Phi for All

Do your friends understand that a wave, any wave, doesn't really carry much water with it? A tsunami that started off the coast of Africa would not be carrying any water from Africa by the time it reached North America. It wouldn't shift a massive amount of water from there to here. The force propagates from water molecule to water molecule and it's the force that travels, not the water itself. When the force reaches land, the friction with the sea bed will raise the height of the wave and cause it to crest. That is where the extra water that pushes inland comes from.

! Moderator Note Your three threads titled, "'MOND', Prelude to 'Critique of the Universe'", et al, have been merged into one topic. Please don't start multiple threads on the same subject as it makes it difficult to discuss.

lol, MRBEAST in this stie. Come wallow with us!

Food is a consumable product. It's perfect as a for-profit commodity. No one is going to cancel your food while you're still willing to pay for it. No more red herrings, please. And the goalpost is health insurance, not "Health Care".

I agree with most of this, and would add the interstate highway system. Not that it's a problem now, but I think it should be on a list of things better not privatized. And I'd love to put the public utilities back in the hands of the municipalities, or perhaps the states. But we digress.... But they can if the coverage isn't through an employer. And the fact that they can in ANY circumstance is unreasonable. How long will it be before they can deny cancer coverage because you've used antiperspirants containing aluminum? OK. Meaning I, as an individual, have to play roulette with my health, trying to decide what kind of ill-health bet I should cover at any given time. An insurance program that isn't run for profit wouldn't care if you already had a problem. It's insurance for your health, something that is relatively difficult to predict on an individual basis, but is fairly reliable statistically when applied to a society of hundreds of millions. It's only called Obamacare by those who don't like it or the president. It's an attempt to link the two as bad ideas. And yes, the current health care reform isn't what I'm asking for here, so yes, it would need to be repealed. I'm not going to follow the red herring swimming into the flood zone. I will simply repeat that I would prefer my risk-pool clear and clean of for-profit motives. There is nothing about the for-profit motive that makes a risk-pool safer, better or more efficient. The opposite is true, in fact, when health care is what the pool is for Government and union workers set the bar for what the rest of us make. Without their competitive compensation, we would all be making less. But that's off-topic. And when that expectation is unfulfilled, all insurance gets a bad name. This is a big reason why some people avoid it, or don't consider it essential. The CEOs don't think so. They pilot the corporation, and their primary loyalty is to the board of directors who represent the stockholders. Medicare gets scammed much more than private insurers. Double billings, fraudulent claims, non-existent or deceased patients. And when you add in all the patients who were dropped from coverage (2.7M in 2008, and those don't get counted as "denied claims"), then YOUR claim is denied. Medicare does NOT deny more service requests, and it never drops coverage to legitimate patients. You're moving the goalposts. I asked for a not-for-profit alternative run by the federal government. People who want "different sizes" are free to choose them. I'm only suggesting a not-for-profit competitor.

Creationism is a big part of why there is an anti-science political climate in the US. It's not off-topic to talk about creationism. As I said before, creation in a religious sense is NOT a scientific topic. Creationism is different, it's a literal interpretation that claims the Earth is only 6000 years old, and that's something that science has buildings full of evidence against. You can believe that God created the universe. You can believe the Bible is the word of God. But you can't show scientifically relevant evidence that the world is only 6000 years old. Many have tried and it's all been refuted.

! Moderator Note Personal attacks are against the rules and won't be tolerated. This is not your first warning.

