Oh, and wrestlers are neither. They fall into the entertainment industry category. At least the WWF do. Those sumo dudes, well they need a category all of their own...

What makes a game a sport though?

My take on it is physical rather than mental exertion. So in my mind dominos, chess, poker and starcraft (1 or 2) are all games. Doesn't make them any less watchable or admirable though.

I thought you wrote "wife".... put a completely different complexion on the post.

And this is true even if you don't have a twitter account or use Twitter. It is just in that case they don't know anything about you.

This is why I redirect facebook in my hostsini. looks like I should do the same with the other icon providers. Although I block ads anyway.

Really? I thought you had to opt OUT, not in. The fact remains that the state levies a tax and collects monies for a religion, and pays for the upkeep of churches and their staff.

"The federal government and parliament have responsibility for recognizing religious groups and paying the wages and pensions of their ministers." and "Broadly speaking, religious groups received approximately 645 million euros from the government in 2009" (source http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/171685.pdf)

So not so much separation of church and state as you would like us to think.

Er, no you didn't. Five of the ten just maybe. And you didn't really demonstrate so much as state that "they are pretty good foundations" without offering any objective proof. Who knows, a society that has no concept of marriage or of parents or adultery, may be just as valid as one that has those concepts. Also bear in mind that in most societies it is accepted that you can break even the five in the public good (lies in the national interest, murder in the name of the nation - targeted assassinations or all out war, or justice, and stealing a portion of peoples assets without consent - taxes).

And you moved the goalposts on the remaining five by saying they only apply to a believer. The original post said that the ten commandments do not oppose the public good. No mention of "as far as a believer is concerned".

Spot on. You only have to look at how much antipathy there is between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. It is all so Monty Python it isn't funny.

Could get a little bit crowded.

In Belgium and many other countries in Europe the government levy and collect a mandatory religious tax from citizens. So much for separation of church and state. Perhaps you need to abolish that anachronism before you give your sarcasm another outing on the subject.

Have you read the ten commandments?

The first three have nothing to do with being good and everything about excluding other religions. If anything they point to a God that is somewhat insecure.

The last one defines a thought crime. Why can't I covert if I want to?

I fail to understand why we give any credence to the two thousand year old garbled and inconsistent myths of a bunch of middle eastern nomadic goat fuckers.

So you are saying that sterile people can't get married? Those that require IVF? Or women who have passed menopause? Or those that have had the snip?

Marriage began long before governments codified the rules. It is simply a public expression of dedication to another person in your life, and generally includes a wish to be treated as a single entity in many ways.

Why does it matter to you what other people do and call it anyway?

I am looking forward to watching that runner sitting by the track with the stars and stripes watching the running in the red go running by. Closely followed by the one in the green orange and white.

Space race Mk2. Bring it on.

Bloody bean counters. It was not a waste of money. Any more than climbing Everest, or the race to the South Pole, or finding the Higgs Boson.

The space race inspired the current generation of rich people prepared to put funds into private space initiatives.

We don't want a robot to land on mars. We want a human to tell us how it feels to stand on an alien planet and try to spot the Earth in the nights sky.

You want to look at a waste of money? Look at how much Coca Cola spend to try to make you buy their flavour rather than the oppositions. Now that is a REAL waste.

Well they sure as hell know now, so their continued employment makes the complicit. Anyone who does not leave an organisation on discovering that it is behaving badly becomes complicit.

The problem with a universal dragnet in the name of security is that it can logically be extended to making it illegal to NOT allow all of your devices to monitor you 24x7, and eventually monitor your thoughts as well. In other words total physical and intellectual enslavement.

It began when people accepted that they had to "watch what they said and did" when going through airport security and is steadily going downhill.