Politics

So what do you all think of the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip this week? I think it's quite a development myself. If you'd told me just a year or two ago that Ariel Sharon, of all people, would remove those settlements, I'd have said you were nuts. Will this further the road to peace in the region?

I hate Mr. Bush just as much the other 57% of USians, but in his defense I dont find him that bad. There are a lot of things that Bush does (and doesnt do) that are very praiseworthy. One good thing I've come up with is: Bush's AIDS relief in Africa and developing nations: To put this in perspective, the US committment to fighting AIDS before Bush took office was about 1/3 as much. It shows a genuine interest in the welfare of others, and this concern is very commendable. I find this to be a pretty good non-partisan reason to like Bush. Are there any more reasons?

Should a man be allowed to have many wives, say, ten wives? Same applies with women. Should a woman be allowed to have ten husbands?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16339822%5E29677,00.html I believe that the rise of the Chinese middle class is going to be one of the great stories of the 21st century. On the one hand, you can't help but root for these people. It's also fascinating to see the "Chinese experiment", like the American experiment, try to pave its own path to a unique combination of prosperity and freedom. Alas, it seems likely that there will be many pitfalls along the way. I will say this, though -- few societies are better mentally equipped to handle such travails. After all, it's built right into their language. Many of their language sym…

I'm very surprised that Technocracy has NEVER been mentioned on this board! For a science forum, I would have thought you would have already seen this. I was hoping to discuss your own prospects about Technocracy, but I guess I'll have to be the first to introduce you all to this scientific design for society. Some helpful websites: http://www.technocracy.org http://www.technocracy.ca Beginners' articles: Beginner's Page (old) http://www.technocracy.ca/simp/begin.htm Why Technocracy http://technocracy.org/?p=/documents/briefs/b28 Energy Accounting http://technocracy.org/?p=/documents/briefs/b29 Scientific Government http://technocrac…

It seems that the Brits were able to cut the cables that were snarled in the Russian sub's propeller and the crew was saved. Do we think that there will be and political gains or losses because of this rescue? In any event, it was a job well done, and I am sure that there are now at least 8 Russian seamen who will look kindly tyoward the Brits for the rest of their lives.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/stories/2005/08/17/heresWhatRepublicansSaidAboutClintonAndKosovo.html

PBS is re-running the April 2005 episode of Frontline entitled "Israel's Next War" over the next week or so (check your local listings). This fascinating episode is also available entirely online, at this URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/ (RealPlayer is required.) This is, of course, appropriate right now, because of events in the Gaza Strip this week. The episode takes a look at how the settlers have become distanced from the Israeli political mainstream, and looks at some of the extreme measures that they're willing to go to in order to protect the settlements. Some of these people make the American "religious right" look like characters …

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7854 "The Milky Way is not a perfect spiral galaxy but instead sports a long bar through its centre, according to new infrared observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Galaxies come in a wide variety of shapes usually thought to be produced by gravitational interactions with nearby objects. Some spiral galaxies look like pinwheels, with their arms curving out from a central bulge, while others have a straight bar at their centres." Our galaxy's central bar is estimated to be about 27,000 lightyears long.

The National Geographic Channel is doing a two-part series (four hours total) starting on Monday night about 9/11, focusing on Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's rise to power. It takes a lot of newer information into account, and should be an interesting (and unlike what many of you seem to prefer to expose yourselves to, objective) piece. The link below is to NGC's home page, where you can enter your zip code and find out what channel it comes on in your area: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/channel/ I'll probably post a review after I've seen it next week.

Were the London Police Justified in Killing Jean Charles de Menezes?

Cindy Sheehan's son was killed in Iraq. She was already, at that time, opposed to the war. But she and the family did meet with President Bush, and after that meeting she expressed that she felt better because of the meeting, and that the president had been sympathetic, and helped the family a great deal. Her family continues to feel that way, and in fact her husband has separated from her over this issue. But Mrs. Sheenan took a different route, hooking up with extremist groups and Michael Moore, and is now camped outside the president's home in Texas, lying about her background, her connections, her feelings, her previous disposition, and her previous meetings …

Which president have started the strage tradition of finishing every appearance with "God bless America" ? Carter ? Reagan ?

