Please don't put another Moron in the White House

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HFat
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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by HFat » Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:29 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:where are the actual and greatest differences from the Economist and what I said?"
I already told you: the bubble started before than the .com crash and it isn't specific to the US.
You apparently quote-mined the articles according to your preconceptions and ignored the data. Try again: look at the data.
By the way you will not find your "0.75% effect" either (check the Case-Shiller data from my other link if you want since it's much more detailed for the US than the graphs in the articles).
quest_for_silence wrote:As it's the 2005, they can write that the bubble popped dramatically in the USA and that would have affected (first, directly) the US Financial market.
No. It hadn't popped in the USA at that point and the articles predicted global, non-financial consequences.
quest_for_silence wrote:Up to 2010 the worldwide financial crisis started with the US subprime mortgage crisis ...
Is this extremely summarized recollection wrong? Are they facts or mine interpretations?
I've adressed the latter part of your summary above. As to the earlier part, it is a fact that newspapers printed articles about these things in that order. But what they printed is an interpretation (as opposed to things like a change in some price or a default which are facts). It's not yours but what you're repeating is an interpretation.
Since that part of your summary doesn't explain anything, it's not wrong. But if by "started with" you actually meant "was caused by", you would be wrong.
quest_for_silence wrote:It's an interview at NY Times of 14th july 2008, but I have just read excerpts as here (as it's a subscriber-only matter to read those issues right now).
This link works for me without subscription: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opini ... ref=slogin
From what I can piece together he's separating "the height of the housing bubble" from "the housing bubble". And he says the GSEs aren't responsible or affected by the height. That's an exageration of course (newspaper articles must be short and he's being deliberately "contrarian" in this one) but it's basically right.
The problem is: on what basis is he separating the bubble in two parts? And why would the fundamental part of the bubble not be a part of "the mess we're in" just like the top? Partly I think because he doesn't expect the full bubble to burst, only the worst part. And also apparently because he expects a bailout of the GSE's ("since it’s already clear that that rescue will take place, their problems won’t take down the economy") while the damage at the top mostly affects banks instead. And he's probably afraid about banks and panic (it was 2008).
But what about the real damage (what The Economist talks about) as oppposed to the damage to financial corporations? And what about the cost of the bailout? He doesn't talk about that except to say that it happened before to other people (what a poor excuse!). It's somewhat understandable because there were bigger fears at the time. But it's a very biased and incomplete explanation (like I said you'd often get with his articles).

In this article he also explains the basic problem with GSEs: "The most important of these privileges is implicit: it’s the belief of investors that if Fannie and Freddie are threatened with failure, the federal government will come to their rescue. This implicit guarantee means that profits are privatized but losses are socialized. If Fannie and Freddie do well, their stockholders reap the benefits, but if things go badly, Washington picks up the tab. Heads they win, tails we lose." What he doesn't say is how that distorts prices and expectations and therefore influences everything in that market including the subprime stuff.
quest_for_silence wrote:Krugman has gone further from that arguments in another 2010 NY Times issue where the GSEs are not taken into account looking for the main causes for the financial crisis.
No. This is about financial reform and the GSEs are simply off-topic.
quest_for_silence wrote:"The other reference is the "Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States" (see from page xxvi)."
As far as I know that's got nothing to do with Krugman. It was mostly made by politicians and their staff.
quest_for_silence wrote:It's already so, without taking into account GSEs: now the biggest banks know that worldwide governments will protect from bankrupcy.
It used to be different and how it used to be is what matters to explain the past. See what Krugman said about their "priviledge".
quest_for_silence wrote:I'm more concerned about this "moral hazard" (irresponsible behaviours) than the ones actually coming from GSEs.
Definitely. Like I said in another thread, people should have been concerned about the GSEs years ago. Now it's history. But the damage is done and won't go away.

Moral hazard is not irresponsible behaviors by the way. Maybe one could put it this way: moral hazard is when it's responsible to behave in a way which would be irresponsible without the moral hazard.
quest_for_silence wrote:Just the last example: "...The combined percentage of loans at least one payment past due or in foreclosure was 12.63 percent on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, a nine basis point increase from last quarter, but was 115 basis points lower than a year ago..."
:-)
I usually start to read from the top where they give the numbers separately. I recommend you adopt this cunning reading method of mine.
quest_for_silence wrote:Or we just have different ethics and crises happen out of the blue.
What's that supposed to mean?
Your "out of the blue" has to be ironic. It sounds like a priori denial but it's hard to tell with irony...
quest_for_silence wrote:So, add your systemic risk to small actual capitals and those inherently high risks securities (for an higher yeld, of course), shake together, put it at the foam of a bubble, and you'll go very close to something nearby the almost perfect disaster.
The bubble itself is the disaster.
The loss doesn't happen because of the securitization or because the result is a risky instrument but because the junk mortgages were signed at the top of the bubble. If there is a bubble, there are going to be losses somewhere at some point. That can't be helped.
All the securitization does is to spread the risk. The loss doesn't increase. It's not a bad idea in principle. Only some organizations concentrated the risk instead by holding many of these securities. And then you get failures and panics. But that's not a special phenomenon caused by these instruments. If banks are not regulated well enough, they'll find another way of making a mess sooner or later.