I'm talking about a health insurance program you could either get independently or through your employer, so it costs no more to people and employers than is currently being paid. No increased taxes. If organizing it by state is deemed more cost-effective or more fair to varying cost-of-living structures, I wouldn't mind that. I'm sure there would be some federally-mandated rules, such as the not being turned down for pre-existing conditions clause. I think, at least in the beginning, this program would be available to all who could pay into it. I want it modeled as much like a for-profit health insurance company as possible, so no one could claim it wasn't as good. People who can't afford insurance might be able to afford this because I would hope the premiums would be lower due to it's not-for-profit structure. If they can't afford it, they can't afford it. I don't see why more expensive private insurance companies can't service those customers. That's what I assume people who want private rooms and exclusive perks have now. I'm not looking to disturb that, I just want an alternative for the masses that is not profit oriented. Before managed health care, insurance companies based your rates on the age at which you joined their program. Actuarial tables told them what to charge and if you joined young and stayed with the same insurer, your rates were pretty low your whole life. They had loyal customers because if you switched, you paid the rate at the age you switched. There was no mention of pre-existing conditions; the actuarial tables took that into account. It was only when managed health care came about in the 70s that people stopped being loyal and started shopping around for better rates. For a while there was healthy competition, but when insurers realized they were making more money but losing customer loyalty, they came up with this idea of pre-existing conditions to scare people into staying with them. Have you ever tried to get a company you're no longer with to pay for something you had when you were with them? It's a nightmare and there's no good reason for it.

Caffeine isn't so much a stimulant as a drowsiness inhibitor. It could affect sleep patterns if overused and therefore be harmful. The body gets addicted to most things you do regularly. Withdrawal happens when you stop doing them. Caffeine has a very mild withdrawal, almost negligible.

Hulu.com.

Is it for teaching punctuation?

Everyone has health needs at some time or another. Having insurance to cover those needs reduces stress and worry about catastrophic events. Preventative medicine helps lower costs to everyone. The list of benefits of being covered for health is enormous and well-documented. I think the federal government is the perfect place to handle a risk pool like health insurance. Not all insurance, just health insurance (not everyone drives cars or boats or owns homes). The for-profit angle of health insurance companies seems to run counter to what most people would want for themselves. After all, a for-profit insurer can crunch the numbers and decide you're just not worth dealing with any more. Why can't a government program be modeled on the same structure as any of the most popular health insurers, with the exception that pre-existing conditions are covered as well. The profits a regular insurer makes should not only cover these extra treatments but also be given back to the members in the form of lower premiums. This means the government program could compete with the rest and everyone would be obligated to provide service that would entice more customers. Quality should be the same; the doctors would remain unaffected. The government program might even be more popular with the doctors since they wouldn't be turning down as many claims (and doctors would absolutely flock to the program if it could pay on a Net 45 or 60 day basis). Is there any reason why this wouldn't work?

I have been wondering what you meant by this. Do you mean that the God of Abraham is understood by his followers to remain outside the universe, or that he is that sort of god by definition or according to scripture? I didn't mention God in the past tense, or in his scriptural history. Present tense only, and no scriptural references. When I mentioned "the Abrahamic god" or the "god of the Bible", it was to distinguish it from any other god. I know this is exactly what I stated when you first objected, but I've tried to make my point as simple as possible, but no simpler. Please forgive the repetition.

Except when I try the same thing, there's no fire. Just bull. So the experiment is not repeatable and makes no predictions. Take any living person of your choosing and have them perform the same experiment and report your conclusions, see if it passes peer review.

I didn't mention influence at all. I'm saying that the God spoken of in the Bible, the Abrahamic god worshiped by Jews, Christians and Muslims, can't be observed by any scientific means. You can't devise an experiment that will predict when he will appear, you can't test anything and provide a conclusion that this god exists and have it pass peer review. He is supernatural because he is (seemingly) unwilling to manifest himself in a form science could recognize and test repeatedly.

