JayB

Gotta applaud the doggedness of the parlor-relativists here. Hopefully you'll get behind them the next time a rape-victim is stoned to death for committing adultery, and equate that with the fact that we still don't have very many female senators. Good stuff.

Buy Danish!! I am going to stick to Tuborg and Carlsberg until this thing is over.

And from Le Monde: ""Islam forbids its followers all representations of the Prophet ... the question that is posed is the following: are all those who aren't Muslims bound to conform to that? Can you imagine a society that adopted the strictures of various religions? What would happen to the freedom to think, to speak, or even to come and go? Societies like this, we know them too well. They are, for example, Iran of the Mullahs. And yesterday it was France of the Inquisition ... [...] "Religious freedom is the liberty to believe or not, to practice one's religion undisturbed. But it will never become the right to impose on all of society the rules relevant to a single belief."

Maybe not... Spain ABC El Periodico "It's logical that the cartoons irritate some Muslims. But it is not logical when, in the name of a literal and inhumane reading of the Koran, one tries to eliminate even overseas criticisms or menace those who ... exercise satire." "Europe cannot concede the defence of freedom just because of an offensive by radical Islam" "We don't normally shy away from things like this. Publish and be damned, as they say." Carlos-Enrique Bayo, foreign editor Italy La Stampa Il Correire della Sera "What is the West waiting for? Will they keep their heads in the sand until another Theo van Gogh is assassinated in Copenhagen or in Oslo?" (This from a Muslim writer) Switzerland Blick La Tribune de Genève "This affair is an illustration of a clash between a very secular culture like ours and another culture where religion is central." Netherlands De Volkskrant De Telegraaf NRC Handelsblad Germany Berliner Zeitung Der Tagesspiegel "When a society allows itself to be guided only by the 'feelings' of a group of people, then it is no longer free." Die Tageszeitung "In a democratic and secular society, showing decency and respect for other cultures does not mean adopting their religious dogmas." Die Welt "One could take the Muslims protests more seriously if they were less hypocritical. When Syrian television broadcast a prime time documentary drama showing rabbis as cannibals, the imams were silent."

Wait a minute. I thought the beginning of the end for the Palestines was when they're country was given away? But i'm sure that had nothing to do with it. They should have simply rolled over and said, here you go, we didn't really need it anyway. Now can you please govern us fairly, and you know maybe in 50 years gives us a tiny chunk, we'd really appreciate that. Just ask the american indians how well diplomacy worked while they were being taken over and funneled onto reservations. Yeah - because unceasing millitary conflict against an opponent with a staggering millitary superiority, that was increasing with every passing year, would have definitely worked for them in the end. In the case of the Palestinians, do a bit of digging and take a look at every measure of prosperity and well-being that you can find on the Palestinians pre-and post-Intifada. I don't think their decline since the onset of the Intifada is a coincidence, but I'll leave you to make your own judgement. were getting into a chicken egg problem. If they're country hadn't been summarily given away there would be no need for the intifada. And with a goal of gaining and independant country, I somehow doubt political pressure would have been effective. The intifada may have caused a significant decrease in their standards of living, but they are (or at least were) moving in the direction of forming an independant state once again. Without the threat of violece they have absolutely no leverage over Israel. I don't really condone violence in any form except as an absolute last resort solution to an untennable solution. Though from their perspective. Once you've been invaded, that could easily seem untennable and last resort. Except in this case the egg was hatched 40 years before the onset of the Intifadah, after Israel decimated every Army that had attacked them numerous times, and it should have been clear that using force was a doomed excerise in futility. The fact that they got "understanding" and "sympathy" in exchange for suicide bombings only accelerated their ruin. With friends like the Palestinians have in the West... Guerilla warfare and terrorism have nothing to do with military might or how effective Israel has been at defending itself from outside attack. Once external force options failed, then I imagine that is when the intifada probably really took off. And increased repression in response to their attacks only breeds suicide bombers faster, the vehicle for terrorism has never been overwhelming victory, but to create a state so repressive that it's own citizens revolt. The only solutions are either A) kill all, and I do mean ALL of the Palestinians or B) recognize that they're will be an ongoing threat and start working towards a tenable compromise. I think that the last staggering defeat that their erstwhile saviors suffered was during the Yom Kippur War in '73, fully fourteen years before the onset of the 1st intifutilah. Given that the only tangible result of the guerilla strategy that the Palestinian leadership's considerable strategic foresight and acumen lead them to adopt, has been to create a state so miserable, lawless, and ruined that their own citizens have been reduced to international beggary - it's fair to say that their plan has failed them in every possible way, and left Israel relatively unscathed, it's astonishing to see anyone argue that it's been an effective strategy for them. With respect to compromise, see if you can find that term anywhere in the Hamas charter. Excerpts below: "The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! " " There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility. The Palestinian people are too noble to have their future, their right and their destiny submitted to a vain game." Plenty more where that came from.

