Skeptical

Merely having firearms does not mean a nation can resist occupation. Look at Afghanistan: a huge number of AK's, and yet they still can't compete with Coalition American forces.

Guns, however, do not protect against guns. Want to know what's dangerous? Free access to guns in a society where school shootings, drive-bys, armed robbery, organized crime and murder are all exceedingly common. I'm not saying that guns are necessarily the root of the problem, but they certainly aren't helping. Mao Zedong killed somewhere between 40,000,000 and 70,000,000 people. Why anyone would offer the respect of including him in their signature, I don't know.

Slayer: Hate Worldwide Not as good as their earlier albums, but still not bad stuff.

What about the people running the distribution program, the people who did the advertising, the people who sponsored the artist, and the people who payed for the great equipment he has? I said almost. P2P requires amazingly little infrastructure, and I don't think music should be influenced by advertising the way it is.

I could do small monthly fee, if I knew that almost all of the money would go to the artist.

What, that easy access to deadly weapons provides a healthy, safe, stable society? Sorry, but it makes it incredibly difficult to take you seriously when I see the people in your signature.

Egging someone's car should be punished by death. You are either a troll, or a moron.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9_nsXgtD6k&feature=youtube_gdata

Well said, although I do feel obliged to point out that much pharmaceutical research is conducted by public institutions, with public money. Related to the above: http://www.pnas.org/content/93/23/12725.full

Gene Simmons deserved it the second time though. Was the first attack unprovoked?

I know someone who has a sister who's in her mid-forties, and he's only in his late teens. I honestly thought that she was his mother the first time we met, which was very nearly an embarrassment.

Since when does combat not involve grinding?

My house received less than 30 people, several of them teenagers, a good number not even dressed up! I spent the rest of the evening in the hotub.

Not being able to sleep. My insomnia is now seriously interfering with my life, and I can't isolate the cause of the problem.

you can get apples out of season because it is worth people in south america's time to ship apples to north america as there is money to be made. However massive food programs to africa have no incentive besides charity. No. It is worth multinational food corporations time to ship fruit from South America. It doesn't matter to the growers where it goes, and I don't blame them for it. I call [cabbage] on government food aid. The US offers cheap, or free grains to foreign countries, through subsidies to domestic growers, or through aid programs. Poor countries accept, since hey - it's free food. Suddenly, there's cheap grain to be had, something that subsistence farmers couldn't produce very efficiently. Those farmers are now out of work: who will buy grain for an extra $1 a pound? It now just happens to be the US now controlling the food market in this country. Political ends can now be achieved by using aid a threat: don't do what we say, the food stops flowing, people starve, and your government collapses. Sure, sounds like charity to me.

I think that belongs in the "Things that annoy the hell out of you thread". Currently, my boss owes me ~$400, and my dog has a large swollen red lump that requires a vet trip. Wonderful.

At which point people need to make concessions. If I choose to live in Canada, I will not eat constantly purchase pineapple, I will not purchase apples out of season, etc. And yes, bunker fuel is an example of where my skepticism comes into play concerning global warming: when the amount of allowable sulfur was decreased, people called foul, since it actually has a cooling effect, as well as contributing to tens of thousands of premature deaths through lung disease. On topic, though, I have to say that there is likely quite a bit of room for improvement in how we transport food: use of trucks instead of railroads comes to mind.

I played Tomb of Horrors in celebration. :thumbup:

I just read Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer, and would recommend it to anyone who is interested of the role that regime changes played in the development of American imperialism.

It's a chance for people to cut loose, dress up, and eat corn-syrup. I really don't get what problem it is people have with it. Here in the Great White North, it's celebrated by pretty much everyone.

No, we're not screwed no matter what. Without intending any offense to Mask, a defeatist attitude is never the best mindset. We can do better: people can see that just when they buy from a farmer's market, choose local produce, or refuse to eat something from a can. We can say no to crushing foreign agriculture through subsidized grains disguised as "foreign aid". We can refuse to allow Monsanto to patent life, and sue farmers for planting seeds. GMOs are not required to prevent human hunger. We don't have to buy factory-farmed steak: it's not just that you're either too poor or too cheap to afford anything else. People can't expect one "solution" to the problem: it's not just a matter of the food supply, but of a blend of education, empowerment, organization, politics, economics and grass-roots refusal to continue supporting a system that is so obviously a construct of exploitation, greed, and suffering. The world does not have to function for the top 5%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKvD7-JvBJE&feature=related

I'm not clear on who those people are, where you heard that, or how it is relevant to the debate.

People rarely bother labeling the cultural norm.

When 60-odd-percent of pregnancies end anyway, due to natural causes (see my previous post) I don't see how a tiny change is all that significant. Especially when activities like smoking, drinking, drugs, etc are so much more damaging.