Pangloss

It's not very exciting when you don't actually *search* for anything! Hint, hint.

So... you don't think college students should be allowed to pursue degrees in English, or whatever major they choose? Or are you just saying that a little accounting should be thrown into the mix as part of a wider curriculum? I agree with the latter. But if that's the case, then I'm not sure what the problem is. I had to take two classes in accounting when I was a Physics major at Georgia Tech, one on actuarial math and one on personal finances, and that was 20 years ago. I also had to have "macro" and "micro" economics. All required. Is that not commonplace anymore for Bachelor of Science programs? That's an interesting example. Are you aware of what a computer with your exact specifications cost five years before you bought it? Do you know why the price went down? In fact you wouldn't have been able to buy that 1.3 ghz computer for $300 if it wasn't for your bragging neighbor buying the next generation of computer for $1,000 -- he's directly responsible for that price change. And the funny thing is, five years from now you may need that 300 gigabytes hard drive in order to run the software you need to run. And you'll be able to buy it for only $200. All thanks to your bragging neighbor. That's what *I* meant by "churning". Or, if you're lucky and/or skilled, you can sell it, buy another house, and still realize a profit. If you borrow money against it and invest it, you might earn more than the interest you're paying, depending on the investment. People do this sort of thing all the time. It's the primary function of a second mortgage, for example. If you're just making the point that Americans make a lot of mistakes and bad errors in judgement in this area, or that taxes are too high, I totally agree with you there. People can be serious idiots when it comes to money -- we're in complete agreement there. And politicians keep raising taxes primarily to pay for entitlements for people who don't get out there and earn it on their own (and ridiculously high defense spending, but that's another argument). But these flaws are in people, not in the economic system we have. On the contrary, smart people tend to figure out the way the world works and take advantage of it. Dumb people tend to stay dumb because they really aren't interested, not because anybody's holding them back. Just my opinion, of course, but apparently we're just exchanging opinions here -- it's not like you cited a scientific study. Take a look at Forbes 400 list of richest people some time. Two-thirds of those fortunes are self-made, not inherited. For that matter, take a look at the Fortune 500. Funny thing about that list -- every single one of those companies started from scratch at some point in history. We all gotta start somewhere. I'm starting to sense your real beef. You're not concerned about Americans who spend too much money and don't save enough. You're concerned about them spending their money on things you don't approve of. How's that working out for you?

http://maps.google.co.uk/ It doesn't seem to have the satellite feature yet, but you can do the mouse drag bit. I just thought I'd mention it since we were talking about it here a couple of weeks ago, and I know we have some UK folks in the forums here. Enjoy! Looks like it'd be great for tourists planning a visit, by the way. I see they have all the Underground and British Rail stations marked. I see the McDonald's is in place at Whitehall, so our plan to destroy your government is proceeding apace.

I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Most people simple aren't interested in that kind of education. Nor do I see any particular reason why I'm obligated to give it to them. I sense you do have some good points, though, if you can clarify them a bit. Saving money is certainly a good thing. You proceed on a false assumption in saying that society would be better off with higher net worth for individuals (or as you put it, "what state would the global economy be in today?"). The churning of money has produced a much wealthier society than ever existed in the land-based and collectivist cultures of the past. The United States is successful *because* it invented concepts like "making money", not in spite of them. Your automobile example is an example of depreciation, but it's not an example of overall decline. On the contrary, value often goes up. Houses tend to appreciate rather than depreciate. Businesses often do as well. Investments certainly do. Are these not examples of wealth, even if they're not examples of how you define "net worth"?

It's an interesting choice -- the leader of the inquisition as the new pope. Probably not the first time THAT's happened, but it's certainly not the choice reformers were hoping for.

