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The CIA, which has in the past actively worked to overthrow (and has succeeded in overthrowing) South American regimes the United States doesn't like, now claims that Venezuela used vote rigging to win a 2004 election recount just two years after a failed coup took place against Chavez that the United State sanctioned.

Forgive me if I don't take this seriously.

They're not looking for vendor tools to come out of it, they're looking for research to come out of it to help build such a tool.

http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/GHC/Data_Parallel_Haskell

http://manticore.cs.uchicago.edu/

As sibling posts have noted, it's traditional to make a direct mapping between the English "dictionary" form, which is the infinitive, and the Latin "dictionary" form, which is the first person singular.

More puzzling to me is where they got the idea that it means "fall in love with". It means "love earnestly"; that's a perfectly acceptable meaning, so why not quote that one?

Also I wonder where the submitter got the idea that the pronunciation ought to be "a-dahm-o". That may be how Dell are pronouncing it, but in Latin the ictus is on the first syllable: "a-dah-mo". Both the first two syllables are short, guys.

Just for the sake of completeness, here's the entry on adamo in the best (not most recent; best) Latin-English dictionary.

"Sensels"? There's no need to invent new words. The word "pixel" means "picture element" and is relevant whether discussing monitors or CCDs. Stick with accepted terminology.

sensel. Not my invention, I assure you.

Pixels emit data. Pixel is a neologism coined from picture + element.

Sensels collect data. Sensel is a neologism coined from sensor + element.

They're not doing even remotely the same task. Consequently there is a practical reason to discriminate between them. If you are under the impression that anything arranged in a grid that does anything with light, regardless of task, is a pixel, then I suggest you get over to Wham-a-lart and ask them for some linoleum pixels and see what that gets you.

If this aggravates you, I'm sorry. Language evolves despite the digging in of your heels.

Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until wecopied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

Below is a fitting quote from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Isaac McPherson ( http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html )

Thomas Jefferson was originally against copyrights and patents but his beliefs evolved. In correspondence on 1790 June 27 to Benjamin Vaughan he wrote:
"An act of Congress authorising the issuing patents for new discoveries has given a spring to invention beyond my conception. Being an instrument in granting the patents, I am acquainted with their discoveries. Many of them indeed are trifling, but there are some of great consequence which have been proved by practice, and others which if they stand the same proof will produce great effect."

Falcon

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

This is slightly OT, but your brother might find it helpful to check out what these guys are doing: http://people.ucls.uchicago.edu/~bfranke/csreq/index.html There is a movement toward making CS a graduation requirement for high school, something tells me a few of your here would agree with this.

The algorithm - called LOCI - is indeed slightly more sophisticated ;-)
You can find more in the paper by Lafrenière et al. ( 2007, ApJ 660, 770-780)

Well, my general point is that this cycle has been going on for quite some time. I have a hard time seeing how these ongoing cycles are going to change. They believe that these CO2 cycles are only interrupted by ice ages, correct?

The natural glacial-interglacial CO2 cycles are coupled to orbital variations, so that part of the cycle will keep going. However, we are currently greatly over-riding the natural CO2 cycle with our excess fossil fuel emissions. The natural glacial-to-interglacial transition is about 100 ppm, and we've already added another 100 ppm on top of that. Another 1000 ppm is quite possible without conscious effort to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Whether that will disrupt the long-term glacial cycle remains to be seen (but see here and Archer's new book The Long Thaw for a sobering discussion). However, it will most definitely disrupt natural CO2 fluctuations over the next few centuries.

We probably can't stop polar melting, but we can stop glacial advance if we had the motivation.

We probably can't stop polar melting, but we can slow and reduce it by quite a bit. This is especially important to avoid crossing the threshold for runaway melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which will add a lot more sea level rise and boreal warming.

If you're concerned about glacial advance, you should want to save our fossil fuels for later when we need them, instead of using them all up now when we don't.

If sea levels really are going to rise any significant amount, engineering projects could keep cities safe, and the waters at bay.

Up to a point, we could do it, but it would be very expensive considering the number of people and value of properties which are currently near the coast. With a potential multi-meter sea rise, you'd probably have to abandon a lot of the planet's current shoreline.

There are, of course, many other serious impacts of climate change besides sea level rise.

Also, if we completely stop using fossil fuels, this cycle will continue, because it is fueled by various factors including astrological forces and gas release from the planet.

That's true, but not really the point.

They have a lot of benefits nobody is talking about like being able to produce hydrogen fuels from non-fossil origins, and fresh water for agriculture. These benefits are a lot greater than the benefits I can see from renewables.

Any power source can do that (hydrogen separation, desalination, etc.), not just nuclear, unless you're referring to processes I haven't heard of.

You are absolutely right about the current rate for plant production. We're limited by the quantity of casing that Japan Steel can produce (currently enough for 4 plants per year). However, we can start producing them here in the US again if a government corporation would take over surplus steel production. Additionally various types of 4th gen plants can be manufactured in our auto-plants (if retooled).

I can't see us realistically producing power plants at the rate I described, especially given their costs and side effects, and the political climate. But a WWII-level effort might do it.

If fusion was properly funded the past 30 years as it should have been, I'm confident we'd have a commercially viable reactor by now.

I highly doubt that. In fact, I don't know if commercial fusion will ever be commercially viable.

About the costs: I thought nuclear was the 2nd cheapest power source next to natural gas for plant construction... how is solar cheaper?

New nuclear plants are actually rather expensive, and as you note, that's not even counting the fact that they're heavily subsidized. Take away the subsidies and they do even worse b

It seems impossible to have any reasoned discussion about carbon dioxide.

