So, if you're left of center, vote Hillary. If you're WAY left of center, vote Obama. If you middle of the road or right, vote McCain.
Curious. In the contemporary United States political climate, Richard Nixon would have been laughed at and dismissed as positively PINKO. Consider the following. Richard Milhous Nixon:
1. Imposed wage and price controls. 2. Indexed Social Security for inflation. 3. Created Supplemental Security Income. 4. Established the Environmental Protection Agency. 5. Established NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). 6. Established the Office of Minority Business Enterprise. 7. Promoted the Legacy Of Parks program. 8. Dramatically increased salaries for United States government employees worldwide. 9. Outraged racist whites by implementing the Philadelphia Plan, the first significant federal affirmative action program. 10. Attempted to implement the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act, that would have mandated employers to purchase health insurance to their employees, as well as supplementing it with federal aids plans like Medicaid, paying on a sliding scale based on income. Alas, Nixon was damaged goods by this time, so this proposal fell through.
Astonishingly, Nixon was to the left, waaay left, of this campaign cycle's candidates. In fact, Nixon was the kind of president that would today be excoriated as un-american, 24/7 by various Fox and Clear Channel hosts and pundits, the other channels reacting and jumping on the bandwagon by keeping the meme alive with heated debates on the subject - "Is Nixon really un-american?". By the time the smoke settled, public opinion would have nudged, once again (and again and again) to the right. But then again, I can see how anybody feeding themselves on american mass media programming would find him/herself confusing the Gilded Age with the Golden Age.
We are born as blank slates. Incessant message bombardment plus lack of skepticism will shape mainstream public opinion. But now, a word from our sponsors...
OK then, GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) is the way to go. But what about lengthy VD treatments in Swiss alps clinics?
Seriously though, most artists make pennies on the dollar for every CD sold, thanks to draconian contracts they're duped into signing when they're young, naive and can't afford legal representation. There are a few exceptions, and speaking of debauchery, the most notorious being Led Zeppelin, their manager Peter Grant being one magnificent, tough-minded son of a bitch.
What the OP said, I've been saying for years. Every time you buy a CD from one of the giant record labels, you're not only subsidizing Britney's and Beyonce's $100 million contract, you're also helping finance the fleet of lawyers who rely on making harsh examples of random individuals to keep the status quo going.
Since I've been aware of the RIAA's bully tactics, I've only bought CDs from independent record labels, in one case going so far as to keep correspondence with a band's drummer as to how acquire one of their albums - he eventually notified me when Amazon got it in stock.
Iraq is our cross to bear now -- we broke it, and we gotta fix it.
In the 2008 election cycle, Clinton and McCain's cross should be getting sent back to their respective Senate seats, presidential hopes dashed forever. Nobody who is duped or pretends to be duped into enabling a warmonger conduct an invasion based on fabricated arguments, should be rewarded with the presidency of any country.
The war is just so much bigger.
Wouldn't it be a great thing if 2008 becomes, among other things, a clear warning to future politicos: March in lockstep like a lemming to further your own political career, fall into the political precipice of your own disgrace. Which is nowhere near as tragic as each and every one of the countless lives lost, maimed and displaced. Nor as tragic as the countless minds in the Middle East newly radicalized with a burning hatred of everything western.
We cannot leave until we repair the damage.
The military is in a no-win scenario, not only caught in the crossfire of a civil war, but is also an invading foreign army in somebody else's homeland. The sad fact is that Iraq is an artificial political entity, drawn up by the British in the 1920's, and will splinter into three separate countries, according to ethnicity. US presence is only prolonging the inevitable, at an incredible cost and with dwindling allies. Factor in the second front that is Afghanistan and the fact that the Bush regime has armed both sides of the Iraqi civil war, and you've got one huge shit sandwich of blind incompetence. Add McCain's gleeful attitude of "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran", and you've got the terrifying potential stupidity of adding further fuel to the fire by 2009, and we haven't even talked about Pakistan's volatile situation and iffy allegiance. Finally, there is a very real possibility that the United States could bankrupt itself if it "stays the course". The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina should have been a gigantic red flag to that effect.
Could it possibly be any worse?
The United States must get out to go in again, in a different capacity. Leave with a timetable, then contribute to the cause of rebuilding the region through an international body, the UN most likely. Don't forsake the region the way Afghanistan was when the USSR retreated back in the days of Reagan and Papa Bush, as well all now bloody well know how that turned out, don't we? And please, once and for all, get the Halliburton mafia the hell out of there!
Your reaction is exactly what the right-wing smear machine has counted on time and again.
What the right-wing smear machine wants, the right-wing smear machine gets. Witness: - McCain having a black child out of wedlock in the 2000 primaries. - Al Gore ridiculed for "inventing the internet". - The introduction of a new verb in the 2004 campaign: swiftboating. - In the 2008 primaries, the pastor Wright snippet, as if Obama had said it.
These carpet-bombing media campaigns have several things in common: - They are distortions, fabrications or out-of-context shallow interpretations of reality. - They intend to generate gut level reactions, as opposed to thoughtful analysis. - They intend to generate images that stick, even as they are debunked in public, the meme kept alive until the end of the election cycle. - Sadly, they keep alive PT Barnum's axiom: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the american people".
I was on the fence until last week, when Obama's speech on Tuesday nailed it for me. I watched the full thing three times, to assimilate and digest the trove of ideas in there.
IMO, Obama effectively condemned the words of pastor Wright, while acknowledging the deep sense of frustration felt by a wide range of the population that leads to expressions of damnation for a society that has failed your parents, you and your children. Furthermore, Obama rightly expressed the fact that the United States is a self-correcting mechanism that has gradually tilted towards a better society for all of its' people.
