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If gravity waves don't actually exist it would be the first prediction of General Relativity to fail, which would be a huge discovery that could help in the search for quantum gravity. Scientists have indirect evidence of gravity waves:

In this current "pre-detection" era it can be difficult to convince those who are not overly familiar with the theory of general relativity that gravitational waves really do exist. Fortunately, the Hulse-Taylor Pulsar (PSR 1913+16) provides firm evidence of a binary system actually emitting gravitational waves! ...

Over the years the period of the pulsar has been measured to high accuracy. General relativity tells us that a binary system will emit energy as gravitational waves and eventually the two objects will inspiral towards each other and merge. As the system evolves towards this merger the period of the orbit will gradually decrease.

The figure (from Weisberg and Taylor (2004)) shows the cumulative shift of periastron time for PSR 1913+16. This shows the decrease of the orbital period as the two stars spiral together. Although the measured shift is only 40 seconds over 30 years, it has been very accurately measured and agrees precisely with the predictions from Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The observation is regarded as indirect proof of the existence of gravitational waves. Indeed, the Hulse-Tayor pulsar is deemed so significant that in 1993 its discoverers were awarded the Nobel prize for their work.

Under the UK model, you pay about 11% national insurance tax on your income (which in your case would be nothing), and the healthcare is free at the point of need. That's the beauty of a national scheme - you don't buy into it, it's just there financed out of everybody's tax payments. Note that there are residency requirements, although accident and emergency treatment is always free (even for visitors), and there are reciprocal arrangements with many other European countries.

There is a definite link between being cold and having a cold.

From the University of Cardiff's website: ...A study at the Common Cold Centre in Cardiff UK in 2005 took 90 students and chilled their feet in cold water for 20 minutes and showed that the chilled group had twice as many colds over the next 5 days as a control group of 90 students whose feet were not chilled....

Here's the media release.

Basically being cold allows any virus that you already have to take a stronger hold on your body and so symptoms that you wouldn't have had become expressed. You are close in thinking that the immune system is weakened but you certainly don't need to be hypothermic, you just have to have the virus present in your nose already.

See; your Mother was right!
I wonder what else she got right?...you do have clean underwear on don't you?

Yeah, because God sure didn't hate the homosexuals in Sodom and Gomorrah...

The Bible is an ugly, bloodthirsty, and downright strange book. Christians who take a message of peace and love out of it may be good people, but they're just cherry-picking passages and ignoring the ones they don't agree with. If you're going to do that, why do you need some archaic forgery to shape your morals in the first place?

To follow up on this, there seems to be some evidence/discussion here

I RTFA, and it seems they're not actually extracting the chemical energy from the sewage -- rather, they're just installing a heat pump to exploit the temperature differential between the sewage and the ground.

Now, using a heat pump might be rather novel in itself -- but extracting energy from sewage is nothing new. We've been doing this in Sweden for quite some time now -- except chemically. Here's a random link with some information about one such installation ...

The resulting biogas is used to replace natural gas in different applications, and we have for quite some time had Bi-Fuel vehicles that can run compressed biogas as well as gasoline, that enjoy certain tax benifits. Also, I seem to remember that a new residential area in Stockholm, Hammarby Sjöstad, is getting a biogas system for heating (and maybe for cooking, I can't remember)...

Either way. Extracting energy from sewage is not a new idea. Extracting heat energy from sewage using a heat pump might be a novel idea, but it's not really any new exciting technology, just a rather clever application of existing technology. Calling it "turning sewer waste to energy" is inaccurate, because the actual sewer waste isn't consumed when you do just, you just cool it down.

I've yet to find a web site which lists spots you can go to find free bicycles to ride.
here's one:
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/archi/programmes/cost8/ca se/transport/buga.html
not trying to argue just pointing out that there are free bike schemes around the world, this is by no means the only one either :)

One very important factor about the US rail system regarding oil consumption, GDP and economic influences (and related to the recent "Dubai Ports" issue)...

Over the past 20 years, the failing US rail system was transformed into a system to transport containers from Asia to Europe. This costly transformation included reboring or replacing most tunnels, replacing low clearance bridges, improving the roadbeds and replacing the tracks with welded rail to accommodate high speed "double stack" container trains.

