Sisyphus

I never really found these tests helpful. I want essay questions.

Yeah, and there are other similarities, too. (See post #74). Frankly, though, the differences between them make Dean look great in comparison. (disclosure: I was a Dean-supporter in 2004 and don't regret it, but wouldn't ever vote for Paul. Bring it on, fellas!)

I play. In college I played maybe a dozen games a week, all casual, against a few different friends, who ranged in skill from beginners to a minor "chess celebrity." For a while I was pretty good, but I rarely play nowadays, and I'm definitely very rusty.

At this point I see no indication that his amazing fundraising (or fund-receiving) is that different from Howard Dean in 2004. He, too, was an internet-fundraising sensation (a picture of him eating a sandwich on his website raised more funds than the most lucrative gold-plate dinners for Bush), was especially popular among college students (your "first time donors"), and was even basically a libertarian running under one of the major parties. And like Paul, he was successfully portrayed as a crazy person by his fellow party members, and like Paul, all the internet hype, enthusiasm of his supporters, and even money in the world couldn't substitute for actual quantity of votes.

I could swear I remember you particularly talking favorably about Lieberman. Am I wrong? If not, what has changed? What was especially bad about the 2000 run?

Joe "I swear I'm a Democrat" Lieberman, 2000 running mate of Al Gore and 2006 "Connecticut for Joe Lieberman Party" victor over both the Democratic and Republican challengers for his Senate seat, has formally endorsed John McCain. I think it will give him a significant boost among independents, but probably not among Republicans. Of course, we can always hope. If the Republican Party grows up and nominates McCain instead of the various crazy ass/sleazeball first tier candidates, my faith in the democratic process will be partially restored.

Don't think of it as "the President vs. Congress." On Constitutional grounds, they would be on equal footing. (In practice that isn't the case, but anyway...) What's important is that the President is one person. And so obviously the President has far more power than one Congressman. The formalities of addressing the President might be equivalent to the formalities of addressing the entire Congress. So in that way it makes sense. In practice, of course, there are other reasons. It is much easier for the unified Executive Branch to accumulate power than the divided Legislative Branch, whose efforts are expended fighting amongst themselves. And so the Executive gradually accumulates more and more de facto powers, and an imbalance develops. Also, one person is always much easier to mythologize than a group of people. Especially THAT person, the single most powerful person in the country (and lately, the world, hence "leader of the free world," an especially mythological-sounding moniker), who more than anyone else represents that country.

I think the answer is that we would be "at war" by law but not in practice, as the military would not mobilize. World War 2 is not an example of the question. Yes, we were attacked before we declared war, but it was hardly fought without Presidential consent. It is not a secret that Roosevelt was looking for an excuse to enter the war, and he certainly was not acting against his will in waging that war. More importantly though, the OP does not seem to be primarily about defensive wars (if that's what you call American involvement in WW2). If, before we were attacked, Congress declared war on Japan, and Roosevelt was against it, what would have happened?

Sure, there are lots of people working on that sort of thing, but it's not that simple. Computers are NOT "images of humans," and modeling brain processes on a computer would be extremely difficult.

It really is possible to talk about metaphysics without resorting to glassy-eyed, babbling mysticism. In fact, it usually helps if you don't.

Scotch cures all ills.

Very stupid, rather offensive pandering. They deserve to be mocked mercilessly for it. But it is just an empty, pointless resolution, so I doubt it really violates establishment clause. Aside: I'm not bothered by stuff like "In God We Trust" written on the money, but I AM bothered by the religious right's attempts to blow that kind of thing out of proportion. Newsflash, guys: the "founding fathers" were a bunch of Freemasons nurtured on the ideas and values of the Enlightenment. They had nothing in common with "evangelicals," and the American Revolution was, among other things, a secular humanist revolution. "In God we trust" is specifically NOT "in religion we trust."

You see when photons - "particles of light" - enter your eye and hit your retina. Your brain interprets the sum of these as the various objects you see around you (correctly or not), but technically, you're not "seeing" these things at all. You're seeing what is inside your eye. The atoms of your finger and of a table might not be "solid" in the sense of being made of continuous "stuff," but they still can't pass through one another, because their electrons repel one another. It is that repulsion that you feel when you touch an object.

Or at least if you eat 5000 calories a day worth of McDonalds.

If I couldn't relate to anyone who ever did anything gross... I don't even know. That's everyone.

Too amazing a line not to quote for the record.

What?

"Equal to" and "greater than" cannot be applied to the concept of infinity.

I was just about to respond to this thread when I noticed that I already had, 9 months ago. Bumping a long-dead thread to the top bumps every living thread above it one spot farther down, in a kind of "equal but opposite" reaction.

You can, however, find something similar, as long as all of the number are rational. I'm not sure of the terminology, but you can find the "greatest common measure" between any two rationals, meaning the largest number that divides evenly into both. If in fractional form, just get a common denominator, then find the GCF of the numerators. For example, start with 5/12 and 2/5. These become 25/60 and 24/60. 24 and 25 are relatively prime (have no common factors other than 1 and -1), so their GCF is 1, and so the greatest common measure of 5/12 and 2/5 is 1/60. In decimal form it's basically the same thing, only easier, since finding a common denominator is just a matter of adding zeros. Take 1.24 and 8.4. 1.24 goes out to the hundredths' place, so your common denominator is 100, making 124/100 and 840/100 (notice the extra zero: 8.4=8.40=84/10=840/100). Then you just find the GCF for 124 and 840, which happens to be 4. So your greatest common measure is 4/100, or 0.04, or 1/25.

The Iran report was the other event Pangloss was contrasting it with in terms of the CIAs relationship with the White House.

Lack of accountability is pretty much inherent in the role of the CIA, so the short answer is always going to be "who knows?" That said, I don't necessarily see anything contradictory here. Is the implication really that the White House would have stifled the Iran report if they could have? Perhaps it was contrary to the White House's opinion because it was new information for them, too. Or relatively new (I'm sure they don't tell the President and the New York Times on the same day), but the White House didn't have time to adjust. Or, the White House couldn't have suppressed such a thing, because the CIA is not under sole dominion of the executive branch, but is also under Congressional oversight. As for shredding documents, none of those possibilities would really surprise me, either. It could be CIA officials acting independently (as if THAT would be unusual), or it could be they were "asked" not to (wink wink, nudge nudge) by the Administration.

One thing you'll learn about university admissions is that no matter how selective they are and how good all admitted applicants look on paper, it is inevitable that a fair number of idiots will get in, especially as undergraduates. It's what "overachiever" means, and I have personally witnessed it at the most prestigious schools there are. That being said, I agree with the others that most of them probably didn't believe one word of it, and were just going for entertainment value.

When you say "I believe," what does that mean, exactly? Are you a neuroscientist and that is your professional opinion? Is that more-or-less established science that you're simply saying you trust? Is it just another way of saying "if I recall correctly?" I know almost nothing about the subject, so these are genuine questions.

Philosophy.