A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Please post the relevant parts of the US and Canadian constitutions that
define federal vs state/provincial right and powers and demonstrate
your claim that US states have more power.

Look it up yourself. It's in the Amendments section.

The Canadian constitution has no amendments section.

Indeed. However, the US Constitution does.

You prove nothing,
because you can't. You still don't have a clue about government on
an international level.

I don't live under an "international" government. I live under the
government of the United States and no other.


which US states have their ***own*** seats in the UN

All 50 US states have seats, through the federal government.

You can't read, can you?

Of course I can. I just refuse to play into your specious logic.

Not, of course, that I give a damn about the UN or what it thinks, or does.
As far as I'm concerned, we should kick their sorry asses out of the US and
tell them if their blue helmets get in our way we'll do to them what we did
to Saddam's Republican Guards.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

Weiser says:
======================
Californians need to be on a water diet. They waste enormous amounts of
water. Before you start bashing agriculture, how about taking on
swimming
pools and Bluegrass laws?
======================

Fair enough. But I think a "simultaneous" bashing of agriculture is
appropriate. On the swimmings pools et al, Scott, I suspect you are
absolutely right.

frtzw906

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:


But they are all still sharks. They are not the aquatic version of human
beings.

Why should they be?

Because even random DNA modification caused by gamma rays should have
produced some alternative forms better suited to survival at sea.

That's _your_ fantasy about evolution, not any
theory that exists in the scientific community.

Which is why evolution is a "theory," not a scientific fact.

There is _nothing_
in the scientific realm that insists on a monotonic, continuous
variation in species evolution.

And so there must therefore be some force other than gradual variation which
drives evolution. What is it, pray tell?


If nothing else, the average height of humans has increased
substantially in recorded history.

There you go inventing your own version of morphology. Stick with
the facts - height variation occurs _within_ morphological similarity.

And then there's the change to upright gait...


If DNA shifts cause gradual morphological changes

And if it doesn't cause gradual changes? You are the one
that insists on change being gradual, not the scientific
community.

So, if it's not gradual, it's sudden, right?

Some
paleontologists posit that Neanderthal and Sapien may have co-existed, but
the overlap is speculative at this point.

Nothing speculative at all. They are known to have co-existed. The
timeframes of overlap are in tens of thousands of years. Tools from
both species are found in the same sites in the same timeframe.


But one would expect to find some evidence of these unfavorable changes.

If the change is in soft tissue, how is that to be found? Morphology
isn't evolution and it isn't biology nor genetics. It is one aspect
of biology.

One would expect gross morphological changes to be more than "skin deep."


Which constitutes ADAPTATION, not evolution.

Your assumption. You don't know whether the change required an evolutionary
change in, say, brain function, that would allow for an iguana to swim and
feed underwater.

But they DO swim and feed underwater, and I doubt that their brains are
grossly morphologically different from land iguanas. Can you demonstrate
that marine iguanas are an evolutionary change rather than a simple
behavioral adaptation based on the particular needs associated with the
Galapagos ecosystem?



For marine
iguanas, the development of gills would be an entirely useful evolution that
would produce a favorable result. In the case of sharks, the development of
a sophisticated intellect and communications capability that permits sharks
to communicate sophisticated concepts to one another (along the lines of

YOur fantasies. The scientific community does not dictate what constitutes
a minimal requirement for the real world in order to consider it to be
evolution.

Then the "scientific community" are evading the issue.


Even if the theory of evolution is true,

Which theory of evolution? You claimed you can't identify it.

Any theory of evolution.


Thus, evolution, even if true, does not disprove the existence of
God. Rejecting the possibility of God's existence merely because one
believes in the theory of evolution is shallow thinking indeed.

And who, in this discussion, has suggested that?

Nice backpedal. You did. To wit:

On 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

There is a large
body of scholars who believe that the physical properties of the universe,
combined with statistical probability, provide substantial evidence of
intelligent design of the Universe.

It does not provide evidence of intelligent design. It certainly does not
prove the existence of God.

A Bayesian would look at the probabilistic "evidence" and suggest that
since the highly improbable has happened, their estimates are likely
wrong. Just because a bunch of fundies pull some numbers out of their
asses and make claims, doesn't prove anything.


--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

You appear to be saying that God does not exist and that belief in God is
proof of a lack of intelligence. Since you've just admitted that science
cannot disprove the existence of God, that would appear to impeach your
intellectual credibility somewhat.

Please quote where I have said anything of the kind. I have _never_ said
that God does not exist. I have never said that belief in God is a sign
of a lack of intelligence.

"Just because a bunch of fundies pull some numbers out of their
asses and make claims, doesn't prove anything."

Sounds pretty derisory to me.

I said that we can neither prove, nor disprove, the existance of God and
that people who can't cope with that are fools.

Well, since that's an incorrect statement, they are not the fools.

