John Cuthber

"Iron is so common because radioactive nickel, 28 (magic) protons (and neutrons?) decays " Not very "magic" then, is it? "By the way, if one really wants to get all New Agey, consider the following discovery. If taken as atomic numbers, Fibonacci numbers (up to 89, that is, within the known atomic system) ALL pattern as FIRST members of their orbital blocks," 1 yep 2 no 3 yep 5 yep 8 yep Oops! 11 element, Sodium, is missing from the series 13 yep Damn, potassium, 19 isn't a Fibonacci number either 21 Yep 34 Drat- nothing special about Selenium 55 yep 89 yep Soyou are right. I's very "New Age"- because, when yo look properly- it's not actually true, just a handful of coincidences.

So, how come iron is so common? But yes, a definition would have been a good place to start. Why didn't you?

OK, so your answer to "How to reduce wealth inequality?" is "But this has nothing to do with stratospheric CEO salaries." Check again, I think you will find that's exactly what it's to do with.

Does washing the dust off food count as processing? It's a physical process. If it does, then do we eat any non processed food? So, it's clearly a matter of opinion/ definition.

There is one sort of magic number- the ones that the experiments give. If your ideas don't agree with the real world, it isn't because the real world is wrong.

If all that stuff about Pascal's triangle had come up with the right numbers it might be interesting. However "The seven most widely recognized magic numbers as of 2007 are 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, and 126" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_number_%28physics%29 And there's a reasonable claim for 34 as well http://oeis.org/A018226 Since the rather long post misses out some and includes others that are not right, yet it picks all the ones in the list he was working from "The predicted spin-orbit magic numbers, for neutrons in spheres, are: 2,6,14,28,50,82,126,184" it is reasonable to conclude that the OP has included stuff to force the numbers to match the list he was working from, rather than actually calculating the right numbers. It's not just numerology, you can, in this case, pretty much prove it's numerology. He has carefully fitted his model so it predicts the answers he wanted,, rather than the answers which experiments show to be correct.

perhaps I should rephrase the question. What's a luggage matrix? BTW, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(disambiguation) What do you mean by chirality?

The point is not that I can afford a big telly even though my parents in the 50s couldn't. (That's due to technological progress and is a bit of a red herring) The point is that the chief executive could afford 300 times as many big tellies as I can.(Actually more because we have comparable fixed costs so his disposable income is more than 300 times as great) Why is that? Is that because he is doing 300 times as much good in the world as I am? Or is it just because he's a greedy bastard who can get away with it?

Good point. Since the guy is locked up and can't kill again (with the possible exception of other people in prison), what's to gain from killing him and, in some way, thereby lowering yourself to his level? OK, so you save quite a lot of money- Well, we live in rich countries so that's hardly a severe problem. Should you compromise the integrity of the state by turning it into a killer just to save some cash? personally, I don't think so. I don't want to stoop to the level of being a killer and I don't think that doing it by proxy by getting the state execute the sentence makes it any different.

Re 1 Guess again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_disorder Many forms of insanity include delusion as one of the symptoms. That has been discussed at some length. The discussion already included the evidence and my qualifications. To cut a long story short, would you describe someone who thought they were Napoleon as sane? Of course it's possible that he's simply dishonest. Unless that's compulsive it doesn't mark him, or even Fox News, out as insane. It just means they can't be trusted. We already knew that. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9288158/Fox-News-viewers-worst-informed-study-finds.html (It's interesting to note that Fox News' reply was the corporate equivalent of an ad hom attack- a logical fallacy, rather than a valid rebuttal). The second is a red herring; essentially nothing is representative of all people who label themselves conservative (with the tautological exception that they label themselves as Conservative) The important point is not that all Conservatives seem to be like this guy, but that all the people like this guy seem to be Conservatives. The mainstream Left wing doesn't seem to need to tell as many lies as the mainstream Right wing does. Why is that?

What's a luggage matrix?

The same way that it always was.

Why have you posted this twice?

OK, lets say that I disapprove of some politician's policies. Call him Mr Smith and say that his policies reduce welfare payments so some people either starve or commit suicide. |Imagine that, on some website or other I say "That Smith is a murderer- he is responsible for those deaths. If the rules were what that clip from the guardian suggests then all Mr Smith has to do is go into court and say "I'm not a murderer". Since (technically) he isn't, there's no way I can defend my actions. I get sued for libel for voicing an opinion. In the current system, he sues for libel and my defence is that it's "fair comment" it's an opinion, not a fact. It was never meant to be taken literally. That's a valid defence in law so I get away with my critique of Mr Smith's lethal policies. Why do you think that it is more conducive to free speech if I get sued for voicing an opinion? Also, do you accept that the problem with the case against Mr Singh was that the judge made a mistake? I haven't been following the French news, but here's how the UK government are using it. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-pledges-new-snoopers-charter-if-he-wins-election-9971379.html I'd imagine the French are doing the same sort of thing.

