What exactly would we do to prepare for an earthquake that we don't already do(such as construct sturdier buildings or educate people on places where it's a good idea to take cover)?
I am not sure if that is a serious question or not. The obvious answer is that so people can evacuate to somewhere safe.
If I lived in an earthquake zone I would be much happier if I could be told ahead of time when a big one was expected.

Murdoch far to the left? That is one of the funniest things I have heard for a while. He is a union-busting arch-conservative and always has been.

It seems a lot of people here think Rupert Murdoch is an idiot. He isn't.
News Corp has deep pockets and a wealth of profit-making websites.
He understands it would be suicide for his readership of his newspapers if he charged for access, but rivals didn't.
It would be a slightly slower suicide if he charged nothing at all.
So perhaps his plan is this:
1. Charge for access to all his news sites.
2. Encourage rivals to charge also (it has been already flagged that newspapers are willing to work as a bloc on this issue).
3. Watch while readership plunges at all newspaper websites following the introduction of pay-per-view.
4. Hold out until his major rivals are all broke.
5. Maintain a cost for viewing online publications
6. Close down newspaper print editions as readers migrate to paying for content online
7. Scoop up profits and increase influence

Like this girl?

My question is what will happen next, if this motion is allowed.
The implication of such a finding is that MediaSentry broke the law. As I understand it, state and federal laws.
I would assume law enforcement agencies would be forced to act against MediaSentry.
Would that mean the organisation packs up and moves to Russia (or some other less restrictive country) to conduct their operation, or would it continue operating in the USA with a different brief?
Would any money MediaSentry has gathered from its clients be confiscated as proceeds of crime?
Would any previous law suits agreed to be overturned by such evidence?

"And how bad would the AIDS epidemic be (in Africa or elsewhere) if people followed "oppressive" Christian teachings like keeping the sex in marriage (I'm no expert on Islam, but as far as I know, they too at least theoretically believe the same)?"

That won't do a hell of a lot for the people catching HIV from dirty needles or from breast feeding mothers.
Monogamy in marriage is all fine and dandy, but lets not pretend HIV wouldn't exist if people could just forget millions of years of evolution and keep it in their pants.

"Mock and flame away. I'll pay attention when somebody proposes an actual drawback to monogamy."
By reducing sexual partners, you limit the number of offspring you have and human kind evolves more slowly. But then again, your Christian teachings probably preclude you from believing evolution occurs.

PS Monogamy inside marriage is part of Islam, but in many Islamic societies men can take multiple wives. That is what I call having your cake and eating it too.

If the Bill of Rights is modelled on the US one, then no doubt people will want the right to keep trojans and viruses.
In regards to what I think should be in an online Bill of Rights, the right to privacy is key.
There is nothing worse than knowing google, echelon, the Chinese govt and god knows who else has programs trawling through every word you write and ready to cens

Ironically, I tried to click on the story, but it came up with a dead link.

Looks like the missing link is a missing link.

In other news, anyone who talks about "the common ancestor" is crazy.

There must be many common ancestors, or where did the common one identy come from?

If you were really interested in evolution, I think you would probably be looking for a common amoeba.

In natural law, the purpose of sex is procreation. Thus, anything that interferes with that is evil, such as masturbation or birth control.

Nature has a habit of throwing some curve balls at you. Many animals have sex for fun.

A friend's dog couldn't stop humping anything that moved, and I saw a documentary once where a cane toad was having sex with another toad that was squashed flat on a road.

Some life-forms also reproduce by means of cloning themselves. Does this mean that because asexual reproduction is "natural" that god won't have a problem with human cloning?

The Catholic church is widely regarded to be the most wealthy organization in the world, by a long shot.

I really doubt this is true. While it is impossible to value some of the ancient treasures the Catholic church owns, most of them would only fetch in the millions at most.

I have seen estimates of Catholic worth at about $100 billion, well short of, for instance, the Chinese Treasury, which has reserves of more than one trillion dollars.

Well, it looks like it is time to sink the boot into Thais again, and their over-the-top laws in relation to Lese Majesty (criticising the royals).

I agree that people should be free to criticise anyone in a free society, and that locking people up for up to 15 years for something as minor as criticising a royal is ludicrous, here are some facts you may not be aware of:

1. Thailand's king Bhumibol Adulyadej said a few years ago in a birthday speech that the law of lese majesty was outdated and he would pardon anyone found guilty of the crime. He has since kept his word.

2. The crime of lese majesty came about in Thailand because under their constitution it is illegal for the royal family (who are supposed to be above the rest of society) to comment on the day-to-day running of society. They cannot respond to political attacks, nor can they react if people personally attack their character.

3. Because the Thai royals cannot respond to attacks, and take legal action or comment at any defamatory comments about them, the crime of lese majesty was inserted into the country's constitution, as a safeguard against political attacks on the royals.

4. Every time there is a general election the parliament has to vote on whether to can the lese majesty laws. Despite the king saying the laws no longer need to be in existence, the Thai people revere the king, and would vote out of office any politician who voted to abandon the lese majesty laws, hence the laws remain.

People in Thailand do not have the same freedom of speech rights that people in the west do, but to portray the king as some sort of evil ogre who is so sensitive to criticms that he cannot deal with an insult is just ridiculous.

This website will no doubt create a bureaucratic headache for the king, but should not be seen as evidence that Thailand is a dictatorial state.

I agree with your basic premise, that it is easy to estimate using the metric system. I grew up with the metric system (in Australia) and don't find any problem. Many of the metric measurements are similar to the imperial ones. ie one metre is roughtly equal to one yard. One metric tonne is roughly equivalent to an imperial ton.

You are wrong about one thing though. You said:
Also, since I know that 1cc of water is 1 gram, then half a liter of water or soda is 0.5L = 500cc = 500grams = 0.5 kilograms.

Half a litre of soda is likely to be slightly more than 500cc, because a gram of soda is not equal to the size of a gram of water. Soda is less dense.

"The same technology could be applied to any other extinct species from which one can obtain hair, horn, hooves, fur or feathers, and which went extinct within the last 60,000 years, the effective age limit for DNA."
Well, the mammoth technology works because they can implant the fertilised egg into an elephant, which is a close relative of the mammoth.

What happens when you try to clone a Tasmanian tiger? Where do you put the fertilised egg? Tasmanian devils are probably the most closely related, but still very different. They are marsupials, so probably not such a huge issue carrying the foetus.

I would love to see an emu trying to crap out a Moa egg though? There are limitations to this technology. It won't work for any extinct animal for which DNA exists.

But for my money, the clone I would most like to see is Otzi everyone's favourite ice-man.

Actually, given in-breeding, if they wanted to get a viable population going, they would probably need a whole herd.

Kindle's wireless deliveries only work inside the USA. Likewise you can't buy content without a US credit card.
This rules out a large chunk of their potential customers, and one of the huge benefits of buying a Kindle. It also means many overseas book sellers won't want their content used on Kindles.
My mother (in Australia) wanted to get one, largely because she can adjust the text on the screen. Here eyes are not what they used to be and she gets stronger and stronger prescriptions on her glasses.
It is the lack of access and the cost that are the biggest obstacles for her. To me is seems the Kindle is an American-only club that provides a good ebook reader at high cost.
Those at Amazon really need to broaden their perspective if this is to take off.