Pangloss

That's exactly right. And they continue to refine that decision through subsequent rulings. The Supreme Court's job is not to decide large, sweeping issues, such as whether or not capital punishment is a good idea. Their job is to decide whether or not laws violate the constitution. I happen to disagree with their hair-splitting, but I can't really say that it was made on an incorrect basis, which seems to be the cause of your frustration in this thread. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your beef with SCOTUS here is that they made a decision on an incorrect basis, right? To quote your earlier post: I would say that your question has been asked of the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has given its answer. Or at least it has given the only answer it is capable of, and that answer appears to be "no", their rationale being that beyond the age of 18 they are capable of understanding the extent of their crime. As far as the Supreme Court is concerned, there is no contradiction here (and no indication that the four dissenters today saw such a contradiction). Of course, that having been said, the court may well change its mind, tomorrow or next year or next decade. One can only hope, because frankly the list of countries that allow ADULT capital punishment ain't a whole lot more distinguished than the one that allowed juvenile capital punishment.

I agree with you there. But I disagree with this: They haven't said that specifically -- that's your interpretation. They would say that that issue was not before the court. This sort of hair-splitting is not unusual for them, especially in recent years. Whether you agree with it or not, it was clearly on their minds. Just three years ago this same court banned the execution of the mentally impaired. And in 2002 four of today's five majority-ruling justices spoke out about the issue, calling the execution of minors "shameful". So clearly the issue of whether the criminal "understanding the magnitude of his crime" was very much on their minds in this ruling. Justice Kennedy, in issuing the majority opinion today, pointed out that juveniles may lack the maturity or intellectual development to understand the ramification of their actions. Four justices dissented, but their dissent was based primarily on whether the Supreme Court should be addressing this issue at all. Scalia wrote that it was a state issue. O'Conner wrote that it was a case-by-case issue (an excellent point, IMO, but it raises many, many other questions). Apparently every other nation in the world recognizes this, except for Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China. I'll gladly leave that company, thank you very much. In fact only three states (Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia) were even executing minors anymore. Reference: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20050301-1459-scotus-deathpenalty.html

I know what you mean. While I still think of myself as being closer to libertarianism than anything else, it seems mostly useful as a way to remind myself not to go too far when thinking along liberal or conservative lines. A way to stop myself from being washed away with the tide of public opinion on specific issues. (grin) On the whole, if the worst thing we can say about Ayn Rand is that her writing is a little stilted, but she made people think and her influence is still felt today, well.... that's not bad for a woman in any era, much less the 1940s. And at least she reads better than Michael Crichton.

Microsoft includes Visual J# .NET with every copy of Visual Studio .NET. It's J#, so it's not exactly Java, and more to the point it uses the .NET namespace rather than the Java namespace, so your import and extention commands don't always work (but they often do, since they use the same naming convention, it's just the location in the namespace that varies). You can see the insidious nature of this approach if you look at it from the point of view of a student trying to learn Java, and an instructor trying to teach it to new students. It's Java for all intents and purposes. Grab a book about Java off the shelf and start typing in code and it works just fine. But of course you have no need for the Java plug-in. It's also worth noting that GUI construction is vastly simplified in Visual Studio. If you want to build a screen for your standalone application, Microsoft makes it very easy to do, and in fact it works the same way as it does in C++, C# and Visual Basic, so long as you stay within the VS environment. This makes the construction of standalone Java apps ridiculously easy compared with any pure-Java IDE. But of course you lose all cross-platform compatibility. (So why did you use Java in the first place?) My instructor just took an impromptu poll amongst my fellow students in an OOP concepts class (Master's degree program), and 8 of 10 students had done programming work in Visual Studio prior to the class. Not surprisingly, almost to the person, they expressed that if given a choice they would rather the class had stuck with Visual Studio and even focused on something like C# instead of Java. It's a crazy situation.

