Sisyphus

But Roe v. Wade makes the relative merits a moot point, since outlawing abortion outright is deemed unconstitutional (whether or not you agree with the legal argument).

Rather weak speculation, I'd say. You could just as easily say violent video games prevent violence by letting people harmlessly blow off steam. Or that portrayal of fictional violence is trivial compared to glorification of real violence like warfare. I wouldn't call either more than idle speculation, though, since there's no solid, scientific support one way or the other.

Of course, but I'd say the reality is often rather different, though, wouldn't you? The nomination of judges is a highly disputed, partisan process for a reason: because the President and Congress expect the judge's personal politics to play a role in their interpretations, and they're usually right.

Oh, sorry, I thought you were asking if it could be done, period, not whether the average joe could go have it done somewhere.

To me, the answer seems to be "obviously." Is there a particular difficulty that you imagine might arise?

Isn't that kind of cheating?

That's ok. Nobody is forcing you to believe in demonstrable laws of physics.

Just some wannabe timecube guy.

Um... http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html

Hehe. I didn't say it was impossible. I just said it was drastically inferior. Which it is.

We've done just that. Well, not that, but equivalent to that. Relativity has been confirmed experimentally many times. We use technology every day, like GPS, which would not work if those "mere" equations were false.

I see. Ordinarily, you would expect A to see B moving away at 0.99C+0.99C=1.98C, based on what we see between them. Or rather, he wouldn't "see" B at all, since they'd be moving away from one another at a speed greater than light, and the light can't "catch up." However, this is not the case. A will see B moving away at a speed which is still less than lightspeed. In fact he won't just "see" B moving at a less than C relative speed, B will actually be moving at a less than C relative speed. It is impossible that any two objects have a relative speed of C or greater. The way this is possible is that A, B, and us in the middle will all disagree about distances and the rate at which time passes, and we'll all be right, because distance and time are merely relative, also.

Sorry, you're disagreeing with what, exactly?

Ok, a few things: The universe expanding does not have a "speed." You can judge how fast any two particular objects are getting farther apart, but that's it. (The farther apart any two objects are from one another, the faster they're moving apart.) However, those two objects are not moving. They are getting farther apart. But they are not moving. This cannot be stressed enough. It is space that is getting larger. This article explains it decently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion If things were moving (which they ARE NOT), then they couldn't be moving "at the speed of light." Nothing moves at the speed of light except light. The universe does not have "ends." This, also, cannot be stressed enough. In your example, we can say they're moving at, say 99% the speed of light (since lightspeed is impossible) in opposite directions from us. Mr. A goes 0.99C left, Mr. B goes 0.99C right. To us, it looks like they're going almost double lightspeed relative to one another. However, they are NOT. Mr. A will see us moving 0.99C away from him, and he will see Mr. B moving around 0.99999C or so away from him. Nothing can ever be moving more than lightspeed relative to whoever is looking at it. Two observers moving relative to one another, then, obviously can't agree on what a third object is doing. Welcome to the world of special relativity!

Maybe that could be dealt with by generating a deflective magnetic field around the vehicle while it's passing through the Van Allen's. I don't know how strong it would have to be, and hence whether it's feasible, but it might be easier than other options, such as just going really fast, or carrying heavy material shieding.

The main problem has been China and Russia, no argument there. Which is why I'm glad the U.S. is being more aggressive. There has been a certain amount of downplaying over the past few years which is all I meant by "finally." For example, Bush has only started publicly talking about it, whatever is going on behind the scenes. Weird, since Congress was talking about it pretty early on.

One thing at a time! First, there does not have to be an "outer limit," even if it is finite. It could do something like "fold back" on itself, such that travelling in one direction eventually brings you back to where you started. Second, it CAN be infinite, and also be expanding. It just means that everything is getting farther away from everything else, getting "less crowded." Or, to put it another way, the universe has infinite volume, but finite density, which can increase or decrease. Third, it wouldn't stop expanding because it reached some "limit." It would stop expanding because the forces causing it to expand, whatever those might be, become weaker than the forces pulling things together, like gravity. Fourth, I figure you're probably kidding about "suns spontaneously combusting" and whatnot, but in case you're not, the sun is not "on fire." Fire is a chemical reaction of combining oxygen. The sun is fusion, which is merging atoms together into different atoms (different elements), it happens because the core is so extremely compressed from gravity.

Well I'm glad our government is finally willing to acknowledge what's happening, at least...

What, you think that song inspired a lot of child molestors, do you?

It smells pretty bad to me, too, but it's not really the same as "warring for oil." It's being "a mercenary for a good cause," which I can see distinguishing from, well, being a mercenary and not caring whether the cause is good or bad. Come on, wasn't Seven Samurai a good movie?

Many reasons: 1) So you don't have to find a way to rendevouz with a dangling cable in order to use it. 2) So the "launch" site doesn't move all around the world, across dozens of countries, etc. If it's attached to the ground, you can keep it somewhere convenient and safe. 3)In order to supply power. It requires a huge amount of energy to lift a payload out of the atmosphere. If you can't get that energy from the ground, you have to take it with you in some storable form, which in turn drastically increases the size of the "elevator car," which is exactly why rockets are so expensive and inefficient. If it's attached to the ground, you just power it with electricity generated by a power plant on the ground. 4) And even more importantly, an unattached cable needs to be in equilibrium - centrifugal force on the counterweight from inertia needs to equal centripetal force from gravity and cable tension. That means you can't add or remove payload without doing something like attaching rockets to the counterweight, which makes the whole thing, if not useless, than much more complicated and inefficient than it needs to be. If it's attached to the ground, it's much simpler, because there's plenty of tension to spare, and it can support the weight of the car.

What do you mean by religious study? You mean literally a study of religions? Theology? The first is an important part of anthropology, the latter an important part of philosophy.

Most of those "ten worst" are pretty obvious parodies, and some of them are pretty funny. Perhaps you should lighten up?

Do any of you guys actually listen to rap? I don't either. But it seems sometimes like 98% of the criticism you hear comes from positions of basic ignorance. I've made similar criticisms in the past, and as a result been forced to listen to some that actually had a lot of depth and poetry. Maybe not in everything (much of its on intellectual par with typicially successful rock or pop, i.e. vapid nonsense), but even the dumbest songs about guns, niggaz and hos are probably a lot more tongue in cheek, intentionally hyperbolic, and self-aware than you realize. Just something to keep in mind...

Their education is nonexistant, their methodology laughable, and all of their interpretations wildly distorted by predetermined conclusions. But they put so much effort in to it, and spend most of their time furiously trying to poke holes in established science. Are there any mainstream ideas you guys know about that originated from those people?