But most importantly for this discussion, Obama spoke about a deeply entrenched, moneyed clique that runs the electoral process. Corporate interests have such a tight grip in Washington because they have the mechanism down to a tee:
1. Unfurl the corporate candidate or candidates. 2. Concentrate the largest amount of money on the key states (Florida, Ohio, etc). 3. Make the candidate go throw the well-established motions. 4. Smear, ignore or offhandedly dismiss the oponent via the mass media. 5. Win the election, by hook or by crook. 6. Profit!!! 7. Rinse and repeat.
What makes corporate influence so powerful is point 2. Under the current paradigm, the campaign contribution investment/return ratio is enormous. If the United States population can bust this cycle, the consequences will be HUGE, as corporate influence will wane in Washington. Grotesque saturation campaigns in Iowa-Florida-Ohio will not do anymore. Would corporations be willing to throw triple or quadruple the money into campaigns with an uncertain outcome? Lobbyists will still be there, but they won't be the deciding influence in election victories anymore. Imagine that!
If just to bust the cycle, Obama should win. But also, by virtue of his speech, which had brains, balls and heart, during a time when Obama was under fire, he showed that he is as cool as they come when that 3 am phone call happens. Furthermore, it's apparent to me that if and when Obama sits in the Oval Office, he will surround himself with tough-minded and extremely capable individuals who will be free to generate heated discussions with The President, as opposed to corporate "yes men" or consiglieris. No Chertoffs, Gonzalezes or Brownies, thank you VERY MUCH. Obama will roll up his sleeves and truly earn his salary, and not behind closed doors with Exxon and Mobil.
Finally, much of the world will be shocked into an more open attitude towards the United States if it elects a man named Barack Hussein Obama into the presidency. The prestige of this great nation will be salvaged from eight years of atrocities committed in its' name.
Can this possibly happen? Here is where the words "Hope" and "Change" come into play. With the other candidates, there will be neither.
If it was already public... its' role would be to raise awareness rather than reveal, which means acting like a news site... I think that Wikileak should not stride from it's original goal.
You're talking about the Mission Statement, and here it is: "World wide justice through strong transparency". In other words, even if the information was already public, it still perfectly conforms to Wikileaks' initial philosophy, which also emphasizes, but is not limited to, "Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". Now this is just one Wikeleak article out of 1.2 million. In this and a few other cases, factor in Slashdot exposure, Streisand Effects and all, and what we have is just a few corrupt corporate and government suit-and-ties exposed, embarrassed and hopefully disgraced.
Few of these exposés ever make the evening news, of course, not even the 24-hour "news" channels, too busy covering the traffic jam delaying the resignation speech of some ex-governor, caught with his pants around his ankles somewhere. How very fascinating [/yawn]
Surely I'm one out of millions who find it outrageous that many contemporary, so-called democratic governments perform deeper and deeper surveillance into citizens' private activities, even as they stonewall efforts concerning the putrid power and monetary politics of own milieu (corporations, the government body). Now, when one tiny shoe is on the other foot, guess what? They fucking hate it. Gee, I wonder why?
I am certain that if my cat was scaled up to large dog size I would be eaten within 24 hours.
I've often wondered about that myself.
But seriously, most cats are very gentle with young children, which would be the same scale that you're talking about.
My wife and I have three indoor cats and three outdoor cats, all of them rescued or born here from rescues (like Ernest Hemingway said, one cat just leads to another). Late in winter's nights, with the fireplace going on a low fire while working on the computer, I often glance at my three indoor cats sleeping on the sofa in front of the flame, and it palpably enhances an air of peacefulness that has to be good for the nervous system. This state of affairs can last for hours each night. It's what Jean Cocteau once said - "I love cats because I love my home, and little by little, they become its' visible soul".
When preparing for bed, one of them always follows me into the bathroom, and drinks from a water bowl while I brush my teeth. It's a great ritual of just being together and enjoying each other's company, no words necessary. Once in bed, another has a fantastic habit of sitting beside me, supporting her weight on my side and bathing while purring. As I drift off, the gentle motion and soothing sound just about puts me in a state of bliss.
My empirical guess is that the correlation in TFA has all to do with daily stress reduction events (or exercises, if you will). However, I have to say that female cats are less quarrelsome than male cats, even if they're spayed. It's the males that piss on your shoes or whatever clothing you leave lying on the floor. The males are the warriors, marking our territory and defending it from intruders (our three outdoor cats). Females have a much gentler disposition.
From the Krautrock days, my faves are Neu! (pronounced NO-ee), with just three albums that still influence the changing musical landscape: Neu! Neu!2 Neu'75 Some of the stuff from their first album will have you shaking your head in disbelief - how is it possible that these guys were so far ahead of the curve in 1971?
There are three significant communities right on the border with California - Tijuana, Tecate and Mexicali. Many residents of these cities commute daily across the border, be it for work, school or errands/shopping. Needless to say, the symbiosis between communities on both sides of the border is quite significant.
Two years ago, I wrote to the Baja California governor's office, Eugenio Elorduy back then, asking what they intended to do about the looming DST expansion in California, considering among other things, the huge number of people who drive back and forth across the border on a daily basis, business transactions between the two countries (banking hours being a major issue), etc. Three March weeks is a very long time to be out of sync, and would surely create acute social and economic repercussions.
The governor's reply was that they were on top of things. Nine months later, the expanded DST came, with not a single peep from the Baja governor. The result was mass confusion, propitiating extended working hours from the US border crossing office. Still, tardiness and even absenteeism increased significantly, both in work and school. Monetary and customs operations became a mess, costing millions of dollars on the business end of things. People that usually shopped after work or picking up their kids, were too tired to do so, costing a ton of money to retailers on the US side, even. You see, Juan Q Citizen had to get up in one time zone, live his day in another one, then go back to his own time zone.