There are two failures in your thesis:

1. That we have not yet proven the existence of God does not mean that we
cannot do so.

2. Proof of the existence of God requires, first, a definition of what "God"
is. For example, if one defines "God" as the physical universe, then we can
indeed prove the existence of "God" because the universe exists.

Many major religions have
no problems with this view of God - the Roman Catholic Church, the
Anglican Church and many others state clearly that belief in God is an
act of faith.

The fact that such belief is an act of faith does not mean that either
church does not believe that God does, in fact, exist. It's merely
recognition of the difficulties in proving God's existence. If you ask those
who have experienced "miracles," they will tell you that there is no belief
involved, but that their experiences prove without any doubt that God does
exist.

The incidence of "miracles" that science cannot explain is not trivial.

They also can deal with scientific enquiry that neither
requires nor forces the existance of God.

Well, not quite. Some Catholics (of personal acquaintance) deal just fine
with the conundrum because they understand the limitations of human
intellect and "scientific" enquiry.


--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

If it occurs,
nothing changes.

Another logical failure. If something "occurs," there is, ipso facto,
"change."

My masters thesis was in risk - all probability and stats. When we talk
about probabilities and we have a reasonable sample (or a population)
of data, an occurance does not change the underlying stats. We are
talking about probability and stats here.

Well, the context of the question is gone, but logically speaking one cannot
have an "occurrence" without some "change." The simplest change is that
something "occurred" whereas a state of no change would require that no
"occurrence" occurred.


If one can create hydrogen by
fracturing water with electricity produced by solar panels, then the
pollution budget may be lessened,

And if meaningful amounts of energy are to be created, then you'd better
be prepared to pave entire states with photovoltaic panels.

As I recall, average solar flux is 1watt/m2. If we create a solar panel
equivalent of, say, 15km2, we end up with (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not
much on math) 225,000,000 watts of energy from the solar flux. With a panel
efficiency of, say, 8 percent, we end up with something like 18 million
watts of electricity per day, on average. With increases in panel efficiency
yields can be substantially increased. I think NREL has a 30% efficient
panel under development.

I don't know what the rate of hydrogen production per watt of electricity
is. Perhaps someone else does.

Then there's always nuke plants...and I'm sure there are other ways to
generate hydrogen than the inefficient electrolosis method.


If you look
at H2 as a complete package, the unsuitability of the stuff becomes
apparent.

It all depends on what we're trying to accomplish.

The H2 economy advocates have successfully pulled the wool over many
eyes.

Again, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If the goal is
efficient use of an energy source for transportation vehicle, hydrogen is
not the fuel of choice. If, however, the goal is reductions in emissions,
irrespective of fuel economy, then hydrogen may be the fuel of choice.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

surrendered gladly to US troops.

This is a fiction that only you americans seem to believe.

It's a fact well documented even by the liberal media. The vast majority of
Saddam's troops surrendered immediately once they came under fire. Many
surrendered without firing a shot.


He didn't fight back effectively because no dictator can who rules by terror
and intimidation when a liberator with a real chance appears.

According to you he had spirited the WMDs to Syria. That kinda hinders
a defense. Either he had weapons to fight back or he didn't. Which
is it?

He did. That he couldn't get his troops to fight for him to the death shows
that his style of rule was ineffective at garnering loyalty.


and he likely removed them to Syria,

Given that the air was filled with american spy planes and satellite
surveillance, how come there is no direct evidence for this.

He had twelve years. The border is exceedingly long. There is not as much
surveillance as you might like to believe. We barely managed to stop a truck
convoy carrying nearly a billion in US cash and gold.

US claims
in the absence of anything resembling proof leaves a lot of us sceptical.
So far we've only seen photos of broken down trucks.

What makes you think we're under any obligation to provide you with
anything, much less proof?


along with billions in gold and cash, before the
invasion.

Which begs the question, why didn't he spirit mimself out to enjoy those
same billions?

Because he thought himself immune from US aggression, based on his
experience in the first Gulf War. Because he was a megalomaniacal tyrant
with delusions of grandure. Because he wrongly thought that the Iraqi
people, and in particular his soldiers, would fight to the death to protect
him. And, because he (and his brutes of sons) had a good thing going, what
with the daily routine of abducting and raping and then killing young virgin
girls and other perks of being a dictatorial tyrant.

He miscalculated US determination and military power...twice.

Again, this leads only to scepticism about such claims.

Who cares what you think?

Don't claim he had nowhere to go - Bin Laden's still out there protected
someplace.

He did go someplace. He went into a spider hole outside Baghdad. We caught
him there. He just waited too long to try to get out because he thought we
weren't going to win.



just as
they are jumping on the bandwagon to play to N. Korea's every
claim about nuclear weapons.

Are you suggesting that we should NOT take North Korea's claim to have
nuclear weapons seriously

Taking them seriously and giving them credibility are two different
things.

