The WTO has NO PLACE WHATSOEVER in this issue. It's simply trying to override the
sovereignty of an independent state/nation. No, the WTO is trying to arbitrate a trade dispute between member states. I'm not a big fan of some of the agreements and organizations the US has signed on to (ie, NAFTA), but the WTO is in the right here. It there was a universal ban on gambling, there would be no issue, but this is no different than say, Japan allowing the Japanese to buy only Japanese cars, and banning the import or purchase of American cars, while at the same time heavily advertising Japanese imports to America. Americans would have the right to be upset. The gambling market is a market just like any other.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a sham. A joke.
MOHAMED ELBARADEI? Yeah, he's really helped stop the proliferation of nuclear arms. It's been under his ostensible watch that we've had more proliferation than at any point since the 50's.
JIMMY CARTER JR., Yeah, the great peacemaker. Actually the great underminer, since he's done his best to undermine every administration since he got booted out. Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43 all had to put up with this bitter, meddling old man.
KOFI ANNAN...another abject failure. He sure helped deliver peace in Rwanda! Kofi and the Rwandan genocide
YASSER ARAFAT...oh, my aching side. Yeah, great idea, lets give a mass murdering terrorist a Nobel Peace Prize. Question: did violence increase or decrease after Oslo?
In any given year, the Nobel committee has about a 50-50 shot at naming a worthy individual, or naming a joke. This year they chose a joke. Even if you are a ardent believer in environmentalism, it has nothing to do with peace between nations.
Not really surprising. The Nobel Peace Prize really should be renamed the Nobel Anti-American President Prize, since the primary motive of giving it out the last few years has been to try and embarrass whoever happens to be leading the country at the time. I mean, Jimmy Carter? Al Gore? And what about Yasser Arafat? Yeah, 3 guys that have really contributed to world peace. The teacher that breaks up the schoolyard fight is more deserving than those three.
Candidate #2. At least with him, you have a shot at having a voice (though it may cost you). With candidate #1, you are shit out of luck if what you want does fit his drug addled agenda.
Can you provide references about the tire slitting? http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=295538
A dumb, overzealous kid could be at fault, or there could be evidence of a wider conspiracy It wasn't just one overzealous kid, it was several...5 people in total. Oh yeah, they weren't just kids. Their ages ranged from 21 to 36.. The happy ending to the story is they ended up getting jail time. Now, I'm not alleging nor do I believe this was a concerted effort by the Democratic party to disenfranchise Republicans, but it certainly is a real, concrete example of Democratic party members actively disenfranchising Republicans.
My conclusions about Doc Ruby come from previous exchanges with him. He's a particularly bitter partisan who's modus operandi is to call anyone he disagrees with evil and fit for death (in fact, I think in one post he invited me to commit suicide, but sadly, that gem of an example of what a great human being he is has scrolled off my post reply history).
My personal view is that conservatives, liberals, right-wingers and left-wingers all have legitimate issues and illegitimate issues. My interest is in constructive debate with rational people. DocRuby isn't one. For example, lets take a debate like welfare. The classical liberal argument for welfare is that we, as a wealthy society, have an obligation to help those less fortunate, especially children. Assistance, when done correctly, can help break the cycle of poverty and many of the associated ills that plague society along with it. The classical conservative argument is that welfare fosters dependence, and rather than breaking the cycle of poverty, it actually entrenches it by reinforcing helplessness (curse of unintended consequences). Those are positions where the merits of each can be argued on facts. Core to both arguments is the underlying goal...actually helping people (and which strategy or collection of strategies works best). Here's how Doc Ruby conducts the debate: when you question the effectiveness of current welfare policy, he accuses you of wanting to commit genocide on poor people. I mention this because 1) you seem reasonable, and 2) you defended Doc Ruby. You can't debate, reason, or compromise with folks like him. If you disagree with him, you are evil in his book. End of story. He's a moral absolutist with the instincts of an Catholic Inquisitor. He just happens to subscribe to a left wing ideology.
