warri0r45

I finally got to lvl 70 last night and started using the AK, with great success (for me, anyway). I played a game on wasteland and went 32 and 8 or something like that, called in my first 2 non-hardline harrier strikes. I then played a game on scrapyard and went 18 and 3 and played another on wasteland - 28 and 12 with another harrier strike. It's a lot of fun using an assault rifle/RPG class on wasteland and just launching rockets into the bunker. Oh and I had a bit of a win over a sniper who was trying to kill me on wasteland. I was out in the open and he shot at me, missing. I jumped/ran around a bit, saw him and killed him with my AK. He spawns close by, tries again but ends up dying again.

The difference between your example and this one is that it's only the Muslims feelings that are hurt; they're not physically harmed or threatened in any way. What should happen is that Muslims offended by this should recognise that Norway is a free country where people are allowed to express their opinions, however offensive they may be. As for the conclusion that the cartoonist thinks all Muslims are terrorists, I definitely wouldn't go that far. You're just looking into it too much. The problem here is that people can't interpret satire or comedy any more. The whole premise you need to use looking at things like this is not to take them too seriously or over-analyse them too much.

Care to elaborate? There's a lot of personal sacrifice that goes into being a parent. A woman has to carry a child for 9 months and give up a job/put it on hold. Either parent might have to change jobs to get more money. The child has to be fed, driven around, loved and helped when it gets into trouble. It's all done for the child, so in that sense parenthood is selfless. We have a winner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity Overpopulation really depends on a lot of factors, as you said. I suppose you could say a lot of African populations and other areas of poverty are overpopulated, but areas of the Western world are able to sustain growth in their population.

Personally I don't want kids. Perhaps one day, but not for a long time. Is this selfish? Yes, I want to live my own life and enjoy it. I don't think this is a bad thing, however. What's the point of life if you're always giving and not living a little for yourself? Not that selfishness dies when you're a parent, but I just want to achieve a few things before I make that kind of commitment, if I ever want to.. Now, as for being a parent, you could say that it's selfish because it's just fulfilling a personal biological desire, but if you don't over-analyse it, you'll see that it's a pretty selfless act.

How exactly does the government propose to catch every single refused-classification site on the net? They have a blacklist, but surely they're missing millions of sites which people will be exposed to, defeating the purpose of the whole thing. http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2009/115/ A quote from the article: ISP filtering reduces the risk of Australians being inadvertently exposed to RC-rated material when they are online, Senator Conroy said. Really? Even when searching for porn, I've never inadvertantly come across child porn, bestiality, rape or detailed instructions of crime. The internet isn't a game of chance - you're not going to open google and search the news only to have kiddie porn pop up on your screen. I really hate the idea that the government can dictate what is and isn't appropriate for adults to view by slapping an RC label on everything... It's up to us as responsible adults to decide what's appropriate for ourselves. It's really none of the governments business to interfere with our private lives and freedoms like this.

Fair enough, I was wrong. I didn't realise race could be determined from skull shape alone.

With all the Human races in the World there are 5 different types of Human skulls in the world each belonging to a different Race and they are very different. But they do not teach this in school, nor are you allowed to talk about it... So it already happens. And did you know that if a Native Australian lives on Western food and lifestyle they will only live to 40 because their body rejects it. Your first point is total crap... there is just no significant difference in skull shape between different races. Your second point is total crap, too. Aboriginals don't live to 40 because of the western lifestyle, it's because they're severely disadvantaged and live in poverty. If they actually had a western lifestyle, with proper education, plenty of food and medicine then they would have a life expectancy like any other Australian.

Before the kepler telescope was finished, we had a great deal of trouble finding rocky planets, since we can't use the same technique we use to find gas giants. The very first time Kepler was used, it found a rocky planet. A rocky planet is more or less required to sustain life, and if we found one on the first check, that must mean the probability of rocky planets around stars is fairly high, which, in turn, raises the chance of there being other life out there. I don't care if it's hostile or not, it doesn't really know we're looking at it, and I don't care if it wouldn't be of any use to us. It would be reassuring to know that we aren't alone in the endless nothingness that is 99.(stupid number of 9s)% of the universe. To play devils advocate, this is only one planet. That's a pathetic sample size. I'm sure someone could find one smoker who lived to be 90 and never got lung cancer and then concluded lung cancer was rare in smokers...

Exactly my thoughts. It's really not that big of a deal to me. If you want to marry someone of the same sex, I don't mind.

