iNow

So, when the actual bailout occurs, all those same things happen. His approach just seems more reasonable. If government intervention and/or control is a given, why not do it right? I think you're arguing as if it's either Moore's idea or the free market, and that's hardly the case. They're getting money whether we like it or not. The spineless tools in control of our Congress have pretty much guarenteed that. Now, if they're hell bent on spending money in Detroit, why not spend less and get more?

And since ducks are made of wood... Carl - Was YDs response in Post #2 enough to help you? If not, where are you stuck?

Hi DrP, Here ya go: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4236 It helps to hover over equations posted by others so you can see how they did it. Also, you can practice at various sites like this if you're ever unsure: http://www.codecogs.com/components/equationeditor/equationeditor.php

Interesting take, Pangloss. There was a lot of truth in what he said, regardless if you dismiss out of a slippery slope concern. Fifty-five years ago, the president of GM sat on that same Capitol Hill and bluntly told Congress that what's good for General Motors is good for the country. Because, you see, in their minds, GM was the country. What a long, sad fall from grace we witnessed on November 19, when the three blind mice had their knuckles slapped and then were sent back home to write an essay called "Why You Should Give Me Billions of Dollars of Free Cash." They were also asked if they would work for a dollar a year. Take that! What a big, brave Congress they are! Requesting indentured servitude from (still) three of the most powerful men in the world. This from a spineless body that won't dare stand up to a disgraced president nor turn down a single funding request for a war that neither they nor the American public support. Amazing. Let me just state the obvious: Every single dollar Congress gives these three companies will be flushed right down the toilet. There is nothing the management teams of the Big Three are going to do to convince people to go out during a recession and buy their big, gas-guzzling, inferior products. Just forget it. And, as sure as I am that the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions are not going to the Super Bowl—ever—I can guarantee you, after they burn through this $34 billion, they'll be back for another $34 billion next summer. Enter three points shared above by CaptainPanic: 1. Build only cars which don't rely on oil, also build trains, buses, subways, light rail, and the tracks. 2. Buy all the common shares for $3B instead of giving repeated checks for $25-50B to the morons who keep failing at this 3. Hire the people with the best ideas to run the company once we've bought all of the common shares. Then, he concludes: This proposal is not radical or rocket science. It just takes one of the smartest people ever to run for the presidency to pull it off. What I'm proposing has worked before. The national rail system was in shambles in the '70s. The government took it over. A decade later it was turning a profit, so the government returned it to private/public hands, and got a couple billion dollars put back in the treasury. This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure—and millions of jobs. More important, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession. Yeah, I need a shower. Wait, erm... what?

Oh, for the love of Zeus. Jackson, I'm just ignoring you, as you don't seem to care what a thread topic is. This thread. "It looks like a higher black voter turn-out may have helped Prop 8 pass." "That's interesting. It's strange that they, having been oppressed themselves, would support a measure seeking to restrict rights from others." "It's probably more to do with religious influence." "Actually, it wasn't about blacks at all, it seems it as an age issue, where older people were responsible for it passing." "No, no, no. You're all wrong. The freakin' mormons contributed a mini-Fort Knox, and teamed up with the Catholics to stir up a frenzy. They contributed more to the passage of prop 8 than anyone else." <thread sits dormant for a while, until iNow shares a funny video called "Prop 8 - The Musical" put together by Jack Black> Then, a complete nonsequitur. Jackson - "I don't think Obama would have won if he were white. He clearly played the race card." Let the tangent ensue where we battle on an opinion that is not only irrelevant to the thread, but irrelevant in general. Are you there, Zeus?

Yes, I'd waste all of the money on candy and baseball cards.

Okay, guys. He did win. He is black. I don't really care about much else in retrospect. How does any of this have anything to do with voter turnout in support of Prop 8?

Great post, Martin.

It told me that I should be a stripper. Interesting. I thought I had my webcam turned off.

Wow, has it been 10 years already? (however, I think you meant Dec. 4, 1998, not 2008). I love the message of international cooperation. Unity was a good name for the module.

I, too, think his race played a role. What I disagree with is that he would not have won if here were white. That's just plain wrong and unfounded. Doesn't matter though, he did win and he's not white.

Moore raises a good point, though. We can buy all the shares for $3B. Why not do that instead? Seems much smarter, and would allow us more control ta boot.

