Satenza

Maybe I stumbled accidentally into the "Post Random Google Links" thread.

Yes.

Unfortunately that shows no graph nor anything suggesting that the majority in Europe are Muslim.

Please show the graphs.

Says anyone who knows anything about Europe.

The majority of Europe are not Muslim.

This is silly though. Lets give the example of IRA bombings in the UK. In Manchester a large part of the city centre was wrecked in an IRA bomb not long before the 2001 attacks. Now we happen to know that those IRA members were Catholic. Do we therefore refuse to build Catholic Churches or any Christian Church anymore near the place where the bomb went off? No, because the religion isn't important but what is important is the humanity behind the attacks in the first place. Manchester was attacked for political reasons, New York was attacked for political reasons. The attackers were Muslim there but they were Catholic here. People are caught on the fact that the people who blew down the towers were Muslim when the real reason for the towers coming down was US interference in the Middle-East in the first place. It wasn't a war on Christianity launched on 9/11 as we all agree, it was a attack on a superpower who had stretched itself too far beyond its limits. It only makes sense to treat building a Mosque as disrespectful if the attacks were primarily motivated by religion which isn't the case.

You begin by arguing that the point isn't that the 9/11 terrorists are Muslim, yet your whole argument relies upon the fact that they were. Your other point, I'm not sure how it is connected, was that 9/11 showed a time when New Yorkers joined together to overcome the attack. What has this got to do with the discussion? Im sure many of the people who joined together to overcome the disaster were also Muslim. What you say might make sense if you believed that Islam was the undoubted perpetrator of the attacks, but this is silly, as you'd probably admit. Unless it is Islam and not the 10 men that committed the destruction of the towers then you have no reason to suggest that it is a religion to blame and not the criminals. All you do is insult the religion and reduce the blame that should rightly fall on the men.

You can say that again. Even though I graduated this year I still feel nervous when it comes around to this day. Well done to everybody, but especially well done to the guy who is going to Manchester for PPE, you'll have lots of fun! SATENZA!! It's been so long! Well done graduating man. On topic: I got my AS results today Physics - A Chemistry - A Maths - A Biology - B I'm gonna be applying for physics/astrophysics, not sure where yet though. Well done James, congratulations! Isn't Cambridge good for Physics? :) Physics is by far the best science!

You can say that again. Even though I graduated this year I still feel nervous when it comes around to this day. Well done to everybody, but especially well done to the guy who is going to Manchester for PPE, you'll have lots of fun!

Bukowski is pretty light and entertaining.

This so called "hallowed ground" that Palin keeps talking about also features a gentlemen's club. Regardless, her argument doesn't even make sense.

Being homosexual does not simply mean you choose not to reproduce. I am in awe that you, aquariusman, have concretely solved the issue of whether homosexuality is a choice or not a choice. How can you possibly consider something to be a choice when the very best scientists this world has to offer can not even do such a thing? I consider your consideration to be inconsiderate. I like how you end with misrepresenting this unfounded belief as well, by stating apparently categorically that it is certainly not biological but is certainly psychological. You don't have to fill the void of knowledge with unfounded beliefs.

Sounds good. When I visited I went to the small museum within the Library which has the official decree opening the university in 1425. That was interesting. Almost every other building seems to belong to the University as well. I did go in June and it was quite hot and that was nice but I suspect the city by appearance looks nice whatever the weather, and indeed if it rains it might even bring out more of the character of the city. I am looking forward to moving there in September and getting acquainted with Belgium. Do you know if the trains are reasonable prices to visit other European cities or whether there is a special student pass or young persons pass that can lower the prices?

Oh excellent. Do you enjoy it there? What are you studying?

Yes, I should have asked that question when I visited the University. I did see a few bookshops around but I didn't really have time to explore them because of time restraints.

Hah. I already know much about the Belgium beer and I am a fan of it. I do quite like Duvel too. I was surprised by how cheap it was to drink things like Rochefort which over here costs quite a lot and over there was less expensive than tea! I have my own place so I have to cook my own food but I have lived away from home for three years anyway so I am not worried about all that. I was wondering about books actually because I will need quite a lot and they will need to be in English, is it easy to pick up academic books in English over there or would I be best to order them online? Oh Im from the UK as well, so it isn't too far and I don't mind being away from home et cetera. Im not very sentimental about all that I suppose. Oh, I don't think it fills the entire year. I may finish late June. I have my apartment there for 12 months though so I'll be there for that amount of time. Hopefully in the summer I can go travelling to France, Germany, Netherlands et cetera.