I'm talking about more recently. I'm sure if you look into the history of plently of countries you could find some sort of racist policy or attitudes. We've all moved on since then and recognised that taking aboriginal kids from their families was wrong (our PM even gave an official apology recently).

Racist not as in a racist attitude, but sometimes saying racist things, either without caring, or without apologising. Or maybe they're just joking? I'll admit I laugh at racist jokes, but it's like satire. It's just taking the piss without being serious about it. I think you'll find most people aren't genuinely racist if you were to take a poll, so I'd hardly call us a racist country.

hydrogen will never be effective because we currently lack any materials that are actually strong enough to store it in high enough quantities to be used for medium length trips. ever see arny actually drive his hydrogen powered hummer around for anything other then a meeting with enviromentalists? There used to be a car that was made in california that was completly electric and had good enough milage for the average american to drive. But the project was scrapped and replaced with... get this... the hummer. If anyone wants to find out more look up the EV-1 i think it was called or rent or buy the movie "who killed the electric car". And i hate that you used the term deniers in your post. No one thinks that the climate is not shifting. What is doubted is whether or not humans are actually the cause. Yes polluting is bad but have you actually seen any of the stratagies that people are proposing to stop climate change? I'll never forget one "scientist", i use that word with the utmost distaste, wanted to create a massive human made volcanic eruption.. And the carbon credit thing that was proposed by al gore i think it was? doesn't do anything to actually help the environment. its just a tax to be sent to all companies who pollute and offers no incentive to actually stop that. How is a carbon tax not an incentive to stop polluting? I'm seeing a trend where climate change skeptics seem to be preoccupied with proposed policy on climate change rather than the science behind it... Either that or picking up on mistakes or infering a global conspiracy from isolated incidents.

I find this statement extremely hypocritical. Whether you're American or not makes no difference, you're stereotyping an entire group. Because, of course, it's always and only the Americans. Ignorance, sure, but not hypocrisy.

I had the most awesome game of domination on Scrapyard today. Not necessarily in terms of K/D (I went 33 and 20), but it was just such a fast-paced, exciting match. I'm so glad I got this game, it's definitely lived up to the hype for me.

I see where you're coming from now, but you're basing your entire opinion off of a few select experiences. Of course there are going to be people who are worse off thanks to drugs, just as there are people who are now better off. You're only looking at one side of the coin. I just think we should take things as they are. Drugs alone aren't good nor evil. In the wrong hands, of course they can be bad, just like literally every object on this planet. (Pencils can be used to blind someone you dislike.) But, in the right hands, they can be extremely beneficial. I hate when drugs get a bad rap because a bunch of idiots were being irresponsible. It's the same as hating cars just because a drunk driver took your family away. As for those advocates giving out skewed data, I agree completely. People should know both the pros and cons to drugs and then make the decision on their own. Letting conflicts of interest and biases interfere with the information being conveyed to the people is just unfair. And I see it among both sides of the debate. This is also tributed to the fact that when it comes to humans, there are no "right hands" only wrong ones. I see the human race as a bunch of disgusting corrupt, selfish beings. I'm not perfect either, and am flawed. But the way i see it, legalizing medicinal mariijuana only makes a fairly easily obtained drug even more available. And if it's more available, more people are suseptable to try it. The more taht try it, the more likely it is to have it fall into "the wrong hands". I'd rather contain the problem and let no one have it. If no one has it, it can't be abused. And I'm not just talking about the drug itseslf, its the things the drug will cause you to do. I've seen people stoop to rediculous lows for a hit, and its flat out disheartening. And although I get what you're saying, I would never hate driving for the drunk drivers. I'd blame both alcohol for existing, and the person for being weak willed. I understand your point though. Thank you for being reasonable, most I debate with this I end up getting into major fights with :lol: Still, you have to appreciate what Zierro is saying. You're basing your perception on personal experience, which makes you think that legalisation will lead to the amount of drug abuse that you have seen. This is faulty reasoning. You should look at controlled studies and see how many people abuse the drug to make a judgment as to whether it should be legalised. Also, as far as I can see there is no correlation between legalisation and how many people use marijuana. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_lifetime_cannabis_use_by_country The Netherlands have more or less legalised pot, but there are other countries where it's illegal and used more.

I saw Porcupine Tree last night. Freaking amazing. They put on a very well executed live show and Steven and the band were really appreciative of all the fans. It's amazing how good a live show can be when the band doesn't play everything at a million decibels.

Alex Webster from Cannibal Corpse is an amazing bassist, but not for his work with CC. His work in Blotted Science is excellent.

