The fact that this program is being advertised on Salon is really disgusting.

This is not being balanced and showing the other side of the story because there is no other side. People who deny the reality and magnitude of global warming are at the loosing end of a scientific argument that has run it's course over a hundred years. Any propagation of this unsubstantiated point of view is irresponsible from a public safety perspective.

The problem is real. So are the solutions.

Global warming is not a political problem.

It is a moral problem that requires thoughtful and immediate action.

There is a one way to get rid of money flying out of the country.

Remove all immigration barriers.

The problem you are talking about here is that capital is mobile but workers aren't.

Right now companies can send work to highly skilled workers who are stuck in low wage countries and can't push for higher wages.

Without immigration controls those highly skilled workers would often choose to move to where the pay and the jobs were better leaving behind people who couldn't compete as well globally.

What do you think?

Paul Davies is coming somewhat close to the Buddhist notion of the universe, that all that we can see is a dependent arising with the minds that inhabit it.

In Buddhist lexicon, this is possible because the universe lacks inherent existence. This becomes apparent as the closer you try to find a fundamental component of everything, a unifying theory if you will, it receeds and disappears. What you find instead is a profound degree of interdependence that, as Paul discusses, extends both backwards and forwards in time. What you also don't find is any discontinuity of experience or phenomena - you don't violate causality.

In fact, it is this lack of fundamental existence that allows things like universes and you and I functional existence.

It also completely explodes the familiar frame of reference that our identify is based on.

Our minds are much more powerful than we think they are, but only if we cease to "exist".

I think what Paul Davies has to say is quite important. What he is saying is that we have a place in the universe and that physics has the potential to prove this.

To break this down, rather than focus on the universe, let's explore some unfamiliar terrain closer to home. It is a common notion that we all share that 'I' is a definite something that we can locate somewhere in space. In fact, our idea of who we are is something that we are all making up after the fact. I think what Paul is trying to say that our conceptualization of the universe is something like that.

Neuroscientists have dissected the brain and have found no independent seat of our consciousness. Consciousness instead appears to emerge from a complex association that derives from our whole physiology which in turns derives from our ecology and ultimately from the laws of the universe.

The question I think Paul is asking is if it is possible to turn this concept on its head; to ask whether if the causes of consciousness are coextensive with the universe is it possible that consciousness itself might be a causal factor in the formation of the universe?

He seems to be extending this to a deeper level using the tools available to him from the more recent experiments in quantum physics using photons with entangled quantum states. In these experiments changing the base assumptions of one set of entangled photons (without measuring them) simultaneously destroys the predictability of measurements on a separate distant location. This is not a simple case of not being able to measure the momentum and location of a particle, but a non-localized demonstration of the dependence of reality upon measurement.

I personally, as did Richard Feynman, distrust the mathematicians with their multiverses. Reality is a lot messier than the nice boxes we all try to put it into.

Ever since the Republicans kicked anyone not agreeing with them out of "their" America following 9/11, I have increasingly seen the war in Iraq as being their war. Withdrawal is their loss, not ours.

Since Global Warming and other Republican driven calamities (debt, peak oil, pollution, health industry meltdown, destruction of civil liberties, corruption, shreading of international cooperation) are far more likely (in many cases definitely) going to threaten myself and my family than the fragmented and self-destructive morass that is the Arab world, why shouldn't the Republicans defeat be our victory?

From a certain perspective these under-armed and loosely coordinated individuals fighting for the Iraqi insurgency against the greatest military power on the Earth might even be seen as heroic.

In any case, the best thing for America is have our hubris deflated before it overcomes us.

There is a third option the candidates should consider.

Encourage the formation of a pan-Islamic peacekeeping force to replace US soldiers directly. Provide material assistance and training as needed. Forcefully, and multilaterally (very important), push the Israelis to the bargaining table with the Palestinians with a carrot and a stick (guaranteed protection treaty or end to support in the region).

This does several things:

1. It stops the civil war from metastisizing.

2. It appeases Islamic nationalism and honor and gives the US a different role in the region other than Great Satan.

3. Allows the US to withdraw from a decrepit and corrupt historical reliance on Saudi dictatorship and Israeli intransigence.

The argument that we can't trust Islam is a mistake of biblical proportions. Instead of trying to control it we should help it rediscover it's ideals. It won't look like us, but that is the point. The world needs a diversity of ideals.