Phi for All

Still not sure whether it's a thread or professorial propaganda.

Ultimately, it's Congress that votes on laws, but the public votes the members into office. If we let the politicians know why we are voting for them, and that their term is dependent on how they represent our wishes, the public can make the difference. But not nearly enough. Scientific research, free from special interest biases, is something we can trust to give us legitimate answers to our problems, rather than deceptive legislation that favors certain businesses. The quality of public education has been systematically eroded by special interests that want it privatized for profit. Those who stand to profit want to make it look bad and then swoop in with "professional" help. No Child Left Behind was supposed to address the quality but is clearly hamstringing educators by forcing them to spend valuable time studying for rote memorization assessment tests (and you can buy software from President Bush's brother Neil to help your school pass those tests). We need to scrap the poor methodology and look to other countries that have successful public education for guidance. The wealthiest people, the ones who are most actively orchestrating who gets elected to public office, are shooting down anything that spends tax dollars on programs that don't directly benefit them. They are showing a disgraceful lack of long-range planning. If we consider ourselves the greatest country and want to stay that way, why are we only ranked average on education internationally?

superball has been suspended for 7 days for hijacking other member's threads to link to his own threads, and for ignoring repeated warnings to stop.

Dude, when was the last time you slept? This is the kind of thing one says that makes perfect sense after being up for several days, but no one else has the least idea where you're coming from.

He said "deifying" scientific factor, not defying. I think he's saying that he's God's new antenna.

Why would anyone pay someone money to do this to Vinko Rajic? Do they gain anything? No. Why is Vinko Rajic the only person in the world who has this ability? Does it help him? No. If people like this existed in real life, why do they allow Vinko Rajic to talk about them on the world wide web? If they really existed, would they hesitate to silence him? No. Perhaps Vinko Rajic needs to see a doctor at the hospital and show him all your posts from around the web. The doctor would probably help you where the policemen can't.

We certainly have had members go on a binge and freak out on us. Some come back a bit contrite, some stay away out of shame, others blame it on problems at home. Maybe someone did put something in superball's water! Is there an anti-Xtacy?

And we all know where that leads! michel123456, that's going to keep me chuckling for the rest of the weekend. I hope you meant to be that funny in French, too. I apologize, iNow.

The Frogs, a play by Aristophanes, perhaps. Refers to those who repeat what they hear rather than think for themselves. I think he believed he was a continuous flow of information for us.

I also noticed that his name changed often when he signed off on a post. It became alternately "super ball" and "super-ball" in addition to the original spelling. Classic iNow. My comment on "good posts" suddenly means I thought superball was a "marvelous poster". Further evidence to support the idea that you find it hard to separate the idea from the person. I agree completely. I liked the exchange superball had with swansont on the Casimir Effect. He showed he was interested in learning there (I guess I'm hoping that was the real superball). The spark he showed early on makes me a bit sad to see this thread of paranoia and hatred. Some people come here 100% determined to disrupt instead of learning. I don't think superball was like that, but he definitely had some odd ideas. That alone doesn't condemn him, but a thread like this makes him look beyond odd.

I thought the same thing, only brother instead of dad. Like two vastly different people were using the same account.

How bizarre. I have to say, superball, you had an awful lot of good posts when you first joined. You genuinely seemed to want to learn. I really enjoyed a lot of what you had to write. Then you started talking about religion in a science thread, it got moved to Religion and you flipped out big time. You claimed you were NOT a religious person and would NEVER post in the Religion section, that you didn't want to be identified with ANYTHING religious. And now this thread. A real head-scratcher. My heart goes out to you. You sound pretty paranoid and that's a sad way to live. Maybe you should stay away from science forums if this is how they make you feel. I wish you all the best.

