The serious stuff. Debates and discussions on politics, religion, etc.
Saudi Arabia has finally put in force the ability for women to be able to vote and stand in elections. It is the last country to allow women the vote, other than Brunei where no-one has the vote. This is actually a major acheivement given how much...
Next week, the UN is going to be voting on the creation of the new state of Palestine. There is currently a large push by the USA and Israel to stop people voting for this, though it would anger any Arab allies the USA had, if they stopped this act...
A couple of cosmetic companies have had adverts pulled over the very liberal use of photoshop and it appears to be a general trend in the industry to bend the details as far as possible to try and sell a product. Of course, there have been a few...
Inspired by this piece from the Telegraph A group of American Athiests have filed a lawsuit to remove a cross from downtown Manhattan and is a breach of separation of church and state, due to its status as an icon? So, do you find religious...
While wandering around the other day it was hard to ignore the large amount of profanity that seems to be more common than not these days. Most loud conversations between people seemed to use swearing as punctuation more than anything else. I was...
I lost whatever faith I might have had at the age of ten and I'd probably come out closer to the atheist end of the spectrum than agnostic. The odd thing is, though, that I kind of wish I did have faith. It seems like a beautiful thing and while...
An interesting case has occured in Britain over a journalist using a certain amount of artistic licence in several interviews he had. Instead of putting down the spoken words of the interviewee, he instead replaced what they had said with pieces...
John Galliano, the designer, is currently on trial for racial abusing people in a cafe. It seems that the details of what occured are not really in doubt, but his defence is that he is not a racist, but that the outbursts are the effects of all...
ICANN has now approved a huge increase to what can be considered as a TLD, so that not only will .com and .net be joined by thousands of other variations, but that non-latin characters will also be allowed so that domain names will be available in...
Here's an article about a couple who is trying to do just that. Personally, I think it's going to be a wasted effort on their part. I think gender is not something we "choose," and being born a particular sex and being the opposite gender (or...
Loyalty, especially to my country, is something pretty important to me. Reading up on the American Revolution has caused me to ask myself a pretty unsettling question, that I'll now pose to you lot. Do you believe that as you are now, you...
Memorial Day is probably a day that most people on the board would be remembering those who had been in service and given their lives. However, a few of the reporters over here are decrying Obama's decision to play golf in the afternoon instead...
Several of the big news stories over the past month or so have been hijacked by what appears to be the incredibly important views of who is wearing what. Now admittedly, a royal wedding is an opportunity to for everyone to put on their finest,...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/rush-limbaugh-ratings-tum_n_866022.html I have a lot of theories about what happened to talk radio, but there is one thing that certainly did happen: The established snarky hosts went from cranky, amusing,...
Pretty literally in this case. Iranian woman Ameneh Bahrami was blinded when she had acid thrown over her by a stalker Majid Movahedi after his appraaches were repeatedly rebuffed. She was not dressed provocatively and was a model citizen. Now...
The Republican field is wide open and despite everything she still has a very wide media presence. Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump are not in it, so the field is wide open for someone to come through to represent them. But it would mean giving up...
A new test has been developed and about to be marketed which would hope to give a rough estimate of the time left remaining in your life through a simepl blood test. It works by testing telomeres, which sit on the end of chromosones and wear away...
Over the last week or so, a twitter user has named and shamed multiple British personalities, celebrities and sportspeople as having obtained the super injunctions which prevents any reporting of misconduct they may have carried out. In general,...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/06/slutwalking-policeman-talk-clothing So what's the deal with this? It is somewhat true that if kids weren't so hyper-sexualized via dress there wouldn't be as many issues with rape and such.
In a mysterious twist of fate, you have an option to: Be born into a Royal Family Marry into a Royal Family Remain just as you are. If you are born into the Royal Family, you will always have money and a small amount of influence, but...
The actual mission was called Operation Neptune's Spear. Osama bin Laden's code name as an individual was Jackpot. If he was captured or killed, the code word was Geronimo. It's the last one that has a number of Native Americans upset. I've seen...
This xkcd strip got me thinking about this question. There are a lot of technological advances that we have made thanks to space travel, but would we have eventually made those same advances without that impetus? One thing that gets talked about...
A vote is made out by many people to be a very important thing that can be used to express your opinion and can bring down governments if enough of you decide you don't like the current incumbents. But many people seem to feel disenfranchised by the...
It used to be the catchphrase of a commercial starring Michael Winner for e-sure car insurance (they are terrible btw) and has now turned into a major political row when the PM used the phrase referring to a female member of the opposition. ...