Campaign crime, you partisan fool Pot meet kettle. Campaign crime, non-campaign crime, the difference is irrelevant. Corruption is corruption. Crime is crime. Why is it ok for Kennedy to kill someone and then try to cover it up, but Sununu cozying up to donors is verboten? But if you are looking for Democratic campaign crimes and not finding any, you aren't looking very hard. Clinton and Gore and the donations from the Chinese military come to mind. Or how about how Bill Clinton's pardoning of four Hasidic Jews led to a traditionally overwhelmingly Republican enclave in NYC going 99% to Hillary during her Senate run...or how about the Daley machine in Chicago? Or dead Indians voting for Daschle in South Dakota (but at least the voters there wisened up and threw him out on his ass)? You gotta love it when you get over 100% voter turn out. Vote early, vote often. Then there was that little incident where Democrats were caught slitting the tires of Republican get out the vote vans.
People like you Doc Ruby don't want to end corruption and crime, you just want a monopoly on it.
And my point is that if you only worry about the other side's corruption as an electoral goal, you aren't fixing the problem of corruption, you're just monopolozing it. And if your sole objective is anybody but Bush, you may get what you asked for, but not what you ultimately wanted. I'm no fan of Bush, but I disagree vehemently that you have to dig deep to find someone worse. I think Hillary would be worse. I think McCain would be worse. I think Guiliani would be worse. In all the ways that Bush is bad and in many where he isn't. Except maybe public speaking. They have him beat there.
You know what? The remaining Kennedy clan could split up and go on a killing spree that would make Charles Manson blush, and I'd vote a straight blue ticket just to get that fucking Bush and his people out. Byrd could burn a fucking cross on the lawn of Kweisi Mfume and Hillary could burn down the West wing, but as long as I do my part to make your party of crooks as dead as the Whigs, I'll be happy. Thanks for proving my point. Said another way, I personally wouldn't vote for Hitler over Hillary, but apparently you would vote for Stalin over Bush. The amusing thing is your befuddlement that people on the other side of the fence will act the same way you will. All you can see is the other side's faults and have willful blinders on regarding your own. And so it ever was. Maybe Apophis will reset the human race. We certainly need one.
I'm not sure what you mean about Ted Kennedy: where's his campaign crime? Surely you aren't that stupid? Oh wait, it's Doc Ruby, you really ARE that stupid. You're the guy that thinks Republicans have baby blood dripping from their fangs and Democrats walk on water.
Maybe you heard about a little incident called "Chappaquiddick". Where an intoxicated Senator Kennedy drove off a bridge and into the water. He managed to get out of the car. Mary Jo Kopechne, however, did not. Kennedy's behavior was a profile without parallel in cowardice and negligent criminality that directly led to the death of Kopechne.
And it's not just Ted Kennedy. Pretty much the entire Kennedy clan is unbelieveably tainted. Joe made his fortune by bootlegging and running stock scams. He may have not been the Pablo Escobar of his day, but he certainly rubbed shoulders with that crowd. The deal Joe made with the mafia to help JFK get elected isn't exactly a secret.
Yet the Kennedy clan is basically untouchable in the Northeast. No matter how many people they kill or how bad they screw up (Ted isn't the only alcoholic / drug addict / drunk driving Kennedy that keeps getting re-elected), the folks in Massachussets and Rhode Island just love their Camelot Kennedy family.
Of course no one wants their pork cut. But why do people elect people who have been shown to be lying or cheating even in the act of asking for their vote? How about you tell me? I guess a little bit of murdering, a little bit of whoring, a whole lot of boozing, and a whole lot of lying is ok so long as they vote the right way when it comes to abortion, welfare, gay marriage, and comprehensive immigration reform? I mean, how else can you explain why feminists carried water for Billy Bob Clinton even though he was an inveterate sexual deviant with a documented trail of sexual harrassment. Who cares what he's like with is personal life and that he personifies the type of person that feminists supposedly abhore...he fought the good fight on where it really mattered... Why is a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, Robert Byrd, embraced by the Democrats and the left? Because he votes the right way. Why has Lieberman been ejected from the Democratic party, even though on every single issue except the war in Iraq, he's quite liberal? It boils down to, vote the "right way", and all manner of personal and professional malfeasance can be ignored.
