Dak

I agree that turkey shouldn't join the eu atm, pretty much for the reasons you gave. However, as i understand it, turkey have made many changes for the better in an attempt to join the eu, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union so i think the actual act of them joining should continue (but not succede untill they've actually sorted out their human rights issues, and acknowledged cyprus i suppose -- dont know too much about that) as far as secularism goes, its secular compared to it's neighbouring states, which admittedly isn't that hard

hehe, lol... anyway, i still dont think this justifies routine infant circumsizion... shouldn't they be allowed to grow up and make the descision for themselves as to wether they want to augment their protection with circumsison, or rely soley on condoms? foreskins are groovy, so it is a sacrafice of a body-part for safety, and not one i think the parents should choose to make, espescially as the kid wont be exposed to the risks untill he's old enough to make his own desision.

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha :snort: mwa ha ha hee he he he he he he he he he he he he, haha hee :snicker: tee hee, sorry

not to mention the fact that one of the other nations that has been to space, and dropped probes on the moon, would have undoubtably probed the 'alledged' landing spot to prove it didn't exist, just so they could point at america and laugh at their gullability, were there any reason to actually believe this were a hoax. or is this supposed to be an international hoax?

ok, to clarify again, when i said racist, i meant racist as in 'discriminates based upon race', not neccesarily 'racist' as in 'someone who does that is a racist'. theres a subtle difference, and the difference is the difference between someone who will consiously discriminate based on race, and someone who, consiously, believes there to be no significant difference between races that makes one more worthy than the other, but, subconciously, still has the inclination to discriminate. the first part of john's post illustrates, imo, why it's useful to recognise this instinct as racist (which, imo, is obvious to the point of being a tautology: an instinct that discriminates based upon race is racist): even people who, conciously, believe the two skin-colours to be equal can still be predisposed to racism/can actually be racist, even without realising it, and it raises a few significant questions, such as 'to what extent does the racism manifest itself', 'how to stop it', 'does it actually make the person a bad person', etc. fwiw, imo the answres are 'too often', 'with a stick', and 'no', but whatever the answres, i think they're inportant questions to ask, as are the questions 'do i have this instinct' and 'how do i guard against it'. passing it off as 'natural, and thus ok' is, imo, brushing a legitimate concern under the carpet and accepting it -- tho, as i think was skeptic's main point, labeling someone as 'racist' for having this instinct would be too unforgiving and over-zelous, imo. agreed. but, are you trying to apply this thinking to non-parents? also, reguardless of the reason, racism is still racism in effect. and if it can manifest itself in one way, like john said it might manifest itself in others. ph33r the ninja-pc-lawyers a shiruken of +1/+5 against NPCs whizzed past my ear as i typed it </overly obscure 'humour'> but it is a natural instinct that we would all have (at least, the more dominant ones of us) if we didn't actively suppress/over-ride it. like i said, i wouldn't feel the inclination, having displaced the instinct with the belief that rape is wrong; but it's an instinct that i would, naturally, have had were it not for consious intervention, i suppose. my point was just that it's possible to deny what would naturally be ones instincts, which aren't allways correct. if your natural in-group is white and out-group black (or vica-versa), and you give prefferential treatment to your in-group, then it is, by definition, racist. like i said, it doesn't neccecitate you to belive that one skin-colour is superior to another, so it doesn't make you a racist, but its still racist, and can still make you act racistly.

rape and murder are also 'instincts at work'; the fact that something is instinctive doesn't make it neccesarily ok. racist = discrimination for/against someone/people based on their race. if your arguing that people would prefferentially and instinctively save a baby that looked like their own, then that's one thing, and not, imo, racist in spirit, as is more to do with emotions and similarities in appearence (tho unless you're a parent with one black child and one white child, it'd still be racist in effect) if your arguing that people, even without childeren, would prefferentially and instinctively save a baby that, phenotypically, suggested that it has a more-similar genome, then yes, this is natural, but also it is racist in this case (given that its giving prefferential treatment to ones own skin-colour at the expence of the other). if someone chooses a white baby with blond hair over a white baby with ginger hair because they, themselves, have blond hair, then this is inherently discriminatory in the same way. like i said, having a bit of inherent racism doesn't exactly make you a nazi, but it's still racist, by definition. i certainly wouldn't hold what someone chose to do in a split-second, working under pressure and on instincts, against them, as long as they suppressed any racist instincts they had at other times, but its still racist. anyway, it's not neccesary to obey ones instincts. as a male, it'd be instinct to rape any attractive females that i come across, as long as i wont get caught by any bigger males. no matter how short-a-time i was given to make my descision, i'd never bow to this instinct (or even feel it, tbh, having displaced it with the belief that rape is wrong)

