Moontanman

Yeah, it is amazing, Bush was so soft spoken and humble, never taking credit for anything, the POS did what Bush couldn't do and and no where in that speech do I read him taking responsibility for anything but directing his people to get Bin Laden, I guess our current POS should have flown to the aircraft carrier and under a huge banner of Mission completed told the Nation the mission of killing Bin Laden was finished, wearing a navy seal unifrom while Bin Ladin's body was dumped over board, yeah, that would have been the way to go, take full responsibility in a outragous fashion instead of simply stating the facts of how it went down... oh and interrupting the guy with the dead squirrel on his head when the POS announced that Bin ladin had been killed....

If you google this you will find lots of links to the harm cannabis does and it's addictive properties, you will also find lots of links telling you the opposite. To be honest I tend to side with the people who see pot as, if not harmful, one of the lest harmful recreational drugs we use. Pot cannot be good for you due to the main way of using it, smoking, it would be quite easy to argue the point effectively from either direction which tells me that there is something odd about the research going on, in other words both sides of the debate seem to have an ax to grind. I recommend you google it to see both sides of the argument, one thing is certain pot does far less harm to society than alcohol and nicotine.

This is your strange claim earthling, not mine and as such it's up to you to support it, not for me to search the net to check to see if your claims are real or nothing but male bovine excrement.

You are actually going to offer a reference to an article in the "popular press", (not the article it's self by the way or even a link to it) with cherry picked "quotes" from no specific scientist as a scientific source?

Simple answer, there is no evidence for a creative organizing force, or against a creative organizing force either for that matter, as for the second question, no one really knows....

There are also fish that feed their young a milk like substance as well, I'm not sure there is one thing you can point to and say this makes a dolphin a mammal and not a fish because no fish does this but no fish has all the mammalian characteristics a dolphin does nor does a dolphin have all the characteristics a fish does. On a necropsy table the mammal-ness becomes obvious as does the fishiness of a fish, also it should be trivial to show that dolphins are mammals genetically by comparing their genomes. Just like it is possible to show that Humans are genetically mammals and not reptiles it should be possible to show that dolphins are genetically mammals and not fish.

Decorator crab? There are, many species.

It's obviously the underwear gnomes, they have branched out in an effort to diversify and drive even more people crazy....

What do you base this assertion on? It is quite true that if everyone suddenly dispensed with clothing under any circumstances that allowed it would have a significant impact on the world economy.

Actually I think the er ah cod piece is designed to attract attention to the er ah cod by making the er ah cod look bigger and stand out COD

So you claim, so what! I claim I am god so what! Give us some sources to show your claim is better than mine....

Having been a nudist most of my life I know that wearing clothes can have definite advantages in some situations and that the wearing of clothes can also be a type of ritualistic dominance display as in who ever wears "the best clothes" as defined by the society which they live is also the highest status individual as well. In our modern society religion or morals seems to play a large role in the wearing or not wearing of clothing but not as big a role as many would believe. I think that originally clothing was part of a ritualistic status display like jewelry or scarring and tattoos. As humans slowly migrated to places on the Earth where it was cold part of the year clothing became necessary to stay warm in the cold. As in a lot of human behavior things that are hidden or restricted become things to be curious about and the naked body under clothing became something rarely seen and since sex was usually "done" nude or semi nude the two became associated with each other . An odd part of this reaction can be demonstrated by looking at sexual nature of dressing in clothing that is considered sexy, often shear, reveling and only decorative instead of just being naked to heighten sexual desire. Many people seem to think that clothing keeps people from loosing control of their sexual desires and if every one was nude the desire to have sex would be over whelming. Spending some time in a nudist "camp" would soon convince most people this is not true. It honestly doesn't take more than a few minutes before seeing every one nude becomes no different than seeing everyone at the beach in bathing suits or dressed on any other way. a nudest beach is no more a place of uncontrolled sexual desire than a normal beach, it's the unusual that attracts attention, if every one is nude the person with clothes is the one who appears odd or unusual and attracts the stares. In fact hiding your body makes seeing it it far more desirable than actually seeing it, while this might be obvious for seeing me naked it is also true to people who are considered very desirable physically as well. Some aspects of nudity are often arbitrary and make little sense, a woman who is seen in her underwear is embarrassed but the same woman will wear clothing to the beach which is much more revealing with no problem of embarrassment at all. Think of how out of place you would feel at a beach in a three piece suit if everyone else was in a bathing suit. I don't think humans have any natural aversion to nudity but the cultural aversion to nudity can be very powerful and result in mental harm due to how other people feel about those who are seen nude. This perceived trauma can be very real and can result in an individual being rejected as a member of society for no reason other than them being seen nude in the wrong time or place, this plays very nicely into the world view of victimization that is a big part of our society, the idea that a nude picture can destroy your life by the effects it has on others and their view of you can be very real if people buy into this idea of nudity being somehow a "fate worse than death" and will follow you your entire life and cause you to be rejected by society and result in the ruination of your entire life. Of course this is only true if you buy into the idea that nudity is somehow powerful enough to actually do those things....

