John Cuthber

They were cold because they had just been cooled down by passing (relatively slowly) through the rather cold Russian atmosphere.

It is possible- in the same sense that it is possible Elvis might be living at the bottom of my garden. But there is no supporting evidence and there is circumstantial evidence against the idea.

Well, over the years we have done lots of spectroscopy. And nobody saw a problem with those results and the established theory. Incidentally, someone needs to explain to Semjase what the word "Theory" means in a scientific context. It does not mean "unsupported ramblings".

Saddam was, among other things, noted for "not getting on very well" with OBL.

How many of them have you asked? The only ones you hear from are the power crazed zealots. They can only maintain their position as leaders through fear. "We (with God's help) will protect you against the evil Americans" That fear is stoked by having the world's largest (and most expensive) military force fighting against them. Do you really think that most of the people there would be very happy if the fighting stopped- no matter who won.

What you have said is true of a small, but vocal, minority who have come to be leaders. That leadership could be undermined far better with bread than with guns.

Oddly, this "By that reasoning no person could ever declare war. War cannot therefore be declared. That's nice." doesn't actually follow from what I said. At best you could say that, as long as we don't let nutters run the country, we won't get wars. that might well be true, but ... I'm tired of hearing about the "war on this or the war on that". It's great rhetoric to make sound-bites from but it's nonsense. Who signs the armistice when the "War of terror " or the "War on cancer" are over? Al Qa'ida are not a particularly organised homogeneous bunch. About all they have in common are a hatred of the US and a bastardised version of a religious belief. There is not "spokesman" for them- they have no general or C in C so there wouldn't be anyone to sign the armistice. How would you know the war was over - and equally, when did it start? Was the conflict with the IRA part of the War on terror? Nope, terrorism is just organised crime. It should be treated as such. to call it war gives it some gloss of legitimacy. However I don't think I can explain the case for splitting terrorism from war any better than you put it. As you said, "Death at the hands of a terrorist flying a plane into a building should never be compared to anything like a uniformed soldier fighting to liberate a country. To directly compare the two avoids all common decency". That's why terrorism isn't war, and it's exactly the point I was making. Of course I still think that, had we sent food rather than bombs, we could have got a large enough fraction of the locals to support us that we wouldn't have needed to send our soldiers to their deaths. I guess we will never know, but it would have made OBL's rallying cries of the US being the enemy of Islam look a bit stupid when his audience knew from personal experience that the US was the feeder of Islam. I'm not unaware that providing free food can mess up a countries infrastructure and economy, but so does bombing it- and at least one of the strategies wins you some friends. Finally, I think that the 9/11 bombers were Saudis because they were Saudis rather than, for example, Iraqi or Afghan. As I have said I'm not convinced that Al Qa'ida was (or is) really based anywhere. I think it's a rather loose association of terrorist groups who benefit from claiming to be organised and coordinated because they are, in fact, rather small rag tag groups of failures desperately seeking the credibility associated with being part of a world-wide organisation. They are benefiting greatly from the label that we have been dumb enough to give them.

The direction of evolution will vary depending on what evolutionary pressures are applied- but it will keep going.

Anyone who thinks a bat is a bird is not bright enough, or well enough educated, to offer reliable dietary advice. I rather suspect that the reason for the strange food rules is to mark the group of "followers" as different from the group of "outsiders". That's very important if you plan to badmouth them.

Evolution for humans will continue while ever miss Smith can say that she prefers Mr Jones to Mr Blogs and while Mr Baker can say he prefers Miss Butcher to Miss Banker.

Christ said that the OT was valid. Matthew 5:17-18 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law" On what basis do you say he was wrong?

That is a theory, to exactly the same extent that everything is magnetic (which isn't a very great extent).

Thanks for that. So only one of the wars was illegal. I guess that's OK then. BTW, OBL isn't a country he was a nutter. He was, therefore, in no position to declare war on anything. Also, whatever he said he wasn't in a position to engage in war, just terrorism. To call it war, rather than organised crime offers it a legitimacy that it does not deserve. Self defence is a legitimate reason for war (sort of) but Afghanistan hadn't threatened the US. Why not invade Saudia? They were the ones who attacked the US. Incidentally, I have lost count. Who killed more Americans, the 9/11 terrorists or the US government sending its citizens to war? I don't need to support the terrorists to say that killing even more than they did is bad. (I understand that some civilians may have been killed too: are their numbers significant?)

Anyone who starts a jigsaw puzzle without reasonable grounds to assume that the puzzle is possible, is a fool. Incidentally, the lack of correlation is supporting evidence for a lack of causation. An inverse correlation is even more so.

If reality doesn't exists then the equipment doesn't really exist. So you can't use it to prove anything.

I think the most obvious answer would be food. However there are some drugs that are produced by growing plants.Digitalis, morphine, and taxine are some of them. (From foxgloves, poppies and yew trees)

I think what they are talking about is the fact that Xrays go through stuff,

LOL

Well, the last line is true, but the rest is pretty much nonsense (as expected).

Can you spend another 20 seconds and see if there's actually a UN security council resolution mandating the use of military force? I couldn't find one. There are plenty condemning the Taliban, but that's not the same thing. So, as I said, without the security council's authority an invasion would be unlawful. What I'm looking for is the equivalent to this which was the UN response to the invasion of Kuwait. "If Iraq did not implement the resolution by 15 January 1991, Member States were authorised to use all necessary means to uphold and implement Resolution 660 (1990), requesting Member States to keep the Council informed on their decisions. This was the legal authorisation for the Gulf War, as Iraq did not withdraw by the deadline." from UNSCR 678.

"Do you know that in principle I can strip off all the properties of that equipment and transfer it to the other side of the universe instantaneously and obtain a duplicate, there by destroying the original equipment?" No, because that would need travel faster than light. However if you drop the "instantaneously" bit then yes, You can do it. That's because the effect is real. The far end of the universe exists in the same reality as this end- so the outcome of similar experiments will be the same. And you are still ignoring the point that you need real equipment to do experiments so any experiment you cite is evidence against you idea that reality does not exist. BTW, do you realise that citing papers is still an appeal to authority? (even more so when they are both by the same author)

Nobody said anything about giving up meant so, if that's what you thought I said it means you didn't read or didn't understand it. So it's absurd for you to judge it at all, never mind to write it off as rubbish. So, for the benefit of those who couldn't read the first time Vegetarians eat less B12 Vegetarians live longer. Do you understand how that might be a problem for your idea that there's an epidemic of B12 deficiency?

Indeed, and they are quite fond of taking logs of things. I suspect that the chocolate log was invented by a slightly muddled physical chemistry professor.

And if the thread was was about graphene then that would be relevant.

As far as I can tell from the wiki article, there was a scare when some cosmetic product was (presumably inadvertently contaminated with Cr and Nd which are potentially harmful as they can cause allergic reactions. OK, someone somwhere crewed up, but that's not a reason to take the product off the market. At best it's a reason to bring in better quality control.