Politics

This week's Frontline on PBS began with the following premise: That everyone who worked used to get a pension, and now corporations are trying to reneg on that promise. The whole episode is available for viewing online at this URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/view/ Here's a quote from the beginning of the story: Wow, wasn't that awfully sweet of them? Here's another one: Okay, I think you get the general idea. The statements are reasonably accurate, perhaps -- I'm not questioning that. What I'm suggesting is that this is a bit of a ruse. A snow job. A lie. The lie is this: All Americans used to have access…

Scientists have long known that the ozone layer was being damaged by CFC's, but little was done until recently. In 1987, 180 countries signed what is known as the Montreal Protocol - it was designed to control the emmisions of ozone depleting products such as CFC's. Recent scientific reports have shown that there has been a positive reaction to this and the atmosphere is showing early stages of ozone regenreation. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060510094508.htm - Ryan Jones

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2179408_2,00.html During their last meeting, Saddam told her he had written a new epic work. “I didn’t have time to write poetry before,” the dictator said, “but now I have had the time to become a poet.”

this was reported in the London Times http://www.physorg.com/news66717645.html May 13, 2006 "A British woman has become the first in the country to conceive a "designer baby" selected specifically to avoid an inherited cancer, The Times said Saturday. The woman, who was not identified, used controversial genetic screening technology to ensure she does not pass on to her child the condition retinoblastoma, an hereditary form of eye cancer from which she suffers. Doctors tested embryos created by the woman and her partner using in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) methods for the cancer gene. Only unaffected embryos were implanted in her womb, the newspaper said. …

does anyone have first hand accounts of what people outside the US think of the US, (general perception, its policies etc.)? ie, oppinions of yourself, freinds, or family, not what you hear on the news. I'm kind of curious because of a book I recently read and a general belief that the current foreign policy of the US may be alienating other nations. I hope this doesn't turn into a debate to soon, as I am really interested in the starting oppinion, and even in the unlikely event that anyone could be convinced that their oppinion is wrong then there are still millions of other persons who have the same oppinion as they do.

One of those really rare cosmic events has recently been seen - an almost simultaneously, two stellar explosions! The "gigantic potato crisp" lies in the constellation Leo and is approximately 70 million light years away from us. This article has a nice picture included. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060517001622.htm - Ryan Jones

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060515/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_libya

A new study by the a group of physicists has shone new light on the big bang, using a modified form of Einstein’s cosmological equations. They have shown that the big bang may infact have been a a sort of "quantum bounce". This is a stunning revelation, as if it proves to be correct it will mean that there may have been another universe before this one, that may have suffered a fate such as the big crunch. http://www.physorg.com/news66660003.html - Ryan Jones

Since we were talking about the recent White House Correspondant's Dinner, I thought you all might appreciate this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCTN12cRT0I&search=gore%20snl It's Al Gore doing last night's opening act for Saturday Night Live. VERY funny stuff -- possibly the funniest opening act in SNL history.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/washington/14nsa.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1147579200&en=9a442ce4901ab0c7&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

Europe's £400m ExoMars robot, which is expected to be launched to Mars in 2011, has been undergoing tests in Tenerife. The rocks and dust around the volcano El Teide (in Tenerife) is the ideal real life simulation of Mars's surface. The robot, which is about the size of a go-kart, has a top speed of 0.1 miles per hour; however, the aim is durability rather than speed, and so far it has been quite durable on and off the road. The head of the project said "we've got bigger margins, with more finance and more support. We're really confident". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4767403.stm (includes video of robot in action)

As most of you probably know, surfaces on the atomic scale are not smooth, so if two bodies are brought together there will be tiny gaps. Water can condense and fill these gaps using the technique below. So for practical purposes water can now be used as a 'safe' glue. http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2006/05/freezing-water-at-room-temperature.html

http://www.savetheinternet.com/=faq this is something that seems to be the real deal. Big corporations could have a lot to gain by deciding who gets to visit what websites and how quickly. edit:perhaps we should consider getting SFN at the end of this list: http://www.savetheinternet.com/=members