Of course these politicians will do anything for power. But when they're caught, what's our excuse for ignoring their criminal careers when we vote for them? You mean like Ted Kennedy? Time and time again, it's been proven when people talk about cutting pork, removing corrupt Congressmen and Senators, they mean cutting YOUR district's pork and YOUR corrupt Congressman and Senator, not their own.
A foreign national being arrested by his own government and turned over to us because they claim he's a terrorist is not the same thing as being arrested for making anti-Bush statements. Try again.
And next time, try to use an example a little better than someone who acted as a unwitting courier for terrorist organizations, which absent any other exculpatory evidence is sufficient for detention during war time with said terrorist organizations. Even better would be an example of an American citizen rather than a foreign national (since a foreign national really isn't in a position to "voice dissent"). Anyways, like I said, you're engaging in mastubatory persecution fantasies.
Three words: Sami al-Haj Reading is fundamental. To whit:
So tell me, when was the last time someone was identified as an enemy combatant and jailed without trial (where they were presumably waterboarded) simply for criticising Bush?
The case of Sami al-Haj is complicated, and he may be innocent. Nevertheless, he wasn't imprisoned because he uttered some anti-Bush statements.
While undoubtedly there have been innocent people swept up and stuck in Gitmo, the idea that "dissenters" (who amount to about half the population) have anything to fear from the "Secret Police" is nothing more than a self-flattering group fantasy. They have deluded themselves into thinking that dissent is dangerous and that in turn they are doing something noble by "putting their lives on the line" by saying "Bush sucks". All this persecution that the libtards are feeling is a prison created in their own heads. The anti-Bush folks drove up to the edge of the cliff back even before 2000 and drove off without a pause into the inanity of hyperbole. It's idiotic and the people who follow it are idiots engaged in moronic group think...and I say this as someone that doesn't even like Bush.
Given the tremendous number of people, famous and otherwise, that criticise Bush on a daily basis and do so with impunity, I think the onus is on you to prove the allegations rather than for me to disprove them.
That's what they will do to you when you are shuffled off to a room or thrown into jail without trial or charges as an "enemy combatant". How does that happen? Just say something bad about GWB. So tell me, when was the last time someone was identified as an enemy combatant and jailed without trial (where they were presumably waterboarded) simply for criticising Bush?
Not to sound like a bible thumper but should we really be playing god with something we barely understand. Well, since it's pretty clear you don't understand it, it's probably a good idea that you don't go off and play around with it.
In answer to your question "While this is an amazing break-through what will happen if this guy has offspring?", the answer is nothing. At least, nothing different than if he hadn't had stem cells implanted. For there to be any difference, there would've had to have replaced the spermatogonia.
Said another way, a person has more opportunities to exercise control over their checkbook than they do over whether or not the sky falls on top of them. While I think it'll be difficult to find a lot of people that actually look forward to being irradiated or poisoned to death, as a practical matter, it's more fruitful to worry about your finances and do something about that rather than worrying about the 200 tons of waste radioactives that may be stored 800 miles from your house that in 15,000 years, may pose some sort of existential threat to some post-apocalyptic society that survives on. In addition, and this is sorta the key point, IF YOU CAN'T SOLVE YOUR LIMITED CHECKBOOK PROBLEMS, WHAT IN THE HELL MAKES YOU THINK YOU'RE CAPABLE OF SOLVING CLIMATE CHANGE? Besides, of course, unwarranted hubris.
I think not being poisoned and irradiated to death is more a more fundamental concern than the balance of my (nonexistent) checking account, but maybe I just have screwed priorities. I think the clinical definition for your malady is called "irrational phobia". Economic deprivation kills far more people than radiation does.
