Speakers + Receiver Package Recommendation

[GMichael]

Thank you guys. I was worried that we would never have another spirited thread here at AR. Now I feel much better. Please, carry on.

[shokhead]

I'm bigoted against philosophy professors, and you're bigoted against Wal-Mart. Everyone's a bigot if you apply the word that loosely. So what? Why even point it out, unless you were trying to play some sort of PC gotcha game?



It's clear to me that you either never took a course in logic, or you did, but didn't learn anything from it. You made the general claim: "To say that anyone [sic] group of people "are some of the stupidest people alive" is illogical, inacurate [sic], and cannot be verified." I gave you two counter examples of groups of people who most clearly are some of the stupidest people alive. I wasn't trying to change the original argument; I was simply proving (yes proving) your statement to be false by giving you counter examples. If you had taken a logic class in college you would have known that counter examples are standard procedure in such a situation. Moreover, your use of the word 'illogical' was incorrect. A sentence is illogical when it has a form that is self-contradictory. For example: "all I know is that I know nothing." Or: "The only rule is: there are no rules." Those sentences could be said to be illogical, but there is nothing illogical about claiming a group of people are stupid. Furthermore, to say that such a claim can't be verified is just nonsense. Any such claim most certainly could be verified. Haven't you heard of science?



While it can be argued that all branches of knowledge and inquiry are instances of philosophy, what I said was: "Philosophy professors are some of the stupidest people alive." Philosophizing and actually being a philosophy professor are two different things. We all philosophize now and then, but only a fool would actually want to make a living out of doubting his own existence, or writing books on the ontology of predicates.



I've never heard of Wal-Mart owning 3000 factories in China. Could you please post your references?

Is someone a bigot if they dislike Bose?

[kexodusc]

"Philosophy professors are some of the stupidest people alive."

It would seem to me the few skills you did pick up in whatever critical thinking courses you did happen to absorb can be attributed directly or indirectly to the teachings and/or writings of a philosophy professor...most of who certainly are not stupid.

As for Wal-Mart, most economists agree that they've long since abandonned abiding by the rules of supply and demand in a free market...fair market prices follow supply and demand, predatory tactics and profit maximization instead focus on manipulating the relationship between them.

I'm no Wal-Mart basher (cause dammit they're so cheap) but you'd have to be living under a rock not to have stumbled across at least some of their unethical business practices, attack on civil rights, and blatant disregard for inconvenient law.

[nightflier]

I've never heard of Wal-Mart owning 3000 factories in China. Could you please post your references?

njspeer,

I didn't want to contribute to this post anymore because I didn't want to beat a dead philosopher, but you asked for a reference:

From and article by Saul Landau & Farrah Hassen, paragraph 12:

"Indeed, in order to bring the consumers what they need -- that $8.63 polo shirt the Scrooges who run Wal-Mart extract cheap prices from 10,000 suppliers abroad, such as in Honduras, Bangladesh and China, the latter where Wal-Mart owns over 3,000 factories."

http://www.counterpunch.org/landau05132004.html

[njspeer]

njspeer,

I didn't want to contribute to this post anymore because I didn't want to beat a dead philosopher, but you asked for a reference:

From and article by Saul Landau & Farrah Hassen, paragraph 12:

"Indeed, in order to bring the consumers what they need -- that $8.63 polo shirt the Scrooges who run Wal-Mart extract cheap prices from 10,000 suppliers abroad, such as in Honduras, Bangladesh and China, the latter where Wal-Mart owns over 3,000 factories."

http://www.counterpunch.org/landau05132004.html

Ok, fine, you start this whole thing by bad-mouthing Best Buy employees, Wal-Mart, and our capitalistic system, and now you don't want to "contribute to this post anymore." Fine. But to site Counter Punch as your only reference??!! You've got to be s**ting me. That's your reference? In an earlier post you claimed to be citing the LA Times. In fact, you're exact quote was: "And no, this did not come from Michael Moore or some liberal website, it is straight out of the LA Times." You don't think Counter Punch is a liberal website? You can't possibly be so out of touch as to think counterpunch.org is an acceptable reference. Counterpunch.org is one of the most disreputable sources on the internet. Just to put everything into perspective: Counter Punch newsletter actually criticized Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 for not going far enough in it's criticism of George Bush. Yes, while the rest of the rational, honest world was shocked and appalled at the wanton dishonesty of Moore's film the Counter Punch Newsletter writes a piece criticizing the film for not being critical enough of Bush. The fact that you even read Counter Punch tells me everything I need to know.

