What Does Google Suggest Suggest About Humanity?

CNETNate writes "You'll laugh, but mostly you'll cry. Some of the questions Google gets asked to deliver results for is beyond worrying. 'Can you put peroxide in your ear?', 'Why would a pregnancy test be negative?', and 'Why can't I own a Canadian?' being just a selection of the truly baffling — and disturbing — questions Google is regularly forced to answer."

Comments

Really?

[crumbz]

Now my curiosity is piqued. WHY can't I own a Canadian? Or at least lease one for a year?

Re:Really?

[Guido del Confuso]

Try actually searching for those terms. It's the title of an essay satirizing Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Biblical literalism. Not so weird, really, in context.

This is two monumentally stupid articles I've seen from CNET UK in as many days (the other one being the power plugs article from yesterday). If Slashdot continues to post them, I think we should insist on a tag just for that site so we can filter them out.

Re:Really?

[dmmiller2k]

You can't possibly be serious. You can rent one for a day at a time if you can find an available one. But, the best I've ever heard of is a 1-week timeshare, but you'll never get the week you want.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

The other one that got me is "why is there a dead pakistani on my couch?"... ROTFL LMFAO.... I mean really really?

Re:Really?

[interkin3tic]

Along those same lines I was pondering the question at the top of the article "Why would a little girl in Yorkshire think Jesus was born in an egg?" Oddly phrased, and I don't think google is the place to search for insight on the immaculate conception, but if you believe that, it WOULD be an interesting embryological issue. Was it like a human egg and, er... a set of divine chromesomes or what? I bet some church scholar has talked about that more than any person reasonably should, it's entirely possible that got transcribed and computerized.

Later on if I'm still as interested as I am now, I may run a google search of my own, though more along the lines of "immaculate conception, human egg fertilization." Probably not though.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easter. 'nuff said.

Re:Really?

[Goldberg's Pants]

Because they're MINE!!! MWAHAHA!

Signed, Stephen Harper...

The peroxide question isn't dumb. Hydrogen peroxide is often used as an antiseptic, and can be used to treat ear infections.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

can I put peroxide in the ear of a Canadian I own?

Re:Really?

[johnlcallaway]

The "Why can't I own a Canadian" is a wonderful essay that slams using religious texts for moral arguments by using parts of the bible people don't quote to justify slavery, stoning, and killing. As part of the essay, it uses Old Testament text that seems to justify owning slaves as long as they are not from your own country. As for the peroxide search, it's a treatment for getting wax out of your ear, although I don't know if it works or not.

I was in Chennai several years ago and noticed no one was in the water other than wading. My friend told me most Indians don't know how to swim. I figured it was probably because they don't have the same infrastructure in place as the US in teaching swimming. Maybe someone from India can shed some additional light on that and solve that mystery.

Just another worthless piece from what passes for news these days. Maybe someday reporters will get away from their desks and actually go out and report on news.

Re:Really?

[b1t r0t]

"Why would a little girl in Yorkshire think Jesus was born in an egg?"

Maybe she heard about Raptor Jesus?

Re:Really?

[CannonballHead]

by using parts of the bible people don't quote to justify slavery, stoning, and killing. As part of the essay, it uses Old Testament text that seems to justify owning slaves as long as they are not from your own country.

There are reasons for that. It's called "context."

If you want to argue whether or not slavery has ever been ok according to the Bible, that's one thing; if you want to apply what laws that the Bible states were given to a particular nation at a particular time in history for a very specific purpose to current nations and thus show how the Bible condones modern day slavery, then you have major contextual issues. It would be similar to me taking a quote from a 3rd century Greek philosopher about how Greeks back then should dress for war, applying it to modern warfare, and claiming "how stupid Greek philosophy was! They expected people to fight in their tanks with skirts!" Or whatever.

Re:Really?

[Schemat1c]

But the Old Testament was nullified by the New Testament

Being an ex-cultist myself I know this statement is correct. If you would only read the source you would see that is the whole point since the religious wack jobs can only find quotes from the old testament to support their fascist views.

Re:Really?

[Ender Wiggin 77]

Because we make great pets.

Re:Really?

[Enderandrew]

There are those who suggest that many of the early books in the Old Testament aren't exactly God's commandments to his followers, but rather a historical accounting. For instance, the Old Testament lists the kashrut laws. This does not mean that Christians must keep a kashrut diet.

The Torah has 613 Mitzvot, commandments, or laws. Yet there are 10 commandments directly attributed to God. If you read the Old Testament, you'll see that there is a story arc in which God goes from having simple commandments and dealing directly with his people, to his people intentionally seperating themselves, wanting to establish government, establish a complex priesthood, and then develop these complex laws.

I don't think it is far to say that the Mitzvot constitute Biblical law in any true sense.

That means fundamentalists who want to come down on gays suddenly don't have much in the way of Biblical evidence to support themselves, but it also means those that want to mock Judeo-Christian beliefs can't uphold the silliness contained within the 613 Mitzvot either.

Re:Really?

[Remloc]

Submit that one then examine the links. Appears to be a line from the TV show "Lost."

Yeah, I didn't know, either.

Re:Really?

[CannonballHead]

Was it like a human egg and, er... a set of divine chromesomes or what? I bet some church scholar has talked about that more than any person reasonably should, it's entirely possible that got transcribed and computerized.

The Biblical texts don't comment, so I don't think many church scholars should comment on it, either. It appears to be pretty clearly stated that she was a virgin... that was the whole point of the visits to Joseph by angels, etc.

Just random though (I'm not a "church scholar," so I can comment! hehe) - if God is Biblically able to create the entire world, I'm pretty sure He would be able to fertilize a human egg (and give it actual human chromosomes) without needing one of His created men involved. If you believe in any sort of Deity that can do supernatural things, it should not be difficult to believe in a supernatural "fertilization," it seems. The part that the Bible claims that people have difficulty believing is the part about being fully divine and fully human and without sin.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the Old Testament was nullified by the New Testament - similar to how European nations' sovereignty has been nullified by the Treaty of Lisbon.

From the New Testament:

"Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them." (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

Re:Really?

[pluther]

Yes.

That's kind of the entire point of that article.

It was a response to people using that same section of the bible to justify their modern day opposition to the rights of gays.

Re:Really?

[MeatBag PussRocket]

peroxide in the ear is a common treatment for ear infections, ingrown hairs, cuts and ear infections. it can also be used to flush out foreign bodies like the small stones that children like to shove in them

Re:Really?

[MyLongNickName]

Except that this is not justification for slavery. It is simply teaching folks to do the best that they can in the circumstances that they find themselves. The writer understood that this is not a perfect world, but that as followers of Christ we are to be the best example we can be.

Re:Really?

[rvw]

You can't possibly be serious. You can rent one for a day at a time if you can find an available one. But, the best I've ever heard of is a 1-week timeshare, but you'll never get the week you want.

Does this include a moose and maple sirup?

Re:Really?

[Chyeld]

And ear wax, the heat from the reaction and the 'bubbling' softens and loosens the wax. A couple of years ago I caught something nasty and ended up deaf in one ear due to wax build up. The doc suggested a couple of drops a night in the ear to help clear it out.

One warning though, don't over do it. Too much too long too often and you can end up giving yourself a chemical burn.

Re:Really?

[CannonballHead]

I should read the article.

Hopefully it does not simply say "the Bible is wrong about this, so why use it for that?" as - whether true or not - that misses the "out of context" point.

People that believe the Bible still very, very, very frequently take it out of context and simply use it as proof of their own ideas. "proof-texting." Finding texts to prove your idea instead of finding the idea the text is giving...

Re:Really?

[click2005]

Can you put peroxide in your ear?

Yes, unless its frozen.

Why would a pregnancy test be negative?

Because you're male

Why can't I own a Canadian?

You can until the ACTA comes into effect. From then, you must license your Canadian.

Re:Really?

[profplump]

If the old testament has been superseded, why is it still published? I mean, sure, keep a copy around for reference, but it seems like you could print a lot more bibles for distribution to the heathen masses if you cut out all the old, worthless stuff from the front end.

But of course then you'd lose the creation myth and other traditional stories that people want to have in their religion. There aren't a lot of successful religions without a creation myth.

Re:Really?

[TeethWhitener]

It's a quote from a TV show...I think "Lost."

Re:Really?

[molnarcs]

This is two monumentally stupid articles I've seen from CNET UK in as many days (the other one being the power plugs article from yesterday). If Slashdot continues to post them, I think we should insist on a tag just for that site so we can filter them out.

You forced me to ask google if it's possible to have an allergy to humour...

Re:Really?

[box4831]

common treatment for ear infections, ingrown hairs, cuts and ear infections.

Does it cure redundancy too?

Re:Really?

[jdoverholt]

If your master is a Christian [...]

This might imply that it's acceptable for Christians to have slaves.

Re:Really?

[snspdaarf]

The Lacey Act.

Re:Really?

[budgenator]

Technically it's possible but they has to enter a Canadian into servitude voluntarily; but I'm not sure why anyone would want to. Canadians are good for drinking all of your beer and complaining about it tasting like piss-water. They are fun loving drunks but tend to be too noisy and obnoxious by our standards and they'll only let you watch Curling and Hockey on TV.

Re:Really?

[amicusNYCL]

Can you put peroxide in your ear?

Yes, unless its frozen.

Why would you freeze your ear?

Re:Really?

[Anonymusing]

Two thoughts for you. First, actually, you can just buy the New Testament without the Old. Second, the Old is still made reference to by the New, and some parts of it (e.g. poetic parts about relationships to God) are rather beautiful and not nullified by the New -- in fact they provide some connection.

Re:Really?

[kpainter]

Now my curiosity is piqued. WHY can't I own a Canadian? Or at least lease one for a year?

Because after a while you would end every sentence with "Ay". That's why.

Re:Really?

[biryokumaru]

My friend told me most Indians don't know how to swim.

In the US Navy, the overwhelming majority of those who require special training to qualify for basic swimming proficiency are African American. Whether this is due to cultural or socioeconomic influences, I do not know. But it is very often the case.

Re:Really?

[Richy_T]

Well, some of us do have two ears.

Re:Really?

[Golddess]

Third, don't the Jewish believe just the old testament?

Re:Really?

[budgenator]

Maybe, but you play Eucher funny; you don't have to go alone if you pick up trump according to Hoyle.

Re:Really?

[gestalt_n_pepper]

If it's been superseded, does that mean the whole homosexuality and/or incest thing is OK? I'm just checking for a friend, of course...

Re:Really?

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Clearly, it's because you couldn't rent a Canadian. Wage arbitrage is hell.

Re:Really?

[Anonymusing]

Yes, the Jews only follow the Old Testament, although they call it the Tanakh. It is comprised of the Torah (first five books), the Nevi'im (the prophets), and the Ketuvim (Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Esther, and a few others).

Re:Really?

[Artifakt]

Quoting just the part that is advice to the slave with a Christian master simply doesn't give a very full picture, unless you include the parts that are advice to the masters themselves:

How about Ephesians 6:9 "And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him. "

Or the People's New Testament commentary on Ephesians:

6:9 "And ye masters. The Roman law allowed masters to treat their slaves as brute beasts, to abuse and even to murder them. But Christianity at once put Christian masters under restraint. Do the same things unto them. Act on the same principles towards them, that the Lord requires of them towards you. There must be mutual good will and mutual service. Forbearing threatening. The habit of cruel masters. Knowing that your Master also is in heaven. That you have a Master who sees you, to whom your slave is just as dear as you are, and who will hold you to account if you wrong him."

or

Colossians 4:1 ( New International Version) "Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven."
(ISV) puts this as "Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven."

It's disappointing to many that the New Testament doesn't explicitly say "Free all your slaves". It's hard to reconcile with the idea that the whole book is the word of God as some Christians claim. Personally, I regard books such as Timothy, or Paul's letters to the churches at Ephesus and others, as principally man-made texts, but that doesn't rule out a touch of Divine inspiration, in the sense that these people started getting the idea that slavery was wrong, and thinking about how to do right instead. Since the early church mostly believed that the second coming was likely to happen at any moment, worrying about how (or whether) to clean up the whole institution of slavery didn't mean as much as how to act for the immediate term and the individual case.

Re:Really?

[Reaperducer]

Except that this is not justification for slavery. It is simply teaching folks to do the best that they can in the circumstances that they find themselves. The writer understood that this is not a perfect world, but that as followers of Christ we are to be the best example we can be.

Shhh! Don't bother confusing the orthodox athiest Slashdotters with facts. They're all already experts on religion and politics because they watch Family Guy and The Daily Show.

Re:Really?

[Avalain]

Now my curiosity is piqued. WHY can't I own a Canadian? Or at least lease one for a year?

Because you can't afford me.

Re:Really?

[Dragonslicer]

But Christianity at once put Christian masters under restraint

That wasn't a new idea at all. The Torah spends a decent amount of time on laws about how someone must treat their servants. There's a whole lot more in there about not mistreating slaves than there is about other things that religious zealots tend to consider important.

Re:Really?

[maxume]

Does that make people who only believe in the new testament anti-Jews?

Re:Really?

[maxume]

I think a lot of the people doing the mocking just stick the powerful sky-being thing.

Re:Really?

[maxume]

Fail. It is 'eh', not 'ay'. Yeash.

Re:Really?

[Reaperducer]

Because after a while you would end every sentence with "Ay". That's why.

I think you're thinking of sailors. People from Canukistan end their sentences with "Eh?"

Re:Really?

[bmajik]

That means fundamentalists who want to come down on gays suddenly don't have much in the way of Biblical evidence to support themselves

Half true, half false.

Christians don't have the authority to "come down" on _anyone_.

However, there are several places in the new testament where male adulterousness, male homosexuality, and at least one spot where female homosexuality are discussed and condemned, either by Paul or Jesus.

A quick search for "new testament homosexuality" will let you read about a variety of interpretations of a variety of new testament passages.

Naturally two groups of people can read the same text, both claim to be experts in translating the original written language, and come to different conclusions.

The question of the sinfulness of homosexuality is important not because it grants or revokes a license to stone gay people, but because if it is infact sinful, those who continue to willfully sin without repentance are condemned by God. There are other more practical and earthly ramifications: those who wilfully sin and refuse to repent are not fit for membership (much less leadership) in the church body.

Re:Really?

[caluml]

/*
* Old Testament
* Class for suppressing ignorant people.
* Implements AngryGod
*/
@Deprecated
public OldTestament implements AngryGod {
.....

Re:Really?

[freeweed]

Do not listen to peroxide bubbling with other ear.

Re:Really?

[dontmakemethink]

Now my curiosity is piqued. WHY can't I own a Canadian? Or at least lease one for a year?

Because you do not own a hockey team.

Re:Really?

[lessthan]

Sorry, but Paul tended to be down on rights for people who weren't him. He is the one that wrote those famous bits about how a woman needs to be subservient to her husband Eph 5:22-24 What he had to say about homosexuality Rom 1:27 I can't find anything on incest, but then I'm at work and I am sure I don't want to find anything.