You're not contributing to the reasoned discussion here.

Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased from 290 ppm in pre-industrial times to 365 ppm today and that increase is NOT having a significant effect on climate.

A large amount of science disagrees with you. (And by the way, it's more like 388 ppm today.)

There is already far more CO2 in the atmosphere than is needed to effectively absorb ALL infra-red radiation in the CO2 absorption band.

This is false, and is directly contradicted by the line-by-line radiative transfer codes which calculate this absorption (e.g., MODTRAN), as well as actual spectral measurements of increasing IR saturation in the CO2 bands (e.g., here).

In particular, this response to another poster is also false: "The re-radiated infra-red radiation would mostly be outside of those spectra and would either radiate out into space or radiate into the earth. Your conceptual model about radiation bouncing around between CO2 molecules in the atmosphere does not agree with the physics of absorption." Molecules radiate infrared according to their temperature. If they absorb IR from molecules of a similar temperature, then the re-radiated IR will be in the same band as the absorbed IR. Since nearby molecules are generally of a similar temperature, "radiation bouncing around among CO2 molecules" does happen. That is, in fact, what leads to the exponential temperature-forcing relationship you mention: partial absorption by nearby molecules radiating in similar bands as they absorb. Which, again, is verified by actually calculating the radiative transfer. There is a vertical thermal gradient, so eventually the high cold layers are passing most of what makes it out of the warm lower layers, but by that time some more of the outgoing IR has already been re-reradiated back to the surface.

The best estimate is that a doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from the pre-industrial value (290 to 580 ppm) would increase global temperatures by 1.2C.

(Pre-industrial is usually taken to be 280 ppm.)

Yes, the forcing/concentration relationship is logarithmic due to partial saturation of the absorption bands, and yes, CO2 doubling leads to an unamplified ~1.2 C of warming by itself. However, the net feedbacks in the climate system are positive, according to theory, instrumental observations, and paleo data regarding the climate sensitivity. That increases the climate sensitivity from 1.2 C to somewhere between 2-4.5 C.

Based on our current CO2 output it will take us another 100 years to reach 580 ppm, by which time we will have probably exhausted our fossil fuels anyway, if we believe the gloomy forecasts about petroleum reserves.

Ha! Not even. "Current CO2 output" isn't going to stay the same; it's been continually increasing. Under high emissions scenarios we could pass 800-900 ppm this century. Don't forget that petroleum is not the only source of fossil fuels: coal is far more abundant. Power plants use fossil fuels too, more than the transportation sector. And if we really want to go digging in the sands and shales, there's probably several thousand ppm worth in there, although it would take a few centuries to exhaust all that.

So...if carbon dioxide is not changing our climate, what is? Look to the Sun.

Solar irradiance trends and cosmic ray trends disagree profoundly with the modern warming period, as I'm sure has been pointed

The spectrum shape and afterglow over time are predicted by models. Here's one cited by the J. Grenier et al. paper on arxiv: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/518996.

Here's the J. Grenier (the GROND leader) paper on arxiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.0761

Really, all I want to know is which game producer funded the person who wrote this editorial? There's lots of evidence about this topic that he's ignoring. To say there's no evidence is either intentionally misleading, or uninformed: http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/walsh.html

If he is not thinking that far ahead he is a dolt. So either a liar, a bigot a dolt or a combination of all three. Thanks for adding that last one. Now its a false trichotomy.

By the way, the reason I know this is because every single law review journal for the past 10 years has been talking about it. From constitutional law to workplace law to public policy and human rights it touches on too many issues for a lawyer anywhere especially one running for president to be unawares. Civil unions have been considered a backdoor to gay marriage for awhile, you just watch those court cases in California and elsewhere end up in the supreme court in a few years and they will win just as surely as the ban on interracial marriage was struck down. Obama indeed might of wanted this to happen but that does not excuse his lack of candor on this issue, because it calls into question all of his other publicly held views.
   

Would you care to explain the mechanism that these rights are granted, and what "Creator" is being referred to? Hint: Jefferson wasn't a particularly religious man. Perhaps you should take that phrase a little less literally and a little more figuratively.

You're right Jefferson wasn't religious. He even said religion was a private affair and that's where religion should stay, private. Because of that, and because he was a Deist, when he ran for president some clergy and other religious people tried to demonize him, Alexander Hamilton compared him to an atheist. TJ went so far as to take the Bible, strip all the passages about miracles and such and released the Jefferson Bible. As for how I take his statement I don't take it as been religious at all. For all I care the creator could be evolution. The point though is that rights are innate not granted.

"Nature" does not write laws. We believe that there are certain rights inherent in being human, but that is a concept we created for ourselves, along with all of our other laws.

Some of the USA's Founding Fathers, like Alexander Hamilton did not want rights to be enumerated in the Constitution. If rights were enumerated then some rights may be overlooked. Hamilton even wrote "I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous." So as a compromise the Constitution was written without them then the Bill of Rights amended the Constitution.

Falcon

"Did you mean: absorption spectrum?"

Yes. I did my PhD on adsorption, so I frequently mistype it. But thanks for lecturing me on what adsorption is.

Temperature certainly varies with location, and different locations correlate to higher and lower mean temperatures than others, but that still does not imply that distribution does matter.

Distribution does matter, but mostly the distribution that matters is the vertical distribution, not the horizontal. In particular, the amount of absorption you get in the real atmosphere differs from what you get in the lab because of the nonzero atmospheric lapse rate and convection. Indeed, GCMs have been criticized because their radiative transfer codes assume a constant lapse rate, when in reality the lapse rate responds to warming and thus alters the radiative properties of the atmosphere. (It's computationally infeasible to recompute the transfer line-by-line in every time step, so they work out the spectrum in advance and assume it's constant.)

