Jamie123

The use of chemical weapons was banned in 1925. Nearly everyone has abided by this rule. Even the Nazis didn't use poison gas on the battlefield. Now we have a country that is breaking that ban. Admittedly in its own internal civil war, but so what? Laws mean nothing unless the police are willing to enforce them. The British parliament has made a very foolish mistake by not backing Cameron. I'm hoping the Americans will not do the same. I'm not saying that a military strike is necessarily the only option, but if nothing is done then it's a signal that international law means nothing.

The tooth fairy never came to me - I was far too naughty.

True, but if you looked again an hour later you'd probably find your edits deleted as "vandalism". There's quite an army of Wiki-geeks standing guard over Wikipedia. I disagree. I encourage my students to use Wikipedia for general information searching, just so long as they back up their information with something more reliable at a later stage. I do have a problem when students cite Wikipedia as a source in their papers.

The missionaries used to tell me (this was >20 years ago) that they could prove the BoM was true, but that they wouldn't because of the proverbial "proof denies faith" thing. This gave me the naive idea there must be some arcane proof which only existing believers were allowed to see. And this did not impress me since this "proof" (whatever it was) could never have been critically tested. My response was something like: "Yeah, you could present an argument that the BoM is true, but whether or not this constitutes "proof" would be a subjective decision." In those days it was difficult to get information about the LDS. The best you could reasonably do (without going to undue trouble) was to ask the missionaries, who despite any amount of cajoling were unwilling to impart anything beyond the bare essentials for accepting their point of view (which was only natural given their agenda) or else scour the university library for slim pickings. (The best neutral source of information I could find was a book called The Lion of the Lord - a biography of Brigham Young written pre-1978.) The Internet has changed the landscape totally. If there's one thing I've learned, its that the LDS are not the monolithic group I once imagined them to be, and the range of attitudes and opinions is enormous. Nevertheless I think the stereotype still persists. I once went to a church (not my own denomination) where the minister, talking about the value of being individuals said "thank God we're not Mormons!"

"All that stuff about acronyms was completely O.T.T."

I was a bit of a pyromaniac as a kid too. Once when I was about 10 we had candles at the dinner table, and I nearly set the table alight trying to make hot air balloons out of paper bags. I also used to experiment burning different substances from my chemistry set to see what smells and flames I could make. (Sulphur I recall was pretty cool.) I also used to pour big puddles of methylated spirit on the garage floor and then throw matches at it to see it go "whoooof!" (Luckily my parents never found out, despite the tidemarks these puddles left! They'd have had a fit!) I also tried to make meths-powered rockets out of old disinfectant bottles, but they never worked.

Titles of nobility (Duke, Earl, etc.) usually take precidence over titles of royalty. Thus Prince Phillip and Prince Andrew are more often called the "Duke of Edinburgh" and the "Duke of York" - though it is certainly not incorrect to call them princes. Prince Charles is an excepton because he is prince of an actual princedom (Wales), which is more prestigious than his noble title "The Duke of Cornwall" (which is what he was known as before his investiture in 1958 - though even then he was still a "prince" in the ordinary sense). Yeah - these are what are called "subsidiary titles". Nearly all high-level peers have them. Their purpose is not to heap extra honour onto the main title-holder, but to provide courtesy titles for his (or her) heirs. The new baby will be entitled to use "Earl of Strathearn" as a courtesy title (though it's more common for the eldest son of a Duke to be styled "Marquis"). However I suspect that in his case (being 3rd in line to the throne) any mere courtesy title will be eclipsed by his princely status.Another example is Prince Edward (the Queen's youngest son) who is "The Earl of Wessex" and has the subsidiary title "The Viscount Severn". This is used by his son James who is styled, by courtesy, "Viscount Severn". (Not The Viscount Severn - the definite article should only be used with "substantive" titles.) James - though he is technically a prince - doesn't use that title because of a decision by the Queen that Edward's children should be styled as the children of an Earl. On a side note, I wish they'd get on and name the baby. I get fed up with all this "Prince NN" and "The As Yet Unnamed Prince" nonsense. It's not like they haven't had nine months to think of a name! When my daughter was born, my wife and I had a boy's name and a girl's name ready, so the moment she arrived and the midwife told us she was a girl we instantly knew what her name was.

