Pangloss

I agree there's been an impact -- we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars that should never have been printed in the first place (much less spent elsewhere). I'm sure some items that were priorities in 2001 became less so. But what has the NSF budget done since 2001? Grown or shrank? I don't know, do you? How many new drugs have come out? Other medical breakthroughs? How many new car designs, new computer technology, new engineering feats? We do both. I suggest that what has suffered is the national debt, not science or "problem solving" or what have you. Edit: Come to think on it, I think Ashcroft was about to embark on a new "War on Pornography" on the day 9/11 happened. I guess that could be seen as an example of what Bascule is talking about.

I neither said nor suggested anything of the kind. I don't think you're entirely wrong about our priorities being misplaced, but I think you're throwing out a straw man in saying that other inquiries have been harmed. As you say, we can do both, but my point is that we have.

(grin) "How will his sexual orientation inform his presidency?" Oh wait, he's not running for president... Representativenacy? I need a word, lol.

Not that this is exactly the same subject as what you two were talking about above, but I'm actually okay with partisan efforts (ostensibly partisan) to get out the vote. Two reasons: First, because partisanship is not a transferable property -- it's a developed interest (meaning new voters could easily change their minds, and besides, hell hath no fury like a voter scorned). And second, nobody lacks for a communication channel with the national candidates, so if your message is correct it should make no difference if you're facing a slightly larger number of voters to persuade. Well, paying attention to 9/11 hasn't stopped hundreds of new drugs from being released, or plenty of other improvements in society. And it's pretty obvious that we wouldn't have solved most of those problems even if we hadn't had 9/11 to deal with.

That could be. I'm pretty sure "out" gays have run for House seats before, but perhaps not won. It's an interesting point if true. Cool, thanks.

I disagree. People who achieve power in the US ultimately and invariably find that they have to answer to the people and to the judgment of history. The proof is in the pudding -- governments lose authority and can no longer pass the bills they want, politicians fall out of favor, poll ratings drop, and the people demand change. You're also wrong about the nature and motivation of American politicians. There's little if any evidence of pure power-seekers, and there's always at least a stated reason before they start lobbing the smart bombs. The reasons we get into wars may be wrong or mistaken, but reasons exist -- they don't do it because of a need to "remain at war with someone". Your statements reveal a complete, fundamental lack of understanding of why Americans get into government, what they do when they get there, the level of scrutiny and accountability they face while in power, and the self-assessment we do as a society afterwards. We may not be very good at not repeating the mistakes of history (sometimes), but we're pretty darned good at leveling blame and writing down how we feel about it. (lol)

I'm curious how people in Colorado's 2nd are reacting to the candidate. (And how they feel about losing their Udall.) That district has an interesting political makeup because it's comprised of residential Denverites and Front-Range mountain-dwellers. Colorado traditionally is politically somewhat split between mountain-dwelling progressives (not backwards types, I'm talking about ski bums and resort owners) and metro-area, hardcore Christian conservatives (Focus on the Family is based down the road a bit in Colorado Springs). It's a bit of a microcosm for the country as a whole. But the 2nd district is interesting because it crosses that divide. Of course, as I understand it it's become more conservative over the years, with Denver expanding west into the hills, hasn't it? (I don't mean to steal bascule's thunder on this, it's just that my sister used to live in Summit county (she lives near Aspen now) so I've got some background in the area. I'm sure bascule knows a lot more about it than I do.)

It's cool, I didn't take it that way and I don't think Luke really did either. I think it's a good point about relative dangers and 9/11 does get overblown sometimes, and IMO part of the reason why it's so significant is because of the perception that it was significant. It's not just a domestic impact, either. It could be argued that 9/11 has had more impact on international foreign policy issues (foreign policy issues of all countries) than any other single event since WW2. None of which has anything to do with whether McCain and Obama should suspend their attack ads on the anniversary, of course.

That's the best straight-up definition, above. It's not so much that programs are "temporarily saved" there, as it is that programs reside in that space as they are being called for instructions by the CPU, because it's faster than calling for those instructions off the hard drive. Of course, many programs are too large to fit entirely in RAM, so often programs are modularized and only the module you're working on is loaded into RAM at a given time, and then when another module is needed it's loaded from the HD into the RAM.

