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"Many artists spend their whole life creating and virtually starving to death ..."

They're free to get another job, the whole concept of "starving artists" is ridiculous in modern society, the fact is if a market is unprofitable and you knowingly go into it, it's not anyones fault but your own that you're starving. The poor nebulous image of starving artists is a bit bullshittery when you consider real poor countries have to eat mud:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/popup?id=4216121

Mosts "artists", today feel they are entitled to ridiculous amounts of money, just because the industry has become big they become accustomed to it and become very unrealistic.

Monopoly property rights is the whole reason artists are able to get rich in the first place. You get rich by having a large enough population, you don't get rich because of "merit" this whole myth of richness by merit is bs, if we killed everyone who was a customer, suddenly their skills have no value and they are unskilled or unneeded laborers.

Being rich is a matter of luck and population geometry as it is working to create something.

No, we Democrats didn't view it as a conspiracy, rather as a blessing. It's not that I think my party is too good to stoop to such levels, I just think we're too divided and incompetent to. Believe me, I wish the Democrats were the kinds of clever schemers who could play Perot against the Republicans, but we're just not that smart.

*****BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: NADER IS RUNNING!!!*****

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4336298&page=1

My reaction: dear God, not again... I was angry at him. I don't think he bears the full blame for the Bush presidency. I think he bears part of it, but Al Gore and his campaign manager deserve much more blame. But now, I look at him, and I just feel a sense of mild annoyance, mixed with pity.

Look at his photo. With his leathery skin and eyes that don't point in the same direction, he looks like Admiral Akbar. Ralph, listen to me: IT'S A TRAP!!!! Your ideas and crusades once inspired people. I heard Nader speak back in 1998 and I found him motivating and inspirational. But now? It's like a desperate bid for relevance. I can't really see how he can make a difference. Is there a deluded sense of idealism that keeps him going, or is it his ego? Give it up, Ralph. The world still needs idealists, crusaders, and vocal critics. But these silly campaigns don't actually accomplish anything. They haven't delivered any results, any important changes in policy, and so in the end all they do is discredit your ideas as being part of an impractical, irrational lunatic fringe.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=440893&page=1
http://www.nanoxchange.com/NewsNewsstand.asp?ID=283

Here.

No evidence whatsoever of vandalism. Bush was lying (again).

Wow, you are right: ABC News: No Joke, Leno Can't Write Own Punchlines [Story HTML Title]

How can they keep a career comedian from joking?

Suppose he said something and people laughed. Could he claim that he didn't mean it as a joke?

Also, it should be said that, with few exceptions, Jay Leno has not been funny for at least a decade. I'm not the only one who thinks that: "Leno's long-standing dominance of the ratings must rank as one of the world's inexplicable cultural tragedies."

Maybe people want to see comedy on TV so badly that they are willing to pretend what the comedians say is funny.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=3445882&page=2

Quote: After 9/11, the church received a commendation from the New York Fire Department for its relief efforts, but critics accused it of applying therapies such as rhythmic massages that some mental health professionals considered medically dubious.

"The public needs to understand that the Scientologists are using this tragedy to recruit new members," Michael M. Faenza, the president of the National Mental Health Association said in 2001. "They are not providing mental health assistance."

In Minneapolis, the group said it's working with the Red Cross. Yet members of the Red Cross working at the disaster zone questioned by ABC News weren't aware of the Church's assistance.

They show up, use the fact that they show up to make themselves look good, and proceed to basically get in the way and hand out Dianetics, pamphlets, and generally intercept you before you think about going to a mental health practitioner to handle the shell shock. It's really slimy, like ambulance chasers.

I've been checking news sites for information on the deal that is claimed here. So far I haven't found nothing that indicates that the strike is off.

Not on BBC News and not on CNN. Both news sites would have reported this if the strike was off and an deal had been reached.

Until proven otherwise, the writers are still one strike from my point of view.

