MigL

Now you're being really obtuse. I have presented the reasoning that leads to my ideas, while you keep on insisting I have a 'secret agenda' and should just 'come out and say it'. Let me try one final time and, please, read this several times until you understand what I'm trying to say or ask for clarification before jumping to your usual conclusions. Say you or I are driving down the road and a cop pulls us over, chances are you'll have a civil conversation with him before he scolds us or tickets us for speeding. This has happened ( too ) many times to me, but its always been civil and not threatening or intimidating. Now consider a Polish immigrant in Vancouver airport, I don't recall, but say about 15 yrs ago. He is approached by police for a routine matter, but he doesn't understand English. He becomes agitated then violent and is tasered numerous times before he is sudued. He dies due to the tasering and I don't recall if he had a heart condition. This was a real incident. Now say you are a black kid who gets stopped for a routine matter by police, be it in Ferguson, or any other city after the Ferguson incident, do you think you would be civil, or do you think you wouldn't be afraid for your life ? Do you think your life experiences wouldn't influence the response you have to this real or perceived threat ? Do you think you wouldn't run or try to resist arrest ? Do you think you wouldn't imagine getting shot through the head just as happened in Ferguson, and just as the Polish immigrant recalled the actions of the 'secret police' in the former communist Poland ? Do you think you wouldn't try to fight back, even if there was a perfectly valid reason for being stopped, and there was no real danger to you ? If you answered yes to any of the above questions you're full of sh*t, because your life experiences DO dictate how you respond to situations. If you answered no, then I believe I have proved my assertion and we can get back on topic.

And I ( and Zapatos ) have provided the same Ferguson example as evidence of unfair racial profiling/treatment giving rise to push-back and an increase in injuries/damage. Another would be the L.A. riots after Rodney King which also stemmed from unfair treatment by the LAPD and ultimately led to hundreds of arrests and injuries. What more can I do to address your question above ?

I have made my point, and the question is clearly asked in my previous post. You don't seem to want to discuss the point I raised, and seem more interested in discussing my motivation, mindset or political correctness. Maybe you'd like to start another thread where we can discuss my qualities. Frankly, I'm flattered.

My apologies Endy0816, I really didn't realize my post could be interpreted that way. I assure you that's not the way it was meant. I intended to mean that legal Americans ( and even a lot of the illegals ) are proud to call themselves Americans. It is only locally that they identify their race/culture. I don't live in the US, but I assure you, any visitors/tourists we get in Canada don't call themselves Latinos, Hispanics, etc. They call themselves American !

Well Cameron does seem a little worried. He's off to Scotland to rally support and is flying the blue/white at his residence.

Thanks for the clarification, Ophiolite.

Tell me Ten oz, how many blacks were arrested after the rioting in Ferguson ? Now this rioting may have been justified ( ?), but it was something of their own doing, was it not ? And how many were injured when they resisted arrest ? Does this not skew the statistics ? There is no fluff, I'm asking a legitimate question and not denying anything. Does the statistic presented reflect other causes, some of which may be of their own doing ? You on the other hand, are implying that there is a problem with the question ( and me and my thinking, by extension ), as if there is ever a problem with seeking answers. If I had jumped to the conclusion that it is something exclusively of their own doing from the outset, then there would be a problem. You seem to have done just that, with your 'non-ugly' conclusion and excluded all other possibilities. And quite frankly, I don't care if you are offended, you're a big boy now. ( Don't be so offended that you discontinue the discussion though, I do enjoy this )

Are you now stooping to calling me a bigot Acme ? Or am I misunderstanding ? No really, it wasn't clear from your post.

I don't remember stating 'their experiences and feelings are moot'. I do remember saying ' have been and feel oppressed by the law' and regardless of whether this is a 'real or perceived oppression'. Stop colouring my comments with your own biases and debate the issues. I just asked a question as to the POSSIBILITY of it being a partial cause. You did notice the question mark at the end, did you not ? If YOU have evidence that invalidates this POSSIBILITY, please present it. Otherwise it could be a POSSIBILITY. Or are you now a member of the thought police who can pass judgement on other's thoughts and opinions, because I thought that's what we were doing, debating this theory or possibility. Sorry Zapatos, you managed to post before I did with virtually the same content. I'm also sorry if I didn't make myself clear enough Ten oz, I certainly did not mean to denigrate a large number of people with ugly assertions, but the push-back that zapatos refers to is certainly evident in the rioting in Ferguson or L.A. a few yrs ago, and may or may not be justified ( not the point ), i.e. my assertion or theory IS a possibility.

Well, no sense posting to this one. The OP is just playing games.

I don't remember who it was that first interpreted entropy statistically, maybe Boltzmann, but this association with order/disorder seems to confuse people more than help. The original thermodynamic interpretation was simply 'an energy which is no longer capable of doing work'. Consider for example, one of the largest stores of energy in the universe, small in amplitude, but vast in extent as it permeates the whole universe. The Cosmic Microwave Background has no gradient or direction, and hence, no potential. It is an almost scalar energy field and entropic in nature, i.e. it cannot do any work. Just to detect it, the equipment has to be cooled to near absolute zero, so that there is a potential and 'work' is done on the detector. A black hole on the other hand, still has mass. And since mass is equivalent to energy, that means it can radiate as long as it is small enough that its 'temperature' is higher than 2.7 deg. If it is large such that its temperature is close to absolute zero, then it is actually gaining mass from the CMB.