Re:Really?

[morethanapapercert]

Here, I'll save you 1/2 the work, just click the link:

http://www.google.ca/search?q=immaculate+conception%2C+human+egg+fertilization&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

Re:Really?

[Enderandrew]

Yes, but it is treated as an equal sin in the New Testament.

The term "abomination" in Leviticus is the reason many claim it is different from other sins, and must be judged far differently. You can forgive a murderer and welcome them into your church, but not a gay.

Re:Really?

[JustOK]

Backward compatibility. Why did DOS stick around so long?

Re:Really?

[commodoresloat]

Now my curiosity is piqued. WHY can't I own a Canadian? Or at least lease one for a year?

For the same reason that I am extremely terrified of Chinese people.

Re:Really?

[lessthan]

When did Jesus condemn homosexuality? I was aware that Paul did, but I always thought that Jesus had never said anything. Plus, he did heal the centurion's lover, which seems a little incompatible with condemnation.

Re:Really?

[tibman]

I was camping once during a nice summer weekend.. no chance of rain so i just slept on the ground. Early morning something was crawling on my face (happens a lot) so i swiped it off and was planning on going back to sleep. It was a little black beetle and i startled him badly apparently because he decided to find refuge in my ear.

You can imagine my surprise.. my surprise deepened into worry when i realized my finger could not get him out and he was still burrowing (or whatever it is beetles do). After a few minutes it really really started to hurt and i could hear the beetle screaming or something.. it was beyond loud. I tried not to panic and re-packed what little i had to GTFO of the woods. Made it maybe a half mile and could barely jog in a straight line. Stashed my pack and kept going. He stopped screaming and burrowing and the pain was down to a throb (but still quite intense). Blood was coming out of the ear and i couldn't hear anymore.

Anyways, finally got back to base and the hospital. They flushed my ear with a pinkish fluid and a large syringe type thing, just like you described. Of course they had to bring every freaking doctor and nurse in the hospital down to see the guy with a beetle in his ear. Not that i really cared at that point, giggling doctors is nothing compared to a beetle inside your head. After a dozen or so high pressure blasts and the little guy (and some of his legs) came out. What a relief!

Re:Really?

[Kell Bengal]

Gack! I should not have read that while drinking. Now I need to clean my monitor - bravo!

Re:Really?

[interkin3tic]

client=firefox

As an Opera user, I cannot in good conscience click that link.

Re:Really?

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Well, gosh dang it! Er, I mean... my friend is going to be so disappointed. Ahem. Hrumph.

Re:Really?

[Kell Bengal]

There are other more practical and earthly ramifications: those who wilfully sin and refuse to repent are not fit for membership (much less leadership) in the church body.

The great thing about the church is that it is (currently) not mandatory, and free-thinking sinners such as myself can happily opt out. The problem comes when people demand lawmakers enact laws reflecting or promoting religious ideals that are unfair to people who believe differently.

Re:Really?

[snspdaarf]

Oh, I like Chinese. Their zen, their ping-pong, their ying and yang-eze.

Re:Really?

[a whoabot]

How about a Greek philosopher who said that slavery was okay?

"It is clear that therefore some people are by nature freemen and other people are by nature slaves, people for whom it is beneficial to be slaves and it is just." (Aristotle, Politics, 1255a1)

This conclusion follows in part from his wider philosophy of human nature, and ethics and metaphysics even, philosophy which is still taken seriously in many circles.

Re:Really?

[Guido del Confuso]

If that's what passes for funny in Britain these days, then I won't worry about bringing any Benadryl on my next trip there.

Re:Really?

[im_thatoneguy]

Some of us received more than 12 years of religious education more rigorous than many college degrees on the subject and have PhD theologians for parents and friends.

Don't bother confusing us with smoke screens and non-sequiturs. The bible fully endorses the practice of slavery and makes little to no attempt to dismantle the institution.

A God which can inspire circumcision surely could also find means of persuading his followers to abandon slavery.

It was clearly never a priority since we have no record of Jesus explicitly telling his followers not to enslave others.

Re:Really?

[Hognoxious]

Quite. Plus it's much more efficient to distribute diffs, but they only work if you have a base to apply them to.

Re:Really?

[mowall]

Does that make people who only believe in the new testament anti-Jews?

Jewish-evolutionists maybe.

Re:Really?

[SleazyRidr]

Or it might imply that there are people in the world who are in fact not shining examples of the way to behave. I think you might need to read the post to which you are replying a couple more times.

Re:Really?

[McFly777]

Blood was coming out of the ear and i couldn't hear anymore

A bug in the ear is one of the few things that really creeps me out any time I think of it. (I have heard other people tell similar stories.) I have to ask.... Did your hearing return in that ear?

Re:Really?

[Labcoat Samurai]

Seems a faulty analogy. I will grant you that military technology changes over time, but I thought Jews and Christians believed in moral absolutes and that the bible is supposed to be the word of God. Are you suggesting that morality is as mutable as military tech? I don't actually disagree, being something of a moral relativist myself, but that seems contrary to the Judeo-Christian concept of morality.

Re:Really?

[bmajik]

Agreed. It certainly doesn't further the goals of the (Christian) church or the work of (the Christian) God when the _state_ uses compulsion to extract religiously compliant behavior.

If God wanted people to be forced to act a certain way, he would just shoot them with lightning all the time. And when the stupid Isralites long ago kept clammoring for a King to rule over them, God tried to talk them out of it.

God is a libertarian that wants people to voluntarily be socialists :)

Re:Really?

[StikyPad]

Braggart.

Re:Really?

[RichardJenkins]

It's ambiguous at best. If a text as venerated as the New Testament were to say:

Morons on Slashdot should not post comments

Many people would assume the text is giving tacit approval to the existence of morons on Slashdot, thinking that if it didn't approve of morons on Slashdot it'd have said:

Morons on slashdot should strive to stop being morons

But then, if the bible were unambiguous, it'd just be a quirky historical text.

Re:Really?

[PIBM]

Get google chrome, allows you to resize the text areas as you see fit, and often does it for you automatically on slashdot.

I wonder if they found the areas too small here themselves ?

Re:Really?

[Aladrin]

Actually, no. It never preaches. It just gives answers to questions and the relevant bible quotes to back it up. It's a very interesting read, no matter your theistic inclinations.

Re:Really?

[bmajik]

Actually I think the reason that homosexuality is a "problematic" sin is that most murders, liars, and theives are willing to concede that all of those things are sinful and can be apologetic about them.

If a man beleives engaging in homosexual acts is just dandy and his church congregation feels that it is sinful, the man is at odds with his church doctrinally, and in their view, he continues to willfully and unrepentantly sin.

There are plenty of fundamentalist churches that welcome homosexuals -- provided that they beleive that they are repressing sinful urges or whatever. They are a by all indications a rare breed, but there are gay men out there who try and live in the tortured margins of beleiving that their religion tells them their desires are wrong.

To be fair, married hetero men by and large still desire, at some level, to nail all kinds of women that aren't their wives, which is naturally "not cool, Jesus-wise". But marraige provides the luxury of a biblically blessed outlet for their compansionship and sexual needs [convenient for them!]

As near as I can figure, in the fundamentalist worldview, assuming there is genetic predisposition towards homosexuality, being homosexual is akin to being born with leprosy or as a kleptomaniac. The dogma seems to be that that these people were born with a hardship that increases their proclivity for sinfulness, but they are required to condemn that temptation and recognize it for what it is.

I go to an evangelical church, btw.

Re:Really?

[johnlcallaway]

American society has many public and private swimming pools with swimming instructors and scheduled classes that aren't very expensive. Parents drop their kids off every morning for a couple of weeks, and pick them up four hours later. They can progress from beginner through advanced classes if they choose and learn a variety of swimming strokes, floating methods, and water treading techniques.

Instructors can learn how to teach babies, infants, toddlers, children, teens, and adults with different techniques appropriate for their age level and attention span. I've seen instructors teach babies who can't walk how to swim. I've seen them teach seniors that can barely stand up how to exercise and strengthen with easy swimming techniques. (I worked a few summers as a lifeguard in the summer at a public pool in a small, rural town in Ohio.)

After they learn to swim, children can be taken to the pool and parents don't have to watch them because they have lifeguards. Same with the ocean beaches and lakes.

THAT kind of infrastructure. I'm sure there are lifeguards, instructors and pools and such in India, but my guess is they aren't as prevalent or as accessible. I didn't see a lifeguard tower on the beach I was on in Chennai.

Sorry I wasn't clearer in what I meant by 'infrastructure' in a place where power would flicker off a couple times a day for seemingly no reason. I loved Chennai and it's people, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Re:Really?

[Hatta]

If you want to, you can read it right here. It's short and sweet.

Re:Really?

[DocHoncho]

No, they're Jew 2.0

Google has an independent implementation they're going to open source next year.

Re:Really?

[CannonballHead]

Thanks for the link, off I go...

Re:Really?

[mosb1000]

I don't think the Bible fully endorses slavery, since it does not issue command to take slaves, nor does it say that it is good to have slaves. But you're right that it doesn't say not to have slaves.

The laws on slavery say how a slave it to be treated, and how a slave it to behave. They require that a slave be treated with dignity, and that a slave have respect for his master. They also contain guidelines for how a slave may be disciplined. Some say that this implies an endorsement, but I don't think it's the same thing.

Would you say that the Bible endorses polygamy, since it says you are not to take many wives?

Re:Really?

[10101001 10101001]

Actually I think the reason that homosexuality is a "problematic" sin is that most murders, liars, and theives are willing to concede that all of those things are sinful and can be apologetic about them.

If a man beleives engaging in homosexual acts is just dandy and his church congregation feels that it is sinful, the man is at odds with his church doctrinally, and in their view, he continues to willfully and unrepentantly sin.

I think you're only partly right. Most murders, liars, and thieves might recognize that murdering, lying, and thieving are sinful, but few are willing to repent for their actions or to stop in their actions (which is not to say they wouldn't make a half-hearted effort, to avoid being harassed). Most, if pressed, would be more inclined to point out the sins of others than to recognize and correct their own sins.

The major point, then, is that since so many people are liars (or, the big one, adulterers), many churches won't even cover the subject, or if they do, they fail to point out those who sin. That's the rather large paradox of Christianity, obviously, since such requires judgment. Meanwhile, it's much easier to shout about the sins of homosexuals, since, if they exist at all, they exist as a minority in the congregation.

In short, the major problem would be, most of all, the duplicity of the recognition of sin. Actual getting to the actual sins of the congregation and working to rectify them would be a real improvement.

Re:Really?

[hey!]

Many of the commandments are simply impossible to keep in any case if (a) you aren't wandering in the desert or (b) don't have a temple in Jerusalem.

In any case, the fundamentalist use the Bible as if the words are filled with a kind of holy radioactivity as opposed to meaning. It's the mark up the Bible with your highlighter thing. Sooner or later somebody is going to cut some letters out of the Bible, paste them onto a death threat note, then claim God told them to do it.

Re:Really?

[hey!]

First of all, I think it's too bad somebody marked you flamebait because they disagree with you.

One argument I have heard from gay Christians is that the passages in the Bible only refer to the same kind of incontinence that is condemned when it is practiced by heterosexuals. The passages don't even consider the possibility of a loving homosexual relationship because there was no legal framework in which such a relationship could be expressed. The conditions for homosexual love then resemble what we would have if there were no institution of marriage for heterosexuals. Were that the case the most obvious and attention drawing instances of heterosexual love would be exploitative (e.g. prostitution, slavery etc.)

Re:Really?

[Hucko]

Problem is (I say this as a Christian, by practice, fundamentalist, pentecostal) that there are parts that clearly spell out that there aren't exceptions to the rules. Christians will often recite to each other where Jesus says that not one jot or tittle will be done away with, specifically applying it to a Old Testament law that they like. For instance, few pentecostal Christians follow Paul's admonition to have women silent in the church (specifically the congregation but is hard not to also apply it to the broader definition for church), and the ones that do are obviously mentally unstable. Christianity, the new and old Testaments, and particularly the Old Testament mostly don't give any leeway for any modification to its code. Anyone that says otherwise is just trying to fence sit with reality and what they want to believe. Christians whether traditional or fundamentalist only acknowledge the theology they like.

I personally am on the verge of dropping it all in for no other reason than Christians reasoning (that is, no one else within the church has been able to satisfy my own reasoning.) Add to that my own personal search into the construction of Christianity, my slowly growing understanding of historical theology and the construction of the very text that is held up as The Word Of God, and I may just become an atheist.

Heh, with that statement and self acknowledgement, I just become one.

Re:Really?

[lessthan]

Do what? Heal? Sure. We are discussing whether or not Jesus would approve of homosexuality. The only context in which the discussion is relevant is if one believes that Jesus was a god. A god would be capable of healing. If Jesus wasn't a god, then he couldn't heal. then why care what a man long dead thought about anything?

Now, I am not saying that Jesus was a god, just that the entire discussion is meaningless if you didn't believe that he was a god. To participate in the discussion, one would have to believe that Jesus was a god. Otherwise, why care?

Re:Really?

[arminw]

...Christians who are slaves....

How about atheists who are slaves to drugs and alcohol drugs or even their credit card? An atheist who is head over heels in debt is a slave to the creditor. There are many forms of slavery. We have eliminated one form, but there are many other kinds of slavery still in existence today. If you're in a job you hate, working for a boss you can't stand, but you can't quit because you have bills, especially debts to pay, you're a slave. It's that simple.

Re:Really?

[virgil_disgr4ce]

That is fscking terrifying! I take it there wasn't any permanent damage? D:

Re:Really?

[arminw]

...The bible fully endorses the practice of slavery.....

The bible fully endorses the ONE FORM of slavery.

John 8:34 Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Whoever practices sin is the slave of sin.

If you lie, you are a liar. Lies never come alone, but often become a habit. Any habit can be and often is slavery. Many people are enslaved to drugs and/or pornography.

If you steal, you are a thief. If you get away with it, you are likely to steal again.

If you are deeply in debt, you are a slave to the creditor.

Owning somebody as a servant is only one of many forms of slavery.

Anyone who wants to be free, truly free must listen to and obey Jesus Christ.

John 8:36 Therefore if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

Re:Really?

[TheModelEskimo]

Don't bother confusing us with smoke screens and non-sequiturs. The bible fully endorses

Ha, that was one of the best hand-waves I think I've ever seen around here.

Re:Really?

[arminw]

...If the old testament has been superseded...

Jesus Christ disagrees with you:

Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill.

The Old Testament is not worthless, but is a background and history which found its culmination and fulfillment in Jesus Christ. It gives us the reason why Jesus had to come in order to rescue us from our sin.

Re:Really?

[Opportunist]

Unfortunately it should have been nullified, but the bible nutjobs keep using it regardless. Mostly because Jesus was more a Hippie than a Fascist and thus isn't such a good source for quotes that could support radical views.

They would have been amongst the first to nail that godless Hippie to the cross.

Re:Really?