Small "actual capital" without regulation is OK only if a default would be acceptable (systemic consequences included). That's a general problem unrelated to securitization, subprime and so on.
quest_for_silence wrote:Perhaps you are underestimating groundlessly several people: several people know that if you systematically underestimate the safety distances sooner or later you crash into something hard, whether we are talking about traffic and financial markets.
TANSTAAFL is always true.
You assume people are in a position to know what safeties are effective.
People who know how to drive a car usually don't know how to safely pilot a plane or manage financial risk. There's simply no connection between these skills and your analogy is therefore a crude fallacy.
Again, I have no idea what you mean with "there is no such ...".
quest_for_silence wrote:The negative interest rates such the ones set by Fed discount rate in late 2002 fast paced the housing bubble: why is this a mere, wrong, not authorized my interpretation?
Aside from what I said above (no evidence), this effect isn't even supposed to happen. As the saying goes, monetary policy is a "blunt tool". It doesn't affect asset prices directly in a predictable manner, especially in the middle of a bubble (expectations of prince increases are self-sustaining). The link with real estate is even weaker than usual because of the difference between short-term and long-term interest rates and because housing is not the first expense you cut, especially in the US where it wasn't uncommon to refinance a mortgage to pay the bills.
Want to control housing prices? Tax housing and/or regulate mortgages, sales and rents. It's more effective and you can do that without wrecking the rest of the economy in the process...
quest_for_silence wrote:I don't know not even to pick up them, bla bla bla... ok point me out the repository, I'll give them a skimming check.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomc.htm
About skimming, you know what would be funny? A script that counts the occurences of words like "oil" in their minutes and plots them on a chronological chart. Maybe someone's done it.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by aristide1 » Wed Nov 30, 2011 10:10 pm

Looks to me that Democrats are recruiting wackos to discredit the Republican "black man," since we all know that Democrats own the blacks and will not stand for anyone who is black and who is a Republican to run against their own "black man".
Haldol effective deals with delusions. Ask your doctor.
Newt Gingrich wrote:Wish I was getting as much as girly action as that guy.
Bill Clinton wrote:Me too.
Hillary Clinton wrote:Me too.
Cain's behavior is clearly a rich elite that thinks he can buy his way to the top, after all he bought his way to where he is now. And he's also the poster child of the Robin Williams joke about a man having 2 heads but only enough blood to make 1 work at a time. And lack of blood supply to the one head can cause memory loss.

You may not want another morman in office, but clearly having a corporatist in office for the last 12 years hasn't made any situation better. And when Romney reminds us that corporations are people too someone should remind him:
Benito Mussolini wrote:Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
Can I believe in Cain? No, I Cain't.
The Arab Spring is 100% the result of US removing Sadam from Iraq.
Oh I just had to address this ridiculous notion, that an Arab spring even exists, let alone was caused by the US. There is no spring. The only Arab countries that have political uprisings are those where the people went hungry, not because of they way they are being governed. Dictatorships or any other kind of non-democratic government do not have uprisings if the people are in decent economic standing. Don't take my word for it, check all Arab countries that are not democratic and have no uprisings. Where's the spring there?

Second, taking credit, and full credit no less, for something that doesn't exist is beyond any measure of arrogance ever made in history. And people used to think Billy Carter was embarrassing.
Last edited by aristide1 on Wed Nov 30, 2011 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by xan_user » Wed Nov 30, 2011 10:23 pm

With nearly all the occupy uprising basically eradicated from large cities, its fairly obvious it doesn't matter who is in the white house.

"Let them eat .99 cent whoppers!" (with a triple dose of pepper spray)

Its MUCH more important in the US to stuff yourself with turkey and pie all day, and then wake up at 4am to go further into debt buying gobbs of Chinese made crap on black Friday, than to sit down and disagree with the complete ruler-ship of the world by the other .1%
:cry:

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by NeilBlanchard » Thu Dec 01, 2011 5:34 am

The so-called Arab Spring and other recent uprisings were caused by basic issues, like economic collapse, very poor policies and very high food prices:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/ju ... 11-30.html

The Theory of Gravity, the Theory of Evolution, and many other major important science theories are pretty much absolute facts. Our *understanding* of them is updated as new data is gathered and new questions are worked on. Plate tectonics, and atomic theory are both newer than anthropogenic climate change. Perry was *right* about HPV vaccine, but he is wrong about climate change. Maybe those petro-dollars are blinding him to the cause of the drought in his state and around the world?

It is December 1st, and the ground outside my house is still not frozen. It used to freeze hard sometime in October. We just came through the second warmest November ever. We are in the middle of the 6th great extinction -- this is a much more rapid die-off than when the dinosaurs went extinct.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by aristide1 » Thu Dec 01, 2011 9:54 am

Who can believe mere mortals can tell a total and complete truth?

http://www.dailytech.com/Editorial+Full ... e23370.htm

Politicians swayed by lobbyist dollars, scientists swayed be research dollars. What's the solution? Tie their ankles together and throw them over a clothes line.

At some point in this Wall St caused global economic mess you have to ask yourself if a tidal waved destroyed you and your town would you really feel anything other than relieved?

Sorry Neil, too many days, weeks, months, years, of human b/s, they're ain't much room for more.

And yes we're going to put another moron in the Oval Office. It's simply a matter of odds, and as the debates have proven we have them up to our necks. Can we fix this? No, we Cain't. Jesse Ventura said it right, the US is a 2 party dictatorship. And it's your own damn fault.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by xan_user » Thu Dec 01, 2011 4:45 pm

aristide1 wrote: What's the solution?

Simple. A real, life sized guillotine in every CEO and elected government official's office, opposite their desks, so they can not miss it.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by xan_user » Thu Dec 01, 2011 4:57 pm

and then there was one less moron...

say bye bye to the pizza boy womanizer.

For Herman Cain, the campaign all but over

Who's that leave?
scary Perry- thinks you have to be 21 to vote.
Mittens- flipped against his own healthcare plan.
Bachmann over board- dumber than a box of rocks.
Gangrich-wants to return to child labor.
Wrong Paul- would let the uninsured die if church donations cant cover healthcare extortion.
Huntsmean- governor of the biggest cult state in the world.
Sanatorium- thinks killing bin laden, gadaffi and dispensing hostage taking pirates with head shots, is being soft on foreign policy.
Painlin- intentional saboteur of the last GOP run. "Shit Mcain might win...Who can we put up as a running mate to make sure Barry has to clean up Dubyas mess?"

