nerdgirl

Although the cash crop poaching biz and troop feeding requirements from various wars has been perhaps a larger problem, yes, subsistence hunting is a serious threat. That -- the contribution of subsistence hunting over poaching and other threats, such as elimination of habitat/deforestation, civil war & insurgencies in the specific case of the mountain gorillas in Congo, introduction of human diseases, etc -- surprises me. But ...okay, sometimes unexpected variables can still have unexpectedly large consequences. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

And we are not animals? if we are not animals then what are we? Human beings. Didn't you get the memo? Most humans are animals. Sure, we have our share of vegetables, but I don't recall ever meeting a mineral. I dunno ... I've met a few that are golden. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Wow! I bet she has some stories. I imagine that would be an incredibly difficult job. Thanks to her for doing it. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

But what if the poacher wanted to kill the last black rhino to feed his children to keep them alive? I say rhino burgers for the kids. Not all poachers are big white hunters looking for trophies. This of course is not theoretical. In Africa today there are people hunting gorillas to feed their families. Do you really think it is OK to hunt them to extinction because there are (and always have been and always will be) hungry people? Are the practices of people hunting for food (subsistence) driving gorillas to extinction? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

What is "NID"? Do you mean the DNI? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

We all can do a lot of unauthorized armchair quarterbacking here ... and recognizing that won't stop me. Imo, the 3rd bullet of President's 7Jan10 Directive under the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is the most important and hardest. (Easy fixes get done because they're easy, don't step on anyone's toes, and cost little.) It's not a copyable pdf file unfortunately. There are a lot of reasons why that's the hardest and most important ranging from the culture of the intelligence community (IC) to hiring to retention -- Average tenure of an intelligence analyst is less than 7 years – they take their TS/SCI’s and go make a lot more money in the private sector. Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

My condolences. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Do you consider Russia to be a western country? In Russia, liberals are called demshiza. It’s a contemptuous corruption of the Russian words for “democracy” and “schizophrenia,” which I learned recently. Hardline nationalist supporters of President Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the party that supports him, United Russia, use the insult to refer to the supporters of “The Other Russia” coalition and opponents like Garry Kasporov, who support more democratic governance and civil rights. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Oooh that looks like fun! I've been out to Ouray a few times ice climbing. If you're interested in learning, that's a great place to start. They 'farm' the ice out there. Lots of routes of varying difficulty. Ice rocks. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I remember one winter, 1999 I think, when I was living in downstate Illinois. One morning it was 50 degrees warmer than it had been 24 hours before. And it was only, 25°F the 2nd morning. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Yes. And it’s snowing, i.e., barely perceptible flakes falling in downtown ATL. I’ve been watching the ice build up on the fountain in front of my loft over the last 3 days. Was watching an icefall build at the pool … was thinking about pulling out ice axes and crampons … but someone knocked it off yesterday afternoon. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Very interesting post. Thanks for taking the time to type it out. I wonder how many years, decades prolly, it will be until folks doing work like you do and others in high tech start picking "Chinese" names? The cultural inversion, obviously, isn't perfectly exact ... just a thought experiment. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Don’t know the specific NPR story to which you refer, but your comments are accurate w/r/t the general argument among a group of experts that nuclear weapons have been and are a source of stability and peace in global politics because use of nuclear weapons increase the cost of conflict, deterring leaders from engaging in war against other nuclear armed states. They typically cite the 65 years since Hiroshima & Nagasaki and the Kargil conflict btw nuclear armed India and Pakistan. Some comments specific to Iran’s current nuclear intentions can be found here, “A Nuclear Iran: Promoting Stability or Courting Disaster?” by one of the leading experts, Ken Waltz. Other folks who espouse the ‘nuclear optimists’ perspective include John Weltman, John Mearsheimer, Steven Van Evera, & John Lewis Gaddis. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, by Ken Waltz and Scott Sagan (who takes a different view) is a great starting point if one is truly interested in understanding and exploring the issues. I am happy to provide a more detailed list of references if anyone is interested. My views tend to the ‘nuclear pessimists,’ e.g., like Sagan, but I also acknowledge that Waltz, et al. have identified puzzles that aren’t fully explained by conventional wisdom or the limited data when dealing w/nuclear proliferation and that understanding the other sides’ perspective, including knowing where it fails or identifies unresolved puzzles, can strengthen my own argument.

Based on previous surveys, Speakers Corner has more conservative-leaning than liberal-leaning respondents (by ~ one-third across 4 surveys … the only one close to equal, altho’ still self-identified Republican/consevative-leaning majority, was this one). The results of Andy’s poll, which as I write show 30 folks voting yes (42%) and 38 folks voting no (53%), suggests to me is that there are quite a few conservatives, or non-“bleeding heart libs,” voting no. I'm not sure how you define non-liberals or conservatives, there have, however, been a number of individual conservatives and conservative-identified organizations who have opposed torture, including waterboarding and other euphemisms for torture. E.g., The Conservative Case Against Torture 5 Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong: And why there should be no exceptions Stand Up and Be Counted Torture and moral bankruptcy More on Torture On Bush's torture policies Opposition to torture has long been a uniting, non-partisan issue across America. It's been one of the many things that makes America great! It's a key part of President Reagan’s invocation John Winthrop’s vision for America to be that “shining city upon a hill.” /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

