DanG

No, you're missing the point. A single cell organism dividing and each one going its own way is reproduction. It has made a new organism. A cell within a larger organism dividing to grow new tissue is not reproducing. I never said you were advancing a position. I'm just pointing out that your answer is incorrect. - Dan G

I get your point, but you should also remember that the people receiving those funds are also human beings. You could also say, "this $20 million program is funding 400 people's jobs at $50k each." I realize that a lot of the money is being wasted, but it's not just being flushed down the toilet. Sure, we can cut a alot, but we can't cut it all. As an aside, I realize you were just pulling examples out of thin air to make a rhetorical point, but I think you've overstated how much money public TV and the arts get from the feds. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which in turn funds NPR and PBS among other things) received $420 million in 2010. A lot less than the taxes received from Indiana. The NEA received $125 million in 2007 (later years were not quoted on their website). I think we pull in much more than that from Vermont. - Dan G

Reproduction in this context does not mean cellular division, it means the ability to produce another unique individual. Furthermore, you're taking the definition of life completely out of context. That definition is properly used to determine if a set of organisms is alive, not a particular individual. If it were used to determine the status of each individual, we would not consider sterile men or women alive, since they lack the ability to reproduce. Using your definition, a human kidney is alive, and therefore removing a kidney is the same as abortion. And finally, no one is disputing the idea that the zygote is composed of living cells. The question is whether the zygote is a separate human being endowed with all the same rights as a fully formed human. - Dan G

So educate me. Why are you unable to draw unemployment insurance? - Dan G

DanG's rule (corrolary 1): within the first three posts someone will try to make it about Bush, Israel, abortion, or guns. - Dan G

You could cut the sexual tension in here with a knife. When are you two kids going to stop lying to yourselves and get it on already? - Dan G

It wasn't that way before Obama got elected and started funneling my guns to Israel to fund abortions! DanG's rule: within the first three posts someone will try to make it about Obama, Israel, abortion, or guns. - Dan G

Thanks, but that's not what I asked. Turtlespeed claims he paid into the system and is not allowed to take his money out. I recall now that he owned his own business and decided to shut it down because of difficulty remaining profitable. If that is correct, the reason he can't access his unemployment insurance is that his unemployment was voluntary. That makes some sense. Unemployment insurance is insurance, not a savings fund. You can't access it whenever you want, you have to have a triggering event, like being fired or laid off. Whether or not that is a good thing is up for debate, but if that is true it answers my question. - Dan G

I feel the same way about voting for Oliver North. - Dan G

Really? I don't get it. I thought unemployment was available to anyone who paid in. Did you pay in for yourself, or just your employees? This surprises me. - Dan G

I'm not sure Plank length would be a very good basis for a measurement system. First of all, as you noted, you can't measure it. Secondly, it is so small compared to normal day objects that for practical reason you'd end up using something like the megatetraplank or whatever as the actual unit. Since you can't actually measure a Plank length, the end result would be someone making a megatatraplank bar and storing it in a vault in Paris, and we'd be right back where we started. Same thing goes for the speed of light. It is so far removed from everyday speeds, that we'd just use a convenient measure, and the fact that it was based on the speed of light would be meaningless. In the end, you can still reference any system of units to universal constants. We know how long a meter is in terms of Plank length. We don't formally define it that way, but if the scientific community decided to change the official definition of a meter, it would have exactly zero impact on how things are measured. Same thing for time, electrical charge, or any other dimension. Of course, it we ever encountered an alien species, quade is right that we might want to translate our units to universal values so that they can make their hamburgers the right size. However, there is no functional difference between telling them how many Plank lengths are in a meter, and letting them measure some bar in a vault. - Dan G

He posts here? Where does he jump? - Dan G

That's exactly my point. The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant, but you still need a system of units to express that constant. I suppose it is possible to have a system were speed is a basic dimension, but most dimensional systems have distance and time as two of the basic dimensions, and speed is derived. If you want to use the speed of light as a basic dimension, you need to pick another universal quantity to define distance or time. - Dan G

Yes. I fact, I've probably voted Republican as often as I've voted Democratic. I'm not too thrilled with either party right now, but I tend to get pushed toward the liberal side here because of the extreme polarity. Have you ever voted for a non-Republican candidate? - Dan G

Really? How fast is it? Please do not use any man made units in your response. - Dan G

Suppositories? Ewww... - Dan G

They play reports from them on NPR sometimes. I haven't listened to them outside of regular radio. They are usually pretty good. - Dan G

Your argument presupposes that everything that has been created was designed by some form of intelligence. You said that all of the material in the universe was created at the start, but that's not the same as saying that someone sat dowwn and designed it all. The creation of a hydrogen atom does not require conscious thought. In other words, the problem with your logic is that you are assuming the conclusion, and then using that assumption to support itself. And from the science side of things, just because all the space and time present in the universe today came from a sigularity, doesn't mean that there was nothing "before" the singularity. I put "before" in quotes since our timeline did not exist before the sigularity expanded. Other timelines, possibly including one where our singularity came from, may have existed, and maybe were the cause of our current expansion. We don't know, and we may never know. Either way, there is no requirement for intelligent design (note the small letters) for the creation of our universe to occur. - Dan G

Do you really think it is only the Democrats who selectively criticize? Have you ever said anything negative about a Republican/conservative here? - Dan G

Anybody read the Washington Post article on this issue? I haven't read it yet, so no comment. Here's a link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121202663.html - Dan G

I heard an interesting fact on NPR yesterday. The Governor is claiming that the unions are backrupting the state because of the outrageous pension benefits they receive. The legislation makes the unions pay a percentage of their pension, instead of being fully financed by the state. The collective bargaining part of the legislation is separate, and the Governor and talking heads claim that if they don't get the collective bargaining rights stripped away, that the unions will just bargain the pensions right back. Here's the interesting part: by statute the pension plan is not open to collective bargaining. It is set by law, and the only way to change it is through legislative action. I think the Republicans are using this budget crisis to push an agenda that is not as closely tied to budgetary issues as they would like people to believe. "Never let a good crisis go to waste," is not just a Democratic principle. I'm not a fan of unions in practice at all, but I think people should have the right to bargain, collectively or otherwise. I don't think that unions should have any special legal standing, but I also don't think that they should be barred from actions that would be legal for any other entity. In other words, let the free market decide. - Dan G

Who designed the rocks I walked over this morning? Who designed the hydrogen atom? So far all you've done is given examples of man made things requiring designers. Of course they do. But the leap from, "my computer needed a designer," to, "everything in our universe needed a designer," has no basis in logic. - Dan G

I think there needs to be some oversight. In theory, Congress has oversight over the Executive Branch through the Intelligence Committee and other channels. In reality, Congress seems to let the Executive do whatever it wants. There is no question that the Executive has abused its secrecy privileges in the past. There was a famous case about some government contractors who were killed in a plane crash in the 40s). The families tried to find out what happened, and the government claimed the accident report was secret. It went to court and the Supreme Court accepted the government's claim of privilege. Fifty years later, the records were declassified, and it turns out there was nothing secret about the accident report at all. The flight was conducted against safety standards, and the Air Force didn't want to get sued. US v. Reynolds, link to NPR story below. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4838701 If this sort of think has been done to avoid paying out death settlements, think what else has been covered up by claiming state secrets? - Dan G

What about the children...and their GoPro's? - Dan G

Okay, thanks for the straight answer. How short of a time are we talking? There are plenty of pro-choice people who could completely agree with you, but their idea of a short time is three months, while your idea of a short time might be a nanosecond. - Dan G