When the Baja press, asleep at the wheel, was awakened from its' slumber and addressed the governor about the public outcry, the little man stated that they "had insufficient notice about the DST change", a monument to his mediocrity and insincerity. Private enterprise retaliated by saying that sufficient notice had been given, but the governor's attitude "had been one of complete disdain". And so it went, and Baja, like the rest of Mexico, sprung forward its' clocks three weeks later.
Now here we are, a year later, a new governor in office, same mediocre political party, and the cycle repeats itself - no advance warning from the press, no statement from the governor, no nothing. Brace yourselves in northern Baja and southern California's border community, here comes another three weeks of chaos.
I would imagine that the same situation applies to Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, and all other symbiotic communities along the Mexico-US border, but the highest concentrations of population, therefore social and economic activity, is certainly between Baja and southern California.
Well, now that I've gotten my disgust with Baja's PAN (National Action Party) government out of the way, I'm all for an extended DST. Here in Baja, at the beginning of March, the sun comes up at 6:30, yet the sky is light by 5:50. Getting in sync with California would mean that by the time most people leave the house for work or school, there's plenty of sunshine already. Rural communities that depend of farming can keep operating by the "sunshine clock". Working hours here are usually until 6:00 pm, and the sun sets at around 5:40. An extra hour of sun in the evenings is a fantastic thing to have, getting off work and still managing to catch a bit of sun on the face makes just about everybody I know happy. It's a significant quality boost in the daily grind.
I've got a condition called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS), which means that my circadian rhythm does not respond to the stimuli that helps most people reset their internal clock every 24 hours. It's not insomnia (once asleep, I stay that way for a full 8 hours), is hereditary and seems to be related to a "malfunctioning" light receptor in the eye, neither cone nor rod but a third kind recently discovered, that regulates body temperature on a daily basis. Most people's temperature rises a degree above average during daytime, generating a state of alertness, then drops to a degree below average (notice it's a shift of two degrees) at night, inducing sleep. DSPS sufferers' temperature rises at night, then drops around dawn or beyond. As a result, very often I'm wide awake as the sun is rising, which only makes sleeping even more difficult, due to the anxiety this creates.
Normally, my sleeping hours are between 5am - 1pm. When it suddenly gets really bad, around 8am - 4pm or later, I attempt to stay awake until early evening, then sleep like a log until the wee hours, when I wake up thoroughly jet-lagged but somewhat able to function. I try to switch hours on the weekend, so that the really difficult day falls on a Saturday or Sunday. Sadly, however, by the third or fourth day, my body finds its way back to its' 5am - 1pm cycle.
The literature says that the condition is so far incurable and that pills will only function on a very short-term basis. Once pills are used, addiction is a very real possibility, even as the condition persists. Thankfully, I've never taken pills for it.
There is also a similar condition called Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome (ASPS), where the sufferer wakes up at 2am, for example, and cannot fall back sleep, therefore, the individual has to go to bed by 6pm. For years, my wife's great-grandmother's second husband used to go to bed at around 3pm, only to get up at midnight, like clockwork.
Both DSPS and ASPS were first described as such in 1981.
The US government has tracking stations all over the world, so that at no time is a satellite out of contact with America.
I was under the impression that the US had tracking stations all over the world even back in the early sixties, that when John Glenn became the first US citizen to orbit the Earth, communications were never broken between the Friendship 7 capsule and Houston, except of course for the reentry blackout. During the very apex of the Cold War, a jumpy, soviet-paranoid NASA would not allow itself the luxury of losing touch with their main man of the hour, during this most public of events.
Remember the spirit of the era: * Lyndon Johnson saying something to the effect of "We will not allow ourselves to look up at night and look at a Red Moon". * When Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 were launched one day apart (granted, several months after Friendship 7), even coming within 5 kms of each other and communicating via ship-to-ship radio, the US powers-that-be gasped in horror: Soviet ships in space, flying in formation!
The reason why Mohamed decreed that no likenesses were to be made of him was so that the faithful would focus on the message and not the messenger. And yet, mankind's cleverness has triumphed once again, finding a way to go as far as to become fanatical about the lack of effigy?
Wikipedia is neither a mosque nor a public market, it's a website for information/academic purposes. I don't want to give any ideas to anyone, but a logical extension would be to picket (or worse) every library and university in the western world, because surely there's an image of The Prophet in some history tome there, somewhere.
Is there anything zealotry doesn't get completely wrong?
To be fair, the complainers may just be looking for some sort of personal gain (publicity, status among assholes - maybe they want to be on the Saudi Arabia equivalent to the Howard Stern Show), in the process doing yet another disservice to moderate Muslims the world over. You know, the kind of open and tolerant Islam of a thousand years ago, when truly great mathematical, technical, scientific, philosophical and literary strides were taken, before a minority of zealots took it over and made the culture take a hundred backward steps, a place where they're still in today.
All one has to do is read the accounts of the great academic institutions and libraries of Andalusia to get a substantial whiff of what once was, where Muslim, Jew and Christian lived together in harmony and under kilometers of urban public lighting, designed by Muslims. And still these contemporary asshole demagogues rant and rave about taking the hard line to return to the glory days!
Well said. But don't worry about excellent karma for Prof Ashley, I've never seen a Slashdot User profile page with more +5 posts in a single thread in my life! (Darth Vader voice) "Impressive, most impressive".
