Chris Losinger wrote: maybe there are exceptions for life-threatening situations ? Saving lifes has priority over Sabbath and many other obligations.

Gary Kirkham wrote: I understand that in some multi-floor buildings in Israel, if not all, there is a special elevator for Orthodox Jews that hits every floor automatically so that the passengers don't have to push a button and thus violate the no working on the Sabbath law. Now imagine staying on the 12th floor of a hotel during Saturday:doh:

jan larsen wrote: Hmmm..., I'm a programmer, I usually start a big project by splitting it up in smaller chunks, if that really was the case, then maybe that idea would have turned up sometime don't you think Not everything is splittable. Breaking 64bit keys is easy, 256 is hard and you cannot split the process to 4 times for 64bits. Some things simply don't scale.

jan larsen wrote: We got a near 60% tax here in denmark, but our unemployment rates a not much higher than the US rates. Also, when the tax were historically high in the early 90's, the unemployment rates hit an all-time low. Pray tell how you think this can be if those two issues are so intimately linked? They're linked, but not necessary inversly. You also need to consider GDP, debt, etc. Denmark has small population which allows certain mechanisms that fail to work on large scale. jan larsen wrote: I agree that there can be a long time issue when you combine tax rates and salaries to global competition. But if the US is about to compete on salaries with eg. India, then you're welcome, but I doubt that many other US american voters are interested in becoming lab rats in such a social experiment... I'm not an American voter. Everybody will compete on salaries with better education in India, China and better information sharing technologies.

K(arl) wrote: Because you get better service How can you affirm that? Have you any evidence to prove your statement? Because private institutions can afford better equipment and more skilled doctors. In public hospitals you can wait long periods for procedures due lack of resources. K(arl) wrote: How you define social effeciency? By global health data: life expectancy, infant mortality... You can't account social effeciency only through health care. You need to consider more factors. As for health data, read http://www.techcentralstation.com/032105B.html[^] Infant Mortality and Longevity, for some problems with it. K(arl) wrote: Each has to pay according to his/her financial mean. Unfortunatelly, from economic perspective it cannot last forever.

K(arl) wrote: Private health services are more expensive, less socially efficient Because you get better service. From algorithmic perspective, centralized management is better than distributed only if it has massive computation advantage (rough, but mostly valid generalization). The government has no such advantage because it cannot afford it unless the taxes sky-rocket. How you define social effeciency? Due you consider the effect of high taxes on unemployment? K(arl) wrote: Why would they need to restructurate, being driven by the profit, private companies have no interest in being for all. Smart regulation, dynamic taxation, etc. Government can influence bussiness behaviour. K(arl) wrote: So you are advocating to have health care related to the money you can spend on it? Health for the wealthy ones only? It exactly what will happen. How long can a system live in deficit without lowering quality of service? When it does, the rich will turn to private medicine feeling stupid for paying high taxes and getting lousy service. Good doctors will leave the public system. Life is unfair, but being rich helps a lot.

Government run health care cannot be sustained for long while providing high level of services. People live longer than before, and those extra years require more health care. You got more drugs, new procedures, more demanding patients and shrinking young tax-paying population - the money will run out, see http://www.techcentralstation.com/031405A.html[^] for some deficit figures. No money leads to bad services (http://www.techcentralstation.com/030405F.html[^]), which leads to private medicine for the rich and other complaining about poor public services. Private health services suffers from over-complexity (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040705B.html[^]), but you can restructure bussineses. You cannot find money from nowhere to finance public systems.

K(arl) wrote: Converting to Judaism is a really long process However I could convert, right? Yes, absolutelly. K(arl) wrote: Not many of them. But as you mention it, the problem is less about religion than about poverty. I thought so, but not any more. Islam is radicalizing out of control, there is no solid Muslim moderate philosophy. Poverty is only partial factor. The Al-Qaeda leadership, the Wahabbist are not poor. K(arl) wrote: When a democracy is persecuting a part of its citizen, is it a democracy anymore? There is no planned policy of persecution. There are non-Jews in all fields. You cannot expect full integration between foreign people during war. Democracy is hard to maintain with so heterogenic society, there will be mistakes.