i dunno... if you truly dont see any fundamental difference between white and black people, then shouldn't the question read as more-or-less 'there are two childeren, which do you save' or 'there are two childeren, one blond and one ginger, which do you save'? ie, picking at random would be the only option. it's not racism if a black guy happens to go for a black baby and vice-a-versa, as choosing randomly will give a 50/50 chance of that anyway, but, if they actually state that there prefference is to save someone of their own colour over someone of a different colour, i think that implies a certain amount of inherent racism..? not that inherent racism makes you racist, per se, anymore than a preinclination to violence means that you neccesarily go around beating people up. all you can expect of people is that they try to control their less plesant aspects, not that they dont have them, nor that they can't be forced out in certain situations. but, i think picking a colour to prefferentially save demonstrates that a fundamental distinction is being made between people of different colours (hence my comment to aardvark wasn't 'you are a racist shit') mind, i can see skeptic's point about being a parent and saving the one that is the same colour as your own child.

maybe that you value or feel kinship for whites at least a little more than blacks? i'd save either.

doesn't it depend on the processor? my mate's laptop's processor can take up to 90oC

No worries i'd say that they were allways a cripple, but that it only becomes relevent when, say, navigating stairs. at all other times, it's a 'background fact'. and, obviously, being a cripple doesnt prevent them from simultaniously being other things. ah, i was talking about reffering to them as, eg, 'a cripple' only when the crippleness is relevent. eg, if you're making arrangements for a trip, you might ask if there are any cripples going (so you could check if the bus and venue are wheel-chair accessable), any vegitarians (so that you can make sure the after-venue restaurant has a veggie meal), etc. in this case, i, personally, wouldnt care what else the cripple/veggie was, as, as far as arrangements are concerned, the fact that they're a cripple/veggie is the only relevant thing. the cripple is 'just a cripple', the veggie 'just a veggie', and the others 'just numbers'. if your going to label them as 'cripples' whenever you, say, speak to them, then i can see that that's a problem. but, still, i dont see how 'a crippled person' is any better than 'a cripple' at stopping people doing this. obviously, actually speaking to them, i would place less/no emphasis on the fact that they're a cripple/veggie. sorry to harp on about this, but i'm still not understanding your OP: im still thinking that not seeing the justificaton behind the suggestion that 'crippled person' is acceptable whilst 'cripple' isn't.

this is getting into semantics (actually, i'm not sure thats relevent, given the conversation), but you can refute that by thinking of people as divided into, to choose the one that i can spell, 'cripples' and 'able-bodied' and calling it 'motility', just as you can divide people into 'male' and 'female' and calling it 'sex'. just because a word doesn't exist for, for example, 'non-schizophrenic' (except the misnomerish 'normal') doesn't stop it being persieved as an attribute... i agree, but also think that exactly the same could be said about 'a cripple'. note that 'dustbin man' actualy includes the (masculinised) word 'person', as per your suggestion, yet still has this stigma associated. also, by your argument, females, being labelled with a discriptive noun, and having ignorant stigmas attatched, should be reffered to as 'a female person'? i dunno... i'd object to being defined soley as male, or as an introvert, or as currently unenployed, or as english, or whatever... but, i'd acknowledge that these are attributes that I posess. so, i am, for example, 'a male', but i'd object to being defined as 'just a male'; i assume it's the same with cripples etc. btw, sex is not something that you chose. I agree to an extent, but i think it's context-sentsitive. to use your example, in a retaurant, it's entirely acceptable to treat someone as 'a waiter'. outside of work, however, it'd be wrong to treat him as a waiter, as, of all his attributes, this one is no longer relevent. same with cripples: going up stairs, its relevent that they're 'a cripple'; after you're up the stairs, it becomes irrelevent, and should be treated as such. that's because most people are idiots. i'd assume this is because people assosciate phisical handicaps with mental ones... either way, whilst i agree with most of what you're saying, i still dont see how switching from calling someone 'a cripple' to 'a crippled person' will help. people can, if they're stupid, interpret both 'a cripple' or 'a crippled person' as 'someone who is crippled, and that's all their qualities', or 'someone who is crippled and thus is also <insert crap here>'. I dont see how the phrase 'a crippled person' lends itself to this kind of inaccurate association/over-labelling less than 'a cripple'. just to clarify, i meant that those associations are commonly believed by people, not that they're believed by me. Im not sure, but, iirc, HIV is more common amoungst strait non-junkies now anyway. yes, but, again, what is it about the label 'a crippled person' that is superior, in terms of affecting how you see and interact with them, than the term 'a cripple'. btw, i think i get your point about 'there being no such thing as a cripple', in that it's an adjective, and not a noun. what i meant about descriptive nouns (as in, adjectives used as nouns), is that it implies a noun... 'a cripple' can't actually exist, as it's an intangable condition, so its required that it implies 'a crippled <noun>' for it to make sence. in this case, it's obvious that the noun is 'person', 'human' etc... so, i guess what i'm saying could be viewd as 'why does explisitly stating "person" make a difference'? does it actually make ignorant perceptions less easy? i think not, as, stated or not, the 'person' bit is there either way, and you can see groups that have no label (hiv-infected-people) or have a label explicitly stating the noun (dustbin men) just as easily inappropriately/ignorantly pidgen-holed. (sorry that was so long)

