Should that same argument not then be applied equally to all makers of software? The issue is the same: effort is put into something novel which is nonetheless easily reproduced after the original idea is implemented. When put that way, the same argument should abolish all patents as well--after all, the idea once created is easily transmitted, so anyone who wants to make the effort to reproduce whatever invention the idea was for should be able to do so.

That doesn't make sense. If it did, mental hospitals would be our greatest source of art and science.

I agree with some of this. To illustrate the point in the realm of art, creativity is not painting an image of a dog with a human's head, even if that were never done before. It is, however, being the first to use light and shadow instead of painting a flat fresco.

Is that metric really valuable? It's hard to teach a squirrel to jump through a hoop on command; does that mean it's hard for a human to do the same?

I disagree. Genius lies not in discovering things that others cannot necessarily understand, it is more a matter of discovering things that others have not understood. Take Einstein's relativity, for instance--the ideas presented by it have entered the popular culture to a degree that is rather surprising. No, not every lay person has an intimate grasp of the details, but certainly every curious person, and increasingly everyone who watches Hollywood movies, knows about time dilation, the fixed speed of light, etc. The concepts themselves, at least a lot of them, are not intuitive but neither are they incomprehensible. To discover them however took a monumental work of intellect, effort, true creativity and curiosity--therein lies the genius.

I would describe it as pleasant. I've had it four or five times, and for me, if there are friends present, it results in a going-away feeling accompanied by uncontrollable laughter. The one time I did it by myself, the going-away feeling was there, and instead of hilarity I felt very still and tranquil. There are a lot of people who don't like the drug, and it is a psychedelic so set and setting play an important role. It's also not a party drug, not something to do to "have a good time."

Also, salvia has been prohibited by several US states, with legislation moving through a number of others to do the same.

...prozac, ambien, adderall, ritalin, aspirin, tylenol, zyperxa, effexor, xanax, vicodin...

Don't fall prey to the fallacy of the single cause. There was also Dupont, who wanted nylon to replace hemp. There were also racist motivations: making marihuana illegal was a good way to deport the Mexican laborers who were "stealing our jobs" and the Negro musicians who were "corrupting our youth." I'm sure there are a number of other fringe reasons for making it illegal.

Also, it actually started with the Marihuana Tax Act, in which farmers could only grow hemp if they bought stamps to do so from the government. The government didn't sell any stamps. The scheduling came later.

A lot of the change you are experiencing may be due to selection for THC over other cannabinoids in a lot of breeds. It's not necessarily that it's more potent, it's that the ratio of THC tends to be higher because THC is erroneously thought of as "the active ingredient." There are a lot more incidences of paranoia in people who take THC pills for pain relief than there are for medical marijuana users who smoke or ingest the plant. The "mellow luvving feeling" is a result of a more balanced bouquet.

Ass, Ass. There, I got the other two you missed.

Health effects are not a red herring at all. There have been cases of GMO food causing allergy problems. For instance, here is an article from the New England Journal of Medicine showing the effects of transgenic soybeans created by Pioneer Hi-Bred which contain a gene from the brazil nut. You don't even need to read the article; just look at the image of the allergic reaction caused by skin-prick testing of extracts from the GMO bean on a person who is allergic to brazil nuts.

And hell, some of Monsanto's corn is registered and patented as a pesticide! There was a recent article here which puts the blame for colony collapse disorder squarely on the use of HFCS from Monsanto corn to feed bees--the trace amounts of pesticide in the corn syrup are enough to make the bees get lost while foraging. This particular pesticide appears harmless to humans; it's been used since the '30s, but it is an illustration of how unintended consequences come into play.

What GMO essentially means is that you have no idea what kinds of genes are in your food, and you will continue to have no idea unless you have an allergic reaction. That's not great, but there could also be long-term effects that will remain unknown for years or decades--a little bit like the radiation craze before we realized it promotes cancer. And there could also be secondary effects: round-up ready crops are meant to be sprayed, and they're going to get hit with a lot more herbicides than non-GMO crops. The use of these crops has been widespread for under a decade. I think it makes sense to remain cautious on the health front as well.

The monoculture is almost certainly the larger issue, and my intention is not to detract from it. I have heard that something like 97% of the varieties of food we grew in the 19th century are now extinct. There are less than 10 kinds of potatoes widely grown, down from 500, and these kinds of numbers are seen across the board. That's not a good idea.

You're probably right about There Will Be Blood. The interesting thing is that the lines from the movie were based on reality:

I wondered a bit about that myself, but my intent was only to report what was missing from the summary. Is quartz used as a generator? I know it's often used as a timing oscillator, but if my understanding is correct it requires a bit of power to do so.

That question sadly went unanswered in the summary, but is discussed in the article. The viruses are preferable because making existing piezoelectrics is apparently difficult and requires toxic chemicals, while these viruses are self-replicating bacteriophages. They are also under the right conditions self-organizing, making the creation of piezo film easy by comparison. Looks like there's a long way to go to get a decent amount of electricity out of them, though.

In this case it wouldn't be hard, as the plant in question makes XBoxes . But then they couldn't have claimed the news was "sure to ruffle the feathers of Apple fans." Because...I guess...Apple fans are defending Foxcomm's mistreatment of its employees, or something.

I don't think it was a straw man at all. I have seen people take exactly the stance that I attributed to you as an overreaction to other people saying that spanking is not abuse. There was no intentional misrepresentation--GP said "Spanking is child abuse?" and you replied "Inflicting physical pain is child abuse." That rationally includes all physical pain regardless of intent. It turns out that what you meant is rather different than what you wrote, so thank you for clarifying.

I don't believe backtalk is in line with medical treatment, though I failed to make that explicit. There was another poster who mentioned that he spanked his son only twice, and one or both of those times was when he found his son doing something incredibly dangerous. The example that's stuck in my head is finding a child playing with a gun--and I recognize it's a poor one because responsible parents keep them where kids can't get to them. But in an instance like that, where the child cannot be expected to understand why he can't do this particular thing, it may take more than stern words to stop him from repeating it. And that's probably the approach I would take--first, get the child out of harm's way; second, tell him sternly never to do that again, and why it is dangerous in case he can comprehend it; and third, remain on the lookout and if he's heading towards the danger again, then maybe it's time for a spanking. I believe that for it to be effective it must be used sparingly, and for it to be punishment instead of violence it must not be done in anger.

I do not have children, so this is all hypothetical. I agree that there are problems in reasoning, implementation and severity. That says to me not that the entire practice is barbaric, but that people can misuse and abuse it. The same can be done with many (any?) form of discipline. Do you see a difference between inflicting physical pain versus emotional or psychological pain as punishment? Doesn't most punishment involve some kind of pain, even if it is the pain of having to sit on the couch while your siblings continue to play? That sounds trivial to an adult, but it is far from it for a child.

I had a good conversation with someone here a year or so ago where we discussed this pretty thoroughly, and I came away with more respect for his point of view than I had before. My own reaction against those who choose to never spank their kids is that that often means they do not discipline their kids at all--you can see examples of this all over in public: kids being given whatever they want in order to keep them from causing a scene--t's like the kids hold all the power and the parents none. So my perspective was almost the complete opposite of his and I suspect yours. Discussing the subject in-depth helped me to see more ways in which alternatives to corporal punishment can be applied, and I think my conversational partner left feeling like maybe it isn't the great evil he thought it was coming in. I probably would have responded to your post even with the "as punishment" qualification, because I think that's still overly broad and I am genuinely curious about the aspect of emotional and psychological pain. The tone of my response would have been more like this post than my previous one, though.