The equipment is quite modest by many standards, what impresses me is what they were able to make it portable, then freakin' sled it to one of the most remote spots on the planet. What other telescope is in a spot so completely away from artificial lights? I wonder what sort of image noise will be created in the images by the Aurora Australis. Or might the effect be negligible?
I mean, the only other astronomical endeavor I can think of that was done close to either the Arctic or Antarctic Circle was in Alaska, a couple of kilometers down a mineshaft, during another species of beast altogether - the neutrino hunt. Who knows, maybe that mine is still being used for that purpose.
Then, when the telescope is up and running, for every single observation there's calibrating, aligning, doing the time exposures... oh dear. These things are difficult enough with a crew right by the telescope. I have a friend who hasn't been able to get a single night's worth of useful data in the last four or five trips to the big telescope in my neck of the woods - the UNAM Observatory in San Pedro Martir, Baja California. Seems like every time she goes up there, something goes wrong.
Buckle up, people, it's gonna be a wild ride Down Under! Needless to say, I'm thrilled and fascinated by the whole thing.
Anyone here familiar with the Nicaraguan school for deaf-mute children in the early eighties?
The first phase of the project was to teach these children the sign-alphabet. After this, I'm not sure if they were going to teach the full english or spanish sign-language (seems there's not an international standard for sign-language), but the point is that after a year, the experiment was deemed a failure and abandoned.
Then a couple of years later, reports started trickling out of these deaf-mute children exchanging unintelligible gibberish with their hands. A couple of researchers flew in, and were astonished to discover that these kids, using the sign-alphabet as a starting point, had developed a complete, unique language of their own in just two or three years - the first ever documented report of a fully formed, structured language bursting spontaneously into existence. These children are, of course, now adults in their thirties, still in touch with each other and communicating amongst themselves in the language they invented three decades ago.
And now, for something completely different...
Terrence McKenna, that lovable old psychonaut, postulated an empirical assumption in the eighties and nineties - language was created over many generations, via deep psilocybin trance rituals, of which the whole tribe partook. One by one, abstract concepts emerged in the back and forth play between members of the tribe, led and refereed of course by the shaman.
The Nicaraguan kids have poked serious holes into McKenna's whimsical idea. As it turns out, children can develop fully formed languages almost overnight! And so, with concrete data, a new possibility has arisen - languages burst upon the world from the mouths of children, and never mind the psychedelic substances.
The "core" is not subject to much gravity - relative equal mass in all directions pulling in all directions that balance.
Damn, you beat me to it! That's exactly what I've been toying with for some time now, with an additional question: The densest materials fall to the bottom of the gravity well... and where exactly is that? Or put in another way - do the densest materials fall to a point of zero gravity?
Of course, if you shift the liquefied iron or lead to, say the right, there's gonna be more of the Earth to the left, pulling you in that direction, but there's also spin (centrifugal force) to account for, stronger as one goes outward.
I've looked for info on the subject on the internets - nothing. I asked a geologist friend of mine, and quickly sent his mind into tilt mode, all he could stutter was something about both halves of Earth applying equal pressure in the center. Geologists don't really study gravity, my friend had never really thought about the zero gravity environment at the Earth's center, it's not something they usually read about and discuss in college courses, it seems.
My guess would be that the most densely packed material in the Earth's interior (or any celestial body, for that matter) is a spherical layer at a good distance from the very center - it never had a chance to fall to the very center.
Like you said, way2slo, the more one thinks about it and factors in more variables, the more difficult a panorama it becomes to wrap one's head around.
If the Olympic Committee won't allow Pistorius to enter formal competition, a PR coup would be to have him participate in exhibition mode, with all fanfare and limelight. Even if his race results are not made official, on the publicity front, this has all the tug-at-the-heartstrings elements of that classic story, "human spirit triumphs against all odds", you know the drill.
In fact, Pistorius should carry his country's flag during the opening ceremonies of the regular Olympics. He has all the makings of the first Paralympics superstar, where he'll surely obliterate all competition, in turn creating excitement and greatly increasing public awareness of this often overlooked event.
Kudos to whoever tagged this article with the hovercraft bit, a much better choice than "I will not buy this record, it is scratched".
Kiss me, Sir William, I am no longer infected.
Close but no cigar. Here's the breakdown, which I can write down from memory:
- Do you want to go to my place, bouncy bouncy!!? - You great poof. - If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? - I am no longer infected. - Drop your panties, Sir William, I cannot wait 'till lunchtime.
Then, exclaimed with great outrage:
- My nipples explode with delight!
Finally, during the Spam sketch, an approximation that goes something like this:
- My lower intestine is full of eggs, bacon and spam...
David Bowie saw this coming, and changed his son's name from Zowie to Joey. Maybe we'll soon see the long-awaited Director's Final Cut of his classic album, Jiggy Stardust.
It's a short list of names in the english language that begin with the letter Z: Zack, Zeke, Zippy, Zooey... there's gotta be a few more, but I can't recall any others.
Slashdot Mirror
So, if you're left of center, vote Hillary. If you're WAY left of center, vote Obama. If you middle of the road or right, vote McCain.
Curious. In the contemporary United States political climate, Richard Nixon would have been laughed at and dismissed as positively PINKO. Consider the following. Richard Milhous Nixon:
1. Imposed wage and price controls.
2. Indexed Social Security for inflation.
3. Created Supplemental Security Income.
4. Established the Environmental Protection Agency.
5. Established NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
6. Established the Office of Minority Business Enterprise.
7. Promoted the Legacy Of Parks program.
8. Dramatically increased salaries for United States government employees worldwide.
9. Outraged racist whites by implementing the Philadelphia Plan, the first significant federal affirmative action program.
