Yes, please end this puritanical nightmare we are in. Even though I don't think I would ever use a prostitute's services, it's horrid to think of the conditions these poor women suffer simply because their trade is illegal.

I think it's quite simple. When making something illegal does more harm than good, put it back the way it was and try something else!

Prostitution and the drug trade would not be entangled with serious crime if they weren't illegal.

Fractal Mathematics, Quantum Entanglement, and 11 Dimensional string theory would have blown his mind.

QM, as a conservative, wouldn't you agree that too much is being spent on foreign wars?

Even with all the inevitable Dept. of Defense waste? No. The first priority of any nation is to defend itself from invaders. If you took all the money we spend on defense, redirected it for "social services" and scrap the military, China would quickly move in. I think liberals have a tendency to forget that it's our nuke-carrying submarines circling the globe that keep monsters like China in check and everyone honest.

Unfortunately, America has no choice but to be the world's policeman, we've been cast in that role, and a Ron Paul-style return of all our Armed Forces around the world would mean absolute chaos. Think of how many rogue nations there are now, still acting like dicks WITH our military everywhere.

You won't believe this, but "spending (on national security) as a share of the national economy has actually decreased sharply in recent decades and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brought only relatively minor increases. In 1951, with overall government spending less than half what it is today, the defense budget was nearly twice its 2009 level. (9% to 4.7%). In other words, military spending as a percentage of all governmental spending is today only one-fourth what it was sixty years ago.

"In 1968, due to Vietnam, military spending rose to 9.8%. That number (of defense spending as a percentage of GDP) came down after the conclusion of the war in Southeast Asia, and sank to a modern low of 3% under Bill Clinton, a level criticized by many military planners as irresponsibly low. Defense spending has increased steadily since then (to an estimated 4.7% this year) under the pressures of the War on Terror. The defense budget nevertheless remains historically low far below its levels under Eisenhower, say, or Kennedy, or Reagan (6%). In explaining the outrageous increase in federal, state and local spending, its obvious that defense and international entanglements had nothing to do with it."

Wood Chipper and Friends are complaining that "no one is doing anything" to help "the poor."

"A book "The Complete Idiots Guide to Economics" written in 2003 cites the U.S. Government budget as reporting that entitlements make up approximately 65 percent of our budget, distributed as follows:
Social Security: 23%
Medicare: 12%
Medicaid: 7%
Other Means-tested entitlements: 6%
Mandatory payments (pensions, etc.): 6%
Net interest on debt: 11%

In 2005, Senator Judd Gregg, then Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee stated that "Mandatory entitlement spending now represents a whopping 55 percent of all federal spending. If left on its current path, that could jump to more than 60 percent in 10 years. That will force us to cut out other necessary expenditures or raise taxes and weaken our economy." Source: The Hill newspaper, Washington DC."

Believe what you like, but there are the facts. Defense spending is a drop in the bucket compared to entitlements aka health, education, welfare. And while military tech has much improved, you don't see a doubling of quality in our govt. schools and you SURE as hell aren't going to see quantum leaps of innovation and efficiency in health care by letting the government run it.

For Kucinich & Friends we could spend 99% of the annual budget on entitlements and they would, and STILL never be happy. It's straight up fking bullsht that so many people have to have their hard-earned sht stolen by a thugverment and handed to people that don't give a sht, don't try and don't care. Yes, some of them need help, but what about the guy that can do the same as you, only he chooses to fk off? Why should you have to pay for his indolence? Do you really think it's just "the rich' getting soaked? Take a look at your paystub. The feds take a nice chuck out of your ass every week or two weeks, even if you're flipping burgers.

mootie writes At least some of that goes towards HELPING people instead of KILLING them.

We spent massive treasure and blood removing a tyrant from Iraq and giving 30 million Iraqis a chance to govern themselves. Doesn't that HELP them?

