bascule

You might find this funny, but I legitimately misinterpreted what the man was saying. As a self-agrandizing intellectual I guess I just have more trouble parsing his "down to earth" blather. You have to cut me some slack; the man simply has severe issues properly expressing himself in spoken language. I mean, seriously, "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." What the f***?

Artifical memory-enhancing hippocampus. Computer-like short term memory. That's nuts. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17013218-13762,00.html

Because you want to know how it's possible for an object to have finite volume but infinite surface area

Well, two things: 1. The executive branch writes the budget. When Congress is finished amending it, the President signs it. The Executive has both the first and last say on spending. 2. Bush has never vetoed a bill. He's the one you supposed to have to answer to in terms of overspending, but so far he's never even bothered to broach the issue. Who's supposed to control a corporation's budget, the Board of Directors, or the CEO/CFO? (of course this analogy doesn't quite hold as Congress doesn't exactly have a vested profit-oriented interest, but you get the picture)

It's a comment I'll happily rescind as I'd rather not waste my time and yours defending it. It was made in an attempt not to be stimeyed by "Why do you oppose the actions of this leader but not that one?" baiting. I'm obviously more concerned with my domestic leaders who have more of an effect on my life... Anyway...

Non-germ line cells die if it helps further the spread of the germ-line cells

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200511/NAT20051104b.html

Jacques Chirac is an asshole and a terrorist supporter...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051102/ts_nm/bush_leak_italy_dc

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20051104.html

It's not a strawman if what Dubya says is so assrapingly retarded I can't decipher what it's supposed to mean. "to that effort, to that end, in this effort"? What the hell?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/08/BL2005110800679.html Broop broop, this is the rhetoric police. You're under arrest for epistrophe abuse. So as long as the cause is fighting the war on terror, Bush is convinced that we can do no wrong. Yikes.

Tesla didn't understand Maxwell's Equations. He didn't understand the Inverse Square Law, or maybe he wouldn't have wasted so much of his time on his elusive dream of wireless electrical power for the whole world. Tesla did invent an awesome form of communication; the underlying technology behind radio, usurped by Marconi who was actually concerned with making it practical. Tesla certainly deserved the nobel prize for his work on AC electric power and radio. But he quickly became eccentric and his ideas less grounded in practical, real world applications. Considering he barely understood the mathematics behind electromagnetic radiation, how are you claiming he stumbled upon technologies "the world is not ready for?"

This part of the article obviously speaks to indirect fire curing...

Wow, this is awesome: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1859508,00.html See, that's the really sad thing, anti-smoking groups oppose safer cigarettes because they would weaken their arguments against smoking, so instead they try to spin safer cigarettes AGAINST the companies which wish to make them, claiming they merely want to recruit more smokers...

Awesome, incredible, and one step closer to singularity

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-03-carter-bush_x.htm

So here's a short timeline of events for you: 2002: The Bush administration sends Joseph Wilson to Niger to confirm the authenticity of documents obtained by British intelligence showing that that Saddam had attempted to purchase significant quantities of yellowcake from there, allegedly as part of a clandestine nuclear program. He determines that the documents were forgeries and that the alleged events never happened, and reports this information to the State Department. 2003: In the State of the Union address, Bush claims that British intelligence has discovered that Saddam had attempted to purchase large quantities of yellowcake from Africa. Joseph Wilson inquires as to the source of this information, and is told that Bush was not referring to Nigeria. However, the US received no other reports from British intelligence of attempts by Saddam to purchase yellowcake from anywhere in Africa. Colin Powell presents the same discredited information to the UN. The US invades Iraq and overthrows Saddam's regime. Joseph Wilson publishes his "What I Didn't Find in Africa" column in the New York Times, setting off a sequence of events which began with a push by individuals within the administration to discredit Joseph Wilson and ended with the disclosure of his wife as a CIA operative, information obtained by Cheney which was passed on to his chief of staff and Rove (all of whom have the necessary security clearance to know that information). However, at the time Cheney denied any knowledge of Joseph Wilson or his report. The administration subsequently admits that the British report was false. Halliburton is awarded several multi-billion dollar contracts, including a $7 billion contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure. Much of this money was awarded in the form of no-bid contracts. 2004: Kerry accuses Cheney of profiting from the contracts awarded to Halliburton in conjunction with the Iraq war. factcheck.org fires back claiming that Cheney has not profited. At the time, they are correct. Following the election, Cheney's stock options begin to increase in value. 2005: Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $9 million. Cheney is exposed as the source of the CIA leak, thoroughly invalidating his previous claims that he had no knowledge of Joseph Wilson or his report. Is any of this actually going to get back to Cheney, or is he just going to get away with it all?

I looked this up when Dawkins pointed it out in The Ancestor's Tale. Here's an awesome web site on the matter: http://brentrasmussen.com/log/node/53

Which doesn't mean jack. For example: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,443,036.WKU.&OS=PN/5,443,036&RS=PN/5,443,036

So... if the formation of a black hole instigates a new "universe" (or at least one which seems causally disconnected from ours), wouldn't Hawking radiation allow some state information to be passed back from it somehow? (meaning the causal disconnectedness isn't total)

I think Penn & Teller would call this BULLSHIT!

You might want to refer to this as the Establishment Clause to prevent any IDiots from asking where it says "seperation of church and state" in the Constitution (since they're too dumb to find the Everson v. Ewing decision)

I think this says a lot about priviliged treatment of white collar criminals. Why can't everyone remove a judge they feel will be biased against them? Because they can't afford fancy enough lawyers?

Sounds like how I imagine humanity operating after technological singularity