Politics

The world's first inflatable spacecraft has successfully made it into space and inflated, says Bigelow Aerospace. The craft is a 9-foot wide model of what they hope will become the first commercial space hotel. The company plans on launching six to ten similar test craft into orbit, and then finally the inflatable hotel in 2012. Unfortunately, no suitable delivery vehicle for passengers has been developed, so the company is sponsoring a $50 million prize for the first company to demonstrate a reusable capsule capable of carrying 5 passengers. http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn9546

This sounds a bit ominous: http://www.sea-launch.com/ "A Sea-Launch Zenit-33l vehicle carrying the NSS-8 satellite, experienced an anomaly today during launch operations. All personnel at the launch site are safe and accounted for." So what exactly was the nature of this "anomaly"? The video is on youtube:

We're now one step closer to achieving quantum computing, as scientists have actually altered the state of a single electron. quite amazing. http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=4b3e55d0-1a34-4388-b3ca-acbe48c87696〈=en [Edited for sanity for front-page use - Cap'n]

Looks like Barack Obama is tossing his hat in the ring, running for US President in 2008. http://news.google.com/?ncl=1112770653&hl=en

A recent study in rats shows that teenagers who use marijuana may be more vulnerable to heroin addiction later in life, substantiating claims that marijuana really is a "gateway" drug. The test gave six rats doses of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, every three days, equivalent to smoking about one joint every three days. After the trial period was over, catheters were inserted in those rats and the control group, and the rats were allowed to press a lever to deliver heroin into their system. Those who had previously used THC were found to use more heroin daily, as the researchers believe the THC use affected their brain chemistry and actually lowered their se…

Certainly as of the late 1990's I read several of Europe's populations shrinking, at least potentially, with a birth rate plummeting quite below two+. I can see temporary economic problems when there are not many young workers to support the relatively large aging group. Beyond this, I am concerned about the economic mania, in general, for GROWTH. This seems to be the measure of progress in the United States, and seems ignorant to me. There is related discussion over the need for low-rung labor; neither the US nor Europe has dealt well with this. We need a more sane ideology to move into a livable future on this planet.

Am I the only one who thinks this commercial makes fun of homophobia rather than homosexuals? We can't even make fun of people who make fun of homosexuals? This kind of thing makes me want to start telling more gay jokes... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250575,00.html I don't know if this will work, but here's the link to the You Tube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9HK6SwCMBw

PBS Frontline has produced what looks to be another classic documentary. This one, entitled "News War", is a four-part series by former 60 Minutes legend Lowell ("Al Pacino Played Me in 'The Insider'") Bergman, which looks at the current crisis in the news industry and focuses on where it may be going. Understand -- I find it unlikely that I will entirely agree with his conclusions. It's pretty obvious that he'll blame political extremism and partisanship and probably land most of the blame on the right wing, but even more to the point, he won't show us the side of the news industry that has been contributing to its own demise, focused as it is on politically correc…

All of the demonizing and resistance to the Iraq war seems to come from this supposed "failure" mentallity, which is being exploited by Iran and the Iraq insurgency. So, if this evidence exists and there's truth to this, then when we talk about troop withdrawels and so forth, aren't we allowing the enemy's plan to work? Aren't we falling for it? I mean, if you know their intent is to make you believe you're losing and destroy your morale, then why would you believe you're losing and destroy your morale? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17064803/

The Wikipedia has a huge write-up on this that appears to cover the basic points, so let me link that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Security_Scare The short version is that the Cartoon Network runs a program and some guerilla marketing was employed to promote it in 10 US cities. The marketing basically consisted of small flashing objects in the shape of the characters in the cartoon show, which were then placed on various buildings and other structures (bridges, for example) around town. Apparently nothing happened for several weeks, but then suddenly someone in Boston hit the panic button and all heck broke loose, with millions being spent on b…

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=2842529 Apparently the addition of a second amendment did the trick. It has the one Democrats hated, which gave a tax incentive for small businesses, but now it also has an additional amendment that raises taxes on people who make more than $1 million per year. Guess they figured that was a wash (idiots). The House will have to vote again, and it'll have to get past the president. I expect both of those things to happen, since the president already promised to sign if it included the first amendment, and as for the second amendment he just gave a speech on Wall Street railing about high pay for CEOs. As for the H…

As some of you may know, I'm a professor of information technology at a small southern university, and working on my PhD in information systems (the only point there being that they're paying for my education and I can't be real picky about where I'm working for a while). The other day an interesting situation came up and I haven't quite figured out what to do about it. I thought it might be interesting to see what other people think. This, of course, is Black History Month. It occurs in February because it's the shortest month of the year. (No, really.) That fact is bad enough, and many modern African Americans such as Morgan Freeman and Bill Cosby have commente…

