Sisyphus

Look at the International Space Station. Years and years, billions and billions of dollars, hundreds of launches, millions of man hours, and what do we have to show for it? A leaky, half-built flying can that can support a few people for a few months. We're not anywhere close to being capable to building the sort of thing you describe, but that's not to say it won't eventually happen. Incidentally, much larger space-based construction projects should be possible as soon as we get a working space elevator.

Nobody really knows for sure, but there are a number of theories. Probably, it's a means for the brain to process and sort the information of the waking period and for the body to repair itself unhindered, as clearly the brain functions much better when you're well rested, and you recover from illnesses much faster if you sleep more. It also may have evolutionary significance in the fact that it forces you to find shelter and stay out of trouble during the time when you're most vulnerable, in the night time.

You want hallucinations, and don't care if your body curses you for being an idiot? Try extreme sleep deprivation.

Please don't bring Iraq into this. It's a different situation and the easiest way to get wildly off-topic. You've both said unfair and needlessly provocative things. Now drop it. Anyway, it of course makes sense that we wouldn't give aid to a government that openly promotes terrorism, democracy or no. It will be interesting to see what happens. Either everything goes to hell, since you have crazy terrorists running the government, or the crazy terrorists are forced to become more moderate and reasonable since they actually have to govern. If the former happens and Hamas continues to openly support violence against Israelis, we could have a more conventional war (civil war?). If the latter happens, it still won't stop terrorism, because it will just destroy Hamas' credibility among those who are bent on blowing themselves up. To those people, a denunciation of terrorism is just a sign the denouncer shouldn't be listened to.

I don't think that ultrasweet carbonated acid syrup needs cocaine to be bad for you.

I guess it depends on what you think the purpose of government should be. It just seems like if it's forcing behavior that affects no one but the individual doing it, something has gone terribly awry, if liberty is something that is to be valued. There are, of course, alternative philosophies of government, such as "making the people the best they can be." Typically there is a pragmatic balance between those two, which is why drug policy is not black and white. Pragmatically, though, it seems evident that we'd be better off if some of the drugs which are currently illegal should be made legal. I don't know for sure, obviously, but it's worth the experiment. JustStuit: I don't think any policy could make sense if you just talk about "drugs" in general, without distinguishing between substances, or between using them and abusing them, or between using them in a way that endangers others (like drunk driving) or not.

It's very hard to justify a law whose only purpose is to keep people from hurting themselves. If that's the only point behind the laws (and in many cases it seems to be), they should obviously be abolished. Even from a strictly pragmatic standpoint, there's no good reason something like marijuana should be illegal. It's already readily available, and it's not like the health risks aren't well known. I can't imagine too many people would use it who don't already. Plus, it would become automatically less dangerous (being legal, and thus regulated by the FDA), would stop endlessly draining law enforcement resources, and would benefit the legimate economy instead of funding organized crime. Don't make the "soft" drugs illegal, just make them VERY illegal in circumstance when they're harmful to OTHER people, like DUI's. As for other, "harder" controlled substances, they should each be evaluated individually. I'm sure in some cases the overall harm to society outweighs the harm of the endless "war on drugs," but if we refuse to move beyond the knee-jerk "drugs=bad" mentality and have an honest debate, we'll never know.

There are two options. Either they feel their victims are evil and deserve to be killed, or they hope to move towards some larger goal by bombing them. It seems like it's usually the former, if the rhetoric used to recruit suicide bombers is any indication. It's all about killing the enemies of God.

I'd change that to "bring to a stop" instead of "slow down."

10 good kills, actually.

Still, though, it can't be illegal without a law. There's no law, therefore it's not illegal. That is, unless you're a Christian...

Unfortunately, our "onion" is set up with the narrow special interests deep, deep inside, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

I was hoping maybe Secretary General of the United Nations, personally. But I understand he's a pretty good lawyer, too, if out of practice.

I still don't understand what the suggested moral difference is depending on what weapon is used.

Still, it's pretty clear things are steadily getting better in China, not worse. It's always interesting to see how they manage to succeed economically when all conventional wisdom says they should succumb to all the communist state's usual problems.

