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Nazism was a revolutionary movement that overthrew the Weimar Republic and cleared away the last vestiges of power held by the German aristocracy.

This is a gross oversimplification, to say the least. Nazism as a "populist movement" actually served to remove power from the German people (among other things) and place it into the hands of a select few who were partly comprised of and backed by aristocrats, including the British royalty and our own "aristocrats" on this side of the ocean (wealthy Connecticut and Rhode Islands families, the Rockefellers, etc). Mind you, this involved a transfer of power within the aristocracy but to suggest that Nazism was a grassroots movement that was inherently anti-aristocracy would be to perpetuate the same lie that a lot of German people fell for.

The real goals of Nazism (and WWII) were consolidation of power, population reduction and bringing closer a return to Feudalism:

The Nazi Roots of the House of Windsor

the Bush family & the Nazis

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Documents: Bush's Grandfather Directed Bank Tied to Man Who Funded Hitler

how the Bush family wealth is linked to the holocaust

ROCKEFELLER AND MASS MURDER

The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

Rockefeller Associates

Standard Oil Fuels World War II

My volunteer work is to educate people about our political system. I have spent a decade or two at it. You have to be aware of how our system works before you can operate within it. (Without being used) Politicians love it if you operate within it without understanding it!

I often vote for independent candidates, but have you ever wondered how many people are aware of the modified and fairly unique aspects of our modern U.S. political parties? Did you know about this?

You might be interested in this new positive wrinkle created by the Internet. Politicians can now distribute political platforms directly to their target audience using modern communication methods such as the Internet, and by-passing our mass gate-keeper media.
ref: The Modern U.S. Political Platforms: Do they work?
http://i-voter.tripod.com/Platforms.html

I agree with your judgement about political choice being more important than becoming a bought and paid for, single party-label voter. However, you may have noticed that I substituted the phrase "party-label" for "political party." Our U.S. political parties have been "reformed" if you wish to use that word. A am afraid that the political trickery is over a mile deep and half a continent wide. U.S. political parties are now quite unique - by law!.

SEE:.
ref :What is a Political Party?
Warning: Polemic Article!
http://i-voter.tripod.com/US_PoliticalParties.html

RE: get involved during the primaries and select a different party candidate.

There are some non-obvious limits to such a tactic.

ref: Our National Committees: Ever wonder what they do?
http://i-voter.tripod.com/NationalCommittees.html/

As you could probably guess - I like your sig!
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison

.(US).. law enforcement can easily get subpoena's to track individual users now. Imagine if the government was IN CONTROL of the internet.
Are you saying that although the US government can gain large amounts information it wants quite easily from private enterprises now - if it became a publicly regulated utility they could gain more? That may be true, but I view it more as a question of political power. My rule of is that those without power tend to suffer. Back in the 60's - when the "Russkies" terrorized our corporate state - It seemed to me that privacy laws were much stronger. That would include publicly regulated utilities.

How do Slashdot people feel about the regulation of political parties in the U.S.? People who tend to oppose government regulation never mention this subject. It doesn't seem to interest them.

Great Quote from 1927
Here in the last generation, a development has taken place which finds an analogy nowhere else. American parties have ceased to be voluntary associations like trade unions or the good government clubs or the churches. They have lost the right freely to determine how candidates shall be nominated and platforms framed, even who shall belong to the party and who shall lead it. The state legislatures have regulated their structure and functions in great detail."

ref What is a Political Party?
http://i-voter.tripod.com/US_PoliticalParties.html

lots and lots of British accents

I believe GP was referring to what we colloqually call the Boarding School Accent here in the US, which is easily distinquished from, say, a Cockney accent. Not sure which one those really are in a list of them all.

TRIPOD has a free subscription but it doesn't include FTP either. http://www.tripod.lycos.com/web-hosting/compare_plans.pl

Monthly $4.95 Yearly $54.45

Citizen's Political Power in the U.S.

It's funny seeing people arguing for either Capitalism or Communism without mentioning democracy.

