Zombie

Yeah, the fish has had a damn good SMACK!!

Reading between the lines, seems you've rubbed up aganst some pretty shitty scientists along the way, and this thread has given you an outlet to let off some steam! And your reference to cat fights probably nails some of these dudes for what the are - I guess they're all men? women scientists seem to behave much more professionally But whatever your issues with individual scientists - and let's face it we all like watching a good cat fight! - the field of science [and mathematics] is still one of humankind's greatest achievements

Other road users should be very afraid ...

If you can provide a good home then you should

Well, according to my "research" on several "specialist" websites it seems this sport often involves several balls ...

Thought it might be helpful and educational to post a couple of pics of some hot wrestling action *coughs* absolutely nothing gratuitously homoerotic about these pics *splutters* nope, not at all

Fixed it!

Scientists are human - no different from you, me and everyone else. Maybe there are even scientists who are stupid, ignorant, vain, aggressively ambitious, dishonest, fraudulent, back-stabbing, even barking mad! But this isn't a bad thing. This is the scientific method - you come up with an idea and then you work this up into a theory, then test it and test it again and again; or you get data on something new, then make up a theory to explain it. Then test it and test it. The key is "testability" [if your idea cannot be tested then it's about something else, not science] which means sometimes the test will prove the theory wrong, in which case science has to take another track. This is how scientific knowledge is "updated". There's nothing wrong with this. It doesn't matter that "things we thought were absolutely true 20 years ago turn not to be true today" because over time we are building up a core of knowledge that we can rely on - core knowledge that has given you your iPad, your iPhone, you flat screen TV, the planes you fly on - every technological device you use. As for the unhealthy coffin-dodging celebrity who's cheating the undertakers of business this isn't about scientists it's about healthcare doctors. They may have science training but they are not scientists - they are dealing with sick people not formulating theories, gathering data or testing data, so that analogy is not really relevant here. But doctors will know that each of us has a different and unique genetic make-up - unless we're identical twins - and that's why those who live "wholesome" lives often die early, while others can abuse their bodies and live to old age - Keith Richards should NOT be alive!!! .

The other week I posted a pic of a dog, clipped to make it seem like it was wearing a certain type of garment. Someone posted in reply that it was "the cruelest hoax ever perpetrated on a dog". Well, it wasn't a hoax - it was real. And it wasn't cruel. Looking at the pic it's clear the "trim" was professionally done - just like this poodle There's no evidence that the dog whose pic I posted was caused any discomfort, let alone pain. And in time the dog's hair would grow back. So no harm done. Or was there? What was done to that dog was certainly in bad taste. But worse, it transformed an animal from looking like it should into an object of ridicule, for people's amusement - including, presumably, the owner's - and to be laughed at. What sort of owner would do that? And what should a dog look like anyway? Isn't the poodle also disturbing? Fact is, all domesticated dogs are creatures of man. We have shaped them to look as they do. Over hundreds of generations of inbreeding we have exaggerated certain traits to create "pedigrees" that are - I usually avoid this word but here it is apt - unnatural. Many "pedigrees" are prone to all kinds of health problems and are often produced for huge profit at "puppy farms". For our own amusement and vanity. So for me, next time I have an overwhelming desire to have another dog I'll be off to the pet rescue centre to pick a Heinz Variety

Um, give a time when people didn't do this .

And the winner iiiiis ..... WRESTLING!! Wrestling has been reinstated as an Olympic sport for the 2020 and 2024 Games after being voted in ahead of baseball/softball and squash. International Olympic Committee (IOC) members conducted a secret electronic ballot on the issue in Buenos Aires. Wrestling had been dropped from the 2020 Olympic programme in February after the IOC assessed the performance of all 26 sports at London 2012. Wrestling was axed back in February and it has waged a very successful campaign ever since then to be reinstated. Wrestling, squash and baseball/softball have all spent millions of pounds on their campaigns to convince the IOC they should be in the Olympics. Wrestling - which was the favourite - received a majority of 49 votes, while a combined baseball/softball bid got 24 votes and squash 22. The sport - one of the original disciplines at the Ancient Olympics - had been due to end its Olympic participation at Rio 2016 following its dismissal by the IOC earlier this year. Members of amateur wrestling's world governing body, the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (Fila), gave a roar when the result was announced by IOC president Jacques Rogge. Wrestling's triumph in the vote follows a number of sweeping reforms made following its exclusion, including overhauling its rules, administration, gender equality and operations. Squash suffered its third failed bid to take part in the Games for a first time. It had topped an IOC vote in 2005 for Olympic inclusion but failed to get the required two-thirds majority. It then failed again in 2009. "Today's decision is heart-breaking for the millions of squash players around the world, particularly given the 10-year journey we have Baseball/softball - which had the son of ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Antonio Castro, in its presentation team - last featured at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Wrestling, which combines freestyle and Greco-Roman events, was included in the inaugural modern Olympics in Athens in 1896. It has been in every Games since, apart from Paris in 1900. At London 2012, it featured 344 athletes competing in 11 medal events. The success of its bid showed the sport had not suffered from a reprimand its federation received last week from the IOC for breaching rules. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/24009517 .

