Aardvark

The government should have a responsibility to ensure that no company deliberately misleads people about its products and that any addictive substances should be clearly labelled. Basically the government is there to ensure businesses are honest. That should be enough surely?

In Florida the law requiring helmets has been rescinded. Helmetless bikers are now known as organ donors. Personally i that people should be able to do what they want as long as it does not harm anyone else. Which means laws against drunk driving are quite reasonable. Fair point. I don't want to live in a nanny state where the government tries to wrap everyone in cotton wool and no one takes responsibility for their actions. It does seem like people can do anything stupid and then blame anyone but themselves and make mony from it. What i do want is for people to be given relevant information, for instance, if a product contains an addictive substance. Once people know that they can make their own choices and take responsibility for their own actions. After all, isn't being an adult about taking responsibilty for your own actions? In my opinion Western society is becoming infantalised, with people taking less and less responsibility for their own lives and decisions. (rant, rant;))

Because freedom implies choice. People can only make valid choices if they have the relevant information. It's not the governments responsibility to stop people choosing to smoke, but i think it does have a responsibility to ensure that the public is given the relevant information. If products contain addictive compounds then it seems right that consumers know that so they are able to make informed choices rather that becoming inadvertantly addicted.

Caffeine is an addictive drug. Its levels are manipulated in the same way as nicotine levels are manipulated. Presumably to get people 'hooked' on the product. In what way would the relatively smaller health consequences of that drug alter the principle here. An addicitive substance is added to get people to consume more product. Caffeine is added to Cola drinks, they might not cause cancer, but they do contribute to obesity and diabetes. Perhaps the Coca Cola corporation should be investigated for the same charges that cigarette companies have faced. Whats the difference?

Pretty much everywhere does that. Except the USA apparently. Would anyone characterise the manipulation of nicotine in cigarettes as being any different from the manipulation of caffeine levels in coffee?

The USA did not provide any favourable treatment to India during their conflicts. The USA provided favourable treatment to Pakistan. India was aligned with the Soviet Union, receiving military equipment and economic assistance. The 'militant Islamist' has no grounds at all to hate the USA on the basis of any so called bias against Pakistan. How odd. The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan creating turmoil, civil war and anarchy, and you blame the USA? The fact that the Taliban and other radical Muslims blame everything on the USA does not actually make it true.

'British domination in the region'? You might as well complain about the American domination of Texas or New York. Anyway, the IRA always publicly stated that they were NOT motivated by religion. The Islamic terrorists openly state that they are directly inspired by religion. If you were to make that case you would be wrong. Trying to draw a moral equivalence between Islam and Christianity is foolish. Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ, who preached peace and love. Islam is based on the teachings of Mohameed, who preached violent conquest.

What is an environmentalist?

The first two points are reasonable as far as they go (although the second point is a little like refering the WW2 and saying that not all Nazis are German and not all Germans are Nazis) but the third point confuses me. How does our studying Islam have any effect on its tolerance of non believers?

I am prejudiced against members of Aryan Nation. I judge people on the basis of their membership of that group. Would making remarks to that effect count as a violation? I think it is quite possible to see that the ideology of Islam is such as it leads toward and encourages violence. As such it is quite possible to blame Islam for much contemporary terrorism. That is not the same as blaming all individual Muslims, just as condemning communism was not the same thing as condemning all Russians during the Cold war.

We do know a lot about his beliefs. He believed in a warped form of racial Darwinism whereby it was blood and not religion that mattered. This is proven by the fact that it did not matter whether a person was a practicing Christian if they wre of Jewish origin. It was their blood that counted. Catholics and other Christians of Jewish origin were murdered with as much determination as religious Jews.

No. Hitler was not Christian. He went so far as to ban the construction of any churches in his plans for a new Berlin. His parents were Christians' date=' he was not. It's a simple fact. 'a large role in the holocaust'? The Catholic Church may not have stood up to Hitler as much as it should but to accuse it of having a large role in the genocide is both foolish and an irrlevance to the question of Hitlers beliefs. Hitler was a unique person. Others may have shared his opinions but without him personally WW2 would never have happened. Time and time again he forced through radical policies in the teeth of opposition from the army, the SA and other members of his own party. Is that a joke?

Except for the fact that Germany had declared war on the USA. That's a good reason.

That is not true. The UK did not bribe the USA to enter the war. The USA entered the war because Japan attacked the USA and then Germany declared war on the USA. The USA did not have any choice in the matter.

You lump a lot of unrelated matters together and try and imply that there is some sort of a crisis of the governments making. An apparently incompetent doctor has been uncovered and is no longer working in Australia. Even if the accusations against him are true this isn't a sign of any government failure. Sometimes incompetent doctors are found, regardless of the political situation, left, right or anything else. What fault is that of politicians? An Emergency ward suffers from staff shortages. Regretable, but not the end of the world or symptomatic of any great crisis. A doctor is found to have an undisclosed criminal conviction and is forced to stand down. This appears to be an instance of quite proper action being takn by the relevant authorities. Where is the major problem? A surgeon has been performing surgery he is not apparently qualified to do. He has been discovered. You have highlighted some instances of normal human failings. In any health system there will be people who perform inadequately or unethically. The system is then to be judged on how it identifies and deals with those people. You are simply implying criticism of the authorities for the normal occurance of these problems which would arise under any system of government. You have not demonstrated that Queensland's health system is suffering 'major problems' or is in any way dysfunctional.

His point, as far as i understand it, isn't that Israel could annex Lebannon, but that Lebannon and Israel could unify. As this would give the new state an Arab majority it would be a smart move by the Arabs, it would in effect result in the elimination of Israel and the end of Zionism. Which is probably why the Israelis would never do such a thing.

Unfortunately France.

I think you may be mistaking vegetarianism for veganism. For instance, Hindus are not vegans and i doubt that there are 5 million British vegans.