When I went I sorted out where I shall be living, just opposite the main library on the square. I think the square may be called Ladeuzeplein. Leuven as a city looked very nice and I hope my time spent there will be entertaining. The city, even in the summer, was filled with students everywhere.

I am going there in September to study at The Catholic University of Leuven for 12 months. I recently visited and it was very nice. I was wondering if any Belgians could give me any tips on living there? Thanks :)

A man after my own heart. Though I do notice a lack of For Whom The Bell Tolls, which is my favourite Hemingway novel after The Sun Also Rises. Demons is very close to Dostoevsky's best (second only to The Brothers Karamazov and perhaps The Idiot), and is supplemented nicely by The Myth of Sisyphus. That was simply my recently read list. For Whom The Bell Tolls is probably my favourite Hemingway alongside The Sun Also Rises but both are quite different to each other. I agree that Karamazov is probably the best Dostoyevsky. It is filled up with great characters like Father Ferapont who literally sees the demons around him, what an excellent chapter that is. I read Camus again because of the chapter on Kirilov in The Myth of Sisyphus, he is a most interesting man.

Let it be noted that in 2004, Anne Rice devoted all of her future books "to the Lord," and as such, has stopped writing anything to do with vampires. Now she writes about angels and that sort of thing, her two latest published books being about the life and times of Jesus. :cry: :thumbdown: R.I.P. Lestat. - - - Edit: Also, for the sake of science and discovery, I Copy+Pasted everything above from my post into that website, and it compared it to Stephen King. I'm sensing a trend... Actually I read in The Guardian she has turned away from Christianity now. Here.

Hm, what have I read recently? I finished Demons/The Possessed by Dostoyevsky last week, which was another excellent book. I believe I have read all of his novels now. I read The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Short Stories, Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea, Death in the Afternoon and A Moveable Feast all by Hemingway over the last few weeks. The Myth of Sisyphus again by Camus. Finnegan's Wake by Joyce, which was a love/hate experience. The Alhambra by Washington Irving. Which I have a First Edition of :) The best of the bunch is hard to distinguish because they are all so different from one another. I must say Hemingway and Dostoyevsky are the most entertaining authors to read for completely different reasons. Edit: To mughinn Ulysses is a very difficult book to read and one you must have patience with. It is enjoyable once you begin to understand Joyce but this can take awhile. It was after all such a deviation from classical literature that it will be quite unlike anything you have read before. But good luck! Oh, and I recommend reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man before Ulysses as it will begin to give you an insight into both James Joyce and Stephen Dedalus who also appears in Ulysses. It is of course a fraction of the length of Ulysses as well.

You need more cash. Even then it would be difficult.

You must be some sort of supporter of colonialism devoid of any humanity and focused only on Western power. It is opinions like this and people like you that are totally ignorant to history and reasonable action, and so much so that you don't understand the necessity of an ethical diplomacy. Most people now understand that colonialism was a bad thing and stripping the resources of the world from the poorest people isn't something to look upon with glory. Many think that it isn't the right of the stronger to attack the weaker and that history shouldn't be written on the side of the victors but by the merits of their actions.

I completely agree the illegal settlements are horrible, and condemn those myself. I hate that to it's very core, and am ashamed for those who take place. But killing is an inevitable part of war. Israel has lost it's fair share of lives, I can gurantee that. It isn't one sided, and that's what war brings, I'm afraid. Oversimplifying anything in the favor of one side is pointless, and grants nothing. It isn't a war it is a resistance. Israel has of course lost lives, but not even one tenth of the lives lost by the palestinians. Despite the complexities the Israeli's are the aggressors and like the UN said, their actions are akin to war crimes. You call rocket launches at a city of innocent Israeli citizens a resistance? Not war crimes, and terrorism? You call suicide bombers a resistance? Not idiocy and cruelty? Of course it is! What else would it be? It is cruel but it is understandable. Why do you not consider it cruel and idiotic when artillery fire rains down on Gaza and phosphorus is unleashed against a population who is blockaded and forced to withstand it!? What about when Israel invaded Egypt during the Suez Crisis in 1956? Or South Lebanon in 1978? Or Lebanon in 1982? Or the other war with Egypt in 1967? Then the Six Day War. Or what is now called the War in Gaza only in 2008? What about the constant assassinations from Mossad.