nerdgirl

Uh-oh! Nope ... not quite a look I want to be sporting ... especially considering I'm going to be painting variuous shades of purple, blue, and green, including darks. Thanks for the comments! /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Wow. I can't say I agree. That document has endless references to "state parties" and their provision of care for children. It's a document of international law. The only parties that can in our current Westphalian system enter legally into such contracts are State's parties. It's an artifact of the Westphalian system. It's tautological that an international treaty is among state parties. (That's not a normative statement on the Westphalian system, it’s just a fact.) It's akin to objecting to USPA regulations because they involve member dropzones. Someone wrote recently, “Simply declaring something to be true does not make it so.” And I've provided you examples repeatedly that demonstrate the fallacy of such unilateral statements. If you want to see an examples of state policies that benefit children, Sweden and Norway would be good places to start. Or one could look to child mortality rates and public health policies of the US (& most developed countries) that have robust public health systems. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

And the problem there is not abortion ... or sonograms, which are used to detect the sex of fetus. The problem is preference for baby boys over baby girls. In 2008, the sex imbalance (or sex ratio at birth [SRB]) in China ranged from 108:100 to 130:100 (the higher numbers in places like Guandong province, SW China). And the imbalance is increasing at a higher rate than expected; initial expectations were that the 120:100 (or 1.20 SRB) would not be reached until 2025. India has an SRB of 1.07. Average "natural" SRB values are typically 1.03-1.04. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

The final choice is the womans' and hers alone - it's her body. In a nation of individuals, responsibility and decisions are tied together intimately. So - The choice is 100% hers, therefore, all the responsibilities are 100% hers. Abort or not Use contraception or not Raise the child Pay for college Pay for the medical bills etc It makes sense right? No, it doesn't make sense. A man has choices to use contraception or not (temporary or permament). I look forward to you advocating as strongly for responsibility for those decisions. You've also aggregated what are "benefits" (altho' that's a poor word option, imo; it is the one that is commonly used) for a child with issues of autonomy of personhood for the woman. The first two in your list are the latter, and the bottom three are the former. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Best of luck! From some of the links in your earlier posts, it looks like a great hike.

OMG! (& oh so not in a good way ...) Reason for male birth control pill, perhaps? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I'm not sure if you perhaps you just replied to the last message ... but in Marc's defense, he's been forthright (and has repeatedly noted in this thread and others previously on abortion) in acknowledging that he doesn't want to impose his views on the female half of the country. My 70-something mom was an ob-gyn nurse in the years before Roe v Wade. She has horror stories of the trauma women endured emotionally and physically because of the lack of legally available medical abortions -- back alley butchers who fucked with women’s minds and bodies … or just outright killed them -- and women (of all ages & marital status) who ended up killing &/or maiming themselves with bleach and ammonia, or wire coat hangers, or other improvised methods. Wealthy women went overseas for legal medical abortions. She also was an ob-gyn nurse in Tunisia with the Peace Corps – 2nd group that went out, for which I am very proud of her … & has a whole ‘nother story set from there. These days, she’s wants to go volunteer with the Dutch NGO “Women on Waves.”

But that would mean she would need to reveal her secret identity and where she lives. Then afterward she would need to put on her shades and use her flashy-thing on them. .... Well, if you're really good with IMINT ... or Google Earth, here's the view from my rooftop balcony ... great place to drink beers with friends after painting. Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for the comments. Appreciate the direct comparison and specific examples of problems w/the DIY consumer sprayers. Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

completely agree. what a mess! spraying was "faster" but cleaning up the mess took much more time than if i'd just used a roller. Thanks for the comments! By prep and cleaning up the mess, do you mean moving/covering furniture, or the taping/masking, or that the sprayer sprayed all over the place, or that the sprayer was a pain to clean? Or all of the above? I'm painting before I move furniture so that's not an issue but some of the walls/areas I want to paint have cut-outs or are pillars, i.e., see attached pic. (NB: that's staging furniture not mine.) Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Yeah, that would be the easy way. I don't want to do that tho.' Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Any thoughts on paint sprayers versus rollers and brushes? Specifically, I’m going to be painting some of the walls & ceilings of my loft. (Some are 30+ feet high/up, so I'm not going to attempt those myself.) The guy at Home Depot, which for the moment I think is the most interesting place, seemed to be pushing a sprayer. I’ve read online reviews that seem to suggest that the home, DIY versions of sprayers are more pain than they’re worth. I’m pretty much starting from scratch as far as investment in painting supplies. I probably won’t do a lot of painting after this. Anyone have experience with one over the other? If it’s worth it, I’ll happily pay for the sprayer (& disposable 2 micron filter masks). /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Very cute ... I'm reminded of jelly-bean diplomacy.