Codes? What?

Software routines. Like this one.

You better re-route power through the transporter system before the plasma injectors fry, the trilithium crystals crack and you have an enormous anti-matter mess on your hands. Quickly, or Chief Engineer LaForge will be irate.

Stop being sarcastic and read something about radiative transfer physics.

Right, except that the Earth is not "an open system" thermally, except with respect to radiation.

That's the whole point: the Earth is not closed with respect to radiation.

Distribution could in no possible way make the difference between "problem" and "no problem" as the GP claimed.

I agree with that, and I said that myself. I'm just pointing out that the radiative properties of CO2 do depend on distribution, because they depend on temperature, which depends on distribution. The following statement is false: "Every carbon dioxide molecule, therefore, has the same non-emission behavior in the infrared band regardless of its location and regardless of what other substances are in its vicinity."

Way to be off-topic.

The fact remains that you're making physically incorrect statements. If you want to correct someone, do it right. I already made the same overall observation before your post, but I didn't make the mistake of claiming that the overall absorptive effect of CO2 is the same in the atmosphere as it is in the lab. It's not: you can't measure CO2 in the lab and use that number to compute the strength of the atmospheric greenhouse effect. It's much more complicated than that, which is why radiative transfer codes were written.

http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=affective

In fact, this paper is just corroborating what other people have already proven in this Astrophysical Journal paper from 2005.

So yes, this is an interesting topic, but really the only plus on this paper was that they further refined the size of the black hole at the center of our galaxy (and of course they are assuming black holes exist).

Where is the revolutionary part of this paper? Anyone?

On Neural Nets at least.. The only text book that I can think of offhand which is decent is Duda, Hart and Stork

Hawkins, like many others, has ripped off many of his ideas from Steve Grossberg (in this case, the ART model). Although he's not very easy to read, especially if you start much earlier than say, Ellias and Grossberg, 1975. You should also check out the work of people like Jack Cowan, Rajesh Rao, Christof Koch , Tom Poggio, David McLaughlin, Bard Ermentrout, among many, many others. I think the above names are sufficient to start a survey.

So says everyone, but why were the numbers so different before?

Who actually gets to see the 'C' code, and at what age?

Why are the girls different? Is that nature or nurture?

It is notable that more and more girls go on to take mathematics at uni. How does that fit assumptions of natural appeal?

I would suggest that the difference with mathematics is that neither sex can avoid it until it's too late - peer pressure and expectations have already been overcome. By contrast there is basically no programming in most childrens' education.

You cannot tell people's natural aptitude and future motivation "just by looking" when their current motivation is so coloured by other factors. That so many people (especially teachers) believe otherwise is one of the big reasons for the sheer degree of current disparaties.

I'm not claiming that there are no natural disparaties; I am only seeking to explain why the ratio used to be different to what it is now.

It's even more amazing when you consider that when lasers were first developed, no one thought they would have much practical use. They were "A solution looking for a problem."
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/284158_townes.html

Now, try to imagine modern technology without lasers...

Also Emperor Tiberius was the original Michael Jackson.

There's a good quote about translating that passage from Latin. I think it's from Gore Vidal, but am not sure.

Tiberius, Capri. Pool of water. Small children ... So far so good. One's laborious translation was making awful sense. Then ... fish. Fish? The erotic mental image became surreal. Another victory for the Loeb Library's sly translator, J.C. Rolfe, who, correctly anticipating the pruriency of schoolboy readers, left Suetonius's gaudier passages in the hard original. One failed to crack those intriguing footnotes not because the syntax was so difficult (though it was not easy for students drilled in military rather than civilian Latin) but because the range of vice revealed was considerably beyond the imagination of even the most depraved schoolboy. There was a point at which one rejected one's own translation. Tiberius and the little fish, for instance.

Twelve Ceasars made me realize that political muck-raking has existed for as long as humans could say "Oog pals around with Neanderthals!"

Claudius got a mild thumbs down from Suetonius, which lead to Robert Graves to "correct the record".

Also Emperor Tiberius was the original Michael Jackson.

Obama will castrate our military and destroy our nuclear deterrent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxL8NcNACBY

He will tax corporations and high income earners that employ the population of the US, which will force them to cut jobs and send the unemployment rate skyrocketing.
http://obama.3cdn.net/b7be3b7cd08e587dca_v852mv8ja.pdf

He sees dead people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=galtZF0nKYc

He wants to take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, leaving us at the mercy of criminals.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/barack_obama_gun_control.htm

He'll cut and run from Iraq, knocking the legs out from under the Iraqi government as they are finally finding their footing.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

He believes homosexuals are entitled to more rights than straight people.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.transcript/index.html

He believes in mob rule concerning criminal punishment.
The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 58

He refuses to call terrorists "terrorists" even when presented with evidence.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15251928

He will prevent us from keeping sensitive materials confidential, which will place national security at risk.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14356/

He would talk with terrorist countries without demanding that they cease their efforts to murder innocent people and abide by the rule of law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Oj7Jn9rv4

He believes we should reward people who ignore the existence of a country's sovereignty and illegally enter the country instead of forcing them to abide by the law.
http://obama.senate.gov/news/060923-sen_obama_at_to/index.php

He believes the government should regulate the internet.
http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060608-network_neutral/index.php

He believes in making those who have money pay for the healthcare of those who do not have money.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

He believes we should take corn, a staple food for the US, and use it for ethanol production, which will cause shortages in food supply and produce car exhaust that is more dangerous to humans than gasoline burning cars.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/05/new_us_congress_looks_to_boost_alternate_fuels/?p1=MEWell_Pos5

He believes that parents should have no choice but to send their children to government run schools to be indoctrinated by sub-standard teachers.
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/04/041027.obama-ct.html

In short, he's an anti-American, anti-military Marxist who will destroy the US before he can be voted out of office. I don't like McCain and I have problems with many of his positions, but he will, at the very least, keep the US from crashing and burning within the next 4 years (provided the Dems don't win Congress).

