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Psst.. money is made of linen and cotton.

ummmm... No, he doesn't

Your other comments are shit, and ignore research into this area. For example, the last hour is the least productive because you are fatigued. But I won't throw any more facts against your irrational beliefs.

Luckily, there are direct statistics to measure productivity. And the US--and has been for a long time--the most productive nation in the world: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/business/worldbusiness/04output.html

Hmm, could that also because we are the most populous first world nation?

Gah I meant K2.... need coffeee.
Was a controversy here for a while before Everest was named the highest.
http://www.factmonster.com/spot/everest3.html

Honest answers:

English is an amalgam of other languages, so grammar doesn't necessarily follow hard-fast rules, as I am sure you are aware. I suspect the reason the words don't pluralize the same way (even though they end with the same sound) is probably due to the respective root words coming from different parent languages.

This link gives a quick lowdown on English plurals. It seems that the -en plural for ox originates in Old English. Child -> children is another example. Then you have something like the word cactus -> cacti, and compare that to virus -> viruses.

That probably doesn't help you out too much, hmmm? My Spanish teacher always claimed that English is one of the most difficult languages for a non-native speaker to learn correctly, the reason being that English grammar doesn't follow its own rules as consistently as most other languages.

You might be trolling, but I'll bite.

According to http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0778562.html/ the UN ranks 9 other countries above the US on the livability scale. Although frankly for the most part I think that life is pretty much what you make of it. I've seen people living in what we would call bad or primitive conditions, and yet they didn't seem to fussed about it.

Those countries in the UN list from 1-9 are Norway, Iceland, Australia, Luxembourg, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland and Belgium. Except for Australia, it would be a bit cold in those countries for people who like tropical climates. Depends on taste and philosophical issues, like what is the best movie? So maybe the US is the better place for you, but you'll probably have people who would like to differ with your opinion as you've stated it such that the US is the better place for everyone.

A mercaptan additive is put into natural gas to give it an oder:

mercaptan (murkp'tn) [key]or thiol (th'l) [key], any of a class of organic compounds containing the group -SH

That -SH group is the same on as in H-S-H better know as Hydrogen Sulfide gas.

mercapton compounds are also made by decaying or decomposing organinic matter, which is gives the distinct oder to flatus

http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0832739.html

I use to work around mercaptans in the university, and later did work in a mercaptan plant. They gave me a big long speech before entering the plant about why they did not have a gas leak, and seemed rather upset that I laughed through most of the speech until I explained that I worked with the professor that developed their process.

"Yes some Christian leaders are overbearing idiots that try to shove their respective version of the Bible down your throat, but they certainly aren't bombing people in cars."

Apparently you've never heard of the IRA ??? http://www.factmonster.com/spot/northireland1.html Good old Christians killing Christians...

Senator John Edwards: George W. Bush is the "worst president of our lifetime".

The U.S. government is becoming involved in a culture of all war, all the time, and all surveillance, all the time.

Most people don't realize that former presidents have access to CIA and NSA data. So, if voters in the U.S. elect a president who has family and friends and business associates heavily invested in oil and weapons companies, that president will be able to use the data to spy on competitors. It's not so crude as that; it's much more sneaky, but that's the result.

The main purpose of the Iraq war was to arrange that the Iraq oil profits would go to Americans. Other purposes: 1) Saddam Hussein of Iraq was upsetting the planned artificial scarcity of oil, and oil companies wanted oil prices to go up. (Yes, there is real scarcity, too.) 2) The oil was being sold by Saddam Hussein for euros. If other countries began selling their oil for euros, the dollar, weakened by unprecedented debt, could crash. Instead, the value is going down slowly, making everything more expensive for people in the United States. The weakening of the dollar is equivalent to stealing the value of people's savings. 3) The U.S. government gives perhaps $5 billion each year to Israel; the money is used to kill Arabs. Saddam Hussein had made threatening statements about that, and Paul Wolfowitz arranged that the U.S. would pay for Israel's security, serving his culture against the best interests of his country. (They call it "doctrine" to give it a kind of religious importance.)