[Opportunist]

But you must not forget that it was customary, if not normal, to own slaves back then. It was normal that after a war you came back with prisoners and enslaved them. From our vantage point it seems odd, even horrible, unthinkably inhuman to own other people. But back then, it was simply the normal flow of operation. You got captured in war, you're a slave. You can't pay your debt, you pay with your head (figuratively speaking). Also, our idea of freedom would have been unthinkable for most of history. Tell our idea of government to a medieval person, used to a feudal system with lords and villains, and he'l laugh at you, at best.

Times changes. So do people and their morals. Claiming that a millenia old moral code should be upheld is strange at best. Dangerous at worst.

Re:Really?

[tibman]

It IS creepy, haha. Wore earplugs camping for a few years after that. Yeah, hearing completely returned though.

Two years later, an explosion ruptured the TM of that same ear. I have no idea what the universe will cook up next to torture that right ear.

A few of my friends will still fiend a conversation (just mouthing words, not actually talking) when i walk up.. just for kicks. Very similar to the guy who makes robocop sounds when i walk "vvvvv *chink* vvvvvv *chink*" which is from another painful story entirely.

Re:Really?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

So what you're saying is that the verse doesn't imply that it's OK to own slaves in the same way that a sign by the highway that says "buckle up" doesn't imply that there's nothing wrong with driving a car?

And this is why so many Christians are moral retards.

Re:Really?

[arminw]

...I may just become an atheist...

You may have been religious, brought up in a fundamental denomination, but you never were a Christian, at least not in the biblical sense by being born of the Spirit.

1John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they were of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out so that it might be revealed that they were not all of us.

When you are born into this world, you are a son of your earthly father. There is no way you can undo that. Similarly, when you are truly born into the kingdom of God, born again, as Jesus puts it, you are a son of God. By your statements, you provide evidence that you have never been born as a son of God and are therefore none of his.

If you seek God and truly want to become a son of his, to be born into his kingdom, then you will experience this new birth. As evidence that you have experienced this new birth, you will never want to leave him, ever.

Re:Really?

[Opportunist]

Not quite. God didn't want human to have free will, human took it and got tossed out of the garden Eden.

Then again, maybe God did want us to have free will. If not, why would he have put the tree there (ya know, allmighty and all he could just have put it somewhere out of reach). But then God is quite an ass for kicking us out when we did what he wanted us to.

Re:Really?

[Opportunist]

Camping? You're here on /., thus a geek, what did you do out in nature, out of your natural habitat, like a server room or another ACed and sterilized environment?

Re:Really?

[arminw]

...but few are willing to repent...

Rev 21:8 But people who are cowardly, unfaithful, detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars will find themselves in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death."

This is what will happen to those that are unwilling to repent of their sins. All sin is grievous before God.

Re:Really?

[arminw]

....there shouldn't be a tax exemption for church's ...

The problem is that constitutionally the government is not allowed to treat churches any different than other nonprofits. If they eliminate church tax deductions, they would have to eliminate all charitable deductions. There are churches who have lost their tax-deductible status because of political statements or actions.

Re:Really?

[jcr]

As for the peroxide search, it's a treatment for getting wax out of your ear, although I don't know if it works or not.

It does. Peroxide's an ingredient of most of the commercial wax-removal treatments.

-jcr

Re:Really?

[celle]

"Blood was coming out of the ear and i couldn't hear anymore."

Could you still hear after they removed it?

Re:Really?

[MinistryOfTruthiness]

It's not strange at all. Why? Because the overall message is still valid. It's this message, not the particulars of the circumstance, that people should pay attention to.

It's easy to see how this text on the master/slave relationship applies to modern life. No, we don't have slaves, but we *do* have people who are in positions of authority over others. We've all experienced cops, parents, or bosses on power trips, and we've probably been on power trips ourselves from time to time. The point is that, if you are in a position of authority, you need to respect the people over whom you exercise that authority and understand that you are really nothing special compared to them in terms of human value. If you are in a position of subservience, then you need to do the best job you can in order to adequately represent yourself, your way of life, upbringing, belief system, and ultimately, your God. In other words, mutual respect between people in authority and the people under them.

The point is to understand that the specific circumstances of position are inconsequential and mean nothing to God. What matters to God is how you acted given the position you were in. Were you a humane and just leader/boss/parent, or a raving lunatic? Were you a good employee/child, or a lazy bastard with an attitude problem?

In truth, both aspects apply to everyone, because everyone "reports" to someone. Even the people who are at the "top" report to voters, shareholders, etc, so figuratively, almost everyone is in the master *and* slave role for their entire lives. What matters is that, no matter where you are on the ladder of life, you don't shit on the people below you or goose the people above you.

Re:Really?

[countertrolling]

...I think we should insist on a tag just for that site so we can filter them out.

"Idle"?

Re:Really?

[ShakaUVM]

>>The bible fully endorses the practice of slavery and makes little to no attempt to dismantle the institution.

I think you might need to reconsider that in light of your 12 years of "religious education". It is quite a common misconception that to think that because there is a law about something, that the Bible endorses it. Jesus made it quite clear that the laws for Divorce were there not because God endorses divorce, but because mankind sucks. (And it was needed to protect the wives, actually.)

If you read, say, the Epistle to Philemon (which takes all of 30 seconds) you can get a good feel for what Paul thought of slavery.

Re:Really?

[rdnetto]

The tree didn't give us free will. We had free will, that's why we were able to take the fruit in the first place. The best justification for free will I've heard is that it's a necessary prerequisite for love - one of the things we were created for (according to theology) is to love God, and you can't love someone unless you can freely choose to do so.

Re:Really?

[Hucko]

Well, thanks.

I've recited that very verse for numerous reason over the years. Around 10 years ago I don't believe you could found a person with less doubt; I was going to cop a beating unless I convinced him that I believed in God. Any variance or dilly dallying, basic physiological manifestations when lying or doubtful it was on.

I could go into a full testimonial about being born again, spiritual experiences and amazing coincidences, but what is the point? The Bible clearly states I am a fool. Besides, you have special insight into me that you know I never truly believed. Just like my friends never had faith that God would heal them. Because the Bible says that if they truly believed, they would be healed.

I guess I deserve this as I have had this very similar conversation from the other side of the fence, Ephesians clearly says that what you sow you reap. I did think that when I had confessed and repented a few years ago of the condemnation of others, that God had forgiven me of all unrighteousness. It would have been too much to be restored to faith in gentleness and meekness. Oh there is a verse for that too. Gal. 6:1, "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted." and Phil. 4:5, "Let your gentleness be evident to all [why gentleness, rather than something else?], the Lord is near."

Thank you for showing me that loving compassion from Jesus, manifested in Christians. You could have replied and said "Aw, it can be hard at times; I'll pray for you" or "Even the disciples doubted and Jesus was standing in front of them" or even just "Email me at mycutename at specialconnection dot com and lets discuss this." I would have kept reminding myself of the experiences I had when I was born again, its uniqueness to all other experiences I've had, the events that I can still only as miracles, and the one thing that is unique to Christianity, salvation by grace through faith.

Thank you for demonstrating that the first response of Christians is to condemn in some form, even the nice ones.

Re:Really?

[okmijnuhb]

I remember pool training in the US navy boot camp. They had us simply tread water. I distinctly seeing an African Americans floating much lower in the water than European Americans. At the time I didn't believe he was treading water any less vigorously than the European American counterparts. I recall I could get a good portion of my torso out of the water, while the African American had only his face barely above the surface. I attributed it to higher body density, forgive me if that seems racist, but I believed that to be the case. Have there been any studies of this sort? I imagine not, seems rather pointless, unless it could point to a solution for disproportionate drownings.
I learned to keep my lungs as full of air as I could to help buoyancy, maybe that was the difference.

Re:Really?

[CarpetShark]

As part of the essay, it uses Old Testament text that seems to justify owning slaves as long as they are not from your own country.

Isn't there also something about Israel being the one true nation esteemed by God? In that case, anyone can own anyone, so long as they're not Israeli. And Isreal has changed a lot, so...

Re:Really?

[the_womble]

The last sentence is brilliant.

Where I live, the state uses compulsion to try and extract behaviour in line with Buddhism. I doubt the Buddha would have approved either.

Back on topic: there are good reasons for almost all the searches: e.g. people want to know the first signs of going into labour, there is research into producing children who have two female biological parents, and hydrogen peroxide can be put in your ear to soften ear wax.

Re:Really?

[the_womble]

Firstly, it was not Jesus mission to set wrong every social injustice. YOu may as well fault him for not advocating democracy.

Secondly, slavery as it was then, was a very different institution to, for example, slavery in early modern America: the Roman empire granted slaves rights, when increased as Christian influence increased. In the context of a society where no-one was free by late 20th century standards (I say that as freedom sems to be generally being reduced again).

Finally, you might think of the reasons why the abolitionist movement in the British Empire was lead by Christians.

Re:Really?

[jonadab]

> Meanwhile, it's much easier to shout about the
> sins of homosexuals, since, if they exist at all,
> they exist as a minority in the congregation.

You know, I hear this a lot, but I've never yet found a church that actually spends more time talking about homosexuality than about heterosexual adultery and other sins. Quite the contrary, churches that talk about sin at all (which, granted, leaves out a fair few these days) usually focus on the ones that people seem to have a problem with, for the most part.

If you think churches rant about homosexuality all the time and ignore every other sin, you obviously watch too much television. Try turning the TV off and actually going to church sometime.

Re:Really?

[jonadab]

> God is a libertarian that wants people to voluntarily be socialists :)

Not exactly. Socialists are generous with other people's stuff. God would prefer you be generous with your own stuff (and, really, even that is a fairly minor point).

Re:Really?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Had something similar happen to me about 10 years ago, only in my case, it was a moth. Kept flying around my head and face, I waved it away a couple of times, and then, suddenly, it just flew straight in like Luke Skywalker aiming for that exhaust vent in the Deathstar.

At the ER, the doc -- instead of getting down to business -- decided to be an complete moron and wasted about 15 minutes first, by asking me repeatedly *why* I'd let it get in there. ...As if I'd invited the little bastard in there for tea or something!

One of the few times I've ever come close to just completely losing the plot and throttling the life out of someone from sheer rage/fear/frustration.

Re:Really?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Hmm...

*scribbles in notebook*

Re:Really?

[Whiteox]

It gives us the reason why Jesus had to come in order to rescue us from our sin.

Now what does that mean?
Our sin is the knowledge we gained from the tree that opened our eyes and made us ambitious - to seek and understand? Is that it?
Then Jesus resurrected and ascended. I truly believe that he wanted others to follow, and he gave instructions to others, but in the last 2000 years no one has managed to do it. A lot of people tried and they all died. The desert of comparative religion is littered with the bodies of 'saints' and 'gnostics' of all beliefs and no-one has managed to take that next step.
So what is the point?
The modern Christian's mantra is "Open your heart to Jesus and he will come!"
And then what happens? A diluted spiritual wakening, years studying the bible for snippets of interpretation. Apocryphal texts are verboten and the end result (if you really follow Christ's precepts) is only a feeling of accomplishment and altruism before the death rattle.
And most Christians I've met are truly hypocrites who have no intention of following Christ's teachings. The rich Christians are the masters of others that are treated like slaves for the price of a few shekels.
Christian morality and ethics to these snakes is never practiced.

So we get tossed from the Garden of Eden by the advice of an angel. Then we wait eons for our saviour who demonstrates love as a promised way back to God, which closes the circle. Then he proves it by ascending back to God and we destroy the opportunity to follow through our continued ignorance.

That's a real epic fail.

How must the Jews feel? As the chosen ones they are still waiting for their saviour or have they missed the boat by killing Jesus? Maybe if they sided with Jesus and kept some good records like they did with the old testament, we wouldn't be in this position.

600 years later, Mohammed spent years traveling with a Jewish merchant who spoke of 4 old testament books. Mohammed himself thought that Jesus was a prophet but not the son of God.

So the whole thing is so obfuscated that if anyone really did know what to do and how to do it, is now totally lost.

Re:Really?

[IrquiM]

There are those who suggest that many of the early books in the Old Testament aren't exactly God's commandments to his followers, but rather a historical accounting.

And then there are those people that think the entire book is the word of a god.

Re:Really?

[jc42]

The Torah has 613 Mitzvot, commandments, or laws. Yet there are 10 commandments directly attributed to God. ... That means fundamentalists who want to come down on gays suddenly don't have much in the way of Biblical evidence to support themselves, but it also means those that want to mock Judeo-Christian beliefs can't uphold the silliness contained within the 613 Mitzvot either.

Oh, I dunno about that; it seems to me that you're going against the leadership of centuries of precedent by millions of clergy with that suggestion.

You're basically objecting to people taking one or two biblical verses out of context, and interpreting the words however you can to support your personal beliefs. You might think this is wrong (or silly) on its face. But it's exactly what nearly every preacher does every Sunday morning in every church. It's totally conventional to start with a Bible Reading, usually just one or two verses, and use those words as the basis of a sermon.

This is done routinely as part of the standard Christian service in nearly every church. So claiming that it's wrong is just going to puzzle most people who've ever participated in such services. If it's wrong, why do all the church leaders make it the main point of their main religious service?

Part of what the author of the questions to Dr. Laura was doing was parodying this Christian (and Jewish) practice. If it's OK for your pastor or priest or rabbi to take a Bible verse out of context and expound on it, why is it wrong for anyone else to do the same thing?

If they can't take critics using this technique against them, they shouldn't be using the same technique so routinely as the basis of religious services that are purportedly to educate and edify the masses.

Re:Really?

[10101001 10101001]

You know, I hear this a lot, but I've never yet found a church that actually spends more time talking about homosexuality than about heterosexual adultery and other sins. Quite the contrary, churches that talk about sin at all (which, granted, leaves out a fair few these days) usually focus on the ones that people seem to have a problem with, for the most part.

And my experience has been different. While homosexuality might not have been a large topic of conversation, considering how rampant adultery is, idolatry is, etc there was disproportionate focus on the sin of homosexuality. The point of focusing on homosexuality is, generally, to try to force out open homosexuals from the congregation, yet the same is not done with adultery. Perhaps this is because one sin is more understandable to those who preach?

If you think churches rant about homosexuality all the time and ignore every other sin, you obviously watch too much television. Try turning the TV off and actually going to church sometime.

And that, again, would be duplicity. I never said churches just rant about homosexuality. My point was they don't focus on the sins of the congregation to work to correct them. They, instead, focus primarily on the ones that they don't believe the congregation is guilty of. And if they do mention sins the congregation might be guilty of, they rarely call out members who are guilty to help them nor do they tend to recognize how applicable the sins are (idolatry is a pretty big one, considering the consumer nature of most church goers).

The rare times that a church does focus on a sin is when that sin is such a forefront knowledge of the congregation that to ignore it would be to ignore the elephant in the room. But, so long as the lies are quiet, the brand-focus nature of the people happens outside the church walls, and the sleeping with other men's wives happens behind closed doors, the church generally does not prevail upon itself to become involved. And, if it does, it tends towards trying to shame the person into confessing, not because of some desire for that person to repent but to as quickly as possible quell that sin as projecting as a representation of the church body as a whole.