And no, he's not a Muslim (as far as we know). He's not black (he's bi-racial). He's not a Christian (against everything Ch

Obama will castrate our military and destroy our nuclear deterrent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxL8NcNACBY

He will tax corporations and high income earners that employ the population of the US, which will force them to cut jobs and send the unemployment rate skyrocketing.
http://obama.3cdn.net/b7be3b7cd08e587dca_v852mv8ja.pdf

He sees dead people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=galtZF0nKYc

He wants to take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, leaving us at the mercy of criminals.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/barack_obama_gun_control.htm

He'll cut and run from Iraq, knocking the legs out from under the Iraqi government as they are finally finding their footing.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

He believes homosexuals are entitled to more rights than straight people.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.transcript/index.html

He believes in mob rule concerning criminal punishment.
The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 58

He refuses to call terrorists "terrorists" even when presented with evidence.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15251928

He will prevent us from keeping sensitive materials confidential, which will place national security at risk.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14356/

He would talk with terrorist countries without demanding that they cease their efforts to murder innocent people and abide by the rule of law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Oj7Jn9rv4

He believes we should reward people who ignore the existence of a country's sovereignty and illegally enter the country instead of forcing them to abide by the law.
http://obama.senate.gov/news/060923-sen_obama_at_to/index.php

He believes the government should regulate the internet.
http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060608-network_neutral/index.php

He believes in making those who have money pay for the healthcare of those who do not have money.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

He believes we should take corn, a staple food for the US, and use it for ethanol production, which will cause shortages in food supply and produce car exhaust that is more dangerous to humans than gasoline burning cars.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/05/new_us_congress_looks_to_boost_alternate_fuels/?p1=MEWell_Pos5

He believes that parents should have no choice but to send their children to government run schools to be indoctrinated by sub-standard teachers.
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/04/041027.obama-ct.html

In short, he's an anti-American, anti-military Marxist who will destroy the US before he can be voted out of office. I don't like McCain and I have problems with many of his positions, but he will, at the very least, keep the US from crashing and burning within the next 4 years (provided the Dems don't win Congress).

And no, he's not a Muslim (as far as we know). He's not black (he's bi-racial). He's not a Christian (against everything Ch

Obama will castrate our military and destroy our nuclear deterrent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxL8NcNACBY

He will tax corporations and high income earners that employ the population of the US, which will force them to cut jobs and send the unemployment rate skyrocketing.
http://obama.3cdn.net/b7be3b7cd08e587dca_v852mv8ja.pdf

He sees dead people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=galtZF0nKYc

He wants to take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, leaving us at the mercy of criminals.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/barack_obama_gun_control.htm

He'll cut and run from Iraq, knocking the legs out from under the Iraqi government as they are finally finding their footing.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

He believes homosexuals are entitled to more rights than straight people.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.transcript/index.html

He believes in mob rule concerning criminal punishment.
The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 58

He refuses to call terrorists "terrorists" even when presented with evidence.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15251928

He will prevent us from keeping sensitive materials confidential, which will place national security at risk.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14356/

He would talk with terrorist countries without demanding that they cease their efforts to murder innocent people and abide by the rule of law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Oj7Jn9rv4

He believes we should reward people who ignore the existence of a country's sovereignty and illegally enter the country instead of forcing them to abide by the law.
http://obama.senate.gov/news/060923-sen_obama_at_to/index.php

He believes the government should regulate the internet.
http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060608-network_neutral/index.php

He believes in making those who have money pay for the healthcare of those who do not have money.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

He believes we should take corn, a staple food for the US, and use it for ethanol production, which will cause shortages in food supply and produce car exhaust that is more dangerous to humans than gasoline burning cars.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/05/new_us_congress_looks_to_boost_alternate_fuels/?p1=MEWell_Pos5

He believes that parents should have no choice but to send their children to government run schools to be indoctrinated by sub-standard teachers.
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/04/041027.obama-ct.html

In short, he's an anti-American, anti-military Marxist who will destroy the US before he can be voted out of office. I don't like McCain and I have problems with many of his positions, but he will, at the very least, keep the US from crashing and burning within the next 4 years (provided the Dems don't win Congress).

And no, he's not a Muslim (as far as we know). He's not black (he's bi-racial). He's not a Christian (against everything Ch

Obama will castrate our military and destroy our nuclear deterrent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxL8NcNACBY

He will tax corporations and high income earners that employ the population of the US, which will force them to cut jobs and send the unemployment rate skyrocketing.
http://obama.3cdn.net/b7be3b7cd08e587dca_v852mv8ja.pdf

He sees dead people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=galtZF0nKYc

He wants to take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, leaving us at the mercy of criminals.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/barack_obama_gun_control.htm

He'll cut and run from Iraq, knocking the legs out from under the Iraqi government as they are finally finding their footing.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

He believes homosexuals are entitled to more rights than straight people.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.transcript/index.html

He believes in mob rule concerning criminal punishment.
The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 58

He refuses to call terrorists "terrorists" even when presented with evidence.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15251928

