Politics

There's a new journal that follows on from The National Interest called The American Interest. The first issue has an essay by Condoleezza Rice, which argues that the US should continue to try to 'democratise' other countries despite the difficulties. Here's an excerpt from The Australian. The problem I have with this viewpoint is that it creates a false dichotomy, where you either embrace the neo-conservative democratisation strategy, or you sit back and do nothing. There's obviously a debate within the conservative US politics between isolationists and democratisers. But conservatives will need to look outside their own foreign policy writings if they aren't going…

I thought the You might be an extremist... thread was clever, but whats even more fun is to admit that on the inside almost all of us hold an extreme view on one thing or another. Please note: this is a place to confess your own extreme views, not to post other peoples views. And if you try to say that you dont hold some kind of weird view or support something that may be just out of the mainstream of your party, or even worse try to pass yourself off as an "independent", you will be forced to wear a dunce hat for the rest of the day If you want to criticize someone for their extremist views, be nice about it I'll go first: I'm generally a reasonab…

Einstein's equation turns 100 From Wikinews, the free news source you can write! September 27, 2005 The man behind E=mc2, Albert Einstein.Albert Einstein's best known equation, and probably the best known aspect of all physics, E=mc2, turns one hundred today. September 27, 1905 is generally considered the birthday of the equation because that is the day that Einstein's paper outlining the significance of the equation arrived in the offices of the German journal Annalen der Physik. In the equation, 'E' stands for Energy, 'm' stands for mass, and 'c' stands for the speed of light. The equation shows that matter and energy are, essentially, two aspects …

A 9/19 poll by USA Today, CNN and Gallup included the following question: 9. If you had to choose, which of the following would you say would be the best way for the government to pay for the problems caused by Hurricane Katrina? The results were as follows: 54% Cut spending for war in Iraq 17% Raise taxes 15% Increase federal budget deficit 6% Cut spending for domestic programs 5% Other 3% No opinion http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/2005-09-19-poll.htm I don't really disagree with any of these options, but I think it's interesting that ABC's George Stephanopoulis was representing, in his interview with John McCain on Sunday, that this poll show…

Top Ten Headlines for Cindy Sheehan's Arrest in Tomorrow's New York Times: 10. "Tragically misunderstood mom to miss Regis" 9. "Protest party purloined per party pogrom" 8. "Sheehan says see shells drop on the shia" 7. ?

If you were a dictator of a country (e.g. you purchased a country) would you make homosexuality legal? Why? Would you have freedom of religion? Why? What will be the primary principle you will adopt when running your country, liberty, order...?

I happened to catch a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh yesterday at lunch (I usually try to pick up Al Franken when I'm out and about at that time, but for some reason I couldn't tune in 940). Anyway, he was ringing up Clinton for his Sunday talk show appearances, really bashing him for, in his view, bashing the Bush administration. So I popped into the Tivo last night and watched the Clinton interview (I'm a little behind in my Tivo viewing at the moment). I didn't think he attacked Bush per se, and he certainly didn't cross the line in terms of race. But he did actually state that the reason for the deficit is because of the tax cuts and Iraq, which of course is ho…

What do you think about the property damage done to billboards when it is modified by a culture jammer? http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/jamming/bbustersSMH.html

apparently, the aid that was sent in to the survivors of hurricaine catrina was deleyed because the people taking the aid in came under gun fire from some of the local inhabitants. do you think this throws doubt on the argument that americans should be allowed guns for their own protection, as the guns aggrevated the situation in this case and that, whilst there are many stories of rape and robbery in post-catrina new orleans, i have not heard of a single instance in which an assailant was shot, or scared off with a gun (ie, no reports of people defending themselves with guns). or does the rareness of the situation invalidate/weaken any anti-gun arguments drawn fr…

It is now unconstitutional....again.

Yeah, this should be known by me, but it isn't. I've been wondering, what U.S. branch controls how government websites are developed and what they say? From what I understand, most military and other government make the webpages and what is typed, but who is the main boss: Executive, Judicial, Congress?

If you are for freedom, does that necesarily mean you must be for the freedom of people to be homosexuals? And does the opposite apply: if you are against homosexuals you are against freedom? When I say against homosexuals, I should distinguish between two types of homosexual aversion. One is when you find homosexuality not to your taste but you don't mind if others engage in gay acts because you respect their freedom. The other is when you believe gay acts should be punished, jailed, etc. I'm talking about the latter not the former because the former is pro-freedom but the latter is obviously anti-freedom.

press release from NRAO http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2005/fastpulsar/ The fastest-moving neutron star ever seen, clocked at 1100 kilometers per second, was given its initial kick by the supernova that formed it, observers think, and that speed will take it out of our galaxy. journal article http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0509031 Getting Its Kicks: A VLBA Parallax for the Hyperfast Pulsar B1508+55 S. Chatterjee et al. 5 pages, including 2 figures Astrophys.J. 630 (2005) L61-L64 "The highest velocity neutron stars establish stringent constraints on natal kicks, asymmetries in supernova core collapse, and the evolution of close binary systems. Here we present the first…

"George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power." "If George Bush truly listened to God and read the words of the Christ, Iraq and the devastation in New Orleans would have never happened." Who said it? You guessed it. Cindy Sheehan. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-sheehan/a-bright-spot-in-bush-wor_b_7433.html I guess that's, what, the fall-back position when the "we don't have any troops to send because they're all in Iraq" argument falls flat on its face?

