"With the actions we take today, consumers will reap the benefits of increased Internet access competition and enjoy innovative, high-speed services at lower prices," he said.

Who the hell are they trying to kid? No competition drives prices UP not down. That's the whole point of anti-trust law.

FCC ruling gives telecoms power over Internet access

In the first study to make plain the negative consequences of such behavior, 49% of 164 female MBA graduates said in a survey that they have tried to advance in their careers by sometimes engaging in at least one of 10 sexual behaviors, including crossing their legs provocatively or leaning over a table to let men look down their shirts.

The other half said they never engaged in such activity, and those women have earned an average of three promotions, vs. two for the group that had employed sexuality. Those who said they never used sexuality were, on average, in the $75,000-$100,000 income range; the others fell, on average, in the next-lowest range, $50,000 to $75,000.

In other words, sex may sell, but it doesn't pay.

Study says flirtatious women get fewer raises, promotions

Someone said to me today, "If you can't see the difference between the administration and Al Qaeda then there's something (and my memory slips on the exact word used to finish the sentence, but it was any of a number of synonyms for wrong, and may have even been wrong, but I digress)."

So I thought about this question for all of about a third of a second and replied that the administation had a much higher body count.

I remember watching the morning that led to the hell of the past four years, and I can't begin to describe my feelings about it. What I can describe is what I have felt about it since then, and it comes down to only a few things.

Rage, outrage and disgust.

The first is primarily directed towards the perpetrators. This was a crime of unprecedented proportion. We have ways to deal with criminals, in this case it would probably be best to simply take bin Laden out back and just shoot him, but that's a separate point.

The second goes two places, some of towards Al Q, the majority of it towards the administration. Towards Al Q, it is because they chose to strike out against people who had little of nothing to do with any problem they think they have. While I would be angry about them taking their aggression out on other targets, which they had done in the past (the embassies in Africa, the USS Cole) those are arms of the government. Lower Manhattan was not.

Towards the administration it comes from a huge number of sources. First, the utter failure to find the one person most responsible. "I don't really think about him.....I'm not really concerned about him" GW Bush on 3/13/2003 referring to bin Ladin. Either everything that has been said about bin Ladin is a lie and the black helicopter nutjobs are right that it was actually our own government that took out New York (which I don't believe) or the sitting President is both an idiot and one of the most callous bastards to ever walk around in the oval office, which is what I do think.

The second disaster is Iraq. I am not going to say Saddam was a nice guy or that he shouldn't be whacked, but the route taken is possibly the worst of all possible worlds. They lied to get the war. They lied about the WMDs. They lied about the connections to Al Q. They lied about any threat he posed to anyone outside Iraq. They lied about what the resistance would be like. They lied about what the government of Iraq would be like after.

What did that get us? So far, 1800+ dead soldiers, 40,000+ wounded or mentally ill, an unknown number of US civilian casualties, and 100,000+ dead Iraqis. It got us an active terrorist training ground directed against us along with the best recruiting tool they've ever had. No one disputes any of this.

What will it gets us in the future? What is probably now the best case scenario is a full blown Iraqi civil war that we have managed to pull our troops out of. The Sunni and Shi'a there hate each othe... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

I remember why I don't do the whole forum thing. I'm too lazy to type an opinion -- if you don't know why I think it's your loss.

However, since I've gotten started:

Have some faith in the kids, man. It's not like just because some teacher proclaims ID as a creation theory they'll make the connection that this is a indirect attack on science and, as a result, abandon their belief that sceince must be supported by evidence. In fact, if they're intelligent they'll consider the facts and just decide that ID is bunk.

Personally I grew up in a Christian home, was homeschooled two years, went to a private, Christian, middle school, and wasn't exposed to evolution as anything except wacked out heresy[0] until my junior year in high school (I think). That being said, and so that my bias is known, I'm a creationist (in the classical, Genesis is literal, sense [1]).

Oh, and yea, this doesn't belong in public schools -- I'm not arguing that point... I'm just saying kids aren't stupid and teaching ID doesn't destroy the scientific foundations we're trying to instill. Tangentially, if you're worried about teaching the skills they need ID doesn't seem the biggest threat - for me the lack of basic math and problem solving skills or the inability to interact without resorting to profanity and violence coupled with intolerence of others are our big winners.

Anyway, just my two cents -- it's probably best ignored as I quit caring a long time ago about the science of creation... and I think theres at least one person here that will vouch for my lack-of-blinding-stupidity.

[0] - maybe not those exact terms, but those are more fun.
[1] - My opinion is faith is something that is supposed to transcend evidence -- what good is faith if you have hard evidence, ya know? I mean, faith is belief in something that cannot be seen and as long as we're beliving in something that can't be seen it seems somewhat... fake to twist it into something that is eaiser to swallow.

I think we have agreement. :) Here's why having this in schools worries me. The foundation for science at its most basic level is "question everything." I think that concept is incompatible the foundation of religion which is "belief." One asks questions, the other does not. Are they mutually exclusive? I wouldn't go that far, but I don't have a place for "God" in the natural world, anymore than I have room for science in the spiritual.