You unravelled the Sino-CIA-fake-Hamas-suicide-baby plot yet? I think you'll find the secret hidden in the flabby-chicken virus paper that was discussed at length yesterday.

I wouldn't call myself a relativist, as I think that any society which embraces the values that are epitomized by the little explosive-delivery-vehicles in training represents a kind of barbarism which stretches the definition of what it means to be human, and will ultimately bring about the collapse and ruin of any group of people foolish or insane enough to embrace them. Even if they were to succeed in securing a state by such means, the embrace and institutional cultivation of such values would/will leave them ruined, impoverished, and despised. They may claim consider grandmas, toddlers, teenagers, pregant women - whoever - to be legitimate targets, but their behavior when their own civilians get blown to pieces by a missile sent to kill one of their millitants suggests that they don't actually believe this in practice. If they actually believed this they wouldn't make such a point of displaying or drawing attention to the toddlers, women, etc that were killed as part of the attack in order to cultivate sympathy and outrage. And besides, even if someone claims that he has every right to help himself to your wife, you are not obliged to agree with this proposition on the grounds that while you don't agree with his point of view, you recognize that your own framework is just one of many, and all have an equal claim to legitimacy, etc, etc, etc - unless you are in fact a relativist of the highest order. I'm not, and I suspect that no one else on the board is either, which makes the "We're in no position to judge them, man.." vibe that you come across all the more puzzling. I think that this attitude is only tenable until you are on the receiving end of the consequences of such sublime, airy, non-judgementalism, which explains why the babies wrapped in slaughtering clothes aren't such a big deal to the people in the "all perspectives are, like, you know, equally valid and stuff, man.." contingent. I suspect that people will abandon this posture when and if one of these lads happens to punch his "72 virgins" ticket anywhere near them or their loved ones.

Wait a minute. I thought the beginning of the end for the Palestines was when they're country was given away? But i'm sure that had nothing to do with it. They should have simply rolled over and said, here you go, we didn't really need it anyway. Now can you please govern us fairly, and you know maybe in 50 years gives us a tiny chunk, we'd really appreciate that. Just ask the american indians how well diplomacy worked while they were being taken over and funneled onto reservations. Yeah - because unceasing millitary conflict against an opponent with a staggering millitary superiority, that was increasing with every passing year, would have definitely worked for them in the end. In the case of the Palestinians, do a bit of digging and take a look at every measure of prosperity and well-being that you can find on the Palestinians pre-and post-Intifada. I don't think their decline since the onset of the Intifada is a coincidence, but I'll leave you to make your own judgement. were getting into a chicken egg problem. If they're country hadn't been summarily given away there would be no need for the intifada. And with a goal of gaining and independant country, I somehow doubt political pressure would have been effective. The intifada may have caused a significant decrease in their standards of living, but they are (or at least were) moving in the direction of forming an independant state once again. Without the threat of violece they have absolutely no leverage over Israel. I don't really condone violence in any form except as an absolute last resort solution to an untennable solution. Though from their perspective. Once you've been invaded, that could easily seem untennable and last resort. Except in this case the egg was hatched 40 years before the onset of the Intifadah, after Israel decimated every Army that had attacked them numerous times, and it should have been clear that using force was a doomed excerise in futility. The fact that they got "understanding" and "sympathy" in exchange for suicide bombings only accelerated their ruin. With friends like the Palestinians have in the West...

