Chindie

Good idea that could have been a lot funnier, but raise a smile still.

If you like the Watchmen, look out for Moore's other stuff, particularly V for Vendetta (although by all accounts that has dated badly, it's a comic of it's time, it was basically a critique of Thatcherism at heart, nothing like the film) and From Hell, which is quite different to the film as well. From Hell in particular is very, very well held, and should be available in a decent bookshop pretty easily. Last time I was in there, Waterstones in Brum City Centre had a copy. Still reading the Acid House myself, about half way through the novella at the end with the brilliant title of 'A Smart word removed'. The book itself isn't bad, has some brilliant stories and some that are a tad meh. A couple are laugh out loud hilarious.

We already know this. Have you not read the teachings of the prophet Icke? Sufi, the mystic bit of Islam, there's quite a lot of people into it. The Jewish faith has an equivalent - Kabbalah, sometimes loosely involved with fleecing pop stars. Ha, all of this did come to mind. I did mention the resemblance to the Kabbalah, which he seemed to be quite impressed I knew about. He kept me chatting outside my house for 10 minutes and encouraged me to read the Qur'an. Absolutely barking though.

I'm going to use aspertame as an example because of it's convenience and because it's not far beneath the surface of what you are saying here. I think I'm quite, quite valid in calling some views that have been posted on similar themes as the cloned meat Julie has written about here as ignorant. Aspertame one I'll concede as conspiracy, but I don't think that makes it any more valid than the ignorant views. I tend to end up 'on the side of big business' if we must that term, because I have an affliction to conspiracy, and to poor science, and to rumour on the likes of aspertame and cloned meat and whatever else. I'm an empiricist, I like to see evidence from enlightened source... and often the evidence (when it is shown, which is rare) that is used to counter what I would agree with, is flawed, as the aspertame ones were. So why are those safe and things like aspertame not? Aspertame has been proven safe, time after time, with good scientific practice. The largest investigation into it to prove it was dangerous was flawed to hell, and I could tell that even as someone who isn't a scientist. But many things you eat and drink and use about your person day to day will have even less generational data than aspertame might (something that has been in and around the market for quite sometime now, and in many many nations, consumed without issue by billions), and yet you say you'll happily have those. I would want proof that it is dangerous, cast iron, repeatable, unflawed proof. Especially if it was something that had long been in use, like a certain sweetener. My point was more directed towards the cloned meat issue here. You don't need to be a scientist to understand why that would be safe, and to not educate yourself on that and simply take it as given that it must be in someway dangerous is ignorance personified. I don't request people become their own scientists, that's absurd. I request that people read up on things from people who know. Exactly as I did with aspertame. Having just re-read back over the conversation at the time, you agreed to disagree and bowed out (tinfoil hat firmly secured ... I kid), while resident conspiracy nuts villal and johnvillan tried to dunbunk what I said with little success as all their data was flawed. The suspicious circumstances are odd, I'll happily say that, taking it as your account being correct. However, in the following years, it has repeatedly been tested and used, been accepted as safe in numerous countries under numerous scientific bodies. Any conspiracy requires an awful lot of money and an awful lot of people keeping their mouth shut, and an awful lot of respected scientific organisations being open to bribery... I just don't buy it. If it were dangerous, it also doesn't make any sense from a business perspective - there are heaps of sweeteners out there, having one that doesn't kill your market is probably a good idea, as is having one that doesn't open you up to being sued (which, if the evidence would stand up in court to it being dangerous, would surely happen). We'll never agree on this which is why I'm loathe to bring it up but it makes sense to do so here. It is incorrect - I was using more in terms of me not worrying about these things, and being able to say to myself 'You know what, I fancy I an aspertame laced diet drink', or whatever. There are far more important things for me to worry about and I don't want to restrict my options based on things I'd consider hoo-ey. I agree. My understanding of the evidence that isn't scientifically flawed, is that this is about as wrong as wrong gets. The same could be said of any person with any form of matter entering the body. We just don't know. We often hear newspaper stories of comparitively safe things being causes, or cures, of cancer. And they may well be. But that may be to one in a billion people... I just don't see it as something to worry about, especially when the evidence, and frankly the common sense, says theres nothing to worry about. My patience for going through that line by line has gone. I think your worry over aspertame is one that is silly, if I'm honest. I don't think, because of your fears over it's introduction to the market and the nature of that, any research would convince you otherwise that it is safe. And thats your choice. I have no reason to try and defend the stuff other than to say... I dislike things like conspiracies, and I know someone who hasn't looked at the facts of the thing, or hasn't got the time or the mind or reason or desire, to read the reports and consider the evidence that says it is safe, or consider the evidence that says it isn't, and make up their own mind (which imo can only really go one way), is going to see what you've wrote here and see that stupid scaremongering email and think the stuffs dangerous. I really don't like that idea, so I try to counter it. I'm not on the side of big business here, if the evidence I looked at said it was dangerous, or the evidence provided that says it is dangerous wasn't so fatally flawed, I'd be right along side you. It doesn't though, so I don't like the idea of it being paraded as fact. The same goes for my distaste of ignorance of cloning here, or whatever else people say in these scientific threads. I dislike ignorance and like to combat it. Sorry it's just part of my personality.

Haha... :oops: Tempting offer but I'll have to let you down

I am not Chindie but.... Oi! I'm not that bad either. And the bondage stuff definitely isn't me. Or the shaved head thing. And I'm not that fat. :|

My sister-in-law used to be a churchgoer. But when her dad died (heart attack, in his 70s), she decided there couldn't be a god after all, and she became an atheist. I mean, WHAAAAT? I still can't work THAT one out. :| Obviously thought her dad was Methusaleh, and felt short changed.

I take issue with that. I'm not 'siding with big business', I've no reason or desire to. I'm siding against ignorance, the likes of which Julie spouts with Old Faithful like regularity on anything even vaguely health related. I take a stance that if there is no evidence of something, and it has been tested (correctly, before the aspertame rears is ugly head again) to prove that their is no evidence, then it is safe to assume that there is nothing to worry about. Things are tested quite rigorously, and repeatedly, especially in the food industry. If I were to worry about every additive, in anything, or avoid it, I don't think I'd be able to do alot. I wouldn't be able to wash, brush my teeth, eat more or less anything, go outside, drink anything... just in case later on it's found that maybe it might have some problem with it, in a small amount of cases, usually when connected to another issue, as things that affect healthy populations tend to jump up sharpish in laboratory testing. I'd say my actual standpoint, and not the one you've assumed, which is different in a small way, is one of compromise, and logic. Nothing is entirely safe. Chocolate in big enough doses will kill you, so will bananas, water is poisonous in high enough doses... and so on. I make a considered compromise. As Mike has shown above, theres not a statistical connection. Thats good enough for me to say, if the fancy ever takes me to die my hair, that it's ok to do it. Million upon millions have done so, I don't see lawsuits falling of Garnier's arse for cancer victims. I'd rather people weren't ignorant of such things and decided to use their initiative to discover if their suspicions are unfounded or not, than simply accept that 'People are like that'. We did aspertame to death, every example that supported your own theory on it was flawed in their science, as I told you. One of them was feeding rats enough aspertame to sate a T-Rexs sweet tooth for a year, and was allowing them to go to full natural death which introduces so many variables to the equation I'm loathe to call it a valid study. Good science isolates variables, not creates them and try to justify it's findings on such. Fair enough, but I'd rather enjoy my life and not worry. If I live long enough (unlucky with my lifestyle to be frank but **** it, I'll have enjoyed it), I'll get cancer, and so will you, and so will everyone else, even if we all eat the freshest, cleanest, most natural products on the planet, and lived in perfect environments, because cancer is a flaw of our genetic makeup. Some things exacerbate it, like smoking (although even that isn't a forgone conclusion - you may well be able to smoke 60 a day for 40 years and you could be fine, it isn't guarenteed) and those are confirmed, and have been tested. And so far, most products that have been on the market long term will have been cleared too. If they did have an issue, they'll have been pulled, because you don't want to kill your market for a start and you also don't want the lawsuits, and you also don't want the short sharp shock of government chastisement too. I'll take my chances, and to be honest, I think they're in my favour.

All the commotion is down a couple of things... mainly one you're exhibiting. a) Ignorance - people don't understand what 'cloned meat' is and immediately think it's bad because they're ignorant to what cloning involves. Its a moral issue. Some people have problems with 'playing "God"', or the standards of care/raising that cloned animals encounter. c) it got into the Daily Heil... and d) it made the news at all because the FSA announced it because the guy had done it without licence to do so. IT IS FULL OF CHEMICALS! IT HAS TO BE! IT'S MADE OF CHEMICALS! It contains sodium chloride, dihydrogen monoxide... And because it isn't classified as organic the constituent parts of it will have encountered some form of unnatural additive... most likely the rapeseed oil in it. Your doctor will have warned you to avoid 'chemicals' because it's never quite possible to know the exact effect of dietary intake on people who may be prone to certain conditions so, to er on the side of caution, they advise to be wary. Chances are you'd be as fine as the millions upon billions of people consuming these additives day in day out. Same story, er on the side of caution if likely to be in a position that may be affected. Also that appears to be a myth, or only relevant to people encountering the dye constantly over long periods of time, i.e. hairdressers, and even that seems far from confirmed.

I'd say anything that isn't good for your immune system probably qualifies as 'dangerous'. I'm still not sure how this ties into 'cloned meat' to be perfectly honest, since meat is meat. And the meat isn't even cloned, it's the offspring of a clone. It can't be any more dangerous than any other slab of meat is. ...so whats that got to do with cloning? I mentioned the scientific aspect because, whenever theres a discussion of something even vaguely sciencey, your contributions to them are always... well... ignorant of the facts of the matter. Hence here, this belief that 'cloned meat' has something in it that harms our immune systems, or could be dangerous 'because we don't understand enough about it yet' that you seem to have has a basis of just about... nothing. On the marg thing, I assume you eat butter? Thats just a tub full of chemicals as well, it just so happens that the chemicals were unnaturally manipulated after being removed from a cow, as opposed to being derived from vegetable oil and so on and mixed in a vat.

