianity so strives to do. So instead modernism just attacks and ridicules anything different from it until difference either conforms or goes away. Ironically, America is not really as religious as it may seem to some. Most American religion seems to actually resemble more what Baudrillard described among those who failed to join in the iconoclasm. I.e. people who did not believe in God enough to renounce the idols/simulacra in an attempt to discover the "true God" hidden by the statues. In other words, many Americans (and not just Americans by the way) are engaged in religion not because they truly believe in God or spirituality but because they like the social aspects of Church-belonging. There was an article in Time magazine a while ago where a poll showed that most people overwhelmingly supported the pope, but also overwhelmingly disagreed with him on key issues such as divorce, abortion, stem-cell research, etc. So it seems that religiosity has less to do with actual spirituality or ideology as it has to do with personal identity and social relations. In that sense, Europeans may be more like the iconoclasts (and Kierkergaard) in search of a true God despite disenchantment with the simulacra of religion. This could be a gross generalization/assumption, though. Either way, I don't think you can simplify the modern development of secularism and religion to the kinds of opposition you suggest. You have to understand both secularism and religion more deeply, imo.

So the iron atom tends toward asymmetry (unpaired electrons) and the lattice-freezing prevents it from losing that symmetry once established? I think I read about this with the formation of natural magnets due to the Earth's magnetic field. I guess that raises the question of what magnetized Earth in the first place. As for the atomic vs. nuclear issue, I sort of knew that but I thought there could possibly be some relationship between the electron structure of the atom and its nuclear dynamics, like maybe the unpaired-electron quality is related to some kind of fission/fusion neutrality in the nuclear force. I know this sounds like straw-grasping, and it is basically, but I also question whether the correlation should be so easily dismissed without further thought (nevermind the fact that I'll be thinking about it further one way or the other now).

Educational stratification primarily serves the purpose of maintaining class distinctions insofar as economic activities are divided and classified according to such distinctions. Unless a particular form of taxation directly addresses class distinctions, it will not address the unfairness of social-economic class. The best some tax systems seem to do is try to somewhat equalize income and benefits for jobs with different class status. They cannot address status attribution to one field relative to another or the economic tradition of relegating certain work to certain people and other work to others. Likewise, taxation can't address the cultural belief that individuals specialized in one form of labor shouldn't perform other types of labor (or that it makes the economy less efficient for them to do so). As such, equalizing compensation ultimately amounts to a payoff for accepting forms of work that aren't desirable to middle/upper class people. When middle/upper class people support "fairer" taxation that promotes more equal compensation for "lower class" work, they often seem to do so with the basic assumption that they (or their children) will never be socially demoted to lower-class economic positions and status. So is it "more fair" that they at least want to pay their subordinates more for their subordination, or would true fairness only come with the eradication of social class and the implementation of economies where all individuals perform all classes/statuses of labor activities? This post is in reference to the recent post citing it where it was stated that no response was ever given. Hopefully, this sufficiently addresses the issue of the intended function of progressive taxation and its relationship to fairness in class differentiation.

Try this link: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Physics-1358/2009/12/Transparent-materials.htm. It basically explains that glass doesn't reflect because it has no free electrons, and it doesn't scatter light because it's uniform in texture. I forget why it says it doesn't absorb, but it covered that too.

Why can't anyone volunteer any labor and/or materials, raw or cooked, that they want? Still, I was thinking more about the labor to build the rails, including clearing the path, etc. Also, when everyone is talking about how efficient rails and expressways are, are you factoring in the infrastructure maintenance costs, energy, and materials? Finally, regarding European rail transit, is it really that Europe is full of hippies or is it that the EU economy has established multiple trade relationships that allows it to rely on global trade to create a much larger leisure class than the US or other sub-global economies? I always have the feeling the Europeans like to claim to be simple hippies who love culture, but that they are surfing a long historical wave of colonial exploitation that made it possible for European intellectualism/culturalism to evolve throughout the colonial period. Granted, much of this cultural-orientation has spread globally but I have the idea, for example, that US consumers are saddled with more debt and burden to generate global GDP whereas European economic protectionism tends to shelter their markets from global profiteering. Nevertheless, I don't think EU investors are discouraged from investing globally so that they can be taxed to pay for top-quality infrastructure, culture, health-care, social services, etc. Would Europe be able to maintain these standards without global investments redistributed as public spending? Likewise, would the US be able to live up to global investment expectations without maintaining high levels of car ownership and other debt driven by and fueling consumer-business?

