Yeah, the text is a little muddled. No ICDs monitor for A-fib; it's all V-fib.

Great idea. Cat rape and cat farts should be the primary focus, me thinks.

I'd love to help out in any way I can, but I'm super busy at the moment, and things don't look to clear up for me until mid to late July. Anyhow, I like the Beavis & Butthead idea of commenting on the videos. I wonder, however, if you did this if we'd all giggle a bit when we heard your expat-US accent muddled with a touch of Aussie?

>> ^spoco2:
This doesn't get a WTF from me in the sense of 'Holy cow, are they really doing that?'
This gets a WTF from me in the sense of 'Really, people older than about 12 years old find this sort of stuff entertaining?'
Really, Anime fricken leaves me so cold. People wax on and on and on and on about how it's so damn superior to western animation, but really, so much of it is lazy (a LOT has an awful lot of static image in the frame with barely a mouth moving), outlets for the repression of the Japanese culture. The amount of violence and sexual abuse that is in these things is truly horrible. I found the violence funny when I was a kid, but after that, it just bores the pants off me.


How do you know this anime was made for people above the age of 12? Studio Ghibli films are usually for kids, I thought.

As for the rest of your post, I certainly spend more time enjoying animation that's "Made in Japan" than animation that's "Made in America", but I don't see why I should care either way. I'm an American. If I draw a shitty cartoon in my basement, am I automatically an example of shitty American animation? At what point is my failure my own and not my country's? Factor in multi-national corporations/ownership and the whole issue becomes even more muddled. Dreamworks and Pixar, to my knowledge, are the sole two animation companies in "The West" that are admired, and Dreamworks is owned by an Indian company based in Mumbai. Elsewhere, multiple anime titles have been and are being produced by Japanese studios specifically to appeal to "Western" audiences (read: white middle class youth), or at the very least significantly factor in their interests.

Anyway, the giant budget 3D animated movies cost dozens of millions of dollars to produce, and only offer up perhaps 90 minutes of entertainment after years of production time (The Incredibles cost $92 million, Wall-E: a whopping $180 million). Because of the massive budgets these movies require, the scripts of these films rarely take any risks. Everything's rated G and has a story that is very "lowest common denominator" in my eyes. I'm getting far too old to enjoy these films beyond their technical merits, since their target audience is primarily below the age of 14.

Meanwhile, partially due to smaller budget requirements in anime production, I can choose all sorts of anime that tries to cater to a slightly older crowd. Very little anime attempts to appeal to anyone above the age of 30, but even in the "age 13-18" type shows, there's interesting themes to chew on. One of my fav animes, Gundam, is basically Star Trek with robots. Its creators have described the show as a humanist show, and the shows take on imperialism, racism, and war really line up with what I saw in the humanist Star Trek shows (I loved TNG/DS9). Since Star Trek has been dead for a while, it's nice to have a place to go to (btw: the upcoming movie will abandon much of what the shows were about in favor of violence and sex). Most Gundam shows are about a teenage boy who hops into a war robot, gets traumatized by war, manipulated by corrupt politicians into fighting questionable wars, and deals with issues of imperialism. Not the most intellectually challenging stuff in the world, I know, but it sure beats what I've seen in stuff like 24 or Heroes and a lot of other dramas on the major networks. And those are aimed at considerably older demographics. I think the much smaller budget requirements of anime helps studios create things for niche demographics (such as sci-fi loving humanists) and that's good for me. Are they technically superior to something like Wall-E? Not by a long shot. But a 1,000 minute Gundam series didn't cost $180 million every 90 minutes either, and yet still left me more entertained.

^I took AST 205: Stars and Galaxies awhile back and had to learn all about the particle physics, GUT and spectroscopy, etc.

Bear with me, it was a few semesters ago so I may forget/muddle some of the details. Basically, as the molecules of hydrogen, helium and other trace gases are squeezed together by gravity, the electron shells of the individual atoms begin to collide with one another. When they do, the electrons collide and change their orbit around the nucleus, and then revert back to their original orbit. This releases a store of energy as photons. The same thing happens when an X particle strikes a weak boson. The larger the bang, the farther the change in orbit and the more energy is released, when it returns back to its original orbit. Or something like that. Look up the Bohr model, Planck's Constant, etc for more info.

Long story short, the resulting photons which are released make up the electromagnetic energy in the universe, depending on frequency, etc.

