Callie

The Old Testament is pretty clear that the Israelites had been in bondage in Egypt for many generation, so they wouldn't of had much interaction with the Canaanites beforehand (and remember the Exodus supposedly lasted over forty years).

It's not that I don't like liberal arts classes. I thought my Ancient and Medieval Culture class last semester was fun. The problem is that I study these kinds of things in my own time, so the classes end up being redundant. As I already mentioned, English should be a bare minimum requirement. Originally Posted By: Dintiradan But I must know: how exactly is capitalism the highest form of altruism? Who has done more for society? Mother Teresa or Bill Gates? I would say Bill Gates. Capitalists innovate and make improvements out of motivation for money. That's kind of the principle for that idea, but it's really a whole lot more complicated at heart.

I get more of a feeling that the Canaanites were really the ones being persecuted. They were living there, and then suddenly, "Hey, this is our promised land! We're going to kill you for it!"

I think people's societal views might be more inherent than we believe. I would say capitalism is the highest form of altruism, and I wouldn't be surprised if you strongly disagreed with that. That article brings to light those inherent differences.

i would argue that if there's one class that could teach you how to think it's economics i mean a lot of my liberal arts classes consisted of me discreetly applying economics when i think about philosophy i ultimately end up thinking about economics but even that's silly i think everything is meaningless

Originally Posted By: Goldenking I am a believer in the liberal arts tradition... That's the thing: I'm not a big fan of tradition. Like Dantius says, Shakespeare is irrelevant to chemical engineering (my major in fact). I need lots of math, physics, and of course chemistry (and maybe biology). I would agree that English should be required at the very least, as communications are vital, but we're required to take a class in Engineering Communications anyway. The semesters I've spent taking fine arts and humanities class could have been spent on something far more relevant like Statics. Originally Posted By: Master1 My dad says that a liberal arts college teaches you how to think, and allows to to succeed in almost any field, whether or not you focused on that field in college. I can't know how to think unless I take liberal arts courses?

Quote: You are astute as ever, and you are correct in that Christianity was not the crux of the comparison, so to speak. Also I was not making reference to the persecution of the Jews either. And the conflict predates Jesus by several centuries. Basically there has been fighting between the nation of Israel and Arab ancestors of the Palestinians ever since the day of Joshua. I hope we don't have to wait that long. Are you confusing Philistines with Palestinians? And even then...

I would have had more science classes in high school, but due it's small size, the school didn't offer a huge variety. Plus, it was sometimes difficult to fit it into your schedule. If you're going into a science field it never hurts to have a broad knowledge-base. Also, what does PAD stand for?

Originally Posted By: Earth Empires Originally Posted By: Excalibur Your guys' parties sound like evolutionary nightmares. Just sayin' even infernals and drakes/dtagons parties? Let's just say they're silicon based organisms from another plane. The only problem is that a single Si-Si bond has a bond energy of 52 kcal/mol whereas a single C-C bond has a bond energy of 83 kcal/mol. So you'd think all of that heat would wreak havoc internally, but evolution goes way out of whack when supernatural forces are involved. They're self-conscious of their highly unlikely carbon-lacking chemistry, too. Just mention it snidely in a conversation. Few people know it, but demons and dragonkin will respond very strongly to this kind of taunting.

(1, ∞) Maybe he's really talking about time, because the present now will later be past. Edit: I guess my infinity symbol doesn't want to display. I must have screwed up some setting somewhere.

I didn't have much luck with the search feature, so I don't know if anyone pointed this out already. The forum description only mentions A4 and A5. I say this because I was absent-mindedly looking for the A6 strategy guide and couldn't find A6 mentioned anywhere on the forum list.

Glancing through that manual gives me the impression that your workstations will explode at any given moment. If they do I'm terribly sorry.

As far as X3 goes, Valorim is far to expansive to block off effectively, so making the game linear would require too many changes.

Your guys' parties sound like evolutionary nightmares. Just sayin'

Originally Posted By: AethirWeb I hope 3D Vahantai look good, cause Jeff to me might have a problem designing them. Well, there were "3D" vahnatai in the second Avernum trilogy and they looked terrible.

If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that post was completely random. Almost amusing in a way, really.

*bump again* (School doesn't start until tomorrow, though) CH 202 - Modern World CHE 232 - Principles of Chemical Engineering CHEM 341 - Organic Chemistry for Scientists and Professionals I MATH 285 - Differential Equations PHYS 181 - Physics for Scientists and Engineers II PHYS 181L - Physics Lab I lucked out: I don't have any classes that start before 11:00 AM. Last semester I had a math class at 8:00 AM--I am not a morning person.

