>> ^budzos:

Does this guy realize his nose is full of germs filtered from the air?


Builds up the immune system... so they say... right until the kid dies of course... but that's why I disagree with having children at a place where sickness and death are an everyday occurrence. I.e., the hospital... Not to mention the costs to America's healthcare for doctors and staff...

Does this guy realize his nose is full of germs filtered from the air?

In these days of indigestion it is oftentimes a question
As to what to eat and what to leave alone.
Every microbe and bacillus has a different way to kill us
And in time they all will claim us for their own.
There are germs of every kind in every food that you can find
In the market or upon the bill of fare.
Drinking water's just as risky as the so-called "deadly" whiskey
And it's often a mistake to breathe the air.

Cho: For some little bug is going to get you someday.
Some little bug will creep behind you some day.
Then he'll send for his bug friends
And all your troubles they will end,
For some little bug is gonna find you someday.

The inviting green cucumber, it's most everybody's number
While sweetcorn has a system of its own.
Now, that radish seems nutritious, but its behavior is quite vicious
And a doctor will be coming to your home.
Eating lobster, cooked or plain, is only flirting with ptomaine,
While an oyster often has a lot to say.
And those clams we eat in chowder make the angels sing the louder
For they know that they'll be with us right away.

For some little bug is going to get you someday.
Some little bug will creep behind you some day.
Eat that juicy sliced pineapple ;and the sexton dusts the chapel
Oh, yes, some little bug is gonna find you some day.

When cold storage vaults I visit, I can only say, "What is it
Makes poor mortals fill their systems with such stuff?"
Now, at breakfast prunes are dandy if a stomach pump is handy
And a doctor can be called quite soon enough.

Eat a plate of fine pig's knuckles and the headstone cutter chuckles
While the gravedigger makes a mark upon his cuff.
And eat that lovely red bologna and you'll wear a wood kimona
As your relatives start packing up your stuff.

Those crazy foods they fix, they'll float us 'cross the River Styx
Or start us climbing up the Milky Way.
And those meals they serve in courses mean a hearse and two black horses
So before meals, some people always pray.

Luscious grapes breed appendicitis, while their juice leads to gastritis
So there's only death to greet us either way.
Fried liver's nice, but mind you, friends will follow close behind you
And the papers, they will have nice things to say.

For some little bug is going to get you someday.
Some little bug will creep behind you some day.
Eat that spicy bowl of chili, on your breast they'll plant a lily .
Oh, yes, some little bug is gonna find you some day.

>> ^Jinx:

I've had Salmonella. Its not really very nice. I like my food bombared with ionising radiation thanks.
I expect those laws exist for good reason. If these nitwits want to risk their health for "raw" food, and as long as the risks are clearly advertised then I don't really know why they shouldn't let them.


The debate is a bit more complex than just 'which has the most germs in it'. A great deal of the regular milk sold in stores is not simply milk, it usually has additives and other ingredients in it such as permeate. It is able to be sold as milk because that's how the labeling laws work in many parts of the world. Also, people may want to buy raw milk because they know the supplier is local, and they want to support local, more sustainable, business. Buying regular milk from a store means your likely supporting a large company that has little care for the environment or the cows.

In essence, people want to have a choice as to what they put in their body, it's about autonomy, and not always just about nutrition. I agree that the risks are higher, however I personally don't believe that these raids are about that at all.

Also, while there seems to be epidemiological evidence that raw milk has a higher chance of causing sickness than pasteurized milk, from what I've read most of these outbreaks occur when people are trying raw milk for the first time, or if they are eating products made with raw milk that haven't been handled properly. People that are raised on a farm drinking raw milk don't tend to get sick from it, due to the fact they build up resistance to any bacteria that may be present in the milk.

I can't imagine this being hygienic or mess-free. It's going to harbor so much filth, nobody will want to shop there. Ew. Imagine people's grubby hands all over the food.. Stupid kids sneezing on it and wiping their boogers on the dispensers. With no packaging to keep the germs out, they will just spread through the food and it will be risky to buy anything from there.