In the Feynman video on the other thread, he mentions that iron atoms get magnetized because all the electrons are spinning together in the same direction. For some reason this led me to wonder if there was something special about iron. Then it occurred to me that iron is supposedly the cut off point for elements that can split and release rather than consume energy. Is it possible that these two attributes of iron are related? Should this question be posted as a new thread?

That's a very good observation of any kind of explanation derived from intensive knowledge, regardless of what field it is. It's like lay people figure out the tactic of criticizing you for making explanations tediously long OR they complain that the language is too technical so that they consistently place the burden and blame for education on the educated. Then, of course, the administrators cater to students and/or the public because they're the paying customer. Then, the only time you get to hold them accountable for their educational attitude is during testing, and then they complain that they do poorly because the test is too hard or that low grades discourage them from progressing. I think it comes down to people wanting science/academia to cater to whatever instant gratification they are looking for at a given moment, and they want the educated to make everything instant gratification. I'd say this video of Feynman worked pretty well if 8 minutes is instant enough for people not to complain that they had to listen to an 8-minute monologue by some boring physics professor. Thanks. I liked the way he actually mentioned the rubber band to show it was a circular reference and therefore insufficient. Who says physicists can't do philosophy?

Typically what I hear about is males who are as promiscuous as possible. Then, their "mates" sometimes become pregnant and attempt to get them to respect and love them as the mother of their baby. This can work or backfire, depending on how the man feels about the woman. Still, you could say that women who deem their sex partner to be a fitter father and/or gene-donor would be more likely to become pregnant by him and thus that "fitter" men are more likely to reproduce more by more women. They aren't pro-actively breeding, but for their genes to be more likely to survive, it helps to breed more than less (statistically anyway). Also, there seems to be some connection between men being resistant to commitment and women wanting to seduce them into committing somehow. I haven't figured this out completely yet, because it doesn't seem to be purely based on physical or other characteristics. Women seem to have some unexplainable radar for which men are worth getting, and they'll become very desperate for such men, who in turn will reject them generally except for sex. Then, these same women will treat other men the same way, except they will also reject them for sex (though probably not for other things). So, I don't think I've really addressed this issue sufficiently but the topic does deviate from the thread topic, so maybe I should just conclude by saying that pro-active breeding may only be related to survival of the fittest as part of a strategy to attract the fittest males; and anti-reproductive sex may be part of the mechanism that keeps potential breeders sexually active and diversifying until the moment they "fall" to the pro-active breeding urge to control their partner. This may occur in homosexual relationships as well.

Moving the goalposts would require some bigger picture about what the purpose of "the game" is. I was trying to state my vision of the game/stakes. You have yet to do the same. But, for the record, I did answer your question by explaining how conservative policies and propaganda re-structured economic attitudes in the 1990s to reduce spending in the economy at large; but by saying this you may consider me to be "moving goalposts" because in your view government spending is the beginning and end of the question. As I explained, I don't think government spending is relevant except in terms of the effect it has on economic activity overall.

And everyone is a sinner, which is why supposedly everyone dropped their stones when Jesus said, "let the one without sin cast the first stone." No, I don't think it's that good deeds justify sin. That would be like buying indulgences. I think it's more like what I explained in the last post: you recognize a sin and are truly sorry (repentant, to use the big word). Then, because you sincerely seek forgiveness, you get it but as a result you become inspired to do good deeds (out of gratitude for the forgiveness you experience). It's like when little kids pray to themselves, "please let me get away with this just this one time and I SWEAR I'll never do it again." This is not exactly a confessional/repentant prayer because there's no expression of true sorrow, but the fact is that once they feel like they got away with it (i.e. were forgiven), they feel inspired to make it up to God in some way (i.e. "if you let me get away with this, I'll always eat all my vegetables"). And, technically, what else CAN someone do after they've repented and accepted forgiveness EXCEPT begin living by God's will (i.e. living a good life). If they mess up and sin again, does Christianity say there's some limit to the number of times they can be forgiven? No, unless you take the "77 X 7" quote literally. So Christianity is just about being in a perpetual cycle of sinning, repentance, and the grace of God to inspire you not to fall back into sin this time around. Do you think I'm oversimplifying the logic of this religion?

