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Think French.

Honed in" may be in common usage but that doesn't make it correct.

And your assertion doesn't make it incorrect either.

It has been in use for quite some time.

Language evolves, you're going to have to learn to deal with that. Hone in has been in use for literally decades.

How did I abandon it?

Purposefully under educating children is abuse. You are making sure they will be unsuited to operate in society and stealing their future.....

It turns out that homeschooled kids on average do far better than those in public school. If you want to educate yourself, read this:

http://homeschooling.about.com/od/gettingstarted/a/homeschoolrise_2.htm

Most public schools, especially in certain areas, only turn out illiterate juvenile delinquents. Do some research and find out how many homeschooled teenagers DON'T graduate from high school and go on to college. You will find it is a very small percentage of homeschooled students.

There may be a few parents that keep their children out of public school, so the kids can work in the family business. This mainly works with older children and is not at all common, because there are not that many family businesses. Homeschoolers do far better in almost every respect than the equivalent age children schooled in public schools. Many graduate at age 16 and enter college. If you want to educate yourself, read this:

http://homeschooling.about.com/od/gettingstarted/a/homeschoolrise_2.htm

Hold on now, the city bus and asparagus (or food) both need fuel to get to their destination. The difference is the bus directly utilizes the fuel to move people around while the asparagus needs fuel for the farm equipment (till, plant,harvest) and for its transport to market via refrigerated truck (also electric needed to keep it fresh at the market via refrigeration). How much fuel is used to harvest each kilogram of asparagus to fuel the cyclist vs. fuel needed to move a bus the same distance? The fuel for both the bus and farm equipment/trucking is diesel and has the same carbon foot print. If they could calculate how much fuel was needed to harvest a kg of asparagus and how far that kg could "fuel" the cyclist, then you have a better comparison. Plus a bus does not move one person but possibly hundreds during its route.

For fun I just looked up some numbers. Asparagus contains 27 calories per 134 grams (http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-asparagus-i11011). Cycling calories burnt varies greatly but I found some numbers here(http://www.nutristrategy.com/fitness/cycling.htm) and then average both the light and moderate numbers and got 530 calories burnt per hour of riding (sounds a bit low). 1 hour of riding would consume about 2.6kg of asparagus at an average speed of 19.3 km/hr. If your place of work was 20 km away you would burn the full 530 calories and thus consume 2.6kg of asparagus. Unfortunately I don't have enough time to find any numbers directly pertaining to the fuel consumption of both harvesting, delivery and maintaining freshness. How much fuel does a bus consume? About 3.5 mpg for an average city bus and around 4.5 for a hybrid bus (MTA NY statistics: http://alttransport.com/2011/05/hybrid-buses-save-money-and-fuel-while-improving-the-transit-experience/. So we are looking at around 10 liters of fuel to move the hybrid bus the same distance. But the bus moves upward of 40+ people depending on the route. how do we factor in the number of people who rode the bus and for how far? Its gets convoluted and I have to get back to work.

by the time you factor in the fuel to grow, harvest and transport the food you might approach the fuel consumption of a bus moving a number of people. But then again, the people are eating daily to live. Its a tough comparison.

Meanwhile I haven't received a single raise in the last 6 years working for 3 different companies (all for well over a year). Every one of these politicians knew about the sequester last December.

The number of Iraqi deaths before the invasion was lower than afterwards

Saddam Hussein was responsible for more than 900000 Iraqi deaths over 23 years. That's a far higher death toll.

http://middleeast.about.com/od/usmideastpolicy/a/me090424b.htm

as the invasion removed the basic security which prevented any sectarian violence.

Even if correct, you could have made the same argument about just about any dictatorial, socialist, or communist regime in the world. I think left-wing ideology is perhaps primarily defined in terms of the willingness to give up liberties for security and safety; this seems to be particularly a middle-class attitude, people who seem most keen on left-wing ideology. I'm sorry, but you'll just have to live with the fact that lots of other people have different preferences.

The number of civilian deaths directly attributable to military actions of the invading allies is over 110,000.

Only for a propagandistic misuse of the term "directly". The fact remains that most of those deaths were due to Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, and that the average annual death toll during Saddam's regime was far higher. In addition, any attempt to oust Saddam Hussein or his successors would have been bloody, so these deaths would have been incurred sooner or later.

As I was saying: I was against the Iraq war. Bush lied, it wasn't our business, and it was too expensive. But you can't argue that Iraqis are worse off because of it. And, in some sense, we were responsible for the state of Iraq, since it was Kennedy who brought Saddam to power, apparently viewing him as a fellow progressive politician.

yes. None on "normal" cars.

The car from this article has a metal chassis. There are no ABS chassis that I am aware of.

USPS isn't self funding.... Congress has to pass a tax for it to operate. USPS runs off TAXES on every stamp you buy!!! That is why it is unfair to private companies.

(That is the way "old people" view USPS... As a tax and not a paid service)

Bullshit.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/consumerawareness/a/uspsabout.htm

That $96 million in taxes is to compensate them for delivering free mail for the legally blind. Pretty tiny compared to $66-billion in revenues.

Here you go AC, but next time do your own homework. Or at least have Google do it for you,
http://netsecurity.about.com/od/secureyourwifinetwork/a/WPA2-Crack.htm
http://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=cracking_wpa
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/08/wireless-password-easily-cracked/

Disable SSID broadcast.

I'm a social drinker, but even then I drink very little, mostly just mixing it with soda to make it look like I drink as much as the others, because I don't want my alcohol tolerance to go down. I hate pills for pain, so, instead I drink a beer or two, which is usually plenty to put me to sleep on bad nights.

And then after you get off of your high horse about people who chose to drink you might look at some facts that show alcohol interferes with sleep.

Oh, sorry, didn't mean to interfere with your smugness.

The National Debt goes up for two main reasons: Social Security and the Trade Deficit.

The Social Security "trust fund" is a bunch of T-bills, and represents the second largest chunk of the National Debt - $2.72 Trillion. Whenever they take in more social security payroll taxes than they pay out in benefits, they put the surplus into T-bills. Those T-bills are then counted as part of the National Debt.

In other words,

1. We owe this chunk of the National Debt to ourselves - to old people and sick people

2. The Social Security Payroll Tax is not really used for Social Security - it just goes right back into the general fund, and even worse, the general fund has to pay interest to Social Security, which means we're even more screwed than you thought.

The other reason the national debt keeps going up is due to the trade deficit.

We buy Chinese goods in Dollars. We pay them in Dollars. They can't use dollars in their domestic economy for anything - worthless paper to them. They'd have to plow the dollars into American goods to make use of them, but they don't do that. They don't buy enough of our stuff, so instead of stuffing that cash in a vault somewhere, they buy a bunch of T-bills so they can collect interest. That accounts for the largest chunk of the national debt, over 5 Trillion.

Important to note that, no matter what happens with spending, the national debt will continue to grow because of these two things. Blaming the national debt on spending alone is not accurate.

More reading and sources for my numbers are here.

Well, Broder claims his hands were white and his feet freezing.

Yet, at no point does the set temperature go below 64 Deg F. The recommended set temperature for winter is 68.

This in itself damages his entire credibility.

Your feet start freezing at 64 F?

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/guncontrol/a/Gun-Rights-Ronald-Reagan.htm The lone piece of significant legislation related to gun rights during the Reagan administration was the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. Signed into law by Reagan on May 19, 1986, the legislation amended the Gun Control Act of 1968 by repealing parts of the original act that were deemed by studies to be unconstitutional. The National Rifle Association and other pro gun groups lobbied for passage of the legislation, and it was generally considered favorable for gun owners. Among other things, the act made it easier to transport long rifles across the United States, ended federal records-keeping on ammunition sales and prohibited the prosecution of someone passing through areas with strict gun control with firearms in their vehicle, so long as the gun were properly stored. However, the act also contained a provision banning the ownership of any fully automatic firearms not registered by May 19, 1986. That provision was slipped into the legislation as an 11th hour amendment by Rep. William J. Hughes, a New Jersey Democrat. Reagan has been criticized by some gun owners for signing legislation containing the Hughes amendment.

Ahhh .... I'll know it when I see it.

Fortunately, case law has established the criteria for what can't qualify:

The Miller case established what came to be known as the Miller Standard, which clearly articulated that three criteria must be met for a work to be legitimately subject to state regulations. The Court recognized the inherent risk in legislating what constitutes obscenity, and necessarily limited the scope of the criteria. The criteria were:
1) The average person, applying local community standards, looking at the work in its entirety, appeals to the prurient interest.
2) The work must describe or depict, in an obviously offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions.
3) The work as a whole must lack "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific values".

So you'd need to prove that those two people doing it in front of a camera is all of the above, and some of those are very subjective.

The problem with deciding one kind of 'speech' is free and one isn't is sooner or later someone comes to arrest you for suggesting that Geroge Bush resembled a monkey.