Maybe I'm weird, but I don't expect the people who are trying to "fix" the Earth, i.e.: climatologists to have an expert opinion on running a balanced budget. I don't really have enough information to assess whether or not you are weird, but your post doesn't bode well for your intellectual capacity. First off, the "balancing a budget" reference is an analogy. Specifically, how can we expect people to solve a complex and poorly understood problem like climate change when we are unable to solve simplistic and well understood problems. Balancing a budget, after all, typically requires nothing more than some simple math skills and a little bit of discipline. But it is beyond the grasp of most individuals and governments.
And regarding climatologists, I'll use another economics analogy. Take someone with an income just above poverty level who is spending above their means on basic things like housing, clothing, transportation, and food. If a financial planner were to analyze situation the same way a climatologist or, worse, they same way an eco-freak would, they would recommend as a solution that our man of the hour: abandon his house, walk everywhere (assuming he has the energy), eat his refuse, and quit his job. And then they wonder why they have trouble convincing people to eat shit.
It seems asymmetric, but then, the situation is. There is an asymmetry in the consequences of being right vs being wrong.
If I hand you a bottle of an unknown chemical and say "go on, drink it, I think it's safe." and somehow says to you "He's a good guy, trust him." and someone else says "He's a liar, don't trust him." you're stuck with what might seem (in Fair and Balanced land) like an even choice. But, you see, the truth is that you have many choices of things to drink, and the cost of not drinking is miniscule, while the cost of drinking could be fatal. So I'm betting you won't drink it. Even though it looks like symmetry. Vizzini: But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You've made your decision then?
Vizzini: Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.
Man in Black: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Vizzini: Wait til I get going! Now, where was I?
Man in Black: Australia.
Vizzini: Yes, Australia. And you must have suspected I would have known the powder's origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You're just stalling now.
Vizzini: You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong, so you could've put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you've also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work.
Vizzini: IT HAS WORKED! YOU'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE POISON IS!
Man in Black: Then make your choice.
Vizzini: I will, and I choose - What in the world can that be?
Vizzini: [Vizzini gestures up and away from the table. Roberts looks. Vizzini swaps the goblets]
Man in Black: What? Where? I don't see anything.
Vizzini: Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No matter.First, let's drink. Me from my glass, and you from yours.
Man in Black, Vizzini: [they drink ]
Man in Black: You guessed wrong.
Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
Vizzini: [Vizzini stops suddenly, and falls dead to the right]
Buttercup: And to think, all that time it was your cup that was poisoned.
Man in Black: They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.
I think what the parent meant is that there is no small amount of hubris on the part of people who think they can "fix" the Earth when they can't handle more fundamental things like balancing a personal checking account, or, on the aggregate, run a balanced national budget.
Are you fucking kidding us? No.
These guys came up with, y'know, little things like zero Actually, Hindus came up with little things like zero. The Arabs simply propogated it to the Europeans.
and the scientific method Actually, the scientific method as recognized today has nothing to do with Arabs or Islam. And empiricism started long before Islam (and, empiricism and cause and effect are pretty foreign concepts to Islam today).
They made the Europeans of the time look like slobbering barbarians. That's because Europeans of the time WERE slobbering barbarians. Post-Roman Europe was in full stage collapse by the time the Arab invasions started. Almost all of the cities were being abandoned, agriculture collapsed to stone age levels as far as productivity per acre goes, populations declined precipitously, and the complexity of society and the economy that existed under Roman rule collapsed. London in 250 AD had a population of almost 100,000 people. By 600 AD it was a ghost town. We're not talking about an environment conducive to scientific research and technical advancement.
The question is why, over the last 600 years or so, that has been almost completely reversed. Follow the money. The Islamic empire (like most empires) was built on plunder. Once the plunder train stops, stagnation sets in.
The answer must lie elsewhere. For instance, maybe it's Islamic fundamentalism, or Islamic dogmatism that are to blame - and, if so, then perhaps there is a lesson there for America, which (at least as I see it) is becoming more fundamentalist and dogmatic... Sure, dogmatism and orthodoxy are largely to blame for the stagnation of Islam. But fundamentalism was also, historically, one of Islam's strengths. It's why Islamic armies were, in the beginning, able to defeat much larger and better equipped Persian and Eastern Roman armies. And people who fear "American fundamentalism" are idiots on par with folks who fear UFO abductions. A citizen in the United States has never had less involuntary exposure to religious motifs and belief than he or she does today. You guys need to get over the fear that the public utterance of the word "God" by a public official is the prelude to the institution of a religious oligarchy on par with the Mullahs of Iran. And I say this as absolutely non-religious atheist myself.
