On mankinds greatest 'invention.'

I've been part of aconversation on a message board concerning what people thought was mankinds greatest invention. Ofc ourse, you hqave to narrow down what the word "invention" even means before you can fully get into that, in my opinion. But here was a reply I posted regarding some people's claims of God and feelings such as compassion would apply to mans greatest invnetion title;



Man did not create God, but man does interpret God to his own needs and ends. The idea of God, or a supreme being of some kind higher than ourselves, has been around since long before written language. To claim that man invented God is the ultimate act of hubris and vanity, claiming that not only we are the highest lifeform on the planet, but only we know of the one that is higher than us. Finally, to claim man invented God would be tantamount to claiming man invented his own sense of morality.

I believe there are some larger truths that can not be claimed by man, and one of those is God. Another is gravity. No one invented gravity, and I have a hard time even saying someone discovered it, as it's always been there. All we did was interpret it into our perception of reality.

I can't add compassion and other emotions because they also have always been there, and are not even exclusive to our species. The only emotional concept man might lay claim to, and only might, is war, as no other species can wage it on the same scale as we do, but other species have waged it before, and even used sticks or rocks as weapons to extend their reach beyond themselves. More species than just man uses tools.

If you're going to get into conceptual inventions such as ideals and emotions, then I'd have to simply bring up civilization or the concept of inherent human or civil rights. That people, regardless of their station, have a basic set of human rights (note the use of the term 'human' to describe those claimed rights) inherent in nothing more than belonging to the species.

But in the end, regardless of conceptualism or tengible 'inventions' I'dstill have to say the written word. Not just language, as language can get bastardized and changed and mutated over time. But the actual written word, the written language, that can be passed down from generation to generation. Even with that you get interpretation, as current politics and court proceedings have clearly shown, and the language we're arguing about now isn't even that old.

Language, and the written word, along with the ability to translate between all the desparite is what allows mankind to do everything he has done. Without the ability to translate ideas and beliefs, as well as teach and impart knowledge, man would be a far lesser animal than he is today.

Some Democrats fear 'racial divide' from continuing primary

Who exactly is fearing this 'racial divide' if the primary continues as it has?

African Americans and wealthy liberals.

You know, Obama's main supporters.

"We keep talking as if it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that Obama gets 92 percent of the black vote, because since he only got 35 percent of the white vote, he's in trouble," James E. Clyburn (House Majority Whip) said. "Well, Hillary Clinton only got 8 percent of the black vote. . . . It's almost saying black people don't matter. The only thing that matters is how white people respond. And that's what bothered me. I think I matter."

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762156.html

White-----------------------237,854,954----80.2%
Hispanic or Latino-------------42,687,224----14.4%
Black or African American------37,909,341----12.8%

I don't know, Jimmy, you tell me what group matters more in the general election.

So is it racist to consider that the wider general population of the US is vastly white? Apparently it's only racist to consider that Hillary is losing the black vote, not that Obama is losing the white vote.

"I think she is destroying the Democratic Party," said New York lawyer Daniel Berger, who had backed Clinton with the maximum allowable donation of $2,300. "That there's no way for her to win this election except by destroying [Obama], I just don't like it. So in my own little way, I'm trying to send her a message."

There is also no way for Obama to win this election, you simpering little man child. Neither candidate can get the required fucking delegates, but because Hillary is behind by a few lousy percentage points, it's her that's out to destroy the party instead of Obama.

Apparently the Democrats, mainly blacks and wealth liberals, are just now realizing something that the larger population has always known; race still fucking matters!

It could matter in a good way or it could matter in a bad way. In fact, it matters both ways, right now, today, in this campaign. How about we have a fucking conversation on this reality instead of blaming the white candidate?

Heh, black people are voting for Obama in the 90% range, and yet, somehow, to them and only them, race doesn't matter. A 9 to 1 black voting margin for Obama isn't racial, but Hillary pointing it out in context to the general election is? A majority if blacks voting for a black candidate isn't racist, but a majority of whites voting for a white candidate is.

So let's remember the new ground rules for Democratic primaries;
Black people voting for black candidates in massive majorities is *not* racist, but white people voting for white candidates on a smaller but still significant majority *is* racist.

