5/23    MOTD Censor fucks bush in ass with his tiny url:
        http://tinyurl.com/2d46a
        \_ Don't worry!  Bush is going to give six major speeches in the next
           six weeks.  The first one is tomorrow, Sunday!
           http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48487-2004May22.html
        \_ Here's the key quote.  It's always about money, isn't it?
                "Also Saturday, Lugar blamed the Bush and Clinton
                 administrations for not adequately funding the foreign
                 affairs budget, noting that the military's budget is more
                 than 13 times what the nation spends for diplomacy."
           \_ Is that quote a joke?  Why would we spend the same amount
              on a bunch of diplomats as we do on an entire army?  Huh?
              \_ I'm not sure, but I think he's including foreign aid and
                 other such diplomatic ventures.

5/23    So what do you think about Kerry delaying his nomination until long
        after his tax payer funded nomination?  What would you think if Bush
        did the same thing for the same reason?
        \_ Is this a hypothetical? Because Bush can't...the RNC is after the
           DNC.
           \_ No, it's been all over the news for 2-3 days.  Kerry is
              seriously considering doing this so he can raise more private
              cash.  The RNC *can* delay exactly the same as the DNC if they
              want, but that's beside the point.  I only mention that to put
              it in perspective for the knee-jerkers.
        \_ It's going to be a close election, so Kerry has recently (a)
           tried to talk Nader out of it early and (b) wanted to schedule
           the nomination date the same as Bush, so they are both restricted
           to federal funding at the same time.  Sounds fine to me.
           Kerry isn't the one misusing the material witness provision,
           getting it so wrong on intelligence, and paying in American
           credibility on an undermanned war.  If Bush didn't do any of these
           things, and just extended the nomination to match the Democrats, it
           wouldn't be a big deal to me.
           \_ Kerry is using tax payer dollars to have a party.  The
              convention is supposed to result in a nomination.  If they want
              to move the whole convention back, that's fine but this is
              ridiculous.  Your anti-bush rhetoric has nothing to do with
              this thread's topic.

5/23    http://csua.org/u/7ex
        Go go go governator (Arnold sues a bobblehead maker)
        \_ Hey, it's his wife that discovered them in a gift shop and was
           offended.  He has to sue, or Ah-nold won't be getting any.
        \_ Can't wait to see how this turns out.

5/23    Anyone get a job offer from google recently?  What was the options
        package like?
        \_ No, but guaranteed to be *very* low since the IPO is free money with
           near zero risk at this point.

5/23    Hey, you're right!  Censoring the opposition is a lot easier than
        responding to them!  I'm going to give this a try for a while instead
        of replying to the same idiocy and see how it goes.  Why was I
        bitiching about people censoring my views all this time instead of
        just doing the same in return?  After all, who has time for a real
        debate, especially if it's just going to get erased in less time
        than it took to respond?  Go Go Gadet Leftist Censorship!
        \_ If you're Left or Right, please don't censor.  Thank you.

5/23    Rumsfeld bans digital cameras, camcorders, and cell phones with cameras
        in military compounds in Iraq.  Yay!
        \_ Yeah, learn from the right-wing motd censors.

5/23    What's a good book to get started with matlab?
        \_ Just pick up the user's manual; it's very complete. Do you
           want to learn it for the hell of it or do you have a job
           in mind?
           \_ Just want to know basics of using matlab for a statistics course
              which will use it for labs.
           \_ nevermind it seems like they have some docs on matlab
              company web site.

