Phi for All

It'll be tough on the rest of us when throng leaves the nest, but I think it's the right thing to do. Let's not be selfish about this.

Glad you made it through with no casualties. Welcome back to the electric age.

It bugs me a lot really. And you know it's got to bug McCain to have to take on the Bush baggage after what they did to him in 2000. McCain didn't deserve that kind of dirty trick from his own party members and I've lost a lot of respect for him for stooping to Rove's level. Did you see the recent Fox interview with Rove where he talked about the lies coming from both camps? The bastard stumbled when he tried to say "truth", like it was such a foreign concept on his lips.

Anchorage Daily News, from the 15th: Perhaps Obama's campaign has done too good a job equating Bush with McCain. Rove has soured me on email shenanigans and lack of accountability.

If it's a state mandate, who do you appeal to when the *governor* defies it?

This might be true if I'd heard only that Palin was using her private email for state business. That could be a bad program, or just lack of good security judgment. But the stories I read all spoke of skirting an audit, communicating in a way that wasn't subject to subpoena, and smacking down a co-worker who goofed up and used the regular program. Perhaps I was lead to this conclusion but I certainly didn't jump to it.

Perhaps it would be best to bring *extreme* religious stances up before both candidates and their VPs. Personally, I think the need to tie religion into a candidate's stance is part of the depraved state of US politics, substituting church attendance and faith for actual deeds as a moral barometer. But I'd like to know how a literal interpretation of the Bible can possibly serve us well from our commander-in-chief. Maybe we should ask all four point blank: Do you believe that the prophecies in the Book of Revelations will come to pass and that only the righteous will survive? Will you consider yourself "safe" from a global holocaust because of your faith? This is the heart of my objection to Palin's church but I guess it should be no different for any Christian leader. I don't want someone in charge of our nuclear arsenal who might decide to "kill them all and let God sort them out". And I certainly don't want someone in office who sees their quick rise to power as a mandate from God that they are working His will with their every decision. This applies to both Obama and Palin.

Musashi probably could have cut a person in half with a hunk of rebar.

But the mandate is *not* absent in this case. Completely different. You weren't thinking about subpoenas much, were you? You *had* to use your personal account, and I doubt if anyone at your company would have objected. I think *you're* kidding now. This wasn't a matter of preference. Palin's aide Ivy Frye spoke in one email about how it was a way to communicate that couldn't be audited. If they've done nothing wrong, why worry about an audit? Well, you're wrong there. If I found out Joe Biden was using Karl Rove's anti-suboena gimmick, and his aides talked about the secrecy merits of that gimmick, I'd lump him in with Rove and jump ship in a heartbeat. I'd start my write-in campaign for Paul / Kucinich. I'm tired of the secrecy. Absolutely, but a mandate isn't a law, I guess.

As I said before, you need to decide what you're going to cut. Swords should not have a razor edge, whereas a knife doesn't have enough leverage to cut well without one. And no, wood will never "hold" a good edge. You could make it razor sharp but it will never stand up to more than a couple of uses. They may have, but the ones I heard about had a groove around the edge in which they fixed small shards of obsidian. It's possible they used wood alone to good effect. Musashi supposedly killed many opponents using only a bokken.

Yes, but they edged them with chips of sharpened obsidian.

Do you have any examples of when you would use a system like this for legitimate communications? I haven't been able to think of any reasons beyond not wanting the records to be subject to subpoena, and that implies there is something in them which would implicate those involved.

You have to be very careful when using wood to make a practice sword (I assume you would be using it for practice rather than as a wall hanging). When they break, the flying shards can be dangerous, even if you haven't sharpened the edges. Sword blades can be too sharp. "A razor edge" sounds great in fiction but is neither necessary nor preferable. The thinner the metal (or wood), the less strength it has and the more easily it will be nicked, turned and flattened. An edge that is beveled correctly relies on the force of the stroke rather than the degree of sharpness. You aren't shaving with it, you're striking to cut. Synthetic materials are being used with great success. Here is a bokken (a wooden katana for practice) made of black synthetic material for US$29. I've never used this brand but I thought their video (link in red) showed the strength of the blade, even when cutting with it.

So, you're just going to reprint what you posted for Google Groups? This is a discussion forum, it's not a wiki. If you're not here to discuss your findings then we'll have to remove your posts. We aren't here to improve your rankings or advertise for you. Please reply within 24 hours.