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by andyb » Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:14 am

and then there was one less moron...

say bye bye to the pizza boy womanizer.

For Herman Cain, the campaign all but over

Who's that leave?
scary Perry- thinks you have to be 21 to vote.
Mittens- flipped against his own healthcare plan.
Bachmann over board- dumber than a box of rocks.
Gangrich-wants to return to child labor.
Wrong Paul- would let the uninsured die if church donations cant cover healthcare extortion.
Huntsmean- governor of the biggest cult state in the world.
Sanatorium- thinks killing bin laden, gadaffi and dispensing hostage taking pirates with head shots, is being soft on foreign policy.
Painlin- intentional saboteur of the last GOP run. "Shit Mcain might win...Who can we put up as a running mate to make sure Barry has to clean up Dubyas mess?"
Who does that leave who has a few brain cells to rub together.???

Looks like the US is in a whole world of shit for the next 5-years, and that wont help the rest of us and an ever-looming double-dip recession in large parts of Europe and the UK, and lets not forget all of those poor people in the US with no healthcare no jobs and no homes.


Andy

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by andyb » Wed Jan 04, 2012 8:51 am

Awesome, Bachmann is out, that's one idiot gone - I just watched her standing-down speech - it was awful, so much waffle and repeating herself. Does she feel that she has to repeat herself several times so that her followers might actually get her message.?

Also that Perry idiot that I mentioned right at the start of this thread polled poorly in Iowa, but as we have seen in the past this race is far from over.

It looks like it might be a 2-horse race from the Iowa poll, but I am still concerned as Perry is continuing to fight.

I don't get a great deal of information about US politics compared to those who actually live there.

Can someone briefly say how "Mitt Romney" and "Rick Santorum" compares to "Perry", as the news from the UK gives sweeping statements, such as "Liberal by Bible-Thumper standards" (Romney), or "a Classic social Bible-Thumping Conservative" (Santorum).

UPDATE:

I just discovered something about "Santorum", he is totally anti national-healthcare (Obamacare as idiots like Bachmann call it).

For those of you who cant watch the BBC video of Santorum muffling words, being evasive and basically not answering the question (which would come as no surprise as he was a Lawyer), I can only appologise as it doesnt seem to be on youtube.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/n ... 671217.stm

And here is an article explaining that this are not quite the same as Santorum thinks.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... world.html

I would like to add that although the NHS is far from perfect (like anything else), it measures up quite well against many other national health systems, and costs half the amount per person than Healthcare in the US does, and covers everyone - why do people oppose something that is better, cheaper all round and covers everyone regardless - I oppose anyone who is opposed to these basic principles of better quality, lower cost and covers those who have lost their job or are simply unlucky with their health.


Andy

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by NeilBlanchard » Wed Jan 04, 2012 9:57 am

Andy,

Here's my admittedly biased take: Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts and he worked hard to pass essentially the same healthcare law here -- and it was used as a model for the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I applaud him for doing this -- we now have almost everybody on healthcare here in Massachusetts. Nothing is perfect, and like all complicated laws it is evolving.

The irony is Romney has disavowed his signature legislation, now that he is running for President again. He ran four years ago, too. He is a multimillionaire, and his father was governor of Michigan and he was the CEO of American Motors. Mitt has been a venture capitalist, and he would be exactly the wrong person to actually fix what is wrong in the economy -- in my opinion.

Rick Santorum is a devout Christian and he is running as such; very much in the vein of Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann. Santorum was a US senator from Pennsylvania, and he was typically pro-pork for his state, and anti-pork for everybody else, etc.

Ron Paul is a weird cross of libertarian / pro life / isolationist -- he would abolish FIVE major federal departments, the Federal Reserve in particular. He is an anarchist but anti-abortion -- he is actually an MD and he practices what he preaches. He is a straight-talker, and while many of his positions are admirable -- he is anti-war; others are borderline insane. He had *years* of newsletters that espoused racism and anti-gay and he fears a "UN dictatorship".

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by andyb » Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:29 am

Here's my admittedly biased take: Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts and he worked hard to pass essentially the same healthcare law here -- and it was used as a model for the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I applaud him for doing this -- we now have almost everybody on healthcare here in Massachusetts. Nothing is perfect, and like all complicated laws it is evolving.

The irony is Romney has disavowed his signature legislation, now that he is running for President again. He ran four years ago, too. He is a multimillionaire, and his father was governor of Michigan and he was the CEO of American Motors. Mitt has been a venture capitalist, and he would be exactly the wrong person to actually fix what is wrong in the economy -- in my opinion.
He seems a mixed bag all in one man, and I would also have a problem backing him (should I be interested in backing a Republican, and capable of voting in the US), but for an additional reason to yours. He has created a seemingly successful healthcare system, but is now going against that to gain votes - would I trust that man....... no.
Rick Santorum is a devout Christian and he is running as such; very much in the vein of Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann. Santorum was a US senator from Pennsylvania, and he was typically pro-pork for his state, and anti-pork for everybody else, etc.
That's what I was worried about with Santorum, (who effectively drew in Iowa) another Preacher before a politician, almost everything that comes out of his mouth has been drummed into him from a young age, and all he spouts seems to be "bible-sanctified" which explains why he did so well in Iowa, how well he will do elsewhere is to be determined.
Ron Paul is a weird cross of libertarian / pro life / isolationist -- he would abolish FIVE major federal departments, the Federal Reserve in particular. He is an anarchist but anti-abortion -- he is actually an MD and he practices what he preaches. He is a straight-talker, and while many of his positions are admirable -- he is anti-war; others are borderline insane. He had *years* of newsletters that espoused racism and anti-gay and he fears a "UN dictatorship".
Judging by what they have said about his old "advice" and "opinions" he was dead and buried and had no chance at all - but that is the difference between the UK news and the US news about US politics.

