TheEgoist

Sounds interesting. I'll read some of this at school Monday.

The Simpsons has sucked since I got out of elementary school. Early episodes continue to be hilarious, but this has been a long time coming. It's an issue of the voice actors just being stupid, not realizing their market worth.

I'm a phil major and I especially like Philosophy of Science. Bunge, like you described him previously, tends to be very realist in his conception of scientific inquiry.

Bunge is ++good. That is all.

Rachel Maddow's show is a little more enjoyable. Her personality is not so grating. Anyway, DVRing this show.

Here, here, comrade.

I would click on this if I didn't have to see/hear Olbermann.

The fact that you haven't been banned yet speaks to the tolerance of the moderators here. What exactly are you contributing except stirring shit?

I had heard about the end being really tense and scary before I saw it, didn't take it as much of a spoiler.

So how about that latest episode, folks? Pretty much the most terrifying few minutes of television ever produced, no?

So I'm not reading this entire thread, cause I don't want things spoiled, but I just started watching this show on Netflix. It's amazing. I understand, however, that Walter eventually falls from being a man in desperate need, trying to do what is right for his loved ones to a more brutal gangster. I just got done with episode 3 of the second season. I can already tell that his intentions are changing. As for the ethics. I can say, myself, that I would do anything to earn the money to save my family, even with the great potentiality of violence. Selling meth may harm some, but that harm comes from their own free will. While it's a mind melting substance and the gang bangers in the show are obviously scumbags doing it for a buck, it is justified to do whaat you can in dire straits.

I know you ain't touchin' my Binswanger swag.

It's a shame someone can't spell "plethora", yet feels obliged to critique the vocabulary of others.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/08/who-really-kept-us-safe-after While the title itself seems a bit silly (You really can't thank people for not blowing you up), the fact that is that after 9/11, there were very few legitimate domestic threats to our safety, so perhaps we should start putting that money into programs that really protect us, instead of ones that feed the culturally polarizing suspicion that even somewhat noticeable percentage of Muslims are out to hurt us. Muslims are just like Christian and any other religious people, there are a few wing nuts and a bunch of people who just got duped into believing there is an invisible man in the sky with rules for the way you ought to live your life.

There seems to be in this article a populist disdain for those who go into careers that are more intellectual and academic than narrowly practical. This has always perturbed me. "Oh, them fancy scientists n lawyers n professors ain't done nothin for me! It's all about the men that forged metal in a steel mill!". Granted, many people do live in the proverbial ivory tower, but to sneer at that way of life in general is just silly.

I would say Gates totally thwarted his position as any kind of hero long ago with Microsoft's support of anti-competitive laws...Just a side note.

I've been aware of these guys for almost 10 years now. It's always been an issue amongst the punk and metal community. I was thrilled to hear these men guys finally got set free. You can't call it justice, though. They were locked in cages on clearly false charges for years and were only released on pleading to lesser charges.. Hopefully they can return to normalcy, but I don't think I could ever live my life to the full after such horrendous treatment by a backwoods government.

But most poor people are not just looking for a handout. This is a crazy generalization. Poor people have no more inherent worth or disworth than the rich.

Begin weening the country off of the social safety net, cut needless defense spending, end our 5 theaters of wars and not-wars. These are the two big areas that take up way more space than they need, especially the social safety nets. We can also raise revenues by selling off government property to private landowners. Honestly, I'm surprised so many people gave my OP a negative vote. I would like to understand what is objectionable in not wanting to fuck over the poor anymore than we already have. Many who make under $40000 need most of the money they make. It's not like they're skating by. It's disgusting to say raise taxes on anyone, but it's disgusting and even more absurd when you say raise it on the people who need the money the most.

You have it wrong. It just makes lees sense to tax the lower class, because so little will be achieved and it will inflict more damage. I'm not for taxing anyone ever for anything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/opinion/the-new-resentment-of-the-poor.html?_r=1&hp Leave it to the Republicans, including the head of the moronic Tea Party Caucus to not support taxation of the rich but to be fine with taking some money from the poor. Because taking the last pennies people have will do a lot, but taxing the rich more would never help the country! This is just reverse class warfare.

Not buying a book isn't a boycott. I don't buy plenty of things.

Rand herself admits that she could not have conceived of her view of humanity and of how it should be organized politically without the aid of the examples set in the early industrial revolution, where trade was (mostly) voluntary. Is she admitting then that before this time, she would have an irrational view of political philosophy? No, merely that the evidence for what we now know as the best socio-economic system was not available to those in the 17th century. Of course now, believing in the power of the state as or any forced together collective as the arbiter of political rule is as irrational as belief in God. Belief in god many moons ago might not have been unjustified. However, in the past 200 years our knowledge of nature has grown in leaps and bounds. An admittance into one's knowledge of God or of the valid power of the state in social organization shows a rather willful or malignant ignorance of the facts. Perhaps an individual in North Korea or the African jungle may not know the benefits of capitalism, but when one lives in a relatively free society, where the fruits of capitalism have come to bear, one can draw no reasonable conclusion about those who support socialist or any sort of totalitarian policy other than that person is malignantly ignorant at least in this aspect of his philosophy and likely in other aspects.

Short sighted? Funny, that's precisely what taxation of any class is. Would Harris support taxation of the poor if it helped the rich?

An implicit agreement or social contract implies ownership. Governments do not own property, or at least, they ought not.