Oligo

Dang. Nobody gave answers to my carefully articulated questions....

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ June 19 2002,09:08)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And to not drop your soap in the showers  <!--emo&<span id='postcolor'> That too! Anyway, think of all the possibilities. Your race selection and previous affilitations would of course affect which "interest groups" you'd be able to join. Game difficulty would be dictated by what crime you were sentenced to prison for (no lame beginner, hard, impossible): Murder One would be the easiest because of the respect you would get from other inmates and Rape of a Minor would be the hardest, because everybody would hate you. Weapons would have to be painfully manufactured from bits and pieces stolen from around the prison. Any kills you make you would have to cover up in order to avoid Death Row. Deal drugs to other inmates to get some dinero or use drugs yourself to boost your stats temporarily for that important fight-off-the-gang-rape ocassion. Infect your enemies with HIV with dirty needles. Start affairs with interested guards to get some special treatment. Convert to a religion in order to snake your way close to the leader of the sect, then off him and become the leader yourself. The possibilities are endless.

Come on! I'd make a game about a maximum security prison. It would be a RPG, Fallout style. Your objective would be to survive as long as possible and make some dinero while you're at it. The ultimate goal would of course be to break out.

Well, I think that is the most productive way of using an army now isn't it? No wars, no dying, no sitting idly in the barracks, but tourist extravaganza!

With regard to the topic of this thread, I'd just like to give a sort of sitrep and point out that (surprise, surprise) shit still keeps hitting the fan. So far (as before) nobody seems to be giving in an inch. As I imagine that the pals will not stop bombing, the israelis will probably pretty soon occupy all of the disputed areas. Then what? They'll stick there like ticks and suffer occupation attrition? Doesn't look good for anybody.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Duke_of_Ray @ June 18 2002,19:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Do not commit murder like the guys did on 9/11 or like a killer woul do to his victims.<span id='postcolor'> As a side note, I'd so much like somebody to explain to me why the 9/11 thing was a "cowardly act of murder". More specifically: 1. Why was is cowardly? Is it cowardly to perform a suicide strike? Doesn't it actually take a lot of guts to do it? 2. Was the Pentagon strike murder, after all, it was a military target? Do you have to do shit like this in the name of a nation for it to be war, not murder? Who defines what is a nation? Does your nation have to be recognized by X number of other nations or what? 3. Wasn't the WTC strike "strategic bombing" to break the will of the enemy to resist (albeit an unsuccesful one)? Or if it was murder, why wasn't Dresden firebombing murder or nuking Japan? So please, somebody explain the legal/moral aspects of this to me. Or do those politicos use these "cowardly act of murder" words just arbitrarily?

Awg, Gerschwarzenge, ya should use a bong to avoid coughing out da precious smoke. *blblblblblblblblblblblb*puff* Whoa, far out, man.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ June 18 2002,08:51)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I think that what is the most obvous inconsitency in the Bible is the huge difference between the policy in the New Testament and the Old Testament. The Old Testament i like "And God saideth: If thy neighbour kills thy Cat you then shalt proceed by killing his dog unless a dispute over the killing of a goat lies behind it" The New Testament is more like "Chill out dude... Peace Love And Understanding, man. Far out!"<span id='postcolor'> That's quite correct and a reason why many christians pretty much ignore what it says in the Old Testament at least around here. Mebbe God discovereth pot in between the testaments.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Duke_of_Ray @ June 18 2002,01:39)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Thos don't even make sense! I read a few of them and they didn't even make sense! Those are not inconsistancies, if you actually read them they make sense.<span id='postcolor'> Well, read all of them. It's a list of ALL literal inconsistensies in the bible. I especially loved these ones: EX 20:5, 34:7, NU 14:18, DT 5:9, IS 14:21-22 Children are to suffer for their parent's sins. DT 24:16, EZ 18:19-20 Children are not to suffer for their parent's sins. EX 20:13, DT 5:17, MK 10:19, LK 18:20, RO 13:9, JA 2:11 God prohibits killing. GE 34:1-35:5 God condones trickery and killing. EX 32:27, DT 7:2, 13:15, 20:1-18 God orders killing. 2KI 19:35 An angel of the Lord slaughters 185,000 men.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (IsthatyouJohnWayne @ June 17 2002,15:53)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">There is some truth to this, but i do not believe this was >precisely< Al Quaidas aim.... certainly to make Americans live in fear - of which that is a result. But the point is, Americans are swallowing this as the price of safety... there is not real widespread opposition to this, at least certainly not to a degree that would fragment the nation. Also it can be exaggerated. For example Japan is something of a police state even without terrorism .The ability to hold people for almost 2 weeks without charge in terrible conditions, all non-Japanese must carry passport at all times etc. and almost noone makes a fuss of this.<span id='postcolor'> I doubt that the cutback of liberties in U.S. was Osama's goal, but it was nevertheless his greatest victory. I doubt he understands it though. Anyway, the beauty of it is that Americans are swallowing it as the price of safety and it is definitely not fragmenting the nation. Also, I'm not bashing U.S., don't get me wrong. I know that many many nations have it worse, like Japan. BTW, you did know that Japanese police has a very good track record of solving crimes? What really ticks me off is the degeneration of civil rights as a process. You'll have this state with liberties and then a minor events strikes. As a backlash, you have huge reduction of civil rights, accepted by the population because of safety reasons. Now, try getting the liberties back when the danger passes: Not going to happen. The irony is: States with liberties are not nearly as safe as police states. Yet, we do not want to live in a police state or do we? But politicians want to, it gives them more power.

