Sisyphus

But your profit isn't proportional to the work you put into it. In fact, you can just hire someone to manage it for you. [/Adam Smith]

I suppose I phrased that poorly. I didn't really mean belief in God generally, inasmuch as "God" is a word which can mean almost anything. Rather, it is belief in the God which is held up as a counter-argument to evolutionary theory, the god that literally sculpted Adam and Eve from clay and exiled them from a garden a few thousand years ago, which can and should be refuted. That is the kind of faith that Coulter is talking about. I agree that religion certainly can be completely independent of anything scientific, but it's certainly not necessarily so, or even usually so.

I think you're right. Since photons would be travelling at a constant velocity, any orbit would have to be perfectly circular, and it could only have a very specific radius. Anything else would be very unstable, and anything more than a little different would be impossible. EDIT: I wonder... could it be possible for photons to orbit anything besides a black hole? Or would anything massive enough necessarily collapse into one?

Except that law is not law if it isn't enforced, and law is the foundation of society and the difference between civilization and anarchy. Making principled decisions to break the law is an extremely weighty decision, because it is inherently immoral to undermine society. Not to say that it can't sometimes be outweighed by the immorality of following the law, but it certainly needs a lot of "weight" for that to be the case. Merely saying that it is an immoral law is not enough. *** spits out those words Sisyphus just shoved into her mouth *** Beyond not considering yourself crazy, how was that different from what you were saying? Well, yes, actually. By enforcing the law. What I mean to say is, there are extreme situations when I would assume the role of terrorist, but I wouldn't in the least resent being treated like one. Again, there needs to be law, and whether law is moral or immoral is subjective.

I'm not sure I understand the implications of that. If the "shell" corresponds to one point in history, and it's elliptical, doesn't that mean light would have to travel slower along the short axis? That can't be. Maybe the expansion of space is non-uniform somehow? Or that cosmic microwaves don't all originate from the same time period? Why would it be an ellipse? I guess the question is, has this moved beyond the stage of just the math working, to some kind of an actual explanation for why it would be so?

Sure, it would be quite easy for restaurants to provide an ingredients list. General nutritional information, however, would probably be quite hard, since, with the exception of chain restaurants, dishes aren't standardized, and constantly changing. This would also be extremely difficult to enforce. That said, it's probably the best solution.

That's why I said that argument was unproductive. And I do happen to agree that forcing restaurants to have nutritional information would probably be a better solution, although it might be impractical and would definitely mean more bureaucracy. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that we shouldn't think in absolutes. Sometimes taking things to extremes helps put them in perspective. It would be difficult to justify allowing cyanide cookies on supermarket shelves, wouldn't it? And it would similarly be difficult to justify banning certain colors of fruit on feng shui criteria. So draw the line where you want, but let it be a line, since absolutes tend to destroy themselves in absurdity.

You don't see anything intrinsically wrong with making your own laws? Anyone should be allowed to destroy anyone else's property because their crazy minority beliefs say it's ok? As a matter of fact, there are situations where I would forsake the law. I won't give Godwin the satisfaction of mentioning them, but even in those situations, I certainly wouldn't expect any mercy from the majority, nor do I think any should be given. I certainly wouldn't try to continue going about trying to be an ordinary citizen.

If there's any relevant studies, they'd be in journals of psychology, I think. I wouldn't be surprised if it were true to a small degree. I've seen firsthand the ways people act when acutely aware of trying to live up to a father. Fathers who give their sons their own name are probably more likely to be demanding in this regard, and sons who go "junior" more likely to compare themselves in that way.

I thought the whole point of the article was that it's people like Coulter who make it about theism vs. atheism. She holds up belief in God in opposition to the science of evolution. Since that belief, as a scientific theory, holds no water whatsoever, it's perfectly appropriate to refute it on those terms.

So what's the appeal? Lots of people, even some who post here, say they're really "in to" it. So what does it consist of that makes it appealing? Is it just the particular animation style? The deadpan ultraviolence? The submissive/hyperobjectified women? The pedophilia?

It's also important to remember that restaurants, unlike food you might buy at the market, have no listed ingredients or nutritional information. So the "just don't buy it then" argument is not really valid. I mean, let's face it. If they were using mercury to preserve food and then selling it to people, we'd make them stop, wouldn't we? But we would never outlaw naturally sugary food. This falls in between somewhere, and the debate should be about exactly where, instead of just either kneejerk "freedom freedom freedom aaaarrrh" arguments or kneejerk "it's bad for you so we won't let you have it" arguments. They're both very, very unproductive.

Yes. It's been tested extensively and there's never been any evidence that anyone can actually do anything like that, let alone any mechanism by which it might occur. When I was about eight or so I thought I had psychic powers since I seemed to be able to influence things and know what people were thinking when others didn't. I soon outgrew that, though, when I realized how much could be explained by coincidence, and how whatever happened I would, after the fact, think that I brought about. Also, I had to laugh, because most of the "exercises" on that website are actually just making compasses. Of course they move. It's called magnetism. And because it's hanging by a string (any twist will slowly cause it to rotate) or floating in water (little resistance, any spin will continue and new ones will be caused by pretty much any vibration or air current) it will have other motions as well. ^--- not the answer that problem

The contrast really is amazing, isn't it? In that situation, GWB either puffs out his chest and acts like a ten-year-old bully, or gets all smirky and evasive. Childish, really.

