padren

I am glad the bunker buster plan is dying. I do think tactical nukes could have a place - if we had a full size nuclear warhead go off on US soil, it doesn't mean we should kill every man woman and child in the original country with full-scale nukes. If we could respond with non-nuclear force and win, or failing that tactical nukes for a precise tactical plan, it would be far more advantageous for us and everyone else than using full size overkill nukes. There may even be resources left that our favorite campaign contributors could exploit in that case. However, I do think a policy of reserved right to nuclear first-strike puts us in the idealogical category that we were claiming Iraq was in, and pretty much what we call any rogue state. I don't believe there is any good reason for the strongest nation in the world to need to resort to nuclear weapons in anything other than nuclear defense. If we need them to fight our conventional battles, how can we even pretend anyone else should not develop them for the same purpose? We loose the idealogical battle, and go straight to intimidation to prevent other nations from going atomic. This worried me back when we went into Iraq without finishing our work in afghanistan - that we'd over extend our conventional military, and people within the strategic department would try to use nuclear options to get some freed up teeth back. No one is scared of a dog's bite when it has a mouth full and is almost choking, and it was inevitable we'd look at nuclear options to maintain muscle-cred with unpleasant nations. I still think it would be a wrong move, because of the sheer degree of poltical fallout (NPI) that would follow.

We are by no means a perfectly evolved creature - and considering that bipedal posture is a recent addition in our evolutionary development (relatively) it would make sense that it would be one of the less developed aspects. Everytime I go to the darn dentist I curse Darwin a little (I believe in shooting the messenger) because frankly, I really wish we had a few more million years of evolution behind our chompers. Still, I am glad the whole "big brain" thing worked out - at least this way I can get a dental plan.

I think we'd be seen as pretty noxious, the only reason we put up with each other is because we think we're the best we got, and even then, we don't pull any punches when it comes to genocide and the like. If there was a more intelligent species on this earth, it would have to not be consuming the same resources, or be affected by our actions. In other words they wouldn't really fit in anywhere in what we know of physical reality. Otherwise, we could do too many things for too stupid of reasons that would effect them too much, and I doubt that would be considered very tolerable. Maybe if it was combined with some "hollow earth theory" or critters like in "the abyss" but it seems unlikely.

pot and xboxes airdropped for free....but if they want doritos and 7-11 hot dogs they have to initiate legistlative reform...by the gods that may just work.

Its always worth noting that "support" for a government is a very fuzzy term and cannot be summed up with yes/no polls. Many people would support a different leader than GW over here, but would still go to war and fight to the death to defend the process by which he was elected. Iranians may want varying degrees of reform, varying by demographic and geography, and may be skeptical as to even if what they want is promised, if it would be delivered by a new leader. I would bet the vast majority of Iranians would not support an Iraq model "emergent democracy" over there though, we haven't gotten much "cred" for our work to date.

Remote control for window air conditioner units...something else to get lost just after dropping in fresh batteries. Almost all cooking utensils sold on tv after 2am...save 20 seconds with a device that takes and extra 20 minutes to clean - got to love that. And gerbils - I mean, they are like badly designed hamsters... Gizmos I love include my DVR, I don't know how I managed to waste time before I got that thing. Mixed feelings include the fax-scanner-copier-printer deal. Why get seperate units when you can do everything in one badly? Anyone else have trouble with the flip-top shampoo deals? The ones you push with your finger to make it reveal the tiny spout...the ones that are like a ketchup bottle lid are okay, but the spout ones always get clogged, making them especially annoying.

As for using electromagnets to spin a prop, that is an electric motor. Creating a low pressure area above the craft would have to repel air particles away from the craft to generate - which would require an opposite and equal reaction that would likely force the magnet down away from the direction of the air particle in an equal or larger manner than the particle's lack of presence would create lift via vacuum. High pressure below would require you to be pulled toward the particle below you, with the same consequence. I do think alternative ideas are good though: if we could ever find a means to effect all matter within a field equally with an equal force of propulsion for instance, we'd effectively negate g forces - a holy grail in rapid acceration for the traditionally g-force victimized occupants. Ion drives do exist though and they were used in Deep Space 1. Alertnative thought in propulsion is definately a good thing.

A "can't we all just get along" post: I think we can all agree that life is sacred, we all agree that people need to defend themselves from the aggressions of others - when you boil it down I think we all have very similar philosophies. What is in question from what I can read, is a difference of opinion on the facts of this case. So lets discuss the facts and, in the event that the facts we hold as solid are viewed as conjecture to others and visa versa, then we can agree to disagree on the facts, but lets not get too personal and attack each other's underlying philosophies and intelligence. Its an emotional topic, and I know how emotional it can feel at times when you see people you feel are being very heroic die, and others feel that their actions are criminal. The emotional reaction is understandable and should be directed to the fact that "anyone could make that negative view" but that is still a fact of life that such things occur, and you can't really blame the person making the view - its just part of the fog of war and life in general. Lets take a deep breath and step back, and assume the opposing points of view are based on an intelligent assesment of facts that differ from the facts we hold to be evident, return to a more civil level of discourse. (insert flower-power smiley here)

I a like most bugs, its ones that worry me about nasty bites that do bug me though. When I was young, I could never remember which centepedes were supposed to be poisoneous, or what spiders, so I just avoided all the pedes and any spider with shiny black and or red/yellow on it. Plus most others just to be safe. At the old office where I worked (one of the inspirations for my current self employment ) my old boss's wife was bitten by a brown recluse. He wouldn't let her go to the doctor for a bug bite, even though she was a nurse herself, and she did go after a few days anyway and confirmed it was pretty darn nasty. I was just a little more nervous working at my desk for a few weeks... Still, its not a fear of bugs, just of being bitten by nasty nasty things. And IMM: Glad you held it together and glad thats passed. Is there any methods for resolving those sorts of phobias? I've heard of various anti-phobia treatments, but I know very little about it. I guess fears are my biggest fear - acting in some way because of something I think I should be able to control, so sometimes I act outright stupid to get past them when I find them. Hence I even started to dance lately, much to my liver's dismay (I didn't say I didn't need a little boost ).

I have to admit that I don't know enough of the official Lebanese reaction to the kidnappings preceeding the attacks. If Lebanon can crack down on Hezbollah at this date without triggering a civil war (as hinted in the article you cited) then I am very impressed. I just know as a general trend, when you attack a nation, the various normally fractioned groups within that nation tend to rally against the attacker, which is not advantageous in this situation. If that simply had to be and there was no other solution, then I can accept that as a sad fact of the conflict. I am just not yet convinced that was the case, though I can respect many people (many with more first hand knowledge) do.

The challenge of the x-prize is nothing compared to this feat - spaceship one can at most leave the upper atmosphere and freefall back to Earth...and has nowhere near the energy to deliver anything to an object in stable orbit. The height spaceship one reaches is not even considered high enough to reach a stable orbit due to reminents of the atmosphere which would cause drag, let alone the forward velocity. I really hope there is serious competition for this project, though $50m will be like winning $5 for building a winning monster truck from scratch...the real prize will be being the first affordable private sector orbital delivery system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovercraft especially see the external links section. ( http://www.hovercraftmodels.com/ http://www.hovercrafters.com/ ) They are pretty simple, the rubber rim along the outer edge extending below the vehicle contains a high pressure volume of air, which escapes by forcing the vehicle up. It doesn't go very "high" - just enough for the air to escape and lower the inside pressure in a ring around the vehicle. This lift is high enough though to keep it from contacting the surface of the ground, very very greatly reducing friction with the ground as a result. While it cannot traverse rough terrain, the rubber base is somewhat flexible I believe and as such it can make its way onto beaches and such, or travel on land over fairly flat terrain. If you want to build one, the intake system will be the biggest factor, since you do have to build up a relatively high pressure below the craft. Balance would be another factor, since if it leaned to one side and allowed the air to escape only on the other side, the heavy side would drag and it would not be manuverable. I only know the basics, a more expert opinion may be able to clarify or catch points I may have missed.

I absolutely love the new BSG with a passion. Reality TV I cannot do. SG1 and SGA are good, Futurama is one of my favorite shows of all time. Firefly was amazingly good, I disliked Enterprise at first but it grew on me. As far as non-scifi goes, Rescue Me is great. I have watched a decent amount of Friends (guilty pleasure) but a series I liked a lot more of that vein (also a guilty pleasure) is the BBC series Coupling - some of the funniest writing IMO. I haven't seen it yet, but I have recorded some "Always Sunny in Philidephia" and I hear its great.

I started to worry when I saw grocery stores putting ads on the floor - it made me realize that we have a TON advertisers out there, and as all the other medias have gotten saturated, many of them are still trying to stay employed and are actively trying to clutter our lives with whatever little innovation can put food on their tables for one more week. I guess its no different with lawyers I love the warnings for prescription drugs, it always reminds me of happy fun ball. Or the ad for "liquid stitches" that said "ask your EM about liquid stitches" and a view of a hospital room from the perspective of an emergency ambulence gurney - that was priceless...can't imagine actually telling an EM how to do his job by pitching products I've heard of that he can use to stitch me up though.

