Politics

Scientists have recently found a primordial solar system that appears to have an abnormally amount of Carbon, the element at the base of life on Earth, present. This is fascinating because we may be seeing something similar to what happened in our solar system many billions of years ago. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060608092215.htm -- Ryan Jones

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1658782.htm Does this event change anyone's perspective on the situation in Iraq? Does it in some way justify the record numbers of deaths which have occured in the past month?

If you've not seen the clip, it's worth watching. "I Have Never Seen People Enjoying their Husbands’ Death So Much??" Yowzers.

What single cause could bring groups as diverse as the Common Cause, Christian Coalition of America, American Civil Liberties Union, Gun Owners of America, MoveOn.Org, Feminist Majority, Consumers Union and hundreds of other wildly diverse groups together in one coalition? You know anything that could bring some of these groups into agreement would have to be a very important issue and it is. That issue is Network Neutrality. Simply put it is the concept that the Internet service providers consumers use to connect to the Internet (e.g. AT&T, Verison, Comcast, TimeWarner, etc.) should not have the ability to control what websites consumers can access or what Inte…

So why don't they pay property taxes? Not that you could ever ever ever do away with the arrangement in a hundred years, but do any of you actually think this is right?

I allow for the strong feelings which might exist on this issue on both sides yet the timing appears cynical, the remedy disproportionate to the pretext and, worst of all, Republicans are provoking a pissing match on hollowed ground. I defend the Bush administration these days more than most here, sometimes out of a contrarian stubbornness. Not this time. Two wrongs do not make a right but Reid's diatribe qualified for a far distant second place "outrage of the week:" How can any American make political hay out of Haditha? This is a week where there are no limits.

In this week's Science there is an article regarding the deployment of Neutrino detectors at the bottom of the mediterranean ocean, by astronomers, with the aim of understanding cosmic-ray emission by other galaxies. Apparently, the neutrino "telescopes" are very sensitive light detectors, that measure the light emmitted by neutrinos when they collide with atoms. According to the article, the detection of neutrinos requires not only complete darkness but also locations where background levels are extremely low, such as deep under water (a the bottom of various oceans) or in underground mines with mass of earth above. The astronomers can selectively choose which ga…

I'm repulsed by Reid's blatant use of Haditha along with another laundry list of complaints. http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Democratic_leader_enumerates_issues_gay_marriage_0605.html What an irrational mishmash of concepts. Atrocities occur in war, sometimes by military "necessity" (How could airborne troops make prisoners of every German that surrendered the night before D-Day and still accomplish their objectives?) and other times simply because a kid with enough firepower to level a small city blows a fuse. The ultimate test of character is not adversity but is to be given power over other human beings and Americans, like all nationalities, will fail t…

Japanese researchers were able to create, by measuring the face and hands of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, a model of what her voice would sound like. The model was made by physically duplicating what her skull may have been like, and should reproduce her voice within about 90% accuracy. Creation of such "voice prints" is usually used in police investigation work. http://today.reuters.com/tv/videoSto...RelatedVideo-3

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14746977.htm I'm really torn on this bill. At first I wasn't opposed to it because I realized it was aimed squarely at Westboro Baptist, and if I could pick anyone on this planet to be locked in a room with while I'm holding a baseball bat, it'd be Fred Phelps. I'm kind of dismayed that it really isn't going to amout to much as far as Westboro Baptist goes, besides perhaps giving the families some much needed peace. Furthermore, while I would never consider protesting at a solider's funeral (except, perhaps as the Onion suggested, I might show up to save the whales), I can't help but feel that…

Interesting story in today's New York Times about how the failure of Russian authorities to shut down a popular and long-running MP3 site may stop Russian entry into the World Trade Organization. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/world/europe/01cnd-mp3.html?ex=1306814400&en=4c9bcba30952e86b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss It's surprising that we're talking about an MP3 download site in the same context as the fight between airplane manufacturing giants Boeing and Airbus. But while I'm no fan of the American recording industry and it's army of lawyers, it does make sense because this is exactly what the WTO is about -- a venue for leveling th…

This is something I 've been wanting to post a discussion for a while so here goes. Corruption is an endemic economic and political problem throughout the world, and can be a major roadblock in the economic deveopment of countries(especialy many in the 3rd world). My questions is what do you think can be done to combat corruption and increase transparency; and why is it some countries have lower levels of corruption than others? I have pasted a link from to the Corruption perceptions index 2005 from transparency international for your reference. http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2005

Researchers have now focused their efforts at a new way of controlling an aircraft's control surfaces - wireless networks. Modern aircraft are often "fly-by-wire," where control commands are sent by computer link, and the new technology takes it to a higher level, with no cables involved altogether. It may sound crazy, but there are potential uses, such as backup control systems (in case a control cable is cut) or to reduce complexity and weight of larger aircraft by moving some systems to wireless control. http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9176-flybywireless-plane-takes-to-the-air.html