You can't be for free speech but then decide there's parts of it you wish would go away -- I defend the right of someone to take a shit on a sheet and call it art. I don't get it, and I'm not interested in it, but I'm not going to appoint myself or anybody else to be the arbiter of what we should and shouldn't say. And you have to be prepared to take the good with the bad, or you're setting yourself up for a situation in which one group or another gets to define 'art', 'obscene', and things you're allowed to say.

Which is why the loons from Westboro Church are still around.

OK.

From Wikipedia:

SNES - 49m
Gameboy - 118m
Nintendo 64 - 33m
GameCube - 22m

Wii - 99m
Nintendo DS - 153m

Total for Nintendo - 474 million.

iPad - 84 million
iPhone - 250 million
iPod Touch - 46 million

Total for Apple - 380 million.

Now, should we praise Nintendo as one of the leaders in PC market?

The description of the invention (which precedes or follows the claims based on which patent database you're looking in) is supposed "to demonstrate how they would implement the idea described in the patent". How does that fail?

How soon can I browse the salary history of CEO's, Congressmen, the chairmen of the FED, ...

As far as CEO salaries are concerned, the shareholder proxy statement will tell you their total compensation. Many times just Googling it will tell you: CEO Apple: Time Cook

But the sucky part for us is that, while CEOs can get away with hundreds of a percent in compensation increases because of market forces, we peons are stuck with what is deemed "reasonable" by the HR and hiring manager. Example, back in the 90s, my contract was ending and the body shop I dealt with (doesn't matter who - they all do it) wanted to know what I wanted for a rate. I looked online and saw that a rate of $55/hr for a W2 with my experience and skills - I was at $47/hr as a W2 with the previous contract. The recruiter said, "Gee! That's a big increase!" even though THEY would be billing out at market rates.

Companies have a problem paying market rates for their employees when they go up but have no problem cutting when things get bad. We peons only take the downside risk and get none of the upside - unlike that CEOs and Congressmen - they can go and become highly paid lobbyists if they lose their election.

Actually, the original practice of "submarine patents" was more like the "continuation" process than just a slow-to-grant practice. The rules have changed to basically eliminate the Original Submarine Patent(TM), so now the term gets used for patents that sit around for years and years being used until the owner decides the time is ripe to try and fleece the industry rather than risking killing it outright before it's had a chance to grow.

Before the 90's, the patent prosecution process did not put any constraints on appealing decisions when a patent was rejected. So people could do the following:

Inventor: I patent.... a rock on a stick!
USPTO: No.
Inventor: I appeal! Now it's a patent on a rock on a stick with a nose drawn on it!
USPTO: what the fuck is this bullshit no
Inventor: I appeal! Now it's a patent on a rock tied to a stick with a piece of leather!
USPTO: Hmmm.... no.
Inventor: I appeal! Now it's.... *looks at what people are doing already* a patent on selling things over the internet!
USPTO: Sounds intriguing! Let's see, you filed your patent with us in 1952, so I don't see any prior art here, and all patents filed before 1995 get 17 years from the date of the grant so just give us the money and you're good to go.

This is also how Lemelson got his bar code reader patent. In 1984. You can read all about that here with a nifty little timeline.

While the "We the People" petition is a nice symbolic measure, it's not likely to result in any real action even if it reaches the signature limit.

It'd be far better if everyone wrote letters to their congressional representatives. There are lots of guides on the internet for doing so, here's one:

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/letterscongress.htm

Oh, the irony. Suggesting one pointless gesture in place of another, and waisting trees in the process. Fuck you man, that's just wrong.

While the "We the People" petition is a nice symbolic measure, it's not likely to result in any real action even if it reaches the signature limit.

It'd be far better if everyone wrote letters to their congressional representatives. There are lots of guides on the internet for doing so, here's one:

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/letterscongress.htm

Bush ain't no monkey. Get your facts straight, boy! What are you, racist or something?

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushchimplookalikes.htm

Too late for that. There are already help pages to help consumers figure out which version of Windows 8 to get. Even worse, the different versions aren't all compatible with each other (Windows RT).

Of course, most people will just get whatever comes installed on their computer, so it's simple.

Absolutely NOT.
Treaties can not override our constitution, nor can congress override or amend the constitutional without approval of the states.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/usconstitution/a/constamend.htm

The supremacy clause of the constitution places it as the supreme law of the land, and no law or treaty can over-ride it.

http://www.robertwelchuniversity.org/Treaties%20and%20the%20Constitution-final.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_v._Covert

All this hubbub is in response to a UN vote censuring them for the December rocket launch. The vote was unanimous - China did not back them up or even abstain.

Betcha I know why.