But by dismissing quantum physics as `Jewish Science' Hitler wrote his own death warrant. There is no alternative history of WW2 where Germany wins: it's just that Hiroshima would be a small town in western Japan famous for a floating gate, and Berlin would be famous as the scene of the first active nuclear explosion. This was actually irrelevant. Germany didn't have the electricity production capacity to spare to an industrial atomic program, nor did they have the uranium. The US, at the end of 1945, had the ability to build 3 Fat Man'sand a couple Little Boy's a month.
Either the Earth came into existence several billion years ago or several thousand. It can't be both. Sure it can, depending on the relatavistic velocities between two observers. Maybe God is moving at.99999999999999C and thus because of time dialation, it's only been a few thousand years for him (or her or it).
That being said, religion and science ARE related in so far that religion and science are both, in many ways, attempts to explain the why's and how's. Religion took a mystical path, while science has taken a rational path. Because of this, in cases where they are trying to describe or explain the same thing, they will be in perpetual conflict. This poses problems for religions like Islam, which with the Koran and the Hadiths are advertised as being everything you need to know about everything (and thus, any attempt to improve upon that knowledge is de facto heresy).
Slashdot Mirror
Wow. The first sighting of sane, non-dogmatic Democrat on /.
The fabled unicorn has been found!
The Nobel Peace Prize is a sham. A joke.
MOHAMED ELBARADEI? Yeah, he's really helped stop the proliferation of nuclear arms. It's been under his ostensible watch that we've had more proliferation than at any point since the 50's.
JIMMY CARTER JR., Yeah, the great peacemaker. Actually the great underminer, since he's done his best to undermine every administration since he got booted out. Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43 all had to put up with this bitter, meddling old man.
KOFI ANNAN...another abject failure. He sure helped deliver peace in Rwanda! Kofi and the Rwandan genocide YASSER ARAFAT...oh, my aching side. Yeah, great idea, lets give a mass murdering terrorist a Nobel Peace Prize. Question: did violence increase or decrease after Oslo?
In any given year, the Nobel committee has about a 50-50 shot at naming a worthy individual, or naming a joke. This year they chose a joke. Even if you are a ardent believer in environmentalism, it has nothing to do with peace between nations.
Not really surprising. The Nobel Peace Prize really should be renamed the Nobel Anti-American President Prize, since the primary motive of giving it out the last few years has been to try and embarrass whoever happens to be leading the country at the time. I mean, Jimmy Carter? Al Gore? And what about Yasser Arafat? Yeah, 3 guys that have really contributed to world peace. The teacher that breaks up the schoolyard fight is more deserving than those three.
Candidate #2. At least with him, you have a shot at having a voice (though it may cost you). With candidate #1, you are shit out of luck if what you want does fit his drug addled agenda.
My conclusions about Doc Ruby come from previous exchanges with him. He's a particularly bitter partisan who's modus operandi is to call anyone he disagrees with evil and fit for death (in fact, I think in one post he invited me to commit suicide, but sadly, that gem of an example of what a great human being he is has scrolled off my post reply history).
