Phi for All

I'll bet it includes provisions to hold you without warrant at Guantanamo Bay if you miss a mortgage payment. Looks like it will pass: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown

iNow, I'm not sure if anyone else has pointed this out, but I've been meaning to for a long time. Whenever someone professes a belief in God, you jump to the fore with the "purple unicorn" strawman. While I agree that unobservable phenomenon have little significance to scientific discussions, you equate the sum of interest in God to the sum of interest in fairy tales, and I highly disagree with that. It not only is a blatant strawman, due to the differing natures of worship/religion and folklore, but it ALWAYS causes friction in threads where it's mentioned. It's belittling, it's supercilious and it's unnecessary. Science doesn't have to ridicule religious beliefs to get the point across that it is not designed to deal with the supernatural. In this case, I think it's an intellectual high ground you're bulldozing flat with your equations. This approach creates an automatic defensive posture. Even people who are on the fence will leap to oppose you. In politics and religion, even more so.

Wow, that stinks. It stinks so bad, I don't think the air is where they pulled that number from.

This picture is worth three words (that's my niece) and a tremendously long "awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww". Cute baby Eloise.

I saw blike on line looking at this thread last night and I was hoping he'd post a med student's POV. Maybe he can crack loose some time before the weekend is out.

As much as I objected to a lot of the deregulation Bill Clinton didn't veto, I think it made a big difference having a scholar as president. I think people around the world respected him for his brains and insight. I doubt it makes anyone but Americans happy to have so much power in the hands of "mavericks" and "ordinary guys". And I like what Clinton had to say about the bailout needing to earn interest for the taxpayers. This shouldn't be a free ride for wealth.

Can you order online? They aren't very expensive since they are usually the first casualty in a crash. The blades are the most important part of a helicopter, and involve the most danger if they aren't done right. Do you have any of the rest of the helicopter built?

Just like the Patriot Act, another enormous piece of legislation that few read before voting on, redefined the dynamics of our national security. And we're letting the most unpopular president and Congress in history shove these things down our throats. Perhaps we should rethink our desire to elect "Joe Blow Guy I Can Relate To And Have A Beer With" and put someone in office with an elite mind that can not only read but read between the lines.

Isn't this one of the things that prolonged the Great Depression? Besides the wealthfare angle, I'm most concerned that the people who know most about these assets are the people who got them in trouble in the first place. If oversight isn't rigorous, those are going to be the very people put in charge of the bailout.

Which is completely worthless as a definition since God, by His choice, is unavailable for comparison. This may be a more ethical than strictly scientific discussion, but claiming God looks like us because we were made in His image is a tautology, and quite illogical. "Highest form" is a nebulous concept. We have vast intelligence but no real instincts. We can form large societies with individual freedoms and flexible strictures that guide our development but we also wage war on each other for pretty abstract reasons. We can build and operate complex machinery but without training and materials we freeze to death in weather that any animal with fur could easily survive. As a definition, "highest form" is too subjective.

Moral high card?! According to this AP article, Obama called McCain and offered to work together for a bipartisan solution. McCain called back a few hours later and agreed to the joint announcement, and suggested suspending the debate. Minutes after getting off the phone about this joint statement, McCain held a press conference by himself and announced it alone. I think McCain's moral high card is a deuce of diamonds. I did like Obama's answer though: "It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess," Obama said at a news conference in Clearwater, Fla. "It's going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once." I get the feeling McCain is a little afraid of debating the economy. I also can't wait till Biden gets Palin on stage to ask her about Fannie and Freddy and why she thinks they've "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers" when they're private entities.

Quitting is a successful remedy, a theory that's not only falsifiable but has over 16 years of my own personal observation and experimentation. More political than moral, I would say. But morality plays a part. It's beside the point, but I disagree. Taking full responsibility for your problem and not relying on the crutch of having a "disease" is crucial, imo, to a successful recovery. I agree with Greenburg that there is a problem with some of the classifications. I'd call substance abuse a self-imposed disorder. Your normal functions are disturbed and you are the one causing the disturbance. It has an organic cause but it's not one that insinuates itself. It needs cognizant help.