[GMichael]

Defender of Common Sense?

[Woochifer]

Ok, fine, you start this whole thing by bad-mouthing Best Buy employees, Wal-Mart, and our capitalistic system, and now you don't want to "contribute to this post anymore." Fine. But to site Counter Punch as your only reference??!! You've got to be s**ting me. That's your reference? In an earlier post you claimed to be citing the LA Times. In fact, you're exact quote was: "And no, this did not come from Michael Moore or some liberal website, it is straight out of the LA Times." You don't think Counter Punch is a liberal website? You can't possibly be so out of touch as to think counterpunch.org is an acceptable reference. Counterpunch.org is one of the most disreputable sources on the internet. Just to put everything into perspective: Counter Punch newsletter actually criticized Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 for not going far enough in it's criticism of George Bush. Yes, while the rest of the rational, honest world was shocked and appalled at the wanton dishonesty of Moore's film the Counter Punch Newsletter writes a piece criticizing the film for not being critical enough of Bush. The fact that you even read Counter Punch tells me everything I need to know.

For someone who gets off on asking for references, you sure make a helluva load of unsubstantiated assertions of your own!

So, what does your opinion of one specific website have anything to do with any of the aforementioned points regarding Wal-Mart or Bose or what not? Attacking the messenger, the source, or the purported intelligence of philosphy professors does not make for a "common sense" response. And I notice that you conveniently evaded Kex's points.

[Woochifer]

It would seem to me the few skills you did pick up in whatever critical thinking courses you did happen to absorb can be attributed directly or indirectly to the teachings and/or writings of a philosophy professor...most of who certainly are not stupid.

As for Wal-Mart, most economists agree that they've long since abandonned abiding by the rules of supply and demand in a free market...fair market prices follow supply and demand, predatory tactics and profit maximization instead focus on manipulating the relationship between them.

I'm no Wal-Mart basher (cause dammit they're so cheap) but you'd have to be living under a rock not to have stumbled across at least some of their unethical business practices, attack on civil rights, and blatant disregard for inconvenient law.

Very well said. You're very correct in your assessment of Wal-Mart's market power, and how they exercise it to manipulate the market.

I've had my own dealings with Wal-Mart at the corporate level, having worked on environmental impact reports for some of their development projects. Even if the findings turned out relatively benign and in their favor, they were not satisfied unless the report says that their store development and expansion projects will have nothing but positive impacts all the way around with virtually no impacts on existing businesses. Anyone with first-hand experience in communities where Wal-Mart stores have opened and who knows a thing or two about consumer spending patterns, will of course see this for the duplicitous nonsense that it is. Fortunately for their sake, more recently they've taken on a more accommodating approach that acknowledges their role in the community more realistically.

Even so, I don't shop at Wal-Mart -- I just don't like their stores.

[kexodusc]

I buy pet supplies and batteries there, maybe white sport socks...too crowded and crazy for me...

Wal-Mart will eventually fall victim to the same weakness other market giants share.
Growth becomes harder and harder - expansion from core business rarely works, instead confuses operations, and bit by bit, competitors will erode market share and margins...just ask the once dominant Sears or K-Mart corps.

[superpanavision70mm]

Where is your references for claiming proving and discrediting counterpunch.org?

[audio amateur]

njspeer, stop being stupid.

[njspeer]

Where is your references for claiming proving and discrediting counterpunch.org?

SuperPanvision, I would like to start by answering your question with a question. Would you believe everything you read on an Al Qaeda web site? Ok. Good, me neither. Now here comes the good part. "Where is your references for claiming proving and discrediting all Al Qaeda web sites?" Yeah. See how stupid that question is. Don't ever ask someone to prove that a blog is not an acceptable source.

