1701. Gene map proves platypus is part bird, mammal and reptile

Comment #177166 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 5:16 pm

I am cute and cuddly - just in the right environment (fully clothed or with the lights out). As I keep telling people, one must never leave the environment out of the equation :-)

1702. Gene map proves platypus is part bird, mammal and reptile

Comment #177157 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Yeah, but we don't things that kill in 10 seconds flying, crawling, walking, etc around us :-) And kiwis are cute. I mean, would you want to cuddle an emu?
Wonder how long it would take to selectively breed emus to make a modern day moa...hmmm...

1703. Trouble ahead for science

Comment #177150 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 4:55 pm

"Expelled", as far as I can see, is completely unknown in NZ.

1704. Gene map proves platypus is part bird, mammal and reptile

Comment #177148 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 4:51 pm

Interesting Aotearoan aside...
http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Bio30Tuat01-t1-body-d8.html

1705. Gene map proves platypus is part bird, mammal and reptile

Comment #177143 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 4:41 pm

Steve, good to see you back :-)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/science/08platypus.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin
From the NY Times.
Original is here Nature 453, 175-183 (8 May 2008)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7192/full/nature06936.html
Not sure if that last link will work for all...

1706. Trouble ahead for science

Comment #177104 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 3:08 pm

Don't worry, Ken! Go east! Their philosophies on the esoteric allows for science to go ahead smoothly. I'm sure the powers that be will be only too pleased to accept decent American scientists to teach their future generations :-)

1707. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177103 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 3:05 pm

But for the sake of analysis, let's assume that a noticeable structural alteration occurs every 5000 years (which is quite generous in view of the ice man they found in the Alps, who showed no appreciable change).

Very different to his African ancestors, methinks. Very different to his Asian cousins, methinks.
You're exhibiting a very Eurocentric view here. He shows no appreaciable difference to Europeans because of the environment he was in.

There isn't a wrong to be gotten. The function of replication enzymes is what it is. There is no "balance" involved. The errors are corrected as replication occur. Polymerase does not allow errors in order to give evolution a chance. Any way you look at it, it inhibits the supposed mechanism which is supposed to produce variation.

OK, you are right, we never see change - hurrah! No cancers, no genetic mutations which we can see for ourselves, no translational errors - shit, my eyes are not blue and my hair must be blacker than it appears to be. I dare say my eyelids must also have their epicanthic folds...
Things are not perfect. It only takes one small mutation to change a whole range of things. If the environment is not conducive for that mutation to allow the organism to survive, then it dies. If not, guess what happens...
If everything is so good, how did these come about? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=561946&in_page_id=1770&ito=1490
Apologies for the source (Daily Mail, I know, I know...) but it does show a small point - the mutation that changes colour also affected behaviour (here, apparently, making them more aggressive and probably more successful in driving off mating competitors, thus allowing this mutation to proliferate).
Doesn't take much and given a bit of time (lifetime of animal is also a factor) we should see the formation of a new species.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy - I can't see what the problem is.
Aren't bumblebees mathematically incapable of flight?

1708. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #176785 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 3:08 am

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/science/08platypus.html?ref=science
You want a transitional animal? Here's your transitional animal. In body and genes.
Of course, not one IDiot or cretinist will read this and if they do, it'll still not be good enough!

1709. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176784 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 3:05 am

It's a sad irony that the evolutionary quantum leap in the development of consciousness that has made us such a successful species is probably going to get us all killed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/science/06dumb.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin
Maybe the intelligent won't rule the world after all :-(
We're doomed, I tell you, doooooomed!

1710. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #176783 by Goldy on May 8, 2008 at 3:01 am

txpiper, I hope you are not leaving environmental pressures on mutation survival...

1711. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #176685 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 9:23 pm

Brian English: Gravity happens, and it's a fact. First Newtonian, and now Relativistic theory explain how it happens.

Seems fine to my diminutive cognitive capacity. The only difference being that evolution is false!
Hang on. No, the analogy is fine :-)

No, gravity is just a theory. we are stuck to teh ground by air pressure and microscopic velcro. If gravity was a fact, birds would not fly! Gheckoes would not be able to climb walls! There would be no clouds!
It's all a lie, I tell you!

