1) Depends
2) WHY?!?
3) Dunno. It shrinks as girls age, possible it helps keep germs etc out before, you know, anything else might need to go there.
4) The same way as women prolly. Winky Face. I'd wager men have probably _seen_ about as much, or possibly more, hymen (Hang on, plural of hymen? Hymens?) than women given-
a) I don't imagine it's actually that easy for women to see their own hymen - feel free to correct me on this ladies.
b) Gynecology, as indeed almost all of the medical specialist areas, has been the domain of men until recently.

Oh, and I did google it and I don't regret it because of this entry on the wikipedia page:
"In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, medical researchers used the presence of the hymen, or lack thereof, as founding evidence of physical diseases such as "womb-fury", i.e. (female) hysteria. If not cured, womb-fury would, according to these early doctors, result in death."

One wonders what treatment they might have prescribed for WOOOMB-FURY!!!!

What confuses me is that most Americans *love* their armed forces with utmost (almost too much) pride, yet so many think that socialism is a dirty word.

The American armed forces are paid for by the taxpayer. We can't defend ourselves on an individual level as well as we can, through tax contributions, employ a permanent army to do it for us.

To me it feels like the essence of a country is socialist - our 'tribe' decided at some point to work together. Instead of us all individually walking every day to get fresh drinking water or water for washing, we chip in and buy essential infrastructure like water treatment plants and pipes, the electrical grid or sewage system. Instead of having to defend our properties and possessions all the time from intruders, we chip in and pay the police to keep order for us. Instead of individually teaching our children, we all chip in and employ experts to do the best job possible.

Whilst some of those things are available to be purchased privately if you so wish, you can't have your country without socialism.

For me, the worst sin is being against free universal health care. However well prepared or covered you think you are, all it takes is a twist of fate and you'd be in the same situation as so many others - incapable of making the money you need to buy the cure. Or caring full time for a dependent person, unable to work to pay the medical costs. That's why everyone should chip in - because any one of us, through no fault of our own, in an instant, could need access to more than we could get by ourselves.

Using that 'logic', does it not make MORE sense then to start by killing all non-mentally ill violent people, because they pose the same threat to others and the same obstacles to success in life (or even more, since medical records are private but criminal records are not) but have NO chance of being 'cured' since they aren't 'sick', while the mentally ill might just need the right dose of medication to be cured?

How might you possibly know the potential rewards of a 'cured' psychotic? Once cured, they have the same opportunities as anyone else with the same skill sets.

And to address something that I tried to ignore from your earlier post, what's your problem with the custodial field? It's a great job with fairly good pay for good honest work, often on a flexible schedule with good benefits. The best job I ever had was as a janitor at a doctors office, I made around $25-$30 an hour (which, where I live, is over double the average pay rate) for a part time job I could do any time between 9pm and 6am, but usually took only 2 hours (4 when I took over a second office). Not only that, it's a necessary position in any business with over 5 people. I don't agree at all with your insinuation that the lives of people with that job are "mediocre" and they are really better off dead, and instead I just find it insulting in the extreme.

I'm not suggesting we kill all mentally ill people. Just the ones that pose a threat to others. Swinging a machete at cops qualifies as posing a threat to others. It's all about risk vs reward. The risks of attempting to cure a violent psychotic outweigh the potential rewards.

Unfortunately, I disagree. Far too many people believe lie detectors work, in the same way many believe finger prints are completely unique and identifying them is a science...it's not, that's why computers can't be used to identify fingerprints, it takes a human 'fingerprint artist'. Even many law enforcement agencies still use polygraphs as factual tools.

Wait...so in your second paragraph you admit that many probably really believe in lie detectors...but because that doesn't make them degenerates.....um.....what?!? If only SOME Africans believe raping a virgin cures AIDS, you seem to be saying that educating them about their mistaken belief is dumb and a thing to ridicule...ignoring the immense damage those few can do with their mistaken beliefs.

So, you have personal experience with the fallacy of lie detectors, and so you assume everyone knows they don't work? You give others too much credit, I think.

Many law enforcement agencies still treat polygraph results as fact, and have actually tried many times to have them admitted in court as evidence....just like fingerprints, eye witness identification, and even psychics. perhaps most know it's pseudo science, but enough don't know, or don't understand what that means, that pounding it into their heads that it's junk is not just reasonable, it's a necessity.

I agree with everything you said brycewi. And it would apply here too IF Adam was providing information that wasn't well known by nearly everyone today. Most people believe lie detectors are pseudo science. It is not even comparable to global warming, and even less than anti-vaccines (Or if this is somehow untrue, then Adam doesn't provide how truly well believed this phenomenon is as he prattles on.) So that is where we would vary significantly on, not that the service of providing debunking of something taken as true is important/unimportant.

Yes, some people believe it works. Others watch it on talk shows and such for entertainment and even some law enforcement use it for confessional purposes. We get that. But then again some Africans believe raping a virgin will cure AIDs...does that mean their country is a bunch of degenerates? No, because only a few do.