It's all through measuring light via spectroscopy and a little triangulation that we can tell the size, rotation speeds, mass, velocity, age, composition, etc, of the stars and galaxies, nebulae and other celestial objects. Pretty crazy once you get your head all wrapped around it.

Good luck with it. If I had any advice, I'd give it, but all I can do when I'm like that is muddle through until something inside of me finally changes and I stop undermining myself.

im not so wild about the dawkins, the thing that struck me and the reason i posted this video, is the idea that if my kids had this kind of dialogue in their school (in our small texas town with a church and a gas station on every alternating corner) heads would roll. i was impressed with the awesomeness that somewhere kids might actually be getting a scientific education thats not all muddled by the prevailing faith of the community they live in.... and then it made me sad for my kids... and sad for the amazing science teachers (i went to school there too and i loooove those ladies) that are strangled by the unappologetic shackles their community puts on them.

Brother, no one ALWAYS gets it right the first time. And that doesn't just hold true for misstating, but also for misunderstanding. Sometimes I've been hostile toward someone (like you, for example) solely because I misinterpreted what they were trying to say. Other times I have written things so half-assed that were easily open for misinterpretation and subsequent hostility.

In other words, no one is perfect. All we can do is muddle through and do our best, and when we fuck up, then we should try to make it right. Which I often don't, unfortunately.

Thanks for your gracious response, and your understanding as well. We're all in this together.
*philosophy

In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
I honestly don't know if I've been overly rude and disrespectful in my dealings with you and the others lately. I'll start paying closer attention to that. I do know that we both want good things for the sift.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Done.

And I'm sorry for my hostile remarks a few days ago. No excuses. I apologize.

^jonny

1. You are correct that this is another debate. My only intention was to discuss this in humans as I am talking about economics. Robots might very well be able to interact with human beings--but if they could, I argue, you would have to call them "alive."

2. What is your definition of a "right" ? You are free to define it in any way you want--words are just labels. I made my argument by assuming the meaning of words--all of which I defined. As defined, my argument is irrefutable, and will continue to be so until someone explicitly refutes it. Challenging my definitions of "right" or "morality" is not valid because I explicitly defined each in the proof. You are using your definitions to try to apply to my logic and that is not possible.

3. Forget self-determination, it means the same thing as the right to life. It is not a precondition. Read the proof again--I show explicitly how I arrive from this:
"This right, the freedom to engage in self-sustained, self-generated action, exists only for individuals in a social context--and is what I term "the right to life.""
to this:
"for every individual, "the right to life" specifies the freedom to think and act, to pursue one's own ends through voluntary, uncoerced action."

All I am doing is substituting words which have identical meaning. The first concept is more abstract so I am merely putting it into common language.

Anyone (or thing) can be coerced into all sorts of actions by others in its social group without impairing its ability to sustain its life.
This is false--I just disproved it above. Again you are confusing "convince" with "coerce". Coercion and compulsion cannot be executed without physical force. That is--physical force on you or someone else.

4. You are severely mixed up. Steve is not threatening anyone. If he was, why would he give them any water, why wouldn't he just take the sun hat? He is exercising his right to own property...nobody is entitled to his water if he doesn't want to trade it. These ideas are radical, I understand that. You are twisting up what steve "should do" and what steve "has the right to do". Yes, if steve is a decent human being who doesn't want to see 5 people die in the desert he should share his water. That is another question altogether. Steve has no obligation to share it, if he chooses not to. He violates nobody's rights by going off to himself in a corner, and drinking the whole jug. How could he if he owns the jug of water?

In effect, you are saying that steve has the obligation to sustain everyone else. This is a serious statement and you need to prove it.

Your sense of "what someone should do" is severely clouding your ability to digest this information--and I understand why. This idea seems to flies in the face of probably everything you've ever heard--just as it did me when I first heard it. However, what someone "should do" and what someone has the "right to do" are two independent things. What someone "should do" is defined by culture, what someone "has the right to do" arises from the fact that they are a living being with the right to life--as I demonstrated above.

Societal values are different than moral values. Morality, here, is the binary label on whether you violate another's rights. If you violate another's rights, you are acting immorally. If you do not, you are acting morally. Thus, steve can choose not to share his water, and be acting "morally" (as defined above)--although upon returning will probably be regarded as a pretty wicked individual (by cultural or societal standards). Societal values change in time which is why they should never be used as a moral guide. If we did, we would think slavery was "moral" 300 years ago just because society did not condemn it. It is important to distinguish between the two because both play important roles.

