Pangloss

Ok we're on the same page, but this is just the wrong reason to buy the book, IMO. How is that any different from blowing the family's savings at a craps table in Vegas? If we assume for the sake of argument that they weren't treated fraudulently by their realtor (which would be a matter for legal action, I would agree), didn't they go into it with their eyes open? We can close loopholes that are bad for society. But is this going to be a free country, with people freely able to choose their fates, or is it not? That's a *real simple* question in my mind. If the answer that question is "yes", then motivations like the above should never come into play when deciding policy. Not ever.

I don't agree with your assessment of VB, although I don't have a problem with your steering people in other directions. There is a great deal to be said for the use of VB in the world of business-related RAD, and it's not all handled by really smart guys with Excel VBA. (grin) You have to remember that the vast majority of programming these days is mundane client-server, managed-code work. Getting standalone or web-based forms to talk to databases. Shortcutting that process is generally a good thing for computer science, even if it moves those coders further away from the mindspace of system programming. (But that's not our typical visitor here, really, so I try not to dwell on it. Most of the time when this question comes up it's a smart young kid in a CS program somewhere. They should be encouraged to really explore the depths of the "more serious" languages.)

The Wikipedia has a good write-up of Jesus Camp here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_camp (In case anyone else is wondering what it is.) I thought it was a pretty good documentary, by the way, and worthy of its Oscar nomination (it lost to "An Inconvenient Truth"; perhaps the most predictable award in all of Oscar history). One thing that I think a lot of observers of this movie might miss is the fact that the film-makers very much appreciated and respected their subjects. The Wikipedia article talks about that aspect, as do the directors themselves in the DVD commentary track (which was quite interesting as well). But the point of this thread was that zealotry and evangelism are not limited to Christian Fundies. You can find them with regard to any principle. Even politically correct ones. A parent brainwashing their child to believe in god as a matter of faith is no different from a parent brainwashing their child to believe in global warming as a matter of faith. Just a little something to think about the next time you see your local reporter doing a cute little story about elementary school children and their "project to raise awareness about an important cause".

(shrug) Ok, I'll go along with that. I'm not a deregulationist, I'm a "careful and throughtful reglationist" (if there is such a thing). If there's one thing I would hope we've learned in our country is that regulation is a necessary evil. Removing too much of it is just as dangerous as having too much of it. If you want to make your case on that basis, you'll not get an argument out of me. The drama and "hurts the American dream" stuff, not so much. I'm not interested in what Suzy Q, single mother of three, is struggling with. She has a million ways out of her predicament, whatever it is, and it's not my fault that she's in it.

I want to correct the OP, with intended respect to the original poster because passage was exactly what was signalled on Tuesday (it just wasn't actually passed then, as stated in the OP). And I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I think it's fascinating the misunderstandings that this vote caused in the general public and the media. As I understand it, what actually happened on Tuesday was that the Senate was debating the bill in question, which is an emergency spending bill intended to fund the war (and tons of pork mainly to get older Democrats on board, oddly enough), which includes an attachment that calls for the removal of troops on a timetable. The only aspect of this that the Senate voted on on Tuesday was whether to remove that attachment. That vote is the one that failed 50-48 (as mentioned in the first post of this thread). Not even enough to avoid a filibuster, if this were a normal vote on a normal bill (which it was not). In other words, the bill itself was not voted on, and so the bill itself had not "passed" (as reported in the OP). It was not yet on its way to the White House for presidential signature/veto. (It finally did pass just this (Thursday) afternoon, though it still has to be reconciled with the House bill and then voted on AGAIN before it goes to the White House.) But look how it was reported: Reuters and the various news services, Wash Post, NYTimes, etc: Senate Backs Iraq Pullout Deadline US Senate backs troop withdrawal from Iraq Senate backs Iraq pullout date Those headlines DO imply that the bill had passed and was on its way to the White House for veto or signature. Which did not happen for several more days. (In fact the Guardian article linked in the OP actually states (erroneously) that the bill actually passed on Tuesday.) There were, however, these somewhat more accurate headlines, from CNN and Fox News: Withdrawal timeline survives Senate vote Senate Signals Support for Iraq Timeline Again, not trying to say anything bad about the original poster -- my reaction on Tuesday/Wednesday was exactly the same as his; that's what I thought had happened (the bill had passed). A totally understandable misunderstanding, given the way it was reported. Bizarre, isn't it? I think what happened is that the signalling on Tuesday took so many political observers by surprise, and the newsies wanted to jump on that story. Every single pundit and politico that I read or saw over last weekend predicted a total shutdown in the Senate. I was very skeptical of that -- it seemed to me that passage was actually quite likely, and I was surprised at the predominence of that sentiment. Not that I'm any great predictor of congressional voting, but it seemed odd to me. At any rate, sorry about the hijack, I just thought the whole meta-story on this issue this week was fascinating.