Emphasizing democracy would mean neither capital (wealth) or a state bureaucracy would be as likely to control the state. The principle would be the well being of the people. Ignoring democracy makes the argument over Capitalism and Communism fairly meaningless.They are both just ways of gaining power over the people.

Perhaps you think the U.S. is a democracy? My subjective answer would be not as much as you might think, and not as much as it once was.

Citizen's Political Power in the U.S. http://i-voter.tripod.com/

I demand Zillions for purchasing patents. Not a cent for debt relief and no taxes. This is war and we must be productive to achieve victory!

Citizen's Political Power in the U.S.
http://i-voter.tripod.com/

It's probably the beauty of roman roads that allowed that to be the case. There's any number of junctions where you literally have no visibility left or right onto a 70mph road because there's some 4th century wall or something that can't be knocked down so you basically just close your eyes, keep your fingers crossed and pull out.

It might have worked fine when the fastest thing going down it was a peasant with some half-worn pieces of leather strapped to his foot with a bit of bendy twig, but nowadays many legacy roads here aren't really well designed for cars.

Of course, things like this don't help much either:

http://m8motorway.tripod.com/m8_glasgow_j15.htm

http://martypoom.tripod.com/ John 64 and Mel Gibson Safari 3. Thank Marty Poom for the PC versions!

The first time I heard about this whole mission, I thought, whoah, American helicopters managed to fly 150 km into Pakistan without being noticed? Pakistan isn't a slouch when it comes to military equipment: they've fought several wars with India, and are used to trying to track some of the finest military hardware in the world. Yet two helicopters flew in, invisibly. It sounds like they were supported by two Chinooks, that came in a bit later, and those *were* seen by the Pakistani air defense, but the first group in weren't seen. A lot of other countries are going to want to figure out how we did this.

There have been a lot of US projects in making low-observable helicopters, from the modified Hughes OH6 Loach used to surreptitiously place wiretaps on lines during Vietnam, that also used increased numbers of blades, and the cancelled RAH-66 Comanche, that was supposed to be quiet and have a vastly reduced radar signature. The ones used Monday are probably Blackhawks modified based on the stuff learned from the Comanche, but they could be completely new aircraft: the descriptions of the amount of personnel and material taken in are at the very edge of what two stock Blackhawks could carry, and adding lots of stealth technology adds a *lot* of weight.

Among other interesting things I've read and observed: the stock Blackhawk is manufactured with sheets of aluminum riveted together along the edges, like most planes. The pictures show rivetless construction, and in one picture it looks like there's a long weld seam that appears to have been done by hand rather than machine, making me think there are a very small number of prototypes of this. I also saw a link somewhere, that I can't find now, to a press release by a company who was adding small servos into the collector linkages that added continuous slight variance to the blade angle, to minimize noise by distributing it across different frequencies, which seems pretty cool. I've even seen a few claims that the whole aircraft was covered in material that could emit low levels of light, to blend it visually against a lighted sky (a technique used back in WWII by putting headlights on the leading edges of aircraft wings so that they could dive-bomb submarines without being seen until it was too late for the sub to dive. This was distinct from the british Leigh lights, that were used in after-dark attacks along with radar.)

I'm betting a whole lot of people are bidding on the wreckage that was recovered -- which is, itself, surprising, at least to me, because it sounds like the commandoes were able to completely destroy the whole main fuselage, leaving just the tail. Under the hurried circumstances that's pretty surprising. (I wouldn't be surprised to find out they actually hooked it to one of the Chinooks and dragged it out along with them.)

Yes, but the problem is today you have the guy dealing in kiddy porn who also has a PCP habit

[citation needed]

Nobody died because the police aren't there to shoot people but they are going to control the situation completely

...and yet, people have died as a result of paramilitary police forces entering their homes:

http://bnice2me.tripod.com/id14.html

If you haven't noticed, it is a war out there

Yeah, OK -- you have been watching far too many cop movies. It is not a war out there, it is just another step toward tyranny in America. If law enforcement requires a paramilitary force, then there is something wrong with the laws and the way the country is being run. Perhaps we could start by asking, "Why is it necessary to arrest people for possession of a particular plant? Why is it necessary to arrest people for possession of a particular digital image?"

