Praise to one of the movers and shakers of teh internetz. Dag yo.

no, he's protecting what's "precious" to him in the only way he knows how. it could be his kid, it could be a pet, it could be his parents, it could be the wife doing it to him. i think that would have made a funnier ad because it reverses the traditional gender roles but that would still be construed as sexist because it passively acknowledges those gender roles. the reason the husband is doing to the wife is because of wedding traditions, not because he doesn't respect his wife or doesn't view her as an equal.

i read the article and i read the thread. both are saturated with people looking for a fight in the wrong place. the arguments are moronic and i find this is encapsulated best with the first post:

"Who was it that proprosed the "reverse gender" test? I.e, if you don't think an ad's sexist, then try reversing the genders and see if it makes the same sense. Would Mayflower have a female mover tenderly wrapping up a handsome young groom dressed in black tie?

No?

Then it's sexist."

this is not true and is also indicative of the mindset of a person looking for a fight where there isn't one. like i said, it would have worked either way and it would have worked with anything. the only reason they went straight to the husband carrying the wife is because of wedding traditions, not sexism. like i said, there is misogyny in the ad, but only because it portrays patriarchal wedding traditions.

also, the author of the blog asserts that intent doesn't matter, which is factually incorrect especially with the english language as statements can be taken in a multitude of ways and the use of common colloquialisms. i would understand this sentiment if the underlying statement of the ad could only be taken one way, but that is not the case here. at all. the correlation you're railing against is incidental and a leap in logic.

gender roles and relations are insidious, but there are much better and more poignant examples of it that this. your feminist blog completely missed the mark on this. i'm not defending the ad. it's dumb and it does reference a very common sexist and patriarchal notion, just not the one you're crying foul about. what i'm criticizing is the bad logic.

ps. sexism does not mean that genders are viewed as different because that's stupid. it means discrimination against a gender or that one gender is viewed as being better than another and that clearly is not what's going on here.

I didn't know DeLorean made construction vehicles!!
Later... Doc Brown appears in a time-traveling median-wall-mover!
"GREAT SCOTT! It's almost 4:00 Martyyy!! We've gotta move this wall for outgoing traffic!! The next three hours depends on it!!"

To Be Continued...

i think he has a point that darwin changed the perception of nature from "god's gift" to "man's tool"... he did this along with several other movers and shakers in the industrial revolution, leading to consequences which liberals oppose. it's an interesting paradox (buried in a shitty video).

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2009/02/11/kanjorski-and-the-money-market-funds-the-facts

Lol, NBC is showing a split screen with the movers taking Bush's crap out of the Whitehouse.

5:13 and 6:20 - A beer-swilling Mr. Rogers will be running Canada?

AWESOME! er... I think.

The cameo was brilliant. Read on for more info.

The co-mover who dropped the box with Rick was a gentleman named Bob Rae, who was running for the same position Ignatieff now has. In addition to being a powerful politician in his own right (Premier of our largest province Ontario for 5 years), Rae is a long-time personal friend of Ignatieff's. He gracefully stepped aside to Ignatieff during the run-up to the selection of a leadership replacement for Stephane Dion and ensured a smooth transition even though he was close in second place and had a shot at it himself. So Stornaway would have been his if he'd stayed in the race and won. Him scurrying away like that after wrecking Ignatieff's stuff was friggin' priceless and there's more than one metaphor there.

>> ^jdbates:
So when he says bring all the planes down, I think he meant grounding them, But if there were orders to shoot down a civilian plane that was going to hit the pentagon 20 miles out does'nt seem like much time for a jet to either get to it and take it out. Consider how many planes were still in the air and if a military fighter pilot wouldn't think twice before firing on one. If I were a fighter pilot, I would have to be pretty sure about it!


Do you know how many jets where scrambled that day? (Not a sarcastic question I really would like to know.)

They scrambled 2 fast movers from the air national guard base near Dallas, those jets went super sonic about a minute after take off.

