Pangloss

The Wikipedia has a huge write-up on this that appears to cover the basic points, so let me link that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Security_Scare The short version is that the Cartoon Network runs a program and some guerilla marketing was employed to promote it in 10 US cities. The marketing basically consisted of small flashing objects in the shape of the characters in the cartoon show, which were then placed on various buildings and other structures (bridges, for example) around town. Apparently nothing happened for several weeks, but then suddenly someone in Boston hit the panic button and all heck broke loose, with millions being spent on bomb squads and removal. It was a major story on the cable channels that afternoon. (Interestingly enough, CNN is owned by the same parent company as the Cartoon Network.) What I think is interesting about this is that it's being reported one way in the television media (as a serious error in judgement), but on the Internet it is being reported as an overreaction by Boston authorities. Are the TV journalists just slow to pick up on the fact that the boxes went unreported for three weeks, and that nobody in other cities reacted this way? Mind, I did see both of those facts reported on TV, but the whole emphasis of the TV stories I saw was on the hoaxers being wrong, and on the web site stories I've seen it's completely the other way around. I can't help but think the media is a bit confused on this one.

Well I don't think you have to be "right wing" to disagree with socialist policies. But raising the minimum wage is something that I believe most of the US population supports. In fact it was already higher than the Federal minimum in something like half the states (in my state it was almost as high as the new federal minimum). That's due to a change in regulations that happened during the Clinton administration. Personally I think minimum wage is a bad idea and I don't understand why the argument about how hard it is to get by on minimum wage even comes up. Jobs aren't a right, they're a privilege that you earn by the nature of the fact that your labor is valuable to another person. If your labor isn't valuable to another person, then another person shouldn't be forced at the point of a gun to pay you. Not in an ostensibly free society. And let's be honest, for many liberals minimum wage is just a matter of keeping the slaves happy on the plantation. But ultimately what this is really about is economic controls and political compromises. On that landscape I find the current level acceptable. Basically we shove a few bucks around to keep the tree-hugger types happy and the "living below the poverty line" types loaded up with X-box 360s and deep in debt, which they owe to the smarter types... like me. Since I can't have what's really best for society, I'll settle for coming out on top.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=2842529 Apparently the addition of a second amendment did the trick. It has the one Democrats hated, which gave a tax incentive for small businesses, but now it also has an additional amendment that raises taxes on people who make more than $1 million per year. Guess they figured that was a wash (idiots). The House will have to vote again, and it'll have to get past the president. I expect both of those things to happen, since the president already promised to sign if it included the first amendment, and as for the second amendment he just gave a speech on Wall Street railing about high pay for CEOs. As for the House, the Democrats' majority leader already spoke in favor of the first amendment, and of course they'll love the second one.

No, Luke, that hasn't happened yet, that's just my point. It all has to get past the Senate and the President. You've just illustrated my point *perfectly* -- everyone thinks something was actually accomplished, when in fact *nothing has*. "Mission Accomplished" indeed. Incidentally, as I was writing this the Senate passed the Minimum Wage bill. Two amendments were added -- one was the objectionable (to Democrats) tax incentive for small businesses, and the other was a new one which raises taxes on people who make more than $1 million per year. I guess Democrats saw that as a wash. Go figure.

And we're off to the races! The first Democratic casualty of the 2008 Presidential Election is: a white guy who said something insensitive about one of the "diversity" candidates! Shocking, isn't it? Boy nobody could have seen that one coming! This thing with Biden is so laughable it almost defies description. I don't mean whether or not he has some sort of prejudice -- maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. What's laughable is watching the infighting. God forbid any strong white male candidates should emerge from the "party of diversity"! Apparently what happened is Biden called Senator Obama "the first mainstream African American (running for president) who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." The words "clean" and "articulate" apparently triggered some sort of sensitivity alarm. (Because apparently our sense of morality was determined by 1970s Hollywood scriptwriters.) Liberal bloggers and op/ed pieces are calling for everything from Biden's withdrawl from the Presidential race to his resignation from the Senate to his head on a silver platter! I expect an announcement any moment that he'll be joining Isaiah Washington in a rehab clinic for verbal insensitivity (no really, apparently they have those now!). (Oh wait, I forgot, Washington was "cured". Guess Biden will have to go it alone!) The most ironic part of this is that every time Biden opens his mouth to deal with this "crisis" he undermines his own campaign by saying nice things about an opponent! What a joke! Ah, elections. Gotta love 'em.

