Phi for All

I thought NAFTA bankrupted us. Oh, that's right, nationalist thinkers only thought it would bankrupt us. They, like you, don't give enough credit to free market economic structures. I don't know how this would happen, considering that improving the economies of third world countries creates more markets for consumer goods. "A lot of education and expense"? Now who is oversimplifying? Retraining HAS been taken into consideration, and it's one of the things I give kudos to Bush for. He has expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance to workers who have been displaced by the movement of production facilities abroad. Buying products is not a problem for manufacturers today. Global markets are expanding so rapidly that it's hard for most to keep pace with demand. What is a problem is insistence on "more than market" wage by US workers for increasingly sloppy and inferior work habits. I'm appalled by the number of people in service jobs in the US (the kind that can't be outsourced, like clerks, wait staff, mechanics, etc) who don't care about the job or it's performance as long as they get paid. This will destroy the middle class, not offshoring. You are looking for a nineteenth century solution to a twenty-first century problem. Henry Ford may have shown us how mass production could improve lives, but the Japanese showed us how it could rebuild whole countries. We need to keep pace instead of holding on to the past.

And on the flip-side, hybrid and small car sales are going through the roof. Toyota announced at the end of September that they only had a 20-hour supply on their Prius hybrid. They are coming out soon with a Camry hybrid that is expected to outsell every hybrid model to date. I'm so glad it looks like the oil crunch has curbed the automaker's plans for fuel cell designs. When I found out that the hydrogen cells would be using petroleum anyway I just shook my head. Ford and GM have always mispredicted the market on economy cars. They were late to join the compact revolution and when they did they fell short with the Pinto and the Vega. Crappy cars that even had crappy names, like they were ashamed of them for being small (pinto = multi-colored pony, vega = lowland). They've come a long way on quality but they still want to sell big gas-guzzlers over economy cars.

Actually I think it would help control those types of situations. Less lines to cross and simpler chains of command would make for better communications. And they could all wear the same uniforms, with slightly different insignia! Where I think the idea is weak is in security. Right now spies have to go through the military compartmentalization to find out much of value. If the military branches were consolidated it might make secrets less secret. But the benefits of unity far outweigh the security risks, imo.

The JSF is a good example of how a plane made for multifunctionality can be made less expensively because demand and mass production is going to keep the price down. Definitely a step in the right direction, but how much extra did we have to pay to have three different sets of staff input go through three different and compartmentalized procedures for operations? And how much extra money had to be alloted for Northrop Grumman, Lockheed, BAE and all the rest to deal with input from the three seperate branches?

I really miss the options we used to have for checking new posts. Checking the new posts every 3 hours really rocked.

I feel that a great deal of military spending can be curbed by unifying the military under a single command. Right now we have four hands out, vying for every dollar in the military budget. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines all have seperate structures which compete in appropriations. Senator Stuart Symington tried to change this during the Kennedy administration but met with stiff resistance from SecDef Robert McNamara. I've often wondered what the 60's would have been like if JFK hadn't reneged on his promise to make Symington his VP instead of Lyndon Johnson. How much less would we spend and how much more effective would our forces be if we had soldiers who knew about ships and soldiers who knew about tanks and soldiers who knew how to fly planes, and they were all United States Defenders, instead of having internal rivalries, redundant administration and lack of fiscal cohesion between Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines?

Cool! Is that the suit your going to wear to court? You clean up nice, Da!

