Elephants have been observed burying elephant bones. It's about "protection of loved ones" more than anything else. Predators will not hesitate to chase anything that runs away, including humans. Here in Australia there is a saying, "Don't worry about the sharks, the fucking crocs ate them".
It is very likely that climate change played a major role in that particular episode, however there are many episodes of mass extinctions unrelated to climate.
The argument is not that modern man was under pressure from predators and thus cooperated, the argument is that predation drove the evolutionary development of a level of cooperation unique to modern humans.
It was not until we became "modern" in the sense that we could create artefacts that we started sytematically wiping out the competition. Chimps today are smart enough to "gang-up" and use sticks and rocks to scare leopards away, yet chimps are still on the leapords menu. If a chimp learns how to sharpen the stick and teaches other chimps, well...we've all seen planet of the apes and 2001.
I think TFA has a valid (but not particularly original) point. I (also un-originaly) think it could be extended to include a look at how the unbroken practice of group sanctioned revenge (war, execution, torture, ect) has driven the social evolution of man. After all, over the past 100K years or so we have become so fearsome as a species that the only significant "predation threat" left today is each other.
"the Australian govt has made it really difficult"
As Malcom Fraser once said "Life wasn't meant to be easy". Sorta sums up the prevailing government attitude really.
Seriously though, what is the preocupation with fucking fertilizer, there are sheds full of commercial explosives dotted all over the bush secured by nothing more than a kmart padlock. What good is the bueracratic bullshit now required to buy a common commodity when we live on an island, big yes, but still a fucking island with less people than Tokyo! I'm sure a terrorist would have the brains to steal it just before they required it and if they don't have that kind of foresight then how can they be considered a serious threat.
I recently watched a doco about how two jewish men (one an escaped forger from Auchwitz) had spent a large part of WW2 pretending to be German soldiers. They found that with the right forms, stamps and a bit of care, they did not have to fight or work they simply kept moving around and minapulating the system, officials happily provided transport, uniforms, food, shelter, weapons, entertainment, ect, all on the strength of bits of paper.
Databases have largely replaced the old forms and stamps but I think with a little care and skill today's secret police would be just as easy to fool. As someone else in the thread pointed out, it is impossible to stop people who are deterimed to kill themselves in a spectacular way.
If your an Aussie (what else could you be with a name like BushPig, eh-bloke), you might be interested in the Alan Jones riots.
Wow that is one huge essay, pity you still miss the point that you cannot in any reasonable prediction insist on perfect input and assumptions.
I won't answer the whole thing but this bit, "and never have tested in the past (because the current situation never existed in the past)", is patently false and shows you are simply attacking the models on assumptions you have pulled out of your arse. If you are certain that I am wrong and the models are in fact useless then submit your theories to Nature or IPCC, I'm sick of banging my head against your nonsense.
PS: Tommorows weather is simpler to predict than the location of a steam bubble in a pot as is evidenced by the evening news.
"No scientist I know will go within 10 feet of that heaping pile."
...leads to...
Let me say "physorg sucks".
... not the other way around.
"And look at all the ads."
Yes they look like they are selected by google and amazon robots, AI has a long way to go! If you want a real laugh go to any serious article anywhere on the web that has the word "evolution" and google ads.
"Search physorg a bit - you'll see bullshit like alien crash landings and various other nonsense."
Well I found articles referencing "alien" and many of the top hit were respectable articles about spitzer, hubble, etc. Couldn't find any on "alien crash", searching the readers comments provided plenty of fantasy as it would on slashdot.
I wonered for a second what other "nonesense" I could search for? I pictured an average "science, space and technology" section at the newsagent, "UFO" flashed eveywhere, three hits (one a dupe!).
PhysOrg is kinda like the "science, space and technology" section, the one big difference is that they invite general comments and would love to hear from specialists. If that seems to much effort then just rate the article or post an intelligent critisim/rebuttal. Bitching on another nerd site when these options are open to you is just crass and immature.
