Phi for All

Perhaps it would be best if you let us know why you want such information. If there's no info anywhere on the web, maybe another approach is needed.

Perhaps it's that a new idea is progressive, but once adopted it becomes status quo. I actually think this might be a practical approach to politics. The progressives come up with the new ideas, the pragmatists figure out the best way to make them work. One could actually hope it might hamper special interests in league with politicians from taking advantage of the system. That's interesting. In the US, the religious right calls themselves conservative and are the most intolerant of all when it comes to cultural and sexual diversity. I will say, though, we have our share of progressives who think some stances can't be tolerated and those who hold them shouldn't be allowed to speak. How do you feel the distinction is applied to politics? Is there a practical application of this distinction you can cite as an example of what you mean? There is a concerted movement by conservative politicians (backed, I'm sure, by mega-corporate sponsors) towards corporate personhood, granting equal rights and considerations to corporations that people enjoy. Personally, I think it's a way to increase campaign donations and possibly gain some kind of block voting ability in the future. I also think it's a conflict of interest, much like corporations owning the media. People might assume their job is in jeopardy if they don't vote the same way their employer is voting, the same way it's possible for a television station news editor to fear public airing of a story that's negative to another asset his employer owns. Sometimes a big old blanket is much more restrictive than covering only the parts that need covering. As long as most agree on the need. This is exactly what I wanted to do. I think it shows that these terms have become fairly meaningless, since they are interpreted too differently and only mean what you want them to mean within your own group, and even then it's questionable. I think it's dangerous when the media and the politicians can easily spin a statement using a couple of terms that can be interpreted so broadly by so many varied groups, groups who might realize they have more in common if such divisive terms were better understood.

I always wondered why these super long-lived Jews didn't have more children. You'd think they'd have a lot more than 15-20 children with the benefits of both 900 years and a divine command to "go forth and multiply". Yet some only had 3 or 4 (and Adam and Eve had only two boys, right?).

See how they have to turn their feet out to the side to overcome the high instep? And I'll bet they can't get much speed going with their rumps up that high. They seem to be quite used to tilting the chin down while upright and looking at you straight on with their eyes at the top of the socket. I'd be curious to know if they all have good vision or not. It sure stretches my eye muscles to do that.

I can buy the retaliation for 9/11 angle, but that shouldn't include Iraq. Once the WMDs were no longer a good conservative reason for an invasion and occupation, you'd think conservatives would start to question whether the War on Terror is really a sound conservative approach. Not a reason to pull troops, since they're already there, but a good reason to question this neo-conservative manipulation of the platform. The platform that went from "NOT being the world's police" and "anti-welfare for Americans" to "wars on multiple fronts" and "billions in reconstruction and foreign aid". This makes sense to me. Creating new markets is a requirement of good business policy. I think you're right. I guess it's a matter of scale and timing. Conservatives thought it was OK to spend hundreds of billions on Iraq, but are screaming at Obama for spending less than a billion on Libya. Bush had the budget (thanks to a liberal), while Obama was at the debt ceiling (thanks to a conservative). Military intervention doesn't seem to consistently follow either approach. [calm]OK.[/calm] I'm not really talking about Republicans and Democrats, but this is part of my point. The results of the distinctions between conservative and liberal (modern social, non-classically, non-extinct liberalism) are blurred anyway by political pluralism, so why do we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the seemingly rigid uses of those terms by politicians, pundits and the media? And the uses aren't really rigid; they are used in such a way that the definitions change in the context and audience they're used for, but within those uses the definitions are meant to be rigidly interpreted. Liberal means one thing when a conservative says it, or it's mentioned when telling a story about a welfare abuser or an immigration problem. It means something else when a liberal uses it, or the story is about clean water or ecology management. That's why I'd like more input on the definitions, so we can really examine whether any of them hold true in these times, and can be applied when it comes to modern political stances.

Since you gave me no indication of what point you meant to make with your link, I'll assume the "back at you" comment was somehow in retaliation for some comment I made about President Bush. I don't want this thread to be another bashfest; I used him as an example because his administration seemed to please conservatives (at least at first), and his expansion of the powers of the federal government is not in question by Republican front-runners even now. Michele Bachmann's clinic took federal funds from Medicare, Rick Perry's farms took agricultural subsidies, Romney supports ethanol subsidies to both farmers and oil companies, and in the 90s Newt Gingrich had the 3rd most federally subsidized district in the nation (behind Arlington Virginia where the National Cemetery is, and Brevard County Florida where the Kennedy Space Center is). It seems like small federal government is only a conservative idea when referring to liberals. And what about the "control" part? Is it more controlling to discriminate against homosexuals and refuse to allow them rights other people have, or is it more controlling to insist that they be treated equally? I'm still not sure if the tax thing is a liberal/conservative issue. Taxing the poor pulls money directly out of the economy, because they tend to spend everything they make. The wealthy don't buy the same kinds of things the majority do, and they buy less of them. I think the disparity there is what taxes are spent on. I can see why wealthy people wouldn't like paying for public swimming pools because they will never use them. The same with other federal programs that target low-income sectors. Business owners want the money spent where it will do their businesses the most good.