Without the "right to life" society is not possible, all you would have would be a mass of violence and meaningful interaction would be few and far between. Societal values are also important as they help hold a society together. The reason this probably seems foreign as our current philosophy emphasis societal values but says little to nothing of actual human rights. It tries to muddle the two together and that is just false--its what the bible does, its what the bill of rights does, it whats the UN's "human declaration of human rights" does. None of these mention anything about "the right to life" except perhaps in "the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness" but even here it is not emphasized. I have shown above that human beings have certain inalienable rights (right to life, right to property), that humans must adhere to through all time, and in all countries, societies, cultures, and geographical regions.

Does that help any?

Overall, do you think my proof is valid?

Yeesh, these Bush flunkies can't seem to muddle through any conversation without telling a big pack of *lies.

To one extent it is true that usually aid is usually delivered by military vessels -- what they leave out is that the military vessel is usually a hospital or supply ship. In the case of Georgia, they used a Coast Guard Cutter (the Dallas) which is innocuous enough, but they also sent the USS Mt. Whitney which is a Command/Control (or Electronic Warfare) vessel, and the USS McFaul, which is a brand new Missile Destroyer.

Never mind the bigger lie, where he claims with absolute certainty that all fault rests with Russia in this conflict.

Eh, I think this video does a rather muddled job of getting its point across. What's the take away point from all of the definitions and examples of "inferences"? Why show Charles Darwin rambling in a study? That doesn't make it look any more rigorous.

The presentation should be much simpler-
1) Theories are the highest form of scientific understanding, developed from data and making testable hypotheses.
2) Here is some of the extraordinarily strong data on evolution.
3) Here are some of the hypotheses derived from that data, later confirmed by these findings or experiments.

If they want to talk about how theories are mutable, that's fine. If they want to draw analogies to heliocentric or gravitational theories, that's fine. I don't think they did a very good job, though.

I was yelling "moron" at the screen while watching this.

Josh Marshal from TPM has it just about right:

It's like a comic parody of the mentality I described a few days ago. Don't get in McCain's face because it'll just be so much worse for you if you. By God, just keep your head down and try to muddle through! If you're nice maybe he won't hit you.

Is the Limbaugh, Drudge, McCain IV really so deep in Halperin's arm that he thinks the McCain camp feels like it needs an opening to get into the Obama/Terrrorist/Scary Black Man menagerie? They were holding back on Rezko? Really?

*news

They played a little fast and loose.

A good bartender will ask whether you want this up or down. I've never once seen a whiskey sour served in a cocktail glass. An amaretto sour, sure, but that's a sweeter drink. An old-fashioned glass (a bucket, a "rocks" glass) is more appropriate for the whiskey sour.

Second, a good bar won't use a mix, they'll muddle the sweet-and-sour per order. It's just sugar, water, and some lemon or lime. Ten seconds, 15 tops.

And, of course, if you add bitters, a cherry, and optionally orange, you've got an Old Fashioned, one of the finest cocktails man knows.

barely catchy....vocals all muddled....tunes okay-, catch a live show no regrets, but no braggin' on em-least not the vid-

those labels are simply for diversion therealblankman....media acts as unilateral entity playing all sides against an unseen middle...this side or that side makes no difference, as long as we have home and visitor-truth is to be re-written, avoided, or muddled at all costs-

Well I can say those things because I was born and raised a Muslim, I have lost my faith personally but can vouch that Islam doesn't preach what you believe it does.

"Islam changed the structure of Arab society and to a large degree unified the people, reforming and standardizing gender roles throughout the region. According to Islamic scholar William Montgomery Watt, Islam improved the status of women by "instituting rights of property ownership, inheritance, education and divorce."

Islam learnt from the Qu'ran is not the same religion as peddled by those in fundamentalist and extremist societies. One criticism I will level personally at Islam is that its followers don't often look at their faith through the Qu'Ran, instead choosing to follow the fundamentalist or not slant offered by their Mullahs in the Mosque. This is especially true in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Taliban ruled Afghanistan, and is seen by the difference of sermons offered between say Indonesian mosques, Turkish Mosques and those in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. With regards to Religious filtration, the same can be said of those who follow the Jewish and Christian faith.

I don't know what you are trying to get at, I mean I know you personally have an atheist slant on religion on general, I agree with that view, I believe religion muddles the argument in the spheres of politics, economics and society in general. But I hardly agree that beating drums and attacking another religion and it's followers is going to bring about the change you seek especially when it comes to monotheistic Abrahamic religions.