10. Attempted to implement the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act, that would have mandated employers to purchase health insurance to their employees, as well as supplementing it with federal aids plans like Medicaid, paying on a sliding scale based on income. Alas, Nixon was damaged goods by this time, so this proposal fell through.
Astonishingly, Nixon was to the left, waaay left, of this campaign cycle's candidates. In fact, Nixon was the kind of president that would today be excoriated as un-american, 24/7 by various Fox and Clear Channel hosts and pundits, the other channels reacting and jumping on the bandwagon by keeping the meme alive with heated debates on the subject - "Is Nixon really un-american?". By the time the smoke settled, public opinion would have nudged, once again (and again and again) to the right. But then again, I can see how anybody feeding themselves on american mass media programming would find him/herself confusing the Gilded Age with the Golden Age.
We are born as blank slates. Incessant message bombardment plus lack of skepticism will shape mainstream public opinion.
But now, a word from our sponsors...
OK then, GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) is the way to go. But what about lengthy VD treatments in Swiss alps clinics?
Seriously though, most artists make pennies on the dollar for every CD sold, thanks to draconian contracts they're duped into signing when they're young, naive and can't afford legal representation. There are a few exceptions, and speaking of debauchery, the most notorious being Led Zeppelin, their manager Peter Grant being one magnificent, tough-minded son of a bitch.
What the OP said, I've been saying for years. Every time you buy a CD from one of the giant record labels, you're not only subsidizing Britney's and Beyonce's $100 million contract, you're also helping finance the fleet of lawyers who rely on making harsh examples of random individuals to keep the status quo going.
Since I've been aware of the RIAA's bully tactics, I've only bought CDs from independent record labels, in one case going so far as to keep correspondence with a band's drummer as to how acquire one of their albums - he eventually notified me when Amazon got it in stock.
Iraq is our cross to bear now -- we broke it, and we gotta fix it.
In the 2008 election cycle, Clinton and McCain's cross should be getting sent back to their respective Senate seats, presidential hopes dashed forever. Nobody who is duped or pretends to be duped into enabling a warmonger conduct an invasion based on fabricated arguments, should be rewarded with the presidency of any country.
The war is just so much bigger.
Wouldn't it be a great thing if 2008 becomes, among other things, a clear warning to future politicos: March in lockstep like a lemming to further your own political career, fall into the political precipice of your own disgrace. Which is nowhere near as tragic as each and every one of the countless lives lost, maimed and displaced. Nor as tragic as the countless minds in the Middle East newly radicalized with a burning hatred of everything western.
We cannot leave until we repair the damage.
The military is in a no-win scenario, not only caught in the crossfire of a civil war, but is also an invading foreign army in somebody else's homeland. The sad fact is that Iraq is an artificial political entity, drawn up by the British in the 1920's, and will splinter into three separate countries, according to ethnicity. US presence is only prolonging the inevitable, at an incredible cost and with dwindling allies.
Factor in the second front that is Afghanistan and the fact that the Bush regime has armed both sides of the Iraqi civil war, and you've got one huge shit sandwich of blind incompetence.
Add McCain's gleeful attitude of "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran", and you've got the terrifying potential stupidity of adding further fuel to the fire by 2009, and we haven't even talked about Pakistan's volatile situation and iffy allegiance.
Finally, there is a very real possibility that the United States could bankrupt itself if it "stays the course". The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina should have been a gigantic red flag to that effect.
Could it possibly be any worse?
The United States must get out to go in again, in a different capacity. Leave with a timetable, then contribute to the cause of rebuilding the region through an international body, the UN most likely. Don't forsake the region the way Afghanistan was when the USSR retreated back in the days of Reagan and Papa Bush, as well all now bloody well know how that turned out, don't we?
And please, once and for all, get the Halliburton mafia the hell out of there!
Your reaction is exactly what the right-wing smear machine has counted on time and again.
What the right-wing smear machine wants, the right-wing smear machine gets. Witness:
- McCain having a black child out of wedlock in the 2000 primaries.
- Al Gore ridiculed for "inventing the internet".
- The introduction of a new verb in the 2004 campaign: swiftboating.
- In the 2008 primaries, the pastor Wright snippet, as if Obama had said it.
These carpet-bombing media campaigns have several things in common:
- They are distortions, fabrications or out-of-context shallow interpretations of reality.
- They intend to generate gut level reactions, as opposed to thoughtful analysis.
- They intend to generate images that stick, even as they are debunked in public, the meme kept alive until the end of the election cycle.
- Sadly, they keep alive PT Barnum's axiom: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the american people".
I was on the fence until last week, when Obama's speech on Tuesday nailed it for me. I watched the full thing three times, to assimilate and digest the trove of ideas in there.
IMO, Obama effectively condemned the words of pastor Wright, while acknowledging the deep sense of frustration felt by a wide range of the population that leads to expressions of damnation for a society that has failed your parents, you and your children.
Furthermore, Obama rightly expressed the fact that the United States is a self-correcting mechanism that has gradually tilted towards a better society for all of its' people.
But most importantly for this discussion, Obama spoke about a deeply entrenched, moneyed clique that runs the electoral process. Corporate interests have such a tight grip in Washington because they have the mechanism down to a tee:
1. Unfurl the corporate candidate or candidates.
2. Concentrate the largest amount of money on the key states (Florida, Ohio, etc).
3. Make the candidate go throw the well-established motions.
4. Smear, ignore or offhandedly dismiss the oponent via the mass media.
5. Win the election, by hook or by crook.
6. Profit!!!
7. Rinse and repeat.
What makes corporate influence so powerful is point 2. Under the current paradigm, the campaign contribution investment/return ratio is enormous. If the United States population can bust this cycle, the consequences will be HUGE, as corporate influence will wane in Washington. Grotesque saturation campaigns in Iowa-Florida-Ohio will not do anymore. Would corporations be willing to throw triple or quadruple the money into campaigns with an uncertain outcome? Lobbyists will still be there, but they won't be the deciding influence in election victories anymore. Imagine that!