Maybe someone forgot to send out the memo.

How fast can you stop having sex?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/04/22/mg.morrow.eiglarsh.int.cnn

Basically, in the case in question, a 16yr old girl agreed to have sex with an 18yr old boy, but then during the sex decided she didn't want to keep having thesex and told the boy to stop, which he did, but it took all of five seconds, and now the girl is claiming rape, or rather, it wasn't clear, the judge decided it was rape, because it took him [I]five seconds[/I] to stop having sex.

According to the clip there are like a half dozen states that allow women to "withdraw" their consent [I]during sex![/I]

I can see it happening, I can see the sex going wrong and the woman wanting to stop, and the man has some level of responsibility to stop or it certainly can cross over the line to rape, but that is so far from the case in this case.

First thing that happens when a woman tells a man to 'stop' in the middle of sex is the man says "What?" while not stopping, just in case he heard it wrong. That's simple biology, people. Stopping sex for a man is like stopping peeing in the middle of a nice piss. It's not a freaking faucet, people!

Now the kid has a felony conviction of rape, gonna be listed as a sex offender the rest of his life, letting people just guess and imagine what he did all based on their own fears and prejudices, and the kids life is basically fucked all because he didn't stop screwing immediately. Which is, simply, factually, biologically, physically impossible.

The clip is almost worth watching just for the role reversal in the chick and dude arguing the others traditional stances, which us a very annoying aspect of modern media and news reporting for me, in that they go out of their way to find someone that doesn't fit the traditional perception of one side or the other of an argument or social issue, if for nothing more than shock value.

And just think, with the United States Supreme Court getting ready to allow states to execute baby rapers, it's just a hop, skip and a jump to offing scumbags like this one too, eh?

Should non citizens have the same legal rights as Americans?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/23/ksm.attorney/index.html

Link is just for context, but the question is, in general, whether non US citizens should be allowed the same legal rights as American citizens.

I probably obviously believe they should, because once you start excluding certain segments of people it's very easy to expand that exclusion. Remember when the suspension of habeas corpus wasn't going to effect American citizens. It has, and will continue to do so, because the justifications will keep being expanded and widened and more and more vague as to cover almost any ideological or political abuse.

But more importantly for me, it's the inherent hypocrisy of saying someone is undeserving of the same basic rights as Americans for no other reason than they are not American citizens. Whether you or I agree with or even see this hypocrisy isn't even the most important aspect of it; Appearance is everything, especially in the techno-linked world we live in today. We simply can not hide anything anymore, it's just not possible, unless we want to be like Russia and China and Iran. And even those countries can't clamp down all the way, technology won't allow them to.

We claim to the world that our legal process and form of government is the best in the world, and yet we pick and choose those who we allow to participate in the legal process and who is protected by our form of government. We have the best system, but you can't be a part of it, nor have access to it, or be protected by it. There is no inherent hypocrisy in that sentiment?

Anyway, I've long been a proponent of leading by example. If we have an open government and legal system then the world gets to see how it works, see it in action, and judge for themselves. Instead we close it off and hide it behind closed doors and in secret military courts with little to no legal protections or access to those we wish to execute for their crimes.

Are we really that secretly ashamed of our government and legal system?

Bush picks a new HUD secretary

You may or may not, considering the sheer volume of things coming out of the administration, know that the previous HUD secretary had recently decided to leave public office and *cough* spend more time with his family.

In response to his earlier mistake of appoint a complete fucking retard to run a $40 odd Billion a year federal agency like HUD, Bush lept into action and appointed someone with absolutely no housing experience what so ever

None, not a bit, zero housing experience. He was the head of the Small Business Administration. That I can't think of anything in the news about the SBA in the last few years means at least that he knew how to not fuck that agency up anymore than it was, if not possibly, or impossibly in the case of this administration, improve it. And by most accounts the dude is a competent manager.

But he knows nothing about housing.

The sheer number of unqualified politically appointed hacks in this administration is just amazing. The biggest fucking hack of all of course is the vice president, and he's set the tone for the entire administration. Not even Nixon was this incompetent or stupid. Nixon was a lot of things, a real right bastard the least among them, but at least he was smart enough to put smart partisan people in charge of shit instead of complete idiots.

