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I doubt there's new physics involved... here's the Wikipedia take: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

Sounds like she feels these people are generally considered beyond reproach due to their circumstances of having lost a loved one, and therefore, shouldn't be political, especially about their loss.

I think Alan Colmes has Ann Coulter figured out. She's a troll. She's no different from revprez. She says things which are controversial for two reasons: to get a rise out of people who disagree with her, and to get attention. The best way to deal with people like her is to ignore her. DNFT.

Wikipedia article on Brown's gas, a.k.a. "HHO gas": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHO_gas

Actually, I think I answered my own question... Ted Kennedy is being apt, albeit a bit of a dick per usual. Orrin Hatch seems to be suffering from "I'm not emo, I just spend all day listening to Dashboard Confessional and Jimmy Eat World with my hair over my face decked out in clothes I bought from Hot Topic as I wallow in misery and ponder cutting myself. And I like to cry a lot, but I'm not emo." syndrome

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14746977.htm I'm really torn on this bill. At first I wasn't opposed to it because I realized it was aimed squarely at Westboro Baptist, and if I could pick anyone on this planet to be locked in a room with while I'm holding a baseball bat, it'd be Fred Phelps. I'm kind of dismayed that it really isn't going to amout to much as far as Westboro Baptist goes, besides perhaps giving the families some much needed peace. Furthermore, while I would never consider protesting at a solider's funeral (except, perhaps as the Onion suggested, I might show up to save the whales), I can't help but feel that my civil liberties have been ever so slightly encroached upon...

Cut-and-paste posts are fun

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1658782.htm Does this event change anyone's perspective on the situation in Iraq? Does it in some way justify the record numbers of deaths which have occured in the past month?

*boggle* So, umm, yeah, back to my original question then...

So you would support some measure that would afford them all the same benefits of married heterosexual couples? (even though it may not be under the auspices of 'marriage')

woelen, do you know anything about Dr. Ruggero Maria Santilli? It seems the principles behind this thing are based on his research... http://magnegas.com/ I mean, does he have any papers? Has he been peer reviewed?

What are IR laws?

Well, when it comes down to it, the only argument I'm really seeing from the supporters of the ban is that it will, in some way, undermine the "sanctity" of heterosexual marriage (and, apparently, a 50% divorce rate does not) This is suitible justification to deny people the same benefits regardless of their sexual orientation? Is there something I'm missing here? Because the application of the word "bigotry" here seems apt. They're attempting to write religious doctrine intolerant of a particular social demographic into the Constitution.

It really sounds to me like you're just arguing semantics here. If life resulted from random survival, then that would imply that every member of the population would have an equal chance at surviving. Non-random doesn't imply that there isn't a random component to it, it implies that there's a discernable pattern. There certainly is. In fact, despite your claim that Dawkins doesn't talk about drift, in The Ancestor's Tale he talked about how, through statistical analysis, we can discern which changes are due to selection and which changes are caused by drift. He talked quite extensively about drift, actually. One other thing he mentioned was that the molecular clock normalizes regardless of reproductive rates. This is because species which reproduce slower have lower populations, and thus a smaller gene pool so genes altered by drift are more readily taken up by the population, however quickly reproducing species have a larger population and thus genes alter by drift get homogenized out. It sounds to me like you're implying Dawkins is clueless and not aware that there are both random and non-random components to genetic evolution. He certianly isn't, in fact he wrote quite passionately about it and what conclusions we can draw from it, as well as what conclusions we can draw from drift (i.e. the molecular clock) The overall tone of his statement in my signature is that selection provides a non-random component to evolution. This is a direct reaction to the creationist strawman of evolution, which claims that evolution is a random process. I'm sure you've all seen this argument: where they talk about the immense improbability that a million monkeys on a million typewriters will happen to type a particular statement. In this strawman, evolution is presented as a completely random process, and selection is entirely ignored. So please, don't strawman Dawkins too, or tell outright lies about him...

Have you ever read his books? He devoted multiple chapters in The Ancestor's Tale to drift.

Negative void coefficient reactors are perfectly safe. People who oppose nuclear reactors are, well, dumb...

Heterosexuals deserve tax breaks and homosexuals do not because... why?

Severian thinks so! If we were to translate his die example into a population, it would be one with 6 members, each having an equally likely chance of death. If this were the case with a population of animals, and the chances of any given member dying were completely random, we would see no trends because there would be no selection. Every single member of the population, regardless of what traits they have, would have an equally likely chance of dying. Severian, this is ridiculous... natural selection cannot be compared to the rolling of a die.

More fun quotes! http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/06/same.sex.marriage/index.html

We've been using viruses for gene therapy for awhile. For example, cystic fibrosis is now treatable through a throat spray containing genetically modified viruses. However, we'll soon be building nanotechnological containers that can deliver what chemicals we want to any part of the body, even through difficult membranes to penetrate such as the blood-brain barrier.

If you've never used Active Directory and aren't comfortable with mmc, you shouldn't be installing Exchange. Exchange deployment is somewhat difficult, and if you screw it up, you can expect to have all sorts of problems with your server. I had to fix a botched Exchange deployment that would hang the entire system indefinitely if you attempted to shut it down, for example.

I do think bigotry underlies this whole debate, and I do think they are attempting to write principles derived from religious faith into the Constitution. They failed, so it's all moot now...

allofmp3.com issued a statement today: http://allofmp3.com/statement.shtml

So who's the bigger asshole: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060700929_pf.html