Generally speaking I'm loathe to quote Bill O'Reilly, because he does tend to be a partisan, especially when it comes to the President. But he does make an effort to be objective, and most of the time that comes through pretty well. His biggest flaw really is that he's a populist, and forgets sometimes that we do have laws for a reason. (chuckle) Anyway, he made a point this week that I thought was interesting and perhaps worthy of further discussion. In 1996 (mid-Clinton) the budget allocated $191 billion specifically for poverty-related entitlements. In 2006 the projected budget will allocate a record $368 billion specifically for povery-related entit…

I was having lunch with one of my friends at a food court and once he had finished eating his meal he threw the rubbish on the floor for the cleaners. Everyone was staring at us, so I tried to stop him, but he told me that littering by people leads to job creation. His reasoning is that by making the food court messier the managers will hire more workers to clean up the place to keep consumers happy with the appearance. Would this be a good argument? I thought about the issue a little and I think maybe his reasoning may be too short term. If the manager hires more workers to clean up rubbish in the food court then the manager's profits may go down, which may have furt…

What do you think of the lack of young participants voting in America elections for senators, presidents, and other people of position? I'm talking about age 18-23 Do you think there are good reasons as to why they don't vote? What do you think is the most common reason for why they don't vote? Do you think there is some type of social conflict within that prevents them from voting or makes them choose not to? Have you read any interesting books on teenager voting? Any interesting articles?

For those who don't know, the Weekly Standard is more or less the rallying point for the neo-conservative movement. Its founder and editor is William Kristol, who also created the Project for the New American Century, one of the neo-con think-tanks and one of the main sources for the development of neo-con political positions over the past decade (membership in PNAC is generally considered to be one of the main indicators of whether a public figure in the administration "is a neo-con"; for example, Senator and former HUD secretary Mel Martinez was not a member of PNAC, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled and Vice President Dick Cheney are members). Kristol is a regula…

Allow me to submit another example of how demogogery is dangerous. Rapper Kanye West goes on national television and says "George Bush doesn't care about black people". Civic leaders and Democrats back him to the hilt, with the African American leadership saying that NBC was wrong to "censor" him when the show appeared on tape delay on the west coast. But here's a nasty question I don't hear anyone in the media asking: Would he have said that if a Democrat were in the White House? Consider: We can speculate with a fair degree of certainty that if Katrina had struck in 1997 the result would have been virtually the same. Louisiana has actually gotten MO…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4183166.stm the article appears to have gotten a lot of attention on the internet because it is highly controversial---makes people angry at the IQ tests used because they favor males slightly, and so on lots of difficulty interpreting what it all means, if anything, and lots to discuss no difference reported up to age 14 (is this a mating display thing like the peacock's tail that evolved because females were attracted to show-off intelligence? ---- seems to appear with puberty) if it is real, that is were the researchers bad people motivated by a desire to get results like this? one of the commenters complain…

I DO NOT support these views. My friend does. His essay is below. I was wondering if you people have any arguments agaisnt (or for) it?

This guy is pretty outrageous. Even as he was complaining about the Bush administration's poor response to Katrina, this guy used the National Guard to rescue belongings from his own home while poor citizens waiting at the Superdome for rescue. Apparently a brief tour was ordered, with the Guard escorting Jefferson around his district. When the tour passed near his home, Jefferson ordered the truck to stop next to his door (so he wouldn't have to step in the rising water), and he disappeared into his house, keeping the troop of six soldiers waiting for an HOUR while he threw items into several suitcases. When they went to leave, the truck was stuck in the mud, and …

Latest diatribe from Michael Moore, who is apparently planning to make a movie about Hurricane Katrina: http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2005-09-12/celeb/2 And yet, it was Moore and the far left that INSISTED that we implement ALL of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Report, which is why FEMA was rolled into DHS. Unbelievable.

They actually robbed refugees at gunpoint: Story There seem to be a chief of police and another police officer who need to spend a few years in jail. Armed robbery under color of law with aggravating circumstances.

Have a look at this old 1961 anti-homosexuality propaganda video. It's quite interesting to see how much attitudes have changed since the old days. http://www.archive.org/details/boys_beware