iNow

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop8-reax6-2009mar06,0,1962642.story The occasion: Attorneys from both sides of the gay-marriage debate were arguing the merits -- or demerits -- of Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California. The dress code: dreadlocks, nose rings, rabbit costumes, clerical collars, wedding veils, hair colors not found in nature (and some that were), rainbow stripes, American flags, suits. The demeanor: loud. "You're bigger, God, much bigger than the small religious boxes that we put you in," Bishop Yvette Flunder of San Francisco's City of Refuge United Church of Christ declared at an al fresco, pre-hearing interfaith service. "We ask you for the freedom today . . . to have our relationships boldly without fear of reprisal." Across the broad, rain-damp plaza, Los Angeles contractor Ruben Israel held in his right hand a sign that declared "Homo-sex" a "threat to national security." In his left hand was a bullhorn. "If you think God is all-forgiving and loving and tolerant," he blared, "where was the tolerance from God when he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah?" And so it went for the better part of six hours as attorneys argued, justices probed, demonstrators shouted and entrepreneurs hawked... Hatred begets hatred, and bigotry begets our failure as a people to do what's right. I'm so very tired of the ignorant being closed to rational, reasonable, secular arguments all because of a 2000 year old book of fairy tales written by iron age tribal peoples.

Bah! Who cares about reality when you can just make up your own "facts" to support the story you wish to tell?

The DOW knows all. Really, a perfect response to the points in the OP.

There can be only one...

Well... It's March, and this issue is back in the courts. http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11838385 The California Supreme Court has begun hearing oral arguments on whether Proposition 8, approved by voters last November to write a same-sex marriage ban into the state constitution, will stand. The arguments, scheduled to last from 9 a.m. until noon, will address three questions: Is Proposition 8 invalid because it was a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the state constitution? An amendment — a narrowly tailored change or addition — can be placed on the ballot with petition signatures and approved by a simple majority of voters, as this measure was; a revision — a more substantial, fundamental alteration of the entire constitution — can be put on the ballot only by two-thirds votes of both houses of the Legislature. Does Proposition 8 violate the state constitution's separation-of-powers doctrine, essentially constituting an end run around the courts' duty to interpret the constitution? If Proposition 8 isn't unconstitutional and is left standing, what effect will it have on the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who married last year? The court will rule within 90 days of today's arguments. <more at the link>

What do Maxine Waters and Michael Moore have to do with Obama's mortgage relief plan? I'm not sure why you worked those references into this particular topic.

I'm treating him like I would someone who came here claiming that relativity is wrong or that the world will end in 2012. However, I'll try.

We'll also probably see some large taxes in the environmental sector... think carbon caps. I see it more as a shift of existing tax targets than a lack of raised taxes (also, I'm quite looking forward to seeing what my paycheck looks like after April 1 with the reduced payroll taxes).

They also use less energy and last longer.

Well, I suppose that's one hypothesis... Here's another. On top of the falsely inflated home values... It was the lack of regulation, the lack of enforcement, and the loopholes in the legal codes which allowed banks and companies like AIG to evade their capital requirements and over-leverage their cash positions. So, basically, they got to lie to everyone and say their capital was one amount ("We have X dollars") when it was really another ("oops... we actually have Y dollars, but we won't tell anyone if you don't"), and then after a given amount of time we all realized that they didn't actually have any of that capital ("what, they actually only have Y dollars, despite the fact they've been telling us they have X this whole time and leveraging it into 36X dollars!") and the house of cards came a tumblin' down. Gosh... Your argument suddenly makes so much sense to me now. I can see why you continue to suggest that removing regulations and oversight would have helped with all of that. Hopefully, you've detected my sarcasm. I obviously find your assertions baseless and also ridiculous, but I'll tell you what... You can keep regurgitating what you hear on Fox news and try blaming this all on the media, the DNC, and the 2008 presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That's almost CERTAINLY going to fix our problems and help us learn from the mistakes we made so as not to repeat them in the future.

Absolutely! In terms of sheer of performance, I think the heart is still the most amazing muscle we have, but in terms of performance, diverse capability, and adaptive abilities the brain is pretty righteous. That's all off topic, though. There are processing and performance questions still to be answered for the OP.

Would you consider semiconductor manufacturing to be "quantum engineering?" I'm unfamiliar with that term, but we do manufacture things at ~45nm scale, and are working now in the 20nm range.

Hi dichotomy - That's a good question. I'm not too sure. I think it has more to do with the density of the neural connections than it does with the chemical concentrations around them. I'd have to do some googling on that one to find out with more confidence and address your question. The idea of sodium and potassium concentrations having an impact on signal conduction speeds was speculative on my part, which is why I was cautious to say "could be impacted." Well, the simple answer is practice. The more you do something, the better you get. You form more dense neural webs for that activity, unused areas will be "pruned," and the processing speed will generally improve. Just to be clear, though, it's more than just "reading." Reading is a different task than "reasoning" and performing "higher abstract" functions... like thought experiments about riding on a photon at the wave of light, or wondering if trees in forests with nobody around make a sound when they fall. Either way, use it or lose it. Practice will help greatly. There may be some impact from good memory, too. Things like B vitamins and ginko and such may improve processing time since the processing is contingent on the ability to recall data and experience efficiently. Please bear in mind that I may be mistaken. My knowledge of this stuff is pretty rusty and I'm a little tired right now after a long day.

Padren has nailed it. The values of homes are dropping. We get that. However, if there are foreclosures on your street, your home value will drop even more. This is pretty simple stuff, people. Foreclosures anchor the average value of the homes in your neighborhood relative to a neighborhood without foreclosures. It's the same reason I want my neighbors to clean up their yard and take care of their house. The value of my home is contingent on the value of comparable homes in the area ("comps"). Fewer foreclosures overall = decreased drop in aggregate value of homes.

