Thanks!

I was not attempting to open a debate on abortion, but rather to question how much the perceived improvements in life expectancy world-wide could possibly be affected by the practice.

As for sex education, condoms do absolutely nothing to combat sexually transmitted diseases, so while they may help reduce the number of pregnancies, they also fuel the rise of HIV and AIDS around the world. Abstinence and marital fidelity are the only effective methods that can stop this deadly trend. In fact, in light of the scientific and historical evidence, it is gross negligence bordering on manslaughter to promote "sex education" as a cure when millions suffer from the effects of this "civilised" education.

Your example of the unfertilized ovaries is completely off-base and has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand -- or even the debate about abortion. It is the ultimate straw man argument that ignores the real issues of a truly intellectual debate.

I would be curious to know if/how he took into account two items that could seriously skew the data. When you observe the initial dataset in the 1800s, all childhood deaths were reported including stillborn babies and so forth. With abortion, many of the poorer or unhealthy children are more likely to not enter the world. How much of an impact does this have on these figures? How much lower would the American lifespan be if we included the 1.5 million abortions we have every year?

Also, he calculates the figures in terms of dollars, but define a dollar. In 1910, a dollar was worth far more than it is today. I am assuming that he takes into account inflation, but I would be curious to see how.

All that said, that was a fascinating video. I would love to be able to play with the graph and move it back and forth at my own speed to track the various movements of each country through history and so forth. It be fantastic if they put together an interactive website to do just that.

I believe this verse is often taken out of context to say something it clearly was not intended to say. Look at the next couple verses as well:

He said to them, "But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors.' For what is written about me has its fulfillment." And they said, "Look, Lord, here are two swords." And he said to them, "It is enough."
(Luk 22:36-38 ESV)

A couple points here: first notice the reason appears to be so that Jesus could be numbered among the transgressors. It was not for self defense, because what more do we need for defense when we have the almighty Creator of the universe on our side? Further, note that they said they only had two swords for the twelve men (and any other additional people who might have been with them). Clearly this is not enough to defend the whole party.

Given the fact that nowhere else in the New Testament are we commanded or even encouraged to look to our self-defense, I find the Biblical argument for violent reprisal very weak. However, the opposite, a lifestyle of peace and passive resistance, is very strong.

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
(Rom 12:17-21 ESV)

It may not be popular. In fact, it may seem on the surface to be foolhardy. But God's ways are not our ways, and if we love Him and truly wish to be like Him, we need to take Him at His word and follow the lifestyle He has set forth.

If you like Web Developer, you really should check out FireBug. It is truly an amazing tool available only for Firefox that allows you to debug JavaScript code, inspect elements, make changes on the fly -- basically Web Developer on steroids. The only limitation at this point is that it does not appear to work with the new Firefox yet. Hopefully it will be compatible before the new version comes out of beta.

This tool if for no other reason will ensure that Firefox is always on my machine even if I use Chrome for day-to-day browsing.

The early Christian church did not fight back against the oppressions of Rome. They were killed by the thousands in gladiator stadiums, torn apart by animals, and crucified for their faith. But they did not resist with arms. They did not fight back with armies or even political campaigns. They fought back with love, forgiveness, and peace. And in less than four hundred years, they defeated one of the strongest empires the world has ever seen.

The Christian church in China did not resist with politics or violence or terrorism while Mao tried to eradicate all Christianity from China. He killed thousands of Chinese Christians in an attempt to wipe them out, but when the restrictions were lifted, the church of 2 million Christians had peacefully grown to 80 million, and the heart of China is now being changed.

The Dutch and Norwegians peacefully resisted Nazi Germany and as a result, far fewer of their Jews were turned over and killed by the Nazi soldiers than those of neighboring countries who fought back.

History is replete with examples of the power of peaceful resistance. It is not an easy path, but there is victory at the end. Either way, people will die, but with pacifism, those who desire peace will not have blood on their hands, and their victory will be a true victory for goodness and justice and mercy. Violent revolutions only end with more violence and a government that is just as oppressive if not more so than the one they replaced because they had to become the enemy to defeat the enemy. Pacifism does not change what it is and so remains pure.

