assassin_696

The Doors The Ramones Newton Faulkner The Raconteurs The Black Keys

One thing I can't really stand is bloodsports, game shooting, fox hunting, bull rings and the like. The first couple are particularly common living the north of England. In the past, when you needed to hunt to feed your family fine, but when you get rich sorts going out there and killing stuff for fun, that's when I have problems. It's the mentality of it, not that there's one less pheasant flapping around.

Debunking the Shroud of Turin, from a largely Christian website The Fountain at Lordes, is as Paperclips said, a placebo effect, largely faith healing. To be honest I think there are better miracles you could have picked.

No faith, i'm an atheist, which of course tells you pretty much nothing about what i'm like as a human being. So if you want to know what kind of rough values i'd associate myself with, it's probably liberal humanism, but hey, don't hold me to it.

I was trying to think how to put what I thought into words, and this is exactly it. Humans are the dominent species. As long as we are beinifiting I don't really see a problem. Its not something you can say is right or wrong, it just sort of is. Ditto, couldn't have put it better myself. One principle I try and live by is to do no harm as far as possible. I eat meat, to me that's part of me being a human being, but I'd much rather eat a cow that's been killed humanely than slaughtered brutally. I know that's not really the case all the time, but unnecessary cruelty is where my problem lays.

Right, just what we need, another copy and pasted vaguely interesting news story with little discussion value. Sorry, but all the satire threads about these kind of threads were right. We don't this. Locked.

Led-Zeppelin's come up with what I and some other staff members think is a pretty good idea to put a bit of interest back into the M&M board. I'm sure we've all got a band or artist that we love, and some of us have even made topics about those bands in M&M. What I think is even better is when it's maybe a band that I haven't heard of before, some more new music for me to get into. A lot of these topics have been of great quality, lots of links information and have really worked in getting people into more music. So Led's idea was that we maybe formalise this a bit more, and do something that'll hopefully go a little more noticed. So what's the idea? Easy, just find a band or artist that you know and love, it doesn't have to be underground, local or unheard of, but it would be nice if you were doing a well known band that you could put an interesting slant on it, then write a topic on that band preferably following the guidelines set down by How2Pk's Sticky on how to open a topic. Write up the post, make it interesting, add plenty of relevant links, information and YouTube links if possible. Maybe even talk about what the band means to you, but i'm sure you'll know what to do. Remember, it's the band that you know and love, and you're the one trying to champion it and spread their music to a new audience. Once you've got an idea for a band or artist you want to do, pm the idea to me, but don't say what band you're going to do on this topic. It'll make things a little more interesting. :wink: I'll do a little schedule of who's week it'll be and when depending on how much interest we get, and in the week before it's your turn, write up your post and pm it to me and i'll put it as a sticky on the Friday. The previous topic will be de-stickied and there'll be backlinks to all the old topics in the latest one. Obviously there'll be no deadline for registering interest, anyone can do it anytime, but if you think you fancy giving it a go letting me know sooner rather than later would be great, cheers. Any thoughts or feedback regarding this idea would be welcome, but otherwise I think it's fairly straightforward. EDIT: It's now been up and running for a while now, so if you're interested you can see some past examples to see what we're looking for. Past Archive Thousand Foot Krutch by kalphiteman4 Brand New by ktmcf121 Rush by klankaos Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds by How2PK But don't worry if you don't want to do as much work as some of these guys did :P

Just a few points i'd like to pick up Bari 1. I disagree that the population boom is happening only in developed countries, based largely on my experience with the demographic transition model. Like any model, it has it's limitations, but I think it's pretty accurate when it comes to describing the trends for LEDCs to see large population growth as soon as even basic healthcare becomes more widespread. And MEDCs, particularly in Europe are seeing a definite declining population as people have less children and wait longer before they do. 2. I disagree that scientists are only in it for the prestige or the money. Even the world's top physicists are still only earning a fraction of what that kind of skill level could earn them working in the financial sector. I'm considering a career in science even though I could go work in London for some investment bank, not because I want to win a Nobel Prize, but because I find science absolutely fascinating, and that's what I want to do with my life, that's what I want to achieve. 3. I also disagree that morality hasn't changed, only the laws have. Naturally, there is still a lot of bad in the world, there's no denying that, but I think as a species we're much more altruistic towards people who we've never even met. Edit: There was a large gap between me clicking "new post" and "post" here, hence why some of my arguments are a little behind.

Your optimism knows no bounds. Again, you're nitpicking Bari, warri0r was pointing out that today there are global charities and relief efforts trying to make the situation better. The politics and other complications make this a massive task, but the intention is there, whereas 500 years ago it wasn't. That's the point, not the actual effectiveness.

So in your mind, the fact that during the past century, advances in industry, medicine and agriculture has made it possible for our population to increase from 1.6 billion to 6.5 billion means life has gotten more "convenient"? I don't feel entirely out of my depth when I claim that refering to "not dying, but growing up forming a family and procreating" as a "convenience" is a gross understatement. That is true, but it was not brought up by Assassin nor Warri0r. However, we have only managed to do this in 1st tier nations. There are millions dying worldwide from malnutrition and disease. Hence the convenience. It's easy to notice change when it's happening to you, but not to others. I pointed out that all the improvements which Defender dismissed off-hand. I never said these problems had gone from society, I pointed out that in the developed world to a large extent we're moving towards eradicating many of the problems of the past by a combination of the moving moral zeitgeist and advancing technology. Of course, LEDC's still lag behind but that's to be expected, and we're setting the bar for the future.

They were told by the Portugese police to try and look as calm as possible to stop the abductor potentially enjoying their grief.

I don't even think the OP read the article :lol: . Haha, yeah :lol:

So anyone who voices an unorthodox opinion is assumed a terrorist or potential murderer? The kid was a bit of a nut, granted, but he probably wasn't a murderer, and come to think of it, wouldn't there be some kind of security checks before you went into one of those things? I'm not sure how it works in America but a metal detector might not be too far-fetched.

Sorry for dragging this OT btw MPC, I'll clean it if you want. I'm sorry, I didn't know a different opinion means ignorance now. All those things he said, he talked as if they were in the past, they are in todays times as well, only replaced under different labels, and some are deadlier. Like war, pillage tactics, has been turned into Moab's and technology warfare. Please enlightment how I am ignorant and how the world is a better place now. Just because some of what he said is not in America, doesn't mean the world is a better place now. It may be a better place for Americans, but not for the rest of the world. Look, i'm not going to spell it out for you, but if you can't see we've come a long way medically since the black plague, a long way since rape was commonplace, since slavery was globally legal and promoted by the world's superpowers, since the height of the Cold War, since we still thought that the Sun went round the Earth and that people of a different skin colour were inferiour and since people could be expected to live to about 30 in the western world then you're missing the point. And you're lucky Muslim extremists aren't having a crusade on the scale of the European ones in the past against America.

The reason why it's gained so much media attention is because it's like a classic whodunnit, parents on holiday in a foreign country, missing child, bumbling police force, suspicious neighbour, parents come under suspicion yah de yah. I don't really care anymore, the parents were neglectful sure, but I don't they're murderers, and I don't think they'd give their kids sedatives. The "evidence" against them has been grossly misrepresented in all the tabloids, the police have very little to go on, and stories seem to be varying from source to source. I don't really care who did it now, I'd just like the parents to get some closure for their own sake and for the nation and the media to learn to put this story to bed.

Well, it's pretty obvious who actually read the article here...

Defender, stop being so ignorant and actually read and consider the points warri0r made. As for that video, well, it's a sorry state of affairs when the police try and arrest a man for exercising his freedom of speech. Sure, he was being disruptive, but so what? Politicians should expect that they might get that and shouldn't have to resort to that kind of thing, even though Kerry seemed fine with it.

But doesn't that statement, in a way, support our argument as well? We're arguing that they weren't idiots, so they gave up after the use of the atomic bombs. We're still arguing that the Japanese were persistent, which, like you said, is portrayed by how hard they fought and the mindset much of the culture and race held. But why is it that you think an enemy having a weapon that can destroy a major city in an instant wouldn't be the final straw of their withdrawl, if you think they aren't idiots? And yes, it's ludicrous to say that just because some Japanese soldiers "kamikazed" that they'd fight to the last man, but the idea of the kamikaze tactic portrays a piece of the Japanese elitist persona. As I stated, they had no desire to attack on American soil, just to control all of East and Southeast Asia, to complete their empire. That's how their mindset worked/s- being the greatest race on the planet, they deserve to have a large, expansive empire, with all other nations and people as their slaves (just look up some of the stuff the Japanese did to other Asians while conquering East Asia... ack). Sorry if I'm not responding to every little point in your posts, but I don't have to time nor desire to spend three hours of my day debating this. Guess I'm lazy, probably won't come anywhere close to finishing this debate, oh well. It's okay, I'm giving a very haphazard treatment of a debate here as well. Basically, my point saying that the Japanese weren't stupid is simply re-iterating my point that they would have surrendered and were nearly defeated anyway, the military unneccessity of the situation highlighted by my Wikipedia copy-paste. Of course two atomic bombs would make them surrender, I don't think any country would continue to fight against a power with that kind of weapon, but i'm arguing that they were unnecessary, unethical and merely a display of power to the USSR.