I swear I've seen this before somewhere. The back of my mind is telling me it's a heat seamer for joining two pieces of material, like carpet. The front of my mind is laughing at the back and insisting that those aren't electrical leads, but are more for mounting the device to something else.

I disagree. If I were the press, I would give equal time to all candidates, and then spend most of Palin's coverage telling the people how little access you're getting. "Sarah Palin shook hands with the Afghan president today while the press watched, but we're unsure if she was allowed to say anything besides hello because we were ushered out after less than half a minute. In fact, the McCain campaign has blocked press access to their running mate and will not allow us to ask her any questions." Perhaps they should replace the photos of Palin with photos of bewildered reporters. That would be hilarious. Every Palin story would be about lack of press access and speculation about why so much fear and secrecy.

That's it, if Obama and Biden don't absolutely slaughter McCain and Palin in the debates, I'm voting for Jed Bartlett.

Could Sayo steal this image for his avatar? Or in other words...can a banana glom a llama?

I used to prefer desktops for all those reasons, but you just can't beat portability for all the other reasons mentioned. In fact, when my last desktop fried on me (one month after the warranty expired), I took the extra monitor and now have it configured as an extended desktop for my laptop when I'm at my desk. Now I have work on one screen and SFN on the other.

Here's a link for you. It looks like it varies. Where are you located, where do you want to go to college, and where do you want to work?

jdurg has a good point about tarnishing. Tungsten carbide is the one they use for jewelry and it's not supposed to scratch or tarnish ever (diamonds will scratch it, of course). They also do inlays with the rose gold hermanntrude mentioned, and I agree that it's quite lovely. If your fiance is prone to fits of temper, a heavy ring will hurt more when she hurls it at you. For drama queens, I suggest aluminum.

Tungsten makes an almost scratch-proof ring, and I love the dark color, high-gloss and weight (and did I mention it's nigh scratch-proof?), but women don't always agree. You could do an inlay of a brighter metal like platinum or palladium as a good contrast. Btw, tungsten means "heavy stone", so you may have to put a pretty big rock on top. Good luck, whatever you do, I'm sure she'll love it.

I smoked and drank too much, that's what made it bad. I couldn't cut back so I quit both, 14 and 16 years ago respectively. Moderation makes the poisons OK if you can handle it. My most unhealthy habit is being in front of the computer too much. Relational databases for my work are a black hole that sucks every minute of my life away if I don't stand up, walk away from the desk and go outside. It's hard to work from home in sales and find time to go work out. My rec center is 3 minutes away, my bike is in the garage, but my butt is usually in my office chair. I need a better outlet for exercising, especially since I quit doing the extreme sports, like whitewater apple-bobbing and spear-gun tag. I was going to say that... tomorrow. Procrastination could be unhealthy too, if you're putting off getting that spurting artery sutured. How can suicide be a habit?

We prefer to discuss, actually. Unless you're connecting from a smart phone, "chat" in textspeak is too difficult to understand for our global membership. I hope you don't mind typing all the words to make yourself better understood. Welcome everyone, have fun and enjoy the forum.

I can dead-lift my own weight without being "squashed".

This is substantive at a time when Obama's campaign really needs it. Swing voters don't need to hear how bad the other guy is, they need to hear how great Obama is. And the same goes for any Reps who are on the fence about McCain; they'll flock to McCain's defense if he's attacked, but may tip left if Obama can give them hope that he's the guy who'll steer us out of the Bushes onto a better path.

Did you *ever* think Rove would be the pot calling the kettle black? I don't remember seeing this before, but the Guardian is reporting that the use of official government email channels is more than just a mandate: I wonder how the law is written, how Rove got around it, and how breaking a federal law will affect McCain / Palin.