PhDP

It certainly looks like torture, which is enough to cause problems to many people. I'm sure it's going to be seen as another act of arrogance of the Bush administration.

It was just a joke... (based on a true fact). "Recent research conducted in Italy, Spain and France found that many Catholics consider the sacred Scriptures as something 'reserved for the clergy' rather than as an accessible resource for them to draw upon for truth and inspiration in their own lives" - Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Catholic Bible Federation.

I'm curious. Why can we say, on this forum, that a book/a speech/an idealogy, is absurd for reason X or Y, but we can't do this when it's a religion ?

Catholics don't read the bible, it's not good for the faith

...and even if we had more than anecdotes to support the effectiveness of torture, Bush ignores (yet again) the public opinion of most of the industrialised world. It will certainly hinder cooperation with other countries in the so-called "war against terror", just as capital punishment prevents cooperation (many nations refuse to extradite people to countries where they might face execution if convicted).

High taxes + ban on smoking where it can hurt other people = enough for me. I don't like the idea of a license. If smoking only affects the smoker, and if he's paying for the smoking-attributable health care costs, then it’s not my business. ...but come on, it's definitely not "fascism". Anyway, smokers are already killing themselves, no need for a final solution.

...but Kosovo was already indepedent, not on paper, but in practice. Why would the U.S. (or the U.N.) need to invest more money now ? The reason why the U.S. support the independece of Kosovo is simply because reconciliation was impossible, and the statu quo would not have lead to peace. Nuclear war ?? It's just nonsense. Putin isn't a genius, but he's not THAT crazy. What do you mean ? What if they can't defend it ?

Congratulations. We in Quebec never had the guts to do it.

MIT and McGill, for the culture as much as the quality of education.

The U.S. are much more conservative than the rest of the industrialized world, it's actually normal to see Americans complaining about a liberal bias. And of course, wikipedia must be biased somehow, I'm just not sure it's worst than any other encyclopedia.

I only own two textbooks on economy but I like them both. "Comparative Economic Systems" H. S. Gardner. It gives a good idea of the major economic systems in the world today, they also cover all regions at least to some extent. But it's quite old, so I guess I should be looking for a new book on comparative economic too . ...and "Macroeconomics" by W.A. McEachern. It's a straightforward introduction, very little math, lots of examples, it covers the essentials.

Of course, homosexuality is the most important "issue" in the world today. And their article on evolution is hilarious. They seem to think like Colbert; "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

You have no moral obligation to save the Iraqi from a problem caused by people you elected ?

Probably, Chess is a very tactical game, it's made for computers . I just started to look at Go, it seems great ! Are you a good Go player ?

I remember very well, and I remember that I gave you several quotes from nonpartisan groups.

Hu Jintao

Blut und Boden, eh ?

Paul seems to really like historical revisionism, first their was the amendment that allowed Congress to levy a direct income tax (hint:...it doesn't exist), and now; [Lincoln] did [the civil war] just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic. ...

If he's doing this for 20-30 minutes, it's downright incompetence

It has already been done here. I score about -7/-7

I don't have any official rating yet. I'm rated a little below 1700 on FICS/ICC.

yep, that would be very interesting, but as I said I'm quite new, I know the stalemate rule for less than 1 1/2 year How strong are you, and where do you play ?

It's easy to forget that Bush was elected in 2000 in part because he was seen as a guy capable of working with democrats & republicans. He was the compassionate conservative, a republican from the corporate world. Even with the rise of the christian right, I'm sceptical about the chance of any candidate openly aligned with the christian right. How can Huckabee appeals to moderates ?

I'm just curious to see how many people are playing chess here. I started recently and I really like it. It's a very good concentration training, I'm not surprised they're introducing it in elementary schools.

Dear evil mooeypoo, Many catholics thought being left-handed made you a servant of the devil, in fact satan is often picture as left-handed. As nuns were still controlling all the schools not so long ago… When the good nuns were giving you something, you had to take it with your right hand. You might think they had other things to do, but no, they didn’t. Taking with the left hand was, at best, considered "impolite" and, at worst, a behaviour that had to be repressed. However, the practice of oppressing left-handed people was losing popularity when my father entered school in the 1950s, at the time they had found other more amusing targets (women’s right, among other things). But still, there was a firm belief among many catholics that it should be repressed. My maternal grandmothers suffered much more from this stupid custom, she was hit by nuns until she could write with her right hand like all "normal people". iNow, About the prevalence of Christianty, I think your chart might be misleading. According to Adherents.com; Many Muslims (and some non-Muslim) observers claim that there are more practicing Muslims than practicing Christians in the world. Adherents.com has no reason to dispute this. It seems likely, but we would point out that there are different opinions on the matter, and a Muslim may define "practicing" differently than a Christian.