5/23    Lessons of the same-sex marriage debate in the Netherlands
        http://csua.org/u/7ez
        \_ I was kind of surprised by how bad this article is, given it's
           from the Hoover Institute. They generally do better than this.
           I counted about six crossed narratives, none of which tied the
           central "history of gay marriage" narrative to the marriage data
           on the chart. It seemed more like one person's opportunity to
           vomit up a bunch of their readings into gay politics in the
           Netherlands than any kind of research results. You know what, I can
           read crap written by far-left academics and come up with alarming
           statements, too, and I doubt I would get paid as much the author.
           \_ The Hoover Institute has a glorious history of trying to draw
              dubious correlations, then trying to claim causation.
        \_ The chart makes no distinction between planned and unplanned
           occurrences of children out of wedlock.
           \_ Given the argument, I'm not sure it matters.  Would in
              increase in unplanned out of wedlock children be good or bad
              of this page's statistics?  The both show a break down of
              the family.
              \_ If the chart showed an increase in planned out-of-wedlock
                 births, it would show that more people think that being
                 married is not essential to having a kid.  It is misleading
                 to describe this as "a break down of the family".
                 \_ yea... having two parents is old hat.
                    \_ Mmm.. obtuseness
                 \_ This article is a religious article, their
                    assumption is that children should be raised by
                    married parents.  Not to meantion, cohabitating
                    families are statstically shown to be less stable.
                    With these facts in mind, it is hardly surprising for
                    this article to call a high percentage of out of
                    wedlock births a breakdown of the traditional family.
                    \_ Mmm.. statistics
                       \_ Mmm.. meaningless comments

5/22    ilyas, how much do you make as a grad student being
        told about the stars?
        \_ was teh solution to ilyas' last question ever posted?

5/23    psb, I'm gonna give you one last warning before I'm going to kick
        the shit out of you. Stop interrupt my posts. Ok? Just stop it.
        It is rude.
        \- bring it on. --psb

5/23    Is the ipod compatible with Chinese mp3/song names?
        It probably won't display the chinese character, but can it
        play the song without problem? Thanks.
        \_ Works fine with Japanese mp3/song names.  I don't see why it
           wouldn't work with Chinese.
           \_ Does it display the song name in Japanese?
              \_ chinese and japanese are both among the menu language
                 choices, for what that's worth
              \_ Yes.  On my wife's iPod, we have no problems seeing the song
                 title and artist in Japanese. --erikred
        \_ depends on the encoding.  It'd probably do unicode fine.

5/23    When can I get DVD of House of the Flying Daggers?
        \_ What's the Chinese name of the movie? link?
           \_ Shi Mian Mai Fu (Ambush from Ten Directions) starring
              Andy Lau, Zhang Ziyi and half-Japanese half-Taiwanese
              Jing Cheng Wu.
              \_ if you are going to use their English names, be consistent:
                 ^Jing Cheng Wu^Takeshi Kaneshiro
                 \_ I couldn't remember the Japanese name, and was too
                    lazy to google for it.  I don't know what you mean
                    by "English names".
                    \_ Names that you would use in English press to refer
                        to Chinese or HK movie stars.
                        eg. Cheung Man-Yuk == Maggie Cheung
                        --jeffwong
                        \_ I wasn't going by the english press but rather the
                           most recognizable version of their names for those
                           who care about the movie.  granted jcw is commie-prc
                           romanization, but I think most taiwanese can
                           figure out the chinese characters and thus who I
                           was talking about from the romanization.
                           \_ As long as we're all talking about the same guy:
                              http://imdb.com/name/nm0437580

5/23    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/22/movies/23canne.html
        hehehe ... the french sure like to annoy the Bush.
        \_ Wow, this makes Cannes, France, and Michel Moore all look kinda
           silly.  I guess that's not a big change though.
           \_ Wow, what the hell are you smoking?  It doesn't make them
              sound silly at all.  Stop reading your predudices into places
              that they don't exist.
              \_ Did you read the article?  Moore: "I didn't set out to
                 make a political movie..." right...
                 \_ the TRUTH is out there. bitch.
           \_ Wow, it really does! And how, exactly, does it do that? Just
              because a film festival recognizes a piece that doesn't agree
              with all the BS that Bush feeds us doesn't make it silly.
              Let me guess, you probably also think it's ok to lose
              life after valuable life in iraq since we're defending
              our freedom and way of life, right?

5/23    http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/05/23/wedding/index.html
        Video of wedding celebration uncovered. Turns out the Pentagon
        was lying to us. Again.
        \_ Wow this is so lame.  And you know this is the same party and
           these aren't terrorists?  You still never explain all the pre-
           packaged clothing and room for *300* in a barracks.  Whatever.
           Yes, it's a conspiracy to kill all Iraqi partiers because BushCo
           and the evil NeoCons are out to destroy all party life and fun
           in Iraq so Haliburton can sell them American made party trinkets
           to make all of Bush's friends rich.  Yep.
           \_ From the UAV, I'm sure it looked like a high-level insurgents'
              meeting:
              "The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks
              speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car -
              decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a
              Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures
              her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up."

