Jean Charles de Menezes, 22nd July 2005, Stockwell Tube station, London, United Kingdom. de Menezes was shot eight times while on the floor being restrained by several police officers.
Hm... are you suggesting that the Russian police believed that the journalist was wearing a suicide bomb vest before they handcuffed him and loaded him into their car?
In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:
"I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."
She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state's required curriculum.
Members of the state school board, which sets minimum requirements, are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature.
"I won't have religion as a litmus test, or anybody's personal opinion on evolution or creationism," Palin said.
Palin has occasionally discussed her lifelong Christian faith during the governor's race but said teaching creationism is nothing she has campaigned about or even given much thought to.
[Ivan and Vasily take Yevloyev with them in their car and Vasily's gun goes off and blows Yevloyev's head off] Vasily: Whoa! Ivan: What the fuck's happening, man? Ah, shit man! Vasily: Oh man, I shot Yevloyev in the face. Ivan: Why the fuck did you do that! Vasily: Well, I didn't mean to do it, it was an accident! Ivan: Oh man I've seen some crazy ass shit in my time... Vasily: Chill out, man. I told you it was an accident. You probably went over a bump or something. Ivan: Hey, the car didn't hit no motherfucking bump. Vasily: Hey, look man, I didn't mean to shoot the son of a bitch. The gun went off. I don't know why. Ivan: Well look at this fucking mess, man. We're on a city street in broad daylight here! Vasily: I don't believe it. Ivan: Well believe it now, motherfucker! We gotta get this car off the road! You know foreign journalists tend to notice shit like you're driving a car drenched in fucking blood. Vasily: Just take it to a friendly place, that's all. Ivan: This is Ingushetiya, Vasily. Vladimir ain't got no friendly places in Ingushetiya. Vasily: Well Ivan this ain't my fucking town, man! Ivan: Shit! [Ivan dials a number on his cell phone] Vasily: What you doin'? Ivan: I'm calling my partner in Narzan. Vasily: Where's Narzan? Ivan: It's just over the hill here. If Alexei's ass ain't home, I don't know what the fuck we're going to do, man. 'Cause I ain't got no other partners in 8-1-8. Hey Alexei, yo, how you doin', man? It's Ivan. Listen up man. Me and my homeboy are in serious fucking shit. We're in a car and we gotta get off the road, pronto. I need to use your garage for a couple of hours. [Once they got to Alexei's house they called the Wolf, but I guess Bonnie got home a little sooner than expected]
People mention COTS - COTS is great, or will be great, when the COTS members prove they can do it. SpaceX is 0 for 3. I am confident they will hit space, but until they can prove reliability we can't just rely on them as the primary source.
I think the difference is that with SpaceX, the fixes have been quite simple, and there aren't any fundamental problems with their design. With Ares I, on the other hand, it's uncertain if the design problems can be solved in a way that doesn't end up severely reducing launch payload. Also, the total cost of all SpaceX's launches so far is still less than the launch cost of a single EELV, let alone a space shuttle.
I'm happy to leave the commercial groups to their own means, even if it takes a little longer, to keep government out of it to the extent possible.
From what I've observed though, COTS has been quite good about achieving a proper balance, offering financial incentives for reaching developmental milestones and end-goals, while making sure that the engineers at the companies (rather than government bureaucrats and politicians) are making the decisions about how best to develop their systems.
It makes more sense to continue research into efficient launch systems until prices for manned spacecrafts become more reasonable and safer. Unless there is some magic experiment I'm not aware of that would fix all of humanity's ills and can't wait 20 years?
Despite the way the discussion is usually framed around here (e.g. "Space" being a sub-category of "Science"), there are some things more important than science for humanity to do in space.
The shuttle accomplished a great deal. The problem is that most of those things could have been accomplished for less money.
Or rather, could be accomplished with less money using the knowledge we gained from the shuttle. I really think the best way to have done things would have been to treat the shuttle as a prototype, almost like an X-plane, and then after testing it for a few years used the lessons learned to design a better vehicle. Iterative development is a wonderful thing.
Who precisely do you think actually builds, services and maintains these craft? Thats right, the OEMs and not NASA. The Shuttle was built by Rockwell, now maintained by Boeing. Orion will be built by private sector companies (Lockheed as prime contractor, with a whole bunch of others as subcontractors), Ares will be built by private sector companies (Alliant and Boeing as prime contractors) - so what do you propose to do differently?
