npts2020

Just curious, when we are talking about "life" exactly what is that? Is a virus alive? What about prions?

If the whole justification for not following the Geneva Conventions for these detainees has been "they are non-state actors and therefore not entitled to any of those protections", how can trying them in a military court be justified? IMO they are criminals, pure and simple, and ought to be tried in a court just like any other murderer, extortionist, thief, money launderer, etc. If there isn't enough evidence to convict them, what makes anyone so sure they are the "worst of the worst" anyway?

Wasn't it Hitler who said something like "Make the lie big enough and tell it often enough, eventually people will believe it to be true"?

So much for the idea of an overwhelmingly liberal media in the U.S., eh?

I have some questions for those who like our current semi-capitalist system; how is militarism accounted for? When one nation invades another in order to control their resources to keep the cost lower, is that a good capitalistic venture? If I hire somebody at a minimal (but legal) wage because there are no well paying jobs available to them, is that good capitalism since I don't care whether it is enough to support that individual and their family even at a subsistence level? When collusion does occur, isn't that just good capitalism, since I am only attempting to "maximize profits"? Those are just a couple of questions I can think of right at the moment and should be enough to discuss, for now, but I am sure to come up with more later.

Agreed, but those individuals are few and far between, plus they are marginalized as much as possible by the rest of the party. BTW I do like Mr. Kucinich a lot and Mr. Paul on the "other" side of the aisle does present a coherent strategy for national priorities. The problem is, what sort of leadership positions are any of those people in?

I don't think Democrats are any more or less "corrupt" than Republicans. They are in fact two wings (conservative and more conservative) of the same "Business" party that routinely promotes corporate interests over those of individuals and society.

IMO whoever gets to decide things is important but not nearly as important as doing so in a logical, consistent, and universal manner. Also, government should have specific goals for which to aim upon its formation. For example, it ought to be a goal of any non-despotic government to make itself obsolete, perhaps a Quixotian exercise at this stage of human affairs, but a definable goal to pursue nonetheless. What we see around us today does not mean that is the way things will always be, history is a chronicle of how individuals and societies have changed over time. I was assuming the original question was about some theoretical future and not where on earth I would prefer to live now.

There is no physics to look at. So far there has been at least half a dozen points made about why such a craft is impossible (or at best highly unlikely) and none about why it will work. If even one of the unaddressed points can be shown to be in error, I would bet the person who can show that would be up for a Nobel Prize.

Why would the Republocrats do anything to change the way the current system works? Please forgive me for thinking most of the discussion was speculation.

One thing I can say from experience is that there is no such thing as a reactor small enough to power said craft built out of anything that would allow it to be "light and maneuverable" even by standards of a plane large enough to carry a "crew". This, plus the (unanswered) objections in my previous posts, puts the whole idea well into the tin foil hat spectrum of discussion IMO and fully justifies being called speculation.

Whatever one wishes to call it, I would like to live in a society where governmental decisions are made based on the best scientific evidence available and the goal is improvement of the condition of the greatest number of citizens possible. P.S. I think the concerns about people not wanting to do any work are unjustified. If they were true, why would anyone in the current "wealthy class" ever work? I don't know what the actual statistics are but the few people I know who would be considered ultra-rich (top 1/2% economically) all work.

or.....We could pass a constitutional amendment to abolish political parties. This would require voters to actually learn candidate's stances on issues in order to know who they should vote for and elected officials would not be beholden to the "party line" when deciding on legislation. BTW I am in favor of any second party with a societal interest based platform rather than the business interest based platform of the two wings of our current ONE party system.

In America, even after the bill passes the house of representatives, the senate will vote (or not) on another bill (usually not identical to the house version) which if it passed then gets sent to a joint (house and senate) committee which attempts to reconcile the two versions, sometimes producing a law that is much different from either of the bills voted on, which then is sent to the president to either sign or veto. That, IMO, is why good legislation has rarely happened in my lifetime.

