>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^newtboy:
One more reminder to all the right wing "christians" that jumped on the "islamic terrorist" bandwagon the second a car blew up, this was one of YOURS, not one of theirs. Are you starting to fear a backlash against YOUR religion and world view?
Just asking.

I'd like to point up thread were I was one of the first to yell stop and wait before re-enforcing your prejudices over this.
For the right wing so-called Christians I would urge they be judged the same as anyone else. The ones cheering this act and declaring it as justice served are the enemies of free people everywhere. Not to pick on Islam in any way, but I do NOT see entire nations filling with cheering so-called Christians rejoicing at this act the same way we really did see entire nations filling with cheering so-called Muslims rejoicing after 9/11. That difference must not be forgotten, as it is vital. The Westboro Baptists are exactly the equivalent evil, and they are right at home in America, but I am not familiar with any nations were a Westboro Baptist like cult has nearly a majority within the population. "Islamic" jihadists however have multiple places were that can be said to be true.
It's all equally ugly, but I suppose my point is that the Westboro Baptist nuts like this guy are a foe already effectively beaten, with limited ability to fight against us as free people. 'Islamic' nuts though are holding entire populations at ransom and bringing civil war against freedom loving muslim people unfortunate enough to share geography with them. It is still the much bigger fight, and will continue to be a problem until it is tackled as such rather than being dismissed as the 'chosen' lifestyle of the people there.



I'm sad to say I have seen entire nations 'worth' of people rejoicing at the death of Muslims, just not any actual nation. There certainly have been rallies in America that at least in part were to 'celebrate' Muslim deaths. I agree, it's not as pervasive as in Muslim countries, and not accepted by the majority of our population as it seems to be in Muslim countries, but it certainly IS something that happens here (at most Faux supported and teabagger rallies for example). We have a much more diverse and larger population, so there is likely NO cause the entire population will ever get behind.
My point is, as long as a group advocates violence and intolerance against another group, they have some responsibility when one of their group (insane or not) uses their rhetoric to justify violent acts against "X", and should be ridiculed for their hypocrisy when they complain about the same thing from the other side of their fight.
This is not meant to indicate that western culture is the same, or even close to the same as the Muslim culture, it is meant to indicate that when your anti-"X" group becomes "X" in order to fight against "X" you've already lost the fight before you begin. To reiterate, if you become what you despise in order to rail against it, you end up despising yourself in the end.

>> ^newtboy:

One more reminder to all the right wing "christians" that jumped on the "islamic terrorist" bandwagon the second a car blew up, this was one of YOURS, not one of theirs. Are you starting to fear a backlash against YOUR religion and world view?
Just asking.


I'd like to point up thread were I was one of the first to yell stop and wait before re-enforcing your prejudices over this.

For the right wing so-called Christians I would urge they be judged the same as anyone else. The ones cheering this act and declaring it as justice served are the enemies of free people everywhere. Not to pick on Islam in any way, but I do NOT see entire nations filling with cheering so-called Christians rejoicing at this act the same way we really did see entire nations filling with cheering so-called Muslims rejoicing after 9/11. That difference must not be forgotten, as it is vital. The Westboro Baptists are exactly the equivalent evil, and they are right at home in America, but I am not familiar with any nations were a Westboro Baptist like cult has nearly a majority within the population. "Islamic" jihadists however have multiple places were that can be said to be true.

It's all equally ugly, but I suppose my point is that the Westboro Baptist nuts like this guy are a foe already effectively beaten, with limited ability to fight against us as free people. 'Islamic' nuts though are holding entire populations at ransom and bringing civil war against freedom loving muslim people unfortunate enough to share geography with them. It is still the much bigger fight, and will continue to be a problem until it is tackled as such rather than being dismissed as the 'chosen' lifestyle of the people there.