If war were to break out and China supported NK, we would technically be at war with China. Or at the very least consider them hostile and sever ties. Which wouldn't be in China's best financial interests at all, seeing as how they own over a trillion dollars of US debt. If things went that way I think they would have a hard time collecting on a single penny of that debt. And that's a lot of money to flush away.

So for purely financial reasons alone, China wouldn't get involved. There are other good reasons, sure. But a trillion dollars in the balance probably trumps a lot of them.

So you can't even acknowledge the clear quote i gave where a proponent of Communism has suggested there will be no state governing over you when he's elected? Do you not see that both Libertarians and Communists rose to power on the promise of a stateless society? Do you not see how easily corrupted such a belief is?

You do realize how ridiculous you are? Your post history shows absolutely nothing but religious fervor advocating Libertarianism dating back for months. I went a fair way back and couldn't find a single post about anything other than proselytizing for Libertarianism. You scare the hell out of me. Well formed examples of how similar you are to others in the past are just met with nothing more than "No we're different"; an attempt to end the conversation.

Looking at history it's quite easy to start a political movement. Just post to every media outlet wherever something bad has happened and claim "hey guys this wouldn't happen if you followed foobarism" (foobarism is my new made up philosophy that i created just then). "Foobarism wouldn't allow the state to do this". "With Foobarism you'd have the right to stop this". etc. You don't even need to explain yourself. Just say "nah we're different to all the others!". You do this long enough everyone will start to label their own beliefs as "Foobarism". They'll start supporting others who believe in foobarism even if their viewpoints are quite different - just look at the different types of Libertarians.

The fact is this trick has been pulled again and again. You have to ask people to take a step back and look at themselves and their beliefs. You try to highlight similarities with political movements of the past. It gets frustrating when the response to that is "No. They don't.". I guess some people just don't want to accept reality.

This reminds me of a cartoon. Caption: "What if global warming is a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"

The reason that occurred to me is, here's a case where it makes sense to reduce a pollutant (soot) for public health reasons, even setting the global warming issue aside.

Inert plastic? The same stuff they make carpet, park benches, and food containers out of? The same stuff they ship bottled water in? Reported, regulated, testable plastic. Not trademarked, trade secret potential toxins.

Yes, that same stuff... the same stuff that has been shown to leach into the water you drink! Known, quantifiable toxins!

Still not something I want getting INTO my drinking water, which "ground-up" certainly makes it sound possible that this stuff could filter into aquifers... after all, where does it GO when it leaves the geothermal reservoir it is used to create?

The whole thing seems suspicious, almost like there are vested interests that are going out of their way to justify the sullying of water supplies for the sake of power generation; only this sounds like a sort of greenwashing compared to tracking!

Well for evidence an article from a reputable newspaper would do (my very brief search didn't find anything). Besides, you're now arguing that the marriage is failing, not as part of a deliberate scheme, but because the woman has no commitment, which is a much weaker claim.

As for "the woman doesn't re-marry (which would end the child support)", and 'cuddling under the table' comment from your first post, this appears to be false. The woman's relationship status does not affect child support. You could be talking about alimony, but that's something completely different (and probably harder to get after a short term marriage).

In short your comment is factually inaccurate and has a chauvinist tone, it should be pummelled.

The flu vaccine is FAR from proven to be effective.

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/a/aa011604a.htm

And on top of all of THAT, there's still the issue that fairly regularly, the vaccines given are found to be defective in one way or another, and people receiving the shots are asked to come back in for a second attempt with the revised vaccine.

Since when was it considered smart to reach out to a hacker? Why not ask a professional con-artist for spiritual advice?

I wasn't talking about intelligence; I was talking about psychology. Most people do things under stress that they wouldn't normally ever even think of doing, especially in a war.

Unfortunately, many people higher up than Manning do actually seek out the supernatural when planning important events: like presidents and generals. You can think of the Reagons who made their decisions (at least in part) based on the advise of an astrologer. McKenzie King (in Canada) was also a religious kook who "believed in an afterlife, and consulted fortune tellers, communicated with his dead relatives in seances, and pursued 'psychical research.' Mackenzie King was also extremely superstitious." (ref: ).

And another nation with nuclear weapons has its politicians make decisions based on (ref.)

The daily added: "Indian politicians too are deeply influenced by the pronouncements of these gurus, and come election time, the whole country evolves into one huge crystal ball."

It noted that in Pakistan leaders from Benazir Bhutto to "lesser political mortals like Imran Khan are reported to have consulted pirs and spiritual gurus on their life choices and strategies...."

"Black goats, astrologers, numerologists, holy men have all figured in the lives of our leaders.