A couple things:
* don't use cost-plus contracts, which reward waste
* Instead of specifying a single design and essentially giving one company a monopoly over manned spaceflight, do things like the rest of the transportation market and commercial satellite launches -- just purchase individual rides or payload deliveries. SpaceX , Orbital, and Lockheed Martin are all currently working on orbital manned spaceflight systems. As it is now, it looks like they're going to have to end up competing against NASA's Ares I. Instead of competing against them, NASA should ditch Ares I and just offer transportation contracts to give these companies the financial incentive to speed development of their vehicles.
NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program is a huge step in the right direction -- it's only getting a fraction of the budget (total is less than a single shuttle flight) that Ares I is getting, but is already showing much more progress and promise.
She spent 2003-2004 as a political appointee on Alaska's Oil & Gas Commision before resigning due to corruption
I think you're being rather disingenuous here... she didn't resign because she was corrupt, but because others were corrupt. She did manage to take some of them down, though. From wikipedia:
Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission,[15] where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest.[16][6] After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican Party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners, who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail.[17] Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.
I haven't, as of this posting, heard a single word out of Obama or any of his direct campaign advisors on McCain's VP pick. So I don't know how you can (yet) claim a flip flop is involved. Random yokels, be they on the Internet or on a 24 news network, do not speak for the campaign.
Actually, just in the space of a half hour there was somewhat of a "flip flop."
Around 9:30am a campaign spokesman issued the following official statement: "Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin share's John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same."
Around 10am Obama and Biden came out with the following statement "We send our congratulations to Governor Palin and her family on her designation as the Republican nominee for vice president. Her selection is yet another encouraging sign that all barriers are falling in our politics and while we obviously have differences over how to best lead this country forward Governor Palin is an admirable person and will add a compelling new voice to this campaign."
The two statements don't necessarily contradict each other, but you have to admit they certainly have very different tones.
I've been following Gov. Palin for more than half a year now, long before she was on the mainstream political radar. I figured that she was a stretch candidate with little chance of actually getting picked, and was quite surprised to wake up to today's news. Of course, I suspect I still might not be voting for her ticket and I disagree with her on a number of issues, but she was definitely my favorite of the potential GOP picks. She has a Cha stat rivaling Obama's, and is IMHO quite a better speaker than McCain.
Even before her pick as VP, I'd estimated that there was a good chance that the 2012 Presidential contest would be Hillary Clinton vs. Sarah Palin, which would undoubtedly result in a record number of spontaneous cranial detonations amongst the talking heads. I am worried that although she's a political rising star her pick this year might be premature, but I guess we'll see. I'm also pretty amused at the people citing her inexperience, considering that she has more experience with running a government than McCain, Obama, Biden, and Barr combined. I sympathize somewhat with those who wish that she were on the top of the GOP ticket instead of McCain.
Most pundits seem to be focused on Palin's being a woman, but I see her as a way for McCain to reach out to the libertarian crowd. One commentator described her as the "libertarian VP candidate," or at least the closest thing to a libertarian that we're likely to see on a major-party ticket: http://blogs.denverpost.com/opinion/2008/08/29/the-libertarian-vp-canidate/
Her being pro-life impacts that somewhat, but then again, so was Ron Paul. Palin's libertarian tendencies should help somewhat with voters who are worried about McCain's occasional populist streaks. Also, assuming that nothing comes out of the TrooperGate mini-scandal (which, since she survived the vetting process, I'm assuming nothing will), McCain and Palin should be able to use their histories to milk the anti-pork, anti-corruption angle quite a bit.
You've got it the wrong way around. It's McCain's camp (and the Rs in general) that have been attacking Obama's lack of experience. With Palin, they're going to need to tone it down in order avoid pot/kettle issues.
Of course, the funny thing is that she has more experience with running a government than McCain, Obama, Biden, and Bob Barr combined.
I had one of those and it was wonderful. It was really cool to have more-or-less the fastest computer that any of us had ever seen back in high school, to impress all of my other nerd friends. I was even able to overclock it to 504mhz for a bit, but it was a little unstable.
Um... not quite. This is a common misconception, and there are many who wish they were the same, but government and society are two very different things.
Why yes, if I'm being electrocuted, I 'm pretty sure it will delay the ability to think coherently, let alone lie.
Sheesh, why don't they just call it electrocution and call it a day here? I'm sure it was just accidental that they only tested the lie part.