Dude! Hell's yeah, I'll be watching. It only said "coming soon" in the preview you shared, so I googled. The sucky part is that we have to wait at least another year, but damn, that should be cool. http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2008/12/02/scifi-green-lights-caprica/ The series, which will focus on the the Earthlike planet of Caprica as two rival families deal with, among other topical issues, the broader implications of their society’s emerging artificial intelligence technology sector, is scheduled to debut in 2010. “Caprica” will star Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson and Polly Walker and will be set 50 years prior to “Battlestar”’s attack on human civilization by the Cylons.

And they're often better at raising the young than heterosexual couples. You've still made me curious, Mr Skeptic. I am abundantly confident that there are more animals out there who pair bond for life with a same sex partner. Surely the phenomenon extends beyond just geese and ducks, and I want to know which other animals do it (that's part of what caused me to stuble on the wiki listing of gay animals which I shared in a previous post). Good thing I'm not a cat, or my curiousity would surely have killed me by now.

The only group who voted for John McCain in any greater percentages than Obama were older white people. Virtually every other demographic, other races, other income levels, and younger white people included, to a high order of magnitude voted strongly in favor of Obama. While race played a role, the lack of votes for McCain actually had extraordinarily little to do with race, and no matter how romantic or objective you view this, that is still a fact. Jacksons suggestion is that Obama would have lost if he were white, and implicit in such a comment is that he only won because he is black. That is so far from the truth (just look closely at the stats, it's quite clear and plain that this assertion falls flat on its face) that he probably heard it on Faux News or Rush and is just regurgitating it here.

Jackson - I think you may want to consider taking some ginko biloba or B12 vitamins or something. I already responded to you regarding DOMA in post #28. Also, it doesn't matter how you or I interpret Article IV, what matters is how the SCOTUS interprets it, and the precendent set by them indicates that a marriage recognized in one state must also be recognized by others (much like a drivers license must be transportable in this manner), so essentially your post above is another moot point. Would you like to repeat at this time any other moot points which you've already shared in this thread and had debunked? line[/hr] It turns out I was quite wrong above. The SCOTUS dismissed without review Baker v. Nelson "for want of a substantial federal question." Since the case was dismissed, there was no ruling, ergo there is no case to overturn. This just gets curiouser and curiouser.

This is awesome. The Swedish Museum of Natural History is doing an exhibit called Rainbow Animals. http://www.nrm.se/en/menu/visitthemuseum/exhibitions/rainbowanimals.6876_en.html Rainbow Animals – homosexuality in the animal world One sometimes hears arguments against human homosexuality on the grounds that it does not occur in nature among other animals. But is that really the case? What is truly natural? Rainbow Animals is the first exhibition in the world to address those questions within the framework of a fascinating new area of biological study. The exhibition includes a selection of more than 1500 different species for which homosexual behaviour has been documented. With the help of photos, model figures, texts, and animals from the museum collections, visitors will receive fascinating insights into a field of study that has never previously been the subject of such a scientific exhibition. They will encounter swans, dolphins, giraffes and other animals among which homosexual behaviour is common. I heard about it reading this: http://pointlessanecdotes.blogspot.com/2008/12/having-gay-old-time.html Our main target was the exhibition “Rainbow Animals” (yup, that's the original, “Swedish”, name of the exhibition) on homosexuality in non-human animals. They had a couple of (plastic) dolphin pairs in quite explicit positions, but generally the exhibits were just random stuffed animals and we had to contend ourselves with reading about their lascivious natures. h/t Aardvarchaeology I am impressed by the gay dolphins' invention of nasal intercourse. To pull that off, one human would have to be hugely endowed in the nose department and the other very petite indeed elsewhere. I wonder what happens if you sneeze? In the title of his entry, Kai reminds us of the Flintstones, who of course had a gay old time. Now, the bit that I've been wondering about is "they go down in history". On whom?

Not that it really matters, helps with the question put forward in the OP, nor spanks someone for using silly text speak and making a random nonhelpful post, but CrazCo is a she. Again, doesn't matter much in an online world, but since she hasn't come back to let us know the answer she came up with, if she was still having trouble, or if she figured it out, I figured I wasn't harming the thread in any way to clarify.

I think I see the source of the confusion. I'm not talking about efficiency, and I agree that it's much better to just use solar panels as the primary source of power, instead of wasting a bunch by converting it over and over into other forms. However, I'm talking about a potential way to remove the excess carbon from the atmosphere. CO2 causes warming. CO2 stays in the atmosphere for centuries. We keep putting more CO2 into the atmosphere. While we convert our society off of fossil fuels, we should work to find ways to pull the excess carbon from the atomosphere, especially since we keeping adding more and more every single day. Ergo - the idea I shared above about solar powered carbon scrubbers in large concentrations across the face of the earth. Would it work if it could be manufactured and put in place?

