bascule

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/08/port.security/index.html In a nutshell: The House Appropriations Committee voted 62-2 to block the Dubai Ports deal. The amendment was inserted into an emergency supplemental funding bill for military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill also includes disaster assistance for the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So basically, if Bush wants to keep the UAE investors in the Carlyle Group happy by vetoing the bill (which would, of course, be his first veto ever!), he's going to f*ck over a lot of ordinary Americans in the process, in addition to the military. Well played, Congress!

I don't think that reality is inherently goal-oriented, I instead believe that goal-orientedness emerges as a natural consequence of the operation of the processes which underlie the universe. I fully agree! However I want to point out that there are (at least) two ways this can happen: Oscillation across t-symmetry points: there exist two reflection points in causality. Once such a reflection point is hit, causality plays out in an order opposite the direction it was going prior to hitting the reflection point. I like this idea because it creates a fully symmetric universe where "time's arrow" is merely a state-dependent quality. Eschaton = first cause: When the universe completes, it starts over from the beginning for some reason. This is actually the explanation I favor, I suppose. Sadly I don't really have any good reasoning for favoring it.

I've talked about this extensively, but if you believe in a cyclical cosmology as I do it's not that hard to imagine that God cannot continue to exist after the universe is (re)created. See: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=17389

Robert Downey Jr. Next word: hydrocephalic

If you want to check out a cool song that's DESIGNED to be played backwards, check out ELO's Fire on High. Most of the passages in the song are designed so they sound the same whether played forwards or backwards. o/` The music is reversible... but time is not! Turn back, turn back! ^^^ l33t secret backwards lyrics! Also I'm pretty sure Jimmy Page worshiped the devil inside of Aleister Crowley's house. But that's beside the point... The most evil member of that band is still John Paul Jones

Signed into law by the governor today... http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/06/sd.abortionban.ap/index.html "Take that, wemminfolk!" quips governor Mike Rounds as he signs the bill banning abortion statewide.

The bomb marked the first time in history that our species could effectively wipe itself off the face of the planet. This concept marked dramatic changes which penetrated all levels of society. The explosion at Trinity pretty much sounded the death knell for modernism. Suddenly everyone realized that everything humanity struggled to achieve over the centuries could be wiped out in a nuclear holocaust, and furthermore that the bomb was the natural result of our progress (i.e. progress can yield complete annihilation... and what kind of progress is that?). At this point humans were forced to ask themselves what all that progress was really for, and I think it was out of that question that post-modernism was really born. Everyone was forced to accept that Damocles' atomic sword was precariously dangling above their heads every hour of every day, and that we all must prepare for the eventuality of a nuclear holocaust. Barring john's answer (Globalization of Information) I cannot think of a single more important event in the 20th century than the creation of the atomic bomb.

How about protists, monerans, and fungi?

An absence of evidence leaves you with no reason to believe

Habanero Next word: defenestrate

Seems like you want NumberFormat: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/text/NumberFormat.html Specifically use the .format() method to convert from a double to a string p.s. Java sucks

No evidence = no

Fractal imagery was explored extensively by the abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, known for his ability to create formless composition: http://www.physics.hku.hk/~tboyce/ap/topics/pollock.html

There's been considerable research into the use of fractals for image compression See http://inls.ucsd.edu/~fisher/Fractals/

Shot (as in pool) Next word: Perspicacity

1. 5614 2. (Not in a position to judge this... so I'll pass) 3. AzurePhoenix 4. DV8 2XL 5. In My Memory 6. revprez/phcatlantis/patcalhoun/philcandless/pcs

Well, it's cool to see a tetrapod robot and all, but it can only carry a measly 40kg. That's substantially less than a real mule. I expect a few million went into this research project too. Seems like an enormous waste of money, but maybe the research they'll get out of this can be applied to other, more useful projects.

I don't really hear anything in terms of actual audio properties, the words are just words really...

Mokele rocks! It's been hard not having him around to put the IDiots in their place...

It's not that the solutions aren't out there. It's that market forces prevent them from being utilized. Switching away from oil represents a major infrastructural change, and nobody is certain in what direction the infrastructure is going to move exactly, although it's looking more and more like biofuels will provide the solution.

Milken, the problem with the "God used the same design" argument is the molecular clock: we see random drift over time which is perfectly explicable by an evolutionary argument but makes no sense from a design perspective. You might also wonder why we have an appendix, why our retinas are on backwards when squid and so forth have them on "correctly" (so they don't easily detach/rip and there's no blind spot), why birds can pass air continuously through their lungs while we're stuck with a lousy inhale/exhale cycle, etc. If your really asking if DNA evidence is "pro or con" for evolution it's overwhelmingly pro. I'd like to challenge you to give one example where DNA evidence counters an evolutionary argument. So far all your arguments seem to be "Well that evidence can used for either an evolutionist or creationist argument!"

I think you have a rather myopic way of looking at the situation. Quantum and relativity were both revolutions in their field which can only occur when there is ample evidence in place from which to begin the revolution (i.e. discovery of blackbody radiation, Hubble's observations of light) Quantum and relativity were two complete redefinitions of how we viewed the world. Those can't happen all the time. However, I think we may very well see some revolutions in physics after the Large Hadron Collider is activated.

Dawkins has argued as much (as to the evolutionary benefits of altruism). Our ability to work in groups and to help others when they are in need with the hope that they will either return the favor in the future or someone else will are all qualities which have made humanity so incredibly successful.

Well, among successful marijuana smokers we have... Carl Sagan. Among successful amphetamine addicts we have... Hitler. Using the composition fallacy I can prove that all stoners are actually brilliant astronomers with deep insights into the universe, and that all amphetamine addicts are Nazis. Q.E.D.