ID and creationism are places where one group's belief is intruding on nature, and I find that ANY intrusion of the spritual into the natural is a problem. Science is not going to show up one morning with God's phone number. It will also never satisfy the desire to hope that there is something more to this world than what we can see. That's really what defines the spiritual world. I can't see it, have no way to prove it, but believe it is there anyway.

What I AM worried about is when religion interjects into science, it does so to the purpose of stopping the questions. ID says "This is what happened. End of Story." Creationism says the same thing. Both of those stifle growth.

Genesis may well be the word of god, but it was copied down by us dumb humans, and you know what, as demonstrated in one of the othere memes popular on here right now (English as she is spoke) we're really bad at that sort of thing.

RE: CNN.com - Bush: Schools should teach 'intelligent design' - Aug 2, 2005

"They are narrow-minded people, don't tolerate human rights, women's rights, don't tolerate dissent," he said. "There's no such thing as rule of law as far as they're concerned — that they're cold-blooded killers."

This isn't funny, but when I look at Gitmo/Abu Gharib/Bagram, Rick Santorum's comments this Sunday on "This Week," what it took to go to a presidential appearance (the loyalty pledges), the tossing of the Geneva convention, and the current death toll in Iraq, I think of this comment as the description of the current holders of power in this country, not Al Q.

That all may also be true of them, but this is a pot calling a kettle black.

Bush Reiterates Stem Cell Study Position

During a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, Bush declined to go into detail on his personal views of the origin of life. But he said students should learn about both theories, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported.

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

This whole "we should teach different ideas" is retarded. There are ideas that life spawns from rotten meat. There are ideas that the US forced Japan to attack Pearl Harbor because of an oil embargo. There are ideas that the earth is hollow.

The point is there are ideas for everything, and we don't teach them all. We have some criteria that concepts have to meet to be taught. In science classes, that criteria is the scientific method.

I quote the Intelligent Design article on Wikipedia:

Critics call ID religious dogma repackaged in an effort to return creationism into public school science classrooms and note that ID features notably as part of the campaign known as Teach the Controversy. The National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education assert that ID is not science, but creationism. While the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection has observable and repeatable facts to support it such as the process of mutations, gene flow, genetic drift, adaptation and speciation through natural selection, the "Intelligent Designer" in ID is neither observable nor repeatable. This violates the scientific requirement of falsifiability. ID violates Occam's Razor by postulating an entity or entities to explain something that may have a simpler and scientifically supportable explanation not involving unobservable help.

ID is *not* science. It should not be taught in a *science* class. Doing so undermines the entire point of science. Bush's complete misunderstanding of this is beyond excuse.

That sound you hear is future doctors and engineers turning into ditch diggers in Mexico beacause our education system isn't up to teaching the skills they need.

CNN.com - Bush: Schools should teach 'intelligent design' - Aug 2, 2005

When the school board in Odessa, the West Texas oil town, voted unanimously in April to add an elective Bible study course to the 2006 high school curriculum, some parents dropped to their knees in prayerful thanks that God would be returned to the classroom, while others assailed it as an effort to instill religious training in the public schools.

Yuck.

Can't teach religion as part of public school? Fine, recast it as history. Can't teach Creationism in science? Toss it over to the social studies department. The really sad thing is that if they actually taught it as history, it would be worthwhile.

I had a history class where for part of it we did look at the bible, and used what was in there as compared to the archeological record, and other time relavant sources. That was actually interesting. We also read Gilgamesh in the same class. That I'd call appropriate. I'm sure you could build an entire course around the concept.

From the account here, they've built an indoctriation class and are hiding it as history. It has no more business in a school than the less than pseudo-science of creationism, and I'd like the people responsible for it flogged in the public square for doing something that deliberately contributes to the ignorance and stupidity of the next generation.

Bible Course Becomes a Test for Public Schools in Texas

"I am truly concerned that a recess appointment will only add to John Bolton's baggage and his lack of credibility with the United Nations,"

While he may be concerned with baggage and lack of credibility, I simply see it as one more case while W has decided he's more important than dealing with the Constitution. If he were honestly concerned with it, he would have simply said that the deputy ambassador is in charge until things get sorted out with the senate and left it at that.

Having someone at the UN is important. Sending a pyromaniac with gasoline and a lighter into a building you consider to be tinders is NOT the recipe for repair.

Bush Appoints Bolton As U.N. Ambassador

Jan Koch, who with her husband milks 250 cows and farms 500 acres near De Forest in southern Wisconsin, was mostly disgusted with Congress, but not for any effect the change would have on her farm.

"If that is the best Congress can come up with for an energy idea, we are in trouble," she said. "They should be able to come up with something better than that to save energy."

I think that one quote pretty much sums up the problem.

Extended Daylight-Saving Plan Worries Some - Yahoo! News

As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire

I love the Bulwer-Lytton contest. They never fail to find something truly, wrongly, humorous.

2005 Results