Politics

I've been predicting this for a couple of years, and it's finally happened -- the first proposal of a defense budget over $500 billion. This one, for $517 billion, was approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, and may not end up in this form, but generally speaking they only get bigger between now and signing. http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060508-103116-1016r Believe it or not, I actually caught wind of this in an email from one of my senators, bragging about all the hard work he's doing up there in Washington.

I think this is a great example of why we have to move past sweeping generalizations and partisan decision-making. Joseph Biden is no friend to the administration, but he's no cut-and-run guy either, and he often defends the administration's choices on foreign and domestic policy, stops short of blaming Bush for current events and developments, and focuses on things that actually matter, rather than trying to convince us that the sky is falling and the world is going to heck just because we elected George Bush to office. Senator Biden wrote a piece about a week ago for the New York Times in which he proposed a three-region split in Iraq in which oil revenues would b…

Victor Hanson asks a question which is startling because it is largely unasked in public debate: Is the U.S. better off with the Middle East as it is now than as it was before 2001? Although this appears in the National Review, I ask all to approach his analysis with an open mind. In particular, I'd be interested in your comments on his country-by-country analysis:

Scientists have found a genetic "marker" that indicates a 60% greater chance of acquiring prostate cancer in those men who have the gene, which may also help explain why black men are much more prone to the disease. It appears that the genetic marker appears with twice the frequency in blacks than whites, although this variation has not been explained. Researchers hope to use the discovery to tell which men to follow more closely and check more frequently for the cancer, and it will most likely help in early detection and treatment of the cancer. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060507/ap_on_he_me/prostate_cancer

Cancer is one of those most feared diseases, having no known cure and being almost impossible to get rid of... but an unusual breakthrough in the study of mice with cancer has shown that it may be possible to cure cancer in people! Scientists have injected white blood cells from mice that became resistant to cancer into mice that were known to have cancer, and in a short space of time these white blood cells killed the cancer - and even more than that, it actually prevented mice that should have caught cancer from actually getting it! This is a stunning breakthrough, as this means theoretically that if we can understand the mechanism by how this works it could pot…

We have all heard the theory that life may have originated somewhere else in the universe and then came to Earth on the back of a comet -- well, this may be partially true. Researchers used a microscopic imaging technique have shown that some meteorites can and do contain simple organic compunds, some up to 7%! Could this mean life came from or was kick-started by an asteroid? This we don't yet know but the possibility is there. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060505192530.htm - Ryan Jones

A team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has found a protein that has been found to play a major part in the deactivation of genes. We understand how these are disabled but the question of how the genes to be disabled are chosen is unknown. If we can ever find the choice mechanism could we then harness this to disable faulty genes in people? Only time will tell but it looks promising. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060505114437.htm - Ryan Jones

An image taken by the Mars Express spacecraft has photographed a crater which looks like it has a smiling face inside it. The 230km (or 143 mile) wide crater was first observed by NASA's Viking Orbiter 1 mission. More images on the site below http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Mars_Express/SEMMTFNFGLE_0.html

It looks like congress is stalled about what to do and it also looks like this is one issue where Bush and Kennedy are on the same side (or at least close). Building a wall would be expensive and probably wouldn't work very well anyway and even if we did staunch the inflow, what are we going to do about the 11 million or so who are already here? Some of those already here have been here for a decade or so, some are married to Americans, some have children who are American citizens and I don't think we are capable of rounding up 11 million people for deportation anyway. Anybody got any bright ideas?

Researchers have developed a new vaccine that may be able to substantially lengthen the lifespan of patients with the glioblastoma multiforme variant of brain cancer. During a study of 23 cancer patients, it increased survival times by at least 18 months, and only 4 of the patients died during the trial period. The vaccine works by "tagging" cancer cells with a protein that tricks the immune system into believing they are foreign, forcing it to attack the cells and destroy them. Unfortunately, however, it appears that the vaccine only works until the cancer evolves to use different receptors, at which point it becomes ineffective. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health…

the reason for the death penalty is because someone is a threat to society and need to be removed from it right? cant the same thing be achieved with life imprisonment? when you think about it the death penalty is about revenge and i dont think our legal system should be based on revenge.

A new study has found that perhaps you really don't get benefits out of drinking moderate amounts of alchohol after all. The study suggests that other studies were flawed, in that they compared moderate alchohol drinkers with people who abstained entirely. But many of those who abstained did so because of medical conditions or other medications, meaning that the group that abstained was already more likely to die, even without the alchohol considered. http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2006/04/moderate_drinki.html

I'm not going to offer an opinion because I've done very little research and this is such a technical question. OTOH, if there is relative safety, maybe we should go more towards nuclear power to alleviate global warming. I'd be very curious to know what the group thinks.