1712. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #176679 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 9:16 pm

The field of "Holocaust scholarship" is an inbreeding one where ordinary research is not possible for obvious reasons

Good Lord! Holocaust denial IS ID!!! Is this not the argument used against scientists that do not believe in evolution?
:-D
Not looking good there, ASM ;-)

The Soviets had finally agreed to let him go and the British who always had posed as humane and concerned with his prolonged emprisonment were suddenly caught at their own game. Of course, they, not the Soviets, were the ones who stood to lose the most by revelations over Hitler's secret offers of peace to Britain in 1940, so...

But of course, it was the British! My, one wonders how the hell we lost an empire!

1713. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #176676 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 9:13 pm

Diacanu, you can just ask tehm to go on and try and floow their argument through. Let them waste typing time, finger cells and brain power.
Shows up their ignorance, which can hopefully then be corrected.
One can see why Steve took a break...

1714. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176653 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 8:44 pm

How do rioting over Mohammmad cartoons and making death threats to writers who criticize Islam have anything to do with Western policies and oil??!!

Bonzai, Bonzai, Bonzai - don't you know? It is all about colonialism and croney-ism inherent in the white man with the perfidious Jew behind him controlling everything through the Zionist plot of world-wide domination.
At least, that's the gist of some of the local letters in Arab News :-) Oh, yeah, and you'll also read that in the Beeb's HYS. Apparently we did fuck all during the Boxing Day tsunami.

1715. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #176649 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 8:34 pm

To present it as FACT is wishful thinking.

It's presented as a fact, it's presented as a theory. The facts are the data which has been collected and studied which lends more credence to evolution than to cretinism (sic).
It's all a form of natural philosophy :-) Ever wonder why the PhD is so called?
Oddly, I (and others who have also pointed this out) have yet to hear physicists having to defend gravity. That's "only" a theory as well...

1716. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #176521 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 2:35 pm

Comment #176509 by Teratornis
Took the words right out of my mouth there :-)

1717. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #176261 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 3:16 am

Damn - how did you move that comment like that? Now the chronology is all wrong.
I understand the anger felt about Israel (reading your comment, I think I know how you feel about it) in the Arab world.
I just want to know how this anger can be expressed as suicide murders when the full use of law adn of systems in place within the western world can be used to change things legally.
Sounds all rather conspiratorial to me.
OK, 10:15, time for me to hit the hay. Might be back tomorrow, might not. Got a heap of HPLC (google it) to do.

1718. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176259 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 3:08 am

Muslims think?

Given there are 1.6 billion of them (or was that million? Still, quite a few), I have to say I am rather stunned by this question.

1719. The History Channel might do something right

Comment #176257 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 3:06 am

Who the burning pits of hell is Qin Shi Huang ?

First Qin emperor, the feller responsible for the terracotta army. Absolute ruler and rather ruthless to boot but admired for being responsible for the unification of China. Standardised script, measures, roads, etc, etc and killed untold numbers by burying alive, slavery, worrking to death, etc.
Cgi dogfights are all very well, but once you seen one... And there are people that will dispute the facts - ASMarques is one...

1720. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #176255 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 2:57 am

That's odd. I'm sure ASM had a comment between numbers 115 and 116, telling me the rich Saudis were desperate.
Shit, I only had one beer! Can't be halucinating, can I?

1721. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #176253 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 2:49 am

ASM, you said

A suicide aimed at killing others is always an act born of desperate anger and impotence

Can you really say the examples I gave were as the highlighted? If there is such feeling, is there not recourse to legal methods? Killing innocents justify the means? Makes things better? Are you telling me these people who live comfortable lives, who have no ties to Palestine outside a shared religion with the majority of Arabs, these people are feeling impotent and angry, enough to kill people who just happen to be citizens of a country, not through choice but through birth?
I'd also be interested to know your views of Jews and of Zionism.
Why don't the German and Austrian governments deny the Final Solution? Come to think about it, I don't think the East German (DDR) government denied it either - one would have thought the Soviet regime would have allowed them (poking the west, as it were).
Just interested. Does throw a light in the historicity of Jesus and the veracity of the gospels. I mean, if a fairly major genocide can be denied within the lifetime of the survivors, what does that say to us about the Gospels?

