They knew about the dangers of radioactive contamination, and radiation in general. They just didn't care. That's the real story.

"Hearing the sonic boom of the B-52s'" Those are subsonic jets. No sonic boom. But loud though.

The thing is, this new operating system will evolve like just about every other "we'll make it smaller and simpler" systems. If they are the next big thing, then sooner or later they'll go down the path of adding everything into their system that they ripped the other guys for having, then act like they invented it.

Additionally, there are many passages in the Bible which indicate that anyone who heard the true voice or looked directly upon the face of God would perish because they could not withstand the awesome power. That's just the sort of indicator the faithful could logically use to support a metaphorical interpretation of scripture.

Yet there are other passages, such as Jesus appearing to hundreds of people, or God appearing to Abraham or Moses where this is not the case. To be honest with you, I always find this line of argument odd.

If God can't contact us because it was destroy our feeble minds, then how did his messiahs, prophets come to know about him? How did Paul receive his vision from the creator of the universe and not have his mind thoroughly destroyed. What about Noah or Moses? How did their minds take the strain?

It's another one of these absurd adhoc retreats from the fact there is basically no evidence of God talking to anyone, ever. If God really did exist and he cared about what we did, then we'd be able to discover what we wanted. Humans of all stripes, in all times, in all places would agree on what the message was. I'd be as discoverable as the value of PI, or the laws of Physics or Chemistry.

Yet, once again, this is not what we observe. What we observe is precisely what we'd expect if he didn't exist: complete and utter confusion.

Additionally, if the truth were apparent, then there would be no benefit to be had from the iterative and ongoing process of interpreting scripture or the fractious nature of the church, in any of its various schismatic forms.

I'm not sure how this confusion benefits anyone. It's like the old joke about standards from Tanenbaum; the nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from.

Likewise, the great thing about the "Words" of God is that there are so many different, mutually contradictory, "words" to choose from.

Why on earth would a God who cared about us allow this confusion to persist?

The idea that the Creation stories in Genesis are meant to literally describe how God created is another matter entirely, and it is the blind insistence upon this presupposition that results in so much hot air being expelled on both sides of the issue.

In practically every thread you get someone who tries to reconcile evolution with theism. They say, well, "God created the system of evolution. Tada!" or "God guides evolution. Tada!"

The truth is that when evolution is properly understood it is a complete replacement for the theistic creator hypothesis. It actually goes even further than this and give us yet more evidence that God doesn't not exist.

The problem with evolution is that it's not the kind of system a God that cared and loved us would design.

Does survival of the fittest seem righteous to you? Why should the most well adapted survive? Surely a better system would be one where people with kindness, co-operation and charity thrive and the selfish, brutish and dishonest perish? Yet we do not live in this world.

Theism as a whole has the problem that it makes a really bold claim: "God exists and he loves us." and then it has to retreat almost immediately behind a series of adhoc justifications for why the observed universe doesn't match what we'd expect if that claim were true.

If God really existed the universe would be hugely different to the one we currently live in. If God really existed science would have found him by now.

That's because that's what Christ said. "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." Mk 16:16

This is yet another problem with the theism. The complete and utter confusion about what God wants. You're sat in this thread quoting the Bible as if it were the word of God, yet there are literally thousands of independent strands of Christianity alone. I don't even mention that even there were 2 billion Christians, 71% of the words population think your view is a heresy. You would even be called a heretic by members of your own superstition.

Again, would this confusion about religion be expected if there was a God who loved us? Absolutely not.

It is a popular--and recent--misconception that faith and reasoning are incompatible. Many, if not most, of the great minds of the ages were believers in God or in other forms of religion. The idea that religious people are necessarily irrational fools is simply a lie; there are plenty of both religious and atheistic people who are irrational fools.

The people in previous times didn't have the weight of evidence we do today. Faith and reason are incompatible. Faith is based on truth by revelation; that is, that some people a long time ago had the "word" revealed to them and every one else is left in the dark. The only hope we have is to just trust them. Reason works by studying, debating and seeking out evidence. Anybody can critique that evidence, review it and discuss it.

These are diametrically opposed view of the universe and completely incompatible.

I don't think there are too many people who are extremely violent because really orchids are the best kind of flower

You say that, and you know someone is out there building a bomb to rid the world of those fricking orchid bigots.... oh orchids and your superiority complex... you'll get what's coming....LOL.

Conservatives want to pass their values and culture and mythology on to their kids. But, for many of them, public schools are an obstacle to that. The key problem in the conservative mind with public schools is that the melting pot has given way to a multiculturalism that creates a climate of fear regarding ones own culture - exactly the opposite of what people want.

This isn't just public schools, and it isn't about religion, its everything conservative these days - lower taxes are just a form of saying, "I disagree with the public direction, so I want no public at all." They are allowed to say that, and when the liberals call them selfish for it, the end result will be a hastening to this trend of withdrawal. Why participate in something that is detrimental to you, and you don't believe is good for the public overall?

The ironic thing is that, even though liberals talk up a good game about the commons, you'll find they are withdrawing from the public as well. Of course, its long been known that rich people send their kids to private schools regardless of their political stripes, but you'll see it in their spheres.

It should be obvious that the money didn't come from Microsoft. It came from the NSA.

They wanted to wiretap all Skype conversations. They got Microsoft to buy it for that end.

You'd be nuts in the post Snowdon world to assume anything else.

First Mt. Laurel and Abbot decisions, then, massive property taxes, and now this. What was once the Garden State is turning itself into a wasteland.

He's a traitor, he deserves it.

I don't think anyone can argue with the fact an offence was committed. But the punishment should fit the crime. It is on that basis I object to this sentence. The sentence is so long that I feel this punishment violates your constitution. It is cruel and unusual.

We're talking about locking this guy up longer many rapists or murderers. You're even talking about executing him. How is that a sensible level of punishment?

At the end of the day, nobody died from this leak. Nothing of any substance has changed in geo-politics either. The cable leaks had a tendency to show that US foreign policy behind closed doors was pretty much the same as it was on the public sphere. As a Brit, I thought they actually came out of it looking quite good. It was the other countries were made to look like asshats.

Manning is a bit of an idiot and should serve some time but taking his entire life in forfeit for his stupidity is totally disproportionate and in my view unconstitutional.

I've slowly started to come to the view that representative democracy has basically failed. It's time to try a new system.

What that system should be up for discussion but the idea of voting for representatives who then decide the policy has been tried and failed. It's too easy for corruption to take root and it's too easy for those people to grab power for power's sake.

I refuse to accept that there is no better solution than the status-quo. There must be a way to capture the will of the people, protect minorities, and protect the people from government overreach. There must be a way to have our cake and eat it.

Right across the free world we're told this these giant databases are there to keep us safe.

The question is more who is being kept safe who. Is the purpose of these databases to protect me or protect the politicians? Is to protect me or big business? Is it to protect my right to process or restrict it?

In my own country, William Hague said that it was unthinkable that GCHQ would be operating outside of the law. The problem is I don't believe you!

Practically every time the government has secrecy it abuses that power to its own ends. This is just the nature of power held in secret with a lack of transparency. The entire span of human history shows that kind of power is hugely destructive.

The cure is worse than the disease here. Honestly, I'd rather have more terrorist attacks that having my privacy systematically shredded for the greater good. All terrorists can ever do is kill people. It takes a government to kill a society.

My dentist didn't make me sign anything. He just pulled my tooth. Rad.

Thank you for sharing that. That sort of pushback is the real way people as a whole can get ahead in this country. I'm going to try the same next time around.