Sayonara

The more I read about phthalates, the more I find the sources contradict each other

I like the way most of your new threads from yesterday triggered eventful debates without really giving a novel proposal or asking a question

No, but they may be called bats.

How do you know moonbats are winged?

Phthalates are highly soluble in oil, yes.

Read this, it answers pretty much all your questions: http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/articles/halden_dioxins.html You have to read it all, because it starts off dismissing dioxins in bottled water, but it's not the dioxins that you are talking about - it's phthalates, which come into it about halfway through.

I was hoping it was a bat from the moon. That would certainly have made this thread a lot more exciting!

...which is why their denials are so funny/frightening/weird. They don't know the details of what they are supposed to be denying.

Perhaps it would be better to ask him that, rather than make things up and then try to justify attributing them to him.

Just so we are clear, is it your intention to suggest that we should consider it unscientifically, arbitrarily, and without reason or logic?

Can you see some post or words that I can't? He is comparing some of the arguments and finding them similar. This (apart from the fact that it shouldn't really shock anyone) says nothing about the people making the arguments, except where imaginary motives which you ascribe to Bascule's post crop up.

What is a "moonbat"?

I don't think Bascule intended to say that the overall subjects are similar; it is quite clear that he refers to the strategy of the anti~ arguments which are currently being made.

Meanwhile, climate change continues quite happily with or without belief. Bascule, what do you wish to get out of this thread? I ask because there is no question or proposal in the OP.

At one point I seriously considered building a peripheral that would shut down my PC when it detected high levels of alcohol, but it turned out I couldn't be bothered. That is certainly true when taken in the appropriate clinical context, yes. What's interesting though is that even though we don't have much of an idea about what the problem is with this hypothetical mechanism, some people seem pretty sure that if it's perceived to be broken it ought to be fixed. So far the only point I have seen that lends any weight to that suggestion is the "if your brain is mis-firing, then you are not really being you" argument (which would of course be consistent with your 'mental health' approach), and even that was disputed. Anybody have any other suggestions? Well not really hostility. More like incredulity, and aimed at what you said rather than you yourself.

I see. It's just that you are going over something that has already pretty much been agreed on in this thread, which was a bit confusing. To summarise it quickly for you, it was pointed out earlier that something does not need curing because it is labelled a medical condition; it's the other way around: something becomes a medical condition because it needs curing. In the absence of any compelling reason to "cure" homosexuality, for the purposes of this thread we have nudged it into the "something that could be altered at will" box. There was a moment where you had me wondering There is a reason why the word hypothetical appears in the thread title, and there is a reason why the word gay in the title appears in quotes. This thread will stay open as long as it remains within the site rules. There is no rule against threads with titles that you find offensive.

That's all well and good for you, but it isn't going to help us to find what you are saying convincing, is it? We do not have access to your senses.

I think his point may have been "are you sure it was a metal ship?" Perception and reality do not always coincide. Not that I am completely ruling out some kind of ship, obviously, but it seems to me that you are extrapolating some very unsteady claims from some very uncertain data.

Why do they have to be flawed? Why can't they just be incomplete, or insufficient? I don't think we have "finished" physics just yet, no matter how many anecdotes disagree.

Sometimes at night when nobody else is around on the forums, I like to bathe in the science.

The thing is, by the time you ARE interested in quitting, it will be much, much harder to do. Personally I stopped last week, but I too still have an interest in this information (mainly because no sanctimonious anti-smoker I have ever met has ever produced anything similar, and I always thought pre-emptive strikes were funny). I shall watch with eagley eyes of watchingness.

It's also quite harmful if you throw a tub of it at someone's head.

I think it is slightly misleading to say that DDT harms "the environment". Rather it harms trophic networks, as bombus's fine lit research shows, which is not the same thing. So perhaps saying that "the claim DDT harms the environment is opinion" is not that outrageous. I know semantic arguments are not as fun as a big row, but in this case the terminology does make a difference. Call this one a semantic armistice.

Should we ignore the fact that Microsoft only relented on including XML functionality because to not do this would have blown them out of the market? In terms of this discussion, I mean. Not in terms of good old general Microsoft bashing.

As Dak says, post your questions in the most appropriate forum. There is always "General Science" if you can't decide which. As always, if there is proportional interest in a topic, we'll open a sub-forum. It's just not worth the extra work for a handful of threads! "If you build it, they will come" would be nice, but we have tried it and it doesn't really work that way