Phi for All

I'm reminded of when the Chinese government wanted to remove the McDonald's from Tienanmen Square, despite the fact that they themselves had negotiated a 20-year lease. It seems that promises from the Chinese government are not the same thing as promises elsewhere. I'm betting the Chinese government was counting on just this reaction. Using the leverage we have seems to be the only thing that will motivate them to adhere to agreements, such as when we threatened to block Guangdong's textile exports to the US unless they put a stop to the province's pirate factories.

I remember thinking a while back that credit debt, education and employment are a powerful combination that someone is likely to exploit. The scenario goes like this: Your public education won't get you very far in the job market (for some reason, public schools don't get the funding and attention in the US they do elsewhere), and you've been encouraged even as a teen to use credit cards. Suddenly an offer comes in to pay for your college tuition, as long as you study certain courses and allow a company to be named later to pick up your debt. When you graduate, various companies who need what you've been schooled for now offer to pick up your debt in exchange for a work contract. The company may even help you get a loan for a house (but then you'd have to work longer to pay it off). I think those in debt will have a pretty rude awakening in the near future.

Consider also that patents are being extended, in a time when technology is improving at such a rapid pace that some patents could conceivably be suppressed long enough to make the new technology obsolete as the market moves past it. How much technology that could spark even greater technology will we miss out on because it could hurt a current market? If a technological singularity is on the horizon, how will current patent law keep pace (or fail to)?

I wonder if a great deal of these types of bills isn't about exploitation approval. The public cries out for something to be done, the pols come up with a fix and it just happens to involve a lot of really great business opportunities (earmarks) for those who are in a good position to exploit them. The public says, "Do it!" and the exploitation is approved. And now there's probably a guy who is a heavy contributor to someone's campaign who just happens to offer a fingerprinting service that is pre-approved by the FBI. Notice that the bill calls for the mortgage lenders to send in their fingerprints to the FBI, not have their fingerprints done by the FBI.... 600 pages can hide a lot of exploitation.

If his fears are justified, do you see cell phones being eliminated, or would they just put a warning label on them like cigarette packs? Or possibly a new anti-brain cancer accessory could be sold, or better yet, a monthly subscription service.... For an extra $6.95 a month, you can upgrade to our BrainStain service! A special dye is injected from the phone through your ear so your doctor can map changes in your CAT scans!

No need to be sorry. I'm giddy with glee, myself. Thread closed.

This part sounds more like the Fundamental Attribution Error. We label because we love to categorize, but we attribute behavior to the label because we don't tend to look at others in context. It's much easier to ascribe the term "liberal" to someone who doesn't like corporate conglomerates, rather than to dig deeper to find out that their concerns are actually for business and fair markets in general and are actually quite conservative. Much easier, but completely wrong.

Most crackpots, in my experience, fall prey to the idea that education is a flawed and stifling process that inhibits creative thinking, and that thinking creatively is the only thing that will help us out of the rut we've dug ourselves into, because science is full of old men who were educated the same old way. And that's bad because after all, education is a flawed and stifling process that inhibits creative thinking.... Crackpot science is lazy and lacks rigor. It's arguments are flawed and it's logic is circular. It's a "get-smart-quick" scheme.

You have to expand on this, otherwise I'm left with too much conjecture, such as:1) Kicking is the standard field treatment for lightning victims 2) Your mate wasn't trying to put you down, he was trying to put you out 3) He was angry because you took his turn at being struck 4) Your mate didn't want to get char on his hands

I find it interesting that the map was obviously started on a non-square piece of paper. You can see how the bottom left corner is missing but the writing follows the missing part, so it follows that the cartographer may have fudged the relationship between South America and Antartica for mundane reasons.

You should "see yourself as not a scientist or physicist, but a philosopher", swansont. This is a diatribe from the heart of misunderstanding. Surely some "fun and carefree time" will ensue. Or not.

Since the dialogue we would normally have has been completed in the OP, we're left with nothing to discuss. Thread closed.

There's not enough competition to spark the debate needed to correct the corruption. With most media in the hands of a few conglomerates we don't have nearly enough dissenters to point fingers at unworthy practices. This is a market that has gone far beyond being able to correct itself. This is what we get from mega-corp mentality, a total lack of concern for good policy governance and a disconnection from the human factor.

I would agree in general except this time McCain had to add the last sentence, which makes it noteworthy. A mis-statement about history, followed by, "I mean, that’s just a matter of history” is a cut above a minor misstep. Not much, but definitely edging into irony.

This is an optimum moment to change a great deal that needs changing: We have a nationwide shortage of asphalt due to asphalt oil price increases. If we stopped letting people drive on asphalt the day it's put down, we could save billions every year by letting it cure longer and suffering a little inconvenience. We subsidize established markets like oil, milk, sugar and corn for no good reason and many bad ones. We wouldn't need tax increases if we didn't spend taxes on these subsidies. Patented technology that could help is being suppressed so it doesn't harm the profits of a current market. We need to change patent law so that mega-corps who can afford to extend patents can't do so to keep us from progressing. I agree with Gore that we need to start now to protect ourselves and our environment and I can't find any fault with the idea of moving in a direction that empowers us without polluting us. If we're not seriously committed to moving off-planet in the very near future, we need to become more sustainable in our world view.

Most technology that starts out with military applications ends up sparking a few dozen non-military applications as well, once it can be made safe for those uses. The scenario you paint where technology continues to progress faster and faster has its limits, but it may actually be the factor that helps us progress to a Star Trek-type level, where money is done away with and a sort of meritocracy is established. Capitalistic markets need technology to slow down long enough to be controlled and exploited. Maybe if progress becomes too rapid to allow profitable manufacturing, we might just give up our markets and shoot for the stars.

This is the key, imo. Bullies target the kids that give them the best response. Smart kids usually have more verbal acuity and bullies look bad when the tables are turned. It's the kids who get defensive, who are visually uncomfortable, and who respond nervously that get repeatedly bullied. Most bullies are too lazy to be challenged by a moving target; they tend to aim at the ones that are easiest to hit.

I agree.

I tried to make the distinction between shampoo and soap. Soap is a better overall cleaning agent for hair because it has it's own oils or fats, but doesn't work as well with hard water. Detergents like shampoo lather well even in hard water, but tend to strip out more of the natural oil (sebum) from your hair, and that needs to be replaced or the hair isn't as well protected. I agree with this and I shouldn't have made it a generality. I was trying to point out that most shampoos are harsher on hair than soap, usually requiring a conditioner be used after shampooing (the fancy salons never skip the conditioner). Soap doesn't work as well when your water is highly alkaline but is less harsh on your hair (if you use a water softener, it will keep soap from leaving the scummy residue that happens with hard water).

This is pretty bad. I felt a bit this way when McCain made the Iran/Pakistan border comment; you don't even start talking about the Middle East if you don't have your brain straight on the difference between Iraq and Iran. But this is much worse. If he was reading from a prepared statement he should have taken those words back as soon as they were out of his mouth. And if he was just winging it, it shows a real disconnect that a Senator forgets which committees he's on, even if he is campaigning for another office.

Good reporting and journalism doesn't sell enough air freshener.

Michael Shermer, skeptic over at Scientific American, has written a book called The Mind of the Market. I read this article about some of his findings and they may have some relevance here. It seems primates have a heightened sense of reciprocal altruism. We are very cognizant of "fairness". Logic tells us to be happy with what comes our way but this reciprocal altruism tells us it's not fair that some have more than we do. We rectify the situation with some well-documented knee-jerk responses, like buying something we don't need to give us the illusion of fairness. The entire designer clothing industry is built on this principle; rich people can afford the clothing, but it's the middle class who make up the majority of the profits by purchasing the accessories. We can't afford to look like Armani, but we can afford to smell like him. This seems like a fair trade. We have unfortunately become inured to the idea that equity, comfort and convenience are more important than financial freedom. We wail that we can't afford to go out more often while we sip on designer coffee that costs us weekly what a night at the movies costs. There is also the celebrity factor. We see many nouveau-riche spending extravagantly and that becomes our idea of what rich people do. We dismiss the stories of how they wasted their money and fell on hard times later and instead remember how many cars they bought or hotel rooms they trashed. And you're right about there being no one to tell us how bad debt is. Just the opposite, we hear every day about how easy it is to sidestep a lack of funds with credit. Couple that with all the advertising telling us how inadequate we are and it's not hard to see why we fall prey to debt and still think life is unfair.

Shampoo is pretty harsh on hair, being a detergent rather than a soap (soaps often have oils and fats in them). Oiling your hair can replace some of the oil you lose from shampooing. Oil keeps the hair elastic so it doesn't break off as easily. Conditioners are good for your hair, but only because shampoos are so bad for it. Shampoos replaced soaps for hair because of alkaline, or hard, water. I think a big benefit from adding oil to your hair is the massage you give your scalp. This stimulates the scalp to produce its own oil and keeps skin and hair healthy.

You had me at, "Good news".

A Catholic politician who supports creationism/ID in the classroom? I think I know where that demon went after being exorcised.