ShadowTemplar

You know what? You're actually right about that. I did a search of your previous posts, and the pattern of pointing fingers is actually much less comprehensive than I thought. My apologies for making that claim. In case you failed to notice the pattern, I use sarcastic quibs whenever people keep dodging, weaving and outright ignoring airtight points. I've never once seen any of you neo-cons acknowledge the report on Fux News that's been cited multiple times around this forum. Not a single one of you neo-cons here left the slightest acknowledgement that you three spent 2/3 of the Guantanamo tread ranting about what the Geneva Convention said and did not say without ever actually having read the thing. That was pointed out to you by yours truely. And I was reasonably polite about it, too. And I saw nothing in the way of response to the refutation of (IIRC) Good Sir Knight's vile slander against Amnesty International. Not even an acknowledgement that a reply had in fact been posted. And I litterally do not have the patience to recount all the occations on which you've outright ignored a post from Skinwalker that contained rock-solid references. But for a couple of examples, you could look to the 'Bush's Econ Policy' thread from a while back. And both you and the other couple of neo-cons have posted with varying frequency in one or more of the science-vs.-evolution-denial threads. Only to run away once Skin or I showed up and started referencing the Talk.Origins Archives. Again, no acknowledgements that you'd even seen the responses - much less bothered to read them. And the interesting thing here is that the next time such a thread floats to the top of the list, our resident neo-cons trot out the selfsame tired bovine manure that we refuted the last time around. There's no sign whatsoever that anything they've read inbetween has made a lasting impression. So I propose that your insistence upon 'honest, straight-forward debate' brings the adage about pots and kettles forcibly to mind... Now, back to the topic at hand: I never claimed you did. Again, you fail to grasp the point. Nobody here is 'throwing Fux News under the bus' because it's biassed. We're slamming Fux News because it routinely lies to its viewers to an extend unmatched this side of the Chinese Politburo. Three points: One: Lying, while common in all American media I know of, is much less pervasive on CBS than on Fux. Two: Fux is a regime outlet, CBS is not. It is natural to pay more attention to an outlet that regurgiates regime propaganda lock stock and two smoking barrells, and has intimate connections to the American fascist movement than to an outlet that does not have such powerful connections. Three: Fux is bigger than CBS. By some margin. Again, the adage about pots and kettles comes to mind... Consistency and maturity, as in condemning Clinton for getting his dick sucked by an intern, while defending Bush's patently illegal wiretaps - or, for that matter, the firebombing of Fallujah... Consistency and maturity indeed. With a touch of perspective and a genuine sense of proportion too...

*Yawn* The reality-based community does. And that's enough for me. I don't really care much for the good opinion of people who choose to live in fantasy land. Lemme see... - Kyoto - Iraq - Guantanamo - White phosphorous over Fallujah - War on Terror - The IMF [1] - Iran - The Ottawa Protocol [2] - Death penalty - Secret torture camps - Supports fascist organisations in Europe [3] - Iran [4] - Palestine [5] - Chile - Reproductive health - The Geneva Convention - The anti-torture convention Do you want a longer list? I could easily add entries all night. [1] More specifically the ruinous policies it forced on several Latin American countries for decades - you wonder why the Venezuelans don't like the Eigenstates? I don't. [2] The Eigenstates have yet to sign the Ottawa Protocol. [3] Creationists, (militant) anti-abortion activists, and the Roman Catholic Church - to name a few. [4] More specifically the war that you're going to launch against Iran, as well as the execrable handling of the entire Iranian crisis. [5] See [4]. Esp. the part about 'execrable handling.' For your information, I support the Danish tax system. Actively. *Yawn* That's trivial. Science doesn't claim to be. A really good link explaining why your criticism is meaningless. Bookmark it. From the link:

Nope. And you know what? That's a characteristic feature of your posts: You don't engage the subject at all. You simply shout (loudly) that THEYDOITASWELL!!! Sorry, but that does not constitute an argument (especially when it is demonstrably a lie). So take a cookie and stop whining, [Deleted]. Oh, and by the way, I left a question for you a couple of posts upthread. A question that you declined to answer. So, just to give you a second chance to demonstrate to one and all why you're an intellectually and morally bankrupt [Deleted], I'll reiterate: First error. Fux News is not a news organisation. It's a propaganda sender. BBC isn't. Oh, and by the way, you've just reiterated the best argument available for an independent, publicly financed public service sender, like the BBC. In which case their marketing scheme is a scam. Nothing more, nothing less. Fux News brand themselves 'fair and balanced' - which is roughly analogous to an ice cream brand advertising itself as 'healthy and nutritious.' It appears that marketing schemes which would be blatantly illegal for ice cream factories are A OK when applied to crapservative propaganda spewers... Neither does Ann Coulter. It evidently does not. Not, at least, in the United Eigenstates of America. If it did, Fux News would not still be in business. We do. Oh, we do. Unfortunately, some of them are as intellectually and morally bankrupt as you are, [Deleted], in which case one might as well save oneself the bother. [Deleted] Comparing Fux News and any real news agency is sickening equivocation. Fux News is roughly comparable to the Soviet Itar Tas. Under Brezhnev or Khrushchev. You were demonstrating that bias comes in different strengths, [Deleted]. I could easily list a number of news providers that have a left-wing bias - but the names wouldn't mean a great deal to you, because they're all European. NYT, however, is not one of them. Maybe it once was, I don't know, but it most certainly isn't today. To most it is. To most Americans, perhaps... But then again, I suppose Radio Free Europe was a right-wing outlet to most Soviet citizens. I posted my frame of reference. The BBC and Der Spiegel. Of course, you probably don't know either of those, Mister Troll, but that's your loss. I myself am to the political left of the editors of those outlets, so it's hardly a matter of me using my own political opinions as a reference point. On the other hand, both of those outlets come as close to independent reporting as you get it on this planet, which is why they're the standard reference. Pics courtesy of WinAce (RIP).

Well, whatever floats your boat. One thing you might want to keep in mind, though, is that using a lot of colours does not necessarily enhance readability...

EDIT: [snip] The problem is not that 'I don't like it' - and for the record, I resent your continuing and pathetic insinuations that everyone who doesn't agree with you is motivated by the same kind of unthinking (quasi-)religious political 'reasoning' that your posts continue to evidence. The problem with Fux News is that they lie and lie and lie again - and with a straight face too. And when they've been indisputably caught lying, they continue to lie - they just turn up the volume and venom a little. Oh, and Dagobahn, I fail to see what's the least 'patriotic' about Fux News' use of the flag: In point of fact, using the flag to promote fascism is pretty close to being the most unpatriotic thing I can think of off the top of my head...

I reiterate my question: How would the legalisation of prostitution among adult, willing people change the situation w.r.t. the costumers you bring up?

Possibly... But how would that situation differ from the present one?

Maybe. Sometimes. Depends on what you mean by 'fight for' and 'give up.' If by 'fight for' you mean staying in something that's eating you from the inside, then it's a Bad Idea. If by 'give up' you mean breaking up over the sligtest misgiving or practical problem, then you're right that 'giving up' is a Bad Thing. In the end, I suppose what matters most is that the decision - whatever it is in the end - is made with thought and care. But marriage wasn't really the topic of this thread - in point of fact, the attempt to get us to debate marriage was a more or less deliberate red herring. EDIT: Oh, and Dagobahn, the guy I was replying to is a RR troll. Your charitable interpretation of his ignorant rant does him far too much credit.