Always thought plate tectonics meant a liquid core on which solid plates 'float'. Mars has little if any molten core left, so the solid surface doesn't 'float'. Europa has a single level solid surface, so sections of the solid surface plates don't rise over or descend beneath other plates. But they do crush into each other somewhat like ice floes in the Arctic. Does that mean they cannot be called plate tectonics which has a very specific meaning ? On a related note, is it possible for Europa to be liquid all the way to the centre ? It would need to be composed of mostly one thing and be a certain size, but is it possible ?

It is not philosophical at all, Eise, and actually very scientific. What you described, the fact that we can perform an action today with a specific result, then repeat it tomorrow with exactly the same result, is nothing more than the time symmetry which gives rise to the Law of Conservation of Energy.

That may be true for the newer CMOS sensors swansont, and although its been years since I had one, the Nikon D50 DSLR with a CCD sensor could easily be modified for infrared use. I'm sure instructions are just a google away.

The latinos you are referring to Mr.Zurich92, are illegals. All legal latinos call themselves Americans and have appropriate rights and obligations.

Don't worry, even IF you were rude, I'm not that easily offended, and my opinions are just as valid as anyone else's. I always question statistics. and as I implied in my previous post and Zapatos has stated, unless all other variables are isolated, there is no proof of causation, i.e. no matter how 'ugly', my assertion could be just as valid as iNow's. Sorry, my mistake, iNow did not draw any conclusions from the statistics he presented. He leaves the results open to interpretation. If you jump to a specific interpretation, instead of considering all others, then the bias is yours.

The civil war may have been 150 yrs ago, but ISIS wants to take the area of the Levant back to the 13th century. If you re-read my post, you'll note that although I have isolationist leanings, I don't advocate it as a course of action, since the US will be blamed by the rest of the world if they don't intervene. This has happened numerous times in Africa and even Europe ( more so lately ), and the 'apologists' always claim that lack of oil is the reason. However... Until the middle eastern people decide to rise up for their rights against the oppression of these terrorists, just like 1st world nations did 150 or 75 yrs ago, nothing will change. To appreciate how fragile and valuable democracy is, you have to earn it with blood. Unfortunately only tyrants and dictators can nation build ( through fear, oppression and murder ).

Going to play devil's advocate again, just for the sake of discussion. Would you agree that some of the 5x disparity ( obviously not all ), is caused by the fact that Black Americans have been, and feel themselves to be oppressed by the law. They then are more likely to fight back against this real or perceived oppressive behavior ultimately leading to more injuries ( deliberate or not ) ?

Well I don't live on your fair island, but Man U. is my team ( they had better shape up or I'm going back to watching Italian Serie A ), so I do take an interest. In your opinion,what are Cameron's chances of surviving if its a positive or very close vote ? We had a similar problem with Quebec here in a 90s referendum. Maybe the French-Canadians are more wily than the Scots. They don't actually plan to separate, but use the ongoing threat to extort government money and 'special' unconstitutional ( actually a charter, wouldn't wanna be called muddled again ) privileges from the rest of the country.

My aunt lives in Switzerland ( Zurich as a matter of fact ) as do my cousins. My dad used to work in Switzerland in the 60s prior to emigrating to Canada in 1968 from south-central Italy. Maybe Switzerland's proportional representation type of coalition government works well with their multi-party system ( maybe the Swiss are more sensible ), but it has failed miserably in Italy. Their government falls about every six months ( OK I'm slightly exaggerating ) since WW2, and they have trouble getting anything accomplished. Also I don't know if the laws are now changed, but the Swiss treated their immigrants fairly bad . There was severe discrimination against immigrants which kept them from owning property among other things. In the US, every immigrant who is here legally has the same rights as everyone else. They are all Americans. Canada is very similar, except that in the 70s, Mr Trudeau started the Multiculturalism Experiment, where we pay new immigrants to keep the culture, morals and ideals of the oppressive societies they were trying to escape from ( a ploy to get the immigrant vote ). So we now have hyphenated Canadians like French-Canadians, Italo-Canadians, Irish-Canadians, Chinese-Canadians, etc.

Latest poll is 51% to 49% in favour of independence. Stock markets are already falling to be followed by the government. This could get ugly. I blame Sean Connery, swansont.

You are right swansont, maybe the US should keep out of the middle east. Let them fight their own bloody civil war like the Americans did to further equality. Let them fight their world wars like Europe did to eliminate oppression. It would be a lot easier if the 'bleeding-heart apologists' ( just kidding ) didn't blame the US afterwards for not intervening.

"Yeah, that will really help." Yes John, it will help about as much as electing known terrorists as your representatives. Or is stupidity tolerated for Palestinians but not for Israelis ? Both cited objections were in the same example. One starts "In the lead-up to the elections" and the other "During the elections" No 'muddling' here but certainly confusion on your end. Maybe the cobwebs in your head will have cleared by the time I get back from vacation.

Yes of course, just like I didn't like the outcome of Hitler's election. I thought I made that abundantly clear. Any time 'sh*ts' who abuse their own people are put in power, by so called legitimate elections, I don't like the outcome. Should that surprise you ? They have every right to elect whomever they wish, but that doesn't diminish our rights to not like the outcome or react acoordingly, such as not legitimizing or recognizing the 'sh*ts', or by cutting aid or even by segregation like a wall. I did note that both of your cited objections to the legitimacy of the election involved so called 'wrong-doing' by Israel. As if without Israel's involvement the elections would have been a model for all democracies to follow ( extreme sarcasm ). That says something about your objectivity.

If I remember correctly, when travelling at speeds over 100 mi/hr in a train, all the air is sucked out of the train car and you suffocate. This was a common belief in the late 19th century