Aardvark

Actually that link doesnt explictly back up what you are saying, i read it quite carefully, if you stopped making so many assumptions you might make fewer mistakes. That link states, ''When I say the US did not support the Taliban, what I have in mind is that I do not believe that the United States ever gave any material support, financial support or military training to the Taliban.'' He goes on to state that Pakistan (ISI) gave it support in the 1990's. (Not 1980's). If you find any evidence at all of the Taliban existing as an organisation in the 1980's or of it ever recieving Western aid i look forward to reading it carefully. Still waiting for that supporting evidence you mention. Reading that link you so blithely assume supports your argument you might have noticed the section talking about the Taliban being a generational challenge to the Mujihandeen and how it came into existence because of disillusionment at the behaviour of the victorous warlords. Maybe you should be more careful about reading the links.

If the Lord of Harewood were to sell his land at Harewood he would still quite correctly be known as the Lord of Harewood. The Lords title is not tied to the land granted to him by his title. (you might be thinking of Lords of the manor, these are not peerages or denote nobility, they are a quite seperate thing) As to the title of Lord of Liverpool being worthless, in a sense all titles are worthless. Except maybe for getting good tables in restaurants. Hereditary titles still exist, the reform has been that these people no longer get to sit in the House of Lords ( a part of Parliament), also most new titles granted are deliberately stated as not being hereditary, but the ones already granted remain so.

Thanks, now all we need to do is cross breed it with an oak tree to get some interesting results.

Might it be possible to oxygenate the bloodstream in a way which bypasses the lungs? A slow release capsule of some kind implanted in the body could conceivably keep the blood oxygenated at a constant rate so negating the need to breath. Party tricks, high altitude climbing, diving with the fish, that could be fun.

Perhaps because your brain was well rested by the nights sleep. Were you tired when trying to imagine the scene the previous day? At what time of the day were you trying? Sounds like a pretty good place your visualising. Whats the fishing like?

Here are a few links if you want them. All indicate that the Taliban as a constituent group emerged (ie came into existence) from the madrassas in the early 1990's. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/oct2001/tal1-o24.shtml http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles2001/20010618.asp http://www.asiasource.org/news/special_reports/rubin.cfm http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:h9lhBd88SyMJ:www.asiasource.org/americacrisis/inter_video.cfm++%22origins+of+the+taliban%22&hl=en None of your links actually state that the Taliban existed during the 1980's. At the most, vague reference is made to the roots of the Taliban being in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That is definitely not the same as the group having existed then.

Thank you for correcting the link i posted. If the disagreement is over a misunderstanding of the word Taliban then fair enough. However i think it's reasonable to use the working definition of Taliban as the group which Muhhamed Omar established and which went on to control most of Afghanistan. When people talk of the conflict between USA and Taliban it's fairly clear that is the group being referred to. On the whole Bloodhoods explanation probably makes as much sense as any. Lets smart bomb those aliens!

Evolution does not happen at a group level, it happens at an individual level. If an individual were to respond to overpopulation by becoming homosexual then it would have fewer descendants then others who did not respond in that way, as such that response would be selected against, whatever the consquences for the overall population. That's one of the pleasures of Darwinism, it's fundamentally so simple. No, it doesn't mean that no two creatures of the same species would exist. Individuals need to breed with members of the same species. I don't understand your line of reasoning there. If you don't like the comparison between Bangladesh and Sweden, (why do you asume that Bangladesh is 'shy' concerning sex?, Thailand, another South Asian country certainly isn't) Then compare Sweden and the UK. Or Canada and Japan. If you can find any evidence showing high levels of homosexuality with popluation density and low levels with low population density it would back your theory. Unfortuately the evidence isn't there. We can see in history that societies of relatively few people such as the ancient Greeks and Romans had homosexuality, well before the population explosion. It's a neat theory but the evidence doesnt support it. It's a neat theory but

The Taliban did not exist in the 70's or the 80's. It's not a matter of revisionism or my not being aware of sometime, it's a fact of facts. I'm a quite tired of people making statements of opinion as through they were fact. The Taliban was an organistation formed from the religious schools (madrassas) of Pakistan and Southern Afghanistan in the early 1990's. This movement did just 'pop out of nowhere'. Thats what popular movements do. http://www.unomaha.edu/afghanistan_atlas/taliban, just one link, there are many, all detailing how the Taliban came into existence in the 1990's. Instead of accusing others of being 'revisionist' you should check your facts.

Yup.

But it does directly lead from the thread, Fahrenheit 9/11 is about responsibility for 9/11. On the matter of Bradbury, i think he is bit a bit of a prig. He doesnt 'own' that title and there is no way it can be give back. He should just accept the implied compliment.

The Taliban was not one of the groups that fought the Russian occupation. The Taliban was formed in the 1990's. That's after the Russian occupation. Clear enough?

If you chill your brain it decreases the amount of oxygen required. This helps account for people being revived after being unconcious and not breathing for some hours after falling ito freezing water. Probably not such a good party trick though.

How do you come to that conclusion? The world might be a very wierd place with only women, but it could be theoretically possible, asexual reproduction, or IVF could be used. I don't see how the world would end. Also, it seems that science spends quite a lot of its time challenging nature. I personally give thanks for such challenges as antibiotics and central heating. Natural diseases and natural cold wet weather should be challenged on a continual basis.

Aaaah, i see, it's all so clear now. Bush attacked the twin towers to give himself an excuse to attack Afghanistan which he obviously wants to do because, uum, eer, uum, of all the valuable sand and rubble there.

That's one of the advantages of my lovely proboscis.

Interesting, correlation or causation? I'd like to know a bit about that data, any links?

And he quite likes the idea of the Big Bang.

Not all Christians are Creationists. I listened to a sermon by the Archbishop of York who said that Darwins theory of evolution meant that all living things were related, as such this showed the unity of Gods creation. He stated that he saw no contradiction between evolution and Christainity, rather that evolution helped understand Gods creation and our place in it. Not all Christians take everything in the Bible absolutely literally, a lot is beautiful allergory.

The 'dark and disturbing' links you post don't seem to be saying anything original which i haven't already read in mainstream media. Pakistans ISI was linked with the Taliban and Bin Laden. Yes, already common knowledge. After 9/11 the USA decided to work with the ISI in fighting the Taliban and Bin Laden. Under heavy pressure the ISI then turned on its former Taliban friends. Common knowledge. Where are the dark and distrubing allegations? Only sly hints that ISI might have had something to do with 9/11. This seems remarkably unlikely and no evidence is advanced to make that case. If it was the case i'm fairly sure the US would have had as much fun blasting Karachi as it had in Kabul.

That may be your theory but it is not Darwins. Darwinism works on the basis of individual selection NOT group selection. As such it makes no case for population to be controlled by homosexuality. If homosexuality was linked to over population then areas with denser populations such as Bangladesh would have higher rates of homosexuality than areas with lower population densities such as Sweden. As this is not the case the theory is clearly false.

Could you say what those accusations are? The links you have posted just advertise videos for sale, not explain anything.

I'm an Aardvark.

Other factors to consider are that women are also important in the years after childbirth, raising and caring for the young, so it makes sense for evolution to allocate resources (clumsy phrase, sorry) to allow women to live longer. On the other hand, throughout most of the human past, men had a high chance of dying young through fights, hunting accidents and the strains of a high impact, dangerous outdoor existence. As such the chance of impregnating a women when old would not be sufficent for evolution to allocate the resources for greater longevity, why bother when the man is likely to be killed young anyway? Therefore, it makes evolutionairy sense for women to have greater longevity than men.