Radical Edward

MrL is our resident maths b**** now. ask him simple arithmetical questions and he will obey sell out

I know though to them it does represent quite a nice number in terms of angles and things. I'll let them off, poor little mites.

sell out

it is just another unit. Astronomers and cosmologists had to invent something so that they could feel special, since they don't have anything of their own.

I am honestly shocked that you think this. honestly.

possibly, it depends on the circumstances. However I have seen nothing that suggests that he does have WOMD. and even if he does, he has not used them for a long time, and probably would never have used them anyway, because he knows what would happen if he did. as I have constantly said, my problem is in the way that this war has come about, and also the timing of the war. I find it fascinating that at the same time the US is going on about trying to create peace and prosperity in the region, and starting up a "road map" for peace in the Israel Palesting conflict, they are still handing over huge wads of cash to the Israelis, in so called "aid"

Topology... so it rears it's ugly head... no chance of inviting your friend to comment on that thread (and maybe this one) is there?

say I say "this statement is false" and you apply that logic to it, and declare that it is a partial truth, then you are saying that the statement "this statement is false" is entirely equivalent to the statement "this statement is partially false" which, it obviously isn't because you have added something to the statement. I know this is a special example, and for anything else such as "Everything I say is a lie" it doesn't really apply, as that statement can realistically be a partial truth, because it applies to a term that is in itself fuzzy and not always certain.

you will be punished in time

but Saddam is a tyrant, and has killed far more people than will probably die in this conflict. How can your conscience live with knowing that in not going to war, you would allow someone like this to carry on killing and opressing his people with impunity.

The gas man won't tell you: It isn't the leaking gas pipe that is the problem, the lack of oxygen in your lungs is what is killing you.

Essentially it is because of the cloud type: in the larger cumulonimbus clouds (the great big ones with the anvil-shaped heads) there are large thermal convection currents that keep all the ice crystals way up in the air, and cause the electrostatic charge splitting that leads to lightning. If the CN cloud isn't so big, then the thermal currents aren't so strong, and you will just get a normal storm, or, if it is cold enough, hailstones. If you get hail or snow, you won't get lightning, basically because there is no mechanism available to cause the build up of charge. oh I forgot to mention, the formation of large CN clouds requires a significant updraft of heat, which wouldn't be found in the conditions you would expect in snowy weather (namely it's usually 'frikkin freezing Mr Bigglesworth')

heh, hollywood never let reality get in the way of an exciting movie

well I thought it was a bit much for him really essentially all light reception is based around one molecule, 11-cis-retinol (11CR), that is bound up in a protein shell. It is the protien that surrounds it that is responsible for the difference in colour reception, rather than the actual 11CR itself. when light is absorbed by the 11CR (the probability of absorption being determined by the protein) it changes form to 11-Trans-Retinol (an excited version of 11CR), which has a slightly different physical shape. This then effects the ion transport within the rod or cone, and should enough be excited, you get a nerve impulse. This is slightly rusty, as I don't have my notes with me to explain the more precise details, of absorption mechanisms, or which ions are affected etc. but I believe the basic principle is sound.

"white" is just your brains interpretation, what is actually happening, is that your eye is recieving signals from lots of different coloured photons, adding them all up and getting white. I could go into the details of 11-cis/trans-retinol but I won't as for what causes those colours, essentially it is the energy levels of the atoms/molecules, which may or may not interact with a particular frequency of light. Spontaneous emission (as in light) occurs when an electron decays from an excited state (from a high energl level to a free spot in a lower energy level), and the height of the fall dictates what the wavelength of the light is. A common one is that orange you see in sodium lamps, which is a specific atomic transition (actually for completeness it is two specific wavelengths which form part of a doublet, but that is extra detail). Reflection and absorption are similar effects, and the issue is complicated further when you look at molecular interactions with light as there are extra effects which broaden the emission characteristics, extra excitations that may occur and so on....

the vast majority is scientific debunking of their crazy ideas though

I doubt our fafalone would allow religious nuts and pseudoscientists a foothold here! but if you know lots of intelligent people, bring them along. the more the merrier.

aah of course, during the Iran-Iraq war while the US was actively supporting Iraq (actually it was supporting both sides, just as a note, while remaining officially neutral).... Don't forget that - it is important when supporting the anti-saddam argument by mentioning his war crimes.

it was chosen because it is the only way the original resolution got passed. the US knew they could just say that it is a euphamism for war, and France and so on could just say they didn't mean war.

aah yes, I was talking about the circle... which wasn't actually leonardos observation.. I forget the name of the guy whose idea he based his drawing on now. and yes, it is. Old keo always did have a bit of a thing for the male member apparently.

do you really have to hammer at the submit button just because your connection is slow? <sayonara made my comment look stupid >

failing that, something like mitochondria. without a good understanding of what very very early pre and quasi cellular life looked like, it is difficult to say how virii and bacteria evolved. It might just have been that virii were a very early form of like that preyed on other reproductive strands of DNA/RNA, hijacking some of their mechanisms and reproducing themselves. they probably both came about at the same sort of time, in much the same way that common day symbiotic and parasitic relationships have done. It is unlikely that virii are an evolutionary throwback.

not in a pretty symmetrical way like vitruvian man, with something like the naval at the dead centre though.

Fafalone, read what I say.... I don't care whether saddam has WOMD or not, and I can provide equally good argument against going to war based on some unsubstantiated hunch that he might have them just because he used to have them in the past.

the key thing is always the most simple of these organisms, and how they function in the first place (unless you believe in creation) While it is impossible to say with certainty that life based on a given substance (except perhaps carbon) does or does not exist, you have to look at how it might work. All life ultimately is going to be based on chemistry (or possibly other bizarre undiscovered branches pf physics), as that is what forms the various shapes and structures that are needed for respiration and reproduction, now carbon is a prime candidate for this sort of thing, as is silicon, though to a lesser extent. metals on the whole though, are not. computers and so on exist in energetically unfavourable designs, with the wires only forming structures because they were put there, there is even less chance of a computer coming about because of random chance than there is of DNA or other organic molecules of a reasonable complexity. SO barring stuff that is built, I don't really see how metallic life could come about, or even work, to be honest.