There are many exceptions to constitutional protections for minors. The answer to your question is the same as the answer to those questions -- are these individuals mature enough to understand the consequences of their actions, and therefore be responsible for them? If not, then the penalty is cruel and unusual. Does it really make sense for a 17 year old to be eligible for the death penalty and the draft, but not drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes, or more to the point, voting?

On the contrary, my sentiments run towards libertarian and objectivist ideals. I was being sarcastic. ;-)

Then I would say that you and I are more or less in agreement, really. I thought it was interesting what you were saying above, actually let me just quote it briefly for clarity's sake: It's an interesting point, and reminds me a lot of growing up in suburban Atlanta, with the majority of my extracurricular exposure (e.g. Boy Scouts) being amongst rural, white Georgians. The mentality involving behavior towards women is, I think, very similar. I think it's also likely that much of the social structure of modern Saudi society (not that I'm an expert, mind) is actually not based so much on Arab history, or Muslim history, but rather a hodge-podge of the two, along with perhaps a dash of ancient Rome (e.g. the ancient Roman custom known as the "patron-client system", as popularized in modern times by the mafia, although I don't mean to suggest a correlation or negative aspect by mentioning the mafia). My point here being that while they may view their society as preserving ancient culture, it isn't necessarily true. That was often the case in rural Georgia as well. I suspect we are all products of our times, whether we choose to admit it or not.

http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/archive/November2004/NYTimesConcedes111804.htm The article above is from a web site that's aimed at pushing conservative causes on college and university campuses, but the article itself was originally from the New York Times, and as far as I know it wasn't edited or anything. I'm just using it from that site because you can read it for free. (The Times requires not only registration, but actual *payment*, to read older articles.) Anyway, I mention it here for two reasons: 1) The author, John Tierney, was named today by the New York Times as the replacement for departed conservative columnist William Safire. My guess is that the guy's slightly conservative, and this (news) article may reveal that a little. Since he hasn't actually produced a column yet, it's hard to say for sure. 2) It has some interesting statistics showing how badly Democrats outweigh Republicans amongst educators. I also stumbled across this 2002 article at The Objectivist Center about Tierney, which refers to him as a "libertarian" (note that this may mean something a little different to an objectivist). http://www.objectivistcenter.org/articles/rdonway_two-cheers-john-tierney.asp It discusses the columns Tierney has apparently been writing for the Metro section (which I don't believe you can find online), describing them as "pro-capitalist, pro-freedom, pro-technology". The description of Tierney's column on rent control is an amusing read, and it's also interesting to see why the objectivists are probably not entirely thrilled with the choice.

In looking around and talking to other students and professors over the last few days, the general consensus seems to be that the leaders are JBuilder and Eclipse. NetBeans seems to be falling on the wayside, and Forte (even in its new incarnation, which I forget the name of) is more or less dead. JBuilder and Eclipse still have their work cut out for them, though. A growing number of Java devs seem to feel that Microsoft's Visual Studio (especially the new version currently in beta) is the best development platform for Java.

You may wish to read this thread and check out the corresponding article at Scientific American this month (there's a link to it in that thread): http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=9310 It may not answer your question directly but you may not need to ask the question anymore after reading some of their disambiguational points.

Macroscopic: Maybe. Certainly I share the sentiment. But consider: Even in the United States, freedom and democracy did not happen overnight. And just last week (?) Saudi Arabia had local elections for the first time. Isn't it possible that (a) the situation in Saudi Arabia could be a lot worse, (b) the situation in Saudi Arabia could be improving, and © gradual change is better than sudden *unwelcome/enforced* change? TimeTraveler: Good points, although I think it's a mistake to single out the neo-cons. There are forces within the traditional left wing of American politics which share those sentiments. They just happen to not be prevalent at the moment. And also, if the above comments I made to Macroscopic are true, wouldn't that be the result of, as you say, Bush (and by fiat, the neo-cons) not "doing anything forceful" about Saudi Arabia?