If we look at the tax code, it is extremely complicated for the average person, with very little of it geared toward the middle class. The complexity is useful in the sense that it create a wide range of jobs, tax middlemen to help people make sense of it. Besides providing jobs for all the tax expert middlemen, the tax code is so large for two reasons. First, special provisions are made to stimulate the economy by giving special tax considerations to certain areas of the economy. The other reasons are kickbacks to lobbyist for their legal and illegal donations to our elected officials. It is not always easy to decern which is which, so simpliciation runs the risks of th…

I believe that if these guys dont stop, the Allies must do Airstrikes against their Nuclear facilities and some military targets. The second is neccessary for make Iran unable to react - E.g with Missles against Israel. I also believe that the Allies must vote for Total economical embargo against these guys. What do you believe? Please if you dont want to answer, just vote.

A new study of nine supermassive black holes has found that they are actually "green" - because of their efficiency. Black holes typically emit energy in the form of jets of matter travelling at near the speed of light away from the core. In fact, this matter has more energy than the X-rays and light emitted from the black hole as well (as the jets emit X-rays due to their speed). The jets create cavities in the gas surrounding the black hole, and an estimate of the energy needed to create these cavities was combined with an estimate of the fuel available to the black hole to reach the conclusion that black holes are incredibly fuel efficient - "if a car was as fuel-e…

http://www.localnewswatch.com/skyvalley/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=185896 Who watches the watchmen? Guess it's not the DOJ...

This is a must see. Colbert Roasts Bush at the Correspondence dinner in front of everyone. Hilarious. http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnyvideos/v/colbertwhca.htm

I read in a magazine that 6.1 billion dollars was just spent on the presidents helicoptor Marine 1. Does anyone else think this i a little excessive. I mean I completely understand that he needs to be safe but 6.1 billion? I dont think that people should have to pay taxes just for the money to go to a person and not the country.

Beaurocracies are based on a miltary chain of command. During wartime or during emergencies, beaurocracies are at their best, since they contain a feed-down chain of command, with a wide range of specialists at the lateral levels. But during peace time, one has this large standing army with too little to do. The solution, typically, to keep the troops sharp in case of an emergency, is to create a lot of busy work, usually paper work. During the emergency, the paper work is often bi-passed for the sake of efficiency and speed of response. The forms can be filled out later when there is idle time and less to do. During the emergency there is often both a feed-down and …

It's a book by jean francois revel circa 1972 about the state of socialism in the world, and how america is the only country that posses the cultural ability to transform into a socialist society properly. Beyond that however the book has a number of other generally insiteful observations about the current and future state of foreign policy, among other things. I was wondering if anybody has read this book, or any other political philosophy books written by persons outside of the USA. I ask because one of the most fascinating things in the book is the authors description of French attitudes towards America, I'm both curious to find out if his observations were accura…

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/050906SpamAttacks.html It's about time they start putting some of these guys in the slammer.

I've been predicting this for a couple of years, and it's finally happened -- the first proposal of a defense budget over $500 billion. This one, for $517 billion, was approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, and may not end up in this form, but generally speaking they only get bigger between now and signing. http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060508-103116-1016r Believe it or not, I actually caught wind of this in an email from one of my senators, bragging about all the hard work he's doing up there in Washington.

I think this is a great example of why we have to move past sweeping generalizations and partisan decision-making. Joseph Biden is no friend to the administration, but he's no cut-and-run guy either, and he often defends the administration's choices on foreign and domestic policy, stops short of blaming Bush for current events and developments, and focuses on things that actually matter, rather than trying to convince us that the sky is falling and the world is going to heck just because we elected George Bush to office. Senator Biden wrote a piece about a week ago for the New York Times in which he proposed a three-region split in Iraq in which oil revenues would b…

Victor Hanson asks a question which is startling because it is largely unasked in public debate: Is the U.S. better off with the Middle East as it is now than as it was before 2001? Although this appears in the National Review, I ask all to approach his analysis with an open mind. In particular, I'd be interested in your comments on his country-by-country analysis: