Dak

same here. you bastards gave me a heart attack.

OI! what do you mean, 'expendable'?

so is it just the case that whichever presidentual candidate gets the most votes gets in, or is it like the british constituensies but with states instead of constituensies? actually, british politics is quite unforgiving on inadequate leaders: the second a leader fails his party, he is out. william hague lost leadership of the conservative party after they failed to win the last election, and blokey McBlokey (cant remember the last conservative leaders name) had to step down after loosing this last one. tony blair has led the labour party into its third consecutive term in office, which is the first time labour have achieved that, although hes also lost a significant number of the labour votes to the lib dems and a number of constituensies to both conservatives and lib dem, so oppinion as to wether hes done a good job and should stay or a terrible job and should step down is mixed within the labour party. for now, his intention seems to be to run for a significant amount of this term, but if he screws up anytime soon he may very well be called to step down, in which case gordon brown will likely replase him as pm.

i'd have thought that a little tub of preservative-free jelly (jello, if your from the us -- although i suppose preservative-free (us) jelly (jam in the uk) would also work) would be a better home-culture-madium.

it certainly seems that way; labour won loads of the piddly little constituancies. ive allways been curiouse as to how it works in the us; anyone mind giving me a summary? oh, and what the hell are the local elections (in the uk) for?

okey dokey, basically the country is divided into areas known as constituencies. people can run on behalf of the parties in as many constituencies as they like, with labour, conservative and liberal democrats having representatives running in every constituency, and minority parties such as green piece and the british nationalist party running in some constituencies, and not others (for example, in my constituency, only labour, conservative, lib dem and the uk indipendance party ran). now, whoever gets the most votes in the constituency runs that constituency and becomes a member of parliment, representing the constituency in parliment: for example, in my constituency the person with the most votes was the bloke representing lib dem, so he will go to parliment and represent the views/needs of his constituency, and as he's affilated with lib dem, he will also represent lib dems ideals in parliment. the first thing that the members of parliment will vote on is which party runs the country; broadly speaking, whoever gets the most votes from mps is incharge.(im not sure wether thats actually how it works, but that seems to be whats going on -- if anyone wants to clarify?) there are 646 constituencies in the uk, which means for an overall majority a party needs to be elected into atleast 324 constituencies: if this is the case, then they automatically win the election (ie, if labour wone 324 costituencies, then they would have 324 members of parliment who would all vote for labour to govourn the country -- as thered only be 322 votes left, the vote would go to labour) labouor wone 356, giving them the overall majority they need to rule the country: HOWEVER only 35.2% of the voters actually voted for labour (the closest other party was conservatives, with 197 constituensies and 32.3% of the votes), meaning that labour now hold the record for the lowest share of the votes that ever resulted in an overall majority. full results can be found on this page labour lost alot of constituensies/votes to the conservatives and lib dem. and in short: yes, blair will be serving another term (his last, as hes retireing after this). personal note: i think its appauling that labour got such a majority with only about 3% more votes than conservatives.

im pretty sure that the y chromosome doesnt do anything after we leave the womb, and in females one of the x chromosomes shuts itself down, so both men and women prettymuch have just one functioning x chromosome, to all extentes and purposes. oestrogen is the precursor to testosterone, so both men and women posess it (its just the quantities that are different)

BUMP! (on the assumption that this info is useful to you guys, for advertising or summit) i wanted to know if anyone had any info on whether retriction enzyme genes functioned in eukaryotes, (on which theres no published data) i typed 'science forum' into google and joined about three forums to post my question. then i had a savvy all around this forum 'cos it seemed interesting and the replyers to my question seemed to have a groovy balance of sciency knowledge and happy-happy-fun-funness. goot hooked on the hillariouse 'myth of human evolution' thread starring willow, and 'ta-da': one more member. By the way, we're the first search result for 'science forum' in google now

i was only sujjesting one person with absolute authority in a few limited areas, such as tax. and i still think the constitutions a bad idea. take guns for example. im not saying that the populance should be allowed guns, or that the populance shouldnt be allowed guns. all im saying is that the populance should be allowed/disallowed guns based on what makes sence. NOT on the fact that a pice of paper written yonx ago in entirely different circumstances says that people should be allowed guns.

HA! like in america you mean, where a document which originally ensured that civillians would have access to weapons to defend themselves in the event of a bandit attack (coincidentally, many settlements had a central arms depo where the firearms were kept, and the civillians were only given them in the event of an actuall bandit attack) nowadays insures the legal right of criminals to own and carry handguns, which are a lot smaller and concealabe than the firearms which existed when the constetution was written? ideas can be changed to adapt to the changeing situation. bits of paper cannot, or at least cannot be changed as easaly.

all i can say is that jaja-binks best justify his inclusion in the first two films by dying a horrendouse death in this film.

thats the point of democracy; however, i think that democracy has its flaws, the weekness of having to pander to public desire, rather than catering for public need, being one of them. the non-elected leader would get around this flaw, and could work in conjunction with an elected ruler.