You asked the wrong question in the poll. If you had asked if it was a viable academic source, or if it should be viewed as authoritative for quoting in papers, then the overwhelming response to your poll would have been negative. It would be ironic if you were to quote these poll results back to your school as evidence that they're wrong, because it doesn't show that at all.

I wasn't accusing iNow of that, I was responding to the author of the piece he was quoting. I think that's a narrow view, in that recognizing religious values that people hold, hearing what they have to say, what their concerns are, and responding to them, doesn't create the environment that the above author fears. That takes a further, far more drastic step, in which religious beliefs override legal concerns and rational thinking.

Just to follow up on my last post, here's an example of how the battle can be fought: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121928142497058879.html?mod=googlenews_wsj I understand why people think nothing can be done, and I definitely understand why young people hate the law (I was a party animal too). But the battle can be fought, you just have to think outside the box a little. And I don't think people realize how the universities are themselves invested in the continuance of the problem.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 90% of the alcohol consumed by minors is in the form of binge drinking. (source) Given that, why do universities sponsor fraternities with rush parties at all? Answer: Because the drinking is a necessary evil -- fraternities are part of campus life, and campus life is a big part of what draws students. College presidents have a clear conflict of interest here. Is it any wonder they call it "impossible" to fix the problem? The Christian Science Monitor's editorial board has this to say: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0821/p08s01-comv.html They're right. The problem isn't that it's unenforceable, it's that we compromise on the issue. Interestingly, Georgia's major universities announced disagreement with the Amethyst Initiative. The presidents of Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia (two absolutely legendary "party schools" (I went to Tech myself)), as well as those of Emory University, Morehouse, Georgia State, and Agnes Scott College all refused to sign. http://www.ajc.com/gwinnett/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/08/20/lowering_drinking_age.html

It's not private property if it's a frat house on campus, which is where most of them are. If they're off campus, fine, but that's really none of the university's business anyway, so there's no reason for the college presidents to be involved. But like I said, there's a whole industry revolving around the sale of alcohol to minors, and all you have to do is watch a commercial for "Girls Gone Wild" or visit any college campus on a Friday or Saturday night to see the result. It's ineffective because the problem isn't taken seriously. It's kids being kids, or just not as important as other issues. Part of the campus life, etc. Fine. Make partying no longer part of campus life. Remove the fraternities completely, if that's what it takes. Like I said, the problem isn't that the problem CANNOT be solved, it's that the problem is not taken at the level of seriousness that it could be to solve it.

I agree that's difficult, but you can stop the parties, and the parties are why they're drinking.

Funniest thing I've read all week. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,407263,00.html Hahahaha! You'd have thought the word "bigfoot" would have been enough of a giveaway, eh?

No it isn't, it's just more difficult. And in fact if you can drive past a frat house on a Friday night in Fall term and NOT find any alcohol I'd be amazed. How 'bout a few random raids? How 'bout real penalties for violators? Blind eyes have all sorts of "enforcement issues", and you've just given us an example of how it can work when rules are enforced (NYU). I think you're making my case for me, guy. Here are some: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0701083542.htm http://www.cspinet.org/booze/mlpafact.htm Interesting stuff. These seem to focus on accident-related deaths, but I think there's also stuff out there on binge-drinking, which we've been talking about here as well. I think either of these points are reasonably countered with the concept of not having a legal age at all, but I do think they support the notion that lowering it from 21 to 18 (specifically) is dangerous.

That's an excellent point about maturity levels, but remember, under the current system, these binge-drinkers have little or no prior experience with alcohol when they arrive at the frat houses for freshman rush. What do you think is going to be the result if we immediately legalize drinking at rush, without any further actions to prepare them for that environment? Right, exactly, with supervision and guidance. And the great thing about that is if we had that situation, if most kids were learning about alcohol in that manner, then even those who arrived at college without the benefit of that experience would be exposed to it second-hand by all their peers, who DID learn about it that way. (Telling them to stop being a fool, instead of egging them on.) The more I think about it, the more I agree that no legal drinking age would be better. Unfortunately that's not what's being proposed here, and I suspect that lowering the age from 21 to 18 will, in the current environment, actually cause more harm and solve nothing except to wash the hands of college presidents clean.

