Aardvark

Are you considering the absence of all minerals or just a selected few? If a few minerals were missing it is possible that humans would have developed substitutes, it depends on which were missing. The lack of copper and iron would be an impediment but not obviously insurmountable to the development of advanced civilisation. Cultures have developed without them.

Scottish Lords are British.

You are right that both Koreas share very deep ties, but i fear you are too generous in your assement of the North Korean regimes attitude. It is fully aware that any peaceful unification would lead to the immediate ousting of the North Korean regime from power. Instead its only hold on power is to deliberately enhabce the tensions and hatreds that justify its immense military build up that enable it to maintain its control. Peace and reconciliation would destroy the North Korean regime, therefore its policies must be aggressive and dangerous.

If you check what i wrote you will see that i made a clear distinction between 'navy birds' and the ballistic missile defence system, which i pointed out had been developed with so much effort. Simply parking a carrier between North Korea and the USA isn't going to provide any defence, despite the 'navy birds'. The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defence System , part of the defences i refered to, are still being developed and are not considered fully operational despite some promising test results. If N Korea were to really lauch an attack on the USA the Aegis system would not provide any great surety of security.

'Navy birds' don't have the capacity to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles flying outside the atmosphere. That's why the US government has spent so much on developing the missile defence system in the first place.

If you are ill, it's antibiotics and sciencitific medicine that will cure you, not chants, mantras and charms. If you go on holiday it will be in a plane obeying the laws of physics, not on a magic carpet. It is not only possible to come to a sound conclusion. It is inescapable. Science works, science demonstrates repeatable and consistent results. Faith does not. Trying to imply or argue for a parity of esteem for faith and science is to wilfully ignore reality.

Not so. The idea that species were not immutable was highly controversial. I'll be blunt. I think that is a false statement. If i'm wrong i apologise but please substantiate that, as in my experience, both personal and professional, paleontologists are some of the most well versed evolutionists in existence.

And since when have humans been magically separated from the rest of the nature world? Of course humans have hardwired social behaviour including group mentality and loyalities.

The Wollemi pine has cut the mustard as a species. 200 million years and still here. That's a pretty impressive record.

Radar. No radar. 3rd Reich win WW2.

Probably with some confusion. Livingstone is well known for sucking up to Fundamentalist Muslims. (slightly oddly considering his views on feminism, homosexuality and abortion.)

Interesting viewpoint. How do you deal with the contradictions that can arise between different faiths? If you are accepting that all religions may contain elements of truth what is your response to a claim for exclusive possesion of the truth by a religion? This question seems pertinent as it is a basic Islamic tradition that Islam is directly based on the word of God without any room for interpretation or compromise with other faiths. You seem to face the same dilemma as pacifists facing violent aggression.

What do you mean here? Muslims are killing people because of a cartoon so the Mayor of London should be impeached for being rude to a journalist? I'm afraid your opinions appear highly sanctimonious.

I hear velcro gloves are also popular.

I'm not attacking him. That isn't what i'm asking. :confused: I'm asking him why he thinks his God is worth worshipping? A fair question, surely?

An elegant solution to a sticky problem?

If there's no heaven or hell, then why care about the existence or not of God? Why care about his teachings? Why bother going to your church?

Impeached for what? Having unpopular opinions?

A case of decline in different directions?

Off topic, but, do you believe in an after life then?

This is ridiculous. The Mayor suspended by an unelected group of 3 for making an 'offensive' remark to a journalist. Free speech anyone? In a democracy if you don't like a politician then elect someone else. The idea that a politician can be removed from office for expressing the 'wrong' opinions is a very serious and bad precedent.

Afghanistan did in effect declared war by refusing to cooperate in handing over the terrorist criminals of Al Qaeda, instead choosing to continue to provide them with sanctury after 9/11. Unfortunately there is a significant correlation between terrorism and Islam. Most Muslims are not terrorist, that is a truism, but a significant number are or are supporters of it. Perhaps you forget that Hussien had Bin Laden declared 'Man of the Year' after 9/11? Highly doubtful. The recent elections in Iraq did not show a demand for strongly theocratic government, esp as Iraq is religiously mixed which would make a highly theocratic government almost impossible to enforce. Perhaps you would like to substantial your odd opinion? Democracy might set back freedoms whilst dictatorship helped protect them? You need to reexamine your ideas. Dubai is on a high state of alert because of the terrorist threat from those followers of Islam who do have a problem with bikini clad women. There are enough Muslims with a problem there to result in danger of bombings and machine gun attacks. Myth. Al Qaeda and Taliban were never supported, helped or funded by the US government. Fact. Islamic Terrorist groups have very broad support across the Muslim world. It is possible to make a clear moral distinction to executing someone in a legal system based on clear codes of law and justice accountable to democratic government and between theocratic terrorists. Think about it, the differences are fairly obvious. Wrong, the Shah was the opponent of theocratic dictatorship, he was a secular ruler. You contradict yourself, why would Muslims clerics want to overthrow a theocratic dictatorship? anyway, to blame the 1979 Iranian revolution on a 1953 coup doesn't mesh. There is not enough of a causal link there. Anti American sentiment is based on the Clerics overthrowing the Shahs government? Were are the connections. your making large statements with no supporting evidence. What you are saying just doesn't make sense. The peanut farmer was firmly on the way out anyway. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Al Qaeda was never supported by the CIA, it never received any support from the West. 'Some Palestinians' are moderates. Sure, fine. But the majority of them just voted for Hamas, an organisation that is an openly declared terrorist movement that wants to totally destroy the entire nation of Israel. Please try to bear in mind the existence of a majority vote for violent terrorist fanactics. The problems in the Middle East grew before any attempts to impose anything from the West by force. Force was only used AFTER these problems arose. Your understanding of the situation is upside down. Which they developed after being repeatedly attacked by all their neighbours who openly stated that they wished to completely destroy Israel. Which makes Israels development of nuclear weapons a rational, defensive and morally acceptable matter. As opposed to Iran which faces no external threats and is instead prone to highly aggresive behaviour and threats to its neighbours and Israel. There is no comparision between Israel developing nuclear weapons and Iran wishing to do so. Attacking the civil liberties of a traitor who deliberately broke the law betrayed natioanl security. All countries attack the civil liberties of criminal traitors. In most Arab countries it would not have been solitary confinement, it would have been painful death. Terrorism isn't so bad because earthquakes are worse? Comparing terrorist attacks with legitimate army firing on 'Bloody Sunday'? Serial killers only kill a few dozen people. Lets not bother imprisoning them, after all compared with smoking thats almost nothing. Or perhaps worrying about evil' date=' deliberate murder is the right thing. Your attempts at drawing a moral equivalence between the West and Islamic dictatorships is wrong. For example, When Blair stated that there would be no invasion if Hussein handed over all WMD, all Hussein had to do was let the UN weapons inspectors come in and confirm that there were no WMD. Instead he refused. A clear example of Hussein being duplicitious while Blair was clear and open. It is Islamic groups who deliberately target civilians, who deliberately target places of worship, who are following a fanactical creed of hatred. It is these groups who are the problem, not the West.