GeorgiaDon

It's an understatement in the extreme to say your statement was "inaccurate". You seem to be shockingly ignorant of history. Here is a random sampling of African countries, their date of independence, and the European country they were previously ruled by. Virtually the only sub-Saharan countries that gained independence before the mid 20th century were Liberia, founded by repatriated American slaves, and South Africa, which has hardly been a shining example of "black majority rule". Where is this "300 years of black majority rule" you speak of? Ghana March 6, 1957 (Britain) Cote D'Ivoir August 7 1960 (France) Liberia July 26, 1847 Republic of Guinea October 2, 1958 (Britain) Mali April 4, 1960 (France) Niger August 3, 1960 (France) Republic of Benin August 1, 1960 (France) Nigeria October 1, 1960 (UK) Cameroon October 1, 1961 (France and UK) For an intelligent discussion of why some societies, including African societies, lagged behind Western European and Asian societies in technological development, I'd suggest you read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. Africa, like South America, had several factors going against it, particularly the absence of domesticatible animals (therefore requiring that all labor including transport of goods be done by human labor), the fact that the north-south orientation of the land mean that domesticated crops were slow to spread as they had to be adapted to different climatic zones (which tend to vary more with latitude than with longitude). Asia and Europe, on the other hand, benefited from the fact that similar climates extend all the way from Europe to eastern China and Russia, allowing domesticated crops and animals to be moved long distances and still find suitable growing/living conditions. Also most of our domesticated animals come from the area of modern day Iran/Iraq, or the Russian steppes in the case of the horse, and domesticated animals provided a cheap source of labor and the possibility to move long distances quickly, which amongst other things changed the nature of warfare and so stimulated the development of related technologies such as metal working and explosives (fireworks). It had nothing to do with Africans being "inferior" or of "lower IQ". It's all about the resources people had available to work with. Also don't forget that the European colonial powers created countries that had nothing to do with the indigenous populations, but were accidents of who managed to plan a flag where first, and subsequently played on traditional tribal rivalries to subdue the locals and make them easier to govern. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

An eye-opener for anyone who thinks "ukulele" means "Hawaiian music": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOJLhK1NOL8&feature=related Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

O'Keefe's lies. Editing the video to make it appear as if people said things they did not say. My understanding is that the Koch impersonator released a recording of the conversation as it actually occurred. If you have a link showing that the recording was edited so as to make the governor out to be saying things he did not actually say, I'd like to see that. I don't have a problem with investigative journalism, and sometimes that means deceiving the target of the investigation. Not too different from undercover police work. In both cases lying about the outcome of the investigation is what is unethical. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

And you say you're not defending O'Keefe. Is a fall based on lies a good thing? I guess for you any means justifies the ends. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I know lots of conservatives who think of themselves as intelligent and enlightened. Just because you think those are negative qualities doesn't make them so. Schiller did say it would be an ideal situation if NPR could divest itself of any government funding, and that the "head office" would probably be able to do that. Local stations in smaller markets would probably have a very hard time, though. I suppose having local stations off the air, replaced by commercial top-40 crap playing franchised stations fits well with the tastes of some. For my part I do find them overwhelmingly non-political. The fact that they don't preface every mention of Obama's name with some pejorative adjective doesn't make them left wing. I guess if O'Reilly is your idea of "fair and balanced", though, you might find the lack of personal slurs against the president or democrats in general to suggest a leftist leaning. The point of the exercise is to eliminate the censorship and bias that comes with having to appease corporate sponsors. Listeners do judge their content. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

As I'm sure you are well aware, there is a difference between "illegal" and "unethical". Reporters who lie lose their jobs, as they should; they don't usually go to prison. If O'Keefe wishes to present himself as a "reporter" doing "undercover investigative journalism" he is ethically, not legally, obliged to present a factual accounting of the substance of his interviews. It's clear from the raw footage of the interview that he has absolutely no interest in doing that. Coming from you, that's really really funny. Thanks for the laugh, I'll be chuckling all day. Nice waste of bandwidth, considering my post is directly above yours. So you consider an expectation of some semblance of truth from those who call themselves "investigative reporters" to be "self defined moral superiority"? Perhaps you consider a view of the world founded on outright lies to be preferable? Of course, I guess it's all OK (to you) if those lies conform to your "reality". Thank you. Thank you very much. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

