As always text makes it impossible to tell if you're being ironic, but there IS an episode of southpark featuring an atheist alliance, its called Go God Go (s10e12/13) and is, shock horror, total genius.

Yesterday transcontinental high speed rail, today this. Beyond awesome, the 2020's could be good.

Remember not to confuse "socialism" the political doctrine with "socialised" as in sharing costs across society. America does this for health (medicare), defense, roads, education, environmental health, etc etc etc. Europe is no more socialist than are obama's policies, that is to say, not very.

Socialism = public ownership of the means of production, anything that doesn't entail this is IN NO WAY socialist.

To "the eric conspiracy" below, you should bear in mind that the "europe" you're talking about nowadays includes romania, poland the old yugoslavia etc, I highly doubt your figures would stand if they only included the "old europe" say the nations of the EU prior to 1999. Its also worth pointing out that the scandinavian nations which have the highest tax rates and the most "socialist" policies have some of the best GDP/head and standards of living in the world.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

herbs that are useful become (drum roll) Medicine

A thoughtful response, thanks!

i agree, a racist joke can be, (and i'd concede frequently is) a manifestation of racism, but i'd maintain using racial epithet doesn't mean you're racist, your intent and your actions should define that, although in the real world the words we use are an easy shorthand.

I'm not sure it matters if the "other" we're talking about is self selecting or otherwise, we can probably agree that anti semitism is just as bad as strict race-ism even though religion is a matter of choice, and jews can be of any origin and skin tone.

Grey areas, always a pain in the ass!

why yes, it is just humour, a nigger joke is no more racist than one that starts "there's an englishman, an irishman and a scotsman" Racism doesn't lie in the words you use but in the actions you take. Calling someone a nigger, kike, wop, etc etc doesn't make you racist. Not hiring someone because they happen to be black, refusing to allow your jewish daughter to marry a muslim, putting a sign on your hotel that says "no irish" those sort of things are racist. If the word itself is racist then most hip hop should be labeled hate speech, instead we use these words as a crude marker: "if you say x you believe y" isn't a good enough way to deal with whats a very contentious issue.

oh come on, "we only have morality because of god"?

Really?? REALLY??

My incredulity is matched only by my overuse of the question mark.

really? i didnt know we were the only ones who did that! But peter below is right, teachers nowadays put the period in its traditional location.

i see, so business success is a measure of intelligence is it? I'd say its far more a measure of luck, hard work and the number of subsidiaries you have in low/no tax countries. I call shennanigans, there are better signifiers of someones value and knowledge than their net worth. Just kidding, i love Murdoch really, and i NEVER ritually use what he calls newspapers as toilet paper. NEVER

I'd question that environmental degredation is overwhelmingly a problem of the last 100 years, there are plenty of examples from the 1800's onwards - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4239182,00.html Space colonies obviously arent the answer to overpopulation or pollution, but they do solve the "big rock with our name on it" problem thats coming our way sometime.