The report from CBS2 is there were dozens of planes from all over the country.

If they are scrambled out of any number of the air bases in the DC area, they could intercept in less then 3 minutes, maybe even less.

When you get an executive order, by law you have to follow it. However, it is your duty to question the order should you perceive it to be unlawful.

But Fighter pilots are all alone up there without the benefit of other viewpoints.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Most people wish to see good deeds and work rewarded and bad deeds and evil punished. That's how we roll on earth. I find it amusing that you wouldn't care about rewards versus punishment for MT and Hitler, yet you find the 'golden parachute' concept upsetting.

---
They're dead, so their eternal suffering, joy or nothingness affects only them. As far as our need to see rewards and punishments: I do not believe eternal suffering, nor eternal reward to be an aspect of justice, for it serves only the purpose of satisfying a lust, not a function. If their postmortem reward or punishment (not the idea of it, but the truthful existence of it) affected us in a positive, progressive way, only then would it be a worthwhile system of dealing with what we consider injustice. However, because it is uncertain that there is a force which doles out afterlife justice, we have no business worrying about it. We can appreciate what dead people did while they were alive, or be glad they're dead because they were a hinderance to the progress of life.

I don't disagree (ha!) with the idea of religion; I believe it serves a function, especially at our point in evolution, where we are only beginning to come to terms with these absract concepts. But religion all too often is a closed system, causing divides that need not exist. Yes, religion has done good -- let's keep that aspect; but it needs to be fluid. All philospohy of worth should be as an ocean, whether it be concerned with possible existence/nonexistence of gods or scientific understanding of our universe.
---

Yes, for most people, God serves in part as a kind of Keeper of Scorecards, but rewards and punishment may be only one aspect of an "afterlife" which technically is consciousness after this life.

You're perhaps assuming that the endgame of religion is to
follow rules now to live in a Heaven forever, which would mean
some sort of consciousness apart from a Creator. That may not
be it at all. Buddha described Nirvana as 'the end of
suffering' and left it at that. Buddhism is atheistic.

---
I'm assuming that the interpretation of the majority of mainstream religions are to live in a Heaven forever, because that is how I have encountered them with almost everyone I've ever known or known about. I'm not opposed to the idea of an afterlife, I simply find it a moot point. As the living, we should be concerned with life, not death.
---

You claim moral relativism exists, but for the atheist, does evil exist?

Which way of living demands more responsibility, the
religious person trying to follow moral precepts or someone who
doesn't necessarily care what happens because nothing finally
matters; death is the End? I don't want to live in a society
where everyone makes their own rules up as they go along; few
atheists would either.

Since for the atheist there is no Prime Mover behind what
society commonly defines as "goodness", why would an atheist
seek to enforce any kind of (self) responsibility at all? If
you felt bad about hurting someone because you didn't treat
them according to the Golden Rule, why not just kill them? If
there was no afterlife they would simply cease to exist along
with their pain and the question of right or wrong would be moot.

Yes, I'm being a tad silly, but hopefully I've made some half-assed point that, "Morality has to come from somewhere."

---
Your points are not silly at all, merely common interpretations -- and I don't mean that pejoratively. I do not believe in evil in such a rigid, unrealistic way. Evil could be considered any action which seeks or causes an end to life. But evil is not necessarily bad. Cancer kills, human dies, human returns to earth, new life begins. From "evil" comes "good". A supernova could be considered evil, but it also gives birth to new life, which is good. I believe our existence within a realm of constant destruction dictates to us the sanctity of life, and thus morality. Life is the underdog in this universe, which will become apparent (to whatever exists in this solar system) when our sun decides to stop behaving as it is now. It's not always a struggle for power, but a struggle for life itself. Yes, in a relative universe you may decide to kill your fellow man, but on a macro level you become in conflict with life, in favor of destruction. Just as truth is valued over the lie, life is favored over death for very practical, and often poetic reasons that need not stem from God.