However, there are two news on this. But nothing confirmed yet.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=4260711
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/feb/08/television.filmnews?gusrc=rss&feed=media

Undersea cable damage is hardly rare--indeed, more than 50 repair operations were mounted in the Atlantic alone last year, according to marine cable repair company Global Marine Systems. But last week's breaks came at one of the world's bottlenecks, where Net traffic for whole regions is funneled along a single route.

-FL

Most people who are bright enough to see how much money is being wasted, aren't US Citizens so they don't mind at all.

Oh we see it and we mind, but you seem to think that we are actually in a position to do anything about it. Protests don't do anything when they are made from a First Amendment Zone. We voted our sorry excuse for an opposition party into power and they didn't stop the war. We have attempted to legally address the the deception that paved the way for this war in the first place (see my sig) but that hasn't even appeared in our evening news on a slow news day. None of our viable candidates for the next presidency are willing to pull the troops out. You seem to suffer from the misconception that Americans actually have any control or accountability from our government.

How many million a day is it? I cant figure out where the money is going.

It's going to interests owned by the like of The Carlyle Group and Halliburton

How do I figure, I figure because it was on the news, being reported by mainstream media, talked about by candidates and so on.

The media has presented polls. ABC, CBS, USA Today, and others show consistent support for stem cell research.

The reason for denying embryonic stem cell research funding is the same as right to life anti abortion arguments, it kills life.

As before: not all embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of embryos. And, in the case where embryos are destroyed anyway (such as in vitro fertilization), why not put them to use? For this reason, many against abortion are in favor of stem cell research, including Orrin Hatch and prominent catholics.

Aren't we at war? Doest that involve plenty of killing and plenty of tax dollars?

And you point is what exactly? People rationalize things however they want. Someone saying they don't want to murder or kill innocent life might not see war as innocent. But it doesn't matter to me. I never said I was prowar and anti stem cell.

Right. What you said was that the voting U.S. public was somehow "against killing" and that stem cell funding policy matched this. But that argument doesn't hold water from polling or from inconsistent policy.

I personally object to it because of how close it is to raising people just to haves parts form them in the name of helping others. It would suck 200 years from now to find out that your new born baby is going to be harvested in order to provide a healthy heart for your 140 year old grandpa and no body thinks twice about it.

It sounds as if we both hope that neither one of us will be around in 200 years to find out. I never liked this "slippery slope" argument & can't understand how you live your life that way. One can contrive to make any situation seem to lead to Utopia or to Hell.

There was funding of science well before the government got involved with it.

Government has been funding science for a very long time. Ancient science was driven by agricultural and accounting needs of the state. Pre-enlightenment patronage often came from political and religious leaders. Yes, science has also had a history of self-funding. But I think that commercial funding comes later than either of these other sources (I can't think of anything significant before the industrial revolution).

A good majority of the science that made the world as we know it today was funded by sources other then the government.

If you mean that it came from both the government & other sources of funding, I might agree. If you would contend that most advances had no governmental funding, I'd definitely disagree. A lot of progress is made from militaristic funding. Cryptography and other mathematics; thermodynamics (from cannons); nuclear and other energy research; computing and networking...

Science needs to be communicated to the public so that other researchers can test it and build on it. In commercially-funded research, this rarely happens--everything becomes a trade secret. The vast number of papers in science journals are government funded. Just look at the authors and the acknowledgements to see this. I think many scientists would agree with you that these journals can afford to be more open in-general, but all national labs and funding agencies have a system for internal reports that (assuming that nothing needs to be classified) the public has access to. Preprint and self-archiving is fairly

He has as much chance of getting the nomination as I have. And I'm not running.

My (undisclosed) church is having a party tomorrow as well, and some football game may coincidentally be on at the same time. The idea behind such a party, at least at my church, is to build community and to bring people who aren't Christians in and show them that bible geeks actually do know how to have fun.

