Nice to see a lack of verbal abuse in a discussion like this. I appreciate it as I know I'm probably treading on thin ice in a lot of minds.

I disagree that texts are devoid of meaning until we give them some. The text itself if a collection of ideas and some of those ideas are horrendous. It generally is not an individual's qualities that determine the violence of the religion as much as the history of that religion's practice in the area they were raised. A peaceful and loving Aztec that was faithful would still have supported sacrificing slaves for all the same reasons, because they would have believed the underlying superstitions that made it a rational act given the premises.

I'm not sure Maher & co. view is as a strictly religious phenomenon. You really have to do a case by case analysis. Some make no sense but for religion, while other are very easy for my to sympathize with, even as an atheist. I have to admit I'm more familiar with Harris' views than Maher's, mind you, as I find Maher's presentation of his ideas can at times be half baked.

The reason why they specifically strap bombs to their chests is largely religious. Everyone else prefers living to kill another day. There's a religious reason why they are willing to sacrifice their children in this way. The reason that they behead people instead of other forms of killing them is because that form of murder is enshrined in their texts. All of these religious justifications lower the barrier for action. They make it that much easier for someone to accept that it's a reasonable course of action. And that's because of specific words in specific books.

I agree that is smells like apologist BS when Harris talks about western intervention having good intentions. I don't think the west has good intentions most of the time. However you have to acknowledge that there is something less reprehensible about trying to kill even a likely dangerous person (with the likelihood of innocent collateral damage) as compared with deliberately targeting exclusively innocent people. Yes the wedding party massacre was horrible. That was the worst case possible from our point of view, and some efforts will be made to avoid it happening again. If think that is morally significant. If you don't think intentions are relevant to morality, we will simply disagree.

Your video, Baked Yams with Dill - You Suck at Cooking, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

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To me the chicken looked really bland...he just pan fried it with nothing. I would have slightly salted it, then put rosemary and butter in the pan and slow fried it in that, much more flavor (EDIT:funny enough, that's exactly what I'm having for dinner, but I baked it with tatos and carrots). Between the bland chicken and complete lack of condiments, I could totally understand why he didn't rate it high.
Great concept IMO, but poorly executed. Just a few more easy steps could make all the difference. He probably should have started with a good sandwich, deconstructed it, and then re-recreated it from scratch with help from knowledgeable people (or at least books) telling him how to do each step properly.

Also....BACON!

As a gay man, I would like to not feel like a second-class citizen by being turfed out of a restaurant because the owner doesn't like my sexuality. But at the same time, if I were a baker who was asked to bake a cake for a KKK rally, I would like to be able to refuse. I genuinely don't know which one of those rights is more important to me.

The idea here is not to take people out. Straights would never "allow" this. It is like saying we need to petition to go back in time to unelect Obama before he got into office! Spend as much time and money as necessary! You get the point. It is a facetious argument.

Hell, "if" it did happen (Which it can't) every billionaire would file for a gay-cemption immediately. The Koch brothers would be claiming dick-mouth exemptions immediately.

In fact I passed this before a few conservative "thinkers" and they were pretty defeated. "Oh wait, you'll take gay dollars and put them in the government to support baking cakes but you won't take their dollars to make a cake directly?"

@MilkmanDan, I get where you're coming from. I think that people should have a basic right not to implicitly support something they vehemently oppose, i.e. a eco marketing company shouldn't have have to support some climate deniers, or anyone at all shouldn't have to bake a nazi cake.

But as you pointed out with your race example, lines must be drawn somewhere. I don't support anyone getting to decide they won't serve people because of race or gender and for me, sexual orientation falls on the right side of the line? Don't want to bake a cake for a black wedding? Fuck you, if you fell that strongly, be prepared to be sued or imprisoned. And same for a gay wedding.

Hmmm... baking cakes in paper cups...