Probably at the shop down the corner. Supply follows demand. I imagine that the photo was probably taken with a *Japanese* camera, so the thousands of similar images on the web are most likely the result of a grand Japanese conspiracy to make Hamas look bad.

Wait - what's the matter with Hamas?

What are you talking about there, JayB. Has ANYBODY on this board ever said they supported Hamas? You sound like George "they are for us or aginst us" Bush here. Just because someone thinks that Isreali and US policies have been messed up, or that we think it appears that Hamas was legitimately elected, doesn't mean we're all fans of Hamas. There's no argument about the legitimacy of the election, the dispute was centered upon the notion that refusing to subsidize Hamas was an effort to overthrow their government. No one in government has said any such thing. What they have said, is that they will not continue to subsidize them unless they reform, which seems entirely reasonable to me.

Riddle me this, chief: This "child-of-hamas" (I didn't name the file, btw) seems to be posing with a US manufactured M-16, and wearing clothes with english language writing. Exactly where is this "child-of-hamas" living, Idaho? Because the US would never, ever sell arms to or negotiate with terrorist and rogue outfits. Cough IRANCONTRA Cough cough. Please enlighten me o Jay, oracle of wingnuttitude. Yeah - I made the whole thing up. Totally out of synch with the Hamas charter, speeches, and let's not even talk about all of those fake suicide bombings that they keep trying to get us to believe are actually happening over there. I actually found him living on the Google image database when I plugged in "Hamas." I imagine that given the fake-proclivity of the fake-Hamas supporters to dress their fake-children in fake-suicide costumes and display them on the streets at fake-rallies, I'm sure you'll have a hard time scaring up others.

Wait a minute. I thought the beginning of the end for the Palestines was when they're country was given away? But i'm sure that had nothing to do with it. They should have simply rolled over and said, here you go, we didn't really need it anyway. Now can you please govern us fairly, and you know maybe in 50 years gives us a tiny chunk, we'd really appreciate that. Just ask the american indians how well diplomacy worked while they were being taken over and funneled onto reservations. Yeah - because unceasing millitary conflict against an opponent with a staggering millitary superiority, that was increasing with every passing year, would have definitely worked for them in the end. In the case of the Palestinians, do a bit of digging and take a look at every measure of prosperity and well-being that you can find on the Palestinians pre-and post-Intifada. I don't think their decline since the onset of the Intifada is a coincidence, but I'll leave you to make your own judgement.

"Article Eighteen The women in the house and the family of Jihad fighters, whether they are mothers or sisters, carry out the most important duty of caring for the home and raising the children upon the moral concepts and values which derive from Islam; and of educating their sons to observe the religious injunctions in preparation for the duty of Jihad awaiting them." This is from Hamas's founding charter. http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html I am not surprized by the display of shallow pop-relativism on display here, as that seems to be the prevailing ethos of the American Left at the moment. This kind of thinking is also behind the embrace of gems like "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Actually, you have to examine both the aims and the context in which the violence is occuring. If the violence is directed against a society in which the citizens already enjoy political freedom, and the object of the violence is to establish a totalitarian regime - then this expression is a transparent falsehood. You could just as easily say that "One man's rapist is another man's romantic," or that "One man's axe murderer is another man's surgeon." Great stuff. In the case of the babies in soldier's clothes, the attempt to pretend that this is no different than dressing up your child as a suicide bomber is equally false. Soldiers perform many roles, from maintaining order to delivering humanitarian aid to keeping the peace to mounting invasions, and dressing up a child as such does not indicate the parent's desire to see their child indiscriminately murder as many civilians as possible by means of self-detonation. The same can not be said for those that dress their children as suicide bombers, and send them to schools in which the performance of that duty is presented as the model of the highest good and most noble aspiration.

