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21 August 2008 @ 05:14 am
Polls show McCain and Obama neck and neck; Medicare pay-outs come under fire.  
With everyone still waiting - and waiting, and waiting - for veep announcements, the Wall Street Journal tops its online newsbox with a new poll that puts US presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain in a statistical dead heat. The Washington Post leads with a report on Obama's efforts to break the tie by appealing to voters' pocketbooks; the Democratic nominee lamented US job losses while on the stump in southern Virginia yesterday. The LA Times leads with a look at the candidates' tax proposals; economists say that both candidates' plans would likely add trillions to the national debt.

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20 August 2008 @ 05:00 pm
eclectic - August 21, 2008  
(adjective) drawn from many sources; varied, heterogeneous.
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 10:16 pm
 
I've had this idea floating around in my head forever. I'd like to see what other people think of it, because my only class in physics was one semester in high school.

It seems to me that if we had spherical vision (like, if our heads were covered with eyes), we'd be able to see into the 4th dimension of space.

Our normal eyesight is basically 2-dimensional. Our field of vision is like a circle. But we know from experience that the things we see are 3-dimensional, and when we walk around a chair, for example, we infer from all of the 2-dimensional views of it, that it is 3-dimensional.

In a 2-dimensional world, like a piece of paper, maybe there are triangle and a rectangle looking at each other. The triangle's field of vision is 1-dimensional. She sees a line, with a stripe in it where the rectangle is. When she walks around the rectangle, she can tell that it is a 2-dimensional object because the length of the stripe changes.

Does it then follow that, if we could see in 3 dimensions, we would be able to infer things about the 4th? And would it be possible to do that? :-/
 
 
: the twilight singers
 
 
21 August 2008 @ 05:13 am
Earth's Shadow  

The dark, inner shadow of planet Earth The dark, inner shadow of planet Earth


 
 
21 August 2008 @ 12:24 am
The Beat: Stephanie Tubbs Jones: Champion of Electoral Justice  
Honor the late congresswoman by enacting the election reforms she sought.

 
 
20 August 2008 @ 08:25 pm
I Thought For Sure I Would Be Weirder!  

So, pr_spin_girl, your LiveJournal reveals...



You are... 1% unique and 15% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy walking). When it comes to friends you are popular. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are wary of trusting strangers. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is conventional.

Your overall weirdness is: 23

(The average level of weirdness is: 27.
You are weirder than 53% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

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Current Location: Wauwatosa, WI 53213
: amused
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 08:15 pm
MSNBC really doesnt try to hide it anymore  
Rachel Maddow has been picked to replace Dan Abrams in their 9pm time slot while Abrams resumes his position as GM. It seems that MSNBC has taken the Liberal bias label and decided to run with it. They axed Scarbrough, Carlson and now Abrams, two conservatives and a moderate gone. I really have no pundit to watch anymore except Lou Dobbs, hell Matthews is getting too annoying for my taste now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/19/rachel-maddow-replacing-d_n_119929.html
 
 
: annoyed
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 06:49 pm
The disturbing rise of the "Hillary Harridan."  
You know her. She's got wild eyes and rumpled hair. At some point she stopped caring about the stains on her blouse. She's hurt, angry, rejected, and she's willing to take the whole damn place down with her. She is Lady Macbeth. She is Jane Eyre's deranged pyromaniac Bertha Mason. She is Cruella DeVil and the biblical Lilith. She is Snow White's wicked stepmother, Miss Havisham, and Emily Bronte's ghostly Catherine Earnshaw. She is the oldest literary type around—the bitter madwoman, hellbent on revenge and willing to act against her own interest to win some respect. And now, to hear the media tell it, she is a Hillary Holdout; she's a PUMA (Party Unity My Ass); and she belongs to 18 Million Voices.

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20 August 2008 @ 04:20 pm
Freedom of the press моя задница!  
  Those damn Russians are not only spamming our internet forums, but also some of the major newspapers. Just today I am reading yet another commie junk propaganda opinion in one of our finest anti-liberal dailies. When will they learn that no matter how many forums and printed sources they managed to shit up, all of the progressive people in the West will still keep thinking that Georgia is a great example of a young democracy being unlawfully bullied and attacked by an uncultivated and barbarian neighbor, who has just happened to be more powerful by the dumb luck of having vast resources of free oil in its entrails. For shame!
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 06:09 pm
The Notion: C�sar Maxit: A Real Olympic Hero  
C�sar's story isn't one of gold medals and Bob Costas's drooling, but it is as much a part of these games as anything done by Phelps: it's the story of someone making the trip to Beijing, not for gold, but to be heard.

 
 
20 August 2008 @ 06:34 pm
How do conservative countries handle scantily clad Olympic athletes?  
Yesterday in Beijing, Roqaya al-Gassra of Bahrain won her heat in the second round of the women's 200-meter dash while wearing long pants, long sleeves, and a head covering, in keeping with her practice of Islam. Many female Olympians wear athletic clothing that does not cover their bodies; are their events broadcast in conservative countries?