Some good points made above, but I haven't heard anything that unequivocally eliminates the suggestion I made above from having some practical value. Shall we pursue *improvement*, or continue to lament the lack of *perfect* solutions? You do the best you can, and you roll the dice. The dice sure turn out a lot more in our kids' favor today than they did a century ago, or even a decade ago. If you look at the Lunsford case, the poor girl was abducted from her bed in the middle of the night, with her grandparents right there in the house with her. Normal routine, nothing unusual about it. The bastard met her at school and snuck in through a window. She'd just TAKEN a class on what to do when you meet strangers. What else can we reasonably expect the parents, or technology short of Big Brother, to have accomplished in this case? A couple of years ago I read the famous biography of Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg. One of the things that stunned me about that book was just how many children people had in that age, and the simple fact that most of those children never reached adulthood. The Lincolns lost several children, something most of us seem to be aware of, but what I hadn't realized is how many of their friends, co-workers and relatives lost several as well. The loss was felt no less severely either -- Mary Todd Lincoln was prone to massive depression that dominated her later life -- but for the most part they had no choice but to accept this as a fact of life. How different from today! This was only a century ago. That one simple fact indicates just how different was the world those people lived in. They'd recognize our world today, but I wonder if they would understand the people who live in it. On the one hand it's good that we never accept fate. We should be motivated to change fate as much as we can. But we also need to remember that sometimes we can't change it, and there's no sense in beating ourselves up about it. Bad things are going to happen. Part of growing up, both as an individual and as a society, is dealing with that. I believe this time will be remembered by historians as a time when we've gotten really good at not accepting fate, but we've become so used to beating fate that we've forgotten how to deal with bad things when they do happen.

We don't have kids yet. I wonder whether the whole premise here is flawed. Maybe instead of working on better ways to track these perverts, and wondering if those methods violate their civil rights, we need to instead work on better ways to track the children, who have no civil rights to violate in the first place. ID bracelets with built-in GPS, DNA sample and fingerprinting encoded on a chip, and a central database. Mandatory. Records deleted when they hit 18. Thoughts?

I agree, we're just spinning our wheels here. Rather than endlessly debate the death penalty, how about we try to actually do something productive here? Why don't we try and think of some ways in which the situation could be improved without actually throwing the switch on old sparky? Has anyone here actually seen the Florida registered sex offenders database, or the one for their state? I have. I looked up my neighborhood and was surprised to find 15 registered offenders within a mile of my house, including one just a few houses away. The Florida database can be searched here: http://www3.fdle.state.fl.us/sexual_predators/Search.asp Each state has its own database. (Is that a good thing or a bad thing?) Where is yours? Important questions that need exploring: What improvements could we make to the system? Where is it weak? Where does it cross the line? How does your database differ from other states? How does it differ from other countries? How can we best track offenders who move within the state? How can we best track them if they change states? Is there a way to better track sex offenders without further violating their constitutional rights *aside* from tracking their whereabouts?

I've been trying to figure out a good way to re-create the double slit experiment. I recently bought a home theater projector and I thought that might work. I took a piece of paper and cut two vertical slits in it and shined a light through it -- no luck. Eventually (I think) I figured out (from reading online) that the light source has to be parallel (like a laser). But I think I read somewhere that you can do it with a simple candle, if you can figure out how. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment An SFN discussion on the subject: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=242&highlight=double+slit

Nothin, eh? Here, this would be a good way to start something along the lines I'm talking about above. This article from CNN talks about current tensions between China and Japan. I had heard that China was dealing with demonstrations, but I didn't realize it had gotten so vociferous. http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/16/china.japan.ap/ To some extent I can understand the underlying anger. Japan has always played more of a victim role in the post-war world, spending more time talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki than the attrocities they committed in the late 1930s in China (something that angers many Americans as well). But I can't help but wonder... "Why now?" Is this a true public tipping point, owing to the sudden freedoms of the Chinese middle class, or is there something more traditionally sinister going on behind the scenes, perhaps related to the ongoing debate over oil rights in disputed waters? There, now we at least have a causus belli!