Call them... cup... bakes...

http://videosift.com/talk/Baking-2015-08-15-Coconut-Jam-Drops

As a person who has solar on their roof, our bills have shown a slight decline (and I live in a tropical location with no obscuring of the panels), but that doesn't offset the cost of production (both in labour and energy input which is mostly supplied by carbon based sources). I run a 6 KW/h array which is slightly overclocked as we are capped at 5 KW/h input to the grid (at 8c KW/h sell, 36c KW/h buy). I'm looking at a ROI in ~11-15 years

There are also many studies (and not just from people who are pro nuke or anti-climate change) showing that solar PV in general, and rooftop solar specifically, is small potatoes in terms of energy returns, even when considering possible future gains in panel efficiency and storage technology.

I am not bashing solar because I don't like it, I spent the money to get an array on the roof because I think we do need to do something, but I'm not kidding myself in to believing that we're saving the planet when the vast majority of solar PV going out these days is manufactured in countries that emit enormous amounts of carbon and pay people peanuts to do the work... When, as you say, solar is heavily subsidised or has rebates offered to drive take up.

Nuke is expensive, but it returns far more energy than is invested to build it. Hydro, similarly (although Cali etc shows why hydro might be a dead end in this changing world climate). We can invest an enormous amount of time in half measures, or we can do it right, at least until we crack large scale fusion power production.

If it worked as well as it's hyped to do, huzzah, happy days. But so far, the boom is mostly hyperbole. At the very least, f#ck off subsidies/rebates etc to households and instead build huge solar PV farms with helio tracking arrays which make a better return on energy invested and basically give far more bang for buck. Or sink it all in to wind and cut back on PV. It's a feel good technology with hidden baked in carbon costs that is lulling us in to a false sense of security.

Wow, how baked are you @MrFisk?

The point you made was about Public figures and their privacy.

Regardless of how their privacy came to be violated..

(Anthony Weiner mistakenly? linked his pics on is public twitter originially. Hah.)

the result is the same:

People flocking to oogle their naked/scantily-clad bodies in photos that were meant to be private.

Isn't that the issue?


And then the rest of your comment about how..

..even private citizens should expect less privacy because of illegal data collection by the NSA..

(not unlike the illegal seizure by the Fappening hacker effectively)

Yet somehow that's okay because.. they didn't publicly share those photos.. O_o? really?

..wtf dude.. @_@

BAKING SODA!

Water sinks in oil, then flashes to steam, violently displacing the oil, oil that's already near or beyond the vaporization temperature. The hot oil, flying in all directions in tiny droplets, vaporizes, and you then have a small fuel air bomb. Great if you want to be hairless, but otherwise a bad bad thing, especially indoors. See above about burn units.

Baking soda floats on the oil making a film that stops it from reacting with oxygen, and stops the fire fast. It works for most fires if you have enough to smother it.

That's true for baking, but the errors involved in volumetric measurement of water and rice probably aren't significantly different than the errors involved in measuring them by weight. Sugar and flour can have quite different weights for a different volume depending on how tightly packed they are, but this is not true of either rice or water.

That said though, I do often measure rice by weight, so I know that half a cup (125ml) is close to 100g of rice (at least for long grain or basmati rice), and in my small pot 150ml of water is exactly right for that 100g of rice.

Nice idea, but horrible horrible name. "Chip" has meant "integrated circuit" for how many decades now? which chip does Chip use? see the problem? all the kids using this device to learn about computers will start off with incorrect terminology, when discussing with *anyone* who hasn't heard of this device.

"Raspberry Pi" on the other hand - sure it could be a baked food product, but in the context of computers/devices, it's pretty unambiguous.

Bud light is actually a staple day time beer with me and my friends. It's good for a cruise down the river on a raft in the baking sun and you wanna drink and not get hammered. Doesn't really taste bad, just taste like beer-ish water. Cheap too.

I haven't used toothpaste in over five years. Sometimes baking soda. Sometimes activated charcoal. Sometimes just salt. Sometimes just water. I mix it up.