iNow

Yawn.

Who's bluffing? They are NO different than the bigfoot ones. Sorry to that the truth is hard to accept for you, but it's still the truth.

That sounds like two wrongs make a right reasoning.

Ah. More content free a vacuuous nonsense from the Republican side. Here's a response more people should appreciate: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/09/lipstick_on_a_pig.php (specifically, I'm talking about the short video clip)

Yeah. Just look at politics and our election of the highest office in the land.

I could share some links and videos about leprechauns if you'd like.

Pioneer - You should try reading the thread and determining for yourself where you're wrong. Religion a connection with instinct? Religion the basis of morality? Have you understood ANY of the posts here?

MIT President calls for an "Energy Manhattan Project." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/10/AR2008091002722_pf.html Today, the United States is tangled in a triple knot: a shaky economy, battered by volatile energy prices; world politics weighed down by issues of energy consumption and security; and mounting evidence of global climate change. Building on the wisdom of Vannevar Bush, I believe we can address all three problems at once with dramatic new federal investment in energy research and development. If one advance could transform America's prospects, it would be ready access, at scale, to a range of affordable, renewable, low-carbon energy technologies -- from large-scale solar and wind energy to safe nuclear power. Only one path will lead to such transformative technologies: research. Yet federal funding for energy research has dwindled to irrelevance. In 1980, 10 percent of federal research dollars went to energy. Today, the share is 2 percent. Research investment by U.S. energy companies has mirrored this drop. In 2004, it stood at $1.2 billion in today's dollars. This might suit a cost-efficient, technologically mature, fossil-fuel-based energy sector, but it is insufficient for any industry that depends on innovation. Pharmaceutical companies invest 18 percent of revenue in R&D. Semiconductor firms invest 16 percent. Energy companies invest less than one-quarter of 1 percent. With this pattern of investment, we cannot expect an energy technology revolution. While industry must support technology development, only government can prime the research pump. Congress must lead. h/t

I've never seen anything like it. Very enlightening!

I disagree. Religion has no place in an idea which works. We don't have muslim versus jewish mathematics. Just math. We don't have Hindi versus buddhist electronics. Just electronics. We don't have (or shouldn't have) religious specific descriptions of evolutions. Part of the strength of the ideas is that they work no matter where or who you are. They are consistent. They are fundamental in the good way.

. http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/09/the_bloodier_the_game_the_more.php The bloodier the game, the more hostile the gamer

Do you think the journal Science or Nature would accept the presentation of an idea written like you have here in this thread? What makes you think we should? Lots of smoke and mirrors, but very little substance.

I definitely agree that getting past it is possible. I guess I'm skeptical that those we have in place right now making the rules and regulations will ultimately do so properly (like, they could create more problems than they solve, and the cure could be worse than the problem). The correction has to be done on multiple levels, in multiple contexts, and in parallel with countless other dynamic factors, and right now the ideas being presented to help are nothing more than government bailouts. Not exactly a fully thought plan to restructure the system, eliminate weakness, pump resources into areas where greatest growth is needed, and "shore up" the "leaking dam." Perhaps I'm just cynical. We just don't seem to handle our financial systems responsibly or intelligently anymore. It's only just beginning. The bail out is a band-aid, but the source of the bleed remains.

It's not nit picking when I am calling you out for misrepresentations and spinning the facts. However, we've covered this multiple times already in this thread, yet you continue making the same claims as if they were never rebutted. Since you openly conceded that you didn't read it the first time around, I can understand why you continue making the same mistakes. However, I covered your objections regarding models already here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=421600#post421600 I then summarized that post into the parts specific to accuracy and repeated it for you again here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=422371#post422371

What's the lexicon equivalent of numerology?

Somebody's been drinking the Republican kool-aid. You know, the same people lying to you about all of those things are also doing this:

For the love of Thor, you're a dumbass. You have misrepresented me so horribly that it's no wonder we're arguing. You have no idea what I'm actually talking about. As a citizen of this country, I can interpret words from our politicians just as any other citizen, regardless if I am religious or not. My comments on deism regarded the founding fathers, and not my own approach to spirituality. Her comments about god are representative of larger neuroses, and you couldn't have missed my point more (remember how I kept asking how her religious views are supposed to be any different from Osama bin Laden's?). Further, you continue to misquote the actual words to which I was responding so as to strawman my actual position. Finally, despite your opening comment, you did (in fact) continue posting about me instead of issues... like economics, job creation, the environment, foreign policy, the war where we keep sending our kids to die for no good reason, etc. Pangloss - Would you kindly close this thread? This is just getting worse and worse.

I understand your points. However, you seem to be assuming a priori that intervention by us will result somehow in a better outcome overall than letting it run its course. If our previous/recent experiences are to serve as any indicator, then this line of reasoning seems to be wishful thinking at best. I don't know the answers. I don't know how to fix this all. I also don't know what "better" really means in all of this, unless we define "better" as getting past it all indefinitely. I do know, however, that people with real money and wealth who make this all move have their proverbial wallets puckered tighter than the ass of a 17 year old male model who just arrived to prison and dropped his soap in the shower. <ewww....>

I didn't realize we were posting in the speculations forum. Let's see some citations which support your assertions. </me: Yeah, good luck getting some real science out of pioneer who never supports his conjectures. You should know better by now.>

Would that be considered 3rd base or 2nd base?