There's nothing "conservative" about Republicans. Some Republicans are responsible leaders, but others have formed a kind of crime syndicate to sell the U.S. government to whomever can use influence to make money. See U.S. Federal Deficit by Political Party.

U.S. Vice-president Cheney, whose friends and family and business associates are invested in oil and weapons, had a secret meeting with oil executives. A few months later, the price of gas rose enormously. Coincidence?

--
Taxpayer Karma: If you give money to kill people, expect your own quality of life to diminish.

Edwards: George W. Bush is the "worst president of our lifetime".

The U.S. government is becoming involved in a culture of all war, all the time, and all surveillance, all the time.

Most people don't realize that former presidents have access to CIA and NSA data. So, if voters in the U.S. elect a president who has family and friends and business associates heavily invested in oil and weapons companies, that president will be able to use the data to spy on competitors. It's not so crude as that; it's much more sneaky, but that's the result.

The main purpose of the Iraq war was to arrange that the Iraq oil profits would go to Americans. Other purposes: 1) Saddam Hussein of Iraq was upsetting the planned artificial scarcity of oil, and oil companies wanted oil prices to go up. (Yes, there is real scarcity, too.) 2) The oil was being sold by Saddam Hussein for euros. If other countries began selling their oil for euros, the dollar, weakened by unprecedented debt, could crash. Instead, the value is going down slowly, making everything more expensive for people in the United States. The weakening of the dollar is equivalent to stealing the value of people's savings. 3) The U.S. government gives perhaps $5 billion each year to Israel; the money is used to kill Arabs. Saddam Hussein had made threatening statements about that, and Paul Wolfowitz arranged that the U.S. would pay for Israel's security, serving his culture against the best interests of his country. (They call it "doctrine" to give it a kind of religious importance.)

There's nothing "conservative" about Republicans. Some Republicans are responsible leaders, but others have formed a kind of crime syndicate to sell the U.S. government to whomever can use influence to make money. See U.S. Federal Deficit by Political Party.

U.S. Vice-president Cheney, whose friends and family and business associates are invested in oil and weapons, had a secret meeting with oil executives. A few months later, the price of gas rose enormously. Coincidence?

--
Taxpayer Karma: If you give money to kill people, expect your own quality of life to diminish.

Are the editors even paying attention here? How can a 500-word, Grade 6 public speech-quality editorial makes it to the frontpage? Where is the quality here, folks?

I agree to the extent that we need full comparisons across the various energy technologies, but I'd like to know how you chose coal as the default power technology. According to the NYT (via factmonster) oil is actually the #1 power tech, followed by natural gas, and then coal. One key factor supporting the top 3 energy techs is their rapid on-demand capability in supplying electricity. You can't just flip on a nuke plant when daytime loads spike; as such, nukes are used for baseline power. All too many "green" techs are similar in their lack of demand responsiveness, thus requiring energy storage issues.

She tells Bill Gates she's never used a computer, but according to a number of internet history sources, for instance this one she was the first head of state to send email, back in 1976.

The fact that freaked me out most is that british members of parliament share communal hairbrushes. That's just so very very strange.

Small, as in 13th largest by population? Granted, 6.4 million doesn't really compare with CA's 35.9, but small? (http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0004986.html)

And in the US as well. The compounds used are called mercaptans.

Itanic, Hindenburg....

Here's some more names they can choose from for new processors:

1) Challenger
2) Columbia
3) Chernobyl
4) Tacoma Narrows
5) Sultana
6) Cocoanut Grove
7) Grand Camp
8) Galveston

Many, many more. Feel free to add to the list.

Not saying the bone loss problem can't be solved, but ever since hearing about the bone loss problem I've felt that radiation would be easier to solve than bone loss.

A simplistic source, (http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0778174.html) has this easy to digest quote
"... And because the gravity on Mars is only 38% of Earth's, ways to counteract any damaging effects of the weak gravity on their bodies, such as progressive bone loss and muscle atrophy, will have to be found. Currently, there is no fully effective treatment for microgravity-induced bone loss, and counter measures against bone loss are a top space science priority."