This country was founded as a rebellion against tyranny, which people seem to have forgotten.

http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/
"Upon publication of Disciplined Minds, the American Institute of Physics fired author Jeff Schmidt. He had been on the editorial staff of Physics Today magazine for 19 years. ...
    Who are you going to be? That is the question.
    In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt demonstrates that the workplace is a battleground for the very identity of the individual, as is graduate school, where professionals are trained. He shows that professional work is inherently political, and that professionals are hired to subordinate their own vision and maintain strict âoeideological discipline.â
    The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the professionalâ(TM)s lack of control over the political component of his or her creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even democracy.
    Schmidt details the battle one must fight to be an independent thinker and to pursue oneâ(TM)s own social vision in todayâ(TM)s corporate society. He shows how an honest reassessment of what it really means to be a professional employee can be remarkably liberating. After reading this brutally frank book, no one who works for a living will ever think the same way about his or her job."

Also by a physicist:
    http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

More links collected by me:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
  http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

The site you reference is obviously bogus, the Martian flag is wrong. Here is the correct flag: http://mediccopcom.tripod.com/mediccopcom0616/id8.html

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science
"Summers was deservedly castigated, but not for the right reasons. He claimed to be giving a comprehensive list of reasons why there weren't more women reaching the top jobs in the sciences. Yet Summers, an economist, left one out: Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States. ..."

But, see also on money as a bad motivator for creative work:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Some deeper issues:
    http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/
    http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

My own saga: :-)
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/princeton-graduate-school-plans.html
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html

http://aeromaster.tripod.com/paper1.htm

http://www.freemars.org/studies/et/

http://www.permanent.com/p-extank.htm

Actually, it's amusing but, if you read the bible you start to wonder just how much these people knew. We find solid artifacts of ancient civilizations' advanced technology all the time (pyramids, extremely complex mechanical clocks, etc), not to mention legends of places like Atlantis with flying machines and solar resonant crystals supplying tons of power. There actually is an extremely old (BC) Egyptian hieroglyph of what looks frighteningly like a helicopter (the page that's from says this is not a helicopter and gives an explanation, with the linked image as the "original, unaltered version," which still looks like a helicopter and submarines....)

God took a rib from Adam and made Eve.

Take a closer look. Men have the same number of ribs as women... closer than that then.

The X chromosome has 4 ribs; the Y chromosome has 3, and a stump where one is abridged.

Did these people know about genetics? O_o

Catholic.com on the Inquisition
Fr. Joe on the Inquisition and then some
I am going to be totally honest here and say that I don't 100% trust these articles. Note that these articles were written in 2004 and 1998, respectively. While some citations and statistics may be inaccurate or even wrong, it's no worse than many protestant citations. The articles are at least worth considering, however, and make some very valid points.

Also, Google's your friend.

Letterpress has been having something of a revival of late as a way to create upscale documents.

I just purchased a reproduction of the Goddard Broadside version of the Declaration of Independence:

http://mbelloff.tripod.com/goddardbroadside.html

Also, while it's been over a decade since I was there, a small newspaper / printer in rural Virginia was still using their Linotype for numbering jobs the last time I visited.

William

Wrong! A republic just means that political rule is not by a hereditary nobility. The franchise was restricted, but people voted for representation. The USA was often described as a democracy. SEE: Tocqueville's, Democracy in America, pub 1835.

Wildly Wrong! In fact we had a great deal more political power than we have now! Those who had the franchise had jury nullification. Jury nullification included the right to judge contracts, speech issues, theft, etc.
The Constitutional Relationship of the People to the Law

RE: per our Constitution, the government is supposed to have little political power as well. That brings up something that I think needs to be more widely understood, although it is not a constitutional issue. It is the effective outlawing of political parties. It gives incumbent politicians much greater power.
What is a Political Party

Wrong! A republic just means that political rule is not by a hereditary nobility. The franchise was restricted, but people voted for representation. The USA was often described as a democracy. SEE: Tocqueville's, Democracy in America, pub 1835.

