>> ^longde:
Once again, Jon knocks it out of the park.
This a sure sign of America's decline, when our great minds find more profit and fulfillment in chicanery than in doing something that would add value to the nation. You know, Ann Coulter was the president of the Yale Law Review, so she knows better, too.
To some extent, I have empathy, because I have gotten quite cynical myself.


To be fair, Ann Coulter only got to sully the Michigan Law Review, and she was only an editor. Still pretty bad, but not nearly as prestigious.

And there are morons to be found at every elite university in the world. Example.

>> ^gtjwkq:
>> ^bareboards2:
But remember, you folks who hate taxes so much -- remember where the internet started. It wouldn't be here without having been developed at the government level first. Roads. Schools. The university you went to.
Seriously, how can you say the internet wouldn't exist without being developed by government first? That's ludicrous. Roads, schools and universities weren't invented by government either and I'm not the least bit thankful for things that were created at the expense of high taxes that diverted productive resources and applied them unproductively.


Have you looked at the history of the internet before you responded? The government funded a great deal of the research.
Basic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

In addition, it was the government funding and contracts with telephone companies that build the backbone of the internet. Do you think the telephone companies laid all that fiber / copper lines for new customers? No, it was funded by the government. BTW, the US National Science Foundation is a government agency. Not from wiki:

"Thus, the first Internet backbone, called the NSFNET because it was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), linked six supercomputing centers (University of California-San Diego, National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Cornell University, and the John von Neumann Supercomputing Center/Princeton) and their associated regional networks in the United States in order to provide supercomputer access to scientists. Today, a single government-managed Internet backbone has been transformed into a multitude of different backbones, most of which are private commercial enterprises."

You can't have an internet without a backbone. The government is responsible for the first backbone that the private networks "leeched" off of while building theirs. Also, the government has given much money to telephone companies for laying of fiber, etc.

>> ^quantumushroom:


No gay marriage advocates have proved there's "no difference" between the sexes. It is odd that despite never providing any proof of this claim, you still repeat it.
There is no proof that President Obama was born in Kenya, and certainly no proof he is a communist.
Only in Lunatic Fringeland does graduating from Princeton summa cum laude mean you’re a dumbass. I guess then notable conservative Princeton graduates like Samuel Alito, Donald Rumsfeld, David Petraeus, James Baker, Frank Carlucci, George Shultz, John Foster Dulles, Meg Whitman, Malcolm and Steve Forbes, George F. Will and John Stossel must be even bigger dumbasses. Yet Sarah Palin, who needed six years and four different schools just to earn a bachelor's degree and John McCain was fifth from the bottom in his class rank, they are brilliant. NOT!
It is interesting how you so often whine about the lies told by the “liberal MSM”, yet when the rightwingnuts and regressive media tell lies, you gobble it up like they are serving you filet mignon.

Doesn’t it bother you that you are being played for a chump?

You wanna some REALLY weird middle-name stuph?

WAYNE

The Classic Middle Name (all-new!)
Arrested Recently and Awaiting Trial for Murder: Kevin Wayne Dunlap, Hopkinsville, Ky., October; Richard Wayne Smith, Marietta, Ga., January; Joshua Wayne Cubbage, St. Helens, Ore., February; Timothy Wayne Murray, Slidell, La., convicted on a 2005 cocaine possession charge in March 2009 while awaiting trial for a 2006 murder. Indicted for Murder: Arnold Wayne McCartney, Lewis County, W.Va., March; Arthur Wayne Blood, Pendleton, Ore., March. Convicted of Murder: Michael Wayne Charles, Beaumont, Texas, October; John Wayne Graves Jr., Lancaster, Pa., November; Michael Wayne Sherrill, Charlotte, N.C., February; Douglas Wayne Hall II, Richmond, Ky., February. Sentenced for Murder: Charles Wayne Warden, Brownsville, Texas, January. Murder Conviction Upheld on Appeal: Thomas Wayne Weaver, Gastonia, N.C., February. Executed for Murder: Kenneth Wayne Morris, Huntsville, Texas, March. Died in Prison Awaiting Retrial for Murder: Michael Wayne Jennings, Martinez, Calif., convicted of murder in 1984 but granted a retrial in 2002. Dunlap: [Times Leader (Princeton, Ky.)-AP, 10-27-08] Smith: [Marietta Daily Journal, 1-12-09] Cubbage: [South County Spotlight (Portland, Ore.), 3-4-09] Murray: [Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 3-3-09] McCartney: [MSNBC-WBOY-TV (Clarksburg, W.Va.), 3-4-09] Blood: [KTVZ-TV (Bend, Ore.)-AP, 3-5-09] Charles: [Beaumont Enterprise, 10-30-08] Graves: [Lancaster New Era, 11-7-08] Sherrill: [Charlotte Observer, 2-20-09] Hall: [Lexington Herald-Leader, 2-28-09] Warden: [Brownsville Herald, 1-30-09] Weaver: [Charlotte Observer, 2-25-09] Morris: [United Press International, 3-5-09] Jennings: [Contra Costa Times, 3-3-09]