Do you have some secret intel that indicates that NK does NOT have nuclear
weapons? I'm sure the president would be glad to hear it.


For now. We've got other things to do.

Yawn, another excuse...

Hey, we pick our battles based on OUR strategic decisionmaking, not on
yours.

That's why we're called a "sovereign nation."

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

Scott Weiser wrote:
A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:


But they are all still sharks. They are not the aquatic version of
human
beings.

Why should they be?

Because even random DNA modification caused by gamma rays should have
produced some alternative forms better suited to survival at sea.

That's _your_ fantasy about evolution, not any
theory that exists in the scientific community.

Which is why evolution is a "theory," not a scientific fact.

There is _nothing_
in the scientific realm that insists on a monotonic, continuous
variation in species evolution.

And so there must therefore be some force other than gradual
variation which
drives evolution. What is it, pray tell?


If nothing else, the average height of humans has increased
substantially in recorded history.

There you go inventing your own version of morphology. Stick with
the facts - height variation occurs _within_ morphological
similarity.

And then there's the change to upright gait...


If DNA shifts cause gradual morphological changes

And if it doesn't cause gradual changes? You are the one
that insists on change being gradual, not the scientific
community.

So, if it's not gradual, it's sudden, right?

Some
paleontologists posit that Neanderthal and Sapien may have
co-existed, but
the overlap is speculative at this point.

Nothing speculative at all. They are known to have co-existed.
The
timeframes of overlap are in tens of thousands of years. Tools
from
both species are found in the same sites in the same timeframe.


But one would expect to find some evidence of these unfavorable
changes.

If the change is in soft tissue, how is that to be found?
Morphology
isn't evolution and it isn't biology nor genetics. It is one
aspect
of biology.

One would expect gross morphological changes to be more than "skin
deep."


Which constitutes ADAPTATION, not evolution.

Your assumption. You don't know whether the change required an
evolutionary
change in, say, brain function, that would allow for an iguana to
swim and
feed underwater.

But they DO swim and feed underwater, and I doubt that their brains
are
grossly morphologically different from land iguanas. Can you
demonstrate
that marine iguanas are an evolutionary change rather than a simple
behavioral adaptation based on the particular needs associated with
the
Galapagos ecosystem?



For marine
iguanas, the development of gills would be an entirely useful
evolution that
would produce a favorable result. In the case of sharks, the
development of
a sophisticated intellect and communications capability that
permits sharks
to communicate sophisticated concepts to one another (along the
lines of

YOur fantasies. The scientific community does not dictate what
constitutes
a minimal requirement for the real world in order to consider it to
be
evolution.

Then the "scientific community" are evading the issue.


Even if the theory of evolution is true,

Which theory of evolution? You claimed you can't identify it.

Any theory of evolution.


Thus, evolution, even if true, does not disprove the existence of
God. Rejecting the possibility of God's existence merely because
one
believes in the theory of evolution is shallow thinking indeed.

And who, in this discussion, has suggested that?

Nice backpedal. You did. To wit:

On 16-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

There is a large
body of scholars who believe that the physical properties of the
universe,
combined with statistical probability, provide substantial
evidence of
intelligent design of the Universe.

It does not provide evidence of intelligent design. It certainly
does not
prove the existence of God.

A Bayesian would look at the probabilistic "evidence" and suggest
that
since the highly improbable has happened, their estimates are
likely
wrong. Just because a bunch of fundies pull some numbers out of
their
asses and make claims, doesn't prove anything.


--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

=A9 2005 Scott Weiser

Keep them on their heels Scott! It has been educational. TnT

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

They PRESUMED that the vast majority of citizens would be armed, and would
in fact be carrying arms most of the time, and would therefore be able to
use those arms to keep the peace and defend against criminal assault.

Personal defense against criminal assault?

Of course. Personal defense is an equal, if not preeminent consideration
when protecting the RKBA. Defense of the nation comes second.

That's what a "militia"
defending against tyranical government is in your mind? Bizarre!

No. What's bizarre is your ignorance of our system of government.

The 2nd Amendment does not require one to be in a militia in order to
exercise the RKBA protected by the 2nd Amendment.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

It's so much cheaper and more economical to
do it that way than to try to close the border.

But the solution you propose is for us to close our border.

Indeed.


Sorry, your problem - you fix it. Stop blaming everyone else.

We intend to make it your problem, so that you have to spend your money to
fix it or risk losing a major segment of your economy when we have to do it.

If we close the border with Canada, it will be CLOSED. Nobody in, nobody
out.

It's much cheaper for us to force you to fix it than to do it ourselves.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

And you're a moron with an IQ of 40 who drools on his keyboard.

I'm sorry, you seem to have mistaken me for one of your friends.

No, I certainly don't mistake you for one of my friends. One insult deserves
another. When you choose to descend into ad hominem attack, I'm perfectly
capable of responding in kind.

The choice is up to you.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser