Supreme Court Vacancies Likely in Next Four Years

Supreme Court Vacancies Likely in Next Four Years

One issue that has been totally absent from the campaign is the Supreme Court. Five of the justices are 70 or more. Justice Stevens is 88 and unlikely to want to serve 4 more years. Justice Ginsberg had cancer and was operated on for it. Justice Souter is known to want to retire and return to New Hampshire. These are three of the most liberal justices on the court. If all three retire and are replaced by Obama, the court will retain its even split between liberals and conservatives for many years to come. If all three are replaced by McCain, the conservatives will have a clear majority and surely reverse Roe v. Wade and many other decisions that conservatives think are wrong. It is amazing that the court has gotten so little attention.

SUN and the LHC

Data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being stored on Sun products.

Sun Fire X4500 servers with a 400 terabytes storage capacity and Sun tape technology

The Sun System News article has this quote from the LHC Rap by Kate McAlpine:

Twenty-seven kilometers of tunnel under ground;
Designed with mind to send protons around;
A circle that crosses through Switzerland and France;
Sixty nations contribute to scientific advance.

TierneyLab: Obama’s Science Quiz

Chris sent me this link to New York Times TierneyLab blog article Obama’s Science Quiz where Obama responded (but McCain did not respond) to questions about science.

While I was there I took the Astronomy Quiz and got 9/10 right (I should have been perfect! rats!).

Paul Rothemund: The astonishing promise of DNA folding

Paul Rothemund: The astonishing promise of DNA folding

Previously I blogged about Paul Rothemund's "scaffolded DNA origami" and now he talks about how to scale the process using "tiles".

Bill Clinton on the Daily Show

Bill Clinton on the Daily Show, part 1



Bill Clinton on the Daily Show, part 2

$700 billion bailout

John Stewart and Stephen Colbert talk about the $700 billion bailout...

"Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's brilliant $700 billion plan could buy every single American 2,000 McDonald's apple pies."



"We have to give unchecked financial power to the president and his appointees so they can implement a plan that no one understands."



Hindsight is $2020 billion...

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

http://www.electoral-vote.com/ is the best Election website around!

The home page has the famous Red State/Blue State map (shown below) and a quick glance tells you who is leading the races for president, the house, and the senate.



One link off the home page leads to this cartogram where the size of each state represents the number of electoral votes:



And another link shows a graph of how Obama and McCain have done since April:

liberals and conservatives

This blog entry contains two TED talks that discuss how we learn and the difference between conservatives and liberals...

How can two of my friends, one Republican and one Democrat, both be intelligent, informed, helpful, caring people, and hold completely opposite views on the problems and solutions facing our country and planet?

Do both sides think the other is just dumb?



Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.



Jonathan Drori looks at the gaps in our knowledge -- and specifically, what we don't know as much about science that we might think we do.

gPhone available 9/23/2008

from http://www.androidmobilephone.com/

The "T-Mobile G1" (aka: "gPhone") will be available on September 23rd.

Service: T-Mobile
Real name: T-Mobile G1
Hardware: manufactured by HTC Corp. in Taiwan
Code name: HTC "Dream"
Software: Google "Android"
Pet name: "gPhone"

Price: $199
Available: 9/23/2008

A long demo video is available at http://www.androidmobilephone.com/
A short demo video shows the slide out keyboard.

How to survive a nuclear attack

TEDTalks : How to survive a nuclear attack - Irwin Redlener (2008)

A nuclear war is not survivable, but a nuclear terrorist attack is survivable and requires planning.




We should have a plan so that if there was a terrorist attack in our area we would know how to take all the actions that he suggests, and we could add to our plans things like having everyone in our our area check in with a relative in North Dakota.

Large Hadron Rap

After you check the Large Hadron Rap then don't forget to check out the web cams (from my post last night)!





Large Hadron Rap
Alpinekat
aka: Katherine MacAlpine
https://www.msu.edu/~mcalpin9/

David Gallo: The deep oceans: a ribbon of life

This TED talk "David Gallo: The deep oceans: a ribbon of life" is real life Spore.

LHC web cams

Are you worried about LHC (Large Hadron Collider) bringing the end of the world ? Then rejoice - now you can keep an eye on LHC at: http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Enjoy!

PS. Seongbae, thanks for the link :)

Shoe Circus - Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates

Two of my favorite people: Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates

This video shows Microsoft's commitment to quality products.




..not...