If just to bust the cycle, Obama should win. But also, by virtue of his speech, which had brains, balls and heart, during a time when Obama was under fire, he showed that he is as cool as they come when that 3 am phone call happens. Furthermore, it's apparent to me that if and when Obama sits in the Oval Office, he will surround himself with tough-minded and extremely capable individuals who will be free to generate heated discussions with The President, as opposed to corporate "yes men" or consiglieris. No Chertoffs, Gonzalezes or Brownies, thank you VERY MUCH. Obama will roll up his sleeves and truly earn his salary, and not behind closed doors with Exxon and Mobil.
Finally, much of the world will be shocked into an more open attitude towards the United States if it elects a man named Barack Hussein Obama into the presidency. The prestige of this great nation will be salvaged from eight years of atrocities committed in its' name.
Can this possibly happen? Here is where the words "Hope" and "Change" come into play. With the other candidates, there will be neither.
If it was already public... its' role would be to raise awareness rather than reveal, which means acting like a news site... I think that Wikileak should not stride from it's original goal.
You're talking about the Mission Statement, and here it is: "World wide justice through strong transparency". In other words, even if the information was already public, it still perfectly conforms to Wikileaks' initial philosophy, which also emphasizes, but is not limited to, "Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". Now this is just one Wikeleak article out of 1.2 million. In this and a few other cases, factor in Slashdot exposure, Streisand Effects and all, and what we have is just a few corrupt corporate and government suit-and-ties exposed, embarrassed and hopefully disgraced.
Few of these exposés ever make the evening news, of course, not even the 24-hour "news" channels, too busy covering the traffic jam delaying the resignation speech of some ex-governor, caught with his pants around his ankles somewhere. How very fascinating [/yawn]
Surely I'm one out of millions who find it outrageous that many contemporary, so-called democratic governments perform deeper and deeper surveillance into citizens' private activities, even as they stonewall efforts concerning the putrid power and monetary politics of own milieu (corporations, the government body). Now, when one tiny shoe is on the other foot, guess what? They fucking hate it. Gee, I wonder why?
While humans go well with fava beans and a nice Chianti.
I just can't give this "survey" very much legitimacy. ...it seems to me more like an agenda piece than an honest scientific exercise.
There you go. Thanks for ruining my Placebo Effect.
The sole purpose of the human race is to keep cats fed!
There are many forms of intelligent life in the Universe. All of them are p0wned by cats.
CATS: All your base are belong to us!
I am certain that if my cat was scaled up to large dog size I would be eaten within 24 hours.
I've often wondered about that myself.
But seriously, most cats are very gentle with young children, which would be the same scale that you're talking about.
My wife and I have three indoor cats and three outdoor cats, all of them rescued or born here from rescues (like Ernest Hemingway said, one cat just leads to another). Late in winter's nights, with the fireplace going on a low fire while working on the computer, I often glance at my three indoor cats sleeping on the sofa in front of the flame, and it palpably enhances an air of peacefulness that has to be good for the nervous system. This state of affairs can last for hours each night. It's what Jean Cocteau once said - "I love cats because I love my home, and little by little, they become its' visible soul".
When preparing for bed, one of them always follows me into the bathroom, and drinks from a water bowl while I brush my teeth. It's a great ritual of just being together and enjoying each other's company, no words necessary.
Once in bed, another has a fantastic habit of sitting beside me, supporting her weight on my side and bathing while purring. As I drift off, the gentle motion and soothing sound just about puts me in a state of bliss.
My empirical guess is that the correlation in TFA has all to do with daily stress reduction events (or exercises, if you will). However, I have to say that female cats are less quarrelsome than male cats, even if they're spayed. It's the males that piss on your shoes or whatever clothing you leave lying on the floor. The males are the warriors, marking our territory and defending it from intruders (our three outdoor cats). Females have a much gentler disposition.
From the Krautrock days, my faves are Neu! (pronounced NO-ee), with just three albums that still influence the changing musical landscape:
Neu!
Neu!2
Neu'75
Some of the stuff from their first album will have you shaking your head in disbelief - how is it possible that these guys were so far ahead of the curve in 1971?
There are three significant communities right on the border with California - Tijuana, Tecate and Mexicali. Many residents of these cities commute daily across the border, be it for work, school or errands/shopping. Needless to say, the symbiosis between communities on both sides of the border is quite significant.
Two years ago, I wrote to the Baja California governor's office, Eugenio Elorduy back then, asking what they intended to do about the looming DST expansion in California, considering among other things, the huge number of people who drive back and forth across the border on a daily basis, business transactions between the two countries (banking hours being a major issue), etc. Three March weeks is a very long time to be out of sync, and would surely create acute social and economic repercussions.
The governor's reply was that they were on top of things. Nine months later, the expanded DST came, with not a single peep from the Baja governor. The result was mass confusion, propitiating extended working hours from the US border crossing office. Still, tardiness and even absenteeism increased significantly, both in work and school.
Monetary and customs operations became a mess, costing millions of dollars on the business end of things.
People that usually shopped after work or picking up their kids, were too tired to do so, costing a ton of money to retailers on the US side, even. You see, Juan Q Citizen had to get up in one time zone, live his day in another one, then go back to his own time zone.