Technically, I think repenting bring forgiveness via Holy Spirit and that forgiveness translates into a sense of goodness of God's will, which translates into receptivity for divine inspiration to good deeds via Holy Spirit. - but again, all my interpretation; though I think it is substantiated by the text. Sincerity is a somewhat logical condition for true forgiveness, even if you only view God as an inner-projection of your own subjectivity. If you pretend to repent, you would be aware of your own sincerity and deny yourself forgiveness and this would be psychologically linked to your own fear of unforgiveness (or skepticism of the very possibility of true forgiveness), because that is what causes people to fear confession and seeking forgiveness in the first place. In other words, there is a simple psychology to people either having faith in forgiveness or lacking it. This doesn't even have to involve "God." If you lack faith that someone will forgive you, you would be afraid to confess what you did to harm them. If you continues to live in fear of confessing and apologizing, you would suffer internally from the feeling of being unforgiven and enshrouded in shame. Once you discovered that your "sin" was indeed forgivable, you would no longer be afraid to confess and by confessing, you would no longer be carrying the burden of hiding what you had done in shame. Of course, if you openly confessed your sin publicly and people tried to shame you once again for it, you could lose faith once again in forgiveness and go back to your enshroudment in shame. God actually repented to himself after the flood and made the rainbow as a covenant with humans that he wouldn't destroy them all again like that, according to the story. I think the issue of "equal in evil" is distracting. I think you can understand the logics of good and evil and be mindful of what effect(s) each sin has directly on some specific aspect of "God's creation." Stealing does not directly harm people physically, but it has numerous other material and spiritual/psychological effects. Killing, on the other hand, robs people and other living things of their life and ability to "go forth and multiply." Then there are all the conflicts that come with trying to obey the commandments and failing, and then having to make sacrifices to uphold one by betraying another and always falling further into sin. Anyway, I think we're getting into so many issues that we could start an entire thread. As I recall, Jesus held the authority of God via the Holy Spirit in highest regard. In fact, I think he even directly said that blasphemy of him was forgivable but not blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. So, you can interpret what you want as "Holy Spirit" but it seems to refer to some possible direct relationship between individuals and God regardless of what other mortals claim in terms of having a monopoly on higher authority. The quote that goes with this, imo, is "before Abraham was, I am." I.e. he seems to be saying that regardless of what citations anyone gives to holy scripture, Jesus himself is elevating his own authority above that, and subsequently the authority of Holy Spirit above his own. There's also the quote about what he said to Mary post-mortem when she thought he was the gardener but it turned out to be Jesus resurrected (according to the story anyway) - i.e. he said something about her going to ascend to her father as he was going to and to take that message to the others (or something to this effect). Anyway, the point is that Jesus was pretty clear about the importance of direct revelation and cautioning with regards to worldly authority. Of course, the paradox in this is that you're free to have an interpretation that differs from mine.

Did you read my post before responding? This link only charts central-government spending. I was trying to explain that I think central-government spending is just part of a wider approach designed to influence private spending as well, and therefore the general economy. In other words, it doesn't really matter if you reduce government spending or not as long as you convince people to restrict the flow of money in other ways. Likewise, the government could spend nothing but if private spending was sufficiently diversified to include everyone in the flow of money, no one would be poor and there would be no recession. What's more, public AND private spending could be zero but if people still found ways of distributing sufficient goods and services to keep everyone happy, there would be no need for money at all. However, money is desired and used as a means of controlling economic exchanges beyond voluntary transfers, which results in the general interest to maximize money-attainment and prevent losing it, which results in fiscal constraint, which results in fiscal conservatism in one form or another always affecting the flow of money and economic activities generally.

Those "lilypads" look pretty interesting. I wonder if they could be used as platforms to build subsequent ones. That would probably be necessary if land became excessively territorialized or otherwise scarce. I also wonder how they would avoid salinification (is that a word?) In other words, what keeps all the plants from dying due to salt from the ocean water infiltrating the soil, like on a beach? Still, I think these kinds of floating structures could be a good way to connect all the continents with artificial land-bridges. That way, people could walk or use other fuel-free methods to get around Earth.

Good points about hydrogen, but what about the question of comparative efficiency of flying just above the waves vs. sailing through them vs. flying at high altitude? Surely high-altitude flying is more efficient . . . except for the amount of energy needed to reach cruising altitude. Then I would think that air-resistance would be less energy-expensive than water-drag, so maybe this is really a more efficient form of transit than either high-altitude flight OR boating through water.