So those babies dressed themselves in the suicide gear? Yeah - no difference. The reality is that the Palestinians have brought about their own misery and ruin by means of the infitidah. Instead of sending a message that both their material conditions and their aspirations for statehood will be doomed if they adopt a strategy that does not involve cultivating children whose primary object in life is to serve as explosive delivery devices, the chorus of idiots in the West has encouraged them on this suicidal path to oblivion. Subidizing an unrepentant Hamas would just push them one-step closer to implosion and oblivion.

But I agree, that democracy can certainly be a mixed blessing at times.

During the second World War, when the Germans were crossing the border into Russia, they passed a number of Russian trains hauling grain and other provisions to Germany. Naturally, they allowed the trains to pass, and the trains duly delivered their goods as the Germans began their onslaught. At least the Russians could claim that they were deceived. People who want a resolution of the hostilities would have no such excuse in this case. I encourage the members of the Hamas fan-club on this board to read their founding charter, as well as their other publications and speeches, and see if you can still convince yourself that we should blindly subsidize their agenda. If they want to pursue a hopeless and doomed campaign that will condemn their entire population to further ruin - they should be free to do so, but the notion that we should promote such actions through no-strings-attached subsidies is retarded. Idiotarians of the World, Unite!

No one has moved to prevent them from forming their government. The US and other countries have, however, indicated that they have no intention of subsidizing a government dedicated to the anhiliation of Israel. The fact that anyone construes this as unjust interference in their affairs is amazing.

They just fired the editor of the French newspaper who published the cartoons in a show of solidarity with the Danish, and in support of free expression. Yipes. T-20 years to Burqua-time in Chiraqistan.

Not a terribly impressive paper IMO. As I suspected, there was no difference in the bodyweight of the infected vs. non-infected chickens. The law of conservation of energy still stands. Amazing. "A reduction in metabolic rate might explain the increased fat deposition, but the small changes over time would be impossible to detect with current technology. The greater body fat deposition, despite similar body weight, suggests a shift from lean body mass deposition to fat deposition during the growing period of Ad-37-infected chickens. Further research will be necessary to understand the mechanisms of these changes." What also stood out was that: -The results in the chickens were not consistent with the results that they obtained in the cells infected with the same viruses. "This is a disappointing finding because it suggests that the in vitro assay will not be a good screening test to predict response to human adenoviruses in whole animals. Both of the human adenoviruses that produce obesity in vivo increased preadipocyte differentiation, but Ad-31 had a dichotomous effect in vivo vs. in vitro. It seems possible that an in vitro effect on preadipocytes may be a tool to detect candidate viruses for an adiposity-promoting effect, but in vivo studies will be necessary to determine which of the remaining human adenoviruses are capable of increasing adipose tissue in animals." -The prime candidate for the "fat virus" actually reduced serum triglyceride levels in the chickens. Normally an increase in serum triglycerides is associated with obesity. This is also at odds with the other viruses associated with obesity in animals, and in these cases brain damage caused by the viral infection, rather than direct changes in lipid metabolism, is thought to be responsible for the changes in body composition. A reduction in metabolic rate might explain the increased fat deposition, but the small changes over time would be impossible to detect with current technology. The greater body fat deposition, despite similar body weight, suggests a shift from lean body mass deposition to fat deposition during the growing period of Ad-37-infected chickens. Further research will be necessary to understand the mechanisms of these changes." -The highly incestuous thicket-o-references at the back of the paper was also quite impressive. So they can't rule out simple changes in BMR as a result of viral infection, the "fat-virus" that's responsible for the flabby chickens behaved no differently than the "non-fat" viruses in cell culture, the serum LDL profile in the chicken infected with the "fat-virus" was the opposite of the profile that's normally associated with obesity, and inconsistent with the LDL profile observed in other viral infections associated with obesity, where the changes are thought to be associated with brain-damage, the sample size is microscopic, they suggest nothing in the way of a mechanism, the research hasn't been repeated in an independent facility *and* the guy behind the paper is the sole-owner of a company established to sell a test for these "fat-viruses." What I love best about this little episode is the dichotomy between the evidence in the paper, what gets reported in the press, and what people ultimately believe on the basis of those press reports. "Obesity Caused by Virus!!!!!!!!!!" Interesting hypothesis, might possibly end-up as a footnote in a review of obesity at some point, but the evidence-to-claim and evidence-to-hype ratios are way, way out of line at this point.