Trick question... No such thing as "U-tube." It's "YouTube."

I updated your quote to make it more accurate. [/pedantic]

I don't have enough information to comment. You're asking a hypothetical, and I could speculate either way. Let's wait and see, and I'll offer my views when/if it becomes reality. Obviously, my perspective on the best approach will depend greatly on the details and the identified need.

There are, in fact, many gyms across the country that already do this energy capture method. It's basically just hooking it up to the treadmill or eliptical like you would any other turbine. The challenge is that there isn't a whole lot of energy, so it's hardly enough to power a city. It can, however, power the lights at the gym, or the vending machines and stuff like that. Long story short, yes, you can do this, it's already being done, and it's a great idea not to just "waste" all of that energy output. Just keep in mind that the levels are too low to scale up to meet all of our power needs. It can just supplement them. Ideally, you would feed a bank of batteries with the exercise equipment and use those to power your needs at night, after your solar panels stop collecting energy.

Potentially, Pakistan. Not a happy situation, that's for sure.

Speaking of cute... 4cgJgnG9YzY

Who said I think that? What did I write that gave you this impression, and how is it related to my actual argument? And, I suppose, you're welcome to that opinion. However, as I was trying to point out to you, the evidence available to us suggests that it was precisely deregulation and the "tax cuts solve everything" approach which created this mess. The data supports my position, and counters yours. Again, you're welcome to your opinion on this matter, but your opinion is non-representative of reality. You're right. It is an "area" problem, not a national problem. However, that "area" is the entire planet earth, not small towns in rural US as you are trying to suggest. You are correct that the problem is not national, but incorrect in suggesting it was smaller. This is clearly and obviously a global issue, so the way you are attempting to frame your arguments concerns me since it so far removed from what has actually been happening. Are you now trying to suggest that the realization that our home values were over inflated and that we'd been experiencing unsustainable inflationary growth for the past several years is a direct result of rhetoric in the 2008 Presidential campaign? That seems quite non-sequitur to me, and a baseless assertion at best, but perhaps I misunderstand the point you're trying to make. As it stands, however, this argument seems quite silly. The point is, Jackson, that half the time I can't even comprehend your content because you leave out these key little sentence objects which we refer to as "verbs" and "nouns." You even did it in the first sentence which I just quoted. In this case, I'm not "arguing against your content" or against your grammar. I'm plainly saying that much of what you say doesn't make any sense, is incomprehensible and rather poorly structured, and I'm imploring you to take the time to type actual sentences and proofread what you write before hitting the submit button. I can tell you have a lot to offer to these discussions. You're clearly well informed about all manner of details, and I can accept that despite our obvious ideological differences and distinct approaches to these issues. However, too often reading your posts leaves me spending more time trying to infer what you intended to say and speculate about what it is mean (what point you're trying to convey), as opposed to digesting your actual argument and responding to its key points. In sum, stop leaving out key verbs and nouns so your sentences start making sense and I'll take you a lot more seriously.

I think we need to define processing. That means a whole lot of different things and refers to a whole lot of different activities and tasks. My number in post #4 was specific to the conduction of the impulse through the nerve cells, which is not generally effected by caffeine or amphetamines (however, could be impacted by sodium and potassium concentrations, as well as myelin sheathing). However, we really need a better set of parameters to address the "processing" question. Are we referring to pain stimuli? Are we referring to response times? Are we referring to higher and abstract reasoning? Are we referring to facial recognition? Are we referring to visual or auditory cues? Where are those cues coming from? How familiar are they? Is it novel or familiar? What type of cue is it? How much information is contained in the cue? Are we healthy or are we fighting an illness? How long have we been awake? Have we eaten or are we distracted? How many other signals are we processing in parallel? ... All of this must be clarified before we can even BEGIN to approach the question of "processing time," which is why I kept it simple and just addressed the speed of signal conduction in the nervous system... a max of 100m/s.

imDFSnklB0k h/t

While we can quibble whether it was a stimulus or a deficit cutting measure, it was $496B, and it DID help get us out of recession (contrary to Jackson33s claim of nothing but deregulation and tax cuts since the 30s... I suggest he's been watching Faux News for too long and no longer cares about his facts matching reality... he tends to say whatever fits his worldview, not relying only on what is valid and true when constructing arguments). Further, the events of 1993 were opposed by Republicans in EXACTLY the same manner they are opposing actions now, despite the enormous benefit gained by the 1993 actions of Clinton after they barely passed. http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/001391.htm In 1993, Bill Clinton's $496 billion stimulus and deficit-cutting program passed without a single Republican vote. But in 1981 and again in 2001, substantial numbers of Democrats acquiesced in backing regressive Reagan and Bush tax cuts which, also as predicted, drained the federal treasury. The table below tells the tale (see above chart from Bascle). (Note that figures are not in real dollars adjusted for inflation.) While some turncoat Democrats helped Reagan and Bush sell their supply-side snake oil, Republicans were determined to torpedo new Democratic presidents: <...> Inheriting massive budget deficits and unemployment topping 7% from Bush the Elder, Clinton's $496 billion program was nonetheless opposed by every single member of the GOP, as well as defectors from his own party. As the Times recounted, it took a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Al Gore to earn victory: An identical version of the $496 billion deficit-cutting measure was approved Thursday night by the House, 218 to 216. The Senate was divided 50 to 50 before Mr. Gore voted. Since tie votes in the House mean defeat, the bill would have failed if even one representative or one senator who voted with the President had switched sides.