How to build a road perfectly strait for an indefinite number of miles(only in East West direction).

I watched a show the other day about Mayan civilization on the Discovery Channel. They said scientists could not figure out how they built perfectly straight roads for 60 miles that would not very by even a degree, with the technology of the time. Although this is not a perfect solution and it does not account for varying elevation of the surface of the land. I thought it might be a unique solution to this problem with more general applications.

Here is my idea.

Set a tall pole exactly perpendicular to the earth’s surface using a plum line. Mark the end of the shadow throughout the day with a string keeping the line on the earth as you go. The next day Move the pole to a new point further along the path and reset the pole with the plum line making sure that the shadow matches up with the line already placed on the earth. Continue until the road has been measured to desired length.

Bush to Mugabe: 'It is time to go'

I was absolutely amazed at the comments of my fellow Americans today http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/executive/president/2008-12-09-bush-mugabe_N.htm. It amazes me the audacity of some of the good people of America. A man, Robert Mugabe, who has been personally responsible for the demise of his country. Under his watch the inflation of Zimbabwe has risen. As of October 10th, 2008, Zimbabwe has an inflation of 231,000,000%. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/3167379/Zimbabwe-inflation-hits-231-million-per-cent.html

Thanks to his "wise" decision to take the land away from farmers who knew what they were doing and give it to anyone who was black whether they knew anything about farming or not, now a country that was considered the bread basket of Africa can no longer even feed itself. A nation once prosperous has had it's entire wealth squandered.

This man was beaten fairly in the March elections as can be evidenced in the length of time that it took to report the results and the fact that Mr. Mugabe's party called for a recount even before anybody in the country knew the results. In this country people who voted for Morgan Tsvangirai were beaten, some to death.

HOW in the WORLD can Americans be so callus to the sufferings of the rest of the world and compare the monster Robert Mugabe to President Bush, who is in the very process of handing over the reigns to the new administration?

Polar bears resort to cannibalism as Arctic ice shrinks: "Really"

It is nice how some scientists can make any picture conform to their view of reality. Case in point:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/23/arctic.ice/index.html?iref=mpstoryview.

Lets put a little perspective on this article. We know that the ice did not get to where it is in one day. We know that the ice has been decreasing for years; so if the fact that the ice extent is greater at the end of the melting season than this time last year is not a coincidence but an actual reversal in trend, which only time will reveal. Then this scientist's opinion that it is not in fact gain means nothing. The simple fact is that it is an increase from last year. If this year's increase over last year becomes a trend, an average increase of 9% every year would lead to an accumulation of over 400% in 40 years. Just imagine 400% of 4.67 million square km. That is 18.68 million square km in 2050. That is approximately more ice than the minimum in 1979 by about 10 million square kilometers by my eyeball of the 1979 minimum shown on the chart in the link below.

NSIDC Sea ice minimum extent 1979-2008
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20081002_seaice_pressrelease.html

Let's also keep in mind that it is not a decreasing rate of decline but an actual increase from the previous year. obviously, one season does not mean that things have changed. But we also need to keep in mind that we need not listen to the rhetoric of a scientist who's guess about next season's minimum can be no better than mine.

Why did the maximum for the 1979 and 2008 seasons start out so close together?

The numbers below are taken from these two sites
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/040708.html
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20081002_seaice_pressrelease.html

March 2008 Maximum extent 15.21 million square kilometers
September 20008 Minimum 4.52 million square kilometers
March 1979 Maximum extent 15.75 million
September 1979 Minimum 7.1 million square kilometers

I'm personally curious about a few things: the last 2 years the ice has experienced an accelerated rate of both warming and cooling. Why? If it was CO2 driven global warming I would personally expect an increase of warming in general and not an increase of cooling. Maybe somebody who reads this might have a good explanation for this.

I'm also curious as to why the maximums were so close for these years.

I will be watching. I'm beginning to believe that we are at the end of a long warming period and we are in for some very cold weather in the next couple of years.

We will all half to watch and see.

Scientific questions

I have many questions relating to many areas of science. In order that I might actually pursue answering some of these I am attempting to chronicle some of these and even lay out possible hypothesis testing for some of my ideas. So here are some of my current ideas.

Is it possible that man has mistakenly assumed that scientific laws that hold for small scale reactions, both nuclear and chemical, do not hold for large scale reactions. Is it possible that when matter is significantly large that different laws come into play that can cause a reaction to be virtually self sustaining. For instance, is it possible that a mass significantly large would generate enough force from gravity alone that it would sustain a certain amount of heat for almost eternity? Could it be that earths crust offers enough insulation that its core will remain almost indefinitely heated?

What about the sun? We are not at all sure of all the forces playing in reactions on the sun. Is it possible that chemical, nuclear and gravitational reactions simply more or less cycle? I know the second law of thermodynamics would lead us to believe otherwise. But is it possible that we have missed something? How would we test such a hypothesis?