              I'm not op, but it's possible that the prepackaged clothing was
              stuff these tribal folks were trying to sell, and it was stocked
              in a small warehouse, which was conveniently interpreted to be
              a barracks with room for 300.  Finally, why would insurgents
              drive out in the open in a 12 white-pickup convoy when they knew
              the Americans were always watching?  If you ask me, it was just
              Iraqi civilians who wanted to hold their wedding far from the
              violence, and one of the relatives knew the perfect place to hold
              one.  On the other hand, it could just be really stupid
              insurgents, which is possible.
              \_ Of course there was a wedding *somewhere* in Iraq.  What does
                 this video prove?  That there was a wedding *somewhere* at
                 *sometime*.  You have no idea where or when it happened or
                 if this video has anything to do with it or who the people
                 were in it.  It could easily be wedding by day, terrorism
                 by night.
        \_ article says party ended at night, but attack was around 3am
           \_ They went to sleep after the party.  The first bomb fell while
              they were sleeping.
        \_ AP news from Yahoo!  This is going to be all over CNN soon ...
           just in time for Bush's speech on Monday night!
           Story:      http://csua.org/u/7f7
           Story 2:    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5045772
           Slideshow:  http://csua.org/u/7f8
        [Below restored from yesterday]
        \_ FYI, Kimmit said U.S. soldiers had seen no dead children at the
           site.  That's because they were all driven to Ramadi.  Kimmit
           notes that is where they filmed the dead children's bodies.
           Now before you go on with a theory about insurgents digging up
           children's bodies and splashing pig's blood on them or asking
           them to sacrifice their lives for Allah, please think before you
           write.  Children were very likely killed in the attack.  Kimmit's
           strongest argument, if it really was a high-level meeting of
           anti-coalition forces, is "Bad people have parties too" at which
           there were women and children.
           \_ How the hell do you know?  This is exactly how Jenin played
              out - remember that one?  The military does not willy nilly
              attack with Cobra gun ships and AC-130s in the middle of
              the night.  Sites are scoped for several days if not weeks
              and targetting has to be approved up the chain of command.
              An official has said as much about this incident as well.
              Why the 2 million dinar, sat com equipment, foreign
              passports and weapons caches at a wedding?
              \_ Note I never said it wasn't an insurgents' party.  All I am
                 claiming is that children very likely died in the attack.
                 Do you know how much "2 million dinar" is?  Do you know that
                 "sat com equipment" is one satellite cell phone?  Do you know
                 if Kimmit ever said weapons "cache"?
           \_ "were very likely" "were driven to Ramadi" is speculative
              noise, at best.  How do you explain the barracks for 300, the
              hundreds of pre-bundled Iraqi clothing piles so foreigners can
              blend in with local styles, and all the rest?  Hey, maybe there
              were dead children.  Maybe it really was a wedding.  It was
              still a terrorist site for moving in foreign terrorists and it
              was appropriate to blow it up and kill whoever was there.  If it
              was Osama's wedding and women and children got killed would you
              cry over that?  And frankly I don't understand the problem with
              killing women and children since we've seen plenty of both who
              are doing their best to kill just like the men.  When you pick
              up a gun, wear a bomb belt or fire from a holy site you, the
              place you're standing and everyone around you become legit
              targets.  This isn't a video game or a mother goose story.
              \_ Note I never said it wasn't an insurgents' party.  All I am
                 claiming is that children very likely died in the attack.
                 I urge you to think about where all the children's bodies
                 came from -- don't you think some Iraqi would have said
                 something by now if they were like fake children, old footage,
                 or something?  Many people, including reporters, saw the dead
                 bodies at Ramadi.  This is not "speculative noise".  My
                 "problem" is that Kimmit is being disingenuous when he says
                 dead children were never observed at the site.
                 \_ No I dont think some Iraqi would have said a thing and if
                    they did say anything that backed the Bush admin, you
                    wouldn't hear about it from CNN/Reuters/AP, etc.
                    \_ Anyway, the AP news article I posted should show
                       more concretely that this wasn't faked.  It's a three-
                       hour wedding video, for chrissakes.
                       \_ Which means nothing.  When was it taken and where?
                          There's nothing more than a wedding video which
                          proves what?  Iraqis get married.
        \_ He never lied.  Like I wrote a while ago on motd:
           "\_ Couldn't it have been anti-coalition forces holding a wedding
               party at a foreign fighters' safe house?"
           He did say that it could have been a party thrown by bad guys, and
           now the video's out, that's probably going to be his primary line
           now.
           \_ Video?  Damn you're so gullible it hurts.
              \_ troll or moron
                 \_ idiot.  the video proves nothing.  neither troll nor
                    moron.