Oh, okay, so you believe everything you read. That's not very intelligent, or at least it's not very SMART. The bible was written hundreds of years ago, and has since been translated and re-translated to and from dozens of different languages. Individuals and groups in power throughout different points in history have taken it upon themselves to modify the bible, adding and omitting pieces here and there to suit their agenda. They knew that gullible sheep, unable to think for themselves, are easily swayed by religion, and what better way to control a populace than by attacking their very basis for the way they live their lives?

God pre-exists everything. We know God exists because He lets us know, and He would let you know that if you sought Him out. The New Testament was written 2000 years ago. The Old Testament is at least 1000 years older than that. We have copies of the early manuscripts so we know what the original bibles looked like. So the translations today are accurate, and this idea that they are corrupt is just outright false. Yes, man has used the bible for evil ends, but this is no different from anything else man does. The very reason that Jesus Christ came to Earth is because man is so desperately wicked and needs Gods redemption.

Additionally, if one is intelligent, and they believe in ancient myths, obviously they're going to be some of the greatest minds the world has ever known, right? That's why all the geniuses of the world are devout Christians or whatever religion you want to name, right? WRONG.

NASA is not run by rocket scientists who go to church on Sunday. Great inventors and genius-level individuals such as Stephen Hawking are not religious specifically BECAUSE they are intelligent. They are able to think for themselves, not be told what to think.

Some of the greatest minds in history were devout Christians..and some of the greatest scientists:

Francis Bacon - Originated the scientific method
Johannes Kepler - Laws of Planetary motion
Galileo Galilei - Father of modern astronomy
Nicolaus Copernicus - Heliocentric Universe
James Clerk Maxwell - Electromagnetic field
Neils Bohr - the Atom
Louis Pasteur - germ theory of disease
Rene Descartes - Philosopher and mathematician
Issac Newton - Invented classical mechanics
Max Planck - Founder of quantum mechanics

A lot of modern science is built on the backs of Christian thinkers, as you can see, and that is just a short list. Today, around 10 percent of scientists believe in God. At least 50 nobel laureates believe in God. Now, if you want to talk about great thinkers, how about Albert Einstein? He believed in God. Although not a Christian, here is what he had to say about Jesus:

"To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?"
"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."
"Have you read Emil Ludwig’s book on Jesus?"
"Emil Ludwig’s Jesus is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot!"
"You accept the historical existence of Jesus?"
"Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."7

Of course, religion and science are completely unrelated topics, and one does not have to be non-secular in order to be a scientist, but typically, the two mindsets would conflict, as religionists base their beliefs off of emotion and other irrational concepts. Scientists use a thought process, experimentation, and ruling out possibilities in order to come to conclusions and figure out FACTS about the universe around us. There are scientists who believe in the possibility of a god, but it takes a different form than that of some all-seeing being that created everything. I'll never try to explain that to you, though, as you're too blinded by foolish nonsense that has been force-fed to you since childhood.

I will leave you with this though: Adam and Eve. Here's some fruit. I'm going to tempt you with it, and then create a snake to TALK to you and tell you you should eat some of it, and THEN I'm gunna come back and be all "OH SHIT WHAT THE FUCK?! I SMITE THEE FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!" just to fuck with humanity. Wow. You worship a pretty evil, and vindictive force. Why would you want to do that? The fucker's up there just fucking with us like a little kid with a magnifying glass over an ant hill. Jesus christ, you must really enjoy misery. I'll take the reality of humanity surviving on our own acquiescence and compassion over that bullshit any day!

I base my belief off of personal revelation. I was an agnostic my entire life and raised without religion, and I was a secular humanist and a strict materialist who didn't see any evidence for God or spirit. God woke me up to the truth and let me know He is real. If you want science facts, you only have to examine the first page of the bible:

In the beginning (TIME) God created the heavens (SPACE) and the earth (MATTER)

And God said, “Let there be light (ENERGY),” and there was light.

It took mankind 3000 years to catch up and figure out the Universes foundation is based on these principles. There is also no better description which uniquely fits the big bang theory. Creation ex-nihilio, which is creation from nothing.

