Mr Skeptic

Convection currents. Water is warmed at the equator and rises, cools at the poles and sinks. The warm surface water flows toward the poles, and the cold deep ocean water flows toward the equator. The currents are vital because they help distribute heat evenly (they warm Europe and the US, for example), and also because they bring minerals from the ocean floor up to the surface. Without those minerals, the ocean's algae, which is far more important than all of our land plants to the carbon cycle, would die out.

Well, how I see it, nobody wants to torture people nor kill them if it is not necessary. But to torture a person, you need to capture him, and once you capture him, he is no longer a threat. I agree that there should be no honor in killing, but the fact remains that some forms of killing have always been considered much less honorable than other forms. Even though I dislike the idea of killing, I do think that it can be made even worse depending on the manner of killing. Re "clean" wars, I don't think that "clean" wars encourage fighting. Back in the old days, wars were very nasty, but they were still fought. Nasty wars also make people hate each other more IMO. I mean, look for example at the hundred years war, we don't do that kind of thing nowadays.

Didn't Bell's Inequality only rule out local hidden variables? I understand that the Uncertainty Principle is often stated to say that the position and momentum (or time and energy) of something is inherently uncertain, rather than just the measurements thereof. But I don't know why this is so. In any case, I don't see how we can justify saying that some things are inherently unknowable or random, rather than just appearing to be unknowable or random. It seems like an extra but unprovable addition.

For one thing, enemy soldiers have demonstrated that they oppose us. So their "due process" would be "caught in the act". But a soldier is just following orders; he's not intrinsically our enemy, more like an opponent. And once captured, he won't be getting in our way anymore. Putting a captured soldier to death would be considered far worse morally than torturing him. Combat and prison are different situations. Yet even in the old times when a fight to the death was considered some kind of honorable thing, there were things that were allowed and things that weren't. Using archery or poison were considered less honorable than matching swords with him. Killing someone who was defenseless was considered wrong. An all or nothing response would probably not be a good idea. We'd either have to not respond to a little thing, hence not penalizing little things, or go to an all out war due to a little thing. That would look immature, and would make us far more disliked than we are now.

That, and they have to not be fatal to the resulting fetus. During prenatal development, genetic damage that would not harm an adult much would be fatal to the developing baby. So it has to infect the germ cell in a non-fatal place.

Did it have any tomato or banana? Or eggplant, pomegranate, chili pepper, or avocado?

Isn't nothing just the empty set? When you say, "nothing is F", what you are saying is, "the set of all things that are F is the empty set", or "there does not exist an x such that x has property F", or "for all x, x does not have the property F"

Potentially exaggerating or lying. I don't want to go so far as to say that he is lying or exaggerating, just that he might be. Or misinformed, since he seems to have been out of the loop by then. That may also explain why he didn't give details about the prevented attacks. Some things just didn't seem to fit together -- he had his revelation a day or so after the waterboarding (day or so later -- is that how torture normally works), and not having the details about the prevented attacks -- which I would have expected to be paraded around. I'm paranoid when it comes to stuff the government has a vested interest in.

We have the innate ability to horribly mangle the truth in favor of useful delusions. Taking too long to find the perfect significant other? You'll find one that is perfect and nothing anyone says will convince you otherwise. White lies, and by white I mean bridal attire. Sometimes the truth is inconvenient so we make it go away

No, after the waterboarding he got his revelation from Allah that told him to talk to them, but he avoided giving away useful information. The managed to get some trivia out of him about al Quaeda, but he was not cooperating, only talking. Edit: I take back what I said about not cooperating, because later in the transcript they say he was cooperating with several things. It doesn't say anything about stopping specific attacks though.

That way they look like books. More like scrolls, actually. We're comfortable with it. Don't the Orientals read differently than we do? Perhaps they have different website styles?

Can you tell us a bit more? Does your sister spend much of her time shopping? Does she or has she worked? Where does she get her money from (other than "borrowing" it)? I'd assume she abuses credit cards and/or cannot get one anymore. Did she mortgage her house? Does she admit she has a problem? What does her husband say? I take it she simply likes to spend money whether she gets anything out of it or not. The more you tell us, the better chance we may have to solve the problem.