He will prevent us from keeping sensitive materials confidential, which will place national security at risk.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14356/

He would talk with terrorist countries without demanding that they cease their efforts to murder innocent people and abide by the rule of law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Oj7Jn9rv4

He believes we should reward people who ignore the existence of a country's sovereignty and illegally enter the country instead of forcing them to abide by the law.
http://obama.senate.gov/news/060923-sen_obama_at_to/index.php

He believes the government should regulate the internet.
http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060608-network_neutral/index.php

He believes in making those who have money pay for the healthcare of those who do not have money.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

He believes we should take corn, a staple food for the US, and use it for ethanol production, which will cause shortages in food supply and produce car exhaust that is more dangerous to humans than gasoline burning cars.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/05/new_us_congress_looks_to_boost_alternate_fuels/?p1=MEWell_Pos5

He believes that parents should have no choice but to send their children to government run schools to be indoctrinated by sub-standard teachers.
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/04/041027.obama-ct.html

In short, he's an anti-American, anti-military Marxist who will destroy the US before he can be voted out of office. I don't like McCain and I have problems with many of his positions, but he will, at the very least, keep the US from crashing and burning within the next 4 years (provided the Dems don't win Congress).

And no, he's not a Muslim (as far as we know). He's not black (he's bi-racial). He's not a Christian (against everything Ch

Obama will castrate our military and destroy our nuclear deterrent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxL8NcNACBY

He will tax corporations and high income earners that employ the population of the US, which will force them to cut jobs and send the unemployment rate skyrocketing.
http://obama.3cdn.net/b7be3b7cd08e587dca_v852mv8ja.pdf

He sees dead people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=galtZF0nKYc

He wants to take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, leaving us at the mercy of criminals.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/barack_obama_gun_control.htm

He'll cut and run from Iraq, knocking the legs out from under the Iraqi government as they are finally finding their footing.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

He believes homosexuals are entitled to more rights than straight people.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.transcript/index.html

He believes in mob rule concerning criminal punishment.
The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 58

He refuses to call terrorists "terrorists" even when presented with evidence.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15251928

He will prevent us from keeping sensitive materials confidential, which will place national security at risk.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14356/

He would talk with terrorist countries without demanding that they cease their efforts to murder innocent people and abide by the rule of law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Oj7Jn9rv4

He believes we should reward people who ignore the existence of a country's sovereignty and illegally enter the country instead of forcing them to abide by the law.
http://obama.senate.gov/news/060923-sen_obama_at_to/index.php

He believes the government should regulate the internet.
http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060608-network_neutral/index.php

He believes in making those who have money pay for the healthcare of those who do not have money.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

He believes we should take corn, a staple food for the US, and use it for ethanol production, which will cause shortages in food supply and produce car exhaust that is more dangerous to humans than gasoline burning cars.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/05/new_us_congress_looks_to_boost_alternate_fuels/?p1=MEWell_Pos5

He believes that parents should have no choice but to send their children to government run schools to be indoctrinated by sub-standard teachers.
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/04/041027.obama-ct.html

In short, he's an anti-American, anti-military Marxist who will destroy the US before he can be voted out of office. I don't like McCain and I have problems with many of his positions, but he will, at the very least, keep the US from crashing and burning within the next 4 years (provided the Dems don't win Congress).

And no, he's not a Muslim (as far as we know). He's not black (he's bi-racial). He's not a Christian (against everything Ch

I wonder if the very profession of Economist presumes a liberal bias.

I think that everyone in academia has a lot of pressure on them to be liberal. Even if you scientifically believe in economics that is opposed by liberal parties, you still may feel the need to identify with that party since everyone else on campus does. (It is like being the only member of a minority religion in a town where everyone else is the majority religion. If you don't convert, everyone starts telling you that you are going to hell).

For example, most universities are proud of their Nobel Prize winners, but the at the University of Chicago, naming an institute for one of the world's greatest economists ever, Milton Friedman, was mired in controversy. The non-economist faculty were saying:

Many colleagues are distressed by the notoriety of the Chicago School of Economics, especially throughout much of the global south, where they have often to defend the University's reputation in the face of its negative image. The effects of the neoliberal global order that has been put in place in recent decades, strongly buttressed by the Chicago School of Economics, have by no means been unequivocally positive.

Translation: You economists are making us look bad to our neo-Marxist buddies!

"if it says nothing about something the feds don't have the power, it limits the feds"

This is a popular myth. There is nothing to this effect in the constitution or in the ratifications.

"The framers of the U.S. Constitution advocated that the power of government would be limited.?" "As so eloquently explained by Alexander Hamilton and John Madison, the "practical security" of imposing limited power in each department may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government."
In a letter to Thomas Jefferson James Madison, the principal writer of the Constitution, wrote this:
"The second object, the due partition of power, between the General & local Governments, was perhaps of all, the most nice and difficult. A few contended for an entire abolition of the States; some for indefinite power of Legislation in the Congress, with a negative on the laws of the States: some for such a power without a negative: some for a limited power of legislation, with such a negative: the majority finally for a limited power without the negative. The question with regard to the Negative underwent repeated discussions, and was finally rejected by a bare majority. As I formerly intimated to you my opinion in favor of this ingredient, I will take this occasion of explaining myself on the subject. Such a check on the States appears to me necessary 1. to prevent encroachments on the General authority. 2. to prevent instability and injustice in the legislation of the States."

Perhaps you need to go back to school to learn what the USA's Founding Fathers thought about government.

Falcon

I'm not discussing what plant is better at making oxygen.