Well I think the death penalty is wrong, so I see this as a step in the right direction.

Greed is such an easy target, isn't it?

I feel the same way. I don't think these people are free. I'm just pointing out that there is a reason why they might think so. I also wonder if perhaps it's a bit of hubris on our part to tell others what freedom is when we aren't free in many ways ourselves. For example: Indeed, I would agree with this sentiment very much. But let's not have any illusions about whether or not other countries are actually making a choice here, hmm? We're telling them what to do, just the same as if we were two-bit dictators.

No I was being serious, but I'll take that as a compliment since I'm a huge Python fan. Not sure what skit you're thinking of, but I'm amused by the reaction already. (grin) More or less out of idle curiosity, when you were in the kingdom, how did you find the people there? Warm and receptive, cold and formal, or something else? Thanks.

(Please note that this is not intended as a judgement or a proponement of Saudi society. I'm not saying it's better than other societies, or that it's "good" (in fact there's a great deal to dislike about it). I just happen to find their social structure fascinating.) A Saudi minister was asked by a western reporter once when he thought Saudi Arabia would become a democracy. The minister answered "we feel that we are one today". Incredible as it may seem, these people may actually have a valid reason to think they have a democracy. How is this possible? Because they have the two things that often constitute the definition of democracy in many people's eyes: Self-governance and freedom. If the citizens in a small Saudi town decide that all citizens must wear tall, pointed hats on Thursdays, then you'd better believe that the citizens of that town must wear tall, pointed hats on Thursdays. The king of Saudi Arabia doesn't want to deal with whether the little people in some backwater town have to wear hats -- for the most part he simply leaves them alone. They can do whatever they like. That is self-governance, and it is freedom. (You didn't think that Mel Gibson in Braveheart was screaming about representative, constitutional governance, did you?) Remember, this has been a tribal society for thousands of years. We generally see their lack of a constitution as a BAD thing, but in fact a constitution is great if you want to defend the little guy, but in a society where the little guy has no recognized importance, a constitution actually gets in your way. So while it certainly wasn't what that reporter had in mind, but it's not hard to see how this might be viewed as "democracy". So that begs another question: Who are we to tell them they're not a democratic society? Put another way, are we going to tell them they're not a democracy just because they don't allow their women to drive? This is the kind of thing they don't understand about us -- it seems to them that it's not "democracy" we want them to have, but rather our way of life. I think we have to recognize that this is what makes their society "work". I'm not defending it, but it seems clear that if it didn't exist, the alternative could have been (and could still be) much worse. One of the things that's so fascinating about Saudi Arabian society is the way in which fundamentalism is actually used by the monarchy in order to stay in power. Time and again over the decades, the monarchy has turned to the organization of clerics (the "ulama") to issue fatwahs against any perceived threat. But note what a fatwah actually does: It gives the government moral authority. In a sense it's like a Federal agent pointing at the Constitution. It makes their monarchy more than just an authoritarian force -- it means they have the support of the people. of course that approach has created a religious structure that has to be appeased. Their history for the last 50 years has been checkered with compromises between these two forces. But it has prevented Saudi Arabia from becoming an authoritarian/dictatorial state. It may be a monarchy, but it is not despotic. Almost exactly the opposite, in fact, because if they tried to become one, they would immediately be overthrown. Much of the above analysis is a reflection of my viewing of a recent PBS Frontline episode on Saudi Arabia called "House of Saud" -- an astonishingly interesting, 2-hour-long episode. It's not available for online viewing, sadly (many Frontline eps are), but the home page with more details to supplement the show can be found here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saud/ I do think that we go a little overboard sometimes in portraying basic human civil liberties as a universal concept. There's nothing universal about it. We need to pay attention to why societies other than our own are set up the way they are, rather than just dismissing them because they are different. But ultimately the question is still whether the world will stand up and fight for those rights.