Did you mean [math]f(x) = \frac{1}{x (ln x)^2}[/math] and [math]f(x) = \frac{1}{(ln (3^x))^2}[/math]? If you quote someone's post, you can get a copy of the math language used, so you don't need so many parenthesis. Now [math]\frac{1}{(ln (3^x))^2} = \frac{1}{(x ln 3)^2} = \frac{1}{x^2 (ln 3)^2}[/math], so this decreases as [math]\frac{1}{x^2}[/math], whereas the other decreases by [math]\frac{1}{x (ln x)^2}[/math]. So the question becomes which increases faster, x or (ln x)^2?

Randomness is the new god. Well, I think so anyhow. To explain the result of a quantum measurement where you can predict the probability of getting various results, but cannot predict which of them you will get, it seems reasonable to say that it appears random. But if you go on to add that it is random; that is to say, that the reason you got a result is inherently unknowable (ie, metaphysical, not part of physics) -- that is an extra statement that does not explain anything new, hence could be removed by Occam's Razor. Not only that, but that extra statement completely changes the universe -- whereas without randomness the universe was considered deterministic, with everything having a cause, with randomness, the universe is considered non-deterministic -- some things have no cause and are unknowable. How can giving up like that be justified? Just to say that we know the answer? Just like they used to say, "God did it." shall we now say "It is random." ? How can any scientist say, "We know the answer, and the answer is that there is no answer"? How can any scientist say that something is unknowable, since there will never be any proof of that?

For one thing, fat cells are not pure fat. They have some structure to them, which adds weight. You may also need extra water. For example, chickens can lay more weight in eggs than they eat in dry food, because of the extra water. Just remember, calories are not mass, they are energy.

Only if god is also hiding. If he were visibly affecting the universe by breaking the laws of physics, we could observe him, no? But that is the path to endless and pointless anecdotes.

Perhaps renouncing that belief will require them to replace many many other beliefs that were based on it. The more beliefs based on a particular belief, the more unwilling they would be to renounce it.

I agree. Torturing people would just give them justification that we are evil; though we may get information about our enemies out of them, we may end up with more enemies than we can find. Especially if we are torturing innocents. For this purpose, what matters is whether they percieve it as torture, which for waterboarding they do. That could be a problem. Odds are, they just misunderstand us. Anyone who thinks we are so evil that they are willing to sacrifice themselves to kill some of use either knows something I don't, or "knows" something I don't. Perhaps they will decide that we are less evil than the people who told them to blow themselves up. I guess it depends on what zealots are made of -- were they brainwashed, or is that what they truely believe? Agreed. Agreed. In fact, I think imprisonment has become a one-size-fits-all "solution" that doesn't generally solve the problem but insted delays it. Is there any evidence he is telling the truth? Maybe they just captured a bunch of people and called it a success. Notoriously lacking is any mention of who exactly was busted and what for... maybe I'm just paranoid. I read the first transcript linked to in the article. Apparently, he was willing to talk, but not to give away "sensitive" information. They may have gotten some useful information about al Quaeda out of him, but if so, it was unintentional.

You got it.

Severe physical suffering (gag reflex) or Severe metal suffering (lasting psychological damage). Check and Check Intentional. Check To obtain information, and intimidate. Check Under a public official's authority. Check Not due to lawful sanctions (Not convicted, so check) A mock execution (since the victim believes he is drowning) is also illegal by international law. People being waterboarded will probably be willing to share any information (made up if necessary) to make it stop. Hence, it would be unreliable.

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Particles are basically dust. If what they are made of either absorbs or reflects light, they will cause dimming. Sulfur is not transparent, hence sulfur particles will absorb light. If you make particles small enough, larger wavelengths will pass right through them (an effect of the wave nature of light), and might have other strange effects. To be an aerosol, I would expect the sulfur particles to be small, so it might have weird effects.

Irrational people are like irrational numbers. They keep on going and going without end, and they look completely unpredictable.

Yet the seedless oranges are more successful as a human cultivar than wild oranges. Their success is directly linked to being seedless. Hence, the seedless trait is actually benefitial to them. After all, artificial selection is just natural selection in an artificial environment.