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At 11/28/05 09:04 PM, RickTheSlick wrote: The reson blacks are not accused of rasism when beating a white guy is because, unfortunatly, all whites deep down feel a lasting sence of guilt for a crime against humanity that they never commited along long time ago.

I feel guilt deep down? Hmm, let me reach for a moment. . . . . . . . . . Nope. No guilt at all.

This is a free and equal society, and I hate bigots. I don't give a damn who you are or where you're from, you are no more special than me. I hate Affirmative Action and other similar programs because they are racist themselves, and I believe racial lobbyists are racist themselves.

Nothing from the past should make an individual somehow "guilty" of a crime, and treating anyone like they are responsible for the acts of generations past promotes racism and sexism. If you believe Whites should feel guilt or responsibility about slavery, you are racist. Regardless of the fact that everyone enslaved everyone in that time period, the presumption that you are guilty of a past crime simply because someone with a similar skin tone committed it is absolutely racist.

My family came here from Poland after WWI, and yet I should feel guilty for something no one at all related to me committed and I should be punished indirectly for the actions of someone completely seperate from anyone in my ancestry? That is racism through and through.

At 11/28/05 09:44 AM, smokeytwizzla wrote: [Insane Monster Paragraph]

One word: PARAGRAPHS

Use them. Everyone hates reading giant text blobs.

At 11/28/05 05:58 PM, red_skunk wrote: The links I provided also addressed the immediate effects of marijuana. You have yet to give any reasonable negatives of a moderate marijuana habit. And lastly, standardization is a non-issue, since overdosing is practically impossible. And, not to mention the fact that one can determine the quality of marijuana by simply examining it.

Your links did not fully address the immediate effects. They weren't even close.

What you don't seem to get is you are the one who must prove yourself. You have yet to give me any reason why you should be allowed to use Marijuana, especially in the smoked form. Marijuana is a possible alternative for a pain killer, but it isn't any more effective than legal medicines already available. You need to prove the worth of Marijuana as a common usage drug, not in some obscure, worthless situation.

They have not unanimously said we don't know enough. I already linked to a few studies from 'professional scientists' which determine that marijauana is by and large harmless.

Just as Tobacco was by and large harmless... until we actually did some non-biased and serious long-term research on it. They have unanimously said we don't know enough in their national meetings. There are always oddballs, but the national consensus is that we don't know enough of the negatives OR positives. It also doesn't help that you have provided no reason to legalize Marijuana as a common usage drug, which is what you're actually trying to get.

You don't need to use Marijuana, so why in the hell are you using it?

You don't need to use the NG BBS, so why in the hell are you using it?

Boredom is a shitty reason to deal with an illegal, addictive narcotic that is often dangerous to acquire (dangerous associations).

The burden of argument reasts on you, so you'll have to do better than you have so far. Why do we want Marijuana as a common usage drug? You need to argue why it is worthwhile for the common population to legalize. So far you've told us (repeated) "It doesn't kill you directly, it's a narcotic (medical use), hemp is funny." That's it. You need to prove that society would benefit from legalizing Marijuana.

Saying it isn't evil and dangerous is not enough, you need to say why it is good and beneficial to society as a whole. A sub-par painkiller alternative is not a sufficient reason by any measure.

Get it yet? Prove to us why we should WANT to use it.

At 11/28/05 04:02 AM, red_skunk wrote: That argument doesn't hold up, however. Marijuana has been researched for decades now. We have long-term studies.

My argument does hold up because, if you'd read some of my earlier links, you'd know that all the national scientific meetings to discuss the topic of Marijuana have concluded that we don't know enough about it.

You provided a couple studies saying there seem to be minimal long term effects, but that does nothing to address the standardization issue, the negatives of smoking it, and the immediate effects.

If the professional scientists have unanimously said we don't know enough, then we don't know enough and you're asking for it if you try to push it.

I still don't think there is any reason I should support Potheads in their desire to legalize their addiction. There's simply no reason to support a vice that society views with disfavor. You don't need to use Marijuana, so why in the hell are you using it? There's no justification for that sort of idiocy.

At 11/27/05 08:02 PM, hellsgift wrote: The point to press at this time is how to get it legalized. I think that if we managed to get everybody in Congress stoned off of thier asses they would legalize it in a second. I hate how people go around and preach about how harmful something is, when they have never even tried it.