People are not born with the philosophy and method of science magically imprinted, much less the detail involved in graduate studies, this is doubly true for arts majors such as journalists (who BTW will pick the shit out of my scribbles).
In short, unless you have some scientific training everything from UFO's to spacetime sounds equally plausible, it's all appears to be some "smart guy's" opinion. Case in point: The slashdot summary for TFA makes an incorrect interpretation, as a heap of QM nerds have clearly pointed out. Sites like slashdot and PhysOrg are all about the discussion, if "scientists" don't go to the "lions den" and participate in "popular science", what chance do journalists have?
"Even small changes affect complex systems. Weather prediction has shown us that very, very clearly. We can't even predict temperature even 24 hours in advance without a significant margin of error. Climate is a far more complex system."
You have also missunderstood the term "climate". ie: The long term statistics of weather. You cannot predict where an idividual steam bubble will form in a pot of simmering water but you can certainly predict when the pot will boil.
"Your outlook, the presumption that since you don't know something (the actual state of technology during the simulation), you can ignore it and use what you presume to be the case... that is utter nonsense."
You also misunderstand the scientific method, ie: Every scientific theory is based on assumptions.
I'll leave you with this thought. Why is it that only climate science and evolutionary science suffer from people who "know better than the experts". Why don't you critisize the simulation that was used to design the mold for your engine block or the wings of a passenger jet. After all they too are "complex systems" simulated with FEA and use plenty of assumptions and statistics to keep you in the air or on the freeway.
"because all of the points used to generate that graph are averages"
Yes that is to be expected, climate is not weather it is the long term statistics of weather. Here is a much more indepth look at the hockey stick.
"My point is not that the temperature is not changing"
If you follow the leads in the link you will come across an article entitled "what if the hockey stick were wrong", it explains that the IPCC conclusion that the earth is warming can stand without the graph.
I also think you may be confused as to how "heat" radiates away from the Earth.
Predictions are made and tested with models, the most authoritive report to date has been the IPCC. These predictions (along with others) have proven to be on the conservative side. However, had it not been for the predictions we would not be out there measuring the stuff.
We are seeing many changes in feedbacks that were predicted to happen not now but 50yrs from now, that is why the speed of Greenland's glaciers, and rotting permafrost is alarming.
The fairy godmother is unreliable and inherently unpredictable.
From a civil engineering point of view you can only make rational predictions using non-existant infrastructure. Making predictions with non-existant technology is called science fiction, it's more comforting and definitely more readable, but it's still fiction.
BTW: The point you are trying to make is philosophical one, it is neither scientific or pragamtic in any meaningfull way. Science is based on the assumption (faith) the Universe is predictable. Pragmatisim says that "the followers of perfection are the enemies of good". The philosphy you describe is blind optimisim, but hey, if you really are a misunderstood/. genius, quit bragging about your brain and invent something usefull to put in the models.
That kind of binary thinking is no different to the la-la land of the ferrals you so joyfully denigrate.
The status quo has an inherent phycological advantage over the competition, you can see this with the public attitudes of nations in Europe where one country has invested soley in nuclear and it's neighbour has banned nukes in preference to wind power. Given enough political will you can teach an old dog new tricks using nothing but public opinion, if that were not true we would never have left the stone age in the first place.
You are missing the bigger picture, it's not simply the greens (or the fossil fuel industry) hijacking the debate, a large section of the public (particularly those over 40 such as myself) will not consider nuclear because they have an understandable and rational fear of it.
Cheynobal, (not the greens or Kennedy), ended commercial nuclear power in the minds of most people who lived through it. I agree that new technology such as pebble bed reactors are incapable of igniting a "China syndrome" but I have never heard ANY political voice say the words "pebble bed".
Here in Australia we have the highest per capita GHG emmissions on the planet but any politician who calls for replacing coal with nuclear will not have a job at the next election. Even the minning of our vast uranium deposits is politically very controversial with a significant proportion of the public adament that we should keep it in the ground because it is too dangerous for anybody to use. We have our share of "bush bunnys" and ludites but the conservatives are in power and have been for 10yrs, their policy is the same as the policy of the other main political parties in Australia, ie: a "nuclear free" Australia.