Furthermore, I'm flabbergasted that you would suggest that it's somehow my responsibility to prove that a left-wing blog is not a credible source. Let's try to put this whole thing in context, and while we're doing it, lets try to use only common sense, and see if we can figure out what wrong with the scenario. First Nightflier makes the outragouse claim that Wal-Mart owns 10,000 factories in various countries and over 3,000 in China alone. If you had any common sense at all you would know immediately that this cannot possibly be true, but I digress. Then, I accuse Nightflier of using M. Moore's website as his source of information, and Nightflier responds by claiming his source is the LA Times, not some liberal website. Not believing that the LA Times would publish such nonsense, I call his bluff, and, low and behold, it turns out his source was not the LA Times but a liberal rag that's to the left of Moore himself. Can you see how this doesn't look good for Nightflier? Did you ever stop and ask yourself why Nightflier lied about his source?

In general, when referencing sources, the rule is: ALL websites, until proven otherwise, are to be considered disreputable. Any website (or publication in general) with a clear bias is not to be used as a reference. Period. And when citing references, always try to use original sources, and when it's not possible, try and use the most reputable source available. In particular, the use of the word 'scrooges' in Nightlier's original quote should (had you used common sense) been a really big red flag.

But you wanted me to provide references, so let me see what I can do. Five seconds worth of googling produces the Wikipedia entry for said website which details and references harsh criticisms from both the left (The New Republic) and the right (Wall Street J), and here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CounterPunch_(newsletter). You're welcome.

Hopefully we can agree that when both the left and the right are complaining about your left-wind bias, you're probably not the best source of information on the web.

Also, instead of asking me to "prove" their deficient reputation, you could have simply gone to the website and read a couple articles for yourself. Below is the article I mentioned earlier. It's a piece entitled "What Michael Moore Left OUt of F9/11." In this piece the author criticizes Michael Moore for not going far enough in F911. Still think Counter Punch is a good reference?

http://www.counterpunch.org/bardacke07292004.html

[GMichael]

SuperPanvision, I would like to start by answering your question with a question. Would you believe everything you read on an Al Qaeda web site? Ok. Good, me neither. Now here comes the good part. "Where is your references for claiming proving and discrediting all Al Qaeda web sites?" Yeah. See how stupid that question is. Don't ever ask someone to prove that a blog is not an acceptable source.

Furthermore, I'm flabbergasted that you would suggest that it's somehow my responsibility to prove that a left-wing blog is not a credible source. Let's try to put this whole thing in context, and while we're doing it, lets try to use only common sense, and see if we can figure out what wrong with the scenario. First Nightflier makes the outragouse claim that Wal-Mart owns 10,000 factories in various countries and over 3,000 in China alone. If you had any common sense at all you would know immediately that this cannot possibly be true, but I digress. Then, I accuse Nightflier of using M. Moore's website as his source of information, and Nightflier responds by claiming his source is the LA Times, not some liberal website. Not believing that the LA Times would publish such nonsense, I call his bluff, and, low and behold, it turns out his source was not the LA Times but a liberal rag that's to the left of Moore himself. Can you see how this doesn't look good for Nightflier? Did you ever stop and ask yourself why Nightflier lied about his source?

In general, when referencing sources, the rule is: ALL websites, until proven otherwise, are to be considered disreputable. Any website (or publication in general) with a clear bias is not to be used as a reference. Period. And when citing references, always try to use original sources, and when it's not possible, try and use the most reputable source available. In particular, the use of the word 'scrooges' in Nightlier's original quote should (had you used common sense) been a really big red flag.

But you wanted me to provide references, so let me see what I can do. Five seconds worth of googling produces the Wikipedia entry for said website which details and references harsh criticisms from both the left (The New Republic) and the right (Wall Street J), and here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CounterPunch_(newsletter). You're welcome.

Hopefully we can agree that when both the left and the right are complaining about your left-wind bias, you're probably not the best source of information on the web.

Also, instead of asking me to "prove" their deficient reputation, you could have simply gone to the website and read a couple articles for yourself. Below is the article I mentioned earlier. It's a piece entitled "What Michael Moore Left OUt of F9/11." In this piece the author criticizes Michael Moore for not going far enough in F911. Still think Counter Punch is a good reference?

http://www.counterpunch.org/bardacke07292004.html

I rest my case. This is by far the best impersonation of Lexie that I have seen.
But try to throw in a few more CAPS next time.

[Resident Loser]

...did someone mention speakers?

...man, I've seen some obscure, tangental deviations from the topic, but this one is a pip!

jimHJJ(...good knight Gladys...)