bascule

pcs, do you deliberately bait with misinformation or are you in some kind of reality distortion field to where you actually believe what you bilge?

I was hoping for an evidence-based argument as well...

Still cold, still snowing. Wish spring were here...

The conspiracy alleges: Kurt was about to divorce her and thus cut her out of the Nirvana money. Also, she's just a psycho bitch. See the movie Kurt & Courtney

I'll point fingers if you want: Courtney I'll also say that Allen Wrench did not kill Kurt Cobain, he just wants people to think he did...

Humans are all the same species. That doesn't make the concept of race irrelevant. From a genetic perspective, race is irrelevant: only a handful of alleles hold the race together which are greatly outweighed by the sheer amount of alleles in the human gene pool. Members of one race are genetically as similar to any member of any other race. If that's the point you're trying to make, you're correct. However, that doesn't equate to "there's only one race". Race is still manifested in surface level phenotypical features and is easily distinguishable by everyone on the planet. In such a sense it's mostly a sociological construction, but that doesn't make it just go away.

Bush ceased pursuing A.Q. Khan, the former head of the international nuclear black market, who sold the technologies upon which Iran and North Korea built their nuclear programs, during the 2002 ramp-up to the Iraq war. Now North Korea is a nuclear power, and Iran grows ever closer. Oops. Well let's see, Pakistan harbors A.Q. Khan, refuses to let the US or IAEA interview him, and refuses to hold him accountable for his actions since he's considered a national hero. Saudi Arabia is home to the Wahhabis, the radical fundamentalist Islamic movement to which the majority of Al Qaeda members ascribe. But really this whole thread is just trollbait, so I'm foolish to respond in the first place.

The population of our planet grows to fill the available resources, which continue to increase with improving technology. Also, take the available land surface of earth: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/DanielChen.shtml and divide by the number of people on earth: [math]{1.5 x 10^8 km^2 \over{6,500,000,000 people}} = {23,076 m^2 \over{person}}[/math] Or approximately 5.7 acres per person.

Yes, no fingerprints were recovered off the gun.

Yes, and people drink and think they're still competent to operate a motor vehicle, and 20,000 people per year (in the US) die as a result.

If there's anything remotely resembling a conspiracy theory which I, as a devout skeptic, believe, this is the one. Why would I believe that a rock star with persistent depression, mental instability, and a heroin problem was murdered when he is officially recognized to have committed suicide? The answer comes from my interpretation of the available evidence. Unfortunately, much of the interpretation requires an extensive medical background to be done properly, and that is something I sorely lack. So, I'm afraid I'm going to take the crazy conspiracy theorist approach here and throw up a bunch of questions. But rather than simply throwing the questions out there and ignoring the responses, I would really like to know the answers, will take them into consideration, and they may change my view and cause me to reject the "conspiracy theory" So, here's the first bit of evidence I'd like to evaluate: - Kurt's blood morphine level was 1.52 mg/L First, the skeptics questions: Is this figure reliable? Does it come from the coroner's report? I don't really know. Is this an extrapolated value, or the blood morphine level of his cadaver which was found days after he was shot? Sadly, I don't have answers to these questions. This figure is mainly circulated among advocates of the conspiracy and should therefore be regarded with dubious credibility at best. Next: - Kurt's body weight at death was in the realm of 115-130 pounds Again, I have no good source for this figure, save for advocates of the conspiracy theory. Both of these figures can be found in the Cobain conspiracy theory advocate Roger Lewis's paper "Dead Men Don't Pull Triggers", the assertion being that the stated blood morphine level represents a lethal overdose, even for a hard addict like Cobain, and furthermore it represents an overdose so severe that it would've immediately incapacitated him after it was administered. So, the conspiracy theorist's questions to the medically trained skeptic are: - Given Kurt Cobain's body weight and blood morphine level, how much heroin would he need to administer to have reached this condition? - After self-administering so much heroin, would he lose consciousness? If so, for how long would he remain conscious, and what functional capacity would he have during that time? The claimed responses to these questions by conspiracy theory advocates are: - Kurt would've had to administer a dose of approximately 225 mg - 240 mg of heroin. 75 mg - 80 mg of heroin is the established maximum lethal dose, even for severe addicts. - An overdose so severe would incapacitate the individual almost immediately. During the time before they lose consciousness they would have neither the time nor functional capacity to wield a firearm, let alone put away their heroin, roll down their sleeves, lie down on the floor and position the gun on their chest, then fire.

And I think that's what insane_alien was really trying to get at: people trying to apply the popular definition of "theory" as a guess or conjecture to science

It seems to me like a line item veto in any form destroys any ability of Congress to achieve bipartisan compromises. The President is left free to strike any language he doesn't like from a bill willy nilly, and the rest passes directly into law.

And here I was wondering what Rummy had against Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting...

And what is the purpose of congressional oversight as opposed to judicial oversight?

I believe strong AI will be initially developed from mathematical models of the operation of neocortical columns and the thalamus. Thus initially, I think computers will think using a computational process very similar to our own. However, if only these portions of the brain, coupled with human designed mechanisms for sensory preprocessing and "motor control" (and possibly memory, although we may end up duplicating the hippocampus as well as it has already been reverse engineered) and lacking the overall high level structure of the human brain and things like the limbic system, then while mechanically their thought process will be much like ours, their actual behavior will be substantially different. I would hope if this is the case that they would be far more rational and less encumbered by our evolutionary legacy.

Flash wears out after something like 100,000 write cycles. New technologies like MRAM (magnetic) and NRAM (nanotube based) will provide non-volatile memory which does not wear out over time. Once these technologies become commonplace, we can look forward to computers being "instant on"

Well, looks like Dubai is laying down their king http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/09/port.security/index.html?section=cnn_topstories Success!

Seems like you're itching to get into a semantic argument here. Let me clarify the distinction insane_alien was trying to make:

How do you think it will play out? I thought this was a brilliant bit of political manuvering. I'm waiting with bated breath to see if all of Bush's threats of vetoing the bill were idle as they have been in the past. You can call me "bad" for enjoying the seemy underbelly of political strategizing. I don't care. I'm just happy to see members of the House taking a stand against Bush in what I see as our president selling out to foreign powers, something I find absolutely detestable. If Bush vetoes this bill, I think it will destroy his career. If Bush vetoes the bill the damage is already done. It will show his loyalties lie in his business associations and not in the best interests of the American people.

Close, but no cigar. You understand quite well though: consciousness is primarily a thalamacortical reaction. The real flow of data in the brain is from sensory preprocessing centers to the pimary sensory regions of the cerebral cortex, which translate preprocessed input into the object format of the thalamus, what Dennett refers to as a "phenom" From there it can be processed at length by the cortex, perhaps filed away by the hippocampus into long term memory where it will wait until a time when it is needed. The cortex activates postsensory regions concerned with motor control which they elicit through the cerebellum. So really the data flow in the brain is more akin to: nerve endings -> presensory processing -> primary sensory cortical regions -> thalamus -> neocortex (and back into the thalamus, rinse repeat) -> cortical motor regions -> cerebellum -> execution of action patterns

Have you ever read Hammer of the Gods? John Paul Jones just lets loose on the band on all of their hangups, namely Jimmy Page's satanism, John Bonham's drinking problem, and Robert Plant's insatiable libido. Not to mention THE MUDSHARK INCIDENT...

oboe --> key of C Next word: eschaton

On December 21st, 2012, the earth and sun will be in alignment with the Great Rift of the Milky Way (i.e. the center of the galaxy) If nothing else, this is an interesting astronomical event. Interesting to see that the sunspot cycle will be peaking at roughly the same time.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060307-5.html I'm really having trouble discerning what exactly this is about, but as I read it, I can't help but feel Bush is violating the Establishment Clause here, especially as I read portions such as: I'm reminded of the Everson v. Ewing decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&court=US&case=/us/000/u10270.html