The judge should require her to write the definition of "amoral" and "immoral" 100 times as well*.

*Yes, she could've meant "amoral" but given her other claims about these books corrupting the youth, I'd wager she meant "immoral".

Just for clarification, it is okay to use scare tactics for steroids and not okay to use scare tactics for marijuana. Am I correct?

Cowicide: kgb, just stay comfy in your dreamworld... the rest of us will handle the challenges of dealing with reality.

The only dreamworld I may be in is that I feel it is arrogance to believe one side has all the right answers. A corollary is that I do not have the arrogance to believe that a news source is entirely worthless. Sure, they vary in how much good information they produce but that is entirely different from being of the mindset that you feel embarrassed when you agree with news source X.

Jesse: And that, @25 above, is why perfectly normal people are immediately suspicious of anything that comes from Fox News.

That may very well be true but that's an entirely different stance than claiming that you feel cognitive dissonance in agreeing with something FoxNews has put out. This only happens* if you believe that it is somehow impossible for them to produce something of value, no matter how rare that occurs. But too often people become too uncritical of information which conforms to/confirms their current worldview, so that tendency needs to be balanced by not wasting your time consuming virtually worthless news.

*Technically, cognitive dissonance could occur if you believe their good news to bad news ratio is say 1/10000 and it turns out to be say 1/9900. But I highly doubt they were making this sort of claim, and if they were then I sincerely apologize.

Jonathan Badger: In case anyone's actually interested in CFR positions rather than pages written by lunatics comparing them to Freemasons and occult groups, you can actually, you know, go to their site and see what position papers they've written.

If they already believe that the CFR is involved in conspiracy theories then why would they ever believe that the CFR's stated positions have any relation to their real goals?

CFR=Council on Foreign Relations.

And to those who have cognitive dissonance caused by agreeing with something on Foxnews.com, shame on you. Stop acting like closed minded douches that demonize the 'opposing side'.

Hans Rosling > *

So we can conclude that one type of ideologue wants to ignore one aspect of humanity (violence) and another type of ideologue wants to ignore another aspect of humanity (sex), yet both do so in the hopes of bettering humanity. Interesting.

jackalopemonger: Then you'll be interested in this factoid.

pixeltone: You've got the sex-ratio reversed.

N=1 > N=0.

BassTooth: i wanna hide dead bodies in it.

Killing mice isn't nearly as risqué as you think.

ooo another symbolic ceremony wasting resources with no clear explanation of how this would be effective (even remotely effective). At least protests are occasionally effective. I

#7: Keep building your sociological assessments based on anecdotes told by young people. Margaret Mead approves.

@12: I think they meant actual Pirates. You know Johnny Debt, smooth-talking, attractive, pirates?

An hero.

@#2:

In my own professional work I have touched on a variety of different fields. I've done my work in mathematical linguistics, for example, without any professional credentials in mathematics; in this subject I am completely self-taught, and not very well taught. But I've often been invited by universities to speak on mathematical linguistics at mathematics seminars and colloquia. No one has ever asked me whether I have the appropriate credentials to speak on these subjects; the mathematicians couldn't care less. What they want to know is what I have to say. No one has ever objected to my right to speak, asking whether I have a doctor's degree in mathematics, or whether I have taken advanced courses in the subject. That would never have entered their minds. They want to know whether I am right or wrong, whether the subject is interesting or not, whether better approaches are possible - the discussion dealt with the subject, not with my right to discuss it.

But on the other hand, in discussion or debate concerning social issues or American foreign policy, Vietnam or the Middle East, for example, the issue is constantly raised, often with considerable venom. I've repeatedly been challenged on the grounds of credentials, or asked, what special training do you have that entitles you to speak of these matters. The assumption is that people like me, who are outsiders from a professional standpoint, are not entitled to speak on such things.

Compare mathematics and the political sciences -- it's quite striking. In mathematics, in physics, people are concerned with what you say, not with your certification. But in order to speak about social reality, you must have the proper credentials, particularly if you depart from the accepted framework of thinking. Generally speaking, it seems fair to say that the richer the intellectual substance of a field, the less there is a concern for credentials, and the greater is concern for content.

---Noam Chomsky, pp. 6-7: Language and Responsibility.

Even more interesting is this report that Chinese troops in uniform have been seen in one of Zimbabwe's largest cities. Military troops in uniform is a very bold move for the Chinese.

"The Mismeasure of Man" by Stephen Jay Gould. I read it in 11th grade (age ~17) and understood less than 2-3% of what was being said. After completing my undergrad degree I went back and re-read the book and was amazed at how much I understood (age ~22). This without me consciously _trying_ to learn the contents of the book, as opposed to some of my friends who consciously set out to learn enough physics to understand "The Feynman Lectures on Physics".

3D graphs = bad. 3D graphs images that are not formatted properly (they improperly resize from a larger graphic) = especially bad.

@#40, Using human skin for covers of books wasn't that uncommon. Here's a news story about it.

#34 said "I disagree. I think arguments about policy should be based on what's right and what's wrong. The numbers thing seems to be a bit cold-hearted and lacking in humanity."

George W. Bush, is that you?