Politics

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:

Scientists have found a genetic "marker" that indicates a 60% greater chance of acquiring prostate cancer in those men who have the gene, which may also help explain why black men are much more prone to the disease. It appears that the genetic marker appears with twice the frequency in blacks than whites, although this variation has not been explained. Researchers hope to use the discovery to tell which men to follow more closely and check more frequently for the cancer, and it will most likely help in early detection and treatment of the cancer. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060507/ap_on_he_me/prostate_cancer

Cancer is one of those most feared diseases, having no known cure and being almost impossible to get rid of... but an unusual breakthrough in the study of mice with cancer has shown that it may be possible to cure cancer in people! Scientists have injected white blood cells from mice that became resistant to cancer into mice that were known to have cancer, and in a short space of time these white blood cells killed the cancer - and even more than that, it actually prevented mice that should have caught cancer from actually getting it! This is a stunning breakthrough, as this means theoretically that if we can understand the mechanism by how this works it could pot…

We have all heard the theory that life may have originated somewhere else in the universe and then came to Earth on the back of a comet -- well, this may be partially true. Researchers used a microscopic imaging technique have shown that some meteorites can and do contain simple organic compunds, some up to 7%! Could this mean life came from or was kick-started by an asteroid? This we don't yet know but the possibility is there. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060505192530.htm - Ryan Jones

A team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has found a protein that has been found to play a major part in the deactivation of genes. We understand how these are disabled but the question of how the genes to be disabled are chosen is unknown. If we can ever find the choice mechanism could we then harness this to disable faulty genes in people? Only time will tell but it looks promising. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060505114437.htm - Ryan Jones

An image taken by the Mars Express spacecraft has photographed a crater which looks like it has a smiling face inside it. The 230km (or 143 mile) wide crater was first observed by NASA's Viking Orbiter 1 mission. More images on the site below http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Mars_Express/SEMMTFNFGLE_0.html

It looks like congress is stalled about what to do and it also looks like this is one issue where Bush and Kennedy are on the same side (or at least close). Building a wall would be expensive and probably wouldn't work very well anyway and even if we did staunch the inflow, what are we going to do about the 11 million or so who are already here? Some of those already here have been here for a decade or so, some are married to Americans, some have children who are American citizens and I don't think we are capable of rounding up 11 million people for deportation anyway. Anybody got any bright ideas?

Researchers have developed a new vaccine that may be able to substantially lengthen the lifespan of patients with the glioblastoma multiforme variant of brain cancer. During a study of 23 cancer patients, it increased survival times by at least 18 months, and only 4 of the patients died during the trial period. The vaccine works by "tagging" cancer cells with a protein that tricks the immune system into believing they are foreign, forcing it to attack the cells and destroy them. Unfortunately, however, it appears that the vaccine only works until the cancer evolves to use different receptors, at which point it becomes ineffective. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health…

the reason for the death penalty is because someone is a threat to society and need to be removed from it right? cant the same thing be achieved with life imprisonment? when you think about it the death penalty is about revenge and i dont think our legal system should be based on revenge.

A new study has found that perhaps you really don't get benefits out of drinking moderate amounts of alchohol after all. The study suggests that other studies were flawed, in that they compared moderate alchohol drinkers with people who abstained entirely. But many of those who abstained did so because of medical conditions or other medications, meaning that the group that abstained was already more likely to die, even without the alchohol considered. http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2006/04/moderate_drinki.html

I'm not going to offer an opinion because I've done very little research and this is such a technical question. OTOH, if there is relative safety, maybe we should go more towards nuclear power to alleviate global warming. I'd be very curious to know what the group thinks.

Plants and Animals As the human population grows ever larger we use more and more land and we force more and more species closer and coloser to extinction. Almost every environment is currently affected and all are currently getting worse... something needs to be done before we loost so many more species. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060502085941.htm - Ryan Jones

This is one of those cases that's so abhorrent that it really makes you wonder. I've always been opposed to the death penalty, but if I were on this jury I'd probably ask to pull the lever on ol' sparky myself. A Florida father, incensed by an argument with his estranged wife, took actions so extreme that they just boggle the mind. The state is going to ask for the death penalty in this case. The couple was on its way home from the hospital where the baby had been treated for diarrhea. The couple argued, and the baby woke up screaming. The father picked up the baby out of its car seat and threw him head first out the window. The baby landed face-first in the d…

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced that it will put $55 million into prosthetic arm research. Part of this money will go towards devoloping a "peripheral nerve interface," a device designed to relay nerve pulses wirelessly from what's left of a limb to the person's belt, which would have a computer mounted on it. Then, the signal will be routed to back the bionic arm and nerves in that area, where they would flow back to the brain naturally. This would allow people to feel the arm as if it was an actual limb, and control it more accurately. http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060424/sc_space/wirelessbionicarmwouldfeelreal;_ylt=AmhTIMHv…

What if most of the oil reserves of the world was located in the USA... What differences in the political landscape do you think would be present, and how much more ambitious would the US be in its foreign policys?

http://www.zmag.org/books/pareconv/parefinal.htm Ever heard about it? What do you think? I'm still reading the book, and I find the idea a lot interesting. I think we really need an alternative to capitalism, so I very much appreciate those who work to find a viable alternative.