Yes, very true Brendo. I found his delivery a little rough, at first, because i'd always thought that religious beliefs should never be questioned (certainly not so bluntly). Though later, I figure he struck a chord with me because i'd already come to some conclusions about religion and he was able to put it in a scientific sense. So I can entirly see why believers (not the fence sitters he generally hopes to appeal to) would get their backs up. Which is certainly not the frame of mind you'd like an audience to take, should you want them to listen to you seriously.

But... it would seem that since he's been on the world stage (in the internet type way), his "barbed" approach has helped give the conversation another kick start. I honestly don't think one more quiet, well-mannered discussionist would've stirred up the debate quite like it has been.

they were both morons, unfortunately.
i have to agree with pretty much all the posts here in that the student was being a dick, and the enforcement officer was all too happy to use his new toy.

given the history of the officer in question, he should be fired. end of story. really should have happened a while ago.
the student should have been a little more compliant though, and i agree that if he could spout political rhetoric he could stand up, depending on where the barbs of the taser hit. i don't agree that when dealing with law enforcement, you should comply all the time without question. citizen's have rights for a reason.

Well said, peretz.

I may have raised the abortion angle in post #62 or #65, but the artificial insemination angle of posts 72-77 was just too juicy to pass up, so I dropped it.

DavidM

I would point you to
http://stemcells.nih.gov/ for information that is more critical and thorough. Christian bioethics advocacy groups have their pluses and are easier to Google, but the stemcellresearch.org site is a bit undernourished on critical analysis.

Has your tax money been earmarked for the drug companies? I am pretty bitter that my taxes have gone to pay for (now unused) barbed wire fences in Sadr City, Iraq and single-source contracting with Halliburton. But such is a big Fed. It is the fairly minimal individual cost of being a citizen of a great (new AP ranking #7) and affluent nation.

I do hate the libertarian or NIMBY argument that you advance against government sponsored scientific research. To wholly privatize something like stem cell research, you would invite two substantial problems into the field:

1) Intellectual property issues - A lawyer's feast for bottomfeeders like me to be sure, but these issues won't help patients.

2) Profit - Research would be driven by profit alone which would cut off many avenues and possibly limit the pool of persons who ultimately benefit.

Public-Private competition (as was found with the human genome project) is probably the most beneficial state of affairs.

Burhan, You are typical. You try to stick in a needless barb about where you assume I live, and when I respond, you poke fun of me for criticizing people I don't know. You can dish it out but you cannot take it.

sfjocko, back to the subject at hand. we are not talking about rounding up innocent poeople. we are talking about one of the guys who admittedly helped plan 9/11. yes i think its alright to torture him. i think it would be alright to do much more than scare him by making him feel like he is drowning. so there you can feel free to feel morally superior. that's another thing about you apologists for the rights of terrorists. on one hand you want to come up with reasons our culture is not morally superior to the ones that produce these nuts, but you waste no time making yourselves out to be superior to westerners who don't share your political views. it's really not even worth talking to you guys, i just do it occasionally when i'm bored.

All this reminds me that my father caught a stingray tail barb in his foot. He wasn't careful and accidently stepped on it while he was crabbing in a bay near the Gulf of Mexico. And it went all the way through... puncture holes top and bottom. Ouch. He spent the rest of the trip in a wheel chair and one of my older brothers had to drive us home. There was another time he tried to get a cactus needle out of his big toe with his teeth and it ended up in his tongue. LOL. Ah well...

Rest in Peace, Steve. And Daddy, too.

Ya know, in retrospect I have to wonder if all this hype is dangerous. He is being revered in death for his actions in life, and I must take a moment to reflect on his behavior as an animal handler. This post won't make me popular, but I have to pontificate. ;-)

He was wildly popular with the kids, and he often - very often - didn't use the best safety in the presence of animals. Remeber him dangling his baby over a crocodile? Is this the best way to model behavior for kids?

The reality is, he wasn't careful. That, in my book, is a form of disrespect to the animal. In order to have been stung, he must have been relatively close to the stingray...the barb is located halfway down the tail, which means he was probably almost right on top of it. He invaded the stingray's comfort zone. It couldn't see a swimmer above it, and probably thought it was a shark. The truth is, it was simply protecting itself. Irwin should have known better.

Here's some info: http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/149/01/Russell.pdf#search=%22%22giant%20stingray%22%20%2Blength%22

So, be safe, all you Coral Reef swimmers. And shuffle those feet.

