Politics

I was listening to a report on NPR yesterday afternoon about the piracy problem off the coast of Somalia. I didn't realize it has become to widespread and so dangerous to commercial shipping and travel in the region. According to the report, humanitarian groups in Somalia (which has been essentially government-less for 15 years now) are unable to get food shipments right now because of the problem, and it seems to be getting worse. And unlike that passenger ship we all heard about a couple of weeks ago, most freighters apparently can't outrun the pirates. I wonder if this might be a use of the US military that everyone would generally agree upon as a good idea, and…

This is probably an American phenomena more than anything, but heres an interesting essay thats been circulating through conservative magazines for quite some time, its called Heath Care is Not a Right by Leonard Peikoff (my comments in green): I'm pretty fiscally conservative for an insanely liberal feminist environmentalist, but saying people dont have a right to healthcare is just mindboggling. Why do some people think others arent entitled to good health when they need it

This cartoon was taken from today's "boondocks" cartoon provided by the Yahoo browser. Would you consider it racist? Do you think that a person of color might be offended by it?

I remember thinking how liberal the media was a long time ago, because I saw liberal ideas expressed all the time on TV. But then I decided to look for both liberal and conservative ideas on TV, and I found both! I was a little surprised, but more confused. I admit I didn't watch much news, but other tv programs seem mixed, or just change over time leaning one way and then the other. Some programs seemed to have multiple examples of both sides of the political spectrum all in the same half hour. This isn't something that I can look up on the Internet, each side points their finger at the other, and I can't decide for myself. What do you think?

With all the intellectuals swinging their massive cranial organs around here, I thought this might be enjoyed. CAUTION: Anyone with extreme Left or Right tendencies may suffer involuntary convulsions. enjoy! http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0512280311dec28,1,3243.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1449254 The US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against local election officials and Ike Brown, the chairman of the Democratic party in Noxubee County, Mississippi. Under the auspices of the 1965 Voter Rights Act, the contention is that they racially discriminated against white Democratic candidates, discouraging them from running for office and encouraging voters to vote against them. Brown is quite open about his bias against both white candidates and white voters, and while he isn't really supposed to be objective, being the chairman of a specific party, one would think that he would have to be racially unbiased. Per…

Do you think, considering the spy drones and commandoes in Iraq, we will invade them? We're accusing them of the same things we accused Iraq of, we're saying they have WMDs and we are saying we will consider military action if they don't stop thier Nuke programs.

I wasn't sure where to post this, maybe it belongs in General Discussion. Oh well. A couple of weeks ago, a kid at my high school posted on his MySpace website a statement about his desire to have sex with one of his teachers. The school administration caught wind of this, and suspended the student for a week. Do they have the right to do this? I'm not defending the guy, he's a jerk, but isn't this out of their jurisdiction? Or would they be able to argue that his actions were disrupting the learning of other students?

Hey, as some of you probably watched, President Bush gave an address from the Oval Office. This is a good thread to post any comments or analysis you have of the speech. The first obvious thing I noticed was that he did not give a time table, which has dissappointed many people. No one wants an indeterminantly long war that could drag on for an unknown amount of time. He introduced the word "defeatist" to describe people against the war. There are a few other things in his speech, but there were somethings he mentioned that the BBC didn't discuss afterwards. Mainly how he said "People will be gathering for Christmas and Hanukka" Then quoted a christmas carol. …

Since we've been discussing this in the thread here, I thought you guys might find this story over at MSNBC interesting, about the way the NSA is changing with the times. It has a lot of little tidbits about how they're incorporating newer data mining and artificial intelligence techniques to analyze data on a mass scale rather than individual cases at random (which we've talked about previously in this thread). http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10561911/ A couple of interesting quotes from this lengthy article:

For those of you who haven't seen this, it's a fun and interesting read: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover.html Especially the cross-examination of Michael Behe: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day11pm.html#day11pm132

I have noticed that President Bush has made quite a few speeches lately about how things are going here, economically, and in Iraq, which is good, but often he will say something to the effect of "not as long as I am president." It is almost as if he is throwing the gauntlet down before the Democrats. Is it just me, or is he challenging the Democrats to write up articles of impeachment?

I've been following this trial from the beginning, and I'm happy to report a victory for science: Heres the decision in the judges own words: Notice the words in bold, here is what the creationist organization Discovery Institute says about the ruling: Activist judge, eh? Are they talking about the same John E Jones, the conservative Christian district court judge appointed by George W Bush? If there is any better proof that the words "activist judge" are really just codewords for "disagrees with me", I havent seen it But anyway, yay science!

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/IraqCoverage/wireStory?id=1303926

... A Idiot? Yeah, NAY? Your opinions please...

http://www.languagemonitor.com/ Global Language Monitor does this worldwide media language report every year. "string theory" was phrase #7 "global warming" was up there. a number of "politically correct" words and phrases were spotlighted in the report. there was a separate part of the report concerning youthspeak. if you are highly tuned-in you may be able to guess some of the expressions that made the top ten list in various categories

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/science/16gene.html this article in the 16 December New York Times refers to research results published in Science could one now make blond blue-eyed Swedes with black skin, if one so wished? apparently one gene in largely responsible for the black white skin color difference, and they have now found which one it is. in case anyone is interested

Former Sen William Proxmire, who used to give out the "Golden Fleece" awards for supposedly frivolous government spending, died today (Thurs Dec 15). I think the government should spare no expense on a really elaborate memorial service for him, and possibly erect an ornate monument with lots of upkeep costs.

I see that the guy that murdered 4 people 25 years ago was finally brought to justice. Arnie said "hasta la vista baby" to his appeal for clemency. There have been statements of "moral equivilency" regarding the death penalty and the murders that this guy committed. Thoughts?

WHOA! http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.iraq/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

Interesting poll by ABC News, Time, the BBC, NHK and Der Spiegel (the oddest coalition of pollsters I've ever heard of). http://abcnews.go.com/International/PollVault/story?id=1389228 Some of the more interesting numbers: - More than 60% feel "very safe" in their own neighborhoods - 61% say security is good - Average household income up 60% over last 20 months - 70% of Iraqis view their own economic situation positively - 69% expect things to get better over the next year - 69% confident in Iraqi police - 57% prefer democracy over religious government, and that number is rising and the religious preference is falling On the down side: - Less than …

It appears we've had a case similar to the Menezes case in Britain. I've been following this for a couple of days (it actually took place here in South Florida). In a nutshell, apparently a passenger who was mentally ill was flying back to his home in the Orlando area after travelling to Ecuador on some sort of religious mission. He hadn't taken his medication (for reasons unknown), and became anxious while the plane was boarding, after he and his wife had reached their seats (apparently flight stress for the mentally ill is becoming a recognized concern, which is interesting). Anyway, he got up and ran through the boarding passengers to the front of the pla…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/science/13essa.html

Hello, in http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showpost.php?p=231931&postcount=18 a post about congenial debate, I said I would start a rough draft of a Source Credibility Rating System for us to use. Sources referring to anything used to support an arguement. It is certainly a rough draft because I expect and encourage feedback. The goal is for when enough people post that they are satisfied with the current state of the rating system, all the edits will be gathered into a "Second Draft thread" which hopefully can be sticky-ed and used as a reference for source credibility. (Of course it is labeled Second Draft so future SFN members can look at it and add to it ov…