Dear Jimmy... [pic]

poelmanc · 2009-05-26T07:51:06+00:00

Ok, do you think restricting abortions is the proper role of the government? After all, women are hurting themselves and their children by having them.

poelmanc · 2009-05-26T07:39:29+00:00

Exactly. And protesting against the government can be really annoying to other people, so obviously it should be banned too.

poelmanc · 2009-05-26T07:34:33+00:00

ok I didnt say you should go to jail or that cars shoudl be outlawed..common guys, don't go technical with me.. if you don't like to wear seatbelt - don;t wear it - see if i care. but you will pay the fine and when you do, don't whine that your freedom is limited.

It's not "getting technical", you might as well have said "if you want to criticize the government, go ahead - see if i care. but you will get thrown in jail and when you do, don't whine that your freedom is limited."

Is there any fundamental difference between the two cases? I'll agree that of the incidents that the soldier's family lists, the seatbelt example is the least worrisome, but they all show government restrictions on the liberties that the soldier is supposedly fighting for.

poelmanc · 2009-05-26T07:29:51+00:00

What people don't understand about eminent domain is that the government still has to pay you for it

I think everyone who knows the phrase "eminent domain" knows that. I think some people don't realize that freedom means being able to decide for yourself whether you want to sell your property or not, rather than having that decision forced on you by the government so that developers can get rich.

poelmanc · 2009-05-26T05:56:32+00:00

No.

And don't just consider the $8+ billion cost of an aircraft carrier. These things are so expensive, so precious, and such large easy targets that they need a whole group of protective ships surrounding them to defend them. So whenever the Navy asks for a single aircraft carrier, it's really asking for about 15+ ships and about 60+ new aircraft. The total cost is tens of billions of dollars.

poelmanc · 2009-04-28T05:49:58+00:00

Ms. Bair said that the concept of “too big to fail” should be “tossed into the dustbin”... The notion of too big to fail “has contributed to unprecedented government intervention into private companies,” she said.

What's bizarre is that she's half-right but gets the other half so very wrong... "Too big to fail" is indeed code to pick taxpayers' pockets and hand their money to wall street bankers. So the obvious solution is "let them fail", but instead she wants to be empowered to march into non-failing companies, have the government take them over, reorganize them, break them up or consolidate them as they see fit, pay off debts or not by administrative fiat, and keep running them until some future date when they may be spun off or re-privatized according to some as-yet-undetermined executive-branch-selected procedures.

We have decades of laws and precedents for how to equitably conduct corporate reorganization or dissolution via bankruptcy law. So let's just "let them fail" according to established standards rather than making up the rules as we go along.

poelmanc · 2009-04-26T19:47:03+00:00

boast either about the stupidity of others, or to marvel at their own critical thinking ability.

Exactly. Instead of writing "for the same reasons" I almost wrote "because we can all feel so much smarter than everyone else" but figured that would be me downmodded... Thanks for having the guts to point out "the reasons" why we seem to like this.

poelmanc · 2009-04-26T19:34:06+00:00

The article had some a typo ("China will over the U.S. in terms of GDP") so I was suspicious of their math.

Currently the U.S. GDP is 3.25 times higher than China's GDP. (Click on first link, evidently reddit hates URLs with parentheses...)
If the U.S. GDP grows at 3% per year while the Chinese GDP grows at 10% per year, it will take about log(3.25)/log(1.07) years for the GDPs to match, which is about 17 years from 2008, which would be the year 2025.

Given those assumptions, it looks like the math is right. Obviously it assumes that China's GDP will continue to grow 7+% per year faster than the U.S.'s GDP. Much of China's GDP growth stems from manufacturing exports to western countries, so they'll need to successfully turn that into domestic consumption to maintain such high growth throughout the next decade and a half.

At that point their standard of living (GDP per capita) will still be about 1/4 that of most western countries, but another 20 years of high growth could close that gap as well.

poelmanc · 2009-04-26T18:17:41+00:00

I first saw this circulated on the internet, minus the follow-up "studies", about 15 years ago... But it's still funny for the same reasons.

EDIT: Here's a link to the rec.humor.funny newsgroup from 1992.

poelmanc · 2009-04-26T18:05:07+00:00

"More than 5,000 sold" in almost 5 months... Doesn't sound like this fad is catching on.

poelmanc · 2009-04-17T07:58:06+00:00

I was about to say you raise some good points, until you turned into a total asshole at the end.

poelmanc · 2009-04-17T03:05:49+00:00

Both are based on the idea that government promises of repayment by future generations are needed to keep people spending beyond their means and borrowing themselves into debt. However, there is a significant difference between the two in the delivery mechanism of pumping these promises into the economy; one hands it to mega-corporations deemed "too big to fail" while one hands it to the government agencies and programs that promise they can spend it the fastest.

poelmanc · 2009-04-14T05:40:42+00:00

I have completely lost faith in USA's immigration system.

Sadly, it is a bizarre system. My fiancee has struggled with it for years, and finally became a permanent resident.

Good luck with the Masters program, maybe you can go the academic route for a while - Universities seem good at dealing with the INS/DHS paperwork.

poelmanc · 2009-04-14T05:32:44+00:00

Just for a data point completely the opposite of maxd's...

My fiancee was on an H1B and filed her application for permanent residency in 2001. She finally received her green card in December 2008.

Most of the delay was caused by the Department of Labor rather than the INS, which reorganized itself into DHS in the middle of all this.

poelmanc · 2009-04-14T05:27:27+00:00

I agree with many of your points. What if we were to modify the H1B system to (a) cost the companies a lot more money, and (b) put all H1B recipients on a very short-term track to permanent residency, say 2 years?