Liberalism starts with a negative premise, then gets even angrier that the impossible can't be solved with huge sums of money. It's like jumping down a hole and hanging from the bar of weights you're trying to lift while dangling.

Hmm, quantum entanglement. Perhaps not that useful for moving living things around, if only for the philosophical debates and imminent smear campaign that would be undertaken by FedEx and the airlines.

Nevertheless, quantum entangling could be applied to data in a way that allows limitless network connectivity over any distance. Would be great for instant communication with our deep-space outposts (and might be ready to solve that problem at about the same time in the future.)

On BBC News today (10/19/09) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8310420.stm

The theory: Going from here to somewhere else without passing through anywhere in between.

The science fiction: Beam me up, Scotty.

In practice: Take two particles of light and entangle them - now you can teleport quantum information - such as what their spin is - from one to the other, instantaneously.

The layman's explanation: Photons, particles of light, have a property called "spin". This can be up, down, or a mixture of the two. Alice has a photon, and she wants Bob to have one with the same spin. She can't send him hers because the Post Office is on strike, and she can't measure her spin and phone him, because the measurement can change the spin.

Fortunately, the last time she met Bob she gave him one photon from an entangled pair, and kept the other. "Entangled" means that the two photons were prepared so that their states were related in a special way. Alice lets her photon interact with her other photon from the entangled pair. This instantly teleports information about the spin to Bob's half. However, he can't "read" that information until a message arrives by more conventional means. A quick call on Alice's mobile, telling him some measurements she has made, now puts his entangled photon into the desired state.

Quantum "teleportation" destroys the original state and can't be used to send messages faster than light. It doesn't actually teleport matter - just quantum information.

Coming to a store near you?: In 1998, the quantum optics group at Caltech used "squeezed light" to teleport the state of a photon in a laboratory. It's now been done with atoms, too. In 2004 Austrian physicists teleported the state of a photon across the Danube river. Within another century it will be an amoeba. But be warned: when you are teleported, your body will be ripped to shreds and rebuilt at the other end.

Cutting wasteful spending and avoiding harmful foreign entanglements. I wish so-called conservatives and libertarians had the same goals in mind,

I'd love the US to 'get out' of Isreal, Korea, Europe, and a lot of places. A constant military presence all over the world is an outdated paradigm. With modern technology we don't need large military bases dotting the planet. Build the strong military at home & let everyone else run their own affairs.

Problem is the world keeps begging us to 'step in' (ironically, Europe most of all). They LOVE us having a strong military because they consider it to be 'their' military be default. They don't have to maintain a large defense, because we're doing it for them. I say it is long overdue for Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and all the other EU powers to step up and take care of thier own military needs.

But realistically for Isreal, what is the alternative? It is pretty much a given that if the US walks away there would be a horrific bloodbath. The US both (A) provides at least a modicum of a brake on Isreal and (B) prevents the Arab world from booting up Holocaust 2.0 tomorrow. Let's be frank. Europe is neither inclined or capable of halting Muslim aggression if it flares up badly in Isreal or anywhere else. Europe relies on the US to do its dirty work. It isn't an ideal solution, but the US presence is currently about the only real 'stabilizing' influence in that region. Are we prepared to accept the consequences and implications of ending that?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
...... Ending the US/Isreal relationship would allow deep military cuts and extricate the US from an unpopular political stance. That's Blumenthal's real issue here. He doesn't care jack whether Palestinians & Isrealis hate each other. His real target is US foreign policy. ..........