That's terrible logic. The way to convince politicians is to exploit the negative attributes of Marijuana to affect their mental state and make them more malleable, and people who aren't addicted and controlled by a substance say something bad about the completely objective, fact-based attributes of said substance, they're wayyy out of line. Sure... No.

Facts: Smoking is the worst form of use for Marijuana. Marijuana content is currently impossible to standardize. We don't understand the effects of Marijuana on the human body very well, especially over the long term.

So... We shouldn't rush things and legalize it just yet. Unless you want another Tobacco repeat, where a huge chunk of the population uses it and then get screwed over 20 years later when we do finally learn the effects, then it's best to wait a decade or two more until sufficient knowledge is accumulated about Marijuana. The most likely result is a vaporizer-form Marijuana intake using a distilled form of Marijuana that cleans out the extra chemical crap that Marijuana picks up very easily.

Be patient or pay for it down the road, it's that simple.

Genetically modified foods are perfectly fine. In fact, the only difference between GMF and "normal" crops is that GMF have specific genes added, while "normal" crops are genetically controlled using only the already-present genes.

As long as proper agricultural care is taken during the raising of these plants, there is absolutely nothing to be worried about.

By the way: There is way more food in the world than we need. The "starving problem" is not from too little food, it's from too little food in the right places. It's a logistics and economic problem, not an agricultural problem.

At 11/26/05 01:36 AM, violentwinkie wrote: Burglars steal because they were poor, or had a bad up bringing. Same with murderers. Rapists are almost always poor, and they had a miserable upbringing, leading to serious psychological problems, and white collar criminals are drunk on their own power.

Sorry, Violent (irony), but the belief that being poor causes crime has been completely and thoroughly disproven in recent decades. The same is true for the belief that psychological problems create criminals. It has been proven that there is no direct relationship between income or mental health and crime.

The effect of childhood on criminals is still under debate, but that belief is currently in strong disfavor and has very shaky foundations. Most white collar crimes have nothing to do with corruption from power; in fact, most white collar crimes are committed in the name of Greed or Desperation (usually to avoid bankruptcy).

The truth is that criminals will still commit heinous acts (as defined by society) regardless of the presence of a government. If a Justice system is absent as well (which it need not be), then crime will increase because police forces and punishments deter many would-be amateur criminals (like shoplifters).

Also, Police act in place of shopkeepers or vigilantes, thus significantly reducing the chance of a murder occurring (you rob me, I shoot you). Anarchy can be a huge variety of things, but the most common form is a chaos after a revolution, but before a new government is firmly in place.

The "rest of the world" hates America for two simple reasons: they're bigots and we embrace what they hate, and we're stronger than them.

The "rest of the world" is absolutely bigoted-- for every country, there is some other country they are bigoted against. The US accepts everyone who comes over with good intentions, so the US has some people for every bigoted country to hate.

Also, we're stronger. People don't like being weaker, especially when we ignore them.

Useful Information about Marijuana:
Marijuana (like Tobacco) can cause Cancer

In the first study of its kind, researchers found that smokers of marijuana and crack cocaine show the same kinds of precancerous conditions caused by smoking tobacco.

Commonly Observed Hazards of Marijuana Usage

[Can cause:] Impairments in learning and memory, perception, and judgment - difficulty speaking, listening effectively, thinking, retaining knowledge, problem solving, and forming concepts
[Can cause:] Intense anxiety, panic attacks, or paranoia
Extended use increases risk to the lungs and reproductive system, as well as suppression of the immune system.

Potential Medicinal Benefits of Marijuana

Glaucoma: The leading cause of blindness in the United States;caused by increased pressure inside the eyeball. Marijuana, when smoked, reduces pressure within the eye. But it may also reduce blood flow to the optic nerve, exacerbating the loss of vision.
Cancer chemotherapy: Marijuana's active ingredient THC reduces vomiting and nausea caused by, chemotherapy; alleviates pre-treatment anxiety.