No shit, really? I thought leather came from potatoes or something. And milk, well everyone knows that comes from the sky. :?. ...I used beef as a simple example, and because it was what the initial 'issue' that came from the debate was raised on. The point raised remains the same - higher yield cattle, bred from high yield clones, are a good thing. It doesn't matter whether the yield is beef milk leather you name it, it all helps. Why do you doubt it? Do our farmers who sell locally not want to improve their profits? Scratch that, any farmer providing to a developed nation will be interested in higher yields (in some cases they may have caveats on flavour/breeds/etc but ultimately they are interested in their return for their product). It doesn't matter if we provide enough already, it matters that we can provide enough better. This assumption you make here, that it won't be developed nations benefitting, puts your entire argument that follows on such shaky ground as to make it collapse. It's an ideal scenario based on a simple truism - producers produce to make money. The scenario may not work out exactly perfectly but roundly, I'll be right in saying this. ...assuming it's all for the benefit of the poorer nations (which it won't be... and thus far isn't)... This is an issue that already faces the cattle industry. However, it is an issue that can lessened if you are providing more per cow, which is the idea of high yields. ...you can do it without any technology whatsoever. It's been done for centuries. It's called selective breeding. Anyone with a herd of cows can do it. Cloning is just a convenient way of, theoretically (which I add as a caveat because of the failings it currently has re. early deaths and costs), making the process much more efficient. As above, you can educate a farmer to selectively breed (should he want to) in about a day. The principal can be explained in seconds. He may not even have to, just buy in the right breed and run with it. Buy a cloned steer and start a breeding group if you want. The nations don't need to be able to clone their own. And getting a developing nation to the level of being able to clone is a **** absurdly long process, thats generations of investment and even then the cost to that nation of doing it would potentially be disasterous. You'd be developing a laboratory economy in, potentially, a nation that doesn't have the ability to sustain that infrastructure, or even the need, or any of the inherent knowledge to do so. Not all nations provide for themselves, hence the globalised economy. Buying in cloned stock to breed from would be an example of a developing nation entering a new area of the global economy, which may well be good for them. Why does that have to be exploitation? What needs to be regulated? 'Cloned' meat? No, that doesn't really at all if thats what you mean, and damaging it won't be at all. It's just meat. Or do you mean the forced development of a nations ability to do things that are beyond it's means? That wouldn't need to be regulated so much as propped up. It'd be like going to Ethiopia and saying 'Hey, you guys, stop buying Microsoft stuff, start a software industry, we'll tell you how' and expecting them to be able to sustain it. They just don't have the ability as things stand, they need to develop, and yes they should have the West's help to do that, but just importing pretty top level technology or knowledge isn't going to help them. ...but it doesn't have to be more beef. I daresay it wouldn't actually be much more beef regardless, as said, you can only feed a society so much, gluttonous or not. It'd be largely about efficiency in my view.

Sadly, that isn't how capitalism works. It'll be exploited to the hilt when it is passed. ...how? You can only sell a finite amount of food. Even if people ate beef for breakfast elevenses brunch lunch dinner and supper, the world over, you can only sell so much. And I daresay the market for beef country to country is pretty stable and has been for years - peoples diets don't change radically and populations don't grow, country to country, that much that quickly. To exploit the cattle trade you'd imagine they'd have to be packing every field to brim with cows. But they would run out of markets and actually hinder themselves by flooding the market with the product reducing the profit margin on each head of cattle if they did overly exploit it to saturation point. And if they did do that anyway and found they had too much beef, well... anything you can't sell, you can't make money on. It's in the interests of dirty capitalist farmers, those dastards, to have high yield cattle, because it lowers their costs against their returns. 1 cow that provides as much product as, for arguments sake, 2 normal cows, is good for business. It takes up less resources than 2 cows, reducing costs, and provides more product, upping profit per head. It's a good thing.

Same as I would have said for quite some time - spoilt ballot. No party represents my views, many represent things wholly abhorrent to my views, and more over, I don't like political parties full stop.

I hate these topics (the overtly party partisan ones) but like a rubber necker I have to look sometimes. The trauma of doing so will one day serve a purpose, in the booth at an election, should my hand pause over the Labour box, or the Tory box, and my will and spirit falter in doubt at where my belief lies, I'll just have to think back, and realise at least one reason why I simply can't vote for either mob.

My understanding is it is not cheap by any means. Or efficient - it's still being developed to prevent miscarriage and still birth. And as for cultivating on masse... they're used as breeding stock. All that would be cultivated en masse are the offspring of clones, because breeding cloned high yield animals gives a greater rate of success and is cheaper. And the offspring would be raised in exactly the same way as they already are, so cloning would not represent anything different to the current farming technique with regards it's impact on the enviroment, and would in fact arguably be better for the environment because of the guarenteed higher yield that the cloning and subsequent breeding of optimum specimens would offer. After all, if you have a herd of cows that provide you 20 steaks a head, and a herd that provides 30 steaks, you need less cows if you adopt the higher yield, cutting environmental impact.