Wildly Wrong! In fact we had a great deal more political power than we have now! Those who had the franchise had jury nullification. Jury nullification included the right to judge contracts, speech issues, theft, etc.
The Constitutional Relationship of the People to the Law

RE: per our Constitution, the government is supposed to have little political power as well. That brings up something that I think needs to be more widely understood, although it is not a constitutional issue. It is the effective outlawing of political parties. It gives incumbent politicians much greater power.
What is a Political Party

Mod up. Mod way up!

The vast majority of the U.S. population has little political power compared to most other democratic nations. I wonder if many of the people who promote standing up for "liberty," ever consider the relationship democracy has to "liberty" or "freedom." Are liberty and freedom defined by, and stem from, democratic principles or elite principles? We no longer have any real jury nullification power in the US. The terms liberty and freedom mean nothing. You must explain who has the right to define the laws relating to them.

Politically speaking, if freedom only means "nothing else to lose," then you are fairly free in the U.S. - it could include our large prison population.

Citizen's Political Power in the U.S.

gtall wrote:
their biggest problem is putting up with the American people; the American people believe the worst while refusing to take any responsibility for the state of the country.
-------
IMO: Making a general statement about the political actions of U.S. citizens without understanding the nature of our political system is not very insightful.
Citizen's Political Power in the U.S.
IMO: Although the pile of democratic nations has been growing, when the ability of U.S. voters to influence their government is considered the U.S. voter is close to the bottom of that pile!

I_Voter
Platforms: From the Voters Perspective

gtall wrote:
their biggest problem is putting up with the American people; the American people believe the worst while refusing to take any responsibility for the state of the country.
-------
IMO: Making a general statement about the political actions of U.S. citizens without understanding the nature of our political system is not very insightful.
Citizen's Political Power in the U.S.
IMO: Although the pile of democratic nations has been growing, when the ability of U.S. voters to influence their government is considered the U.S. voter is close to the bottom of that pile!

I_Voter
Platforms: From the Voters Perspective

Is the lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Poor quadrant North Korea by chance?

Actually no, it isn't

Given that North Korea has an average life expectancy of 63.8 and a per-capita income of $1,700, that would put it solidly above the 50 year line. The North Korea dot is most likely the one slightly above and to the left of India.

dlevitan wrote:
your only piece of information is from the prosecutor and defense lawyer,

The prosecutor and defense lawyers speech can also be restricted in most states. The purpose is specifically to limit the juries knowledge to what the judiciary considers relevant. This has been considered constitutional since 1895. Prior to that a jury was often addressed as "the Nation." "Will the Nation please rise" was intoned when the judge entered the courtroom. The tension between the judge, who represents the government, and the citizen jury, that represents the people, is obvious.

Background for the function of the Jury in English and U.S. constitutional tradition
The Constitutional Relationship of the People to the Law

And such relationships can work both ways.

You've made an excellent argument for learning from knowledgeable other people with hands on experience about some area of interest, but, sadly, such people can only rarely be found in conventional schools...
    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools
    http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html

And you ignore the other baggage professional teachers come with:
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
    http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/

Why not just watch a video series instead, and ask questions online?
    http://www.learner.org/
    http://www.khanacademy.org/
    http://www.explorelearning.com/

Of find some other alternative arrangement, including knowledgeable mentors among family, friends, or in the community?
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling

Is that really going to be that much worse than trying to learn from most "teachers" (who if you've ever been aroudn teacher training programs, you would see generally know little about math, science, and technology), as well meaning as most of them may be? The first thing most schools do is destroy a child's natural ability to learn and natural creativity:
    http://www.amazon.com/Scientist-Crib-Early-Learning-Tells/dp/0688177883
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=related

Here is an alternative funding model for hiring private tutors or having neighborhoods again where people have time to share their knowledge freely, based on just giving public school funds directly to the parents:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
   

http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html

Maybe the whole point is to waste your time and dumb you down and keep you locked up in a mirror maze?