Thanks Neil.


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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by mkk » Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:54 am

The race is over. All Santorum could do is to lower the score for those running against Romney, he has no base in the major part of the country. All Republican higher-ups are happy he did put Paul in third place, as no matter how much they'd like to see someone else than Romney it must never ever be Paul. And I kinda agree, for as much as Mitt Romney is unreliable Ron Paul is a known fool(if admirably honest). Although even if he would magically stand a chance against Obama, a president Paul would never pass his ideas through either congress or the senate. Even todays congress that is out to hurt the american economy isn't that crazy. Romney will be nominated and may have a slim chance against Obama, even if I'm pretty sure the presidency is already a done deal unless something special happens next(oh wait it's 2012 already), ehh this year.

So, who's up for 2016? Gotta be another Bush, right?

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by andyb » Wed Jan 04, 2012 12:00 pm

The race is over. All Santorum could do is to lower the score for those running against Romney, he has no base in the major part of the country. All Republican higher-ups are happy he did put Paul in third place, as no matter how much they'd like to see someone else than Romney it must never ever be Paul. And I kinda agree, for as much as Mitt Romney is unreliable Ron Paul is a known fool(if admirably honest).
That is an interesting perspective and it looks as though you are looking at this as Romney is "the lesser of the evils", that's not a bad way to look at it really.
Although even if he would magically stand a chance against Obama, a president Paul would never pass his ideas through either congress or the senate. Even today's congress that is out to hurt the American economy isn't that crazy. Romney will be nominated and may have a slim chance against Obama, even if I'm pretty sure the presidency is already a done deal unless something special happens next(oh wait it's 2012 already), ehh this year.
If Romney gets in what will happen internally within the Republican party.? He seems more left facing than most/all of the others, could this create further rifts within the Republicans.? That is something that I would like to see on a personal level, a third party in American politics can only do good, the distinct lack of choice is baffling to voter from the rest of the world where there is far more choice.


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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by Reachable » Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:16 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote: The Theory of Gravity, the Theory of Evolution, and many other major important science theories are pretty much absolute facts.
Well, they aren't, actually. That's one reason why the fundamentalist theories still persist today in addition to childish clinging and fear of the unknown.

If I were a science teacher and I taught that the engine of evolution was not natural selection but, essentially, will and learning and adaptation, I would likely be fired. Science is a new addition to the pool of religions, and it has its rigid and evidence-denying dogmas. Science is fighting a centuries-old war against religious fundamentalism, and therefore anything that even smacks of religion is verboten, even if it's as plain as day. That is how truth is the first casualty in this particular war.

I'm writing this with four nimble fingers and an opposable thumb. I came by these because I, and my ancestors, wanted to do all these complex things with our hands. If you want to believe that some individual was born some time in the past and discovered that he had these neat mutant hands and so he and his descendants were the only ones who survived while everyone else perished, you're buying into a huge absurdity. There's also no way that, for instance, eyes and wings could have evolved by natural selection. The origin of each would require hundreds, if not thousands, of mutations happening all at once for any one of the mutations to be useful. Creatures developed eyes because they wanted to detect more information about their surroundings, and lizards developed wings because they simply wanted to fly, Will is the causality of not only everything that happens in evolution, but everything that happens, period. The church and school educated person gets only versions of denial of free will -- The Church telling him that he and all creatures are God's electric train set, and the school teaching him that all creatures are helpless puppets of randomness. The two institutions perpetually war against each others lack of moral responsibility.

The Force of Gravity is another example. It's been impossible, to an absurd extent, to reconcile it with more recent science such as quantum theory and Grand Unification. The grand unifiers have decided to simply drop the Force of Gravity from their calculations, a stupendous act of intellectual laziness. But that's how dogma works.

This was a bit of an off topic rant, but you pushed some particularly pushable buttons, Neil, especially coming from a humane advocate like you. Bravo to everything else you've said.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by aristide1 » Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:54 pm

That is an interesting perspective and it looks as though you are looking at this as Romney is "the lesser of the evils", that's not a bad way to look at it really.
It has always been a terrible way to validate a bad decision. You're still voting for an evil, no question.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by autoboy » Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:07 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:The so-called Arab Spring and other recent uprisings were caused by basic issues, like economic collapse, very poor policies and very high food prices:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/ju ... 11-30.html

The Theory of Gravity, the Theory of Evolution, and many other major important science theories are pretty much absolute facts. Our *understanding* of them is updated as new data is gathered and new questions are worked on. Plate tectonics, and atomic theory are both newer than anthropogenic climate change. Perry was *right* about HPV vaccine, but he is wrong about climate change. Maybe those petro-dollars are blinding him to the cause of the drought in his state and around the world?