I understand the hypocrisy and feel the same way. I don't watch any televised news, but I do read Fox News articles along with several others, and have seen clips from O'Reilly et al and so feel qualified to a degree to comment on at least those portions of their integrity. I stopped listening to Limbaugh and Howard Stern for the same reasons: both say shocking amounts of shocking crap just to anger a good portion of their listeners, imo. In case you want to look at just one NPR story so you can avoid hypocrisy when you complain about them (didn't mean this to be as harsh as it sounds), here is a great investigative piece about Congress wasting money on promoting dollar coins. Both Republicans and Democrats are to blame for this fiasco, as NPR points out, and no one wants to anger the Federal Reserve by talking out about it. I listen to NPR because this is how they've been treating stories about the politics surrounding the nation's food, too. Keep America Beautiful started when Eisenhower was president, but it didn't really get national attention and federal sponsorship for public service announcements until Lyndon Johnson's wife Lady Bird joined the group. Her endorsement was a federal effort I'm proud to have been a part of. To this day I can't stand to see people littering. I didn't mean to be offensive and I'm sorry if it came off that way. I had mentioned universally relevant things like clean air and water, where you can regulate how much contaminate can be allowed (something that is scalable to any environment since more population and manufacturing means more contaminates) and you brought up the differences in cost-of-living between New York City and Alamogordo (not sure if that's your southern NM residence, but I've been through Alamogordo to get to White Sands and it's beautiful). Cost-of-living didn't seem to be pertinent to whether our nation's water was clean or not, so it seemed like a tangent designed to mislead me. Again, I apologize if I offended. You mentioned wealthy business owners and wealthy workers in the same sentence. I felt that wasn't an adjective that could be used fairly in that context. I was referring to the Medicare Modernization Act. No one has ever adequately explained why it's good for Medicare not to be able to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical companies. It jars with my free market sensibilities, just like no-bid contracts do. Take the best run private health insurance company (let's call it Insuricare). Imagine I've been with them a loooooong time so they can't deny me coverage based on Pre-Existing Conditions. Now take the risk-pool premium payments we members and employers are paying and divert that to a government program modeled almost exactly the same way. It can use part of the profits to cover PEC claims that newer members have, and give the rest back in the form of lower premiums. This should create a program that works better than anything else out there. It's modeled correctly, it doesn't deny PEC coverage (of course the policies on bogus claims that every insurer has will continue), and quality doesn't go down because we still use the same doctors, right? What's wrong with this model? I've enjoyed it as well. I hope you'll make some small exceptions. Please, take a few of the points above and answer what you feel like answering. I'll stop being so adversarial in the interests of pure curiosity.

The AIG poll got to 90% by combining the answers for teaching both AND for substituting creationism for evolution. My point is that they are not a good poll source because of their obvious bias. I think, by your use of the words, "respect for creation", that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution is, and how science treats religious beliefs. "Creation" and "creationism" are NOT interchangeable ideas. Creationism is a very specific, literal interpretation of every word of an allegedly inerrant Bible that has led some to believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old, which is COMPLETELY at odds with what science has observed. That is why science, Judaism, Catholicism, and the vast majority of the other 9000 sects of Christianity, has a big, very vocal problem with "creationism". "Creation", the belief that God created the universe by whatever mechanism, whether by the Big Bang or some omnipotent instantaneous hand-waving, is a matter of faith that requires no natural evidence due to the unobservable deity aspect. Science can only shrug when matters of faith are being discussed. Evolution has absolutely NOTHING to do with creation. Period. It's a rigorously documented scientific theory that predicts changes in allele frequency in a population over large periods of time. It does NOT predict how we got here. Creation and creationism are both based in religion and should be taught only in religious schools, not in state-funded public schools in a country where that is prohibited by its Constitution. And that's why it's dangerous for political leaders to use it for campaign purposes. As JohnB points out, many people might say they believe in a literal, inerrant Bible, but how many realize they're breaking God's Law by wearing a cotton/polyester blend shirt, or by not having a beard? My favorite is from Deuteronomy 25:11-12, that says if I'm having a fight with a guy and his wife tries to intervene by grabbing my crotch, I'm bound by law to cut off her hand and show her no pity, according to the creationist's literally-translated, inerrant Bible. I don't want to be the one who changes your opinion. Only YOU should have that power, if the opinion is going to be any good.

It's the Cut & Paste Spam Zombie from Better Because We Beat Them Academy!

Yahweh is a god that can't be directly observed currently. He appeared in various forms historically (despite being the image man was made from), but He is not observable in any sort of predictable, testable way that satisfies scientific methodology. I think the idea is supposed to be that proof would deny the importance of faith. The problem with things supposedly done by God being empirically evident is that there are ALWAYS other possible, natural explanations. Unlikely things happen simply because of statistical probability, then are viewed in isolation and get dubbed "miracles".

