npts2020

One of the problems IMO is that people work pretty hard for their money (in general) but don't realize they have to work almost as hard to do anything worthwhile with it (i.e. take the time to understand exactly what you are investing in instead of giving it to a surrogate).

it is interesting that a blastocyst has "all of the rights of any person" but a child does not. What happens when the day comes when a human can be cloned from other cells without an egg or sperm? Does that mean every cell or organ in the human body will have to be given rights? I wonder how that would affect transplant technology?

Although it seems counterintuitive it is a fact that the more reactive a metal is the faster it gets to its steady state surface color (which is rust or oxidized metal) and the tighter the bonding of that oxidation to the underlying metal causing the rusting to stop sooner. Tight bonding=shiny surface. A chemist might excoriate my terminology but that is the basic reason. BTW pennies are mostly zinc these days.

What! Greed causing an economic disaster? No way, who could ever have predicted that?

It depends on how much I claim to know about the subject. The more I know about a subject, the stronger my opinion and the worse it is to be wrong. If I know anything about something it is hard for me not to have some kind of opinion about it. It just seems to this science nerd that evolution is such a basic part of science that in order to have no opinion, you would need to know almost nothing about science.

A Gallup poll released the day before Darwin's 200th said 39% of Americans believed in evolution, 25% did not, with 36% apparently too uninformed to have an opinion.

I kind of like the no-party solution. It would force politicians to come up with their own ideas. It might also reduce the amount of money spent on elections. I agree with Pangloss that parties should reflect uniting underlying principles, unfortunately, that is not the case in America today. Today the only reason to be in a political (rep or dem anyway) party is to get elected. There is no one thing that would distinguish a person as being in one party or the other. This is actually fairly (dis)ingenious, since that means parties can be both for and against the same issues and can be used to dupe an uninformed public into percieving whatever is desired.

You have to remember that these guys' jobs are to defend the system tooth and nail, far more than explaining why anything happens. One does not tell a lumberjack that there is no bacon for breakfast because you hoarded it all for yourself, you say there was someone who needed it more so "we" sacrificed a little to give it to them.

C'mon Bascule doncha know laws don't apply to the president?

Unless some sort of criminal activity can be proven there is no way to recover the money (and even then only if those convicted have assets to seize). Basically, the money was given to the treasury secretary to spend in any manner he saw fit (the B.S. about not being intended for the auto manufacturers was just that, without basis-even if it was only for financial institutions it could have been given to GMAC, Fordcredit, etc). Anybody not liking the way the money is spent has the sole recourse of complaining after the fact and other than altruism there is no obligation to spend the money in any beneficial manner. The bailouts from last year and this year are the biggest money heists in the history of our planet and will make a few people rich while perpetuating an untenable situation for a little while longer and eventually impoverishing our government, to the point of being unable to provide services and possibly even govern. BTW I would be very surprised if too much money was not given out, and even more surprised if anything is done about it other than finger-pointing and obfuscation.

Or a little over $2,300 for every man, woman, and child in America. I fail to see how a nation already in serious debt expects to inspire confidence in its economy by claiming that the solution to its economic problems is to create more debt with no concrete solution for being able to pay it off. If it is necessary for the federal government to intervene in the economy then the gov ought to be spending the money directly, rather than giving it to surrogates who may or may not use the money in any beneficial manner and who are even less accountable.

I think a better idea for now would be to just make the Fed operate in a responsible manner. How much money can you basically give away before there are serious consequences? The biggest problem with abolishing the Federal Reserve is that the only way the Federal government will guarantee your money afterwards is if you buy U.S. government bonds, and who knows what that guarantee will be worth on our current path?

IMO a two party system will not represent the interests of a significant number of citizens. The problem in America is that the winner-take-all system is not conducive to having more than two parties. It has been my obsevation that as soon as a third party begins to become viable, one of the big two co-opts the main parts of the platform (anti-war, no taxes, etc.) or is taken over by the third party (think Republicans and Whigs circa mid 1850's). What I find hilarious is that the parties are far more the same than they are different, yet each one calls the other "radical".

