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Merit based on what, class rank, GPA, SAT scores?

Since I worked for a year on the graduate admissions committee for my department (EE) at Stanford, I can give you some idea of how it's done. That year, we had 5,000 applicants. The first cut was done solely on GRE scores and normalized GPA (we adjusted for known "grade inflation"). That got us down to 500. We then threw out all of the numbers and asked "okay, what else did you do?". People who had been active in campus groups, fraternities, did projects, worked on the side all got a big boost, as we cut to the final 200. That was for the Masters program, and of those, about 70 would make it into the Doctoral track. And of those, about 40 would actually finish.

the funny part, I think, is that $45,000 is now low income.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, $45k is certainly poverty.

I was at Stanford for eight years. Never paid a dime. Of course, I was a grad student, and the research contracts that I was working on were worth about $7 million...

While seemingly doing everything to ensure that I do not want to fly on NWA anymore.

...like devaluing their frequent flier miles by 50%. Sure, you might find a ticket for 25,000 points -- if you sign up a year in advance, within an hour or two of when that flight becomes available in the system. Once those two seats are gone, the rest are "rule busters" requiring 50,000 points.

NWA is also famous for extracting the most from its northern "small market" routes. Costs me $250 to fly from SFO to MSP, but another $250 to fly to Fargo.

Guess it's time to subscribe to Popular Mechanics.

And, if you think a few red necks with .30/.30 deer rifles, or even those who tote AR's and FAL's and the like are gonna stop a potential tyrannical government that has a full fledged military with M1A1 Tanks, Apache gunships, and APC's - you are delusional.

Not really. The two weapons classes have different ranges and different military purposes, as does armor. Different purposes, different strategies can be very effective. From a military science perspective, it's a perfectly reasonable claim.

If that's not enough for you, consider what happened in Japan in 1941. The Japanese Army had full plans to invade the west coast of the US. Admiral Yamamoto, who had lived in the US for a few years, got wind of this and took the matter straight to the emperor. Yamamoto claimed that, unlike China, the US had an "armed public" and would be able to mount an successful opposition to the invasion. As a consequence, the emperor (over Tojo's objection) placed Yamamoto in charge of the eastern Pacific war, while leaving Manchuko to the Army. Thus died the invasion of California.

But I guess Yamamoto Isoroku was delusional.

Cycle 23 will bottom out sometime in 2007. If you check the solar flux numbers they are still running in the 70's. When they consistently run in the mid 60's then we are at the bottom of cycle 23."

The are other factors involved in judging the minimum besides the 10.7cm flux. In particular, solar storm activity has suddenly become very quiet, and Cycle 23 was a very stormy cycle. True enough, it didn't produce much in the way of everyday flux, but the number of X-class flares was astounding. As a consequence the falloff from the flux peak wasn't as steep as it typically has been in the past. The data (both present measurements and "indirect" sources such as the precambrian elatina formations) suggest a lot of different modal oscillations.

I can't wait. Ham radio conditions are going to be fantastic!

Well, not on 160 or 80. But this will probably be a record-setter for 6!

"If only one person were to come away with a distorted impression of Jesus Christ or his Church, our concern is for that person as if he or she were the whole world," he wrote.

Probably the best thing that anyone could have said in the circumstances.

I love the smell of ozone in the morning...

Folks are warned in the Bay area that fish caught and eaten from the bay shouldn't be eaten too often due to contaminants, mercury is one commonly netioned.

Mercury which, as it turns out, naturally occurs in the Bay, due to quicksilver deposits in the hills above San Jose.

Do you have a link or reference for that?

I think it was John Lott, but to be honest, I'm not sure.

However, you might want to have a look at the history of a group called the American Hunters and Shooters Association, which popped up about three years ago. Sounds nice, until you read their mission and policy statements, which advocate banning certain calibers and firearms. Then when you have a look at the leadership, you find Bob Ricker as the Executive Director -- Ricker is lobbyist for several anti-gun groups. Then there's the President, John Rosenthal, who was one of the founders of Stop Handgun Violence. You can read more at Bowhunting.net.

"[...]and one of the things I don’t admire about America is an almost drooling, slavish love of guns. I think they’re evil.”

Evil? How dare you insult the feelings of my firearms! Guess I'd better head to the vault and give each one a nice, long hug.

It is a stated goal of the Brady Campaign to drive a wedge between hunters and Second Amendment Activists.

Eh? I thought they were going to introduce "Crunchy Granola Environmentalist" this year....

Japan does not know Christ

Depends on where you go. In Nagasaki, about 5-10% of the population is Roman Catholic. Hard to compete with the state religion (Shinto) however...

Early term abortions are very common in Japan and have been since the end of WWII, as a result there's a large "D&C" industry there. While condoms are widely available, hormonal birth control was kept off the market until the mid 1990s by the abortion industry, which lobbied against it as "unsafe". It's still pretty rare to find a doctor who will prescribe them.

This is a complete perversion of the native Polynesian culture, which practically worships children. If you want to see what the culture is really like, hop a plane to the Samoan Islands down south, half of which are still a US Territory. Big families, kids running all over the place without fear. And no abortionists.

I'm not sure what the debate is about at this point. Once the FCC dropped the 13 and 20 WPM tests, for all intents and purposes the requirement was dead. 5 WPM isn't useful, unless you're a pilot decoding NDBs and VORs, and of course those are disappearing soon.

Sad thing is that this is happening when we're seeing an upsurge in hams building their own QRP rigs from scratch or semikits.

I am a Girl Scout leader.

Welcome to the Party, Pal. I've been an adult male Girl Scout Leader for about 15 years now, along with my wife, for a Mariner Scout Ship in California. The Mariner Scouts are a juniors program, essentially the Girl Scout equivalent of the Sea Scouts -- except that the Sea Scouts are co-ed. Like you, they needed my skills -- though I'm a brown water boater, something they find useful when cruising the Sacramento River estuary.

Best story to date: About seven years ago, on the "old boat" (35ft Chris Craft), we were out on the San Francisco Bay near Alcatraz. The wind started picking up, so suddenly we were in six foot seas. We had been cruising on one engine, as the Skipper's husband (another male Girl Scout leader) was overhauling the port engine. Well, suddenly the running starboard engine quits, so the guys go back and haul off the deck covers. We managed to spill some transmission fluid on the exhaust/cooling manifold, and the combination of that sweet Dextron smoke and pitching seas was just too much for the girls, who started barfing to port one right after the other, sometimes in groups. It was all Mike and I could do to not get physically ill and keep our minds on getting the engine spun up again...