Pangloss

What Klaynos is talking about is a feature of the hard drive itself, not the computer. Apple and Compaq don't make hard drives, they buy them from hard drive manufacturers and install them into "their" computers.

Or maybe they figure the ideologues are oafishly discrediting the US just fine and don't need any help.

Several, actually, including major terrorist attacks in Spain, Britain and Indonesia, for starters. It's fair question, though, and I agree you have to look at the big picture.

I think our destruction of the status quo in Afghanistan has had some impact in this area. Even if we've done nothing more than kick the ant hill, it's clearly been disruptive to the powers that were in charge there in 2001. There was a story going around yesterday about how Osama bin Laden was able to respond so quickly with a new video tape responding to the conviction of Zacharias Mousoui (sp). The turnaround time was 19 days. Most of the reaction was about how fast that was, which is understandable given the fact that most of his tapes have been datable only within a time frame of months or years. But one thing that I think is interesting about that time frame (19 days) is that it wasn't faster. What happened during those 19 days? Was all that time spent thinking about a response, or was it actually spent digging himself out of his little hole, walking to civilization, finding a video tape and a camera, finding distribution people that wouldn't get caught, and so forth. Granted he's done this before, so I'm not suggesting there's anything NEW going on here. What I'm suggesting is that the fact that it took 19 days to respond indicates that his infrastructure/support could certainly be better than it presently is.

Yeah that was kinda glaringly out of context, sorry about that.

This is an interesting subject from a purely political (i.e. realpolitik) perspective. It's something that certain segments from *both* the Democratic and Republican parties will support, and certain segments from both parties will also oppose it. One interesting twist is that the proposal involves unclaimed Lottery money. The problem with that, of course, is that you'll end up giving the money to someone who didn't even buy a lottery ticket, and may never even have done so. So why do they deserve a reward? I think both sides have valid points, but I can't see much benefit to me from having people who aren't really interested in voting turn out to the voting booths. What's in it for me? WHY does this make for a better democracy? I'm also not sure it will make much difference in voting turnout. One of the reasons why the lottery is so successful is because it happens on a regular basis. Voting is much less common, and therefore people are still likely to shrug it off. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the first prize will go to someone who would have voted anyway. (Of course, that's what they'd likely say anyway....) My guess is that we will see a division along the lines of Democrats predominently in favor and Republicans predominently opposed.

Arizone is considering a plan to combine a million-dollar lottery with the next election, as a way to entice voters to the polls. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Voter_Reward.html What do you guys think? Good idea or bad?

I think Carter used to make the same mistake. Which was even odder given the fact that he majored in Nuclear Engineering at Georgia Tech!

I see your point, and I think it's a good one.

You don't know that, nor is there any actual evidence that that would occur. It's purely speculative. I respect your opinion on it, but I really think you're stretching. I've seen zero evidence to suggest that this country's laws or its moral integrity would be lessened by immigration just because those immigrants happen to be coming from Mexico instead of Europe. Nor have I seen any evidence to question the "primary allegiance" of any particular new group of citizens. Waving a bunch of flags around certainly doesn't constitute evidence of any of that. And I don't think anybody would be speculating that it does do that if those flags came from anywhere other than Latin America.

Relax, Jim, nobody's calling you a racist. I think the analogy of the Confederate (or less incitingly, Irish, etc) flags actually is pretty reasonable (and interesting). After all, there's a great deal of interpretation and "reading between the lines" going on in the national debate regarding the appearance of Mexican flags at those demonstrations as well. As long as we're reading between the lines, we might as well read between all of 'em. Still, I think you make some interesting points, Jim, and the only criticism I can find that I can directly level is that you may simply be overstating the case. I can't really find any serious flaw with your logic. It could indeed happen that way. Or it may not. I expect we're going to figure that out.

Nicely put.

As I understand it the requirement to learn English dates back to the 19th century. It was modified to include written capability in 1948. This is just off the top of my head, though.