5/22    This is related to the uneducated bus driver lawsuit post below.
        What you believe, what values you hold, what you think is
        right/wrong is really a reflection of how you were
        raised up as a kid. What most of you don't realize is that
        most people in this world never had a chance to have
        the kind of social/economic background, education, and moral
        values you grew up with that you take for granted. Should these
        poor/uneducated people be treated with less respect because they
        grew up in a hostile environment that fosters lying, cheating,
        threats, and other traits that you deem negative, but allows
        them to survive? Furthermore do you think it was their choice to
        grow up in such an environment? If you take all the wonderful
        things you've taken for granted, I bet you'd think and
        do the exact same thing as these people too. So *please*,
        have more empathy for those people who are less fortunate than
        you. And PS while I think the bus driver is a bad person, the
        self-righteous op is a total asshole and should just pay for
        the damages because he has a bad attitude.
              -guy who grew up poor, absolutely no sympathy for the op
                   \- just out of curiosity, does Affirmative Action
                      fill you with hate? How about legacy admissions?
                      Which do you hate more? --psb
                      \_ Whichever one takes up more spots from those who
                         earned a seat the hard way.  You can add sports
                         admits to the list while you're at it.
                         \- well let's ask it this way, between A, B and C
                            who are identical except A is AlumniFamily,
                            B is Black and C is a BasketBall Center, how
                            do you rate A,B,C in terms of admission order?--psb
                            \_ DCBA, D=SES (ie poorness). C because it's kinda
                                like maintaining a part time job, then B
                                because A is worthless.
                            \_ I assign zero extra points to all three.
                            \_ I'd assign a little to the Basketball player
                               because he has less free time for academics
                               but managed the same grades, and he'll help the
                               school raise money. -!op, doesn't like sports.
                               \_ Sports are a talent, like art or dance,
                                  and deserve to be recognized.
                                  \_ Agreed, but they should not be valued
                                     above academic achievement.
                                     \_ says who? they are all equally
                                        important. quit discrimintating!
                               \_ fuck no, you know there are other things that
                                  take time from academics. basketball doesn't
                                  make you a better person than a violinist or
                                  whatever. or a video game junkie ;)
        \_ I don't believe in the 'Tolkien Orc' theory of moral development.
           I believe people have an intuitive understanding of right and wrong,
           and growing up around immoral people does not, ultimately, excuse
           immoral behavior.  You are going to tell me I was better off in
           lovely USSR than people here in inner cities?  You don't know what
           bad is. -- ilyas
           \- while the circumstances of your upbringing do affect
              your deportment and values, first of all, there is more
              to it than "economic class". i suppose it is a bit of a
              cliche but you dont need to buy into any kind of model
              minority myth to appreciate many not-especually welloff
              asian/indian children do have more "respect for authority",
              whether that is school teachers or parents or elders in
              general than those from certain other minotiries. next,
              by the time you are in your 20s, especially if you left
              your parents sphere for a cosmopolitan place like
              berkeley, you have some additional factors to influence
              independent development. third, why cultural factors
              independent development. third, while cultural factors
              may explain certain behaviors, it doenst necessarily
              justify them ... relativism observed in sociology or
              anthopology dont ness lead to philosophical relativism.
              to use a "low" example, it may be the norm in chinese
              dimsum places to push your way to the front rather
              than take a number, but the macdonals practice of
              lining up [one line or n?] is more "civilized". --psb
              \_ So you're saying there's something wrong with black kids?
           \_ I am sure you were better off growing up in the USSR than
                 \- the ones who push in front of you while you are in
                    the middle of a transaction at mcdonalds? yes. --psb
           \_ I believe you were better off growing up in the USSR than
              really poor people in America are. I don't think you realize
              how violent and dangerous the Housing Projects really are.
              Something like 1 in 5 young men end up injured or dead and
              3 out of 4 in prison. -ausman
              3 out of 4 in prison. Having said that, there are -ausman