The whole business is an irrelevent waste of time that has completely sucked the oxygen out of much more important issues before congress. The minimum wage hike failed last week *and nobody noticed*. What about the rest of the "100 Hours" legislation? Does anybody care, or is that just the Democrats' "Mission Accomplished"?

This is kinda annoying for DirecTV HDTV subscribers (like me). They're supposed to launch two more sats off that platform this year.

Hi, welcome to the board. I've seen documentaries on this. My memory is hazy but I'll be happy to try and spur some further discussion on this (I'm sure someone will appear quickly to correct my many errors!). If memory serves, the general idea is that certain dynamics have acted to retard the overall effect of global warming. Amongst GW critics this is seen as excuse-making, along the lines of explaining why more significant warming hasn't taken place. But the science of it appears (at least to my untrained eye) to be very real. One example of this is the study that was done on contrails following 9/11. If memory serves, a scientist studied the change in albedo (reflectivity of the surface) due to the lack of airplanes flying during the 100% ground-stop that took place in this country following the terrorist attacks. Supposedly the study showed that contrails were a more serious problem than previously known. The interesting thing about contrails is that they would presumably act to *cool* the Earth's surface. In other words, they're contrary to the warming trend. So the general idea is that they may be causing global warming to proceed less rapidly than other indications suggest that it should be proceeding at. If that makes any sense at all. And again, my memory on this is sketchy; I'm just trying to further some discussion on it.

This thread is for ongoing global warming discussion. There's another thread over in the Ecology and the Environment sub-board: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=321613#post321613 This thread is entitled "Global Shadowing" and the OP is asking how this area of study relates to global warming.

And that's just the thing -- we can say that single examples are not case-makers, in the sense that you might always find bad apples in a bunch. But that doesn't really provide an argument here, because we're supposed to be protected from mistakes by due process (i.e. you're picked up in a sweep but it all gets sorted out in the courthouse), and until now these people haven't had due process of any kind. So how are we to find out which ones are real terrorists and which ones are just... mistakes? Anyway, Republicans wonder how they lost the moderate middle and the right-side Libertarian empathy, well this is how right here.

It's really fine, 1veedo, and I wasn't trying to give you (specifically) a hard time. I got no problem with the movies, or even criticism of Windows. This amusing post just happened to come up at the exact same time that I've been pondering the future of the Computer Science sub-board. Whatever we do over there, we'll have a place for people to post "how badly Windows sucks" if they want to. Even with the fanboyish behavior, it can also be legitimate discussion and it can lead to education. I think the key is to just make sure we have an open and welcoming discussion atmosphere (e.g. Windows fans should be able to post about some new piece of software or ask a question without being answered along the lines of "throw it away and download Linux").

I tend to agree. I was just talking to the other mods yesterday about how Linux/MS fanboy posts have kinda trashed the Computer Science board. There's nothing really wrong with people having opinions like that, but it tends to put a damper on productive and informative discussion. (Just try to wade through the noise on Slashdot whenever Microsoft comes up. What a crock.) The only thing I've managed to come up with so far would be to just delete the noise and provide a separate thread (or even a separate board) for fanboy type chatter.

I disagree with your conclusions, although I certainly agree that being spread out is why we have poor public transportation. Where we disagree is whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. The funny thing about what "engineers" (read: "environmentalists") have been saying there is that they've yet to become correct. Suburban and rural property values generally rise, btw, not fall. They just rise faster (for the most part) in urban areas. Suburban growth is due to having fast highways an cheap gas. It's based on market conditions that simply haven't changed -- even now gas prices are just a minor portion of a typical household budget. Trade in the SUV for a sedan and you've re-balanced the equation in the suburbs' favor again. So this is mainly a perception problem rather than a reality. But I do agree that we can and should do better in the area of inexpensive public transportation, even if we have to do so at a "loss" and under government subsidy. Getting around cheaply and easily is a good thing, and it benefits even those of us who want to drive BMWs and SUVs on uncrowded roads.