In short, the focus is not on whether someone is homosexual or adulterous; it is whether they are openly homosexual or openly adulterous. So long as they try to hide their sin, most churches don't want to become involved.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are really naive enough to believe being raised in a religious household equates with a PhD in theology, you are an idiot.

Do you come on Slashdot and post in physics articles claiming that "because my dad had a PhD in physics my 12 years living in his household gives me a far more vigorous understanding of physics than most physicists."

No, you don't, but people love to have this disconnect about religion that equates "hey, I was raised by religious parents, so my teenage angst fueled anti-religious rebellion is based on a complete knowledge of the Bible."

Shut up until you have something worthwhile to contribute, and stop trying to claim that because daddy told you you were going to hell because you decided to be an atheist you have supported reasons for disliking Christianity.

Re:Really?

[TheLink]

> It was normal that after a war you came back with prisoners and enslaved them.

Back then it was not unusual (for most nations) in the course of war to kill everyone. And some (e.g. Assyrians) if they were really pissed off, threw salt on the losers' fields as well so that any survivors would not be able to grow any crops.

Of course normally you'd just kill all the males of potential warfaring age, and enslave the rest (why "waste" them?).

The result of course was they didn't get so many "insurgents" and "freedom fighters".

So given the "standard operating procedures", what would one expect people to do after a war. Let all the losers and captives go totally free, keep all their land and stuff? So that the next generation will wipe you out?

War back then was certainly not "nice". There was no Hague or Geneva Convention. Not sure how far you would have got if you tried to propose something like that back in the bronze and iron ages. I would suggest that it takes time to change people, takes time to "bootstrap" civilizations, cultures and norms.

As for "owning" and enslaving people, nowadays many corporations (esp US ones) own employee ideas even if the employees come up with the ideas outside of work and in fields unrelated to their work.

I wonder if slave masters in the old days ever had complete ownership over their slaves' music, inventions, writings etc.

Regarding inventions I see one "USA" case - and it became a North-South split (north = public domain, south = slave master's).

Re:Really?

[onepoint]

in the scope of what you are saying. I would think that people that are "slaves" to their credit card are more like indentured servants. they signed up on the bottom line knowing full well what was required of them.

if you don't read the contracts ( or at least do the research on the net ) do get those cards.

Re:Really?

[IndustrialComplex]

To participate in the discussion, one would have to believe that Jesus was a god.

Err, no.

If you believe homosexuality is wrong based on the premise that Jesus is God and that the Bible is correct, why would God heal someone whom He felt was an abomination?

It is a perfectly valid question when presented with someone arguing that God (aka Jesus) is against homosexuality.

Re:Really?

[h3llfish]

Did you read TFA? It's intent is clearly to be humorous, not analytical. Perhaps posting it here was inappropriate, but the article itself is harmless, and certainly not trying to masquerade as journalism.

Your post is another worthless piece of what passes for a 5 point "informative" comment these days.

Re:Really?

[Enderandrew]

You are correct in that there are centuries of people twisting scripture. It happens today. That doesn't mean my take on the Mitzvots is wrong, nor am I the first to suggest it. Sometimes I think the level-headed ones are overlooked for vocal whack-job minorities.

I think there are three main ways that Christians respond to the bulk of the Old Testament.

* Some say the subscribe to a literal interpretation, so long as it suits them. This allows them to call gays abominations, and subjugate women. My wife knows a guy who attends a church where women may not speak. However, they elect to ignore portions in Leviticus on slavery, etc.

* Some feel that these were literal laws of God at one point, but they no longer matter because Jesus replaced the old laws. They elect to just ignore the bulk or entirety of the Old Testament.

* A third group (like myself) feels that the Old Testament on the whole is relevant. It didn't get thrown out. But I don't believe the Mitzvots are literal commandments from God. They are a historical representation of the laws the Jews used to govern themselves. For instance, there were laws about to properly prepare the altar, and the priests' garb before animal sacrifice, and how one progressed through the temple for the sacrifice. Yet the 10 direct commandments from God don't say we must sacrifice animals. In the same vein that I don't sacrifice animals, I don't believe I should or could sell my daughter into slavery. I'm not selectively choosing to ignore bits of the Bible. I accept all of it within (what I believe to be) the proper context.

In my church, we always read an Old Testament passage, a Psalm, a New Testament passage, and a portion of the Gospel. (For those who care, I consider myself basically non-denominational because I don't care for sect politics, but I attend a Lutheran Church). My church treats homosexuality on the same level with other sins. We're all sinners. We're not here to judge. We're here to have fellowship.

I've never been a member of a Church that selectively decides to follow only portions of the Bible, one that practices discrimination, or one that likes to take single verses out of context. All Biblical lessons should be a large passage examined within a greater context.

I have always been a Christian who pushes for legal rights for gays. I don't see that as a contradiction. I don't believe Christ promoted discrimination. Why should I?

Re:Really?

[arminw]

....Besides, you have special insight into me that you know I never truly believed....

I was only going by the information you provided it in that you wanted to be an atheist. If you were truly born-again, that becomes impossible, just as it becomes impossible for you not to be the son of your earthly father.

Jesus chided his disciples and others around him time after time, for not believing at times. However, with the exception of Judas, the other disciples were all born-again sons of God.

All true Christians, born of the Spirit, are at times assailed by doubts. Jesus' disciples, especially Thomas, was in the same boat you are. Even Peter, though he denied Jesus Christ three times, could not undo his sonship and the fact that he was a disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not throw him away but dealt with Peter in gentle love.

Jesus is willing and able to forgive any sin, including the sin of doubt. If you are a truly born-again Christian, a son of God, you never can get out of being one unless you do what is written in Mark 3:28-29

If you are a son of God, you will have the Holy Spirit within you as it says in Romans 8:14-16.

True faith is not about mystical experiences or healings but about believing God's Word. You must remember, that Christians have an enemy, Satan, who first tempted and succeeded with the temptation of doubt way back in the garden.

So yes, I will pray for you, that the waves of doubt will subside and that you will be given the strength to simply believe God's Word.

Re:Really?

[pluther]

That's just nonsense, of course.

A lot of atheists used to be Christians. Real, actual, believing, devout followers of Christ.

It doesn't say much about the strength of your own convictions that your faith is threatened by the existence of people who used to believe as you do.

I also used to believe in Santa Claus, but you're expected to grow out of that one for some reason.

Re:Really?

[Enderandrew]

All laws reflect a certain level of morality. You can point to a good chunk of legislation and say it reflects the morality of religion X, Y, and Z.

I think the rule of thumb should be that personal freedom must be preserved as much as possible. The right to swing your first ends precisely at the tip of my nose.

Thusly, I am fine with legislation saying murder is wrong. This is morality in legislation, but more specifically it is protecting constituents from being victims.

I am not fine with legislation discriminating two consenting adults in the bedroom, because there is no victim.

Re:Really?

[Enderandrew]

If I didn't have a bevy of comments in this thread, I'd mod you way, way up.

Re:Really?

[Enderandrew]

If God didn't want us to have free will, we never would have had it. Adam had the free will to defy God.

In Eden, there was but one rule. Then it was ten commandments. And then the Jews insisted on a lengthy series of Mitzvots. This is a story of man distancing himself of his own free will from God, and replacing God with the hierarchy of the church.

Re:Really?

[Miseph]

Aristotle is taken seriously not because all of his conclusions were valid or just or relevant, but because he was one of the first to really apply logic and philosophy to create a generalized code of conduct and describe a utopia based upon it. He was also quite prolific, and for various reasons his work was considered to be the final word in Western philosophy for about 2000 years, so it should be no surprise that virtually everything else we have in that field is pretty much a direct response to it.

Aristotle wrote the framework for Western thought, you have to either take him seriously or start completely from scratch.

Re:Really?

[localman]

I think you might be missing the point. Of course it was normal back then and it might be unfair to judge some of that in hindsight. But that's only true if we're accepting that the bible is the world of man.

If it's the word of god, then you'd expect it to be... divine? More enlightened than the popular thinking at the time? But it's not -- it reads exactly as if a bunch of people got together a few thousand years ago and put down their best ideas. It just doesn't seem like it was written by anyone who had a view from outside those cultures.

Anyway, just my observation.

Re:Really?

[AniVisual]

You are supposed to hold your ear to the light if an insect gets in it. Trying to scratch it out will only make it more frightened and burrow deeper.

Re:Really?

[tibman]

I will remember that. But i honestly don't think it would have worked on that beetle, he barely fit in there and i don't think he could turn around if he wanted. But i'm sure i wasn't quiet enough to give him the opportunity to come out peacefully. He crawled as far as possible until he started destroying my ear and died (drowned is my guess). He died probably 10-15 minutes into the adventure.

I could hear again immediately after he was flushed out but everything sounded distorted. It was a week or two before everything sounded normal again.

Re:Really?

[SharpFang]

Find me a direct counterexample then.
AFAIR there were quite a few passages in NT that either endorsed slavery or treated it as a normal thing, and not one that would directly oppose it. The above quote in no way condemns the master.

Re:Really?

[t_ban]

I was in Chennai several years ago and noticed no one was in the water other than wading. My friend told me most Indians don't know how to swim. I figured it was probably because they don't have the same infrastructure in place as the US in teaching swimming. Maybe someone from India can shed some additional light on that and solve that mystery.

That's a weird one. Visit any river bank or pond in India between 5 am and 2 pm, and you'll find dozens of locals swimming effortlessly. It's a hot country, and predominantly rural. Children learn to swim when they're 5 or 6. Banana trunks traditionally play the same role as rubber tubes do in the West. That is how I learned to swim, along with most people of my age.

I don't know who makes up these stories, or to what purpose.

Re:Really?

[Beliskner]

I was in Chennai several years ago and noticed no one was in the water other than wading. My friend told me most Indians don't know how to swim. I figured it was probably because they don't have the same infrastructure in place as the US in teaching swimming. Maybe someone from India can shed some additional light on that and solve that mystery.

It's because the water's polluted with industrial waste producing PCBs for our motherboards, etc. drink it accidentally and you die, it's the same with the river Ganges in North India

Re:Really?

[Opportunist]

You're right in this respect, and please allow me to clarify: I don't question the underlying values. I question the literal application. The bible, like most "holy" books, offer pretty good overall ideas and generally sane suggestions what to do and how a society can be made functional. It's good for society when killing, stealing and lying are morally wrong. People don't spend their time protecting what they have, relying on others respecting their life and possessions, and thus can go and create more, thus strengthening society as a whole. Such a code is necessary for humans who are, by nature, more pack oriented animals than the hive oriented mindset required to cooperate with more than 10 other individuals, who you also would technically have to be related to to keep your natural instincts from questioning their right to exist in your territory. Humanity, in terms of a large scale cooperation necessary for what we call culture, cannot exist without such a code of morals.

This code has to be adapted to the requirements of the time, though. Instead of a master/slave model, today we have more of an employer/employee model (albeit many of those do seem a lot like master/slave relationship...), and that works out. Some other moral standards of the days of yore don't. Provided God exists, I'm fairly sure he didn't want us to live by archaic rules that make no sense in a modern context. The jewish (and muslim) food bans made sense in days when refrigeration was impossible and food was a prime source of sickness. Thus, disallowing animals as food whose parasites can use you as the host makes a lot of sense. It doesn't so much in times when you can easily eliminate these perils or avoid them altogether.

And the same applies to many other commandments and taboos of religions. In the context of the time they were created, they always make a lot of sense. But they have to be tested when society and technology changes, whether they still make sense or whether the reason why they existed does not apply anymore.

Re:Really?

[Sarlin]

I have really narrow ear canals and had to have ear wax removed once when I was in the military (q-tips don't work for me). They used warm water with hydrogen-peroxide. The peroxide causes a bubbling action which helps break up the build up. After a few pounds were pulled out of my ears I was dizzy for about a day, but could hear really, really good. My ear hygiene improved from then on.

Re:Really?

[Kyont]

O mighty and infallible implementers of the Holy Word of the Lord, I am very disappointed. You need to put "/**" at the beginning of that comment, or it will not show up in the Javadocs.

Re:Really?

[GameboyRMH]

I remember one night many years ago during a particularly long boom in the mosquito population, the mosquitoes were suddenly determined to get into my ears (a mosquito net was set up but some always get through as you get into bed). After the second time one went in I covered my ears with a headband. I covered myself as much as possible with the sheets, pretty much just my right ear and face were exposed. The mosquitoes spent the rest of the night furiously bouncing off the headband covering my ear.

Re:Really?

[mcvos]

If your master is a Christian [...]

This might imply that it's acceptable for Christians to have slaves.

Or it might not. You're imposing your own interpretation on the text rather than reading what it says. Christians aren't known for their infallibility.

Re:Really?

[davidbofinger]

Does it cure redundancy too?

I can see where you're coming from here. On the other hand, after the peroxide goes in you may find people have to repeat themselves when they talk to you, so no, not really. In any case, curing redundancy and redundancy would be

'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[EvanED]

Why is the peroxide question that stupid? The only thing I can think of is that the person probably meant 'hydrogen peroxide', and then I think it's a pretty reasonable question.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[Eravau]

I was thinking the same thing. In what way is it stupid?

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[nine-times]

I agree. Hydrogren peroxide is a common home remedy for ear-aches and wax buildup. It seems reasonable (and even smart) for someone, upon receiving advice to put hydrogen peroxide in his ears, to plug it into Google to see if it's actually a good idea.

I also don't think "Why would a pregnancy test be negative?" is that crazy a question. Yes, there's the obvious answer (you're not pregnant), but one might assume the intention of the question is "Are there reasons why a pregnancy test would be negative even if the woman were pregnant?" Pregnancy tests aren't 100% accurate, after all, so someone might have just wanted to know what factors might throw one off.

In fact, most of the questions in this article are pretty valid questions that I can understand a person wanting the answer to. "Am I going into labor?" Well it's not necessarily immediately obvious, and there's even such a thing as "false labor". "Why would a married man cheat?" It's a valid question, and I bet there are interesting scientific studies that try to address the question.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[bigtomrodney]

I wondered the same thing. In fact my own doctor told me that it's a hydrogen peroxide in warm water solution that is used to syringe wax out of your ears.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[EvanED]

Hydrogren peroxide is a common home remedy for ear-aches and wax buildup.

See, I didn't even know that and I still thought it was a reasonable question. I just assumed that someone got a cut or something inside their ear somehow and wanted to disinfect it.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[tenco]

I thought that someone got a cut of their hair and wanted to bleach them.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[commodore64_love]

>>>"Why would a married man cheat?" It's a valid question, and I bet there are interesting scientific studies that try to address the question.
>>>

How about: "Why do little girls not have breasts?" Or the corollary: "Why do humans have breasts?"

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, maybe I was responsible for that... let me explain: To anonymize my search data, I have a script that regularly posts the following question to google:

Can I put ... in my ...?