K(arl) wrote: The first question I would have is, "what is a jew"? For me, it isn't related to any ethnic consideration but to the religion, a jew is somebody believing in the judaic faith. Cant't I become a jew tomorrow if I adhere to this religion? Tomorrow? No. Converting to Judaism is a really long process. Israel officialy recognizes Orthodox conversion only, which is really unfortunate. It causes deep rift with American Jews that have large Reformistic communities. "Who is a jew?" is a huge controversy. K(arl) wrote: Next, is Israel a theocracy or a democracy? Is Religion the base of the state? Israel is a Jewish and Democratic state. You can marry only through religious institution, Saturday is the official off day (not many work Fridays). It's not theocracy, but you wont miss Jewish markings either. Being democracy in this neighborhoud is tricky. K(arl) wrote: IMO, being French is being born French or accepting the values of the French Republic. No "blood rights" (jus sanguinis) there, there's no "French ethnic group", "we" are a mix of population for centuries: celts, romans, germanic tribes, vikings, arabs, italians, spanish, polish, black africans, flemish...the list is long. And how long it took? Centuries. Israel has mixed Jewish population that were separated for at least 2000 years. And Arab population that don't exactly share common values or goals. Israel is two wildly different nations sharing one land. K(arl) wrote: For me a French jew is first a french citizen, as is a french muslim, a french christian or a french atheist. It's also what the Republic is for, to separate Secular from Religious. Do the Muslims in the poor neighborhoods think so too? Do they really embrace French values? I'm afraid Europeans are in illusion regarding their growing Muslim populations, and soon it'll blow up. Being a part of the Israeli left I can tell you that when you discover your views were an illusion, it's not a warm fuzy feeling. K(arl) wrote: Also, if there's an ethnical consideration for being an Israeli, isn't then Israel similar to apartheid-era South Africa? No ethnical differentiation by purpose. There are Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Druze and others that have Israeli citizenship. But Israel for Jews it's more than a country where you live. Again, being perfect democracy in this neighborhoud is tricky. Democracy must not allow

K(arl) wrote: Could you please specify which ones? Is there any map of Israel's territorial claims? As I understand it (there is no official map because of politics), Israel will claim the major settlements areas like Ariel. K(arl) wrote: Are you some kind of lawyer? No, just part-time hobby. K(arl) wrote: Some could argue collateral damages are a-priori tolerated homicides, and not manslaughters. In the end it is a lose-lose situation - dead Israeli or dead Palestinians. First priority for a goverment is to protect its citizens. K(arl) wrote: There's already a "quiet deportation" of East Jerusalem Palestinians [^], not that far from ethnic cleansing. The issue is reunions. One marries someone from territories and brings them to Israel. This is done systematically to facilitate the "right" of return. Given the fragile Jewish-Arab balance,any movement that unnaturally tips it will provoke resistance. Not pretty, maybe unfair, but Israel without Jewish majority is like France without the French. K(arl) wrote: Some extremists are also calling to "kill ‘em all right now"[^]. There are always such people, luckily most of the time they just talk. K(arl) wrote: Peace through conpromise is the only way out the circle of violence. I don't see Palestinians come even close to acceptable terms. The population needs de-extremenation period after Arafat. K(arl) wrote: Tue, but they are accepted de facto. By who? Both sides dispute them. K(arl) wrote: Doing otherwise is an imperialistic technique of taking an advance ("prendre des gages", I don't know how to translate this expression). The fence path is temporary, and its creation is a result of Palestinian attacks. Unfortunatelly full justice during war is a rare creature. K(arl) wrote: Slightly OT, what do you think about this current controversy[^] between our countries? Weapon industries export is economically important. And usually it's not misstreated, this incident was obviously not such case. Arms dealing is a dirty business.

K(arl) wrote: It's theoretic colonial ideas As are settlers claims. Not really, the territory was British, the way it was partitioned is disputed. K(arl) wrote: Are now claims on West Bank and Gaza an official policy from the State of Israel? On parts of West Bank, absolutelly. K(arl) wrote: it's not like Mofaz sits now and plans to bomb Gaza sea-food restaurant. Oh, it would be some kind of collateral damage, I presume. Collateral damage is not direct intention. That's why there are different levels of death cause charges in court. K(arl) wrote: Felix Gartsman wrote: Anyhow, Palestinian ideas of a compromise is a non-starter for any future Israeli government. Then the only solution Israel has is now to genocide the palestinian people. Isn't that great? Genocide? Are you serious? K(arl) wrote: Unfortunatelly green line is military undefendable in many areas, as usually happens with arbitrary borders. Then build the fence inside the internationally recognized borders of Israel. There are no such borders. Palestine is not a country (yet). Behaving as the green line is a border is accepting Palestinian claims without agreement, that would be stupid negotiating technique.