if you find one of the 'recover deleted files' programs, then you could recover the temp file (something like ~name.tmp, or ~name.doc, can't remember which, usually in the folder the document is in iirc), and then try opening it with word.

a couple of chem ones: Se dion freddy Hg

lol @ chavminster. gutz and snail, my point was that, at some point, i'm sure contractions such as "you're", "shouldn't", "no.", "i.e.", etc, were viewed as 'lazy corruptions of the english language', yet now they've been adopted as standard. Thru is considered a 'lazy corruption' in en-en, but is widely used and understood none-the-less, and, iirc, is the standard in en-us, and actually makes more sence than 'through' as far as phonetics is concerned. maybe, in the future, stuff like b4 will have gained the same exceptance as 'thru'?

Toe-knee blair alan titmarsh rolf arse (you have to say it a bit of a british-country accent) karma electron

I think you missed my point glider: see, this seems inconsistant to me... why is someone who is male 'a male' but someone who is schitzophrenic not 'a schitzophreic'? 'male' and 'schitzophrenic' are both attributes that one can possess... why does posessing one attribute make you an <attribute-based-descriptive-noun>, whereas posessing the other makes you an <adjective-form-of-attribute> person? and, change the examples from 'male' and 'bus-driver' to something like 'a dustbin man' or 'a woman', and you start to get them used as 'labels' more... dustbin-men and women both have 'labels' and stigmas attached. consider this rewording of your quote: Because a schitzophrenic is a schitzophrenic and a cripple is a cripple. However, a person who is male is not 'a' male. They are male, but they are not 'a' male. In the same way, someone may drive a bus, but they are not 'a' bus-driver. There is no such thing as 'a bus-driver'. There are people who drive busses, but there is no such thing as 'a bus-driver'. It's an incorrect and inaccurate use of the term that has resulted in people being incorrectly classified as their job (whatever it may be). see where i'm coming from? that may be true; but, if one accurately interprets the label as meaning 'a person who posesses this quality, amongst others', then it's ok. If they interpret the label as 'a person who posesses only this attribute', 'this attribue', etc, then it's bad. my question would be, why does 'a cripple' encourage people to incorrectly interpret the label as 'a person who's main defining quality is that they're crippled', whereas 'a crippled person' doesn't? which also illustrates my point: there isn't, afaik, a succinct labelly term for people with AIDS, yet we still have a 'label': someone with aids = aids with some skin and bones wrapped around it, usually that is gay or a junky. if theres a stigma, incorrect label, or over-emphasis on one attribute of a person, then i can see that that's wrong; however, what i dont see is how calling someone 'a cripple' or 'a crippled person' would affect wether-or-not you're going to make one of those mistakes... like you said: Changing the terminology doesn't make people any less ignorant. which is why i dont quite get why you're also saying that the term 'a cripple' is incorrect

to put another spin on the debate, 'wotz' the difference between the above highlighted 'lazynesses', and stuff like l8r, wot, thru, m8, etc?

i see it less as labelling AOLspeak as an 'acceptable' way to communicate, and more of an accepted incorrect way of communicating. eg, what of a person who's gramma, sintax, and mastery of the english language is uber-great, BUT, they rite liek this in teh xam? i think it's arguable that they should get points for their gramma, sintax, and mastery, but not for their ability to write proper english (as they wouldn't have demonstrated it). look at it like this: four english students take an exam, and their equal in all respects barring one: student a writes his exam in perfect english student b writes his exam in AOLspeak studen c writes with my level of speling aptitude student d writes in german. student a would, obviously, get top marks. student c would get good, but not top, marks (due to the poor spelling -- it's english, but not proper english) student d gets no marks, 'cos he hasn't written in english -- proper or otherwize. where does student b, with his AOLspeak, go? i think equating it to german, ie completely not english -- is unrealistic, and that it goes better in the same category as crap spelling: accepted 'inproper' english. in other words, all their saying is that, like bad spelling, AOLspeak doesn't stop somthing being english, it just makes it poor english. also, i'm not sure wether this is english language or english literature that they're talking about... if it's english lit, then all that is required is that you can analyse and understand literature; the ability to actually use english should be irrelevent (eg, you can write an essay on english literature in german, french, spanish, etc, and have it be equally demonstrative of your ability to analyse eng.lit. as an essay in english).