When the Baja press, asleep at the wheel, was awakened from its' slumber and addressed the governor about the public outcry, the little man stated that they "had insufficient notice about the DST change", a monument to his mediocrity and insincerity. Private enterprise retaliated by saying that sufficient notice had been given, but the governor's attitude "had been one of complete disdain". And so it went, and Baja, like the rest of Mexico, sprung forward its' clocks three weeks later.
Now here we are, a year later, a new governor in office, same mediocre political party, and the cycle repeats itself - no advance warning from the press, no statement from the governor, no nothing. Brace yourselves in northern Baja and southern California's border community, here comes another three weeks of chaos.
I would imagine that the same situation applies to Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, and all other symbiotic communities along the Mexico-US border, but the highest concentrations of population, therefore social and economic activity, is certainly between Baja and southern California.
Well, now that I've gotten my disgust with Baja's PAN (National Action Party) government out of the way, I'm all for an extended DST.
Here in Baja, at the beginning of March, the sun comes up at 6:30, yet the sky is light by 5:50. Getting in sync with California would mean that by the time most people leave the house for work or school, there's plenty of sunshine already. Rural communities that depend of farming can keep operating by the "sunshine clock". Working hours here are usually until 6:00 pm, and the sun sets at around 5:40. An extra hour of sun in the evenings is a fantastic thing to have, getting off work and still managing to catch a bit of sun on the face makes just about everybody I know happy. It's a significant quality boost in the daily grind.
Amen to that.
I've got a condition called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS), which means that my circadian rhythm does not respond to the stimuli that helps most people reset their internal clock every 24 hours. It's not insomnia (once asleep, I stay that way for a full 8 hours), is hereditary and seems to be related to a "malfunctioning" light receptor in the eye, neither cone nor rod but a third kind recently discovered, that regulates body temperature on a daily basis. Most people's temperature rises a degree above average during daytime, generating a state of alertness, then drops to a degree below average (notice it's a shift of two degrees) at night, inducing sleep.
DSPS sufferers' temperature rises at night, then drops around dawn or beyond. As a result, very often I'm wide awake as the sun is rising, which only makes sleeping even more difficult, due to the anxiety this creates.
Normally, my sleeping hours are between 5am - 1pm. When it suddenly gets really bad, around 8am - 4pm or later, I attempt to stay awake until early evening, then sleep like a log until the wee hours, when I wake up thoroughly jet-lagged but somewhat able to function. I try to switch hours on the weekend, so that the really difficult day falls on a Saturday or Sunday. Sadly, however, by the third or fourth day, my body finds its way back to its' 5am - 1pm cycle.
The literature says that the condition is so far incurable and that pills will only function on a very short-term basis. Once pills are used, addiction is a very real possibility, even as the condition persists. Thankfully, I've never taken pills for it.
There is also a similar condition called Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome (ASPS), where the sufferer wakes up at 2am, for example, and cannot fall back sleep, therefore, the individual has to go to bed by 6pm. For years, my wife's great-grandmother's second husband used to go to bed at around 3pm, only to get up at midnight, like clockwork.
Both DSPS and ASPS were first described as such in 1981.
I was staying up late watching the late night shows... ...put them on my mp3 player to watch while commuting and at work.
Holy cow, dude, you've got the Magic Bullet infomercial on your player?!!
More importantly, does it work on Attila The Hun (or as he's known to his friends - "The") or Alexander The Great?
Please, consider the advantages of owning a Hunalyzer, or Alexander The Greathalyzer.
The US government has tracking stations all over the world, so that at no time is a satellite out of contact with America.
I was under the impression that the US had tracking stations all over the world even back in the early sixties, that when John Glenn became the first US citizen to orbit the Earth, communications were never broken between the Friendship 7 capsule and Houston, except of course for the reentry blackout.
During the very apex of the Cold War, a jumpy, soviet-paranoid NASA would not allow itself the luxury of losing touch with their main man of the hour, during this most public of events.
Remember the spirit of the era:
* Lyndon Johnson saying something to the effect of "We will not allow ourselves to look up at night and look at a Red Moon".
* When Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 were launched one day apart (granted, several months after Friendship 7), even coming within 5 kms of each other and communicating via ship-to-ship radio, the US powers-that-be gasped in horror: Soviet ships in space, flying in formation!
The reason why Mohamed decreed that no likenesses were to be made of him was so that the faithful would focus on the message and not the messenger. And yet, mankind's cleverness has triumphed once again, finding a way to go as far as to become fanatical about the lack of effigy?
Wikipedia is neither a mosque nor a public market, it's a website for information/academic purposes. I don't want to give any ideas to anyone, but a logical extension would be to picket (or worse) every library and university in the western world, because surely there's an image of The Prophet in some history tome there, somewhere.
Is there anything zealotry doesn't get completely wrong?
To be fair, the complainers may just be looking for some sort of personal gain (publicity, status among assholes - maybe they want to be on the Saudi Arabia equivalent to the Howard Stern Show), in the process doing yet another disservice to moderate Muslims the world over. You know, the kind of open and tolerant Islam of a thousand years ago, when truly great mathematical, technical, scientific, philosophical and literary strides were taken, before a minority of zealots took it over and made the culture take a hundred backward steps, a place where they're still in today.
All one has to do is read the accounts of the great academic institutions and libraries of Andalusia to get a substantial whiff of what once was, where Muslim, Jew and Christian lived together in harmony and under kilometers of urban public lighting, designed by Muslims. And still these contemporary asshole demagogues rant and rave about taking the hard line to return to the glory days!