From our theological standpoint (Reformed/Protestant), having a party in a church building is not blasphemous because there's nothing inherently special about a pile of bricks. Indeed the Old Testament (for those of you who went to public school, after the big bang and evolution but before Jesus) says that God had the Jews set up the temple and respect it as a special place. After Jesus, however, the temple was destroyed, and the followers of Christ themselves now make up the "church" (1 Peter 2:1-5, also 1 Corinthians 3:16).

Whether you believe Christianity is a sack of lies or not, these are the reasons that a church needn't be stodgy and religious about doing something fun. And, honestly, isn't this better than churches condescendingly protesting, thinking people are listening? After all, America could use a break, or even a complete change... http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=4183635&page=1

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4229536&page=1

None the less, I am not supporting the NFL's ban on showing the game on big screens. If people want to gripe that the NFL has some stupid rule about how big your TV can be, fine.

What I object to is that the issue is that CHURCHES can't do it. This attitude that churches should not have to play by the same rules as everyone else drives me up the wall. The suggestion that the legislature should amend federal law to create ANOTHER carve-out for churches is ridiculous.

I mean, if making over 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS a month in NET profit is being on the ropes, then put me down for the 10 count, Rocky!

It's one of the (few) things government should do:

- Enforce contracts
- Enforce property rights
- Provide national defense
- Break monopolies

See this part of his interview with John Stossel on the role of government.

He also wasn't just verbally taunting, they were using a slingshot on it. Big difference.

It doesn't matter whose fault it was though, the kid deserved what he got.

so mark this up as an unintended consequence of ridiculously strong labor unions

You should ask Kwame. He's learning the true price of text messages. =)

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4196564

You've got a lot of information, but you've got it wrong. The Bricks of cash on palets, mentioned here, among other places, were supposed to pay civilian contractors aiding in the reconstruction efforts. Accounting practices bordering on criminal have allowed some sickening war profiteering, and certainly some of that money ended up in Iraqi hands, but since the Iraqis are the actual workers, I'm not too concerned.

It is, after all, unavoidable when the goal of spending all that money is to rebuild Iraq.

There have been accusations of Coalition commanders paying off Afghani warlords to not attack their bases, and that, I agree with you, is entirely unacceptable. That no-one has been brought up on charges for the practice yet (to my knowledge?) - is something to be pissed about.

You've got no arguements with me over the scary implications of what Blackwater, or similar private mercenary groups, could do. I like to think they realize they stand a whole lot better chance of long-term business if their primary employer stays internally stable, but you never know.

-----------

On to Iran:

New IED's Made in Iran. These are currently the most feared and effective weapons in the Iraq and Afghanistan theatres.

Terrorist training camps, In Iran. Remember we went to war in Afghanistan over this one.

"Israel will be Annhilated". This is a good enough reason for me why Iran shouldn't have nuclear weapons.

----

While I agree with most of your points about how we should be watching our own government much more closely than we should be watching Iran, I disagree with your conclusions. We've had recurring problems in the Middle East because our economic concerns (competing with the Soviet Union, taking natural resources, etc.) - involve screwing over the Middle East at every oppourtunity. The leadership of the Middle East realizes this and is rightfully pissed off about it.

This is why major problems crop up every ten or twenty years, the goal of US foreign policy is to keep the middle east more or less destabilized.

Of course, every once in a while all this nonsense creates a situation that might actually be threatening to the US, like Afghanistan, or a nuclear-armed Iran. We have to deal with it.

I think you are confusing "has been regulated" with "has been imagined to be regulated by lawyers and naive fools." To be "regulated" requires a bit more than the mere existence of regulations on paper. It requires that these things have actual force, that they actually do something, they restrain people in some way.

I guess among the naive fools you find Goering, Milosevic, Taylor, and W. Bush. Of course, the frat boy Bush hasn't really paid the price yet, while the US has lost status morally and politically because of torture being done by CIA and US military. Only a naive fool believes that torturing suspect enemies do not have a price both economically and politically, while influencing directly the security of US citizens abroad and at home.