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20 August 2008 @ 03:14 pm
McCain Right to Claim America Was Founded on Judeo-Christian Principles?  
When Senators Barack Obama and John McCain both appeared at the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency with Pastor Rick Warren last weekend, McCain used a myth about the supposed Judeo-Christian origin of American principles to pander to the evangelical Christian audience in a way I contrast with an Obama appearance at another Baptist church earlier this year in my 2 minute 40 second YouTube video at:

McCain Right USA Founded on Judeo-Christian Principles?

If you're interested in the sources I used for my video...

You can see the full section of the Saddleback Civil Forum interview of John McCain from which I took a short clip for this video from the CNN website at Saddleback Forum segment

I used Marion Doss's picture of Thomas Jefferson in my video under a creative commons license as described on his Flickr page at Jefferson photo

You can find the rest of Thomas Jefferson's 1824 letter to Major John Cartwright, among other places, at Book of Jefferson documents

You can find the prepared text of Barack Obama's January 20, 2008 speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church from which I took a screen capture at Text of Ebenezer Baptist Church speech

You can find the full video of Barack Obama's January 20, 2008 speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church from which I took a short clip at Video of Ebenezer Baptist Church speech

Finally, this is my first posting to the [info]politicsforum community, so I appreciate all feedback :-)
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 05:49 pm
Skirting the issues.  
Amid reports that retail sales are getting pummeled, the September fashion magazines have hit newsstands in the past week. We all know that hemlines tend to drop along with the economy, and it's no surprise that (thankfully) upper thighs are about as rare in these issues as robust mutual funds. Fashion mags have long walked the line between presenting themselves as shopping guides of wearable trends and offering glossy spreads of five-figure frocks. But do women in today's economy want to confront pages of $1,000 shoes when they are struggling to pay the rent? Or do they prefer practicality over fantasy in these trying times? We looked at six magazines to see how editors responded to the current economic waist-cinching and whether ads—not hemlines—are up or down from last year. Here, from Elle's reaction of What recession? to the recessionary lack of glamour at Glamour, are the results.

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20 August 2008 @ 05:39 pm
Trying to make sense of Condoleezza Rice's latest statement.  
Condoleezza Rice has said many strange things as secretary of state, but few stranger than this remark at an Aug. 18 press conference onboard her plane en route to Brussels, Belgium:

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20 August 2008 @ 04:54 pm
Infoviz art.  
How artists are mining data sets to make you see the unseen.

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20 August 2008 @ 04:48 pm
The science of DJing an Olympic beach volleyball match.  
Attending beach volleyball matches in Beijing raises a few inevitable questions: How is it possible for the wave to circle an arena five full times? Where do all those perky, underdressed Chinese cheerleaders come from? Did I really just hear "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)" at the Olympic Games?

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20 August 2008 @ 02:03 pm
The Dreyfuss Report: Patience Needed in Pakistan  
It's a shaky situation. Hopefully, the US won't make it worse by pushing too hard and too fast.

 
 
20 August 2008 @ 04:16 pm
Remember when decathletes were cool?  
Once upon a time, no greater authority than King Gustav of Sweden proclaimed Jim Thorpe "the world's greatest athlete" after the Native American superjock won the decathlon in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm. In the middle of the 20th century, decathletes such as Bob Mathias and Rafer Johnson became superstars after winning the gold medal. And who could forget—although, given his recent reality-show foray, we might wish to—Bruce Jenner pounding down the home stretch in Montreal in all of his red-white-and-blue glory?

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20 August 2008 @ 03:29 pm
 
After Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, his widow, Coretta Scott King, established the King Center for Nonviolence in Atlanta and converted King's estate into a corporation ("Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc.") to collect royalties on the civil rights leader's historic writings, documents, and recordings. King's three living children, Dexter, Bernice and Martin III, are all board members of the King Center and shareholders in the corporation. (Coretta died in 2006.)

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20 August 2008 @ 06:34 pm
Slate on China and the Beijing Olympics.  
A roundup of Slate's coverage of China and the Beijing Games.

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20 August 2008 @ 08:07 pm
Galactic 'spaghetti monster' powered by magnetic fields  
Long streamers of gas ejected by a galaxy called NGC 1275 can only be held together by magnetic fields, Hubble images suggest
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 05:01 pm
In Support of Same-Sex Marriage  

Same-sex marriage is going to be an issue this election, yet again. In all of the discussions I've had concerning the topic, I've only ever encountered two arguments, what I call the Destruction and Dilution arguments. Maybe you can provide others.

The Destruction argument is that allowing same-sex marriage will cause opposite-sex marriage rates to plummet somehow. I always get crickets when I ask what it is about same-sex marriage that would lead to this destruction of marriage in general. Regardless, the Scandinavian and Bay Stater experiences suggest that no such destruction of marriage occurs.