The problem is not about convincing an over the top minorirty, it is convicing the "mainstream" that nuclear is safer and cleaner than fossil fuels. The anti-nuke sentiment prevailed in the 80's because at that time it was the rational thing to do, the decades of debate about the safety of nuclear power were instantly settled by images of a smoldering reactor and news of radioactive milk in Scotland. However hindsight is 20/20 and we now find ourselves in a situation where most of the heavy weight politicians are from the same 40+ demographic that instinctively point to the "exclusion zone" in Russia and declare the case for nuclear power closed.
For three decades I was convinced nuclear power was too dangerous to be left in the hands of governments and corporations, I had very sound reasons for an opinion that was (and still is) held by the overwhelming majority of the population. Time and technology have seen those reasons evaporate but politicians and the public in general made their decision in 1986 and are unwilling to reopen what they see as a closed case.
Nothing would help us more than to have politicans of ALL colours with enough balls to go into the political wilderness and listen to people like Lovelock and Lord Oxborough.
"The anti-oil people are ideological relatives of the "Earth First" crowd. Their goal is a massive reduction in world population and per capita energy consumption, and along with it, standard of living. Drilling in ANWR, exploiting offshore reserves, that stuff just pushes back the date when we can usher in Gaia and all million of us go back to living an agrarian or hunte gatherer life-style."
The emminent scientist
Sir James Lovelock revolutionised the Earth Sciences
with his insights into the workings of the bioshpere, not the least of which was his
Gaia theory. Unfortunately this
is often confused by the ignorant and/or manevolent with some of the many other uses of the word Gaia.
Lovelock is one of the founding fathers of Greepeace and has recently been advocating nuclear power as the only practical band-aid we have to avoid your nighmare senario of starvation and "an agrarian or hunte[sic] gatherer life-style". Unlike the dogmatic extremists on both sides of the fossil fuel problem, I happen to agree with him but having lived through the cold war, atmoshperic testing and Chyernobal[sic], I can see why many politicians (including the green movement) are avoiding the 'N' word.
"A patient can have surgery that will allow him to live another 10 years, or he can die today. You guys would rather he die today."
The patient has emphazema and a fever, you are suggesting the patient should not consider quiting smoking.
No rational person is suggesting we ban the use of oil immediately and if there were such a group of ludites, no rational person would take them seriously enough to listen and argue. What people like Lovelock are saying is that current usage rates are suicidal for civilization in the medium(20yr) to long term(50yr) and the political will to adapt quickly was required yesterday.
The only hysterical (both meanings) one is you. For a start the BBC is pushing the experiment not designing it.
The UK MET office models make various assumptions about the effect of future tech on CO2 output, particulates, volcanic activity and a gazillion other things that you would not understand. The models make predictions on both past and future climate using a massive number of senarios with different inputs for the variables you speak about. The models themselves are not that difficult to research, there is a wealth of peer reviewed material on the web that looks at the MET models in particular, not to mention the same techniques are used in many other areas of research that have nothing to do with climate.
From the very start you poo-poo the whole thing without having a clue what it is about and then complain at being modded down. Either come up with an informed critisim or put up with the justifyable moderation, you can't have both.
I am not saying they don't kill alot of dogs but many dogs deliberately "mouth" them, ie: pick them up like a hunting dog would pick up a bird and then drop them. I have not seen this first hand, rather I saw it on a documentry in Australia sometime in the 90's.
"The whole thing is an exercise in naval gazing and cynical grant-acquisition."
You may have faired better had you bothered to find out how the model currently caters for the things that you are complianing about and what it is they are hoping to achive with the experiment.
Calling internationally respected scientists cynical money grubbers based on your own false and myopic assumptions is definitely flamebait and I applaud the moderator for their good judgment.
I respectfully bow to your superior research, I should have known better from your sig. I still think your interpretation is a bit shakey but IANAL.