I dont see how calling someone a cripple or skitzo rather than a crippled person or a skitzophrenic person is any different from calling someone a bus-driver or a male rather than a bus-driving person or a male person. In all those cases it's obvious that they're people (as, for example, potatos can't be crippled, skitzophrenic, or male, and can't drive busses), and it's also obvious that they can have more than the one quality -- cripples and skitzos can have more attributes than 'crippled' and 'skitzophrenic', same as males can have more attributes than 'penis', and bus-drives do more than drive busses. in short: i dont see how using a discriptive noun rather than an adjective + 'person' makes a difference to how you think. take people with, say, HIV or cancer... like you said, they aren't reffered to as an 'AIDSer', or a 'becancerd', but theres still the same potential, imo, for stigma as with 'cripples' and 'skitzos'

from the article:

from the article, it sounds as if you'd still be penalised for it. eg, a good answre, in proper english, = top marks. a good answre, in crap english = ok marks same as the fact that you get docked for spelling mistakes, but, unless your spelling is so abysmal that you can't be understood by the examiner, you'd still pick up marks if what you're saying is worthy.

pc is a stupid misconception. there's no-one out there trying to stop people from daring to draw attention to someone's skin-colour by reffering to them as 'black people', nor trying to make us reffer to midgets as 'differently heighted', nor reffer to fat people as large however, listening to some people, you'd think that theres an elete team of invisable pc-ninjas that'll jump out of the nearest bush and arrest you if you happen to say that, say, in some areas, black people are disproportionately responsible for crime (how un-pc ) PC of the 'midjets should be reffered to as vertically challenged' and 'dont ever, EVER, say anything bad about a minority, no matter how justified' variety exists only in the mind of the masses. a lot of (possibly most) people belive that a significant amount of people would find, say, the term 'disabled' un-pc. most people think these people are idiots. however, you can never actually find these people, only the people who think that they exist. nor can anyone ever explain exactly why the fact that something is alledgedly un-pc actually means we shouldnt say it. the stupid thing is that lots of these people actually get into positions such as tv-programmers, publishers, etc, and so we see this adherence to the (presumed) pc rules actually permete our society. I've actually seen a scientific book avoid using the term 'negros', 'differently abled' on an official document from an enployer... it's silly... I suspect that they do it to avoid the 'invisable pc-ninjas' getting them, which actually adds some credence to the assumption that these ninjas exist... people who actually -- heaven forbit -- use the term 'disabled' dont actually get punished atall. the pc-ninjas dont exist. we dont have to refrain from most of the 'un-pc' stuff; the majority of 'pc' is a myth. the original intent in this country, afaict, was simply to change stuff like 'postman' to 'postperson' to stop inherent/subconsious sexism, and to disallow derogatory terms in official documents. another thing -- tho this is anecdotal, in my experience people to whom the term actually reffers are much more likely to be offended by the pc term (such as 'differently abled') than the non-pc one (disabled)

wouldn't logic fit in philosophy of science?

are there actually histological/cytological differences between the types of cancers? i thought that, with the exeption of leukemia, cancer was essentially a big blob. the effects of the big blob would be different depending on where it was -- a big blob where there should be brain would be worse than a big blob where there should be muscle, for example -- but i thought that it was allways the same big blob ?

some people can smell cyanide. if this guys a paranoid ex-spy, it's likely that he knows that cyanide smells like rotten/bitter almands, and if he's one of the people who can smell it, he'd know if he was about to eat something laced with cyanide. from the looks of it, polonium can work as a contact poison (or a 'remote' contact poison, i suppose, as he wouldn't actually have to come into direct contact with it), making it's application easyer. also, it's apparently very difficult to detect, 1, which is reminiscent of the last KGB killing in the uk of Georgi Markov(where ricin was used, which was, at the time, either undetectable or very hard to detect, i forget which). [pure speculation] it also apparently seeps-out in body fluids (ibid), so i guess maybe they were trying to bump his wife off aswell? presumably, at the dose he got, his semen and sweat could have been fatal? also, there might be a dose of polonium which will cause enough radiation-induced mutation to cause massive cancer, which will reveal itself (and kill him) relatively quickly, but not so quickly that the target would find himself in hospital before any trace of polonium had left his body, thus making the poison effectively undetectable by the time it was looked for -- possibly leading to a record of 'natural death', and that the assasin just messed the dose up. [/pure speculation]