Do you think Bliar checked with the lawyers just for fun before the Iraq invation? Do you think commanders in the field don't know that one day there will be peace and maybe it would not look so good if it appeared in the papers that his troops raped those civilian girls? Do you think armies court martial soldiers for unlawful killings just to lose some pure killing machines? My interpretation is that any military knows that keeping to international laws and standards is good for moral, gives an advantage in the propaganda war and that a displined army is infinitely stronger than a bunch of random killers.

Heck, even al-quada justify their killings with their twisted interpretation of the Quaran; notice how bin laden replaces international law with his own sets of laws taken from a religious text to justify for his supporters and backers how al-quada is conducting their jihad (holy war).

It seems to be hard for naive fools to understand that diplomacy is not weakness, that international law exists because it is a win-win for nations, and that breaking international law has consequences even though there is no world police. The bully on the block maybe thinks that he will always be the strongest, but the smart guy knows that he needs friends and allies to get by and survive.

Not all of them have cars or the gas to make an hour round trip. And when your sitting in an emergency room, taking the non existent bus system doesn't seem to be an option. Of course an ambulance would be faster but they won't take you to the other hospitals (which is in a different city) unless the first one approves of it.

When you leave the emergency room before treatment, they still charge you for the visit. It happened to me when I took 18 stitches in my right arm. I left and had a friend who is a nurse (or nurses assistant) wrap it then saw a doctor who stitched it up the following Monday.

When I say thirty minutes, I'm not talking about across town which seems a little more reasonable. I'm talking about 30 minutes of highway driving without traffic. But most of the people who goto our local hospital don't have the option of driving somewhere else. This might be why it is only a 4-8 hour wait though. There might already be a good portion of people who goto a different hospital emergency room by default. There are numerous articles on the web about wait times. Here is one of the first ones, listed but here is one where someone died and they considered it a homicide. Keep in mind that to have an average, you need to have higher and lower wait times. The lower will go to the trauma patients and I prefixed by statement with the non trauma waits which bring things into perspective pretty nicely.

First of all, he got trashed in a race against olympic caliber sprinters earlier this year. Second, as one of the previous posts pointed out, his cyborg legs were disqualified not him. If he grows new legs, he's in. Third, there are at least two problems that led to the disqualification of the prosthetics, 1. the prosthetics provide less air resistance and second, they enable the wearer to reverse his energy efficiency; meaning that he is faster at the end of the race than at the beginning. Human sprinters are usually slower at the end of the race. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=trackandfield&id=2937538 http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/news/story?id=2938043

First of all, he got trashed in a race against olympic caliber sprinters earlier this year. Second, as one of the previous posts pointed out, his cyborg legs were disqualified not him. If he grows new legs, he's in. Third, there are at least two problems that led to the disqualification of the prosthetics, 1. the prosthetics provide less air resistance and second, they enable the wearer to reverse his energy efficiency; meaning that he is faster at the end of the race than at the beginning. Human sprinters are usually slower at the end of the race. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=trackandfield&id=2937538 http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/news/story?id=2938043

It also doesn't matter when all the front runners are clones of each other. And apparently mass media will have almost as much influence on the election as the electoral college. The whole thing has become a charade.

So let me get this straight... when President Bush championed swithgrass in his State of the Union speech a couple of years ago, and the news folks sorta laughed at him, he was actually right?

What Happened to Bush Call for Switchgrass?
by Jessica Yellin, Katie Hinman, Nitya Venkataraman
Date: January 23, 2007
URL: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2814511&page=1

"Since that mention in the 2006, investment in switch grass has exploded, thanks in large part, experts say, to the president's speech. Venture capitalists have poured over $100 million dollars into private companies that are exploring the technology necessary to convert switch grass into fuel, and large, publicly-owned companies are also directing their research dollars into bio fuels."

A Stanford professor says having your name listed first on the ballot, like Clinton had, gives you a automatic 3% boost. http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Decision2008/story?id=4107883&page=1

Okay well, he's giving them something, but not much of it.

Auto dealers talk about "open pricing options." Real estate agents hold "open houses" all the time...

Auto dealers talk about "open pricing options." Real estate agents hold "open houses" all the time...

