Aardvark

Even if they were scared they could have tried calling for help, calling the police or the train driver, perhaps pulling the emergency stop cord, anything but stand back and watch. Maybe they didnt really care that someone they thought was a Jew was being attacked?

They don't need to reflect on how hum-drum their live are. They just are, whats the biggest worry facing Swedish politics? The need to instill some rivalery with the Danish football team? A need to maintain a constant supply of birch twigs for the saunas? Major topics for confrontation amongst the politicians i'm sure.

Apache helicopter and detonating bus type explosive, yes. I think it's fair to define that as pretty important to the people hearing the loud bangs.

That may be the case in Sweden, but in Israel the same set up leads to the opposite result with the same parties having great influence. Perhaps it's because in Sweden there are no important issues for the politicians to worry about, as opposed to the very serious matters that the Israeli government deals with. In peaceful, secure prosperous nations not facing any challenges PR might result in moderate government, but faced with any sort of real problem or divide i can't see it working. Having 3 or 4 way splits seems like an ideal way of having deadlocked government unable to ever actually make an important decisions.

That's what the French authorites and all the news outlets say. The other passengers did absolutely nothing.

If a small party held the balance of power in your country what would stop it wielding disproportionate influence?

Ok, are you sure it's not really conscious at 24 weeks? There are cases of babies born before 24 weeks and surviving. The idea that a baby is better off dead than with a bad parent is awful. There are good arguments for abortion but that argument is so bad it's almost enough to make me a pro lifer.

I hoped that was implied in my post. I hear some dolphins are pretty intelligent.

Is that a joke?

Or call the police. The BBC reports that no passengers did anything. A shameful passivity and abdication of moral responsibility.

Don't believe that proportional representation is automatically more democratic or representative. In PR systems small parties can wield disproportionate influnence, especialy when they hold the balance of power. For example, look at Israel. A PR system allows marginal exttemist religious parties to hold governments to ransom and to force the government to follow a harder, more extremist line than it otherwise would. Even Catholics are allowed the freedom of conscience, the Pope may be a hardliner but the days of the Inquistion are over. Democracy is not solely direct rule by the people, representative democracy is a valid variatation( the systsem used in the UK). Oligarchy is when a few rule and hold all power in their hands. In a representative democracy regular elections mean than they rule at the sufferance of the people. Perhaps we are all missing the point. In the UK at least, it seems that more and more power is accuring in the hands of unknow, unaccountable bureacractic bodies, more laws rules and regulations are introduced by European committees and Quangoes ( quasis autonomous non-governmental organisations) than by our elected government. We argue about the fig leaf of elected government whilst our liberties are eroded away under our noses.

Aeroguy, how do you know that human consciousness develops in the 24th week? That seems a bit arbitary, non human life you can kill at week 23, human at week 24. In the UK the government is looking at the possiblity of lowering the legal limit for abortion below 24 weeks because of evidence that premature babies born before then can be saved and that embyros develop faster and earlier than previously realised. I disagree with pro lifers wishing to ban abortion but i do think we need to take the topic a lot more seriously than we do, unborn children are not disposable consumer goods.

Worse than the attack was the fact that there were witnesses and no one did anything. You expect racist thugs to be mindless and brutal, when ordinary people acquiese it's time to be scared (and angry).

I'd like to drive one of those.

I don't think anyone seriously still holds the view of neanderthals as ignorant brutes anymore. We know they also used art and symbolism, displayed understanding of death and possibly had religious/supersistious ideas. Our cousins, the neanderthals are entitled to a good measure of respect. For early Cro Magnons, i think the general understanding is that much of the artwork did have symbolic meaning as well as direct visual meaning. The simularities with the art of present day and recent hunter gather people such as Kalahari bushmen and Australian Aboriginals where we know that much of the meaning is abstract makes this seem likely and helps us understand the mind of our ancestors a little more.

From the example of this planets history i'd guess that intelligent life is going to be very rare. Over the billions of years life has evolved here before the rise of our species inteligence does not appear to have ever developed, where as other traits and adaptations have reapeatedly reoccured time and again. Admittedly we dont know how representative our planet is but working from the available data intelligence does not seem to be the automatic outcome of the existence of life. Life may be plentiful, intelligence may be rare and therefore precious.

As a matter of interest Cohen, Kerry is a devout Catholic. Also i don't think a nation needs to be completley homogenous for a democracy to function, and i think the USA has a pretty strong sense of identity, ethnic backgrounds notwithstanding) a diversity of viewpoints makes for a healthy political process. It's when a country is limited in different viewpoints that the dangers of excessive conformity and political sterility arise. Even in a two party system, the parties have to at least recognize the existence of varing viewpoints and modify policies and ideas accordingly. It's not perfect but whats the alternative? Homogenous little states frightened of diversity?

Why do you state that a republic is supposed to be small? Surely if a nation has an established sense of identity within it's borders then a democratic system can function. Unless the USA decides to introduce monarchy it seems that a republic is a reasonable way of ordering its affairs.

There is the precedent of the Nurmemburg trials, the offences the Nazis were convicted of did not exist under German law but were invented afterwards.

Because it is beautiful.

Are you thinking of a 'the fly' type scenario?

Would you need cloning to achieve those results? Minor genetic tweeking, for instance removing a gene for haemophilia, might be possible in an IVF situation without the need for cloning in order to deal with inherited disorders.

Your link to ABC states that the USA gave funding to the Mujhaeedin of $3 billion. That's not the same as giving Bin Ladin $3 billion, the Mujhaeedin was made of of several different groups and organisations, some of them rivals. For example general Dostrum recieved some of that funding and he was a rival of Bin Ladins. I think you have made a mistake in your assertion that the US gave Bin Ladin $3 billion.

If it's true that the USA deliberately helped Iraq develop bbilogical weapons then i'd agree that constitued backing for Sadaams reign, i just haven't been able to find any of this so called paper trail. As for your sources, i generally prefer the more liberal left wing ones, i just dont automatically consider mine, or their, prejudicies to be correct without some serious backing. As for the Bin Laden matter, i have tried Googling on that. The BBC, usconservatives, americanfreepress, daily telegraph, hartford archives, marxist.com and on and on. The only evidence i can find of funding is indirect through the general funding of Mujhaeedin during the Soviet invasion of Afganistan, it is generally assumed some of this money will have reached Bin Laden, esp as at the time he still have good relations with Saudi Arabia. To jump from that to a figure of $3 billion reaching his organisation alone seems over the top, and i wonder why any money would go his way from the USA after the end of the Afghan war. the idea that the USA would still be funding him in 2001 is odd. That is why i am curious about his sources.

I think biology is ammoral rather than immoral. But that doesnt mean that our morality couldnt have a biological basis, if a system of morality encourages biological success, for instance by reducing murders, then it would be a useful biological adaptaion.