I've been doing a bit of research on evolution, and confused myself, as I seem to do any time I try to understand something. So, what do you think about evolution?
http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/-/latest/9255137/christian-leader-uses-anzacs-to-hit-gays/ The head of the Australian Christian Lobby and a one-time SAS commander, used Twitter on Monday to say: "Just hope that as we remember servicemen...
Well, are they? Global climate change, depletion of easy energy resources, continued ethnic conflicts, obesity epidemic, continued existence of bloodyminded dictatorships etc. vs more people in the developing world escaping from poverty,...
http://futurebook.net/content/kindle-e-book-library-lending-wtf Books are fucked!
Story here, shamelessly stolen from Facebook. A lot of people are talking about how the bystanders should have done something (personally, I don't want to get shot in Baltimore, so fuck that), but this isn't the first time a woman's been beaten...
The human brain has been described as the most complicated structure scientists have so far observed. And so, when describing how it works, often a metaphor is chosen which reflects this level of complexity. It seems that the operations of the human...
The .xxx domains were released to auction today for purchase, but what is the point of them. Any porn site using them is going to get blocked from half the globe, the major porn sites are not going to give up their .com address which is still the...
Recently the high profile leftwing news site Huffington Post was sold to AOL for $315m with the majority of the money going to the two owners of the site. Now, most of the content was created by bloggers and added for free. They claim that...
On 5th May, the UK goes to the polls to determine if it wants to change the election process currently used to something different. The current process is First Past the Post (FPTP), the suggested amendment is to change the process to Alternative...
Twenty or thirty years ago it used to be common for corporal punishment to be used in British schools as punishment for infractions. Nowadays, it seems that the teachers are not allowed to touch any of the pupils to discipline them. It seems that...
The Indiana legislature is working on a constitutional amendment which states that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized. Such progressive states as Michigan...
It happens. We all know it happens. The question is why? I generally keep my religious views to myself, feeling no need to share them unless the topic actually comes up. Even when it does, I usually try to sidestep it unless it feels like a...
Ableism is a central concept in disability rights. The term was originally popularized by Thomas Hehir, a special education scholar who defined it as “'the devaluation of disability' that 'results in societal attitudes that uncritically assert that...
This thread is to discuss the Fair Tax. What it is, what it does, and how can it be implemented. My congressman is the lead sponsor of the Fair Tax. And the radio talk show host I listen to every day is the author of the fair tax book. So I will...
Currently Libya has descended into Civil war between Gadaffi's troops and the rebels who would like to see him overthrown. It is likely that without any external assistance Gadaffi will win as he has heavier firepower and more troops to throw at the...
The EU are looking at putting forward legislation that would ban all petrol and diesel cars from city as a way of drastically cutting Carbon emissions. Electric cars and public transport would be exempt from these limits. So would this be a good...
I'm curious what you all think are the necessary criteria to justify individuals or groups of individuals in a society taking up arms against the state. Many current nations states (including the one I live in) were born of armed struggle against...
Election's coming.... Really, I don't have a lot to say about it, just thought I'd mention it.
I don't know a whole lot about American politics but it seems to me like the Republican Party is being hijacked, for want of a better term, by the Tea Party. Are there many Republicans who dislike the Tea Party and its policies? Are there enough to...
Some folks think that individuals should not be allowed to own assets over a certain amount, to prevent wealth from accumulating in the hands of a few. I'm not in favor of it, but I was wondering if anyone else here is. And if so, what should...
A professor at Northwestern University has caused controversy by staging a life sex demonstration for his human sexuality class. The demonstration happened outside the class, and attendance was totally voluntary. It consisted of a nude woman being...
I was reading a "what are you doing for Lent" thread on another message board, and inevitably every year, someone says that they aren't Catholic/Christian, but that they observe Lent by giving something up. Usually the reason is given that they...
A major upcoming debate in the UK parliament is over the voting rights of prisoners and whether they should be allowed to vote in elections. The European Court of Human Rights has stated that as there is no law against it, that criminals should...
Context: We've got an election coming up tomorrow where our ruling government of the last 14 years who have dragged us into the biggest financial crisis evah are going to be replaced. The heirs apparent are Fine Gael (finnah gale) who command about...
Actress Mayim Bialik recently wrote this piece, in which she explains why, among other things, she has not put either of her children in speech, occupational, or physical therapy, despite the fact that they are apparently fairly seriously...
Because it appears that is more or less what happened to start the Iraq war. The defector Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, also known as Curveball, has admitted telling lies to the German and USA Secret Services about Iraq having WMD in an attempt to...
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