Phi for All

I'm using the same treatment, hoping for the same results.

MAYBE. Nobody was trying to suggest that, or make a diagnosis on your condition. See a doctor. /disclaimer

I'm pretty sure either method isn't going to put you out of commission unless the bandaging restricts movement of the hand. If the cyst were in a place where it could be aggravated by a lot of hand movement, they might want to tape up your fingers to minimize that. I've had one on the outside of my right ankle where the bone sticks out for several years. When it was smaller, I could feel it against my shoe, but oddly when it got bigger it moved away from that pressure point, and now it hardly bothers me. It's elective surgery to have them removed in the backwater, primitive US healthcare system. I'd have to pay over a thousand dollars to have mine removed, and when I looked into it, there was no mention of a sensitive recovery.

Yes. The difference between humble gratitude for devoted service, and bending the knee to show fealty to the ruler.

Certainly not the ones who got captured, or the ones who think they know ISIS better than the POTUS, or the ones who complain about roadside IEDs. I've never, ever heard a POTUS deride the military as much as Trump, so his intentions with this parade can't include support of the troops, unless he's lying or something.

I suppose the test of his intent will be whether or not it's done on a holiday, or if he insists on showcasing American military might on its own.

Because it was on a national holiday, where it was part of the celebration. Trump seems to want this parade to stand on its own. At least I haven't heard that it's to take place on Memorial Day, or Independence Day.

If it's done to honor the military and its sacrifices, there's no dick about it. You can have a military parade that represents the spirit of patriotism without a fascist intent. The dick comes out when you have to bring out the hardware, chew up your asphalt with tank treads, and make it all about threat.

This is what we've done in commemoration in the past, but... Trump.

We outspend the next 7 countries on military functions. For it to be to scale, we'd have to have a parade as big as China's, Russia's, Saudi Arabia's, France's, the UK's, India's, and Germany's parades combined. And then there's the bigger question: with all that, doesn't it make us look a bit silly flaunting it? I think military parades have been rare in the US because it would seem like such obvious and unnecessary posturing. It's the move of a country (or someone) who is very afraid others don't take them seriously enough.

Exactly. We're humans. We cooperate better than any other creature. We communicate more intricately. All the best things our high intelligence allows us to do we do together. When we're trying to arrange a successful society, individuals should be empowered to do their best, and this empowerment should never be diminished by private pursuits. We need to remind the selfish assholes that it was "us" who made their lives possible. It wasn't them, it wasn't the job creators, it wasn't the politicians, it wasn't the managers, and it wasn't the workers. It was all of us, and it works best when it works best for us all.

To me, this isn't a liberal/conservative issue. This is just assholes who've been conditioned to think winning is everything. These are the same assholes who complain about how bad traffic is when it's their constant jockeying for top position that creates the bad traffic. These are the same assholes who cheat to win rather than work to win. And unfortunately, they convinced a bunch of us that asshole behavior is what you need to be a winner, and if you aren't an asshole, you're a snowflake.

Good point. Voting only the party line is admitting the candidate helped the party get elected, instead of the other way around. Is it liberal or conservative to want an actual representative in government? I also think of lock-step voting as being a barrier rather than a bridge, as if you're trying to stop something from happening rather than trying to work towards something better.

I was thinking that putting a bug in his food was the perfect distraction for the stuff they put in his coffee.

I have to give some credit here. Most speculations don't bother with making predictions, and it's important in science to make sure our explanations can be matched against actual experience. Unfortunately, when we try to detect the evidence predicted, we come up short. I have to give some positive rep for the phrase, "What we could look for:"

It could, but that's not the impression of the explanation I got from the OP.

"Blinders" being manufactured glasses that filter out everything the manufacturers you prefer don't want you to see. How are Canadians informed about the events that are important to them as citizens? Is your media privately owned, or do you have any laws that require the media to actually inform the populace? I remember Michael Moore's segment from Bowling for Columbine where they compared an American and Canadian news hour, and the Canadians didn't have the doom-and-gloom fear format the US shows had. I think everyone wants accurate information, but I think the liberal view demands it as part of a reasoned, rational response to any issue. I think we get "spun news" in the US, but often conservatives and liberals feel they're too skeptical to be fooled by the spin doctors, so they're all more vulnerable to it, ironically.

This is the part I completely disagree with, and have shown why in many ignored ways over the years. Competition and natural market pressures are what create the drive to create products at all price points. It has nothing at all to do with the disparity between working, middle, and upper class wealth. Capitalism is always going to work towards the least costs, and it's always going to concentrate wealth unfairly unless it's well regulated. It's the biggest myth of all that if you allow business free reign it will be good for everyone. The only way to ensure capitalism works well for all is making sure it doesn't pool all the wealth up at the top, where it tends to be hoarded until something makes hoarding less attractive and profitable. The top 500 wealthiest people made over a trillion dollars more in 2017 than they did in 2016. 500 people, $1,000,000,000,000 more money in a single year. That's more than four times the gain they made from 2016. It's not the money though, it's the fact that the tax structure encourages them to sit on this wealth. We need it to be invested in the economy, or we need the taxes it could generate. Productivity hasn't dropped a stitch, but wages for that productivity have not kept pace.

