Having read through about 300 comments so far, all I can say is that the scientific understanding of the journalists who wrote this is appallingly bad, but it is completely outclassed by the sheer ignorance of 90% of the posters.

The real story is that a so called technological civilisation has failed to educate even those who should know better to barely caveman standards of literacy, numeracy and physics.

And that is the greatest threat to civilisation of all.

It’s not that the idea expressed by the poster is new, on the contrary I have heard it often expressed.  The truly sad part of this is how fundamentally true it is.  Our failure to educate new generations adequately, especially in an age of mass communication and technology as we are in, is profoundly disturbing and puts us all at great risk for repeating some of the darkest of past human experiences.

Allow me to invoke this thought: there are no dolphins (by which I mean the typical bottlenose dolphin — Flipper) in prison.  Dolphins are thought by many people to be sentient beings.  Self-aware social animals.  There are also people who believe dolphins posses intelligence that surpasses human intellect.  There is no doubt that dolphins communicate in complex ways with sound, behavior, and perhaps visual cues.  What we know of dolphin society is probably sketchy, at best, but has shown many advanced concepts.  Individual dolphins have unique personalities: some are more friendly than others, some more shy, passive, aggressive, etc.  Similar personality traits to humans.  And, like humans, they must surely have individuals all across the spectrum … including those with anti-social tendencies and even what we would call criminals.  Yes, I just made the claim that there are bad dolphins (there is no doubt that right now, some of my Miami readers who are football fans, are acutely aware they are at the epicenter for some cosmic force — perhaps similar to the forces at work in the so-called Bermuda Triangle — that acts as a magnet for these sub-par mammals).  It is simple logic that draws us to this unavoidable conclusion: if all dolphins are not identical, then a spectrum of variation must exist spanning from good to bad.  Good dolphins.  Bad dolphins.  Criminal dolphins.  Dolphins that steal tuna.  Dolphins that hunt and kill for sport.  Dolphins that kill other dolphins.  Dolphin rapists. 

Yet, in all our explorations of the oceans where we find dolphins living, we find singing dolphins, but no dolphin Sing Sing. 

Now, I like to think of myself as intelligent, and I know a lot of things, but I don’t know what dolphin society does with their anti-social members who don’t know, or want to practice, the Golden Rule; who don’t understand that social advancements come from voluntary cooperation.  Perhaps good dolphins shun bad dolphins.  Maybe the bad ones are exiled to the arctic (dolphin Siberia) to fend for themselves against orca.  Maybe they are sent to Australia.  Perhaps they are killed.  What I do know is they are not incarcerated. 

Even those who might be shunned or exiled have no fences or barriers restricting their movement and activities.  Consequently, good dolphins must remain vigilant and either defend themselves, or accept the violations of their liberties.  I think their choice is clear: self defense is the natural way that individual freedom is maintained. 

I think, by now, it’s clear where I’m going with this: I’m making the case for the morality of self defense and consequently the immorality of taking away someone else’s ability for self defense.  While it is perfectly acceptable, and expected, for an individual to choose how they wish to defend themselves, or not, it is not acceptable for one to impose restraints on the choices others have available to them.

The natural state of man is freedom and that includes the freedom to make one’s own choices and to own the consequences. 

Florida Judge Orders …

This story is just so offensive to the idea of a free society.   This is the society we have produced for ourselves?  Shameful.

I also believe that civil societies are best formed on the basis of voluntary cooperation. I believe that man is imperfect and that all men, from time to time (and some more than others), will fail to meet these ideals, but on balance will be a greater force for good than for evil.

Answer: yes … and no.

There were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.  There were many more who also participated in the Constitutional Convention that produced our Constitution.  These men represented colonies and states from New England to Georgia.  Clearly, some were in favor of the institution of slavery and others worked tirelessly to end it.

My only question is this: why is there even any discussion or question today about this.  Incontrovertible evidence exists regarding the thoughts and actions of virtually all these men — it’s evidence of our own modern ignorance that any argument goes on at all.

Frankly, I don’t believe either one is a “curable” affliction.  They are, simply, character flaws.

We all have character flaws, but if I’ve got to be represented in Congress by someone, I’d rather be represented by a pervert who’s veracity is never in question as opposed to a “normal” liar whom I can never trust.

Best of luck to Anthony Weiner in his treatment, but I’d be much happier if I never saw or heard from him again, “cured,” or not.

Today is a day that is certainly a remarkable event in the global struggle to defend free societies from the tyrannical goals of outside forces.  But it is also a day to act with dignity and class, not the excessive displays of false patriotism seen in many parts of America today.  Union forces scored a victory at Gettysburg, but Lincoln didn’t go to dance on the graves of the Confederate soldiers, instead he went to dignify the sacrifices made by Union armies in triumph.

We should all learn from Lincoln.

One statement in particular during the film really caught my attention, however, and caused me to think: during the period from 1619 (when the first African slaves were brought to our shores at the Jamestown Colony in what is now Virginia) to 1750, a total of 10 million Africans were brought to the Western World (by some accounts a total of 20 million were actually taken from Africa, but only half survived the transatlantic journey), 400,000 of which came to the American colonies.  That translates to just 4% of the surviving enslaved Africans that came to America.  Where did the other 96% of the survivors go?

Research shows that a vast majority were taken by the Portuguese to Brazil (35% of the total) and the Caribbean islands (another 30%).  Most of the rest went to various Spanish colonies.  This contradicts the image of what I have always been taught to think and it serves to raise even more questions in my mind.

It seems that most of the long term anger and resentment about African slavery is focused on The United States.  Is there any supporting evidence that slavery was so much worse here than anywhere else for that 4% unfortunate enough to work here?  The evidence does not support this premise.  The death rate and life expectancy for slaves in Brazil and the Caribbean was much worse than in America.

Did slavery go on longer in America?  No.  Slavery in Brazil predates slavery of Africans in America and was not officially abolished until a couple decades after Abraham Lincoln issued his "Emancipation Proclamation."  In fact, it is widely known that as many as 50,000 people in Brazil are still held in slavery even to this day!

Did we get the cream of the crop of African slaves?  It’s been postulated that much of America’s prosperity can be explained by the shameless exploitation of cheap/free African labor.  But, if slavery was necessarily a big part of the explanation for our prosperity (the southern Colonies quickly became one of the wealthiest "countries" in the World), why didn’t Brazil or any of the other resource-rich locations with MUCH greater slave populations match our levels of prosperity and wealth production?

Our slaves must have been awesome!

Clearly, the answer to the question about the source of American prosperity lies not so much in the exploitation of slave labor, but instead in something else that differentiates America from Brazil (and other countries): we had Thomas Jefferson and they didn’t.

We need to be able to absolutely trust our President.  By his own word, Mr. Newt has been untrustworthy at times when he’s been handed high level leadership positions.  As they say, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”

By his own word, he’s only recently matured i.e. in his 60′s.

This does not paint the picture of a candidate for President which I could unequivocally support.

Enough said.