I think nations as the concept exists today must either merge, dissapear or self-destruct. International humanitarian law can only work while the powerfull nations abide by them (eg: Actually respected by the UNSC not just selectively enforecd), the most obvious problem is that powerfull governments are unwilling to expose themselves to an international criminal code. When a nation refuses to be subjected to international law, war becomes the only option to enforce the law.
Aggression, greed, revenge, zenophobia are all essential parts of human nature and we cannot remove them from ourselves let alone from others. I belive the aim of civilization should be to minimise the damage to life and limb that it or anyone else can cause to the individual. I don't for a second think this will happen, I belive war, over-population or pollution will permenently erradicate civilization not the other way around.
Your " truly relevant passage " is nowhere to be found, the crucial phrase "shall not be regarded as protected persons", is not there either, it does however contain the reference as I gave it. Your "point of fact" is false and politically motivated, when you stop pulling quotes out of your arse maybe we can talk further.
Unlike some gun happy home owners a thief is not automatically violent, I'm sure most courts would find a hole in the head in exchange for stealing a dvd player seems a tad extreme. If you read the GP's statement that you quoted you would see you don't have to wait until your kid gets stabbed. It's ok to shoot a thief if you have a reasonable belief the aggressor is about to hurt you or your kids.
I would also posit that a soldier is carrying out the demands of his nation as a duty, war and execution are very different circumstance to murder. The politicians may be justifyably be seen as "murderers", but the soldier and executioner are just instruments of government policy.
I must have had a reasonable science teacher, don't remember metals taught as a crystal but I do remeber being taught that glass is a very viscous liquid that sometimes behaves like a crystal (shatters), adding lead turns it from a liquid to a crystal.
Slashdot Mirror
Elephants have been observed burying elephant bones. It's about "protection of loved ones" more than anything else. Predators will not hesitate to chase anything that runs away, including humans. Here in Australia there is a saying, "Don't worry about the sharks, the fucking crocs ate them".
It is very likely that climate change played a major role in that particular episode, however there are many episodes of mass extinctions unrelated to climate.
"The argument simply holds no water."
The argument is not that modern man was under pressure from predators and thus cooperated, the argument is that predation drove the evolutionary development of a level of cooperation unique to modern humans.
It was not until we became "modern" in the sense that we could create artefacts that we started sytematically wiping out the competition. Chimps today are smart enough to "gang-up" and use sticks and rocks to scare leopards away, yet chimps are still on the leapords menu. If a chimp learns how to sharpen the stick and teaches other chimps, well...we've all seen planet of the apes and 2001.
I think TFA has a valid (but not particularly original) point. I (also un-originaly) think it could be extended to include a look at how the unbroken practice of group sanctioned revenge (war, execution, torture, ect) has driven the social evolution of man. After all, over the past 100K years or so we have become so fearsome as a species that the only significant "predation threat" left today is each other.
"the Australian govt has made it really difficult"
As Malcom Fraser once said "Life wasn't meant to be easy". Sorta sums up the prevailing government attitude really.
Seriously though, what is the preocupation with fucking fertilizer, there are sheds full of commercial explosives dotted all over the bush secured by nothing more than a kmart padlock. What good is the bueracratic bullshit now required to buy a common commodity when we live on an island, big yes, but still a fucking island with less people than Tokyo! I'm sure a terrorist would have the brains to steal it just before they required it and if they don't have that kind of foresight then how can they be considered a serious threat.
I recently watched a doco about how two jewish men (one an escaped forger from Auchwitz) had spent a large part of WW2 pretending to be German soldiers. They found that with the right forms, stamps and a bit of care, they did not have to fight or work they simply kept moving around and minapulating the system, officials happily provided transport, uniforms, food, shelter, weapons, entertainment, ect, all on the strength of bits of paper.
Databases have largely replaced the old forms and stamps but I think with a little care and skill today's secret police would be just as easy to fool. As someone else in the thread pointed out, it is impossible to stop people who are deterimed to kill themselves in a spectacular way.