It is December 1st, and the ground outside my house is still not frozen. It used to freeze hard sometime in October. We just came through the second warmest November ever. We are in the middle of the 6th great extinction -- this is a much more rapid die-off than when the dinosaurs went extinct.
This is not climate, it is weather. We are in an El Nino event right now and that makes the weather in the US odd. The average global temperatures are up less than a degree C and that tiny amount of warming isn't what is effecting your stupid lawn or causing a common drought. Extinctions, of which have been grossly overstated, are more a result of the shift in land usage than in global climate changes.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by autoboy » Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:52 pm

If Romney gets in what will happen internally within the Republican party.? He seems more left facing than most/all of the others, could this create further rifts within the Republicans.? That is something that I would like to see on a personal level, a third party in American politics can only do good, the distinct lack of choice is baffling to voter from the rest of the world where there is far more choice.
Romney is probably more conservative than you give him credit for. Especially as a Mormon he holds some pretty socially conservative views. As a Massachusetts governor he has had to shift towards the center, often pushing for apparent liberal policies but that is the reality of working in a liberal state. His legislature is 85% Democrat, so in order to get anything done he had to work within their limits. Being pro-life early in his career would have ruined him but now that he wants to play nationally he can claim pro-life. But, that's always the nature of US politics given the separated nature of our system. The US and the world often forget that the laws are created and passed in the Legislature. The Legislature is arguably more powerful than the president or a Governor, but because all that power is on one man/woman, the president/governor gets all the attention. Romney focused on what policies he thought he could get through the government rather than those which he knew would go nowhere. I see no real fault in that.

Other views of Romney such as the Mass. Health Care law (which he hasn't totally backed away from like some posters claim) are not strictly liberal positions. It only became massively unpopular because President Obama tried the same thing on an arguably unconstitutional federal level in the middle of a great recession when employers could hardly shoulder the burden of increased costs. It's turned into a great disaster, raising costs, creating more cronyism, forcing Americans to buy something just for being alive, and costing jobs. But before that the idea wasn't as toxic to conservatives. It was toxic but Obama's truly awful implementation of it made it radioactive.

Anyway, the President's power is always moderated by what the Legislature will let him pass and vice versa. Romney's power to actually do anything with the economy is really just dependent on the makeup of the Legislature he will have to work with. If the Republicans are able to take power in the Senate, then holding all three branches of government I think you will see his conservative side really come out because he's able to let it stretch. You'll see a complete shift in the cronyism/bailout and anti-business policies of the Obama/Pelosi administration to more pro-business policies which should get people working again. Lets hope he isn't as corrupt as Obama has been and instead will promote policies that let ALL business thrive and not just those whom are politically connected or politically popular but that's really up in the air for me as he's been quite good at raising money from the usual suspects. 3 branches controlled by Republicans could also bring out the social conservatives trying to legislate their belief system on the rest of us so that could be a bit of a disaster but I'd rather have that then no job and an unsustainable welfare state 15 trillion and counting in debt.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by andyb » Thu Jan 05, 2012 12:13 pm

Well, they aren't, actually. That's one reason why the fundamentalist theories still persist today in addition to childish clinging and fear of the unknown.
Fundamentalists and the religious in general have no theories whatsoever about anything at all, Dogma dictates that they are not allowed to think for themselves, thinking is "Haram", especially if it contradicts their ancient fairy-tales - 2,000 year old crap beats everything in the view of the unthinking goD worshiper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theory

No religious book has ever come close to explaining anything that gets even close to "Gravitational Theory", "the Theory of Evolution" (strictly speaking a number of Theories) or even "Germ theory" which we had an understanding of several hundred years ago. Each and every time a religious nutter tries to "prove" that a scientific theory is not correct finds themselves embarrassed again, there have been many thousands of attempts to prove (specifically) that "Darwin's Theory of Evolution" is not true has been shot down in flames - even when they think that they have come up with something that scientists can not prove to be "evolutionary", a scientist does what scientists do and look into things in more detail, do tests and so on, guess what happens, even more proof that "Darwin's Theory of Evolution" should simply be referred to as a FACT so that people who don't understand what "Theory" actually means can stop saying things like "but its ONLY a Theory, its never been proven".

Here is just the most recent attempt by religious fanatics to discredit Evolution and to attempt to prove that it is flawed, they obviously failed as there is sod-all to back up their 2,000 year old dogma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller ... l_District
If I were a science teacher and I taught that the engine of evolution was not natural selection but, essentially, will and learning and adaptation, I would likely be fired. Science is a new addition to the pool of religions, and it has its rigid and evidence-denying dogmas. Science is fighting a centuries-old war against religious fundamentalism, and therefore anything that even smacks of religion is verboten, even if it's as plain as day. That is how truth is the first casualty in this particular war.
Of course you would be fired, and I would say to you "You sir are talking shit, please come back with some evidence that has been peer-reviewed by other scientists and is left with a shred of plausibility, then you may teach this as a "Scientific Theory", however I have no doubt (and I won't waste my time using Google to find out) that others have come up with such silly ideas as "willpower" being a driving force of evolution and not had any proof to back it up. This has nothing at all with "Dogma" within scientific circles, this has to do with evidence that is how science works. Religion works via Dogma right down to the point where not all of the fairy-tales made the final cut, many were left out of a book commonly known as "The Bible" because they were full of utter shit that not even religious people would believe (and they will believe almost anything).

You might want to make a note of the description right at the top of the Wikipedia article "It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers. Although it generally refers to religious beliefs that are accepted without reason or evidence, they can refer to acceptable opinions of philosophers or philosophical schools, public decrees, or issued decisions of political authorities."

