1 billion seconds ago it was 1972. 1 billion minutes ago it was 102 AD 1 billion hours ago (about 100,000 BC) the first Homo Sapiens appeared. 1 billion days ago, life was just beginning to learn how to photosynthesize in the oceans.
> Now, removing Saddam from power allows a more humane govt. to be put in place in Iraq
Right now the de facto government of Iraq is shooting its citizens in the streets, to say nothing of arresting "suspects" and the kinfolk of "suspects" en masse.
> So, by ignoring Iraq, we are doing the same thing as cutting the budget on domestic social programs, which you argued against.
Where is the social program for the 50% of the Iraqi population that has been out of work since the war started, while Haliburton rakes in cash by the billion?
> A country that can't pay its bills; has millions of people without access to healthcare and has a substantal amount of money allocated to Defense spending is now going to spend a fortune on manned spaceflight.
> It's an election year. Wait until December before you start the count down.
In December he'll be back to Congress for another $100,000,000,000 for Iraq. (Given the political hazard of these requests, you can bet your dongle that they calculated the last request to last exactly until the day after the election.)
I think the goal is to bankrupt the federal government to make it easier to "drown in a bathtub", or at least to justify "sorry, but we can't afford social programs anymore".
> Conservative is not nessesarily limiting government spending, at least not to me.
Yes, that was a political myth generated by Republicans during the Clinton era. Now that roles are reversed, the Democrats are trying to create a new myth that says they are the ones who don't like reckless spending.
The real difference between the Republicans and Democrats when it comes to spending is which segment of society gets the handouts.
> Considering the data on which the global warming theory is based is statistically dubious at best, i'll treat this report as something less than gospel...
Lots of species are already having problems because the earlier springs are putting the birth times of predators out of sync with the birth times of their prey, leaving too little food to sustain historical population sizes.
> We barely have a catalog of the various plant and animal species present on this planet, yet we can estimate that 15-37% will be extinct because they won't be able to relocate within a few decades?
Yes, it's called projecting from a sample. Click the link when you have time.
> some credit has to be given to the shear will of life to continue living. It's worked for millenia, it's not gonna stop wholesale just yet unless it was going to stop without our interference.
So if we find that life once existed on Mars, what will you say about the sheer will of life to continue living? Did the dinosaurs die because they lacked the will?
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> Street lights are what, 15-20 feet tall? (5-6 meters for our European friends
Ha! I see where people have left their tennis shoes up there all the time.
> Now, removing Saddam from power allows a more humane govt. to be put in place in Iraq
Right now the de facto government of Iraq is shooting its citizens in the streets, to say nothing of arresting "suspects" and the kinfolk of "suspects" en masse.
> So, by ignoring Iraq, we are doing the same thing as cutting the budget on domestic social programs, which you argued against.
Where is the social program for the 50% of the Iraqi population that has been out of work since the war started, while Haliburton rakes in cash by the billion?
> Some countries would kill for a 50 billion or even just a one billion dollar national budget
Whereas other countries would kill for control of the world's oil supply...
> A country that can't pay its bills; has millions of people without access to healthcare and has a substantal amount of money allocated to Defense spending is now going to spend a fortune on manned spaceflight.
Brings back fond memories of the 60s, don't it.
> It's an election year. Wait until December before you start the count down.
In December he'll be back to Congress for another $100,000,000,000 for Iraq. (Given the political hazard of these requests, you can bet your dongle that they calculated the last request to last exactly until the day after the election.)
> Has anyone tried to *say* CEV? [...] How are we supposed to pronounce it?
"Haliburton's other sugar teat"
> Who is going to pay for all of this?
I think the goal is to bankrupt the federal government to make it easier to "drown in a bathtub", or at least to justify "sorry, but we can't afford social programs anymore".
> Of course we care. It's a great ocasion to learn how to say "sod off Darl" in foreign languages
Those who've studied Latin will find that the semster they spent on Catullus can come in handy here.
> the four major networks air an average of 52 minutes of promotional clutter along with their programming from 8-11 PM
Notice that that's an average. The worst I've measured was a Simpsons rerun, that clocked out at 11 minutes of commercials for its 30 minute slot.
> Can't SCO get into trouble for lying about 6 million lines of code when the code fits into 6 pages?
And another Chinese guy had a cheese-slicing hat.
> Pretty cool picture though; It'll look real nice alongside the Unix Family Tree on the wall.
Per the photo gallery at the bottom, Linus needs to grow a beard.
> > Looking at the map, you'll see that the sun is actually not that much farther from the Earth than Mars
> It looks that way, but in fact the y-scale is logarithmic.
So when we visit, can we get there quicker by taking the logarithmic route?
> some of us already knew about using the nasal passage to get 'small particles' across the blood-brain barrier . .
Yeah, but you're gonna remember this story next time you smell a phard.
In the 60s, musicians used weed to compose their music.
> last i heard, a truck full of backup tapes was still faster than the internet.
How 'bout a wheelbarrow full of the new 1" 4GB drives?
We could have races, to see which geek was capable of the most bandwidth!
...the robots with the flamethrowers always make it though the maze faster.
But 'no', they said. 'Flamethrowers weigh too much', they said. That's what happens when you replace all the visionaries with bean counters.
> Conservative is not nessesarily limiting government spending, at least not to me.
Yes, that was a political myth generated by Republicans during the Clinton era. Now that roles are reversed, the Democrats are trying to create a new myth that says they are the ones who don't like reckless spending.
The real difference between the Republicans and Democrats when it comes to spending is which segment of society gets the handouts.
> I suppose Bush may be looking for a 'legacy' here.
An entry in the Book of World Records for "biggest deficit"?
> Considering the data on which the global warming theory is based is statistically dubious at best, i'll treat this report as something less than gospel...
Lots of species are already having problems because the earlier springs are putting the birth times of predators out of sync with the birth times of their prey, leaving too little food to sustain historical population sizes.
See the most recent Scientific American, if you dare.
> To me this just seems like another one of those outcries in order to get more funding.
Thank god there's no economic incentive for denying the science.
> Many recent studies have shown that humans may not be a significant cause of global warming.
> If this isn't our fault do we have the right or the responsibility to alter the course of nature?
No, we should roll over and die and let the cockroaches inherit the earth.
> we'll all be dead from nuclear war long before these plants and animals become extinct, so we won't even notice.
Bartertown will still need pigs since, as they say, "Methane cometh from pigshit."
> We barely have a catalog of the various plant and animal species present on this planet, yet we can estimate that 15-37% will be extinct because they won't be able to relocate within a few decades?
Yes, it's called projecting from a sample. Click the link when you have time.
> some credit has to be given to the shear will of life to continue living. It's worked for millenia, it's not gonna stop wholesale just yet unless it was going to stop without our interference.
So if we find that life once existed on Mars, what will you say about the sheer will of life to continue living? Did the dinosaurs die because they lacked the will?
There are limits to what willpower can achieve.