likearock

WTF, you mean even if Obama doesn't have a valid birth certificate he still qualifies as a natural born citizen? Why do we let these idiots waste our time?

See; http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sarcasm I remind you that as "sarcasm" has more than two syllables (perhaps depending on regional inflection, but at least in my pronunciation), I am not able to comprehend it. The fact that you have just provided a perfect example of it, proves that you can comprehend it.

Nah, anyone would catch hell in the current political climate. The only chance for a relatively "free ride" is to pick someone who represents a constituency desperately sought after by both parties and would also provide a "first" for that constituency. Hey, wait a minute...

I think that you'll find that they are triangles (provided all the sides are straight lines)... They are just not 'Similar Triangles' (same shape, different size) The point is neither hypotenuse is a straight line. To see this, compare the slopes of the more acute angles of the red and dark green triangles. Red: 3/8 = .375 Green: 2/5 = .4 If you did a sine calculation, you would find that the smallest angle in the red triangle was more acute than the smallest angle in the green. Any way you line them up, you can never get a straight line. But that, of course, is the reason for the missing box.

Well for one the slope of the hypotenuse of the green triangle is not the same as the slope of the hypotenuse of the red triangle, so the two large triangles are not identical. So the big "triangle" in the top picture is not really a triangle at all, since its "hypotenuse" is not a straight line. Neither big "triangle", top or bottom, is a triangle for that same reason.

To satisfy the recurrence relation: (n+1)! = n! * (n+1)

um .... 1*1 = 1 on my planet The OP wrote a2 to mean a squared. If you read it that way, the "proof" does follow logically. Except, of course, for the divide by zero you already pointed out, which nullifies the whole deal.

math is sounding more and more like a religion to me. The answer depends on who you ask and many say it is semantic game, while others insist they are right and the others are wrong. The difference is in math, some are actually right in a way that can be proven. The series of statements you provided all derive from from the first statement: x = 3.99999... (an infinite number of 9s to the right of the decimal point) They strictly follow the fundamental axiom of algebra, that if you start with a true equation and add/subtract/multiply/divide both sides of the equation by the same quantity, the result is an equally true equation. The fact that this results in the apparent paradox that 3.9999... = 4 is no accident. As I said earlier, the two quantities are equal in a certain sense. The link that jerryzflies posted (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/askasci/1995/math/MATH070.HTM) explains this concept in more detail. That's not cool.

Not sure how 3.999999999 ... = 4. Does 4.1111111 ... equal 4 too? No, but it does "equal" 4 1/9 in the same way that 3.999 ... equals 4.

And I thought that Speaker's Corner was supposed to be about Guns, Gays, or God. Anyway 3.9999... as an infinite series converges on the value 4, which makes it equivalent to 4 in certain respects. I'm sure some of the more mathematically inclined here can explain better.

So Palin goes and Sanford stays? Dose crazy GOPers. My prediction: she gets a primetime talk show on Fox. I hear Sean and Bill are already nervous.

And are some animals more equal than others, also? It's got nothing to do with "more equal". It's got to do with context. Unless you want to pretend that the many years of slavery, lynching, and treating black people like animals (along with the psychological justification for treating them like animals) never happened, there is a world of difference between the two cases.

No one is saying that it is right to call Bush a chimp. It is wrong in both cases. But it is more wrong if the person you're calling a chimp happens to be black.

You don't think a leader, figurehead, board of directors, or representative can honestly apologize for the actions or errors of the populace/company/group? And even if they can't, how would their attempt harm you? To the degree you abstract an apology from the person who is directly responsible, you diminish its value. Why would an apology even matter if the person apologizing had nothing to do with the bad act? And when we're talking about apologizing for something that occurred before any of us were born, it's even more ridiculous. So no, I don't believe Reid, Pelosi, et al should be able to apologize for slavery on behalf of the entire country. A genuine, heartfelt apology for a non-trivial offense is a rare and precious thing. A sham apology like this one, clearly politically motivated, diminishes us all. Its main effect is to desensitize people to apologies in general and induce a cynical response when a real one comes along. The politicians have already done that very thing to politics itself. They should leave it at that. As I've tried to explain on numerous occasions so far, apparently to no avail, the "person" apologizing here is the Congress, not Reid or Pelosi. So yes, that "person" was alive for the actions and that "person" is responsible for the bad act. So now that "person" is apologizing. Your argument is crystal clear, it's just that some of us don't buy it. Congress is not an individual in any sense of the word here. The human beings who voted for the bill were responsible for it, not some amorphous "being" called Congress. You can't hide from the fact that those individual politicians were simply voting their respective bottom lines by asserting it was instead some lofty entity that transcends politics. Sorry, this is just one more example of self-interested posturing by our so called "representatives". And you know what? Even if you're right and Congress should be allowed to apologize on our behalf, it's still a bad idea. Why? Precisely because the bill trivializes the horrors of slavery by suggesting that we can just apologize for it and get it behind us. What's that? We split up your families, treated you like animals, and raped your women? "We're sorry." The whole thing is just dead wrong on so many levels.