Um, in the 1800's, "liberals" were what we'd now describe as "classical liberals" which is basically a synonym for "libertarian" which, basically means folks who want to limit government. No, “classical liberals” is not a synonym for “libertarians.” And “classical liberals” is not a synonym for the early Republican party. Sorry, it’s just not historically accurate. The liberals of the 1800s were not equivalent to today’s liberals either. One could probably build decent cases to argue either one or the other is closer, largely depends of the bias of the observer to prioritize property rights versus equality, I suspect. Like the roots of Republican Party (& the Democratic, as well), it’s more complicated. The liberals of the 1800s had much greater confidence and trust in public (as well as private) institutions than late 20th/early 21st Century libertarians. This was the era that saw the institutionalization of things like mandatory public schooling – a liberal political agenda; the first age-labor law (mostly for young children in the northeast) – part of the liberal agenda; etc. There was much greater recognition of *both* Adam Smith’s ideas from _Theory of Moral Sentiments_ and from the _Wealth of Nations_. Remember what we *now* call classical liberalism was defined against notions of the monarch as having absolute authority over much of the population, including the right to seize property, force boarding of the crown’s soldiers, etc. That’s the government they wanted to limit – the King, not progressive institutions. The focusing of neo-liberal economics and near-myopic focus on Smith’s latter work is largely (*largely* not completely) a product & definitely credit for popularization due to Prof Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys of the 1970s. And seems to forget that history of liberalism – liberte, equalite, fraternite. That’s “classical liberalism” at its highest form. That very different than the neo-liberalism economics-sounding definition you suggest above. What has evolved to be the modern libertarian ideology can trace its roots in no small part to the anarchists (don’t think Sex Pistols either) of the late 1800s … particularly in Europe, i.e., French political philosophers like PJ Proudhon and the economists of what came to be known as the Austrian school. There was where the distrust of government institutions originates. Merge that will some selected pieces of classical liberal (e.g., largely ignore _Theory of Moral Sentiments_) thought on individual rights and property rights to get the progenitor of 20th century libertarianism. The main US driving forces that pushed away from those early anarchists roots were probably the early 20th century economist, Murray Rothbard, philosopher Robert Nozick, who’s main treatise Anarchy, State, and Utopia, and popularization of Ayn Rand’s works. Modern libertarianism has moved *a long* way from its roots in mid-19th Century anarchist ideas too. Rewriting libertarian to mean liberals of the early Republican party and to ignore its history (as well as ignoring the Progressive Republicans like Pres Theodore Roosevelt, establishing things like a National Park System, The “Square Deal,” policies against monopolies: “trust busting”, first food & drug regulations, and California's Gov Hiram Johnson) is liking rewriting history of the much of the nineteenth century Democratic party to pretend that they didn’t tacitly and explicitly support slavery. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for putting that out there. Great example, imo, of the importance of leadership and choices that can be made … & I might speculate, also underlying institutionalization and doctrine, e.g., one more reason why those FMs are important. I remember talking with Nate Fick a few years ago. He led a platoon from 1st Recon BN in OIF; think he was a 1st Lt at the time. When he and his Marines got into southern Iraq on the 21st or 22nd of March 2003, they encountered Iraqi Army (not Revolutionary Guard) wanting to surrender. The standard that you and your colleagues in Desert Storm set lasted and benefited the first US and allied troops that were deployed into Iraq in 2003. It does matter. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Much credit to you for respecting your partner’s/girlfriend’s responses. A few questions … not expecting answers, some you are likely to have thought of before … feel free, as always, to tell me it’s none of my business or throw all comments out the proverbial wondow.

Depends on what you mean by “roots.” When it was founded the Republican Party most strongly resembled a liberalist political philosophy & a fairly radical one at that! Liberalism as tending to be concerned with equality and civil, political, and personal liberties and more willing to challenge traditional assumptions or ways of doing things. (In contrast to being supportive of long-standing institutions and favoring slow, prudent change, if any change at all.) Liberals of the 1800s opposed slavery and were part of the early Republican Party. The Democrats were the conservative party. The Southern rural Democrats of the 1800s supported slavery - they were the (staunch) conservatives (maintaining tradition) of the time and supporters of States rights. The Northern Democrats also tended to support States rights, which was something of a ‘cop-out,’ as northern States had outlawed slavery by the early 1800s. (I would argue that economics were just as much a motivator as normatives, i.e., “ethics/morals”. Northern industry was not dependent on {black} slave labor, and workers in the north didn’t want competition from the South/competition from freed slaves). When the Republican Party was founded back in the 1850s, it wasn’t just anti-slavery. The slogan of the first Republican Presidential nominee was “Free soil, free labor, free speech, free men.” Early Republican activists were pro-universal education, pro-technology (of the time), supported growth of cities and institutions (such as federal programs, i.e., the progenitor of the Federal Reserve & the first income tax; state programs; and private programs for progressive growth), supported universal suffrage (i.e., women), also opposed polygamy and alcohol, supported what were early experiments in early rights of workers, e.g., see Lincoln’s Speech on Free Labor vs. Slave Labor (full test available through the "Lincoln Log”) sounds almost ... (& I don my asbestos underwear here) Marxist. Obviously Lincoln was not a Marxist ... and not just because of the whole time dilation issue. He was, however, a radical Republican! (He also was the only US President thus far to have been granted a patent.) Originally, the Democratic Party evolved from the anti-fderalists (anti-“Big government”), pro-States rights, rural, and strict interpretationalists of the Constitution (constructivists) in opposition to the pro-federalists, pro-interpretationalist, urban, progressives (Federalists). Things change, eh? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

