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Uh, Phant.... have you ever tried to sing the "Star Spangled Banner"? We know the friggin' words, it's the notes we can't handle. It gets butchered in part because it demands a vocal range greater than that possessed by the average human being, including the poorly trained (if at all) &qu...

Spartan posted this elsewhere: http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/IOC-to-investigate-Canadian-women-s-hockey-team-?urn=oly,224338 IOC to investigate Canadian women's hockey team for celebration By Chris Chase The International Olympic Committee will investigate ...

That's a strawman. The argument that Ratty's summarizing is a lot more subtle. In the Catholic Church's conception, there are two avenues to morality: obedience to God and the "natural law", which is the set of actions that humans instinctively know are right and wrong. Obedience to God o...

Criminalisation of weapons systems is something that I find somewhat difficult to understand (to a certain extent). "Humane" weapons aren't humane at all. Using incediaries as AP weapons and burning people to death isn't pretty, but neither is evisceration by shrapnel, or drowning to deat...

Generally, the "child has been definitely harmed" is not difficult to discern and when there is evidence of real harm done, the decision isn't difficult either. Ditto if a parent indoctrinates a child to believe something completely wacky that conditions a child to develop in a psychologic...

One problem is that the fine is usually relatively small and that it's often a secondary offense which you can only be ticked for if the officer catches you doing something else. An obvious improvement would be to make the fine for first-time offense of using a cellphone while driving (hand held or...

I'm a little fuzzy on it, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been retroactive if they hadn't petitioned for a referendum on the law the Legislature passed. What budget priorities do you think should have been rethought? What do you think should be cut? Well, since the advocates of Measures 66 and...

Rethinking budget priorities? You mean protecting the rich by sacrificing the future and cut education funding? That is what happens every time. Yeah, and it always happens just barely in the nick of time to be used as a threat if voters contemplate cutting off the flow of unlimited green stuff. Ha...

Except that it presumes that using power requires effort for God (aka not all powerful). Does it really require all that much effort for a king to say "slave, turn the pages of the book for me"? It's not the effort but the pettiness of the use that I'm thinking of. Just because I exist an...

You reject the assumption that God is a ringmaster in a circus but then you make him act like a ringmaster in a circus. How is it not petty to require people to act completely without evidence of your existence and then damn them for eternity if they don't go along with it? The fundamental challeng...

No manslaughter defense in abortion doc's slaying. WICHITA, Kan. – The judge in the trial of a man accused of murdering an abortion doctor dealt the defense a major setback Thursday, ruling that the jury cannot consider a lesser charge of manslaughter. The ruling came hours after Scott Roeder took ...

That is how you deal with these problems. We didn't sit around wringing our hands, or cut important state programs at a time when people need them most, or discuss the best way to call a constitutional convention to reform our massively bullshit-filled state constitution, or let the best solutions ...

First... The Elevator load screens were replaced, with... animated technical diagrams of elevators moving between floors. :D AWESOME! Second... I miss the Mako. :( -snip ranting about the awesomeness of this game- OH MAN!! I LOVE the planet scanning now too! As well as the way I get to 'fly' around...

One thing is you are starting with the premise that God exists, but are assuming his motives as well. That's not reasonable. The existence of an all-powerful all-knowing being somewhere out there in the universe that affects the existence of humankind is, technically, neither reasonable nor rationa...

If gods are to be believed in (for the moment, for the sake of argument), then there are all sorts of reasons they might want people to perform rituals and make offerings. -snip much more erudite version of my intended answer- Given the existence of gods for the sake of argument, it is not difficul...

Highspeed rail, nuclear, and better infrastructure throuhg a jobs bill? Sounds like he's making a comeback. Only way this could get better is if he challenged us to get to Mars by 2020. He's quite skilled at the rhetoric but I personally wouldn't call promises a "comeback" unless they sta...

Stuart Mackey wrote:Unless you are New Zealand, re the US.

Well, nations that a bigger nations feels warm and fuzzy towards can generally get away with it. I meant all of that as a very non-specific statement.
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So the only (handful of) decisions that have been taken were those that would never get through Congress? That hardly compares to the doom-n'-gloom statement about "America acting like it is being bullied" that I saw. To be more specific, I was talking about America acting as if it was on...

You recall incorrectly. Liberalism in international relations is a theory that allows for greater levels of state cooperation than realism. Wilsonian ideas are about spreading democracy and capitalism through American foreign policy. I don't think so. Considering that the initiative that Woodrow Wi...

Did he PM you something specific (if so, could you forward it to me), or did you read his existing posts on the subject of Empire vs. Tyranids? He replied that he didn't have a clue what you were talking about but shared with me the general ridiculousness of the Tyranids as a realistic sci-fi race....

Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation of what "meme" means. As for the rest: I'm not just talking about religions that are psychologically binding; I'm talking about what they're binding you to . Some religions just bind you to a certain set of practices and philosophical beliefs that a...

That isn't an act of faith, that's an act of busywork. The logical problem with what you are saying is that "God" is a completely redundant term in the argument. You don't need to invoke "God" for these things, you could easily replace it with "Clergy" and it changes n...

Just got ME2. Love it to pieces... improved combat, you can actually take the resources you find for YOURSELF to make your shit more badass, you don't automatically duck and cover just because you get too close to a wall, and THERE IS AN AMMO LIMIT! You wouldn't think it's so awesome that you actual...

Could you, kind sir, give examples as to 1) When this has happened 2) The askers have not been told to bugger off? I think I can answer #1 but could you reword #2? I'm not really sure what that second question is meaning to ask. As to that first question, it's not so much that they did what they we...

Ooh, a hardcore realist! I though you guys were extinct ! I'm floored at meeting anyone who's actually familiar enough with the political philosophy to identify it from someone's ramblings. I'm duly impressed. But no, that's not how anybody except the extremely cynical really sees international rel...