Posts Made By: Paul Kammueller

Running up to the tippity-top of the channel, the S&P500 is looking short-term overbought on a 3-year chart. Things are about ripe for some sort of correction.

So reportedly a panel of advisors lead by James Baker is going to recommend a change of course. Somebody's actually suggesting that there are alternatives to the false dichotomy of the so-called 'stay the course' and 'cut and run' options, neither of which appears tenable at this point. I'm just amazed that there's somebody even trying to find a 'third way' anymore in this age where all rhetoric is couched in a phony "this-or-that" duality of choices. Apparently one option on the table is inviting participation of adjacent neighbors to assist in stabilizing the situation.

Of course the chief problem is that this would require temporarily laying aside some political differences for the sake of resolving a greater short-term crisis. Short work for any level-headed pragmatist (republican or democrat), but the current leadership is manned by fuzzy-headed idealists (really just right-wing hippies, imho) so I'm not terribly optimistic. It would also require the current leadership to admit that something they're doing isn't working, and that feat of humility has never been accomplished.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6057740.stm

WOW watched a movie with the wife and figured midnight the senate would be pretty much decided one way or the other, was WRONG, there's 3 states coming right down to the wire!

Anyway, the house has changed hands so there will be some balance in politics again. Harmony is restored in the universe.

Reintroduce the Miller amendment, or something similar, to restore some scientific integrity in government-funded research.

This subject doesn't get a lot of play in the press, but the unprecedented political interference in (and censorship of) science is one of the most egregious results of one-party rule the last several years.

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/house-science-committee-votes.html

So Bush just appointed a new head of family planning, director of a christian pregnancy counseling joint that regards distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women". Looks like the American Taliban is on the march again. So much for moderatism I guess. How long until the burkhas?

And now for something completely different (well ok it's a variant of a previous thread) -

Which of these scenarios of reality seems most likely and why:
1) One god, one universe
2) One god, many universes
3) No god, one universe
4) No god, many universes
5) Many gods, many universes
6) Many gods, one universe

Looks like the Bush Administration is trying to pull the noose around science's neck a little tighter yet. I guess they want to have closer control over any research that could conflict with the party ideology.

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/061214_ap_usgs_screening.html

Science: regulate it to death, regulate it into submission.

So with most of the polar ice expected to be gone by 2040, there's one thing that seems to be lost in the global warming debate...

What is to become of Santa? What will parents tell kids about the elves, the reindeer and the North Pole when the ice at the pole is gone?

I suppose our cherished childhood stories will have to be revised, perhaps with Santa and the elves evacuating to the north coast of Greenland. Or maybe setting up a floating island toy factory at the North Pole, in a kind of "Waterworld" scenario?

He could also relocate to the South Pole I suppose. Any other ideas?

Jim Babcock said:
It is amazing to me how our left leaning group pretty much believes that the US is just a bunch of bigots.

No, you don't understand. The majority of Americans are not bigots or sexist or whatever. It's just a matter of mathematics:

Presidential elections these days turn on a margin of 1% to 5% of the electorate. With margins that close just based on usual election factors, you need pretty much 100% acceptance of your race/gender just to be a contender. If 14% of the electorate says they'd personally never vote for a woman, then if you're a woman realistically you've got no chance... unless you've got just absolutely crushing dominance in the issues, debates, etc. to get the necessary compensating margin in the rest of the electorate to offset the 14% handicap.

The issue is somewhat moot for 2008 since the only female candidate people are talking about is Hillary C. who is polarizing to start with and everybody hates her. I agree she couldn't win because too many people just hate her right out of the gate. Though from my experience the people that seem to truly hate her are the same sort of people who would vote only for a republican anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter as much as I think. I haven't heard any moderate opinions of Hillary C. Maybe there aren't any, if she's a polarizing candidate.

So in advance of spending christmas with the extended families, on the night of the solstice we had a little family candlelit dinner. Afterwards we went outside and built snow-lanterns in the yard and lit them. I went out first and made one in the backyard on the patio table before I realized they were making them in the front yard.

My wife took this opportunity to spin up some old scandinavian folklore for our 8-year-old daughter regarding some wee folk called the "tomte" or "tonttu", a kind of tiny elvish folk who can bring good/bad luck depending on what you do, and may even leave some offering in exchange for a bowl of porridge set out on the doorstep.

Well, our daughter was quite keen on this so together they made a bowl of oatmeal and set it out. Well now, she came down in the morning to find that the porridge had indeed been eaten and around the bowl were left three pretty little rocks.

Needless to say, while this is not nearly as useful as all the loot Santa brings, it was very cool nonetheless. She was talking about these creatures on and off the rest of the day. In the evening, she rather excitedly told me that these little sprites had even built their own snow lantern in the backyard while we were all gone during the day. She came up with this explanation herself, she was quite convinced that the lantern was not there in the morning (it of course was, since it was the very one I had built the previous evening, though she had not seen me do it).