It's only remarkable if you weren't be facetious in asking the question. The Allies knew. Yes, they knew. But what options did they have? From a brutal realistic tactical and logistical perspective? Until the Allies moved the front into Germany and into Poland, what were the options? Bomb the concentration camps? (Most were in Eastern Europe; there were limited number fo planes with that range.) Bomb the rail lines? (Targeting wasn't as precise as it is today.) Would the latter have been a short term tactical gain at risk of longer term strategic wins that would bring the regime to an end? Most of the cited actions that Allies could have taken (criticisms of lack of action) involve things like allowing more Jewish refugees to emigrate. (I.e., the kind of things that frequently get criticized as "soft" in discussions here.) And it's not a dumb question. It's not simple black-n-white or binary option. There were also domestic vocal opponents of the war. The non-interventionists and isolationists seeded doubt in a direct and non-direct ways in the US. And there those ranging from outright Nazi sympathizers to subtle anti-Semitism (of which there was a tremendous amount in the US at the time) who challenged the accounts. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for starting this thread and for all of your responses. I've just had time to read through it and look at the pictures. Watching that slide show does show how much “they” did things and looked like “us.” The lesson I take from the slide show (& much of the history of humans doing atrocious things to other humans) is to be vigilant of my own behavior and behavior of groups with which I associate/affiliate or represent me. We humans have many amazing abilities – the ability to rationalize our own behavior is among them. I checked all of the boxes. One can find historical examples of monsters, pyschopaths, accomplices, deserters, victims of circumstance, and rare -- much too rare, imo -- examples of bravery and hope. Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I'm stealing that ... w/permission, of course?

Thanks for the additional links & analysis. Point of clarification: Incorporation was part of the critique of the Maloney v Cuomo decision in the CNSNews.com article: cited as something negative regarding Judge Sotomayer: "I do not like this....." in the post to which I replied. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

PDD 63/NSC 63 from 1998 EO 13231 from 2001 National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets from 2003. Categories of critical infrastructure are listed. Specific lists/locations/delineations of critical infrastructure are classified. They can change. They have changed. They will change. (They probably should be able to change.) Btw: Presidents appoint folks to lots of different advisory committees. The 1000 or so Presidential advisory committees and all other federal committees are subject to FACA. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

One can make estimates but they are not as precise as the ones based on data from the 20 or so seismic stations, including at least one in the US. Estimations will be done from the Xe radioisotopes (assuming they’re detected); the error bars will be larger than the seismic data. The crucial part of the Xe and Kr isotope detection is showing that it was *really* a nuclear test not just a big heap o’conventional explosives. Ours? The Russians? Or the DPRK? We have multiple W62, W78, & W87 warheads on Minutemen ICBMs w/yields of 150 to ~500kT for each warhead in our current arsenal. At one point, the Soviet Union had ICBM with 20MT warheads. It was really heavy. If the DPRK can get a TD-2 to work - & that’s a really, really, really big *if*, imo – the largest estimated payload is ~500kg for long range estimates. (Shorter range =’s smaller payload.) For comparison, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki was about 4,500 kg. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Notionally, they could be; there's always a danger in mirror-imaging our program/the Iranian program/the Pakistani programs/etc. Based on my experience, understanding, and knowledge, I judge it to be very, very, highly, highly, really unlikely, however. Getting plutonium is relatively easy *compared to* enriching uranium. They're both difficult; one is harder than the other. An HEU bomb design is easy compared to the Pu-based bomb design. The most likely explanation is they’re having problems with test device design and manufacture. If that is true (which I judge it likely), it also means that they are unlikely to be able to produce a physically smaller device (even more complicated design) for a warhead. It’s not evident that they “have the process of causing the blast down.” A fizzle and this most recent test do not suggest that. Intentionally making small nukes – both ones really are intended be sub-kT or very low kT yield and ones that can be carried on a ICBM – is a lot harder than making a 10-20kT … or even a 50kT nuclear device. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Was her requirement of reciprocation just her way of saying no? I don't think so. But it might be ... I think they're both fantastic humans (which, to be explicit for the more salacious readers, does *not* mean I'm interested in a 3-way.) So I'm not an unbiased observor. I'd like to think that she would be more direct given her usual external/public behavior, but privately she may not be. I dunno. Maybe ... altho' my impression was more that it was his longtime fantasy (FMF), which she was game to pursue, and as a result of that she perceived a fairness/equity issue in pursuing a reciprocal 3-way in which she would be the center of attention. I think it is that "bartering" or bargaining part that prickled me. Of course, there can be a fine line between bartering and compromise, the latter which is important in almost all relationships, including friendships and professional ones. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying