Politics

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040503.html Toutatis comes close every 600 years and this year is one of those times. On 29 September this year, it will pass 1 million miles from earth (visible with binoculars under dark sky), that is about 4 times distance to moon. Toutatis is about 3 miles long and 1 and 1/2 miles wide. The last encounter this close was around 1350 AD and the next close one will be around 2550 AD.

Comments? I'm enjoying it. I think they could have done without the 9/11 speeches, but thats just my opinion.

I must say that was the must ridiculous thing I have EVER seen. More entertaining than the British House of Commons debates. First of all let me start with Arnolds speech. I didn't believe the single word he said. The speech can be generalised in these few words "America : The greatest country in the world". Which I found quite over the top. The word America was there for every 5 other words. Also taking cheap shots at the opposition candidate. Most of the content of his speech would have been suitable for a low brow comedy sketch. And while, more mature members of the audience were still waiting to be impressed, some were gazing up at him with wonder and applauding,…

The bombing of Hiroshima, killed at least 100,000, not to mention birth problems in later generations, etc. Compare this to Terrorist activities, such as Hamas. Of course the first was a formal war, but I think everyone is aware that they are under attack in the latter case. Civilians are killed in both instances. To justify Hiroshima, we said to save soldiers lives, not that we couldn't win. Terrorists are usually in a winless battle anyway, like a last resort in their minds. What is your opinion?

I just saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. I felt it had a lot of good and bad points. I can't believe half the US supposedly thinks Bush deserves to be president of the United States. On the other hand, I think Michael Moore needlessly edited some pieces together regarding Bush tying Al Qaida to Saddam Hussein. Bush had always tried to justify the invasion of Iraq with terrorism and thus with the 9/11 attack. I felt it weakened Moore's credibility to clip together random footage of Bush saying "Al Qaida" and "Iraq" or "Saddam". Overall, I think the movie had it's intended effect on me. Anyone else see it?

"Scientists have performed successful teleportation on atoms for the first time, the journal Nature reports. The feat was achieved by two teams of researchers working independently on the problem in the US and Austria. The ability to transfer key properties of one particle to another without using any physical link has until now only been achieved with laser light. Experts say being able to do the same with massive particles like atoms could lead to new superfast computers." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3811785.stm

question or two Assuming we go to war (big assumption eh), if Iraq uses chemical/biological weapons against our troops, will you say that we were right? I could be wrong, but it seems like a lot of people against war believe that saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction. If we go to war, and he uses them, will this change your mind about the war? What if Al Quaeda is found to be directly connected to iraq somehow, will this change your mind? The reason Bush is pushing for our involvement with Iraq is national security. If either of the two aforementioned scenarios are found to be true, were we right in invading Iraq? High ranking defectors from Ira…

What are your opinions and views on China or other countries like your own country? Talk here. I don't think foreign would go to the mainland deeply. The hygiene, safety has no "warrency". Also, the system practises communism and socialism but practise like totalitarianism and cause corruption. No people can talk about affairs of China loudly, even speaking. I'm very lucky to live in HK. It does not have this problem. Also, the freedom of commercial is also rank the first rather than the US (rank 2).

Johnny or Latham??? i cant seem to decide which one to choose, i dont need to worry about it, im to young to vote, Though i was just wondering. who would be a better choice?

the terrorist attacks on the scale of 911 used to be stuff of fiction I just finished reading a book "the mark of the assasin" by daniel silva heres how the story goes > There is an international private society. its membership included rogue intelligence officers, international crime organisations, and powerful business moguls" >the society's founding creed declared peace was dangerous. its members believed constant controlled global tension served the interests of all. it prevented complacency. it maintained viginalce. it built national identity. and most of all it made them money, a good deal of money >its an election year. the president is…

bad idea? I wonder what the british government had to say about that. I thought they had at least a say in what goes on iraq. Many british citizens are feeling that USA is just using the british support for their political purposes and not listening to any of the suggestions/worries.

For number one, the underscore can represent the jurisdiction of whatever level of government the person you vote for represents whether it's a county, state or the entire country (or even whatever other countries might use).

Innocence Lost Now that the anniversary of the September 11 bombings comes and goes and people are forced to focus once more upon that historic day, the question, for one more time, arises in many minds or is whispered openly like a curse: What kind of people could do such a thing, what sort of human beings can be responsible for so much death and destruction, what type of men can inflict so much misery upon “innocent” civilians with no thought to their personal survival or the many victims they will take with them? The answer in my mind is simple and quit obvious. If one needs to see what kind of person can do such violent deeds driven by raw emotion, illogical passi…

I thought you might like to know that today a panel of 'wise men' have decided on the technology to be used in the planned high energy e+e- linear collider. They have chosen superconducting technology. From the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3583658.stm And the International Linear Collider site (the press release is on the left): http://www.interactions.org/linearcollider/

Did the holocaust really happen?

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in the UK had granted the right to perform "therapeutic cloning" on human embryos to researchers at the University of Newcastle. The work will involve searching for treatments of common or incurable conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3554474.stm

An experiment performed by Shahriar S. Afshar has raised serious doubts about both the Copenhagen interpretation of QM and, to boot, the many-worlds interpretation. Recall that to date it was thought that all interpretations of QM would predict exactly the same phenomena. However, Afshar's experiment has shown an effect that violates complementarity and partitioned universe. The experiment is very simple - it's a standard 2-slit affair, with the following modification: observe the dark bands in the standard experiment, and place wires in these dark areas. These regions are where the wave models destructively interfere. Ergo there is "nothing" there to detect. However,…

Some of the threads concerning Gay marriage got me thinking about this topic. I support gay marriage and can easily distinguish this from polygomy, bestiality, etc. What about two heterosexual men(women) who want to be married? Is a profession of love a requirement for marriage? Monogomy? What's your opinion?

Somebody at the Dublin conference made a transcript of the much-anticipated talk Stephen Hawking gave today on his proposal to resolve the black hole information paradox. They got the transcript to Sean Carroll a cosmologist/blogger at University of Chicago, who posted it here: http://pancake.uchicago.edu/%7Ecarroll/hawkingdublin.txt As you can see from the final paragraphs of the transcript, Hawking conceded his bet with John Preskill in style----the stakes being an encyclopedia, Hawking offered Preskill an Encyclopedia of Cricket. However Cricket is an obcure English pastime unknown to people in Preskill's part of the world---where they do more su…

Scientists in the USA claim to have found evidence that structures known as 'nanobacteria' are actually alive, and may be responsible for a variety of human illnesses. Other researchers are doubtful that there is enough evidence to call the structures life forms, as they are smaller than viruses and exhibit only a few features associated with life. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3729487.stm

Francis Crick, who is well known for coauthoring the paper, with James Watson, that described the structure of DNA, has died at age 88. He also worked on how information is translated from DNA to proteins, and much of his later life was spent on trying to understand the nature of consciousness. http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040726/full/040726-12.html

Interesting phenomenon of the pesticide effects on the ecosystem. Interesting still is our solution to the problem: Nothing http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/08/04/environment.deadzone.reut/index.html

On August 3, 2004 @ 16:38 GMT (12:38 PM EDT) the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) suspended after suffering a failed command echo check between the Control Section (CS) of the STIS Main Electronics Box (MEB) and the Multi-Anode Micro-channel Array (MAMA) Control Electronics (MCE). IMPACT ON PROGRAM/PROJECT AND SCHEDULE: The STIS science program timeline was interrupted when Suspend mode was entered. The Project and Space Telescope Science Institute will cease scheduling STIS science. Alternate observations from other instruments will replace STIS observations. All other HST science instruments are functioning nominally. http://www.spaceref.com/news/vi…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists said on Wednesday they had created a new form of matter and predicted it could help lead to the next generation of superconductors for use in electricity generation, more efficient trains and countless other applications. The new matter form is called a fermionic condensate and it is the sixth known form of matter -- after gases, solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in 1995. Yahoo news report

Details as to origin are unclear at this point, but the source code to Windows 2000 has been leaked. This leak has been verified to most likely be the actual source by ScienceForums.net, a member of which having obtained and viewed the code. The code appears to be complete including the kernel. Based purely on speculation, the source of the leak is most likely from one of the 100 Universities around the world with a source code license for MS operating system. Nonetheless, this is a huge deal in the IT world. I for one will be switching to a different operating system since given Microsoft's security record, I'm sure holes will be found at an alarming rate. The …