At first I thought, "Okay, they're just expressing their opinions as well, and then they'll take the moral high ground and shut up and listen to what he has to say." Sadly, instead they jeered him, held up signs, turned their backs, called his speech "boring", and many just plain walked out. But the really sad thing is that adults are often no better. Is there really any difference between standing up and jeering, or sitting there politely and attentively with a closed, predisposed, partisan mind? Yeah they behaved like children. They ARE children, busily growing up in a social context and environment that is not interested in helping them achieve ideological freedom and open-mindedness. But the really scary thing is to consider what kind of adults they will become.

John McCain gave an amazing comencement speach at the New School in New York on Friday. It was disrupted by anti-war demonstrators who tried to stop him, but in the end he delivered it. Normally I don't like to quote a source as partisan as the Wall Street Journal, but in this case I think the story speaks for itself. http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008409 Here are a couple of fascinating quotes from the speech: This is the most fascinating part, right at the end: Wow. So how was this speech received by students and faculty at the New School, which dwells only a few blocks from Ground Zero? Wow again. I wonder what it was that inspired this behavior. Let's see if we can find out from this quote: Really. It sounds to me like you and the senator are in complete agreement, and that he reflects the VERY ideals upon which your university was founded. Such as free speech. Imagine that.

George Will made an interesting point in a talk show on Sunday. Apparently the Voting Rights Act is in contradiction with the Immigration Act. Specifically, the immigration laws already state (as of the 1950s?) that you have speak and write English in order to become a citizen. But the Voting Rights Act (1964?) states that you can demand a ballot in your native language. I'm not 100% sure on the specifics there (quoting a talk show is annoying because I can't go back and look it up and make sure I heard it right, etc), but you get the general idea. These kinds of conundrums really annoy "Main Street" Americans when they hear about them. They just seem silly. I don't think this particular case is all that bad, because one could conceivably speak a language without having mastered it to the level that you could fully understand a complicated amendment or proposal on a ballot, which is something that happens all the time (here in Florida we often see tightly contested state constitutional amendments with wording longer than this post, and not only does the wording have to be complete, but the ballot even has to include an *economic* impact statement!). But perhaps he had a point in general about the kinds of conundrums that come up in these issues, and how frustrating it can be to eliminate them in a partisan atmosphere.

Just to tack on a little more info, I noticed that the piece was produced by the same person who did Frontline's recent report on Wal-Mart, which I thought was pretty interesting but which did seem pretty one-sided in its analysis. I find myself pining for the days of Peter Boyer and Lowell Bergman. Both are still employed by Frontline, as I understand it, but I haven't seen shows produced by them in a while now. I should look into that further, it might produce some interesting info.

This week's Frontline on PBS began with the following premise: That everyone who worked used to get a pension, and now corporations are trying to reneg on that promise. The whole episode is available for viewing online at this URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/view/ Here's a quote from the beginning of the story: Wow, wasn't that awfully sweet of them? Here's another one: Okay, I think you get the general idea. The statements are reasonably accurate, perhaps -- I'm not questioning that. What I'm suggesting is that this is a bit of a ruse. A snow job. A lie. The lie is this: All Americans used to have access to free and easy retirement, and now they no longer have that. And the reason they no longer have that is because corporations are greedy. Pensions have never covered more than 50% of Americans! I'll even give a source on that: Employee Benefit Research Institute. EBRI Databook on Employee Benefits. Washington, D. C.: EBRI, 1997. I found it in this article here. In contrast, defined contribution plans, such as IRAs and 401(k)s are more prevalent than pension plans could ever have hoped to be, because it takes the vast income of a major corporation to produce that sweeping of a benefit. And DCPs are better -- you can carry them with you from one company to the next, without losing your contribution! Don't get me wrong, I think that people who worked for decades for pension-providing companies that are no longer able to provide those benefits are getting seriously screwed -- no question about it. Under certain circumstances -- depending on the kinds of documents that were signed by the various parties -- they may even have legal recourse. Often those benefits were supposed to be protected by investments and lockboxes, not be tied to the price of the cars people are buying today (has anyone noticed the way GM has been trotting out that $1600-per-vehicle figure, while ignoring the fact that that figure indicates a failure in their ability to invest and protect those pensions outside of the company?). So I'm not saying there isn't something to that point, and I'm not saying that there isn't also a larger issue about people not preparing for retirement -- absolutely, that's a valid point. What I'm saying is that when the story is played according to THIS script, it's about SOCIALISM, not about "planning for retirement". This is about getting everyone onto the Animal Farm. I think that stinks. It's yet another example of how the fourth estate fails to steer us towards a better society because they're blinded by their own agenda.