              3 out of 4 in prison. Having said that, there might be more
              options or at least the notion of more options for poor
              in the US. Poverty is almost as much a state of mind
              as a physical condition, at least after the basic needs
              are met. -ausman
        \_ This is such bullshit.  "Oh woe, I'm poor so it's ok that I
           totally work the system to totally fuck over some other guy I
           hit with my vehicle".  Survive?  What a bunch of total bullshit.
           This isn't some hard scrabble third world nation where one must
           kill to get food on the table that night.  Our poor live better
           than the middle-classes (when they exist) in other countries.
           The op certainly should *not* have to pay his own damages that
           were inflicted upon him by another party.  The op can be the
           biggest asshole in the universe but if he was wronged, in this
           country, he has the legal right to seek justice.  He has done
           so.  The bus driver made every effort to avoid justice and
           thankfully the op was persistent and finally nailed him.  Your
           whole line of reasoning is insulting and offensive and holier
           than thou.  Being poor does not in any way relieve one of the
           moral duties and obligations the rest of us have.  It's called
           "being responsible".  There was a time I was so poor I couldn't
           afford to eat. I owed more than I owned and was in desperate
           need of a paycheck but I didn't go out and ruin other people's
           lives over it.  And, as if mattered, how do you know the bus
           driver doesn't make more than the op?  If the op is a student,
           he's making nothing.  Boo hoo, let's all reduce the standards
           for poor people because they're subhuman and just can't hack it.
           Let's feel superior to them and look down on them and make
           exuses for them.  Pity the poor and feel better about yourself
           at the same time!  What a grand philosophy!
           \_ I agree with most of what you say  but I still think that
              calling someone pathetic for making $1600/month as a bus driver
              is just wrong. You can call him whatever you want for wrongdoing
              the OP but I don't see how making $1600/month through a hard
              work automatically makes someone pathetic.
           \_ It is obvious to me you have never really been poor and probably
              don't even know any genuinely poor people. The middle class
              in say, Mexico, have a much better life than poor people
              in the US, even if their standards of living are comparable.
              But I agree with you on the morality rant. I think that growing
              up poor saved me from the materialism that afflicts to many
              Americans.
        \_ I agree with OP.  I was kind of poor growing up and it had a
           detrimental effect on my morality.  Luckily some of my friends
           parents were really good people and their example taught me to
           try to be a good person.  Furthermore, I'm sure I was much
           better off than the 25% of children who lived under the poverty
           line in 1994 (source Herbert, B. : "One in Four,"
           The New York Times, 16 December 1996 cited from
           http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/ams3/rich1.html  This does not
           mean that we should excuse criminal or anti-social behavior from
           the poor.  Instead, we should realize that if we want to reduce
           crime and generally make society better for everyone we should
           focus on the crippling effect of poverty on children.  -!OP
           \_ Being poor did not have a detrimental effect on your morality.
              There are plenty of poor people with high moral standards.  If
              there weren't, the streets would be running in blood.  You had
              no morals because your parents didn't instill any in you.  If
              wealth == higher morals then why are so many rich people such
              complete scumbags?  There's no correlation between moral
              standards and wealth.  The effect of poverty on children is they
              don't get enough decent food and are surrounded by drug dealers
              who are often their own parents.  If you want to reduce crime,
              government handouts are not the answer.  Instilling moral values
              in people will increase moral standards, not government cheese
              and section 8 housing.
              \_ well, gov't cheese was a result of handouts for the rich.
                 Cheney got handouts for his pals at Haliburton. The rich have
                 been getting all kinds of handouts. I guess they earned it
                 by donating so much money for politicians like Bush, etc.
                 The moral of the story: milking the system happens at all
                 levels by every class and ethnicity.
              \_ In Japan, kids are required to take ethics class. They're
                 taught to respect the elderly, to treat others the way
                 they like to be treated, to observe then act, etc etc.
                 While I know that many Japanese people still grow up to be
                 dirty scumbags, I think it really has some effect. Every
                 JTown in every city I've been to seems a lot cleaner than
                 Chinatown.
                 \_ For whatever reasons, Japan is a much more comformist
                    culture than China.