I have a funny feeling that House GOP leadership is about to make some very serious and costly political mistakes. I could be wrong, and I'm no expert, but here is my reasoning: 1) They don't seem to know quite what to do about Tom Delay. Some of them seem to be aware that he's nothing but baggage at this point, with rapidly eroding support amongst the base. But he's very well entrenched, and more importantly, they THINK he's well entrenched (which is all that really matters). Lack of decision will begin over the coming week to have exactly the same impact as standing behind him. 2) The anti-filibuster proposal does not enjoy popular support. Today they started sniping with John McCain over it. http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050415-105858-6978r.htm 3) They're already on thin ice with the general public over Terry Schiavo. 4) They're *still* on thin ice from the rules changes that protected Tom Delay. The reason why I think they have their collective heads in the sand is that they knew most of the above going into the Terri Schiavo business, but they did it anyway. If they were using their political noggins they would have realized that was a mistake. Hell, everyone in the country knew it BUT House GOP. So watch this week and see what happens. It could be quite interesting.

That isn't really the sort of scenario that's easily dealt with like that. What you've basically done there is written an entire series of world history-setting events, and then more or less dismissed them with a simple assumption. For one thing, the entire world would be involved in some form or fashion, even if it's just in terms of shaping policy and actions. That has major repurcussions on what actions the US would take. A serious debate of this issue requires much more detailed, in-depth analysis of both the scenario and the environment surrounding it. In short, if you guys want a serious discussion, pose a serious question. Just to give a brief (and entertaining) example, check out Tom Clancy's 2000 novel "The Bear and the Dragon", which poses a scenario in which China undertakes an aggressive campaign against Russia. Clancy's novels are useful if you're interested in this sort of thing, because most of them are based on real scenarios that are debated at war colleges and think tanks around the world. (Clancy needed over 1000 pages to drive his points home! But we don't need to be THAT serious here, of course.) If you guys want to have a serious discussion, flesh out the terms of the scenario and the socio-political background against which it would take place. Then we'll see if we can make something of it.

Incidentally, China is Number Two in the world in defense spending, coming in somewhere around $25 billion. Number one is the US, which this year may hit $500 billion. (I looked this up when I ranted about defense spending during the election period last year.) I don't suppose that has any particular relevence here, but it's an interesting factoid.

Actually I believe that theoretical capability was more or less dropped during the Clinton administration. And I believe it's generally acknowledged that Iraq would have been impossible were it to be adhered to. Most military experts seem to agree that right now the Army and Marines are pretty much at their limits in terms of a sustained campaign. Sustaining a second major theater of operations would be possible only with an immediate draft. But I agree with your assessment of China's military. That seems to be the general consensus, at any rate. They do have a few significant aircraft, but almost no advanced radar or command and control infrastructure. So even if a fairly new Chinese fighter were to meet a Hornet in combat, the Hornet would know where the Chinese fighter was and be able to shoot it down before the Chinese pilot even knew where the carrier was located. I might add that if memory serves we have one carrier battle group actually stationed permanently in Japan (based around the Kitty Hawk?). That's gonna ballpark at around 30 ships, ~100 fixed-wing aircraft, a couple dozen rotary, and a lot of missiles. Maybe not enough to sink the entire Chinese navy and air force, but presumably enough to face a major assault, and there are at least four more carrier groups within a week's travel time to the area.

That's not my position in general, but I'm wondering is whether that might turn out to be the case here. Just as a side example, I think the evidence is good that, contrary to a lot of opinion in the west, the Iraqi people have a strong self-motivation towards both peace and democracy. One of the most dangerous jobs in the world right now has to be Iraqi Policeman, and yet those guys are signing up in droves and they say it's not the paycheck, it's their patriotism. They sign up in LARGER numbers after every terror attack. It's one of the great stories happening in the world right now. That wouldn't be possible without the US troops on the ground right now. That doesn't mean that the US presence *caused* that patriotism, but it does mean that we've enabled something to happen.