If your an Aussie (what else could you be with a name like BushPig, eh-bloke), you might be interested in the Alan Jones riots.
Wow that is one huge essay, pity you still miss the point that you cannot in any reasonable prediction insist on perfect input and assumptions. I won't answer the whole thing but this bit, "and never have tested in the past (because the current situation never existed in the past)", is patently false and shows you are simply attacking the models on assumptions you have pulled out of your arse. If you are certain that I am wrong and the models are in fact useless then submit your theories to Nature or IPCC, I'm sick of banging my head against your nonsense.
PS: Tommorows weather is simpler to predict than the location of a steam bubble in a pot as is evidenced by the evening news.
The statement...
...leads to...
... not the other way around.
"No scientist I know will go within 10 feet of that heaping pile."
Let me say "physorg sucks".
"And look at all the ads."
Yes they look like they are selected by google and amazon robots, AI has a long way to go! If you want a real laugh go to any serious article anywhere on the web that has the word "evolution" and google ads.
"Search physorg a bit - you'll see bullshit like alien crash landings and various other nonsense."
Well I found articles referencing "alien" and many of the top hit were respectable articles about spitzer, hubble, etc. Couldn't find any on "alien crash", searching the readers comments provided plenty of fantasy as it would on slashdot.
I wonered for a second what other "nonesense" I could search for? I pictured an average "science, space and technology" section at the newsagent, "UFO" flashed eveywhere, three hits (one a dupe!).
PhysOrg is kinda like the "science, space and technology" section, the one big difference is that they invite general comments and would love to hear from specialists. If that seems to much effort then just rate the article or post an intelligent critisim/rebuttal. Bitching on another nerd site when these options are open to you is just crass and immature.
People are not born with the philosophy and method of science magically imprinted, much less the detail involved in graduate studies, this is doubly true for arts majors such as journalists (who BTW will pick the shit out of my scribbles).
In short, unless you have some scientific training everything from UFO's to spacetime sounds equally plausible, it's all appears to be some "smart guy's" opinion. Case in point: The slashdot summary for TFA makes an incorrect interpretation, as a heap of QM nerds have clearly pointed out. Sites like slashdot and PhysOrg are all about the discussion, if "scientists" don't go to the "lions den" and participate in "popular science", what chance do journalists have?
"Yes, that's exactly my point."
You have missunderstood me, again.
"Even small changes affect complex systems. Weather prediction has shown us that very, very clearly. We can't even predict temperature even 24 hours in advance without a significant margin of error. Climate is a far more complex system."
You have also missunderstood the term "climate". ie: The long term statistics of weather. You cannot predict where an idividual steam bubble will form in a pot of simmering water but you can certainly predict when the pot will boil.
"Your outlook, the presumption that since you don't know something (the actual state of technology during the simulation), you can ignore it and use what you presume to be the case... that is utter nonsense."
You also misunderstand the scientific method, ie: Every scientific theory is based on assumptions.
I'll leave you with this thought. Why is it that only climate science and evolutionary science suffer from people who "know better than the experts". Why don't you critisize the simulation that was used to design the mold for your engine block or the wings of a passenger jet. After all they too are "complex systems" simulated with FEA and use plenty of assumptions and statistics to keep you in the air or on the freeway.
"because all of the points used to generate that graph are averages"
Yes that is to be expected, climate is not weather it is the long term statistics of weather. Here is a much more indepth look at the hockey stick.
"My point is not that the temperature is not changing"
If you follow the leads in the link you will come across an article entitled "what if the hockey stick were wrong", it explains that the IPCC conclusion that the earth is warming can stand without the graph.
I also think you may be confused as to how "heat" radiates away from the Earth.
Predictions are made and tested with models, the most authoritive report to date has been the IPCC. These predictions (along with others) have proven to be on the conservative side. However, had it not been for the predictions we would not be out there measuring the stuff.
We are seeing many changes in feedbacks that were predicted to happen not now but 50yrs from now, that is why the speed of Greenland's glaciers, and rotting permafrost is alarming.