Note the "accepted without reason or evidence", science is the opposite of Dogma, that is not to say that some ideas have become entrenched, or that scientists are perfect (nothing is).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dogma
I'm writing this with four nimble fingers and an opposable thumb. I came by these because I, and my ancestors, wanted to do all these complex things with our hands. If you want to believe that some individual was born some time in the past and discovered that he had these neat mutant hands and so he and his descendants were the only ones who survived while everyone else perished, you're buying into a huge absurdity. There's also no way that, for instance, eyes and wings could have evolved by natural selection. The origin of each would require hundreds, if not thousands, of mutations happening all at once for any one of the mutations to be useful. Creatures developed eyes because they wanted to detect more information about their surroundings, and lizards developed wings because they simply wanted to fly, Will is the causality of not only everything that happens in evolution, but everything that happens, period. The church and school educated person gets only versions of denial of free will -- The Church telling him that he and all creatures are God's electric train set, and the school teaching him that all creatures are helpless puppets of randomness. The two institutions perpetually war against each others lack of moral responsibility.
You really need to read something about Evolution if you think that evolution says that one day someone in the past was born with 4-fingers and a thumb on each hand to a species that didn't have them you have been brainwashed beyond my wildest imagination. The theory of Evolution does not, has not, and never will suggest such a things, it quite specifically says that there are many many small changes over many generations, please do some reading other than a heavily edited compilation of several 2,000 year old crappy fairy-tales, read some science and learn things.
The Force of Gravity is another example. It's been impossible, to an absurd extent, to reconcile it with more recent science such as quantum theory and Grand Unification. The grand unifiers have decided to simply drop the Force of Gravity from their calculations, a stupendous act of intellectual laziness. But that's how dogma works.
Evidence is required when someone makes a claim that is at first sight considered crap.
This was a bit of an off topic rant, but you pushed some particularly pushable buttons, Neil, especially coming from a humane advocate like you. Bravo to everything else you've said.
I hope to push some more with my evolved digits :mrgreen:


Andy
Last edited by andyb on Thu Jan 05, 2012 1:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by andyb » Thu Jan 05, 2012 12:54 pm

It has always been a terrible way to validate a bad decision. You're still voting for an evil, no question.
I have no doubt that is terrible under many circumstances.

But anyone who dislikes the Republican party as they currently stand, and specifically its new future "head" wont be likely to use that opinion, they will vote for the "best" person in their view. The opposite can be said with the word "hope" added, a Democrat voter might "hope" that the "least-evil" republican wins should the republicans end up willing the next election, thereby cauing that persons political (and moral) view the least harm.


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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by Reachable » Thu Jan 05, 2012 2:45 pm

*sigh* The next to previous post is what one runs into when one tries to present an idea that is neither "this nor that" in a heated conflict between two unreasonable points of view. Adherents to either side will look at it, see a few igniting words or phrases, and then jump into an attack as if it were the opposing point of view.

I ask that people read what I write calmly and carefully, but it's apparently too much to ask.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by andyb » Thu Jan 05, 2012 3:15 pm

*sigh* The next to previous post is what one runs into when one tries to present an idea that is neither "this nor that" in a heated conflict between two unreasonable points of view. Adherents to either side will look at it, see a few igniting words or phrases, and then jump into an attack as if it were the opposing point of view.

I ask that people read what I write calmly and carefully, but it's apparently too much to ask.
I see that you don't have the stomach to argue your own opinion, which can mean an infinite number of things, however the most likely are that you know that your point has no backing at all, so you have backed down to (perhaps) reduce your ridicule amongst the thinking people who frequent these forums. Or perhaps the opinion that you claim to be your own is not your true belief, even though you say the words to protect...... your feigned belief.

I don't know which is worse, failing to protect your beliefs or pretending to have different ones than you actually hold.

BTW:

I did read what you wrote carefully and calmly, and I answered as such, however your arguments were at best childish and at worst brainwashed and naive. Please feel free to have another go at expressing your point, it needed some padding out anyway to really give your argument some bones, you barely gave enough of an outline beyond "I don't believe what scientists say", and "scientists don't listen to me when I say that thinking really hard about things can give your offspring more digits".

I will argue one point in your favour (and mine as well), people (including scientists, and scientific ideas) do get "stuck" and generally stop looking beyond what they know to be fact, you only have to look at some scientific breakthroughs over the centuries (millennia) that people failed to believe was possible (different from their beliefs).

That is where science and religion end their similarities, science continues to move on and people keep on coming up with new ideas - some do stagnate, and people do end up believing that they know everything about X, take for example the man who proved that "gastritis" is (primarily) caused by "Bacteria" - the common belief then amongst scientists and doctors was that nothing could live in the stomach.

How wrong were those people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4304290.stm

So again, I ask you to defy the non-believers and say what you believe may be true (if you believe it to be so), I promise not to be so harsh on your opinions in the future.


Andy

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by judge56988 » Fri Jan 06, 2012 3:18 pm

Reachable wrote:Creatures developed eyes because they wanted to detect more information about their surroundings, and lizards developed wings because they simply wanted to fly, Will is the causality of not only everything that happens in evolution, but everything that happens, period.
I want a bigger dick - do you think if I wish really really hard, I'll get one?

Seriously, it is beyond me how so many grown ups seem to believe in such nonsense! And why do most of them live in America??

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by xan_user » Fri Jan 06, 2012 4:31 pm

judge56988 wrote:
Reachable wrote:Creatures developed eyes because they wanted to detect more information about their surroundings, and lizards developed wings because they simply wanted to fly, Will is the causality of not only everything that happens in evolution, but everything that happens, period.
I want a bigger dick - do you think if I wish really really hard, I'll get one?

Seriously, it is beyond me how so many grown ups seem to believe in such nonsense! And why do most of them live in America??
made me think of this song...
"He would see faces in movies, on T.V., in magazines, and in books....
He thought that some of these faces might be right for him....And
through the years, by keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in his
mind....Or somewhere in the back of his mind....That he might, by
force of will, cause his face to approach those of his ideal....The
change would be very subtle....It might take ten years or so....
Gradually his face would change its' shape....A more hooked nose...
Wider, thinner lips....Beady eyes....A larger forehead.

He imagined that this was an ability he shared with most other
people....They had also molded their faced according to some
ideal....Maybe they imagined that their new face would better
suit their personality....Or maybe they imagined that their
personality would be forced to change to fit the new appear-
ance....This is why first impressions are often correct...
Although some people might have made mistakes....They may have
arrived at an appearance that bears no relationship to them....
They may have picked an ideal appearance based on some childish
whim, or momentary impulse....Some may have gotten half-way
there, and then changed their minds.

