Pangloss

There is no evidence that the 2000 election was rigged. Severian I'm disappointed in you for supporting that sort of comment, not to mention the anti-American sentiment. If someone made a comment like that about your country you'd be outraged. And you're behaving exactly like that which you clearly despise, so what does that say about you? I think the checks and balances DO help, in that we would be much worse off without them. What I might agree with you on is that certain elements of society (including some elements you may typically favor) have gotten better at working around those checks and balances, and that they need improvement.

A lot of talk since the New Hampshire primary has been about whether race is now a factor in the Democratic nomination race. Last week Hillary Clinton got upset over an out-of-context quote in which she was talking about the importance of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (making it sound like she thought it was more important than MLK's efforts). Her husband got into some trouble when he was misquoted over comments about the Obama campaign. And I've also heard some comments from observers of the New Hampshire primary asking whether race might have been a factor there (i.e. people voting against Obama because he's black; NH is overwhelmingly white). I guess it was just a matter of time before we started to see this sort of thing begin to happen. One thing that concerns me is Obama's contribution to it. If he's not behind any of this, fine, but he needs to reign in his campaign staff. We don't need another Swiftboating deal.

There is, but the reason for the insecurity and instability is the retributive mentality held by both sides, as exemplified by Physia in this thread. She stated that the Arabs (through "Arabism propaganda") are the cause of the conflict. This is just justification for more bad behavior -- two wrongs making a right. It makes matters worse, not better. The Arabs.The Palestinians, who claim their lands were stolen, were a victim of filthy Arab owners, who sold these lands to the Israelis after Israel was re-established under the British mandate over Palestine. Using Arabism propaganda, this truth was totally covered. That's when the actual conflict started, and how I reason it as Arabs are the responsible.

Right, it's the jumping-to-conclusions part that's damaging. The funny thing about post hoc propter ergo hoc is that sometimes the thing that comes before turns out to be the actual cause. I am concerned sometimes that society is so busy telling soccer moms to shut up and do what they're told that we miss an obvious sign of trouble. We WANT moms to tell us what's happening when we do things to their kids -- they're actually more qualified than the children to report effects of medicine, for example. So it's kind of a tricky thing because we want a well-informed parent but at the same time we don't want them leaping to conclusions AND they have a steady diet of Hollywood (and history) telling them to withhold their trust. But I think you hit the nail on the head in talking about jumping to conclusions. That's where the line is, alright.

I don't see how blaming it all on the Zionist Jews is any more accurate or helpful than blaming it all on Palestinians. The underlying issue isn't which side started it, but the "an eye for an eye" mentality.

That's an interesting distinction, Snail, although I wonder if maybe you carry it just a hair too far. Noticing that the only people objecting are "worried mums" is a good clue, but rejecting it solely for that reason might be premature. I think JohnB makes an important point, although I think perhaps he may go too far in suggesting that there's ALWAYS a trade-off of risk or that there are NO easy answers. That may be overstating the case. But what he's saying is not a rejection of science (note his last paragraph), it's casting a skeptical eye on the dictates of society, which I think is very important.

Huckabee telling Chuck Norris jokes was about the funniest thing I've seen in politics in years -- for about ten minutes. Damn him for ruining a perfectly good comedy routine!

Would it say something more positive if they mouthed platitudes for ten minutes and ran off to another site? Come on, if that's not a damned-if-they-do-damned-if-they-don't position I don't know what is. If you're going to be a partisan, fine, but don't pretend it's objective analysis.

Good job. And you've added something to my classroom discussion regarding IE6 AJAX compatibility, which I always appreciate. I wasn't suggesting that you incorporate ASP into your PHP projects, btw. I was suggesting that you pull the Javascript code from the AJAX Control Toolkit, which is open source project, and see if it lets you do validation in IE6 without the ActiveX security warning. It was just a thought, but it sounds like the Dynamic Drive software will do exactly that, with less work on your part -- always a plus in my book.

I think it's an excellent question, especially with regard to Javascript. Microsoft has just made a massive push into Javascript, incorporating numerous JS-related tools in Visual Studio 2008. (Under VS2005 there was no JS support whatsoever.) This means the advent of (not to put anyone down here, but let's be honest) second-tier programmers into the realm of client-side coding. So I predict we're going to see a lot more people stealing JS code in the very near future. But Mooey, it's all free right? If I can download free movies and free MP3 files, shouldn't I be able to download free code too?!?!?!?!?!!!!!1111one

