bascule

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/01/jillette.skid/index.html I really respect Penn. And this is another one of those articles where he expresses his own inability to know what the outcome will be given a paritcular set of circumstances. This article is him expressing that Obama is doing something that Penn philosophically agrees with, but rather than outright attacking Obama for it (actually he roundly compliments Obama, if somewhat sarcastically) he points out that what Obama is doing could actually work. This is more than I've seen from any other free market libertarians, who seem to be foaming at the mouth ranting over Obama's perceived madness. Nice one, Penn.

And I, for one, welcome our new Democratic overlords

I haven't heard about what that article is discussing. We're presently in a period where Pacific cooling due to La Nina is affecting the global mean surface temperature. If we do not see a warming period in the next few years, then it will be time to entertain such notions.

Well, socializing medicine would certainly help in fixing costs... literally.

Universal single-payer healthcare is not socialism

That's an apt description of the plot, yes. Ulysses is not a book you read for the plot so much as its multi-layered symbolism.

But they’re Bob Dylan’s words. ...yet the Hendrix version is what they played at the end of the episode. It's almost like it doesn't make sense or something!

The "Republican Budget" certainly draws attention to this question... it was published without any hard numbers: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/03/31/the_gops_pretend_budget/ Is this a joke?

Well seriously... make time! *facepalm* The last several episodes weren't the least bit action packed. They seemed to drag on... and on. They had time. They just wasted it.

That said Ulysses would still hold as my favorite book by a UK author.

Yes the ending was certainly some deus ex machina crap for sure Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged They could've pursued all the dangling storylines they had throughout the show which appeared to be a part of a build to a climax. Instead they... didn't? WTF? It's as if they don't understand the classical structure of a novel and how to apply that to a long-running television series.

Like Penn Jilette? He doesn't smoke, drink, etc and never has.

I think that it won't be legalized for the time being because the politicians who are privy to doing so have bigger fish to fry.

Yes, and a good comparison to Tolkien would be the Hobbit, which is intended to be a children's book. Lord of the Rings was intended for adults. My apologies, by "English" I thought you meant books written in the English language, not books by UK authors.

Obama issued an executive order lifting Bush's previous ban on stem cell research: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/09/obama-stem-cell-research_n_173075.html

That is true. In examining Obama's response, I think it's helpful to actually look at the question:

2 of the most famous novels? Both are series and really require they be absorbed in their totality. I'd argue they're nowhere close to the most famous novels written in English. Lord of the Rings, as a series, is perhaps arguable. Harry Potter is children's literature and not really worth considering alongside Lord of the Rings, let alone something like Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow.

The health effects of either alcohol or tobacco are comparably bad if not worse.

Even if in the end only the lawyers profit, at the expense of the US government, the majority shareholder? You have an awfully black and white view of things.

Obviously, the Republicans didn't do so well in the last election, with Democrats taking control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. CNN posted this question in a recent article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/27/gop.comeback/index.html?eref=rss_topstories One Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky opines: But are they winning some? As far as I can tell they are operating in a completely contrarian mode, refusing to reach out to the Democrats in power and sitting around coming up with their own solutions in isolations, solutions which will never see the light of day. CNN notes: ...so I guess they are getting some legislation through. But then I see: Dissent is great, but politics is the art of compromise. Are Republicans willing to compromise? I really liked this quote from former Crossfire partisan hack Paul Begala: His sentiment really underlies the present situation. I think the Republicans did a lot of things which dramatically exacerbated our present situation, if not outright causing it. After a long period of cutting taxes and dramatically increasing spending they caused the national deficit to skyrocket. But now, that we're in the middle of a financial crisis, they're suddenly paying attention to it. It seems as if they've grown accustomed to grandstanding and demagogery, and those are the only tools they have left to reclaim power. Will they succeed? I suppose their only hope at this point is that Obama and the Democrats fail in their policies. In that case, the Republicans become the alternative by default. Given the sheer amount of bitching I've heard coming out of conservatives, I think it's clear the Democrats do actually have ideas. They are making controversial decisions. Whether or not they are the right decisions remains to be seen.

Most of the companies they owe money to already received bailouts themselves: http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/

People died... it's his fault... he was criminally negligent

16 people died because he freaked out instead of trying to land the plane. So... yes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032003089.html Seriously, do these people just want us to hate them? Okay, so not only are they so incompetent that their company imploded, but they paid the wrong amount in taxes, and now they want that money back, after they've already been bailed out with government money. I think it's time for AIG to die.

I would expect that a nanoscale machine could completely confine the two nucleii (possibly within a magnetic field) and be able to precisely direct the force needed to push the two together, whereas macroscale machines will be substantially sloppier in how the force is applied.