I'd say that the relatively young, naive, uneducated, low ranking, 23 year old, private, who wanted to do the right thing is a lot more sensible than the religious kooks who are revered for their leadership and their pursuit of greed. So he may not be a genius, but at least he isn't an elected official.

Quote from the show:

ALAN WILLIAMS: The swords were far better than any other swords made, before or since, in Europe. And these must have been extraordinarily valuable to their contemporaries, because of their properties.

Except for the Damascus sword, which was fabricated in several places in the Muslim empire, including, famously, in Toledo, Spain, where to this date there is a blade making industry.

Not only that, but the Viking sword was merely an attempt to duplicate the quality of the Saracen sword.

Not that it matters, but just to set the record straight, "damascus" steel, just like the "Arabic" numeral system, was neither invented in Damascus nor in Arabia nor in Spain. Both the numeral system and the steel was invented in India. It should be more accurately called Wootz steel. This steel making technique technique was mastered and perfected by ironsmiths in South India around 300BC. The original technique also died with the ironsmiths over time, and has was only recently replicated with success some years ago.

References:
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/9809/verhoeven-9809.html
http://archaeology.about.com/od/wterms/g/wootz.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/647868/wootz-steel

The first article is the most informative and comprehensive of all.

To quote from the articles linked above,
"Wootz is the name given to an exceptional grade of iron ore steel first made in southern and south central India and Sri Lanka perhaps as early as 300 BC. Wootz is formed using a crucible to melt, burn away impurities and add important ingredients, and it contains a high carbon content (nearly 1.5%).

Although iron making was part of Indian culture by as early as 1100 BC (at sites such as Hallur), the earliest evidence for the processing of iron in a crucible has been identified at the site of Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu province, and possibly also at Andhra Pradesh. The term 'wootz' appears in English in the late 18th century, and is probably derived from ukku, the word for crucible steel in the Indian language Kannada, and possibly from 'ekku' in old Tamil.

Wootz steel is the primary component of Damascan steel. Syrian blacksmiths used wootz ingots to produce extraordinary steel weaponry throughout the middle ages. "

For the record, I'm not a steel expert by any stretch, but I do love Japanese cooking knives, especially AS sandwitched core ones, and was really disappointed to learn that my first flashy "Damascus" pattern knife was only chemically etched and not a true damascus pattern.

Make crap up? Instead of sounding like a dick, you should have attempted to correct me in a more polite manner. Do you talk that way to your family, friends or coworkers? I doubt it, Mr condescending internet know-it-all tough guy.

Here are my articles:
http://olive-drab.com/od_army-horses-mules_lastpack.php
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2012/1023/Presidential-debate-101-Does-US-military-still-use-horses-and-bayonets
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/jointservices/a/militarydogs.htm
http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2006/working-dogs/

Limit your Google search to the past year only and you will get articles talking about robot mules. Robot mules are being developed to support front line troops starting with the marines. And If you actually read your links you would have noticed that they are dated from 2007, or 5 years ago. They also only describe their use by special forces in unique situations (mountainous regions in Afghanistan). There are no plans for deploying pack animals as ground support to front line troops (AKA grunts or ground pounders). Horses are used but their number is minuscule and limited to special forces and parades. That means you wont find grunts riding horses nor will you see mules delivering supplies to solders on the battle field.

Think before you speak.
 

Most patents are incremental improvements to existing inventions[1][2][3]. But the patent-holder has to license the original patent for you to build your idea on top of it. [1] http://inventors.about.com/od/inventing101patents/f/can_be_patented.htm [2] http://www.fr.com/Patent-Math--Making-Sure-Your-Strategies-Add-Up-05-31-2010/ [3] http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/09/do-patent-and-copyright-law-restrict-competition-and-creativity-excessively-posner.html

Not athiestic, polytheistic. I spent a year in Thailand while in the USAF and knew a LOT of Bhuddists. They burn incense to various gods, and have ornate little "spirit houses" outside their homes so the spirits will inhabit the beautiful little spirit houses and not their homes.