For deeper reading try:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15852539&dopt=Citatio n

"...Depending on Mars's distance from Earth, which can vary by as much as 200 million mi. (322 km), radio signals from the planet can take anywhere from 4 minutes to 21 minutes to reach Earth...."

YMMV I guess.

That's a very interesting question, and you are right, it does often seem to b conveniently ignored. I did find a couple of rather woolly links here and here. There are of course many other links , but they seem largely preoccupied with managing food, oxygen and human waste rather than actually getting the astronauts back off the Martian surface.

Cotton tree eh?

Well if you like being naked!

Among Bombacaceae, the most famous economically important fruit hair has been harvested from Ceiba pentandra, the kapok or silk-cotton tree. Probably few people in California have ever heard of kapok, a towering emergent of lowland neotropical forests, often reaching fifty meters in height and forming enormous, flaring root buttresses that prevent the tree from snapping at the base. Unlike cotton, kapok cannot be woven into cloth, but formerly it was widely used for stuffing pillows, bases and balls for baseball and softball, mattresses, and, especially, life jackets. In fact, during World War II, a U.S. sailor would commonly refer to his life jacket as a "kapok." Since the war, however, synthetic fibers have replaced kapok for these traditional uses.
quoted from: http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/MEMBGNewsletter/V olume2number1/Bombacaceae.html

you meant.. the cotton plant
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/a0857606.html

since you were wrong on that point, your ethos has suffered and your arguement is mute.

You probably mean Flores Island, Indonesia. This page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3948165.stm has a bit of information about them.

Here is some information about Flores: http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/world/A0818960.html

The Columbia disaster was tragic and a great loss. But our progress can not be halted simply because of fear. Astronauts enter the shuttle knowing they may not make it back. They are heroes risking their lives to make life better for mankind. They are courageous, and NASA needs to follow their example. Fear cannot hold NASA back from accomplishing its goals.

A shuttle mission could repair the Hubble. Yes, there's risk involved, but wasn't there even greater risk on the Apollo missions? The shuttles are very robust compared to the Apollo vehicles.

NASA, please stop being afraid. Stop being so cautious that nothing gets done. As the fable says, "Precautions are useless after the event."

...top 25 innovations of the past 25 years.. e-mail (#5)

Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't e-mail invented more than 25 years ago?

Personally I think spreadsheets should be somewhere on that list if we're talking about computer innovations in particular (this being Slashdot and all)...

GTA: San Andreas sold roughly 2.1 million copies in the first 4 days. Lets say in all there were 10 million copies sold in the US (probably a conservative estimate. I can't seem to find solid numbers, even in take2's financial statements)

Now, if 1% of the copies caused people to shoot another person, that would be 100,000 murderers created by the game since its release at the end of October. A crime spree like that would be front page headlines across the country!

So lets say 0.1% of them became murderers. (We're already below the margin of error for most polls and quite a few research studies) That would be 10,000 people out of ~291million (in July 03). New York City had a population of 8,085,742. Assuming an even distribution, that would be 270 murderers in New York city alone, half of the murders for the year of 2004 (which was the lowest rate for the city since the 60's).

Below 0.1% you're no longer arguing statistical correlation vs. causal relation, you're talking about coincidence. Or in this case, the kids blaming their bad behavior on anything but themselves.

Uh, no. Even though the "5000 BCE" lore origin is unverifiable, chopsticks were known to exist in China, Korea, and Japan by the Middle Ages. Cite One. Cite Two. Cite Three.

The English term "chopsticks" was a pidgin term used by Chinese railroad workers, IIRC. This is probably where the 1800s myth first came from. (They did invent the fortune cookie in that era, however.)

The Court's 1942 decision in Wickard vs. Filburn gave Congress the power to regulate anything. In that case, the Court remarkably held that the interstate commerce clause could be used to regulate an individual farmer's wheat production or his family's consumption. The reasoning was that since the farmer grew his own wheat, he affected interstate commerce; otherwise, he might have purchased wheat that had moved in interstate commerce.

