Manticore

Does this actually mean anything?

Why is that Wakefield shitsucker not in prison?

If I saw anything like that amount, I would feel seriously rich - my volunteer allowance comes to $1,608 per year - I just about manage on that.

Possibly (maybe only if they're ancient) - I haven't met any for years - most of the people I know these days speak Kiswahili and/or Sukuma. I remember reading somewhere that that's not because of American grammar as such. It's because Bill Gates has a reading age of about 14.

Me too. I decided decades ago that Americans do not speak English. Trouble is, neither do large numbers of Britishers any more.

Reality doesn't look very hierarchical to me at all.

Totally agree. +1

I've seen a distorting fairground mirror that was adjustable. Just an aluminised mylar front on a sealed box, connected to a foot pump. Pump air in, you get a convex mirror. Out and it's concave.

"God" is just a way of avoiding explanations.

The NGOs I work for depend on foreign donations. What we do not particularly like is when their representatives come out and tell us how to do our job. Mostly they haven't got a clue and are unwilling to listen to the people who do know.

In fact, it is only the females that bite humans. Only the anopheles mosquito carries malaria. How do I know: in 30+ years in Africa I've long ago lost count of the number of times I've had malaria - it gets to be just one of those annoying things...

The big problem with "The American Dream" was that it was everybody else's nightmare.

How old are you? I would guess between 12 & 16. I would try finishing your education - hopefully learning in the process just why your posts are drivel. (Lord Antares not only beat me to it, but said it better than I can.)

Where is the "Bang your head on the wall." emoticon?

1) It's pi not pie. 2) It's approximately 3.141... not 3.145... 3) The rest is complete garbage.

Synthetic diamonds are small at least partly because most of the things they are useful for don't require large ones.

I wouldn't call them "fakes" - a fake is something that is not real - they are real diamonds, just manufactured rather than found.

I know that, but they are in no way different to mined diamonds. The entire ornamental diamond industry was created by de Beers in the 1930s by a massive advertising campaign. Diamonds are intrinsically worthless, except for the deep psychological need they fill. -De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer

The point is that Christianity is so splintered that counting all of the (sometimes totally contradictory) sects as one whole religion is completely pointless.

Who are quite often at each others throats.

The price of diamonds is much weirder than the price of gold. If I buy a diamond for ornamentation, I could pay a (not so) small fortune. Yet I can get a diamond saw blade with thousands of them for $10.

I use this when anybody tries to preach to me. (Matthew 6) 5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. 8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. Verse 7 & 8 (my bold) work well on fundamentalists.

We know very little so far about the vast majority of planets we have detected. Here is another view of part of Earth (this one not photoshopped).

I remember that one too. Now I'm going to go crazy all day trying to remember who wrote it.

No objection to them carrying on as long as they don't bother the rest of us.