Oooh, i forgot about that. whens it come out in the uk? dan dan dan, dan dandan, dan dandan, DAN DAN DAN, DAN DANDAN, DAN DANDAN. dadaDA, dum, DA! da dumdumdum: dum dum, (doo doo) d'daDUM: doo doo, da de-dum, da de-dum (do do dbloodoDUDUDU, do do dbloodoDUDUDU) etc.

ha! that was lucky then. both her post and yours were very long, and after reading hers i couldnt be bothered to read yours as i assumed thered be nothing in it that id disagree with. so the fact i didnt repeat you was lucky as my edit line probably sujjests, it took a while to figure out (bloody latex). most the stuff in latex makes vague sence. a backslash prescedes a symbol, and the name of the symbol in usually logical (for innequity, its \neq (not equal). so i just tried a few possibilities (\ineq, \n=, \ne etc) till i got it. the latex end tag is [/math], and the beggin tag is [math]

definately. as a kid, i was prettymuch as smart as i am now, which is rare. most people gradually increase in intelligence; i just shot up really quickly and reached my maximum potential when i was really young, so i was much smater than my peers and smarter than some of my teachers. this made me feel all superior inittially but as i got older i realised that inteligence isnt that important. basically, if i had been arogant, then i would have not ackknowledged this, as i would have wanted a belief to back up my arrogant feelings of superiority. hence my belief that arrogance is a trait in its own right, and indipendant of intelligence.

assuming no change in the rate of population growth, which is absurd. no, look. if something is changeing at rate x now, it does not follow that it has always been changeing at rate x. so none of your extrapolations are valid. in fact, S-curves are quite common in nature, whereby an initial change is slow, then followed by a rapid rate of change and culminating in another decrease of rate. example: population increase. so you cant extrapolate like that. plus, im not sure what the moon has to do with evolution? 1/niagra falls hasnt nesessaraly been around since the dawn of time, 2/it would be further back than where? how do you know where it started? 3/how did you reach the assumption that it should be further back? you need to tell us your logic, we wont just accept your assertations as accurate. icicles [math] \neq [/math] stalagtites. sorry if i repeated hellbender at any point.

see? anyway, if what you said was true, id assighn the arrogance to the power, not the intelligence.

its based on lol rofl, meaning Laugh Out Loud, Roll On Floor Laughing.

ahh, so less like a democracy and more like a council of wize-people. i like it. but i think it would be a tad difficult to impliment. apart from the question of how youd construct the aptitude test, it could introduse a kind of cast system feeling in the country, whereby some people have a say and others dont (unless, i suppose, you base it on carrers: a vote amongst people whos job involves money (accountants, economisists, buisnessmen etc) on the matter of tax would sound logical and probably not piss off those who couldnt vote, but then could you trust a group of people which contains many buisnessmen to give a fair, non-self-serving vote as to the tax rate?) if alot of people are voting, the tax cut would be unfeasable; if not many people are voting, then it would raise complaints for being 'undemocratic'. and as for forsing people to vote, what would happen to those who refused to vote?

i agree that with current communications technologies people could have their say more oftern and vote on more issues, but their votes needent be the only factor in the desision. they could be taken into consideration alongside other factors, maybe overruling reasons to accept polocy x if the vast majority were in favour of polocy y, unless the reasons to accept polocy x were great enough to justify ignorring public oppinion etc. is that what your saying(im having a strange moment and cant quite understand your reply -- my bad, not yours)? on a completely different approach from direct democracy: i think that there should be a life-long ruler in charge of things like tax, and implimenting other unpopular desisions; without fear of not getting re-elected, he/she would have uninhibited ability to raise taxes if nessesary, thus avoiding all this poncing about privatising public serveses, introdusing stealth-taxes, cutting costs in spending etc.

sour grapes! im still annoyed at that from personal experience, people are arrogance is indipendant of intelligence, and if someone is arrogant then theyll find some reason to back up their view that they are better than most. if theyre arrogant and intelligent, theyll claim that their intelligence is relivant and makes them better than others. if theyre arrogant and athletic, theyll claim that theyre athletisism is relevant and that it makes them better than everyone else. if theyre arrogant and average, then theyll make up some reason, or claim that the fact that they are white is relevant and makes them better than others etc. in other words, intelligent doesnt nessesaraly equate to arrogance. thats my 3 cents anyway.

just because most creationists are loons, doesnt mean that this one is, or that his points wont be valid. no. i didnt notice the word the first time round, i had to think for quite a while before i figured what you were talking about, and ultimately i had to ask my housemate who duly informed me that 'scientifical' isnt actually a word; im by far the last person who would/could make fun of someone for their useage of the english langualge. it was aimed at the assertation that the theory of natural evolution has no scientific evidence to support it: lolly roffles

ps: lol