Here is a translation by Hebrew scholars showing that it's not. In fact, Judaic scholars also reject young earth creationism because the original text does not support it. How many of your creationist sources use the original Hebrew? Because your first link says that "most would not substitute the teaching of creationism for the teaching of evolution in public schools", and your second link says, "about 90% of the public desired that both creation and evolution or creation only be taught in the public schools". How can you fail NOT to see that? Do I listen to CBS News, which has more journalistic credentials, or do I listen to Answers in Genesis, a creationist website? Who would run more unbiased polls about this, in your opinion? That's progress. Now you're not a young-earth creationist. So answer this, could God have been patient enough to use a slow process like evolution, taking billions of years to develop our present environment? The Bible really doesn't refute that if days are in reference to vast periods of time.

From your link: "But most would not substitute the teaching of creationism for the teaching of evolution in public schools." This shows that the poll taken might have posed some challenge to the faith of those polled, causing the answers to be defensive. Your first link shows that the statements in your second link are UNTRUE. The majority do NOT want creationism taught in public schools. I think many people take a question like this as, "Do you believe in the Bible?" and this skews the results. After all, how can every word of the Bible be literally true when there are four completely different accounts of what was written on the cross at the crucifixion? That site is laughable. Quotes from Darwin taken as law (like there hasn't been any progress in evolutionary theory in the last 130 years), made up terms like "special theory of evolution" that no one else but creationists use. This is not "evidence", it's propaganda. How about, when the first termite (of the original variety that couldn't digest cellulose and therefore didn't eat wood) that became susceptible to this organism was also able to digest cellulose successfully, he started eating wood and had more food choices and was able to pass along his genes to future generations, who became more and more successful in that ecological niche? Just a guess but that's the way evolution works. And I'll give an example of a gap in creationism: Creationists mostly point to Paul and Galatians 3:16 (NIV) where he writes, "The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ." They claim that this is why the Bible should be taken literally. Seed means just one seed, not seeds like many. Yet, Genesis 1:29 (NIV) says, "Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.'" And that's from the mouth of God Himself! So "seed" can mean multiple seeds, the same way we use it today when farmers say, "I just bought some seed". The same way the early Hebrews used the word "yom" to mean 1) day, like during the day when the sun is up, 2) day, like a whole 24-hour day, and also 3) day, an unspecified amount of time, like "back in Abraham's day...." So why did Paul say seed means one seed even though God Himself mentions that fruit has seed, and why do creationists insist that day means only a 24-hour day (despite the facts that yom has three different meanings and that God didn't even separate day from night until the fourth day of creation)? This is just part of why creationism isn't science and should NOT be taught as such in state-funded US public schools. Politicians who think it should are either giving lip-service to a voter block or perhaps went to a parochial school (non-Catholic, since the Catholics support evolution).

There's really not much to "learn". Just read the Bible and assume that every single word is literal as written. A day means a 24 hour day (I know He didn't make the sun until the 4th day, just shut up and listen). Add up all the ages of everyone mentioned in Genesis and you'll find that God created the earth around 4000 BC. This means that any evidence that science has for an Earth older than 6000 years is either flawed or deliberately put there by God and made to seem older to confuse non-believers. Creationism is rejected by the majority of Christians. Creationism doesn't just mean that God created the universe; it means He did it in six days and science is mistaken about all the time it took. Even the oldest dinosaurs existed with mankind because man and animals were all made on day six (well, the swimmers and the flyers were made the day before, but they were all walking, crawling, swimming and flying around together by the end of the week, that's the point).

