What a good parent, Elagie.

It certainly would be a neat trick if what we observe as real via our senses, and the totality of existence, were one in the same.

isn't it the same danger of fiberglass? i'm not too worried...

it's for when your using your rollers (indoor training)...

It's a needle IN a haystack, not a needle on the surface of some hay.

Besides, finding a needle in the haystack is easy. Just light it on fire.

freakin' brilliant!

The complexity of a language is a function of the capacity of the brain processing of the speaker. So, basically, all languages are roughly equal in complexity (with higher-than-average-intelligence speakers or writers embedding more nuance an complexity into the language than the average speaker, of course).

The comparison from the article, is from the subjective point-of-view of an English speaker. But for someone speaking a language vastly different from English, English is a very difficult language, with it's irregular pronunciation, plethora of compound words (put up, put down, put on, put out, put through, for example...).

Another Tim,

So does god have spirit testes? spirit XY chromosomes? a spirit phallus?

If not, in what literal sense, would the god of the bible be male?

How sad.

While, on the surface, I generally agree with the reasoning that data collection in public is benign to privacy concerns.

However, the more and more "benign" information that is collected, pooled and analyzed by the government, the more power they are allocating to themselves. In the pursuit of justice, this is still benign.

However, should there be corruption in the process, an individual life could be significantly hampered by someone with access to lots of correlated, "benign" data.

Therefore, the important thing to me should be to push for at least one of the following 3 things.

(1) When possible, every time we allocate power to the goverment, or other large imaginary entities, that we simultaneously allocate power to the public (for example, provide access to this data to everyone, about everyone)

(2) All new information resources must be accompanied by checks to access to information, to prevent corruption. (like the FISA courts, for example)

(3) or the new power should be avoided.

Roasted beaver makes all the kids shout, "Hot dam!"

well, in all fairness, each of us as Americans (myself included) paid the CIA to do this.

Just like the government officials like plausible deniability when it comes to most unpleasant stuff; we the public like plausible deniability when it comes to our goverment's goings on.

We, the people, could very easily insist on real transparency, and our idea of proper behavior, if even 1/2 of us were so inclined.

Agreed on the white/black day/night.

Interestingly, most of the Western biblical use of the white/day black/night themes in stories are used to malign occult, "black magic", approaches, and favor more devotional religious spirituality (if you read between the lines in parables like the one where Noah gets drunk, for example).

The racial connotations of black/white were applied after the fact by racists, usually in America during slavery (for example, in Mormonism). And it's an ill-fitting mashup to say the least...

Consider this:

On average, 10% of people were not sired by the person they believe is their father.

In other words, going back further than 10 generations means that it is more probable that you are NOT related to the ancestor, with increasing probability, the further you go...

I'll be sure not to swirl white wine in my mouth 24/7....

A lump of coal also absorbs light and converts it into heat.