Corporations, especially the biggest ones, are chiefly concerned with making a profit. The biggest will pay enormous bonuses to executives who can map out a way to make another half a percent (for a company like General Electric, half a percent more profit figures out to be over $72M). They will perform every legal contortion they can to make that profit. Sometimes, breaking the rules is even profitable. Microsoft is famous for paying SEC fines that were in excess of $10,000 a day because they stood to make a great deal more. As long as fines were the only cost to them, they could crunch the numbers and still make money. The key here is the regulations. If the fines aren't stiff enough, we need to raise them. If they allow a manufacturer to put too much pollution into the air or water, we need to write tougher regs. The corporation officers don't want to go to jail, so make sure jail time is part of the consequences. Stop their ability to soften the laws and regulations and you can stop the practices that hurt the country. The corporations will claim they're being stifled, that the market is threatened, that what they do is best for everyone. They'll spend a carefully calculated amount of money trying to keep things in their favor, but won't exceed an amount that isn't profitable. If we stay tough, hold them to high standards and make them wipe their feet before they come tracking filth into THIS house, they will eventually realize the cost of scamming the system is too high. The corporations aren't evil, they're just like the scorpion in the story. It's in their nature to ruthlessly pursue profit. Toughen the regulations, make it clear this is the framework in which they have to operate if they want US business, and they will adjust and turn their sights on other ways to squeeze another half a percent out. They won't leave as long as there is profit to be made. Science needs to be funded by the public to stand as a benchmark for reality, and to discover new means of utilizing a work force that has lost it's former trades. Since we already have twice the military budget of any other nation on earth, we could afford to divert just 10% towards scientific research and still have plenty of security for the country. If we stopped the Bush tax cuts and ended our costly wars we could further improve research and pioneer work that the US needs to prosper. And while we're at it, let's stomp on the idea of privatizing everything and start funding public education again. I feel that's a priority that has too long been neglected and one that will haunt us for a generation or more. Public schools work if you take your foot off their neck.

First, the "reason" is in the rules we all agreed to when we joined. Second, when the thread strays into another subject section, there is no "threat", we have only two choices: delete or move, both are "actions", based on "reason". We deleted only the off-topic complaints about the move to Religion. I moved it back into a science section, the best compromise available to me. Aren't you being a little dogmatic yourself, Mr Convinced-He's-Right? At least you didn't run off with our ball. I'm saving your post, in case you decide maybe you were being hypercritical. If not, I look forward to your complaint thread. We save those, too.

! Moderator Note Off-topic posts have been removed. I'm going to move this to the Speculations forum strictly because the thread started out attempting science but moved to more religious responses. If it can continue in a scientific vein we can leave it here, otherwise it will be moved back to Religion.

In the US, our National Public Radio is supposed to be like that. I find them more informative than any televised news, they have sponsorship from private business but no real obligation to them and no commercials are allowed. Since Republicans are against anything the federal government sponsors that could be part of the economic market, they tend to view NPR coverage as slanted towards liberals. Since the Democrats support social programs like NPR, it furthers the Republican notion of bias. They may not be completely objective but I find them more so than any other news broadcast. It actually surprises me that more people don't appreciate a news program that tries to report the news as neutrally as possible. I'll bet a poll would show most people want just the facts so they could make their own decisions (seems like a likely default position, right?). To me, it's very important to have differing perspectives, and I especially like hearing what the BBC has to say about US news. I've heard stories there that aren't even covered by US sources.

I would say it's the way the technology is used that is to blame. We make things affordable on the front end and then pay the consequences on the back end. We've wasted a lot of resources on inefficient convenience. Technology also helped make us aware of the problem, so it's not all bad. It will most likely play a great part in helping to deal with it, too.

Perhaps this is why FOX News viewers tend to know less about the news. They want the talking heads to chew for them and spit out an opinion so they don't have to form one of their own. I mean, golly, being informed is HARD work!

We're too concerned with short-term economic costs and not enough with long-term resource costs. To me, the "rape"comes from not being as efficient as we can. We'd rather the gasoline and automobiles be cheap and pay for the pollution in terms of our health and disaster cleanups than require more efficiency to begin with. We have this mentality that five $20 shirts that last two years are better than a single $100 shirt that lasts four years. We trade the luxurious feel, durability and obvious aesthetics of the higher quality garment for the cheap variety and convenience of the lesser. We consume too much of the environment in the name of commerce and don't require that our resources be carefully husbanded. Perhaps our pride could come from a judicious use of our fair portion of the planet. Maybe other species could survive with us if we weren't burning up their habitats while we rejoice and glory in ourselves.