Um, well I guess it's good to rant - gets it off your chest as we say And, yes, journalists love hyperbole - "Quite Big Volcano Discovered" doesn't really cut it - but surely it's reasonable to say "one of the largest known". Scientists aren't claiming this is the biggest because they know we don't know everything that's on our own planet and that qualifier allows for future discoveries of even bigger things. Personally, I think it's really exciting that new stuff like this is still being discovered. As for Venus, we actually know quite a lot about its surface through radar mapping by the Magellan probe which mapped about 98% of its surface, including in 3D, which revealed over a hundred large isolated shield volcanoes and who knows maybe future probes with better resolution will identify the biggest but we can only measure what we know at the present. As for Pluto, well blame the International Astronomical Union The reality is the Kuiper Belt was only discovered in 1992 so the fact that Pluto is a Kuiper Belt object couldn't have been known when Pluto was discovered in 1930, nor was its smallness understood until much later - it's actually less massive than 7 moons in the solar system. And as for getting data on the surface of Jupiter - well, good luck with that one as it's a gas giant with no surface - you'd have to penetrate very deep before you came close to anything solid, probably some sort of liquid metallic hydrogen core

The interweb's getting clogged with stuff telling us how to behave. Time was kids were "brought up" and people had "common sense". Now we've got Youtube vids on social etiquette. This one instructs us never to sidle up to other guys in men's toilets ... damn, must curb that habit ... and to get your money / card ready in supermarket queues BEFORE the checkout guy asks for payment, instead of doing what 99.999999% of shoppers do - which is to look all surprised that they're suddenly and quite unreasonably being asked to pay for that creaking trolley load of stuff and ONLY THEN groping for their handbag and slowly rummaging through its mysterious contents for the means to pay ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_266477395&feature=iv&src_vid=5HiZSVtDHzs&v=ORR_o4CONpY

Ooops, my bad - posted wrong pic *that is so wrong! *

You mean this isn't you? Damn!

All the plots have been written and re-written times over, along with all the human emotions that underpin them - in every permutation. But that's not a problem because these are just tools of the writer's trade, and tools can always be used by skilled craftsmen to shape something fresh and interesting. It's like music - only 12 notes in the western tradition. How could all the tunes not have been written already? How could someone come up with a fresh interpretation of an old standard? Humans are infinitely creative - it's what defines us. .

Excellent comedy of errors, CJ. I.D.'s pitiful failures to deliver his "steely resolve" - so funny - and the laconic humour "He has such perfect blue eyes. Two of them". I'm late again to the party but thanks for giving us another short story gem, always wanting more

The past is random memories

bye bye summer

That's just what happened in nature. Forest fires are routine in nature. That's how the forest managed itself. Pretty successfully too. Then people came along.

The Babel fish was cooler

` Already covered in the previous link

Don't hide in the "fanfic" closet - be proud of your Kirk/Spock heritage and admit you're a slasher *why isn't it "Spirk" or "Kock"? *

Er, that would be slash fiction

You have the advantage that you / your family have lived in that area for the last 20 years, so you should know it pretty well. But 20 years is just a gnat's breath of time. And that's one of the points I was making. We - humans - think we know a place pretty well because we measure by a human lifetime. But 20 years, 50 years, or even 100 years if you're long-lived are the merest blink compared to the hundreds of years lifespan of a giant redwood and the millennia of the forest. And my other point was that humans intervene and change nature and natural processes when they occupy land. They think they can control nature and "improve" it by trying to make it suit their needs [except those ancient cultures who aimed to live with nature]. Which means human policies in place to manage Yosemite and other forest areas, including fire policies, now there are roads, settlements, infrastructure, tourist camps and all the other paraphernalia of humanity. Which means humans trying to "manage" these wilderness areas by overriding / changing natural processes - "intervening". We think we're pretty smart with all our technology but the reality is we're incredibly stupid and incredibly short sighted. Just look at what we've done / are doing t the rest of the planet Like I said, hubris.