Dak

what if there were a blatant miscarriage of justice? wouldnt it be better to discuss (and therefore be aware of) it, rather than letting it slide by silently? On the other-hand, i do agree... he's been found innocent in a court of law: even if he did do it, he is now to all extents and purposes innocent and, unless a subsequent re-trial finds him guilty, should be treated as such.

All quotes from revprez Very briefly: untrue nonsensicle thats not exactly what i said, which invalidates the conclusion that you based upon it. i doubt it. if you were, then your refutations would likely be at least relavant, and you would be aware of the context in which things were said. OMFG, LOOK EVERY ONE: DAK CANT SPELL!!! for your information: wun + wun = too is still factually correct, dispite the fact that its spelt rong; my lack of ability to spell is irrelevant.

quite. even the fact that he shared bed with childeren, whilst perhaps indicitive of mental problems (when taken alongside his other behaviours), is not in-and-of itself a crime. As long as nothing innapropriate was done whilst in bed with the childeren. Personally, in my non-psycologists oppinion, he seems to have the mentality of a pre-pubesent child: so i can easaly see how he could share a bed with a child, and for it to be an entirely innocent thing. more directly related to the OP: pangalos mentioned the inportance of the eye witnesses. eye-witnesses are quite tricky to build a case around, due to the fact that its 'there word against his', and there can be alot of mistakes, from minor details to inportant ones. i think that in a case which relies heavaly on eye-witnesses, theres a tendancy to err towards 'not-guilty', just to be on the safe side (although this is based mainly on what iv learnt about the english & welsh jusrispurudence, and the same may not nessesarily be true in america). so it seems as if 'not guilty' may have been the more likely outcome from the start.

translates: no, im not reading any of your posts translates: Oh no! its possible that he has his opinions down on record, which could well prove me wrong. i know! ill ignore them. mwa ha ha. suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure you had. i dont think there is any evidence that they belived the hype. tu she, ne? Im not sure how you got that from what i said, but no: not nessesaraly. just out of interest, are you hitting the 'quote' button and reading my post from the reply box? if so, it wont show the quotes that make it clear what im talking about, and will also merge paragraphs together, resulting in paragraphs like the one you quoted. if so, i sujjest you read my post in the thread and THEN hit the quote button. Otherwize, a vast simplification of what i was saying would be: no, thats not what i said. youll have to wait a long time then, because -- wait for it -- THATS NOT WHAT IM SAYING. if you read my post before pressing the quote button, then the post makes more sence... ...you also get to see my quotes, so you know which part of your post im replying to, and so would, in fact, know what i was talking about. i agree with you, but for different reasons. i do quite like it, actually. it has a nice ring to it. 'diopoly'. oooooooooooh, i dunno... possibly because its relevant to what were discussing? maybe? just a thought.

Im still not going to expand upon the points about 'religiouse people who piss me off': it was merely a disclamer, with the sole intent of making it clear that i do not dispise all religiouse people. i feel it has achieved this, and needs no further discussion. if you realy want to discuss them, create another thread. were playing the 'lets make shit up about the other person' game, are we? well, i should have expected as much from someone who hates athiests as much as you quite clearly do. and is obviously a transvestite. from mars. brief recap of whats already been said: word 'can' was present; dont have anything against the majority of patriots. this makes no sence in the context of what you quoted. are you actually bothering to read my posts? or are you just picking snippets which you are under the delusional impression that you can construct 'intelligent' refutations to?

I know. which is why i quoted above, to show what it was in referense to. it was a refutation of your accusation that i was hostile towards religiouse types. this is a seperate issue, but one which i wanted to clear up, due to the fact that i am not anti-religiouse, as you accused me of being. re: the rest, i already said within the post that i wouldnt respond to anything that you say about them, cos i dont want to drag this thread off topic; however, i would like to point out that "religiouse people who try and stop people from doing things without actually bothering to read the bible" should have read "religiouse people who try and stop people from doing things because the bible says those things are bad, without actually bothering to read the bible themselves" Iv edited my post to fix it. Also, i dont know (and it is irelivant) wether you ment to imply it or not, but i am not religiouse.

^^ you dont know that he is guilty he could just be mentally odd in other ways (entirely plausable). considering the calibre of the lawyers involved, i doubt that the prosess followed was fair and correct. if justice was served, then it was a coincidence. but... maybe im a tad over-cynicle about lawyers.

