Seemingly trivial game that a self-described "gamer" would not even deign to take a second look at, and it is played by more people than the population of China!
The 50 million individuals who have downloaded 'Angry Birds'...
Population of China is about 1.3 billion. That's some serious software piracy...
If a waking lifetime is around 450,000 hours then at 1,200,000,000 hours Angry Birds consumes nearly 2,700 lifetimes per year.
That brings up an important question: is it better to be dead or to live out a normal lifespan doing nothing but playing Angry Birds? I'm leaning toward the former.
The birds are packed with clever behaviors that expand the user's mental model at just the point when game-level complexity is increased
Translation: The game gets harder as you go along.
I think a better translation is: The game offers you more tools for solving problems as it gets harder. Still not earth-shattering, since many games do this, but you oversimplified.
And as long as it's not all they do, I think it's very important to their development.
You've shared a nice anecdote, but I have one too. My 2 year old daughter watches zero TV and is doing pretty well. She speaks in full sentences ("daddy, come join us for breakfast"), counts to 13, knows her ABCs, can identify almost every animal at the zoo... whenever we're out in public people comment on how articulate she is.
I'm not claiming she's exceptional or that her progress has anything to do with our avoidance of television. I think it's probably more about personal attention from her parents and caregivers, lots of time reading with her parents, and her own particular path of development. She's not missing out by avoiding kids' programming, and she is definitely being exposed to less advertising.
The whole point of the recommendations is that an hour of quality time with an adult is vastly superior to an hour of television in terms of learning and cognitive development. That's the conclusion most researchers have come to over the years. Sure, limited time watching TV probably doesn't hurt. Research has show that it doesn't benefit most children, and that large amounts of television watching are probably harmful.
The Bush tax cuts were to stimulate the economy after 9/11 (they failed to do so)
And yet, Federal tax revenues increased by 30% from 2000 to 2007 (and then began dropping in 2008 as the Housing Bubble burst).
And this in spite of the recession immediately post-9/11, which saw tax revenues drop 10% over a two year period.
Sorry, the Bush tax cuts are not a good example of the idea that tax cuts supposedly lead to greater revenues.
First, adjusted for inflation (2005 dollars), revenues were about $2.3 trillion in 2000 and $2.4 trillion in 2007. That's only 5% growth, less than 1% annually. If we hadn't cut taxes, revenues would have grown much more.
Second, most economists don't credit the Bush tax cuts with more than a small part of the growth in GDP. There's a lot more going on in the economy than tax rates. The total revenues collected over that time period would have been much greater without the tax cuts. And our national debt would be trillions of dollars less.
Finally, why stop in 2007? That's an arbitrary number that you picked because it fit your argument best. Inflation-adjusted tax revenues in 2009 were BELOW levels in every year since 1997. 2010 was only slightly better.
I'm all for reducing budget deficits, and for tax policy reform. Almost everyone should be paying higher taxes right now.
Source: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200
In other words, your post ignores not only cause and effect, but correlation as well. Total ignorance of reality. The fact is that the more regulations imposed by the government, the rich CEOs get, because the corporations own the government, and use those regulations to squelch competition. This drives new industry abroad.
The one ignorant of reality seems to be you.
Polluters, in general, are NOT the ones encouraging most environmental regulations. Look at Koch Industries, or other companies that are major direct polluters - they're waging an all-out campaign against regulation of CO2 and other pollutants. Look at campaign contributions. The people getting the most money from major polluters are not the ones proposing new, strict environmental regulation. Look at the way oil companies are eagerly seizing on oil prices as a reason to get Obama to relax restrictions on drilling.
As most people who actually study these things know, the vast increase in income disparity is probably due to number of trends:
- economic globalization, which drives down wages for workers
- the impotence of labor unions
- improved technology regarding supply chains, IT, etc. that enabled large companies to operate more efficiently than before
- huge income tax cuts for the rich, from 70%+ decades prior to Reagan to about half that today, which makes large salaries more effective than they were in the past
- changing corporate culture
- yes, corporate influence on government probably has an impact, but it's hardly the most significant factor
Not all of those fit with your libertarian ideology, though.
Thus it kind of is a real necessity for us to come up with a good, generally-acceptable alternative fuel-source that can fulfill all the different kinds of purposes for which we use crude oil-fuels.
The obvious choice is electricity, preferably powered by renewable resources (wind, solar, waves). My hope is that either fuel cell or battery technology will be up to the challenge.
Sometimes you cannot avoid fighting the symptoms first or else you'll run out of time.
Absolutely - this needs to be an issue in the 2012 elections so that the United States finally starts to shift course before it is too late.
A shortage of the one technology that is most economical now will not cause societal collapse. Shortages drive up prices (see 1973 oil crisis). Higher prices on oil means that other technologies will become more economical. We actually are seeing this now with LP vs. natural gas.
We already have a dozen alternative fuel sources in the public domain. Take wood for instance. Its humanity's oldest renewable resource, and I haven't heard of any recent attempts to patent it. Or ethanol: another positively ancient drug^h^h^h^h renewable energy source.
If we run out of oil before something else gets cheaper, then energy will get more expensive. Big deal. Some current uses of energy might become less affordable. However, gas taxes are actually designed to make this happen. We know that society doesn't collapse when gas becomes less affordable; people drive less.
Furthermore, electric prices are not strongly dependent on oil; coal is the big energy source there. Society, far from being dependent on oil, will survive and thrive even if oil is eliminated. And we don't even need new techs to do it.
First, ethanol will never work as a substitute for oil. There isn't enough land area to grow enough biofuels to replace oil.
Second, saying "people will drive less" totally neglects the fact that almost all our goods and services depend on oil to get them to their final destination. The transition to a new form of energy will only get harder as oil prices escalate.
There's no easy replacement for oil on the horizon - only very expensive, time consuming replacements. The big question is, what will society look like during the transition? High oil prices are almost guaranteed to send the United States into a recession. Who is going to pay for the transition to a new form of energy? What sort of conflict will occur as a result of competition for the resources needed to make the transition? It's not nearly as simple as you believe.
Clever, but I disagree about the applicability of your metaphor. Yes, he had a bunch of stuff about about state secrets and then dismissed two important points:
1) what do we do about all the people at "Gitmo" if we shut it down? What proof do you have that waterboarding and other questionable activities are being continued there?
2) aren't we winding down combat operations in Iraq? Do you read the news? Also, starting a war is a lot different than continuing one. What do you suggest we do in Afghanistan if not try to prevent the Taliban from taking over again?
Starting a fraudulent war isn't the same as continuing a reasonable one. If you forgot, it was Osama Bin Laden that attacked the US, and his allies are the ones we're fighting in Afghanistan.
Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"
