I don't see why you think WASPs have anything that is "rightfully theirs." WASPs comprise the majority of welfare recipients (e.g., food stamps, Medicare, SS) and are thus a significant burden on this country. SS and Medicare is payed into but all the same WASPS usually get out more than they put in. They've also had a rather long tenure running the government (judge the results as you will).

If anything, we ought to let the "Illuminati" (lol) really dominate and have a go at it. Then we can evaluate the results. WASPs had their turn.

Finally, folk classifications of race don't have a basis in biology. There is often more genetic similarity between people who aren't the same "race" than those who are. So, when you refer to the WASPs you are indicating a cultural group more than anything. And this is relevant because culture can change rather quickly and the element(s) of a culture that led it to dominate can recede. This seems to be the case with WASPs.

Nothing personal, Wes. I signed up to spread Noggin Awareness to the masses. I did NOT think it would entail having my name associated with a voyeuristic neanderthal!

Thank you for the opportunity all the same.

1. If the concern here is that persons that are eligible to serve also ought to be able to drink, then the most sensible way to resolve the inconsistency is to lower the drinking age.

2. The practical effect of raising the enlistment age to 21 is to deny the military its primary source of recruits (the average age of a recruit is 20 despite the enlistment limit being 35, meaning recruitment is heavily skewed toward the precise age bracket this change would eliminate). This seems unwise given the military is an AVF (All Volunteer Force) as is and given that it has been hard-pressed to meet recruiting goals this last decade (evinced by the fact that certain branches began letting in more felons, raising the enlistment limit to 42, etc).

3. Howard, I fail to see the sense in your proposal. You would create a class of military personnel who linger on the payroll for 3 years but are exempted from combat. What exactly would their purpose be? For goodness' sake, it doesn't take 3 years to train a soldier, and all the while these individuals will simultaneously not be contributing to the private economy plus will be of limited utility to the military. What argument is there to justify this extreme inefficiency?

4. If cost is a significant concern, the following should be kept in mind: defense spending entails spending on overseas contingency operations, the much-maligned military industrial complex procurement system, the training and retention of troops, and war-specific spending on troops (e.g., combat pay and disability benefits). There is lots of room here to lower costs without limiting the recruitment pool: for example, winding up the ridiculous wars will shrink contingency spending plus war-specific spending on troops, while reforming the procurement system in order to minimize waste and increase competitiveness also ought to cut costs significantly.

5. tl;dr - The inconsistency between recruitment and drinking is easily solved without affecting recruitment; raising the enlistment age would damage the military's effectiveness; it doesn't make sense for either the private economy or the military to create a class of recruits exempt from combat; costs can be significantly reduced without affecting recruitment; and, if the average 18 year old can figure out how to live on his own, choose a college to go to, find a partner, etc. then it is probably ok to grant him the right to serve (especially since service presents a viable route to cash/benefits comparable to the private sector -- something especially relevant in a difficult job market).

It seems we agree on the essentials then!

Regarding base desire fulfillment, as far as I am able to tell Buddhism defines all desires as base and thus advises its adherents to avoid them. If this is right, then very few people really believe in Buddhism, because very few people consistently behave as if its strictures are true, and it is on the basis of this behavior that we ascribe beliefs.

A corollary of this is my original point: the "casual Buddhists" don't really believe the strictures of Buddhism -- i.e., they don't consistently act as if they are true -- and instead are entertaining them either for popularity, complex psychological reasons, or whatever else (even if they think they really believe them).

Define "white."

I hereby retract my TEAM NOGGIN membership. Mr Noggin has gone too far!

Iran isn't a conventional military threat, if a threat at all.

The problem is, it's rather hard to tell just how sincere the religious leadership is in its belief in the doctrine of the 12th Imam. The doctrine calls for violence and chaos which will in turn presage the return of a historical Shi'ite religious figure to secure worldwide peace. To the extent that it is believed, the leadership (which really controls the country, not Ahmadinejad) is liable to see a silver lining in an escalation of violence in the Middle East, or perhaps even in the use of a nuclear device.