I can see where someone being threatened in their own home by an intruder could expect the worst. You can't be certain it's just a burglar who has only theft on his mind. Given the nature of the crime, pacifist though I am, I would more than likely jump to the conclusion that someone who has broken into my home poses a threat to the lives therein. And I would like to be able to end that threat without fear of ending up in prison myself for defending my family. But it sounds like this new law extends outside the home. Florida's old laws required residents of a home to make an attempt to flee from an intruder. This new law empowers them to stand their ground, but it goes too far, imo, by extending this privilege to any situation where the citizen feels threatened as long as they are in a place they have a right to be. It seems to me that this bill got out of hand, starting out by protecting your rights in your home, then in your vehicle, then got extended to anywhere you just happened to be, as long as your presence is legitimate. This is going to be a police nightmare, a lawyers dream, and a social travesty. Fear-mongering is getting out of hand in the US and I'm afraid this new law in Florida is going to have everyone there packing heat and looking for their space to be threatened.

Do anything other than ignore him and he wins again. If you take the time to come up with some snappy comeback then he knows how much this means to you. The more you let it show that it bugs you, the more he's going to keep doing it. Take a poke at him or soemthing stupider that lands you in jail and he really wins big. Do yourself a favor, the next time he starts in on you just smile like he said something really stupid. Never respond verbally to anything he says, just pretend it's all jibberish. If he keeps talking, just smile bigger, laugh and act like he's one of those TV charicatures of the dumbest guy on the planet. Look incredulous, shake your head and just smile like you can't believe natural selection hasn't wiped this guy off the face of the planet. Picture him with a tremendous overbite, drool on his chin and flies buzzing around his head. He'll look like the jerk he is as long as you DON'T SAY A WORD!

Because Photoshop makes it easy to be on the cover of Time Magazine.

I had heard that many hospitals have taken grapefruit and grapefruit juice off their menus because it contains compounds which may inhibit certain pathways in the intestinal walls. This was the reason it became popular with some dieters, but I believe it may decrease the effectiveness of certain medications. I have not heard whether all citrus products do this, only grapefruit was mentioned in the articles I saw.

That's not a scientific article, that's a marketing pitch for Randy Alcorn's book! Those quotes are all cover quotes to sell more copies.

But this doesn't mean sound isn't generated, and that is stated specifically. "He detonates the accelerating ball in mid-air..." Is this a red herring or is it a key to the solution? Also, why an exploding bowling ball instead of just a bomb? And if he doesn't want to waste it why set it off? Does flying over the ocean have any significance or is it just so the bomblets won't hurt anyone?

Are they all from AOL?

It's our unspoken policy to flock towards controversial subjects to alert trollers that the thread has lots of Moderator attention. Apparently there is not as much controversy about offshoring as we thought. It's also a habit of the wise to speak to the most intelligent people in the room. * ducks for cover *

Could the "aircraft" be a shuttle in orbit? That would account for no heat or sound. The "bowling ball" (very heavy at 10kg/22 pounds) could have exploded due to the vacuum of space (except it states that the pilot exploded it manually). To me, calling the bomb an exploding bowling ball implies it's shape is round. It also must have had an explosive to propel the pieces and some kind of radio device. Perhaps this is reading too much into it, but the fact that the pieces are identical seems more surprising than the fact that there was no heat or sound (unless it was manufactured that way, as YT2095 suggests).

I used one for a chair for a little over a year. While the "constant unconscious motor adjustments to compensate for changes in your centre of gravity" Glider mentions were not overly tiring, and in fact strengthened my leg and abdominal muscles somewhat, I found that my concentration suffered. You unconsciously end up forcing yourself to stay as still as possible, since even reaching for your mouse upsets your balance. Even after I got used to the motor adjustments, I found that when I needed to concentrate on what a client was saying on a phone conversation I would stand up or sit on the edge of my desk. I'm back in a chair with lumbar support and I prefer it. If you are up and down a lot (and don't have workplace safety issues, as Glider mentioned) it's not a bad way to go. If you are mostly seated at your desk 8 hours a day I would not recommend it.