Then on the blanks, the script will put random nouns, but apparently, the script is broken, since some words come out more often than others.

Sorry!

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[jones_supa]

I agree. Hydrogren peroxide is a common home remedy for ear-aches and wax buildup.

BTW, as an opposite cure, I've used petroleum jelly in ear canals when I've felt they're are dry or low on wax.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[fulldecent]

>> I agree. Hydrogren peroxide is a common home remedy for ear-aches and wax buildup. It seems reasonable (and even smart) for someone, upon receiving advice to put hydrogen peroxide in his ears, to plug it into Google to see if it's actually a good idea.

I also don't think "Why would a pregnancy test be negative?" is that crazy a question. Yes, there's the obvious answer (you're not pregnant), but one might assume the intention of the question is "Are there reasons why a pregnancy test would be negative even if the woman were pregnant?" Pregnancy tests aren't 100% accurate, after all, so someone might have just wanted to know what factors might throw one off.

In fact, most of the questions in this article are pretty valid questions that I can understand a person wanting the answer to. "Am I going into labor?" Well it's not necessarily immediately obvious, and there's even such a thing as "false labor". "Why would a married man cheat?" It's a valid question, and I bet there are interesting scientific studies that try to address the question.

-------

Man you just KILLED my buzz. Maybe you should stay off the idle section.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[nine-times]

Yeah, I don't know for sure whether it's actually a good idea to use hydrogen peroxide for any of these purposes, but it's something I've heard from various people. I've also heard "starve a cold and feed a fever", and I've been told that if you have acid reflux you should drink more milk, but apparently neither of those are good advice.

You take a little bit (maybe a teaspoon?) of the hydrogen peroxide solution you get at the drug store, and pour it in your ear while you're laying down. Let it sit for a few minutes. It will bubble and I think it warms up a little, and then you let it drain out. It feels funny, when it drains some wax will come out with it. I've even heard some people advise it when you have a cold or your sinuses are stuffed. I wouldn't recommend it to someone, though, without checking with a doctor (or maybe Googling it!) first, because for all I know it's a very bad idea.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[Artifakt]

I think somebody doesn't get the distinction between 3% or 6% Hydrogen Peroxide, which works well for cleaning out earwax and treating minor scrapes and cuts, 10 to 16% solutions, used to bleach things, including sometimes teeth although the weaker solutions are now preferred for safety, and 80-95% Hydrogen Peroxide, which is used as a mono-propellant (in the Bell Rocket Belt where It's not used an oxidizer, rather the peroxide breaks down directly into steam and O2 as it hits a catalytic screen in the reaction chamber), or as the oxidizer part of a bipropellant system, such as T-Stoff (80% concentrated hydrogen peroxide / 20% oxyquinoline) mixing with C-Stoff (methanol-hydrazine mixture) in some WW2 German rocketry.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[Artifakt]

And most of the "Benzoyl Peroxide" Acne treatments also rely on Hydrogen Peroxide in the mix.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[dontmakemethink]

"Why would a married man cheat?" It's a valid question, and I bet there are interesting scientific studies that try to address the question.

Yes, but asked in such a banal manner, it's reasonable to assume that the person is either (A) a disgruntled wife or (B) a home-wrecking whore.

For case A the answer is "because you won't do the things a home-wrecking whore will."
For case B the answer is "to get what he couldn't from his disgruntled wife."

Face it, the advantages of double-dipping are an overwhelming market force. Look at every level of corporation and government. Case closed.

Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?'

[SectoidRandom]

Hang on, um I'm no expert on the topic but don't millions of teenagers each year dye their hair with peroxide to make it a lighter colour?

That would make it a perfectly reasonable question as undoubtedly some of that would end up in your ear and any reasonable person would want to know if there are any adverse affects??

At least wasn't responsible for

[idontgno]

"How is babby formed?"

Re:At least wasn't responsible for

[blackprint]

"How is babby formed?"

Thanks be to the man Jesus. Thankee Sai.

Re:At least wasn't responsible for

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to do way instain mother

Re:At least wasn't responsible for

[Tolkien]

No, but were responsible for "At least wasn't responsible for".

Peroxide

[gauauu]

Can you put peroxide in your ear?

Why is this disturbing? Pouring peroxide in your ear bubbles like crazy (and feels rather nice), and supposedly helps remove built-up ear wax. But some sources say it does more harm (drying and/or irritating the ear) than good.

Either way, it's about as disturbing as asking whether I can put a Q-tip in my ear.

Re:Peroxide

[Enahs]

I do this on occasion. It's been beneficial, imho. Stupid author is stupid.

Re:Peroxide

[Anonymous Coward]

Same with the pregnancy question.

Seems perfectly reasonable to search for information regarding the accuracy of those tests and what can affect them.

Re:Peroxide

[Anonymous Coward]

My son wears hearing aids, which interfere with the natural drainage of wax from his ear canal...

Squirting a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution into his ears with a syringe is EXACTLY how his ENT told us to remove the wax deposits which occasionally form.

Digging around in there with a swab is actually a bad idea...

Re:Peroxide

[athakur999]

I suppose if you're ridiculously pedantic, you'd interpret "can you put peroxide in your ear?" as meaning "is it physically possible to put peroxide in your ear?" and the answer, of course, is yes and you'd have a good LOL and go back to counting the number of hairs on your arm.

Normal people, on the other hand, will interpret it as "is it a good idea to put peroxide in your ear?" which is indeed a valid and good question.

Re:Peroxide

[Tablizer]

I do this on occasion. It's been beneficial, imho. Stupid author is stupid.

No it hasn't. It's increased both your insult rate and redundancy rate.
   

Re:Peroxide

[drinkypoo]

I've used it as a strategy when my ear was apparently clogged with wax. It was, and it doesn't take all that much. It worked after just a couple of days... after a week of "what? what? OKAY"

Re:Peroxide

[pleappleappleap]

I am ridiculously pedantic.

Re:Peroxide

[rubycodez]

DIlbert: If I put a q-tip in my ear, and enjoy it, is it a sin?
Dogbert: I think it's ok
Dilbert: good, because I went through a whole case of them yesterday

Re:Peroxide

[twostix]

I think you're being a little easy on him...

Stupid author who tries to make smug nerds feel more smug than they already are ends up looking stupider than the "unwashed masses" he implicitly tries to elevate himself above.

Re:Peroxide

[jc42]

[i]f you're ridiculously pedantic, you'd interpret "can you put peroxide in your ear?" as meaning "is it physically possible to put peroxide in your ear?" and the answer, of course, is yes ... Normal people, on the other hand, will interpret it as "is it a good idea to put peroxide in your ear?" ...

Perhaps we should
note that these
questions were not
asked of ridiculous
pedants nor of normal
people. The article was
about questions sent to
computers.
Even the dumbest of
n00b lusers knows that
no computer actually
"understands" these
questions in any usual
sense.

Talking about how
normal people would
understand such
questions is utterly off
topic in this discussion.

(And not just because
you don't find such
people here. ;-)

(Also, I wonder why the
stupid /. stylesheets
force this textarea input
widget to such a narrow
width? Anyone know
how to fix it in firefox?
Why not just say
something like"width:
80%;"? Maybe I should
switch to Safari for /.,
since it puts a resize
corner on textareas that
lets you correct stupid
problems like this.)

Why can't I own Canadians?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[jimbobborg]

Because Canada is the 51st state. Not to mention America's hat.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[Phrogman]

No no, the US is Canada's couch

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[BarryJacobsen]

No no, the US is Canada's crotch

Fixed that for you.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[kimvette]

The concept of "slavery" that the Israelites practiced was similar to indentured servitude in early US history; not similar to the slavery the Israelites endured in Egypt or africans endured here in America. If you read leviticus all the way through you'll find that the "slaves"[sic] are to be set free and all debts released after a period of time (7 years IIRC), and also, every 50 years (the year of jubilee) all land should be returned to their original owners (so in effect land wasn't sold, but rather, leased).

So yes, you can have indentured servants (termed slaves in leviticus) but NOT slavery in terms of the horrible American slavery.

Having said that, you can't really enslave Canadians. After all, Canadians aren't really people! *kidding, obviously*

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[kimvette]

If I learned anything from watching TV, it's that Canada is America, Jr. and therefore there is no reason to visit. Homer Simpson taught me that. ;)

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[ElectricTurtle]

That makes sense, since we're all such big dicks.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[debrain]

The United States of Canada is an even bigger hat over Jesusland. Looks like a toque, eh?

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[Abreu]

And Mexico is still "the backyard" : ^ /

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[skine]

Interestingly, the Bible is the only source that claims that there was systematic Jewish slavery in Ancient Egypt.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[CannonballHead]

Who else would? I doubt Egypt would like to have "we let 2 million slaves walk across the Red Sea. Then we tried to go capture them again and our army got destroyed." in their history books...

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[CannonballHead]

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves

I know you're joking... but I'm curious: are you a Jew living in the land of Canaan?

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[sourICE]

Who else would? I doubt Egypt would like to have "we let 2 million slaves walk across the Red Sea. Then we tried to go capture them again and our army got destroyed." in their history books...

If you were referring to the bible, perhaps it would be better if you used the term history stories instead.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[CannonballHead]

I wasn't referring to the Bible. I'm saying that that is something Egypt would not be likely to record in their ... "history stories." Curious why you would not object to Egyptian "history books" but do object to Jewish "history books." (I know, they didn't have "books.")

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[hierofalcon]

That it didn't end well for the Ancient Egyptians might have had something to do with that.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[realityimpaired]

In my experience, that's either figurative or literal, but not both...

so... no argument there at all.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[j4s0n]

It takes balls to admit that...

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[Mr 44]

Ah, I get it. The breaking of families, inhumane conditions of travel, human trade, restrictions on marriage, severe physical punishment, lengthening of term on becoming pregnant, rape or sexual abuse, no access to legal recourse, mandatory religious conversion, isolation from society, child labor, are okay

Interestingly, pretty much all of those are explicitly prohibited in the biblical laws regarding slavery.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[Archangel Michael]

Because Canada is the 51st state. Not to mention America's kippah.

There, fixed it for the Jews, for whom Lev 25 applies. :-D

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[spaceboy33]

Did Florida give it away?

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[uncledrax]

I'll be dead and cold in my grave before I recognize the state of Missouri.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[I'm not really here]

Nah, that's just Florida.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[dontmakemethink]

Because Canada is the 51st state. Not to mention America's hat.

Only while Harper's in power.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[dontmakemethink]

You can have the separatists, cheaper by the dozen!

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[dontmakemethink]

No no, the US is Canada's crotch

Fixed that for you.

I'll never look at Florida the same way...

Or worse yet Key West... eesh!

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[Cap'nPedro]

And Mexico is North America's beard.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[selven]

And Russia is the United States SR.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[CptNerd]

I thought Canadians had Chesterfields...

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[Better.Safe.Than.Sor]

No no, the US is Canada's chesterfield Fixed that for you.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[R3d M3rcury]

No no, the US is Canada's chesterfield

Fixed that for you.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[Myrimos]

Because Canada is the 51st state. Not to mention America's hat.

Really? I always just called it North Montana.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[Trogre]

I think you mean North Montana.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[Anonymous Coward]

Survival rates for indentured slavery in USA was 50% on the passage over (same figure as the Middle Passage from Africa) and 50% for the 7 years. Mortality for the indenturement may actually have been higher.

But proposing indentured slavery (no, I will not say "servitude"; it was not a choice, this choosing between hanging or going to America, just for begging for bread) as some sort of fluffy, "not bad" form of slavery ignores the reality of the situation. No one seems to like to hear that white slaves were treated as poorly as black slaves, but its true. And all the Appalachian families that everyone loves to diss are the descendants of white slaves who survived indenturement only to find there was absolutely no place for them to work. So it was off to the hills. The oldest families that weren't nobles, mercantilists, or artisans are still the among USA's poorest, some 400 years later.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[jc42]

The large number of servants who ran away or committed suicide suggests that the conditions of life during the period of bondage may not have been so different for the servant and the slave.

Bloody Christian literalists.

We should note that the Bible wasn't written in English; the relevant passages were in classical Hebrew. There was a single word in that language, usually transliterated "'eved" (pl. "'avadim") that has been variously translated as "servant" or "slave", often in neighboring passages. There seems to be no clear reason why a particular translation was used in each instance.

It's just another example of the difficulties in translating languages, because categories like these often don't quite line up.

Of course, to a lot of American Christian literalists, the "original" bible was the one written in the English of the early 17th century. But they do still have some competition from the folks who insist that the original bible was the 1534 version written in German. ;-)

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[samwichse]

No no, the US is Canada's Chesterfield

There, fixed that for you!

Sam

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[antirelic]

Are you talking about 1 of the 57 states?

And they called GW stupid.

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[torstenvl]

Canada is America's hat? America is Canada's couch?

I think you mean that Canada is America's toque, and America is Canada's chesterfield...

Re:Why can't I own Canadians?

[tnok85]

Mexico, is that you?

Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[kidblast]

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[dxkelly]

Thanks alot. Now I'm scared to go out to do the laundry. :-(

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Mr. Carlin, averages don't work that way. Sincerely, Humorless Pedant.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's not true...

Half of people are stupider than the median stupidity, but average stupidity can be far off of halfway up the stupid scale. It's entirely possible that the results are right skewed; maybe there are just some really smart people bringing up the average. Then way more than half of the people in the world are stupider than average.

I guess it's possible that there are just some really stupid people out there bringing down the average, but way more than half of the people I meet are really stupid, so I don't think that's the case.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[skine]

Thanks alot. Now I'm scared to go out to do the laundry. :-(

I'm sure you could use Google to find another way to do your laundry, but then again, it might end up being even stupider than any of the questions so far.

Your choice.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[Znork]

Frankly, I'm disappointed that 'diy' doesn't seem to suggest 'surgery' in the top list. The results of that query I think says more about humanity than google suggests suggestions.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[Imrik]

Your link is only applicable for things that follow a Gaussian distribution. That said, averages do work that way. The word average doesn't apply only to the mean, but also to various other forms of average, such as the median.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[Imrik]

Median is another form of average.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[Ragzouken]

Medians work like that.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[CityZen]

I'm more inclined to believe that Carlin was an optimist.
My impression is that:
- there's a few exceptionally bright people out there,
- there's a fair number of reasonably understanding people,
- and there's this mind-bogglingly huge number of incredibly stupid people.

At least, that's the impression I get from reading the news each day.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[cmiller173]

http://www.lasikathome.com/

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[dogmatixpsych]

I know that quote is humorous but it is technically wrong. "Average" intelligence extends +/- 10 points the mean IQ score (set at 100, with a standard deviation of 15) - although, there are people who consider average to be +/- 20 IQ points. In any case, 50-68% (or even higher) of people have "average" IQ (intelligence).

This means that the "average" person only has a maximum of 25% of the population with a lower IQ. I know that's technical but when we (psychologists) talk about average intelligence, average != the mean. Average is a range.

