Mr Skeptic

Hm, would be pretty hilarious if to counter Pulpit Freedom Sunday a few politicians buy/rent themselves a church and hold weekly political rallies/fundraisers at it while claiming tax exempt status as a religion. That would certainly remove the limitation that is bothering them.

Well there is the detail that low IQ is the definition of mental retardation, or rather used to be but now they added a new component to the definition. 72 is just above the borderline for mild retardation.

Well in theory it doesn't hurt to skimp a little on some aspects of the environment during tough economic times, but that is only if they really do intend to make up the difference during better times.

Perfectly consistent with the quote I shared, animals have value to God but humans far more. Well please feel free to match my quote with your quote that you think you read somewhere. Please do remember there are searchable bibles nowadays, so it doesn't matter if you don't remember where it was if you can remember close enough to what it was.

If it is true (where's your source?), then I think the social insects might be enough of an explanation.

Use the most precise numbers you have for your calculations, then factor in the errors for the final answer.

Can you assume the drops are the same size if the surface tension is different?

Well if you repeat yourself enough something is bound to happen. [also it would really be nice to know who banned you because we don't like overriding another mod's actions, I know you said you didn't know but maybe they'll read this]

Some rules are illegal. What then? You have to follow the highest ranking rule, not just any rule you want.

Yeah? Try shedding your skeleton (~14% of your body weight) every time you grow a bit, then regrowing it without ending up looking like a deformed mass of jelly or getting eaten while helpless. An internal skeleton is really useful for big creatures, since it is alive and can grow as needed and doesn't leave you deliciously helpless every so often. As for the scaling issues, read this: http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/21701757/

I used to be a fairly vengeful individual, but it didn't really do me any good. I learned forgiveness is the better path. My answer to how to let go of feelings for revenge depends on the severity of the offense: 1) Trivial Offenses: To properly avenge yourself of every minor offense perpetrated against you by even one person, takes an awful lot of energy and time. It might not seem that way but they are likely going to take revenge themselves for what you do to them, so you will have a constant supply of offenses that need avenging. Properly hating a person takes a lot of time and effort, which you cannot really afford to dedicate just anyone. You must ask yourself, "Am I really willing to invest hours of my life hurting this person?" If not, then it is best not to take revenge at all, because if you do and they retaliate then you will have an even bigger need to avenge yourself. 2) Non-Trivial Offenses: Really the only way to avenge yourself for a non-trivial offense would be illegal, unless there were just the perfect circumstances. On the other hand, searching for the perfect circumstances that would allow you to take revenge for a huge offense legally, would take an awful lot of time, possibly years or even decades. During which time you will suffer immensely due to the unresolved offense. 3) For both: Also, vengeance can be bad for your health. I don't just mean the possibility that someone feed you a small amount of rat poison or something, but rather that you'll raise your level of cortisol which is bad for your health in many many ways. Also, revenge cannot be taken immediately due to the vengeance being inappropriate, bad consequences which would result, or simply being unable to pull it off. This means that during this time you will suffer, in addition to the time and effort spent on revenge. Also worth considering is that people who do nasty things to you without you deserving it, are likely to do the same to other people and eventually others will do nasty things to him. Indeed. It is a very poor revenge that does not leave the offender sorry for his actions. Which can only happen if they are aware that their situation is a vengeance. And yet, letting them know means you expose yourself to their counter-revenge. Quite the conundrum. It's not going where you wanted it to, because of poor communication on your part. For example, including untrue stuff like "Somtimes revenge is the only option that can bring closure." means people will tend to respond to that, on top of it diluting your final question that seems to be the only part you were really interested in to begin with. Besides which, you put this in the Psychiatry and Psychology section rather than in, say, the Brain Teasers and Puzzles titled eg "the perfect revenge". Might end up getting locked though, given that we're not too fond of illegal things and many of the best or at least easiest revenges would be illegal. Maybe require that the vengeance be legal? --- Anyhow, despite my personal renunciation of revenge, I do appreciate it exists. Were it not for revenge and anger in general, people wouldn't be afraid to do nasty things to me. So while I am not willing to invest the effort needed to avenge myself, at least not the vast majority of the time, I am glad that other people are and so people are nice enough not to do things that they know would anger me. I guess that makes me a freeloader , skimping on my duty to avenge myself so people will be afraid to anger myself or other people. ...Yup, were it the case that people didn't take revenge, I would definitely take revenge on people so they won't take advantage of me. I'm definitely a freeloader on the revenge thing.

