npts2020

Actually, most leafletting and political activity of any kind is illegal at the polling places in America. Also, until a few years ago (in the state of Pennsylvania anyway), alcohol sales were banned on election day until the polls closed. To answer your question, nobody "chooses" a primary candidate, however, many (maybe all, not sure) jurisdictions require a petition with a certain number of signatures of registered voters on it for your name to appear on the ballot. People who sign the petition are not pledging support, only agreeing that your name should appear on the ballot. The top vote getter for each party's primary becomes that party's candidate in the fall election. If someone files in both republican and democratic primaries they could conceivably win both and run unopposed in the general election. Occasionally, even a third party will run a primary but that is exceedingly rare.

I don't particularly like using China as a role model but pre-comunism there were a lot of deaths from starvation and malnutrition (possibly more than anywhere in the world at the time) during a fairly strong trade economy. What do you think today's death rate from those causes is?

JohnB; they run a "primary" for each party in the spring before the November election. Usually (but not always), the incumbent is unchallenged in his own party and the "opposing" party will have the choice of two or more candidates with the highest vote getter being the winner, even if they only receive a fraction of the total. In most states you may only vote in your own party primary but some allow any registered voter to vote in any primary. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedAdditionally, I could run on either ticket (sometimes even both) whether or not I was even a member of that particular party.

Or pseudoscience could be a subforum in the speculations forum? (BTW I don't really care what the name is, it is still a good place for most of us to at least look at the ideas presented)

Tilting at the occasional windmill can be fun and good exercise.

I agree that there should be a minimum standard of living. What I disagree with is the notion of doing unfair trades is not good capitalism. In fact I would go so far as to say that many (if not in fact most) of the practices that make for a good (meaning successful) capitalist are contrary to the practices that make for a good society.

And hasn't changed a bit (he always was a little out of step with most of the republicans anyway).

Yet both are self-replicating and bound to muddle any definition of life I have ever seen. IMO if either were to be found off our planet, we would have found extraterrestrial life. I would agree, however, that the far more interesting question to contemplate has to do with more complex forms of "life".

I can say for sure that most naval vessels (including submarines) distill their own fresh water from seawater. Also, IIRC boron is used as shielding on many reactors and even for control rods on a few of them.

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.