Ron Paul gained approximately 6% of the Iowa primary vote even though his primary source of advertisement was online

Try ten percent

http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/SchumerWebsite/schumer_around_ny/record.cfm?id=264754&

and Barbara Boxer (D)

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics&id=4447425

Of course what is really happening with these two is that they don't care that much about the technology or the program but by pushing for it they can say "I told you so" if anything were to get shot down.

Try googling it, if you don't mind...

I don't think apple has the monopoly on that, they just provide a service that many distributors utilise to promote their product. It downloads off Apple provided servers and the companies themselves own the trailers anyway. not only that but people provide the trailers on their own sites as well. what they do have is some exclusive trailers that you don't see elsewhere, but given that beyond the cinemas, the distributors/producers I only see Apple being the one to show trailers. Apple is offering a service, something Microsoft can do if they so feel like it. Or Google. In fact I did a quick google of movie trailers and got a few results after Apple:
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Trailers/ (links into its database and has better search)
http://movies.yahoo.com/trailers/
http://video.google.com/movietrailers.html (looks like this got forgotten however)
http://movies.go.com/movie_trailers

There were also other sites that pointed back to Apple and others that pointed to the trailers at the distributors site as well. Apple hardly have a monopoly as there are many other options. Its just that they provide a lot useful integration as well.

Don't forget that our air is cleaning than in 1970 and that we have more forests now than in 1920.

Also, don't forget that there are still scientist who are brave enough to question what is causing global warming - http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3751219&page=1 Man or Nature?

There's also the myth that ethanol fuel is a good thing for the USA to farm ourselves, NOT! It takes 2.1 acres to get the fuel from 1 acre since the machinery need the other 1.1 acre of fuel to run. Definitely a poor well-to-wheel ratio.

X-ray spectroscopy, Neutron backscatter, and other techniques have all been proposed as additions to the baggage-screening procedure, for just this reason.

A computerized scanner that simply prints "WARNING: Contains >8 grams of reactive metal" will probably give a lot better results than a poorly-trained screener trying to puzzle out a contrast-enhanced X-ray image.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/BusinessTravel/story?id=97746&page=1

It'll be a while before this tech hits your local airport, but I bet it's coming.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/ad+hominem

As for the definition of the word "racist": There are only a tiny handful of peoples who are capable of producing a man who can win a Fields Medal or a Nobel Prize in Physics: Largely they are Caucasians [to include the Ashkenazim & the Lebanese Christians], Pacific Rim Asians, and [only] the very highest castes from the Indian Subcontinent; conversely, the finals of the 100 meter dash at the Olympics will always consist almost entirely of men who are descended from the tribes of West Africa [or at least the finals would consist almost entirely of such men if national quotas didn't unfairly and unnaturally limit and restrict the participants at the Olympics].

No one - not even the most ardent marxist academic - bothers to try to convince himself otherwise anymore.

But, of course, the modern definition of "racist" does not identify, as the villain, he who notices these differences - we all notice them - but rather the word "racist" has come to apply to anyone who has the temerity [or foolhardiness] to verbalize the observation.

On the other hand, that's not what the word "racist" is supposed to mean: A racist is supposed to be someone who believes that a government should enforce [with the barrel of a gun] an agenda which:

1) Involves seizing the private property of dis-favored races.

2) Involves setting aside educational appointments and business opportunities for favored races.

3) Involves denying taxpayer-subsidized goodies to dis-favored races.

4) Involves the racialization of criminal arrests, prosecutions, and convictions.

5) Involves the seizure of entire continents from dis-favored races.

6) Involves the enslavement of dis-favored races.

7) Involves the slaughter of dis-favored races.

Etc etc etc.

So it's impossible for any classical liberal - one who believes that men should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by rather the content of their character, and who believes that governments, and their gun barrels, really ought not exist in the first place - it is impossible for him to be a "racist" within the bounds of any meaning which that word was intended to connote.