The way I'm interpreting what you're writing, it sounds like forgiveness doesn't play any role; but my impression is that Christianity offers forgiveness in exchange for commitment to redeeming oneself through good deeds. People debate how sincerely the sinner has to repent and/or how easily the sinner can go from repenting back to sinning, but "eternal damnation" doesn't necessarily have to mean "damnation without parole." Basically, it seems to come down to the fact that Christianity never views anyone as beyond salvation unless they have "blasphemed the Holy Spirit," which seems to refer to denying the very possibility of faith in God/Christ/redemption. So, in other words, as long as someone believes in salvation and the capacity for forgiveness and redemption, they have a path out of "eternal damnation," but otherwise they are doomed to it. Then, as far as every sin being equal as a sin against God, that may be true but I think it obfuscates in what sense various sins are sins against God. Killing, for example, seems to be a sin against God insofar as God is supposed to have created humans in his image to live in the creation and realize their higher purpose. So when you destroy life, you're destroying the creation and thus part of God. Anyway, this can get into endless philosophizing but I don't think it's helpful to fall into blind authoritarianism by assuming that all sin is equally horrendous and that the punishment for it is horrendous, because that would prevent you from reaching an understanding of what is bad about sins beyond the fact that "they are sins against God." I.e. I don't think that theology is arbitrary authority - I think their is logic behind the mythologies that can be discerned interpretively, as with any other text. "Supposed" by whom then?

Not too long ago, I was talking with someone about how physicists and metaphysicians tend to eschew each other's domains. I can entertain thoughts in both "languages" but I also find it impossible to merge the two approaches to thought. I think it is possible and happens a lot that people take ideas from one discourse and translate them into the other, with varying success (idk about translating metaphysics into physics, though it probably happened more in that direction a long time ago). Even though you've been sitting on this egg for 15+ years, I think you'll find that when you start researching, writing, and communicating about it, it will turn out to be a springboard for a much bigger development. Good luck and looking forward to getting some discussible morsels in this forum.

I've heard Kierkergaard cited as the forerunner of modern religious individualism. I'm not sure that secular naturalism isn't more the reason that organized religion would be losing people, though. I think even organized religion itself is shifting popularity to churches that basically tell people that having fun and living it up is good and that ideas like sin, the devil, and hell are not necessary. People like not having to worry about avoiding doing bad things. They want to be told that everything that feels good is morally, ethically, spiritually, and otherwise good. They will be attracted to any authority figure/institution that they can believe will legitimate their desires, whether it is a church, secularism, science, etc. I use the term "secular" to describe such naturalism in the broadest sense, because I think various churches or "philosophical paths" can be used to dogmatize ideas that basically reinforce the logic that what you want and what makes you feel good is natural and therefore good. If hedonism didn't have such a bad name, all these people could probably just choose to be hedonists. Of course, they cannot be total hedonists, though, because they're not independent enough from social-conformity to do whatever they want without worrying about what others think. So maybe a better term for their church would be social-conformism-conditional-hedonism. I.e. they seek pleasure in any form that is socially legitimated and avoid the pain of social-delegitimation over any other deterrent.

I think you're going to have to come to terms with the fact that all writing asserts something to some degree. It can help to refer to the text you're writing and/or to yourself as writer by saying something like, "this thesis investigates/explores/asks/seeks to . . . " or "In this paper, I . . ." You could state that you wish to consider or explore the possibility of something, or identify conditions for something to occur. You could simply describe your research as the pursuit of information related to questions/issues you had and describe/explain what those are/were. I think the ultimate goal for any good writing is that you want to know what the purpose of your research/writing is and pursue that as succinctly as possible. I don't think people like to read posturing or apologies for using an assertive tone in writing. I think people (especially in an academic context) want to arrive at points as quickly as possible. At the same time, you want to clearly delineate each point and not try to condense the language so much that your point gets lost in the density of the wording. Probably the most important thing, though, is that you put something down that you can edit later, because then you can always go back and multiple sentences that are too dense or eliminate redundancies or wordy parts - and of course revise awkward or confusing sentences. If you have a clear idea of your "what if" issues, you should at least not have the problem of writing without content.

Even though Feynman's tone was tinted with frustration or irritation with the series of endless why's at the beginning, he seemed to settle into the circuitry of pursuing one why after another and slowly building up comprehension that way. I think it worked out pretty well. There was some coverage of why the husband called the hospital when his wife fell or why he might not have if he was drunk and/or didn't care about his wife's welfare. We got to hear about why ice is slippery as related to its tendency to expand when frozen and melt when compressed. We got to hear that the repulsive force between magnets is related to the same electrical force that makes the chair solid. We got to hear that the electrons of the iron atoms all spin together and that this somehow causes the electric/magnetic repulsion to occur at a larger distance. Then we got to hear that he couldn't explain the attraction between magnets except by maybe using an analogy with rubber bands, but that he would have to use electromagnetic force to explain why the rubber-bands are elastic in the first place, which would defeat the purpose of grounding the explanation of magnets in anything other than electric/magnetic force itself. Then he blazed through the different forces and the fact that the relationship between gravity and EM force is as yet unexplained. I found it pretty informative, interesting, and accessible for <8minutes of armchair talking. I've also never seen video of Feynman so thanks for posting.