A few days ago we were "treated" to an undercover expose' from James O'Keefe that purported to show NPR fund-raising executive Ron Schiller making outrageous comments about republicans, tea party members, etc. Now a detailed comparison of the edited version of the sting meeting with the raw video has been published by Scott Baker, a reporter who works for "The Blaze". Interestingly, The Blaze is a news outlet founded by Glen Beck as a conservative response the the Huffington Post. Baker concludes with "...even if you are of the opinion, as I am, that undercover reporting is acceptable and ethical in very defined situations, it is another thing to approve of editing tactics that seem designed to intentionally lie or mislead about the material being presented." Details; 1. Muslim brotherhood connection. In the raw video O'Keefe makes it clear there is no connection between the organization he purports to represent and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, but then he edits the video to make it sound as if Schiller is knowingly supporting a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate. O'Keefe (in the raw video) makes it clear he is a very low-level employee in the organization he purports to represent, but in the edited version it sounds as if he is in a policy-making position. 2. Schiller laughing at spread of sharia law. In the edited version of the video, Schiller laughs and makes a light-hearted comment after O'Keefe tells him his organization has a mission to spread acceptance of Sharia law around the world. In the raw video, you can see that Schiller's comment is from a totally different part of the video, in fact at the very beginning where he is reacting to confusion over the name on the reservation at the restaurant where they were meeting. 3. Tea party members "racist and xenophobic". The edited version of the video shows Schiller describing tea party members as racist, xenophobic, etc. The raw video shows that most of these comments, and the most inflammatory of the comments, are actually Schiller recounting conversations where life-long Republicans (one a former ambassador) told him why they felt they had no choice but to support Obama in the last election. This is a favorite tactic of Ann Coulter as well: take a news article where a reporter is reporting about a statement made by a person who is a subject of the story, and then attribute the statement to the reporter in an effort to prove the newspaper is "liberal" or whatever. Lots of other examples of intentionally deceptive editing are given as well, regarding the education of conservatives, NPR's need for federal funding, and basically everything that made O'Keefe's hit video so inflammatory. Schiller does say some things conservatives may not want to hear, but he makes it clear that is his personal opinion and not the opinion of NPR. Of course that is edited out in the video O'Keefe released. For the conservative posters here in SC, I'd say if you give O'Keefe any credibility at all, if you consider him anything other than a lying unethical scumbag, then you also have to accept Michael Moore as the epitome of fine reporting. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

What about "All things considered"? Can you get more liberal than admitting you consider all things? Now if it was "One side considered" that might be balanced enough for some. Especially if the one side is "Zerobama is a muslim communist Kenyan surrender monkey who probably believes in evolution and global warming, and who sticks American babies in the blender feet first so he can see the expression on their faces while he's whipping up some watermelon and burritos to serve to his Mexican drug lord buddies when they sleep over in the Lincoln room". Programming like that might possibly be centrist enough for rushmc et al. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I think it's kind of funny that so many of the same people who get their panties in a wad about "political correctness" impeding their right to use racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or just rude/offensive language are so quick to jump all over some so-called "liberal media member" for stating his opinions. I guess what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander, if the gander happens to be "liberal". Would NPR be better off if they could get free of federal government funding (which is about 10% of their overall budget)? Sure, why is this even controversial? Isn't it a conservative dogma that everyone would be better off if they didn't need "government handouts"? Is the Tea Party racist and xenophobic? To the extent that the Tea Party doesn't seem to even have a coherent platform, except "I'm angry, and I'm going to make sure everybody knows it", how could they be inherently racist? Does the Tea Party, as the party de jour of the disaffected and angry, tend to disproportionately attract people with racist and xenophobic points of view? Of course. The only people who will be angered by this "stealth video" are the people who are looking for something to be angry about. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Do you have a source for that? I'm highly skeptical of that number. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

And once again, there is no "there" there. Not that the "birthers" have ever let facts get in the way of their ODS. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

One would think that the court would be free to award $1.00 damages. I'd think it would be hard for them to prove they had suffered any monetary damage by being forced to exercise their free speech rights from across the street. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

You're right! Suddenly it's all so clear! Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

No, and no. I don't understand the basis for your questions. I think you have me confused with someone else, I never said anything to imply that guns blazing was the way to go. Neither do I think purging cities from the face of the Earth is an appropriate response. I do like the Q-boat idea rather a lot. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Fixed it for you. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