Ok, i just want to quickly clear this up. these are my two original posts: youll note the inclusion of the word 'can' in those statements. i wasnt refering to all religiouse people, or all patriots. i believe i also explained later that the reason i was talking about extremists, was because there very extremeyness made their religiouse/patriotic aspects easyer to observe. i dont want to drag the therad off topic, but i wish to adress this just on the offchance that iv offended any religiouse people (other than revprez, who has arguably offended himself by chosing to take offence at what i said): here is a list of the different types of religiouse people who piss me off -- if your not on the list, then none of my 'careless display of hostility*' was aimed at you: ------------------------------ religiouse people who try and stop people from doing something because 'the bible says its bad', but who dont themselves live there lives according to the bible. religiouse people who interpret the bible to suit themselves, and then try and stop people from doing things that there custom-interpretation of the bible says is wrong. religiouse people who pick-and-mix which parts of the bible to follow, and then try stop people from doing things that part of the bible they have chosen to follow says is bad religiouse people who try and stop people from doing things because the bible says its wrong, when in actual fact the bible says no such thing. religiouse people who try and stop people from doing things without actually bothering to read the bible religiouse people who try and stop people from doing things because the bible says those things are bad, but who dont actually bother to read the bible themselves revprez <-- not religiouse ------------------------ If your not on the list above, then i appologise if you took offense at what i said. revprez: i am NOT going to adress any comments aimed at the above within this thread. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *the scare marks mean that im not actually admiting that it existed, revprez

all quotes from revprez I believed that iv already qualified my definition of those who take it too far, and cannot be arsed to do so again. If you believe that i have something against religion, then search for my username, and select 'philosophy and religion' as the only forum to search. select 'show results as posts' and have a savvy through what i have previously said about religion. im sure that youll find a slightly cynical slant, but overall i dont believe it will paint the picture of someone who is anti-religiouse. even if i did have something agains religiouse people, that wouldnt nessesaraly, inandof itself, invalidate my points group1=kfc owners. group2=potential consumers. assume for this example that the statement 'kfc is yummy' is untrue. by stating 'kfc is yummy', group1 is lying in an attempt to influense the beliefs and actions of group2. the beliefs of group1 itself are unaltered by group1s claims. whereas with patriotism and religion, where group1=patriots or religiouse people, any lies circulating in group1 are desighned to effect group1; the untruths are internally directed. no. i have respect for those who take there belifs seriously, whatever beliefs were talking about. i have little respect for those who pay lip-servise to a belief, or those who believe that there is a god and that he is vitally inportant but yet still cannot be arsed to read the bible. this is a complete inverse state of affairs to the one you assume above. again: you assume too much. yes i do. youv quoted the bit where i adress your 'point' right below the bit where you claim that i havnt adressed it. no. they do. see below, about diopolys (or my last post, about diopolys, for that matter). so why did you need it pointing out? instead of nit-picking at the exact wording of what i said, why not divine what i meant (which isnt actually that hard) and adress what i meant. when you taken three diferent paragraphs, remove the quotes that were inbetween them, and fuse them into one jinormouse paragraph, some of the meaning is invariably lost. if it irks you, simply do not do it in future. referense was made to the above elsewhere in the post. if your reply was in response to that referense, it would have been apt to have quoted that referense, as opposed to a random aside from a completely different part of the text which is making a different point. hmm... maybe grade 8 is different in america than to in the uk. in the uk, every 12-13 year old is in grade 8. theres not that much pride involved. i wasnt professing it as a fact. i was professing it as an observation. all the same, 'rezprez not acknowledging it" != "it never happened" do you know what a diopoly is? well, you know what a monopoly is right? where one thing is the exclusive posession of one entity? well, a diopoly is where one thing is the exclusive posession of two entities. none of the above charectoristics are ONLY present in both religiouse people and patriots. however, that particular set of charectoristics appear together with a high frequensy in both groups; which is true of no others (although they do appear indipendantly in other groups, or together with a low frequensy in other groups) im not sure what iv posted anymore: you seem to have succesfully contorted it beyond recognition. did you actually perform this thought experiment?

each to there own. the rats-wiskers one sounds fun, interesting and useful, with the added bonus that you get to work with rats without having to kill them. Id have put the gp41/HIV one down as well, but thats just a personal fetish.

