It's the most imprtant part for Microsoft, too - it's their marketing strategy. That other 10% keeps the suckers coming back for more - always hoping for the missing 10% and never getting it.

Yes, you do. The point you're trying to make is not clear. You seem to be offering this as evidence that "atheists flock to science" - but it's not evidence of that at all. It says nothing about atheists. However, it may say something about scientists. It may be evidence that scientists "flock" to atheism - but that's a totally different thing altogether, and has nothing to do with atheists flocking to science.

Was that your attempt to illustrate what a straw man is?

I've never noticed atheists having any more interest in science than christians. Atheists, however, tend to question things - and that's what science is all about, therefore some atheists may tend to have an affinity with science for that reason.

Because it will be interesting to understand the genetics of the plant.

Obviously an addict whose last beans had been eaten by the civet - much like the way a junkie might retrieve an accidentally dropped hit from a toilet bowl.

Yeah? Explain.

The lesson from the recent bout of frantic backpedaling on Neanderthals is not to take the slightest bit of notice of the extrapolations of archaeologists. The raw data of their findings is interesting, but it's always open to interpretation. However, archaeology as a science seem to be largely incapable of objective interpretation. Maybe it's time they stuck to digging things up and stopped trying to interpret what they find. That interpretation really requires quite a different discipline.

Considering all the revelations that have emerged about surveillance in those ten years, the possibility that it's not true seems barely worth considering.

I don't have any figures on hand, but it seems that people do still read them. And they certainly appear to have a huge influence on election outcomes.

News Ltd owns the only national daily paper, as well as the only daily paper in four state capitals, one territory capital, and a number of large regional centres - of the capitals, only Melbourne, Sydney, and Canberra have competing daily papers. Admittedly, that covers nearly half the population - but that leaves a massive proportion of Australia dominated by Murdoch.

I don't think Murdoch's got much cause to be angry - he gets his way in pretty much everything. He's just a cynical, manipulative, evil scumbag. And i'm quite sure he's more than happy to be that way.

I'm waiting for that arsehole Murdoch to die - but given that his mum lived to over 100, i'm not holding my breath!

It's not nothing. It's a glimmer of hope for us here in Australia, that that piece of shit Murdoch could eventually lose his near monopoly in Australian newspapers - and, therefore, a significant part of his ability to manipulate the government. And not before time.

No way! There are things on Facebook that aren't satire?

1.8 what? If you're talking about deaths, then so what? The difference between 0.0018% and 0.0034% is minimal. But I'm talking about danger in general, not just danger of death. The chance of getting randomly bashed by a gang of drunken thugs on the streets of Kabul is zero - in London, it's high.