In case you're interested, I'm pretty sure the below is the University of Texas study on mice referenced by the article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2007.03.034 The early observations on the rate-of-living theory by Max Rubner and the report by Gershman that oxygen free radicals exist in vivo culminated in the seminal proposal in the 1950s by Denham Harman that reactive oxygen species are a cause of aging (free radical theory of aging). The goal of this review is to analyze recent findings relevant in evaluating Harman’s theory using experimental results as grouped by model organisms (i.e., invertebrate models and mice). In this regard, we have focused primarily on recent work involving genetic manipulations. Because the free radical theory of aging is not the only theorem proposed to explain the mechanism(s) involved in aging at the molecular level, we also discuss how this theory is related to other areas of research in biogerontology, specifically, telomere/cell senescence, genomic instability, and the mitochondrial hypothesis of aging. We also discuss where we think the free radical theory is headed. It is now possible to give at least a partial answer to the question whether oxidative stress determines life span as Harman posed so long ago. Based on studies to date, we argue that a tentative case for oxidative stress as a life-span determinant can be made in Drosophila melanogaster. Studies in mice argue for a role of oxidative stress in age-related disease, especially cancer; however, with regard to aging per se, the data either do not support or remain inconclusive on whether oxidative stress determines life span.

Value in this sense is a subjective term, hence quite meaningless for forming any conclusions. Either way, the answer to your question is 42.

His contributions at this site repeatedly demonstrated his skill, ability, and competence in the mathematics. As a result of this, the members of the SFN staff chose to place him in a special user group so he could help members more fully, and to assist with managing threads on this topic, such as moving them to other topic areas. It also provides users a quick way to tell "I can trust this answer a bit more" than some of the other tripe people will randomly post.

For anyone curious about such lists, I just found a wiki on the topic. Pretty cool, really: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior This list includes animals (birds, mammals, insects, fish, etc.) for which there is documented evidence of homosexual or transgender behavior of one or more of the following kinds: sex, courtship, affection, pair bonding, or parenting, as noted in researcher and author Bruce Bagemihl's 1999 book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity. Bagemihl writes that the presence of same-sex sexual behavior was not 'officially' observed on a large scale until the 1990s due to possible observer bias caused by social attitudes towards LGBT people making the homosexual theme taboo. Bagemihl devotes three chapters; Two Hundred Years at Looking at Homosexual Wildlife, Explaining (Away) Animal Homosexuality and Not For Breeding Only in his 1999 book Biological Exuberance to the "documentation of systematic prejudices" where he notes "the present ignorance of biology lies precisely in its single-minded attempt to find reproductive (or other) "explanations" for homosexuality, transgender, and non-procreative and alternative heterosexualities. Petter Bøckman, academic adviser for the Against Nature? exhibit states: "[M]any researchers have described homosexuality as something altogether different from sex. They must realise that animals can have sex with who they will, when they will and without consideration to a researcher's ethical principles". Homosexual behavior is widespread amongst social birds and mammals, particularly the sea mammals and the primates. "No species has been found in which homosexual behaviour has not been shown to exist, with the exception of species that never have sex at all, such as sea urchins and aphis." But dude, seriously, there's a pretty extensive list there at the link. Anyone so inclined or curious should really check it out. In addition, here's a list just of mammals displaying homosexual behavior: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mammals_displaying_homosexual_behavior A list just of birds displaying homosexual behavior: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_displaying_homosexual_behavior ...and lists for reptiles, fish, amphibians, insects, and other invertabrates can all be seen in the original link at the top of this post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior

Hence the point of powering the scrubber with solar. What am I missing, exactly?

In sum, YES, I do. As pessimistic as I am about the current state of our culture (if I can even legitimately call it that anymore), I still think there are enough people out there who couldn't give two shits about race. He tapped into a deep seated anxiety and resentment in the populace, and awakened the realization that we didn't have to live with it anymore. NONE of that had to do with the melanin content of his dermis. Please see above. What makes you think that I am obsessed with an open discussion on race? What relevance does that have to any of the points I've made? How is that supposed to some how make your points any more valid? I don't really care. You shared an opinion, and it has been shown to be pretty far from reality. You're welcome to that opinion, so don't get me wrong, but it seems a strange position since the facts of the situation argue very heavily against it. I agree that politicians will do many things to win. I agree that advisors will always try to leverage strengths. The difference between your POV and mine is that you see his race as a primary strength, and I see his message as his primary strength. THAT's what won him the election, IMO. EDIT: Anyway, this all has squat to do with the factors playing into the passage of Prop 8. Did anyone watch the musical?