The March '05 issue of Scientific American has an interesting article about misconceptions regarding the Big Bang and the expanding universe. The full article is now available on their web site at: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147 Here are some of the more interesting bits: Question: What kind of explosion was the Big Bang? Wrong Answer: The Big Bang was like a bomb going off at a certain location in previously empty space. Right Answer: It was an explosion in space itself. The space we inhabit is itself expanding. There was no center to the explosion; it happened everywhere. The density and pressure were the same everywhere, so there was no pressure difference to drive a conventional explosion. Question: Do objects inside the universe expand, too? Wrong Answer: Yes. Expansion causes the universe and everything in it to grow. Right Answer: No. The universe grows, but coherent objects inside it do not. Neighboring galaxies initially get pulled apart, but eventually their mutual gravity overpowers expansion. A cluster forms. It settles down into an equilibrium size. Question: How large is the observable universe? Wrong Answer: The universe is 14 billion years old, so the radius of the observable part of is 14 billion light-years. Right Answer: Because space is expanding, the observable part of our universe has a radius of more than 14 billion light years. As a photon travels, the space it traverses expands. By the time it reaches us, the total distance to the originating galaxy is larger than a simple calculation based on the travel time might imply -- about three times as large. Question: Can galaxies recede faster than light? Wrong Answer: Of course not. Einstein's special theory of relativity forbids that. Right Answer: Sure they can. Special relativity does not apply to recession velocity. In expanding space, recession velocity keeps increasing with distance. Beyond a certain distance, known as the Hubble distance, it exceeds the speed of light. This is not a violation of relativity, because recession velocity is caused not by motion through space, but by the expansion of space. Question: Can we see galaxies receding faster than light? Wrong Answer: Of course not. Light from those galaxies never reaches us. Right Answer: Sure we can, because the expansion rate changes over time. The photon initially is unable to approach us. But the Hubble distancs is not constant; it is increasing and can grow to encompass the photon. Once that happens, the photon approaches us and eventually reaches us. Fascinating stuff. The full article is well worth a read.

As I may have mentioned in the past, I'm a graduate student in computer science, working towards a PhD. Recently I've had a number of classes in which the professors required me to use different Java IDEs for various assignments. One prof loves NetBeans. Another prefers Forte. Another (oddly enough) likes Visual Studio. I'm curious what you guys like. I'm also curious what you guys think of the whole Java IDE situation. What's good and what's bad about it?

Some interesting points above. But the point of this thread was just that it's an interesting demarkation line for identifying extremists. Nothing more to it than that. Bud's posts above are a classic example. He doesn't support the president, and represents a very firm left-of-center approach to his posts, but at the same time he's smart enough to know where to draw the line. In many specifics he might find himself in complete agreement with someone who's as far to the right as he is to the left (if such generalizations are really valid). That makes him "normal" in my book. Cadmus' point above about people generally believing what they hear in the media does complicate such identification, along with the fact that we must question our (or rather my) need to identify people's politics in the first place, but in the general sense of trying to determine reasonable compromises in one's own mind (which was the point of the conjecture of this thread), I think it's a reasonable thing to do. Put another way, it's hard for people in this day and age to separate fact from opinion. Again and again it seems to come down to having to assess the objectivity of the source. Anything that can help you do that is valuable. Just my two bits worth, of course.

An understandable conjecture, but no. My point was that reasonable people are willing to support reasonable aspects of the current conflict. For example, reasonable people are willing to celebrate the Iraqi election as a kind of victory, even if they're opposed to our presence there in the first place. (This was the case with myself, for example.) An extremists never even remotely concedes any kind of success in Iraq. My single, sole point with this thread is that Iraq has become a sharp dividing line which points out where one particular set of extremists may be found and clearly identified. I find that interesting on an intellectual level.

This is the message: It was really just a demonstration of the power of the new radar transmitter.

Hehe, hey Bud. Nice hat!