I think you may be barking up the wrong tree there. As I understand it, ActiveX controls are full-blown applets under the Windows API. You shouldn't need them just to play around with AJAX. Form field validation should be easily accomplished with standard Javascript. I think I have an example of a fancy client-side validator here somewhere... Yes, here we go: http://www.asp.net/AJAX/AjaxControlToolkit/Samples/ValidatorCallout/ValidatorCallout.aspx That's part of an open source project called the AJAX Control Toolkit and the source code can be downloaded from the project's home page here: http://www.codeplex.com/AtlasControlToolkit (Atlas is what they used to call it back in Beta.) I don't know how you would go about making that compatible with all browsers (maybe it is by default, try it). But there's a very active discussion amongst ASP developers on the forums here: http://forums.asp.net/ BTW, the site may prompt you to install Silverlight. You can cancel that request -- it won't stop you from viewing any content, including the AJAX sample I linked above. I think it's dumb that the site does that but what do I know. (Silverlight is Microsoft's attempt to take on Flash. Competition is a good thing, but I haven't had time to really get into it yet.)

Normally I would agree, but in this case the usual right-wing typecasting of Hillary didn't apply. She seemed to be going out of her way to break the usual mold. Obama would pop into events, cheerlead for 20 minutes, and scamper. Clinton would sit there for HOURS, even taking questions from people for hours at a time, almost unheard-of in modern campaigns. That having been said, she was still way too focused on attacking Obama, and I think that hurt her. But what I think may have happened was that after the anti-Obama sound bites were out of of the way, she would settle in at those events and talk to New Hampshire voters about the issues. For hours. That kind of direct, personal attention has a huge influence there. In fact it would have a huge influence on anybody. But of course it's impossible even in most primaries. It will be very interesting to see how the two campaigns handle the next few weeks leading up to Feb 5th.

I agree. I think what may have gone wrong for Obama during the last few days of the New Hampshire campaign is that he (or his campaign, really) became more focused on crowd-pleasing events and cheerleading. I didn't see a single issue point raised in a single sound bite for those whole four or five days. I kept waiting for "GIVE ME AN O!" It was kinda awful. But of course that's what leaders do in races, and it's interesting that both Obama and Clinton were doing what you normally do in their positions (Clinton's pro-forma action being to go on the attack). But I thought it actually HURT both of the candidates. In Clinton's case I guess it just hurt less than it did for Obama. I would have guessed the opposite, because her attacks really didn't seem to resonate at all, but I guess I was wrong. Of course New Hampshire is notorious for its contrarian nature, and there may be nothing more to it than that. But my my, those Obama crowds were so huge, it just seemed like he HAD to win. I guess that goes to show you that you can't always believe what you see on TV.

That doesn't appear to be the case judging by your previous posts. I mean no offense (as I said I respect your position on this), but I would describe your position as extreme because you state that your side is not responsible for the problem, when in fact most objective observers believe that not to be the case -- that your side's contributions have been clear and obvious. We can go over them specifically, if you like. I think it would be interesting (and perhaps revealing) to hear your justification for the occupied territories, for example. You can't write that off as merely defensive, since many of the occupants believe their presence to have a religious basis. Your earlier statements put you in a very awkward position there -- do you support that religious belief, since you believe your side is not responsible for the conflict, or do you condemn it as "extreme"? I remind you that you just got through telling us that it is all about religion. If you try to tell us that a presence in the occupied territories is a religiously justified presence, I may actually start to believe you. I didn't say that you are. I said that you're trying to convince me to support your religious cause over another one. I have no interest in doing this. My interest is freedom and peace in the region. If you can't provide BOTH of those things then I'm not interested in supporting your cause, and in fact I believe that if your side is incapable, for religious reasons, of treating peaceful Palestinians with freedom and equality, then our support should be withdrawn. The concept of two wrongs not making a right may be alien (and even anathema) in your society, but it is a familiar and firmly-believed concept in mine. Of course I really only speak for myself; I'm sure there are many people in my country who are more than willing to support one jihad or another. But I think you will find that a semitic civil war is not at the root of most Americans' support for Israel, nor is it the reason stated in our foreign policy decisions on the matter. I don't believe I know that at all. But if by that you mean that we cannot have peace without declaring one side or the other the victor, I think you will find that you are quite wrong. And I also believe that if you can't figure out how to do that yourselves, then ultimately the world is going to do it for you, and your religious preferences will not be a factor in those decisions. So my advice to you is that you stop planning the Third Temple and start figuring out how to get along. It was actually working out very promisingly -- until your side deliberately and very effectively destroyed it. (Though in fairness its replacement has since been damaged by the other side.) But of course your position requires you to convince us that peace cannot succeed without victory by one side or the other, so really your question is moot. And quite frankly, it's not an honest question, since you believe you already know the answer, and your problem is actually convincing everyone else that you're right.

I guess those Obama/Clinton polls were just a wee bit off. Quite the surprise there.

