Phi for All

I would request that you avoid text speak. We have members from all over the globe and if you wish to be understood over this electronic medium, you should make every attempt to make it easy for your audience. Since this idea is speculation and not accepted science, I'm going to move this to Speculations. Also, jsispat, your link is broken. Please fix it, since it leads us to some sort of spammy advertisement.

This is a science discussion forum. We bristle at bullet-point "lectures" from members with unknown training and education. We know where to go to get this kind of data. Is there something you'd like to discuss about quasars?

Theses outside of established science need to be in Speculations, so I'll move it there.

Where did you find heavy metal BBs? Don't you need them to be made of something like tungsten? Edit: Sorry, cross-posted.

Have you tried using a different keyboard just to make sure?

How long are your documents sequestered? Just long enough for people to lose interest? Ouch. Just the kind of thing you need to know when evaluating governmental effectiveness. How do the Cabinet docs avoid scrutiny, is it all National Security? Well said. But how do you avoid the terrorism vs security vs civil rights pitfall? I just can't believe how unbelievably perfect terrorism is for governments that want to hide things from the people, arms dealers who need to unload massive high-tech inventories to combat zealous peasants with homemade bombs, and corporations that have bought their way into the inner workings of our national procurement systems. Again, it's not necessarily malicious, it's probably a windfall reaction. After all, we pay the politicians to make lemonade out of lemons, so I guess it's natural to assume they would take every advantage handed to them. But at a certain point this kind of secrecy becomes very difficult to remove, especially when these guys are so very good at covering their butts.

I actually learned that lesson with Clinton. Bastard gave away more of the media than any Republican ever did. But we had our heads in the clouds counting all the money we were making in mutual funds, like he was responsible. Perhaps you should be saying that mistrust of Clinton is one reason people were so ready to bash Bush. I guess I'll say it one more time, just for the record. I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I don't give an anus rattus for either major party. If Jesse Ventura was a Rhodes scholar I'd vote for him, just to see him take Clinton and Bush both in a cage match to the death.

It would take a truly evil man to work hard to gain the presidency only to serve himself and his cronies. I don't think Bush is evil, but I do think the teat that feeds him is never far from his thoughts. Again, it doesn't have to be malicious; it could simply be a case of, "Hey, since we have to do this anyway, why don't we also <fill in blank check>". But would it still have been half the public if we'd known some of the things Bush & Co worked so hard to keep us from knowing? Would the media have made more of the Vietnam comparison to Iraq if Bush & Co hadn't blocked declassification of forty-year-old war documents? Even smoking decreased in this country when it was brought to light that the addictiveness of cigarettes had been enhanced by the tobacco companies. I'd like to think the public would have been more skeptical if our leaders had been more transparent.

Well, no. Using fear is an old tactic but I don't think it would have been used by any other administration the way Bush & Co have used it. Remember, they were blocking access to documents that were ready for declassification *before* 9/11 (mostly about Bush's past). They entered the office in stealth mode. And no other administration would have had the unique reasons to continue the work Cheney started on no-bid contracts under Bush I. A former oilman and a former Halliburton exec use terrorism to go to war. Now oil profits are at a record high and Halliburton is the sole corporate beneficiary of the war funding? Look how slick that works out, almost like they planned it. Almost. Or maybe it was just serendipitous that everything worked out that way. I really couldn't say, but I do know things kept bubbling to the surface that we should have known about, probably would have known about under a less secretive administration.

I think he is genuinely afraid of disappointing his base. I think any belief in his policies stems from the fact that they're primarily good for the people who financed his two terms. I think a great deal of politics has become, "This is what we want to do, now let's figure out what else it will help us with, hopefully something that will help us sell it to the people." Big corporations have always dealt with the government as either a regulatory body or as a client to sell goods and services to. The neocons and megacorps seem to have mastered a new way to involve the government, as a business partner. No-bid contracts to cut out the competition, shaping legislation to suit your industry, stonewalling in response to requests for information, playing the national security card to avoid scrutiny, passing bills to keep industries safe from prosecution, blocking Justice Department inquiries, tampering with scientific reports to bypass regulatory authority, the list goes on and on. I see the need for security but the dangers from our own countrymen seem to outweigh the dangers from terrorists. The terrorists will just kill some people; the neocons look like they want to take over the world. Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?