Here in the U.S., we have very cheap gasoline (that's petrol, guys) compared to Europe, in large part because of much lower fuel taxes. My question is, why shouldn't we raise them to similar levels? Bear in mind that this wouldn't mean an overall tax increase - higher revenues from fuel taxes means other taxes can be lower. The incentive for raising them is high. The biggest problem for the United States overall is energy dependence, and higher fuel taxes would encourage conservation and more fuel-efficient vehicles (and energy-efficient homes and businesses, for that matter). So why not do it? Is it just the political difficulty of explaining to the public that yes, you…

If you watch, read, listen to news these days within a few mins you can pretty much tell the political affiliation of the source. You could search an issue on the net and you already know which popular sites will pop up. I was wondering if you find this heading in the wrong direction, information is being catorgorized in a way that make that sources inherently bias, especially places like here, you can post a source and I could say "oh fox news..." or "oh CNN...", most of the time it's truth manipulated by opinion. I think people have a legitimate pessimisitic view towards sources. Why isn't there more push for something like science which has a peer-reviewed styl…

http://www.fdlreporter.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070130/FON0101/70130043/1985 Will this pass? If it does, will it work?

And we're off to the races! The first Democratic casualty of the 2008 Presidential Election is: a white guy who said something insensitive about one of the "diversity" candidates! Shocking, isn't it? Boy nobody could have seen that one coming! This thing with Biden is so laughable it almost defies description. I don't mean whether or not he has some sort of prejudice -- maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. What's laughable is watching the infighting. God forbid any strong white male candidates should emerge from the "party of diversity"! Apparently what happened is Biden called Senator Obama "the first mainstream African American (running for president) who …

New technology funded by DARPA can extract water vapour from the atmosphere and turn it into usable drinking water, even in arid climates. The exact method is being kept a secret, but it employs the use of salts. The machine produces no toxic byproducts, and can turn out 600 gallons of water per day. It's currently being contracted for the use of the armed forces in Iraq. Currently, the transportation costs of fresh water to troops can cost up to $30 a gallon. This new technology will allow the costs lowered to 30 cents per gallon. What's more, is that the machine only requires 14% humidity. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71898-0.html?tw=wn_inde…

I'm a registered Democrat. I'm also a registered Democrat who's dissatisfied with Nancy Pelosi. After having been promised investigations into the many scandals which have occured under the Bush administration, we've since been informed that those investigations aren't going to take place. Is anyone else dissatisfied with Pelosi backtracking on her original promises?

I think it may just be time to move. My countrymen have lost their ****ing minds. Can America get any more stupid? Don't answer that...I already know it can... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,246279,00.html Texas Mayor Singles Out N-Word for Ban It's one of the most reviled words in the English language, but if one Texas mayor gets his way, getting caught uttering the "N-word" will hit offenders where it hurts. Mayor Ken Corley of Brazoria, Texas, has proposed a city ordinance that would make using the word in an offensive fashion a crime equal to disturbing the peace and punishable by a fine of up to $500. "I would like to, if possible, ban…

This is the best breakdown I've ever seen: http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/S62J0EQ9mVa6O_kEoi71E2-

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/23/cheney-libby-trial/ Looks like "Scooter" Libby destroyed evidence prior to testifying. According to a new report Cheney is "deeply involved" in the Valerie Plame scandal

Conservatism advocates traditional values and free market. If a conservative is for prostitution he is against traditional values, yet if he is against prostitution he is against the free market. So is a conservative for prostitution or not?

Ran across this stat on This Week with George Stephanopoulos: Legislation / GOP Support 9/11 Commission / 68 votes Minimum Wage / 82 votes Stem Cells / 37 votes Drug Costs / 24 votes Student Loans / 124 votes Energy Policy 36 votes (Average = 62) Intersting, isn't it? Kinda makes you wonder (amongst other things) why student loans weren't fixed during the previous Congress. George Will made the point that the student loan thing is interesting because it essentially amounts to a subsidy for profitable banks and middle class college graduates! An amusing point, to be sure, but I think it's one to chalk up to sanity and reason. Thank god they …

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/10/iraq.bush/index.html This kind of reminds me of another war that wasn't solved by sending more troops....Viet...something...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2805859 Well, they're not cutting spending (surprise surprise) but when the oil companies are turning record profits this only makes sense.