Politics

You've just got to laugh if this story is true. Instead of a "gang of eight" being briefed, we would have a seven member "terrorist surveillance subcommittee." This controversy was always about legislators throwing their weight around in the only remaining sphere in which they are capable of bipartisan unity - preserving their own power. Now, let's see how many leaks occur....

How's that for a subject line? Made it up myself! Bill Frist won a straw poll amongst Republican activists on Saturday which is considered to be a kind of bell weather for the presidential race. One interesting twist was that McCain was campaigning for voters to write in President Bush, ostensibly as a show of support. I can't help but wonder if maybe that was an anti-Frist move, though. Perhaps McCain's presidential hopes are closer to the surface than he would like for us to think? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11782578/ Another interesting tidbit in the above article is that Frist is apparently taking credit for ending the Democratic filibuster over Ali…

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has successfully entered orbit around Mars, a planet known for swallowing up many of the probes that try to visit it. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is on a mission to find out if water has existed on Mars for a long period of time (and in what form), armed with six instruments to help detect signs of water, and signs of the previous existence of water. NASA scientists hope the MRO will be able to definitively tell us if life could have ever existed on Mars - opening the door for future missions that search for signs of this life. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-031006mars_lat,0,4816328.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Scientists believe that they discovered water on one of the Saturn's icy moons. This discovery was made by the Cassini spacecraft, and shows evidence of liquid water resources that erupt from natural hot springs on Saturn's moon Enceladus. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-03-09T221913Z_01_N09208250_RTRUKOC_0_US-SPACE-SATURN.xml

So, I really wonder: Does Bush not remember when Congress gave Clinton line-item veto power, and the Supreme Court struck it down? And how much sense does this request make considering Bush is the only president in history to have never vetoed a bill? http://www.newswatch50.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=BBE62577-345B-446B-B250-072223B4A544

More here. And here are the briefs. It strikes me that a test relying on Hurley v. IGLB might be relevant in establishment clause case law. Discussion?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/09/port.security/index.html How interesting is this.. I hope this is a major bitch slap to all the paranoid people in congress.

A surprising new discovery shows that certain plants, such as tobacco, "eavesdrop" to help themselves survive. When sagebrush is attacked by insects, the plant gives off odors to warn other plants of the coming danger. Other sagebrush plants detect these odors and prepare by releasing chemical defenses. It turns out that tobacco "eavesdrops" on the sagebrush, and detects these odors. It then waits to give off arsenal until the insects attack, thus saving vital energy for important tasks. http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/200603...YwN5bmN hdA--

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060307-5.html I'm really having trouble discerning what exactly this is about, but as I read it, I can't help but feel Bush is violating the Establishment Clause here, especially as I read portions such as: I'm reminded of the Everson v. Ewing decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&court=US&case=/us/000/u10270.html

Do you think it is too early to say that, "Human destiny in the 20th century was largely pre-determined by 3 things, give or take a little. These 3 things being 75mm guns, 105mm guns, and 155mm guns."? aguy2

A new red spot has begun to grow on Jupiter. This new storm, “Oval BA,” also known as “Red Jr.” first appeared in the year 2000, and has recently started to change colors. In November, Oval BA was white. Slowly, the storm turned brown in December, and in the last few weeks the storm has become red. Oval BA is about half the size of the Great Red Spot, and almost the exact same color. Nobody knows exactly why the spot is red, but a popular theory is that the storm dredges material from deep beneath the cloud tops to high altitudes, where a chemical reaction between ultraviolet radiation and the material occurs. If this theory is correct, Oval BA is most likely…

As a libertarian I'm appalled by this story... http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002112639_diss08.html In a nutshell: Is this not diametrically opposed to the idea of the First Amendment? I think it is blatantly unconstitutional to have any government oversight of what written works are being published. What was the government's response? So once again, we're getting the "We need to take away your freedom to keep you safe" line. Is anyone else getting tired of this? Give me liberty or give me death...