Much has been written about the interstate commerce decision/clause. Here's an excerpt:

Beginning with the Hepburn Act (1906), the ICC's jurisdiction was gradually extended beyond railroads to all common carriers except airplanes by 1940. Its enforcement powers to set rates were also progressively extended, through statute and broadened Supreme Court interpretations of the commerce clause of the Constitution, as were its investigative powers for determining fair rates of return on which to base rates. In addition, the ICC was given the task of consolidating railroad systems and managing labor disputes in interstate transport. In the 1950s and 60s the ICC enforced U.S. Supreme Court rulings that required the desegregation of passenger terminal facilities.

The ICC's safety functions were transferred to the Dept. of Transportation when that department was created in 1966; the ICC retained its rate-making and regulatory functions. However, in consonance with the deregulatory movement, the ICC's powers over rates and routes in rails and trucking were curtailed in 1980 by the Staggers Rail Act and Motor Carriers Act. Most ICC control over interstate trucking was abandoned in 1994, and the agency was terminated at the end of 1995. Many of its remaining functions were transferred to the new National Surface Transportation Board.

Suffice it to say that the ICC has been oft-abused in a search/grab for power, and many activities we take for granted in our daily lives are now subject to continuing jurisdiction of the government under the ICC. Do you check email? That email crossed state lines and someone paid for connectivity at both ends... thus the software, keyboard, mouse and monitor you use with your computer are theoretically subject to ICC regulation. Want to use Linux instead of Windows? Want to install SP2 on your Windows box? Maybe Congress will decide that it needs to regulate software distribution and require you to register your use of any updates with them...

The ICC is a big, dangerous thing in the hands of often overzealous public officials...

according to this site SETI@home (which is already a distributed system) currently runs at around 15 teraflops, so running it on this machine for a day would only about triple their results for that day.

Certainly not if there if there is a substantial risk of fuel cost rises for current preferred energy generation methods in a timeframe less than or on the close order of the lead time for putting a currently-nonexistant wind plant on the grid (both for construction and dealing with NIMBY locational issues that may arise).

Large supply shocks are MINDBOGGLINGLY bad for the economy especially for something as fundamental these days as the cost of electricity, and are far worse for consumers than for corporations or corporate stockholders-- especially for the corporations producing the shocked supply. You don't remember the economy of the early 1970's very well, do you? It royally sucked. "Those who do not study their history...."

It takes time to develop the engineering expertise to make wind plants economical, efficient, and integrated into a fairly regular cyclical demand grid (nontrivial given the intermittency of wind supply). Subsidies make it look at least marginally economical to build plants now. Once you have people building plants, greed will drive them to try to figure out how to improve them to make more money... which will start pushing the calendar on developing the aforementioned expertise, so that we will (hopefully) have it before the need for it is critical. Yeah, it's a "carrot for the jackass" approach, but given the number of stupid jackasses in the US, and given the traditions of this country, we really can't use a stick exclusively.

"...and have it mean butkiss..."

The word is bupkis. It's Yiddish for "nothing".

That being said, I almost like your version better. Cheers!

Obviously, sales don't mean everything, but do give the public some credit for taste. N'Sync was only briefly popular. Shrek 2 has made more in a week than N'Sync did in their entire existance.

Of course, the overriding truth is that this man's ideas have been the direct cause of over a century of misery and death.

Well, in Europe this man's ideas were also the direct cause of the foundation of the powerful social-democratic parties in Western Europe, like the German SPD, French SFIO or the Swedish SDAP. Marx is as much responsible for Gulag and Stalin as he is responsible for the fact that in Denmark there is simply no such thing as poverty - while the unemployment rate is lower than in the good ol' US of A.

I'm glad you mentioned that and gave me some opportunity to write something leftist for a change :-)

But could someone explain the Jane Fonda thing? What did that forged photo purport to show?

Jane Fonda is an actress, daughter of Henry Fonda, formerly married to liberal media mogul Ted Turner and also to SDS activist Tom Hayden. She was an opponent of the Vietnam War who made a trip to North Vietnam at the height of the war thus earning the sobriquet "Hanoi Jane." The political right in the U.S. hates her guts. By placing John Kerry with Fonda, they seek to make Kerry appear as a left wing traitor.

Now imagine her wearing them.
And only them. Whooo-hooo!