NPR does a great job of coming at their stories from all sides, being especially sensitive to NOT having a special interest. If there is any bias, it might come from a perspective of being open to learning, which many call "liberal". And personally, if I see a person in traditional Muslim clothing on a plane, that's the person I would least suspect as a terrorist. I'd look for the guy who doesn't want to stand out. You're about a decade off in your reckoning. The 50s and 60s in the US were some of the worst years for pollution in our history. Remember Tom Lehrer, the singer/songwriter/satirist from the 50s and 60s? Remember his song ? The first clean water legislation from the federal government came in 1960, but the Clean Air Act didn't come about until 1970. Prior to that, only a few of the bigger cities did anything about their smog. I'll grant you that the Clean Air Act couldn't have happened without the work done in California (and Los Angeles as early as 1947, in particular), but in those instances pollution was literally making it difficult for healthy people to breath, and many businesses continued to pollute until absolutely forced to stop by legislation. The fact that there was legislation that worked but wasn't being adopted by all states naturally led to the federal act in 1970. I don't know why you remember it differently; there is plenty written about the smog problems of the 50s and 60s. You throw out so many red herrings! Why wouldn't NY want clean water and air just like NM? For things that are national, what's so bad about national laws? And politicians are supposed to represent what WE want, even though lately they cater more to the needs of big business, which brings us now full circle t%o my original arguments. I don't even know where to start with this statement. You use the same word "wealthy" to describe both the business owners and the people who work for them. That is completely incompatible with what I know to be true, and what I see from many sources. In fact, the CEOs from the top 200 US companies are making 27% more now than they were in 2010, because they saved the company so much money by firing US workers and moved those jobs overseas. Their workers wages (those that still have a job) didn't even keep up with inflation. I said it earlier, Medicare today has been strangled by legislation enacted under Bush. The present system is understaffed and underfunded. But there is no reason why we can't set it up to function as well as a health insurance company, without denying claims (we can do this because it wouldn't have to profit stockholders). Sure so it can cost more like my privatized utilities.

Creationism doesn't have anything to do with science. Not one - single - thing. It does not use scientific method to verify its findings. It doesn't predict anything to do with the natural world. As a matter of fact, it claims things that science can prove false with empirical evidence gathered over centuries by thousands of people representing millions of scientist-hours and tens of millions of hours in discussion and peer review. Why should it be taught alongside science in public schoolrooms? Creationism isn't a "differing opinion" or a "controversial challenger", it's anti-science at its finest. You can say, "Kids should decide for themselves whether creationism or evolution, or something else is correct" to make your point sound fair, but the fact remains that a science class should teach science, and religious beliefs should NOT be taught in state-funded public schools in a country that is constitutionally required to separate church and state.

Juan was fired because, while on the nationally televised O'Reilly show, billed as an NPR political analyst, he made some remarks about feeling uncomfortable on airplanes with people who dress like Muslims, racial remarks that run counter to NPR's policies. He was NOT fired "for his appearances on the 'Bill O'Reilly' show". Obviously, the head of NPR felt the same way you do about people who won't follow company policy. It is strange that people are complaining because Obama is doing exactly what he promised in his campaign. Why didn't they complain when Bush II campaigned on a return to Reagan Republicanism and then changed completely and proceeded to grow the federal government, become the world's police, double the national debt, and pass a 700B prescription bill for Medicare/Medicaid, the very same program the Tea Party wants to do away with now? Why wasn't that spending bad then like it is now? Definitely your opinion. Who determines what we deserve? We do. Don't we all deserve to breathe clean air, drink clean water, eat food that's had some high-criteria inspection done on it to make sure it's as good as we've been told? And since everyone can't be a business owner (who would be the workers?), isn't it in our own best interests to create programs that help people get by a little better? Because unlike you, I don't consider non-business owners to be failures (I can't believe you said that!). As I said before, some things are better without a profit motive and the attitudes it creates. Personally, I'd rather not have a for-profit insurance company tell me that I'm not covered for my health problems because they've determined it wouldn't be profitable. If it were handled the right way, Medicare would be a perfect use of a taxpayer risk pool. If we didn't pass laws to hobble its purchasing power or cut its funding to make it look bad, Medicare could be something to be proud of, something we could all deserve. The same with the EPA or the FDA or other government agencies and programs that have been systematically degraded.