And this is not a one-off phenomenon - the site lists murderers with Wayne as a middle name every few weeks.

Creepy.

>> ^BreaksTheEarth:
In French class they wanted us to change our names into French ones. I refused. It's a stupid idea in any setting.


Another fun example of this: at Chinese classes here at Princeton, the teachers make all the students go by Chinese names that they assign to them, while in Japanese class they just pronounce your name in a Japanese-ified way (much like we change the pronunciation for foreign names in America). I guess the Chinese are a bunch of racist pricks too, or maybe Zhoulaoshi was just a dick.

^Pretty sure the Princeton degree can get you a job interview for a couple nice positions.

^seriously, even at Princeton you'll get that result.

This is a fascinating and enlightening interview.

Regarding the activist Constitution interpretation, Justice Scalia explained:

Much of the harm that has been done in recent years by activist constitution interpretation is made possible by a theory which says that unlike an ordinary law which doesn’t change – it means what it meant when it was enacted and will always mean that – the Constitution changes from decade to decade to comport with the “evolving standards of decency” that mark the progress of a maturing society. In other words we have a morphing constitution. And of course it is up to the court to decide when it morphs and how it morphs. That’s generally paraded as the “living constitution” and unfortunately that philosophy has made enormous headway with lawyers and judges but even with John Q Public.

To make things change you don’t need a constitution. The function of a Constitution is to rigidify, to ossify, NOT to facilitate change. You want change? All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. Things will change as fast as you like. My Constitution, very flexible changing on you. You want right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens that it is a good idea, and pass a law. And then you find out, the results are worst than we ever thought, you can repeal the law. That’s flexibility. The reason people want the Supreme Court to declare that abortion is a constitutional right is precisely to rigidify that right, it means it sweeps across all fifty states and it is a law now and forever or until the Supreme Court changes its mind. That’s not flexibility.

"By trying to make the Constitution do everything that needs doing from age to age, we shall have caused it to do nothing at all.

It would seem that this commercial is fear-mongering after all, according to wikipedia at least. But two points about that. First off, the wikipedia definition continues (in the next sentence) to state "The feared object or subject is sometimes exaggerated..." Other sources seem to indicate that exaggeration is the norm, not the exception. Princeton WordNet defines scaremonger as "a person who spreads frightening rumors and stirs up trouble". Merriam Webster defines scaremongering as "one inclined to raise or excite alarms especially needlessly". It seems we're both correct, depending on the degree of exaggeration involved. So I'll agree that this commercial is fear-mongering.

However, the other thing to consider is whether or not it's responsible to use fear as a way of pushing an agenda (assuming we agree that the subject is in fact something to be feared, and not an exaggeration). Sometimes we are supposed to fear things, otherwise we would have died out as a species long ago. The less you understand about a particular danger, the more likely you are to learn the hard way. It's my argument that people in general do not understand the dangers involved in driving.

I know it's an anecdote, but personally, I have found myself driving super-paranoid and defensively after a near accident. I bet this happens to most people. I think it's in that moment that we are really cognizant of how precarious things are out there. Unfortunately (in this case, fortunately in others) our minds have a way of scabbing over those types of memories. A commercial like this pokes that scab.

Here's Lynn's biography:

"Lynn previously served as the director for Program Analysis and Evaluation in the office of the secretary of Defense, a position he had held since April 1993, and earlier as assistant to the secretary of Defense for Budget.