All quotes from revprez no. i quite clearly stated that i have a 'beef' with people who take there religiouse beliefs too far, and explained why. i even scare-marked the 'beef', and added 'IMHuO' the first time i mentioned 'too far' and boldened and underscored the phrase 'taken too far' in my last post, simply to try and avoid the kind of misunderstanding which you seem intent on undertaking. blatant lies with the purpose of inciting people to buy products: not to re-enforse ones beliefs. 1/i was not refering to clergy and patriots in general, so it is innacurate for you to take my comments about extreme patriots/religouse zelots, apply them to all patriots/clergy, and then point out that it doesnt apply to the group of people who i wasnt claiming that it applied to; 2/the lies of a stand up are intended to amuse, and not be believed: they are not, therefore, decietful in your oppinion. ill admit that i am actually having trouble exactly articulating my point, but im sure that if you think about it really ****ing hard, you might begin to glean just a smattering of a clue as to what im getting at. unless your stupid semi-good point. yes, the judiciary also dictate our actions. not, however, our morals (generally); in addition, the judiciary also dont share any of the other charectoristics that iv mentioned. lol o lol o lol o ! your really streaching with that one. not such a strech to refute tho: the aside which you quoted out of context was commenting on the presceding line, which read "they [patriotism and religion] both have a tendancy to dictate ones morals and ones actions". when viewed in context, (ie, in reply to " they both have a tendancy to dictate ones morals and ones actions (in a way in which cooking and science very rarely do) " )your reply makes no sense: no referense was made to beuty or righteousness. but eight grade as a whole is not. religion and patriotism as a whole are. "i am proud to be a patriot" sounds like something that might be said. "i am proud to be in the eight-grade" does not. even if it did, thats just one of many charectoristics. ill point out at this juncture in time that at no point have i claimed that religion and patriotism have a diopoly on the above charectoristics. In future, please read my post carefully, and (if you wish to address the ideas in the post) please address the consepts contained therewithin. please do not address individual lines which are taken out of context, and please do not strech my comments to the point of breaking and then point out that they're broken. thank you.

Apparently, techniques like these are used to train the SAS to be resilient to torture in the event that they ever get captured. they are deprived of sleep, starved, forsed to stand for protracted periods of time etc. There is very little direct phisical abuse. apparently, many of these big, burly SAS men are redused to tears by the training. (source: variouse SAS documentarys, and personal correspondance that i believe to be at least resonably accurate) so id disagree with the 'light' part of your " 'light' torture " comment, blike.

No, i have absolutely nothing against either religion or patriotism. which is why i pointed out that i was talking about religion/patriotism TAKEN TOO FAR, as opposed to all patriotism/religion. typos are mistakes, and are not what im talking about here. but yes, there are lies and untruths present in all things. also, 'my way of belief is the best' is quite oftern associated with belief systems. i see your point; however, i dont believe that its present in many other areas to anywhere near the same degree as it is in patriotism/religion. if we stop talking of those who take it to extremes for a minute, and talk about the regular religiouse/patriotic people, there are still parrallells: they are usually central to ones life (in a way in which cooking and science very rarely are); they both have a tendancy to dictate ones morals and ones actions (in a way in which cooking and science very rarely do); they both generally carry with them the feeling that someone else who shares the belief is a better person for it (someone who can make an exquisit soufle will be viewed by other cooks as a great cook, not nessesaraly a great person; someone who is patriotic will be viewed by another patriot as a better person); both can cohese large groups of people, and bring them together/strengthen there bonds; and both are very emotional and pride-evoking belief systems. (ok, there is a parellel to science and cooking (respectively) in those last two, if we ignore the fact that cooking isnt a belief system) try and imajine someone who is patriotic to god and christianity, and someone who is religosly worshipful and devout of there contry, and you start to see the similarity between the two. try and imajine someone who is scientifical about their attetude to there contry, or someone who reads the bible like a cook book and there is very little similarity. id like to state again that i have nothing against patriotism or religion per se, nor against the vast majority of religiouse or patriotic people. you assume too much. the reason my posts may have sounded slightly negative was because i was examining the extreme religiouse/patriotic people, cos i felt the extremeness would make observing them easyer. i do have a 'beef' with a certain kind of extremely religiouse/patriotic people, but only because of there tendancy to believe that i have to live like a good religiouse/patriotic person just because they do, and there tendancy to tell me this in a very loud voice.

i assume that your defining 'real democracy' as 'american democracy'?

iv heard that they can explode with dangerouse violense.