And failing that, to neuter you politically? See Jeff Schmidt's "Dsiciplined Minds":
http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/
http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html
"How to survive? Well, how can captive soldiers survive what is commonly called "brainwashing"? The US Army has a manual on resisting indoctrination when a prisoner of war. As Schmidt amusingly notes, this manual wasn't written for students, but "students in graduate or professional school should be able to put such resistance techniques to good use." (p. 239). A person who maintains an independent, nonconforming outlook in any institution, including a prisoner-of-war camp, is seen as deviant and threatening. The keys to resistance are knowing what you're up against, preparing to take action, working with others (organization!), resisting at all levels, and dealing with collaborators by cutting them off from key information and attempting to win them over. Schmidt gives a revealing account of his own difficulties in graduate school and how he survived as a radical."

Undergrad is not quite as bad though. But remember, all the professors and assistants whose salaries you are paying (even by incurring debt) -- they have all gone through this brainwashing process.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Something else I wrote on this:
http://groups.google.com/group/openvirgle/browse_thread/thread/3dd2b7e6648da125/231e63e966e932df?hl=en#231e63e966e932df

And on how things may change, by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA

Or by someone else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=related

Good luck.

EAT LEAD, SUCKER

Oh no! A toy robot! Ruuunnnnn!!!

A classic from the Kentucky Fried Movie
http://jb5353.tripod.com/kfm/toy.wav

You can't just setup a radio transmitter and start giving any music you want to your listeners.

I disagree:
http://www.mobileblackbox.com/
http://www.circuitstoday.com/2-km-fm-transmitter
http://transmitters.tripod.com/begin.htm

Perhaps like hot-linking. But I think the real thread is as to a motivation that also generates such concepts as "electricity as a luxury items" and opposition to its general availability. This is historical, say pre- 1960's and not some more recent greenie thing. Hmm, well I could make the relationship, but the concepts are more subtle. At least in my area of the US, the defense of scarcity for electricity got really pretty nasty, up the point that the Bonneville Power Administration was online and the creepy-crawlers had lost that particular battle.

But the simple idea of scarcity goes back to "the hatred of goods". The usual cite is to how merchants who had inventory, scarce and sold dearly, hated it when new stock came in on the sailing ships of the day.

Hmm, looking around for my source (probably Smith or Ricardo or someone like that), and having pushed back all the way to B.C., I came across this:

http://samvak.tripod.com/scarcity.html

which was not too bad.

I was particularly amused to find that I had heard of him with respect to his psych publications.

People know how to do better: http://www.educationrevolution.org/
We don't for all sorts fo reasons related to social power (see John Taylor Gatto).

See also my essay on learning "on demand" instead of learning "just in case":
    "Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
    http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html

Education can have several goals in this descending order:
* To help a person grow as a person
* To help a person be a good citizen
* To shape a person into someone elses' vision of a good consumer and good worker and, for a few, a good obedient professional with the "right" politics

Those three aspects of "education" are regularly confused, and usually most of formal schooling (especially when test-driven) has to do with the last of the three which is often at odds with the first two.

See also for how the third aspect goes on into grad school:
    http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/

..the Japanese developed virtual artists like that. http://chinyankeat.tripod.com/dk96.htm (sorry for the double post, wasn't logged in)

One Question: When will I be able to watch Blu-Ray disks on Linux or Mac or other NON-Microsoft general purpose computers? Is there a How-to guide up already?

