Politics

Simple question: Should the testimony of convicted criminals who have been offered a plea bargain in exchange for their testimony be sufficient on its own for the prosecution of a third party, given the absence of any other evidence? 60 Minutes did a piece last night about Richard M. Scrushy, the CEO of HealthSouth who is currently on trial for fraud after his company apparently cooked the books. The jury is deliberating today. The evidence against Scrushy consisted entirely of the testimony of five HealthSouth CFOs, all of whom plead guilty in plea bargain arrangements to testify against Scrushy, who claims ignorance of their deception. This of course follo…

A recent poll released by National Geographic indicates that 60% of Americans believe that life exists on other planets. Some other interesting results: More men believe that life exists on other planets than women (69% men / 51% women) Women are more likely to feel 'nervous and afraid' if we learn that life exists elsewhere (27% women /13% men) Regular church goers are less likely to believe that life exists elsewhere (46% church / 70% nonchurch) Republicans and Democrats are just as likely to believe in life on other planets 70% of Americans believe that these life forms would be similar to humans, and 80% believe they would be more technologically advanc…

ABC News' John Yang on Saturday's nightly broadcast, talking about Friday's casualties in Iraq: I don't know what's more infuriating about this -- the statement that families of dead marines take their deaths "in stride", the implied connection between a death in the family and needing to take a political stand, or the underlying premise that opposing the occupation of Iraq equates to forward progress!

A new Rasmussen Reports survey shows a 70% approval for the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Clearly the left wing of American politics has failed to make its case. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Gitmo.htm

Take a look at this section of a wikipedia article on the political spectrum. I suppose as politics is so complex the Friesian political spectrum is the closest thing to acurate although far from it. Do you think that it's possible to create a model of various political posisitions? If so what would it look like?

I just read a TIME magazine article which included specific details of intelligence gathering methods used on a detainee at guantanamo bay. It was very interesting. The methods the US interrogators used would probably be considered "light" torture by most people. Although I'm an advocate of aggressive interrogation, I cannot support torture. Naturally, I found myself questioning whether or not some of the methods they used were "over the line" for me. The detainee is supposedly the "20th hijacker". One thing particularly interesting was how concerned the interrogators were with his physical health. The article notes that he was seen by doctors up to three times a day.…

This might displease some creationists. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-06-02T180216Z_01_N62647062_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-DINOSAUR-DC.XML

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1791164,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532 Interesting article about CERN's grid for the Large Hadron Collector. Apparently it will be handling 1.5 gigabytes of data per second for over ten years. The data will be passed around "a global grid that stretches across Europe and the United States". Cool. My favorite stat from the article: Translation: They're hosting electronic distro for Doom IV.

Would you like one of these on your desktop ? Earlier this week, IBM (NYSE: IBM - News) unveiled its latest and greatest supercomputer. The 91-teraflop monster, dubbed "Watson Blue Gene," is capable of cranking out a mind-blowing 91 trillion calculations per second. This ultra-powerful -- yet remarkably affordable, practical, and accessible -- computing tool is likely to give IBM a significant competitive advantage over competitors such as Affymetrix (Nasdaq: AFFX - News), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC - News), and General Electric (NYSE: GE - News) in the life sciences, information technology, and material sciences sectors. IBM officials are confident that they'll be able …

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6595798/site/newsweek/ A new pill able to increase our memory is in experimental stages. A memory destroying pill is also being worked on. What do you guys think of this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/17/AR2005061700863.html Similar links in case that one's registered: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/business/17cnd-tyco.html http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=8826570 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4105628.stm

From: http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,159348,00.html now why on earth would 20 people not be proud to sign their respective names on a piece of paper condemning lynching in this land of the free? what is so frightening is that these 20 people decided that supporting such legislation was very likely a bad choice, as it would lose them support more than it would gain them support. i, for one, am disgusted. discuss as you wish

John Danforth is a moderate Republican who many will remember was appointed by Janet Reno to investigate the Waco incident. More recently he was our last ambassador to the United Nations, a post which he left in January, after which he was asked to serve as special envoy to Sudan. He's an Episcopalian minister, and he may also be remembered for officiating at Ronald Reagan's funeral last year. (Notably, he also officiated at Washington Post owner Katherine Graham's funeral in 2001.) My point in all that being that he's an example of a christian, a conservative, and a Republican, but he isn't trying to convert the world to fundamentalism. He is well-respected by …

Norm Stamper was the chief of police in Seattle during the 1999 WTO-related riots there. His book about it came out about a month ago, and looks very interesting. Stamper was apparently seen as a progressive, reformist police chief, and it must have been a blow to left-of-center supporters of reform in the police department when all this came down. I'm afraid I don't know much about it -- just what I've read in the links below -- so I'm just setting the table here, don't take my comments as definitive. Check out these links for more info: Amazon has the book for sale here . From the book description: Here are two interesting links. The first one is a…

Do you think patriotism is very similar to religions?