Candy hearts facts

Cheers, Joel

Indeed at least two sites document the Apple viruses in 1981. In addition, they were discussed in theory as early as 1949, and appeared in science fiction as least by 1975 in John Brunner's great Shockwave Rider, which was the inspiration for Robert Morris' famous Internet worm.

Can't different entities in different hemispheres of business share copyrights?

I think the Beetles did eventually crack the US charts. Besides, Liverpool is west of Greenwich (53 deg 25' N, 3 deg 0' W )

Remember!: Your paper must have five (5) paragraphs. An intro paragraph, concluding with your thesis sentence, followed by three paragraphs supporting your thesis sentence, followed by a conclusion..."

"Martin" is obviously a veiled reference to Lockheed-Martin, maker of the Littoral Combat Ship which is slated to be introduced into the Navy arsenel in 2010. I would go on more about this ship but you can get a better overview at http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/articles/071703 _4.html.

There is a push to have this ship's operations be controlled via *nix-based operating systems and I would not be surprised to find that the CCIA has its nose in that whole fiasco as well. Finally, while I've heard vague rumors of CCIA/Freemason connections, these are mostly unsubstantiated.

I'll be honest and say that most of this stuff I have no idea about, so I'm going to ask YOU my questions, and hope that you respond relatively quickly.

1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran -- Installs Shah as dictator
Why did we do that? Was he posing a threat, or could he easily pose a threat? Was he a ruthless dictator responsible for millions of deaths?

1954: U.S. overthrows democratically-elected President Arbenz of Guatemala -- 200,000 civilians killed in the process
Why did we do that? Was he posing a threat, or could he easily pose a threat? Was he a ruthless dictator responsible for millions of deaths?

1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.
Why did we do that? Was he posing a threat, or could he easily pose a threat? Was he a ruthless dictator responsible for millions of deaths?

1963-1975: American military kills 4 million people in Southeast Asia
How many did the Viet Cong kill, before, during, and after the war?

1973: U.S. stages coup in Chile -- Democratically-elected President Salvador Allende Assassinated -- Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed -- 5,000 Chilieans murdered under his rule
You're "democratically-elected" president was elected with 36.2 percent of the vote in 1970. That's NOT a majority... not even close. By the way, Allende wanted to shift Chili to a socialist country... which 2/3 of the country didn't want, hence the military coup in Sept. of 1973.

1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador -- 70,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns killed
I can't find anything worthwhile about this at all. Some reference material would be greatly appreciated.

1980's: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets -- CIA gives them $3 billion
Did we train Osama to protect our national interests in the same way we train police officers to protect our citizens?

1981: Reagan administration trains and funds "contras" -- 30,000 Nicaraguans die
The Contras were assisting a Nicaraguan guerilla movement aimed at overthrowing their government, which is 1979 launched an office from Costa Rica that toppled Somoza. I really don't see too much problem with that... how many did the Sandinistas kill between 1962 and 1979?

1982: U.S. provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians
At the time, I suppose it seemed like the lesser of the two evils. Maybe they were right. Maybe not. We'll never know.

1983: White House secretly gives Iran weapons to kill Iraqis
Hey, if you help both sides, you can't lose.

1989: CIA agent Manuel Noriega (also serving as President of Panama) disobeys orders from Washington -- U.S. invades Panama and removes Noriega -- 3,000 Panamanian civilian casualties
And he's paying for it now, isn't he? I think he MIGHT get out of prison in 2032.

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from U.S. (If you can't trust an "evil" murderous dictator, who can you trust?)
What weapons would they be? Reference material would help...

1991: U.S. enters Iraq -- Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait
The Kuwaitis certainly don't seem to mind. Neither do the Iraqis, now that I think about it.

1998: Clinton bombs "weapons factory" in Sudan -- Factory turns out to be making aspirin
To distract people from Monica Lewinsky, yeah. I don't agree with it... but I also didn't agree with him committing perjury about it either.

