Citation for that please. Our postal service offer the same service as USPS, without the added junk. The added junk is actually done by separate private guy going from door to door. I get far far less junk in germany than my US friends living near Atlanta AND I also get my post on time and whatnot.

I have no idea where you are getting that idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... there is a 60% tax on inheritance but only if you are a remote relative. There are high income tax on very high income (41% top), and there is a very low tax on wealth (around a 1% if you are millionaire , and atround 2% if youa re over 10* millionaire). As for the article it does not speak at all about a 75% tax. As for the article, it was really written by an american "France is famous for its generous social benefits, somewhat relaxed work ethic" there are country (like germany, Sweden) which have as generous and as relaxed "work ethic". In fact I suspect the usage of the word "ethic" here as being american prejudice only.

Ultima 4, 5, 6, 7, 7-2 (even the bad one 8,9), I remember the protagonists background and motivation. Heck Planescape torment, who can even forget that ? "What can change the nature of Man ?". I disagree that the story is not important. The story as a motivation well done IS important. The problem is that since the game are sold globally now, and the cultural difference between market are so huge, it is increasingly difficult to come up with a story sensitive to all cultures.

Even a few century ago you could live without teeth so your analogy isn't even good. I have no idea where you got that. I never heard also anybody pretending that. But ever tried to live without any blood white cell whatsoever ? You can't. The environment fungi, bacteria, virus, and even your own bacteria will kill you. Quickly. in short order. Why do you think "bubble baby" need to be utterly separated from their environment baring grafts ? Why do you think people with AIDS dies ? That's not the HIV which kill them but the opportunistic infection which do them in without immune system.

Now the argument is, can we completely remove that problem ? If we cannot then the lifespan of a human is limited, even if we can extend it by slowing that problem down. At this point in time, with the technology we have and the biology as we know it, the conclusion is valid.

Since it has been known there has been addon and programs to randomize that for you adding/removing unused fonts/drivers/codecs/etc.... Naturally this is an escalation race until then next one they use to identify. But in the mean time good luck linking all my persona together.

Me quoting the demon-haunted-world does not mean I would agree 100% on everything Sagan Said. I am not sure why it is surprising. I recommend the book as introduction of science, rational thinking and skepticism. Not because Sagan made a nice prosa on a Pale Blue Dot.

Those comparison human ability versus rover crack me up. The problem is that they are comparing one single rover against one human. What they should compare is the energy and material resource expanded to 1) launch a human 2) make sure it arrives alive 3) stay alive long enough to do stuff 4) we are not even considering it coming back alive 5) we are not even considering the horrendous cost of setting up a colony (when we aren't even a step nearer to do one on moon) 6) and we will also ignore that rover are expandable I.O.W. if the first rover crash and burn, resend another one. If you DO the comparison, then it is much cheaper to make a serie of automated vehicule which can gather stuff analyze it, and if you see you are missing info or one break, send another one.

Human on mars is only a question of fulfilling a dream, a dream which is completely cut off from the reality of cost. it is nice for you to have a dream, but some of us prefer practical solutions.

The reason western europe and canada is compared to USA, rather than say mexico and russia, is because they are the one which ressemble much the cultural, economical environment but also far more important political environment of the USA. Mexico and russia may fullfil one or two of those, but not all 3.

Drone are actually at this day, used to kill people in other part of the world. They were not back in then 1980's. Furthermore with the incisingly militarisation of the police in the USA, the two fears are : 1) it will make it very easy to itnroduce massive "eye in the sky" surveillance everywhere in the US 2) that the drone will not stay "passive civilian like" but acquiere first strike capabilities on US soil too.

And seeing the evolution of the no knock raid, and the surveillance society the US is building, either toward the inside or the outside (NSA), I don't think this is that an ungrounded fear.

You do not take a PHD because you prepare for a job. You take it because youa re passionate for the subject and might hope to continue the subject. if you think a PhD is to prepare for an job, or even education in general at high level, you got it wrong. Anyway i disagree about not being a good preparation either : the autonomy and the effort needed to do a PhD "over prepare" for practically any job except a few % out there.

If you watch the last century, we added limitation to the world instead of removing them. Back to newton : infinite speed possible infinite acceleration possible and while the greek had a concept of the non divisible (atoms), there was no theoretical "limit" on isntrumentation ,it was still thought you could transmute stuff into other other stuff in the middle age. And the unvierse could go on forever. Nowadays we know that inifnite speed is not possible, infinite acceleration is not possible, there is a limit on what you can measure (uncertaintly principle), transmutation is an energy expansive process, the universe will wind down forever, and there is a maximum limit on how much energy can be extracted, and do not get me started on "you can't win , you can't get out of the game etc...". From all point of view, we discovered new phenomenon, but all those resulted in imposing limitation on everything everywhere. We have discovered new phenomena, but each refined our understanding and added new limitation on what is possible. I'll grant you we have open point as we cannot go smoothly from infinitely small to infinitely big.


Although I would not bet the house on it, I contend that it is entirely possible that we have discovered the rough outline of most laws which drive the universe, and that warp drive and worm hole are stuff of the imagination which have no place whatsoever here. And that in future we might discover refinement and new phenomenon, but none which breaks utterly all those intrinsic limitation, they might even impose on us even *more* limitation on what is doable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

Technically only for female, no age of consent for male. Also technically it made what we consider children prostitution (12)legal. In fact if you compare mariage age without parent assent to age of consent it was
pretty clear the age for mariage was only to make sure the previous generation had a strong say in how the assets were handled and only that. I would also had that in welsh the mariage age was 12-14 (1550 or so). Age of consent was only raised to 16 much later (19th century).

"Allow me to propose a simple rule-of-thumb for Bible readers (both "the faithful" and the skeptics) as follows: Do not criticize it any differently than you criticize every other book (i.e. use consistent standards) and do not take individual sentences out-of-context from ANY book."

I'll do that for the harry potter book as soon as the harry potter book (and every other book) will be taken as "litteral truth" like the bible is by some people.

That one with Stein and others from creationist do the same. inf act this is their basic modus operendi : misquoting.

For one in tomatoe there is a lot of glutamate and other elements. In homeopathic madicine ? lactose , maybe water, rarely alcohol no matter which.