Phi for All

Good call, and it helped me decide. Links removed; continue with the discussion in the OP.

Maintaining as in keeping it healthy and growing.

We have a lot of pre-spun words like that. "Conservative" and "liberal" are the most ludicrous to me. You might think you know what they mean but I guarantee you they have 312M different definitions over here. You're absolutely right, JohnB. Most Democrats have no idea what their representatives are really voting for, and they're often not voting the way their platform would dictate. Republicans seem to be divided into at least four groups, only one of which really sticks to their platform. The result is a nation divided in two, with a whole lot more common ground than their partisan ideologies will let them admit. We're addicted to convenience, and those who know us best can spin up sound bytes that convince us it would be too hard to fight it. It's our fault for forgetting that the people have the power to make them stop.

Fast like a wolf, no. Fast like a sloth, maybe. Our spines would actually be quite happy and better supported by running on all fours. I think it's the rest of our limbs that might suffer. I don't think our arms are long enough compared to our legs. Our long, fragile, non-clawed fingers would definitely limit our speed. We'd have to bend over too far, causing our rumps to stick up and limiting the mobility of our heads. Our legs would probably be OK, the knees would enjoy a less stretched position, but I don't think our hips allow our legs full flexion. The raised instep on our feet would be a big problem, severely stretching the Achilles tendon to run pitched that far forward. I think your real question is, could we learn to run faster on feet and hands than on just feet? I don't think so. But one of the benefits of bipedalism is freeing the hands to make and use tools. It might be interesting to figure a way to artificially lengthen the arms to eliminate a few of the major problems. Interestingly, I just googled and found a patent abstract for just such a device: http://www.patents.com/us-5571065.html I haven't seen it yet, but apparently Doug Jones does some all-fours type running using arm extensions in the movie Legion. I'll have to check that out and see what it looks like.

Ah, I see. This is the socialized medicine approach that privatized US medicine lobbies have been spinning as Communistic Satan-worshipping pedophilia terrorism that will give us ebola and force us to speak French. I'm fairly certain that the other 200% is going into the pockets of the insurance providers and the pharmaceutical corps. A repeal of the law that prohibits Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices will help the latter, and I thought having the government compete as a risk pool for insurance would help the former. We seem to have too many politicians listening to too many corporate interests. To be fair, the people aren't as on top of things as they should be, so the pols pay attention to the corporations who have the money and influence to keep them in office. Career politicians would listen to the people if the people talked louder than the corporations, but we just don't band together the way we should. And when we do band together, it's in two nice, neat little piles that are easy to manipulate.

I always give negative rep to posts that use insults. Likewise when someone repeatedly uses fallacious logic after it's been pointed out. I never give negative rep simply when someone is wrong and never just because they hold an opinion that differs from mine. I don't use the positive rep as much as I should. Many people give such consistently great comments that I often forget to acknowledge them.

On which side of the line is THIS guy? It's unfortunate that we're not equipped to help someone like this. This isn't his first post and threads we leave open get filled with pleas that he seek psychiatric help, which he's convinced he doesn't need. I reserve the right to delete any posts after this one. I'm not entirely comfortable discussing another member in an open section, but I just feel so bad for this guy that I needed some input. Let's keep any comments professional, please.

But LDLs are what carry cholesterol through the bloodstream. We need them very badly. It's only when their packets are unaccepted by the cells that they fall to the artery walls and become plaque. It would be better to figure out how to make cells put out more cholesterol receptors. One thing that tells cells not to flag down LDLs is insulin. Figure out how not to trigger insulin and LDLs will deliver more cholesterol where it's needed and HDLs won't be needed to clean up the artery walls.

Why attack the lipoproteins? They're transporters, so you'd be leaving fats and cholesterol in the blood stream with no escort. And cholesterol is really important for cell structure. It's everywhere in the body. I'm not sure attacking it with bacteria is wise.

It's a Christian methodology to tie the religion to other beliefs in order to work its way into the mainstream. Look at all the pagan holidays it took over, like Christmas and Easter. If you come in and try a short-term denouncement of another religion, you get a defensive response. If you adopt the other religion and work alongside patiently as a long-term strategy, you eventually gain support. Look at the way passive promotion of western long-term strategies overthrew the former Soviet Union, as opposed to aggressive western short-term military efforts to curb Islamic state governance.

