stability vs civil liberties

how a number of US citizens are so desperate for stability and safety that they willingly acquiesce to the dilution of their civil liberties.

And yet these same folks apparently believe that the Iraqis are so desperate for freedom that they will gladly have endless death, deprivation, and destruction inflicted on them in pursuit of liberty.

randomness: orbitals

link

chasms

source

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Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is 'no comment.'"
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You know, maybe Ed Witten should give these guys a call; now that they've solved one major Mystery of the Universe and Everything, I'm sure they'll have some profound insights into Chern-Simons theory and what-not.

UN resolution 1441

This is in response to a common complaint I see from folks on the right:

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KCarsom:

If Saddam had agreed to inspections under UN resolution 1441, and not snubbed his nose at the UN, he might still be alive today. After all, wasn’t that the reason the coalition forces went into Iraq in the first place?
posted on December 30th, 2006 at 12:48 am
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This is part of Hans Blix' statement to the UN re 1441 sanctioned inspections:

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Inspections in Iraq resumed on 27 November 2002. In matters relating to process, notably prompt access to sites, we have faced relatively few difficulties and certainly much less than
those that were faced by UNSCOM in the period 1991 to 1998. This may well be due to the strong outside pressure.

Some practical matters, which were not settled by the talks Dr ElBaradei and I had with the Iraqi side in Vienna prior to inspections or in resolution 1441 (2002), have been resolved at
meetings, which we have had in Baghdad.

Initial difficulties raised by the Iraqi side about helicopters and aerial surveillance planes operating in the no-fly zones were overcome.

This is not to say that the operation of inspections is free from frictions, but at this juncture we are able to perform professional no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase
aerial surveillance.

American U-2 and French Mirage surveillance aircraft already give us valuable imagery, supplementing satellite pictures and we would expect soon to be able to add night vision capability through an aircraft offered to us by the Russian Federation.

We also expect to add low-level, close area surveillance through drones provided by Germany. We are grateful not only to the countries, which place these valuable tools at our disposal, but
also to the states, most recently Cyprus, which has agreed to the stationing of aircraft on their territory.
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net neutrality

So the ISP's want to be able to speed up access for any site willing to bear the freight.

How long would it take the average telco CFO to figure out that it's cheaper to slow down all the other sites than to make any one site faster?

Best guess closest to the actual picosecond wins a rate increase.