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandpa, not screaming in terror like the passengers in the car with him....

Probably because you don't have a clue as to what dinosaurs were or how they evolved and there is no reason what so ever why land animals as large as dinosaurs could not live on land today, whales are not part of this discussion btw... and you have not shown any reason what so ever why land animals as large as dinosaurs couldn't live today any more than you've shown that gravity was lower during the time of the dinosaurs. The first true mammals appeared about 215,000,000 years ago, mammal like reptiles occurred many millions of years before the first true mammals as did the archosaurs which the dinosaurs evolved from, the first true dinosaurs appeared about 225,000,000 years ago, neither one was particularly larger than the other (although both groups did produce large animals) nor where they alone in there environment when they appeared and had to compete with many other types of land animals, since you do not seem to be compelled to give any source for your ravings neither will I....

Voltman, are you trying to be intentionally insulting? No intelligent human being would believe in extraterrestrial life any more than they would believe in a reclining chair in orbit around Uranus, what is believed is that extraterrestrial life is possible, chemistry would indicate there is no reason to assume life only exists on the earth. BTW not only Atheists believe this is possible but a great many intelligent people both theist and atheist believe this. Yes something could be more ridiculous, believing in something which there is absolutely no evidence for and basing this ridiculous belief on writings based on what bronze age savages believed who also believed the earth was flat and was topped by a crystal dome which they also included in their book that is supposed to be the inerrant word of God who obviously was too stupid to know the Earth was round, not flat and not the center of the universe. Why would anyone accept the existence of something as ridiculous as God with no evidence of this being except for the bronze age writings that are obviously WRONG but people continue to believe in this ridiculous stuff no matter what the reality of the situation really is. And to add insult to injury they commonly lie to try and convince others of their beliefs because religious belief cannot stand the test of observable facts....

I want to be eaten by a T-Rex....

Why would that be a problem? Lemur, if a reasonably attractive woman approached you and offered you $1,000,000 to have sexual intercourse with her would you do it?

That is exactly what it means IMHO

Are you saying that is either true or a reason to restrict the individual rights of humans? Are you saying that not only do all men drink alcohol if given the choice but that it makes them bad fathers and husbands because men always drink to excess as well? Yes, but no one has the right to not be affected in any way by someone else, in a society of people all people actions affect others even actions some deem moral have adverse effects on others. So eating cheese burgers is immoral and should be outlawed? Are you suggesting a nanny state where no potentially harmful actions are allowed? Not many decades ago oral sex was illegal and immoral as was sex between persons of the same sex, how far does the right of one person to not be affected by the actions of other go? What detrimental effects would legal prostitution have? What detrimental effects does pornography have? 100 years ago sex outside marriage was a fate worse than death, just how moral do you want things to be and who decides and based on what effects? Does lying awake at night unable to sleep because you fear that somewhere some how some one is is having a good time constitute a detrimental effect?

It does not mean they are morally wrong either, where do you get the idea that alcohol and cannabis are immoral or that keeping people from using them is morally correct? None the less not only is it anyones right to refuse or agree to have sex for what ever reason if they are consenting adults, who gives any one else the right to judge them for their decisions? What is your source of morality? Are you saying that with out artifically imposed morals everyone woud be exploiting everyone else and all we would have is total mayhem? The person who is selling sex has no choice if their pimp is in control, the pimps gets the money, all of it or very nearly so, and the prostitute gets nothing. if it was legal the governments involvement would be no more than it's involvement in any other self employed person and would amount to only collecting taxes the same way the gov collects taxes on everyone else. The prostitute would have the free choice to hire body guards if they needed them or not, pimps are not known for allowing their prostitutes to have any choices or money nor would a legal prostitute need a pimp to bail them out of jail when they were arrested.

Ok, I'll use the quote system for you. Dinosaurs and mammals both evolved at about the same time, dinosaurs were superior to mammals for at least two reasons, they had better respiratory systems and stronger bones, both of which allowed them to exploit larger body size better than other animals, no need for lower gravity. There is no evidence that animals the size of dinosaurs are impossible or even improbable at the surface gravity of today. If you think creatures the size of dinosaurs were impossible i suggest you give some evidence of this, current knowledge disagrees with you. I suggest you reread this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss%27s_law_for_gravity and this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_theorem and read this one as well http://www.solarviews.com/eng/earthint.htm Again. do you have any evidence for this? Your guess is not good enough and is based on false data as is pointed out in the link i provided. So far you have not given any evidence that this shift of 0.375% of the earths mass occurred or could have occurred much less that it would have changed the earths gravity. Again you have shown no eviedence of this happening other than the size of the dinosuars which is false. then i have falsified your claims unless you have some evidence of your claims other than your guesses.