The Tea Party was a bandwagon that few wanted to just jump on; what they wanted to do was steer it. As I said, the name was supposed to recall the "No taxation without representation" battlecry of the original Tea Party. Then those who wanted to keep taxes lower for themselves grabbed the reins and changed the slogan. When "oppressive government regulation" became the thrust, the religious conservatives who want to steer abortion and same-sex marriage legislation their way also jumped on. It's those people who are anti-science, although the anti-corporate-tax/anti-wealthy-tax people will happily thump a bible or two to get their way. They have a history of killing many birds with one stone, some spilled oil and a haze of burned coal. Everyone on that bandwagon is so happy to think themselves in control that they don't realize the straw they're sitting on is covering barrels of toxic waste just waiting for relaxed government regulations. And since science is suggesting that we be more concerned about the impact of such actions, science is going to be treated like the devil. It's no wonder why the mega-corporate tax dodgers openly welcome the religious right.

I don't get this either. Why thermite? If you're using thermite so no one finds explosives residue after the fact, why would thermite residue be any less suspicious? It ruins the whole idea. Regular explosives could have been explained away as having been on board the planes with the terrorists. From all I've heard, it doesn't seem to be all that surprising that the buildings came down. Although they were engineered to survive a passenger jet impact, it sounds like they could not survive even one floor falling down on top of the next. And that seems guaranteed from a fire accelerated by 23,000 gallons of av fuel.

No results found for "Mind Alert Medicine". Please explain what you mean by this. This is not a result screened for by most blood tests.

You can still discuss its impact on neurology studies. I just can't leave it in an established science section where some student might see it and draw the wrong conclusions.

! Moderator Note Since phrenology is NOT established science, I am moving this thread to philosophy.

! Moderator Note Please don't simply cut and paste articles without some input of your own, a question or some kind of direction a discussion of the topic should take. We discuss things here, we don't simply paste the work of authors who aren't members and thus can't respond. The link is great, thanks, but we'd rather hear what thinker_jeff thinks about the subject, at least to start us off.

You're Just kidding. Actually, you're Seriously, you're

My point is that a government health insurance program should be less expensive than a private carrier because they don't have to make x% profit to satisfy investors. The result is NOT exactly the same. We currently have a system in place that deducts your private carrier premiums from your paychecks. Americans accept this so I proposed we use this system instead of calling it a new "health tax". Currently, the Republicans are screaming about taxes so it would make it difficult to add new ones. The other reason I proposed it this way was so the national insurance was an option to compete against higher priced private insurance. If it's a tax, everyone has to pay and we might as well abolish private health insurance. I didn't think that would sit well, and would definitely be used as a (rather convincing) slippery slope argument against government interference in commerce. This way, if it put private carriers out of business, it would be due to competition rather than government fiat. Bottom line is, well, the bottom line. A government sponsored risk pool for health insurance should simply cost less because they don't need the kinds of profit a private carrier does. I feel health insurance is unique in this aspect. I'm not proposing all insurance be handled this way, just health insurance, because we really can't put a price tag on the health of a nation.

How difficult would it be to mount a worldwide campaign to boycott Chinese products until they agree to respect patents and intellectual property?

You can use the spoiler tag as well. Type what you want: Question: What did the chicken die of while crossing the road? Answer: Wrap the spoiler text with

My take on the Tea Party is that they started out being pissed off about paying taxes without being fairly represented by either of the major parties. Suddenly, they started getting a lot of attention and new members who really pushed the whole tax angle, and the representation part took a back seat. Before the 2008 election, they had middle income people frothing at the mouth about tax increases when Obama was actually going to lower their taxes. That told me something was wrong with their ideology. I think the Tea Party is being used by the mega-corporate special interests to shove the tax agenda and now the budget cutting down everyone's throats. All the reduction in government programs helps dilute regulations that cost businesses money in compliance. The last 10 years have been all about strangling programs like EPA, FDA and even public education and then complaining about why they don't work, why some should just be abolished and others privatized. In the USA, I think we should place a moratorium on all government handouts to companies that don't qualify as small businesses. I think any company whose personnel is not at least 50% US citizens should not receive any kind of benefit from the US government. And I agree with Warren Buffet; why should I be paying 28% taxes on my middle income when he only pays 17% on over $40M? Tax the wealthy; they argued that the Bush tax cuts would create more jobs and trickle that extra wealth down AND THEY LIED. They moved operations overseas and screwed us into the worst time in the memories of most people living.

Is it a prerequisite for this hypothesis that it was instigated by someone other than the terrorists? Because I don't see why terrorists would mind the buildings toppling sideways (if they could) and I don't see why they would want to cover up any prearranged demolition.

Greatest I Am has been suspended temporarily for repeated personal attacks and ignoring staff warnings to stop.

My daughter started DW with Tennant. We've gone through those and now I'm hoping she'll watch the Baker incarnation with me.

Umm, I was under the impression that the charges were thought to have been placed prior to the actual assault, like several days in advance.