Yes, right, if the president doesn't tackle things in your own 1-2-3 order it's completely unreasonable.

The economy is Obama's fault.

We should shut down all overseas military bases.

Pakistan will be friendly if we stop dealing with them.

Got it. All very reasonable.

We'll see how the healthcare reform works out. "there were so many other things they could have fix speaks volumes." Volumes about what? Healthcare is one of the US's biggest problems. People have been trying to reform healthcare for decades. Why is this a bad target (results aside)?

The US's appearance abroad is important for international relations. How much easier do you think it would be for the US to function in the middle east if we were to win over the people of Pakistan? Their government understands that we've got to work together but the people (including the people in the government) hate the US. If we could change that, it would make dealing with them enormously easier and would be a huge economic and defensive advantage to the US. We've taken a lot of steps in the right direction (maybe not in Pakistan specifically but that's just an example).

And what I mean about rhetoric is that it guides the public discussion at least. Bush was "I think with my gut" and Obama says science and innovation are important. Yes just saying these things has an effect. It causes people to consider things differently and hopeful do different things. No it's not as important as actually doing things but it's not discountable.

That's crap.

There are huge difference between Obama and Bush. I'll agree that Obama is much more similar to Bush than the Democrats would like to admit. He did however push through healthcare reform (watered down though it may be). He also hugely improved the US's appearance abroad. And differing rhetoric in and of itself is sometimes important. It's at least slowing down the war on science (even if he's not doing much proactive in that regard).

So, I'll agree that he's not it any way living up to his "change" slogan but he's certainly not the same as Bush. Maybe economically the same.

Taxes! (on slaves)

Well, considering you want this system to work in the whole country and to be able to be triggered by the government in Washington, how else would you set the system up? Would you really set up a system that couldn't be triggered all at once? Would that be in any way easier or preferable?

Sure, the number of things that would actually effect the whole country are pretty limited...nuclear fallout...invasion...other extremely unlikely things but you still want the system to work everywhere, why wouldn't you test it like this?

A) It would seem that you would need a non-zero radius to spin BUT (1) pre-big bang wasn't necessarily 0 radius (2) angular momentum might just be a value, whether or not there's anything "spinning" like quantum spin or strangeness.

B) I don't follow your question.

Global Warming?

Living things other than humans?

No. Yes.

What?

No. Yes.

If you are non-skeptical enough to continue surviving then you can sufficiently prove all those claims. If you're more skeptical than that you have no reason to be posting here. Or eating.

I don't know what you mean by that second question. Rebooting is something a computer does...are you suggesting the universe is a computer? Also, if you can "perceive things as happening" then...what's the difference between that and them "actually happening"... It's difficult to give an answer without knowing what you think is going on in the background.

And this is a philosophy question. It has nothing to do with science let alone astronomy in particular.

Your principles there are true (more or less) but they don't really relate to the question.

You're assuming that a universe such as ours can exist and (perhaps) many universes with different features do exist. The question was "Why is that the case?" Since we're here, obviously the universe does exist, but why? Or more specifically, why is there "stuff" in the universe. If you threw space-time into the mix the question would reduce to "Why is there something rather than nothing?" which is a good question...

Though, it's not a science question.

They were walking around in front of it. Leads me to believe it's not particularly dangerous. Maybe extended exposure is bad though.

the key there was "raise to adulthood"

What do you do when he turns out to be as crazy as you and criminal? As in, when he gets out of prison (assuming he even goes to prison for stealing a laptop) and then finds you and sends you to the hospital, or kills you?

Would I want to live 150 years? Yes.

What would I do with the extra time? Same things I do now. Work, travel...you know, live.

I wonder if it would extend fertility. Maybe you could have a family and raise children to adulthood then separate, find a new partner and do it again.

Well, well Sir Labelsalot, where exactly did anyone say "film is low res"?

Apparently not. Since no one makes the cameras anymore.

I'm not saying they're going to disappear next year or anything like that. But digital will beat film out in most respects sooner or later and then it will just be nostalgic. When CDs came out some people complained that the low bitrate cut out a portion of the music but everyone used them anyway. How many people have vinyl? How many people even noticed and cared? Not that many. And now the quality is better anyway.

So...yeah, film is here now and has some time left but I'd be pretty surprised if it has more than a marginal place in the market 50 years from now (aside from digitizing old films at least). Much like vinyl.

Welcome to Hume's nervous breakdown.