It's simple. Because a voting district can only have one answer, only the largest majority party in any given region gets ANY representation. So, for political parties, you must be this tall to ride this ride. A third party either can't get off the ground, or if it does, replaces one of the other two. Representation by geography is strangling American politics as it leads inevitably to a two-party system. And unlike the days when we all got our news from Walter Cronkite who tried to at least appear impartial, we now (mostly) get all our news from like-minded sources who have no qualms demonizing those from the other party. This hyperpartisanship is creating a false choice, all of column A, or all of column B, never mind those like myself who want some of this, some of that, and a bit that isn't on the menu at all. Worse, it's becoming an offense to even work with the other party. Also, representation by geography means that my voice does not matter at all unless my neighbors agree with me. Representation by party would let any party with a significant percentage of voters be heard, even if they are spread around the country like so much butter. Sadly, this would require a constitutional amendment to change, and very few successful members of the current system are likely to want to change it.

Yeah, maybe the next gov't will be worse... It's easy to make doomsday predictions, much harder to back them up. Iraq and Afghanistan have free elections, they got corruption and profiteering, but no dictatorship so far. Egypt is voting on changing their constitution or throwing it out and starting over... There's big things afoot, and no way will the people-power that has produced these changes go away. *** From now on, the governments will fear the people, not the other way around.

War is not the solution to everything.. but when an insane dictator starts shooting civilians, you either stand on the sidelines, get some popcorn and cheer, or you pick up a gun and do something about it. -- Added bonus, no occupation means they can thank us for helping without having us hanging around year after bloody year.

The Arab League and the UN have spoken. Strangely enough, the French acted first in support of both those organizations. Us and the Brits joined them. Also, if we clear the path for the Lybian rebels, who then march into Tripoli, then we're "helping" instead of "dictating".

The mandate for action and the goal seem clear. Clear the way so the Lybians themselves can march into Tripoli. Much better outcome than having US troops on the ground not knowing who to shoot. Added bonus, we -start- to make a clear break from the ruthless dictators we've supported in the name of the cold war and later the phantom menace, er, I mean the war on terror.

Sadly, I left my explanation of how an infinite universe works in my other pants, which I left at the Hilbert Hotel.

The "Observable Universe" is not "all the matter in the universe" where the big bang flings out stuff in all directions. Instead, it's just the small fraction of the universe we can see, due to the pokey speed of light. The big bang is not where a little fleck floating in space suddenly explodes, but rather space and time coming into existence with a very high energy density. As the universe expands, the energy can start to form matter. None of it gets flung anywhere except by local forces (i.e. supernovas etc., very small on the scale we're talking about). This misconception about the big bang is quite common; it's tracks are all over this discussion. I consider it a failure of the educational system that even a pretty geeky and learned crowd like slashdot's seems to mostly have not been taught this in a way that both made sense and is consistent with the actual theory.

The discussion is not "how big is the universe" so much as "what is the curvature of the universe". If the curvature is 0, then the universe is infinite. If it's closed, then it's finite, but the best measurements say it really can not be less than 250 times the size of the observable universe, assuming it's closed at all and not flat or open.

That's a lower limit, not the size. They are saying it's most likely to be infinite, but if it is closed, then it's at least 250 times bigger than the "observable" universe. Of course the 250+ lower limit is what catches our eye, not the most likely curvature of 0.

For those of you who did not bother to read the whole article, there's a really important nugget that's lost in the 250+ times headline. The results show that the most likely curvature of the universe = 0. This means the universe, as near as our best minds can tell, is infinite. All the same dusting of galaxies in every direction, infinitely. Infinity is not a concept most people grasp easily. People ask things like "what's outside the universe?" but there is no outside, as "directionality" or "position" have no meaning outside the context of the universe. Likewise, there's no "before" the universe, as time has no meaning outside the context of the universe. My instinct says that we'll eventually come up with a nifty model of reality that includes a non-intuitive description of "position" that causes everything to make mathematical sense and has both quantum physics and relativity as predictable consequences.. but that is pure speculation. And it's a sure bet it'll be even harder to wrap our heads around than what we have now.

I found myself in a similar place recently, trying to relate my former programming prowess (nobody uses Forte anymore.. heck, nobody used it back when I used it!) into a nice comfy development job like I had back in 2000. I got some great advice from my friends though. When a company wants to hire code-monkeys, they either want someone fresh out of college who will work 80 hour weeks for beer and hot-pockets, or they want to go offshore to save money. But as someone with management experience in another field and good people skills and communication skills, I could make the kind of project manager who understands both the tech and the people. While It looks like I might end up doing something else entirely, this advice got me to think outside the box. As much as I love the mental stimulation of coding, it might not be the best career choice.

Is it really about religion, or is it more about putting a stop to Facebook as a medium for political dissent? I have to wonder how cynical the leaders are.