Link to enough scientific knowledge to know fact from fiction. Also fun.

It's difficult to trust any "journalist" who's interests conflict with that of either their employer or their sponsors. Yet another reason why corporations shouldn't be allowed to own the media. In fairness, at least CBS and News Corp are media exclusive mega-corporations, unlike General Electric that manufactures products globally and also owns major media outlets.

It makes me want to cry. They have such a huge following. I watched an interview with Hannity where he used www.homelandsecurityus.com as a source supporting his contention that Sheik Gilani and his followers were on a terrorist watchlist (they had, in fact, been removed from such a list two years prior to the interview). The actual US Homeland Security website is www.dhs.gov. FOX viewers accepted a private .com site as official government evidence condemning people as terrorists because FOX "journalists" said so, an obviously deliberate deception. It's no wonder FOX News viewers know so little about reality.

Perhaps. Or the incentives to bringing resources which will be used primarily in the US could offset the lost advantages for under-employment of US personnel. I'm not sure I like that, though. It also bothers me that the Republican platform keystone is free market competition, while at the same time they lobby for special consideration and taxpayer subsidies for certain players in certain industries. Reagan allowed a small group of US sugar barons to clamp down on imports of cheap sugar, setting up a complicated loan program through the Dept of Agriculture that assures certain prices to them. Imports were half the market but now only account for 15%, with tariffs driving the price up over what US sugar sells for, which is twice what the rest of the world pays. In all, US consumers pay an extra $2B/year because of this subsidy. It benefits no one but a few players and the subsidies actually amount to paying extra taxes for the privilege of paying higher sugar prices. You can't even argue about the jobs the sugar industry creates, because keeping the system in place costs $826,000 for each sugar production job saved. How on earth can that be considered anti-tax, pro-market or pro-consumer, Republicans? Who are you going to nominate to redress this atrocity against the market? Where's your messiah now?

Last year, they paid, let's see, add the 2, carry the 1... NOTHING! To be fair, they took advantage of every loophole and write-off the government allows, but as you said, how much influence do they have on legislating those write-offs and loopholes? That's a big reason why corporate influence in politics HAS to be severely restrained. They're messing around with free market competition, the Republican Holy Grail. At the very least, I'd like to see some regs stating that a company that claims to be American and gets US tax advantages and incentives has to have at least 51% of it's work force in the US. That should fit right in with the Republican platform. In fact, it fits so well, you could propose it and watch all the Republican politicians who scream about it, knowing that those are the guys deep in the corporate pockets. Line those bastards up against the wall first.

Monopolies are not a question of morality, it's an unfair advantage affecting the market. Corruption is unchecked except by regulation when there is no competitor for the market to turn to. Some alternatives may be available that completely bypass a core product group, but if GE is allowed to corner the market on light bulbs, would you seriously consider using candles instead? If so, what if I had the monopoly on fire extinguishers? I'm still very concerned with the neo-con influence on GOP-sponsored legislation. It all seems aimed at benefiting not just business, but certain businesses. No Child Left Behind has had crippling effects on public education, but has profited GW Bush's brother Neil very well. After Neil was barred from banking following the Silverado debacle, he started Ignite Learning, a company that makes software that teaches schools how to take the comprehensive tests NCLB is all about. Similarly, the no-bid defense contracts that Halliburton enjoyed are an affront to free market sensibilities, especially when parts of those contracts cost 2-3 times what individual contractors would have charged. And don't even get me started on how fiscally irresponsible it was to deny Medicare the right to negotiate discounts on prescription drugs under the Medicare Prescription Drug Act of 2003. To me, fiscal responsibility is all about efficiency and long-range effects. I hope we can find a Republican who actually follows the Republican platform so voters can at least feel represented by their party.