I see that Dantius is much quicker than I am, but I will leave this unedited, despite some redundancy. --- Of course, you could probably write entire books about the subject, and I probably should have been a bit broader in my statement and referred to government policy in general. But, for the point of discussion, I will attempt to summarize my views, and keep in mind that I am speaking almost purely in the perspective of the United States. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about the status of minority races in other countries so I will not touch upon that. Additionally, I would like to say I am aware that most people on these boards are going to be at odds with my views, so I might try to avoid long debates. Anyway... Like alcohol prohibition in the twenties, modern-day prohibition of recreational drugs has created an immense amount of organized crime. In particular, since Nixon declared a "War on Drugs" the incarceration rate in the United States has increased significantly, to the point where the country now houses roughly 20% of the world's prison population. Our prisons are terrible: rape and other kinds of violence are rampant among inmates. Individuals charged solely with possession of illegal narcotics are imprisoned with murderers and sex offenders. In other words, non-violent people are forced to intermingle with violent people. Of course, that's not a completely fair assessment, as some drug users are violent, but I would argue that the overwhelming majority of people arrested solely on drug charges are generally peaceful people. Exposing these people to a culture of violence usually doesn't make them a better person. Obviously, these drugs have to come from somewhere. Because most recreational drugs are illegal, there is a high risk associated with transportation of drugs, and this is where organized crime comes in. Organized crime often exists to transport illegal goods, and drugs are no exception. In the US, gangs are a common form of organized crime. They have to compete with other gangs to deliver their product to the market, and due the illegal nature of the trade, gangs resort to violence to defend their business. This is one of the huge problems with drug prohibition: it makes the drugs more dangerous. Why smuggle a bag of marijuana when you can smuggle a bag of cocaine? Marijuana is still the most common of the illegal recreational drugs, but the higher value of cocaine and heroin means that smugglers are more inclined to transport those drugs. Likewise, during alcohol prohibition, bootleggers were more inclined to smuggle beverages with a higher alcohol content because of its higher value (hence moonshine). After alcohol prohibition ended the demand for more potent alcohol decreased. Similarly in places like Amsterdam where even just marijuana is legal, the demand for cocaine and heroin decreased accordingly. So here's where black poverty comes in. Drugs (legal and illegal) appeal to poor people because they believe it helps to reduce stress and forget about their problems. One of the more dangerous drugs that I would argue has increased use due to prohibition is crack cocaine. It's relatively cheap and very potent. So what happens is gangs are selling drugs to poor people, so that's where they fight over turf. There's also an appeal to join gangs, because you can potentially make it big selling drugs, whereas an education takes time and money. Because past racism already made blacks poor, this is where a lot of drug violence happens. It's fairly common in black ghettos for a child to have at least one parent in jail, and it doesn't help that the justice system generally gives longer sentences to people of minority races. The gang violence that occurs in those neighborhoods isn't helpful either, so the environment the child is exposed to isn't going to have much in the way of encouragement. Plus, poor areas=poor schools. Children in black slums are almost doomed from the start, and the gang culture sometimes results in children growing up to be gangsters themselves. It's a very sad situation, and even young people who try to break free from their poverty are facing an uphill battle. Additionally, young people are going to experiment, and this might involve drugs. Even a good kid who gets caught smoking marijuana could potentially become violent after being exposed to the prison system (Once again, minority races generally get longer sentences for the same crime). Finally, one problem that applies to prohibition in general is that drug addictions are treated as criminal acts instead of conditions that can be effectively treated. As previously mentioned, exposing a first time drug offender to the prison system can have terrible results. ------- Another huge factor, in my opinion, is the welfare state. I know most people disagree with me on this, so I'll just link to , as Walter Williams is far more educated than I am and can explain the situation much more elegantly.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned drug policy, because in my opinion, that is the single biggest issue affecting income among blacks. (I'm not just talking about sentencing disparities, either)

For one thing, you can't just drink water straight from the ocean: you have to desalinate it, which is a fairly expensive process. Plus, piping water from the ocean to places like Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico would also be very expensive because of the distances involved, and the aforementioned mountains. And yes, the Sierra Nevada range does not extend all the way down south, but there are still plenty of mountains in southern California, for example (just not as tall). Edit: majorly sniped Edit 2: @ Nikki - the Rocky Mountains extend to places such as New Mexico, but not other southwest states such as Arizona.

Well, for one thing, there's a lack of water. If trade was cut off, there would be no way the people in the southwestern United States would be able to grow the food they need to survive. Even now, the Colorado river is just a trickle when it finally reaches the ocean.

I'm not even sure how GIMP works, and it seems that I have to run it in Terminal now (because I'm running Lion).

That's not even close to the correct spelling of legitimate. Silly eschatological arguments.

On a Mac you can open the picture in Preview, go to tools menu, and click adjust colors. Move the black slider on the left all the way over to the right, and the white all the way over to the left. You can fiddle with the other sliders to get a desired effect. Note: you can do this in iPhoto too, and I'm going to assume you can with other apps as well.

I think it might just be newer operating systems, ie. Windows 7.