Yes, I would, but that's only because I know a few more things about him...

Actually, my analogy presupposes that the public knows exactly what's going on. The particulars are irrelevant, but the basic scenario is that the U.S. government has a one shot chance at possibly killing a known, high-ranking terrorist at the expense of probably killing a significant number of innocent American or British civilians. Maybe they'd do it and maybe not (although I douibt it). Maybe it's worth it and maybe it's not - I haven't taken any position on that. But I think it's quite fair to say that there would be a lot more outrage about it. Is it really so far-fetched that Westerners value their own lives more? How could they not? It's inevitable. Obviously we value our own soldiers' lives more than the lives of foreign civilians, the lives of our countrymen more than the lives of foreigners, and the lives of westerners more than non-westerners. It's inevitable and true of every culture, and not really worthy of too much condemnation. All we have to do is be aware of our biases to help keep us in perspective and more fairly judge what is and is not worth the cost. What's ridiculous and naive is pretending the biases don't exist. That's all I'm saying.

Clearly Pakistan is an entirely different situation than Britain, but I'm not sure the London analogy is entirely pointless. Say there was intelligence that al-Zawahiri was possibly in some village in rural America or Britain, but that if he's there, then he'll be back underground and out of reach in minutes, and there's no time for authorities to arrive, making our western institutions of law and order irrelevant. You really think we'd launch a missle strike? I really doubt it, don't you? The only thing that's changed, though, is that we'd be killing innocent westerners. Certainly, the public outrage would be enormous. I'm not necessarily saying it wasn't justified, by the way. I have insufficient data to make that call (although I do find it troubling). I'm just saying that we definitely do value western lives much more than, say, Pakistani lives, even if both are supposedly our allies. To claim otherwise seems pretty naive.

I don't think we have enough information to really evaluate the situation, and I doubt we ever will - getting this administration to actually volunteer information is much like pulling teeth while a team of elite advertising executives spread false rumors about your lack of credibility and patriotism. Clearly somebody messed up, though, and I'd bet anything those responsible were not particularly concerned. If nothing else, it's indicative of the larger trends and priorities of the Administration, which seems to think that killing as many people as possible is a good way to keep people from hating you.

That was a rhetorical question...

Measured with what units? You're talking about quantities of different things, so they're only "equal" in terms of agreed upon units. I could pick any arbitrary unit for an amount of force, for example, and it could still be true depending on what coefficient I use. The expression "F=ma" is either assuming what units you're using (although that isn't expressed), or it really means "varies as" instead of "is equal to." So there.

F=2ma is equivalent to F=ma if you just change your units, since both just mean force varies as mass times acceleration. Now, if you were to change it to F=(m^2)a or something.... Sorry, I'm enjoying be a jerk today. Your point is still true.

Eh. It's easier to be snide. Anyway, I think Wikipedia does a pretty good job.

It has neither tension nor compression inside the hollow. There's no tension because every atom in the object is pulled equally in all directions, hence there's no tendency to pull apart. Of course, there is enormous pressure at the center of the Earth, for example, even though there's no gravitational force there, since there is gravitational force on the rest of the earth, and it's all being pushed together. Of course, none of this has anything to do with what is meant by "center of gravity," so I don't really see what we're supposed to be contemplating.

A vacuum cleaner would not work in space. How they function is by blowing air away from the intake, thus reducing the air pressure there. The weight of the atmosphere then makes the surrounding air rush in to compensate for this loss of pressure, creating what looks like a "sucking" effect. However, the source is not some sucking power of the vacuum, but rather a pushing of the surrounding atmosphere. If there's no air pressure (like in space), nothing happens. Sound also does not work in space, because sound waves are waves of pressure through some medium, like air. Something vibrates, which push on surrounding molecules, which in turn push on the molecules surrounding them, and so the vibration travels until it pushes on your eardrum, which your nerves sense and your brain interprets as sound. In space, there is no medium through which the vibration can travel, and so there is no such thing as a sound wave in space.