Since Buddhism is not a religion but a philosophy, one can certainly incorporate the religion into other spiritual or religious practice. Hinduism, for example, just made the Buddha into an avatar of Vishnu (and hence a bona-fide Hindu god). Thai Buddhism is derived from this branch of the family tree. In China and Tibet it often was mixed with Taoism or various forms of spiritualism, giving rise to e.g. Zen and still other flavors. In a similar way, Quakerism is sufficiently broad that there actually exist atheistic Quakers and Buddhist Quakers. However, the words of Buddha himself, to the extent that one believes that e.g. the Pali Canons preserve them, do not teach of God or Gods, but rather the contrary:

http://buddhism.about.com/od/basicbuddhistteachings/a/buddhaatheism.htm

To put it more literally, Buddha argued that believing in Gods is not useful. It is pointless. Even if they exist it is pointless, because they too are bound the the wheel and must seek enlightenment, and then, there is no evidence that they exist. To the spiritually enlightened in Hinduism and Buddhism alike, the gods are viewed as metaphors, as crutches to aid human understanding by personifying traits both desirable and undesirable. A perhaps better summary is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism

which also explains the minor differences between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, where Theravada is more abstract and less religious. Buddhist "devotion" should not be confused with theism, and Buddha explicitly stated that he was not a God and that the entire idea of God is a distraction from the path to Enlightenment. Of course, Jesus explicitly stated in the New Testament that he wasn't God as well, but look how well that worked.

People want to believe that the Universe is personal, not impersonal. They want to believe that there is a point to it all. They want to believe in cosmic/divine justice, because there ain't no justice here on Earth in any living being's actual life. They will invent Gods or deify innocent philosophers given half a chance, if that's the only way they can have them.

This is not clearly presented even by Buddhists. They often prefer to present Buddhism as "non-theistic" but not atheistic without recognizing that "non" is the literal meaning of the "a" in atheistic. They also often present atheists as people who assert that they can prove that there is no such thing as God. Neither of these is true. Atheists don't assert that there definitely is no God. They assert that there is no good reason to think that there is. On a really good day, a really famous atheist like David Hume might go so far as to logically prove that there never can be good reason to think that there is, any more than some finite observation can prove the existence of something infinite. Buddha asserted both that there is no good reason to believe in a God, and furthermore, that worrying or arguing about it is equally pointless, establishing himself as both an atheist and a reasoner who anticipated Hume's argument 2100 years earlier.

A Christian doesn't NEED a church. Any Christian can perform a baptism or communion. Christ himself said "whenever two or three are gathered in my name, I will be there."

Depending, of course, on what kind of Christian you are. Christianity isn't a religion -- it is many. We could also go down a list of what Christ is supposed to have said -- For example: "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are

Nobody, as far as I know, has ever claimed that a non-religious person can't perform moral acts as religious people do, merely that they don't.

They claim so, but they are wrong. Atheists generally behave morally far better than, for example, Christians. Christians commit more crimes, kill people more often, spend more time in jail, get divorced at a higher rate (and for Christian conservatives at a significantly higher rate) etc than atheists. Christians generally also have more abortions than does atheists even though the average atheist is more likely to be pro choice than the average Christian.

In reality, Christian beliefs generally lead to more double standards, but not a more moral life. In fact, in almost all measurable ways, atheists lead a more moral life than Christians or just about any religious people.

The fact that people who are guided by magical thinking are less moral than people guided by logic and reason should not be all that surprising. Magical thinking means you can justify just about anything. Think about it, the group of people in the US that is most strongly advocating that abortion should be a crime is the same group of people that have the most abortions! It takes an enormous amount of mental disconnect to behave that stupid.

Nobody, as far as I know, has ever claimed that a non-religious person can't perform moral acts as religious people do, merely that they don't.

They claim so, but they are wrong. Atheists generally behave morally far better than, for example, Christians. Christians commit more crimes, kill people more often, spend more time in jail, get divorced at a higher rate (and for Christian conservatives at a significantly higher rate) etc than atheists. Christians generally also have more abortions than does atheists even though the average atheist is more likely to be pro choice than the average Christian.

In reality, Christian beliefs generally lead to more double standards, but not a more moral life. In fact, in almost all measurable ways, atheists lead a more moral life than Christians or just about any religious people.

The fact that people who are guided by magical thinking are less moral than people guided by logic and reason should not be all that surprising. Magical thinking means you can justify just about anything. Think about it, the group of people in the US that is most strongly advocating that abortion should be a crime is the same group of people that have the most abortions! It takes an enormous amount of mental disconnect to behave that stupid.

2 - If anybody actually thought that the eqyptian government was going to be all good now because of the uprising clearly has not been paying attention. Id love to visit but not until there is another revolution there.

There's a few things about Egypt you should probably know. For one thing, the poverty rate there isn't much worse there than the United States (15% versus 20%) despite the radically different size of the economy and median income ($6k versus $40k). And before you jump down my throat on "proving that", I sourced that information from the CIA World Factbook. They have a significantly lower violent crime rate than here as well -- almost four times less (and yes, I can back that up too from a reliable source, The UN Office on Drugs and Crime. And when it comes to jailing people, the United States ranks #1. Egypt? #165. (Oh yes, sourced that too).