What caused the largest extinction ever on Earth, and what created the continent of Australia? Scientists say Australia may be the result of a large meteor that crashed into Antarctica. Gravity measures show that the crater, which is 483 kilometers wide and hidden 1.6 kilometers below the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, dates back to about 250 million years ago. That's also around the time of one of Earth's several mass extinctions. "Its size and location -- in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia -- also suggest that it could have begun the breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent by creating the tectonic rift that pushed Australia northward," th…

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=17864 Jordan31 May 2006 First prison sentences announced for reprinting Mohammed cartoons Reporters Without Borders protested today against two-month jail sentences imposed yesterday by a Jordanian court on two journalists, Jihad Momani and Hisham Al-Khalidi, for reprinting cartoons of the prophet Mohammed that appeared in a Danish paper last year and expressed concern about journalists being harshly punished for doing so. Apparently, the tolerence codes in Jordania prohibit citizens from "offending religious feelings." Good grief.

I was just perusing the Internet and ran across a story that just struck me as kinda blatant in its bias. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5040372.stm Um, hello, is there something about the word "illegal" that is hard to understand? Oh no, god forbid we should criminalize those friendly, law-abiding illegals! (cough) Wow. That's about as blatant as it gets, right there.

Aargh, this is infuriating! http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3823356 Okay, as many of you know, I'm a liberal. But I'm also a libertarian and a skeptic. And well, this place is really starting to freak me out. It's got tons of insane political correctness bullshit going which, as far as I can tell, are all a product of the University of Colorado (famous for its 33 to 1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans) Anyway, this is ridiculous. I don't mind this kind of crap being expected of college students, but you can't just force it onto the public at large. Huge questions remain about who will manage this information or what it will be used for. Anyway,…

Thoughts? Aside from the legal issues, I think they should let him go. I wore a crushed velvet multicolor tux in 1977 and had hair past my shoulders, so I could never criticize anyone for wearing something tasteless to a prom.

What a surreal last twelve months this has been for Bush. We have a democrat in Congress with, allegedly, $90,000 in bribe money stashed in his home freezer. Lawful warrants were obtained and served to seize the Congressman's office files and somehow Bush positions himself in the middle. IMO, he should have told both the republicans and democrats fussing about legislative perrogatives to stick it. On one of the Sunday morning programs they were theorizing that Republicans are sympathetic to Jefferson because they want to protect their offices from searches when the DOJ comes calling. Then you have Jefferson looking the cameras straight in the eye and sayin…

Strange that the moon is brighter than the sun, at gamma-ray wavelengths. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060527.html which is today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (May 27, 2006). This is not really NEWS news, but it's strange the moon glows more brightly. Earth's atmosphere blocks gamma---otherwise, if you had gamma-ray eyes, the moon would be blazing away in the sky but the sun might be so dim as to be invisible. Anybody want to say why that is?

I posted here a while ago about a paper I needed to write about gas. I got a few great links that really helped. I'm hopeing I can get simular help on this new paper on the Energy Massachusets uses. Things I need to know [stuff that will be in the essy]: - What energy sources does Mass. use? What are they used for? - What energy does Mass create? Where does it go? - How does all these different form of enery and creation of energy work? --- It would be a great help if I could get some links, or info from you guys . Thanks inadvance!

Super conductors are the wannabe "hot shots" of the electricity world - they could potentially revolutionize the face of electronics as we know it, if only we had some that worked near room temperature. Scientists are currently in an all out search to find the superconductor that works at the highest temperature and a new discovery is set to break the current record. This new superconductor is known as lithium monoboride (LiB) and should be stable and superconductor at temperatures greater than 39 degrees Kelvin! That may not seem like much, but in the world of super conductors that’s a very high temperature. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/0605081642…

Mods, if this is the wrong place for me to post this, I apologize in advance. Come see a political blog that myself and three friends recently created: http://www.independent-thinkers.blogspot.com Feel free to respond to posts with comments.

I saw the movie today and am still shaky from it. I've long believed that movies which portray actual historical events faithfully, without embelishment and without a political axe to grind make potent cinema. With United 93 there is no attempt to understand causes yet the movie treats all of the people as flesh and blood. For those that have seen the movie, what did you take away from the experience? Beyond the emotional wreck it made of me, hours later, I draw the following lessons: 1. We do live in a different world post 9/11. Now connections would be made instantly but at the time they were hard to draw even after one plane had hit the WTC. There wa…

I just found out about this article from Sept 05, so it isn't exactly timely, but it really upset me actually. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm I've disliked the censorship that we've aided the chinese in implementing, but for a US firm, and people working at that firm in the US, who get to pay lip service to how much they love freedom and put yellow ribbon magnets on their cars and all that good stuff, then turn around and help send a guy off to jail for 10 years who simply tried to get information out about how bad they have it. Honestly I don't care if the US legal system required an employee at Yahoo to hand that info over to th…