1722. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #176235 by Goldy on May 7, 2008 at 1:21 am

A suicide aimed at killing others is always an act born of desperate anger and impotence, not of blissful expectation of a ticket to heaven.

Does this include doctors driving into Glasgow airports, or well off Dewsbury residents...or even rich Saudis learning to fly planes?

1723. What really goes on at the Large Hadron Collider

Comment #176189 by Goldy on May 6, 2008 at 8:21 pm

Teratornis

...peak oil...

Read some interesting letters in Arab News today. Here, I'll share...

Oil Price

This is regarding the report, "Oil Price May Go Up to $250, Warn Experts" (May 2). But your theory as to why the price of oil collapsed in the 1980s has no basis in fact whatsoever.

Here is what actually occurred:

In the early 1980s there was a concerted effort in the US to develop alternative forms of energy to counter the ever-increasing price of oil. Does this sound familiar? Those alternative energy programs involved solar, geothermal, wind, shale oil, coal, hydro, even nuclear power. We actually flew an F-16 on fuel derived from oil shale rock in 1980 at Hill AFB in Utah.

It was in the early 1980s while I was working and living in Riyadh that Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani made his memorable speech to the OPEC that signified the death knell for alternative energy in the US. In his speech Yamani said that the price of oil was too high and that the West was being driven toward alternative energy and away from its reliance on oil, and if that should occur it would be the end of OPEC as they knew it. Yamani went on to say that what was needed was a price that would keep the West relying on oil, provide a fair and sustainable return to OPEC, and make alternative energy uneconomical.

None of the other oil ministers in OPEC agreed. Within months Saudi Arabia increased its oil production from 2 million bpd to 10 million bpd. The result was a precipitous drop in the price of oil from $34 per barrel to $12 per barrel, the shutdown of almost every alternative energy program in the US, the capping of marginally productive wells, and the termination of most oil exploration in the US. No US energy venture could be made profitable against a figure of $12 per barrel for imported oil.

Additionally, the other members of OPEC upped their daily production to make up for the lower cost per barrel that further flooded the market.

All of the above is why the price of oil fell in the 1980s, it had absolutely nothing to do with a "drop in demand and your dreamed up 10X price theory", and everything to do with the West's drive to develop alternative energy.


Gene Cirillo, United States published 7 May 2008


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oil Price [2]

$250 a barrel is within range and faster than predicted if supplies are reduced or even suggested that they are going to be reduced. Why would I pump one million barrels a day if I only had to pump 500,000 and get the same return or more?

America is going to have to wake to the fact that China and India are not complaining but are locking up supplies by investing in areas nobody else will venture into. Their only request by investing is that they are able to have first right of refusal on product found and any partner is going to accept this requirement as they are not seeking a discount, only first shot at purchasing.

America wants cheap gas but has not built or allowed to be built any new refineries in over 30 years.

Threats to bring in a windfall tax against big oil will only make big oil sell their production overseas through another company.

It is time for some lateral thinking leaders to take charge of this great country and the three available are not going to be any different. America needs a general manager to run the show as a business. The free trade agreement between Mexico, US, Canada is a great idea for Mexico, OK for Canada and lousy for the US.

America needs to get their dollar back to its high position and to do this the people are going to have to go back to work and produce something. Make the farmers who get paid to grow nothing show that they are able to grow, make them produce the corn for the ethanol and get the other corn back into the food chain where it belongs. Learn how to sew and produce your own flags with "Made in America" rather than the "Made in China" tags. Yes, we have allowed things to get to this stage, shame on us; we will pay for our ways unless we wake up.

Don't cry at six-dollar gas; the rest of the world has been paying it for years.


MR, United States published 7 May 2008

Coupled with a few articles I read in such publications as the NY Times, seems it's not so much the amount of oil that is at issue but the processing.
Of course, oil will run out - but no one seems unduly concerned. Even during my days researching methods of plating a decent paladium alloy on a ceramic tube so that it would purify hydrogen for a decent length of time, it seemed that petroleum sources for said hydrogen were to the fore. We'd still be using petrol, but we'd reform it to its constituents before taking the hydrogen out...which did seem an arse about tit way of doing things...