President Bush recently visited both India and Pakistan to discuss a number of issues, including each nation's nuclear armaments. While in the past the U.S. position has been staunch opposition to either nuclear program, now Bush has declared the Indian program legitimate, and even made the two countries strategic partners in developing civilian nuclear programs. Pakistan, however, received no such commendation, being told essentially that they are not responsible enough to have a nuclear program. Personally, I think he has a point. I trust India far more than Pakistan, based on their respective histories. But does that make this kind of thing a good idea? After all, …

NASA has confirmed that it has canceled the Dawn mission to study two of the largest known asteroids in the solar system. The mission had been in development for four years, and was already 20% over budget, with major technical problems yet to be solved. This comes as a major setback to scientists, as NASA has no other asteroid-studying missions planned (though one proposal is due on April 5th). However, NASA hopes to salvage parts out of the half-completed spacecraft for other missions, so it is not a total waste. Scientists, however, will have to wait even longer to get their asteroid mission. http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8805

I was reading the following Batroc Z Leaper http://groups.google.com.au/group/alt.troll/msg/41eb3621851f2260 If it more likely that women will quit and raise babies, this will only make discrimination more tempting, especially for jobs of high importance. Imagine 80% of females quit and have babies. If you were hiring someone to be CEO and thought about a highly qualitifed female, you would think, "There is an 80% chance this female will quit and have children. The replacement costs would be high if she decides to quit. Perhaps I should hire a man instead." A female's decision to quit and have children, therefore, can hurt other females. I think this is really sad becau…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060224/sc_space/planetspopulationtohit65billionsaturday Wow, 6.5 billion people! What are we going to about overpopulation?

the regular Christmas lectures from the Royal Institute will be on Channel 5 in the Evening this year at 7:15 starting on Boxing Day, instead of the usual midday slot around 12 as has been in the past. this years topic is the "Gourmet Ape" and hosted by Professor John Krebs (former chairman of the Food Standards Agency).

The United States Military is currently developing a "robotic pack mule," which walks on four legs and displays amazing reflexes and walking abilities. The robot can withstand a strong kick to the side without falling over, and can navigate rocky ground without tipping over. It's an amazing display of abilities for a robot, and the military hopes to develop it further. The possibilities are endless, and it could possibly replace human roles in certain dangerous tasks and other menial ones, like transporting large containers or doing medical evacuations. In any case, it's a major achievement for the robotics industry. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn880…

Researchers funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have figured out how to literally control a fish's movement through the water. Using a system of electrodes implanted in a dogfish, they have stimulated the fish's brain to fool it into thinking it smells something in one particular direction, so it turns that direction to see what it is. This works remarkably well, so the Navy is hoping that it can expand the technology further. One has to wonder about the implications of this. Could it be expanded to work on other animals--even humans? We'll have to see. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18925416.300

http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075 Kind of puts a different spin on the whole "Support the Troops" thing, doesn't it?

Devastating if authentic: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/international/middleeast/01saddam.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

I've been reading Milton Friedman's Free to Choose and a general idea I get from this book is that economic freedom is a prerequisite for social freedom. E.g. in China the idea is that as the people get more and more prosperous their power increases relative to the government's and with this power they are more able to express their rights. Looking at today's political spectrum of Left versus Right, we see that the Left is socially liberal (e.g. porn is allowed) and economically authoritarian (e.g. protection from outsourcing) while the Right is socially conservative (bans on evolution and abortion, etc) and economically liberal (free trade, free markets, pro-business…

Average salary for a player in the NFL: Median salary for an NBA player: Average salary for a college professor: Average salary for special education teachers: Some of the most expendable and unimportant members of society the most overpaid, and the most important ones are paid so little. Even the lowest paid NFL player inexplicably earns 5x more than the highest paid college professor, and that makes absolutely no sense to me. Are we just masochistic?

I heard about this project on the Radio today, so just out of interest I thought I`de share this Test with you all: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ it`s the Implicit Association Test, and can be VERY! revealing about your feelings, conscious or not. now, you don`t HAVE TO post your results here but feel free to if you wish there are several test catagories, take your pick!

It seems that chocolate lovers are finally vindicated. In a Dutch study of elderly men, those found to consume the most amount of cocoa were half as likely to die of a heart attack than those with the least cocoa - even when other risk factors were taken into account. Unfortunately for chocolate lovers, scientists still don't recommend eating chocolate in large amounts to prevent disease. It's a compromise. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8780