Orton's Arm

I was thinking the same thing.

You ask how I'd control global population growth, which is a very fair question. The solution requires several things: - A strong United States - A United States that's willing to make sacrifices to help the Third World - A United States that's aware the Third World's biggest problem is overpopulation To guard the long-term strength of the U.S., two things are necessary: immigration reform and a eugenics program. This strength would then be used to benefit the Third World through free birth control, education efforts, and perhaps even more. A full scale effort would also involve paying people to get their tubes tied, as well as helping Third World nations create basic retirement programs so that elderly people in the Third World wouldn't have to rely upon their children for support in their old age. The programs would only be for those who had few if any children. Through these means, the U.S. would make it more possible and more financially desirable for people in the Third World to reduce their birthrates. But every family would make its own decision as to how many children to have. Clearly such massive efforts will require a strong U.S., which is one of the reasons why I recommend a eugenics program. The program would provide all intelligent women with financial incentives to have children, regardless of economic status. It would also provide financial disincentives for less intelligent women to have children, again regardless of how much or how little money they had. It's true that women on welfare are, on average, less intelligent than other women. This is why it was a mistake to give welfare women financial incentives to have as many children as possible. These incentives helped perpetuate the cycle of poverty by causing children to be born into circumstances where, both because of a poor environment and low genetic potential, they had little chance of success.

Once again, you've found it easier and more fun to criticize me, than to come up with a solution to the overpopulation crisis. Your criticisms of me are unjust, but it's a far greater act of injustice to ignore the fact that, if present trends continue, people will be born into the world with little or nothing to eat. The day will come--probably in your lifetime--when the total amount of food farmed in the world falls short of the world's caloric needs. You will be shown pictures of starving children. When that day comes, will you admit the fact your present outlook and behavior are irresponsible? Will you congratulate yourself for having spent your time criticizing me and my solutions, instead of thinking about how to solve these problems before children started starving? Or will you find it easier to blame everyone except yourself for this disaster? "World leaders should have seen this coming, and should have done something," you might say. And you might forget the fact that any politician who did want to do something would have not gotten the vote of you or others who think like you.

Your first and second question had to do with whether I thought all Third World women were stupid. I responded by writing about intelligent computer programmers moving from the Third World to the U.S. I personally know very smart people who immigrated here from Third World nations. I know you are less than willing to impute anything less than a sinister motivation to my beliefs. But please believe me when I tell you that my concern for the Third World population explosion doesn't stem from any misguided belief about Third World people all being stupid. My fear is that unless present trends are altered, there will be a global famine. My concern about you is that you seem far less interested in discussing the possibility of this famine, or how it might be avoided, than you are in questioning my motives. Suppose the very worst about me if you like. If it makes you happy, envision me living in a house with bright red swastika flags draped everywhere, and a gas chamber in the back yard, just in case. This image is far from the truth, but if you choose to embrace it, fine. But once you're done feeling whatever emotions this image might inspire, I'll ask you to come back to reality a little bit. Does the rapidly growing population of the Third World concern you? In the future, how do you envision all these extra people might be fed? I at least am trying to answer these tough questions, and in ways that don't involve disease or famine. The single greatest act of kindness which the U.S. could possibly extend to the Third World would be for us to help lower its birth rate. For suggesting this act of kindness, people have been subtly (or in the case of Ramius, not so subtly) implying I'm a Nazi. The fact I have to deal with such accusations clearly demonstrates that the warped state of the present political climate is the biggest single obstacle to eliminating the long-term certainty of massive disease and famine.

You have misunderstood my point. It was once the case that both Western and Third World nations had high birthrates. Then vaccines for most childhood diseases were introduced into Western nations. These nations waited a while--30 years if memory serves--then proceeded to dramatically lower their birthrates. Later, the same vaccines were introduced into Third World nations. These nations waited 30 years, 40, 50, and kept waiting, but did not reduce their birthrates to anything approaching Western levels. The result is a Third World population explosion. Even if every citizen of every industrialized nation were to be transported to Mars, it wouldn't buy the Third World very much extra time with which to lower its birthrate. At some point, probably fairly soon, there will be too many mouths to feed and not enough food with which to feed them. The only way this can possibly be avoided is if Third World nations dramatically reduce their birthrates. You mention that the Third World's population explosion must have produced a number of smart people. This is certainly true. But many of those people have moved here to take advantage of programming jobs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. This relocation of people is a relocation of wealth; out of Third World nations and into the U.S. But now countries like India are doing a better job of creating opportunities for programmers to be successful without emigrating. It's possible the U.S. will be less active in, um, acquiring other nations' human wealth in the future than it's been in the past. Instead of siphoning off the best and brightest from other nations, I suggest we put more effort into developing our own pool of talent. This involves a greater emphasis on education for the gifted, but more than that, it's making sure the gifted are born in the first place.