You don't say?

Where's Wobble, goddammit! I don't want to be the most patriotic american around...

Yes, animals protect their children, but they do not avoid destroying their habitat so that their children or grandchildren will still have a good life. Voles, for example, eat and reproduce as long as they have food left in their habitat and then the current generation dies of starvation. They don't limit their eating and reproduction so that the food plants would have time to grow back. What matters is here and now, future generations are not worried about. And there is no "master plan" to spread the DNA. You should rather think that the species which spread their DNA, survive, but the ones that do not, die off. There is no plan or purpose or such, but the one who runs fastest, comes first to the finish line, even if he didn't intend to.

Definitely not. No animal avoids destroying their habitat, because it is more profitable in a competitive situation to get the maximum from your habitat FAST by ripping it apart. You have to remember that nature does not have any morals or any "master plan". Future generations are not considered, what matters is here and now. The religious instinct must have affected our survival more directly than what you speculated.

Ok, I'm pretty sure that flight-fight instincts override any religious instincts. And the question about the biological benefit of this is a good one. Maybe it is needed to prevent tendencies of a developed brain to commit suicide. You probably have noticed that most of the deeply religious people are very serene.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (nordin dk @ June 17 2002,00:01)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">When you say "They are the ones that come up with the theory of God" you are in reality pointing your finger at mankind, not at Duke_of_Ray or his peers. Sometimes it may appear we came up with the idea of God to no avail, for the power that this particular idea (meme if you like) has over the mind is overwhelming, and the easiest thing is to abuse it.<span id='postcolor'> The meme of religion is so overwhelming, because there is an inbuilt biological mechanism in human brain for "religious experience". A christian receiving the bread and wine and a buddhist monk meditating display the same (easily measurable) changes in their brain. Or an atheist admiring the beauty of the sea or rolling mountains also might display the same reaction. Funnily enough, this measurability proves that there is no true religion. You only need to truly believe in something to get the gratification of religion, by having your brain fire up the age-old response.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ June 15 2002,20:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">There are documented examples of random biological mutations.<span id='postcolor'> I do this for a living. Playing god sure is fun.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (IsthatyouJohnWayne @ June 15 2002,22:57)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">but you perhaps fail to take into account that by violently attacking the US, Osama Bin Laden or others are in fact cementing the strength of US society as a whole and bringing them closer together, so if by attacking the USA ,the attackers are hoping to fragment US society then they were always bound to fail,<span id='postcolor'> Nice conversation, but I have to point out one thing. By attacking U.S. Osama's gang indeed made the nation rally around their flag. But the attacks also made the nation to banish some of the values they hold so dear. All these detainings without trials and ridiculously increased powers for the law-enforcement, the making of a police state. I'd say this is Osama's greatest victory. A disgruntled minority might not be able to literally destroy a western nation, but they are able to change the nation to worse.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ June 14 2002,11:10)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I played a couple of pranks on some Jehovas Whitnesses that used to ring my door. After I pretended to be a radical muslim and called them 'unfaithful dogs' they left me alone <span id='postcolor'> I used to pretend I was a radical christian. I fetched a bible and showed to them a passage: "Thou shalt not let infidels into thy house." That got them to leave me alone.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Noone @ June 14 2002,10:33)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And also what should we do with palestinians who have mixed themselves with sheits etc. They also don't fi into the picture then ?<span id='postcolor'> I'm not so much looking for a solution as I am pondering the ground reasons for your conflict. I'm not suggesting kicking out all non-semites or such ethnic solution. It's just that the conflict you have is such a bitch and it gets worse the more you dig for the reasons. Goddamn, it must be the worst tangled mess that has ever existed.