I feel like I'm on the show "Sliders", GWB, Lovelock, and me agree on nuclear power, what's next, dogs having sex with cats?
The fairy godmother is unreliable and inherently unpredictable.
/. genius, quit bragging about your brain and invent something usefull to put in the models.
From a civil engineering point of view you can only make rational predictions using non-existant infrastructure. Making predictions with non-existant technology is called science fiction, it's more comforting and definitely more readable, but it's still fiction.
BTW: The point you are trying to make is philosophical one, it is neither scientific or pragamtic in any meaningfull way. Science is based on the assumption (faith) the Universe is predictable. Pragmatisim says that "the followers of perfection are the enemies of good". The philosphy you describe is blind optimisim, but hey, if you really are a misunderstood
That kind of binary thinking is no different to the la-la land of the ferrals you so joyfully denigrate.
The status quo has an inherent phycological advantage over the competition, you can see this with the public attitudes of nations in Europe where one country has invested soley in nuclear and it's neighbour has banned nukes in preference to wind power. Given enough political will you can teach an old dog new tricks using nothing but public opinion, if that were not true we would never have left the stone age in the first place.
You are missing the bigger picture, it's not simply the greens (or the fossil fuel industry) hijacking the debate, a large section of the public (particularly those over 40 such as myself) will not consider nuclear because they have an understandable and rational fear of it.
Cheynobal, (not the greens or Kennedy), ended commercial nuclear power in the minds of most people who lived through it. I agree that new technology such as pebble bed reactors are incapable of igniting a "China syndrome" but I have never heard ANY political voice say the words "pebble bed".
Here in Australia we have the highest per capita GHG emmissions on the planet but any politician who calls for replacing coal with nuclear will not have a job at the next election. Even the minning of our vast uranium deposits is politically very controversial with a significant proportion of the public adament that we should keep it in the ground because it is too dangerous for anybody to use. We have our share of "bush bunnys" and ludites but the conservatives are in power and have been for 10yrs, their policy is the same as the policy of the other main political parties in Australia, ie: a "nuclear free" Australia.
The problem is not about convincing an over the top minorirty, it is convicing the "mainstream" that nuclear is safer and cleaner than fossil fuels. The anti-nuke sentiment prevailed in the 80's because at that time it was the rational thing to do, the decades of debate about the safety of nuclear power were instantly settled by images of a smoldering reactor and news of radioactive milk in Scotland. However hindsight is 20/20 and we now find ourselves in a situation where most of the heavy weight politicians are from the same 40+ demographic that instinctively point to the "exclusion zone" in Russia and declare the case for nuclear power closed.
For three decades I was convinced nuclear power was too dangerous to be left in the hands of governments and corporations, I had very sound reasons for an opinion that was (and still is) held by the overwhelming majority of the population. Time and technology have seen those reasons evaporate but politicians and the public in general made their decision in 1986 and are unwilling to reopen what they see as a closed case.
Nothing would help us more than to have politicans of ALL colours with enough balls to go into the political wilderness and listen to people like Lovelock and Lord Oxborough.
"The anti-oil people are ideological relatives of the "Earth First" crowd. Their goal is a massive reduction in world population and per capita energy consumption, and along with it, standard of living. Drilling in ANWR, exploiting offshore reserves, that stuff just pushes back the date when we can usher in Gaia and all million of us go back to living an agrarian or hunte gatherer life-style."
The emminent scientist Sir James Lovelock revolutionised the Earth Sciences with his insights into the workings of the bioshpere, not the least of which was his Gaia theory. Unfortunately this is often confused by the ignorant and/or manevolent with some of the many other uses of the word Gaia.
Lovelock is one of the founding fathers of Greepeace and has recently been advocating nuclear power as the only practical band-aid we have to avoid your nighmare senario of starvation and "an agrarian or hunte[sic] gatherer life-style". Unlike the dogmatic extremists on both sides of the fossil fuel problem, I happen to agree with him but having lived through the cold war, atmoshperic testing and Chyernobal[sic], I can see why many politicians (including the green movement) are avoiding the 'N' word.
