Aside from Ron Paul, only recently has there been any Republican politicians on the national level serious about slowing the growth of government. Much less, reducing its size. The Republican establishment just disagrees with Democrats about which parts of government should get even bigger and who should benefit.

"... libertarian paradise that Republicans are always touting."There is no such thing as a libertarian paradise. And Republicans don't tout much that's libertarian. Especially so in recent decades.

A long-dead, 19th century British naturalist received nearly 4,000 votes against incumbent Georgia congressman Rep. Paul Broun (R) after the House member’s controversial comments at a Christian fundraiser were made public earlier this year. According to the Athens, Georgia’s alt weekly, Flagpole magazine, the list of names written in against Broun’s stretched to an impressive 371 pages and is available for download as a .pdf here. [...] Charles Darwin gets 4,000 votes against ‘lies from the pit of Hell’ congressman

A number of large service industry employers — including retail stores, restaurants, and hotel chains — have either begun limiting hourly worker schedules to 30 hours a week or say they are about to do so.

"..., it's about the next wave of folks moving north because their particular hellhole gives them no choice."Yeah, Canada is looking better all the time.

[...] OBJECTIVE: To determine the internipple distance and internipple index in Chinese children. [...] RESULTS: The internipple distance and chest circumference increased with age. The internipple index was highest in the neonatal period (26.4 +/- 1.6 for males and 26.3 +/- 2 for females), and decreased steadily until the age of four years (23.8 +/- 1.2 for males and 23.8 +/- 1.4 for females), and thereafter was relatively constant through the age of 18 years in males and the age of 11 years in females. In females, the internipple index decreased gradually from the age of 11 years to 18 years. [...] Internipple distance and internipple index. I guess you can get a government grant to study just about anything.

Doesn't help that Chinese holidays are based on the Chinese lunar calendar.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of American culture, it's one of the country's biggest exports. And not just in monetary terms. Valentine's day is pretty big in Japan I think. Other countries have adopted various other American holidays.

Camera obscuras in space might be a useful approach to viewing light from planets while masking out the interfering light from their stars.

Many of the richest people in America were born before 1850. George Washington is estimated to have been worth about $500 million in today's dollars.

Yeah, but whose ever heard of a 38 liter hat?

Frink Web-based Interface will do all kinds of unit conversions. Even implied multiple unit conversions. Entering "1 gallon gasoline" and "pound TNT" will calculate the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline in pounds of TNT. The Frink programming language has a huge library of units and unit conversions built into it.

"Soldiers can't even have concealed carry of personal weapons on post."That worked out really well at Fort Hood.

A corporation has rights only in the sense that it is a proxy for and derives rights from the rights of the natural person(s) it represents.

"...They'd rather be "safe" from phony threats than free. Except they're not even safe from their own government any more (whether that govt be local or fed)." If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now as when first published in 1941. [...] Escape from Freedom

"It turns out that drug sniffing dogs have an incredibly high false positive rate--they alert many more times than drugs are actually found once a search is done."From law enforcement point of view, this is a feature, not a defect.

"It was about government taking somebody's money and giving it to Those People, whatever shape and form Those People take in folks' private nightmares."I have a problem with government taking my money even if it were, at some point, going to give it all back to me.

"Nitrogen is not a noble gas; it's just rather firmly wedded to itself."So, it's just a narcissistic gas?

Humans traded an almost equal mass of gut size for brain size. Humans were likely at the top of the food chain, at least in northern Europe, for thousands of years at a time. When an ice age advanced, large predators froze to death. Even after the ice receded, it might be a long time before enough ice melted in the mountains to the south to allow large predators to move in again. I eat a largely raw, unprocessed, vegetarian diet. I substitute the use of a two horsepower blender for cooking.

Itzhak Perlman and Peter Schickele

[...] It didn't start out that way. On Tuesday Jan 25 it all started peacefully, and against all odds, we succeeded to gather hundreds of thousands and get them into Tahrir Square, despite being attacked by Anti-Riot Police who are using sticks, tear gas and rubber bullets against us. We managed to break all of their barricades and situated ourselves in Tahrir. The government responded by shutting down all cell communication in Tahrir square, a move which purpose was understood later when after midnight they went in with all of their might and attacked the protesters and evacuated the Square. The next day we were back at it again, and the day after. Then came Friday and we braved their communication blackout, their thugs, their tear gas and their bullets and we retook the square. We have been fighting to keep it ever since. [...] Egypt, right now!

"You just can't stab or cut someone unless you are right next to them and bystanders have to be a lot closer before you will attack them as a threat."Yeah, you rarely ever hear of a drive by knifing.

For quite a few people, it's illegal for them to have a job.

[...] Ardant du Picq's surveys of French officers in the 1860s and his observations about ancient battles (Battle Studies, 1946), John Keegan and Richard Holmes' numerous accounts of ineffectual firing throughout history (Soldiers, 1985), Holmes' assessment of Argentine firing rates in the Falklands War (Acts of War, 1985), Paddy Griffith's data on the extraordinarily low firing rate among Napoleonic and American *Civil War regiments (Battle Tactics of the American Civil War, 1989), the British army's laser reenactments of historical battles, the FBI's studies of nonfiring rates among law enforcement officers in the 1950s and 1960s, and countless other individual and anecdotal observations, all confirm Marshall's fundamental conclusion that human beings are not, by nature, killers. Indeed, from a psychological perspective, the history of warfare can be viewed as a series of successively more effective tactical and mechanical mechanisms to enable or force combatants to overcome their resistance to killing other human beings, even when defined as the enemy. [...] "Aggression and Violence"

Good thing Loughner's reload clips were also high capacity. Otherwise he might killed or wounded more people than he did.