So when you get all uppity about how they're jailing a blogger for three years for publishing something anti-muslim, I want you to remember the terror watch lists. I want you to remember Guantanamo Bay. I want you to think of the hundreds of political prisoners (Citation? Got you covered. I assume Harvard Law School is prestigious enough?) we ignore. You talk about media control and manipulation in other countries like Egypt like they're somehow worse than those of the west.

The truth is... they're better. Three years for pissing off the government here is a comparatively light sentence: We put people in jail for at least a year for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Don't ask for a revolution before considering visiting Egypt. Chances are good, your country needs one more.

Potatoes provide no nutrients except in the skin. [..] Essentially, potatoes are worse than soda. Hostess Cupcakes provide more nutrition than mashed potato.

You keep on spouting uninformed bullshit. It's tiresome, and I'm going to have to stop responding to you if you keep it up. You can't expect to be taken seriously when you get basic shit wrong that can easily be looked up while trying to act like an expert.

Nutritional value for:
- boiled, skinless potatoes
- Hostess Cupcakes
- Dr. Pepper

Pay attention to the grams of sugar, fiber, and what nutrients each food is high in.

Fructose is harmless in the presence of glucose--sucrose is metabolized essentially identical to glucose

OK, cite a reference. You won't be able to, because you're making shit up again. Sucrose is broken down into fructose and glucose, so now we're back to talking about the difference between fructose and glucose.

Uptake of fructose is reduced outside the presence of glucose, and then the liver process it differently without glucose (and inefficiently).

Again, cite a reference. You have zero credibility.

Potatoes provide no nutrients except in the skin. [..] Essentially, potatoes are worse than soda. Hostess Cupcakes provide more nutrition than mashed potato.

You keep on spouting uninformed bullshit. It's tiresome, and I'm going to have to stop responding to you if you keep it up. You can't expect to be taken seriously when you get basic shit wrong that can easily be looked up while trying to act like an expert.

Nutritional value for:
- boiled, skinless potatoes
- Hostess Cupcakes
- Dr. Pepper

Pay attention to the grams of sugar, fiber, and what nutrients each food is high in.

Fructose is harmless in the presence of glucose--sucrose is metabolized essentially identical to glucose

OK, cite a reference. You won't be able to, because you're making shit up again. Sucrose is broken down into fructose and glucose, so now we're back to talking about the difference between fructose and glucose.

Uptake of fructose is reduced outside the presence of glucose, and then the liver process it differently without glucose (and inefficiently).

Again, cite a reference. You have zero credibility.

Potatoes provide no nutrients except in the skin. [..] Essentially, potatoes are worse than soda. Hostess Cupcakes provide more nutrition than mashed potato.

You keep on spouting uninformed bullshit. It's tiresome, and I'm going to have to stop responding to you if you keep it up. You can't expect to be taken seriously when you get basic shit wrong that can easily be looked up while trying to act like an expert.

Nutritional value for:
- boiled, skinless potatoes
- Hostess Cupcakes
- Dr. Pepper

Pay attention to the grams of sugar, fiber, and what nutrients each food is high in.

Fructose is harmless in the presence of glucose--sucrose is metabolized essentially identical to glucose

OK, cite a reference. You won't be able to, because you're making shit up again. Sucrose is broken down into fructose and glucose, so now we're back to talking about the difference between fructose and glucose.

Uptake of fructose is reduced outside the presence of glucose, and then the liver process it differently without glucose (and inefficiently).

Again, cite a reference. You have zero credibility.

The problems that Windows has are a Windows problem. They aren't shared by anyone else. Even the problems that Android has are down to bad apps masquerading as good ones and aren't the self-replicating and browse-by infections that you can get with Windows.

Windows is the only cesspool. It's about Microsoft engineering, not popularity.

Wow, that's some serious blinders you've got on, you've obviously got a religious attachment to some Microsoft hate that makes you spew out rubbish like that. The sort of thing that keeps you ignorant of things like jailbreakme.com, linux rootkits, OSF.8759, Slapper, Scalper, Linux.Svat and L10n among many, many, many others. You're just a clear ignorant fanboy.

The problems that Windows has are a Windows problem. They aren't shared by anyone else. Even the problems that Android has are down to bad apps masquerading as good ones and aren't the self-replicating and browse-by infections that you can get with Windows.

Windows is the only cesspool. It's about Microsoft engineering, not popularity.