Sweet - I tied for last place in the scenic category! Thank-you to the one person who voted for my picture.

Whether it's a primary causal factor or a causal factor, it's clear that diet an excercise override any effect this particular virus could have. Take the infected twin, then cut one twin's diet in half and put him on a treadmill for an hour a day, and eventually he'll weigh less than his identical twin who's not infected. Take the virus out of this scenario and nothing changes. Its still a massive leap of faith to posit the virus as a causal factor in the mounting obesity epidemic in humans when the distribution of obesity is clearly much more closely correlated with dietary and lifestyle habits. I hate to bring up these poor folks again, but Google the Pima indians and check out their genetically identical kinsmen in Mexico, then compare rates of obesity. All things being equal, there should be equal rates of obesity amongst the two populations as they are bound to be equal in their susceptibility to a particular viral infection. The virus may be correlated with a variety of things in Chickens that result in a lower BMR, but noting that a viral infection alters a chicken's activity level, which results in entirely predictable changes in body composition, is quite a bit less earth-shattering a claim than "Virus Causes Obesity!" This is all getting a bit tiresome, so I will pull up the original article and see what they actually claim, and what they posit for a mechanism.

Seems like an easy $100 to me.

So then claim is that the virus permanently lowers the basal metabolic rate of the host? Is this what they measured in the study? BMR? Even if this is true in chickens, you are confident that this explains the variations in obesity throughout the world in genetically identical populations better than variations diet or excercise? Maybe the virus is spread through deep fat friers, and this explains the geographic distribution in the United States, which is heavily skewed towards the south. Maybe it also proliferates in the material in pews in Baptist Churches? There is a correlation there. Must be a cause.

I really don't have the time to do the point by point thing here, but I'd be glad to bet $100 that in 5 years, the notion that the primary causal factor in increasing obesity is a contagious virus, will have been thoroughly discredited. You send me a signed, undated check for $100, I'll do the same, and the winner can cash it in 5 years or when this claim is refuted - whichever comes first. Still didn't hear anything convincing with respect to the curious respect that this virus has for arbitrary geographic borders. Genetically identical populations, equally susceptible to any given virus, yet vastly different rates of obesity. Put the Pima on the Rez south of the border in a situation where they have to work in the field and live off of beans and rice and they'll suddenly kick the virus and become immune to it for as long as they stay in the field. With regards to the chicken study, I guarantee you if they put these chickens in calorimeters, and quantify the total calories consumed by each bird, and then account for heat loss, waste excreted in every form - liquid, solid, gas - and then weigh the chickens, they'll find that the law of conservation of energy is still in effect. They clearly didn't do this, so much hunch is that the virus did something to alter the energy expenditure in the infected bird, perhaps it made them more lethargic so they moved less or whatever. I imagine you could do a human trial where you took identical twins and infected one of the two with mono, the one with mono would probably gain more weight even though their diet was identical. Were the laws of physics turned on their head, or did the one with mono expend less energy? Even if you were able to demonstrate a statistically solid link between mono and weight gain, going on to claim that mono is a primary determinant of obesity and explains the hitherto unparalleled climb in rates of obesity would be just a bit much. Ignoring changes in diet and activity and claiming a virus is the primary determinant of escalating rates of obesity is about as convincing as arguing that one can explain the dramatic increases in literacy by means of a virus that's endemic to school-houses. It's also funny that you are reverting to the "you get all of your knowlegde about science from Rush Limbaugh" business, when I have a BS in Biochem and work in basic research, in virology, and your expertise is in statistics.