Graduate of the Sarah Palin school of geography.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'are, you, smarter, than, a fifth, grader, geography, jeff, foxworthy, kelly pickler' to 'are you smarter than a fifth grader, geography, jeff foxworthy, kelly pickler' - edited by lucky760

Microevolution leads to macroevolution. Changes in allele frequency that are caused by differences in geography (allopatric), differences in chromosome number or genetics (sympatric) or differences in both (parapatric) cause different adaptations between groups within a population.

There are numerous examples of allopatric speciation, not to mention sympatric and parapatric speciation - including the well-documented and tested examples that I mentioned.

Would you like more well-documented examples of speciation (macroevolution) that are backed up by reams of evidence and published in widely respected scientific peer-reviewed journals? I honestly don't see what else one would need to realize that micro- and macroevolution are credible tried and tested theories.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Microevolution is variation within kind, which I don't dispute..its macroevolution which is in contention, because there isnt a shred of actual scientific evidence to support it. If you want to talk about something testable, you could attempt to calculate the number of transitions it would take to get from one kind to the other..and estimates on that range in the 10's of thousands between something like a sea to land based mammal..and the fossil record clearly doesn't bear that out. We see sudden appearances with little or no change and then extinction with no clear ancestory..perhaps a few sequences here and there..but nothing even approaching the standard of evidence required.

>> ^zombieater:
Since we seem to love quotes so much in this thread, let me throw one out there that sums it up: "There is nothing mysterious or purposeful about evolution...it just happens. It is an automatic consequence of cold, simple mathematics."
-- Scott Freeman & Jon C. Herron, Evolutionary Analysis
Evolution is merely math. Specifically, microevolution is "the change in allele frequency over time." Not only is it just math, but it's been witnessed in our lifetimes over and over.
Take, for example, the story of the Soapberry bug (http://www.carroll-loye.com/_dbase_upl/Genetica_2001.pdf and a more recent scientific article on the topic can be found here http://www.scottcarroll.org/01_cms/details.asp?ID=9).
What about bacterial evolution and disease resistance?
What about the fossil series we have of giraffes, man, whales, horses, mollusks, elephants?
What about the thousands of peer-reviewed scientific articles that definitively show...ugh this is a waste of my time arguing about this.

Congratulations, you've just described Obama to a tee.

Now you lefties disown him because he didn't close Gitmo and end the wars, but he's not going anywhere for two more torturous years, and his election has resulted in--to put it mildly--negative consequences.

If there's any 'deflection' going on here it's Obama's former and current worshipers, hoping no one notices the emperor wears no clothes.

It's certainly everyone's right to diss and dislike Palin, but c'mon, try to keep some perspective. Paul Revere was just another homophobic sexist racist Dead White Guy.


"Minor gaffe" my ass. This woman

1) Is ignorant of basic American history (or economics, foreign policy, geography, you name it)

2) Pretends not to be ignorant by making shit up

3) Fails to organize her made up shit into comprehensible sentences

Moreover, she does this frequently. At some point ideology is not enough. Some people are simply not smart enough to be effective leaders. I wish her a long and successful career as a media personality.

Oh Quantum... deflect much?

I don't remember seeing anyone suggest a comparison between her and Obama prior to your post. I believe that everyone was assessing her performance against, say... a sanitation technician or perhaps an elementary school child. You know, the common folk.

But since you brought it up... There is a huge difference between someone making a mistake due to their ignorance of culture, or geography, or even just having a plain old brain fart. But when you take the time to ramble on with complete ignorance about a well known historical event of which you obviously have no idea, as Sarah clearly did here, and try to pass it off as if you are conducting a lesson or saying something profound... well that is just a combination of ego and stupidity.

To give her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she was just trying too hard, doesn't know how to check herself and found herself 10 words into a sentence with no idea how she got there or how to finish it up without sounding like an idiot... and she ended up sounding like an idiot.