Apparently. Of course, even as I laugh at Bombus' wacky dictatorship comment, I am reminded that Florida voters presently have no say in the current Democratic presidential race, having been disenfranchised by their own party, and Republican voters only get half credit, and all because the state simply changed its primary date. And three or four other states are in the same boat, and nobody in the media is saying anything about the greatest disenfranchisement of voters in the entire history of the US because it plays right into their drama-based agenda. Jesse Jackson was happy to march in 2000 when a few thousand fools punched their cards wrong, but when millions are robbed by the elite power structure of this country, nobody cares. We may not be a dictatorship, but we're too damned close to an oligarchy sometimes.

I don't see how blaming it all on Israelis is any more accurate (or helpful) than blaming it all on Palestinians.

I disagree. The President signs bills into law, and quite frankly much if not most of the legal realities that you and I have to deal with on a daily basis aren't even Congressional in origin, they're EXECUTIVE "laws" in the form of federal regulations from various agencies and departments. He can have vast impact on the application of federal funding for education programs. So yeah, I DO want to know if he believes in the Tooth Fairy.

Again, how's that working out so far? And perhaps more to the point, arguments in favor of freedom and peace have universal appeal, but arguments in favor of helping one specific religious sect achieve its mystical nirvana at the expense of another one, not so much. I get that you fear they all want to wipe you out, but what you want me to approve doesn't seem a whole lot more appealing.

So why don't the poor become "clever accountants"?

Wait... if we did that, wouldn't the birth rate skyrocket? And if THAT happened, wouldn't global warming increase? And if THAT happened, and GW is linked to hurricanes, wouldn't they be drawn towards.... OH MY GOD YOU PEOPLE HATE SOUTH FLORIDA!!!! (Just kidding!)

Well you're right, of course, that is the real problem. We've so divided ourselves that we've got one huge group of people feeling trod-upon because they believe, and another huge group of people feeling trod-upon because they don't. And while I suppose it's possible that both are right, I really think that neither is.

I'm afraid I don't know about upgrade trade-ins for 64-bit. You might have to try some other forums but perhaps someone here will know. That version you linked looks like a license only -- no disc. If you already have a 64-bit Vista disc (of any version) that should be fine. They put all the different flavors of Vista on the same DVD, as I understand it, though you still have to make sure it's a 64-bit vs a 32-bit DVD. (Also the OS is fully installed now, so there's no need to copy over the i386 folder (in fact there is no i386 folder on the disc), and you don't have to worry about keeping a copy of the installation disc. It's still a good idea for repair/recovery purposes, but you can just copy the DVD -- it's the license that matters, although again I add the disclaimer "as I understand it".)

I don't believe that religious symbols on public buildings violate separation. It's a statement of motivation and ideal, not legality or even intent. The purpose of separation is to prevent undue influence, not drum it out of our systems.

Well first of all, one of the most significant reasons for the success of the surge is the fact that Sunni militias have temporarily withdrawn their support for Al Qaeda and its ilk, taking a "wait and see" approach. Obviously that's not a permanent situation but it underscores the point I'm about to make. You're still treating terrorism as a localized, out-of-thin-air phenomenon, like a forest fire or lice infestation. It takes TWO things to create a terrorist problem of that magnitude -- opportunity AND capability. We only provided ONE of those things. And if that's the case, is the real "reason" for Al Qaeda in Iraq's existence the fact that we are there, or the fact that Sunnis wanted to ensure that they wouldn't have to live under Shiite rule? If you have 1000 insurgents in an area and you leap in and attack them and capture 500 of them, and the other 500 spread out to 10 other towns, do you celebrate the halving of the terrorist numbers, or decry the spread of terrorism to ten other towns? The question seems daft when put that way, but that's exactly what we do, over and over again. Similarly, people say that we took out the only thing (Saddam) stopping Sunnis from leaping straight into the arms of Al Qaeda. Well when you put it that way then sure, it certainly looks like we're responsible for Al Qaeda in Iraq, but only because we are assuming that the Sunnis are too stupid or too pissed off to see any other possible course of action. But why should we let them off the hook? Isn't that a choice? Couldn't they have acted differently? Why is that OUR fault? And we shouldn't be interventionist, but the reason we shouldn't be interventionist should have nothing to do with Al Qaeda, it should be based on whether or not it's a good idea to be interventionist. Would you remove all support for Israel? Not just some of it, I mean every single scrap of support of any kind, under Al Qaeda's definition. We would have to disallow even immigration from that country. All treaties banished, all trade ended, all travel eliminated. Americans would not even be able to send cash to loved ones in Jerusalem. We would not be able to respond to invasion or the use of weapons of mass destruction. Do you support that? Because if you don't, then you are making a foreign policy decision that is directly contributing to Al Qaeda's hatred for us. Doesn't that get a little silly after a while? Don't we have to step ABOVE what Al Qaeda "hates us for"?