I don't know any conservatives who can tell me conservatively why the war in Iraq was a good idea. I do have a liberal friend who says it was a good liberal decision because we couldn't have made as much progress in that region with Hussein still in power. It has nothing to do with terrorism, and everything to do with religion-sponsored state governments, in his opinion. It doesn't seem that way in the US. Conservatives are the ones who chafe at restrictions and regulations that make it more costly to do business. But Bush ran as a moderate conservative and then spent the next eight years building the biggest government EVER. The Patriot Act, TSA, No Child Left Behind, these are programs and laws that are the most invasive and restrictive things ever perpetrated on the American people. And I will guarantee you, that the majority of the Republican candidates would do nothing to repeal any of those programs (Ron Paul is the only one who didn't vote for the Patriot Act).

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The political definitions are ones I've held myself. They make sense. That's part of what I didn't understand about our "conservative" response to 9/11. It was anything but restrained. And the "liberal" response to the financial crisis was bailouts, which have traditionally been mistakes. The government can't inject money into the economy that it hasn't first taken out of the economy. And giving it back to the people who lost it in the first place hardly seems progressive and not bound by tradition. Yet the first bailout bill had 2/3 of the House Democrats voting for it [1]. The economic definitions seem a little strange to me. Our conservatives tend toward laissez-faire positions on both commerce and regulations, which seems fiscally oxymoronic. Isn't it less costly to keep your factories from polluting in the first place than it is to clean up after they do? The only way this position seems to make sense is if conservatives want to conduct their businesses without intervention of any kind, and then create another business that gets government contracts to clean up afterward.

Thinking about the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attack, it occurred to me that the two wars, thousands of lives lost and hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent in the interim was the result of the "conservative" response. I remember thinking, right after the attack, that an aggressive military response was the wrong thing to do, especially because Al Qaeda was being called an "Islamic" terrorist organization. Not Afghani, not Pakistani, not even Arabic, but Islamic as if the whole religion were responsible. You don't respond to religious fervor with armed force or you just create more religious fervor. I also remember thinking that we were missing out on a unique opportunity to accept the sympathy and the helping hands that so many countries were offering to the US. Now was the time for diplomacy, to use the goodwill generated by the attack to unite against terrorism the smart way, to negotiate with countries where they trained, to cut off the funding they were receiving. After all, at the time of the attack, there were only a few hundred members of Al Qaeda [1], and they needed about US$30M/year to operate [2]. There were others who felt this way, but it was dismissed as the "liberal" response. I realize it would be 20/20 hindsight to claim which would've been been better, but it lead me to think about why the "conservative" response was so costly. Does "conservative" only mean prudent until we're attacked? Does "liberal" mean profligate spending except where the military and terrorists are concerned? Everyone I've asked in my circle has a different meaning for conservative and liberal, and that holds true even between those who consider themselves on the same side. I realize that one can be conservative on some issues and liberal on others. But are there different meanings for the words depending on what you're talking about? I think it makes us easy to manipulate when buzz words like this have special meanings depending on who hears them. A single sentence can be used and everyone who hears it gets a different message. Let's try to firm up some definitions. What do "liberal" and "conservative" mean to you?

Here's a guy who looks pretty fast on all fours: This style is part of parkour training and is used for conditioning. I'm not sure it's sustainable for very long. Indeed, you can tell that this guy in the video can't hold it at this speed for long stretches. It's more of a sprint movement rather than for traveling longer distances. I bet every one of these videos ends with him going ass over tea kettle.

This seems to be the verdict here, or at least that thermite was not the cause. The thread title asks a question and it seems to have been answered. Anyone disagree? I'll leave this open for a few more days, but after that I'll close it. Most threads don't require closure, but this is the type that gets bumped by someone a year from now who doesn't bother to read what's been written and just forces everyone to post, "We already went over this!"

Good call, and it helped me decide. Links removed; continue with the discussion in the OP.

Maintaining as in keeping it healthy and growing.

We have a lot of pre-spun words like that. "Conservative" and "liberal" are the most ludicrous to me. You might think you know what they mean but I guarantee you they have 312M different definitions over here. You're absolutely right, JohnB. Most Democrats have no idea what their representatives are really voting for, and they're often not voting the way their platform would dictate. Republicans seem to be divided into at least four groups, only one of which really sticks to their platform. The result is a nation divided in two, with a whole lot more common ground than their partisan ideologies will let them admit. We're addicted to convenience, and those who know us best can spin up sound bytes that convince us it would be too hard to fight it. It's our fault for forgetting that the people have the power to make them stop.

