On the L-Curve: I can understand why people can get mad for high taxes when the government, for example, uses that money to rescue banks from giving out preposterous loans of those 1% interest programs and then collapsing their banks. These banks want to make so much money in so little time that they end up enriching themselves by going ahead and giving out irresponsible loans, but end up hurting their banks when then houses come back to them from foreclosures. Then they go sobbing to the government to rescue them using our tax money which could have gone to much more beneficial areas than rescue their asses.

Now because of a newly elected democratic congress the government refused to aid in rescuing these banks—as recently as just a few days ago!

Tax cuts, however, aren't something to celebrate about because like the film said, "at whose expense" are they being done? It would be like celebrating in not going to work tomorrow. It may uncomfortable to pay taxes but it is a necessary and responsible discomfort that helps the nation in the long run.

re: the us news article

i'm thouroughly flattered that you would aim such a long detailed article on the human soul at me. i'm guessing its because of a thread maybe 4 or 5 months ago where i asked the other readers what they thought of the concept of soul, only to have the question repeatedly thrown back at me until i had to admit that my own ideas were pretty fuzzy, having "something to do with consciousness". very interesting article.

crick:"The Astonishing Hypothesis is that 'You,' your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."

i still say "so what?" semantics. what you call it means little to me. i learned from the article (and thanks again) something about what scientists who focus on the matter think- but nothing about the "soul". i learned more from my first hit of blotter about the soul than any article could tell me- and its still nothing. but i'm very pleased to see that, among honest people at least, it actually IS an issue, and not some invention of power hungry shamans- a personal fear of mine back in the day. thanks. :)