My personal view is that conservatives, liberals, right-wingers and left-wingers all have legitimate issues and illegitimate issues. My interest is in constructive debate with rational people. DocRuby isn't one. For example, lets take a debate like welfare. The classical liberal argument for welfare is that we, as a wealthy society, have an obligation to help those less fortunate, especially children. Assistance, when done correctly, can help break the cycle of poverty and many of the associated ills that plague society along with it. The classical conservative argument is that welfare fosters dependence, and rather than breaking the cycle of poverty, it actually entrenches it by reinforcing helplessness (curse of unintended consequences). Those are positions where the merits of each can be argued on facts. Core to both arguments is the underlying goal...actually helping people (and which strategy or collection of strategies works best). Here's how Doc Ruby conducts the debate: when you question the effectiveness of current welfare policy, he accuses you of wanting to commit genocide on poor people. I mention this because 1) you seem reasonable, and 2) you defended Doc Ruby. You can't debate, reason, or compromise with folks like him. If you disagree with him, you are evil in his book. End of story. He's a moral absolutist with the instincts of an Catholic Inquisitor. He just happens to subscribe to a left wing ideology.
People like you Doc Ruby don't want to end corruption and crime, you just want a monopoly on it.
And my point is that if you only worry about the other side's corruption as an electoral goal, you aren't fixing the problem of corruption, you're just monopolozing it. And if your sole objective is anybody but Bush, you may get what you asked for, but not what you ultimately wanted. I'm no fan of Bush, but I disagree vehemently that you have to dig deep to find someone worse. I think Hillary would be worse. I think McCain would be worse. I think Guiliani would be worse. In all the ways that Bush is bad and in many where he isn't. Except maybe public speaking. They have him beat there.
Maybe you heard about a little incident called "Chappaquiddick". Where an intoxicated Senator Kennedy drove off a bridge and into the water. He managed to get out of the car. Mary Jo Kopechne, however, did not. Kennedy's behavior was a profile without parallel in cowardice and negligent criminality that directly led to the death of Kopechne.
And it's not just Ted Kennedy. Pretty much the entire Kennedy clan is unbelieveably tainted. Joe made his fortune by bootlegging and running stock scams. He may have not been the Pablo Escobar of his day, but he certainly rubbed shoulders with that crowd. The deal Joe made with the mafia to help JFK get elected isn't exactly a secret.
Yet the Kennedy clan is basically untouchable in the Northeast. No matter how many people they kill or how bad they screw up (Ted isn't the only alcoholic / drug addict / drunk driving Kennedy that keeps getting re-elected), the folks in Massachussets and Rhode Island just love their Camelot Kennedy family. Of course no one wants their pork cut. But why do people elect people who have been shown to be lying or cheating even in the act of asking for their vote? How about you tell me? I guess a little bit of murdering, a little bit of whoring, a whole lot of boozing, and a whole lot of lying is ok so long as they vote the right way when it comes to abortion, welfare, gay marriage, and comprehensive immigration reform? I mean, how else can you explain why feminists carried water for Billy Bob Clinton even though he was an inveterate sexual deviant with a documented trail of sexual harrassment. Who cares what he's like with is personal life and that he personifies the type of person that feminists supposedly abhore...he fought the good fight on where it really mattered... Why is a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, Robert Byrd, embraced by the Democrats and the left? Because he votes the right way. Why has Lieberman been ejected from the Democratic party, even though on every single issue except the war in Iraq, he's quite liberal? It boils down to, vote the "right way", and all manner of personal and professional malfeasance can be ignored.
A foreign national being arrested by his own government and turned over to us because they claim he's a terrorist is not the same thing as being arrested for making anti-Bush statements. Try again.
And next time, try to use an example a little better than someone who acted as a unwitting courier for terrorist organizations, which absent any other exculpatory evidence is sufficient for detention during war time with said terrorist organizations. Even better would be an example of an American citizen rather than a foreign national (since a foreign national really isn't in a position to "voice dissent"). Anyways, like I said, you're engaging in mastubatory persecution fantasies.
So tell me, when was the last time someone was identified as an enemy combatant and jailed without trial (where they were presumably waterboarded) simply for criticising Bush?
The case of Sami al-Haj is complicated, and he may be innocent. Nevertheless, he wasn't imprisoned because he uttered some anti-Bush statements.