Right, although I think it's revealing that Bob made that mental crossover from talking about domestic legal rights of foreign citizens to talking about domestic legal rights of citizens. The two issues have become intermingled in American policy debate, both in informal discussion and in the media.

Actually nearly everyone in my country has a device in their home that converts air in the atmosphere into water. It runs on electricity, and the conversion is a byproduct of its main purpose....

I've got this as well, just haven't gotten a round tuit yet. We should talk about Brian Greene's book. A lot of folks (myself included) seem to have already read that one.

It's certainly well known here. So much so that I would suggest that virtually every American has formed an opinion on it to some degree. The inherent support that exists for it is grounded mainly in ideological partisanship. We also seem to have trouble in this country sometimes when it comes to applying our most fundamental principles to non-citizens (especially when threatened by them, which is probably the time when we most need to remember those principles). That having been said, there is a long-standing sentiment that international affairs is an area where different rules apply, and if we're going to compete in that arena then we have to be willing to undertake certain means. This includes things like assassination and espionage. There is a legitimate argument to be made for these things, and my personal opinion is that some of them are agreeable and others are objectionable. It's difficult to get a search warrant on a home in rural Afghanistan, for example. Some support for Guantanamo (et al) comes from this area of reasoning.

I appreciate the reply. I always hesitate to delve too far into someone's personal choices on candidates because it opens them up to personal attacks from people who disagree with them. Besides, if you're anything like me these opinions take a long time to form and it's hard to keep an open mind when people are bashing you along the way! I'm sure a lot of folks will disagree with you on those issues, but that's your honest opinion and I, for one, respect that. Anyway, those are definitely hot-button issues that you've identified, and they'll most certainly be part of the mix as we go forward. I'm seeing a lot of thought along those lines from people on both sides of the aisle, and one thing it suggests to me is that this election may be much more about general ideologies and issues. The last two elections seemed more about personalties and moralities. I'm sure personalities and moralities will play a role, but I can't help but wonder if the public debate is back to where it needs to be -- on the issues.

That "centrist-republican" charge makes me curious, because conservatives are calling him the most liberal candidate in years. Obviously there's going to be spin coming from various quarters about him throughout the election cycle, but I assume your opinion is an honest one. But I'm curious how you drew that conclusion. Do you see any of the other candidates as being closer to your position? Is it a specific-issue thing? If you don't want to share it's cool, but I'd like to hear more. You're not the first person I've heard say that, and I don't assume it means you're way out there to the left, either (though maybe you are, I don't know). OnTheIssues.org also has him pegged as on the liberal/centrist line, but this makes little sense to me as well, given his statements and voting record (posted on their own site).

Not only was this debate worthless (since the President may do what he likes on this issue), but it distracted the media from the first "100 Hours" bills that began to hit the Senate.

Well I was wrong about minimum wage. The vote on the amendment didn't just fail, it failed badly. I think what must have happened is that Republicans realized the media was looking the other way (Iraq hearings) and decided that MW was a fight they could win after all. Quite surprising, for me and many other observers in Washington. It'll be interesting to see if this is a sign of how things go with the other 100 Hours legislation.

The 9/11 conspiracy is a govenment conspiracy. Its purpose is to make us think that the government is more powerful than it really is.

Well if they're going to do this the time is now. Gas prices continue to fall and will likely be below $2/gallon (national avg) soon, although I'm sure they'll climb a bit higher for the summer driving season.

That's interesting about the history going back to 1619. Didn't know that.

Of course. I'm merely stating my opinion, as are you. I don't think they want minimum wage to increase at all. But as you know in 2005 they introduced a countermeasure that did exactly that. This is about political realities, not desires. That's certainly another way of looking at it. This morning the Senate voted 54-43 in favor of the House bill (without the small business amendment). That's not enough to pass, much less override a veto, so we wait for the amended version. Democrats are certainly blustering about the amendment, but in the end they'll approve it because it accomplishes their goal and because most of them (and most people) see it (the amendment) as a reasonable compromise. You might want to tell them that before they give away your farm. I think the horse is gone and the barn door is already on the auction block. But that is, of course, merely my opinion. You may think as you like.