I see you've been a Bills fan for some time.

I respect Marv and his football expertise, but I don't see the need to start with defense first. Think of the teams with elite defenses: the Steelers of the '70s, the '85 Chicago Bears, and the Ravens of 2000. How long did those defenses stay elite? The Steelers' defense lasted a few years, but other than that not so much so. Now compare that to teams with elite offenses, such as the 49ers of the '80s or even the Bills of the early '90s. Those elite offenses lasted longer, because offensive players were able to make up for declining skill levels with good chemistry. Or consider the Cowboys team of the '90s. In their first two Super Bowl wins of the '90s, both their offense and defense was very good. In their third Super Bowl win, their defense had taken a step or two backward, but their offense was close enough to what it had been for them to get another ring. If a good offense is less transient than a good defense, it makes sense to start by building your offense first. It will take a little time for your offense to gel, so you'll suffer through a bad season or two. But those losses will lead to early draft picks. Once you start adding defense later, and once your offense starts to gel, everything ought to come together at once.

An excellent point. Yes, the offensive line has been a problem ever since the Super Bowl dynasty ended. But that doesn't negate the Bills' failure to find a QB. In fact, the two problems go together. Look at all the resources spent on the attempt to find Jim Kelly's replacement: - Todd Collins, 2nd round pick - Billy Joe Hobart, 3rd round pick - Rob Johnson, 1st and 4th round picks - Drew Bledsoe, 1st round pick - JP Losman, 1st, 2nd, and 5th round picks Total: Three 1st round picks, one 2nd round pick, one 3rd round pick, one 4th round pick, one fifth round pick. That's a lot of picks, many of which could have been used on the offensive line. If at the end of the year Marv decides Losman isn't the answer, it would be tempting to do whatever it takes to solve the QB problem once and for all. To draft a Carson Palmer-style QB with a proven track record of being a good passer. With a guy like him in place for the next 10 - 15 years, it would free the Bills up to focus on the trenches.

There are two separate factors at work here: 1. The world is becoming increasingly overpopulated, especially in the Third World. Too high a birthrate is a major reason why Third World nations are poor. 2. Despite this, highly intelligent women should have as many children as circumstances permit. Their children are the ones who will be discovering alternative energy sources, cures for diseases, more ecologically friendly farming methods, and the other things this world needs to be better off. A woman of below average intelligence should have few if any children, to help with the overpopulation problem. A highly intelligent woman should have as many children as possible, because the next generation absolutely needs to have a large population of smart people to solve the many problems it will face.

A woman in the workforce creates wealth. A mother creates new people. People are more important than wealth, which is why the contribution of an intelligent mother is larger than the childless working woman's.

I'm beginning to have doubts about our system. It's too easy to run on us, and I'm not sure it's just the players.

Unfortunately, many GOP politicians have betrayed the conservative ideals of those who elected them. I include in that category Bush himself. The Foley scandal is merely a symptom of the underlying problem. The underlying problem being the GOP's transition from a conservative set of values to a more neoconservative set. A good example is W's decision to side against his base on the issue of immigration, on the theory that providing corporations with cheap labor is more important than protecting the U.S. from the Third World overpopulation crisis.

Marv took over 40% of that advice in the offseason.

Since you didn't watch that game, I'll tell you about how I felt Losman played. I'll do my best to be unbiased . . . Positives: - Losman had a great pass to Roscoe Parrish. Detroit defenders came in from Losman's left, so he rolled out to his right. It looked like he might try running for a first down, but instead threw a nice long bomb to Parrish for a TD. - The other TD drive. That drive had a lot more to do with the Bills' passing game than with the running game. Losman clearly played well on that drive. I was a little distracted by the other people in the room, but it looked like the offense had been simplified, and that Losman was quickly throwing to his first or (at most) second read. - There were a few times when Losman used his athletic ability to scramble for some tough yards. If you just see the stats on the play by play, you won't realize how much speed was required to get those yards. Negatives: - Other than the above, Losman was generally ineffective. To get the feel of what this game was like, I'll mention a play which I consider representative. It was third and less than ten, and I think the Bills were in their own territory. Losman attempted a pass to a player who was several yards short of the first down marker. There was a defender right there, whose quick hit on the Bills player prevented a completion. But even had that pass been completed, that Bills player would almost certainly have been tackled shy of the first down marker. - For the most part, Losman was standard-issue ineffective. But there were a few plays which were worse than this. I remember one play where Losman threw a very short pass to McGahee in the flat. The pass should have been aimed at McGahee's stomach or his chest. Instead, McGahee had to extend himself vertically to catch that pass, which allowed a defender to absolutely destroy him. McGahee needed help to get off the field, but was later able to return. On the very next play, Losman threw a bad interception.