1724. The History Channel might do something right

Comment #176184 by Goldy on May 6, 2008 at 8:11 pm

Ty_Webb, I dare say the blurb for the films are written by what I would stereotypically see as some ponytailed arty type with maybe a diploma from some polytechnic on film and advertising. I think science, in this case, is something that ispreseted adn dumbed down severely during editing to make it understandable to the general population.
Now, how this population can somehow differentiate between the allegorical and the literal in books like the Bible yet completely fall for the cack-handed shortcuts used in pop-science documentaries would make for interesting research :-)

1725. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176183 by Goldy on May 6, 2008 at 8:04 pm

The lesson we should draw from the Fitna controversy is that we need more criticism of Islam, not less. Let it come down in such torrents that not even the most deluded Islamist could conceive of containing it

A perusal of the British press of late seems to suggest Islam can do no right. Election of rather right wing politicians into London councils also appears to suggest that people are beginning to try and shake politicians from their slumber and show that they don't like all this bending over backward attitute to Islamic requests.
All the while, we the west have this millstone around our necks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/world/middleeast/07israel.html?ref=world
We also appear to support the vilest regimes who actively export their rather nasty interpretation of Islam.
What is a Muslim to think?

1726. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176153 by Goldy on May 6, 2008 at 5:19 pm

Some french muslims I know were scared by the radicalisation they saw in London.

One wonders what they would have thought of Bradford, Dewsbury etc :-) Mind you, coming from the Mahgreb, they'd have been more used to European mores than a Pashtun family coming to Bradford (I think).
Most of the Muslims I knew in Syria drank and quite a few liked bacon with their eggs. In a Muslim society, I never really noticed as strong an adherence to religion as I felt in the immigrant community - and even then, there were many pubs around me that only differed from the traditional British pub in that instead of flat caps and whippets (oooh, terrible stereotype! I'll not apologise :-D) it was Urdu and dominoes. I can't recall the bar being empty or the bar maid bored from lack of work serving beer...
It is a small minority or it is older men trying to atone for their past sins (so I been told by younger Muslim men pissed off at their fathers and uncles for trying to force the religion they never followed unto them). There is a positive feedback loop which is starting to ensnare everyone into this cycle of hatred and revenge for perceived slights.

1727. The History Channel might do something right

Comment #176105 by Goldy on May 6, 2008 at 2:47 pm

Hope this comes to NZ soon - I'm just about all done with WWII and dogfights and hero ships and stuff.
Mind you, there was a pretty good doco on Qin Shi Huang (Ch'in Shih-huang for you Wade Giles supporters)...

1728. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176101 by Goldy on May 6, 2008 at 2:40 pm

They would have continued to wave off the petty insults of little englanders except the discrimination they felt was not from the guy selling papers but highly educated people in the workplace and this affected them financially

Maybe the names were an issue. Did they try sending CVs with European names? And age - I can remember well the difficulty in getting a job in the UK because I was over 30 and had travelled a bit (strangely, none of this affected my finding work in NZ...)
Discrimination is multi-faceted. The interpretation one has as to why one is being discriminated against might be wrong.
Saying that, I do remember hearing (and I still do read, in Arab News) how bad the west is, from our ideas to our morals to...well, just about everything. Music is sinful, dancing is sinful, heck, even our sin is sinful. We drink, eat pork, do this do that and we have to change to accommodate them, not the other way around. This irks people like me, which them angers me becasue I know I'm playing right into the hands of those agents who would like to cause conflict (there is so much money to be made in conflict by so few, after all).

1729. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176098 by Goldy on May 6, 2008 at 2:33 pm

Two highly educated peopl I know have given up looking for jobs in UK and gone to Dubai due to the discrimination they felt. Both have high regard or worked in USA and are very open minded and rational. One is Shia - hardly close to the 911 terrorists.
One is married to a christian american.

