Recent content by Halcyon

It basically comes down to either "Do you want to die" or "Do you think other people should be forced to die against their will". I'd hope not, honestly. Saving lives is just extending lives, after all. Everyone is born with a horrible, degenerative wasting disease called age. Would that...

Historically, political religion is almost always the crazy violent authoritarian type. Consider the history of the Catholic Church... It's probably worth pointing out that only a handful of Islamic countries actually have this sort of problem with religious extremism. Saudi Arabia, Iran...

I can't say I'm comfortable with the idea, either. I'm equally uncomfortable with everyone else having nukes, if I'm honest. Consider the list - the US, Russia, China, Israel, arch-enemies Pakistan and India, North Korea of all places. I don't really get why Iran's nuclear ambitions are casus...

Do you mean this? It's hard to tell over the 'net. Generally murdering people for expressing dissent does not a happy world make. To be fair, remember that the 'interpretation' of the religion is what makes the difference, not the actual basic tenets of the faith. Mose people pretty much...

I've not been reading these forums much, lately. My apologies if this is too much of a rehash, but I'm genuinely curious as to what people see in the guy. It admittedly doesn't help that he and I have pretty different ideologies. 1 - Okay. What's better, though? 2 - His health care plan...

Heh, okay. It's still important, though, because his opponent has built a reputation for not being (much of) a sleazy git. It makes him look pretty bad in comparison; if you care about any of those attributes Yeah, he's not exactly the nicest guy. That said, restraint is kinda important...

Seriously. Not a reason to vote against Obama, but a reason to like McCain on his own merits for something he has done or wants to do. Seems to me that the McCain campaign has been thoroughly sleazy, deceptive and woefully mismanaged. One can't help but wonder whether a McCain presidency...

Both: it's one of those acronyms contrived to look like a nice word. Not Arabic, though: Persian, and by extension Urdu - Urdu takes it's 'high' words from Persian, like English does with Greek/Latin. It's actually the only real difference between Urdu and Hindi - Hindi uses Sanskrit, instead...

An eleventh-hour endorsement from Captain Badguy himself would be the kiss of death for either campaign. Trouble is, nobody has seen Bin Laden for nearly two years now. Given his love for home videos, one can't help but wonder whether he still lives. He's known to have health problems, and...

Well, the article itself says that this is "customary" and "typical", and the campaign says that this is "standard procedure" and "not for profit". Unless this is in fact not true, and political campaigns never charge the newsmedia for seats and services, is there a point to this article? It's...

McCain's campaign is entirely negative, and there are more substantiated bad things to say about him. Even so, a lot of the nastier things that could be said, aren't being said. It's really not a valid comparison. Edit: What he said, basically.

Nothing psychoactive is ever truly harmless, but what evidence we have suggests that dope is less damaging than either alcohol or tobacco. It's nonaddictive and nontoxic, and most of the negative effects seem to be linked to either smoke inhalation or unusually heavy and prolonged usage (as is...

As others have said, the whole ACORN accusation is pretty much complete hogwash: since they pay people to go out and help/get people to register, they inevitably get a few dossers who make up registrations just to meet quota. Both ACORN and the election officials check the validity of the...

Your entire argument, such as it is, relies upon the usual assumption that Iran is some broken wasteland full of ululating, wife-beating mass-murderers bent only on the destruction of Western civilisation, your mother and apple pie. Turns out Iran is a really rather pretty country, with a...

Such a skin would be too fragile to be practical, and the non-fragile alternative of earthmoving is too costly to be worth it in more than a few, small-scale cases. Generally the best place to build more land is on top of the land you already have. Also consider whether or not you think...