Fast like a wolf, no. Fast like a sloth, maybe. Our spines would actually be quite happy and better supported by running on all fours. I think it's the rest of our limbs that might suffer. I don't think our arms are long enough compared to our legs. Our long, fragile, non-clawed fingers would definitely limit our speed. We'd have to bend over too far, causing our rumps to stick up and limiting the mobility of our heads. Our legs would probably be OK, the knees would enjoy a less stretched position, but I don't think our hips allow our legs full flexion. The raised instep on our feet would be a big problem, severely stretching the Achilles tendon to run pitched that far forward. I think your real question is, could we learn to run faster on feet and hands than on just feet? I don't think so. But one of the benefits of bipedalism is freeing the hands to make and use tools. It might be interesting to figure a way to artificially lengthen the arms to eliminate a few of the major problems. Interestingly, I just googled and found a patent abstract for just such a device: http://www.patents.com/us-5571065.html I haven't seen it yet, but apparently Doug Jones does some all-fours type running using arm extensions in the movie Legion. I'll have to check that out and see what it looks like.

Ah, I see. This is the socialized medicine approach that privatized US medicine lobbies have been spinning as Communistic Satan-worshipping pedophilia terrorism that will give us ebola and force us to speak French. I'm fairly certain that the other 200% is going into the pockets of the insurance providers and the pharmaceutical corps. A repeal of the law that prohibits Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices will help the latter, and I thought having the government compete as a risk pool for insurance would help the former. We seem to have too many politicians listening to too many corporate interests. To be fair, the people aren't as on top of things as they should be, so the pols pay attention to the corporations who have the money and influence to keep them in office. Career politicians would listen to the people if the people talked louder than the corporations, but we just don't band together the way we should. And when we do band together, it's in two nice, neat little piles that are easy to manipulate.

I always give negative rep to posts that use insults. Likewise when someone repeatedly uses fallacious logic after it's been pointed out. I never give negative rep simply when someone is wrong and never just because they hold an opinion that differs from mine. I don't use the positive rep as much as I should. Many people give such consistently great comments that I often forget to acknowledge them.

On which side of the line is THIS guy? It's unfortunate that we're not equipped to help someone like this. This isn't his first post and threads we leave open get filled with pleas that he seek psychiatric help, which he's convinced he doesn't need. I reserve the right to delete any posts after this one. I'm not entirely comfortable discussing another member in an open section, but I just feel so bad for this guy that I needed some input. Let's keep any comments professional, please.

But LDLs are what carry cholesterol through the bloodstream. We need them very badly. It's only when their packets are unaccepted by the cells that they fall to the artery walls and become plaque. It would be better to figure out how to make cells put out more cholesterol receptors. One thing that tells cells not to flag down LDLs is insulin. Figure out how not to trigger insulin and LDLs will deliver more cholesterol where it's needed and HDLs won't be needed to clean up the artery walls.

Why attack the lipoproteins? They're transporters, so you'd be leaving fats and cholesterol in the blood stream with no escort. And cholesterol is really important for cell structure. It's everywhere in the body. I'm not sure attacking it with bacteria is wise.

It's a Christian methodology to tie the religion to other beliefs in order to work its way into the mainstream. Look at all the pagan holidays it took over, like Christmas and Easter. If you come in and try a short-term denouncement of another religion, you get a defensive response. If you adopt the other religion and work alongside patiently as a long-term strategy, you eventually gain support. Look at the way passive promotion of western long-term strategies overthrew the former Soviet Union, as opposed to aggressive western short-term military efforts to curb Islamic state governance.

The Tea Party was a bandwagon that few wanted to just jump on; what they wanted to do was steer it. As I said, the name was supposed to recall the "No taxation without representation" battlecry of the original Tea Party. Then those who wanted to keep taxes lower for themselves grabbed the reins and changed the slogan. When "oppressive government regulation" became the thrust, the religious conservatives who want to steer abortion and same-sex marriage legislation their way also jumped on. It's those people who are anti-science, although the anti-corporate-tax/anti-wealthy-tax people will happily thump a bible or two to get their way. They have a history of killing many birds with one stone, some spilled oil and a haze of burned coal. Everyone on that bandwagon is so happy to think themselves in control that they don't realize the straw they're sitting on is covering barrels of toxic waste just waiting for relaxed government regulations. And since science is suggesting that we be more concerned about the impact of such actions, science is going to be treated like the devil. It's no wonder why the mega-corporate tax dodgers openly welcome the religious right.

I don't get this either. Why thermite? If you're using thermite so no one finds explosives residue after the fact, why would thermite residue be any less suspicious? It ruins the whole idea. Regular explosives could have been explained away as having been on board the planes with the terrorists. From all I've heard, it doesn't seem to be all that surprising that the buildings came down. Although they were engineered to survive a passenger jet impact, it sounds like they could not survive even one floor falling down on top of the next. And that seems guaranteed from a fire accelerated by 23,000 gallons of av fuel.