I disagree. "Leaving it alone" had nothing to do with the current issues being discussed in this thread (except maybe that we left it alone after screwing it all up so badly in the first place). I happen to agree with Greenspan's larger point. It's all shades of jacked up right now. People are apprehensive and anxious, and choosing to hold their money tightly. Until this thing gets as bad as it can possibly get, those people are going to continue holding their money and further stagnating the economy. Ergo, cushioning the collapse or softening the blow is actually causing it to be drawn out for longer. Let's take our medicine and be done with it. Don't get me wrong. I know why the government is stepping in to help, and I know how there are real people impacted by this. What I'm saying is that the more we intervene the more drawn out it will be, and longer it will take before we're past it.

Models don't make predictions. Models just "model" what will happen given a various set of inputs. If this, then that. If this other thing, then that other thing. You're misframing the issue by suggesting that they are somehow supposed to be the climatological equivalent to a crystal ball.

Yeah, I know. I have to admit that I'm really starting to feel bad that it's only been the married women saying that they want me. Btw - The Friedman interview with Rose is up now: http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/09/09/1/a-conversation-with-thomas-l-friedman

A nice op-ed at the NYTimes a coupla days ago that is peripherally on topic: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/opinion/06blow.html?_r=1&oref=slogin In fact, a 2001 Unicef report said that the United States teenage birthrate was higher than any other member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The U.S. tied Hungary for the most abortions. This was in spite of the fact that girls in the U.S. were not the most sexually active. Denmark held that title. But, its teenage birthrate was one-sixth of ours, and its teenage abortion rate was half of ours. If there is a shame here, it's a national shame -- a failure of our puritanical society to accept and deal with the facts. Teenagers have sex. How often and how safely depends on how much knowledge and support they have. Crossing our fingers that they won't cross the line is not an intelligent strategy. To wit, our ridiculous experiment in abstinence-only education seems to be winding down with a study finding that it didn't work. States are opting out of it. Parents don't like it either. According to a 2004 survey sponsored by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, 65 percent of parents of high school students said that federal money "should be used to fund more comprehensive sex education programs that include information on how to obtain and use condoms and other contraceptives." We need to take some bold steps beyond the borders of our moralizing and discomfort and create a sex education infrastructure that actually acknowledges reality and protects our children from unwanted pregnancies, or worse. h/t

That comment was made immediately prior to sharing a video of Sarah Palin talking earlier this summer to her church where she asked them to pray for the successful implementation of an oil pipeline which god wanted, and where she said that we are doing gods work in Iraq. Openly stating that I do not believe in god was my way to acknowledge my own bias and interpretation of the clip. My secondary point was that I was simply using the shorthand most likely to be understood by readers here by calling myself "atheist." The term "atheist," however, would not be necessary if our world finally woke up to rationality and critical thinking. We have collectively decided that racism is wrong and stupid, but we don't have a word for non-racists. We have collectively decided that astrology is bunk, but we don't need a word for "non-astrologers." My point is that the religions and gods of today will die and be buried in that mass graveyard which represents the ancient mythology of our ancestors. Today's god will soon enough be looked upon like Thor and Zeus and Apollo are today, and the unfounded, unsubstantiated beliefs will be rejected so fully that we won't need a word for "non-theists," much like we don't need a word for "non-numerologists." Open a new thread. I'll give you the "Why the word atheism is unecessary" presentation in greater detail. Now, for the 28th time, you still have no substance, and you are still diverting this thread away from the primary topic and trying to focus on me. You clearly ARE a republican. Screw the issues. Let's talk about the other guy using lies, retarded logic, and distractions. line[/hr] http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/09/the_definition_of_theistic_rat.php Since all of the religions with which they were familiar promoted morality, they held that virtually all religions were more or less equally valid and led to the same God who is called by many names. Theistic rationalists generally disdained doctrines or dogmas. They found them to be divisive, speculative, and ultimately unimportant since many roads lead to God. This is an excellent description of the views of the leading founders - Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin. In a new paper, Frazer argues that Gouverneur Morris, one of the most unjustly ignored of the founding fathers, also fits that description. The problem here is that most people have attempted to fit the founders into one of two categories, Christian or deist. But as Frazer notes, deism in that day and age was much more hostile toward Christianity than these men were: http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/8/1/1/2/pages281125/p281125-1.php In addition, deism was in many ways as much a critique of Christianity as a religion of its own. Deist thought rejected virtually every tenet and fundamental of Christianity and deists were generally critical of Christianity's central figure: Jesus. In short, deists wanted nothing to do with Christianity or its Christ. While theistic rationalists shared some ideas with deists, they had a much greater regard for Christianity and for Jesus than did most deists. Thus we could have Thomas Jefferson reject the notion that Jesus was anything but a mere human being while simultaneously embracing the ethical system of Jesus as the most perfect and sublime ever invented. And thus many of these men could talk of the many corruptions and lies in orthodox Christianity while simultaneously praising other aspects of that religion and believing that it was generally a good thing because it made people more moral.