Unlike Fanusi, I do see this as a bit sad. It also shows that people are being manipulated by those that wish to cause some sort of conflict. A tiny, tiny, tiny minority seeks to "redress the injustices" and so demonises a whole religion. The rest of the world's reaction to this then is focused on the whole religion and so the adherent obviously rise to the bait. Not rocket science!.
I do wonder if the anti-western thing about Islam that I hear about is a media construct. After all, China isn't exactly lovey-dovey with East Turkestani Uighers and does keep a very strict eye on mosques but I don't read anti-Chinese sentiment in, say, Arab News...

1730. What really goes on at the Large Hadron Collider

Comment #175665 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 8:09 pm

One unexpected thing I learned is that intelligence does not guarantee a flattering haircut.

Combine with this http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/science/06dumb.html?8dpc and one can go places no discussion has ever gone before ;-)

1731. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #175664 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 8:07 pm

I take it this Chomsky johnny is famous then...

1732. Neanderthals were separate species, new study finds

Comment #175656 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 7:42 pm

How many Neanderthal specimens are there for them to compare and what are the ranges of their ages, I wonder. Where are their specimens from - given there's a bit of a physiological range in modern man, I dare say the Neanderthal from the Levant is a bit different to the one from Georgia who is probably different to the one from Gibraltar...

1733. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175648 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 7:21 pm

" If that means that some people do not get to vote based on intelligence then that is a consquence of them not being able to understand enough to vote."

Hmm, interesting point of view. Not much different from a guy called Adolf.

Or they know something we don't ;-)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/science/06dumb.html?8dpc

1734. Boy dies of leukemia after refusing treatment for religious reasons

Comment #175643 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 7:07 pm

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/life-after-jehovahs-witnesses-website-offers-help-to-followers-who-lose-their-faith-821603.html
One for this topic :-)
I'd post to articles @... but they never seem to get put up here :-(

1735. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175635 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 6:34 pm

Goldy Don't go to any muslim countries and drink copiously if you have a bun in the oven.

Not that bad - parents are in Malaysia and Tiger beer is sold in jugs :-) Nothing better to wash char kwey tow with! And you should have seen the streets of Deir Ezzor in Syria after ramadan - like Reading town centre on a Friday night!

1736. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175626 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 6:20 pm

Are you listening people? What have YOU done today to contribute to this needed tsunami of islamo-criticism.

Personally, I hae lumped it with the other religions and have made no secret of the fact. I don't give preferential treatment to any and no deference, even at the cost of slight offence. I go to Muslims countries and drink copiously and am bringing my children (well one - one is still gestating) up in the knowledge that there is no god and that one person's view of a god is no better then another. Today, though, I will admit to having done nothing. Well, not like Muslims are rampaging everywehre here! I notice the BNP in the UK got a seat or something in the London Mayoral elections (reference for it somewhere in the various topics I have contributed to). It appears to be i response to rising immigration and a perception of rising Islamicisation. Not that this is any better news for homosexuals and other minorities. Talking of homosexuals, did anyone else read the story about Lesbians wanting their island's name back? :-D
Besides, India and China are the up and coming countries. No lover of Islam, them! Mongol hordes smashed Islam once - I dare say these latter day Mongols wouldn't baulk at a repeat performance...

1737. Neanderthals were separate species, new study finds

Comment #175604 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 5:16 pm

That technique typically divides the genus Homo into various classifications according to the shape of key facial features -- "flat-faced," "protruding-faced" and so on.

Hmmm....isn't this more to do with morphological adaptation to local environment? Certainly Chinese are flatter of face than us protrudingly faced westerners...

1738. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175603 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 5:13 pm

Russia, the United States, Canada, Israel, the World...

Not too sure many places were so welcoming as you'd care to suggest. Certainly Russia was no great lover of Jews and given that pogroms were relatively recent history, I can't see why Jews would want to go there. And there's just something that tells me the numbers involved would have made a bigger impact than they did in other countries - look how Italians shaped America, as well as Jews. One would have thought a large influx of Jews into Australia, NZ, South America, etc would have resulted in some sort of Middle European impact in said countries.
Given the subsequent ability of humanity to slaughter itself by defined groups (ex Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Soviet Russia, Mao China) why is it hard to imagine that Europeans could not perform the same acts, using modernised mechanical and chemical methods, on a reviled ethnic group?