This reminds me somewhat of the incident with Cuba and the Brothers to the Rescue fiasco, at least with regard to the position determinations in open water. It also reminds me of the Pueblo incident.

Nice find, thanks guy.

Discussed, yes. Rejected out of hand based on presumption and false information, no. Implying vast conspiracies as reasonable explanations without a shred of evidence, no. You can legitimize your input here very easily. Stop utilizing and promulgating crackpot theories and analysis as if they makes sense. I've never met a single member of this forum who had a problem with people who ask questions. Believe me, your problem isn't that you're talking and discussing, it's that you're not listening.

That's an almost textbook description of a managed OOP environment (ala Java or .NET).

I'm afraid I didn't follow this one at all, sorry. Anybody follow that?

Well, that's still awfully vague, but there's certainly something to be said about the limitations of current technology when it comes to search functions. The academic world is pretty much inundated these days with creative new approaches to searching and filtering and manipulating data that never get explored due to lack of money/time/interest. Google does a lot of research in this area, and it's no accident that their Chief Scientist wrote THE book on AI ("Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" by Russell and Norvig). You might want to look further in that direction and read some of the current research. One suggestion that seems at least tangentially relevent to what you're talking about might be Naive Bayesian Classifiers. And of course you'd probably want to read up on the history of "fuzzy logic", etc.

Here's one: Guess what I'm counting down? 3... 2... 1...

You're right, coincident doesn't prove anything........................... ....................... ....................... ....................... (hint hint) ........................ ........................ ........................ (poke poke) (hint hint)

You need to do some reading-up on Web 2.0 and the various web application programming languages. All of that is possible (and quite common) today.

Pretty much anything you do with Millenium is a disaster. It's notoriously buggy about any kind of LAN file or printer sharing. Sorry you ran aground with it. I'm starting to like Vista more and more. I've been using it on one box since release, but a couple more months and I may be at the point of converting the rest of my computers. It's really just a question of compatibiltiy in certain older programs at this point. I'm still recommending that people who aren't total power users wait until at least summer, but the full year I was recommending earlier is looking unnecessary at this point.

Yeah I usually handle this through my web hosting company's email configuration utilities. Tadzio's reply above is very helpful; the only disadvantage to that approach is that you'd have to leave it running all the time. Sendmail and IIS both have features that cover this from the server side, I believe (not positive about IIS -- its email features are pretty limited). Exchange would have this as well, of course, but it's not a home user product ($$$) (I just mention these options in case this might be a work-related thing).

Pardon me for any unclarity.* What I meant was that I think bascule's comparison of the 18-minute Nixonian gap and his 18-day email gap is valid in the realm of historical comparison. It does not, however, form the basis for an argument on the subject of firing federal prosecutors -- that would be a straw man. It does, however, address the subject of the behavior and tone of the current administration as compared with previous ones. Objection overruled -- baliff, please bring the jury back into the room! * And if you won't pardon me, maybe I can get Bush to give me one after he takes care of Scooter!

If so it's failing miserably. The liberal base is just as annoyed with Congressional Democrats as it's always been, there's been zero progress on ANY issue, left-wing or otherwise, since Democrats came to power, and nobody thinks that's Bush's fault.

They give you a new one that does.

I don't think the comparison is laughable. I think it's valid. But then, I think the subject is about as relevent as the 18-minute gap, in the sense that I think there MAY be a nice old lady in outer Mongolia who doesn't know what it contains. This is about politics, not missing information.

LOL! We're gonna have to move this one to the Politics board! But serially, I remember thinking at the time that there wasn't much point in taking a personal stake in the "prime directive". I just thought it was interesting to look at the two sides and hear their well- and poorly-reasoned arguments.

Can't they both be wrong? I really loathe two-wrongs arguments. With a passion. Please trot them out so I can show just how much.

Not if those planets had yet to achieve warp drive or contact with "alien" races. If that hadn't happened yet then the Enterprise would literally sit in orbit and watch them die, no matter how immediate the threat, with Picard talking about how this was better and Dr. Crusher wringing her hands in earnest. Episodes with those kinds of dilemmas were some of the most interesting, even if they were a tad inconsistent about it.

As far as Microsoft is concerned, the CD key is ALL that matters. Anybody who tells you otherwise is misinformed. That's why they put the key no a little sticker and OEMs actually attach the sticker to the computer case. With XP you do have to make sure that the key matches the CD of the OS you have installed. With Vista this is no longer the case because they all come on the same DVD, but even with Vista you have to match the key with the OS version.

Nonsense. You latched on to that paper like Al Gore coming to Miami to give a talk on global warming in July and starting with the word "SEE?!" You used it as scientific evidence that your ideology is not only the morally correct one, but that it is also the only logically correct one. So what if you had to use the word "evidence" instead of "proof"? You used it as science, not as opinion. My criticism was valid.