Regardless, I am tired of Sarah Palin and I hope that one day she gets left behind by the world of politics and personality and we never have to experience her flavor of nonsense again. Sarah Palin, reduced to a footnote in the political history of the country as a person that did nothing, changed nothing, knew nothing

"Minor gaffe" my ass. This woman

1) Is ignorant of basic American history (or economics, foreign policy, geography, you name it)

2) Pretends not to be ignorant by making shit up

3) Fails to organize her made up shit into comprehensible sentences

Moreover, she does this frequently. At some point ideology is not enough. Some people are simply not smart enough to be effective leaders. I wish her a long and successful career as a media personality.

>> ^chilaxe:

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
Cause the only factor in determining the outcome of your life is strong self will..
..not age or ethnicity, socio-economic status, geography, political climate, access to employment, whether you're part of the dominant social group; right?
>> ^EmptyFriend:
i guess it comes down to an old belief of mine: you know who didn't get kicked in the face? the kid NOT selling drugs to undercover cops.


That must be why Jewish and Asian Americans outperform white people.


I don't see too many Asians or Jewish people running americas corporations. You might see a couple in Executive positions but you also see a couple black people. You think ethnicity isn't something that matters it most certainly does, in study after study after study.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Cause the only factor in determining the outcome of your life is strong self will..
..not age or ethnicity, socio-economic status, geography, political climate, access to employment, whether you're part of the dominant social group; right?
>> ^EmptyFriend:
i guess it comes down to an old belief of mine: you know who didn't get kicked in the face? the kid NOT selling drugs to undercover cops.



That must be why Jewish and Asian Americans outperform white people.

Cause the only factor in determining the outcome of your life is strong self will..

..not age or ethnicity, socio-economic status, geography, political climate, access to employment, whether you're part of the dominant social group; right?
>> ^EmptyFriend:

i guess it comes down to an old belief of mine: you know who didn't get kicked in the face? the kid NOT selling drugs to undercover cops.

Every change they made from DAO to DA2 was bad. In DA2, Combat is a confusing mess. Crafting, runes, armor, and even weapon mods are all completely pointless, tacked on as an after thought, and you can easily complete the game without any of that stuff. The interface was overkill. The DA:O interface is as easy to use as wikipedia, the DA2 interface felt like someone wrote a crappy and unnecessary flash overlay for wikipedia.

The change most people seemed to enjoy the most was the fact that the player character has a voice in this game. And yet oddly, I am more satisfied with the lack of voice in DA:O, because it required some imagination on my part. I felt attached to my Warden, where as in DA2 I felt detached, like I was watching a fictional character play out a story. Worse yet there are no maps in DA2, even though all the locales are attached o one another. The lack of geography added to the detachment.

Which brings me to comparing stories. DA2 had a very linear story. There were no game changing decisions to be made until half way through act 3, where you have to decide on Mages vs Templars, and that would decide what ending you get. DAO had half a dozen major decisions, and a couple a dozen minor ones, and new story arcs always opened up depending on your choices. In DAO, I controlled the fate of Ferelden, and in DA2 I was forced to surrender to fate.

Bottom line, DA2 did not really feel like a true RPG. Its like they left the RP part out and I was playing just a G (video game). Had they kept the DAO engine, and DAO combat, and DAO crafting, and NPC customization, and just made some graphic improvements, the game would have been a hell of a lot more fun.

>> ^guymontage:

Criticalthud,the links you posted dont seem very credible and while they do use actual data, its their interpretation of said data were they lose credibility. http://www.detailshere.com/earthquakeactivity.htm
Just at a glance, this site claims there are more earthquakes now than ever, because in the 1970 there were around 4000 earthquakes, and in 2002 there were just over 23 000 earthquakes. Probability does play a role in science, but so does critical thinking. When i see these numbers the first thing that comes to mind is, "Well no kidding! Instruments in 2002 are probably orders of magnitude more sensitive than they were 30 years ago!" Technological progress alone can easily explain these numbers. Now days we can detect even the tiniest earthquakes almost anywere, unlike in the 40 years ago.
I checked wikipedia as i typed this, and yep, here is a quote confirming my thoughts exactly;
"The number of seismic stations has increased from about 350 in 1931 to many thousands today. As a result, many more earthquakes are reported than in the past, but this is because of the vast improvement in instrumentation, rather than an increase in the number of earthquakes."
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake#Size_and_frequency_of_occurren
ce
If the author of the web site you quote has done so little research, you can barely take anything he or she writes as credible.

