Ben

I'm all about the cowboy killers.

Do you go on a date tomorrow night (dancing, dinner, blah blah blah) or do you blow her off and go see the new James Bond movie with your buddies?

I vote James Bond. There are more chicks out there than new James Bond movies.

My fiancee left me for another guy going on two years ago. I'm over that now, and looking to get back into dating. I'm in my 20s (not in school anymore) and while I enjoy going to the bar, I learned long ago that picking up drunk chicks at the bar is not the way to meet your soulmate. I work a lot, I don't want to do the internet dating thing, where can I meet someone?

Who will you be voting for and why?

I've fired a few rifles over the years and have been out to the range with my buddy's Sig once or twice, but I'm far from a marksman. I'm not looking for the pinnacle of modern weaponry, just a solid, reliable handgun for defensive purposes. I'm open to either a new or used gun, and would ideally like to spend less than $400 (although not having a sense of the gun market I would reconsider that price point if it's unreasonable). I'm ambivalent about getting a concealed carry permit (which are easy enough to get in my state), although if it was compact enough for that purpose it would be a plus. What do you recommend?

It's a fact that George W. Bush has one of if not the lowest approval rating of any President of all time. During his administration, he has overseen the creation of the largest budget deficits of all time, he has been front in center for many controversial events (the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, the Iraq War, the Valerie Plame scandal, the dismissal of the White House counsels, just to name a few). He is viewed by the public as an idiot, a loose cannon who cares more about himself and his cronies and his agenda than the American people (whether that is a fair assessment or not is in the eye of the beholder; I personally believe he takes a little more flak than he deserves but that's just my opinion).

My question is this: during the 2000 campaign, Bush successfully beat Al Gore (don't give me any of that hanging chad crap, that's water under the bridge at this point) on a platform of a humble foreign policy, transparency in government, fiscal restraint, and reform of basic programs like social security to make them more solvent. It was this message that resonated so strongly with Americans, and its a message that many feel is what we should be doing today. In the wake of 9/11, everything changed. Do you think George Bush would've behaved differently if 9/11 had not occurred? Do you feel, as I do, that much of the "idiocy" that people perceive in him today is more the result of the power and influence he has since found as a wartime President? Please mention why or why not.

There have been numerous proposed solutions to Maxwell's Demon over the years, most of them relying upon the fact that some outside force must be doing some form of work and thereby the second law of thermodynamics isn't violated. My question is this: if the "trap door" in the system is opened not by an observer but by the particle itself (ie the door will only open when struck with enough force to open it - faster moving particles can get through but slower moving particles simply bounce off), it seems that one side would still eventually reach a higher temperature than the other and that no outside force or work would be necessary. Is this even possible? And if it is, does that violate the second law of thermodynamics?