Forum bug... grrr!

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Noone @ June 14 2002,10:18)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">No. VERY few non-genetic jews were acepted into jewdaism, so we cant talk about any tendantion. And those who have "depleted" their genetic jewish heritage are no longer considered jews by jews. So, most jews are jews geneticaly, very few - jews by religion and lots of jews are jews geneticaly and atheists by religion. Jews are VERY strict about genetic heritage (the religious jews) - they prohibit marrying non-jews etc to preserve heritage. And they also make it very hard for non-genetic jews from converiting into jewdaism.<span id='postcolor'> Ok, if you say so. But the jews I know here in Finland (and they look pretty semitic to me) have all married from the scandinavian ethnic group and the spouses then just converted to jewish religion. Maybe they're exceptions, then. Anyway, the conflict in Middle East is a really sad thing, because you have semites fighting semites, a war inside an ethnic group because of religion. The birthing pains of Israel in the aftermath of WWII caused this rift and so you cannot live mixed in the same area anymore like you used to long time ago. Sad.

Reading my reply, I can see this can get confusing. Mebbe I'll clarify: In Finland, the citizens are called Finns. Ethnically, Finns are mostly scandinavian, but some of them are slavic and semitic and so forth. Religiously, Finns are mostly Protestant Christian, but there are also Jews and Moslems and Orthodox Christians and so on. These three different classifications are not necessarily linked, e.g. there can be a Finn who is slavic and jewish. Or a Finn who is semitic and moslem or semitic and jewish or semitic and christian. In Israel, the citizens are called Israelis. Ethnically, some of the israelis are semitic, but not nearly all of them, because of the diaspora of the jewish semitic people that happened in history. During the Exodus, lots of jewish people of different ehtnic background (semitic, slavic, etc.) came in and founded Israel. The pals however, are mostly semitic moslems, who never left the place, never had a diaspora. Thus their ethnicity has not been diluted. This complexity is the reason the area is such a clusterfuck.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Noone @ June 14 2002,09:53)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Correction. Not israeli jews, but israelis. Not all Israelis are jews, but all jews are semites. It's like saying that not all russians are slavic or not all fins are scandinavians. But not all citizens of RF are slavic and so on. So separete race from citizenship.<span id='postcolor'> Not all russians are slavic and not all fins are scandinavians. It's even more so in Israel, which was built by people gathering from all over the world. The bloodlines of these people have been "diluted" by other ethnic groups during the long diaspora. It's only natural and it's caused by the scattering of the original semitic jews (jew here = religion) around the world. Religion is inherited easier than genes.

Webster says: Main Entry: Sem·ite Pronunciation: 'se-"mIt, esp British 'sE-"mIt Function: noun Etymology: French sémite, from Semitic Shem, from Late Latin, from Greek SEm, from Hebrew ShEm Date: 1848 1 a : a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs b : a descendant of these peoples 2 : a member of a modern people speaking a Semitic language So a "semite" means the hebrews, but also the arabs. It's an ethnic term really, referring to the ethnic group that initially populated palestinia (some of them had a jewish religion, some had islamic and some christian). Nowadays not all israeli jews are ethnically semites, but most of palestinians are, as far as I know. I think the word "anti-semite" is being used a tad bit wrongly around the world. And here we come to the root of the problem in Mid East. The land belongs to the semites, not to all jews or moslems or christians. But the shit has been hitting the fan there for such a long time that the war has turned into a religious thing. So nothing much can be done, because both sides are right to some degree. Tough.