Ok, I'll use the quote system for you. Dinosaurs and mammals both evolved at about the same time, dinosaurs were superior to mammals for at least two reasons, they had better respiratory systems and stronger bones, both of which allowed them to exploit larger body size better than other animals, no need for lower gravity. There is no evidence that animals the size of dinosaurs are impossible or even improbable at the surface gravity of today. If you think creatures the size of dinosaurs were impossible i suggest you give some evidence of this, current knowledge disagrees with you. I suggest you reread this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss%27s_law_for_gravity and this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss%27s_law_for_gravity and read this one as well http://www.solarviews.com/eng/earthint.htm Again. do you have any evidence for this? Your guess is not good enough and is based on false data as is pointed out in the link i provided. So far you have not given any evidence that this shift of 0.375% of the earths mass occurred or could have occurred much less that it would have changed the earths gravity. Again you have shown no eviedence of this happening other than the size of the dinosuars which is false. then i have falsified your claims unless you have some evidence of your claims other than your guesses.

Lemur, you are completely missing the definition of consensual and the artificial value that society puts on sex and the things associated with sex.

Sex is highly distorted by both sides of the so called right and left, in reality sex is indeed just as normal as eating or anything else we are compelled to do due to our biology. Your views and mine or any one else's are artificially distorted by what were taught as children and by what ever ideology we happen to follow. I think it is dishonest to say that either side has the wrong views on sex or absence of sex. Our society is heavily influenced by a primitive value on female virginity, FV is highly prized in primitive cultures and this artificial value has been passed down to us. Nearly everything we believe that is connected with sex is somehow based on this idea that females must be pure or inexperienced for them to have sexual value. There is no way to justify this idea that females must be sexually inexperienced for them to have value as human beings. In fact primitive humans often view females as property and only virgin females have the highest value, quite often youth is also a big part of this value. I think it is disingenuous to say the least to claim that only Conservatives are influenced by this or that Liberals are not or the reverse either for that matter. I am not convinced that this idea is not, at least to some extent, part of our biology as well. The idea that your ideas of sex is only "wrong" if you are a member of one or the other group is simplistic at best and simply wrong at worst. I have honestly heard people, men mostly, claim that their belief in a deity and or the punishment they might receive in this or an after life is the only thing that keeps them from raping at will but i think this is false bravado caused by immature males who are afraid of females and their sexuality. I honestly doubt that being Conservative or Liberal makes you morally or sexually superior to any one else no matter how much both sides seem to believe it. Personally i cannot accept either label of Liberal or Conservative due to my own perception that these labels are artificial and designed to allow a few to control the many. i also think that the idea of "normative values" concerning sex is as fluid and difficult to show as real as a hand full of mercury is to squeeze and not spill. Your ideas of normal are not universal, nor are mine or anyone else's and to suggest they are ignores a huge number of people who feel just as strongly that you are wrong (I don't mean you personally lemur) In some societies child molestation was considered ok if the girls were the spoils of war, some consider women to be mere chattel. Western values seem to be evolving away from women being property and being real humans as much as men are. For some women this means something different than it does to others but normative would seem to be a personal view point mostly influenced by the societies they grew up in. For me the most important thing about sex is to insure that children are protected from the sexuality of adults and that sex is between consenting adults, any further restriction of sexuality is a violation of human rights IMHO. Some one mentioned the laws concerning sex in Canada, i was told my erotic stories would be illegal in Canada, this disturbed me greatly since the idea of a story being harmful in some way because it concerned sex is just weird to me but if i am honest i have to admit that my ideas of sexuality are not universal and if the people of Canada have made this into law i would do well not to take my stories to Canada no matter how unreasonable i think they are.

　 Earthling, I have request, please use the quote system, I misread your last post and thought you were claiming I was saying something I was not. I have already been embarrassed once in this thread due to a misunderstanding so lets make sure I at least know what you are really asserting. Here is what I get from what you are saying. #1. The Earths gravity must have been lower during the time of the dinosaurs, more or less 200,000,000 years ago to 65 million years ago because you claim the dinosaurs were too large to have existed if the gravity was the same or similar to what we experience now. #2. This lower gravity was caused by a shift in less than 0.374% of the Earth's mass. #3. This shift caused the molten mantle and core of the Earth to be offset so much the earths gravity was changed to 40% of what it is now during the 200,000,000 years ago to 65,000,000 years ago which is the time the dinosaurs evolved and diversified. #4. This offset of the Earths mass lasted more or less 150,000,000 years. #5. This reduction in the Earths gravity was limited to more or less the continent of Pangaea. Am I on track so far?