Absolutely not. Jesus frequently points out that God cares for the wild animals, even the plants:

Or, as in the Bible, which I think said it before the movie Dogma. Actually, the whole book of Ecclesiastes might be relevant to this thread, as it is largely dedicated to King Solomon's attempt to find meaning to life (King Solomon was labeled by the Bible as the wisest man there ever was or will be, for whatever that's worth). Here's how it starts off:

That's pretty funny. Maybe if he had switched to Republican so that he could accept their nomination, he might have won the actual election?

Well, for one thing, not only is it a parody, but it started off as a parody of the The O'Reilly Factor. Also, Poe's Law doesn't really apply because the guy has years of half-hour shows, not just some single 100-1000 character post. It's pretty clear that he goes out of his way to make his positions look silly. I don't think Stewart is all that worried about offending conservatives. I suppose it is better not to, though. Another aspect is that he can have Colbert conjure up the problems he wants to address, as you said, the "pitch-perfect example", but as a bonus it can be in "blatantly obvious" flavor.

Hm, a chance to brush up on my Spanish. (seeing as the issue is between two spanish-speaking countries) (peripheral) Most of the 500,000 or so yearly crossing illegally into Mexico from Guatemala, are headed for the US. It seems that about 90% of the economic activity of Tecún Umán, a city in Guatemala on the border with Mexico, is related to the flow of illegal immigrants. People pay roughly 7-14,000 US dollars to "polleros" to take them to the US, and there is a lot of robbing and cheating along the way against these largely helpless people often carrying their life savings. Our efforts to secure the US border must have been at least partially successful, because whereas the "coyotes" used to charge $250 to help people across the US border to Phoenix 15 years ago, they now charge $3,000, also the death rate has doubled. (source) The border is used to smuggle Mexican products across the border without paying tariffs. It says that it turns out that the purpose of the wall is to prevent floods from the river Suchiate, yet it also says that the experts opine that the fence is due to the killing of 72 foreign citizens by Mexican drug traffickers. (source) The United States is now constructing a border fence more than 1,000 km from its border (Guatemalan newspaper) The "polleros" who offer to help transport people into the US sometimes abandon them midway, abuse, extort them for extra, murder them, or kidnap them for ransom. For example 9,758 of the illegal immigrants were kidnapped in Mexico and ransomed for about 25 million dollars, in 5 months. (source) We already give Mexico hundreds of millions per year in the Mérida Initiative to combat drug trafficking, transnational organized crime, and money laundering. And now a food for thought question: Does Mexico benefit more from the flow of illegal immigrants than it loses? After all, most places don't get to see "tourists" carrying their life savings.

Our new Statue of Liberty:

Actually, it's more like you saying, "you all aren't clever enough to find it, but I'm sure there really is an answer". That would be fair enough if it was just a general accusation of unnecessary suffering, but for a specific example like the newborn eaten by wolves, one would expect a specific counterexample. Anyhow, the very best example of unnecessary suffering would be Hell. All the more so because the people who would be sent there are not necessarily good or bad, but simply that God did not choose them for salvation. Also, hell cannot even serve as a deterrent, because the people who would be sent there for the most part wouldn't even believe it exists. In any case, I don't think there could be any justification of eternal suffering as necessary.

Well, there's several billion of us that think stuff matters. Should it matter? Dunno, but it does. In any case, we're better off acting as if things matter.

Sometimes, part of your fridge will reach below freezing. Nothing to do with the cider.

Yup, and to get your machine to work more than the first second, you need to be able to reset it, which will cost you energy.

Presumably similar to an insanity defense.

Well, it would be more convenient and certainly less expensive to just use the pressure of a pile of bricks as your energy source, and it will work just as well (neither will work at all). Just remember: to get a force from pressure you need an area (force = pressure * area). To get work from a force you need a distance (work = force * distance). To follow the laws of thermodynamics, the thing you're getting energy from must lose energy. And what you're trying to build looks an awful lot like a perpetual motion machine, except that for some reason one of the parts that does roughly zero work uses wave power.

If you tie a rope to a tree and shake the other end, you can make waves in the rope. These waves travel forward, even though the rope does not (and cannot).