Plants and Animals As the human population grows ever larger we use more and more land and we force more and more species closer and coloser to extinction. Almost every environment is currently affected and all are currently getting worse... something needs to be done before we loost so many more species. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060502085941.htm - Ryan Jones

This is one of those cases that's so abhorrent that it really makes you wonder. I've always been opposed to the death penalty, but if I were on this jury I'd probably ask to pull the lever on ol' sparky myself. A Florida father, incensed by an argument with his estranged wife, took actions so extreme that they just boggle the mind. The state is going to ask for the death penalty in this case. The couple was on its way home from the hospital where the baby had been treated for diarrhea. The couple argued, and the baby woke up screaming. The father picked up the baby out of its car seat and threw him head first out the window. The baby landed face-first in the d…

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced that it will put $55 million into prosthetic arm research. Part of this money will go towards devoloping a "peripheral nerve interface," a device designed to relay nerve pulses wirelessly from what's left of a limb to the person's belt, which would have a computer mounted on it. Then, the signal will be routed to back the bionic arm and nerves in that area, where they would flow back to the brain naturally. This would allow people to feel the arm as if it was an actual limb, and control it more accurately. http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060424/sc_space/wirelessbionicarmwouldfeelreal;_ylt=AmhTIMHv…

What if most of the oil reserves of the world was located in the USA... What differences in the political landscape do you think would be present, and how much more ambitious would the US be in its foreign policys?

http://www.zmag.org/books/pareconv/parefinal.htm Ever heard about it? What do you think? I'm still reading the book, and I find the idea a lot interesting. I think we really need an alternative to capitalism, so I very much appreciate those who work to find a viable alternative.

If competent and guilty, Kevin Underwood deserves death.

If we look at criminal offenses like murder, assault, stealing, etc., these are treated as crimes in all cultures. These are examples of universal crimes that are independant of cultural bias. The way they are treated within various cultures, may vary from culture to culture, but in all cultures something will be done to achieve their version of justice. The other type of crimes are culturally dependant and therefore will vary from country to country. These are not universal crimes but crimes made up by people for various reasons, usually self interest. For example, in a very repressive country, reading the wrong book, can have severe consequences. One may be beaten,…

The constitution has a provision for separation of church and state. The idea was to not let religious lobbyists gain too much power and influence within Washington. That makes it easier for all the other lobbyists more concerned with worldly affairs. If we want to take this literally to separate anything that has to do with religion from the state, we need to get rid of AD and BC, with respect to how we measure historical time, since they both refer to Christ. Where should we start a nonreligious equated calendar, the BB, the formation of the earth, when life appears, when culture first appears? I am kidding around, but this is a throny technicality. Or are we supp…

A new bifocal lense prototype can change its focus automatically with a simple electric charge, leading to the hopes that bifocal users won't have to strain their eyes with the cumbersome dual-lense glasses anymore. Current bifocals combine two lenses into one piece of plastic, so that when users look down they look into a lense that lets them read and see close-up. However, this combination of lenses can cause diziness or headaches. The new prototype can change to close or far vision with the flick of a switch, and scientists are hoping to make it even fully automatic as well. http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/10/4/2/1

I have to write a paper on the politics of gasoline. If anyone has any links or information on these subjects please help me out Questions: [These will be in the essay] 1. Why have gas prices gone up? 2. What might happen in the next few years? 3. Where is are gas coming from? 4. What's our government policy on gasoline? 5. What is dieselfuel? -

I'm starting to wonder if the situation with Iran is becoming a matter of realpolitik -- a situation which transcends partisan bickering and standard diplomatic approaches, and requires thinking along the lines of what's realistically possible and/or likely to happen. I see a lot of people speculating about Iran, but a lot of that speculation centers around how (specifically) President Bush will handle it. That's understandable, of course, but it also strikes me as somewhat... off. For one thing, the situation is just not analogous to that of Iraq. It's more like that of 1930s Europe. An emerging power, highly motivated to solve its problems against the grain of…

I am speaking here of national level elections in the United States. Ok, is there a good reason we don't have runoff elections? I think they would be good for the system primarily because of the issue of third parties. No third party can get a foothold, as is, because when they're first established, no one votes for them, because it is essentially considered "throwing your vote away," because only Democrats and Republicans have any realistic chance. A vote for the Green Party, for example, is foolish, because if you're a Green, then you think Democrats are the lesser of two evils, and by not voting for them you're just helping the greater of two evils. (Let's see how …