I hated it when they were doing it, but I think Gingrich and the 1990s anti-Clinton GOP actually succeeded in undermining a liberal trend of believing in post-recession economics. Prior to that movement against "big government," I had the sense that people had completely bought into the belief that digitalization, recycling, etc. was re-inventing economics in a way that commodities could be endlessly (re)produced without limits. It also seemed that at that time, no one gave a thought to the economics of supply and demand that associate abundance with price-depreciation. In fact, even water (the ultimate example of a cheap abundant commodity) was getting bottled and sold for profit. People seemed to be believing at the time that money could be multiplied infinitely, like anything else digital, and that it would thus cease to be a means of constraining economic activity. Yet, at the same time, the GOP was arguing for reducing taxes and government spending as if money and commodities could indeed run out, and thus needed to be conserved. I think as a result of various GOP measures, the scarcity-driven value of money continued to increase. For example, putting limitations on public assistance sends out the message that poverty DOES exist and that people have to maintain income to stay out of poverty and prevent themselves from having to utilize public assistance. As such, people save more with the idea that they can buffer themselves against potential income-losses. Then, as economic growth responds to increasing saving, revenues and GDP actually DOES decrease. I think the anti-globalization politics also contributed to this. I.e. as economic growth and IT/internet developments were so strong, people began to circulate ideologies that the growth was not generally growth of freedom and culture for everyone globally, but that it was really just Americanization of the traditional cultures of the world, who didn't need or want freedom, economic growth, or "globalization." They saw it as just more fast food and Hollywood, which they tended to despise as being culturally "thin" in contrast to their own cultural traditions, which they perceived as "deeper." At that point, there ensued a lot of anti-growth ideology in the form of anti-migration, anti-globalization, anti-Americanization, etc. As I recall, this corresponded with the dot-com stock market crash that preceded the 9/11 attacks. Once the war on terror began, the goal shifted from economic growth (because growth had led to the strong anti-globalization reaction) to political/social stabilization. It had become clear that ethnic-national tensions had not become as insignificant as many had thought. At the same time, the green/conservationism movement was attempting to continue the modernization trend of the IT/digital revolution, but it was encountering resistance from those who insisted on believing that technology had to keep evolving in the direction of bigger SUVs and more materialist consumerism generally. With Obama, this materialist/consumerist movement seems to have migrated to the left with the belief that if the government invested enough money in greening, it would provide them enough money to continue to afford the high price of gas and keep the auto industry alive, along with the rest of boom-consumerism. Now it seems that fiscal conservatism is returning to popularity, mainly as a backlash to high-profile government stimulus spending that was intended to normalize the idea of large amounts of capital circulating. The coming battle is going to be between actual conservation of spending and those who are just trying to reduce government spending as a means to increase private budgets and continue spending privately, with the hope of resurrecting the boom-consumerist economy that way. The thing that people don't seem to realize though, imo, is that any form of economic negativism is bound to constrain spending behavior in one way or another. You can't put out the idea that money is limited and therefore the government shouldn't tax and spend so much of it without simultaneously sending out the message that private parties should conserve spending. So the net effect of conservative government will always be conservative private spending as well. This is why there was such a strong backlash against GWBush, imo, though I'm sure 10 different people would give 20 different reasons besides this for Bush's impopularity. Still, it seemed that what the Obama government wanted to (re)establish was the idea that there was such an abundance of money in circulation that there was really no reason to conserve spending publicly or privately. The problem is that no one is going to believe this as long as there is economic suffering in the world. Everyone sees poverty and non-poverty forms of deprivation and they see that it is related to resource-scarcity. Sure, there are a few people who believe that by 2020, they'll be able to drive their SUV around all day and night using only the energy from a quartz crystal, or that hydrogen has the ability to provide unlimited clean energy because it is made from water and becomes water again after it's burned; but everyone else seems to continue to not only believe that scarcity is real but they are even focussed on higher-levels of artificial scarcity, such as scarcity of elite-status, national/global population capacities, etc. So how would you expect to overcome fiscal conservatism (public and/or private) when there is so much scarcity in people's most core beliefs and perceptions of their life-worlds?

