Walsingham

*bows politely*

Er.... *boggled* I too have wondered why on Earth I'm spending so much time echieving levels in something that has no point to it. This is why in general I play for storyline and characters. And why I haven't bothered finishing Oblivion, even though I paid forty quid for it. If there's one thing more frustrating than slaving for hours so I can be a badass, it's slaving for hours and NOT being a badass.

I sympathise with your perspective, but as Macchiavelli said "You can't move a man's donkey without messing with his ass." And no man enjoys government doing that. Or to put in a more coherent way, sure governemnt could move to reign in industry and teh developing world, curtail population growth... but they'll get booted out as soon as may be.

One can compensate for a small sample size if the size of the change is very large. So the statement "we are experiencing a significantly different global climate now to ten years ago" becomes possible.

I'm betting he sells icecream.

I do think it's a little daft to support a guy for his religious beliefs or lack of them. It seems to be symptomatic of our five second attention spans that we are constantly looking for some 'easy' decision maker on who we vote for arther than expressing our views, educating ourselves, and making informed decisions. Which, again is really the fault of the media for being so lazy.

How would changing the election process for the executive branch effect the legislative branch, which is already majority ruled, in such a way that they would seek to radically alter the Constitution? No state has more than 2 senators and the House is already based on population of the state in question. I was talking about government as a whole, rather than the slightly odd (to a Brit) subdivisions you persist in.

You write your constitution to guarantee certain righst and protections to all. Then you make sure the constitution can only be changed by such an overwhelming majority that democracy is the best chance the minority has. Certainly in any state where a huge majority, over a long period of time, wishes a minority harm sooner or later they will get their way. Bar outside intervention, of course.

what about nuclear waste? there's still no way of disposing it, they just put it in underground vaults and hope it'll go away. out of sight out of mind indeed. nuclear power is just stupid, sure it's cheap but the drawbacks are huge. maybe not for us, but to future generations. We (the human race) are about 10-20 years away from commercially-viable fusion power. Nope. What we need to do is create a cost effect transit for the nuclear waste and hurl it into the sun. Transport nuclear waste materials to an orbital platform thensend it into a trajectory that will make it impact into our sun where it will be burned away. It's a LOT less risky to put it in a subduction zone and let the Earth swallow it back down to(wards) the Mantle, where all the Earth's radioactive materials are, in situ. Or, as has been elucidated before, the Australian continent (for one zone) has been stable -- for the past, oh, 400 million years or so -- and is a perfect place to build containment. Just build the price of containment into the cost of production, and the process will pay for itself. Aha, so THAT's your plan, you filthy weasel! Mutant batsmen.

Let's try to be as clear headed as possible on this. All candidates should be judged (in a society which guarantees freedom of religion in its constitution) independently of their religion. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/40/story_4080.html?rnd=33 "I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."

Thought: could it be the stirring of long dormant dragons?

I think the correlation with industrialisation is quite clear. Correlation never implies causation, but there is the fact that there is a logical reason why industrialisation should cause an increase, as Mkreku says. Global warming seeems to be an acceptable hypothesis until someone proves otherwise.

Sap counts for blood. REALLY! TREES BLEED FOR YOUR PANCAKES! You're like a Satanic John Wayne, baby!

I would suggest Reddy Brek.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5149676.stm This constantly puzzles me. I was anticipating someone here making a better case than the green lobbyists I've come across. My problem is that I've talked to, and been shown the numbers and assumptions of those in favour of nuclear power and you just can't do the numbers any other way. If you want to lower fossil fuel emissions while not sending the economy into three day weeks then nuclear is the only way. It's far from perfect, but in what weird alternate reality are we where we expect perfection? Green (alternative) power just does not add up.

I don't believe so. We are a community. A certain amount of shaking hands, greeting and goodbying is understandable. It's not like we're buried under such notices.

We have a winner! LOL

*fails resist urge check* Guns don't kill people. _I_ kill people.

I might observe that if one is aware one's arguments are daft one could always not make them. For example, if the electoral college is the blockage, how on earth do you propose fixing it if not by voting? Moreover, I believe I am correct in thinking that the electoral college only applies to the big two main parties. You can always vote for an independent. I mean for ehaven's sake you ahve an untapped 50% of the vote going free.

Which would be even more hilarious. Or perhaps something about attendees of a traffic commission running late. I especially love peace rallies that erupt into violence. Don't do a kite festival on the india-pakistani border is all I'm saying. I'm reminded of Ed Byrne, who becomes incensed by the Alanis Morisette about Irony - which isn't ironic! None of the examples of irony given are actually anything more than annoying. Unless, as he observes, the whole point is the irony of a song about irony that isn't.

Sando, this is precisely what frustrates me. You either have a high quality defence force or you don't. You can't turn it on and off like a switch. If you think there are occasions on which you do need to fight then you'd better convince everyone of high calibre to sign up. Because it's no good expecting to ramp it up on the fly. The 'problems' you mention (which are clearly debateable, but valid in concept) are the responsibility of those to whom the executive is responsible. i.e. the voting public. The argument that in teh US your votes count for nothing seems rather undermined by the tiny margin your president was elected on in the first place. We have by-elections here decided by the equivalent. I'm not suggesting a democrat would be terrifically different, but I hope you're not suggesting they would be identical.

As I say, given that there's pod all we can do about it I think its rather academic.

I can't believe this has turned into a serious discussion. It was like "Food safety conference called off due to salmonella outbreak".

Well, we have had actual murder attempts, and even contract murders using cars in the UK. Personally I think that yes, they are about the most useful (if not perhaps the most deady) weaopn a civilian can own. Once you factor in transportability, the lack of a 'threat profile' and so on.

I think it is a mark of the superior quality of the members that they feel it relevant to say hello and goodbye.