K(arl) wrote: Because Israel has claims to the territory, but Syria doesn't? AFAIK, Syria does. Seen from Damascus, isn't Lebanon part of the "Greater Syria"? It's theoretic colonial ideas, not concrete claims and were never official. K(arl) wrote: Because Lebanon doesn't exercise terror against Syrian civilians? Would be interesting to know what Palestinians think about Israeli policy towards them, and if they consider is as a terror policy. It's not like Mofaz sits now and plans to bomb Gaza sea-food restaurant. K(arl) wrote: Because (some? most?) Lebanese want Syria out of Lebanon, not out of existance Some (most?) of the Palestinian want a country and are ready to compromise with Israel (or Abbas wouldn't have been elected with such a huge margin, right?) Palestinian presedential elections were nice show, with no real competition. When Hamas participated it won 80% to 20%. Anyhow, Palestinian ideas of a compromise is a non-starter for any future Israeli government. K(arl) wrote: Don't expect withdrawals or fence removal any time soon I've got no problem with the fence as long as it follows the Green Line and isn't used as an expansionist tool to seize foreign land. Unfortunatelly green line is military undefendable in many areas, as usually happens with arbitrary borders.

K(arl) wrote: International community is pushing Syria to withdraw from Lebanon[^], and it sounds fair and good. But will the international community push Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories Israel is seizing[^]? Because Israel has claims to the territory, but Syria doesn't? Because Lebanon doesn't exercise terror against Syrian civilians? Because (some? most?) Lebanese want Syria out of Lebanon, not out of existance? Don't expect withdrawals or fence removal any time soon. Until Israelis feel safe, Palestinians will suffer. Any passing day without Israeli death is one day closer to improvement in Palestinian lives.

But instead of using this as a starting point to think about other, more effective, long-term stable, less costly ways to fight terrorism, we get the age-old "if we stop to nuke the russian bear will eat your children" posters. But the question is: is it because we are geeks, and trained in binary logic? (it seems not so, since the left wingers, though bound to "down this road is doom", seem to have a intrinsic assumption of a multitude of ways, but only very fuzzily so) People are thinkers or doers, but rarely both. By doers I don't mean acting blindly, but more interested in the end result than in the process. Thinkers will discuss/debate/reevaluate and wont give clear decision. Fighting terror is not math, there is not always a correct vs wrong solution. So there is a lot to debate, but there is no infinite time. Debate must be along action which may fail, but talking about doing is surely to fail. The EU/UN are thinkers, UN is 100% process 0% action. Bush administration are doers, hence the clash.

Don't you see the other side of their "fantasy land"? That it is us, the realists living in the real world who have it all wrong? That while they can co-operate, we cannot. That our belief in our cynicism keeps the cycle going. It is probably because real-life is harder than scientific one...

Jim A. Johnson wrote: That statement is the mark of a true ignoramus; one who glorifies ignorance over knowledge. Knowledge of what? Knowing DNA of a camel or solving DEs is irrelevant to "world knowledge" I meant. Scientists lack interaction with diverse people, this limits their perspective. Jim A. Johnson wrote: Cooperation is a bad thing? Having enemies is something we should strive for? No and no. But when you live closed lives you fail to picture other possibilities. Jim A. Johnson wrote: Educated people tend to question things more, especially authority; they (hell, we :') tend to see issues with a broader perspective, etc. To a certain point, afterwards you blend into the PC crowd. Liberals need a dosage of FOX to stay sharp:)

You should also mention the total lack of contact with outside world, and the hardship of having the "wrong" opinion in the academia. Scientists have idealized view of the world because they don't know it well. Scientific world is mostly cooperative, liberal fantasy land where the only enemy is the funding commitey. Developing conservative views in such environment is rare, like liberals in the army.

And what, exactly, are those "vested interests"? Funds and prestige. I don't know your familiarity with scientists, but being part of the mainstream and being media favorite is very helpfull with your status.

Giles wrote: I hope the global warming bunch are wrong. But what if they are not? Then we'll fix it. Changing our way of life because there is a theory that maybe we change something we shouldn't that has doubtfull evidence is unwise. Pollution is a disaster because of health risks, not because a tornado may or may not be the result of chemical waste.

John Carson wrote: You probably mean extrapolate. Right, sorry. John Carson wrote: But that is what science does, albeit more successfully in some cases than others. Sure, but here they simply abuse it. 500? years of data out of billions, without proper understanding of past behaviour is too much... John Carson wrote: One "controls" for other variables by explicitly modelling their effect. Model how? They can't without understanding them. At some point oversimplification (assume x,y,z) leads to errors. John Carson wrote: Claims that scientists are a bunch of dopes who are blind to the insights available to those less qualified strike me as rather obvious nonsense. Not dopes, but pursuing specific agenda while ignoring valid concerns. First link shows that media ignores opposite views. Second is a good reminder of single mindness scientific views. http://www.freemarketproject.org/specialreports/2004/globalwarming_study/sr20041108.asp[^] http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/[^]