Skye

Foreign relations wouldn't have been much different. There wouldn't have been the tension but mostly things are business as usual. Internal politics would have been different, I would expect the Republicans would have been cruising now. There wouldn't have been so much speculative trading of oil, which led to that bubble. However with resource prices rising in general, oil would have still risen steadily, perhaps to a similar price it is today. Probably not alot of difference. While the US military, at least the Army, doesn't have alot of spare capacity to carry out another sustained war, the current wars are not beyond it. The forces needed to carry out a short engagement (carrier groups, airforce, marine expeditionary units, special forces, etc) aren't really tied up in Iraq. There will be wear and tear on equipment in Iraq, and probably a reappraisal of what fighting wars are about, that could have longer term impacts on procurement and force structure.

Here's an interesting interview with Bjorn Lomborg: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=112806D He argues that the risks of climate change have been taken out of proportion. He also argues that the amount of money spent combating it so far has been large but ineffective, so consequently we should look at easier problems to tackle. I tend to agree, I think that many environmental problems have common causes, but certainly things like land clearing have a direct and immediate impact on the environment that climate change will struggle to match. What are your thoughts?

The US has veto in the Security Council so it can stop the SC doing anything. There's a constant game of the Arab state on the SC putting forward a resolution condemning Israel's action and the US vetoing it. This has been going on for decades now. Dipomats got a buzz a while back when the US merely abstained. Oh the drama!

I'm not sure a Shia Islamic state is all that likely. Not all Shia are in favour of an Islamic state (with something akin to Shia sharia law) and I can't imagine that the Sunni Arabs or Kurds, or any of the other groups, will like the idea. So there's probably only a minority that support it.

Lacking nutrients in general, including water. Physical causes, shallow soil layer or high wind, too.

Get the lingerie, and a woman to go with it. Wait, don't worry about the lingerie.

I think it's a matter of rough guys being attracted to the rough image of full sleeves. It's a conscious decision, they know what it means, so I don't think it reveals an underlying psychology.

You mean like this? http://www.scienceforums.net/showthread.php?t=9484

Quick, stop it before it evolves any further, crawls onto land, and defeats us with its superior intelligence!

I think the best advice for forums like this is to remember that is essentially entertainment. Have fun.

What is interesting to me is that in a world where one form of media (the net) is such a wild place, people make such a big deal of this being in cinemas. It makes me wonder whether there's a sense of the internet being a sort of private domain.

Yes, I don't think the philosophy of science is a 'finished project', so the methodologies within it should open to debate.

Go to the police and give them as complete a list as possible of what's missing, and then try some pawn shops to see if your stuff shows up.

UDP glucose pyrophosphorylase.

Haven't US companies been having AGM's and announcing profits, etc? I would take a guess there's been some good news and that is boosting the market.

Since there was a bit of interest in this idea I thought I'd post a thread to let people post 'pilots' until, or to justify, the creation of a seperate section on the site. These could be excerpts from a larger piece you've written or a stand alone story. Notes: -There's a 2000 word limit. -Make sure you have used correct spelling and grammar so it's easy to read. -Keep the profanity and themes within the normal SFN levels. -Title your post with a title for the story. -If you want to discuss a story start a new thread using the story title as the thread title. This thread is just for the stories.

Since this is homework I don't think folks should tell you the answer. First, unless you have them memorised you need a chart of the shifts that are associated with each bond. http://www.cem.msu.edu/~reusch/OrgPage/nmr.htm Next, look at your molecule and work out where the (four) unique proton environments are. I'd probably draw it with all the H's on so I could see them more easily. Then you can assign the peaks. To start you off, the peaks at about 1 will usually be saturated alkanes protons. The peaks at 7 and 5 are probably fairly easy to figure out because there aren't too many options. Once you've narrowed it down it's easier to figure out what the remaining peaks are.

Oh sorry, when I said 'they' I meant branched chain fatty acids. There are a small number of species of branched chain fatty acids that occur naturally, and in most organisms they are in low concentrations. I think in sponges, and maybe some nuts, they are at resonably high concentrations.

1. Europe probably can't, and almost certainly wouldn't, do much. 2. Oil prices would still be affected globally. 3. There's still the threat of the situation expanding outside Iraq, to US allies.

To keep a lid on it. Protect the oil lines and prevent the neighbours from being drawn into it.

Yeah, it's alot of cash. The question is whether the war was inevitable, personally I think this was why Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc., pushed for the war to happen. It was better to be able to position US forces before an invasion than to have to react to Saddam dying, a coup, or whatever. Then the US would be wading knee deep into a civil war from the get go, picking a side and hello, Vietnam/Korea all over again. It might have been cheaper and easier this way. Despite the regular equivocating, the situation in Iraq is alot better than either of those past wars.

Clearly naturalist ethics depart from logical ethics at some points. You can view this as either unnatural or illogical, depending on whether you think naturalism trumps logic or vice versa.

My feeling is that Europe became the most powerful region by opening up trade with the world through shipping routes from ~1500 on. The Common Market (et al.) seems to limit that trade.

They occur naturally but they are fairly rare.

The oil issues needed to be resolved more quickly. Both in terms of getting the oil flowing, and for the revenue to be flowing entirely into a federal government.