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  1. travc

    Euclid: The Game!

    Ugh... I'm stuck on level 12. I've solved it in 4, but it isn't recognizing my (very obvious) solution. Oh well, I should go to bed anyway.
  2. travc

    Political Topology Quiz

    I scored 'solid liberal', but most of the questions were pretty much toss-ups where both the statements were wrong/incomplete. This sort of binary choice quiz is pretty crap. Doubly so when many of the choices aren't even orthogonal.
  3. travc

    Habitually misused scientific terms

    Too true. Just the other day I was reading some suggestions regarding bug control, and someone pointed out the interesting fact that enzymatic de-greasers are good for killing tiny bugs (by partially dissolving their carapace.) Sadly, he/she completely ruined my "cool, I never thought of that"...
  4. travc

    Selalini study on GMO corn re-published

    Ok... First off, the Monsanto studies aren't any icon of 'proper science', but that doesn't mean Selanini's paper isn't misleading crap. Selanini gives a shitload of various observations... The problem is that the experimental design (or lack there-of) did not produce nearly enough real data to...
  5. travc

    Meanwhile, Down in Mississippi ...

    They clearly saw one guy promising to "shut off the tap" of government spending... In a state which pays about $10.5B to the feds and gets back $21.7B! In contrast, Cochran actually ran *pro* government services/spending ads near the end of the campaign.
  6. travc

    Political Parties and racism

    Don't be thick... To reiterate untermensche's point: The Southern Strategy ins't about Republican's being racists, it is about Republican politicians attempting to get racists to vote for them (without alienating too many moderates in the process). If you think for half-a-second about how do...
  7. travc

    Meanwhile, Down in Mississippi ...

    Yep... It is pretty much 6 one way, half-dozen the other. The polling is pretty crappy, but it appears that Childers (the Dem) would have most likely lost to McDaniel. It would have been great to see McDaniel win and then self-destruct in the general, but that would have been a long bet to...
  8. travc

    GOP finally demonstrates need for strong voter ID law

    No surprise. People who have convinced themselves the 'other side' is doing something dishonest/nefarious/illegal are way more than 1/2 way to convincing themselves to undertake that behaviour (or worse) themselves. Doesn't matter if the 'other side' is really doing it or not. 'Conservatives'...
  9. travc

    Selalini study on GMO corn re-published

    Just reading the abstract and figures (including tables), this study seems quite weak. Table 2 is the main results, and it underwhelming... as well as being pretty crap 'clarity' wise. The decision to report number of 'pathologies' instead of number of specimens with particular pathologies is...
  10. travc

    Hydrogen isn't green

    Fuel != energy source. Hydrogen as a fuel isn't a bad idea, given a clean energy source to make it. Just using natural gas to make hydrogen is pretty stupid though, since you can just use the natural gas directly instead.
  11. travc

    The USDA Killed 4 Million Animals in 2013, But It's Not Clear Why

    I'm all for more transparency, but that list (and those numbers) don't seem unreasonable. BTW: Cowbirds are evil... they seriously screw over songbirds and our fragmenting of forests has pretty much made a perfect environment for them. Maybe some of the outrage is due to people just not knowing...
  12. travc

    How unions devastate the airline industry

    In reality-based news... U.S. airline union takes aim at regionals, not JetBlue Note the date... April 25, 2014 PS: Please do watch those Frontline episodes "Flying Cheap" and "Flying Cheaper" if you've never seen them. Very relevant and illuminating.
  13. travc

    How unions devastate the airline industry

    Ah... Airlines and unions. Perennial anti-labor topic for many decades, despite the fact that the industry went from having very strong unions (and regulation) to having relatively weak unions or non-union (and basically only having safety related regulations). I grew up (in the 80s) with my...
  14. travc

    OK's Double Execution

    Your sympathy, or lack there of, is irrelevant. The legal system in the US is not supposed to be about satisfying a blood-lust for revenge. Bullets often don't do as much damage as you seem to think they do. Yes, a bullet to the back of the head will nearly always cause certain death, but the...
  15. travc

    Noam Chomsky - 'Obama is Worse Than Bush'

    The type of linguist who studies what sort of "languages" (in the abstract sense) different sorts of computational automata can model from a finite sets of exemplars. Not the sort who thinks much about natural language, much less the specific definitions and denotations of English words. How...
  16. travc

    Walter Block, Libertarian Extraordinaire

    I have no idea what you mean by "philosophical conservatism". You seem to be describing something which is pretty much the opposite of classical conservatism. Remember that those aristocratic (and 'middle-class' in the English sense) estates were money-making enterprises... It used to pretty...
  17. travc

    OK's Double Execution

    Decapitation does not cause 'instant death'. There is very good reason to think that the guillotine is far from painless. Also, while much much better than the headsman's axe, the chance of it not working properly and failing to decapitate the condemned is significant.
  18. travc

    OK's Double Execution

    At least get the relevant facts right... The standard (SCOTUS approved) lethal injection protocol is an anesthetic, a paralytic, and a lethal drug. The paralytic is problematic because it can hide a failure of the anesthetic. Awake+paralyzed+lethal drug taking effect is pretty fucking inhumane...
  19. travc

    Noam Chomsky - 'Obama is Worse Than Bush'

    I was commenting about his word choice, not claiming that there isn't some validity to the points being made. "Echo chamber" is a pretty great metaphor... there is an original sound, but it gets amplified and distorted the more it bounces around.
  20. travc

    Walter Block, Libertarian Extraordinaire

    That is fair enough... Though it renders "libertarian" a pretty much meaningless term unless one also says what "X" is (at least a core set of things). I think we're on the same page about Block though. He's a libertarian, but a cartoonishly extreme one.
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