Actually, in many tDCS experiments a subject can't even tell that the device is turned on. It uses currents which are quite low, typically 1-2 milliamps. For comparison, electroshock therapy typically uses 800 milliamps.
I'm going to say some modified contacts to help soldiers kill people more efficiently. 'Cats eye' contact lenses to increase night vision (without those clumsy goggles and sensitivity to bright light...). IR contacts? That would be sweet.
Lenses similar to what you describe actually already exist:
Light-filtering tints are a more recent development. These contact lenses are designed for sports use, because they enhance certain colors (such as optic yellow, the color of tennis balls and some softballs and golf balls), as a result of muting other colors. The result is that the ball stands out against the background and is easier to target. The lenses can also be used by spectators.
One type of light-filtering contact lens has been developed especially for golfers, so they can better distinguish between the various greens on a golf course. Amber-tinted ones have been worn by some professional baseball players, to help filter out the blue light that reduces their ability to see the baseball clearly. Other color contacts are being developed for trap-shooters, skiers and other sports enthusiasts.
It would seem to me, not that I understand this being a layman, but, it would seem, that the effect of the year of burning oil fires in Kuwait after Sadaam's people torched them at the end of Gulf 1 would have been the single greatest contributor to global warming, carbon footprint, or whatever the term du jours is.
I'm not sure, but I would guess that the burning oil fires in Kuwait are about on par with, or less than, the continuously ongoing Chinese coal seam fires, which burn 20-200 million tons of coal each year.
Slashdot Mirror
What about the Darla the hottest vampire ever" class?
Or Fred the hot-scientist-inventor-chick class. Presumably before she turned into a deity.
Jean Charles de Menezes, 22nd July 2005, Stockwell Tube station, London, United Kingdom. de Menezes was shot eight times while on the floor being restrained by several police officers.
Hm... are you suggesting that the Russian police believed that the journalist was wearing a suicide bomb vest before they handcuffed him and loaded him into their car?
Um... the U.S. currently spends 3.7% of its GDP on its military.
Why was this marked troll? The Poster has a point. She has a long history pandering to Creationists.
I hope I don't get modded down as troll myself for this by people who disagree with me, but here goes...
Although I heartily dislike Creationism, I was reading up on her political stance on Creationism and don't feel particularly worried about it:
http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/elections/story/8347904p-8243554c.html
In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:
"I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."
She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state's required curriculum.
Members of the state school board, which sets minimum requirements, are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature.
"I won't have religion as a litmus test, or anybody's personal opinion on evolution or creationism," Palin said.
Palin has occasionally discussed her lifelong Christian faith during the governor's race but said teaching creationism is nothing she has campaigned about or even given much thought to.
Got any other alternate theories?
I think it went a little something like this...
[Ivan and Vasily take Yevloyev with them in their car and Vasily's gun goes off and blows Yevloyev's head off]
Vasily: Whoa!
Ivan: What the fuck's happening, man? Ah, shit man!
Vasily: Oh man, I shot Yevloyev in the face.
Ivan: Why the fuck did you do that!
Vasily: Well, I didn't mean to do it, it was an accident!
Ivan: Oh man I've seen some crazy ass shit in my time...
Vasily: Chill out, man. I told you it was an accident. You probably went over a bump or something.
Ivan: Hey, the car didn't hit no motherfucking bump.
Vasily: Hey, look man, I didn't mean to shoot the son of a bitch. The gun went off. I don't know why.
Ivan: Well look at this fucking mess, man. We're on a city street in broad daylight here!
Vasily: I don't believe it.
Ivan: Well believe it now, motherfucker! We gotta get this car off the road! You know foreign journalists tend to notice shit like you're driving a car drenched in fucking blood.
Vasily: Just take it to a friendly place, that's all.
Ivan: This is Ingushetiya, Vasily. Vladimir ain't got no friendly places in Ingushetiya.
Vasily: Well Ivan this ain't my fucking town, man!
Ivan: Shit!
[Ivan dials a number on his cell phone]
Vasily: What you doin'?
Ivan: I'm calling my partner in Narzan.
Vasily: Where's Narzan?
Ivan: It's just over the hill here. If Alexei's ass ain't home, I don't know what the fuck we're going to do, man. 'Cause I ain't got no other partners in 8-1-8. Hey Alexei, yo, how you doin', man? It's Ivan. Listen up man. Me and my homeboy are in serious fucking shit. We're in a car and we gotta get off the road, pronto. I need to use your garage for a couple of hours.
