Captain Pircard was also a big fan of Herman Mellville's Moby Dick and an admirer of Captain Ahab. Was he not? Remember near the end of First Contact "Ahab spent years hunting the white whale that crippled him; but in the end, it destroyed him and his ship."

Actually, the story is about Ishmael ("God has hearkened") not Ahab. But that is a common mistaking. And Ahab's fate was Truth.

"Call me Ishmael" - Moby Dick, Chapter 1, Page 1, Sentence 1, Words 1-3

"And I [Ishmael] only am escaped alone to tell thee." - Moby Dick, Epilogue

"Where is the foundling's father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it. " - Moby Dick, p. 487

Anyway, just since we are talking about Picard Day.

Liquid nitrogen should usually work, else there is something called Imiquimod which can be prescribed and goes by the trade names Aldaira and Zyclara. It is prescribed for a variety of cutaneous conditions and is also used for stubborn warts.

I would usually just use a pocket knife. I don't have to wait 5-10 minutes, so it seems easier to me.

Seeing as my psychological attachments are aimed toward neuroscience more than children's cartoons, I would have probably named this Spongiforma Cerebra for it's resemblence to the human brain, and to stick with using Latin.

Did you hear that riots broke out in Vancouver over a Game 7 loss to Boston. That is an explicit consequence of egotism. But I have been assured "We know it's just a game, and they aren't really 'our' team, it's all for fun." I didn't know getting a brick upside the head was fun.

The force of attachment is persuasive and contagious.

See, that one little realization would change the entire face of the planet. We don't need a new material or a new gadget, we just need to wake up.

The more you hide the more suspicious you look. The more you have, the more you invite envy. The more secure you think you are, the less secure you actually are.

You need to recognize the difference if you are to understand what I am saying. I'm not doing any of this for personal gain. If gain is what I was after I wouldn't say anything. Virtually everything I say is a detriment to my self-image. That much should be obvious, no?

If you look up this verse (Luke 18:19) in the NIV it is lumped under the heading "The Rich and the Kingdom of God" which follows with "Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:25) But this statement should be taken as its own "No one is good-except God alone." there are easily a hundred such verses which discourage worship of Jesus. "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." (John 15:15)

I'm not saying Christianity is the only truth, I'd explicitly argue against that, it is interesting and thought-provoking. All I'm saying is this is one area where the essential problem humanity has always faced is made explicit. People do not want to know what the Bible says, neither Atheist or Christian unless what it says supports what they already want to believe.

The world would be radically changed if people were at all interested in truth over and above their attachments. One realm of intellectual disorder, currently, is theology with virtually everyone ignoring the texts and just spouting nonsense for and against. I have a whole list of false doctrine.

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone." (Luke 18:19)

“The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Luke 17:20

?"Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” (Luke 7:24)

Well, that's it, if everyone stopped judging by mere appearances and sought that which is hidden from them. The world would be radically changed, but as it is, it doesn't change very much. We still have wars.

I keep thinking about this "Why" or "why not". I have to admit to being a bit rash and doing the typical reactionary analysis, only to wise-up a bit later on. I was stuck on the perceived problem of "I plan to do X" which leaves out the reason, and where the reason is stated it might inform the why-not. "I plan to do X for Y reason" one can say "X doesn't achieve Y" and that would be the why-not.

But the question remains whether there are ever any circumstances where the why-not is answerable regardless of the why. One such example might be killing someone else. Maybe the reason is irrelevant in circumstances where there is a physical/moral principle barring the action. Then an appeal could be made to that principle for the why-not without having the why. If someone said "I plan to kill X person for Y reason" the Y-reason wouldn't even factor into the why-not and therefor would be irrelevant?

Ultimately, I have meditated on the why more than the why-not and haven't really paid this close attention to the why-not before. Naturally this line of inquiry is very interesting to me and has all the requisite qualities of neatness. I even stopped doing my dishes to correct myself and thank you for the inspiration. Back to cleaning and contemplating.

I don't think "Why not?" is a good question. It is usually the rationale of someone seeking pleasure in the face of uncertainty. The idea being that everything is okay so long as nobody can provide a good reason for it being otherwise. "Show me a good reason not to continue, or I will continue." seems to be the sentiment behind it.

Conversely one could ask "Why?" which would put the onus on the one acting to provide reasons for their actions. To be perfectly rational; I would think that "Why not?" would only ever be justified when the "Why?" had already been determined.

Why not? Because there is no reason for it? Well at least there is no stated reason, there is a reason. Which makes me think "Why not?" is evoked to evade providing the reason, because perhaps the reason is not a good one.

"[A]s little as a ball on a billiard table can move before receiving an impact, so little can a man get up from his chair before being drawn or driven by a motive. But then his getting up is as necessary and inevitable as the rolling of a ball after the impact. And to expect that anyone will do something to which absolutely no interest impels them is the same as to expect that a piece of wood shall move toward me without being pulled by a string." - Arthur Schopenhauer, On The Freedom of the Will

IMHO, one who proposes to act should provide the motive instead of asking "Why not?" as if the motive didn't exist. Once the motive is established then we can consider why not, maybe the motive is fallacious.

@Vonskippy

Close enough. Apart from being 'artificial', though that distinction is something I'd challenge. And I prefer to think of myself more as God's Advocate and the society; the devil. More of a protagonist with the majority being antagonists. The roles are backwards is all. Mind you, those appearances are probably rooted in which side of the fence you are on.

@Stuart

Thanks for the tip. It is something I spend time on.

"As smooth as ice" you know something smoother than ice? Water.

It's nationalism. His "great-great-grandmother Meta emigrated with her family to Baltimore from Völkersen, 30 kilometres from Bremen, in 1865"

It's the same reason when Canadian's become well-known south of the border Canadian citizens have to make a big deal out of it. By identifying themselves as "Canadian" and identifying the other as "Canadian" they perceive a commonality which transfers their self-worth onto the other.

That is an inaccurate resemblence; Hasselhoff has a big beer belly and that popsicle is ripped.