So, the question is, how should the West behave given the difficulty of ascribing beliefs to the Iranian leadership? Personally, I think Iran has rationally promoted its survival thus far and is unlikely to become suicidal once it gets breakout capacity. They won't use a device or let terrorists get a hold of it, nor will they ever close the Strait of Hormuz (all of which would be suicidal to the regime).

No.


I said Jew and Arab, not Muslim and Christian and Jew. And the point isn't that such co-existence has occurred in the past, but that it is happening right now, a context where zionism has essentially achieved its goals. This puts the lie to the notion that zionism is inherently against such co-existence.


Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The first point to address is how the population/life expectancy/mortality rate charts I cited fit in with your claims of a genocide. Address that and we can move on to the legitimate abuses being carried out, to the extent that they exist.


We are discussing the accuracy of a dataset the U.N. put out; if you want to cast a blanket condemnation of the veracity of U.N. information then you are necessarily condemning the accuracy of all the U.N. resolutions against Israel you list. So which is it: is the U.N. not a reliable source (thus rendering my beautiful charts false), in which case all those resolutions are not accurate, or is it (in which case the data I've cited is just fine and you've still done nothing to address it)?

The only alternative is to put forth a principled reason for supposing the data is false but the resolutions accurate. I suspect you'll try this, but the reason will be far from principled. Something like, "Because the data is being manipulated by the evil U.S.-Israel hegemony!!11" Translation: "I have no clue how data is produced at this agency but must give you a reason that confirms my pre-existing views on the matter completely independent of any evidence whatsoever."

The U.N. isn't respectable? Let's put the veracity of that claim on ice for a moment and demonstrate one of its practical consequences: if the U.N. isn't respectable then neither is Human Rights Watch reports on the Palestinian Occupied Territories, which frequently refer to the U.N.

http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-israeloccupied-palestinian-territories

"World Report 2012: Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories"

-40 paragraphs total
-Approximately 0 citations
-only 15 paragraphs mention a source of information: 6 U.N.; 2 B'Tselem; 2 ICHR; 1 "Israeli NGO's"; 1 "witnesses"; 1 "human rights groups"; 1 Israeli NGO "Peace Now"; 1 World Bank
-3 sources of information are vague and thus make it impossible to verify the information, e.g., "witnesses"
-Therefore, there are really only 12 legitimate indications of where information came from, and half of them are from the U.N.

So, you've got a couple of options at this point: either you can keep insisting -- without any evidence -- that the U.N. is unreliable and that my chart is false, which means that the reports of the organization you yourself cite as "Well respected [sic]" are mostly false as well, or you can accept that the U.N. is generally reliable, in which case my beautiful charts stand redeemed and my original point unaddressed, since the HRW report does nothing to refute the U.N. chart's claims that Palestinian life expectancy, population size, and mortality rates have been improving for decades and are better than the West Asian (Middle Eastern) average.

The evil racists/fascists have built an impressively democratic society in an otherwise tumultuous region where the political cultures are obsessed with violence. Also, if my experiences in Jaffa are any indication, Arab and Jew can co-exist just fine. People ought to get some qualitative, on-the-ground experience of the place before harping about genocide and other such nonsense. Otherwise, they are like virgins talking about sex.


This is an unprecedented genocide. For example, according to the U.N. it is the first genocide in history where the targets of genocide somehow keep expanding their numbers and life expectancy over time (!) and experience less mortality and higher life expectancy relative their neighbors:

http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/country-profiles/country-profiles_1.htm



Genocide: "The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group."



I'm confused, ahmed. How do these graphs constitute genocide? Is the most advanced military in the Middle East -- better equipped than any NATO power save the U.S. -- somehow bumbling its evil, genocidal mission? Explain this to me.