The Dilution argument is a slippery slope argument, that "re-defining" marriage to include same-sex couples opens the door to all kinds of bizarre things, like legalization of polygamy, pedophilia — even pedophiliac marriages — and zoophilia — even zoophiliac marriages. This argument also seems ridiculous on its face to me, but it's brought up time and again, so I'll address it during my pro-same-sex marriage arguments below.

Read more... )
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 02:24 pm
The last two weeks have been a disaster for U.S. foreign policy.  
Through the first days of the crisis in the Caucasus, all eyes have been on the suffering of the Georgians and barbarism of the Russians. Both are indisputable. But now it is also time to recognize that the events of the last two weeks have been a disaster for U.S. foreign policy.

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20 August 2008 @ 06:00 pm
How to stop a new type of heart attack  
Researchers say the best way to stop hackers from interfering with implanted medical devices is to pair them with a "cloaking device"
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 06:00 pm
Fast waters run deep for Olympic swimmers  
Why have so many swimming records fallen in the Beijing Water Cube? (full text available to subscribers)
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 12:10 pm
Elephants master basic mathematics  
Asian elephant Ashya sums small numbers and gets it right nine times in 10, and beats our reporter
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 03:07 pm
Planets without metal cores may be bad for life  
Rocky planets can form without metallic cores, a new study suggests – they would lack magnetic fields, which are crucial for life as we know it
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 12:50 pm
Sending a Message  
I got a twin mattress and box spring delivered today for my guest bedroom (now I just need a guest to put in the bed) and went to Bed Bath & Beyond over the lunch hour to pick up a comforter and some sheets for it.

As I was leaving the store with my purchases, I saw a display of various doormats, and one caught my eye. In fact, I may go and buy it the next time a 20% off postcard comes in the mail. The doormat said,

"Leave"

I laughed all the way out to the car.
Tags:
 
 
Current Location: Brookfield, WI 53005
: amused
 
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 12:00 pm
Campaign 08: One Last Clinton Scenario  
It's probably Biden, but...

 
 
20 August 2008 @ 11:49 am
Crossword, sudoku plague threatens America!  
Someone once said the world can be divided into two kinds of people: The kind who say "the world can be divided into two kinds of people" and the kind who don't.

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20 August 2008 @ 11:27 am
Ted Solotaroff, Rust Hills, and the mysterious motives of fiction editors.  
"Everyone interesting died this weekend," wrote Choire Sicha recently. I thought he was writing about two of the more prominent editors of fiction in the '60s and '70s, Ted Solotaroff and Rust Hills, whose obituaries recently showed up days apart in the New York Times. As it happens, he meant Isaac Hayes and Bernie Mac. But I recognized the impulse to find meaning in the arbitrary proximity of people's deaths.

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20 August 2008 @ 10:41 am
The Olympics Sap-o-Meter.  
NBC reaches yet another milestone on its magically sappy Olympic journey.

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20 August 2008 @ 10:21 am
The creepy joy of cooking with Vincent Price.  
A cookbook titled A Treasury of Great Recipes sounds innocuous. What's frightening about noodle casserole? Why, nothing ... except when it's cooked by Vincent Price.

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20 August 2008 @ 06:48 pm
RUSSIAN MISSILES IN SYRIA  
 It seems as if it is another “gift” from Dmitry Medvedev, who promised an immediate and appropriate answer to NATO, regarding the ABM system deployment in Check Republic and in Poland. "I suppose that after the crisis with Georgia, Russia has become even stronger.  It is important for Russia to keep the position of the Great Empire. In this case all the attempts to isolate the country will fail", - stated the president of Syria Bashar Asad. Russia can send a “reply” against the US deployment of ABM system on the territory of Europe with the help of Syria, i.e by deployment of its guided missile “Iskander” complex there.
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 03:07 pm
'Coreless' planets may be bad for life  
Rocky planets can form without metallic cores, a new study suggests – they would lack magnetic fields, which are crucial for life as we know it
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 10:07 am
 
Speculation about Senator McCain's vice presidential pick continues and includes two very heterodox choices for a Republican nominee in this age: Former Homeland Security Director and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman.

Governor Ridge is in favor of legal abortion and Senator Leiberman, while a war hawk and close ally of Senator McCain, is obviously to the left of the Republican party on a wide range of issues.

Assuming these names are more than trial balloons and are in serious consideration, what would the choice of either man mean for McCain's candidacy? How might their choice influence your vote in November?
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 06:00 am
Beauty Beat: Eye-Catcher  
Lash-batting as sport.
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 06:00 am
Skirting the Line  
The office dress code.
 
 
20 August 2008 @ 06:00 am
Putting Your Best Face Foward  
Plastic surgery is about more than good looks.