It's a reasonable conjecture. One thing to bear in mind is that when photons are your transport medium, they're not very reliable. They get stopped by pretty much anything that happens to be in the way. So your distant observer would have very little to work with, even with sufficient magnification equipment. For example, an observer 60 light years away might have some success viewing the events of the Battle of the Bulge (for those periods of the battle in which the Earth was pointed in his or her direction), or your Titanic example, but very little luck trying to determine any event that took place indoors. It might be interesting to do some rough calculations to show what size a telescope at 50 light years' distance would have to be in order to resolve something 5-6 feet in size using only present technology.

The example was really more of a point about ideology.

That's not agitation, by the way, although it might look like it. Just trying to spur a little more discussion on it. Here's another thought: How would you feel about this scenario? A woman goes on trial for killing her husband, a long-time spousal abuser. During the trial a victim's rights advocacy group, including their leader, a prominent political figure who's face is 100% familiar to every potential juror (assume for the sake of argument that the jury must know him and the position he stands for), shows up at the trial and sits in the audience every day. Nothing is said by these individuals during the trial, and no buttons are worn, but their presence is clearly registered in the faces of the members of the jury. Bias? Difference from the above?

But was that an attempt to influence the decision of the jury? In what way? The family has no idea whether the accused was guilty or not. Aren't they just asking for justice in the generic sense? I'm not really that naive, I'm just making the point here that we're assigning motive and intent without actual proof, and that's a dangerous thing. If it's possible that their statement was merely a plea for justice, then don't we have an obligation to assume that that's the case until proven otherwise? Or is this moot, because the rights of the accused are more important than the right of free expression of a victim's family, even when said expression cannot directly be shown to cause bias.

It's an interesting idea. I think at one point, according to one of those articles I linked above, 95% of their annual decisions were being overturned by the Supreme Court. That's pretty insane. Other circuits average something like 50%, which seems statistically logical. A law like that could present an interesting scenario. It's not generally well known, but the concept of judicial review (by which the Supreme Court decides of a law is constitutional or not) is not actually in the Constitution -- it's implied. In fact, it was created by an act of judicial review -- the case of Marbury v Madison. In other words, the justices just did it, establishing a precedent of judicial review that has never really been challenged. If a law like that was passed, it would surely be tested in the Supreme Court, and could end up testing judicial review itself. This could conceivably create a constitutional crisis, since surely the Supreme Court would decide in favor of judicial review, and the question then would become whether or not congress would abide by the decision, since it would go directly against their powers under article three of the Constitution. A nasty conundrum. But I'm pretty sure that further analysis will reveal a lot of holes in the logic here somewhere. I'm certainly no lawyer. (grin)

Well I guess the next logical questions would be: Is it a good thing or a bad thing for judges to do this? Should they be strict interpreters of law, or is it legitimate for them to make broader interpretations? Where exactly should the line be drawn? Congressman Rick Santorum, speaking on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday, talked about the possibility of Congress setting more restrictive limits on the judiciary branch under the auspices of article three of the Constitution. I was a little surprised by this so I looked it up, and sure enough it says that Congress, at its discretion, can create (or presumably eliminate) "lower courts", meaning any court other than the Supreme Court. (I suppose they had to be created by somebody, as the framers obviously didn't create the 9th Circuit to cover California and Hawaii!) This sounds to me like cause for concern, if Congress is going to begin creating and eliminating federal courts for temporary political reasons.

I see your point. But I wonder if the main point is clear here. Nobody seems interested in discussing it, and that either means that (a) it's not very interesting, (b) people agree with the court's decision and don't want to debate it with me, or © nobody wants to take issue with the 9th Circuit for ideological reasons. The question being raised is not whether bias is a bad thing, but whether or not the presence of 3" buttons depicting a photo of the victim constitutes prejudicial information for the jury. In other words, does it constitute an unfair bias towards conviction regardless of guilt? If you were on the jury, would you see that as a reason why you would need to convict in spite of the evidence? Or would you see that as a reason to take the trial seriously, and nothing more? Am I the only one here who's seen 12 Angry Men?