And for that, I applaud him. Cutting wasteful spending and avoiding harmful foreign entanglements. I wish so-called conservatives and libertarians had the same goals in mind, rather than feeding an apocalyptic pipe dream in the 'holy lands'.

dingleberry

A smallish, semi-dry, extraordinarily tenacious remnant of fecal matter which, when unwittingly rolled into a mixture with toilet paper lint by the action of wiping, becomes almost irremovably entangled among ones anal hair, a situationality exacerbated by the vigorous chafing and friction between the buttocks and most commonly remedied by the sad and almost entirely unavoidable remedy of plucking out at its root the individual hair to which each dingleberry is conjoined. Of related interest, dingleberries are often noted as having the vague odor of undigested corn or peanuts. -Urban Dictionary

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
If you see the bible as a book to derive politics from instead of personal direction and motivation, then you don't understand the bible. Jesus was about personal reformation, no political entanglements. There are always going to be a few fringe crazies out there doing stuff like this, on either side of things. Just wanted to shout out that my church is actively involved in the community. It is the freedom to do so in our own way, and so others can too, that I hold to my libertarian views.


Jesus may have been about personal reformation...but the bible has little or nothing to do with Jesus. It is precisely written (or translated and re-translated) for the purpose of manipulating society, and has been for hundreds of years. Any "ethical" teachings would appear to be purely coincidental.

This group is just carrying on a long and honored tradition.

If you see the bible as a book to derive politics from instead of personal direction and motivation, then you don't understand the bible. Jesus was about personal reformation, no political entanglements. There are always going to be a few fringe crazies out there doing stuff like this, on either side of things. Just wanted to shout out that my church is actively involved in the community. It is the freedom to do so in our own way, and so others can too, that I hold to my libertarian views.

>> ^phelixian:
Like the guy. Liked his answer. Don't think it was mind blowing. Would rather have heard him talk about real science topics like quantum entanglement or something.


I don't think quantum physics is his specialty. Also you don't have to go very deep into quantum physics to step from established facts to pure speculation. It can be interesting but also very misleading to the general public. (Why I personally don't like the way Michio Kaku usually explains stuff on TV...)

Anyway, Neil's pretty good at speaking relevant (and funny) sentences without much of a pause. It often feels almost like a prepared speech.

Like the guy. Liked his answer. Don't think it was mind blowing. Would rather have heard him talk about real science topics like quantum entanglement or something.

A guy is stranded on a deserted island with only a sheep and a dog for company. He has a huge libido, and after a couple of days, he gets so horny he is almost delirious. To relieve himself of his agony, he tries to engage the sheep in intercourse. But his efforts are thwarted by the dog, who protects the sheep by pushing him away. He tries again the next day and the day after that, but the dog is always there to stop him.

A week later, he suddenly hears screams for help from the ocean. A woman is struggling to stay afloat about 50 meters from the shore, entangled as she is in the remains of an old fishing net. He quickly jumps in the water, swims out, cuts her loose with his pocket knife, and pulls her in to the shore. Her clothes are in tatters, leaving her almost completely naked, and she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. "Oh thank you, you have saved my life!", she exclaims. "I'll do anything for you in return!".

"Great!", he answers. "Could you hold the dog, please?"

The problem with god or gods is that, as said in the video, the attributes must be explained. If god(s) follow or give rules to this universe such as physics or morality then that god(s) has entangled itself with the universe and must meet certain criteria to do anything. If god(s) have the power of choice for example good and evil, there must be an underlying process to allow him/her/it to make the choice, i.e. like our brains. This allows us to measure and quantify what this "being" is capable of and to which extent he can no longer control a situation, perhaps making it possible for humans to be more powerful than a god(s).

For now the only conceivable way I could see a God existing is if he/her/it is now in a state of superposition relative to the universe (at least physics wise). But, this ends up forcing us back to the question of what is in the box, because until we look it will be in any state.

If god(s) ever becomes perceivable, quantitative, or "real", as our current definition of god(s) is understood to be meant, they would become liars the second proof appears. What happens after that is anyone's guess.

The one bright spot of this video is the young guy with the microphone. He did a pretty good job of not getting entangled in the idiocy. I liked his techniques. I would have even gone so far as to edit out the part where he talks to the camera about fascism, communism and socialism to keep the tone more aloof. The subjects of the video paint a picture well enough on their own.