i really dont see how science journals propogate lies. and, to clarify, im talking about intentionally propogating lies that support your own position. "were doing this because god said x" when really, no where in the bible does god say x; "our country rox a fat 1 because it was the first democracy" when it quite clearly wasnt. my aim was to point out that both religion and patriotism, when taken too far (IMO), are symptomatically identicle, with the sole exeption that religiouse people worship a god, and patriots worship their contry: both involve a high degree of believing that there way is the best, that there way is endorsed by a higher entity, that people who dont subscribe to there way are somehow lesser than they are; both involve a mixture of factual knowledge, beliefs and plain-outright-falshoods which are desighned and spread with the sole purpose of supporting the belief-system; both are controlling of ones life, and somewhat desighned to be so; both are used to justify atrocities; both evoke strong feelings in a person; and theres an annoying tendancy for both to try and enforse there beliefs upon others, convert others, and shout at others loudly if they disagree. oh, and no matter how logical and demonstratably true something is, if it contradicts the beliefe its somehow incorrect. working out a way to make it seem incorect is preferable, but failing that volume and/or reppetition will do. i'll remind you that im talking here of patriotism and/or religion gone too far, not all patriotism/religion. i'd like to see you parrellel that to cooking. even cooking taken too far to the extreme.

the 'usless parralells' is more applicable to your own than to mine; religion and patriotism actually propogate lies (i avoided this word before because i didnt want it to sound like i was accusing demosthenes of lying), and those lies are self-serving. note the presense of the word 'can' in my original statement. im not sujjesting that all religion and/or patriotism is self-servingly descietful, just that, when taken to extremes, they oftern are.

first time they try and update, a two-way firewall will pop up a message asking if its ok to let them. i always say yes, but never 'always allow this program'. that way, i get informed everytime they try and update (the exeption being anti-viruses, which update every day and that i kinda trust not to put junk on my pc).

no you didnt. is patriontism like religion? yes. both can go to your head, and both can propogate self-serving non-truths.

getting past firewall: if zonealarm (or any other program) actually request an update over the internet, then a one-way firewall (such as is on your router) will allow the files to be delivered to your computer, what with them actually having been requested by your computer. a two way firewall will ask your permission before allowing the program to ask for the updates over the internet. I dont know wether zonealarm has a built in bypass so that its own firewall can access the update thingy without asking, or wether you may have clicked the 'always allow this program acess to the internet' jobby when zonealarm first asked for internet access. Ha. ha-ha, ha. ha. the active protection of microsoft antispyware probably doesnt consern itself with preventing automatic updates, and aslong as it could be done without modifying the reg, then theres no reason why M$ anti-spyware would notise. just out of interest, was this zonealarm or zonealarm pro? iv never had the program updated without my knowledge (AFAIK), its always popped-up a message telling me a new version is available, and that i should download it and update.

cos your post is stored on the internet, and google searches the internet.

I know ***Slapps bettina for worrying too much*** --------------------------------------------------------------------- * although i think that this is truer of generic crimes: due to the nature of the crime in question, i personally think that this option should be avoided in the cases of the worst paedophilia.

I agree that if the crime is seriouse enough, the perpetrator shouldn't be let out. but for the ones that are, i think we just have to accept that theyve served there time, and cleaned there slate. If its that likely that theyed reoffend, then they just shouldnt be let out. if there going to reoffend, dont let them out. if theyre not, let them out and let them live where they want. i know its not as black and white as that; but i kinda get the feeling that when legislature like this is introdused, its done so in an attempt to satisfy both approaches. legally, they have to be let out 'cos theyve served there scentance. but lots of people dont want them out. solution? let them out, but strip away there freedoms. both sides are kinda satisfied. i dont have that much sympathy for the perpotrators for there loss of freedom, but i do think that its a hypocritical way of dealing with it... what is the legal system doing, leting people who will reoffend out of jail, or restricting where people who arent likely to reoffend live? anyway, this is supposed to be there second chance at being law abiding citisens. why make it harder for them by shunning them?

i say, stop them from having jobs as teachers etc, but let them live wherever. if the parent is worried about theire childeren, then they should drop them off and pick them up from school rather than letting them travel on there own, or give them the 'dont go off with strangers' talk. anyway... all that the above legislation will achieve is that theyed have further to walk if they wished to reoffend.

you assume that you can continue to break things down infinitely, which isnt nessesaraly true. Im not a fisixy person, but i think its possible that you get to the point where you have a base thingy, which is not made up of smaller things, or where any further devision would be arbitrary. also, even if you could divide matter ad infinum, that wouldnt make us fundamentally made of nothing. The divisions could get smaller and smaller each time, forever approaching but never reaching 'nothing'. i think what you get, if you continually break down what were made of, is energy. or do you mean that 'we' dont exist, because theres no single entity that is 'i' or 'you'; they are all just collections of many other things? I guess you could say, in that case, that we all exist intangiably: which is pretty grovy as it would make us the only tangable intangables AFAIK.