Violence begets violence, and with each death comes more desire for revenge and retribution. I think in the end we would find that far fewer people die as a result of pacifism -- even against the most evil of regimes -- than would have died if a war had been waged.

That final quote is clearly implying that this evidence is proof that we need government intervention. We should strenuously oppose this, and we need to be aware of the subtle messages to try to persuade us to change our minds. Don't give into the manipulation!

In fact, this entire episode is strong and conclusive evidence that we do not need government regulations in this area. The private sector exposed the problem and the companies made the appropriate changes. This is how it should be done. If we don't like a product or service, then we should take our business elsewhere. Facebook is not a right. It is not an entitlement. It is a website, people, and you are free to go and use a different website if you choose. Perhaps if more people did, Facebook would clean up their act. We need to regulate the Internet not the government. I would rather keep the government as far from the Internet as possible for my own peace of mind. They have enough power to be corrupted without giving them more.

How can putting a corrupt and greedy government in charge of regulating the Internet possibly be a good thing?

(I know this is a duplicate post.... I did not mean or intend to post this anonymously)

I second your endorsement of ESET NOD32. I used AVG for years, but finally the annoying pop-ups got to me. NOD32 is quiet, unobtrusive, and has a negligible impact on performance while seeming to be quite good at pointing out and blocking potential viruses. It is by far the best anti-virus program I have used yet. I have never had the need to turn it off for performance reasons even while gaming or doing digital recording. Great software.

Sure. Give them millions of dollars of grant money to do more research while we pass legislation to make manufacturing even more difficult in America so we can export the rest of our jobs to China where they can ignore all environmental laws. Of course, at present rate, the world-wide economy will soon be completely shot, so after we kill off a couple billion people from the resulting unrest, diseases, and famines, our human contribution will be greatly reduced... to negligible effect.

So no. Not really.

I don't really mind patches. They are usually quiet and seamless, working in the background and not interfering with my work.

The real killers are the updates that require a reboot, and these seem to be on the rise of late. Even worse, these are typically for software that I do not use (IE, Windows Media Player, etc.), but I am required to interrupt my work to reboot my machine so that I can be "secure".

One item I have not seen raised is possible infringement of child pornography laws. Is it that uncommon for a laptop to be running while someone is undressing in their bedroom. Should the staff of the school download pictures taken during that time, would that not make them guilty of possessing child pornography? I wonder if it has already happened.

The whole thing reeks of multiple privacy infringements. It is especially bad because the school made ownership of these laptops mandatory.

Yet one more reason why my boys are going to be home-schooled.

I'm sorry. I misunderstood your response of "Dragonfly" as an actual answer. I will look into that as it may cover the features that Web Developer has. Thank you!

How does the RSS reader work? I like Firefox because I can just slide my mouse down the bookmark menu and see which sites have what updates.

Web Developer and Firebug are very useful development tools that allow you to debug JavaScript code, change HTML and CSS style-sheets on the fly, and return a lot of information regarding what is being rendered in the browser. They are fantastic tools that aid web development greatly, and to my knowledge, only Firefox has tools of this caliber.

I remember trying Opera several years ago, and while I liked the performance, it had some other quirks that were troublesome at that time. Since then, I have grown very fond of Firefox, and as when I considered switching to Chrome, I found that there are a couple key features I simply cannot be without.

1) RSS Feeds in my bookmarks.
2) Web Developer
3) Firebug

Does Opera have similar functionality?

Funny about North Korea, but I wonder if it could be the other way around. With everyone expecting a missile attack from North Korea, who would be able to say whether a strike on American soil actually originated from there? With outside access to this kind of information being limited, we would have to trust our government and a few other nations with such capability that the North Koreans did, in fact, attack us. Also, don't forget that FEMA is planning major exercises around the country in late July.

Many may say that I am being too conspiratorial in this, but are there not many examples of our country doing similar things throughout history to start a war?

"I've hired you to start a war. It is a prestigious line of work with a long and glorious tradition." Vicini, "The Princess Bride"