He wonders if he too might have made a similar mistake."
Talking Heads.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by edh » Sat Jan 07, 2012 5:40 am

Reachable wrote:If I were a science teacher and I taught that the engine of evolution was not natural selection but, essentially, will and learning and adaptation, I would likely be fired.
Yes but if you were a Maths teacher and you taught that 2+2=5 (forgetting logic puzzles that can be used to prove anything) you would also be fired.

Evolution happens. Deal with it. It is both FACT and THEORY. It is fact because we have observed it through the overwhelming weigth of fossil records. The theory is simply a way of explaining the facts of evolution. In the same way, gravity is a fact. We see things fall to the earth. We seek to explain this via the theory (or theories) of gravity. Or do you believe in intelligent falling?!?

Pandas have canines, they are intended for eating meat. Yet for many thousands of years they have existed on a diet of bamboo. By your 'logic' why have they not 'wished' away their canine teeth and developed something more suited for the task? As a species they have been in the balance for a long time, why have they not wished for wings and the ability to breath fire?

No animal ever 'wished' for hands and received them. By evolution, they have evolved. Early vertebrates just used the length of their body as propulsion through water however the formation of fins greatly helps fish in their movement, this was arrived at through evolution. With movement onto land (still existing in a certain way with lung fish et al) these fins would start to be repurposed into moving on land. Take a fish out of water and it will still try doing this as it is the only way it can try to get back into water. With further evolution of an animal moving out of the water and onto land we then arrive at limbs able to take an animals weight. Paws at the end of them have evolved differently for different land species for different tasks. Primates have hands for climbing in trees. Humans have evolved from primates to become bipedal and largely don't live up trees, hence our feet are for standing on and our hands have been able to become more specialised for handling tools, food, posting on Internet forums etc. We are quite unique as a mammal in having such vastly different front and back legs but that has been arrived at via evolution, nothing else.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by andyb » Sat Jan 07, 2012 7:47 am

Yes but if you were a Maths teacher and you taught that 2+2=5 (forgetting logic puzzles that can be used to prove anything) you would also be fired.

Evolution happens. Deal with it. It is both FACT and THEORY. It is fact because we have observed it through the overwhelming weigth of fossil records. The theory is simply a way of explaining the facts of evolution. In the same way, gravity is a fact. We see things fall to the earth. We seek to explain this via the theory (or theories) of gravity. Or do you believe in intelligent falling?!?

Pandas have canines, they are intended for eating meat. Yet for many thousands of years they have existed on a diet of bamboo. By your 'logic' why have they not 'wished' away their canine teeth and developed something more suited for the task? As a species they have been in the balance for a long time, why have they not wished for wings and the ability to breath fire?

No animal ever 'wished' for hands and received them. By evolution, they have evolved. Early vertebrates just used the length of their body as propulsion through water however the formation of fins greatly helps fish in their movement, this was arrived at through evolution. With movement onto land (still existing in a certain way with lung fish et al) these fins would start to be repurposed into moving on land. Take a fish out of water and it will still try doing this as it is the only way it can try to get back into water. With further evolution of an animal moving out of the water and onto land we then arrive at limbs able to take an animals weight. Paws at the end of them have evolved differently for different land species for different tasks. Primates have hands for climbing in trees. Humans have evolved from primates to become bipedal and largely don't live up trees, hence our feet are for standing on and our hands have been able to become more specialised for handling tools, food, posting on Internet forums etc. We are quite unique as a mammal in having such vastly different front and back legs but that has been arrived at via evolution, nothing else.
So well said that I felt the need to quote the entire post.

One of my main concerns with any member of the American right wing of politics is that they are Fundamentalist Christians and they seek (as their bullshit scriptures and the idiots at the pulpit tell them) to force their ancient and stupid beliefs onto everyone else, "God via Democracy" is a very bad thing indeed - and I don't even care what God it is, that is why I don't want another "Moron in the Whitehouse".

Anyone who believes that the world (Universe) is only 6,000 years old is an idiot and here is why.

God was the most evil character in all of Literature and directly killed 2.5 million people (and many more that were not specifically counted - how many people in a city.?), The Devil by the way Killed 10 and only because he won a bet with God who then allowed the Devil to kill "Job's children", yet pathetic preachers constantly tell everyone how bad the devil is evil etc et, but they seem to forget that God is a total arsehole and a mass murderer.

Apparently Jesus's mother never received cock (even God's) and yet became pregnant and gave birth (not the only person in Literature to have done so, "Immaculate Conception" is hardly a new fantasy for God and so on, another thing that has been borrowed from previous fairy-tales.

http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-chri ... ate-jesus/

JC then came along and did a load of magic (which was one of the stories that never made the final edit of that crap book called "The Bible"), JC grew up and then invented "Hell".

http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/outside.stm#outrageous

JC then sacrificed himself (he had lots of opportunities to not die, so strictly speaking it was assisted suicide), in dying he became a scapegoat (which it totally immoral in itself).

These stupid ideas are then peddled to children (which is child cruelty), and I get criticised for pointing out that this bullshit religion and its worthless dogma are very bad indeed and that another moron in the Whitehouse will only make things worse as the American Fundamentalists get a figurehead that only strengthens their cause to discriminate, cause violence, pain, anger and torment to their fellow Americans who are clever enough to have rejected "Faith", or who are fortunate enough to have been born into a family who have protected then from the "Mind-Virus" that is called religion.

Religion offers absolutely nothing at all that cannot be gained by better means, it does however offer a great deal of hatred and is very divisive, destructive and cruel.