From the standpoint of beliefs, most of the things the religious extremists are all about are just basically decent ideas, taken to the extreme. You are right, it's pointless to qualify most of it because it *is* harmless. And if Palin has the launch codes in hand, do you doubt she'll take a moment to pray for guidance, and do you doubt that it will be the religious rhetoric she has been schooled in since her baptism in the Third Wave church at the age of twelve she'll hear? Definitely not the fanatics I'm talking about here. As you pointed out, she's standing behind her church. Have you seen the trailer for the Third Wave Master's Commission movie? It's the first video on the page. At about 00:46 they use the image of missiles shooting out of Alaska to strike the lower 48 and eventually the rest of the globe. The world is consumed in a firestorm as the announcer says, "The Master's commission is one of the keys in God's plan for Alaska, the United States, and the entire world". I think what Palin is standing behind is very disturbing. Most religious ideas, especially the extreme ones, would never gain support in our political system. There are too many checks and balances. I also don't fear them. But potentially putting nukes in the hands of someone who believes it might serve God to launch them is just insane, it bypasses too many checks and balances. Isn't this one of our fears of radical Islam? We've seen how promises of divine favor can induce people to disregard human life. Part of the job of President / VP is being able to make the right decision for all of us if it ever came to such a crisis. A big factor in that decision is how likely that first launch will lead to MAD and we can't trust that Sarah Palin won't just shrug that off to God's will, believing that she'll be fulfilling prophecy.

Change is one of those nouns that's not really qualitative at all. It requires a modifier, like "good" change, or "positive" change, "constructive" change. By itself it has positive implications without actually stating a positive, but losing your job, home and family and becoming homeless would definitely be "change". It like "quality". Saying "Quality is Job One" means nothing, because quality can be good or bad. I think politicians (probably most advertisers) like nebulous phraseology which can be twisted to suit the occasion.

You say Obama threw Wright under the bus, I say he tried to distance himself from the more extreme views his church had. I never saw anything wrong with not wanting to be associated with ideas that radical. I never thought he threw Wright under the bus so much as said, "There is a line here for me and the church just crossed it". You say Palin should be applauded for *not* abandoning her church for the more extreme views it holds and it baffles me. Palin is standing beside the church she has been involved with, the church that truly believes *every* other belief system or philosophy has been tainted by demonic influence except theirs. Palin herself calls those who don't toe the line "haters". Who is it we're "hating", is it Palin or is it Jesus? If a member of Congress doesn't vote for one of her bills, will they be a "hater" too? Once more, none of her other religious viewpoints would have prompted me to bring up her beliefs as opposed to Obama's, but I just can't even consider having her at the top of the command chain involving nukes when she *won't* distance herself from a stance that makes it more likely that she won't fear mutually assured destruction the way I want my leader to fear it. She used state funds to speak before the Master's Commission graduates (the inner circle of the Third Wave church) and her speech, her very own words, which was posted on the church's website until very recently, is the only thing that she seems to be distancing herself from. You know how, when a major accident is dissected and analysts look back and say, "It was a combination of errors that, alone, would not have mattered, but when they all occurred together, the outcome was disaster"? It's always a bad combo that's responsible, like tired / bad weather / poor visibility / cell phone call / tire blows out. I see a similar bad combo brewing here, like hawk / inexperience / secrecy / Middle Eastern conflict / extremist Christian-Muslim tension / fervent anticipation of end-of-days global apocalypse / suddenly thrust into the #1 spot / "yellow-cake" story about bin Laden being in Iran. And I see Sarah Palin, president now because 1 in 5 presidents leave their offices to their VPs, grinning into the TV cameras and telling Satan to "bring it on".

A friend of my daughter starts blinking rapidly whenever she's stressed or really tired. Perhaps the psychiatrist just thought of something that stressed him out momentarily. What exactly were these "quick eye movements, repeatedly in the same direction"? Was it like there was something he was looking over at again and again, or was it more like those little eye movements we do when we're thinking of something else, trying to recall it accurately? Did you follow the direction he was looking at to see if there was something there? I tend to agree with everyone else though. You may be reading too much into it.