But this administration has always been, form Day One, about keeping power centralized in the White House. Put someone in charge of something they know something about and they might do something on their own, or worse yet, not do what the White House tells them to do, and even worse still say publicly why they didn't do it. You know, tell the truth.

I won't even get into the clear and orchestrated assault on science for base political purposes by this administration.

No one, no one, has ever stacked an administration like this. I mean, maybe sometime way back in the freaking 1800's when men were men and cattle were scared and the really old skool good old boys network was still in power, but still, I bet they were still either smart enough to run things to their advantage or the incompetence was on a much smaller scale, or at least just not as orchestrated and purposely implemented.

275 days.

Misc socioeconomic rant

What manufacturing do we have on the US anymore? Heavy machinery, barely, even Boeing is outsourcing the bulk of their latest wonder plane and it's so far behind schedule it's a fucking joke, heh. And the outsourcing was supposed to streamline shit and work better than before and it's been nothing but worse all the way around.

We don't even make fucking Levi's in this country anymore! You seen a pair lately? The quality is piss poor compared to what it used to be but American consumers demanded lower prices and they obliged by taking their manufacturing off shore.

As I've said before IMO there are only really two ways to lower costs of goods and that's lower material costs or lower labor costs. Materials have been about as cheap as they're going to get for some time now, and labor is the last bastion of cost cutting in retail manufacturing. We've cut manufacturing, we've cut labor, we've cut management, we've cut support costs, all sent over seas to cheaper labor markets with government subsidized health care among other perks, like weaker labor and safety and pollution laws.

The US used to manufacture just about everything it needed, and we still could if we tried but we won't. And we won't because it would be inconvenient. And convenience is the only thing that matters today. Convenience drives every aspect of our social culture. Technology has allowed it, but the culprit is mankind's inherent laziness and selfishness. We want what we want and we want it now and that's been the social norm since at least the 80's. Fucking Reagan, heh.

So as jobs flee and benefits and income dry up, there's even more pressure on manufacturers to lower costs, and again material costs ain't moving, so labor costs are the only thing left. The jobs the US outsourced to India barely ten years ago are already being outsourced to cheaper labor markets.

Everything is going up because everything has to be shipped because nothing is made locally anymore because it's cheaper to make things in one big ass group than in smaller spots spread out over area. It's cheaper for Wal-Mart to buy everything there is and sell everything there is because they sell so much of it so by the very same concept of competition choice in the marketplace is reduced as smaller competitors can't compete on price because the bottom line is always price.

The forces have been circling the toilet bowel for a while now, but the centrifugal force has picked up enough speed that it's self perpetuating now. It's moving on it's own and there's not much we can do to stop it. The world's gonna take one massive economic dump real soon, but then 'real soon' is arbitrary.

Eventually we're going to run out of emerging labor markets to exploit, and what then? What happens when there's no place else that's cheaper? Well then we'll have some semblance of stability. It's just insane that it's so much cheaper to make plastic fucking clothes hangers in China than the US while having to ship the fuckers all the way here. That it's that much cheaper to make cheap crap in China and then shit it all the way to the US is just insane. It's nuts and we can't keep on this track.

We need to stop pretending the idea of a 'free market' is even attainable let alone desirable or even possible. There is no free market. Every country on the planet has subsidies, tariffs and quotas of some kind. Ever. Single. One. So lets stop pretending we all don't protect our own markets.

The problem for the US is we don't protect the right ones or the ones we do protect for the right reasons or in the right way. Fucking ethanol subsidies a perfect example of stupid. That's the dumbest God damned thing I can think of that's going on right now domestically. Fucking farm states are really starting to piss me off, and the industry is dominated by massive nationals now anyway, why are we still pretending that family farms are a force or consideration in this country anymore?

Any form of government is only as strong as it's protections of it's citizens, and any economic model is only as honest as it's protections of it's consumers. We're failing on both accounts and it's because people are greedy fuckers, but even the people that are being screwed won't change the system because they think they can be one of the greedy fuckers themselves. Once they make it they want the same shit the people got that are there now.