I'm discussing where most of our current oxygen comes from. Phytoplankton may or may not be less efficient than other plants at producing Oxygen. That fact is irrelevant, since the sheer volume of phytoplankton provides MORE than half (my bad, not "about half" like I said earlier) of the Oxygen that is produced on Earth.

References?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton
Nasa's take on the stuff
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Phytoplankton/
This one claims two-thirds of the photosynthesis on the planet occurs within them
http://seagrant.gso.uri.edu/factsheets/phytoplankton.html

As a side note...
What started as a desire to create an Algae that would be the perfect fish tank decoration (one that fish would not eat, one that would flourish in a wide variety of waters and conditions, one that would proliferate easily) has turned into one of the world's greatest threats. One that could extinguish us.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/519228.html
In a nutshell, we made the stuff in Germany, it was studied at the Jacque Cousteau Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, and it got out... as it was first discovered in the Mediterranean under this very building. It is extraordinarily hard to kill, and it drives off all other sea life in any area where it grows. It drive off and suffocates other sea plant life, which drives off the little fish that eat that stuff, which drives off the larger fish that eat the small fish.
Go ahead. Search for Killer Algae. See what it has taken to eradicate the outbreak in a lagoon in Australia... and the outbreak in Southern California (I hear it is threatening the Florida coast in some spots). If we destroy the ocean's ecology, we are soon to follow. And apparently our desire for the perfect fish tank may be our downfall.

Also, it is possible to desalinate salt water, making it into fresh water. So sorry, I'm not with you that protecting our fresh water is more important. We've got to get on the ball and protect that which sustains our oxygen production, and ocean life. Else we die with lots of fresh water.

This is just yet another example of how the current copyright regime is prima facia unconstitutional.

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries

Copyright is not a property right; copyright is an agreement between the public and authors & inventors creating a privilege of limited exclusive right as incentive for dissemination of ideas because otherwise authors & inventors have only the choice of keeping their inventions secret or sharing them that the recipient does what he or she will with the information without limitation, which is the natural right of the recipient.

Any mechanism of securing exclusive right to the author or inventor must meet two tests to be constitutional:

• the term of the exclusive right must be limited (that is it is not a property right),
• the mechanism must demonstrably promote the progress of science and the useful arts.

An attempt was made to test the absurdly long exclusive term against the "limited" requirement and that failed because any finite term is by definition limited.

The test that must now be made is against the requirement that copyright laws "promote the progress of science and the useful arts." The burden of proof should be on demonstrating that the laws do promote the progress of science and the useful arts because copyright is a limitation on the rights of the public and therefore intrinsically a burden on society. In granting copyright society temporarily yields their natural right to a privilege offered authors & inventors, a privilege that may be revoked at any time.

Current copyright laws do not pass the test of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts; they are a burden on innovation and have systematically retarded the progress of science and technology, strangling many significant innovations, once again with internet radio. Current copyright laws are therefore unconstitutional.

... missing matter? Per reviewed: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/588582 Fulltext: http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.4164

Dear Mr. Znork,

Your post is nearly unique in being short, to the point, totally on target, free of extraneous noise.

I wanted to contact you individually, but didn't see how to do it through your slashdot ID, hence this posted reply.

It appears to me (and to a number of other people who have a bit of reputation in security, which I don't), that self-signed records should be the starting point for "identity" on the network.

"For most purposes it's sufficient to know I'm talking to the same guy I was last time."

You have expressed probably the most important observation in the whole area. Furthermore, without the ability to know that all messages in a conversation come from the same agent, you can't accomplish anything else. And self signature is much easier than chain o' trust. Ergo, identity on the network should be founded on a system of self-signed records, with add-on services as they prove worth the trouble. (Roughly as delivery is founded on best-effort IP, with TCP, ..., HTTP as add-ons.)

I was working on this point some years ago, when I got permanently sick. I am unable to finish a publication without a co-author. On the outside chance that you want to do it, please write.

I think that the essential service is a free (OK, maybe just very cheap, but I bet it turns out free) server for self-signed associations of public keys with addresses (presumably, mostly IP numbers). The sponsor of the server should verify nothing about those who post records, and should ostentatiously deny all responsibility for their identities.

Almost all of the functionality is already provided by DNS implementations, where the domain names contain hashes of public keys. Google could provide the service next week (yes, I've contacted my buddies at Google, but they haven't bit on the hook).

To preview my ideas, you can check out

1. Pages 187-215 in the lecture slides with notes for a course that I cooked up a few years ago:

http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/Teacher/Courses/Strategic_Internet/Slides/

(That's at the end, up to but not including the last two pages in case your viewer numbers differently from mine.)

2. a horribly messed up page in progress:

http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/Citizen/Network_Identifiers/

3. A published article: "A Proposal to Separate Handles from Names on the Internet." Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 48(12):78-83, December 2005. Slightly longer version:

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cs.NI/0302017

4. An Internet Draft:

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cs.NI/0301011

2-4 describe the application of the same service to provide non-mnemonic free domain names/handles that won't be fought over in court and stolen. During the long wait for the article to appear in CACM, I realized that I should think of it first as Public-Key Infrastructure, with the handle function as a side benefit.

Cheerio,

Mike O'Donnell
michael_odonnell at acm.org

Dear Mr. Znork,

Your post is nearly unique in being short, to the point, totally on target, free of extraneous noise.

I wanted to contact you individually, but didn't see how to do it through your slashdot ID, hence this posted reply.

It appears to me (and to a number of other people who have a bit of reputation in security, which I don't), that self-signed records should be the starting point for "identity" on the network.