A pretty narrow view, IMO. Talking about religion, and recognizing religious values that people hold, doesn't create a religious state.

Or maybe it's university presidents tired of spending money solving a problem they didn't create in the first place and shouldn't be part of their educational mandate either. I completely agree with your points, I just think it's a mistake to lower the drinking age to 18. Under your own definition of the problem, how does that action (lowering it to 18) solve the problem? Wouldn't it make more sense to have no drinking age limit at all? And if you're not going to do that, what is the outcome of lowering it to 18?

Why would you say that it's ineffective when obviously most adults drink responsibly, if they drink at all? I think that's a popular meme, people say "it's ineffective" when what they really mean is "lots of kids are drinking, so it must not be working at all". This is a contradiction: It's an absolute contradiction to say that the laws are being enforced when you have easy, ready access below the drinking age. Clearly someone is breaking the law. That happens because we tolerate that behavior and do nothing to enforce the standard. We see it as trivial, a minor problem, something unworthy of actual attention. Kids just being kids. This is, I'm afraid, another contradiction. You just said that they can't perform a search without a warrant, and then gave an exception that happens to be the one time one would envision enforcement would take place. So clearly there's something they can do about it without violating anybody's rights -- you just said when that can happen. Right, because you were exposed to it early. I actually agree with that reasoning, it's just not what we're discussing here. Your point, apparently, being that enforcement is more successful at NYU than at UMass. Um, okay. Sounds great!

I think part of the problem is the peer pressure society puts on young adults to drink. There's a soft form of it right here in this thread. The kind of reasoning being touted in many posts above makes more sense if a legal drinking age is eliminated and the responsibility is returned to parents from the beginning. But saying it should be 18 actually puts it in the domain of "things you should start doing when you turn a certain age". You hear that excuse a lot from young people where they talk about being able to vote or be drafted but unable to drink. You can't rent a car either, what do these things have to do with one another? Put another way, you don't have to start getting drunk when you turn a certain age. Getting drunk is not a rite of passage to adulthood. Learning how to drink responsibly is not a requirement for the human condition. Where do people get these stupid ideas? From us? Are we insane? I agree with the suggestion that having a legal drinking age (and having it be 21) contributes to that problem, but here's a thought -- why not solve that problem first (the peer pressure issue), then talk about lowering or eliminating the drinking age? As for enforcement, the talk above about how they can't do anything really irks me -- that is pure bunk. You've got whole industries revolving around selling alcohol to people who can't have it. Go after the sellers, for pete's sake. There's no "police state" about it. Make it hurt to sell alcohol to minors, make it unprofitable, and it'll stop tomorrow.

Ah, ok.

You hear this from time to time -- that the drinking age should be lowered. Usually it's college students singing the tune. What's unusual this time is that it's coming from college presidents. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/19/AR2008081902836.html?hpid=sec-education The rationale is that it will somehow lower the amount of binge drinking that takes place on college campuses. Uh, shouldn't these guys be preventing ANY drinking from taking place on college campuses? Hello! But holy cow, look at some of the names on that list. These are serious schools with real reputations. Is it possible they have a real point? It's going to be a fight, that's for sure. That's assuming congress even bothers to listen. MADD is a very powerful lobby these days, and they're also opposed by the American Medical Association, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and even the National Transportation Safety Board (shouldn't they be busy finding a downed aircraft or something? odd). And there's a lot of basic logic behind the idea that lowering the drinking age will just cause more drinking. Do they really think college students care what the legal age is, once the beer keg is staring them in the face? (Heck, it'd get the "Obvious" tag on FARK, if it hasn't already.) I think they (the presidents) are nuts, but I guess I'd be willing to learn more about it. What do you all think? Here's a Wikipedia article on the Amethyst Initiative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amethyst_Initiative And their web site: http://www.amethystinitiative.org/

Interesting piece in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082000065.html I think that's a good move.