The verdict: No evidence of spousal abuse. No sign of trauma. No sign that her collapse was the result of a beating by her husband at all. The report also says that she would not have ever recovered from her injury, as her parents had hoped. The report confirms that her brain was "profoundly atrophied", suffering from "massive neuronal loss" that was "irreversible". The brain weighed in at half its normal size. The report showed no evidence that the husband attempted to hasten her death with the use of drugs or other substances, as the parents had alleged. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-fschiavo15jun15,0,3263358.story?coll=sfla-n…

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has an interesting editorial today about the current state of affairs in Iraq. His opinion stands somewhat in contrast with what I said in this thread (that we can finish the job with the troops we have). I don't agree with him, and I think he actually disproves his own point in this editorial when he talks about how we need to focus more on Iraqi police/troop morale than on "training" per se. But he makes some other interesting points, and he's always a good read. I've always felt that we sent more than enough troops to capture Iraq (and topple Hussein), but that time has shown us that it wasn't enough troops for the o…

This poll is a little America-centric... but for all you foreigners: If you commented that you were against the right to bear arms, do not vote republican or libertarian. If you believed Saddam had WMD, but were still against the war, you should vote green or democrat. If you're for abortion but against the death penality, democrat is the way to go. .. see http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm The other parties are self-evident and there is no "none" option, because if you think you're not in line with most of the beliefs of a party, you probably haven't seen the site I linked to. Try to pick the closest match, and if you're really out there choos…

Linkage: The Australian <Adrian cronauer> GOOOOOOOOOOOD MOOOOOORRRRNNNIIIING IIIIIRRRRAAAAQQQQ. </Adrian> O.K. back to reality. Excerpt: Seriously what are your thoughts on this, personal, political. Some topic starters. 1) I found it surprising, you've only lost 1700 people which, as invasions come and go, isn't shocking, I find it startling that such a minor casualty rate is supposedly "compelling" them bring back the draft. Something doesn't seem quite right here. 2) As I alluded to in my opening, this does seem more and more vietnam-ish everyday. 3) Say you go ahead with this. If you draft people into service, and gi…

Is bush planning on doing anythinng about the high rate of oil consumption? We guzzle so much gas every year, yet we aren't working so well with alternative energy. Why not? Sure, right now it isn't a big deal, but with oil oly depleting and population only growing, meaning the supply is decreasing and the demand is growing, so the price of it will skyrocket! We need to do something about it while we have time to!

Astronomers have detected the smallest extrasolar planet yet: a world about seven and a half times as massive as Earth orbiting a star much like ours. The new find may be the first rocky world found around a star like the Sun. It orbits the star Gliese 876, located 15 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Aquarius, and orbits with a period of 1.94 days at a distance of 0.021 AU, or 3.2 million km. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4089534.stm Because its mass is so small, it is not thought to be able to retain gases like hydrogren in the way that a gas giant does.

Someone told me that if all politicians worked for our betterment instead of there own selfish interest we would live in a utopia. My wife thinks all politicians are crooks.I am pondering that thought. Anyone wishs to enlighten me on this statement? pljames

Recently Floridians have caught the local legislation bug, thanks in part to the national reaction to the recent cases of young girls who were killed by repeat sex offenders. Communities all over Florida are imposing new "2500 feet" rules, that basically prohibit convicted sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of any school, park, or other youth-oriented facility (day care, etc). The problem is that 2,500 feet can be a really large radius in an urban or even suburban environment. Often schools or parks are only separated by a mile or so, leaving very little room in between for the sex offenders to find a place to live. And the laws are retroactive, so if you …

It is also a Christian value to refrain from stealing, or murdering, are these evil as well?

Fascinating article in the Post today -- Bob Woodward's personal story about how he came to know Mark Felt, including his own story about how he came to work for the Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/01/AR2005060102124.html In a sense this is the story I've been waiting all week to read, really. Mark Felt's story is interesting. Bob Woodward's story is fascinating. My two bits' worth, anyway.