Well said. But don't worry about excellent karma for Prof Ashley, I've never seen a Slashdot User profile page with more +5 posts in a single thread in my life! (Darth Vader voice) "Impressive, most impressive".
The equipment is quite modest by many standards, what impresses me is what they were able to make it portable, then freakin' sled it to one of the most remote spots on the planet. What other telescope is in a spot so completely away from artificial lights?
I wonder what sort of image noise will be created in the images by the Aurora Australis. Or might the effect be negligible?
I mean, the only other astronomical endeavor I can think of that was done close to either the Arctic or Antarctic Circle was in Alaska, a couple of kilometers down a mineshaft, during another species of beast altogether - the neutrino hunt. Who knows, maybe that mine is still being used for that purpose.
Then, when the telescope is up and running, for every single observation there's calibrating, aligning, doing the time exposures... oh dear. These things are difficult enough with a crew right by the telescope. I have a friend who hasn't been able to get a single night's worth of useful data in the last four or five trips to the big telescope in my neck of the woods - the UNAM Observatory in San Pedro Martir, Baja California. Seems like every time she goes up there, something goes wrong.
Buckle up, people, it's gonna be a wild ride Down Under! Needless to say, I'm thrilled and fascinated by the whole thing.
Oops, you're absolutely right. Here's the Wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
- A dromedary has one hump, while a camel has a high-gain antenna, transponder and solar panel array.
- Aren't you, in fact, a satellite trainspotter?
You're no fun anymore.
- Now look here, if anybody else pinches my phrase, I'll blast them in a suborbital trajectory under a camel.
- If you can spot one (snickers).
Anyone here familiar with the Nicaraguan school for deaf-mute children in the early eighties?
The first phase of the project was to teach these children the sign-alphabet. After this, I'm not sure if they were going to teach the full english or spanish sign-language (seems there's not an international standard for sign-language), but the point is that after a year, the experiment was deemed a failure and abandoned.
Then a couple of years later, reports started trickling out of these deaf-mute children exchanging unintelligible gibberish with their hands. A couple of researchers flew in, and were astonished to discover that these kids, using the sign-alphabet as a starting point, had developed a complete, unique language of their own in just two or three years - the first ever documented report of a fully formed, structured language bursting spontaneously into existence. These children are, of course, now adults in their thirties, still in touch with each other and communicating amongst themselves in the language they invented three decades ago.
And now, for something completely different...
Terrence McKenna, that lovable old psychonaut, postulated an empirical assumption in the eighties and nineties - language was created over many generations, via deep psilocybin trance rituals, of which the whole tribe partook. One by one, abstract concepts emerged in the back and forth play between members of the tribe, led and refereed of course by the shaman.
The Nicaraguan kids have poked serious holes into McKenna's whimsical idea. As it turns out, children can develop fully formed languages almost overnight! And so, with concrete data, a new possibility has arisen - languages burst upon the world from the mouths of children, and never mind the psychedelic substances.
The "core" is not subject to much gravity - relative equal mass in all directions pulling in all directions that balance.
Damn, you beat me to it! That's exactly what I've been toying with for some time now, with an additional question: The densest materials fall to the bottom of the gravity well... and where exactly is that? Or put in another way - do the densest materials fall to a point of zero gravity?
Of course, if you shift the liquefied iron or lead to, say the right, there's gonna be more of the Earth to the left, pulling you in that direction, but there's also spin (centrifugal force) to account for, stronger as one goes outward.
I've looked for info on the subject on the internets - nothing. I asked a geologist friend of mine, and quickly sent his mind into tilt mode, all he could stutter was something about both halves of Earth applying equal pressure in the center. Geologists don't really study gravity, my friend had never really thought about the zero gravity environment at the Earth's center, it's not something they usually read about and discuss in college courses, it seems.
My guess would be that the most densely packed material in the Earth's interior (or any celestial body, for that matter) is a spherical layer at a good distance from the very center - it never had a chance to fall to the very center.
Like you said, way2slo, the more one thinks about it and factors in more variables, the more difficult a panorama it becomes to wrap one's head around.
"its"
And right on cue, enter Souza's "The Liberty Bell" march and Monty Python's opening sequence.
If the Olympic Committee won't allow Pistorius to enter formal competition, a PR coup would be to have him participate in exhibition mode, with all fanfare and limelight.
Even if his race results are not made official, on the publicity front, this has all the tug-at-the-heartstrings elements of that classic story, "human spirit triumphs against all odds", you know the drill.
In fact, Pistorius should carry his country's flag during the opening ceremonies of the regular Olympics. He has all the makings of the first Paralympics superstar, where he'll surely obliterate all competition, in turn creating excitement and greatly increasing public awareness of this often overlooked event.
What's not to like? It's a win-win situation.
Kudos to whoever tagged this article with the hovercraft bit, a much better choice than "I will not buy this record, it is scratched".
Kiss me, Sir William, I am no longer infected.
Close but no cigar. Here's the breakdown, which I can write down from memory:
- Do you want to go to my place, bouncy bouncy!!?
- You great poof.
- If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
- I am no longer infected.
- Drop your panties, Sir William, I cannot wait 'till lunchtime.
Then, exclaimed with great outrage:
- My nipples explode with delight!
Finally, during the Spam sketch, an approximation that goes something like this:
- My lower intestine is full of eggs, bacon and spam...
My daughter Zoë would be pissed.
So would Microsoft.
David Bowie saw this coming, and changed his son's name from Zowie to Joey.
Maybe we'll soon see the long-awaited Director's Final Cut of his classic album, Jiggy Stardust.
It's a short list of names in the english language that begin with the letter Z: Zack, Zeke, Zippy, Zooey... there's gotta be a few more, but I can't recall any others.