1990's: The U.N. (emphesis on The U.N.) estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions.
That's just crap made up by the Iraqis. They got those numbers by assuming what the population would be, then subtracting what the population actually was... then assuming all those missing "people" were killed by the sanctions. There has never

Are you telling me that if I were to offer to pick up a letter at a residence, and deliver it to another residence for a fee, I would be breaking the law?

What law? (statute and title, please.)

AFAIK, if you wanted to deliver letters, parcels, or postcards, you could start tommorrow, even today, depending on the time at your location.

As it stands now, our privacy is quite well protected in the mail, and the Fourth Amendment has been applied to the mails, preventing government officials from inspecting articles of mail without a warrant. There is no such protection applied to private delivery services.

The privatisation lobby is often misled into thinking that private companies are concerned for our rights, and they disregard the fact that the Intellegence Community often uses private companies to snoop, harass, and other dirty work whenever the constitution gets in the way of thier plans. Remember Iran-Contra ? Do alittle googling on the CIA and thier private contractors, you'll be amazed at what you find.

It's not quite so simple as private=good, government=bad.

But money does grow on trees, like every other paper product we produce.

Actually money is made from linen and cotton not paper.

No-one was ever sent to a gulag for opposing the government, hell we didn't even have gulags in the first place!

How about the americans of japanese origin interned during WWII only because they had the wrong origins (one could also say "color", as germans and italians weren't interned, or at least not as systematically)?

I figured that Carter's support of him was due to his faith. I joked that to a guy with a high moral tone like Carter all of us sinners look equally guilty.

...and out of towners often pronounce it in the spanish "boh-Ka ra-Tahn", but it's actually pronounced "Book-a Rah-tone" and it doesn't mean mouth of the rat (other than literally)

It doesn't mean "mouth of the rat" literally or figuratively, it means mouth of the MOUSE.

And the out-of-towners are pronouncing it (historically) correctly, even if the in-towners would like to pretend it's a bit more tony than it really is.

(I traipsed through Florida last year, from Jupiter to Miami, and liked Palm Beach and Boca Raton. But the posturing! Ay!)

From this page: Boca Raton (Florida): from "boca de ratónes," a Spanish term applied to nearby inlets. It translates as "mouth of the mouse" (not "rat," which is "rata") and may refer to the jagged rocks at these inlets. It has also been suggested that "ratónes" was a term used for the pirates who might hide in such a place.

I disagree- the US became a super power because of World War II; it was a watershed event for this country. While the rest of the world was taking turns blowing up each others factories, decimating their populations, and sowing the seeds of political strife we were ramping up capacity, production, and developing business. The US is a super power for one simple reason- economic power. Think about it- we don't have the largest population, the most educated population, or even the longest life expectancy. We just out spend (usually on R&D) every other country in the world on defense; we even subsidize other country's purchase of our arms, regardless of ethics, to protect our economic interests. Money is the master of (ORWELL=offense)"defense"(/ORWELL). Why are your tax dollars spent in this fashion? Corporate lobbyists own our government.

At the end of the day though, what matters to a country is manufacturing, products, such as software, cars, widgets, etc. It doesn't matter to a country how well your software streamlines production, how many widgets marketing & sales can distribute, or how efficient the line can be if you're not paying employees in your own country to then buy those widgets. Third world countries are smart to follow in Japans footsteps. I know that this is a complicated issue, but I sometimes feel that the relentless American profit machine is its' own worst enemy.

"...pernicious anemia in humans is caused not by a vitamin B12 deficiency in the diet but rather the absence of a substance called the intrinsic factor, ordinarily secreted by the stomach and responsible for facilitating the absorption of B12 from the intestine. When a person's body cannot produce the intrinsic factor, the standard treatment today is to inject vitamin B12 directly into the bloodstream.[...]"
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0861824.html

That's a good sign. If we used to eat it, perhaps we will still find it tasty. And if mammoth becomes a farm animal then its survival is assured.

There's a reason why elephants were never domesticated...

Sure they are domesticated. Indian Elephants were used as beasts of burden up until very recently. And what about Hannibal Barca?

This Link shows the timeline for Narnia.
I have no idea if C.S. Lewis thought the books should be read out of chronological order or not, but the current order is in the correct chronology.