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Messages - Universe Prince

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46
3DHS / Re: The Myth of Technological Progress
« on: August 03, 2010, 05:14:57 AM »
If the author of the article had read something like Scientific American, he might grasp that the F-22 does not fly as fast as the SR-71 because we don't need or want it to. The F-22 is a fighter plane. The SR-71 is a reconnaissance plane. Two very different purposes. It's sort of like complaining that we haven't made a minivan as fast a Formula 1 car. We don't need to, and, unless you're a host on Top Gear, you probably wouldn't want a van that fast anyway.

The author of the article is clueless, which probably why he thinks "The world of 1959 is pretty much the same world we live in today technologically speaking."

47
3DHS / Re: We Can't Afford the Bush Tax Cuts
« on: August 02, 2010, 11:49:00 PM »
I think you're being overly optimistic about that. Don't get me wrong. Change is happening. But it ain't happening that fast.

48
3DHS / Re: The Myth of Technological Progress
« on: August 02, 2010, 11:44:48 PM »
Rubbish.

49
3DHS / Re: We Can't Afford the Bush Tax Cuts
« on: August 02, 2010, 05:20:10 PM »
Whom would you impeach? The entire U.S. Congress?

Why would Congress be so derelict? Because we let them. Representative Paul Ryan has been pushing a good plan for cutting U.S. government spending. He has found little support in Congress. Why? Because Republican and Democratic politicians are convinced support for the plan will prevent reelection. The U.S. Congress spends as it does because we let them get away with it. Why? Because we make dumbass arguments like, "but we can't let the Democrats/Republicans win." So we keep voting for people who by and large end up supporting massive government spending and we never hold them accountable. We let Congress refuse to reign in spending because we can't talk about cutting spending on programs like Medicaid or Welfare, or because we refuse to discuss the possibility that U.S. military and U.S. law enforcement spending is done in massively inefficient ways. The U.S. government "awards" this or that contract for building this or that thing for the military often not because the military needs it but because it wins votes for the Senator and/or Representative in whose state the thing is built. Then there is the war on poverty. The war on drugs. "We need a wall on the border." Oh, and perhaps the one in most favor right now, job creation. Every politician has a plan for how to spend lots and lots of taxpayer dollars to create jobs, as if the government can actually create jobs in the private sector. So we keep voting people into office, at all revels really, who run on how they are going to spend money and how they are going to protect and grow other spending programs. Until that changes, impeaching Congress would do no good at all.

50
3DHS / Re: We Can't Afford the Bush Tax Cuts
« on: August 02, 2010, 04:35:45 PM »
Quote from: RoboPoster on August 02, 2010, 02:30:04 AM

We Can't Afford the Bush Tax Cuts


That is complete nonsense. What we cannot afford is the out-of-control spending that the U.S. Congress has been doing for at least the past decade. Only a fool declares that a budget deficit caused by massive overspending is solved by raising taxes. That's sort of like an alcoholic declaring that the problems caused by his over drinking would be solved by having someone else buy the drinks.

51
3DHS / Re: [Auto Post]The Politics of Stupidity
« on: July 29, 2010, 02:46:01 AM »
Quote from: E.J. Dionne, Washington Post on July 29, 2010, 02:00:07 AM

He recently offered a rather brutal budget that includes severe cutbacks. I have doubts about some of them, but at least Cameron cared enough about reducing his country's deficit that alongside the cuts, he also proposed an increase in the value-added tax from 17.5 percent to 20 percent. Imagine: a fiscal conservative who really (BEG ITAL)is(END ITAL) a fiscal conservative.


Remind me to care more about that when the U.S. government actually makes significant budget cuts. But first, what exactly is fiscally conservative about forcibly taking money out of the economy by raising a value added tax?

Quote from: E.J. Dionne, Washington Post on July 29, 2010, 02:00:07 AM

The simple truth is that the wealthy in the United States -- the people who have made almost all the income gains in recent years -- are undertaxed compared with everyone else.


Mr. Dionne seems to have confused the word 'truth' with the word 'opinion'.

Quote from: E.J. Dionne, Washington Post on July 29, 2010, 02:00:07 AM

On the contrary, studies showing that the stimulus created or saved up to 3 million jobs are very hard to refute.


He's joking, right? Hard to refute? Yes, if you think tearing a wet paper towel is hard.

Quote from: E.J. Dionne, Washington Post on July 29, 2010, 02:00:07 AM

Then there's the very structure of our government. Does any other democracy have a powerful legislative branch as undemocratic as the U.S. Senate?