Hmm... I'm divided... On the one hand, I dislike the concept of prostitution. I think it cheapens and diminishes one of the most intimate and personal things humans can share. On the other hand, I have to say that there are compelling arguments in favor of legalising prostitution. It will enable the courtesans to form labour unions. It will make it easier to stand up to exploitation, since you'll know that you won't get fined just for being in the business. And it just might cut down on a source of income for - ah - certain less than savory characters. Troll-Be-Gone: I'm not saying that regulating the business would outright eliminate the criminal parts of it. Selling tobacco is legal, but that doesn't prevent people from smuggling in tobacco to do an end-run around taxes etc. Nor will legalising prostitution magically eliminate the problem of abusive pimps. But it might make it a tad easier to find and fine them. And it would end one particular bit of hypocracy inheirent in our social matrix: When a woman ****s ten different elderly men for their money, it's called prostitution, and it's wrong. When a woman ****s a single elderly man for his money, it's called marriage, and it's right... More Religious Riech bull****. If organised in labor unions, regulated by working environment laws, etc. there's no reason to expect it to contribute to spreading STDs. Quite the opposite, actually. I don't buy that argument. You could make virtually the same argument for cotton farmers, factory workers, and virtually every other industry in human history. Historically, the best cure for lousy working conditions and de facto slavery has been strong labour unions and strong government employee health regulation. This one gets points for honesty. In reality, the Religious Reich are opposed to legalising prostitution for no reason whatsoever other than protecting their fantasy-world conception of family and their equally rose-tinted conception of marriage. All the other reasons they give are smoke screen. Think, however, for a moment about this line of reasoning. 'If you disassociate sex and marriage, marriage will die.' Give me a break... If you think that there is nothing more to a stable relationship than sex, then you shouldn't marry in the first place. I dispute that. I propose that it is better to endure a divorce than to endure living with a spouse that you can't stand. And I happen to know that it's not the end of the world to be a child of divorced parents. In point of fact, I would go so far as to maintain that it is better for the child to grow up with parents who are divorced, but who speak with each other, than to grow up with parents who are married but do not speak with each other. For that matter, in a society where marriage is solely the decision of the couple, and not a matter of ensuring the production of heirs or cementing political and legal relationsships between clans, I would claim that the possiblity of divorce is a requirement for the existence of marriage. It is, after all, impossible to know your feelings twenty or thirty years in the future. So, if you cannot get out of a marriage that exists only on paper, you have a rather strong disincentive to marry in the first place. I would claim the contrary. In order to ensure liberty, the family must take a distinctly secondary role in society. Societies where the family is the primary fallback in times of economic or social crisis have always been totalitarian nightmares, and societies in which the family is the primary political unit are just plain barbaric.

And here's the scary part, Dagobahn: Those - uh - people vote... Such equivocation is sickening. Let me first point out that the NYT is not, by any sane standard, a left-wing outlet. It is - however - a reality-based outlet. Unlike Fux News. Fux News is regularly caught red-handed in outright, obvious lies. FFS, they make up half their 'news' out of whole cloth. That said, I was not impressed by the 'scholarship' employed in Outfoxed. Especially not when there are so much better references available.

I'm in favor of making punishments dependent on the number of times you've been caught. Say, double the fine/time/whatever for each incident after the first within the past N years, with N being a number somewhere between five and ten years. Or, maybe, something like 2 to the power of the number of crimes, divided by the number of years passed since each one (so that if I am caught speeding - which I won't be since I don't have a car, but nevermind that - and have been caught speeding 2 yrs ago and again 1.5 yrs ago, I would get the basic fine times 2^(1+1/1.5+1/2)... Of course, that'd require that someone in the legislature could actually do their basic arithmetics...

For that matter, DailyKos has a nice article on the same subject. Too lazy to dig it out, though...

You are quite right, of course. I was venting steam. Which is no excuse, of course. My sincere apologies, both for my unwarrented hyperbole, and for the tardiness of my response (the latter being rather more warrented than the former, however, since I've been caught up in both a couple of political drives and a couple of exams - in the middle of which my 'net suddenly decided to take a hike...).