I'm pushing around 165 pounds at 5'11", but i'm essentially still a teenager, i've yet to fill out, so i'm perfectly happy with how I am. I've got a pretty fast metabolism though, I seem to be able to eat huge amounts of food and gain little weight.

[hide] Seriously what are you on man? Firstly, no one's trying to justify the holocaust, but, people are trying to justify bombing civilians. Secondly, it's meaningless to debate which event deserves more remorse over based on deaths alone. Why not mention the Soviet death toll as well then? On the Wikipedia page about the debate there is an interesting section titled Military Unnecessity. And i'm going to quote it for you reading pleasure, because i'm too busy to rephrase it at the moment. The sources are all referenced accurately. First off, Wikipedia is not a valid source for information, give me a link on a different website with the same references. Secondly, based on wikipedia, Japan was well ready to surrender. Then the question is, why didn't they? According to MY history text books, rather than online information which any dolt can edit, the Japs did not want to surrender after the first bomb hit. Three days later, they was struck again, surrendering to the war. Based on what you are concluding is, that America knew they really surrendered and decided to mercilessly kill them with 2 nukes reguardless. However, history has proven that Japs were willingly to suicide themselfs before ever handing themselfs in as prisoners to American Soldiers. Also they used planes as missles to launch against American Naval Forces in a Kazakami attack displaying a "no surrender mentality" force. For me to believe that Japan was really surrendering all this time and we did this out of hate for Japs is pure BS. So I ask.. what are YOU on man? Thinking History went differently.. ~Defender~ [/hide] The Wikipedia page I quoted was heavily referenced, check the linked sources for valid information before you openly criticise a website in some kind of ad hominem attack. Just because it's a Wikipedia page does not mean it's not a valid reference, particularly when the linked references and quotes are valid. My history textbook gives similar information to yours, but it's limited by the depth that it can actually go into, and one historian's view is not necessarily the only accurate point of view. Don't just accept the status quo of your history textbook. Perhaps if you actually read the article and checked the sources you'd see that many of the major military players during the second world war said that the bomb was unneccesary for ending the war, and it's also been shown by one historian that it was the Russian invasion of the Chinese territory of Manchuria which lead to their surrender, not exclusively the bomb. Saying that Japan would never surrender because they had suicide bombers doesn't constitute a valid argument, Japanese military suicide tradition has little to do with their senior officers tactics on the grand scale of things. Granted, it shows that they fought hard, but if they would be willing to fight to the last man as so many people seem to suggest, it would take more than two bombs to make them surrender. They weren't idiots.

Seriously what are you on man? Firstly, no one's trying to justify the holocaust, but, people are trying to justify bombing civilians. Secondly, it's meaningless to debate which event deserves more remorse over based on deaths alone. Why not mention the Soviet death toll as well then? On the Wikipedia page about the debate there is an interesting section titled Military Unnecessity. And i'm going to quote it for you reading pleasure, because i'm too busy to rephrase it at the moment. The sources are all referenced accurately.

In principle i'm with indy and How2Pk. If it's a private act between two consenting individuals where's the harm? But those kind of acts are normally the result of some kind of psychological problems, so it's deeper than that in reality.

People die every day. Their skin may not melt, their eyes may not pop out, but death is part of life. So you wouldn't mind dying that way? Pfft, better than dying to the Japanese. The Japanese used the most sick minded methods of torturing foreign prisoners, and often not to get information, but just for fun. For example, just so you can get some perspective, they had a torture technique for male prisoners where they stuck a glass tube up their... rod, and after inserting it deep within the vas deferans (sp?), they snapped and shattered while it was still inside. Compared to dying instantly from a bomb, I think I'd rather be the Japanese person between the two situations. Don't talk morality of killing vs. morality of killing when you go Japan vs. America, it doesn't work. As has been said, all the deaths of the war were tragic, but using pathos as your only argument against the bombing, and ignoring logic and forsight, is not a proper way to argue the matter. Choosing the bomb was choosing the lesser of two evils. There was little choice between killing a couple thousand instantly, or letting the war drag on and allow the death of possibly millions more. But isn't that somewhat hypocritical when you seem to have justified the bombs by saying the Japanese used terrible methods of torture? Read my fuller post for some more logic if you want it, but I don't think you should justify a bombing with the fact that they did terrible deeds, especially when the bombs were targeted at civilian cities, that sounds just as strong an appeal to pathos as Paperclip's.

Guys, relax, don't spam but then don't jump on someone if they do, just report it and we'll take care of it.

Coincidence? I think not... Locked