But, again, as I have said over and over in this little conversation of ours: NONE OF THE SEMANTIC DISTINCTIONS ARE OF ANY IMPORTANCE WHATSOEVER.

What is important is the underlying truth of the matter: Barring some unforseen tragedy [your being struck by lightning, etc], YOU WILL LIVE TO EXPERIENCE THE IMMINENT TRAGEDY [& CATASTROPHE] OF DYSGENIC FERTILITY.

In the meantime, perform your very small - yet almost infinitely important - role in making the future a better place for us all [both we who are already born, and those of us who are yet-to-be-born]: Go find the smartest girl yo

What kind of moron would even think about gambling online out of Antigua or anywhere outside the USA for that matter?

A simple google search of 'online gambling scheme' reveales a ton of scams involving thousands of crooks internationally. In the USA there are not as nearly as many schemes as everything is regulated very heavily and almost every scheme is caught in the end. When gambling online you not only have to worry about the odds of the house, but the odds of a cheater taking everyones money; lowering the odds even more for everyone.

Oh you don't believe me? Guess you don't remember This Story. Yea a major share holder/investor of absolute poker online was watching everyones hand and winning hundreds of thousands of dollars. So I guess you still want to gamble online? "It's my money its what I want to do! I want to be a dumbass in the face of clear evidence!!"

I'm sorry but the issue has nothing to do with bush; keep this name out of it. I know around here if you talk shit about bush you automagically get modded up; fact is EVERY industry has paid off congress to protect their intrests, where it be economically or morally.

This part of the WTO is where it does get sketchy because I think there are some people in government that genuinely want to protect the person investing their money, and to tell them where to gamble is wrong but if you know its a scam how can one responsibilly allow that? Sure they want to keep gambling in their own regulated casinos, because they are proven safe without any fear of being cheated.

No fuss, no bother, no stupid guesswork. Built the way technology was supposed to be built.

Plug it into your phone and push the button.

Bang, all text fields in your "Cellular Phonebook" are backed up.

Transfer/Restore is just as simple.

Switching phones? Just switch the tip.

They're even going to support a whole slew more phones next year than just Motorola and Samsung!

www.Backup-Pal.com

(Featured on the Good Morning America Show by Men's Health Magazine http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/ChristmasCountdown/story?id=3983896&page=1 )

In the last 5 days two men fell 40 stories while washing windows on a skyscraper. One died, and the other one is still alive.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=5820578

Falling from great distances isn't always fatal.

Where else but China can we get lead toys for our kids? How else can we outsource pollution to a nation which believes it's its right to release carbon to make stuff for us? And what better than having all that junk shipped to us by fume-belching ships?

Seriously, ending trade with China would most likely do more to cut particulate pollution (25% of LA's comes from China), and cut global warming from coal burning. Sure, there'd be short-term disruption of American corporate manufacturing patterns. But what we've learned in the process of outsourcing industries to China is how to build new factories quickly. We could use that knowledge again here.

According to ABC News and several other news outlets, authorities have tracked the hacker attacks back to China.

This is not too surprising, since several recent high profile hacker attacks have originated from china targeting various countries around the world. It's nothing new that China is continuing to hack into our top secret and sensitive installations.

In the coming days, you can expect China to adamantly deny any involvment, just as they have when earlier this year the German, UK, Australian and US governments have accused them of hacking into top secret installations.

Those ten companies aren't really competing, they are controlled by a small group of individuals. Most board members sit on the boards of several companies.

Would you care to prove that? Say, by naming the board members of each company then pointing out each board a person sits on. Start with say NBC, or more correctly General Electric which owns NBC. Then name what boards other than Walt Disney, which owns ABC, Steve Jobs sits on. Now about CBS, owned by Viacom, here's Viacom's board of directors.. To make is easier here's Disney's board of directors. Here's GE's Board of Directors.

I bet you won't find many directors that sit on more than one media company's board of directors, never mind "several".

About the source, I'll just say that when you start with a desired conclusion, it isn't hard to come up with data to support it. Reason isn't interested in finding out if free markets are they best, they take that on faith. They are out to prove what they already believe.

