Mr Skeptic

Also, if you want to say "hello" you can say that in the introduce yourself thread. No need to say that in 9 different threads. If people are not discussing the topics you brought up, it is not because they forgot about them -- you need to better know your audience, and post something interesting and thoughtful.

How would you describe the people holding each of those opinions, and which group would you trust to give you the more accurate answer to other scientific questions?

You're just not very good at asking interesting questions. It could be an age group thing. Many of us are college educated so it isn't all that easy to find something that is new to us.

#2 is correct. It has indeed been done already, and was in fact first done a few millennia ago to combat various other diseases. The drawback is that this weakens the immune system against other diseases; it is a trade-off. See here for more: CCR5-delta32 However, this was done by evolution; it is not available as a cure nor a vaccine -- just genetic heritage.

My parents studied in France; they had very good benefits for students. I don't know whether that is still the case.

I've ridden in a boat that looks like a giant tricycle. It is easy to use (just pedal) but not very fast.

No, anaerobic metabolism is much messier than that. The lactose will be fermented into lactic acid, which will acidify the milk, curdle proteins, and hinder further bacterial action. What do you think would result from anaerobic fermentation of proteins? There would be quite a bit of cream in there, but still not that much. Do you consider cheese to be greasy?

A case of shyness, self-esteem, fear -- but nothing more. Incidentally, do you have female friends? Most people far overestimate their own sexual attractiveness. If rejected they often place the blame elsewhere or even decide they didn't really like that person anyways. This delusion is natures way of ensuring that they try anyways -- without trying, you definitely won't succeed. Being deluded is easier, because it is easier to try something you feel you will succeed at. And eventually, you will succeed if you keep trying. You may have been hit by a good dose of reality, but that doesn't mean you should give up. Giving up = guaranteed failure. Perhaps you should tell us what your objectives are. Is your objective to never ever be embarrassed? Is it to find someone who is guaranteed not to reject you? Is your objective to find a woman who will hop in bed with you on the first date? Do you want someone who is physically attractive, or perhaps just a good person, or perhaps only the perfect woman will do? Are you looking for companionship, or just sex? Do you just want to "try it out" without being committed? Once you know what your objectives are, you can go about seeing 1) if they are realistic, and 2) what is the best way to go about it. For example, an online dating site is probably a good way to meet someone who won't reject you out of hand (because they already accepted the first date). Whereas checking out a bar is probably a good way to find potentially "loose" girls who you can visually check out before talking to.

I had a bidet in the house when I was a kid. I didn't use it much; it had to be run for a while before the water would be warm, was separate from the toilet, and then I still needed something to dry with. However, I did appreciate it whenever I had a bad case of diarrhea: it won't make your bottom sore from excessive wiping.

There are always bacteria on the cow's udder. I don't think you can sterilize that without taking some skin off or causing tissue damage, and even then I'm fairly certain it would not be eco-friendly nor health-friendly to do so. However, if you are going to ferment the milk, then having the healthy bacteria far far outnumber any stray bacteria should do. Pasteurization can help too. You definitely won't be left with only butter. In fact if any butter at all is produced, it would be in very small quantities. You will probably get curds and whey, but maybe you might get buttermilk or yogurt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermented_milk_products

That it has at least one earth-like planet.

Earth: It's big enough that we might figure out not to be retards before we destroy the environment.

I once let my computer get owned 5 minutes after installing windows. Visited the wrong website with internet explorer, I knew it was a fishy website but hadn't had a problem with it when I had used it previously, using Firefox. What I use now is an installation CD that installs Windows XP SP3 directly. I have my important data on a separate partition, and if my computer has problems I can re-install without losing my data. And I use an antivirus too, although I did fine without it. Not all antiviruses are resource hogs.

Universe: Everything is too far away. Although I suppose I am happy that it won't all collapse on itself.

[math]person \neq human[/math] Yes, we can have silicon people too. They'll think like people, act like people, and probably be far smarter and more virtuous than normal humans.

I think the summary of the problem is thus: the free market has failings when it comes to monopolies, and to imperfect information, both of which apply to internet service. As a solution, bascule advocates restricting the rights of the corporations in this area, which doesn't sit well with libertarians like ParanoiA. Can this be solved without additional legislation?

I'm already a biochemical android. I'm so simple, my code fits on one CD, and is 2-10 times smaller than of the code of most of the games I play.

That's how I feel too.

Well if you looked at it when it was a grassroots protest, I'm sure you'd find a decent percentage of them quite well-informed and having reasonable reasons. If those folks are still there, then they've just been diluted. I think the poll forgot to ask a rather relevant question: what is their favorite news source.

I think that morality is rather arbitrary, so morals can conflict without either of them being "wrong". You can certainly have extremely unpopular morals however! You can also have self-contradictory morals, so I guess that would be wrong.

Yeah, the aircraft doesn't actually pull you over, they just radio a cop. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090115151654AAmJRu5

The transitional metal elements can have all kinds of charges, some more commonly than others.

You certainly don't need a formal education to study things, but you do need to learn pre-requisites before studying more advanced topics. Math is probably the most important of the pre-requisites, and is applicable to all sciences and many non-science fields as well.

I like sausages, but I hear I don't want to know how they are made.

It's notable that the top two winners (or at least their supporters) may have bought half the votes (or rather the entrance fee to the voting place). That is, Romney supporters paid for ~200 of the admission fees, whereas Paul's supporters gave an 80% discount ($30 instead of $150). I don't know which contributed more to the votes, since a free ticket is far more appealing than a $30 ticket, and the people willing to pay $30 are more likely to be willing to pay $150 than are the folks who got a free ticket. Eh, money well spent, I think.