As I read it, this comment (from post # 44) was put forth as a subjective belief. That’s totally fair. We all have our opinions and a right to them. I respect that. As I read it, this assertion (from post #150, to which I replied) was put forward as more objective (rather than subjective opinion). Bringing the two quotes together highlight something of a puzzle for me. Deterrence requires some minimum level of rationality. If the argument is that “guns deter violent crime,” but “(a)ssuming a criminal actor will act rationally while in the commission of a crime” is incorrect ... aren’t those two ideas contradicting or conflicting? Or is the argument that an ambiguous threat of a certain level of reciprocal violence induces rationality, even in people who would otherwise commit crimes … i.e., the idea that armed societies are nicer? That still requires potential criminals or people who would otherwise not behave ‘nicely’ to make rational choices to behave in one way. This is not the first time that I’ve observed the puzzle between the two arguments … even on here. This was just a concise example of the two within the same thread. Can anyone explain how the two ideas are reconciled? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

You’re right that sometimes things that seem to be humorous or witty for one person, or two, or three … end up not be funny for another … not the intent of the OP, but I’ll take a good lesson, wherever/whenever I can get one.

Yep, that sounds like the storyline I used while incognito. ... Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Hey, maybe we have met? (I was bored by my best friend's boyfriend tho'.) /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Deja vu from this morning? I flew commercial from ORD to SFO on the evening 31 Dec 1999. Emptiest I have ever seen either airport. Not a lot of folks on the plane either. Made it to the Embarcadero around 10:30-11PM. At the same time, yes I took it seriously - selected that option in the poll. Much of the reason that the Y2K bug was not much of an issue wasn't because it was over-hyped -- altho' there certainly were cases of that; it was because the private and governmental entities globally responded, invested/spent a lot of money, and took action. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I flew commercial from ORD to SFO on 31 Dec 1999. Emptiest I have ever seen either airport. Not a lot of folks on the plane either. Made it to the Embarcadero around 10:30-11PM. Much of the reason that the Y2K bug was not as much of an issue wasn't because it was over-hyped -- altho' there certainly were cases of that, it was because the private and governmental entities globally responded, invested/spent a lot of money, and took action. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Perhaps a sequel to guns and eggs or the drink for the night before: Kalashnikov vodka. New meaning to jello shots? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I think this is the link you are referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjM9fcEzSJ0 Informative Video. Thanks. Yes, it was. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

While not from the exchanges of the last few weeks, I have thought a lot more about the general issue and hold more strongly my belief because I have thought about it more intentionally. Some of us, many I bet, grew up associating guns with an out-of-doors/sportsman lifestyle not presence or absence of crime nor as a defensive weapon. I've appreciated more fully others' arguments. I've appreciated more fully a wider perspective. I've observed the thought processes that underly some opinions ... & sometimes I'm still trying to figure it out ... I've learned about underlying arguments that make me respect more the stance of the proponents or adherants. I have become more convinced that neither side's argument that absence or presence of guns correlates to reduced or increased crime in the developed world has validity. It's not the independent variable. I've had some great conversations in PMs and emails that have changed my perspectives and opinions. Of all the arguments put forth on this list -- & this is the only one that regularly debates guns -- that I’ve read over the last few years in the gun threads, the most effective, imo, came from [Rookie120]. He posted a link to a video in fall 2007(?) that featured a calm, non-condescending, non-belittling, reasonably-dressed (i.e., didn’t look like a proverbial poster child for the ‘Michigan militia’), former police-officer from California (IIRC) who demonstrated visually how difficult (one might assert meaningless) categorizing guns as “assault weapons” based on visual appearance is. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Actually, what drives us crazy is your tendency to make questionable conclusions from news reports like this. Imo, it’s as problematical as when the 'other side' claims presence of guns cause reductions in crime. Problematic on multiple levels from cherry-picking data … sometimes things correlate and sometimes they don’t, and beyond correlations, there are even fewer causative explanations. There are a few causative hypotheses from both sides, none of which has been successfully validated afaik … maybe someone can provide such example? From my perspective – owned entirely as my own – it’s a problematic argument regardless. I understand why both ‘sides’ want to claim their perspective/position correlates to lower crime. It was alluded to above: such claims make good sound bites and talking points. Public safety is an economic and societal good. E.g. on an illustrative macro level, compare investment potential of top 25 GDP countries versus bottom 25 versus per capita homicide (as one measure). Curious what the ratio of foreign direct investing in the bottom 25 GDP is to the top 25 GDP? So it’s not completely for oratorical satiation of the masses. If something is a policy choice that benefits societal & economical well-being of a nation-state than justification based on effectiveness & outcomes is a reasonable metric. One for which I would advocate. If something is a right then it should not need justification based on policy effectiveness. While I completely understand pragmatically why both ‘sides’ want to claim their perspective/position correlates to lower crime, that stance ultimately implicitly undermines the argument that something is a right by asserting that there needs to be a policy effectiveness. If something is a right, one doesn’t need to demonstrate effectiveness. Does that make sense? It’s a different way of looking at the issue. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I wonder if the reported actions are a leading or trailing indicator related to crime? Or related to perceptions regarding positive policing? I.e., greater confidence in policing, such as via increased community policing. There’s a “growing consensus” that it does work, although I suspect most scholars acknowledge that because there are so many variables, absolute determinations are hard to reach. I suspect it’s trailing. Like the observations w/r/t crime & rain, it suggests that there may be a correlation. Doesn't show causation. To me, the leading versus trailing piece is the more interesting underlying part of the story … ymmv. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying