“It’s time to return America to the common sense conservative principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual responsibility. The Repeal Amendment would provide a check on the ever-expanding federal government, protect against Congressional overreach, and get the government working for the people again, not the other way around. In order to return America to opportunity, responsibility, and success, we must reverse course and the Repeal Amendment is a step in that direction.” —incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), on a proposed amendment allowing a 2/3 vote by the state governments to overturn any federal law or regulation. [more inside]
posted by kipmanley on Nov 30, 2010 - 134 comments

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) has set up YouCut, a website where users can suggest and vote on potential cuts in federal spending, which will be put up to be voted on by the House. Cuts selected by the website include a freeze on federal non-military employees raises (pending a vote), and a cut in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, a welfare service of the stimulus fund. The cut failed in a vote). The House Democrats have proposed that America Speaking Out (previously) be offered as an option to cut for the next round.
posted by mccarty.tim on May 28, 2010 - 77 comments

Sure, big numbers are fine. But infinity (in the set theoretic sense) is where the fun really starts. Developed almost entirely by one man in the late 19th century, set theory now forms the foundation of modern mathematics. Cantor showed that not all infinite sets are the same size. Notably, while there are just as many integers as rational numbers, there are more real numbers than integers. These results, along with others that soon followed like the axiom of choice, led to several fascinating consequences: [more inside]
posted by kmz on Mar 17, 2010 - 161 comments

Calculus of Averages - Newton and Archimedes did not possess this knowledge. No mathematics professor today can provide this knowledge and depth of understanding. Author John Gabriel maintains a blog, Friend of Wisdom, and contributes articles such as Are real numbers uncountable? to Google's Knol project.
posted by Wolfdog on Jan 8, 2010 - 78 comments

Dr. Jeannine Mosely finishes building a level-3 Menger sponge from business cards. You can also build your own, though Dr. Mosely warns, "[a] level 4 sponge would require almost a million cards and weigh over a ton. I do not believe it could support its own weight — so a level 3 is the biggest sponge we can hope to build." (related)
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Feb 2, 2007 - 19 comments

Mengermania tracks the progress of building a level four Menger sponge out of index cards (related - level three with business cards). [via]
posted by tellurian on Jan 18, 2007 - 5 comments