JP; I am not qualified to argue the specifics from a scientific standpoint (my background is engineering) but it does seem odd (and unlikely) to me that even DARPA could be 15+ years ahead of every other scientist working on similar projects. In addition, a disc golfing buddy of mine, who is an aerospace engineer with whom I discussed this, seems to think that such a craft is highly unlikely if not outright impossible. The thing that stands out to me is that somebody would have had to create a flying nuclear reactor without anyone finding out about it. It would almost be easier to fake a moon landing.

Just got back from the LHC portal site. It is a good start and has potential for being one of the best sites on the web for anyone interested in cutting edge experimental physics. Will be looking forward to seeing the future developments there. Oh, and it seems like you can find out nearly anything you want to know about the LHC somewhere on the site or through the links provided.

True, but the technologies required would have much more profitable applications. Don't you think somebody would be trying to make possibly trillions of dollars from it? Besides, I would think it was (to the military way of thinking) a good thing to see an enemy draining their resources to stop a potential threat, real or not. That is why I don't discount the possibility of being a hoax.

It seems to me that it depends on how long a persons stride is before leveraging yourself up to the next step becomes more difficult than just overcoming gravity. I don't know about easier but two steps at a time is substantially quicker.

My first question is why hasn't NASA learned anything about this? Billions of dollars could be saved by reducing the launch weight of vehicles in this manner. The physics (if true) is well beyond anything I am familiar with but I can say with pretty fair certainty that a rotating disc does produce lift (think about a frisbee). However, my understanding of that particular phenomena is that it is due to air flow around the disc and not to any (anti)gravitational effects. This leads me to a second question about why experimental physicists have failed to notice any correlation between strong magnetic fields and gravitational strength until now? I would not stick my neck out enough to claim that the whole story is a hoax but there are certainly many more questions than answers about it in my mind.

The best thing to happen today is my being able to return to my favorite discussion forum after an unscheduled and lengthy absence. Within a week or so I expect to be a frequent participant once again and am looking forward to spirited banter with some of the people I respect and enjoy the most on the internet.

Any adjustments I could suggest would just be quibbling over what seems like a pretty valid exercise. All in all it seems like it would be a relative bargain to do this.

You eventually end up with a steady state of weeds or whatever grows there. After some period of time you will not end up with any more than can possibly be there to begin with.

I see you don't like cost/benefit comparisons of terrorism to other similarly destructive causes that result in just as gruesome deaths, so lets approach the question from a different angle. I haven't seen anyone claim that it is possible to protect civilization 100% from terrorist attacks, so what exactly is an acceptable level? One Oklahoma City or 9-11 attack every ten years? One city in a century, thousand years? IMO Those who perpetrate terrorism ought to be pusued with the same vigor as any similarly malintented criminal. The question is at what point does further spending not measurably decrease risk? I see that CaptainPanic is asking basically the same thing.

Well, it will probably be a couple of years before any comparison with the Great Depression is valid but IMO all of the conditions for equalling or exceding it are present in today's economy. Whether this actually happens or not depends on how fast and effectively insolvent financial institutions are dealt with. The current downturn can only get worse until an accounting for their assets (hint there aren't (m)any) has occurred. The current "stress tests" of the banks should have been done prior to the first "bailout". If this had been done, I think many of the corporations "too big to fail" would have been put in recievership to fail. All of this is related to trying not to lose hundreds of trillions of dollars by a collapse of the derivative market which almost certainly will occur when as few as six or eight of their underwriters default (I can think of that many in financial trouble i.e. having gotten bailout money, off the top of my head). What will have to happen is that either the market is propped up ala even bigger bank bailouts until economic conditions return to friendlier conditions (tilting at windmills IMO) or admission that the market is basically worthless and starting over from scratch (with maybe a regulation or two). I say the sooner we get the accounting over and weed out failure, the better off we will be. The consequences of losing hundreds of trillions of dollars in wealth will not be trivial, however......

Transits of Mercury (and Venus) across the sun are interesting to observe. The planet appears as a tiny but visible dark spot on the sun, in fact tinier than many sunspots. Do not attempt this without appropriate filters for looking at the sun, as the amount of sunlight cut off by the planet is immeasurable without fairly high-tech devices.