The "double stack" container trains carry containers from ports on the West Coast to Ports on the East Coast at 70 mph, stopping only to change crews. They have priority over all other trains except Amtrak passenger trains.

By covering the width of the US in 3 days, and bypassing the Panama Canal, it saves weeks off the transit time of shipping from Asia to Europe, even with the time and cost of having to unload the containers on the west coast and putting them back onto ships on the East Coast.

Spend time train watching, and you'll quickly see that this is the bulk of the traffic carried by the remaining highly-consolidated US rail carriers. The world has become a very interdependent place.

So the carbon dioxide being put into the sky over the US is partly supporting the economic activity in Asia and providing consumer goods to Europe - but with only a modest impact on the measured GDP of the United States.

The reason Russia backed the Kyoto Protocols is that the 1990 baseline period was prior to the industrial collapse of Russia. Russia is currently 43% below their 1990 emission rate.
http://www.warprofiteers.com/article.php?id=12988

Any country unwilling or unable to meet its CO2 obligations under the treaty would have to buy the CO2 credits from Russia, which couldn't ramp up the economic activity to use them even if they wanted to.

BTW, only 2 of the EU countries are meeting their own obligations under the Kyoto protocol:
http://www.ccels.cardiff.ac.uk/issue/lee.html
Much of the "reduction" in EU emissions is money being sent to Russia to update or replace Russia's highly polluting equipment rather than any changes in Western Europe itself.

Follow the Money.

I noticed in the past week, the NY Times had an article about the Aral Sea and how they are trying to un-do some of the horrendous environmental damage caused to it by the Soviet Union.

What would you prefer as an alternative?

Would you rather have more valid opinions and perspectives expressed, and thus a blurier truth, or would you rather have a clearer truth, with fewer valid opinions and perspectives..?

In fact I think we will have both: We continue to find ways for our tools to help us organize our communications and information, and to help us form a clearer picture of a multiplicity of perspectives.

When I read what you wrote, I thought: "Whoah-- somebody feels that their version of the truth isn't the one that's being heard." I feel like you think that there are people who should be considering your thoughts, who should be communicating with you. But that they aren't. I would suggest that perhaps the Internet tools make that more possible, to do, and not less possible. Perhaps you just need to use the tools in front of you?

I think valid opinions and ideas are getting to be easier to find, not harder.

I'm also not clear on what you mean, when you said that the lines of truth are becoming "blury." Do you mean like: "I go to Wikipedia, and I'm not sure how much of what I see, that I can trust?"

I think that everyone's doing a lot more thinking about how our information and knowledge systems work. "Science. Okay, what is science, actually? How does that work? Why should we trust science more than other things? Is it a body of work, is it a process, what?" Perhaps it's just my company, but it does seem to me that these discussions are happening more frequently now.

I notice how much attention is paid to public opinion, and to who thinks what, and to who is advocating what and saying what is true. All of this points, to me, to greater fidelity in vision.

Before, people didn't know about these things. People literally thought that if it was printed in the paper, it was true-- and to be suspicious of anyone who thought otherwise. Wealthy people knew this, and they did purchace newspapers in order to control people.

Are the lines of truth more blury now, or in the past?

Perhaps they are blurier, but they're probably more accurate now.

Also remember, when you read that Wikipedia article: It usually has links to trustworthy sources. Let's look at Wikipedia:Common Cold, for instance. See at the bottom, you can get links directly to websites edited by MDs, and the Common Cold Centre.

It's so easy now to investigate why you believe what you believe, to investigate sources, etc., etc.,.

I think the truth is not getting blurred. We're just developing an understanding of the complex.

But as some research published a few weeks ago shows, you're more likely to succumb to a cold if you are cold.

Not that I think the original poster had any kind of point.

Nobody called it that. The reason being that it wasn't the case.
This has also been the subject of a very detailed study:
Far from revealing an anti-war BBC, our findings tend to give credence to those who criticised the BBC for being too sympathetic to the government's pro-war stance. Either way, it's clear to accuse the BBC of an anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or sustained analysis
Was the BBC really biased against the war?