From 1987 until 1993, Lynn served on the staff of Senator Edward Kennedy as the legislative counsel for defense and arms control matters and his staff representative on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Prior to 1987, he was a senior fellow in the Strategic Concepts Development Center at National Defense University, where he specialized in strategic nuclear forces and arms control issues. He was also on the professional staff of the Institute of Defense Analyses. From 1982 to 1985, he served as the executive director of the Defense Organization Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Lynn is a graduate of Dartmouth College (1976). He has a juris doctorate from Cornell Law School and a master's in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University (1982). His publications include "Toward a More Effective Defense" (1985) as well as articles in various newspapers and professional journals."


Given this guy's CV, especially with nuclear proliferation on the verge of spinning out of control, I'd give this guy a big fucking waiver, too.

In reply to this comment by EDD:
^ CONCERNING STRANGELETS:

First of all, strangelets are merely hypothetical type of matter. None have so far been observed or produced. We would see some corrution of Neutron stars more often if the stuff was actual and not theoretical. Lambda particles I think have happened, but they decay so fast it is not really a subject of much fear mongering

Secondly, the RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) in the US has been working for 8 years now and no strangelets have been produced there. In comparison, LHC collisions will have more energy, thus making it even less probable a strangelet might form (equivalent would be ice forming in boiling water). In addition, LHC quarks will be even more dilute than at RHIC.

Read this study on RHIC by MIT, Yale and Princeton physicists to find out more.


"It is believed that the higher energy of the lead-lead collisions of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), compared to the RHIC, will produce more strange quarks in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) than are produced at RHIC's QGP. This higher production of strange quarks might allow for production of a strangelet at the LHC, and searches are planned for such upon commencement of collisions at the LHC ALICE detector."

"Angelis et al., "Model of Centauro and strangelet production in heavy ion collisions", Phys. Atom. Nucl. 67:396-405 (2004) arXiv:nucl-th/0301003 "

I thought that was an interesting read on the subject. It's all theoretical though, so far, we haven't really seen the stuff at all.

Sorry for the long gap between posts, the hurricane messed with my normal routine.

^ CONCERNING STRANGELETS:

First of all, strangelets are merely hypothetical type of matter. None have so far been observed or produced.

Secondly, the RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) in the US has been working for 8 years now and no strangelets have been produced there. In comparison, LHC collisions will have more energy, thus making it even less probable a strangelet might form (equivalent would be ice forming in boiling water). In addition, LHC quarks will be even more dilute than at RHIC.

Read this study on RHIC by MIT, Yale and Princeton physicists to find out more.

Actually, I thought you were suggesting we deport as many as possible as soon as possible. If you're fine with the status quo, what's the problem?

>> ^MarineGunrock:
As for children that are born here: Why the hell are we granting citizenship to children of illegals (who are probably using the medical system for free) anyway?

Because that's the definition of citizen.

Economic impact: You're assuming that we remove 10 million people from their jobs all at once.

No, not really. Regardless of how fast those workers are removed, they still need to be replaced. There's already been labor issues in Arizona, Colorado, etc., though the decline in housing construction has alleviated it somewhat.

Foreign Relations: With whom? Mexico? Seriously? What are they gonna do? Not let Americans into their border to spend our money in their country? I think not.

It's always a good idea to maintain good relations with your neighbors. These issues don't exist in a vacuum. It's not just Mexico, though, but every country. If the U.S. did begin a large campaign to find and deport illegal immigrants, the international respone would be horrendous, at a time when we can least afford it. But, I take it we're in agreement that such a program would be a Bad Idea.

And yes, many illegal immigrants do pay taxes, even if they don't file. Payroll taxes (social security) are automatically withheld for any wage workers. Sure, many are paid under the table, but I think that is not the norm. Besides, taxes or no, they are still contributing to society, and at the very least that should be recognized and be a mitigating circumstance when considering their status.


The problem is that our current immigration laws don't allow for nearly enough immigrant workers (everything from farm workers to computer engineers) as businesses need.

>> ^deathcow:
wtf why the downvotes

Well, since you asked, let's go back to your original quote (before you sarcastically edited it)...