Because that has jack squat to do with the subject of the thread, which is biological evolution. You want to discuss cosmology? Fine with me. Start another thread. You want to discuss chemical abiogenesis? Fine with me. In another thread. Limiting the discussion solely to biological evolution is simply a matter of limiting the subject of a single thread to something almost manageable, so that questions in one area don't get lost in replies to questions about another area. And, contrary to what you imply, the distinction actually made is not an arbitrary one. We know that life exists. How it came about is immaterial to the ToE. We know that the Earth existed well before life arose. How the Earth came to be is immaterial to the question of how life arose (OK, not quite - it can shed some interesting light on the question). So the distinction is quite well grounded in the different questions posed by those different phases. Not to mention the fact that ToE is primarily biological and biochemical, while chemical abiogenesis is primarily chemical, and cosmology is an astrophysical dicipline. It would be mightily unreasonable to expect the same commenters to cover such a wide range of fields. Dishonest? Which parts? Questionable-but-not-dishonest? Which parts? That being because ToE does not attempt to explain that. ToE explains what happened on this planet after the first life was formed. The formation of said life - much less the formation of the planet - is irrelevant. Pray tell, what does 2LoT actually say? [Answer] There is one subtle error in the essay. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find it. Next, pray tell, do chemists and biochemists who routinely synthezise complex molecules violate 2LoT in their daily work? Oh, and while we're on the subject of thermodynamics, what do the other three laws of thermodynamics say? For a more thorough understanding of how 2LoT (and Newtonian dynamics) work, you could visit the Museum of Unworkable Devices. First of all, it's not necessary to postulate that matter has 'always' existed. Secondly, the formation of matter is hardly an issue of faith. Astrophysics have the timeline pretty much pat down (although I am personaly in no position to evaluate the soundness of their arguments), and as we speak, investigation into the nature of matter itself is underway at the Centre for European Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland. Sorry, you'll need to find both a chemist, and another thread if you want an answer to that question. This link provides part of the answer, but, AFAIK, the whole story has yet to be determined. Again, the picture is, AFAIK, incomplete, but RNA has been formed using common chemicals. Lipids - the stuff that makes up our cell membranes - spontaneously forms into closed membranes - that's the trick that makes soap work. And you can probably find more information if you ask a biochemist. Once you have a living cell, you have an organism. If you mean multicellular organism, part of the story can be found here. Argument from personal incredulity. I reiterate my questions: I reiterate my questions from above: Well, so does life... - or, rather, it forms in a closed, but not isolated system, which is rather more to the point. Pray tell, what relevance does 'disorder' have w.r.t. thermodynamics? But they're still just fruitflies. Sorry, cheap shot, but I couldn't resist... The point here is not that the snowflakes don't form into snowmen. The point is that the snowflakes have lower enthropy than the water vapour from which they are formed. This is compensated for by the fact that during their formation, they have released energy to their surroundings, thus increasing the enthropy of the rest of the world. Which brings us to your reference: More to the point, there's an energy transfer. You can easily design an experimental setup in which the freezing water is a closed system - but it won't freeze unless there's an energy transfer. That's precisely the point. Now, try to apply this to biological systems. Feh. Now he's confusing enthropy and free energy. A snowflake as a lower enthropy than gaseous water. Inasmuch as enthropy translates to disorder (an analogy, by the way, that is far from perfect), the snowflake could be said to have a higher degree of order. Why the author feels compelled to bring up the free energy of the snowflake is something I fail to understand. Well, technically no bodies do any work. Forces do work. But, contrary to the statement by your source, falling snowflakes do indeed apply forces to their environment, and those forces do indeed do work. Further, if you collect an abundance of snowflakes in a basket, and pour them over a treadmill, you will see that snowflakes can indeed contain free energy... And, frankly, I fail to see any sense in the rest of the article. You're confusing energy and free energy. Same place they do today: Old man Sol. Not to mention the fact that in an anoxic environment, it will be energetically favorable for Hydrogen and Nitrogen - two of the most common compounds in the universe - to form Methane - a compound that contains more free energy than CO2 and water. Howsabout volcanic outgassing then?

I second that concern. I see it all the time... Cretinism, IDiocy (I know, I know, IDiocy is a subset of Cretinism), those godawful sci-fi flicks (and political operatives) that quote New Scientist (and Fux News) for their technobabble (and propaganda), as if it was some sort of credible reference... Of course, I can hardly get wound up about the fact that the Church is now the target... What goes around, comes around... But that's for another thread...