Again, I repeat, I really don't want to see another "Moron in the Whitehouse", I want a sensible liberal who will push through massive social reform in America that will give the people at the bottom of the ladder a little self-esteem, free-healthcare for all (paid by taxpayers of course), a minimum wage would be a good idea and to generally try to reduce the vast chasm between the rich and the poor whilst still keeping America a capitalist driven country - just stop the Capitalists from treading on everyone quite so much.

And yes all of the political decisions in America do affect me, hence my interest in such matters, I just don't get to vote - but I do get to post on forums.


Andy

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by xan_user » Sat Jan 07, 2012 8:12 am

well put Andy and edh.

Religion is a cult, nothing more, nothing less.
Believe in whomever/whatever you want, just dont force it down everyone else' throats. and keep religion completely out of government.


What the world needs more than ever before, is a science book thumping atheist in the white house.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by Reachable » Sat Jan 07, 2012 8:51 am

Yikes! I didn't expect such a vitriolic response. I'm not a religious fundamentalist. I believe in evolution. I don't believe in creationism or intelligent design. I was just trying to present a vision of evolution more in line with what's apparent and observable and less guided by dogma.

Oh, well. Shoulda known. Live and learn.

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by Reachable » Sat Jan 07, 2012 9:50 am

Pandas are physiological carnivores. That's still basically what their motivations are about. But, they got lazy and decided that the plentiful bamboo in their surroundings was the better deal. Trouble is, their carnivorous digestive system can't really extract much energy from it. Even then, they have evolved an auxiliary grasping appendage near their paws. How did this happen? Certainly not by random mutation and natural selection. They just.......wanted to grasp the bamboo more easily. It took a few generations, probably, but it happened.

My ancestors came from northern Europe. We all have light skin and blue or green eyes. Yet, 40,000 years ago everybody's ancestors lived in Africa. When some humans migrated out of Africa, as they headed north and east, their pigmentation gradually changed as a way of adapting. Their genes changed accordingly. But picture how this happened. There's no way it can be imagined that a few individuals happened to get random mutations that made their skin lighter and better suited for higher latitudes and so they proved to be hardier and their descendants survived and the dark-skinned types died off. That's preposterous. You needed to have a sustained population for anyone to survive. These kinds of adaptations by populations happen by persevering amidst the challenges of a changing environment. Evolution is accomplished by living beings, not by attrition by death. Darwin was no doubt confused by what he saw in capitalism and trade, where only the most ruthless (to be blunt) survived, and ascribed it to his vision of nature. But nature is not a game, the universe is not a game invented by humans (like trade is.) It seeks an absolute outcome always.


EDIT: The above, by the way, is NOT a white supremacist tract. That's not what is says. That's not how I think. It just occurred to me that I'd better put in this disclaimer before anybody reads it and misinterprets it. :roll:

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by andyb » Sat Jan 07, 2012 11:26 am

Yikes! I didn't expect such a vitriolic response. I'm not a religious fundamentalist. I believe in evolution. I don't believe in creationism or intelligent design. I was just trying to present a vision of evolution more in line with what's apparent and observable and less guided by dogma.
Pandas are physiological carnivores. That's still basically what their motivations are about. But, they got lazy and decided that the plentiful bamboo in their surroundings was the better deal. Trouble is, their carnivorous digestive system can't really extract much energy from it. Even then, they have evolved an auxiliary grasping appendage near their paws. How did this happen? Certainly not by random mutation and natural selection. They just.......wanted to grasp the bamboo more easily. It took a few generations, probably, but it happened.
WTF, you claim to believe in evolution, claim not to believe in creationism or intelligent design, but you then go on to say "Certainly not by random mutation and natural selection. They just.......wanted to grasp the bamboo more easily. It took a few generations, probably, but it happened."

You sir, are a total idiot. There I have gone and said it, I have directly abused a fellow forum member for the first time. Will I retract that, not a chance, but I will repeat it, you are an idiot, and have proven that beyond doubt, now go away and read things that will rectify your stupidity.
My ancestors came from northern Europe. We all have light skin and blue or green eyes. Yet, 40,000 years ago everybody's ancestors lived in Africa. When some humans migrated out of Africa, as they headed north and east, their pigmentation gradually changed as a way of adapting. Their genes changed accordingly. But picture how this happened. There's no way it can be imagined that a few individuals happened to get random mutations that made their skin lighter and better suited for higher latitudes and so they proved to be hardier and their descendants survived and the dark-skinned types died off. That's preposterous. You needed to have a sustained population for anyone to survive. These kinds of adaptations by populations happen by persevering amidst the challenges of a changing environment. Evolution is accomplished by living beings, not by attrition by death. Darwin was no doubt confused by what he saw in capitalism and trade, where only the most ruthless (to be blunt) survived, and ascribed it to his vision of nature. But nature is not a game, the universe is not a game invented by humans (like trade is.) It seeks an absolute outcome always.
Oh dear, here we go again.

You are an idiot.

The differences of pigmentation are quite easy to understand if you only look at a single point, sunlight. The more sun the people of an area of the world gets the darker the people who live there become, and vice versa.

Here is a point for you to ponder, the more pigmentation that a person has the less damage sunlight can cause to the human body, but as a consequence of people with dark skin living say in London where there is not a great deal of sunlight compared to other parts of the planet, these people are not getting enough vitamin-d due to the pigmentation of their skin.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vitamins-m ... min-D.aspx

People with fair skin who live in countries that get a lot of sunlight either turn into large freckles or they have to cover up a lot to avoid the dangers of sunlight whilst very easily maintaining good levels of vitamin-D.


Andy

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Re: Please don't put another Moron in the White House

Post by xan_user » Sat Jan 07, 2012 11:42 am

wow. just wow. :shock:

to say im befuddled would be an understatement.

excuse me while i ponder how come we cant fly, or breath under water yet without assistance...

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