I have posted here as a Christian, gotten some support and some flaming from internet atheists on the site, though not much because I try to be a good slashdot citizen with most of my posts having nothing to do with religion per se. So, I am surprised by the relative balance here and think that most of the posters have been too easy on the Catholic Church and the Pope -- the opposite of what I usually see. Galileo may have been an asshole in some respects and provoked the reaction against him. I don't think it is uncommon in true Geniuses of his type to behave this way. But now a days we do not try our resident Geniuses before a kangaroo court of law or inquisition and force them to plead guilty of crimes that shouldn't be crimes and that they didn't do anyway, recant under the threat of torture, burn their work and publicly condemn them in every university, then sentence them to life imprisonment. (This sentence was commuted to permanent house arrest after the trial.)

As I am sure you know, Android is built on top of Linux. I have one Android phone, but haven't used it as a desktop OS at all. Do you know if it is relatively simple to add free or open source software to the few Android desktop devices now available? It seems to me that so long an Android is not locked down for desktop users that we would gain much that we look for in Linux. Also, I keep seeing more and more business applications migrating to a web-centric OS neutral model using servers that are Linux based.

Not lied to ... it used to be safer simply because widely distributed consumer Linux based devices (and hence malware targeted at those devices) didn't exists a few years ago. With the current changes in the market we will now see a flood of Android and Linux based malware.

Yes, that is what peta,org used to be: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. Doughney.

It seems to me that you have labeled this as a fallacy known as "appeal to belief" incorrectly. The 97% are not just anybody, but are papers from peer reviewed journals. These are authorities. The argument in this case is an appeal to authority, but it is not a fallacious appeal because in this case, the ones claiming to be authorities in fact are so qualified.

The study is just another case in point demonstrating the strong consensus among climate scientists that AGW is real.

You are quite right. I have always regarded myself as pro-life because I believe that an unborn human with an operating brain and beating heart is a human being and has an inherit right to life. But I parted ways with much of the pro-life community on defining the start of life at conception. My problem is how can we regard a zygote prior to forming a blastocyst as a individual human life when life is so fungible at that stage. I mean, we can split the zygote and get more than one individual in the form of identical twins or triplets. Or two zygotes and become fused and form one individual who is a chimera. The logic of regarding zygotes as humans has other pitfalls as well. Since 50% of zygotes fail to implant, then the very act of having a child implicitly involves the slaughter of just as many other humans as are produced by having a child. Does this make all natural birth parents murderers? And now that we know, are they all now premeditated murderers?

Are you serious?

had she opted to put this in a glass bottle and screw the metal cap back on like a real deviant some people could have been hurt, that hurls glass out at a pretty good clip and could easily slice some people up. She's a terrorist.

I remember doing similar ridiculous experiments with the "science club" during Junior High. I was an irresponsible jerk, but not a "terrorist". It was a different era so nothing happened to me. This girl was just goofing around in an otherwise very good way -- no intent to harm anyone and no one was harmed. She should get a figurative slap on the hand and move on. The school and the police are being ridiculous.

I can't see how this is correct. My understanding is that the court has leeway to use legislative intent to deal with cases that are either ambiguous or where it does not adequately address a particular area. The original California legislation (section 23123) was passed in 2007. The first iPhone was released in June of that year. The timing alone shows that use of GPA navigation was not addressed in the original legislation (let alone adequately addressed). It also seems that the core regulation in the law, "A person shall not drive a motor vehicle while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is specifically designed and configured to allow hands-free listening and talking, and is used in that manner while driving" is ambiguous (unclear in-exact) when being applied to an activity that involves neither listening nor talking. Also, the examination of judicial intent does include a look at judicial history which seems to me would include amendments to the original law like section 23123.5. If the legislature had intended to ban activities other than traditional phone use, then amending the statute would have been superfluous.

So, no I don't buy that what you say applies in this case.

Thank you. I understand your feeling. People are diverse. Atheists are no different. While some can be friendly and civil to religious believers or theists (like Teller of Penn and Teller), others can be extremely nasty and intolerant. It sounds to me like you have had some discussions looking at arguments from both sides only to have one side slapped down with insults and ad-hominem that made you feel put down even though you are trying to be objective, open minded and agnostic and not taking the theist side at all. It is all too common, and Christians/ theists are guilty of it too. Randi's link is enlightening and reflects a lot of this tension within skepticism where it is clear for the comments that some skeptics believe that a full skeptic does have to be an atheist. But I am still happy to hear Randi's response which is more on the tolerant side of the matter. It is notable to me that he focuses his skepticism most on targets that are of the most benefit to people.