Can't sleep? Just tense up and repeat after me... "the"........ "the" ...."the" ................... "the"
"Repeating a simple word like "the" at irregular interval blocks other thoughts coming into your head."
(Conversely, you could record a Democrat or Republican Presidential "debate" and just play it back on infinite loop until your head implodes.)
"Clear the bridge! We're going down!" New Iranian Ghadir-class Submarine
Pronounced "Gay-Dar": Iran hails new home-produced submarine
Iran's navy said on Wednesday it had launched a new home-produced submarine, the first in a class named "Ghadir", Tehran's latest claim of military progress at a time of mounting tensions with the West.
Penny Pinch Sulzberger: What? Me worry?
Limbo lower now. How low can you go? New York Times Stock Hits Historic Low Today
Day High
$16.50
Day Low
$16.02
52-Week High
$26.90
52-Week Low
$16.02
[Via "The Green Report"]
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh! You cursed Internet! Look what you've done! I'm melting, melting! Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world:"
Times Announces Layoffs, Enforcement of Hiring Freeze "Bill Keller announced moments ago in a memo that there will be layoffs at The New York Times. He wrote that it will not affect reporters, but a hiring freeze will be strictly enforced.""Who would have thought that some little new media like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? OHHHHHHH!!! NO!!! I'm going... ohhhhhhh.. ohhhhhhhhhhhhh...."
Jules Crittenden helps us understand Clinton: Hold on, I've got it. He "opposed it from the beginning" of his wife's campaign. Just like she did. OK, got it now. It's all a matter of when is is.
On the other hand, it is just possible that Bill, consciously or subconsciously wants his wife to lose.
Ah, yes, the man behind Scrappleface.
Working Title: If I Did It -- "Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the most prominent surviving member of the Kennedy family, has agreed to sell his memoirs for an advance of more than $8 million."
President Bush on Monday signed a deal setting the foundation for a potential long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq, with details to be negotiated over matters that have defined the war debate at home — how many U.S. forces will stay in the country, and for how long.
Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith -- namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.
If Condi's pursuit of the peace process is due to a belief that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is possible and will unlock the forces of moderation and conviviality in the Middle East, then, well, she is simply a fool. If it is because she wishes to add this most elusive accomplishment to her legacy, then she is a narcissist.
The most controversial of the new releases, Brian De Palma's "Red on Green," also proved to be the weekend's biggest financial disappointment. The film's documentary-style depiction of brutal gang rapes, genital torture, and candy cane stabbings by North Pole workers earned critical raves and a Palm d'Or award for De Palma when it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in the year, but the positive advanced notices were not enough to fill theater seats. According to Nielsen/EDI the film generated only $18.00 in box office receipts -- apparently two tickets sold to DePalma and producer Mark Cuban -- and was later revised downward to $9.00 after Cuban asked for a refund.
Voyager 2 was launched Aug. 20, 1977. It visited four planets and their moons in the course of its journey into space. Its sister spacecraft Voyager 1, which was launched Sept. 5, 1977, crossed the termination shock in December 2004 -- earlier than Voyager 2 because of a shorter trajectory. Both spacecraft are currently operational, but power sources have degraded and some of the instrumentation no longer works optimally. In the future, the spacecraft will encounter their next milestone in space: the heliopause, which is the boundary where the interstellar medium brings the solar wind to a halt.
If you are a PPP blogger, the only people who take offense to what you do are sitting in a coffee shop in San Francisco, sipping a latte, typing on their MacBook that's covered in stickers that boast the name of indie rock bands; stickers that said hipster probably bought in a hipster starter kit of some sort, having never actually seen any of the bands in question.
RE: Faith based science.
Many people believe in the supernatural, of parallel universes and alternate realities. I am not unsympathetic to their beliefs but, while not intending any disrespect, I regard such concepts as either impossible, illogical, or meaningless.
If a parallel universe exists, operating with different physical laws than our own but at the same time and in the same place as our own and operated in such a way so as to affect us, it would have to interfere with our universe's nature as described by the laws of physics. Our universe is a system and such an interference would cause an irregularity in the system thereby breaking the long chain of cause and effect under which any system operates. This would "monkeywrench" the system causing its destruction. To have our universe and this alternate universe co-exist in this manner is physically impossible.
If a parallel universe exists that has the same laws governing its physical properties as our own universe then it would have the same nature as our own universe. If a parallel universe has the same nature as our own universe then that is the same as saying that both universes are identical. If they are identical then they are one and the same. If they are one and the same they cannot be different. Being different and not being different at the same time contradicts the law of identity and is, therefore, illogical.
If an alternate universe exists whose nature is different than our own universe but has no effect on it and if our universe has no effect on it, then such a notion of an alternate universe is meaningless, both practically and theoretically.
As to the origin of physical laws: In the beginning was chaos. Every particle had its own nature. Inevitable conflicts over time and place result in collisions and consequent particle destruction. Over time, random collisions operating through natural selection resulted in the existence of fewer and fewer particles and increasingly less frequent collisions. The remaining particles, at any given moment, will, as a natural consequence, have natures that are increasingly similar.
The remaining particles in our present day universe are nearly identical in their essential nature. Residual chaos will only show up over a long period of time. This slow-motion remnant of chaos is what we call order. Analyzing and describing this seeming order is what we call the Laws of Physics.
As for the wreckage: it goes dark.
Teddy Bare was briefly considered, but the image it conjured up was considered too disturbing (scroll to bottom, if you dare).
Posted by: Gagdad Bob at November 28, 2007 9:30 AMRe the NASA item: now that Dennis Kucinich is thinking of having Ron Paul as a running mate, the crew for the Mars voyage is complete.
Posted by: Connecticut Yankee at November 28, 2007 3:28 PMHow do you say, "torpedo jammed in the aft tube" in Iranian?
Posted by: Dr Bob at November 29, 2007 3:40 PM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.