The serpent you're referring to was Satan. God put the tree there because He gave mankind free will to follow His commands or not. He also warned them of the consequences if they ate of the fruit. Adam and Eve decided to disobey God and believe the lie because Satan promised them they would have Gods power if they did it. So, instead of trusting God, they lusted after His power and betrayed Him. That's why they were kicked out of the garden. Their sin brought death into the world.

No, God didn't damn us for eternity. It's the very reason God sent His son Jesus to die on the cross, to save us from this fate we created and redeem mankind. So we could have eternal life with God again in the Kingdom of Heaven. We are sinners, and the wages of sin is death. Gods gift of salvation is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Boy, this video brought back some really nice memories for me. I spent a year living in West Papua (the other half of the island that belongs to Indonesia). Although the people I worked and lived with were not seeing white people for the first time, it was still one helluva a culture difference.

>> ^KnivesOut:

This video gave me chills. The first contact, with the armed warriors approaching the camera-wielding white ghosts.... That could have gone really poorly. What brave people, on both sides.


Never once did I worry about anything like that. While it is true that there is near constant tribal fighting on the island, I would contend that the larger society is extremely peaceful. Always welcoming and trustful with huge smiles and even bigger feasts for anyone that came to their villages.

Basically, violence there comes in downward spirals that start with directed aggression. That mostly has to do with the fact that they believe wholeheartedly in equality. If one tribe raids a village and kills someone, then retribution must be made and one person form the attacking tribe must be killed. Of course, the raid that seeks retribution ends up killing two people, so then the attacks start again. This goes on and on until the numbers are equal on each side, which can take a while. However, if you come in peace, there is nothing to worry about.

As pointed out in Guns, Germs, and Steel, they are also an extremely democratic society. There is no chief, only a 'big man' whose job it is to facilitate discussions and carry out the final decisions. In this way, it is unlikely that one person would freak out and somehow cause something terrible to happen since they must rely on the consent of the entire tribe.

>> ^raverman:

I come bringing viruses and diseases you have no immunity to and no medicines to treat. Here eat my food and handle my possessions.


It's not quite the same situation as it was with Native Americans or those tribes still surviving in the Amazon. While these people may have never had direct contact with a white person before, they certainly had indirect contact. Europeans have been visiting the island since the spice trade began in the 14th century.

The tribes can be roughly divided into coastal peoples and mountain peoples. The coastal peoples have had contact with Europeans for hundreds of years and built up tolerances to their diseases. Mountain people sometimes comes to the beach, and vice-versa, so in this way, resistances to common European diseases are pretty well dispersed among the population.

Actually, it is the white people that are in much more danger of falling ill. We are poorly equipped to handle malaria, dengue, and yellow fever. This, in part, is why there were still 'uncontacted' tribes well into the 20th century.


It's been almost a year since I lived there, and I must say that it is the one place I constantly dream of returning to. They could really use the money from tourism so if you are looking for something off the beaten path without being extremely dangerous, I suggest you check it out. It really is a paradise.

Great sift!

For anyone that enjoyed this, consider checking out Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel, or just the wikipedia page about it if you're short on time -- a good interesting read!

"Natural selections doesn't conjure up something from nothing : there has to be a germ of something for it to act upon" - funny that he used the word "germ". Bacteria can move towards food, and that has simple chemical explanations. Critters with more complex means of moving towards food have brains or at least a nervous system.

Is there some point where it makes sense to say that a critter "feels hungry"? Yes, when it has a brain.

The idea of "you cant have X without Y" might be right in a way, but all you have to do to come up with "oooh, spooky! There's an X without Y!!" is to not look too hard and to avoid seeing Y when it's not convenient for "spooky".