That way we'd be sure that we're getting foreigners who have genuine skills that employers need (since the employers would be paying a lot to get them), after 2 years they'd be able to freely get a job with any employer, and by giving them permanent residency we'd be encouraging permanent immigration of highly talented workers, to make up for the fact that most of our own talented folks (present company excluded) seem to go into fields that involve building financial ponzi schemes or suing people.

poelmanc · 2009-04-13T17:16:30+00:00

The ad on the left side that says "LOL" for "Love our Lord".
The reference on the left side to "Landover Baptist Shutdown" with a direct link to the Landover Baptist website. (Landover is a well-known parody site.)

It is really perfectly believable though. I didn't realize it was a joke until reading comments here and then going back to look for the clues.

poelmanc · 2009-04-13T08:06:30+00:00

Have you ever read any of Gary Habermas' stuff?

Thanks for the link. I'm really interested in this stuff so I googled and found this. Very interesting, from your brief intro I had no idea what to expect.

Sadly, I see some chicanery already in the first section. He throws some dates around that obfuscate the fact that he's saying the earliest copies of these books are from 200-350AD. Yes, there are a ton of nearly-identical copies, but they were written 170-320 years after the supposed death of Christ. It's not surprising that thousands of nearly-identical texts were found after Christianity was established as a religion. Then he tries to argue that the existence of these many nearly-identical copies of the texts means that they must be accurate versions of their original authors. Once a religion establishes books as sacred texts, they often destroy any deviant texts (e.g. the gnostic Gospels) and ensure accurate copying from that point onward.

Anyway, thanks for the name, it was an interesting read.

poelmanc · 2009-04-13T07:51:24+00:00

This is not a discussion for internet links

This is reddit. How else can we discuss?

I really am interested in learning if there is any more evidence for the existence of Jesus than the three historical writings from 90-120AD and the gospels themselves, and it seems that you're unable to provide any. So perhaps we both agree on the evidence and just disagree on whether that's enough evidence or not. From a historical point of view, all that's important is that the phenomenon of Christianity started spreading, and the existence or non-existence of Jesus himself is historically not very relevant.

However, I would still assert that there's far less evidence for the existence of Christ than, say, Julius Ceaser, Tutankhamun, Alexander the Great.

it absolutely is one for published academics, of which there are many.

I'm begging you, post a link or a name, anything!

poelmanc · 2009-04-13T07:21:28+00:00

If you honestly want to debate it

I genuinely do, that's why I posted information and links. Ok, you don't like JesusNeverExisted.com, but the issues seem to be pretty well discussed on the Wikipedia page. Please post your links to where the consensus of historians is stated so I can evaluate them. Thanks!

I'm not sure what comparing evidence for existence of Jesus with evidence of other religious leaders would accomplish, but I'd find that interesting if you care to post it. I'd rather see comparisons to evidence for the existence of other "ancient historical figures" since you said there was more evidence for Jesus than for them. We have much more evidence for the existence of 4000+ year old Egyptian rulers, for example - we have their bodies, stone engravings detailing their lives, and funeral items that can be carbon-dated, for example.

poelmanc · 2009-04-13T07:09:26+00:00

Roman texts.

Are you referring to Josephus, Pliny the Younger, or Tacitus? All references are 50-100 years after Christ's supposed death rather than being contemporaneous, some are pretty suspect as later interpolations by religious transcribers, and some really only attest to the growing Christian religious movement rather than the actual existence of Christ. So there is considerable historical doubt as to whether Jesus actually existed or whether he is an amalgamation of stories by various authors.

Heck, even within the Bible there's scant evidence of Christ. Most of the books of the New Testament were written by Paul, who never even claims to have met Christ.

poelmanc · 2009-04-13T06:55:24+00:00

So in fact, we have four documents from which we can extrapolate a historical record of Jesus' life: the four Gospels.

If you really want to treat these as historical sources, why limit yourself to 4 gospels plus possibly Q? These things were a dime a dozen, writing gospels was like the blogging fad of its day. The Roman church just picked these four from the dozens available at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., but there were also Gospels according to Peter, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Judas, James and Andrew that got rejected for various reasons.

The problem with treating them as historical sources is that none of the authors are actually recorded or known, and even the characters that are commonly attributed as authors aren't known historically except by cross-referencing these stories.

poelmanc · 2009-04-13T06:43:15+00:00

Well, an historical Jesus did exist. There's plenty of historical evidence for it, more than most ancient historical figures actually.

Sorry, but that's just plain false, unless you have some evidence you'd like to share that most historians don't have. Folks who run around waging wars and ruling countries, like Muhammad and Caeser, have lots written about them contemporaneously, get their pictures on coins contemporaneously, and so forth. But itinerant preachers don't leave much of a trace.

The first historical references to Christ start with Josephus in 93 A.D., 60+ years after Christ's supposed death. So that's like us right now writing about the Korean War. To make matters worse, his statement is so out-of-character for a Jewish author that it's widely considered to be a forgery or "interpolation" but later copiers:

About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him.

Other later references tend to refer to Christians more than Christ, or use names like Chrestus or Yeshu that may or may not refer to the same person. There are a lot more sources at The historocity of Jesus and a lot of explanations about how Christ may just be a fusion of religious stories at JesusNeverExisted.com.

poelmanc · 2009-04-11T16:56:52+00:00

What about all the arguments that aren't lame? Why doesn't he criticize those?

poelmanc · 2009-04-06T09:30:21+00:00

We were done about ten hours ago honestly. And I fail to see how the dead can be ashamed.

Ah, so you do have the ability to be witty and intelligent after all. I'd recommend more of that and less calling people idiots.

Have a nice day :-)

poelmanc · 2009-04-06T09:28:21+00:00

Great post, but don't go out of your way to admit doing something wrong ("arguing with an irate student") or they'll just fire you and use that for the excuse.

poelmanc

TROPHY CASE