Exactly what I expected, you rag on who did the study not on what faults, if any, the study had despite my having asked you not too do so. Even opposed scientists critique research and studies not the views of the opposing scientists.

The mechanism that makes cell phones harmful is that they inject comparatively high amounts of RF energy into cells, which damages the DNA.

Ionizing radiation damages DNA. Non-ionizing radiation (which is what cell phones and wifi networks use) can only damage cells by adding heat. Cell phones don't put out enough energy to raise the temperature by even 1o C.

It's possible that a yet-unknown mechanism exists for non-ionizing radiation to cause cancer. However, we've been dealing with energy in these frequencies for a long time, many of them in far more powerful amounts than cell phones (radar, microwave communication towers, etc.). Additionally, many of those sources are staffed by union workers, which are notorious for looking for any minor safety factor to justify a wage increase. If you want to prove a new mechanism in a mature area of physics, you're going to need very good proof.

Anecdotal evidence of "many brain tumors on that side of the head" is no replacement for a good scientific study; after all, 50% of brain tumors would happen on that side of the head, anyway. Actual studies on this matter have more than adaquately disproven. Studies in support of a link are often shown to have problems.

And those people would be wrong. Most Americans claim to be "Christian". They only polled 1022 people, but it was the first result on Google.

Wikipedia quotes a survey that randomly called over 50000 people and got more or less the same results.

Also, in the Census Bureau's"self described religious identification" report, the overwhelming majority claimed to be christian.

I almost got in trouble with a similar approach. You need to be careful in this day and age. Others might not agree with your choice of parenting techniques and may wish to punish you for them.
[annecdote]
Recently, at the playground I saw my toddler was about to push an empty swing. I knew what was about to happen, but I also realized she wasn't strong or agile enough to give it a real good push. So, sure enough, she pushes the swing, it comes back and knocks her on her little butt - harmless but of course she starts crying. Another parent witnessed the event and rightfully accused me of letting it happen. I collected my little girl and told this other parent I was aware of the consequences and decided to let my little one give herself a "physics lesson". Heh, that was the term I used, "physics lesson". This infuriated the other parent who then accused me of child abuse and proceeded to call the police. In the end nothing came of it. So no harm done.
[/annecdote]

I support the idea of letting kids make their own mistakes at an early age to help them understand cause and effect, to understand the consequences of their actions. It is important at an early age to help them think because later in life the consequences could be much more severe. However the way things are going, my actions above might someday be illegal and I might've had to answer to social services or worse.

Few of those attacking US soldiers in Iraq are from Iraq. The Iraqis are too busy killing themselves over religious issues. If you want to know who's targeting our soldiers, you need look no farther than Iran. They are doing everything they can to bog us down in Iraq because they know they're next in line. Before we even went into Iraq, Iran threatened the use of suicide bombers openly. http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1850897 http://wcbstv.com/topstories/Iran.suicide.bombers.2.268156.html

By and large, the medicine portrayed in House is accurate, even if it is rare and farfetched.

What requires more suspended disbelief than the medicine are these facets of the show:

1) All these interns run their own labs (by hand, no less), do their own surgeries and biopsies, and run CT, MRI and ultrasound scanners all by themselves

2) A narcotic-addicted doctor that displays such insubordination, so thoroughly and arbitrarily abuses his subordinates, and is so blase about sexual harassment, would be allowed to practice in any hospital. There are plenty of assholes doctors, but House goes beyond belief.

It is much like believing that Seattle Grace Hospital has only five surgeons, and innumerable promiscuous interns, who do everything.

Torture is still used because it works, and it works because it's still used? That's some nice circular logic there, Lou.

The only reason it's still used because some people are sociopaths who enjoy hurting others (or they are in search of "revenge"). This is why it's generally associated with Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and North Korea. It's a verifiable fact
that
torture
does
not
work
for
the
reasons
I
explained
previously.

There Are Four Lights!