Every year we have to point out the red part of the OP, which tells those who bother to read it that Staff, including Resident Experts, are NOT eligible for this award. Several posts have been deleted because there were votes for Staff members. We use this award as part of the parameters for picking new Staff members and Experts.

One of the reasons Bush & Co were able to fool their "audience" was secrecy. How can we have the kind of transparency we need to keep tabs and still allow the office some measure of security? Fear has always been exploited and the spin-meisters are at the top of their game. Fear makes us follow a leader who says he can keep us safe, it makes us buy stuff to comfort ourselves and it keeps us from questioning the status quo. Nelson Rockefeller said, "Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great!" Nowadays we're so afraid, we won't even give up the lame to go for the somewhat better. I'd like to make sure we don't ever have this combo of fear and secrecy again.

I'm not sure I want him back, his last few posts were fairly racist. Us Jews and low-caste foreigners might be better off without him.

Then please go away, the rest of us are human. I'm not sure why you insist there is no friction between metal when there are so many experiments you can perform with items all around you. As insane_alien says, take a metal tray and put a coin on it, then tilt the tray 15 degrees. If there were no friction the coin would slide to the edge of the tray. Since it doesn't, what's holding it still? Friction. And since you have not responded to any of the questions put forth, and still just keep repeating you're "absolutely correct", even though you can't tell us why, I'm closing this thread as a big waste of time. bellbottom25, next time you ask a question, be prepared to discuss why you reject the answers you receive. Otherwise you're just a troll. The Flaming post above has earned you a 3-day vacation. If you can't be civil, please don't come back.

If consciousness lives on after the body dies, I would imagine you'd have to get used to a whole new set of sensory mechanisms. The one thing we do know is that the body stays here to rot. Your consciousness would have no body, thus no eyes and ears to see and hear. Perhaps you'd be able to "sense" another disembodied consciousness. That'd be a great sense to have in that situation. Communication would necessarily be different as well. Much of communication is context, and the context you're used to doesn't exist for you anymore. Since no one ever communicates from the other side (at least not in ways we can measure) it's either not possible or not necessary. Maybe your consciousness has the whole universe to zip around in so you don't give a lot of significance to beings trapped in 3 spatial and 1 temporal dimension. Perhaps, after melding minds with a universal consciousness, communicating with mere living humans is downright painful and barbaric. I like to think we're in a larval state and have more growing to do. But I don't like most explanations for an afterlife because they often allow people to give up on this life. I believe there is consciousness after body death but I try to make sure to challenge myself to learn all I can while I have this body strapped to my consciousness.

How thick is thick? Have there been any estimates as to the depth of the ice table, Martin?

We have alternative fuel sources and lubricants, and I know we can make plastics from vegetable oil. Is there anything we *have* to use oil for that has no viable substitute?

But the Mayan calendar predates Christianity by 5-6 centuries, doesn't it? Is the Mayan calendar being subsumed by Christianity now, like some of the other pagan festivals and holidays?

What would happen if you lubricated both the metal wheels and the metal rails? Would the train have more trouble starting and stopping? Yes? Isn't the lubrication reducing the friction that is already present between the two metal objects?

Why are some so fixated on Doomsday? Does life take on a different meaning if you know the day you're going to die? Does it make you any different, or demean the things you have and stand for?

He was the White House Press Secretary. The man knows how to lie with both lips tied behind his back. Barnes & Noble probably have his book on a turntable so it doesn't "spin" itself right out the door.

Interestingly enough, this is the origin of the term, "Bull's Eye", named after Bull Holloway, original designer of the Office Under Siege line of products.

I wondered about that several years ago myself. I thought the car makers were missing out on baby boom nostalgia by not bringing back some of the cool body styles, like the original Mustang, or the '57 Chevy Bel-air, but with everything else updated. It seemed like a no-brainer since they already had the body stampings. Somebody must have felt it would hurt the sales of newer models.

Wow, you should talk to them about working for them. You know, you could join some online forums, pretend to ask about online degrees, and then tell everyone how wonderful American Sentinle is. The Google hits alone should be worth a fortune to their program (if you spell their name correctly).

Is that the new biofuel for doctors? Sounds expensive....