Concepts such as "morality" exist on the human level to illustrate and teach. Ideas and concepts are not so rigid as to dictate what is always right and wrong, nor should they ever be used to represent an absolute; espcially one as silly as "evil".
---

You are perhaps basing your argument against either the
existence of God or belief in God on the idea that since
religions provide conflicting statements, all of them must therefore be
false.

Religions are not God. Religion is a human endeavor and
therefore flawed, whereas the nature (or concept) of God is
perfection.

---
God as perfection is an assumption lacking observation. The nature of God (assuming it exists) cannot possibly be determined; though I'm not in opposition to the idea of that possible explanaion, let's not kid ourselves that the idea is anything but assumed. (Assumption not necessarily being a bad thing, but also not something to base your existence on.)
---

If I say, "We are breathing air" in English and you say it in
French, is one of us 'lying?'

Also, to many atheists why is 'lying' only a feature of religion? You mean atheists never tell lies--even little ones--when it suits them?

---
Lies are available for all to use. I wouldn't dream say otherwise.
---

Faith is not logical and much of religion isn't either, but to dismiss them all out of hand seems rather absolute, in a world where "there are no absolutes".

We can all agree when out brains die, if there is nothing, we will "experience" nothing forever. If there is an afterparty, atheist and believer alike will go "somewhere" even if it's only within their own consciousness.

---
On the contrary, faith is perfectly logical. I have faith in my senses enough to walk outside on a cool, winter day and not expect to walk into lava. Unless I smell sulfur... then I'd become suspicous, maybe I'd notice the increase in heat, and my faith will change. No longer can I have complete faith that outside is a good place to go. Just as my faith in Santa Claus went to zero, and my faith in God went to near zero, based upon observation and learning.

As humanbeings, we do not have the capacity to say anything with 100% certainty, so we must be careful to organize our minds into tiers of belief/faith. (Forgive my semantics; tier is perhaps not the best word, but I'm tired right now) Your immediate senses being on the top tier, followed by recognized patterns from experience, down to intellectual knowledge from schooling, on down to some philosophical interpretations, religion, God or gods, etc. (The existence of smurfs being, obviously far down at the bottom -- much farther than God even.)

Humans are unique in that we are deeply affected by ideas; but ideas have no corporeal nature that we are aware of (yet), so we cannot let any one idea rule our lives, but rather let us rule them. We are the makers of dreams, and need not suffer otherwise -- unless Kai'ckul visits my dreams and says otherwise.

I don't disagree with the intention of your words, but I
have a few problems:

Why would it matter whether Hitler or Mother Teresa go to
heaven or hell, or anywhere in between? I've never understood
the significance of an afterlife. In my opinion, the idea of
an afterlife is gluttonous. Why are we so obsessed with living
forever?

Most people wish to see good deeds and work rewarded and bad
deeds and evil punished. That's how we roll on earth. I find it amusing that you wouldn't care about rewards versus punishment for MT and Hitler, yet you find the 'golden parachute' concept upsetting.

Yes, for most people, God serves in part as a kind of Keeper of Scorecards, but rewards and punishment may be only one aspect of an "afterlife" which technically is consciousness after this life.

You're perhaps assuming that the endgame of religion is to
follow rules now to live in a Heaven forever, which would mean
some sort of consciousness apart from a Creator. That may not
be it at all. Buddha described Nirvana as 'the end of
suffering' and left it at that. Buddhism is atheistic.

Also, moral relativism exists whether you choose to believe
so or not. If it didn't, we wouldn't need police, jail and
prison systems, mental health facilities, military or
psychiatrists. The fact is, people can and will do what they
want (or what the voices in their head want) when they want.
Whether or not a god or gods exist has no bearing on this
reality. Even if you believe it does, your belief does not
change the fact that murder, rape, disease, supernovas and
golden parachutes happen. It's our responsibility to prevent
these things from happening, not a gods.

You claim moral relativism exists, but for the atheist, does evil exist?