They liked it when it helped get a billionaire elected on a "let's help the common man" platform, but it wasn't so much fun when the KKK started killing protesters with cars. Clinton should have called ignorance deplorable instead of the ignorant. Since you can't know how badly you need to know what you don't know, I think it's up to a responsible society to make sure we're not breeding ignorance. That doesn't seem like it's skewed left or right, it just seems like common sense.

Besides disagreeing with the evidence we have, this seems to be contradictory. How do you go from "nothing but infinite space and virtual particles" to suddenly having "bits of matter" to "clump together"? Using various methods, we've been able to show how the universe developed from an earlier hot, dense state. We can only go back to just after the period of rapid expansion began, and no further, but none of the evidence so far would suggest an infinite void, or that matter was never present at any time. We also have no evidence for more than our own observable universe. You've misunderstood the matter/anti-matter relationship. Matter was not "produced" from the BB. All matter was already there, in an extremely dense, extremely hot state. Expansion continued as the matter and space cooled. It also seems clear you think a universe can have something "outside" it, something that could orbit it or form an accretion disk. The BBT describes through the LCDM model how the early universe expanded to it's present size without expanding into anything. We often speak of the observable universe, which is finite, but we don't know if the entire universe is finite or infinite. But our definition of it is that the universe encompasses everything there is. It's hard to wrap your mind around, because we always think of expanding things expanding INTO something else. Theories in science aren't just educated guesses. Theory is as strong as it gets in science, and the best theories have mountains of supportive evidence and are constantly tested against nature by experiment. If a theory doesn't make sense to you, you should study it harder, since it represents the best current explanation we have. Incredulity is no reason to start making things up.

Perhaps this is what we need to start warding ourselves against. We have these ideologies that have become so ambiguous they have no more relevance for us. The ideologies can take on whatever meaning is assigned to them. Is it liberal to want everyone to be educated to a certain standard, or is it just conservative common sense to keep up with the rest of the world? Is it conservative to push for a strong military, or is it also what liberals want in order to back up diplomatic efforts? Is it liberal to listen to the climate experts you've hired, or is it conservative to ignore them because they're telling you things you don't want to hear? Is it liberal to help those in need, or is it conservative to insist they help themselves? I know from discussions here that most of the caricatures of liberals and conservatives are just that. Nobody is openly pushing for war. Nobody is suggesting we ignore security at our borders. Nobody wants our children to be uneducated. Nobody wants to rob the wealth from the wealthy. Nobody wants more crime. Nobody wants to make it easier for our enemies, and nobody wants to turn away a potential friend. But when we use these labels, we've made all these assumptions at some point or another. And it's a hard habit to break. I still have a hard time with people who make the "conservative" choice not to vote for school funding because their own children have moved out of the public school system, or are in private schools. Don't they want to deal with educated people? I feel like if you don't do everything possible to help educate your fellow man, then you deserve having ignorance thwart you at every turn. I feel this is a liberal stance, and I'd love to know why it's conservative to spend less on public education. Is there another aspect at work here? Is it not really about spending less?

Some conservatives argue that the oil and gas industry is the one we heavily invested in, and it's too risky to rely on unproven new technology where our country's energy policy is concerned ("Gotta dance with the one who brought you"). They argue that they're now finally able to make a decent profit after all the R&D costs they've incurred, and all the federal hurdles they've had to overcome in their steadfast struggle to employ God-fearing Americans and keep their families safe from soviets and socialists who would undermine our way of life. They argue that liberal thinking is the antithesis of working class ethics, and that updating technology leads to robots and the end of the American worker. Some think it's better to keep doing what we've been doing because we just can't know the consequences of changing it.

I see coal as yesterday's technology that needs to be phased out thoughtfully in favor of better, cheaper, cleaner alternatives. To me, it doesn't seem conservative to keep its market propped up with unfair subsidies, and tariffs against its competitors, does it? That seems like an obvious attempt to favor existing technology because of the money being made. The latest information tells me alternative energy technologies are finally viable costwise, so a liberal approach says we should choose the technology that gives us cleaner air and water, and has far fewer reclamation costs. We should be able to re-train people from one industry to the other if we listen to everyone involved and work to do what's best all around.

I'm unsure where keeping jobs in the coal industry fits on the conservative/liberal scale. "We've always used coal, and so many people make their living from it" seems to war with the risks of coal mining to health and environment, and the irrational public subsidization of fossil fuels, from a conservative standpoint. Perhaps this is where liberal vision can help transition to alternatives in a way that keeps people working, but towards better, less risky (conservative) jobs and more sustainable energy. We still need coal to make steel to make solar panels and wind turbines.

You supported the left-brain/right-brain argument, and Strange cited a paper suggesting it's a myth. I thought it was extremely clear, and gently pointed you to some more current information. I think he was hoping you'd actually read the link before commenting.