Consolidation of Major Scientific Community Meetings on Marijuana

Cannabinoids in marijuana do show potential for symptom management of several conditions, but research is inadequate to explain definitively how cannabinoids operate to deliver these potential benefits. Nor did the studies attribute any curative effects to marijuana; at best, only the symptoms of particular medical conditions are affected. The finding most important to the debate is that the studies did not advocate smoked marijuana as medicine.
(paraphrase) Smoked marijuana is the worst form of Marijuana intake, producing major negative effects that can be avoided through other intake methods (that are actually medical, not pothead, styles).

My Argument:
While many chemicals contained within Marijuana have medical potential, Marijuana itself introduces significant, highly unnecessary dangers. The primary problems are the major variability of Marijuana chemical content, additional dangerous chemical intake alongside the useful chemicals, and the introduction of contaminants into Marijuana during growth.

The most promising form of Marijuana legalization is to legalize a purified form of useful chemicals from Marijuana, but not actually the leaf itself. Smoking Marijuana leaves has many dangerous and damaging effects and only has positive effects for those already threatened by critical illnesses.

Until much more research is done on the contents of Marijuana, it absolutely can not be safely legalized without repeating the history of Tobacco (Hey, look at this cool thing! Every smoke it! *ten years later* By the way, smoking tobacco causes cancer and you're all screwed now! Haha, idiots!). Even more, smoking Marijuana has been acknowledged as the worst possible form of intake, and only specific distillable chemicals within the Marijuana leaf are useful.

For Marijuana to ever receive significant medicinal use or be accepted within American society, the idea of smoking a raw leaf must be destroyed, much more research is necessary, and the most likely legalized form with be a derivative of Marijuana that is distilled, decontaminated, and actually sensible-- why ingest dangerous chemicals alongside your medicine if you can avoid it?

As a form of recreation, Marijuana smoking is doomed and will never be accepted. Until an alternative form of use that reduces many of the negatives is found, Marijuana will not and can not be safely legalized.

Do not legalize Marijuana until we know more about it.

At 11/24/05 05:12 AM, Disco_Solitaire wrote: I love how people keep citing "Einstein's Theory of Relativity" as if it were some inviolable concept. Remember it's a "theory" it hasn't been proven beyond all doubt or it would be "Einstein's Law of Relativity". There's room for it to go either way.

Apparently you don't have an accurate understanding of Laws and Theories. Theories explain why things happen and provide predictions. Laws simply are observations about the universe, usually described in a mathematical manner.

Those are somewhat oversimplified explanations, but you'll notice that the Theory of Relativity is used to explain many natural observations and describe some observations we have not yet made. That's why it is a Theory, not a Law. Theories can be just as nearly-absolute as you assume a Law must be. Many people do not understand the difference between Theories and Laws, which is why I remember recently some stupid politicians put stickers on Biology textbooks saying, "Evolution is just a Theory" as if it was some bad thing and not the highest standing possible for a Scientific explanation.

Q: Why do Christians worship Jesus in an idolic manner, usually focusing on his importance far more than God's, even though by definition that breaks God's rules?

Some of the people in this thread seem to have misconceptions about what Anarchy means.

Anarchy is the lack of government, not the lack of community coordination and lawful order. An Anarchist state can still have a police force and Justice system-- it just can't have lawmakers beyond community consent and it would have a massively reduced Justice system size. It can still have businesses and all the major tenets of modern society, just no taxes or politicians (or government-funded pork barrel). Literally any system that current relies on the government can exist without a government, so removing the government is not necessarily removing major parts of society.

A True Democracy (like the one found in ancient Athens) is within a hair of Perfect Anarchy. Anarchy is no controllers beyond the entire population.

Major Requirements for Perfect Anarchy:
Strong individualist ideals and traditions
Strong emphasis on self-defense and community
Strong stabilizing forces already present (to prevent warlords, etc. from existing)
Unified community of educated individuals

The problem with Perfect Anarchy is that all it takes to destabilize and destroy it is a single powerful person with an organization of followers-- a druglord or warlord, or a group of moral entrepreneurs (think Prohibition). Unless extremely powerful stabilizing forces are present-- like a completely unified community with an organized, trained army of unified volunteers and extremely active and attentive individuals, then Anarchy crumbles easily.

Really, Anarchy and Communism suffer from the same sort of problems (but Anarchy is beter). Communism assumes near-perfect individuals and thus crumbles quickly. Anarchy assumes near-perfect community and thus crumbles quickly.

The future will laugh at:
Punk rockers, heavy metal, rap, emo music.
Obsessive anti-Bush idiots.
France.