Which way of living demands more responsibility, the
religious person trying to follow moral precepts or someone who
doesn't necessarily care what happens because nothing finally
matters; death is the End? I don't want to live in a society
where everyone makes their own rules up as they go along; few
atheists would either.

Since for the atheist there is no Prime Mover behind what
society commonly defines as "goodness", why would an atheist
seek to enforce any kind of (self) responsibility at all? If
you felt bad about hurting someone because you didn't treat
them according to the Golden Rule, why not just kill them? If
there was no afterlife they would simply cease to exist along
with their pain and the question of right or wrong would be moot.

Yes, I'm being a tad silly, but hopefully I've made some half-assed point that, "Morality has to come from somewhere."


Now, if you're thinking the way I think you're thinking,
which is that religion provides us with absolutes, the problem
becomes thus: Which god or gods, tenet, belief system do I
believe in? There really is no absolute answer, and if there
is, only a handful of people in the world (universe?) will
ever know. There's this thing called truth (which even itself
is somewhat difficult determine) -- does truth matter or is it
merely the idea that matters? If it's only the idea of
religion that matters, you haven't solved the so-called
problem of moral relativism, you've only hidden the truth from
the believer so that they do the "right" thing. So in other
words, you're lying. Is lying bad? Yes.

You are perhaps basing your argument against either the
existence of God or belief in God on the idea that since
religions provide conflicting statements, all of them must therefore be
false.

Religions are not God. Religion is a human endeavor and
therefore flawed, whereas the nature (or concept) of God is
perfection.

If I say, "We are breathing air" in English and you say it in
French, is one of us 'lying?'

Also, to many atheists why is 'lying' only a feature of religion? You mean atheists never tell lies--even little ones--when it suits them?

Faith is not logical and much of religion isn't either, but to dismiss them all out of hand seems rather absolute, in a world where "there are no absolutes".

We can all agree when out brains die, if there is nothing, we will "experience" nothing forever. If there is an afterparty, atheist and believer alike will go "somewhere" even if it's only within their own consciousness.

Re: evidence against God:
Well, obviously this is a tough one, because you can never prove a negative. The problem is you cannot prove it positively either. Or rather, no one has. We can prove that zebras exist, because there are pictures/videos, many, many people have seen zebras and the thought "makes sense" to us. While I have not seen a zebra, I take it faith, for lack of a better word, that they exist and that it is not an elaborate scheme or conspiracy. It is also relatively easy to verify the theory of a zebra at any given time. It is not all that easy to verify a proof of God, because all the "evidence" are aberrations: Jesus in a can of beans, someone being healed of some disease or being awed by nature. Do you see my point?
To be able to dispute a claim of God, I have to have a definition to go on. Many times when someone disproves a definition, people go "well, but that's not my God". If you make a hypothesis of your God, I'll do my best to disprove that hypothesis.

The Christian Creation theory is not just illogical it is blatantly false and foolish. Creation makes very definite claims, for instance young earth Creationism (earth <10.000 years old) is provably false, the claim that God made all species they way they are now with no transitions is provably false. When a religious doctrine makes such definite claims about our natural world the scientific method has crushed them every time. God seems to retreat into more muddy waters every time science proves him wrong; "God in the gaps".

Re: faith and logic
Your argument that you are able to correlate your faith and logic is more indicative of your ability to overlook some scripture and accept other parts. To make the Bible, for instance, cover the world as we see it now, we have to pick-and-choose which parts we really want to follow and which parts are just gibberish. I think this is a wrong way to go about it. There is a reason the Bible is as it is, you have to either accept it or not. Christianity as an idea is also "evolved" over time, into the many, many variations we see now. Some differences are greater than others, and some are minute. I am troubled by the pick-and-choosing, because that is not the way we learn things about the world. I view the Bible as the evidence that Christians use, and in that case you have to be able to fit everything into your theory, if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. Or make a new theory.

I respect your reverence of your parents, but they can be wrong too. Not that you should questions everything they say, but my point is that they may not really have the answer you are looking for.

