Politics

As President of the United States of America, it is my duty to be actively involved in all the different contributing factors of this great country. As part of this responsibility I will make it a matter of personal pride to be as much involved in this site as time provides me. Science is the contributing backbone of all major discoveries on this planet. I wish to be part of those discoveries. I would also like to thank the site moderators for their wonderful control and upkeep of this forum. Their time has made this site a well known database for conversation and information accross the country. Well done. If you do try to email me, chances are that I wont read i…

I have a funny feeling that House GOP leadership is about to make some very serious and costly political mistakes. I could be wrong, and I'm no expert, but here is my reasoning: 1) They don't seem to know quite what to do about Tom Delay. Some of them seem to be aware that he's nothing but baggage at this point, with rapidly eroding support amongst the base. But he's very well entrenched, and more importantly, they THINK he's well entrenched (which is all that really matters). Lack of decision will begin over the coming week to have exactly the same impact as standing behind him. 2) The anti-filibuster proposal does not enjoy popular support. Today they st…

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6448213/did/7593620/ Is this Congress controling our industry too much, or is it just the government trying to imporve our lives?? They want to get rid of Anolog TV to make the digital market bigger so they can compete with other markets? So the government owns the channels if thtis law is passed? Who should be invoved with this "deal"?

well well, There is a massive debate over the Alaskan Oil fields, and what affect our drilling would have there. I just wanted to open a discussion about it, and state my opinion, and more than that, my suggestions. I am all for the environment. Without it, we wouldnt be here...yea that came out right I have seen the area where we would commense drilling, and it's not that pretty of an area. That, however, is not to justify our drilling. The fact is that the area is primarily permafrost, and that the damage we would cause there would not be aweful, but it would stay in whatever condition we leave it in for a long ass time. But one of the major concerns is…

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has just become Pope Benedict XVI. After days of deliberation the 115 Cardinals deliberating in the Sistine Chapel decided on Cardinal Ratzinger to head up the 1.1 Billion Catholics in the world today. The Cardinals, in a ceremony that dates over the 265 successions of Pope since St Peter, final issued the white smoke from the flue this afternoon at 5pm GMT. 'We gather together not to decide the next Pope, but to decide the preordained will of God' one Cardinal commented on exiting the deliberations, 'Once the proceedings got Goring, all we needed was a little Putsch in the right direction' another Cardinal didn't say. The new Pope…

Scientific American has an interesting article from their September 2002 issue on how building a time machine could be made possible. I myself have Doc Brown on my side, and Marty McFly at the wheel. Wouldn't it be interesting though if we really could go Back to the Future?

This is why I love reading the WSJ's opinion page. As ideological (partisan-right) as they are, they have an impeccable history of inviting intelligent and insightful counterpoint. This is a perfect example. Ted Olsen was solicitor general under the Bush administration until last summer (argued the 2000 election before the Supreme Court, IIRC), and has every reason in the world to hate "activist judges". But look at what he has to say. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006597 It's a registration deal, so I've taken the liberty of quoting a couple of the more potent passages.

I think it would help our civilization if dead beat dads were castrated. I don't have a dead beat dad, but I have known alot of people who have had dead beat dads, and if we just castrated them all, it would solve alot of problems. If someone can't take care of one child, then someone probably can't take care of two. It would also be nice if this were done to rapist, however, I think that since girls can call rape when they actually haven't, a more reversible treatment should be imposed. They should still be made incapable of reproduction, don't get me wrong, just, they should be able to, if they are proven innocent, to keep their genitalia. What do yall …

Ion Wind research: Click Here. I found this after doing some research, and I think it shows some potential. We could use Ion Wind to make space craft move up to 300,000 ft. and then the space craft could switch to the normal solid fuel rocket engines. It would be sort of like a "hybrid" space craft....and that would leave a lot more energy to reach higher speeds in space... Tell me what you think.

I know it's a little early for this type of thing, but Im just wondering about your thoughts on the (US) Election in a few years. Who do you think the front runners will be? What sort of issues do you think will be deciding? This will be the first election in which I'm allowed to vote, so you can imagine my interest.

If you get a chance to catch this, be sure and do so. It's an interesting new documentary movie that takes a look at the Enron disaster and what brought it about. My one complaint about it would have to be the way they bookended it by tirading against the Bush administration, which obviously had nothing to do with the Enron collapse. It also vastly oversimplifies the California energy crisis, and makes Gray Davis (of all people!) out to be some kind of saint. Enron's and Andersen's shenanigans took place on Clinton's watch, and yet there's no mention of billy-boy in the whole program, or credit given to the Bush/Ashcroft justice department for the 15 pleas and 6 …

The first shots in the global entertainment war? http://www.variety.com/VR1117921406.html At the very least it seems to push back the current boundaries in the ongoing dilemma of news entities trying to report stories about the corporate giants that own them.

I found this quite interesting, perhaps you will too. Karl Marx, author of the communist manifesto, was a supporter of capatilism in his own way. He believed that government should be a progression, and believed capatilism should precede socialism. Read more

This is some pretty wacky (yet really cool) stuff that was done with mouse brain cells. The basic outline is as such... 1) Get some mouse brain cells (aka; neurons) 2) Grow them on a plate so that the neurons make connections with eachother 3) Teach cells to fly an airplane Yeah, so maybe it was just a simplistic flight simulator, but still this is awsome. This has to be the coolest thing i have seen in a while (outside my discipline). Anyways, some articles follow... http:// http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2004news/braindish.htm http:// http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65438,00.html enjoy!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/16/hubble.telescope.ap/ No more service flights to the Hubble Space telescope will be made. Influenced by new US manned space flight initiatives, funds previously intended for Hubble missions are to be reallocated towards the development of new vessels and equipment to be used in space exploration. The Hubble telescope is to be replaced in 2011, leaving approximately a three year gap without an operational space-based telescope, with Hubble's surmised failure being between two and three years from now.

After making some interviews and getting info from some of my sources.... Mexico has the 2 wealthiest people of the world. Carlos Slim is the 4th wealthiest man in the world, and everything thanks to an ex-pre. of mexico Carlos Salinas that stole the whole country, so... if we do the math thinking that Carlos Salinas gave the little pieces of bread to Carlos Slim and illicity get the Cake, and if in facts Carlos Slim is the 4th welthiest man in the world, that makes probably Carlos Salinas the Third, Second or Even the First Welthiest man in the world. Bill Gates is the wealthiest man in the world, but Salinas is an International Corrupt and even Gate's curre…

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0412/p06s03-wome.html http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=8146766 It will be interesting to see how this goes. The angle I'm wondering about is the idea that a rapid pullout by Syria may end up becoming an example of why the US should NOT pull out of Iraq early.

ok, I've been recently wondering... everyone knows that US dollars are the most wanted currency in the world. Using this advantage, what if say US government secretly created money and used to buy in the market? It seems like a perfectly good idea.

Space.com is reporting that engineers found a small crack in the foam insulation covering the shuttle's external fuel tank. The crack is not expected to be a safety concern, though it delayed the shuttle rollout for a few hours. The space shuttle Discovery began its 4.2 mile journey to the launch pad today. It is scheduled to launch sometime in mid-May.

Just last week I was ranting about how the far right has been over-the-top in its criticism of the Judiciary and blaming everything in sight on "activist judges". Then the far left goes and makes their case for them. On Friday the 9th Circuit court of appeals overturned a 1995 murder conviction because relatives of the victim wore buttons with a picture of the murder victim on their clothing during the trial. No, really. Here's a link to a news article reporting the appeals court verdict: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/04/08/state/n172951D73.DTL Reuters/NY Time article (requires registration): http://www.nytimes.…

Churches get tax exemptions, which mean that arguably they're being supported by the government, right? Therefore shouldn't science get equal time at the pulpit? Can I get an AMEN?!

The New York Times ran a funny sidebar story today about President Bush's Ipod playlist. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/politics/11letterbox.html? Apparently one of his aids downloads the tunes from Apple and installs them for him, and he listens while running. Or signing important bills. Something like that. Anyway, here were some of the artists and tunes from the list. Mostly C/W, but some fun '80s stuff. Oddly, no sign of Huey Lewis's "Hip to Be Square". John Fogerty, "Centerfield" Van Morrison, "New Biography," "Brown Eyed Girl" John Hiatt, "Circle Back" Alan Jackson George Jones Alejandro Escovedo, "Castanets" Joni Mitchell, "(You're S…

Hybrid Efficiency Overstated? http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7BB21CF567-A36C-4EF0-8E64-D8177D37D004%7D&siteid=google&dist=google Interesting article. Note that it's almost a year old, and gas prices are significantly higher now (more than a dollar higher in California than the example in the quote below), but I still think it's interesting. This quote seems particularly on point: I wonder why the EPA's tests are off by a higher percentage with hybrids versus regular cars.

Well, the Pope is dead. Poor old man. He died of sepsis caused by a UTI.

What are the pos/cons for abusing a child? Should it be allowed? Do you have any facts to share with us? I think that child abuse should be prohibited as much as possbile, but I also think that children should obey their parents. After all, you owe everything to them.