Wow, that's some serious blinders you've got on, you've obviously got a religious attachment to some Microsoft hate that makes you spew out rubbish like that. The sort of thing that keeps you ignorant of things like jailbreakme.com, linux rootkits, OSF.8759, Slapper, Scalper, Linux.Svat and L10n among many, many, many others. You're just a clear ignorant fanboy.

I have to give credit to Apple that even users of the positively ancient iPhone 3GS still get first tier support. You would be hard pressed to find an Android phone from that era with official support for Jelly Bean. Maybe one of the Nexus phones?

Um, no, that's not entirely true.

Ask anyone who has installed IOS5 or IOS6 on an old iPhone 3G, or even a 3Gs. Its horrible.

I'm part of that anyone. Had a 3GS, upgraded to iOS5, it was fine. Every month or so input lag became a factor but a manual shutdown+start fixed that (don't make a big deal of the restart, I have friends whose Androids and Blackberrys need to be restarted far more often for far more serious issues). Battery was eventually replaced but it was almost 3 years old by that point. The friend I sold the 3GS to got updated to iOS6, and aside from the Maps which she hates, the phone is still doing great. I have other 3GS friends on iOS6 and they have no serious issues, certainly none that qualify as "horrible".

The 3G update to iOS4 was admittedly a disaster.

Large portions of new and marvelous best-thing-ever features are just not present on the old phones, (even those features that do not technically require new hardware elements, or are so slow as to be unusable. Battery life goes to hell, even with after Apple attempts to fix it. Most people who do this immediately hop on the net looking for a way to revert, the rest give up and run out to buy the latest iPhone (which was the plan all along). There is a lot of advice to simply not upgrade old phones.

Even iPhone 4 users are wary about updating to IOS6.

If anything the fact that you can install IOS6 on older devices speaks only to how little the iPhone has really progressed over time.

Damned if they do (3-year old phone supports latest iOS = very little tech progress), damned if they don't (older phones can't use all the features of latest iOS, some of which *do* require newer hardware).

I have to give credit to Apple that even users of the positively ancient iPhone 3GS still get first tier support. You would be hard pressed to find an Android phone from that era with official support for Jelly Bean. Maybe one of the Nexus phones?

Um, no, that's not entirely true.

Ask anyone who has installed IOS5 or IOS6 on an old iPhone 3G, or even a 3Gs. Its horrible.

Large portions of new and marvelous best-thing-ever features are just not present on the old phones, (even those features that do not technically require new hardware elements, or are so slow as to be unusable. Battery life goes to hell, even with after Apple attempts to fix it. Most people who do this immediately hop on the net looking for a way to revert, the rest give up and run out to buy the latest iPhone (which was the plan all along). There is a lot of advice to simply not upgrade old phones.

Even iPhone 4 users are wary about updating to IOS6.

If anything the fact that you can install IOS6 on older devices speaks only to how little the iPhone has really progressed over time.

Don't knock meth until you've been about five days into a good bender having just finished coding something that ordinarily would have taken a month. One of your good months. The shit can be quite motivational if you are the rare breed that can control it.

You mean, "until you've spent five days without sleep, picking at your flesh until it bleeds, cleaning half of everything, and thinking that you coded something coherent, which you only notice after the dope wears off is nothing but an incoherent 50 page scribble about everything from soap to the cockroaches that live under your skin."

The shit can be quite motivational if you are the rare breed that can control it.

As someone who has spent his entire life in the (now former, thank gawd) meth capital of the US, I can say this with confidence - there is no such person, you filthy fucking dopehead. If there were, the Nazi's would have won WWII.

Now stop trying to sell me the TV you stole from my house 5 minutes ago and go get fucked.

Let them shoot down 1,000 more for all I care. Just more american workers in american aircraft factories with more work to do. Nobody dies, and it benefits our domestic economy.

Please stop saying that building something with non-renewable resources and blowing it up improves the economy.
http://economics.about.com/od/warandtheeconomy/a/warsandeconomy.htm
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Tried that once. Didn't work out. http://americanhistory.about.com/od/civilwarbattles/Civil_War_Battles.htm

I know this is difficult, but try to stick with me . . . slowly now . . . when you cite an age range for a stat, and you think you're providing a citation that backs you up, the citation has to use the age range also! See how that works? I also couldn't help noticing that your citation mentions dramatic rises in suicide in non-US countries; kinda detracts from your America-bashing, doesn't it? But don't let a few facts get in the way of your BS.

Here's my citation for ages 15-24.

As to your overall US suicide citation, do you think it adds to or detracts from your credibility when you cite an article that say right at its top "This article's factual accuracy is disputed"?

Now remind me who's right again, and who has stomped whom?