My points are as follows: 1. People who are more intelligent tend to have fewer children than those who are less intelligent. See: Tracking Exceptional Human Capital, D. Lubinski et al., Research Article, Tracking Exceptional Human Capital Over Two Decades David Lubinski, Camilla P. Benbow, Rose Mary Webb, and April Bleske-Rechek 2. This is a problem, because intelligence is determined by genetics: Adult IQ correlations full siblings reared together, r = +.49 full siblings reared apart, r = +.47 unrelated persons reared together (adoption), r = -.01 "By adulthood, all of the IQ correlation between biologically related persons is genetic." - Statistics and quote from Jensen, A.R. (1980). Bias in mental testing. New York: Free Press. P. 178 3. Based on the scientific evidence of points 1 and 2, this nation's genetic potential for intelligence is decreasing. This is a problem, and the present political climate makes it impossible for the problem to be solved. Just as liberals assume every war is Vietnam, they also assume every effort to improve a nation's gene pool will involve gas chambers. The fact of the matter is that some wars are necessary and appropriate, as are certain efforts to improve the gene pool. I favor this also, which is why I prefer a parent-choice education model to the present bureaucrat choice model. If you want there to be universal access, the health care system needs to become far more efficient. How to go about making it so is a complex topic for another thread. I agree the U.S. needs to be building an alternative to the fossil fuel-based, internal combustion transportation system we have now. Corruption and pork barrel politics make this hard for the government to implement, and our current system of property taxation and high cost of capital makes it hard for, say, private rail companies to provide an alternative. Both underlying problems need to be fixed. Few people are so foolish as to welcome war for its own sake. But there are times when fighting a just war is less bad than letting things continue as they are. I'm not saying Iraq was one of those times, but neither am I prepared to embrace universal pacifism. I'm not happy about the current tax structure, but there's only so much you can do to make it equitable. If you tax corporations too heavily, they'll simply relocate overseas. Rich people are also capable of relocating themselves--or at least a significant portion of their wealth--elsewhere. The desire to make the current tax system more fair must be tempered by a realization of what's actually possible. I agree we should be doing far more to help Third World countries. If we give them a fish, we feed them for a day. If we teach them how to fish, the world's oceans will become even more overfished than they are already. But if we help these nations to lower their birthrates, they will find it far easier to climb out of poverty. More cordial relations with the rest of the world would clearly help the U.S. But if the U.S. has the opportunity to undertake an act of justice, she must take advantage of it. Even if it means we stand alone. For instance, the eugenics program I favor would be an act of justice to the next generation, because it would give children the genetic potential for greatness. The fact that such a program would disturb, say, Canada, is less important than the fact that the program will increase the number of people with the potential to be great inventors, computer programmers, and scientists.

"Total governmental control over sex?" Where did I advocate that? I merely pointed out that thanks to liberal action, the government has influenced less intelligent people to have more children than people who are smarter. If the government is going to influence the number of children people have, it should do so in the direction of helping smarter people have more children than those who are less intelligent. Having children is expensive, which is why many people decide to limit their family sizes. The government could provide financial help with having children, but the help should be in proportion to the intelligence of the people having them. So people of average intelligence might get help with their first two kids, while a woman with an I.Q. of 160 would get help for each and every kid she chose to have. Someone with an I.Q. of 70 would get a check to have his or her tubes tied. A woman with an I.Q. of 70 could still have as many children as she chose. Nobody is forcing her to collect that check for having her tubes tied; any more than the woman with an I.Q. of 160 is forced to receive government help for having a large family. Government-based financial incentives are part of our present system, so I'm not advocating a new tool. I'm advocating a new use for an exisiting tool--a constructive use, for a change.

Not quite what T.O. actually said: Owens is a guy who will give you everything he has on Sunday afternoons, but who can be a distraction. Randy Moss is a guy who once said he only plays when he feels like it. His performance this year seems to bear out that remark. If for some reason I had to choose between the two, I'd choose T.O.

I'm not sure how relevant that stat is about the Bills only being 3-5 indoors since 2000. The Bills are only 36-52 outdoors since 2000. But this is a very different team than the one which lost all those games back in 2001; or even than the team which lost all those games last year. That said, I agree with the rest of your post, at least up to a point. Yes, it's possible the Lions will go 11-5, just as it's possible a monkey could type out the complete works of Shakespeare simply by hitting keys at random.

