California has approx 574,000 voters per electoral vote. Contrast that to Wyoming with 142,000 voters per electoral vote. (This is because each state gets a minimum number of electoral votes.)

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/11/presidential_election_a_map_showing_the_vote_power_of_all_50_states.html

How in the world is that fair? Are we not giving voters in some states more power to elect the President than others?

True, Intellectuals tend to be depressed because they spend most of their time in their heads, absorbed in thought. Thinking is a great thing, but it's only a simulation created by your brain. You simulate some other place, some other time, some other reality, etc. These simulations can be valuable, but they also take you out of present-day reality.

Using your example : You think you'll be screwed at some point in the future. There's a possibility that simulation could actually happen, but it's not happening right now. Sadly, if you believe these thoughts, then your body reacts to the the simulation as if you really are screwed right now. From that reaction springs things like fear, anxiety and depression.

The key is to learn to step back a bit and not get so absorbed your thoughts, because they really are just simulations.

(former depressed intellectual who learned to meditate)

Why would the Chinese even bother invade us with an army? They've already invaded us with cheap plastic crap, iPods and toxic dog food. In doing that, they're slowly taking ownership of this country.

Not too many ships have even been attacked in the past 50 years. The last successful one that I can recall was the Cole, which was successfully attacked by two guys in a rubber boat.

Do we really need lasers to defend ourselves against that?

I hope I don't have to carry around a copy of "War and Peace" just to power my phone.

Actually, a few hundred million is chump change. Republicans already gave themselves several trillion dollars.

It's called George Bush's Iraq War and his administration's bailout of Wall Street late last year.

Money spent on saving the planet is money well spent.

Development of the $89,000 sports car is already complete. That car ships in a few months.

The DOE loan is for a $39K family car that will be built here.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/fisker-39k-plug-in-hybrid-electric-car-2012-ray-lane.php

Why does Rupert Murdoch hate Al Gore so much?

Here's a link to a description of the $39,000 sports car they're developing, which will also be made in the USA, and deserves the DOE loan as much as any other company building electric/hybrid cars domestically

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/fisker-39k-plug-in-hybrid-electric-car-2012-ray-lane.php

Exactly. Fox will distory any news story it can find just to slam Al Gore in an attempt to dilute his credibility.

The Fisker sports car is actually a sports sedan. It has already been developed and will ship early next year. The loan in question is for Fisker to develop a family car that will be less than half the price of the sedan.

Here's a link:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/fisker-doe-loan-528-million-karma-plug-in-electric-car.php

When I was in high school, my computer class did a field trip to one of the sites. It was a two story building, with each floor the size of a department store and filled with aisles and aisle of racks filled with vacuum tube processing modules. The had disk had a drum the size of a small trash can. Even at the time (late 70's) the guy giving the tour said the computer could be replaced by one the size of a phone booth. These days, a few hundred of them could fit into something the size of a phone.

You had me until 'dystopian'

That word is in my dog's 200 word vocabulary, but not Sarah Palin's.

You may get the pictures out of the building, but if the tamper seal is broken, you won't get yourself out of the building without being questioned or perhaps even arrested.

I've been a published author of computer books for almost 15 years, writing 12 books for several major publishers. All of my books have been scanned and put online by Google without my consent.

The first I heard of the Author's Guild was when Google sent me a notice about this matter and offered me practically nothing for the 'right' to steal my books. I do not have a contract with the Authors Guild and did not give the Author's Guild any right to speak for me. I'd imagine most authors didn't authorize them, either.

The average is in the range of 10-15%, which is about one sixth the lifetime emissions of the vehicle. Perhaps you got your numbers mixed up.

Here's a good Google Answers article with lots of references:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=433981