Phi for All

Tipping the scales again. How nice we have scaled down to "sexual affair" on one side while scaling back up to "mass murder" on the other.

It was my understanding that the Mod who deleted your tasteless, blatantly crude, deliberately offensive use of oral sex post actually PMd you about it. You seem so unhinged by this thread that you are unable to make distinctions with regard to propriety. Allegations against the US President in a political debate forum are allowed, lurid sexual references for shock value when our membership includes 12-year-olds are not. You are branching into whole new areas of rule-breaking. Is there any hope that you will not force your own suspension?

I just lit a candle, which may be very unscientific, but is one of the best things I do in a situation like this. Let me know if there is anything I can do or anyone I can call for you (I have unlimited long-distance in the US and Canada). I'm sending positive thoughts your way, Sandi.

I've heard acid rain can get as bad as pH 1.7, but I'm not sure your plant would survive till just before the 5 weeks were up. Perhaps you could do a 2-day test for the effects of what is essentially battery acid on a single plant. This might help you set your parameters.

I've heard that light acid rain (pH 5.5) can actually be beneficial to strawberries, tomatoes and corn. Soybeans are affected more adversely. You may want to start at pH 5.5. Btw, don't post the same thread in multiple forums. If we don't get you some good answers here, ask and a Mod will move it into Biology for a while. We just don't want to confuse the community. Thanks.

Am I remembering correctly that only our last 500 posts are kept in queue? Bummer. It would be interesting to see our first posts.

A transition that seems to be the true beginning of our creative lives. I forget where I heard it or who said it, but I'll never forget the words, "Now that you realize you are nothing, perhaps you can become something."

I haven't gotten on before because the few experiences I've had with chat left me pretty cold. I like to post because it gives me a bit to think about what I'm saying. I chat vocally on the phone for a living. To sit and type to talk live grates like a fork on bone. But I'm willing to try it again. It might be different chatting with the fine folk here. Prod me no more, Dave. A convert I will be.

Done.

Clashings of opinion are normal. Keep them from being personal and you'll have no problems with your account. On a side note, and this is for EVERYBODY reading this, it would be nice if we could move on with other pertinent arguments when one argument fails to bring needed clarity to the threads. To keep endlessly rehashing the same points seems to foment these personal-type attacks and name-calling, which is certainly not limited to this thread or even sub-forum.

I'm getting them more and more, or at least I'm getting peeved with them more and more, which may make them seem more prolific. Using Firefox 1.0.2, and it only happens when trying to link from email notifications & specific thread links. I can get them three times in a row from the same link and then it works the fourth time. Very erratic. Very frustrating. I'm American, you can't forbid me anything or I get irate.

And that is obviously ample justification for your opinion, but if you want to refute the opinion of someone else, you need to do more than hide behind the findings of the 9/11 Commission (which TT has reasonably pointed out may be biased, and even given you credible reasons why), or ask loaded questions with foregone conclusions like why Ruppert hasn't interviewed Rumsfeld, Rice, etc, or strawmanning TT's "Bush may be complicit" into "President is a murderer", or even suggesting that your opinion is that of all Americans. I think we all realize how highly offended you are by TT's suggestions, but he has raised his points in a debate forum in a valid manner. Debate him likewise, bring out your own studies and refute him point by point, but STOP attacking him with ad hominem, straw man and poisoning the well fallacies. I don't view TT's opinion in this matter as an implied affront to my judgement. That is your anger talking. And my views on the Bush administration are not partisan at all. I don't like much about what the man has done while in office, and there were many things I didn't like about what Clinton did in office (mostly his FCC changes and corporate kowtowing; the Monica thing was not government). I don't hold the office of US President sacred the way you seem to. I think it's important to hold elected officials accountable for their actions. I want to hear what the fringe is accusing the administration of, and I will continue to take most of it with a grain of salt, but I will also continue to weigh the arguments. I have not heard good rebuttals on many of the 9/11 issues, especially from the Commission. They are puzzling and not in a fun kind of puzzly way. Even you would have to admit that, while there was little complicity on the part of the administration implied when the 9/11 Commission was formed, the fact that there is now does put a bit of a pall on the validity of their findings.

I originally joined to learn more science after years out of school. I came from a brief stint at PhysicsForum, where I found many members at the time looked down their noses at me, the noob. Since I was more interested with their ties to Michio Kaku's forum, I found it easy to jump ship over to here. And to this day I read more than I post, especially about science. I'm forever impressed with our members. My political, philosophical, religious and ethical views have not changed so much as they have gained focus. I've learned that the difference between convictions and beliefs can be staggeringly large. The most important thing I've picked up here is that it is more important for the student to learn than to expect the teacher to teach him.