I may as well throw this in here: Middle Earth was once how people described the Earth. You had Heaven, which would be upper Earth, then Middle Earth (here), then you had, um, worse places. Tolkien learned about this, and decided to call the world he imagined Middle Earth.

I didn't use the words "master race," nor did I advocate the underlying concept. I'm not accusing you of deliberately using a straw man argument, because that may not have been your intention. But you are inadvertently helping me disprove Pasta Joe's portrayal of liberals, for which I thank you. If you've followed what I've written elsewhere, you know I'm concerned that, in the U.S., intelligent women tend to have fewer children than less intelligent women do. This is true for people of all races; so a black woman with an I.Q. of 160 will, on average, bear fewer children than a black woman with an I.Q. of 80. Liberal social policies and attitudes are largely responsible for this. The black community would benefit if these things were reversed, and if intelligent black women began bearing more children than their less intelligent counterparts. Black leaders might arise to take the place of Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King. The weakening of America's gene pool is one of the two main sins of liberalism. The other is liberal inaction in the face of the Third World overpopulation crisis. Liberal compassion means nothing, because it's not coupled with the discipline to see things as they are. Studies have shown intelligence is determined far more strongly by genetics than it is by environment. Liberals claim to be very interested in education, and often think of themselves as intellectually superior to their Republican counterparts. But if I point out that improving America's gene pool would improve the nation's collective intelligence far more than dumping yet more money into a failed public school system, liberals don't want to listen.

See? This response is what I'm talking about. Zero discussion about the underlying issue of whether liberal programs are contributing to the long-term weakening of the U.S., or whether we might need to start acting differently if we want to avoid the prospect of future famines. In place of the intelligent, open-minded discussion Pasta Joe led us to expect from liberals, I'm being called Kurt. I've been called worse, so the name doesn't really bother me. But I do wish there was at least a fleeting interest in seeing problems from a non-liberal perspective.

It's worse than that, KD. Modern liberals have pushed for, and often achieved, the following: - Women to spend as much time in educational institutions and the workplace as possible, even if this means they're too busy to have kids. Part of the reason these women have to work so hard is to pay for: - Social programs which encourage welfare recipients to have as many children as possible. Together, these two liberal goals work to ensure that reproductive potential is taken from the brightest and hardest working women, and transferred to women who, on average, tend to be significantly less intelligent than are working women. Then you have the open door immigration policy you mentioned. The underlying problem is that Third World women are having too many children; leading to poverty. Liberals welcome the idea of flooding this country with Third World immigrants. An open door immigration policy does nothing to solve the Third World overpopulation problem; it simply transfers this problem here. Once the United States has been engulfed by the Third World, this solution will no longer be available. There are three ways for the problem of Third World over-reproduction to be solved: - Maybe Third World women, acting on their own, will happen to decide to have fewer kids. - A human agency could help solve the problem through distribution of birth control, education, etc. - Nature can solve the problem through disease and famine In time, the problem of Third World overpopulation will be solved through one of these three methods. By crippling the long-term strength of the U.S., liberal efforts make it far less possible for this problem to be humanely solved via a human agency. The unimaginable cruelty of a nature-based solution becomes far more likely.

Having read the book Patriot Reign, I really don't see Belichick trading for Moss. The Patriots won three Super Bowls by using a specific philosophy; where they'd look at a player's character, his mental toughness, and his willingness to work through adversity. They were more interested in these traits than they were in his athletic potential. Corey Dillon may have said a few negative things about the Bengals organization, but I've never heard anyone question his work ethic or desire. He showed up to play every Sunday, and didn't coast just because the team was doing poorly. In contrast, Randy Moss once said, "I only play when I feel like it." He was later asked to clarify this comment, and it turns out he meant exactly what he'd said. Maybe he's matured, maybe he's more reliable and predictable than he used to be, but I don't see him fitting the Patriots' philosophy. Were the Patriots to trade for him, they'd be abandoning the approach that got them those three Super Bowl rings. Belichick is probably smart enough to avoid this particular error. Unfortunately, he's also probably smart enough to figure out how to beat the Bills the next time the two teams play.

Liberals are what?! Your post represents the biggest single departure from reality I've remembered seeing on these boards, and that's saying a lot. Liberals are very open to liberal ideas. But most liberals I've known become emotional or angry when presented with any other type of ideas. Or they'll act disappointed--"I thought you were a good enough person to accept liberal view X. The fact you believe in conservative view Y lowers you in my eyes."

Those sacks don't count, because they were in garbage time. Just kidding--I actually didn't realize how many sacks Bruce had achieved that year. Good find.