"For most purposes it's sufficient to know I'm talking to the same guy I was last time."

You have expressed probably the most important observation in the whole area. Furthermore, without the ability to know that all messages in a conversation come from the same agent, you can't accomplish anything else. And self signature is much easier than chain o' trust. Ergo, identity on the network should be founded on a system of self-signed records, with add-on services as they prove worth the trouble. (Roughly as delivery is founded on best-effort IP, with TCP, ..., HTTP as add-ons.)

I was working on this point some years ago, when I got permanently sick. I am unable to finish a publication without a co-author. On the outside chance that you want to do it, please write.

I think that the essential service is a free (OK, maybe just very cheap, but I bet it turns out free) server for self-signed associations of public keys with addresses (presumably, mostly IP numbers). The sponsor of the server should verify nothing about those who post records, and should ostentatiously deny all responsibility for their identities.

Almost all of the functionality is already provided by DNS implementations, where the domain names contain hashes of public keys. Google could provide the service next week (yes, I've contacted my buddies at Google, but they haven't bit on the hook).

To preview my ideas, you can check out

1. Pages 187-215 in the lecture slides with notes for a course that I cooked up a few years ago:

http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/Teacher/Courses/Strategic_Internet/Slides/

(That's at the end, up to but not including the last two pages in case your viewer numbers differently from mine.)

2. a horribly messed up page in progress:

http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/Citizen/Network_Identifiers/

3. A published article: "A Proposal to Separate Handles from Names on the Internet." Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 48(12):78-83, December 2005. Slightly longer version:

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cs.NI/0302017

4. An Internet Draft:

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cs.NI/0301011

2-4 describe the application of the same service to provide non-mnemonic free domain names/handles that won't be fought over in court and stolen. During the long wait for the article to appear in CACM, I realized that I should think of it first as Public-Key Infrastructure, with the handle function as a side benefit.

Cheerio,

Mike O'Donnell
michael_odonnell at acm.org

Wyethâ(TM)s massive reserve for Fen-Phen litigation is $21 billion,[6] and Merckâ(TM)s exposure to Vioxx lawsuits may total as much as $50 billion.[7] Such figures are astronomical in comparison with these companiesâ(TM) individual budgets, representing nine to twelve times each companyâ(TM)s annual research and development costs.[8] In fact, since each drug was only widely used for about four years, the approximate annualized liability cost of these two drugs comes to almost $18 billionâ"equivalent to 10 percent of the annual revenues for the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.[9] Massive numbers. Just massive.

According to the study, which can be found at http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/About/publications/working-papers/pdf/wp_08_12.pdf they used a regression analysis to determine their outcome. This isn't exactly the most powerful form of empirical evidence. In fact, it's smack-dab in the middle of the levels of evidence based practice you can have: "Outcomes" Research or ecological studies. So we're already starting off with a pretty mediocre argument. In addition, the research paper does not identify its limitations and this is an incredibly important part of any and all research; even top-notch randomized controlled trials identify the limitations of their research.

Then there is the argument that laptops are bad for a student's behavioral and academic outcomes. I'd have to strongly disagree. Technology, especially the use of computers, is an incredibly powerful tool for empowering individuals with learning, reading, and writing disabilities. As an occupational therapist who works in public schools and schools for individuals with significant developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy, and severe autism, the use of computers not only motivates many groups of students it does a great job generalizing knowledge learned in the classroom. In some cases, for example, a child with tetraplegic cerebral palsy or blindness, technology like computers with adaptive devices becomes necessary for many daily activities.

I also have a personal argument for the laptops; the quality of my public education, at least for me, was shoddy at best. Teachers at my schools were horrible at what they did; I'd say about 5% of my graduating class from high school were even taught calculus and approximately 75% of all students could barely do algebra I. It's true that a kid probably won't learn much playing Pac-Man or Space Invaders, but imagine what the kid learns when they play King's Quest (and other adventure games with the verbal command prompt), Number Munchers, RPGs that use advanced vocabulary, Balance of Power, and other games that have educational value. I completely credit knowing all of my geography from Balance of Power and Shadow President. If kids have a chance to play games that teach useful information, then it's likely that their academic and behavioral outcomes will improve.

And for the dictatorship stuff, I think that if any person or kid develops any skill using a computer they will find a way of getting around it. That's what happens anyway no matter how many restrictions are put on a computer.

Oh yeah, thats right. That was one of Fox News' lame-ass "top 10 lies told by Osama^H^H^H^Hbama". It would be a lame attempt even if it were technically correct, as you suggest. However, you are wrong. He technically was a profressor:

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/media/index.html

"He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track."

The recent report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel is mandatory reading for anyone concerned about math education in the US. The report details exactly how things are going wrong. Our school district (where I have kids in grades 5, 7, and 9) uses a program called "Everyday Math", which is atrocious. (The University of Chicago should be embarrassed.) The emphasis is on breadth rather than depth, and there is a "spiral" so you learn a little bit every year about a lot of different topics. Students frequently have to write little essays explaining how they got the answer. (The linked report explains that spiralling is poor pedagogy, and that good math students can't always write an explanatory essay -- they just know what to do.) The high achieving families all have their kids tutored at the local Kumon center so they can learn their multiplication tables. The low income families just suffer the consequences of inferior education. The school board and district administrators are clueless, having just agreed to try out 3 different math programs in 3 different middle schools. How on earth will they evaluate the results?

In our district, the nonsense stops in high school (which is administratively separate), and and I actually think my ninth-grade daughter is learning more math than I did at the same age. But you have to survive elementary and middle school math to get to the high quality teaching. It's such a waste.