Maybe or maybe not. The issue is what it means for sins to "carry the same weight" and for them to "separate you from God." Without concrete interpretations of what these words mean, they are just lofty-sounding words. It's an interesting concept but in practice I think it would lead to coalition-forming to exercise majoritarian or elite power over the others. For instance, if two or three people discovered that they were more popular/desirable than the others, they could form a sort of sub-elite and prefer each other's company over that of the others. Obviously, in any situation where all individuals are perfectly ethical toward all others, nothing like this would ever become a problem. However, my impression is that the reason monogamy is popular in the first place is that the individual gets one other individual who promises to be faithful to them and them alone despite any and all circumstances. Obviously this is nearly lost with the growing popularity of divorce and other conditions put on marital affection and support, but in theory it is possible to be in a monogamous relationship and never having to worry about losing favor to someone else for any reason. Wouldn't that be nice? It doesn't really matter if you consider it all part of the same "body of Christ." If you go by the Islamic logic of textual translation resulting in a new text, then the words are really those of King James or whoever translated the version you are reading. I don't see what use there is in debating over whose words are really whose. Even Jesus gives authority to God the father and the Holy Spirit above himself, so everyone's supposed to consult God directly about the spiritual truth of the words. Citing the human author of the words is really just for discussion-sake. They've been translated and copied and interpreted so much before reaching the reader, it's really up to the reader to decide what to do with them. It ends up coming down to critical reason, like everything else, I think.

Surely everyone would share some genes with the sub-Saharan African gene index if the statistical parameters were relaxed enough. I can't imagine that there is some gene sequence that absolutely only occurs in people whose ancestors ever lived in that region and others that only ever occur in people whose ancestors never lived in that region. If so, this would be a basis for re-establishing the idea of race as a biological form of sub-species; but if that were the case, how would all humans be able to reproduce regardless of racial identity? And, since they can all reproduce with each other, what is the point of creating distinctly classified genetic origins? Are people getting back into the market for racial exclusivity? Are governments going to start genotyping individuals into races and restricting "interbreeding?" Regardless, the interesting thing about these genetic origins, imo, is what basis there is to assume that these regional classifications represent some stable population regionalism? Didn't humans basically spend pre-history wandering around anywhere and everywhere they could go? If so, what would account for these regional gene indexes? How much regional population stasis was actually occurring and why? Did people tend to be nomadic in recirculating patterns and reproduce only in certain places with certain people? Didn't men always wander around and "sow their seeds" wherever they could? Is it really fun to study race in this way? To me it just seems like an extension of 19th century raciology. It brings up mostly sad thoughts of the way people used to treat others (and still sometimes do) on the basis of racial difference.

I get the idea that the clash between liberal and conservative spending typically takes shape like this: conservatives work systematically to reduce spending. Then liberals backlash by increasing spending to a level meant to discourage conservatives from ever thinking that their cuts will make a difference. Plus, they may think something like if they raise spending high enough, they will have more room to negotiate more cuts before actually reaching the limits of their comfort zone. Then, conservatives see through these tactics and become irritated and seek to implement even further reaching cuts than the last time, to show the liberals that they won't be deterred from the project of budget-streamlining. So the question is when they're ever going to go from fighting over money to actually addressing underlying economic issues like how to make sure everyone gets enough to eat and how to keep them healthy. What about the pursuit of freedom and happiness? Are they really working on ensuring sufficient flexibility in the routes individuals have available to combine economic labor with family-responsibilities, leisure, etc.? It seems like politics used to deal more in laws, such as when businesses were allowed to be open and when they had to close. Now it seems like all that gets talked about is where to spend money or cut spending. Then, the 24/7 consumer economy is left to do whatever it takes to serve the people getting money from the government. When is government going to start regulating consumption again instead of just taxation and spending?

The ironic thing is that such projects could be done with unemployed volunteers, assuming that is legal and/or ethical. The problem with HS rail is that it's a big investment in something that may or may not sell train tickets. They could just as easily promote busses and traditional trains if it weren't for technology-image issues. As long as ample fuel is available, I think air-travel is the most efficient transit method because it doesn't require much infrastructure-maintenance. It may be that in the future, very few highways and roads are maintained, economies are mostly local, and air-travel is used for most/all passenger traffic between economically-contained regions.