Phi for All

I have no problem with removing frogs from the wild and caring for them as pets. It can be argued that this tree frog will potentially live a better life in captivity, free from the predators that might eat him tomorrow if he were released.

I haven't seen much to convince me that McCain's "experience" will take the country away from what I deem to be a destructive path. To be honest, I've listened more to McCain speaking than I have Obama, and I'm not exposed to as much propaganda as most people are (I just don't watch a whole lot of TV - I'm commercialphobic). I think he is a capable leader and a very appealing candidate from a certain perspective, and his succinct style plays very well to the masses. I also think the masses are asses who are more concerned with "winning the race" instead of paying attention to what their elected officials are voting for. They come to life every four years to argue about who should "win" leadership of the executive branch while mostly ignoring the legislative, which affects their lives a lot more than who's president. I consider myself to be above the average in political knowledge while fully realizing that I really need to know a great deal more, especially at the state level. To that end, I'm interviewing this week with a company that provides publications and services in a non-partisan format to keep companies and individuals informed about what Congress is doing and encourages them to speak up about issues that are important to them. I'm going independent contractor again, selling commission-only for at least two different companies in an effort to control my own resources and be able to take my own economy with me wherever I go. This is the main reason I'm extremely interested in cutting ties with energy companies, infernal combustion and mega-corps that want to mess with the markets I love so much. "Pay for what works" is my new motto, and I don't see McCain changing much of anything if he's elected, and not just because he's Republican. If McCain had changed parties back in 2001 after talking to Downey and Daschle I'd still feel the same way. While I realize that too much change too swiftly can be detrimental, I don't even think Obama can change our course too swiftly for me.

No, but this movie buff has a pretty good explanation...

There's no doubt that oil is more convenient for the way we drive today. The same was said of horses when the automobile first came out. Look at the infrastructure we had to create, the old habits and conveniences we had to change to make cars viable. And don't forget that charging your car overnight and again during the day when you pull into work can give even the early EVs a range of 80-100 miles. That's good enough for the vast majority of drivers. Google Cobasys, the company Chevron formed around the large format NiMH battery technology it acquired through GM. Cobasys is only selling to hybrid manufacturers, so it may be a while before we see their patent applied to electric-only cars. From what I read (I'll find it and post it again), the technology can produce a battery with the power to drive a 4-5 seater vehicle over 100 miles on a charge. Get your employer to install a solar array so you can charge while you're at work and now you have a daily range that would cover practically every driver in the country.

I believe the idea would be to train the muscles in a higher gravity, then return gravity to normal (or return to Earth from a higher gravity environment) so our muscles would allow us to leap prodigiously, short of actual flight.

"Get things done"? As in, "ready to lead us in the same direction we've been heading and get things done the way Congress has been doing things"? I don't agree with a lot of things Obama is talking about but I know I don't want same old, same old.

The granular skin could mark him as a specimen of Hyla gratiosa, a barking tree frog. They make a single note call, usually while floating on water, and a whole bunch of them can sound like a pack of dogs barking. Hyla gratiosa is usually a lot bigger though. He could be a juvenile specimen, or I could be way off. The brown spots and the granular skin aren't unique to barking tree frogs. http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=17&cat=1848&articleid=2805

Try putting him against a brown background and see if he changes color. Many tree frogs can change color very rapidly. Is his skin smooth or slightly granular? Can you put him in a clear glass for some side-on close-ups? Are there any markings on the sides or underbelly?

Yeah, don't you get tired of hearing that their system is incompatible even after they've spent billions to fix it? And the DoD treats it like we should all understand about computer problems. That's like US$500,000,000,000 for each shoulder shrugged.

Again though, that's not stealing. If our elected officials approve an arms purchase, even though it's paid for with taxes, it's not stealing. If anything, we should be keeping a better eye on the officials to make sure what they're buying is worth the money. I still cringe to think we're fighting small terrorist cells with munitions designed for standard military targets.

Most "post-restricted" permissions are either 30 or 50 posts. I don't know which. No whoring, now, we don't want any social group diseases.

To me, "experience" in politics is almost synonymous with "playing ball". I think Obama's grasp of the issues makes him more ready to lead than having a bunch of entrenched Beltway Buddies and a history of same old, same old. I'm trying hard not to let some of his stances turn me off, the way I did with Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, but his lack of Washington experience is not anywhere near my biggest concern. My lack of knowledge of his voting habits due to his lack of experience is higher on the list.

Thank you, looks great!

If enough people convert to solar, you can bet the energy companies will squash the overage buy-back policy in a heartbeat. Since our utilities are now mostly privately owned, they will be working hard to keep us from going off the grid, in much the same way insurance companies use part of your premiums to figure out ways to deny your claims. In much the same way, I'm sure auto makers (internal combustion) will be using part of every sale dollar to discourage the market from wanting them to retool for electric vehicles. We know the oil industry is against electric (I found out recently that Toyota had an EV version of the RAV4 SUV that, just like GM's EV-1, got killed by Chevron, who stopped selling them their patented large format batteries) and is doing everything they can to pitch the hybrids that use some gasoline. My point is that there are a bunch of markets that hate the idea of us running our homes and cars for free or at a substantial savings because they can't make any money off us. We'll need to be very watchful for lobbyists and PACs who are pushing for legislation to stop us from going off-grid.