To the HDCP people - get over it. Any copy protection that includes shipping something physical to end users will be circumvented. The only viable way to stop the madness is to give your customers what they want - cheap viewing access on any device they happen to own - ipod, gpod, dpod, analog TV, DVD, computer, Linux, Mac, Windows, BeOS, CD, hard drive, flash drive, whatever. When we get that stuff AND it is cheap enough to not bother with stealing, then you won't need to worry about copy protection. Blu-ray data is too large for most people still, so that is an effective copy protection method. To me, the DRM associated with that format has meant I get the HD content without owning a BluRay player using the stuff the cable system sends. I record it, transcode it and backup the resulting files for later viewing ... just like with a VCR. Nothing illegal about that since 1984 http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id408.htm.

It reminds me of the Cauzin Softstrip from the 80's. Some of the Apple II and Mac magazines had little programs included using those.

Or if you want to be more avant-garde about being modded down, rant about how Ubuntu is vastly inferior to your favored microdistro.

Ubuntu is for noobs; Microsoft Linux is vastly superior for those that know what they're doing.

Dis be ma favit, disto, bitch: http://andrebocassa.tripod.com/

http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id14.html There's your citation. How about some 1st hand testimony? I come from an eastern european communist dictatorship instituded by the Russians. First the Nazis came and confiscated all the weapons in WWII, then the Russians finished the job. We were left powerless with a horrible dictator in place. People just have no clue how important an armed citizenry is in ensuring liberty.

It would require implanting a metal screw into your hip... next to what looks like a U-bolt

This should get you flagged for special treatment

Plus people are pretty damn ignorant about it. Fluoridate your water already.

If you don't want to make your own choice fine with me but don't force to to follow your lead. If you want to jump of the Empire State building go ahead, but I won't. Nor do I want fluoride in my water or food. I buy purified because I don't want chemicals in my water. Here I have to pay to have chemical added then I have to pay to remove them.

Not have a country wide education programs mean poor states and counties have an efen worse time educating people.

The most importants document in the US are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the USA neither one says anything about any federal government education department, The fact it doesn't but you want it to doesn't mean it does. If you want, it provides a method to change it, by amending it.

Don't just treat either documents as toilet paper.

"What's crazy for scaling back the US Government to its constitutional limits "
it is within in constitutional limits. The problem is you have no clue about the constitution.

No, you are the one that is wrong. Currently the US federal government is out of it's constitutional limits. The Constitution puts limits on what the government can do, if it does not say the government can do something it can not do it. Paper after paper says so. The principle writer of the Constitution, James Madison, wrote "The powers of the central government are few and explicitly defined, while those of the state governments are several." If the Constitution gave the federal government unlimited powers then states would not have ratified it. To think anything else is delusional. And to try to convince others otherwise is corrupt.

Falcon

It's not enough, after all, to show that the Dept. of Education exists, and that poor schools exist. You have to show how the first causes the last.

No you don't, what you have to do to justify a federal department of education is show the US Constitution authorizes it. And no matter how many tymes I search it I do not find "education" anywhere in the Constitution. And yes, the Constitution does grant limited powers not limitless powers to the federal government.

Falcon

James Madison specifically (even sarcastically) cited a public education system as a potential result of abuse of the "general welfare" clause, so I content that opposing the byzantine and wasteful Department of Education is, in fact, quite reasonable.

I'm curious, do you have a reference? Googling I found James Madison supported public education. Here's a letter Madison wrote to William Taylor Barry when Barry asked for advise from Madison. It's said Madison's reply was his strongest support for public education, he wrote:
"The liberal appropriations made by the Legislature of Kentucky for a general system of Education cannot be too much applauded. A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

Perhaps you meant a federal public education system, because he did support state systems.

Although the 10th Amendment seems to make things clear, the remainder of the Constitution is vague enough to grant the federal government almost unlimited power (ie. the interstate commerce clause -- virtually no business is conducted exclusively within state lines today).

Except that's not true, the USA Constitution sets specific limits on what the federal government can do, if a power is not enumerated it does not have that power. The "Jeffersonian philosophy is clearly one of reason, individualism, liberty, and limited government--all of which are, in different ways, anathema to modern liberals and conservatives." James Madison said "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce;... the powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and prosperities of the people. (The Federalist, #45, emphasis ours)". Quotes from others on that page also support the constitutional idea that the federal government only has the powers specifically granted to it. Federalist #45, mentioned above states:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."

Quite simply states had to be convinced the federal government would not have unlimited government otherwise they would never have ratified the Constitution.

In many cases, it also makes no sense for individual states to manage things like environmental and health policy on a one-by-one basis. With one or two exceptions, the USA has functioned as a singular entity for over 100 years.

Health is one of the things individual states pretty much control, that's in part why there are problems with the affordability of medicine and health care. Each state decides who can sell insurance in the state, and what the insurance must cover. If I, living in one state, cross the state line and find cheaper insurance in another state I can not buy that insurance to use in the state I live in. There is no free market in insurance, but did the Health Insurance reform bill congress passed and Obama signed change that? No.

Falcon

Yes, he could go to the library and look at papers and figure out how circuits are made. But that is not what he is asking. He wants to know a place where all his info is available in a tutorial manner. So, suggest websites if you are talking about online stuff. Even google can give you more results than needed sometimes. There is a http://electronicsworld.tripod.com/ I used to visit this when I was in undergrad. Now I am mostly into programming :)or :( whatever.

As you can see in http://kosovo99.tripod.com/minerals.htm and Saudi Arabia and Iraq before, US has good history of coming to right places in right times...

Also, Somaila's got some rich Uranium reserves... And I am 100% percent sure every big "human rights" hotspot od last century, and "terrorism" hotspot of 21st is "minerally supported".

Hopely, Japanese touchdown on asteroid will change things so we will have less wars in future, and more riches coming from space.

Well then we could trust the rail road system to....

Supertrain!

Violation of the separation of church and state? The separation of church and state has been completely warped to fit what today's "activist judges" want. The separation of church and state was about liberation, not about confining worship to private areas. Every Christmas there are lawsuits over nativity scenes. Read the original letter to Thomas Jefferson. The Danbury Baptists were not asking to have prayer banned in schools or any other issue it has been used as ammo for. "Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty--that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals--that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious Opinions" http://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/baptist.htm

Slavery is still practiced in the US. Humans are still imported, forced to work, traded as property, beaten, branded, tortured and killed. It's just not legal now. The US slave population may not be close to what it was right before the civil war, but the numbers are still disturbing. It's no longer sanctioned by law. It's now not restricted by race but more by gender - mostly prevalent in the sex worker trade and textile manufacturing, and agriculture. But it persists.

Sometimes my fellow Americans disgust me.

That's an offending false choice and the answer is both. Reagan's "prosperity" was more than offset by the amount of debt he burdened this country with which still needs to be paid someday. If you look at the other features of his "prosperity", perhaps you wouldn't be so enamored with it.

http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/mayhew/reagan_destroyed_american_dream.htm
http://prorev.com/worst.htm
http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id395.htm

You'll notice the second and third articles directly reference the loss of farm income that in nearly decimated the family farm. Several members of my family and neighbors including my father were forced to declare bankruptcy due the policies in place at the time. If you check out the data, you'll see the scope of this crisis was not limited to my area. Obviously, not all of this was caused by Reagan, but he essentially worsened already bad policies, instituted other "corporate friendly" ones, and failed to act in any meaningful way.

You might say "good, I'm not a fan of farm subsidies anyway". Well, if you're speaking of today's farm subsidies I would completely agree on some of them, but during the time period they were much more limited. The only widespread mid-west grain farm subsidy I'm aware of was a farm and ranch conservation program which might get you enough money to make the loan payments while the land was in the program.

Now if you talk about his peace, where do you want to start? The huge amassing of weapons? Supplying the middle-east with them? The Cold War(a.k.a.) The largest waste of money, man power, intelligence, and resources in the history of mankind(the fire Reagan loved stoking)? Or the other conflict he liked to poke with a stick Iran-Iraq(eventually leading the area to it's current state)? Not to mention his corrupt administration which easily surpasses Nixon. Iran-contra? Iran hostage crisis?