It's not just for aesthetic reasons. As far as I know a lot of it is to do with human life (and the lives of other species). You see, the success of crop production is based on temperature, and higher temps means less yields. Less crop yields means less food, which is especially dire for those that really need it badly. Higher temps also means more extinctions, but personally I'm not as worried about that prospect. As for global warming, it's happening, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it's coinciding with rapid industrialisation. Heaps of research has concluded that most post 1950s warming is due largely to human influence and a lot of modeling (however uncertain some of it may be) shows that warming can't be accounted for unless you include our emissions into the picture. The thing with modeling is that we have margins for error. Some uncertainties =/= they're completely wrong. I wouldn't be comfortable putting a figure on our contributions (I'll leave that to the experts to estimate), but I am comfortable saying we're partly to blame.

How many people is "enough" to make us a racist country? I see a minority of people with racist attitudes, but I certainly don't see most Australians as racists.

I would definitely agree, and I would also add that you can't judge a country now based on how bad it was in the past (although I'm not suggesting that this is what you're saying - it's just that some people seem to make this point from time to time). In a lot of ways, Australia and America have moved on from their checkered pasts in dealing with race. Of course racism still exists, but it's much less institutionalised now that in the past. I'd like to answer my fourth question as well. A lot of people are jumping to conclusions here at the moment as to whether particular attacks are racially motivated or not. It's just not reasonable to say this is the definitely the case at the moment because we don't have the evidence. In the particular case I cited, we don't have the suspect and we haven't put him/her on trial and determined what the motives of the attack were. It could just be that this student was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Recently in Australia, there's been a lot of publicity on attacks of Indian students. A large number of Indians believe these attacks to be racially motivated. In a notable case, where an Indian student was murdered, it remains to be determined who the perpetrator is (and what nationality he/she is) but that hasn't stopped people jumping to their own conclusions. The Indian media is scathing of Australia with some news articles accusing Australia of being a racist country. A few questions: 1) What does it take for a country to be racist? 2) Is Australia a racist country? Why/why not? 3) Is your country a racist country? Why/why not? 4) What does it take to determine that an assault or murder is racially motivated?

Got SCAR mastery today. I've also been playing a lot of free-for-all lately. So far I've gotten 3rd three times and 1st once.

God Is An Astronaut (self-titled album). This band is excellent. Post-rock done right. :thumbup: It's really relaxing but emotionally evocative too.

It sounds pretty rediculous, but we're talking about school kids here. I don't see much harm in, say, editing out some bad words, but censoring the entire thing? Overkill. It's a typical attitude to take. Someone is outraged at something, but not prepared to work and fix it. Just ban everything.

"Survival of the fittest" is a bit oversimplified, maybe? Evolution is a process. The only ones that die off quickly are the extremely unfit ones. And it takes a long time for the rest to actually become fit enough. --general questions-- I keep wondering about that one moth where soot caused all but the gray ones to become easy prey. How did the gray ones last that long when before, they were in that position. How did the gray ones last that long? And if evolution is a long process, how does survival of the fittest come into play when the unfit organisms are apparently supposed to die off quickly? If the finch had to have a certain beak shape, how did its species survive long enough to develop it, or how did the members with that beak shape last long enough in an environment where they could use it. That could tie in to the question about reverse evolution, though. Genetic variation is a good thing, and maybe one day the freak mutations that seem like crap now will be the key to survival later. I think I have an answer to the moth question. Basically, the grey moths will be eaten until they're at a very low number in the population (remember, the white moths aren't as easily seen, so they are less likely to be eaten). However, once the grey ones get down to a low enough level, they are very sparse such that the chances of a predator seeing them are very low. At this stage, the white moths are seen more (even though they are better camouflaged) because they are very common and hence they become the predominant prey again. Then a point of equilibrium is formed where the number of grey moths being eaten and the number being replaced is equal, but this maintains them at a very low level in the population because they're more easily seen than the white ones. Its only after the soot coming into the equation that the numbers of white and grey are reversed. Natural selection favors the best camouflaged, but this doesnt necessarily mean that less camouflaged variants will be eliminated completely. One more thing. The grey moths can mate with the white moths, hence the grey moth trait can be carried in white moths and survive that way, if its recessive. I hope this makes sense. I'm sure there would be more information (including mathematical models and whatnot) in a population genetics article/journal. Good question though. And on "survival of the fittest", as I've said before, it's often misinterpreted to mean that the physically strong trample the weak, but this is only one aspect to biological fitness. Intelligence, cooperation and even somthing like the functionality of an enzyme have a "fitness" associated with them, and in all of these areas it's still the "fittest" that survive.