Ho Hum, here's another one. He's delusional (or dishonest- take your pick). He's Right wing. He's on Fox News. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_zF7nbEvwY

Indeed. So they give this "vulnerability" network access and let him write programs. I think it needed something a lot stronger than coffee to get them to think that was a good idea.

A typical CFL contains a few milligrams of mercury. My teeth contain of the order of a thousand times more. While it's true that some of the UV will get past the phosphor, most of it will then be blocked by the glass. (Cheap glass absorbs UV; better in case you were wondering). Good luck finding one that produces anything like as much UV as sunlight. Mercury based antiseptics were in fairly common use until recently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merbromin

Among other things I jail the bastard that infected the dogs with rabies. This actually stops it happening again. What would you have advocated? Of course, if I have to kill the dogs to save her- so be it. But that's not the same as the death penalty which is killing in cold blood for no decent reason. So it seems to me that your post didn't have a lot to do with the issue.

LOL Working for the government, Hoping to get upgraded to W7 some time soon. Who knows, we might even get IE8. A little while ago they accepted that some of us might be allowed to use Chrome (as long as the automatic updates were turned off- this is to "improve" security) I got my dad a new PC for Xmas and then spent some time trying to get it to behave like XP. He's 82 and it was going to be easier to fix the PC than teach him how to dig through stuff to find obscure useless odds and ends like the desktop and the shut down button.

OK, firstly, do you realise that in the hypothetical case I outlined earlier you can't logically assume that both of us are innocent? It doesn't make sense. Either I am guilty of libel or you are guilty of murder. Assuming the innocence of one party is logically assuming the guilt of the other. To get anywhere the court has to proceed against one party or the other. So the choice is between falsely labelling someone a murderer, or falsely labelling someone a slanderer. Since murder is the more serious crime, it's better to avoid false accusation of murder than of slander. So they do. In doing so they do logically assume that the "slanderer" is guilty. "You should be innocent of libel until it was proved my reputation was damaged. If I simply stated, well John has been saying nasty things about me on the internet, and it's hurt my ickle feelings, would not or should not cut it in a court of law." I am surprised that you hold your honour so low that you don't consider an allegation of murder to damage your reputation. However, it's beside the point. The courts automatically assume it will harm you to be falsely accused of a criminal offence. How it "feels" is exactly what the jury consider when setting the award. OK, now let's look at another hypothetical case. I say that Peter Sutcliffe is a murderer. He can point out that I have accused him of a criminal offence. He can, in your world, sue me for damages If he had got his timing right he could have clearly showed the damage it caused as it would have led to his arrest and prosecution. According to you he has done enough to be able to sue me. The problem is that he is actually a murderer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutcliffe It's logically impossible for you to prove that you are not a murderer, but it is possible for me to show that he is. That's the other reason why the burden of proof lies on the alleged slanderer. If I had genuine reason to believe it then I can always present that reason as evidence and defend myself against an allegation of slander. .

"actually people should have noticed the unusual role natural numbers play in rudimentary chemistry. For instance, why two hydrogen atoms and not five, are supposed to combine with one oxygen atom to form a water molecule?" Well, for a start, five is also a natural number. For a middle, people did notice this- it's called stoichiometry and For a finish it's not always true. plenty of chemicals are not stoichiometric. On the whole, as far as I can tell, the answer to "Are natural numbers sacred in the universe?" is simply no.

My best guess is that they ignore it- for example they clearly ignore the bit that says "109:1 Say: O disbelievers! 109:2 I worship not that which ye worship; 109:3 Nor worship ye that which I worship. 109:4 And I shall not worship that which ye worship. 109:5 Nor will ye worship that which I worship. 109:6 Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion." And I think that they are using a corrupted version of religion to gain political power. It's not as if they are the first to do so. "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Part of the reason is that "dirty" industries are, by that very fact, not covering their costs so they are likely to be profitable.

"Yes, we never disagreed on this. I'm still of the belief that the differences that improve chances of survival are exceedingly subtle because the cause of evolution, extinction events, have very subtle mechanisms." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo#Extinction People ate the dodos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon#Extinction People ate the pigeons And here's a whole bunch of others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event#Most_widely_supported_explanations Where, exactly, is the subtlety?

As I already said, it is precisely because people are innocent until proven guilty that the law is written the way it is. If I called you a murderer and spread that story all over the internet how would you feel? If you sued me for libel what would you propose? Should I be innocent of libel even though your reputation is damaged, my allegation is false, and there's no supporting evidence for it? How do you prove that you are not a murderer? Since you can't prove that how can I ever get sued for libel? Nope, there are criminals who either didn't understand Islam, or who ignored it.