Egad. That was fascinating, thanks Padren. I've been operating under the "the more you cook, it the better" philosophy, but what you said makes perfect sense. The fly thing was maybe just a bit TMI. (grin) I'm definitely getting the sense that perhaps a little reading along these general subject lines might benefit me after all, which was part of the point of the thread (for me anyway), so I feel like it's been productive even if the discussion doesn't go any further.

That's an interesting point and raises another question that I've wondered about -- is non-cooked food (vegetables that haven't been cooked) actually safer in general than cooked food (meat/poultry/etc)? I have a kind of resistance to thinking so, because, well, it's not cooked, so it's, like, you know.... dirty! But I guess I'm smart enough to know that that may be a perception problem rather than a reality.

I haven't read this book or seen this movie, and I haven't decided yet if I will. So I thought maybe I'd just ask the question here. Has anybody read it, and if so what do you think? ABC News ran a story tonight on the fictionalized film version, which is in competition at Cannes: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1985724 (It's a video clip -- they have a print story on the site but it doesn't cover the counterpoint from the beef industry spokesperson or some other interesting aspects of the story.) The best part of this, and to me the most compelling reason to read it, was this quote from the author: "I still eat meat, but I think if you're going to eat meat then you should understand something about the industry." (I may not have that exactly right.) After watching the video story I linked above, I can't help but wonder if the movie makers are a bit at odds with the book author. It seems AWFULLY sensationalist, implying that all beef has large amounts of fecal matter in it -- surely an exaggeration. Hello, can we make a decision based on science instead of scare tactics? Please? An industry spokesperson (so take this with a grain of salt) said something along the lines of "this movie represents our industry about as well as Poseidon represents the cruise industry". (chuckle) Cute turn of phrase, but I'm gonna need a little more than that, just like I'm gonna need more than scare tactics from the vegetistas. But the reporter says the bacteria counts are going down, which seems a bit more compelling. Beef sure SEEMS safe these days. (This is the kind of thing that chafes my hide -- I can't get good info because it's just one side versus the other. How can I find out the TRUTH?) Anyway, what do you all think?

Dang.

Check out the article I linked above. The position of Senate Democrats was pretty reasonable, I thought. There's certainly nothing in there about excuses for not responding to police inquiries, forcing companies to produce literature in other languages, or changing the American flag. Much less chastising presidents who can't go back and edit their speeches the way we can edit our posts.

In the sense that they're looked-upon with a more skeptical eye because they're a partisan organization, sure. Why not? That doesn't mean we're going to decide that they're wrong. It means that we're not going to accept what they say at face value. We'll put it to the test. Supposedly. But what happens instead is that a news story based on a "new report just released by the xyz group" will come out, and the next thing you know the legislature is "considering a bill" to address the problem, but in fact no due diligence may take place at all. That's not the extra burden I'm looking for either. But I see no reason to make it easy. I'm not making blanket statements about the way laws are always passed. I'm talking about dangerous trends, not absolutes.

This comes, by the way, as the US Senate passes a new immigration reform bill which includes a provision about this subject. The bill states that no person or group can require the United States to provide services in any language other than English. This story at ABC News documents some of the activity on this front over the past few days. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1980874