[Once they got to Alexei's house they called the Wolf, but I guess Bonnie got home a little sooner than expected]
People mention COTS - COTS is great, or will be great, when the COTS members prove they can do it. SpaceX is 0 for 3. I am confident they will hit space, but until they can prove reliability we can't just rely on them as the primary source.
I think the difference is that with SpaceX, the fixes have been quite simple, and there aren't any fundamental problems with their design. With Ares I, on the other hand, it's uncertain if the design problems can be solved in a way that doesn't end up severely reducing launch payload. Also, the total cost of all SpaceX's launches so far is still less than the launch cost of a single EELV, let alone a space shuttle.
How many rockets has the Ares program launched so far? Also, do you dispute Orbital and Lockheed's ability to launch craft into orbit?
I'm happy to leave the commercial groups to their own means, even if it takes a little longer, to keep government out of it to the extent possible.
From what I've observed though, COTS has been quite good about achieving a proper balance, offering financial incentives for reaching developmental milestones and end-goals, while making sure that the engineers at the companies (rather than government bureaucrats and politicians) are making the decisions about how best to develop their systems.
It makes more sense to continue research into efficient launch systems until prices for manned spacecrafts become more reasonable and safer. Unless there is some magic experiment I'm not aware of that would fix all of humanity's ills and can't wait 20 years?
Despite the way the discussion is usually framed around here (e.g. "Space" being a sub-category of "Science"), there are some things more important than science for humanity to do in space.
The shuttle accomplished a great deal. The problem is that most of those things could have been accomplished for less money.
Or rather, could be accomplished with less money using the knowledge we gained from the shuttle. I really think the best way to have done things would have been to treat the shuttle as a prototype, almost like an X-plane, and then after testing it for a few years used the lessons learned to design a better vehicle. Iterative development is a wonderful thing.
Who precisely do you think actually builds, services and maintains these craft? Thats right, the OEMs and not NASA. The Shuttle was built by Rockwell, now maintained by Boeing. Orion will be built by private sector companies (Lockheed as prime contractor, with a whole bunch of others as subcontractors), Ares will be built by private sector companies (Alliant and Boeing as prime contractors) - so what do you propose to do differently?
A couple things:
* don't use cost-plus contracts, which reward waste
* Instead of specifying a single design and essentially giving one company a monopoly over manned spaceflight, do things like the rest of the transportation market and commercial satellite launches -- just purchase individual rides or payload deliveries. SpaceX , Orbital, and Lockheed Martin are all currently working on orbital manned spaceflight systems. As it is now, it looks like they're going to have to end up competing against NASA's Ares I. Instead of competing against them, NASA should ditch Ares I and just offer transportation contracts to give these companies the financial incentive to speed development of their vehicles.
NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program is a huge step in the right direction -- it's only getting a fraction of the budget (total is less than a single shuttle flight) that Ares I is getting, but is already showing much more progress and promise.
She spent 2003-2004 as a political appointee on Alaska's Oil & Gas Commision before resigning due to corruption
I think you're being rather disingenuous here... she didn't resign because she was corrupt, but because others were corrupt. She did manage to take some of them down, though. From wikipedia:
Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission,[15] where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest.[16][6] After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican Party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners, who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail.[17] Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.
I haven't, as of this posting, heard a single word out of Obama or any of his direct campaign advisors on McCain's VP pick. So I don't know how you can (yet) claim a flip flop is involved. Random yokels, be they on the Internet or on a 24 news network, do not speak for the campaign.
Actually, just in the space of a half hour there was somewhat of a "flip flop."
Around 9:30am a campaign spokesman issued the following official statement: "Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin share's John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same."
Around 10am Obama and Biden came out with the following statement "We send our congratulations to Governor Palin and her family on her designation as the Republican nominee for vice president. Her selection is yet another encouraging sign that all barriers are falling in our politics and while we obviously have differences over how to best lead this country forward Governor Palin is an admirable person and will add a compelling new voice to this campaign."
The two statements don't necessarily contradict each other, but you have to admit they certainly have very different tones.
I've been following Gov. Palin for more than half a year now, long before she was on the mainstream political radar. I figured that she was a stretch candidate with little chance of actually getting picked, and was quite surprised to wake up to today's news. Of course, I suspect I still might not be voting for her ticket and I disagree with her on a number of issues, but she was definitely my favorite of the potential GOP picks. She has a Cha stat rivaling Obama's, and is IMHO quite a better speaker than McCain.