The site also lists 6 earthquakes over a magnitude of 7.0 that occurred in 2002, but the average number of earthquakes per year in the 1900s over 7.0 is 18. So by the figures he is going by, the author should state that earthquakes are decreasing! How ever this line of thinking just shows a lack of understanding of probability.
If the yearly average is as low as 18, then the law of large numbers indicates that the standard deviation will be large enough to affect the number of earthquakes on a yearly basis enough that some years there will be several more than 18 and some years several less. In other wards if one year there are only 10 and some years later there are 24, its still normal.
More over, one must consider geography and probability of the location of earthquakes. The location of 90% of the worlds earthquakes occurs along the ring of fire. However a lot of the ring of fire is not near large cities susceptible to widespread damage. Most of it is in the middle of nowhere. some years large earthquakes will occur close to high population areas, and other years most of the earthquakes will occur too far to cause any harm. on the years that several earthquakes happen to occur near populated areas, it might seem like earthquakes are increasing, but its just probability. This also would be normal.


fantastic. i would be very happy if science could disprove this theory. but we're still looking at probability.

Criticalthud,the links you posted dont seem very credible and while they do use actual data, its their interpretation of said data were they lose credibility. http://www.detailshere.com/earthquakeactivity.htm

Just at a glance, this site claims there are more earthquakes now than ever, because in the 1970 there were around 4000 earthquakes, and in 2002 there were just over 23 000 earthquakes. Probability does play a role in science, but so does critical thinking. When i see these numbers the first thing that comes to mind is, "Well no kidding! Instruments in 2002 are probably orders of magnitude more sensitive than they were 30 years ago!" Technological progress alone can easily explain these numbers. Now days we can detect even the tiniest earthquakes almost anywere, unlike in the 40 years ago.

I checked wikipedia as i typed this, and yep, here is a quote confirming my thoughts exactly;
"The number of seismic stations has increased from about 350 in 1931 to many thousands today. As a result, many more earthquakes are reported than in the past, but this is because of the vast improvement in instrumentation, rather than an increase in the number of earthquakes."
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake#Size_and_frequency_of_occurrence
If the author of the web site you quote has done so little research, you can barely take anything he or she writes as credible.


The site also lists 6 earthquakes over a magnitude of 7.0 that occurred in 2002, but the average number of earthquakes per year in the 1900s over 7.0 is 18. So by the figures he is going by, the author should state that earthquakes are decreasing! How ever this line of thinking just shows a lack of understanding of probability.

If the yearly average is as low as 18, then the law of large numbers indicates that the standard deviation will be large enough to affect the number of earthquakes on a yearly basis enough that some years there will be several more than 18 and some years several less. In other wards if one year there are only 10 and some years later there are 24, its still normal.

More over, one must consider geography and probability of the location of earthquakes. The location of 90% of the worlds earthquakes occurs along the ring of fire. However a lot of the ring of fire is not near large cities susceptible to widespread damage. Most of it is in the middle of nowhere. some years large earthquakes will occur close to high population areas, and other years most of the earthquakes will occur too far to cause any harm. on the years that several earthquakes happen to occur near populated areas, it might seem like earthquakes are increasing, but its just probability. This also would be normal.

>> ^BoneRemake:

>> ^syncron:
I have just came to the realization that I've learned nothing from my middle school geography class.

Geography or geology ?

Yea the scale is a good thing to know about.


Oh... geology, I guess I didn't learn anything about geography either.