While undoubtedly there have been innocent people swept up and stuck in Gitmo, the idea that "dissenters" (who amount to about half the population) have anything to fear from the "Secret Police" is nothing more than a self-flattering group fantasy. They have deluded themselves into thinking that dissent is dangerous and that in turn they are doing something noble by "putting their lives on the line" by saying "Bush sucks". All this persecution that the libtards are feeling is a prison created in their own heads. The anti-Bush folks drove up to the edge of the cliff back even before 2000 and drove off without a pause into the inanity of hyperbole. It's idiotic and the people who follow it are idiots engaged in moronic group think...and I say this as someone that doesn't even like Bush.
Given the tremendous number of people, famous and otherwise, that criticise Bush on a daily basis and do so with impunity, I think the onus is on you to prove the allegations rather than for me to disprove them.
In answer to your question "While this is an amazing break-through what will happen if this guy has offspring?", the answer is nothing. At least, nothing different than if he hadn't had stem cells implanted. For there to be any difference, there would've had to have replaced the spermatogonia.
Said another way, a person has more opportunities to exercise control over their checkbook than they do over whether or not the sky falls on top of them. While I think it'll be difficult to find a lot of people that actually look forward to being irradiated or poisoned to death, as a practical matter, it's more fruitful to worry about your finances and do something about that rather than worrying about the 200 tons of waste radioactives that may be stored 800 miles from your house that in 15,000 years, may pose some sort of existential threat to some post-apocalyptic society that survives on. In addition, and this is sorta the key point, IF YOU CAN'T SOLVE YOUR LIMITED CHECKBOOK PROBLEMS, WHAT IN THE HELL MAKES YOU THINK YOU'RE CAPABLE OF SOLVING CLIMATE CHANGE? Besides, of course, unwarranted hubris.
And regarding climatologists, I'll use another economics analogy. Take someone with an income just above poverty level who is spending above their means on basic things like housing, clothing, transportation, and food. If a financial planner were to analyze situation the same way a climatologist or, worse, they same way an eco-freak would, they would recommend as a solution that our man of the hour: abandon his house, walk everywhere (assuming he has the energy), eat his refuse, and quit his job. And then they wonder why they have trouble convincing people to eat shit.
If I hand you a bottle of an unknown chemical and say "go on, drink it, I think it's safe." and somehow says to you "He's a good guy, trust him." and someone else says "He's a liar, don't trust him." you're stuck with what might seem (in Fair and Balanced land) like an even choice. But, you see, the truth is that you have many choices of things to drink, and the cost of not drinking is miniscule, while the cost of drinking could be fatal. So I'm betting you won't drink it. Even though it looks like symmetry. Vizzini: But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You've made your decision then?
Vizzini: Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. Man in Black: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Vizzini: Wait til I get going! Now, where was I?
Man in Black: Australia.
Vizzini: Yes, Australia. And you must have suspected I would have known the powder's origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You're just stalling now.
Vizzini: You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong, so you could've put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you've also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work.
Vizzini: IT HAS WORKED! YOU'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE POISON IS!
Man in Black: Then make your choice.
Vizzini: I will, and I choose - What in the world can that be?
Vizzini: [Vizzini gestures up and away from the table. Roberts looks. Vizzini swaps the goblets]
Man in Black: What? Where? I don't see anything.
Vizzini: Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No matter.First, let's drink. Me from my glass, and you from yours.
Man in Black, Vizzini: [they drink ]
Man in Black: You guessed wrong.
Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
Vizzini: [Vizzini stops suddenly, and falls dead to the right]
Buttercup: And to think, all that time it was your cup that was poisoned.
Man in Black: They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.
I think what the parent meant is that there is no small amount of hubris on the part of people who think they can "fix" the Earth when they can't handle more fundamental things like balancing a personal checking account, or, on the aggregate, run a balanced national budget.
It looks like we are in violent agreement then.
That being said, religion and science ARE related in so far that religion and science are both, in many ways, attempts to explain the why's and how's. Religion took a mystical path, while science has taken a rational path. Because of this, in cases where they are trying to describe or explain the same thing, they will be in perpetual conflict. This poses problems for religions like Islam, which with the Koran and the Hadiths are advertised as being everything you need to know about everything (and thus, any attempt to improve upon that knowledge is de facto heresy).