I read this the other day, not exactly on point -- science likes reproduciable experiments, and we have many discoveries yet to make:

All of this brings to mind a surprising turn I encountered near the end of Nick Lane's wonderful book Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. The turn is not a hard turn made by a man with a background in the hard sciences (Lane is a biochemist), but a soft turn to the dreamy speculations of panpsychism. The turn was made to hint at the place one might possibly find an explanation for the nature of emotions and states of mind:

"Feelings are physical, yet the known laws of physics, which can supposedly give us a complete account of the world, have no place for them. For all its marvellous power, natural selection doesn't conjure up something from nothing: there has to be a germ of something for it to act upon, a germ of a feeling, you might say, that evolution can fashion into the majesty of mind. This is what Scottish physical chemist Graham Cairns-Smith calls `the bomb in the basement' of modern physics. Presumably, he says, if feelings don't correspond to any of the known properties of matter, then matter itself must have some additional features, `subjective features', that when organised by selection ultimately give rise to our inner feelings. Matter is conscious in some way, with `inner' properties, as well as the familiar external properties that physicists measure. Pan-psychism is taken seriously again."

When it was last taken seriously, at the end of the 19th century, the psychologist/philosopher William James called conscious matter some kind of "mind-dust."

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/06/19/bees-can-be-pessimistic-about-life

There were more "teach evolution" responses than I was expecting to be honest, but what killed me on the majority of them was the whole "kids need to make their own choices" and things of that nature when it came to evolution. As if kids actually have a choice about evolution. Or gravity. Or germs. It's a grab bag folks, believe what you want! I wish all these "I don't believe in evolution!" people would also exorcise their ability to choose their beliefs by jumping off a ladder to show their non-belief in gravity.

>> ^NinjaInHeat:

To everyone crying out "OMGOMGOGM, DISEASE GERMS OMG NO!!!", do you have any idea of the type of shit a child will put in his/her mouth during that period in life? Something tells she'll survive this 'ordeal'. I liked the mom's remark about her turning out to be vegetarian, actually, if anything, I imagine this will prove to have a positive impact on her perception and acceptance of death as she grows up.


>> ^Skeeve:

What I want to know is, how is what she did "wrong"?
There might be some cleanliness issues that might make you consider it "wrong" but she wasn't licking it or anything (not something I would be surprised about, considering her age) so if her parents clean her up she will likely be fine.



It's a risk thing. Yes children are routinely exposed to many pathogens, but they are also immunized against the worst of them. Odds are this child will be just fine after this episode, and odds are she will also be fine unrestrained in the back seat of a car. A responsible parent should limit unnecessary risks to their child, and exposing her to zoonotic diseases is a bad move.

To everyone crying out "OMGOMGOGM, DISEASE GERMS OMG NO!!!", do you have any idea of the type of shit a child will put in his/her mouth during that period in life? Something tells she'll survive this 'ordeal'. I liked the mom's remark about her turning out to be vegetarian, actually, if anything, I imagine this will prove to have a positive impact on her perception and acceptance of death as she grows up.

So much more practical than actually kissing your partner. I mean, who wants all those germs? And as far as the rim job applications? O.M.G.!

>> ^Sagemind:

... But totally sanitary as the Whiskey kills any germs or viruses present!


Off-topic:

Viruses can live through alcohol. The simpler they are, as they're "dead" anyway, the easier it becomes for them to not be targeted by alcohol. Some have protective protein or other type of layers on their outer layer (or shell, whatever). Those are the ones that die; like influenza (I'm unsure if it kills ALL types of influenza), HIV, and I think Herpes simplex. However, other viruses like Herpes A (correct me if I screwed that up anybody, this is by rote memory) don't die. Viruses are just "lines of code" were as bacteria has structure, relies on it's environment and is just as susceptible to it's own "diseases" that come in the form of proteins, enzymes, or molecules (like alcohol). Alcohol can pass the outer layer of the cell walls and screw things up, plus it can cause water to get absorbed (I'm not sure if it would "pop" the bacteria, I think it just destroys the cell's integrity).

For all we know there ARE bacteria out there that can survive, but they'd have to be specifically setup in a way that the intrusion of the alcohol doesn't disrupt cell functions. For all we know they could evolve a surface that has a function that deals with alcohol. Of course, some have to survive in the first place or by random evolution hit the jackpot pertaining to alcohol; their structure is their major limitation in protection (one cell and dirt simple) . I also love how silver does it's thing to bacteria. Yes this is semi-off topic, but I live for science. *monocle smile* (do we have an emoticon, yet?)

I'm more scared of prions.
(of Mad Cow disease fame; really scary scenarios are possible if we get a full-on human version)