Death_By_Pod

There is a black market for tobacco, in Australia its called chop chop and it exists due to the heavy taxing of tobacco. If marijuana were taxed at similar levels to tobacco then there would be no reason why a black market wouldn't exist for it as well. To think that everyone will still get their marijuana legally just because they can is a bit naive.

Most of your essay comes from the movie, what the bleep do we know; unfortunately for you that movie is a new age spiritual movie and isn't scientific. A lot of the movies information on quantum mechanics were exaggerations or even worse completely untrue. The parts in your arguments where that human observation affects the atoms in some way and that all things that have a counterpart and react instantaneously are untrue, quantum mechanically. Those arguments are the new age spirituality interpreting quantum mechanics, not quantum mechanics itself. Quantum physics is an interesting topic however to get a decent grasp of it you really need to have done a university course on mathematics and to have read a textbook rather then a novel on it. It's a pity that you can't really remove the maths without removing the reasoning behind the theory.

To be frank, the wedding plans probably wouldn't be up to me. I would let my future wife choose whatever she wants, after all who wouldn't want to see their partner as happy as possible. Personally I wouldn't like a ceremony, I would be glad with just going in and getting papers signed and then taking a holiday, however if she wants a big church wedding and a huge cake, then how could I be one to say no to that. Maybe I'm just a pushover but I guess a wedding is one of those subjects I'm willing to be a pushover about.

His Internet policy is a load of crap, It's delivering a minimum of 12 megabits, whereas ADSL 2+ which is currently being rolled out runs at 22 megabits. In short the Internet connection currently provided by the private sector (which I'm happily on) is running faster then what he is proposing. Really it is only a good thing if you live in a small town that doesn't have ADSL 2+.

Both major candidates are turds to be quite frank. I'll probably just invalidate my vote as usual, or I might feel generous and give a comedy vote to the liberty and democracy party :lol:

The demarcation problem has nothing to do with evolution since evolution is a part of biology, and biology is a core science. The demarcation problem is based around subjects such as psychology or social sciences which have aspects of a science but aren't pure sciences.

It doesn't matter what time it was at the start of the universe it could be t = 4234 for all it matters, t = 0 is used because it is convenient and it also implies that it is the beginning of the universe. It's like setting height to be 0 metres at sea level, it's just an arbitrary point. It doesn't say anything about whether other universes exist or not.

Courtesy by my good friend GhostRanger: HereÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s my interpretation of the scientific thinking, adopted in the first bit of the bible. Genesis 1: 6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. God created a large celestial sphere which separates water from outside of the sphere with from the water on Earth. Sometimes when the windows are opened on the sphere water flows through them and causes the rain. 11And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. Light required for plant life? Not in GodÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s world. 14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: The lights in the heavens are used for signs, a glowing endorsement of astrology. 16And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. Wait night is lesser light? Failure to comprehend that night is a lack of light. 17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, He put stars in the sphere to give us light, not even God could suspend the stars in the sky. 26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. We have dominion over apex predators like sharks and grizzly bears? 29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. I donÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t think I would like to use poisonous plants for meat, something tells me that it wouldnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t end too well. 30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. All animals were herbivores? I wonder what the mosquito had before it settled for a tasty meal of blood. 31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. So the whole ecosystem with the death, pain and suffering; predators/prey, parasites and disease was good? Ok... Not to mention this was all done in a record breaking 6 days. There you have it Genesis 1 in all its scientific glory.

Like it says in the article, voids are pretty common. The universe is like fairy floss (cotton candy), there are a lot of stringy bits and holes with nothing in them.

The quarks that make up matter sit in energy levels (like electrons). These energy levels are quantised with the lowest energy level being greater then 0. So really if a quark is in it's lowest state it's always going to to have energy associated with it. Thermodynamically it would require more and more energy for a refrigerator to decrease the temperature of an object. It basically follows a 1/T relationship, so when T approaches 0, the energy required to cool something goes to infinity.

When you tax something like marijuana you will create a black market for tax free marijuana (like what already occurs for tobacco). You will still have gangs pushing it, the only thing you are doing is providing a more expensive legal alternative.

We'll I'm not denying a life I'm more or less thinking of the psychological consequences between both, mother and child. The mother will most likely not be able to bond with the child, which means an unemotional attachment. This brings great difficulty in a childÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s behaviour and emotional stability developing through the phallic stage. The mother will most likely still have the lingering psychological problems in 9 months time when the baby is born. The mother will then have to look at her child for the rest of her life and be reminded of the rape incident. Also the mother might still be experiencing trauma which can last a life time depending on the person and might be unable to trust or to love again in a way that society can consider 'normal'. When the child has misbehaved there is a higher increase in child abuse occurring. As when the child has offended the mother, the memory of being raped can be triggered. This means the kid can potentially be hit by the mother harder than what is socially acceptable and lawful. I have counselled a woman who smothered her child to death with a pillow because the babies father was abusive and triggered off memories, yet alone rape. When the child is born it will be neglected, (at least, that is I've never come across a mother who has been able to fully come to terms with having a rapists' child). The child will already be emotionally unstable from it's upbringing by the time they find out their father is a rapist. It increases the chance of mental illness, suicide, unstable relationships. Personally, I would never want to see someone go through with it, mother or child. If they want to have the baby that's their business, I won't get involved but I have personally seen a lot of nasty counselling visits with rape victims yet alone spawn of rape victims... Wouldn't many of these things occur for women who aren't given a choice and are stuck with an unwanted baby? We aren't just animals? Are we "super-animal"? We also take commitment and future consequences into account. Like having children in spite of contraception. At least I hope we would take that into account. Also, people have created other reasons to have sex, like torture and humiliation. Even if you are only having sex to have kids, the pleasure is unavoidable. Just like if you are only having sex for pleasure, the children are unavoidable. I'm not really concluding anything, just throwing some thoughts out there, that may or may not make any sense. You know we aren't the only animal to have sex for reasons other then reproduction right? Sex can provide a number of different functions which generally evolve into a useful social mechanism for enhancing survival.

I'm surprised you quoted Szasz of all people as he is a well known anti-psychiatrist (and he makes some valid critiques). He takes a fairly libertarian way of thinking and doesn't take into account the hard/soft drug distinction. Why shouldn't people be allowed more addictive and harmful drugs such as heroin, a proposition which is commonly rejected throughout this thread.

When someone with a mental illness cuts themselves off, it's not to get their head back on track. Much like it doesn't make sense for someone to sleep off cancer, you can't solve a mental illness by isolating yourself. Likewise could be said for someone in a depressive state. Although you can't cure a depressive state by just hanging around someone, it's nice to know that there is someone who's willing to hang around a depressive.

You wouldn't need to force an emotion if you're not hiding from it. Sounds like a bit of a contradiction to me, there are surely some things that you are unwilling to let go of.