Pangloss

I don't think it's an overall limit, I think it's a set of criteria for each country of origin. But if I'm wrong, let's see it. What federal law or regulation governs that? But getting back to the point of the OP, I reject the premise that we are xenophobic and anti-immigration as a general bent, and that we need to turn that around in order to resolve the economic crisis. That premise is false -- according to the well-sourced Wikipedia articles on immigration, we bring in more people each year than any other country on the planet, and there are more people in this country who were born elsewhere than in the entire populations of many if not most European nations. The idea that we're a closed society that could solve all of its problems if we were only more progressive is ludicrous and partisan.

The best advice I ever got on using PowerPoint slides in the classroom is to stop using PowerPoint slides in the classroom. It was my first teaching position, and I had no idea what I was doing, and I fell right into the PowerPoint crutch. I was just lucky enough to have a program chair who cared enough to come sit in my class and then tell me what I was doing wrong. (It's amazing to me how infrequently that actually happens.) My classes went from boring and sleep-worthy to interesting and highly-rated immediately. I also started having a lot more fun in the classroom, which is surprisingly important. The teacher's perspective is a little different from the infrequent-presenter's perspective, but the same general rules apply, including the one about having fun. Do you want to put them to sleep, or do you want to tell them something important? Choose. One way you can kick the habit is to actually go ahead and make slides as if you're going to present them, but instead print them out and then simply hold them in your hand (which is also nice because you can add notes to them that wouldn't fit on the slides). Then LEAVE THE PODIUM and walk around the room, looking people right in the eye, with the lights turned on full bright. Since that time I've gone back to adding in a few slides here and there, but only with a lot of thought and a lot of effort on making them interesting and engaging. Oh, if you get a chance some time, check out the beginning of that awful Tom Hanks movie "The Da Vinci Code". That is one amazing PowerPoint presentation -- I show it to my students whenever I teach PowerPoint, just for inspiration. Ignore the special effects, and just watch how he uses it to enhance what he's telling his audience, rather than using it to replace him. That's a great example. That sort of approach takes a lot of planning and effort, but the payoff can be enormous.

Well I'm no economist, but as I understand it they can certainly produce more money, but if that money isn't backed by something (like a bond or treasury bill) then it will fall in value at a correspondingly equal rate. In most cases the country in question is not self-sufficient, so goods and services will immediately become more expensive to offset the devalued currency, and you face hyperinflation. In some cases the country is self-sufficient enough that it can essentially build an isolated economy and, if necessary, trade for foreign goods based on external resources. Cuba comes to mind as an example of that, and perhaps North Korea, particularly in its relationship with China. Iran is an interesting example -- able to trade its oil on foreign markets in exchange for tremendous import capability in spite of economic sanctions. But I digress. I know consumer confidence also plays a role, but I believe as a general rule any market with working adults in it can be rescued from the hyperinflation trap with a little fiscal responsibility.

What numerical limit?

I'm guessing you go bankrupt if you can't find a buyer for your debts. The debts being all the money you printed up to pay for stuff.

Where do you think they got their current cash on hand?

According to ABC the mortgage plan McCain brought out will cost $300 billion. With a B. I wonder if that will be the lasting legacy of the bailout plan -- that it added two orders of magnitude to what government officials consider to be impressive amounts of money. "A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about some real money."

It's accurate in its factual statements, but of course "passing a fact check" implies to a viewer that every allegation and circumstantial suggestion is also true, and that's not the case. John McCain didn't personally cause the S&L crisis, for example, but that statement is included from a third party in the opening scene. Spooky music and dramatic statements from biased individuals does not a case make. (Which, btw, is exactly why I constantly challenge Bascule for his use of ellipses.) My feeling on the Keating scandal has always been that it's a relatively significant event that should not have happened, but that it's generally typical of what happens in the influence game in Washington. It isn't $90,000 in the freezer, but it speaks to the influence problem in general. That is a serious problem, and we never seem to do anything about it, and it's frustrating. It's even more frustrating when Democrats tell us it's something only Republicans do, or vice-versa. But that's not the case here. If this were coming from anyone other than Obama I'd be really steamed about it. As it is, it's probably only a LITTLE bit hypocritical, and frankly there's nobody else in Washington who's likely to ever be able to do anything about this problem. And I don't believe in two wrongs making a right, so I absolutely support criticism of McCain on this issue -- always have. But this is also why I tell partisans to be careful what they wish for. Criticizing something and fixing it are two separate things. Like the guy says in the video, I'm sick of it. And I expect Obama to do something about it, because he said that he would. Expect. That is the correct word.

Yeah, this whole thread I've been complaining about his funny accent and his lack of hair. It's weird how long it's taken everyone to catch on to me. No, obviously I'm commenting on Bill Maher's position on religion, which he has put out there for criticism. I'm not attacking Maher personally, and in fact I think he's a very funny comedian and probably a real fun guy to know. There's no ad hominem in my posts in this thread. None whatsoever. And I'm talking about arguments about religion Bill Maher has made as recently as Friday. Certainly it's possible that it's just a big coincidence that he just released a movie on the exact same subject. Why yes, you're right, he may not appeal to ridicule at all, it could be a straightforward documentary with no attempt at humor whatsoever.