It seems everyone has every reason to hate everyone else and feel safer if everyone else were dead. Ironically, if people actually just chose to all stop killing each other, the vast majority of the world's problems would be over and everyone would have a much better life. Not saying it because I think flower power is all that, but I can't help but to find the irony about as cutting as any in the world.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/14/mideast/index.html I was pretty blown away and didn't see this coming at all. Do you think we'll get sucked into a larger war now with Syria, Lebonon and Iran? I am more than a little nervous this could get out of control.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobos ...and they are one of our closest relatives

If I was to try to rationalize it (ie, make guesses with no hard facts in the matter) I would say that evolutionary wise, it is the chemical reward of pleasure that makes animals reproduce, but a secondary factor may have evolved in some species where, when it is unsuitable to breed, it was easier to evolve in a manner that non-reproductive sex started, instead of a distaste for sex durning unsuitable-breeding times. Many animals will eat until they float upside down dead, and many animals will breed until they starve themselves off. The ability to choose when to expend the resources to raise offspring would be an evolutionary benefit, so I suspect recreational sex is a cheaper emergent process via evolution than reversing the sex drive would be.

Severian, I just interject because I can't understand for the life of me what would be better than an anthropocentric sense of interests when trying to make moral decisions. What other xyz-centric sense do we have to work with? Its also worth noting that it is not so much anthropocentric, as trans-anthropocentric (ie, traits we appear to share with others, human or not, instead of simply ones we possess) since we are making these decisions based on what in the other being we can relate to, such as a shared sense of pain, a sense of conscious perception, and the like. I can't think of a single other tool we have at our disposal to make moral decisions, and the "trans-anthropocentric" seems like a very good fit to me. Can you explain why you feel it is flawed, or what we have at our disposal that would work better?

In fact that is the whole point - the whole point of being able to relate at all to "doing unto others as you would have done unto you" requires an ability to identify commonality. There is so little "human-like" in a rock' date=' that it would be very hard for a human to make any moral decisions effecting rocks. Thus, the whole point of the inclusion/exclusion is based on our ability to relate. We can make more and more vague guesses the more and more different something is, but it is harder to know. This is probably why there is such a debate over moral decisions affecting fetuses - no one is sure what they feel exactly that is in common with grown humans and exactly when...so it makes the process of transference much harder. With other situations, such as any young to adult mammal, you can be very sure it can feel pain, therefore the it is much easier to make moral judgements about exposing mammals to pain or not - simply because it is so much easier to relate. Its not the problem, its the point. What should we, as humans, base our morality on? Things we can't relate to?

Severian, I think the general philosophy being discussed is for the most part, the "golden rule" of "do unto others as you would have done to you." The idea is, if you can suffer and you don't want to suffer, and you see another creature capable of equivelent suffering that you could make suffer for your gain, is it fair to make them suffer? If you see a plant, sure, you know if you existed as that plant, you prefer to just grow and not be picked. But if you had a choice to take 15 minute detour into the shoes of a plant, with no nervous system or apparent means of consciousness and be suddenly picked, vs 15 minutes in the shoes of a cow nerviously and anxiously smelling the blood on the conveyer in the slaughterhouse before having a bolt slammed through the skull....chances are the plant-thing would be less tramatic. Since we need to eat to live, and very few people just want to die, you do have to choose what you are going to eat. If you do follow the golden rule, do you cause great suffering that you yourself would find horrible to experience, or pick a few plants? While it may not be perfect (who wouldn't want parkland and wildlife reserves in place of all those wheat fields?) is the understandably better choice until we can invent synthisizers of some sort. For the record, while I was a vegitarian for about 7 years, I do eat meat. I find it morally reprehensible and it is sickening to think of the manner it is produced in, but I enjoy the end result.

I thought NY wasn't supposed to be a target anymore, since it had no national landmarks and all that. I am very glad they stopped it. It would have been horrible if it happened, and even more horrible when we'd get shouted down as anti-patriotic-death-monger-ghouls to point out that it would have followed the heavy cuts in security money for New York that was more needed in "swing states." Its moments like this were we can see that such an indulgent abuse in funding allocation can lead to actual disasters...few things get my blood pressure up as much as this sort of stuff.

I know exactly what you mean. After a while, I start to question myself and wonder what demographic of consumers I "run with" in my viewing schedule. And don't forget *whistles the tune* enzyte for natural male enchancement. I give it 6 months before late night cable runs ads on behalf of wealthy Nigerians who want your help to move large amounts of money out of their country... I'd rather watch two live shows and DVR them both, or wait 20 minutes into an hr show just to not deal with the commercials. I rarely see any commercials anymore.