It is a joke to claim that the TARP program has any oversight. The most anyone can do is complain about it and eventually get the overseer removed. I shouldn't have given the company that will hire me the day I leave government service that $5 billion, oops, my bad............

I would agree with you if there were no other options. However, we have a lot of options which will be more beneficial to the majority of us. In the first place, nuclear power has consistently cost more than claimed so as to become one of the most expensive methods of generating electricity and would not even be considered economically feasible if not for generous government subsidies. Coal is cheap but very environmentally damaging. After mining, even if you capture and dispose of every carbon atom emitted, there is a buildup of toxic sludge that is not easy to dispose of (save failure of your retention system and dumping it into the local watershed) as a few communities have found out recently. Wind, passive and active solar, tidal, and geothermal among others are all better options for the long term, if we desire ever to lessen environmental impact of power generation. (aside; all of the nuclear power plant cooling towers in the world do not significantly increase water vapor in the air)

The part I put in bold is only a matter of perspective. To an archaeon born in an deep-sea ocean vent, eating sulphur to survive, where you live and thrive is probably as extreme as the environment on the side of the moon facing the sun would be to you. IMO life forms that could withstand what we would consider to be extreme conditions should have been the first to evolve.

I am not sure what is considered to be insignificant. Sea salt can be composed up to 15% or more of substances other than NaCl. Most of it is magnesium chloride but there are also sulfates, calcium chloride, and potassium chloride in amounts above 1%. (The only reason I know this is from learning about nigari extraction from seawater for making tofu). I would imagine for most things that would be good enouogh but if you are looking for a particular NaCl reaction sea salt may not be the best choice (besides its more expensive anyway).

Not to pick on Baby Astronaut but you first would need a method of detecting an infinitely (or nearly so) red-shifted photon. I am not sure how far our microwave wavelength measurement goes but obviously not far enough to see objects "frozen" at the event horizon.

Irrelevant. Think about where the power is coming from when starting vs. during normal operation.

Well IMO, the opposition of the Republicans was more for show than anything else. If it had anything to do with ideology, why were Republican governors nearly unanimous in lobbying congress for passage (or are they in a different Republican Party)? After the last election the national Republicans are grasping for any issue that might turn their fortunes around, since the usual ones seemed to have little effect. Whatever one wishes to believe about Republicans and their motives, it is a mistake to believe that they are stupid. More than one analyst believes that the current economic woes are going to be around for some time and if improvement can be obstructed for two years or four years, what are the potential political benefits? It is impossible for me to imagine this hasn't been considered by Republican leaders.

I wonder if it would be practical to use a strong magnet and how much of the debris it might potentially catch (I realize not all of it will be attracted by a magnet)?

Since I have never viewed credible evidence of precognition and seen plenty of evidence of people seeing things that are not there, I would have to say the explanation lies in that direction. Memory is not perfect, and your desire for there to be an umbrella in the car could easily get transferred to believing there was an umbrella in the car, especially if you are distracted thinking about something else at the time. That does not mean you are delusional or anything of the sort, similar things with memory happen to many people. Anyway, I think this is a far more likely explanation (even if it isn't right) than any form of precognition.

Stock options are simply a way of getting around the maximum pay rule. As I understand it, they are not reported as compensation (as of about 1996) and generally inflate the bottom line by whatever their value is by diluting all shares some corresponding amount. Furthermore, they are usually transferable any time after issue so if the exec thinks the company is not faring well he may cash them in (especially if the person is on the way out) upon recieving them. One proposed solution is to make recipients wait until the stock gets above a certain level before they are allowed to sell their shares. Personally I think if they just allow the executives to loot their companies, it will become apparent that much sooner that the "economic stimulus" will certainly stimulate somebodies economies, just not the ones it is advertised to stimulate.

Well, I for one certainly hope you are right.

I liked Jimmy Durante but wouldn't know where to get any of his actual stand-up routines other than what was on tv.