Not much advice can be proffered until you answer Bay's questions. Still, here is general, non-specific information:

1. You shouldn't pay for a PhD (with money, that is; you'll still be paying an opportunity cost).

2. You shouldn't go for a masters unless it is payed for OR it will enhance your career in some demonstrable fashion.

3. If your prime motivation is passion for the subject matter, you should presumably be proficient in it and therefore ought to be able to get into a PhD program. Therefore, you shouldn't pay for a masters solely out of passion. If you love it but aren't very good at it you can always study it for fun in your free time, which doesn't cost anything!

Demonstrate a vast and comprehensive knowledge of political and economic issues on the Politics boards, using your impressive array of posts to get noticed by the Agency or some other intelligence group. They'll offer a job once they see you've got all the analytical chops they could ask for. I think this is really what 3333 is up to, despite others thinking he is just a graduate of a third tier toilet law school with mental issues that spends all day on the internet.

Hold your niggerizations ... the lady's name is actually Krystal Ball? Hahhahahahahah

The RCP polling average still says Obama +3.5, and Obama is still ahead in every single swing state (including, most significantly, +3 in Ohio). This may narrow if Romney-Ryan receive a convention bump larger than Obama's and/or if Romney-Ryan dominate the debates. But if all of this occurs it will still be an extremely close election, which is what everyone expects anyway.

We may disagree about the veracity of the Bible and the fact of evolution, but Team NOGGIN has the power to unite those with otherwise disparate views. Welcome!!!

Christine: the first Tea Party candidate I'd be more than willing to get behind.

A ~5 foot tall bodybuilder working your security? That seems unlikely. Maybe Stallone had him on as a favor to a friend or something.

?

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/obama-signs-bill-banning-insider-trading-by-federal-lawmakers/

"The bill — the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or Stock Act — was approved in the House in February by a vote of 417 to 2. The Senate agreed to it by unanimous consent after voting
96 to 3 to end debate on the measure in late March."

Dear Mr. Noggin,

Please get some discipline and do a keto diet for 6-8 weeks so that you don't look exactly the same in every single pic for years on end.

Thank you,
syntaxmachine
TEAM NOGGIN Public Representative, G&O Office

1. I looked at some statistics and now take back what I said. What is true is that a significant proportion of welfare recipients vote Republican, and that is because a significant amount of welfare recipients are elderly white persons, and elderly white persons generally vote Republican. I don't feel like doing the calculations to find out exactly how much. Still, it was wrong to say a "supermajority" are white and Southerners.

2. Meanwhile, what you say is true only if we adhere to an overly strict definition of "welfare" such that it only applies to TANF and other similar programs. A better definition is broader and includes programs like SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. This is why the establishment of these programs has led to a system often called the "welfare state": the term only makes sense if such programs are indeed welfare. And most of the beneficiaries of these programs are white (e.g., 70%+ for Medicare).

That doesn't at all explain why you left for good. You can travel extensively and still return home. Don't you long to return and leave a country that is complicit with Western genocide behind? If Islam-dominated countries were so great you'd think you'd be anxious to return.


Yes, the country with mass graves still being unearthed and the record for deadliest chemical attack on its own citizens was quite the ""gem."  

So you went from believing an apocalyptic preacher was born of a virgin and will return from the clouds and wield his Iron Man-like powers to destroy all evil to believing that a different preacher (prophet) literally flew around on a mystical horse. Needless to say, your intellectual development has been horizontal and not vertical.

The synthol's a bit much.

Why'd you leave the Promised Land?

They are researching the cells on our arms: embryonic stem cells are derivable from skin cells. These cells can in turn be developed into embryos. There is no principled difference between harvesting a set of stem cells from a cluster of ~100 skin cells from your nose and another set derived from the ~100 cells of a blastocyst. The two are thus logically equivalent.

Since this is the case, if you think terminating a blastocyst is somehow "wrong" or "killing human life," you logically ought to think scratching your nose is something akin to genocide. Obviously, this is a stupid belief. And thus, it is also a stupid belief in the case of blastocysts.