The Scientific method is not well equipped to handle moral or ethical questions, because they are not (yet, anyway) a countable, measurable thing. We can't observe moral in its pure form, only the effects it has on people. It is possible to form theories about how it has originated through social sciences and anthropology, but "hard science" has trouble with it. Concerning philosophical questions, it really depends on what kind of philosophical question it is. Some are surprisingly easily bounded in biological evidence, while others are more ethereal.

If God chose to reveal himself, he would manifest in our natural world and thus the scientific method would suddenly apply to at least that avatar in our world. We could then do tests and gather evidence on this manifestation and, at least, get some ideas of how he exists. The fact that this has never happened, does seem to show a tendency.

Re: Existence of the universe
You're just throwing curve balls, aren't you?

Your third possible answer is the same as number two or one. The unmoved mover would need an origin too, and either he has his own 3 or he came from nothing or he always existed.

The problem with inserting God in that theory is that it can never explain anything. You enter into an infinite regress, that goes: "Us <-- God <-- superGod <-- supersuperGod" and so on (<-- "made by").
We have very little scientific evidence that shows the origin of the universe, but that does not mean that we should insert a prime mover into the equation, because that does not logically add up.

I will submit that the nature of the universe may be more mysterious than we think now and that the three possibilities does not adequately cover what "really" happened. Time could be cyclical, or something entirely different from a different point of view than our 3 dimensional world. I'm inclined to that the universe always existed in some form or another, but I have no scientific basis for that thought.

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This is good stuff, Gwiz. I like this discussion even though I'm convinced that it isn't going aywhere. But what the heck? I'll take a crack at it, anyway.

I really can understand why people look at organized religion and think, "WHAT THE -- ?!?" I do the same thing. Especially in light of the fact that they can't even get their OWN doctrine straight half of the time, let alone try to resolve their religion with science. Most religious people, you are right, probably have not put a great deal of effort into objectively justifying their religion to themselves.

In saying this I am not saying that all religion needs to be justified, because I don't see any "evidence" that God does not exist. Lack of evidece is not evidence. But certain principles within religion (Christianity's creation theory, for example) could be seen as illogical. I was going somewhere with this...

Ah, yes. My point is that some religious people (me) believe very much in the power of faith but also are not satisfied to believe blindly. If I encounter "evidence" that any doctrine does not agree with, I think about it A LOT. I research it, I ask other people, I read scriptures and books of doctrine, I pray, and I figure it out. I have never failed to resolve logic and my religion. Now, I am admitting that when I do these things I am seeking to find answers in a biased way, but I don't think that my bias prevents me from following things to their logical conclusions. For example, both of my parents are very wise, intelligent, and well-read people. When I have a question about a point of doctrine, I pick their brains apart. If they don't give me a logical answer, I keep asking and challenging the doctrine until we've found a solution that truly makes sense to me. And things making sense to me is nothing to scoff at. I don't let illogic slide.

The scientific method is not a good way to discover the truth about matters that ought to be discussed philosophically. Philosophy is the very essense of logical thought. You say that to be religious is to accept a forgone conclusion in spite of evidence? What does that mean? What evidence is their to suggest that God does not exist? What "pretty big jumps in logic" am I making? I see evidence that He exists every day of my life. This is not evidence gained through the scientific method, but it is evidence.

Some clarifications: To be "universally accepted" means that it is truth in the same way that gravity is a universally accepted truth. If God proved to all of us that He exists, we might not understand HOW He exists, but it would be a universally accepted truth that He does, thus requiring very little of us. That is what I meant.

One last point. The only three possible answers for the existence of the universe are

1. it came from nothing
2. it has always existed
3. unmoved mover

If logic indisputably disproves the existence of God, why are the first two answers illogical?