Even before her pick as VP, I'd estimated that there was a good chance that the 2012 Presidential contest would be Hillary Clinton vs. Sarah Palin, which would undoubtedly result in a record number of spontaneous cranial detonations amongst the talking heads. I am worried that although she's a political rising star her pick this year might be premature, but I guess we'll see. I'm also pretty amused at the people citing her inexperience, considering that she has more experience with running a government than McCain, Obama, Biden, and Barr combined. I sympathize somewhat with those who wish that she were on the top of the GOP ticket instead of McCain.
Most pundits seem to be focused on Palin's being a woman, but I see her as a way for McCain to reach out to the libertarian crowd. One commentator described her as the "libertarian VP candidate," or at least the closest thing to a libertarian that we're likely to see on a major-party ticket: http://blogs.denverpost.com/opinion/2008/08/29/the-libertarian-vp-canidate/
Her being pro-life impacts that somewhat, but then again, so was Ron Paul. Palin's libertarian tendencies should help somewhat with voters who are worried about McCain's occasional populist streaks. Also, assuming that nothing comes out of the TrooperGate mini-scandal (which, since she survived the vetting process, I'm assuming nothing will), McCain and Palin should be able to use their histories to milk the anti-pork, anti-corruption angle quite a bit.
The next few months will be very interesting.
You've got it the wrong way around. It's McCain's camp (and the Rs in general) that have been attacking Obama's lack of experience. With Palin, they're going to need to tone it down in order avoid pot/kettle issues.
Of course, the funny thing is that she has more experience with running a government than McCain, Obama, Biden, and Bob Barr combined.
I had one of those and it was wonderful. It was really cool to have more-or-less the fastest computer that any of us had ever seen back in high school, to impress all of my other nerd friends. I was even able to overclock it to 504mhz for a bit, but it was a little unstable.
Wait, are you talking about Dan Rather or Right-wing blogs?
The difference is that one set is open about its biases.
Why?
Each person elected represents a part of society so...
To go back to a company analogy, would you say that a company and its shareholders are the same thing?
The government is "us".
Um... not quite. This is a common misconception, and there are many who wish they were the same, but government and society are two very different things.
I should also add that tDCS has been experimentally shown to boost working memory, memory consolidation during sleep, and verbal fluency. Is that what you would expect from outright electrocution?
Why yes, if I'm being electrocuted, I 'm pretty sure it will delay the ability to think coherently, let alone lie.
Sheesh, why don't they just call it electrocution and call it a day here? I'm sure it was just accidental that they only tested the lie part.
Actually, in many tDCS experiments a subject can't even tell that the device is turned on. It uses currents which are quite low, typically 1-2 milliamps. For comparison, electroshock therapy typically uses 800 milliamps.
Out of curiosity, what additional diplomatic concessions do you think should have been made prior to the US and Britain invading Afghanistan?
That's all true, but when you keep shouting at the top of your lungs about those moral standards, you're a hypocrite
Believe it or not, there are worse things than hypocrisy.
I'm going to say some modified contacts to help soldiers kill people more efficiently. 'Cats eye' contact lenses to increase night vision (without those clumsy goggles and sensitivity to bright light...). IR contacts? That would be sweet.
Lenses similar to what you describe actually already exist:
http://www.allaboutvision.com/contacts/colors.htm
Light-filtering tints are a more recent development. These contact lenses are designed for sports use, because they enhance certain colors (such as optic yellow, the color of tennis balls and some softballs and golf balls), as a result of muting other colors. The result is that the ball stands out against the background and is easier to target. The lenses can also be used by spectators.
One type of light-filtering contact lens has been developed especially for golfers, so they can better distinguish between the various greens on a golf course. Amber-tinted ones have been worn by some professional baseball players, to help filter out the blue light that reduces their ability to see the baseball clearly. Other color contacts are being developed for trap-shooters, skiers and other sports enthusiasts.
It would seem to me, not that I understand this being a layman, but, it would seem, that the effect of the year of burning oil fires in Kuwait after Sadaam's people torched them at the end of Gulf 1 would have been the single greatest contributor to global warming, carbon footprint, or whatever the term du jours is.
I'm not sure, but I would guess that the burning oil fires in Kuwait are about on par with, or less than, the continuously ongoing Chinese coal seam fires, which burn 20-200 million tons of coal each year.