John Cuthber

"Americans are largely religious (mostly some form of Christianity) and moral, and they hold their elected officials to high moral standards. So it make sense that they would want fellow believers in office ... especially in the Bible Belt states. " Would that still hold if they realised that morality has nothing to do with religion? Not to mention "they hold their elected officials to high moral standards." ROFL

Frankly, I didn't understand most of that. Would anyof you like to comment on the observation I made earlier ie anything that can design a universe might as well be called God. You can't have design without a designer; if the designer isn't God, who is it? As far as I can see that pretty much kills the idea of an atheist intelligent design theory.

" You can not get in power if you a Atheist." Why not? Is it a constitutional bar or just that people wouldn't vote for you?

The oxidation of some alkylhydrazines gives diazonium compounds. I'm not sure if these alkylhydrazines can be made from hydrazine and, for example, a halogenated arene. It's possible that the only ones that you can make this way (like dinitrophenylhydrazine) don't oxidise to diazonium compounds.

"it doesn't exist in massive concentrations in the source methane either. " Actually, sometimes it does. http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=928&content_id=CTP_006343&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=e8d99806-79d0-472f-a89a-8e9f9c8fc8e1#P17_1560 On the other hand, they don't use those wells for methane production without stripping the (valuable) He out. Since He isn't toxic it's not relevant to the question in hand. The best way to get cheap CO2 would be to find someone who is currently blowing it up the chimney and collect it from them.

"If you cannot get more energy output that you put in, How does a 9volt battery powered Taser deliver a 50, 000 Volt charge" Because voltage isn't the same as energy.

At the risk of stating the obvious, if I build some sort of gravity shield and install it under one side of a heavy flywheel then that side will be lighter and so it will rise . The wheel will start to spin. If I hook a generator to the wheel I get free energy. Is there anyone who still believes in this gravity shield?

I think the stuff about evolution is irrelevant. If you had an entity with the intelligence and ability to design life then, from a practical point of view you could call that entity God. If you believe in design you have to believe in a designer and it's difficult to see how that designer would differ from the general definition of God. I'd just like to ask Cabininthewoods one simple question. If you had a life threatening infection caused by a penicillin resistant bacterium would you be happy just to take penicillin? If so then you would die, if not then you accept evolution as fact. Which is it?

That's not an azo dye.

"What does this man need to do?" Learn the difference between optimism and pipedreaming.

When people tell me they are not an animal I ask if they are a rock; they usually say no. I conclude that they are vegetables- they don't often like this.

Steal the money. If they come looking for it then they have accepted that it exists, in which case it's yours anyway. It's a bit silly really. Descartes pointed out that we don't really know anything except that we exist (in some way or other); this is just a variation on that theme.

"This, in turn, causes them to avoid water, which is needed to flush the waste products from digesting all that sugar they are drinking whenever they're thirsty." The waste products from the metabolism of sugar are water and CO2. How much water do you think it takes to flush those out? "Also, the more accustomed people get to drinking sweet liquids, the less capable they are of enjoying the taste of water." Water, pretty much by definition, has no taste to enjoy.

I have to say that when I first saw the thread about homosexuality in the animal kingdom my thought was "where else? " I can't see any definition of animals that makes sense but excludes us.

The common ion effect would decrease the solubility of enamel. Most drinks are acid and could leach the teeth; cola tends to be more acid than fruit juice based drinks. Aluminium phosphate is rather insoluble. If the tins were not varnished on the inside then they would corrode rather rapidly and be unusable.

How can we deal with the difference between countries? "Moderately conservative" here in the UK is probably just about communist in the US. It speaks volumes about modern politics that my country is currently governed by a coalition of the Liberal and Conservative parties.

"Isn't the separation of church and state part of the constitution? (or am I mistaken on that)" It is part of the State's constitution, but not part of the church's constitution. Incidentally, over on this side of the pond it's quite hard to get a feel for how much support the tea party has. We just see them as loonies, parodied on TV by the news. (to be fair, they do the same for left wing loonies too- but there just aren't so many of them about these days.) This bloke , for example was referred to on a comedy quiz show the other day. does he count as tea party? Meanwhile, back at the topic, here in the UK such action would be illegal. You are only permitted a very limited number of people at polling stations and they have to behave themselves. Just yelling at people would probably count as breach of the peace and I suspect the other candidates' representatives would act as "independent" witnesses to back you up.

Mr skeptic, in principle it does generate a voltage as long as there's a rock on it. The voltage will drop as the charge leaks away but there's no violation of the conservation of energy there. The better insulated it is the longer it will keep the voltage.

Is it true that Sarah Palin wears plain glasses just to look clever and, if so, has she asked for her money back? BTW, "I'm not traditionally a republican, but I'm voting "right" tomorrow in the name of fiscal responsibility." I thought they started it.

Take it outside, pour it carefully into a bucket of cold water, tip it down an outside drain and flush it away with lots of water. Then go and read a chemistry book or even just read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloric_acid

The pressure in the Appleton layer is, by most people's frame of reference, a pretty good vacuum. The concentration of anything there is rather low.

"Then let those he chose to do a job, do the job... " He did. He chose himself to do that work.

"Normally when a President travels to "talk" he will land in AF One, be picked up by the local Ambassador, usually staying at their home, do his talking and get back on the plane." Some places are not normal. "If the trip goes off as suggested, for him to "talk", he will be spending at least 100M$ (my personal rough guess). " If my maths is right that's about 30 cents each. How long did it take you to post this, and what is the minimum wage where you are?

"I have come to know that Potasium Perclorate can be made by adding Sulfuric Acid (98%) in Potasium Clorate. " I doubt that, and I wouldn't try it.

The president of a relatively small country went to talk to the government of a bigger one.* I don't see what the issue is. *(the population is 3 or 4 times bigger)