DanG

Arrogance? I think you need to look up the word. And maybe read some of brenthutch's posts sometime. He's about as arrogant as they get. - Dan G

You understand that science progresses, right? I could take your post and substitute Newtonian physics (settled science) and general relativity (new science) for ozone depletion and atmosperic CO2 and you'd sound ridiculous. - Dan G

Guess you still haven't read the NYT piece, huh? - Dan G

Yes. Ron does not address whether or not orientation is God-given. I suspect he doesn't want to think about that. He says that action on one's desires in entirely in one's control. Since his people believe gay sex is an abomination, those that have the desire for gay sex must chose to abstain. Appartently he doesn't fel the same way about other choices which are an abomination to God, such as divorce and remarriage. - Dan G

What would be your response if someone in your family or church community announced they were gay? - Dan G

Perhaps a language barrier. The original meaning of gay in English is happy, or carefree. - Dan G

You are obviously well versed in the subject. Were there really no government subsidies for running gas and electric lines? - Dan G

Do we know that they are receiving assistance? - Dan G

This from a guy who thinks girls should be married and making babies at 15. Well, white girls. - Dan G

Did you at least tip the guy? - Dan G

Again, which lefties here have said anything like that? - Dan G

And Thurston Howell III (and presumably Eunice Lovelle Wentworth Howell's younger, hotter replacement) would be worth at least $7,518,354.84. - Dan G

I think we're generally in agreement. I guess where I deviate is the idea that protecting the innocent is the only purpose of the judicial system. If that were the case, the logical conclusion would be life in prison or death for all criminals. In order to be confident that we can protect society, we also have to believe that prison has some rehabilitative and/or deterent effects. - Dan G

I would argue that non-liberals are attacking him because he was seen as supporting (read: not visciously negative towards) Obama before the last election. I can't remember non-liberals haveing anything bad to say about the way Sarah Palin ran her governor's office. - Dan G

Which replies would those be? Kallend is the only person who's replied that I would consider a liberal, and all he's done is post links to related articles. It's the conservatives who are all up in Christie's shit. - Dan G

I have to disagree. IMO, punishing the criminal is a perfectly legitimate goal of the justice system. For the vast majority of cases, the crminal will one day be let back into society, including murder and rape cases. In those cases, the system needs to punish bad behavior. Yes, the ulimate goal is to make sure the punishment makes the criminal and others reluctant to commit the crime again, but prison is still punishment. Except closure for the victims, all of those things help achieve your ultimate goal of protecting the innocent in society. I think calling them 'social manipulation crap' ignored the fact that they are the very means to achieve the ends of protecting society. - Dan G

What I know is that they didn't watch the whole thing on live video feed. I should have been more specific about where the BS was directed. - Dan G

Would it make you feel better if the money went through DARPA instead of DOE? - Dan G

Bullshit - Dan G

No insult intended, and frankly I'm not sure how you saw what I said as insulting, but either way I'm sorry. It's rare we get to have a grown-up discussion around here, and I certainly didn't mean to derail this one. When I said, "you don't understand" I didn't mean that it was because you were stupid, but more likely that people were talking past each other. I'll try to explain below. I don't think we're at a dead end, I think we're conflating two different discussions into one. The first discussion is: should we have a death penalty? The second discussion is: assuming we have a death penalty, what level of false executions can we tolerate? What's confusing is that any answer to the second leads you straight back to the first. If the answer to the second discussion is zero (regardless of how you get there) then the answer to the first discussion is no. Logically there is no other choice (ignoring the fact that the premise of the second discussion is now invalid). If the answer to the second discussion is some non-zero number (regardless of what that number is) then both discussions can proceed. In this case, the answer to the first discussion needs to be a cost/benefit analysis. So far, there does not seem to be a strong benefit argument. This is why one can still argue against the death penalty even if after accepting a non-zero Beta risk. Any Beta risk is a cost. If there is no benefit, then you have to conclude that we shouldn't have a death penalty. I can understand wanting to stick to the second argument. I'm not sure that is possible, since any answer to the second argument leads you right back to the first. - Dan G

Maybe I misunderstand your point, if so I apologise. What you seem to not understand is that people have decided the Beta risk for the death penalty, and they've decided that it is zero. Therefore, the only way to logically continue is to not have a death penalty. By insisting that we accept a non-zero Beta risk, you're begging the question about keeping the death penalty option. Now, if we assume that society simply must have a death penalty, then I agreee that we should determine an acceptable Beta risk. Let's say we can live with one false execution per million executions. Great, now what do we do with that number? The problem with the death penalty is that once you're indentified a false execution, it's too late to do anything about it. - Dan G

Yeah, the cupcake part - Dan G

The irony of this statement is incalculable. - Dan G

Actually, states routinely keep child molesters improsoned for life, regardless of how long their actual sentence was. - Dan G

You need a EE who can install a kick-ass laser light show. Theater without lasers isn't theater at all. - Dan G