1739. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175596 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 4:54 pm

Certainly, the world be a finer, safer, anf fulfilling place without Islam.

Doubt it. Always another bogeyman in the closet to keep us hoi polloi in a state of anxiety...

1740. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175593 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 4:49 pm

ASM, would I be correct in thinking this is your stance?
http://www.zundelsite.org/english/basic_articles/nutshell.html

1741. Dumb and Dumber: A discussion between Ben Stein and Glenn Beck

Comment #175566 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 3:47 pm

Diacanu - I am saving this piece of intelligent satire for posterity. It's brilliant!

1742. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175560 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 3:38 pm

But isn't that a rhetorical question to create the make-believe feeling that obvious proof exists and I'm the one acting in an irrational way by ignoring it, while you carefully refrain from sending me any concrete evidence that you fear might be demolished by a minimum of logic, common sense and historical knowledge?

No, it was a question asking you if the evidence presented to you was good enough you would actually believe it. Bringing Jesus and the resurrection is neither here nor there. You can show someone that a dead person generally remains dead, that parthenogenesis always results in females and that H. sapiens is not able to reproduce by this method. One can point out all the mythology surrounding Jesus is that of the area and had appeared many times before - doesn't matter because people still believe what they want to believe themselves. That is why I asked you the question I did.

Have you never asked yourself how come those super-efficient Germans were so inefficient with their alleged extermination?

Silly comment. Germans are no more or less efficient than anybody else. And they did manage to remove pretty much all of middle Europe of significant numbers of Jews - 6 million in, what, a handful of years isn't that bad going, especially when you add all the other "undesireables". And they lost the war...and the one before that too. The recent case in Austria also highlights the fact that German efficiency isn't as great as one makes out - after all, how can a man hide his daughter for a quarter of a century along with three of her seven surviving offspring without anyone, not even lodgers and family, noticing?
So, where did all those Jews go? I know things get bad in war, but a significant portion of Poland's Jews gone?
Oddly enough, the NZ Herald had this story today..
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10508119
Makes one think, doesn't it?

Edit - I don't refrain from giving you evidence, carefully or otherwise. I'm a technician at a university, not a genocide historian. There are things I like to consider truth and things I consider untruth (not lies - that implies malevolence. Just things that are believed but are not what I consider true). As a participant in this "oasis of clear thinking" I just like to engage in debate and try and consider all viewpoints given to me. I reserve my splenetic outbursts for those I feel have crept into foolishness.

1743. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175542 by Goldy on May 5, 2008 at 2:56 pm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7381633.stm
As you sow, so shall you reap, if I may paraphrase a rather well known saying :-)
Having lived in Bradford, I know there was a slight integration problem. Certainly the Poles and Germans from previous immigrations had appeared to have sunk out of sight - though there was a German evangelical church near the uni and a Ukrainian Catholic church near the digs I was in. Maybe it was something to do with the lenth of time they had been in England. However, there was a certain...air of apartheit with the Asians. Maybe the colour also didn't help, or the arrogance (perceived or otherwise) that one felt from the older men (didn't see much of the women, never mind speak to them).
I'm trying to remember if I had the same feeling in Leicester. I don't think I did - certainly we got on OK with our corner shop owner Sanj, who was from Kenya and not a Muslim. I do seem to recall stronger antipathetic feelings from the Muslim community, feelings which Hindus (our neighbours in Bradford) also felt even though they were the same racially.
Still, there is a backlash of sorts appearing with the growing Islamicisation of the community and with the growing requests for parity in UK life.

1744. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175211 by Goldy on May 4, 2008 at 9:32 pm

ASM, if you do get the proof you're asking for, would you believe the Holocaust happened?
As a denier, you don't believe all the documentation available that show the Holocaust did occur. You also do not bellieve survivors of said event.
What would change your mind?