Okay, I'm done being pedantic.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[DarthVain]

That is quite possibly the best quote ever... I am going to have to remember that one!

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[StackedCrooked]

50% of the population has an IQ = 100. Scary, by definition.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[StackedCrooked]

Damn, that HTML filter!! Replace "=" with smaller than or equal to.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[maxume]

He also said something like 'think about what a pussy the average person is, and then realize half of them are bigger pussies than that'.

So it isn't really that surprising that you are scared of something stupid.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[atamido]

I was under the impression that an 80 IQ bordered on mentally deficient. Is this not the case?

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes sense. Psychologists don't take a lot of math, they just make things up.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[maxume]

Giving the range you are describing the label '"average" person' is nonsensical, and if you look at individuals and integrate across those individuals, by definition, the percentage of the population with a lower iq will be larger than 25% (because the very bottom of the range has an iq that indicates 25% of the population has a lower iq than they do, 25.249% if you take the distribution too seriously).

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[Zalbik]

Median is not another form of average.

Yes, it is

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[dontmakemethink]

Really? Only half?!

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[Artifakt]

I know there's some arguments over whether IQ tests measure intelligence. Please don't bother to rehash those, as they don't affect any of the points about IQ statistics and means and medians, bell curves and such, below.

1. Nobody actually scores a 10 or 20 on an IQ test. People that messed up can't take the test at all, so someone guesstimates a number. Really, it's hard to get an accurate number for anyone below the 'educable retarded' range, generally thought to be about IQ 50. The top range for diagnosing someone as retarded is about IQ 70 (According to the definition in the American Psychiatric Association 's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV)). Thanks to recent court decisions in the US, 70 is also the number used to determine if somebody can get the death penalty.
2. An IQ of 80-130 is considered the normal range, and 100 is considered average. The first point about bell curves is the normal range is not equally distributed around the average (20 points below, 30 points above). That definition, just by itself, means IQ simply can't fit a perfect Bell curve with there being the same numbers of people at the very top edge of the normal part of the curve and the bottom cut-off.
3. The first interesting point about medians and means is there's a 10 point gap between the bottom of the average range and the top of the retarded range. There is currently no standardised official name for people in that gap. Nobody really knows whether the percentages with those numbers between 70 and 80 fit any particular curve because they don't really have a classification scheme. There's been a great deal of research on the range we call retarded and the educable portion of that range, but much less research on what we could call the intermediate range.
          Note that, by several estimates, that intermediate range contains the average IQ (or peak of the curve if you will ) for people the US has in prison for violent crimes. People with IQs between 70 and 90 have higher crime rates than people with IQs below or above this range, but it depends on whether you look at mean or median values whether the peak is in the gap range or just above it. So not only don't we know what to call the gap, we aren't sure whether that might be important for understanding violent crime or not.
4. An IQ of 121 or more can be expected in about 1 of every 10 people, drawn at random from the population. That's where the 90th %'ile falls. The bottom 10th %'ile should be close to IQ 79, (if you accept the classic bell curve distribution). The US armed forces have long claimed that the 10% percentile is at IQ 80, very close to that. However, they also claim that's their absolute cut off for taking a potential soldier, and looking at the percentages rejected for mental inadequacy during the specific years of peak recruiting stress (in other words, when quotas produce enormous pressure to take everybody possible), the numbers are closer to about 15-22%. Some of those skewed peak numbers show up in years 1964-68, at the height of the Vietnam war draft, when damned near every young male born on certain dates was tested. Those numbers therefore suggest there's an excess of below average to anything like a bell curve fit.
5. There is no top to the scale. IQ's estimated at well over 200 exist (i.e. Mozart, who gets a prodigious score if you treat writing his first pieces at 6 years old as indicative.). Technically, that again rules out a literally true bell curve, although you could get 99.99999% of people to fit under one if the top was the only problem.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[zapakh]

Okay, I'm done being pedantic.

In that case, I can say this:

Half of all people are more pedantic than average.

Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote

[kidblast]

. . .Note that, by several estimates, that intermediate range contains the average IQ (or peak of the curve if you will ) for people the US has in prison for violent crimes. People with IQs between 70 and 90 have higher crime rates than people with IQs below or above this range, but it depends on whether you look at mean or median values whether the peak is in the gap range or just above it. So not only don't we know what to call the gap, we aren't sure whether that might be important for understanding violent crime or not.

So the smart violent criminals get away with it more?

let's not forget drunk & silly people

[danpritts]

I can imagine "why can't i own a canadian" being a joke.

Re:let's not forget drunk & silly people

[vux984]

I can imagine "why can't i own a canadian" being a joke.

Or being submitted before completed... perhaps they meant to ask something like

"Why can't I own a canadian domain name"

Re:let's not forget drunk & silly people

[Arancaytar]

No, they meant this satirical open letter.

Re:let's not forget drunk & silly people

[John Meacham]

Hah. This makes me want to organize a flash mob of people with signs and preachers protesting GAP and demanding the stoning of their customers for selling womens clothing made of two different types of thread.

Personal anecdote

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

I once many years ago went to Google HQ to interview for a part-time job. In the lobby, right above the receptionist's desk, they had a big scrolling LCD thingy that shows actual searches that have been sent to the search engine.

The list was censored so that nothing NSFW would pop up, of course, but it was far from perfect. So me and my friend got treated to a good one: "voir les culottes de filles."

Re:Personal anecdote

[Zoxed]

> So me and my friend got treated to a good one: "voir les culottes de filles."

And in other news Google Translate gets /.ed !

Years ago ..

[OzPeter]

Juts for kicks I used to enter strings of random words into google just to see what sort of associations popped out .. it made for minutes of harmless fun but it always produced interesting results.

Re:Years ago ..

[Neil Hodges]

Sounds like you'd enjoy Google Trends.

Can you put peroxide in your ear?

[rolfwind]

Hydrogen Peroxide in your ears is a way to remove ear wax buildup.

Idk what is so worrying about that.

Re:Can you put peroxide in your ear?

[kuzb]

You're not actually supposed to clean your inner ear. Your outer ear, yes, but putting crap inside your ear is stupid, and can seriously damage your hearing.

Your ears have natural mechanisms for removing excess wax.

Re:Can you put peroxide in your ear?

[snowgirl]

You're not actually supposed to clean your inner ear. Your outer ear, yes, but putting crap inside your ear is stupid, and can seriously damage your hearing.

Your ears have natural mechanisms for removing excess wax.

The outer ear is all of the visible ear right down to the eardrum. The inner ear is the part with the sensory nerves. The middle ear is between the two.

You're flat wrong. Yes, the ear does have a mechanism for removing wax, but not excess wax - it can and does build up beyond the capacity for it to be removed naturally and has to be removed or softened.

You're quite right. As I entering the phase where I'm supposed to start speaking, my parents kept being told from my doctors, "wow, she has a lot of wax in her ear." But the doctor wouldn't do anything. Meanwhile, my vocabulary for vehicles was "car" for small vehicles, and "caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar" for big vehicles. Not too unusual, kids are weird like that sometimes... even if my language skills were lagging just a bit.

Well, finally, my parents took me to a doctor who sucked out the excessive earwax, and within a week or so I was using the word "truck". Turns out the wax was so bad, I couldn't even hear properly.

A bunch of years later, I'm using a q-tip after a shower, and a huge glob of earwax literally falls out of one of my ears... then a week or so later, out of the other ear. Now, I'm a little paranoid about excessive ear wax, and expect huge globs to fall out occasionally, but that hasn't happened so far.

ditto for the pregnancy test

[Frequency Domain]

'Why would a pregnancy test be negative?' is a perfectly reasonable question if you're asking about false negatives.

Re:ditto for the pregnancy test

[4181]

... a perfectly reasonable question if you're asking about false negatives.

Indeed, as with How Common Is A False Negative Pregnancy Test And What Causes It?

'Owning A Canadian' refers to a joke

[The_AV8R]

A radio personality named Dr. Laura Schlessinger, an orthodox jew, once said on her show that homosexuality was an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and could not be condoned under any circumstance. "Why Can't I Own A Canadian is the title of the letter in response to her comments.

Re:'Owning A Canadian' refers to a joke

[snowgirl]

According to Wikipedia (take with grain of salt) she converted to Judaism in 1998, and then apparently in 2003, she rejected her Orthodox Judaism. So, she was an Orthodox Jew for all of like... 5 years.

Which is obvious because if she attempted to apply Jewish law to non-Jews, she's an idiot Jew. Jews have 613 Mitzvot to follow, but non-Jews only have 7 laws, and it is not the duty of the Jews to enforce those laws.

Next, learned Orthodox Jews are essentially lawyers of their own Mitzvoh, and can tell you three things about homosexual Jews: a) they are proscribed by law, b) they are to be put to death c) as long as their temple remains destroyed no death penalties may be actually given.

So, in summary, even though an Orthodox Jew should say that homosexuality is wrong, they should qualify it with: "for Jews, and even then, we cannot put them to death, because the temple does not stand." Depending on one's take of the Noahide Laws it may proscribe homosexuality for all man kind... but again, the Jews are not to enforce any laws upon anyone who is not Jewish... except in the Jewish state (Israel, or Judah, and even then, the death sentence cannot be carried out without their temple).

Orthodox Jews still take the attitude of a separation of our secular government from their religious law... it's why you typically don't see any groups of Orthodox Jews campaigning as hard against homosexual marriage like you do Mormon (Prop 8 in CA), or Romain Catholic.(Prop 1 in ME)

Wow. just. wow.

[idontgno]

(No, not World of Warcraft.)

I just tried the little experiment in TFA with the phrase "What are..."

Google's #1 suggestion: "...these strawberries doing on my nipples I need them for the fruit salad"

I boggle. I boggle at google.

There's an amazing untold story there. I hope it stays that way.

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[Rary]

There's an amazing untold story there. I hope it stays that way.

Sorry.

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[megamerican]

Example 2:

"Is the.."

#1 suggestion:

"is the world going to end in 2012"

#2 suggestion:

"is there anyway i can get this popular guy to get me pregnant"

0_o

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[Phrogman]

Actually if you followed the first link in the results you would see its the title of a book for sale on Amazon.

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[mooingyak]

I tried "How do I", and my favorite one added a single word... "look"

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[captjc]

"Why "

My favorites are: "why is my poop green", "why did I get married", and "why is there a dead pakistani on my couch"

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[captjc]

"How " comes up with: "How to get pregnant" and "How long does weed stay in your system"

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[choongiri]

Speaking of untold stories:

"I like"...

...to tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it would be like to be a dinosaur

WTF?

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[markg11cdn]

In a few months, if I use Google Dashboard to look back at today's history, I'm going to wonder why the heck I was searching for "What are these strawberries doing on my nipples I need them for the fruit salad"

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[VeNoM0619]

Then if you look for "where can"

It pulls up, where can I watch free movies, where I can download free music, etc. in variations.

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[kathbot]

Try "I like..."

Ok, I'll spoil it: "i like to tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it would be like to be a dinosaur"

Followed by: "i like turtles"

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[EllisDees]

I saw that one too and almost gave myself a heart attack from laughing so much.

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[dontmakemethink]

Something is definitely fishy here. When I entered "What are" the top recommended string was also "these strawberries doing on my nipples I need them for the fruit salad", which had 10,100 hits. However, the next on the list was "the 7 wonders of the world", which had 10,900,000 hits. Further down the list is "torrents" with 161,000,000 hits.

Ah, the post below indicates the "strawberries" string is the title of a book at Amazon.com. So Amazon is paying to have their products come up in the search string recommendations. How quaint...

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[moonbender]

How is that in any way less strange?!

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[ZuBsPaCe]

"How can I make..."

Now, if I only knew the answers to those questions....

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[IamTheRealMike]

Or, you know, the number of people searching for a thing is only weakly related to the number of results that search returns?

Re:Wow. just. wow.

[bguiz]

"What are..."

Google's #1 suggestion: "...these strawberries doing on my nipples I need them for the fruit salad"

That would be funny if you had pressed the "I'm feeling Lucky" button.

Many of these questions are legitimate

[ShooterNeo]

Many of the "inane" questions in the article illustrate the stupidity of the journalist who wrote the article. Most of these questions are legitimate, with a legitimate answer.

Some examples :
Can you put peroxide in your ear?

Actually, you can use it to remove earwax and to disinfect your ear if you went swimming in dirty water. It's a perfectly safe, legitimate use.

Am I going in labour?

Actually, other pains can be mistaken for labor, and it takes hours to develop in many women. Perhaps you're a woman, and you want to know if that abdominal pain was your first contraction or just a GI problem.

Am I having a heart attack?

Again, it's possible to mistake heartburn and cracked ribs for a heart attack. Maybe you should see what the symptoms are before you blow $300 at the Emergency Room.

Why can't black people swim? Why can't white people dance? Both must be stereotypical behaviors, and maybe there is a reason why it can seem like both are true.

Can you drink your own urine?

Again, a legitimate question. In a desperate situation, drinking your own urine may extend your survival under some environmental conditions. It's commonly mentioned in media.

Why would a pregnancy test be negative?

Yes, it's possible to get a negative test and be pregnant.

Can two women make a baby?

Yes, it's possible with newly developed technology to create sperm from stem cells. However, it has never been demonstrated in humans and may be quite unsafe.

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the writer of the article should have googled the questions first?

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[Anonymous Coward]

(1) Google "What is the chance" and facepalm away.

(2) Slate had an article this week about the differences between how people ask google questions. It's enlightening.

http://www.slate.com/id/2234019/

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[Wonko the Sane]

In a desperate situation, drinking your own urine may extend your survival under some environmental conditions. It's commonly mentioned in media.

Supposedly you can recycle tamiflu that way also.

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[Any Web Loco]

"...blow $300 at the Emergency Room."
Ok so a little off-topic but if you think you're having a heart attack you should not have to think twice about seeking medical advice - cost should not hold you back. One of the advantages of socialised health care I guess...

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[hatemonger]

Of course these are legitimate searches, but you won't get clicks on your article unless you take them out of context. This is especially appealing to the reader because it's subconsciously telling them "look at all these people dumber than you!"

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[Kaenneth]

So, is Tamiflu going to be the new chemical in our groundwater that environmentalists will freak over?

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[Hatta]

If only there were some sort of tool the author could have used to find out if there were reasonable answers to these questions.

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[godel_56]

Many of the "inane" questions in the article illustrate the stupidity of the journalist who wrote the article. Most of these questions are legitimate, with a legitimate answer.

Can you drink your own urine?

Again, a legitimate question. In a desperate situation, drinking your own urine may extend your survival under some environmental conditions. It's commonly mentioned in media.

Also, I believe drinking your own urine is advocated by some weird alternative medicine and religious practices.

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[SleazyRidr]

If you call some sects of Budhism a weird religion. If you drink your early morning urine, you can recover some of the Seratonin from when you were asleep which helps you stay calm during the day.

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[obdulio1950]

Psilocibin, the psicoactive component of psicodelic mushrooms is excreted in the urine. So it is not uncomon to keep that urine for drinking when there are no mushrooms available.

