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Neutrino Mass Confirmed
biohack writes "BBC News reports that results from the MINOS experiment have confirmed that neutrinos have mass. To look for neutrino oscillations, scientists created muon neutrinos in a particle accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). After passing through a particle detector at Fermilab, a high intensity beam of neutrinos travelled to another particle detector 724km (450 miles) away in a disused mine in Soudan, US. The set up established that fewer particles were being detected at the Soudan site than had been sent from Fermilab, which confirmed that some neutrinos changed their flavor on the way - an effect called neutrino flavor oscillation, which requires them to have mass. 'To put it simply, if they are heavy, it means that there is a lot more mass in the Universe than we thought there was,' said Professor Jenny Thomas from University College London."
No, it isn't. From Wikipedia: "Sovereignty is the exclusive right to exercise supreme political (legislative, judicial and/or executive) authority over a geographic region, group of people or oneself." US federal government wields the ultimate power in the US, which means that the states are not sovereign. The last time some states began thinking themselves sovereign, and tried to use sovereign powers to secede from the union, they were forcibly reintegrated - I'm referring, of course, to the US Civil War.
US is a nation in which the political subunits - called "states" - are given a large amount of autonomy. That, however, doesn't make them sovereign, since the federal government still holds The Real Ultimate Power over them.
As a practical test, tell me: if one of the states would decide to convert to Soviet-style communism, or to nazism, or to hereditary aristocratic rule, would the federal government allow it ? If it wouldn't, then the state is not sovereign. And don't talk about Constitution, since not only does that only apply to the laws made by the federal government, but also, being sovereign means being able to nullify such agreements at will.
That said, in such a large country, it indeed makes sense to name the state when referring to places.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
States in the U.S. are not what are commonly referred to in the rest of the world as 'nation-states.' A nation-state is defined as an autonomous political entity which governs over a particular geographic area where its population (citizens) are unified, usually through culture, language, common origin, or heritage. In other words, a state, or nation-state, is essentially a country, or nation (as in the United 'Nations'). U.S. states are basically just provinces. We are not a loose federation of nation-states. Each state is not autonomous, as demonstrated by the Civil War and the existence of a federal government which presides over national issues and policy making.
We have 3 main levels of government:
Hence, our national elections are for all 50 states, not for each individual state. Each state doesn't have its own seat in the U.N., or its own embassadors or embassies in foregin countries. Interstate commerce is not classified as international trade, and you don't need a passport to travel from one state to another since citizenship status is the same regardless of which state you're a resident of.
U.S. states are subnational states, which is not what people mean by 'state' when they are referring to nation-states (such as in the 'State' Department). This is why most people (within the U.S. and abroad) regard states in the U.S. to be provinces of the U.S. rather than nation-states. All U.S. foreign policy is made by the federal government, and foreign affairs are genrally conducted through the Washington, so state governments can't really be considered autonomous political entities. Now, the European Union could be considered a federation of nation-states where each member is an autonomous nation, but the U.S. is not.
I think you're both a little confused here. A state outside of its usage in reference to the 50 states in the U.S. means a nation-state--an autonomous self-governing political entity. U.S. states are subnational states--essentially provinces. You can't equivocate the two. The U.S. is a nation, whereas its states are provinces. The EU is a federation of autonomous nation-states, each with their own respective provinces. Just because the EU's members are autonomous states doesn't mean that they can't benefit from mutual cooperation and form an international alliance to pursue common interests. The EU is more akin to the U.N. than to the U.S. There just seems to be a mix-up of definitions here. I don't think anyone ever proposed that the EU should be setup as a nation with its members as provinces.