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
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Lucky, here are some more for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFHPGu3MidI (July 2006 - oldest?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKmwpBqklXk (Oct 2006 - advanced tricks)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCYevn4O4vo (4chan remix of original)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hPx94ZafPE ("escalator helicopter" dated July 2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rM0nLNgm9g (triple spinners)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8pnSKvk7Mo (reverse spin - half superman)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFK1zSLg3zE (people mover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vGtYLyQYrc (las vegas airport people mover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNN_fTSzh1I (st louis airport people mover)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBtt_Qx3bp0 (awesome fail)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLzX76i6P4w (awesome fat guy fail)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maaovx9qLOE (fail fall inside)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Y4qVhhUv4 (the sit and spin)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2xjVyn6UuQ (horrible quality)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8YZSd_Kzxg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBM6LBtD3qQ (cheating cause there is solid metal rail)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHIb7fYxH0U (tokyo mall)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw4Nk9sAvmo (rails are too far apart spin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTD-zWoB9IE (the "Severe Twist")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0NjZR17us (attempt #2 semi-fail)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIQymjki3Xg (Fail)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrtI7dF5ttw (Suge White & fail - nice text effects)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pPLTiva9Bw (downhill pommel horse)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quhqfVB0fQM (low quality good spinner)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQrw4DI1BI

Someone need to go to an airport with those people movers that are flat. I'm betting you could get a tandem or even synchronized escaloptering. Has anyone tried rolling into a ball?

Does anyone have enough stomach muscle strength to attempt the superman escalopter?

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:

What does the Austrian school of thought have to say about what to do in response to the current problems?

The Austrians do have a proposal, an extremely elaborate and complex one--the only difference is it is subtle in execution and there is no prime mover. It is a solution which involves millions of people--rather than a mere dozen.

The Austrians do not wish to do nothing, by any means, there is much to do to cure the economy. We can discuss the underlying economic principles in another post, but here are some items which would be a good start:

1. The government must aggressively investigate and prosecute all instances of fraud--putting those responsible in jail and levying extremely stiff personal fines.

2. The government should immediately issue a public statement stating that there will be no bailouts or financial aid to companies who failed to properly manage risk. Companies with responsible executives and solid business practices will not be punished, nor will taxpayers. Historically, a large contributor to market volatility has been speculation on impending regulation. This statement will severely calm the market--which is currently rocketing up and down on a daily basis amid speculation on the extent of government intervention.

3. The government is to immediately cease all monetary infusion in order to curb inflation. Inflation significantly retards actual growth. In a healthy economy, economic growth is perfectly matched with monetary growth. As it stands, economic growth is very far behind. Doing this will raise the value of the dollar and increase the real value of savings and lower the prices of goods.

4. A modest reduction in government spending should be followed by an equally sized tax cut. Tax cuts in the 1920s stimulated economic growth, helping to prevent a serious recession. This will create a larger supply of consumer savings available for investment, while also providing incentives for banks to lend.

5. Legislation encouraging mortgages with small or nonexistent downpayments must be repealed. Economists should issue a public statement encouraging lenders and lendees return to the de-facto standard of 20% down on a house. This protects the homeowner from foreclosure by providing a store of value to guard against market fluctuations.

6. Interest rates and housing prices must face a market correction. The artificially low interest rates from 2001-2004 must be allowed to rise in order for loans to become profitable again, and housing prices must be allowed to drop to pre-bubble levels. The result will be both affordable housing for consumers, and low-risk loans for bankers.

7. Market action must be permitted to allow banks to liquidate bad assets, even at a loss. This cash flow will enable banks to rebuild. Those banks which improperly diversified and are unable to rebuild must be allowed to fragment and be sold off to the highest bidder. This will enable responsible, ethical banks to gain larger market share and provide a larger pool of customers with higher-quality, safer loans.

8. Government officials should publicly de-emphasize the politically charged statistic of home ownership, and encourage homeowners to seek to live in their means by pursuing all housing options available.

9. Communities should come together to help support people affected by the housing crisis. Families and friends should offer temporary housing or modest monetary relief to help get people back on their feet--perhaps in exchange for help renovating the house, or other services.