*VT's male usage of Bics, Talc and digital cameras increases exponentially* I'm only a PM away if you wanna share yours with me Chindie :wink: Ah, it's a good offer, but as the thread attests, isn't going to happen as it would look like a forest clearing photographed from space ... :|

*VT's male usage of Bics, Talc and digital cameras increases exponentially*

In other news, just had a rather interesting taxi drive home, the driver essentially gave me the global conspiracy according to Islam. The Large Hadron Collider is being used to slow the Earth's rotation and affect the weather, which links into a prophecy in the Qur'an... the Jews are running the world... Polticians are serpents that care nothing about people and entirely about nations, and empires (I actually sorta agreed here, but less nations and empires and more money), and the reason they don't care about people is that they are God-less. And that there are undeniable patterns in the Arabic alphabet that allow one that understands them to make predictions and unlock great knowledge. ...One of the more interesting taxi drives I've ever had, and also one of the more terrifying... this bloke was clearly not stupid, he understood a lot of the stuff I tried to correct him on, i.e. the Large Hadron Collider for instance, but he was absolutely staunch in his beliefs on the Islamic view of a global conspiracy and **** me it's horrifying.

Built by numerous companies. BAE is main one of the reasonably big providers of major equipment like the Challenger 2 and the Harrier. But smaller equipment is provided by loads of companies. As far as singular armies go, they aren't provided to by 1 manufacturer, or even close to that.EDIT - Even a single item is often reworked under numerous companies, the SA-80 for instance was redeveloped by Heckler and Koch after it's initial development and manufacture to redesign it to account for failings in the original design.

Whats the problem with someone wanting to make money? It's not even cloned meat we're really talking about here, all that is cloned are high yield animals that are then used for breeding stock to bear more high yield animals. We're not eating the meat of a clone (though that would be perfectly safe), we're eating it's offspring. And we've used cloning in crop growing for years. It's used in horticulture as a standard procedure - ever heard of cuttings? I'm all for trying to make ourselves in equilibrium with the planet... but cloning will actually make that easier, once absolutely perfected, as currently it's rather inefficient itself (lots of specimins are rejected/miscarried/stillborn, something that will require further research to better. Already we're at a better standard than we were when Dolly was born). As for the pseudo-intellectual comment, **** me, the irony meter went into the stratosphere there.

Anywho... Anyone familiar with the Wellington Pub in town? Off there tonight and heard good things about the ale, but I've worries it's going to be a proper old fellas place (which isn't a bad thing at all, I like that kind of pub), but going with a lady might not lend itself to the best of surroundings. It's her idea to go there and she knows it's an ale pub, but she likes proper beer anyway so theres the appeal. But I don't think she'd be quite so keen if it's full of the flat cap brigade.

Not hiding away in the valleys mate, I'm back in Brum, have been for a while (and the rabid Welsh on here will elt you know I never was in the valleys ) And I've nothing to hide! I'm nowhere near as bad as that bloke

Cloned meat is absolutely positively safe. It's just meat. It can't be anything other than safe because of the very nature of how it has come to be - its a copy of a perfectly natural being. Clones do have some health issues - they tend to age differently and also tend to partial to early death. But the meat and milk from those that survive is identical, it that's unsafe so is every bit of beef on the market. By cloning it it doesn't miraculously do something different to it, it wouldn't be a 'clone' otherwise. Chemicals =/= bad. Everything contains chemicals. If you saw the chemical components of a slab of beef and had this idea that chemicals = bad you'd have a heart attack. Same goes for everything. We've been eating margarine for years. It has some benefits over butter. Just because it's manmade and full of chemicals doesn't make it dangeorus. Yes, it might be best, it's also spectacularly unefficient, and that isn't good for us as race since theres rather a lot of us to feed. It also isn't good for your bank account - that lack of efficiency gets reflected in the cost, as does the difficulty in growing completely organically. You often say these kind of things whenever theres something scientific and it makes me cringe I hate to say.

Sunderland make loan offer for Hart.

My cousin did a head to toe shave/wax for charity a couple of years back. Don't think he's a cross dresser or anything like that, though he is a bit of a 'I'll try anything once' type, it being for charity just sealed the deal I think.