"A patient can have surgery that will allow him to live another 10 years, or he can die today. You guys would rather he die today."
The patient has emphazema and a fever, you are suggesting the patient should not consider quiting smoking.
No rational person is suggesting we ban the use of oil immediately and if there were such a group of ludites, no rational person would take them seriously enough to listen and argue. What people like Lovelock are saying is that current usage rates are suicidal for civilization in the medium(20yr) to long term(50yr) and the political will to adapt quickly was required yesterday.
The only hysterical (both meanings) one is you. For a start the BBC is pushing the experiment not designing it.
The UK MET office models make various assumptions about the effect of future tech on CO2 output, particulates, volcanic activity and a gazillion other things that you would not understand. The models make predictions on both past and future climate using a massive number of senarios with different inputs for the variables you speak about. The models themselves are not that difficult to research, there is a wealth of peer reviewed material on the web that looks at the MET models in particular, not to mention the same techniques are used in many other areas of research that have nothing to do with climate.
From the very start you poo-poo the whole thing without having a clue what it is about and then complain at being modded down. Either come up with an informed critisim or put up with the justifyable moderation, you can't have both.
I am not saying they don't kill alot of dogs but many dogs deliberately "mouth" them, ie: pick them up like a hunting dog would pick up a bird and then drop them. I have not seen this first hand, rather I saw it on a documentry in Australia sometime in the 90's.
"The whole thing is an exercise in naval gazing and cynical grant-acquisition."
You may have faired better had you bothered to find out how the model currently caters for the things that you are complianing about and what it is they are hoping to achive with the experiment.
Calling internationally respected scientists cynical money grubbers based on your own false and myopic assumptions is definitely flamebait and I applaud the moderator for their good judgment.
I respectfully bow to your superior research, I should have known better from your sig. I still think your interpretation is a bit shakey but IANAL.
I think nations as the concept exists today must either merge, dissapear or self-destruct. International humanitarian law can only work while the powerfull nations abide by them (eg: Actually respected by the UNSC not just selectively enforecd), the most obvious problem is that powerfull governments are unwilling to expose themselves to an international criminal code. When a nation refuses to be subjected to international law, war becomes the only option to enforce the law.
Aggression, greed, revenge, zenophobia are all essential parts of human nature and we cannot remove them from ourselves let alone from others. I belive the aim of civilization should be to minimise the damage to life and limb that it or anyone else can cause to the individual. I don't for a second think this will happen, I belive war, over-population or pollution will permenently erradicate civilization not the other way around.
Yes they are, its also quite common for dogs in Qld to deliberately get stoned the same way.
Your " truly relevant passage " is nowhere to be found, the crucial phrase "shall not be regarded as protected persons", is not there either, it does however contain the reference as I gave it. Your "point of fact" is false and politically motivated, when you stop pulling quotes out of your arse maybe we can talk further.
The real Geneva convention and a wiki article on unlawful_combatants for future references and "points of fact".
Unlike some gun happy home owners a thief is not automatically violent, I'm sure most courts would find a hole in the head in exchange for stealing a dvd player seems a tad extreme. If you read the GP's statement that you quoted you would see you don't have to wait until your kid gets stabbed. It's ok to shoot a thief if you have a reasonable belief the aggressor is about to hurt you or your kids.
I would also posit that a soldier is carrying out the demands of his nation as a duty, war and execution are very different circumstance to murder. The politicians may be justifyably be seen as "murderers", but the soldier and executioner are just instruments of government policy.
Don't assume, look at the two references I gave, the one you quote is neither.
I must have had a reasonable science teacher, don't remember metals taught as a crystal but I do remeber being taught that glass is a very viscous liquid that sometimes behaves like a crystal (shatters), adding lead turns it from a liquid to a crystal.
typo, 4A.3
Re-read artcle 2 or article 4.3.