"wow, Mos Def sounded much more intelligent on HHGTTG.... the "IQ 80" accent does not suit him"

The IQ 80 accent? As if everyone who speaks "ghetto" or uses slang must be unintelligent. No, Mos Def should go back to the corrupt and despicable school system of the ghetto (he grew up in Brooklyn) and learn himself some real English so us whiteys can understand him better! Then maybe he'll be more accepted into the mainstream media instead of being written off as another tokin' black guy for Uncle Sam to chuckle at. In reality, Mos Def is one of the leading underground hip-hop artists of our time, a man who actually has a message to his music, unlike 90% of the c"rap" that's out there talking about bling, guns and hoes. And as seen here, he's willing to speak his mind and say things in public that many people have thought but are too afraid (read: no balls) to say.

The accent doesn't "suit" him? Please. Do us a jig Mos! As if he's putting on some kind of act. Then to say he sounded more intelligent in some cheesy kiddy movie where he WAS acting, completely degrades what this man has accomplished in his lifetime - and believe me, HHGTTG is barely a blip on his radar.

On to the next quote...

"mos def might have a speech disorder, but luckily we can understand him alright.
cornell west.... who cares."

Speech disorder - pfft, yeah. Maybe he should start talking "more white" so that we can translate this foreign ebonic jibberish. See above.

Cornel West... who cares? Right, he's only a former Harvard professor, current Princeton professor, a best-selling author, civil rights activist, a well-respected sociologist and social critic especially when it comes to matters of race and religion, etc. etc. Nope, he's just using a bunch of big phony words I can't follow, therefore he must be talking out of his ass. In fact, Cornel West has many more meaningful things to say than you or I probably ever will.

I never thought I would give out downvotes, especially to people who upvoted my own video, but those comments completely missed the point.

Short answer - Canadian universities are WAY younger than those in the States, so we adopted the 'classic' European terminology. I mean, U of T was founded in 1827 (yeah, guess where I graduated from), and there may be some older universities in Canada (I don't know which), but probably not as old as, say, Harvard.

>> ^Sarzy:
I've got a question which is semi-related to the topic at hand: what's the deal with the terms college and university being seemingly interchangeable in the states? In Canada, college and university are two different things (college is generally a one or two year program in which you learn a trade, whereas university is a three or four year deal in which you learn something a bit more abstract (ie. political science, english, physics, etc.). Is this not the case in the U.S.?


Yeah, American terminology like that bothers me - where's the UNIVERSITY GRAD option???

Anyway, enough people were annoyed by this like us to make a small essay on the topic - the Canadian system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College#Canada

And here's the bit about Amerika
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College#The_origin_of_the_U.S._usage

The founders of the first institutions of higher education in the United States were graduates of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. The small institutions they founded would not have seemed to them like universities — they were tiny and did not offer the higher degrees in medicine and theology. Furthermore, they were not composed of several small colleges. Instead, the new institutions felt like the Oxford and Cambridge colleges they were used to — small communities, housing and feeding their students, with instruction from residential tutors (as in the United Kingdom, described above). When the first students came to be graduated, these "colleges" assumed the right to confer degrees upon them, usually with authority -- for example, the College of William and Mary has a Royal Charter from the British monarchy allowing it to confer degrees while Dartmouth College has a charter permitting it to award degrees "as are usually granted in either of the universities, or any other college in our realm of Great Britain."

Contrast this with Europe, where only universities could grant degrees. The leaders of Harvard College (which granted America's first degrees in 1642) might have thought of their college as the first of many residential colleges which would grow up into a New Cambridge university. However, over time, few new colleges were founded there, and Harvard grew and added higher faculties. Eventually, it changed its title to university, but the term "college" had stuck and "colleges" have arisen across the United States.

Eventually, several prominent colleges/universities were started to train Christian ministers. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Brown all started to train preachers in the subjects of Bible and theology. However, now these universities teach theology as a more academic than ministerial discipline.

With the rise of Christian education, renowned seminaries and Bible colleges have continued the original purpose of these universities. Criswell College and Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas; Southern Seminary in Louisville; Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois; and Wheaton College and Graduate School in Wheaton, Illinois are just a few of the institutions that have influenced higher education in Theology in Philosophy to this day.

In U.S. usage, the word "college" embodies not only a particular type of school, but has historically been used to refer to the general concept of higher education when it is not necessary to specify a school, as in "going to college" or "college savings accounts" offered by banks. "University" is sometimes used in such contexts by Americans who wish to avoid ambiguity, for example in the context of Internet message boards where the reader hail from a different English speaking country.