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[radio4fan]

In the future, if you find thing going on around you which are puzzling or confusing, or even seem pointless or stupid, maybe you could consider whether they might be the result of another person's 'humour'.

The ability to detect humour is not something that everyone possesses, evidently.

And you missed:

Is it legal for a man in Scotland to marry his widow's sister?

No. The dead are forbidden to marry, even in Scotland.

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[snowgirl]

Am I having a heart attack?

Again, it's possible to mistake heartburn and cracked ribs for a heart attack. Maybe you should see what the symptoms are before you blow $300 at the Emergency Room.

Thank god I saved that $300 Emergency Room visit (wtf country are you in, in the USA it's more than that just to walk in the door)

All I had was cracked ribs! Now that I know, I don't need to visit the ER.

There are two things that if you think you're having, GO TO THE ER, even though it might be something minimal, you are far better off being sure, because if you're wrong, then every second counts. The first is a heart attack, the second is a stroke. Don't try and figure out if you have one, YOU ARE NOT A TRAINED DOCTOR... instead, if you think it's possible that you're having one, go to the ER.

Wasting $300 is a better bet than losing even 5 minutes if you actually are. It's like Pascal's Wager, only without infinite gain/loss... ok, well, the 5 minutes might cause you infinite loss in this physical world, so betting against that is typically the best thing one can ever do.

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[tru3ntropy]

Can you put peroxide in your ear?

Actually, you can use it to remove earwax and to disinfect your ear if you went swimming in dirty water. It's a perfectly safe, legitimate use.

Technically that may be true but it cant be a blanket response; what this person is likely asking is, is it safe for me to go and get the peroxide 20% that my mum uses to bleach her hair and stick it in my ear? A totally different question with i assume a different answer, whilst i don't know a lot bout chemistry i assume it is not safe to put something that bleaches hair into the sensitive ear canal. I don't know why else some one would ask this question unless they wanted to know the long term effects of peroxide on the body.

Can you drink your own urine?

Again, a legitimate question. In a desperate situation, drinking your own urine may extend your survival under some environmental conditions. It's commonly mentioned in media.

Sure you can but why if you have an internet connection and are in mortal peril, are you not trying to get help instead of goggling a search that is only going to result in a heap of kinky porn? Perhaps this is a more recreational search instead of for survival.

Re:Many of these questions are legitimate

[ShooterNeo]

Or maybe you just saw a television program where the idea was mentioned, and you wanted to know if it was possible or not.

Why can't I Own a Canadian?

[thue]

The "Why can't I own a Canadian" question comes from this joke: http://www.humanistsofutah.org/2002/WhyCantIOwnACanadian_10-02.html

Babies

[endianx]

In regards to "Can two women make a baby?":

http://science.slashdot.org/story/08/02/02/0244213/Sperm-Made-From-Female-Bone-Marrow-Men-Obsolete

My own contribution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Me:
what is the

Google:
date today
meaning of life
population of Canada
name of bo and luke dukes 69 dodge charger in the tv series the dukes of hazzard
population of the world
sum of days in a week months in a year hours in a day
largest city in canada
canadian dollar worth
best laptop
capital of california

I don't know how their system works, but I don't think it's based on actual searches that people have done. I mean, how many people who google for the name of the Dukes' car would actually type a full sentence like that?

Another one I just tried:

Me:
what's worse than
Google:
a pile of dead babies

Re:My own contribution:

[dotancohen]

You think that's bad? Type in "what are" and see what gets suggested!

Re:My own contribution:

[Geminii]

I'm feeling lucky:
having to shift the pile with a pitchfork

or yahoo answers

[circletimessquare]

http://answers.yahoo.com/

and the end all most awesome/ most depressing question ever asked there:

"how is babby formed, how girl get pragnent"

thousand monkeys

[tarzan353]

Reminds me of the "thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters" thought experiment.

As a side note, I think that this confirms my pet theory concerning time travel: any attempt to do it will change the past, which changes the conditions of the travel slightly, which changes the past, and so on, until the travel never occurs and the past stops changing. In other words, a spacetime where time travel happens is unstable and decays into one where it won't. Quantum uncertainty would, in this interpretation, be there to allow causality to "stretch" enough to allow such decay; a hypothethical universe without quantum uncertainty but with sentience and time travel (which is an inevitable outcome of the Theory of Relativity, which in turn is an inevitable outcome from the laws of physics being the same for all observers) would tear itself apart. You can thus deduct the Uncertainty Principle from the Anthropic Principle (we are here, so this universe must be able to support sentient life).

I wonder if you could calculate the minimum required amount of uncertainty for spacetime to stay consistent, and how it would relate to observed/otherwise calculated values? Assume that the first singularity formed at t=0, and has been moving infinitely close to lightspeed ever since, and connects to every other time period through a wormhole, and go from there. The math is beyond me, does anyone else care to try?

Re:thousand monkeys

[Terrasque]

That might might explain why my cult didn't seem to work.

You see, I had this wonderful plan. I was going to start a cult with the power to summon giant killer robots. The idea behind it was that the cult would take over the world, or at least grow mighty and powerful (shouldn't be too hard if you can get your hands on giant killer robots), and then funnel the world's resources into research on two fields : 1. Killer robots and 2. Time travel. When these goals were met, the cult leadership would then send these killer robots back in time to when they were needed.

But for some reason unknown to me, this have never happened. I have not gotten any killer robots, and I have so far failed to take over the world. I had reasoned thus that time travel was absolutely impossible, but your theory put things in a different light. Maybe this have happened many times, but time have untangled itself again, and it thus continued to never happen.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I entered

[al0ha]

How can I nail...

I expected Google to suggest, "a hot chick." at minimum, but instead it suggested nothing.

Re:I entered

[idontgno]

That's proof that Google understands the distinction between fact and fiction (let alone blatant impossibility).

Re:I entered

[russ1337]

How can I nail... I expected Google to suggest, "a hot chick." at minimum, but instead it suggested nothing.

Me: "How can I nail"
Google:"the last nail when crucifying myself"

The obvious weakness...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Of this piece is the same issue that plagues the "Dear God, look at Yahoo Answers, and weep for humanity" articles.

Obviously, the internet is, in fact, filled with fucktards; but it is also full of people searching for jokes, people trolling for the lulz, satire, google bombing, etc. Without reasonably solid statistics munching, you can't really say whether a given query is common because people are searching for it in seriousness, in jest, because they are mocking the people who were searching for it seriously, etc, etc.

Re:The obvious weakness...

[BobMcD]

Obviously, the internet is, in fact, filled with fucktards

The glaring fact is, at one time or another, every single human on the earth is a fucktard from someone else's point of view. If you weren't such a fucktard, you'd know that already.

HA!

Not all so stupid

[GuyFawkes]

We typed: 'Why can't...'
Google suggests: '...black people swim?'

Answer: There is no answer to this question. It's demented to even ask it.

In fact, not quite so stupid, black people can swim, just not as well as white people, and it is all due to average density and skeleton formation.

Re:Not all so stupid

[GuyFawkes]

Replying to myself...

The flipside is white people can run, just not as well as black people, for the same bone / skeleton reasons.

(human racism has always seemed to me like a labrador and a retriever arguing who us best... )

Re:Not all so stupid

[DaveV1.0]

Actually, the reason many black people, or at least black Americans, can't swim is because they never learned how because many black people live in areas with few swimming pools, public or private. Inner city neighborhoods have a very high ratio of people to pools. Rural areas, especially poor rural areas, have few pools. The suburbs have many pools, but not so many black people. But, many of the black people in the suburbs know how to swim.

Also, because many older black people can't swim, they can not teach their children to swim, resulting in a need to pay for swimming classes which may be prohibitively expensive.

When I went into bootcamp for the Navy, we had small group of black guys who could swim before they joined. The rest had to learn while in bootcamp. All of them learned and learned well.

Re:Not all so stupid

[GuyFawkes]

Racial Differences in Bone Density between Young Adult Black and White Subjects Persist after Adjustment for Anthropometric, Lifestyle, and Biochemical Differences1,2
Bruce Ettinger, Stephen Sidney, Steven R. Cummings, Cesar Libanati, Daniel D. Bikle, Irene S. Tekawa, Kimberly Tolan and Peter Steiger

Division of Research (B.E., S.S., I.S.T., K.T.), Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Oakland 94611; Department of Medicine (S.R.C.), University of California, San Francisco 94143; Division of Endocrinology (C.L.), Department of Medicine, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Loma Linda 92357; Mineral Metabolism Unit (D.D.B.), Veterans Administration Medical Center, San Francisco, California 94121; Hologic, Inc. (P.S.), Waltham, Massachusetts 02154

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Bruce Ettinger, MD, Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, 3505 Broadway, Oakland, California 94611-5714.

This study tested whether racial differences in bone density can be explained by differences in bone metabolism and lifestyle. A cohort of 402 black and white men and women, ages 25-36 yr, was studied at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Northern California, a prepaid health plan. Body composition (fat, lean, and bone mineral density) was measured using a Hologic-2000 dual-energy x-ray densitometer. Muscle strength, blood and urine chemistry values related to calcium metabolism, bone turnover, growth factors, and level of sex and adrenal hormones were also measured. Medical history, physical activity, and lifestyle were assessed. Statistical analyses using t- and chi-square tests and multiple regression were done to determine whether racial difference in bone density remained after adjustment for covariates. Bone density at all skeletal sites was statistically significantly greater in black than in white subjects; on average, adjustment for covariates reduced the percentage density differences by 42% for men and 34% for women. Adjusted bone density at various skeletal sites was 4.5-16.1% higher for black than for white men and was 1.2-7.3% higher for black than for white women. We concluded that racial differences in bone mineral density are not accounted for by clinical or biochemical variables measured in early adulthood.

Re:Not all so stupid

[DaveV1.0]

While that study investigates whether racial difference in bone density can be related to lifestyle, it says nothing about lifestyle, specifically the ability to swim, being effected by bone density.

Also, while the study discusses bone density, it does not discuss average density. If one has greater bone density and a higher percentage of body fat, then it is quite conceivable for the two to cancel each other out or even for the added buoyancy of the body fat to be greater than the effect of the increased bone density.

Funny effect

[parallel_prankster]

So there is an weird and funny effect here. Apparently a lot of the google suggestions are funny and it may be because when people search for something and something else comes up which is funny, they wanna go look at it. This way the funny result keeps climbing the rankings. At some point the result for what are these strawberries doing on my nipples was not the number 1 result, but it seems funny and so people end up clicking on it and this is how its become number 1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/torley/3558343796/ Case closed.

Stupid to ask questions?

[syousef]

Since when is it now laughable or stupid to ask questions to relieve oneself of ignorance? I'd say it's stupid to want to stay ignorant.

Basing your actions entirely on one or two less than credible sources might be stupid. I wouldn't put peroxide in my ear for instance without making sure I had plenty of credible sources to back that action. However asking the question on a search engine which might lead me to such credible sources is anything but stupid.

Whoever came up with this tripe is the one that's stupid. We don't need to praise willful ignorance, when knowledge is just a google query away...

Re:Stupid to ask questions?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always laughable to be ignorant. That's why anyone who can't laugh at themselves should be sterilized.

Another good one

[matzahboy]

Search: I am One of the suggestions: "I am extremely terrified of chinese people"

Why you can't pown one...

[SuperKendall]

Because they got sk1ll5, and you are a n00b.

seems obvious to me

[FudRucker]

http://imgur.com/zug1R.jpg

OMFG

[adosch]

Why can't a pregnancy test be negative? It's called pregnancy test for a reason, not "Still a Whore" test.

Jesus came from an egg

[Saishuuheiki]

Everyone knows the holiday Easter came from the three wise-men scouring the desert looking for the egg of Jesus.

Follow the Rabbit Hole...

[pspahn]

So I tried a few of the searches myself, I wanted to see what these pages actually said. After reading the article here, I found myself in a world of hilarity. The web is an interesting place.

Given certain situations...

[Adustust]

Google may be the only immediately available source of information someone can get to. The author of this article obviously had nothing to do but sit and play with the suggestion feature and figured he could burn a work day with an article to justify how he wasn't actually wasting his time. If someone is having problems with chest pains, you can imagine they are getting scared, but it's not like they know exactly what a heart attack is supposed to feel like so they don't want to take action in case they're wrong. Someone who doesn't have insurance for example, should definitely check google for possible symptoms. Obviously if the case were serious enough, you probably would just go to the hospital regardless. However, many cases of heart attack patients actually turn out to be heartburn or acid reflux. The same goes for the "Am I going into labor" question. Instances of women getting pregnant is rare, but happens much more often than you'd think. The experience of going into labor would be extremely frightening if you had not been expecting it or learning about it several months in advance. The article seems to be written with an elitist point of view with no actual insight towards real world situations that would bring these searches about. Granted, there are definitely some listed that are stupid, the author could have done a better job finding far, far better examples. Like, "why is there a dead pakistani on my couch?" Although, perhaps if there was one on my couch, I may ask the same question.

Re:Given certain situations...

[John Hasler]

> Instances of women getting pregnant is rare

They are? I had the impression it happened several hundred thousand times a day.

Re:Given certain situations...

[WeirdJohn]

If the question was asked by someone in the UK this would not be the case. In civilised countries access to health care is not predicated on wealth. I get neurosurgery 4 times a year and it costs me nothing. I stay in hospital at least 3 weeks a year in addition to this and it costs me nothing. My monthly visits to my GP cost me nothing. My Neurontin costs me $5 per month. I have no health insurance other than that which I am guaranteed by being a citizen of a humane society.

Re:Given certain situations...

[caluml]

it costs me nothing

Not strictly true (unless you're unemployed).
But I'm an NHS fan too, so don't think I'm slating it.

Re:Given certain situations...

[Myrddin Wyllt]

My Neurontin costs me $5 per month.

How uncivilised - more enlghtened parts of the UK abolished prescription charges years ago:-)

Re:Given certain situations...

[WeirdJohn]

If I got the script for epilepsy then it would be free. Unfortunately this is not the case.

Canadians = Fine pedigree

[WoodenTable]

You can't own a Canadian because we're an extremely well-bred population here in Canada. We can't just sell ourselves to any dirty foreigner who offers us money! Especially Americans.

Unfortunately, most nations these days are hardly civil enough to own Canadians. It's really quite disgusting. We had high hopes for our ownership by the United Kingdom at one time, you know, but then they had to go and declare us an independent country... such a disaster. The politicians were really quite depressed about that one.

Personally, I'm holding out for an advanced alien race to arrive for all our purchasing needs. I just hope they aren't the human-eating kind, as most Canadians would prefer to be part of a long term investment, not a short meal.

This one is the worst

[Explodicle]

We typed: 'Am I going...'
Google suggests: '...into labour?'
Answer: There's an easy and reliable way to test. Is there a brand-new human poking out of your lower body? If yes, then congratulations, you're going into labour. More accurately, you're already in it.

