Politics

will we ever have a One world government? i don't think its possible, unless everyone was turned into mindless drones. (like the borg) people just choose not to get along, pety bickering. like the israilies and the palistines, they've bein fighting over the land for several millenia, reminds me of two children fighting over a toy, shouting "MINE! MINE!"

Just a random thought: How about hitting Judge Roberts with a litmus test on his thoughts about personal property? Does he think it's okay for the state to take someone's personal property to, say, build a shopping mall?

Justice Rehnquist passed away tonight in his home. While not the court's oldest member, he had been suffering from post-cancer illness for some time, and was 80 years old. Recent rumors had surrounded his predicted retirement, especially after Sandra Day O'Conner retired at the end of the most recent Supreme Court session, but Rehnquist said he was staying on. All of that's news you can find anywhere, but I thought I would just add a few comments of my own for the purposes of furthering political discussion here on the boards. I don't mean any disrespect in jumping right into a political discussion. I think it's a great loss to the country, but also a shame for …

Not all, the Colonies get passed the French and Indian War, during which they were very independent with little restriction or help from "The Mother Country". So after Britain didn't have to deal with France anymore all of a sudden Britain decides that they want to control the colonies again. This was not very liked. Added to this was the fact that about a third of the population of the population was not even English in decent, and they didn't like this whole "Church of England" thing, most didn't have a religion or were in some other protestant religion. So after the French and Indian War all of a sudden the Colonies are being taxed. I'm sure you can imagi…

Okay, not much of a pun, but I have a headache this morning. Interesting op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning about the surging popularity of the flat tax idea in Europe and Asia. Apparently several countries have adopted it or are near to doing so, including Russia, Greece, Poland, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Georgia, Italy, and more. Germany is having a frank (so to speak) and serious debate about it, and Britain (according to this article anyway) is in the midst of a bit of a scandal surrounding it. http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110007174&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage One of the things they mention in there is a new …

tired of paying so much for gas? i sure am. one may ask why is it so expensive. is there really a shortage? no. OPEC has just decided to capitalize more, and as a result, US oil refineries are exploiting this situation in their favor by raising their own prices. what happened to good ol' patriotism? isnt it better for the general public to not suffer? turns out that those good ol' texas compassionate conservative republicans have decided to swindle us again. we need to bring back the 1980 windfall profit tax act to curb the excessive greed. i suggest we tax the excess profit that american oil refineries are making at a very great extent, perhaps 70, 80, 90…

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0508050 A 2.1 Solar Mass Pulsar Measured by Relativistic Orbital Decay David J. Nice, Eric M. Splaver (Princeton), Ingrid H. Stairs (UBC), Oliver Loehmer, Axel Jessner (MPIfR), Michael Kramer (Jodrell Bank), James M. Cordes (Cornell) 9 pages, Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal "PSR J0751+1807 is a millisecond pulsar in a circular 6 hr binary system with a helium white dwarf secondary. Through high precision pulse timing measurements with the Arecibo and Effelsberg radio telescopes, we have detected the decay of its orbit due to emission of gravitational radiation. This is the first detection of the relativistic orbital decay of …

5 days after the New Orleans huricane disaster not a SINGLE U.S Official has even been there to have a look! the BBC are there, Sky News is there CNN are there, but where`s Bush and his crew? ok I`m an outsider looking in, but that seems pretty darn disgusting to me, esp when you consider that less than 5 days after that tsunami they were they like flies round stink! what`s going on? (or not as the case may be).

The Florida Department of Corrections issued a statement yesterday saying that sexual offenders are to be denied access to shelters in the event of a hurricane. The reason for this is that children at shelters, while typically under parental supervision, are in an unfamiliar environment, and may not be watchable at all times (for example, if the parents fall asleep, which of course is a common occurence at a shelter). As an alternative, the department has set up a program that will allow sexual offenders to enter any state prison. All state prisons are protected against hurricanes to at least the degree that designated shelters are. They won't be incarcerated, bu…

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Mr. Robertson said Monday on his show, "The 700 Club." "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop." Quote from Pat Robertson, a President wanna-be, Christian Coalition founder. Another insane remark to add to his long list.

"July 22, 2005: Got a calendar? Circle this date: Friday, August 12th. Next to the circle write "before sunrise" and "Meteors!" Attach all of the above to your refrigerator in plain view so you won't miss the 2005 Perseid meteor shower." http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22jul_perseids2005.htm

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…