THE Crocodile Man, Steve Irwin, is dead. He was killed in a freak accident in Cairns, police sources said. It appeared that he was killed by a sting-ray barb that went through his chest, Queensland Police Inspector Russell Rhodes said.
He was swimming off the Low Isles at Port Douglas where he had been filming an underwater documentary when it occurred.

Ambulance officers confirmed they attended a reef fatality this morning at Batt Reef off Port Douglas.

Mr Irwin, 44, was killed just after 11am, Eastern Australian time.

His American wife Terri learned for the tragedy from police in Tasmania, where she had been trekking in Cradle Mountain National Park.

His friend and manager John Stainton said Mr Irwin was filming some segment for daughter Bindi's show on the reef between sessions filiming the main documentary.

It is understood Mr Irwin was killed instantly.

A source said Mr Irwin was already dead when his body was brought onto the Isle.

A source said Mr Irwin's body was being airlifted to Cairns Hospital in North Queensland for formal identification.

An Emergency Services Response Management spokeswoman said they received a call about the tragedy at 11.11 am, Australian Eastern Standard Time.

The response unit left in a helicopter for the Batt Reef at 11.18am and arrived shortly after.

Mr Irwin was pronounced dead at the scene immediately, the spokeswoman said.

Steve Irwin's activities went far beyond his universally-known roles as an international TV star and owner of Australia Zoo, north of Brisbane.

They includes assisting Australian Quarantine Inspection service with advertising campaigns warning travellers not to bring foreign matter into the country, and he was becoming a vocal critic of the slaughter of Australian wildlife.

The federal government recently dropped plans to allow crocodile safaris for wealty tourists in the Northern Territority after Irwin intervened, taking Environment Minister Ian Campbell on a tour of croc infested Cape York.

At the time, Irwin told Australian TV program A Current Affair that: ``Killing one of our beautiful animals in the name of trophy hunting will have a very negative impact on tourism, which scares the living daylights out of me.''

The Prime Minister John Howard considered Irwin a friend, inviting him to a barbecue at The Lodge for US President George W. Bush in 2003.

Irwin was a devoted father to his two children Bindi, 8, and Bob, 3.

"Bindi is the reason I was put on this earth. All I want to do is be with her and all she wants to do is be with me. We have such a great time together and it's not just a father and daughter relationship, it's also like I'm a big brother and she's my little sister,'' he told New Idea magazine in 2005.

However the previous year Irwin had created a furore when he took 'Baby Bob' into Australia Zoo's crocodile enclosure while feeding a four-metre salt water crocodile.

Irwin burst onto the media scene with his documentary The Crocodile Hunter in 1992, and his over-the-top persona soon made him a star. In 2002 he burst on to the big screen on Crocodile Hunter: The Collision Course, soon achieving A-list fame.

His celebrity friends include Russell Crowe.

Despite his worldwide popularity, closer to home Irwin got bad press after he was controversially paid $175,000 for a quarantine ad.

Irwin was named Queenslander of the Year in 2003.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20349534-952,00.html

wow, the older google news I can find is 2 hour ago. Crazy.

"Aussie media and CNN are reporting that he was killed by a stingray barb that went through his chest. He was swimming at north Queensland's Batt Reef at the time, where he was filming an underwater documentary."

--

"The Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) was called about 11am (AEST) and an emergency services helicopter was flown to the crew's boat on Batt Reef, off the coast near Cairns, with a doctor and emergency services paramedic on board.

Irwin had a puncture wound to the left side of his chest and was pronounced dead at the scene."

From Stars and Stripes (the Army paper):
http://tinyurl.com/e6pun

A startling Internet video that shows someone spraying graffiti on President Bush's jet looked so authentic that the Air Force wasn't immediately certain whether the plane had been targeted.

It was all a hoax. No one actually sprayed the slogan "Still Free" on the cowling of Air Force One.

The pranksters responsible for the grainy, two-minute Web video - employed by a New York fashion company - revealed Friday how they pulled it off: a rented 747 in California painted to look almost exactly like Air Force One.

"I wanted to do something culturally significant, wanted to create a real pop-culture moment," said Marc Ecko of Marc Ecko Enterprises. "It's this completely irreverent, over-the-top thing that could really never happen: this five-dollar can of paint putting a pimple on this Goliath."



The video shows hooded graffiti artists climbing barbed-wire fences and sneaking past guards with dogs to approach the jumbo jet. They spray-paint a slogan associated with free expression.

After the video began circulating on the Web on Tuesday, the Air Force checked to see whether the plane had been vandalized.

"We're looking at it, too," Lt. Col. Bruce Alexander, a spokesman for the Air Mobility Command's 89th Airlift Wing, which operates Air Force One. "It looks very real."