1745. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175210 by Goldy on May 4, 2008 at 9:30 pm

Layla

You definitely don't want those guys after you, as the examples of outspoken ex-Muslims or Muslim reformers forced into hiding with 24-hour police protection

Don't worry, the Turks are on the case :-)
showhttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/world/asia/04islam.html?em&ex=1210132800&en=d2ee30fabe27b448&ei=5087

Should soon be seeing Islamic hippies in the streets ;-)

1746. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175209 by Goldy on May 4, 2008 at 9:21 pm

Tears

Is the belief in the scientific approach, rather than the scientific answers, not just as fundamental as a faith based approach?

Depends how you define belief. I'd rather trust an empirical, scientific based reason for something over having it on faith. I guess yes, I'd believe in science more - butI would never call it a belief as in belief in gods.
Recently a young man killed himself in Auckland. He was one of these larrikin types, by all accounts, who liked doing wild "whacky" stuff, a bit of a daredevil. He honestly thought he could jump from an 8th floor apartment window, miss the wharf and land into the water. Belief in himself, or maybe even God, didn't help him any. If he had listened to his more scientific friends who could, with slight reference to physics and the theory of gravity, have told him of the errors in his belief.
Mankind has gotten this far on actually following the scientific approach (eat something, makes you ill, stop eating it, that sort of science). Faith hasn't really done much - which would you rather for head pain - aspirin or prayer? Trepanning to ease pressure due to trauma or to release the devils in your head?

1747. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #175146 by Goldy on May 4, 2008 at 3:42 pm

fides_sine_ratio

Not everyone on this site is an athiest. Not all athiests on this site think as one. I've been reminded on a couple of occasions that the only thing all athiests share is exactly that, their athiesm. The plural was inaccurate.

No, the plural can stand. This is, after all, a debate between those who believe in mythological entities and those who do not. Whether those that do or do not agree within their respective groups on minor issues is a moot point and doesn't have any bearing on the belief or non-belief.
Cartomancer

To wit, the point of view that it is important to speak out against and combat this particular kind of revolting (and highly popular) anti-scientific drivel, but that if theists keep their opinions privately to themselves and don't try to foist them on others then they are perfectly entitled to believe in whatever they wish.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7382831.stm

"You may have your religion behind your closed doors, but you don't bring it onto the streets," he said.

He being Richard Barnbrook.
While I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments, it is a dangerous thing to think - we may get our wish...
To the religious out there, be careful what you ask for - when the shit hits the fan, we can try and help you all we can, but you'll have royally screwed things up for everyone...

1748. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #175143 by Goldy on May 4, 2008 at 3:19 pm

Well, it is a bit sad. Hopefully only media stoking of news - maybe it was a quiet time, news-wise...
But the US is going through a pretty rough patch, eh? Approval ratings down in all countries becasue of wars and intelligence perceptions down because some people want to push mythology into science. The will be a backlash - always is one. Look at the London mayoral elections - Red Ken out, Boris is and the BNP in aswell! Now, Conservatives getting in instead of Labour is understandable, but right wing nationalists? That's what uppity Islam gets you - not more tolerance and religious freedoms but growing restrictions.
I think the pendulum in the US will swing back again and maybe Time magazine will once again have a headline asking is God is dead. Either that or there'll be a bunch of Americans fighting to get into Chinese and Indian universities...

1749. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174608 by Goldy on May 2, 2008 at 11:37 pm

Odd, eh, Brian, how a religious sect so obsessed with sex are the ones that have the most kids. Mind you, one can count the number of orgasms a Christy fundy lass has had in her life on one finger...and that was when she sinned.... ;-)

1750. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174607 by Goldy on May 2, 2008 at 11:34 pm

Do you prefer your collagen in fibrils or bundles?

Ummm, I'll just check my thesis... ;-)
Back to Retro, who hasn't come back...

Richard Dawkins, with all that knowledge up there, I would think you would figure out how to fix them ugly teeth.

RD is a man. Man is made in the image of God. Teeth are therefore made in the image of God. That there's blasphemy you're spouting, boy. We burn blasphemers in these parts :-) Anyway, you better get used to bad teeth. Good ol' American Christianity is making sure all the scientific research is going to go to China(Indians are IT, as far as I can tell) - don't know what it is about mainland dentistry but they make British teeth look good ;-)