revprez

I'm not big on the rubber sheet for other reasons, one of which Sayonara touches on. For one, it gives you this sense that space-time is material--I'm not a big fan of that view even if flows naturally from the math. Material space-time feeds into the notion that there is some ambient coordinate system that naturally applies to a varying topological space, which in turns gets us back to this whole "edge" and "center" business. So while GR could model a material called space-time, it's probably preferable simply to think of space-time as the topology's dimensionality and think of GR as a theory of fields within those dimensions. That said, the thing to remember about expansion is its a affine-geometric theory. That is to say it means nothing without picking two random points and comparing their varying displacement from one another. Expansion also means that there is no particular point you can choose and say "this is origin;" any coordinate choice is arbitrary.

That's not exactly true. You might say that every space-time point in the universe is the point of origin, as the Big Bang occurred here, there and everywhere. A crude analogy could be made to a rubber sheet with all points in a universe within a really dense circle. Now stretch the sheet in all directions and you see your universe expand. Of course, this analogy fails to account for two things--1) the extent of the observable universe is not infinite and 2) nevertheless, there is no prefered point in that finite region you can call a point of origin.

If I understand the question correctly, it's the same as asking whether or not the measurements of the CMB should vary with observer position. My understanding is it doesn't.

It is a natural consequence of a constant speed of light (in a vacuum) in all observer frames. If no matter how fast (or slow) a traveler goes, light is always traveling 3x10^8 m/s faster in his frame of reference, there's obviously no way you can catch up with it. You, as a massive body, cannot travel at the speed of light. Rev Prez

First, I'm not sure if this should be in Relativity. Since your idea primarily addresses mental events, this probably belongs in the Psychiatry/Psychology or Philosophy. I assume you're suggesting that our minds perceive the passage of time differently than perceived by, perhaps, an unattended instrument. Since we cannot draw conclusions from unobserved data, your "theory" lacks any testable feature. Think about the fact that you never waited billions of years to be born. With respect to what? We don't speak of an interval in position as a change (dx) unless we have some parameter, say λ, so we can write x(λ) and express change as dx/dλ. I think this problem in your definition of time is fatal to your "theory." So, assuming by motion you mean within an inertial frame of reference, a perfectly rigid body at its ground energy state experiences no change in its time coordinate. In special relativity, we have [imath]d\tau = \sqrt {dt^2 - dr^2}[/imath]. You can easily see that a motionless body in the observer's frame (dr = 0) experiences the same passage of time (dτ = dt) as the observer. Rev Prez

A case the defense is free to make on cross. The question is who should decide if the testimony is false, a judge or the jury? Rev Prez

What about a co-conspirator of the defendant offered immunity for his testimony? Should courts except testimony from eye-witnesses with a personal relationship to the case detrimental to the interests of the defense--say with the victim? More to the point, since forensics bears no animosity towards anyone, should we try cases on that basis alone? And in fact, why not get rid of all sources of human error and replace the jury with a computer? In short, what's so special about the bargained testimony of a convict that you'd uniquely exclude it? Prosecutors have a high burden to pass anyway. The testimony has to be sufficiently sincere to convince a judge to admit it; a judge that has next-to-final say on any evidence presented at trial. The defense is free to challenge it on cross or appeal on any number of statutory and constitutional grounds. So what's the problem? Rev Prez

I've found nothing to support either Phi's or your belief that commercial and advocacy interests are generally, inherently and pervasively corrupting; in fact, there's first order evidence to the contrary. Countries with stronger and more diverse commercial and political advocacy outscore countries with less on the Corruption Perceptions Index [1]. Fairness and justice, unsurprisingly, are found in great abundance in the OECD nations, countries where the presence of big business is strongest and where the freedom of advocates to organize and petition their government is greatest. You can speculate on reasons why. Rev Prez

Do you take that on faith, because I can't seem to find a single piece of relevant literature supporting this conclusion. ...or this one... ...or this one. In fact, it looks like you pulled all these "facts" out of thin air. Rev Prez

Stop it. You sound like that "space has no end" guy. You oppose an amendment to the Constitution to prohibit part of the expression the Courts have declared protected because you worry that the Courts will reverse itself on the whole issue entirely. I've asked you twice now to explain why the Court reversing itself amendment or no doesn't worry you. I've never read anything you posted complaining about law pertaining to who can wear uniforms of the armed services and law enforcement and how they should go about it, or the distribution and use of government identification, or the handling of currency--with no decisions protecting expression that runs afoul of these laws. Rev Prez

