care to explain?

you might want to research that story a bit further than just the initial headline. It turned out the claim was that bottled water is a medicine against dehydration (a medical condition). Not all forms of dehydration are cured by drinking water, and in some situations it is even harmful to the patient. So common sense prevailed and the claim was struck down.

Now if you want to have an argument about the quality of British press (who first ran the story), that's an entirely different topic.

oh but you *can* run .NET apps on your iPhone, using monotouch ;-)

the trouble with your argument is that it puts the means above the ends. Of course Jews should be respected and be able to live peacefully, just like any other human being. What people, like the GP, are saying is that the means employed by Israel do not respect the right of other human beings. That behaviour is not only morally saddening, it's feeding terrorism.

ha ha.

Have a look at the drug use statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_lifetime_cannabis_use_by_country) and tell me whose country has a problem with cannabis use...

After reading the article and watching the video: what seemed to have happened is that the Labour party voted in favor by accident (some sort of mix up apparently), this was recognized immediately and the further procedure was halted until the error could be repaired. So nothing to see here, move along...

you're aware of the [domainname] feature right? this shows you where a link is pointing...

the US spends more almost as much on defense as the rest of the world *combined* (43% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces). So no, the combined european army would still not match the US army.

your sarcasm is misplaced and your assumptions unnecessary. if you want to see how multiple track systems work, look outside the US. For instance the essence of this system in The Netherlands:

- the primary school offers a single track system. Children advancing to secondary school receive a qualitative assessment from the primary school for the track they will likely be most fit for. The qualitative (and thus subjective) assessment is extended with a qualitative assessment ( a test ).

- students start secondary school with one or two years of single track education, before the school decides which track they will be allowed to attend

- students are able to downgrade and upgrade their track, depening on results and approval from school.

In practice the system works quite well, with some issues here and there (for instance there is no real feedback loop from secondary to primary school, so primary teachers don't really learn whether their subjective recommendations are any good).