Indeed that would certainly seem to run counter to the notion that you can't ask questions about a movie you haven't seen yet.

Of course! So then we agree that if the movie uses appeal to ridicule then it's wrong to do so, and that it causes harm. Great!

That was how I saw it as well, but I thought you guys had some comments (and amusing quips) above. I suppose I could see a case being made against (hypothetically) a physicist or mathematician who knowingly deceived his employer with a bogus algorithm (fraud?). But there's just no way this can be construed as a let-down by science in general. That having been said, I wonder if some sort of new guidelines might be called-for. Something that would sit as a protective procedural barrier between uneducated managers and brilliant-but-untested methods. Perhaps some sort of peer review process for high-tech financing schemes. (Maybe such a thing already exists?)

That doesn't really make any sense, guy. Not only is it obviously mixing up some pretty familiar cultural metaphors, it's also an obvious play on stereotypes. Sure, and it's an argument I happen to agree with. But this just gets back to the point we discussed earlier about the damage caused by his approach, which I feel is more important than the actual point he's trying to make, however accurate it may happen to be. We have a difference of opinion, obviously. You feel the ends justify the means, and those ends, however wrong, can be casually dismissed as you've done above, because the larger truth is more important. I don't. In fact I feel just the opposite. Not only do the ends not justify the means, the means are actually the greater problem. Certainly it is, and the danger is there regardless of the accuracy. How much value do you think there would be in having a thread on our Politics forum to discuss the Berg v Obama case? That's the federal lawsuit that accuses Obama of not being a US citizen on the basis that his birth certificate is a forgery. Nothing in the basic premise of the argument is false, because they cleverly phrase everything on a factual basis, so it meets your "true and accurate" requirement. But it's a logical fallacy to run around telling people "well if Obama is a US citizen then why doesn't he simply produce his passport and prove it?" AND it would be damaging and detrimental to bring it into the national debate, because that lends it legitimacy and value in the public eye. That's why most media outlets are not actively reporting it, though you can bet their bottom dollar they're following it, "just in case". That's a responsible approach, IMO. But getting back to the point, yes you can propound truth and do so in a dangerous and detrimental manner, absolutely you can. That's my entire point. Exactly, that's the harm. Exaggerating the truth just further separates people. Is it any wonder religious people don't reach out and embrace science, when science constantly gives the appearance of hating them?

That was great, thank you. I think conservatives might look at that and decry liberal bias, but I think those comments actually support the notion that she WAS giving Palin a chance. She gave her every opportunity to blow us away with wit, intelligence, insight, and anything else she might be able to bring to the table. There just wasn't any such available. By the way, I thought SNL was funnier this week. Fey seemed to kick it off well with that bit about the zingers. And that C-SPAN sketch was a total gas -- if you missed that, you actually missed the best political gag of the night. NBC had it up on the SNL site but then took it down, so it's not available at the moment. They do that a lot, and they have no search function and the site is impossible to use, but that's what happens when you put lawyers in charge of technology. Oh well. line[/hr] By the way, just to show how unusual these times are, usually when a popular television show spoofs a political figure, the television show far and away gets more public viewing than the politician's regular appearances. Not so today! This week's episode of Saturday Night Live garnered a 7.4 share, which is something like 8 or 10 million viewers. The Vice Presidential Debate brought in about 70 million viewers. Wow. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27052947/

Indeed it did, thanks for passing it along. He made a really ugly argument, calling a black Christian pastor a "witch doctor". Wow. And he did that right after saying that if that happened to Obama the election would be over. And he wasn't cracking a joke, either. I haven't seen the movie, but the logical fallacy he's used in previous statements on this subject is this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule Yup. But somehow I don't really think it's your position that Expelled is more wrong than Religulous because it contains more logical fallacies. (grin) I thought the rest of your points were fine, but let's take a look at this quote from iNow's link to a video from Bill Maher: Pretty hard not to see the logical fallacies, and the outright harm, in that argument.

Lol.

Wait, Ifill was fielding criticisms about her performance on MTP? Dayum, I missed that.

It's definitely a factor, but with 94% of the mortgages being paid on time it's clearly not a matter of perception, not reality.

Yeah that seems likely to me as well, though as you say there's a huge difference between the two attacks. Pointing out McCain's Keating connections is just standard negative campaigning. Calling Obama a terrorist is beyond the pale.