I see three main mistakes come up in every creationist argument, including this one: 1) Creationists always equate "theory" with "an idea someone dreamed up". I think it's because of the sound byte "conspiracy theory" has such a hair-brained connotation. Fact: a scientific theory is as close to absolute certainty as it ever gets. Rigorous testing and observation, along with peer review and more testing go into a hypothesis before it gains the prestigious title of "theory". 2) Creationists always use the clockmaker strawman, or some other "designer" argument based on a human invention like airplanes and try to equate it to nature and evolution. Fact: Just because human inventions require a designer doesn't mean a process that can be set in motion and works as well as evolution needs one. It's perfectly possible that some higher power "designed" the evolutionary process so he wouldn't have to "design" everything individually. Science doesn't deny the possibility, it just implies that evolutionary theory doesn't require it. 3) Creationists are so stuck on the idea of "creation" that they apply it to evolution as another strawman argument. Fact: Evolution has nothing to do with how life started, only with how it changes over time. There are other flaws in their arguments, but I see these three ALL THE TIME! And they usually don't change their stance one iota when these arguments are proven false. If I had that many props knocked out from under me so easily, I would at least start to wonder about the strength of my stance.

Let's define our terms here. What we're refering to is actually "offshoring". Outsourcing is simply hiring someone outside your firm to do some work. To its critics offshoring is "sending our jobs overseas", to its proponents it's "competing in a global marketplace". From a moral standpoint, how can the US press for exports and then deny offshoring work? It's usually the desire for our exported goods that has other countries wanting to expand their economies with offshore jobs. Economically, if someone can do the job faster/cheaper/better, competition will favor them. To say it hurts our economy is to start down the road to nationalism. Nationalists never look at both sides of the equation. They want to keep jobs here but don't want to pay $30 for a t-shirt. In the long run, offshoring will help us define which jobs can never be outsourced and will eventually help in re-educating those who've lost jobs. The US will have a more stable workforce with more versatility in terms of competition and competence. And if companies offshoring parts of their work allows them to grow, it helps the overall economy. The company I work for offshores drafting work for architects to India. We may take a US drafting job away, but more buildings get built because the costs are lower, so ten construction jobs open up. And I can't imagine how an electrician or a carpenter could ever have his job offshored.

Great job, all! That's some major brain cell usage. I know I've learned a lot from everyone here. Define "weedy", plz.

I'm taking this from the OP to mean, "What do others think of MY theory?" not "What do others think dreams are all about?" In What the Bleep Do We Know? they brought up historical references (I don't have them) that suggest when Christopher Columbus sailed up to islands who's natives had never seen a European caravel sailing ship before, they simply didn't see it. They knew something was out there coming closer but their brains couldn't make sense of what they saw and therefore showed them nothing visually. It wasn't until they could see men on board that a frame of reference became available and they were able to "see" the ships that carried them. Perhaps we see amazing things all the time and feel premonition-like feelings, but have no logical frame of reference and therefore dismiss it as irrelevant. This could account for many supernatural experiences and feelings.

My daughter was (unprofessionally) diagnosed with ADD while in preschool. We refused to go the traditional route of Ritalin and ignorance and investigated other solutions. We found the Sensory Integration Institute in a town 30 miles away. My daughter was tested and they found she had a slight imbalance in her hearing, something most tests miss. It was causing aural input to lag behind other sensory input. They ran sessions with her being bombarded by lots of different sensations while being asked to perform certain actions (lying on an oscillating table in a dark room with a slowly pulsing colored light, listening to music on headphones adjusted for her hearing impairment, playing with glow-in-the-dark toys while answering questions). The sessions forced her to integrate all the varied sensations and the results were very impressive. She has no problems with first grade and is doing extremely well socially, too. I've wanted to laugh in the face of the social worker who urged us to put her on Ritalin (she herself had been taking it since she was young). jordan, you might want to try altering the sensory stimuli in your study area. Be scientific about it and try different lighting, listen to some music (instrumental only, like classical or some good jazz), even try sitting on an exercise ball or something with different tactile input. Try lighting a scented candle also. Record your observations and how much you read and comprehend. Perhaps some sensory combination will lead you to better success.