Sisyphus

No, they'd say, "Don't spin your statistics at me!" Generally the debate centers not on whether the government should help them, but on whether the government should allow them to help themselves. Or alternately, whether the government should "help" them by artificially making the consequences much, much worse, thereby discouraging the "crime," despite the fact that there's no evidence at all such measures reduce the instances of this "crime."

What kind of explosions then?

Well, offhand, God tells the Jews in Exodus and Leviticus to engage in total war against the people who were already living in Israel, and to violently repel other religions, leaving no one alive.

Not if it was far enough out there. It would be far too big an orbit to clear. Sure, it would suck stuff in in the immediate area, but so would anything else, just in different sized areas.

We have rules that you can't post for the purpose of intentionally provoking someone's anger, or "trolling." When it looks like someone is doing this, an admin generally asks the person to be civil. If they persist, they can be banned, temporarily or permanently. Is that censorship? If so, then I think it's a reasonable form of it. Anyway, it's an honest question. Even the ACLU will have me removed from their lobby if I just stand there screaming obscenities...

How about post-ejaculation, pre-fertilization? Unless you intervene, most of the time that's going to be a kid. That was your criterium before, wasn't it? And I think his "proof" comment was more regarding your use of the word "design."

Nothing would make your stomach explode. At worst you'd just vomit.

I'd probably do away with the last one altogether. And the first one is grammatically incorrect, but I guess that's not the point. None of those are particularly bad on their own, though they don't make a "case against Islam" and shouldn't be used as such. It might be a good idea to be more specific than just "Islamic." Perhaps "Salafist" or something, where appropriate.

I don't like that definition. Much too vague. What counts as "clearing?" Even Jupiter has the Trojan asteroids. And what if we find some 10 Jupiter-mass object waaaay out in the Kuiper belt? Will that be a "dwarf planet" as well?

I think the distinction should be made between speaking against the group (i.e. Muslims) and speaking against the ideaology (i.e., fundamentalist Islam). Only the former should be forbidden, I think. Of course, it should also consist of reasoned arguments, and not just "Islam scares me and I hate it," but that's a different issue. EDIT: Only the FORMER should be forbidden! Oops.

Ok. How do you figure?

Except that "human" is essentially part of another organism, even so far as sharing a bloodstream, etc. Don't be so quick to dismiss everything as rationalizations.

That, or maybe all our demonizing of him proved more effective than we bargained for, and he's literally become a demon.

Whatever the cause, we agree that polarization has been getting worse. The fact that Bush seems to be so personally offensive to liberals (even more than Clinton was to conservatives) combined with the kind of perpetual pseudo-wartime we now live in makes me say that the current administration has overseen an even sharper polarization than the trends you mention were already guiding us towards.

I don't think it's a secret that a major shift towards angry polarization has taken place under the Bush presidency, or that moderates in both parties have suffered. What I do find interesting is the respective responses of the two parties in more or less the same situation. I guess there are a few different ways of portraying it. You could say the Republican party is more moderate for supporting their moderate candidate, but that hardly agrees with what we've seen practically everywhere else. Rather, I'd say their political strategists recognize that a conservative Republican can't win, and are taking the pragmatic approach. They probably feel more confident than their Democratic counterparts in doing this because they have less fear of losing voters to more extremist third parties. If Joe Lieberman had won his primary, I have to wonder if there wouldn't be a strong Green Party uprising in Connecticut...

I dislike the historical definition. Having Pluto grandfathered in but nearly identical objects not counted just seems silly to me. I like the other definition offered: planetary mass object, or planemo: any object big enough to be round but small enough not to undergo fusion at any point in its existence fusor: any object big enough to undergo fusion planet: a planemo that orbits a fusor This, naturally, would include probably dozens or even hundreds of yet to be discovered Kuiper Belt objects, but there could be other distinctions as well, based on size or circumstance. Earth, for example, is clearly master of its territory, having more or less cleared the area around its orbit. Pluto, on the other hand, is not, and is one of a population of similar objects. Call it a "minor planet" or a "Kuiper planet" or something.

So how many dwarf planets are there, then? Just Pluto, Charon, and Ceres? What about the other large Kuiper belt objects, like Sedna?

"Defining the beginning of life, the end of life, and the difference between life and nonlife are questions for lawyers, not scientists." - Freeman Dyson

I think I'm having a little bit of trouble understanding the distinction being made. Immunologist, are you denying the existence of a gene pool, wherein members of a species more apt to survive under given conditions produce more offspring, thereby (over the course of many generations) diffusing a greater concentration of their genetic traits in the population as a whole, and "changing the species?"

Well, during both his Presidential campaigns, W. borrowed from Catholics (who are officially both prolife and anti-death penalty) and drove the phrase "culture of life" as deep into the national consciousness as he could. Granted this is implicit rather than explicit, but such is the form that hypocrisy usually takes. I've also heard the usual lowbrow demagogues like Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc. speak more explicitly in those terms. Granted, I wouldn't consider any of those people "credible pro-life advocates," but my point was not that it is the reasoned position of an intellectual movement, but rather just that it is a common position that is present in the public debate.

I suppose it would depend on the justifications for each position. I don't think you can be prolife because of inflexible appeal to "sanctity of life" and unhypocritically favor the death penalty. However, this is quite a common viewpoint.