Should government focus more on correct procedure or correct consequences? Consequential justice focuses only the result. For example, if someone is suspected to be a suicide bomber then it is better to kill him to potentially save more lives. The killing is bad and taking away individual freedom may be bad but the damage is much worse if this person were in fact a suicide bomber so it's okay to kill him. You can calculate it as follows (probability bomber blows up)*(aggregate social unhappiness from many people killed by bomber) > (probability bomber doesn't blow up)*(aggregate social unhappiness from one person killed), and therefore it is okay to kill the suspec…

If I had had children and a neighbor who also has two children moves into my neighborhood, then if that neighbor threatens to harm my children, do I have the right to harm the neighbor's children if by harming the neighbors children (e.g. torturing them) I prevent my neighbor from harming my own children? What do you think?

Gotta hand it to the old curmudgeon -- he knows how to point out hypocrisy. It makes me all a-tingly. Full story here: (Non-subscription, yay!) http://www.slate.com/id/2124157/

Early on the morning of July 23, a fisherman from Ningbo City in east China's Zhejiang Province was shocked by the sight of a huge creature lying dead beside the seawall near his home... Picture and more here: http://www.china.org.cn/english/Life/136739.htm

http://blamebush.typepad.com/blamebush/2005/08/judge_roberts_k.html For those who don't know, Judge Roberts' children are toddlers, so this is obviously just meant in good fun. The Roberts boy put on a bit of a show for reporters during President Bush's announcement of Roberts as his nominee, and it's amusing because during the announcement you could see Bush and Roberts trying hard to keep a straight face, but you couldn't see why they were trying not to laugh -- that came out in news reports later. (hehe) It was a nice bit of non-partisan humor -- something both liberal and conservative parents could sympathize with. BlameBush is actually a far-right bl…

The Cassini spacecraft has coasted to its closest encounter yet - skimming just 175 kilometres above Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. But astronomers are at a loss to explain its observations. On 14 July, Cassini swooped in for an unprecedented close-up view of the wrinkled moon. Its Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) camera has since returned pictures of a boulder-strewn landscape that is currently beyond explanation. The "boulders" appear to range between 10 and 20 metres in diameter in the highest-resolution images, which can resolve features just 4 m across... Pictures and more at: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7692

If a society of people (society A) engaged in torture and slavery of their children as part of the culture, would it be correct and moral for another more powerful society (society B) of people to steal children away from society A for the good of the children? Assume that society B has a government that will protect the children's individual rights to freedom and pleasure.

As we solemnly note the passing of the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, I noticed that the evil empire specter was raised again by the left, and the deceptive spin about necessity was perpetuated by the right. (An interesting case of pole reversal, by the way, since Truman was a Democrat.) While both sides have some good points here and there, I think it's sad that we continue to beat ourselves up about Hiroshima. IMO, what's done is done. Consider: - The moral decision to bomb civilians in that war was done years before, and every air power in that war committed that same atrocity. They were all "keeping up with the Joneses". Whether you blame…

Efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons began in the late 1940s. In part this reflected the horror of the weapon, but it was also spurred by the wartime secrecy that surrounded America's Manhattan Project. That secrecy continues to this day. What it overlooks is that the nature of scientific knowledge is such that it cannot be protected or controlled. If citizens of one country can learn physics, so can citizens of any other country. Given the spread of nuclear weapons, nonproliferation policies must be called a failure.

Gay Teens Executed In Iran: UK Gay News - Iran Executes Gay Teens By Hanging: This is awful

I was thinking about the different ways people have tried to justify abortion. And, it occurred to me that there is a strange justication for pro-choice that goes something like "its her body, her choice" and "the unborn person is not a life". I dont think people reason consistently about this. For instance, while there is a sharp divide between people who believe in "her body, her choice", almost everyone agrees that alcohol abuse during pregnancy is a very very bad thing. So, it makes me wonder how people can justify the simultaneous belief that the unborn person is not a life for the first 6 months (implying that its not morally valuable or cannot be harmed) an…

A landslide of "hot rocks" blamed for California fires. Apparently the 'hot rock' mystery has not been solved. http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=938&category=Environment http://www.darkplanetonline.com/blog/2005/07/584-degrees-f-hot-rock-mystery.html