You don't think a leader, figurehead, board of directors, or representative can honestly apologize for the actions or errors of the populace/company/group? And even if they can't, how would their attempt harm you? To the degree you abstract an apology from the person who is directly responsible, you diminish its value. Why would an apology even matter if the person apologizing had nothing to do with the bad act? And when we're talking about apologizing for something that occurred before any of us were born, it's even more ridiculous. So no, I don't believe Reid, Pelosi, et al should be able to apologize for slavery on behalf of the entire country. A genuine, heartfelt apology for a non-trivial offense is a rare and precious thing. A sham apology like this one, clearly politically motivated, diminishes us all. Its main effect is to desensitize people to apologies in general and induce a cynical response when a real one comes along. The politicians have already done that very thing to politics itself. They should leave it at that.

What do you expect? They're competing with Carl Jr.

What a statement. Everyone who disagrees with you thinks that slavery was okay. How desperate can you get? Perhaps you should read it again, because that's not what I said. And no, I'm not desperate...that would be illogical. Right. And the only logical conclusion I can derive from your highlighted statement is that you're unwilling to address what I said before:

What a statement. Everyone who disagrees with you thinks that slavery was okay. How desperate can you get?

No it's not. See posts #s 101 and 123. Fuck it, I'll even reiterate it so you don't have to scan back up to those posts. It's not about the actions of any individual people, it's about the actions of the separate entity known as the US government. Nancy Pelosi isn't apologizing, the government is. If it would help, just think of the government like a guy named Frank. Frank is apologizing for his actions against African-Americans. Sorry, I don't buy this "country apology" thing. If a country did something wrong, it makes amends by doing it right. Apologies are personal acts, governments shouldn't have the right to make that call for its populace. An apology only has real meaning if it comes from the heart of the person responsible for the injustice. Besides, do you have any idea how much inhumanity to man has gone on over time? Take this to its logical conclusion and governments won't have time to do anything else but apologize.

Let me give it a shot. Ideally, apologies mean something. They're not just a bunch of words strung together as a means to an ends. Ideally, they come from the heart and signify a real understanding in the apologizer that he or she holds prime responsibility for an unjust act. Having a "show" apology where none of the people doing the apologizing had any real responsibility in the unjust act is a sham. And every such bullshit apology we put up with only serves to diminish the value of the infrequent genuine apologies that do occur from time to time.

Not only that, but he happened to pick Naked Hiking Day.

I'm not kidding you - the fantasy I refer to is in your head which doesn't allow you to conceptualise what people of the period were doing, thinking and believing. I don't know. Seems to me that someone with any knowledge of that era (German pattern of invasions leading into the war; Hitler's stated belief in a "master race") who can't put two and two together is locked into a pretty deep denial fantasy of his own. But that's cool - I understand how projection works. This is so ridiculous it almost doesn't warrant an answer. Suffice it to say that "clear to anyone" does not literally mean "every single person in the world agrees with it". Don't waste my time with such pedantic nonsense. Finally! So I take it that we both agree on that last point and our only difference is one of degree. That is, you believe the territorial expansion would have ceased short of world domination and I don't. In other words, you subscribe to the "short list" theory I alluded to previously: Fair statement?

Hm? What did I misspell? Hint: edit the post and see what's underlined in red.

It has nothing to do with my theory it has to do with basic historical facts and you conceptualising a fantasy in your head. You've got to be kidding me. Where is the fantasy in the historical record of all the countries that were invaded? How about answering my question, what exactly were Japan and Germany doing if it was not world domination?