I'm an American, I don't believe Bush was complicit in the events of 9/11, but I'm not insulted by anyone promoting ideas that he was. I beleive it is my duty as a voter to listen to any reasonable argument concerning my government. I have heard many things about the events of 9/11 that seem very fishy to me. I want further investigation and I want it by done people who aren't commisioned by those who may be complicit. syntax252, you have the potential to bring a lifetime of gathered wisdom to this forum via your posts, yet I see you squandering that opportunity day by day in petty little personal attacks and name calling. I know you are capable of more.[/member] [Moderator] Trying to gain the upper hand in a debate by ad hominem attacks is wrong, but using the words jerk, asshole and moron about a fellow member is inflammatory trolling. You second suspension will be for 1 week. Whether or not it starts tomorrow is completely up to you. [/Mod]

You've reminded me of a rumor that was going around after The Empire Strikes Back came out. Presumably, someone from Lucas Films let it slip that Boba Fett was, in reality, Darth Vader's wife (Amadala, who we didn't know at the time). This was bolstered by the fact that Boba Fett was the only character that ever lipped off to Vader and lived ("He's no good to me dead!", speaking of Han Solo prior to carbonite freezing, to which Vader wimpily replies, "The Emperor will compensate you for your loss." or some such). When I saw Jango Fett's son, I knew that their forward planning didn't extend as far as I had believed. Imagine if the rumor way back then had been true. Boba Fett as Luke's mother! Amadala succumbs to the Dark Side too! That would be really yummy.

This is part of the myth of US politics, one which is furthered by calling elections races. Americans are so competitive that they refuse to back a candidate who doesn't have at least a hope of winning, and that's why we speak of throwing our vote away. It really has very little to do with black and white, because Reps and Dems are not polar opposites in ideology, and never have been. They agree on several points (especially lately) but fostering the idea of competition between "our side" and "the enemy" keeps us sniping at each other, focusing on the problem instead of the solution.

Let's get one thing clear here, though. It's not the government's fault that it is being used by corporate greed. Most politicians are voting with the PACs and lobbyists only because the PACs and lobbyists are the ones communicating on a daily basis with them. The PACs and lobbyists are getting OUR representation in government because they are the ones asking for it, not us. If voters did the same thing, believe me, politicians would drop big business just to stay in power. Which is more valuable to the politician, voting a certain way to help promote their projects or voting a certain way in order to stay in office? Millions of emails daily from constituents telling a Congressperson to vote YES or lose voter support come election time would change the way things are done in a heartbeat. Corporate greed counts on our apathy.

Political reform is NEVER unrealistic on any level. I just happen to believe in the rolling boulder theory. It is difficult to sway public opinion in a major way just as it is tough to alter the course of a huge boulder rolling down a hill. The best you can hope for (without upsetting everything, good and bad) are small, gradual changes which alter its course favorably. Personally, I think many of our governmental systems and procedures have been in place so long that everybody involved in them knows exactly how much they can get away with. It's unfortunate that the same process that allows for efficiency also breeds corruption. It's easy to get mired in systems that help and hinder at the same time. Take the budget process. It encourages departments to spend up to the budgetary limits (or more) to justify the same money (or more) for next year. Often funds are spent unnecessarily but the alternative, rewarding managers for cutting expenses, usually means more money for the manager at a cost to departmental service quality. I'm still wrestling with this one, tbh. Part of me thinks we should push gradually for change and part of me thinks that will benefit those who look for exploitable areas. Maybe we need to turn Wash DC upside down and shake it vigorously. Whatever scum is still clinging afterwards MUST be evil.

I like what Pangloss said about personal messages from someone you know and care about, letting the non-voter know, "Hey, it's important to me, will you take a few hours out of your year and vote for my sake?" I don't think this approach has ever been tried on a national basis. Have you read the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell? It would take some heavy Connectors and a few Salesmen to make such a grass roots, personal approach successful, but I think it could really catch on. Figure a way to remove the chain-letter stigma and the former non-voter may just rise up and feel good about his own power, possibly for the first time in his life.

I think the idea of throwing your vote away on a third party is all illusion. If a third party could come up with a strong, just platform that pushed all the right buttons for voter dissatisfaction, then made a huge appeal to the non-voting block to get involved and vote to help themselves, and finally convince everyone that their polls showed they had at least 30% support instead of the typical 1-5% that third parties usually get, they could pull it off. Showing the public that they are being taken seriously by tens of millions of people is the key. Then it's not throwing your vote away.

You can Search the entire site, Search a particular forum or sub-forum, or even Search a particular thread for information that may have been covered in the past. Center of the Earth weightless hole digging thread

I've been piping AirAmerica through your computer while you sleep. You still keep your laptop next to the bed, right? mwahaha I think we should start (or join) a non-partisan, grass-roots voter shockwave through the political system, calling for a major denouncement of DeLay's sort of tactics, which are probably more mainstream than we realize. Don't let it become a rallying point for any one party, make it more of a citizen awareness campaign. We provide links to congressional offices and samples of form letters for people to endorse. We shoot for the moon, asking for total political reform, knowing that we will ultimately achieve only two goals: a) politicians will curb the corruption for a year or two, and b) we will raise the awareness level of a few thousand more voters. [/rabble rousing]

It could also be argued that, since many terrorists are religious fanatics who feel western encroachment in their political (and thus religious) affairs prompts terrorist action, the amount of terrorism would decline if we were suddenly no longer interested in their countries.

If someone told me they were "going to park", I might assume they meant "going to park my car somewhere". In this case, the distinguishes between a noun and a verb to the listener. If they said "going to the park", it would change the meaning completely, and would imply either the closest park or one we had frequented previously. It is a small word, but makes English a bit easier.