The claim made is exactly as I stated above. "But it's easier to limit freedoms if you do it gradually, sneak in amendments and convince people there good." There have been only 27 successful attempts out of over 10,000 to amend the Constitution. There is nothing easy about passing amendments of any kind. Sure it does, despite your handwaving. Rev Prez

Swing and a miss. Who cares about your posts? I asked you to explicitly show us why it is fallacious to rebut a claim that it is restricting freedoms by passing amendments is easy when the evidence indisputably demonstrates that passing amendments is hard. [quoet]...it is untrue that my opinion is unsupported. Opinion on what? Oh well, it probably is unsupported. I have a lack of empathy particularly for your views, but that's neither here or now. Show us the fallacy or be done with it. Rev Prez

Do you mean that there isn't an amendment expressly prohibiting flag desecration? Well, this amendment doesn't expressly prohibit failing to salute the flag or folding it the wrong way. So what's the problem? Rev Prez

And that differs from now how? Rev Prez

If the "PC folks" have the votes to impose multilinguism, then we don't have the votes to pass an amendment. Rev Prez

Prove it. Blah, blah, blah. Let's see you write it out formally. You can start by showing us the "is ought" only you seem to see. Rev Prez

Insofar as physical desecretation is concerned. If the Courts viewed that Congress could make any law with respect to the American flag, then the amendment is superfluous. Two things need to happen. Congress actually needs to pass law saying that such and such is "physical descretation" and therefore prohibited, and the Courts would have to find the article in question to actually be a flag, each to be "physical descretation of the flag" and ensure that the law passes muster against other constitutional protections (from "cruel and unusual punishment," "depriv[ation] of life, liberty or property without due process of the law"). In short, I don't think Congress will ever federalize the prosecution of people who display the flag incorrectly or fold it wrong and I sincerely doubt the Courts--which are jealous of the power to find facts--will decide in favor of public law that describes "failure to salute the flag" as physical desecration. Rev Prez

You probably wouldn't need such an amendment. Congress is empowered by its appropriation authority, the Commerce clause and the 14th Amendment to impose a national language. Rev Prez

No, I don't. I cite the statistic to point out that there isn't a shred of evidence for ecoli's model of the amendment process. Rev Prez

I said show us the fallacy, not define it. That would be where you take my remarks and demonstrate formally that they are fallacious. Rev Prez

Liberals actually exist. Republicans who gave sadistic dictators biological and chemical weapons and the intelligence to use them do not. Where's the Biblical prohibition against commerce? I can find the ones against blasphemy and butt-plugging. On the other hand, the terrorists did succeed in striking targets in counties that went heavily for Gore and Kerry while the brave passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 took down the bastards over a county that went for Bush. Doing what? Keeping dangerous pan-Arabist dictators from cutting Europe off from the Suez? Landing in Lebanon? Selling weapons to a Jewish state surrounded by Muslims with murder on their mind? Knocking off pro-Soviet authoritarians? Buying oil period? The Islamic Near East can blame itself for most of its problems; what little else is the result of foreign adventure usually has to do with Jews. Rev Prez

Show us the fallacy. Rev Prez

There have been over ten thousand attempts to amend the Constitution. Less than thirty have succeeded. So what do you have besides rationalization? Rev Prez

I didn't ask about libraries and malls. I asked about eminent domain. In fact it is almost always lower income people who are pushed off, although few of them are actually property owners. My point is what's so scary about it? You've had nothing to say about condemnation since you've gotten here; I know, I've checked your posts. Condemnation isn't exactly special knowledge; you should know something about it. So what's the big deal? Well, may the best person win. So is this all penis envy or what? If all that's pissing you off is the fact that private and public interests are doing business with each other and a party happens to have family in the government, I don't expect you'd make a successful candidate and I question whether you have a message around which others can successful organize. I mean, after all, if you were in Green territory this wouldn't even be an issue. But why? Do you hate money? Rev Prez

He said God allowed the US to be attack because of people who are, for lack of a better word, liberal. Let's just be clear. When did he say that? I'm sure the terrorists are confident that God is against the US. Besides, its been three years. Any evidence these remarks have shown up on al Jazeera as Rick Durbin's have? Where did I say 50 percent of the country was (even generally) wrong? I've promised to avoid throwing insults, so if you'd answer the questions above I'd really appreciate it. Rev Prez