When our republic was created, the population ratio between the largest and smallest state was 13-to-1. Now, it's 68-to-1. Because of the abuse of the filibuster, 41 senators representing less than 11 percent of the nation's population can, in principle, block action supported by 59 senators representing more than 89 percent of our population. And you wonder why it's so hard to get anything done in Washington?


And this is a bad thing exactly why?

I am having a hard time taking Mr. Dionne's editorial seriously. It seems rather half-baked. Which is somewhat ironic, given the man's opening question about national politics being "incorrigibly stupid".

52
3DHS / Re: Auto Post?
« on: July 27, 2010, 12:16:16 AM »
Indeed, ain't no autos in them posts.

Though there does seem to be an immediate need for a proof-reader and/or editor at dailypolitical.com.

53
3DHS / Re: Triple-slit experiment confirms reality is quantum
« on: July 23, 2010, 12:32:18 AM »
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/43275

54
3DHS / Re: Triple-slit experiment confirms reality is quantum
« on: July 23, 2010, 12:30:23 AM »
All things considered, that's saying quite a lot.

55
3DHS / Re: Triple-slit experiment confirms reality is quantum
« on: July 23, 2010, 12:17:07 AM »
I'm sure a lot of things didn't cross your mind.

56
3DHS / Re: Triple-slit experiment confirms reality is quantum
« on: July 23, 2010, 12:09:01 AM »
Quote from: Kramer on July 22, 2010, 07:34:04 PM

If I may speak for the group


No, you may not.

57
3DHS / Re: Does pornography equal obscenity?
« on: July 16, 2010, 11:52:29 PM »
Well the prosecution did such a bad job, that the judge dismissed all charges against John Stagliano. So free speech wins the day. I'd like to say, let's hope this sort of thing never happens again, but we all know it will.

John Stagliano is Free on Obscenity Rap! Feds Bungle Case, Exclusive Q&A

58
3DHS / Re: Does pornography equal obscenity?
« on: July 15, 2010, 11:53:18 PM »
Quote from: kimba1 on July 15, 2010, 11:51:49 PM

banned stuff should always be questioned


Amen to that.

59
3DHS / Re: Does pornography equal obscenity?
« on: July 15, 2010, 11:52:25 PM »
WARNING: some offensive language in this post

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Chatterley%27s_Lover#Controversy
         British obscenity trial

When the full unexpurgated edition was published by Penguin Books in Britain in 1960, the trial of Penguin under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was a major public event and a test of the new obscenity law. The 1959 act (introduced by Roy Jenkins) had made it possible for publishers to escape conviction if they could show that a work was of literary merit. One of the objections was to the frequent use of the word "fuck" and its derivatives. Another objection involves the use of the word "cunt".

Various academic critics and experts of diverse kinds, including E. M. Forster, Helen Gardner, Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and Norman St John-Stevas, were called as witnesses, and the verdict, delivered on 2 November 1960, was "not guilty". This resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the United Kingdom. The prosecution was ridiculed for being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked if it were the kind of book "you would wish your wife or servants to read".

The Penguin second edition, published in 1961, contains a publisher's dedication, which reads: "For having published this book, Penguin Books were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 at the Old Bailey in London from 20 October to 2 November 1960. This edition is therefore dedicated to the twelve jurors, three women and nine men, who returned a verdict of 'Not Guilty' and thus made D. H. Lawrence's last novel available for the first time to the public in the United Kingdom."

In 2006, the trial was dramatised by BBC Wales as The Chatterley Affair.

[...]

United States

In 1930, Senator Bronson Cutting proposed an amendment to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which was then being debated, ending the practice of having U.S. Customs censor allegedly obscene books imported to U.S. shores. Senator Reed Smoot vigorously opposed such an amendment, threatening to publicly read indecent passages of imported books in front of the Senate. Although he never followed through, he included Lady Chatterley's Lover as an example of an obscene book that must not reach domestic audiences, declaring "I've not taken ten minutes on Lady Chatterley's Lover, outside of looking at its opening pages. It is most damnable! It is written by a man with a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would obscure even the darkness of hell!"[14]

Lady Chatterley's Lover was one of a trio of books (the others being Tropic of Cancer and Fanny Hill), the ban on which was fought and overturned in court with assistance by lawyer Charles Rembar in 1959.

A French film (1955) based on the novel and released by Kingsley Pictures was in the United States the subject of attempted censorship in New York on the grounds that it promoted adultery.[15] The Supreme Court held that the law prohibiting its showing was a violation of the First Amendment's protection of Free Speech.[16]

The book was famously distributed in the U.S. by Frances Steloff at the Gotham Book Mart, in defiance of the book ban.		         

60
3DHS / Re: Does pornography equal obscenity?
« on: July 15, 2010, 11:25:14 PM »
Probably Not Safe For Work
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

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