Yerkes Observatory (in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, home of the world's largest refracting telescope) recently sold of a portion of its grounds to developers to be able to keep funding preservation of the observatory. Actually the Observatory itself was sold to developers, in agreement that they would donate it to the village of Williams Bay.

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/06/060607.yerkes.shtml

While I've heard Blechley Park is a pretty awesome tour, I've always been underwhelmed by tours at Yerkes...maybe the money can help their outreach program improve.

He didn't chase anyone. He found out where they ran their illegal businesses by getting the community to work together, then stood outside their building intimidating their customers by his silent, watchful presence until they all moved away.

Chase: To follow as if to catch; to pursue; to compel to move on; to drive by following; to cause to fly. He did, indeed, chase them, chased them right on out of the neighborhood.

Assault: "in other jurisdictions, such as the United States, assault refers only to the threat of violence caused by an immediate show of force." I don't know what the law is where you live, but around here if I stood outside your door brandishing a weapon, that's assault.

Now families with small children live there, and old people are no longer afraid to walk the streets.

And why were old people were afraid to walk the streets? Merely because there were people selling sex and drugs? That's not harming anyone; if someone offers to sell you a blow job or a nickel bag that you don't want, you just say, no thank you. No big deal.

If, on the other hand, there were violent people there profiting from the black market trade, then your bat-wielding hero has 1) only made them move somewhere else, where they're a threat to different people, and 2) made the problem worse by driving the black market further underground and further into the hands of violent criminals, making them more of a threat.

The way to get rid of these violent people is to accept the black market, to bring it out into the light. Not to threaten people because you disagree with their personal choices.

If you visit the webpages of the various research departments related to visualisation and parallel processing, then you can find many research papers related to this and other topics:

A study of parallel techniques for visualisation.

A parallel visualization pipeline for Terascale earthquake simulation

Scientific Discovery through Advanced Visualization

A case study in Supernovae Simulation Data

It's just amazing to find out how much is going on inside a star - not just the fusion of Hydrogen and Helium atoms, but intense magnetic fields that drive rivers of liquid Hydrogen and Helium through rising and falling convection cells, which in turn create new magnetic fields.

the amount of energy(and CO2 and CH4 emissions) it takes to get a burger to your plate is astounding. Cows are very inefficient if you consider the energy put into them compared to the amount of energy that can be derived from eating them. Not to mention you have to truck the feed to them and then you have to truck the meat to where it is consumed, very few cows in the city. All this adds up to a lot of fuel and a lot of emissions, not to mention the cows themselves often emit methane which is considered to be worse per unit volume then CO2. If they could raise the meat in vitro, maybe the process could be much more efficient and thus emit much less CO2 gasses.

For anyone interested in the subject, the University of Chicago did a pretty good writeup. Seems chicken is probably the best meat for the environment.

What do they care as long as they get their check in the mail?

FWIW, here is a link to an article from the university's website.

In his book http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/1932594019.html he poses (in the last chapters) some very thought provoking ideas concerning free will/consiousness. Haven't yet read anything that feels more adequate....

What part of FABLE do you think doesn't mean fiction?

Who says it's a fable, you and a few others? The link you provided doesn't even prove it's a fable. It says parts are true but then to dispute cats being dropped says "but I'm not so sure about the cats eating the geckoes". I have been a cat carer for more than 35 years and I've had cats I took care of bring me all sorts of animals dead and alive including snakes and lizards, and geckos are a species of lizard.

There is far more evidence pointing to leaded gas being the culprit for thin eggs.

This is the very first tyme I heard, or read, leaded gas was the culprit for thin eggs. Googling "thin eggs" "leaded gas" does not return one link. So I Googled "thin egg shells" "leaded gas" and come up with 2 results, one being a newspaper. The other one, from the University of Chicago, does not dispute DDT as the cause of thin eggs and about leaded gas only says Prevention > cure (where there is good information). E.g., ban (substitute for) DDT, leaded gas.[.doc] Do you have any links, scientific, saying leaded gas has anything to do with thin egg shells?

Don't you find it odd that all the other countries that still use DDT haven't seen egg thinning?

Not if leaded gas is not responsible for thin egg shell I don't find it odd I didn't find info, however if leaded gas is responsible I find it very odd I didn't find anything. As for other countries not having any data, it's not surprising, many nations are more concerned about clothing, feeding, and housing their citizens. Many people only live on a subsidence level, they can't afford to pay for scientific research.

I think it's more that when he says he isn't interested in free will vs determinism in the traditional philosophical arena, he means it.

It's just not a material question.

Our macroscopic physical actions are as consistent with a belief in free will as (for example) a purely emergent system in which macroscopic responses are sums of permitted microscopic states. The latter is an area under active study (molecular and systems neuroscience meets QM) that is interesting, as it informs analyses of larger scale behaviours, but does not alter those large scale observations.

Attempting to marry traditional philosophy to fundamental neuroscience might be fun for some, but it doesn't seem very productive, and is along the lines of hobby unifications of GR and QM in the limit of low energies and large objects. If something comes of it, sure, great, but until then it's just not interesting.

Meanwhile there is much more fun to be in insisting on experiment and rigour at the foundational levels of existing theories of all types, particularly those which (for example) seem inconsistent with the equal a priori postulate from stat mech or claim divergences in their liklihood functions.

I think it's more fun to be in the trenches using these tools to understand complex systems amenable to rigorous experiment or strong predictions which are readily invalidated by observation. However, politics and religion occasionally interfere with that fun for silly, ill-thought-out reasons, so I'm glad Dawkins enjoys arguments in that arena.

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.