Interesting story on 60 Minutes tonight about the financial crisis. One thing they said that caught my ear was that some of the weird securities that involved the breaking up of mortgage-backed securities into tiny pieces and then remarketing them in creative ways were designed by "Nobel-track" physicists and mathematicians working on the side for the Wall Street firms. The complex algorithms designed by these people were supposed to reduce risk, and the managers took their word for it and leveraged to the hilt. Much of the crisis is blamed on mortgage failures, but in fact (again according to this story) 94% of all US mortgages are currently being paid on time. So you can kinda see where this is going -- scientists getting left holding the ball. However the story does go on to say that most of the blame resides with "insurance"-like entities called "swaps". And the problem with that anti-scientist reasoning, of course, is that no security should be banked to the extent that these were -- with something like $60 trillion in securities being traded -- with whole companies riding on them -- unless that security is fully understood by its own managers. Even worse, these products were given high security ratings by Moody and S&P! 60 Minutes has the 12-minute story online here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4502673n What do you all think? I think they're making scientists the fall guys for their own screw-ups.

What insight do you feel that provides?

I agree with that, but really the point of a message film is not for the messenger to simply express their personal view, but rather to lend it tremendous additional power above and beyond the level of "one man's view". When you combine that with the flawed approach of appeal to ridicule then you have something that's more dangerous than a simple expression of opinion undermined by a logical fallacy. We used to understand about great power and great responsibility. Today we supplant that understanding with negative, destructive concepts, like "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", or "if it isn't illegal it must be okay" (just ask Wall Street). A few posts back someone brought up George Bush, and perhaps his point is valid, but as I've said here before, the man did not rise to power in a vacuum. We put him there, sure as anything. Even those of us who didn't vote for him -- we all contributed to creating the environment in which he thrived. Would there be such a thing as "swiftboating" if people didn't buy into it? We made Karl Rove possible. We give guys like that the fuel they need to make their fires.

That was an interesting post, so don't take this the wrong way, but unless you meant that as a justification it doesn't really answer the question on the value of intolerance, and, aside from the initial "stab" bit, that's not really what I gathered from your post. Same question as iNow: Do you feel that intolerance of religion, and specifically the ridicule of religion and religious people, is a productive and desirable means of bringing about social change? And if so, why? I'm gonna stop ya right there, because I think that's a straw man. If Religulous were a serious criticism of religion then it would clearly lack credibility because of the logical fallacy of "appeal to ridicule". For example, making fun of the look on somebody's face when they're speaking in tongues is not a scientific refutation of whether or not they're speaking with a deity. The part about religion being a sensitive subject, that's legitimate in my opinion, but I don't know that it's relevant here, for the reasons described directly above. Great, I'm glad we agree. If you want to bring up the subject of religion's validity, as foodchain did (nothin' wrong with that), I would agree and say that there's nothing wrong with pointing out the flaws in arguments in favor of religion. Absolutely. Now it gets interesting: Cool, that's a gutsy post, and stated with aplomb. Because you basically just said in the three quotes above "Logical fallacies are bad, but it's okay to use them when logically valid approaches are not working." In short, the ends justify the means. In this case, the ends being mocking people mercilessly and expressing open disgust at their behavior, and more importantly, encouraging other people to do the same, which is what making a documentary movie is all about. It's not just Bill Maher expressing his personal opinion -- it's Bill Maher telling you that you should do this too (he said so himself when he said it is a message film). Exactly! Houston, the light is green, we have a meeting of the minds! I admit it's not a very deep comparison. And, of course, I completely disagree with your justification, though I see no need to repeat all that -- you got my point. And I admire you for saying what I think a lot of people here are afraid to say. Let's face it, neither you nor I are going to decide whether society is going to continue to accept this approach. It may embrace it, reject it, or anything in-between, but it won't be at MY behest. All I can do is express my opinion and then deal with it. And in that sense I've already accepted that this is the way things are at the moment. And being the eternal optimist that I am ("We live in the best of all possible worlds!"), my feeling is that ultimately some good can come of it. I'm a big believer in "process" in societal growth. You know the old saying about repeating the mistakes of history? Don't buy it. Never have. Quite the contrary, in fact -- the repetition makes us better. Thanks for the reply.

Okay, what I'm talking about is the general principle of "appeal to ridicule" and what value it may or may not have in society. I posed that question in the opening post: "Isn't intolerance a far greater problem facing society than religion?" You directly answered that with the following: That's an interesting answer and I would like to explore it further. You say that the subject of intolerance is what matters. Okay, the subject here is religion. Do you feel that intolerance of religion, and specifically the ridicule of religion and religious people, is a productive and desirable means of bringing about social change? And if so, why? (We're on the same page regarding the respect issue you mentioned up-thread; I appreciated what you said. I don't think anything less of you for this position, if it even is your position -- I see it as an intellectual difference of opinion, not a character issue. In fact we probably couldn't have had this discussion earlier without yelling at one another, but I think we can have it now.)

Well I agree with you that there is no intended message in Wall-E, at least from all that I've read about it. So I am a little surprised by the correlation with Maher's documentary, which he himself states is a message piece. I'm also not sure I understand the value of forcing people to accept ridicule and just deal with it, and not "make mountains out of molehills". It sounds like what you're saying is that ridicule is okay when applied for benevolent purposes and on approved subjects, with the validity of approval being the scientific determination that the target is harming themselves in some manner. In other words, society has an obligation to shame them into shaping up, and that this is a right and proper thing to do. Am I reading you wrong?