What the heck, I think I'll start a second thread just for old times' sake. This is something I've been meaning to harp on lately, and I just posted something that's construable as anti-right, so a little anti-left jabbing seems in order. (grin) If you want to see the difference between Democrats/liberals who are fairly normal, mainstream people, and Democrats/liberals who are so extreme they make you wonder if forced birth control might be a good idea after all, you need look no further than the issue of Iraq. Many outspoken Democrats, who spared no punches during the 2004 election cycle, have been ardent, even outspoken, in their support for our current efforts in Iraq. Last week Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Hillary Clinton (D-New York) went to Iraq as part of a normal congressional delegation. Their report back was unanimous in its support for our efforts to bring peace and stability to the region. Both the soldiers who work over there and the majority of the administration's initiatives, not to mention the efforts by the Iraqis themselves, enjoy quite a lot of bipartisan support right now. Just look at some of the issues that were contentiously debated in 2003/4 which now enjoy bipartisan agreement: - We have enough troops there now to do the job. - We should not set a timeline for withdrawl. - Enough money is being spent (more or less). - Some level of military commitment to Iraq is going to be necessary for a very long time to come, and that's more or less okay (not desirable, but acceptable). Contrast this, for example, with Ted Kennedy's recent call for a timetable for withdrawl (a statement which John Kerry flatly disagreed with a few days later on Meet the Press!), or pretty much any post you might find on michaelmoore.com or democraticunderground.com. (I've never heard Kerry answer a question so succinctly before! Russert: "Do you agree with your colleage from Massachusetts about this?" Kerry: "No.") There are plenty of things that congressional Democrats and Republicans diagree on, of course, even when it comes to Iraq. But I think this is one of those rare moments when you can see a very sharp, very clear dividing line between extremists and reasonable people.

Hey folks! It's been a while and I had a slight break from my workload at school so I thought I'd swing by and see how things are going at SFN. Looks like you guys have been keeping up the tradition of excellence in debate and discussion. Just for fun, here's a little something I whipped up a few days ago for some friends of mine on a private board that we use to keep in touch. (Hence the invective at the end -- don't take it personally!) ------------- "Blue Dogs" are moderate-to-conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives who support a balanced budget and logical fiscal spending. Here's their 12-point plan: 1 Require a balanced budget. (i.e. an Balanced Budget Amendment) 2 Don’t let Congress buy on credit. 3 Put a lid on spending. 4 Require agencies to put their fiscal houses in order. 5 Make Congress tell taxpayers how much they’re spending. 6 Set aside a rainy-day fund. 7 Don’t hide votes to raise the debt limit. 8 Justify spending for pet projects. 9 Ensure that Congress reads the bills it’s voting on. 10 Require honest cost estimates for every bill that Congress votes on. 11 Make sure new bills fit the budget. 12 Make Congress do a better job of keeping tabs on government programs. The Centrist Policy Network has a pretty good detailed summary of the plan here: http://www.centristpolicynetwork.org/pages_2005/02/blue_dog_budget_reform/blue_dog_12_point_plan.html Wikipedia has pages about the BDC here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Democrats A list of BDC members can be found here: http://www.house.gov/tanner/blue.htm And they have an unofficial web site here: http://www.bluedogdemocrats.com/ The reason this is coming up now is that they've introduced a new reform package which should be seriously considered. It will not happen, however, because House Republicans will stomp the sucker flat. Watch for House leadership to nit pick details on this and call it fiscally irresponsible or some such BS, or just ignore it completely. Since the Republican "Contract with America" also required a balanced budget amendment, and Republicans are constantly touting fiscal responsibility, it is ludicrous for them to oppose these measures. But they will do so because they are in power and intend to spend your money on their constituents as fast as they possibly can. What are you going to do about that?

Ayn Rand and Martin Luther King, Jr. are personal heros of mine. Take from that what you will. Rand had a great quote about this in Atlas Shrugged: