Sisyphus

It hasn't improved the situation. But there is a difference between what actually happened and what they thought would happen, which is that we would have a happy, oil-producing, stable, obedient ally in Iraq a year or so after the invasion. (As opposed to the hostile, closed-bordered Iraq that had already once tried to take over Kuwait.) This I don't understand. If anything, Saddam in power guaranteed a fractured Middle East - keeping Islamists down politically in Iraq and acting as a check to Iranian power. (Which I guess is why we had been propping up his regime in the first place.)

It would be interesting to see his explanation. From an economic standpoint, you could certainly say that that war, along with most of the last 50 years of American and European (and Soviet, and Chinese) interaction with the Middle East has largely been about oil. (And the rest has been about Israel.) Was it the only, or even the primary, direct cause of this particular conflict? I doubt it. But come on. Does anyone really believe it wasn't a factor at all?

Motor Daddy: Your frustration is understandable, since relativity is quite counterintuitive, and the people you're arguing with, although they are correct, are not really explaining themselves too well. They in turn are getting frustrated since you seem to be willfully ignoring and denying things that have been thoroughly proven by science. That might not be what you think you're doing - you think everyone else is just misunderstanding you. You think they just don't understand the difference between the measurement of clocks and "real" time. But that is what you're doing. We even have technology, such as GPS, which would not work if this wasn't true. So stop being so defensive. You're not going to get anywhere if you first can't acknowledge that your notions are incorrect and open your mind a little bit. A "mile" and a "second" have no meaning outside of a specific frame of reference, and until you get used to that idea, you're not going to get anywhere. It is NOT "just clocks" and "just rulers." Anyway, I don't pretend to be qualified to teach the subject, especially not in one post on some forum. There are definitely parts of I really don't understand, myself. But I think I can point in the right direction. Basically, all of relativity falls out the fact that for any possible observer, any beam of light is always observed to move at the same speed relative to that observer. Here are some thought experiments that might help you begin to appreciate the ramifications of that fact: Special Relativity Thought Experiments These are just involving special relativity, and don't involve acceleration, and are insufficient in themselves to address your OP. However, understanding what is going on in them is definitely a prerequisite to any kind of understanding of general relativity. So think about them carefully, and ask lots of questions. I certainly did when I was first taught SR.

I already do, secretly. You're welcome, by the way.

English, French, German, Latin, and Ancient Greek, because I'm a pretentious tool.

Maybe we should continue drilling, but wait until the rest of the world really starts to run out. Then we can sell that oil for ridiculous prices to those places too stupid to break their oil dependency by then. Everyone wins! [/facetious?]

Agreed. I know I've held up New York as a positive model before, but it bears repeating. The statistics are pretty overwhelming. The average Manhattenite uses 1/8th the energy of the average suburbanite, and it's mostly owed to density, walkability, and convenient and efficient mass transit. And all of it without sacrificing economic prosperity or overly imposing behavior that doesn't flow naturally from the city itself! Not that that is a universal solution, of course. Obviously not everybody can live in cities - what would we eat? We should do what we can in this direction, but we've had almost a century of car-centric growth, and we're going to be stuck with the results for a long time no matter what we do. But we can stop making it worse.

Agreed. And I shall be the Chief Deemer of Merit, for, according to my system, I have the most merit of anyone.

That discrepancy might be accounted for by fewer blacks marrying in the first place.

Is it something liberals don't want to hear, though? I mean, is there some segment of the liberal base that would be offended by the notion of not abandoning one's children? I'm not necessarily directing this at you, since clearly it's a common perception, but I really don't understand it.

The fact that QM seems so strange to us is not an indication of a "matrix-like" situation, since by it's very nature, there could never be any indication one way or the other. That being the case, it ultimately doesn't matter: whether our perceptions correspond to "true" reality or not, we can never have anything more than those perceptions to work with, and so in all the ways that matter, perception is reality. What the "weirdness" does perhaps indicate is that human minds, because of what they are (that is, brains made up of webs of living cells evolved to deal with a particular environment) might be fundamentally incapable of comprehending the way things "really" are. We are just hard-wired with certain inflexible frameworks, like three spatial dimensions, a steady flow of time, causality, the notion that something can't both have and not have the same property, etc. That's not to say we can't go beyond that in abstract ways. We can represent many things mathematically, for instance, that will never really "make sense" to us, but which are nevertheless demonstrably true.

But I have a cousin in California! This means his marriage will somehow be destroyed, as conservatives have failed to adequately defend it.

What's the rationale given by those claiming he's deflecting accusations of extreme liberalness? Does child abandonment have relevance to liberalism vs. conservatism?

A shocking blow to American journalism. Russert was always tough, always fair, and somehow very likable. He was rightfully the most respected in his field, and will be irreplaceable. What struck me in the various tributes I've seen is how genuinely upset the journalism community seems about this, as Russert was apparently friend and mentor to many of the most prominent voices in news, and respected even more within the community itself than by the public.

Where do you see philosophy?

Another way of looking at it that I find helpful is that Democrats tend to favor employees while Republicans favor employers. In reality, though, both tactics are ultimately bad for the economy, whatever short term benefits they each might have. We should be favoring the consumers, which, among other things, demands free trade even if it means a few jobs get outsourced or the Dow takes a dip. Libertarians tend to have the most resolve in that area, although their squeamishness about consumer protection via, for example, the FDA or the EPA, make them not necessarily the best choice, either.

Well, presumably so you could have artificial gravity (of a sort) without having to spin the whole ship, which might make stuff like maneuvering and docking more difficult. Or so I would imagine - my experience piloting starships is sadly pretty limited.

Not that there's much context to go on here, but "internal spin" could be some kind of gyroscope set-up, where ship orientation is controlled by manipulating an internal spinning mass (like they use on the ISS and satellites). Or, if some kind of "gravity" is implied, it could be what you're guessing. If you have, say, an inner hull and an outer hull that can rotate relative to one another, you can spin the inner one to simulate gravity with the centrifugal effect, while still keeping the outside non-inertial. If you suddenly got some unexpected friction between the two or something, the outside would start spinning too.

I don't care either, really, but the fact that other people care makes it a real, substantial issue. I'm not sure I understand your point. His name isn't a secret, is it? Except that high school politics doesn't matter in the slightest, but international politics matters a great deal. If you say it shouldn't matter, then I agree with you completely, but this is the real world. If you claim it doesn't matter, then you're also going to have to claim that foreign policy as a whole doesn't matter.

So don't vote for him. I said consider it a significant factor, not the only factor. And I admit it's easier for me to push it because I also happen to believe he's the better candidate anyway. But his policies are not what this thread is about. So, do you have any further comment on my reasoning in the OP?

Here's the deal. In a true meritocracy, we shouldn't care in the slightest about a candidates race or gender when deciding whom to vote for. The fact that the two main contenders for the Democratic nomination were a black man and a woman should be seen as a sign that such things, even if they do still matter to many people, at least no longer present the insurmountable obstacles they once did, and thus their success should be cause for celebration. However, if we are to truly justify the celebration of our liberal postracism and make it "not matter anymore," we can't support them on those grounds, either, or make ourselves reactionaries and hypocrites. I say these things primarily to convey that I already understand them. Really, I do. Which is why it pains me to say this: in reality, it does matter. A lot. And I don't just mean for America itself (although it does matter for America). Like it or not, I believe the fact that a black man named Barack Hussein Obama with familial ties to Islam might (probably) become President of the United States will have a huge effect around the world, and I believe it will be almost universally a positive effect, and I believe we should seriously consider that as a significant factor in casting our votes. America, including (maybe especially) in recent years, is perceived as being run by white, aggressively Christian, fairly racist men. (The degree of truth or falsehood to that perception is NOT what I'm talking about.) We're on a "Crusade" against the Islamic world, a war of cultures, yatta yatta. We're the "Great Satan" to probably millions of people. And then we go and nominate Barack Obama. Yes, he's half white. Yes, he converted to Christianity long ago. But still, it's certainly making waves. The presidential primary, by all accounts, was watched with interest pretty much all over the world, but especially in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. Think about that. Was the world interested when Kerry beat Edwards, or for that matter when McCain beat Romney and Huckabee? (GWB beating McCain in 2000 made waves, but mostly because people were amused/horrified.) But people are actually anxious about it in these places. Tom Friedman says the question he's always asked in Egypt is, "do you think they'll let him win?" Think about all the implications tied up in the phrasing of that question, and of its frequency. Now think about what would happen if he actually did win. How could it fail to take the wind out of the rhetorical sails of extremists? How could it fail to deal a terrible blow to international Islamic terrorism? How could it fail to make diplomacy in general a few notches easier from day one? We could show the world we really are the Land of Opportunity that we were once known as. And if that's not good enough for you, we can stick it to the French, who for all their egalitarian rhetoric have minorities (specifically blacks and Arabs) who are absurdly under-represented in political offices. And who wouldn't love that?

And yet it would be stopped. Your water is not going to have any more momentum than you give it by whatever it is you're using to "started." As soon as you use that momentum up, it will stop, and you won't have gotten any energy out that you didn't put in to start with.

What you're missing is that the water wouldn't go out the valve. Yes, it's experiencing pressure from the water, but it's still less than air pressure. It has to be, otherwise the tube couldn't hold water in the first place.

I suspect there's a lot less thrust needed than you imagine. The only reason it's needed at all is friction with the upper atmosphere, which at that altitude is almost negligible. I think it's something like a quick burst every few months.

Free trade agreements and military alliances is one thing, but come on, "taking over" Canada and Mexico? Why would we even want to do that? "Sending the Mexican army to their deaths?" Seriously? And even if an EU-style agreement comes to pass (it won't anytime in the near future, but for the sake of argument, sure) you make it sound like that means one country "conquers" the others. Which country rules the EU, might I ask? Why are there countries petitioning to join, that the EU doesn't even want?