Let's understand something critical here. I don't really care that anyone in office is a creationist or a gay-hater or would like to end all abortion rights. It's sad to me, and I think it's usually because of misinformation about the subject, but I don't fear that people like that would be able to easily change any of those things. The process is too public and takes enough time to give ample warning to those who oppose them. I figured this out about myself after letting Ron Paul scare me away in the primaries. It bothers me a bit that the candidates have to pander to the "will of God" in their campaigning, but this is what a lot of Americans have come to expect; you throw God a bone and tell the people He's a big influence in your life and His teachings will bring wisdom to your decisions. It's usually about assuring the people that your moral compass is working. It bothers me that it's tied to religion but it's hardly worth mentioning, again because the process should stop anyone from easy legislation in this regard. But we're talking about war and prophecy here. A mandate to enact God's will on earth in a time when most Pentecostals believe they are living the end of days. I can't put this part of the story on my "watch-list" because of the way wars are fought these days. Palin has proven she is every bit as secrecy-minded as Bush is, and I have no doubt she'd be even more persuasive than Bush was if it came to invading another Middle Eastern country. I can't believe you think this is a disingenuous game I'm playing to pretend Obama is the better candidate. This is about war and the justifications for leading a country into it. If I thought Obama was less interested in pursuing diplomacy, his religion would bother me more. Sarah Palin's hawkish, black-and-white stance, coupled with her lack of foreign relations experience, already makes me worry about her if she were to become president, but that's all political and part of the process. Add in the fact that the church she idolizes encourages her to take her *literal* translation of biblical events and view her ascendancy to the most powerful position in the world as a sign from God that Armageddon is near and the world is destined to be consumed in a fire storm from which the righteous will emerge unscathed to sit at the right hand of the Almighty and you bet your ****ing ass I'm genuine in my concern about her being put in that position.

Holding extreme positions on moral legislation is one thing. Belonging to a church which is looking forward to Armageddon is quite another, don't you think? A president who wants to overthrow Roe v Wade has to go through Congress and the Supreme court, a fairly lengthy process. A president who thinks it's God's will for her to fulfill the prophecies in the Book of Revelations may just be more inclined to go to war and even bring out the nukes in a crisis situation where there's no time for a lengthy process. I think there is a big difference between Rev. Wright's church and the Third Wave Church with respect to how they might influence the judgments of a superpower leader. If a holocaust would fulfill the church's dreams of the Second Coming, why would I want Sarah Palin anywhere near the buttons? Especially if she lives up to past performances and surrounds herself with like-minded cronies?

How about letting you borrow on next year's tax refund, make it sound like it's free money from the president, spend the money to send out three notices that it's on it's way to every taxpayer, and then call it an economic incentive? That's Republican speak for you. And they only do it in election years, so their numbers look good. If the Dems get elected, next April the Reps will be sure to blame Obama for the "extra" tax you're paying, even though it was Bush's stimulus plan that caused it. This is the age of spin. It's used by both sides and it stinks.

Have you seen the videos of Palin's Third Wave church (the one that was scrubbed from YouTube)? It sounds like if Palin were to become president, she would most likely take it as a sign from God that Armageddon was near and the job of cleansing God's enemies was hers, mandated by the Almighty. Those extremists in the video clearly think this life is worthless compared to what's waiting on the other side. I think a president should be all about *this* life, thanks very much. http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/13/1538/09770

Breathe the heady air, wafting gently through the room. Don't feed the dog meat! -------------------------------------------- Hiccups on cell phones; Technolobiology, can you --- hear me now, ---? -------------------------------------------- Ornamentation. A voodoo tattoo for you, I'll take the spleen stud.

I'm calling in some chemical help: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=35282

Take a look at this thread: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=435357#post435357 In particular, take a look at the video link in the OP of a magician. At 11:50, Keith Barry stages a trick using a volunteer from the audience, a shard of glass and a coke bottle (if you don't want to watch his other cool illusions, you can just forward to 11:50 on the video). The trick climaxes at 14:00 with the shattering of the base of the bottle using only the shard of glass and the negative emotions of the volunteer, supposedly. I think it's done with chemicals, one he slips into the bottle and the other present on the shard. At 14:00, you can see liquid when the base shatters, and the reaction probably doesn't start until the volunteer shakes the bottle. Which chemicals would fit the bill here? Both need to be colorless, low odor, when mixed in small quantities causes an exothermic reaction capable of heating up thick glass very quickly, causing it to shatter due to expansion. If you have any ideas, post them in the other thread. I'll close this thread to avoid double replies. Thanks!