I'm amazed that these guys make fun of a question, act like wiseasses who know the answer, yet did not read the results of the search! The early stages of labor can start DAYS before birth, and false labor is very common.

Microsoft Success Stories

[fauxhammer]

It's no longer the case, but in the first few days of Bing, typing in "Microsoft Sucks" would suggest "Microsoft success stories"

More interesting analysis

[rm999]

OK, this is kind of dumb. As others point out, most of these questions have reasonable explanations. But I think this (http://i.imgur.com/EYY9.png) is actually interesting.

The way someone words his question appears to be correlated to how educated the question actually is.

Disturbing Search Requests

[John Jorsett]

One of the sites I like to look at from time to time is a blog of webmasters who post some of the more bizarre search requests that have led people to their sites. A recent one: "masturbate with armor all". http://www.disturbingsearchrequests.com/

Yes. Really.

[dazedNconfuzed]

I own a Canadian. Cost me everything I have, and everything I ever will have. Worth every penny.

However, independent observers may conclude she owns me. ...sorry, gotta run, being paged...

Nothing to add but this

[Weaselmancer]

Thanks for that link. It is fantastic.

Just idle fun...

[jemenake]

Google's auto-complete is a great source of idle amusement. Just type in "Why does" and peruse the questions from people whose vote counts just as much as yours in every election. (My favorite is "Why does my vag smell". Something about the slang term used... it's just... I dunno).

In fact, in the category of typing just part of a phrase and letting it take you where it will, I'd have to say that typing "why does" or "how does" into google comes in second only to typing in "goes wrong" in YouTube.

But to answer your original question about what it tells us about humanity: It tells us that most of them are pretty dumb.

Vive la difference!

[$pace6host]

Try out "why won't he" vs "why won't she" for an insight into the differences between men and women...

There are probably some other questions where you can swap a gender pronoun and see similar differences.

Working as planned?

[Anachragnome]

Although the article seems to suggest we are all complete idiots, it does highlight something that the author was too stupid to pick up on (or simply chose to ignore).

These are all questions that might be embarrassing to ask another human. It is far easier to ask a non-judgmental computer such questions then run the risk of humiliation by one's peers.

As a tool designed to provide knowledge, it does precisely that, and does so without ignoring those "grey areas"...subjects that might be socially taboo or something to that effect.

In short, it answers questions that otherwise might not even be asked due to social pressures.

Sure, some of us are stupid, but the real problem is that the rest are judgmental jerks.

WTF

[Thyamine]

Ok, I suppose I should have realized this is Idle so your results may vary, but I was hoping for some actually interestingly-strange questions. What we got was a list of, yes, some strange questions, but then a bunch of not-strange questions that the author was trying to be funny about. I don't know. Did I miss something? I actually spent time reading TFA thinking it was going to get funny.

A medical strudent I knew once defined...

[Marko DeBeeste]

... a proctoscope as a tube with an a$$hole on each end. It's applicable to the process that created this article

Re:Jesus

[TeethWhitener]

Shouldn't this be modded informative?

I blocked 'Idle'

[MrMista_B]

So why is this Digg shit showing up on the front page?

Serious question.

The questions are from other websites

[koick]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Google suggest phrases combed from other websites (with fairly high pagerank) and not some 'best of' type questions people are typing directly into the google search box? If so, it's *other* websites, not google which are getting (and presumably answering) these questions, and the article is misleading about them being "popular searches".

Re:Jesus

[captjc]

I believe it was the great pastor William Renick had the Idea that if angels having wings they must, therefore, have feathers. In many faiths, Jesus would have been of the highest choir of angels and would have wings as well. If he had feathers, he would be part avian and part man. Avian species come from eggs. With this bit of logic I would say that Sweet Feathery Jesus was born in a egg.

Either that or he is one of those aliens from Ork that travel in a giant egg.

/ Shazbot!

Off topic

[jason.sweet]

BTW why is this posting window only 20 characters wde?

A WebKit-based browser will allow you to resize the text box.

Re:Off topic

[camperdave]

A WebKit-based browser will allow you to resize the text box

So what? No other section
of Slashdot has this stupid
size limit on its comment
box. Why does Idle, and
why don't they fix it?

Marrying Your Widow's Sister

[iron-kurton]

So, the last batch of suggestions: is it legal for a Scotsman to marry his widow's sister? Wouldn't that be kind of hard, you know, because he's DEAD? How else would he have a widow...?? (did the author's miss a joke?)

Re:Marrying Your Widow's Sister

[andrewbaldwin]

I agree it is a well known joke but is it impossible to marry your widow's sister?

Not necessarily so!!

Consider a Scotsman Angus and two sisters Betty and Clare

Angus marries Betty.

He then divorces her (or she dies) and marries Clare (who is Betty's sister).

Angus dies.

Clare is his widow.

During his marriage to Betty he HAD married his widow's sister :-)

Re:Marrying Your Widow's Sister

[iron-kurton]

Interesting take on the joke, but the question is posed in the present tense. The question should have been posed like this: "Is it possible for you to have married your widow's sister?" for your statement to be true

Ah, technicalities :)

By the way, the question on the site was "Is it *legal* to marry...", which would probably be a resounding "no", unless Britain has some really lax necrophiliac laws...

Re:Marrying Your Widow's Sister

[jonadab]

Sure, in most jurisdictions it's illegal for a dead man to marry, but maybe the laws in Scotland are different. I mean, the men over there wear dresses, so you know they're a little weird, right?

Re:Marrying Your Widow's Sister

[iron-kurton]

There have been wars over people calling kilts dresses, you're lucky I'm not a redhead (or a longbeard)

Re:Jesus

[SnarfQuest]

Maybe God jused used a date-rape drug on her.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Gideons already do this.

[ickeicke]

As far as I know, Gideon International, famous for their distribution of bibles, only distribute the New Testament. Not sure what the reason is, but I am sure efficiency plays a big role if you are going to distribute more than 1,5 billion copies...

Re:Gideons already do this.

[XxtraLarGe]

Gideon International, famous for their distribution of bibles, only distribute the New Testament

It also includes Psalms and Proverbs.

This has been bugging me also...

[sgt_doom]

I mean, that's a question I have asked repeatedly over the years.

I've always wanted my very own Canadian, and I'm not particular, as long as she has great tits! (And once again, size doesn't matter as long as they are natural!)

Exactamundo!

[sgt_doom]

I mean, you should see some of the stuff I've tried to shove in my ear.

Geez......

Internet Confirmed Stereotypes!

[RTigger]

www.stereotypefinder.com - a buddy and I wrote this back in the day to take advantage of google's "auto complete" search queries. The numbers correspond to the # of websites that will answer the query.

The State of Contemporary Journalism

[32771]

I wonder why they didn't bother to check what Google had to offer as links for the mentioned searches, or why they didn't tell us. Surely they must have felt great to find out how smart they are, or do they want to give us something we can feel smart about.

Do the authors maybe even want to make us feel superior over the typical CNet journalist?

Also, why should we follow their eclectic mix of links? Maybe they were offered money for our eyeballs and didn't know how to get our attention other than through our intellectual vanity (darn safe bet).

Anyway, my mind boggles. Do you have any better ideas?

Indians don't know how to swim

[bayankaran]

Nobel prize winning Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore quipped..."whatever you think of India is true, and its opposite."

Re:Indians don't know how to swim

[dontmakemethink]

Nobel prize winning Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore quipped..."whatever you think of India is true, and its opposite."

Yeah, but how can you believe that bullshitter.

Re:Indians don't know how to swim

[dontmakemethink]

I was kidding about the contradiction of what he said. I respect Tagore entirely.

BTW when people post something like "whoosh!", it's because someone posted something like you did. Hope that translates well...

Why can't i...

[Jorgandar]

Why can't i see my reflection in the mirror on a television?

Are you f'n *kidding* me? People are asking this question? Wow...just wow. I don't know what's sadder, the stupidity of people or the fact that I haven't been able to find a way to get rich off of these stupid people.

Here's another gem: Why is...

[Jorgandar]

...my poop green?

On a related note

[commodoresloat]

How does one patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?

What's the big deal?

[Codex_of_Wisdom]

I see a few amazing ones, but I don't get what's amazing about "Can you put peroxide in your ear?" I do it all the time. It makes perfect sense. *shrug* of course, calling people stupid has never made sense to me. The adage "There's no such thing as a stupid question" applies here very nicely...

Re:Jesus

[commodoresloat]

If you type in "why is" one of the first suggestions is "why is there a dead Pakistani on my couch?"

I just poked my head in the living room. It's actually a pretty good question.

actually

[commodoresloat]

The question is talking about the Labour Party in England.

Re:Jesus

[Maelwryth]

"Everyone knows that Jesus was born to Mary after she immaculately conceived him by receiving God's seed somehow."
Whilst simultaneously being of the line of David.........Work that one out.

Re:Your official guide to the Jigaboo presidency

[religious freak]

Here's the guy (mister_playboy) that does it... he forgot to hit the anon button a while back... what's the point?

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1391719&cid=29633239

This article is a spool of lies

[Flentil]

Not really funny at all, since it's all BS.

I dunno...

[jlowery]

Could it be that we often repeat repeat ourselves in midsentence?

Can you ear me?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Why is the peroxide one weird? The 3% solution at the drug store is commonly used for removing excess or clogged ear wax. They even have inexpensive plastic ear syringes to do it yourself. I've done it a couple times. Works like a charm.

Know you History

[Roger W Moore]

Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

...because the last time you tried it did not go so well.

This author has never heard of 4chan

[mykos]

The subject is all I have to say.

What it suggests for me:

[mysidia]

humanity is...

humanity is the devil
humanity is a virus
humanity is overrated
humanity is doomed
humanity is the devil lyrics
humanity is a parade of fools
humanity is the devil blogspot
humanity is a cancer
humanity is an ocean
humanity is good

humans are ...

humans are dead
humans are dead lyrics
humans are aliens
humans are omnivores
humans are a virus
humans are inherently evil
humans are apes
humans are mammals
humans are carnivores
humans are herbivores

to be human ....
to be human is to err

mankind is ....

mankind is obsolete
mankind is no island
mankind is your mask
mankind is obsolete lyrics
mankind is obsolete torrent
mankind is your mask achievement
mankind is my business
mankind is doomed
mankind is obsolete myspace

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

What does google suggest about the state of cnet?

[mysidia]

cnet is ....

Google suggests: cnet is down

google is.....

google is going to takeover the world
google is skynet
google is your friend
google is watching you
google is hiring at home workers
google is making us stupid
google is a number
google is broken

Other fun things to try: windows is... (Hint: the first suggestion is an error message)

vista is.... (first suggestion is slow)

windows 7 is ...

linux is.....
linux is better than windows
linux is distributed by several different companies whose versions of linux are sometimes called
linux is illegal
...

I suppose google suggest is not to be trusted (EG)

Re:Canadian

[Keybase]

"a Canadian" is a Molson's Candian Lager Beer. I suppose you could own as many as you could afford.

As reported by 'Duh' Magazine

[Livius]

It almost makes you wonder if there are other cases where less than full sentences taken out of context might be misconstrued.

uh...

[buddyglass]

I put peroxide in my ear. Seriously. It fizzes too, which means its eating up some organic matter. Which makes me warm and happy inside.

Press

[Johnny Mnemonic]

The stupidity of the article may not suggest much about humanity in general, but it certainly suggests why the mainstream media is losing out to Google.

Another 30 seconds of research on the part of this author could have made it a much more interesting article. But instead of using a braincell, he went for shock value and FAIL.

Re:Jesus

[prichardson]

That's a good one. Thanks.

An innocent question (from experience)

[tgv]

Years ago, I worked for a natural language based search engine start-up, and the most frequent question was "sex". Yes, just three letters. Every day again. We also had a dedicated search engine for a bank, where clients could ask banking related questions. And even there people typed "sex", although it wasn't the most frequent question.

So I wonder, what did Google do to filter out the questions that I would expect most? Or did anyone ever encounter anything stronger than "make a baby"?

Best Google suggestion in french

[thinduke]

In french:

Me: est-ce que...
Google: ... Google nous rend idiot?

(Does... Google make us stupid?)

Bootstrapping humanity

[TheLink]

> It's disappointing to many that the New Testament doesn't explicitly say "Free all your slaves"

But that'll be silly. If ALL the slaves were freed where would they go? How many slaves owned land to sow crops, and have places to stay and do business in? Many of the freed slaves would have to sell themselves as slaves to get food and shelter. Whoopee.

I'm sure not all the masters were that rich to give enough property to each and every one of their slaves so that all slaves and masters could survive independently.

So I think Paul did the right thing - tell masters and slaves to treat each other well see Eph 6:5-6. And leave it to them to figure out what should then best be done given the circumstances.

Sure it doesn't seem wonderful, but you have to consider the full implications before writing stuff that you expect everyone to try to follow and follow for a long time.

I find that most people who make fun of stuff in the Bible don't actually use their brains. They just go about looking for the slightest excuse to mock or ridicule it. They're not really trying to understand things, and how things were in the "bad old days". So it's usually a waste of time talking with them.

Good luck trying to get the Assyrians and Enemies together to sign something like the "Geneva Convention". Or abolish slavery, or the popular practice of genocide. Yes that's right, if you were a young guy caught in war, the typically the only way you're going to _live_ is as a slave. In later ages, victors probably found that taking massive numbers of personal slaves didn't scale and didn't help the economy, so they just "enslaved" your country and made it pay tribute, supply resources (slaves, soldiers, money, food etc). But when nations were smaller, killing thousands and taking the rest home as slaves was doable.

Bootstrapping a computer is a process that involves messy compromises. Bootstrapping humanity and human civilizations, cultures, societies and norms, is unlikely to be so easy and "obviously clean" either.

Same thing here

[dargaud]

A couple years ago while looking at my apache logs, I noticed some ridiculous searches. And indeed, after doing a quick grep "^who|^what|^when|^how" I was able to compile a pretty damning selection of searches. I should do it again.

Re:Jesus

[dido]

From LOST, Hurley's mom says "Why is there a dead Pakistani on my couch?" when Hurley brings an injured Sayid to their home.

what are and why is

[orgelspieler]

Two of the ones I tried seemed very bizarre at first, but when I actually followed the link, they made sense.
What are ... these strawberries doing on my nipples, I need them for my fruit salad
It's a book.
Why is ... there a dead pakistani on my couch
Something to do with "Lost."

I would like to point out that going into labor is not very clear cut, and using peroxide in your ear is a common method to help loosen wax buildup. You can also gargle with it (peroxide, not ear wax).

A Logic Named Joe

[marquis111]

Leinster foresaw this only 63 years ago. Go look it up; it's a good and amazingly prescient story.

Re:Know your History

[Roger W Moore]

First I did not attribute who prevented ownership only why ownership was not possible. However a lot of those involved in the fighting on the British side were Canadians. True back then Canadian was not a separate nationality but the concept of Canadian still existed. Although I am British, I regard myself as a Yorkshireman since that is where I am originally from despite "Yorkshire" not being a nationality (yet!).