Here's what I want: I want two fully electric cars like GMs EV-1 with the latest large format NiMH battery for a range of over 120 miles on a charge (cost unknown because GM only leased them and refused to sell, and this car isn't available right now but should be). I want the south facing elevation of my roof covered in solar shingles to power my house and cars (a robust array will run me $15k). I want an electric HVAC system powered by my solar array, which also cuts CO emissions to 0 (price varies, still shopping). I end up being off the grid completely, I don't pay to fuel my car, heat and cool my home, light my home or run any of my appliances. I could probably start investing in DC-powered appliances and lighting for further efficiency and longer replacement times. My monthly expenses go down by several hundred dollars, hopefully enough to pay off the $80k-100k loan I'd take out to make it all happen. Big question: What are the energy companies, appliance manufacturers and the automotive industry going to do to stop me? Parts for infernal combustion engines are huge profit centers that dry up with electric motors. AC-powered appliances burn out quicker and need to be replaced and repaired more often than their DC-powered counterparts. And the more people who get solar, wind and micro-hydro power, the higher the price will be for remaining grid customers, which will make solar, wind and micro-hydro even more appealing and cost-effective and cause more people to switch over. What are those industries already doing to stop me?

Don't forget the pension and retirement benefits Congress gave themselves a while back. It's insane that they can serve a couple of terms and then receive the benefits it takes some people a lifetime of work to achieve. And some of those benefits are unlike any others, with provisions to pay for offices and staff after retirement. I remember thinking how untenable this would eventually become after Congress cycles through a few decades of politicians, giving benefits packages for life to people who had worked for just eight or twelve years. Btw, I have no sympathy at all for GM. They could bring a fully electric car into the marketplace before the end of the year. Coupled with home solar power, we could have a vehicle that would cost us practically nothing to operate. But they would rather go down in flames it seems.

Paris is too young, YT2095 doesn't have the citizenship requirements, and at this point I'm not hugely jazzed with either major candidate. I'm sure of what I'd like to see changed but I'm unsure if Obama will really change things that way, or at all. I'm writing in Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich as Co-Presidents. And I want their cell phone numbers.

My new theory is that it would be better if iron and steel scrap were dropped into the ocean to provide minerals for fish. I don't really know anything about iron and steel scrap or importing and I've never read any books about the subjects, but it just seems to be an intelligent assumption that more iron in the water would mean more iron in the fish, which would make it better for us to eat and make the fish healthier and us as well. People all over the world will see that I'm making them healthier and will pay me more for dumping the iron and steel scrap into the ocean than I would have made selling it. Since I will be buying all the scrap, iron and steel production will have to pick up worldwide, providing more jobs and revenue. Now my theory is creating jobs, too. And more iron and steel being produced means more scrap I can dump into the ocean. Soon humans will be so healthy we won't need to go to the doctor anymore. And this was done just from my own intelligence. I didn't need to study anything about iron and steel and importing. If it makes sense to me it must be right.

QFT. What happened to others due to the wrong-way driver wouldn't have been your responsibility at all, until the moment that you decided to intervene by running into him. From that point forward *you* become partly responsible for the outcome of what the wrong-way driver initiated. You may save others or you may cause them to crash into your wreck or skid into each other on oil that's on the road because of you, when nothing at all may have happened to them otherwise. And you can't know that the wrong-way driver didn't correct his mistake as soon as he passed you. You may have been the first to see this guy after he came up the wrong ramp. Occam's Razor. While your impulse is laudable and noble, imo, in this instance, dealing with tremendous, unpredictable and lethal energies, I think your physicist instincts took over. Don't beat yourself up.

Many people study certain fields in science only partially and then, due to some misunderstanding or lack of comprehension, they decide that it must be wrong and they devise an alternate "theory" that makes more sense to them. You are telling us that you've never studied at all what thousands of people have devoted their lives to studying, never even opened a book on the subject, but you have a better answer than all those other people who have put in literally millions of hours of study and experimentation. Your idea fits a pattern that pleases you but it is hardly science and doesn't answer ANYTHING better than theories that have been thoroughly observed, researched and argued between scientists the world over for a long time.

It's amazing to me that ultraviolet light from the sun so far away is breaking up methane to make a huge lake of ethane. I wonder if there really were oceans of it and this is what's left after 4.5 billion years. And no more unemployment, what with the need to build a 1.2 billion kilometer pipeline....

My first post was just a bunch of crazy ramblings, too. Oh, wait, no it wasn't. Good spelling and sentence structure though, not like most of the first-timers who post threads on putting Darwin in a 90s DOS game. Many people are already too threatened by Darwin, unfortunately.

The two of them melded together are my ideal candidate, but individually they scared me. And I have to admit that, while it was their core commitments that attracted me, I let things like Paul's stance on evolution and Kucinich's Department of Peace scare me off. I'm actually pretty ashamed about that. Both of these men tell it like it is. They are straight shooters who care more about doing the right thing than doing the political thing. But we treat them like fools who tell the king how bad things really are while the court looks on and laughs. When did we stop identifying with the fool and become part of those fops at court? Is Obama or McCain going to decrease corporate welfare? Are they going to offer a viable federal option for universal healthcare? Are they going to work on breaking the hold big business has on our politics? Are they going to work hardest on restoring the trust of the American people and the rest of the world? These are the things that really matter to me right now and I don't think any of this is going to play a factor in either Obama or McCain's administrations. I think this is why we're picking on things like gaffes on history and geography. Substance is lacking at a time when we seem to be driving too close to the edge of the cliff and while both candidates want to grab the wheel, I'm not sure I trust either to get us back on the road.

They both goofed twice. Both McCain and Obama got history wrong, first strikes. McCain gets a second strike because he cited bad history as "just a matter of history", a typical politician's ploy to keep people from checking facts. Obama made his second error trying to plug his party after citing bad history. I guess it all comes down to politics as usual, which is so what we don't need.

Ohhhh, I thought "He" referred to God, but helium makes more sense. And now this Bible passage makes sense: He will definitely give you the most high voice.