With opinions like that, I imagine that had you chanced to be born outside the Western World, you would be prime al Qaeda material. You sound exactly like them. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Feel free to go for it. Let us know what you find out. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Monday morning quarterbacking at it's best. Up until this incident, Somali pirates had not killed any of their hostages. All previous experience suggested that time and calm negotiation would produce a better outcome than going in with guns blazing. Of course, it seems some posters here will grasp at any excuse to kill someone, or anyone. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Do you have a link that supports this? My understanding was that until the latest incident hostages were treated as well as could be expected, aside from being held as hostages of course. I had not heard of hostages being tortured. Are you aware that the area involved is pretty much equivalent to the entire Eastern seaboard of the US, from Maine to Northern Florida, and from the coastline almost to India, over 1,000 miles out. The entire combined navies of all the NATO countries could not cover all that area against the small craft the pirates use. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

As I know you know full well, percentages are ratios and you can compare 40% and 100% only if they are % of the same, or at least a known, base value. That is why your question "by what logic is 40% immeasurably more than 100%" is deceptive. Of course people are both, as I'm sure you know full well. We are individuals who live in a more-or-less organized group (a "society"), where certain generally (though not necessarily universally) accepted rules are enforced so as to maximize our ability to "pursue happiness", whatever that happens to mean to you. Things like, you are not free to shit in the communal water supply (a small loss of personal freedom), but in exchange you can drink the water with very little risk of a very unpleasant death from diphtheria, or without the need to perform a fecal coliform test on every glass of water before you drink it. Rules mean nothing without enforcement, however, and enforcement has a cost. That cost should be borne by everyone who derives a benefit from living in an organized society. We can debate about what is the most fair, or the most practical way of allocating that cost to individuals, but the cost has to be paid. Individuals who insist that they should be able to enjoy all the benefit of society without shouldering any of the cost are, simply put, parasites. Reasonable people can discuss, and disagree even, about what is the proper role of society in striking the right balance when rules trade off one freedom against another. Most people agree that rules against murder or theft are appropriate, even though that limits their own option to kill someone because they pissed you off, or to just take something because you want it and don't want to earn it. It becomes less self-evident when we talk about something like public education; it is obvious to me that an educated work force is an essential prerequisite to sustain a modern economy, which generates the wealth we all benefit from (though some benefit more than others). However, some people might think they would be just fine in a 18th century economy where only the children of the wealthier families have access to an education. In a democracy that is something we debate, we make a decision, and then we all have to pay for it one way or another. I do think everyone should contribute, according to their ability to do so, even if it's only $5. But those who say "I want to live in this society, enjoy all it's benefits, and not have to pay anything for those benefits, even if I make a $1,000,000 a year" are the tapeworms of the world. Anyone who thinks they have not derived any benefit from living in an organized society is simply delusional. No-one believes that (well maybe Dreamdancer does, but no-one else). That's just a straw-man argument designed to demonize those who have a different idea from you about where the optimal balance is that maximizes net wealth and freedom. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

It seems to me the benefit is easily measured, it is the amount of the reduction. If someone was previously paying $500, and after the tax cut pays nothing, their benefit is $500. Similarly if someone else was paying $100,000, and their tax was reduced to $60,000, their benefit is $40,000. By what logic is $500 immeasurably more than $40,000? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Speak for yourself! Oh wait, you just did. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Sounds like good clean fun! And what could possibly go wrong? "Responsible gun owner" my ass. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Possibly. But, evolution can only select for/against genetically determined heritable traits, as by definition evolution is a change in gene (actually, allele) frequencies in a species over time. Intelligence involves many interacting genes, and even then genetics interacts in complex ways with environment to produce the final phenotype, so it is most likely that current selection against intelligence is very weak. Also (and not to say anyone has suggested it here), the assumption that material success is evidence of superior genes (i.e. "better breeding") was long the foundation of racial prejudice. Jared Diamond's book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" provides a much better explanation for why some cultures became technologically advanced, and therefore wealthy, faster than others. I think a more immediate problem is that more and more kids are growing up in an environment where their adult role models don't provide strong examples of the value of hard work, creativity, and intellectual curiosity. Ideas (sometimes called "memes" to indicate the analogy to genes) are also heritable, transmitted by learning rather than genetics, and some aspects of modern society can select for bad memes. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Be that as it may, as someone who works in law enforcement what do you think of the notion that your interactions with the public are "private conversations", and that either deliberately or accidentally recording any police officer, or any officer issuing a ticket or arresting a suspect, should potentially be punishable by life in prison? How is that compatible with America as a free society? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)