Adam goes off on this rant based on information in what, the 90s? When everyone had this unshakable faith in the lie detector? My family's entire life rested on one of these machines at one time, so I know. (It didn't turn out good, lets leave it at that.)

Further, we differentiate three "uses" of the lie detector.
1-Entertainment:
A-Nobody believes it works, just like nobody believes Jerry Springer or Wrestling isn't fake.
B-Lumping those people in with those who do believe is disingenuous at best, manipulative at worst.
2-Law Enforcement:
A-They really don't care as long as they obtain guilty confessions. In other words, they already know (think) they have the bad guy and use it as an interrogation techniques.
B-You can argue with this practice as shady and deceptive (ironic isn't it?) but we shouldn't confuse belief with reliance.
3-Excluding the examples above, since they DON'T believe, those in the ultra fringe don't constitute "widely accepted."

As I understand it, clinical depression is often caused by an imbalance in brain chemicals. My godfather is, in essence, the godfather of pharmacological anti-depressants. He's a brain chemist that discovered many of the chemicals in the brain back in the 70's-80's, and how they work with each other, particularly those involved in mood regulations. This eventually led to the development of pharmacological anti-depressants.
The real issue is, there's not ONE form of 'depression', not even one single biological form...there are many, and each comes in a range from barely perceptible to extreme. That makes proper diagnosis of which problem(s) one might have probably the MOST important step in treatment. Unfortunately, the diagnosis is usually precursory, and rarely involves actually testing the brain's chemical make up, meaning it's a crap shoot for the most part. Therapy can't help if you have a biologically caused depression, and drugs usually won't help if you have a non-biologically caused depression.
I only hope that diagnosis can catch up with treatment methods...and that treatment method continue to evolve themselves. Without both, many people have no chance of proper treatment/cure.

Unfortunately...

http://www.joslin.org/info/correcting_internet_myths_about_aspartame.html

The whole "sweet taste tricks your body in to releasing insulin" is complete bunk. A simple glucose tolerance test would show if pancreatic hormone secretion was elevated due to aspartame ingestion...

Oh look!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3522147

A nutritive sweetener, aspartame (L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methylester) was administered orally to normal controls and diabetic patients in order to evaluate effects on blood glucose, lipids and pancreatic hormone secretion. An oral glucose tolerance test was also performed in the same subjects as a control study of aspartame administration. In 7 normal controls and 22 untreated diabetics, a single dose of 500 mg aspartame, equivalent to 100 g glucose in sweetness, induced no increase in blood glucose concentration. Rather, a small but significant decrease in blood glucose was noticed 2 or 3 h after administration. The decrease in blood glucose was found to be smallest in the control and became greater as the diabetes increased in severity. No significant change in blood insulin or glucagon concentration during a 3-h period was observed in either the controls or the diabetics. The second study was designed to determine the effects of 2 weeks' continuous administration of 125 mg aspartame, equal in sweetness to the mean daily consumption of sugar (20-30 g) in Japan, to 9 hospitalized diabetics with steady-state glycemic control. The glucose tolerance showed no significant change after 2 weeks' administration. Fasting, 1 h and 2 h postprandial blood glucose, blood cholesterol, triglyceride and HDL-cholesterol were also unaffected. From these and other published results, aspartame would seem to be a useful alternative nutrient sweetener for patients with diabetes mellitus.

Yes, phosphoric acid isn't great for your teeth, and yes, it's better to drink water, but the majority of the blurb against diet type low calorie sweeteners start with conspiracy theorists and nuts who believe you can cure cancer with herbal teas.

Sorry poster, no upvote for blatant misinformation.

Good job. I wonder how fast these can go. A pro should be able to make a wind driven water speed record.

He could have saved some weight by using expanding foam instead of wood as the core and using molds to form the pieces. Then the foam supplies both the pressure and heat to cure the resin, so no vacuum bags needed.

Very interesting, but I disagree with one aspect of what she is saying:

Yes, we're all sort of ignorant blank slates at that age (college entry). But she is suggesting that professors / instructors / parents / etc. are or should be responsible for curing us of that. I think that is bunk. Life itself, and in particular being responsible for one's own life, is what cures us of that ignorance.

Society tells all these kids that they cannot and will not accomplish anything without having a college education -- WAY more than it ever did in the past. A big percentage take that to heart, and therefore stay under the sheltered wing of their parents longer because they feel that they MUST.

I think once they get out into the real world, that ignorance and idealism will get quickly tempered with a dose of pragmatism. Being hyper-PC seems less important when you've got to work a double shift to pay your rent or buy luxuries like food. ...Or pay off staggering amounts of student loan debt.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/The-Cure-Just-Like-Heaven

Brat - Easy Heaven (The Cure vs. The Commodores) has been added as a related post - related requested by Zawash on that post.

The Cure - Just Like Heaven has been added as a related post - related requested by Zawash.

I can't be bothered to find it, but you have definitely claimed that cancer can be cured by diet before.

As for the rest...
Cool story bro

@Sniper007 is the same guy that believes you can cure cancer with salads. I wouldn't put too much stock in his medical advice...