At 11/23/05 06:29 PM, darknezz1 wrote:

Please see "Einstein's Theory of Relativity" to learn why that isn't true.
your mass approaches infinity (just like an asymtote on the graph of a function). As your mass gets closer and closer to infinite,

There's a hole in what you just said. You can never reach infinite, becuase infinite continues on and on and on.

GOTCHA'!

Please see the mathematical term "Limit" to learn why you look like a fool right now. Limits allow mathematical equations to approach a number and describe what occurs as you get infintesimally close to that number, even if the number is unreachable or undefined (like a number divided by zero).

Force = Mass * Acceleration
Mass = Rest Mass / Gamma
Gamma = (1 - (V^2)/(c^2))^1/2

For a body of mass M with a constant acceleration A, as V approaches c, Gamma approaches 0. As Gamma approaches 0, Mass approaches infinity. When Gamma is actually 0, M is undefined (which is why limits are used). Since Force is directly proportional to Mass, as the Mass approaches infinity, the Force required to maintain a constant Acceleration approaches infinity as well. It's all fairly simple.

It's just like an exponential growth curve, but it is undefined at V = c. That means you can't actually reach c with a body of mass M, where M > 0. Light has no mass, which means logically light is not absolutely limited by c. That's why those experiments don't matter and it's not interesting.

My pet dog "Teddy" will be president after Bush. Teddy is more qualified than any of the parisitical politicians with exremist ideals and poor leadership abilities who wish to take the presidency. And I bet Teddy's quite a bit smarter than them, too.

Now I just need to go out and buy a dog...

Nice in depth, very explanatory, source-supported post you got there.

Anyways, New Orleans should just be left to rot. The place was already on the downhill, it's one giant slum, and it's now the crappiest place in the country to live. There's no reason we should go back there except to return the poor and useless to their cycle of poverty in the slum called New Orleans.

The above post is a short argument I've written up to completely address the issue. Do you see any logical loopholes?

Since Kansas has changed the definition of science to include any sort of knowledge, I want to lobby for equal teaching of Intelligent Design theories.

I would like to introduce you to the Flying Spagetti Monster. It wasn't Aliens, it wasn't "God," the Flying Spagetti Monster created all life!

FSM is a cultural reaction to the idiocy of the politicians who are trying to force Religion into Science classrooms. It is a method for people who believe in a true, unsullied Science education to attack politicians like those in Kansas with a highly sarcastic, extremely elucidating argument that reveals the flaws of the entire Intelligent Design fiasco. If you disagree with Kansas, harass the Intelligent Design supporters with the FSM! By their own law, Kansas has to include the FSM in their Science classrooms.

All hail the Flying Spagetti Monster, revealer of Intelligent Design foolishness!

Really, I think I can boil the entire argument down to a very simple scientific examination of the entire issue:

Science: The use of logic to form explanations and discover understanding of the natural world through repeatable, accurate experimentation. Primary Ideal: the universe can be described using logic.

Scientific Law: A universal observation, usually including the mechanisms of its occurance and mathematical predictions of its effects.

Scientific Theory: A proposed (and thus far supported) explanation for certain natural occurances or Laws, always accompanied by predictions and multiple threads of evidence.

Hypothesis: A testable explanation for certain natural occurances. Not yet supported by significant evidence, but can become a Theory should certain experimental evidence occur.

Evolution: A proposed (and thus far supported) explanation for the variety of life found on this planet. Accompanied by predictions of adaptation in a short timescale (microevolution), predictions of archaelogical findings (fossil histories), predictions of genetic variation through generations (Allele combination and transferrance). Supported by many threads of evidence.

Evolution? Theory (but not a Law)

Intelligent Design: A proposed (and currently unsupported by any evidence) explanation for only the modern life found on this planet. Accompanied by no predictions of any sort. Supported by no physical evidence. Does not explain archaelogical findings, microevolution, extinctions, artificial evolution, or viral/bacterial mutation and development.

Intelligent Design? Not Scientific (not a Hypothesis, Theory, or even within the bounds of Science)

Logical Conclusion: Since Evolution is a defined Scientific Theory, it is appropriate subject matter for a Science class. Since Intelligent Design is not even within the realm of Science, it is inappropriate subject matter for a Science class.

If Politicians alter the legal definition of Science for the purpose of forcing ID into a Science classroom, they are betraying the trust and sullying the reputation of the people of they represent by violating the constitution and forcing a subject (still) legally defined as "Church" into the realm of the "State" through deceptive means (fraud).

Evolution, by definition, CAN NOT be a Law.

It's that simple. It's the same problem as the ID people who think Intelligent Design is a Theory. By definition it cannot be a theory.

It does not matter what "some people" think, Evolution CAN NOT be a Law.

I think we need a President who doesn't give a damn what religion he is from, he'll govern the country in a secular manner.

At 11/20/05 07:15 PM, Terask wrote: In all truth, I think that you could break the speed of light only in space. Go 100 mph in space.. You only keep that speed.. Accelerate any more, you only go faster.. after a while (long while) you could be going much faster than the speed of light.

Please see "Einstein's Theory of Relativity" to learn why that isn't true.

Summary: As you approach the speed of light, your mass begins to increase. As your mass increases, more energy is required to make the same acceleration. As you approach the speed of light, your mass approaches infinity (just like an asymtote on the graph of a function). As your mass gets closer and closer to infinite, the energy required to accelerate increases at the same rate. It is impossible for a body of mass to reach the speed of light because it would require infinite energy to accelerate your infinite mass that last infintesimal fraction of speed to reach c.

The general relativistic distortion key is: (1 - (v^2)/(c^2))^(1/2) That probably seems complex, but in words it is: the square root of the quantity one minus the quantity V (squared) divided by C (squared) where V is your velocity and C is the speed of light. This equation is usually called Gamma.

True mass is equal to initial mass divided by Gamma.

This is fairly old information.

However, there are several key things to note:

1. The article is inaccurate: the cesium gas experiment did not reach a speed several hundred times faster than the speed of light, but it did make the light exit before it entered.

2. Several other experiments have broken the speed of light in a vacuum by putting light in situations where it can move faster. However, never has anything except for light moved faster than the vacuum speed of light, and light can only go faster for short periods and not without losing a very large portion of the laser's original light output.

3. This doesn't actually mean anything. Yeah, the vacuum speed has been broken, but that is completely consistant with the modern view of Quantam Mechanics, which applies to light as well. The rules of reality can be broken for short periods of time proportional to the energy levels of the thing breaking the rules of reality. That's why electron orbits are only tracked with 90% probability tracks. They can pop half way across the universe for a millisecond or two and then pop back if they feel like it, theoretically. The same holds true for light. When you pump huge amounts of energy into odd situations, small amounts of it can do some odd stuff. It's that simple.

4. You should have linked to the HowStuffWorks original source, not the stupid UFO site. The UFO thing probably hurt your credibility right off the bat.

At 11/20/05 06:23 PM, Anubis- wrote: Neither evolution nor intelligent design belong in a science classroom. Science deals with things that have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to hold true. This is not true of Darwin or ID.

Just create a Science Philosophy class or something. The fact that a debate that mainly deals with semantics is taking national attention worries me. The evolution theory is a THEORY. Intelligent Design advocates, in my experience, have been less willing to admit there's is only a theory as well.

Both sides are too stubborn for anything to get done. I feel like I'm in WWI France again...

*grabs his "idiot blaster" again*

You obviously do not understand Evolution at all. Do you seriously think Evolution has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt? Even in WWI France, Evolution was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It's been proven for over a century.

Intelligent Design is just a group of people who want to justify religious beliefs, that's all. Religion is faith, science is not. Faith is not logical and doesn't need to be correct. That's why Intelligent Design and most religion isn't entirely wiped out right now.

At 11/20/05 06:05 PM, Dranigus wrote: However, inteligent design is after all just a theory. Calling evolution a theory rather than a law is sort of correct, because domestication of animals and artificial selection of dog breeds sort of goes around this so called "law of evolution."

*unslings his "idiot blaster" shotgun*
Okay, no. Evolution is absolutely a theory-- no one ever said otherwise. Laws explains what is happening, theories explain why it is happening. Evolution has never been a law.

Domestication is a perfect example of the adapatability of Evolution (no pun intended). Simply by altering the factors defining "fittest" we completely altered dozens of species. That is absolutely natural selection. "Artificial" selection is impossible. No matter how you define the rules of breeding, the process that follows is "natural" because the fittest-- those best able to breed before death --will still develop.

I find it rather foolish and upmost stupid to be thinking about god, when the term "evolution is a theory, because life must have been created by intelligence."

Evolution is a theory... we know... what are you talking about?

There is so many way in looking at that without openning the doors and allowing god into your lives.

Take into the account that dogs for instance were created out of artificial selection. If humans didin't domesticate the wolf and forced it to mutate into different breeds and races there would have been no dogs.

That's natural selection-- Evolution at work. Just because we set the rules for survival and breeding doesn't make it any less natural. That's complete proof of Evolution on a short timescale, in fact.

Dogs exist because we (intelligent beings) made it be so, out of characteristics that were brought out in each breed for what we thought would most benefit ourselves. This is a factor of living beings that does not go along with evolution. They didn't evolve because of the changes in the environment or because of natural selection, they did so because of us and our own needs.

You obviously don't understand Evolution. The concept is simple: over time, whichever individuals survive to breed most often will spread their effective traits throughout the population. Guess what you just described with dogs? We set the breeding rules, but Evolution still occurs.

So how can we so simply argue out ourselves being created by even more inteligent beings, when it could so obviously had occured and explains why only humans have the ability out of all life on this entire planet, to construct, design, plan out, and invent some of the most incredible devices and buildings to ever exist. Yes Beavers make dams and certain incest make hives and birds make nests and chimps eat with twigs, but that is all from natural selection. Our ingenious devices were not developed out of natural selection, yet we so desperately would like to believe it was so.

Intelligent Design spawns a paradox and has no physical evidence whatsoever. That's why it's not a theory or acceptable in Science classes. Biology and technology both follow Evolution, neither follow Intelligent Design. Devices can be designed intelligently, but technological capabilities develop in the same way biological capabilities did before.

Do you want to know the simple reasons why Humans have done so much more than anything else on Earth?

Opposable Thumbs
Oral History
Written Language
Electricity

In that order, those things brought us to the level we're currently at. Opposable thumbs eliminates most species. Oral history and then written language eliminates all the others. Electricity is the big one that has made us millions of times more powerful than we were just a few short centuries-- an eyeblink --ago. Our brains and our bodies mean nothing-- only those four things are necessary for all our development thus far. Natural biological selection provided the first, natural techonological selection provided the next three.

Yes a portion of our existence does come out of natural selection, such as our skin colors and our hair for instance. But our intellect is not completely a factor of natural selection. We could have simply just develope as far as the Classical Age of Rome and we would still be at surviving as effectively with nature as if we had not. So there is no reason to criticize the idea of our race, our species being developed out of the ideas and plans of a more superior race of beings.

Yes, there is reason. You want to know why we didn't stay at Classical techonological levels? Humans like to fight and conquer. Technology follows natural selection as well, it just moves at a very fast timescale. By its nature, technology cannot remain at one level forever.

But I would agree with most people that ideas like a cow being too complex to be evolved out of evolution is just plain idiotic. Cows are not complex organisms, humans are complex organisms. Cows may have a portion of the existence altered to best benefit humans, but that doesn't change the fact that Cows, just like all other mammals, came from warmblooded reptile like organisms.

...Cows are just about as complex as humans, ya know. Only the brain is different.

[Actual intelligent statements]

*puts his "idiot blaster" back in the holster*

At 11/18/05 09:13 PM, AlphaSigma wrote: It has been a while since I taken physics, but since when is the force of gravity measured in grams? I thought it was Newtons?

Yes, it is normally measured in Newtons, but I used an Earth-gravity comparison to make it easier for non-scientists. The force of the gravitational pull between them is equivalent to a two gram weight in earth-normal gravity (9.81 m/s^2). It's right around 0.020 Newtons, but that's just a number and has no meaning for most people.

At 11/15/05 11:08 PM, Solamnus wrote: Unfortunately for them, all scientific theories have some work still to be done. The theory of gravity has its perils. On the macroscopic scale you can use classical physics; at speeds closer to light speed you need to use relativity; at the sub atomic level you need to use quantum mechanics...and none of them are interchangable.
ID supporters would declare these flaws as evidence pointing to an omnipotent designer because there is no unifying theory of gravity.

Sorry, but this needs to be corrected: we have a unified theory of gravity! Classical Physics is a subset of Relativistic Physics-- at less than 10% the speed of light, the relativistic effects are negligible and relativistic correction is unnecessary. Since Classical Physics is simpler, for everyday use, we use it instead of Relativistic Physics.

Quantum Mechanics is completely unrelated to gravity. There are four basic laws we do still need to unify: the Strong force, Weak force, Gravity, and Electromagnetism. The Strong force and Weak force both hold the nucleus of atoms together. As the names imply, one is massively stronger than the other. Electromagnetism also plays a very important role subatomically, defining all the primary characteristics of every element.

Gravity is the only one that doesn't matter on the subatomic level-- it is a very weak force, but the longest-range force. On the subatomic level it has a completely negligible effect. For example, if you place two large SUVs right next to one another, the total gravitational force between the two is about 2 grams. Pennies weigh about 25 grams. Those SUVs consist of literally trillions of atoms; on the level of dozens of atoms or a single atom, gravity really means nothing.

Okay, phew, just had to clear that up. There is no Grand Unified Theory, which combines all four forces in one theory, but the Theory of Gravity is entirely consistant. We just don't really know how gravity acts on things. We think it should use gravitons, which are similar to photons, and it should travel at a certain speed, but we don't quite have the technology necessary to detect gravitons or measure the speed of gravity (you can't just turn gravity on and off like a light, so it's really hard to test).

At 11/18/05 07:42 PM, DamienK wrote: But like MoralLibertarian said, that's just how our Western Puritan society defined it. It doesn't explicitly say, or inexplicitly say, that marriage is defined as 1 man and one woman. If you truly want to follow the bible, sex with animals should also be legalized.

Oh, and if God tells you to kill someone, you can't be arrested for it.

Just as you said, Western society (in particular, American society inherited from the Puritans) does not accept polygamous marriage. Case closed, there's no debate possible, it won't happen.

Polygamous sexual relationships are fine, but marriage is still reserved specifically for a single m/f couple. If you want multiple "wives" you'll just have to make do without marriage, it's not necessary. You can have polygamous religious marriages and that's perfectly fine, but you're only gonna get one marriage-by-law.

First of all, 800 years in America? What are you talking about? We're not even nearly that old.

But the answer is simple: whatever happened in the past, is the past. Doesn't matter if X's ancestors enslaved Y's ancestors, that has nothing to do with X and Y themselves. Reverse racism and reverse sexism are still racism and sexism, and they only breed hatred and injustice.

White/Male isn't going out of majority any time soon. We're the ones who built this country, we've fought every war to keep it alive, and we're the ones keeping it running every day of the year. Everyone played a part, but we're the ones at the core of American society. Everyone's allow into American society, and we won't discriminate against anyone, but it's a simple fact that White/Male are the ones who do a majority of everything in this country, and that's probably not going to change soon, by the choice of everyone else, not by our choice.

However, if someone does try to "take control" ethnically in this country, we'll blow their brains out. It's really that simple-- we've got nothing against individuals, but racist/sexist people who try to take political or economic power in the name of their ethnic/gender group will be blown to hell by guns or politics as long as the Republican party exists. It's not a matter of sexism or racism on our part, it's a matter of prevent racists and sexists from taking power in the government. A smooth incorporation of everyone is perfectly fine.

At 11/18/05 04:45 PM, LegendaryLukus wrote: Its funny, after Vietnam the US government said that they would not enter a war without some sort of exit strategy.....and here we are again. Lessons of the past have not been learnt.

Oh, we had an exit strategy, but it didn't go off as we expected. We planned on valiant fighting Iraqis and the ability to blow the crap out of every last Iraqi soldier before we conquered the country. Instead, the cowards all deserted and fled shortly after we started the invasion. We didn't plan on luring every single terrorist organization in the entire region to Iraq, either.

We still have an exit strategy, we just don't want to use it. We can just say "Take care of your own damn country" any time we want. It's not a war they can bring to us.

Caligulas?

If you are referring to the Roman emperor Caligula, then the answer is no. His opponents just did a really effective smear campaign. He wasn't nearly as bad as history describes him, and most of the stories about him aren't true. However, he wasn't all that great of a guy, either, and quite a few of the stories about him are true.