I think the idea was to isolate the process as much as possible from fads and "mob rule." An amendment to the Constitution is permanent and the unquestioned supreme law of the land, and as such we need to make sure we "really mean it." I can only imagine all the crazy stuff that would be in the Constitution if all that was needed was a referendum, since you'd just need a cause that two-thirds (or whatever) agree with. This isn't a perfect guarantee, of course, but as is, the only really "faddish" one so far was the prohibition of alcohol, which we then needed another amendment just to overturn. There are also several stupid amendments that tend to get proposed around election time (banning flag burning, banning gay marriage, etc.), but they haven't been passed yet, even though they almost certainly would have been if it had been a straight referendum. That said, however, considering the strong majorities needed on multiple levels, it's really impossible for an amendment to be passed that most people don't actually want.

Do we have any reason to think those numbers are accurate? If we don't know how many other countries have, then we obviously can't detect every single sattellite as it's launched, and the list could more accurately be described as "satellites nations openly admit to having."

I don't see what would be special about black holes. Unless you're right on top of it, its gravitational effects on its surroundings are no different from any other massive object, so I don't think you can consider them as a separate system from other objects, if that is in fact what you're suggesting. As for (1), I think that's the case, although "nicely balanced" may be misleading. There are velocities unrelated to gravity that may complicate things, I'm not sure. I suppose simply zooming out in scale solves the problem, though. And for (2), I'm almost certain that's correct.

Right, if you're not an anarchist, you must be a liberal.

The colors in sunsets are caused by light scattering from the non-uniform atmosphere, which is much less noticeable during the day because the light is travelling through much less atmosphere. Red is scattered the least, and so reddish hues predominate. Particles in the atmosphere obviously contribute more to the scattering, and so pollution in the form of smog and whatnot yields more colorful and varied sunsets. This is also why sunsets are generally more colorful than sunrises - daylight causes all kinds of turbulence and moisture and whatnot in the atmosphere, some of which manages to settle during the night.

"...ask what you can do for your country." That famous quote from President Kennedy's inaugural address in 1961 came strongly to mind recently. Specifically, it was in the "Second Amendment" thread, from this quote:

I noticed it was from something called "law.com," yeah. I also noticed the definition was short and vague, and that legal definitions vary from place to place and time to time, making it necessarily inadequate. Also, it didn't even say "everything else you own," which leaves open my claim on the Moon. However, even if it did say so, that wouldn't help us, since it would basically be saying "property = what you own," which isn't a definition, just a renaming. However, since obviously the intent was always that taxes could be levied, I'd say it's completely safe to assume they didn't mean we can't ask for money from individuals without specific individual compensation. Non-individual compensation, i.e. that it be used for "the public good," certainly is a requirement, but it's also important to note that what constitutes "the public good" is up to our own (by proxy, in the form of publically elected officials) discretion, except in cases where it violates Constitutional law. One interpretation that occurs to me that might reconcile this alleged contradiction is that the clause refers to specific property, as opposed to generalized property. In other words, I can ask everyone to give something in accordance with some predetermined formula. However, asking one specific guy to give his farm is different, since it applies only to him and is therefore unjust, and requires specific compensation. As for why money is unique and the only thing that is, in general terms, demanded from us, is that perhaps it's the only thing that can be given in fair proportions. That is to say, a dollar is a dollar, but every piece of land is different, hence any giving of the latter is necessarily specific and not general. Hence "property" is meant as specific property, e.g. land, physicals goods, etc. That's just off the top of my head, though, and it occurs to me that there may be exceptions or grey areas, like mandatory military service. (Although I suppose drafted soldiers get paid....)

Oh really? "Everything else" is a legal definition? I suppose the Moon is my property then, and NASA owes me rent for Tranquility Base. Come on. You know perfectly well what is meant by the word, and you know perfectly well that the entire concept of government in a free and capitalistic society depends on our right to levy taxes on individuals. If you insist, the "compensation" is that you enjoy the rights and priveledges of a citizen.

Well, assuming I'm correct, then yes, a cluster of galaxies would, to some extent, be considered to be held together by gravity, though not nearly as coherently as the individual galaxies themselves. The impression I had was that at the largest scales, even beyond galaxy clusters, space is essentially "flat," meaning the net gravitation on a very large region is almost zero. I don't really understand the second question.

They're not property. They're wages.

It's not stretching light directly, it's stretching space. So things "move" farther apart, which makes redshift. Except it doesn't move all things, since some (like solar systems, or galaxies, or atoms) are held together by other forces. That's why galaxies can get farther apart, but the galaxy itself doesn't get any bigger. Because one is held together by gravity, and the other isn't. Not that galaxies don't exert gravity on each other, mind you, just that they're more or less evenly distributed, and therefore have more or less equal gravitational pull from all directions, which amounts to zero net gravity.