"Freedom of religion" is being reduced to "freedom of religious worship", which is not the same thing. Hilary Clinton even used that phrase in one of her speeches. Truly living your religion means engaging with others about it outside of Church - and that is what is being stamped on here. But look at it in context. In the early days, Christians were persecuted. Nearly all the apostles are believed to have died a violent death (the one exception being John). In Rome Christian believers were burned alive, or thrown to the lions in the Arena. This went on for a long time until a new Roman Emperor came to power. He saw that despite the best efforts of his predecessors Christianity was still as strong as ever, and a new strategy was clearly needed. So he became a Christian himself. This changed things rather radically. Christianity was no longer a despised nonconformity. "Christian" was what all respectable people now were. The Church was a recognised, integral part of the state. The king, duke, emperor etc. were all Christians. And what could be more respectable than that? So the persecution ceased ... and the Church stagnated. Cardinals and Popes fought each other for power without a thought for the true message of Christ. Those Christians who were serious about their beliefs were largely pitted against those whose ideas differed only slightly from their own. People were burned at the stake over the nature of the Trinity, or number of the Sacrements. It was always (or nearly always) one group of so-called Christians against another, and rarely (as it had once been) the Christians against the Secular World. [Yes...yes...I know this is a gross oversimplification.] But society moved on. Kings and emperors gradually lost their importance. Some countries (like the USA) got rid of their kings altogether. Others (like Britain) kept them, but as nominal figurheads presiding over an essentially democratic infrastructure. Either way the common people were now in control. But not all the common people were Christians. So this gave rise to the Freedom of Religion. You could now believe and practice whatever you wanted, so long as it didn't harm other people. Christianity now had to compete on equal terms with belief systems totally at odds with its own. So naturally it has become legal to do things totally forbidden under the old Christuan rules. Like have sex with members of your own gender. Now comes the real stinger: in the modern democratic world all these religions, world views, lifestyles, belief-systems - whatever you want to call them - have equal footing. Well-meaning but essentially clueless people (most of whom have a lot more power than sense) tell us that if we're all to "get along" we must "celebrate the diversity". In other words none of us is allowed to claim they are "right" and others "wrong". Those who do...and that would include all Christians who stay true to what Christianity actually is....are (you've guessed it) persecuted. We have come full circle. I don't expect to see burnings and slayings like those under Nero or Diocletian, but maybe a bit of secular persecution will put a spark back into the Christian Church!

I'm betting on "His Royal Niceness Marvin Eddbeard Pajamadance Birdwhistle Gormangeek Bob-a-job Kneepickle Burp Glub-glub Globba Blobin Eeeeee Womph Paint-Your-Mother-Green-Junior III" Has a nice ring to it don't you think?

Oddly enough it was the other way round for us. When Downton Abbey first appeared it was me who wanted to see it. My wife referred to it as "your queer show" and usually went upstairs whenever it came on. By the time the second series came on though she'd been thoroughly sucked into it! Ah...well you're preaching to the choir there!

Smarty pants!

Firstly let me say that I loathe this show with a deep and abiding passion. I am nevertheless obliged to watch it with my wife who is (for reasons I've never understood) a devoted fan. So before you ask me the question "Why do you watch this trash?" let me give you the answer: "Marital harmony!" Now that's out of the way I'll proceed to the main point of this post. It concerns an incident we saw last night involving two of "housemates": a black boxer named Daley and an Irish model named Hazel. I shan't bother giving you a link to it, because you can easily find your own on Google: just type in "Hazel" and "Daley" and you'll get about two dozen! Now Hazel and Daley are an explosive combination. Hazel had from the start flirted with Daley despite the full knowledge that he has a girlfriend on the outside, and Daley had (at least to some extent) responded. The producers - whose motive for stirring up trouble is quite obvious - isolated the pair of them together in the "safe house" where in the middle of the night the incident occurred. It started when Hazel started pestering Daley when he wanted to sleep. When Daley didn't respond, she escalated matters by stealing his bedclothes. Daley then jumped onto Hazel's bed and demanded them back, upon which she pulled down his pants. He told her she should "respect her elders" (stretching a point as he's 28 and she's 24) and from here-on things went downhill. Daley - now seriously angry - told Hazel he would do her "serious damage" to which Hazel replied "Go on then, I think you should!". (Or words to that effect.) After a couple more similar exchanges, the show's producers (acting via the eponymous "Big Brother" - who actually has a woman's voice) intervened. The Aftermath: Daley was thrown off the show for using "threatening and/or violent language to another housemate". I'm really not surprised about this, and I'm certainly not disputing the decision. Hazel was given an "official warning". Again I'm not surprised, though a lot of people say (and I'm inclined to agree) that she should have been thrown off the show also. But get this: the reasons given for Hazel's "offical warning" was that she had: Slapped Daley on the rear, andPulled down his shorts.Not a single word was said about the fact that she: Initiated the whole affair by refusing to let Daley sleep when she knew he was tired and cranky,Stole his bedsheets and refused to return them, knowing full well that this would make him angrier, andContinued to rile and provoke him even after his language become threatening.Not a single word. Oh no - if Daley said anything inappropriate at all it was entirely down to his own evil manly malice. Who would dare put an ounce of the blame on pretty little goody-two-shoes Irish girl who aggrevated and annoyed him until he finally broke?The Moral of This Story They say it's a man's world. In some ways it is: men are (as a general rule) taken more seriously than women, but they are also burdened with more of the responsibility. A case in point: the fact that a woman is incapacitated with drink is certainly no excuse for a man to rape her. Everyone (with the exception of recidivist sex-offenders) agrees with that. But suggest to that woman that she doesn't get drunk (and thus avoids the danger of getting raped) and you'll be called a "rape apologist". It's funny that no one ever applies the same logic to other things. If I tell someone not to leave their keys in their car, does this make me a "car theft apologist"? Of if I say "don't leave your door unlocked" does that make me a "burglary apologist?" Of course not: automobile owners and householders are expected to take responsibility for crime prevention, but apparently not women-qua-women. And especially not irresponsible binge-drinking 18-year-old girls in their first year at university! Not that there was anything remotely "rape" about what Daley did. He was tired and sleepy, bugged to distraction by a very annoying woman, and his patience finally snapped - at which point he said something regrettable. This was reprehensible, but the responsibility for it was not all his. Hazel's actions were no better than Daley's so I say if he goes so should she.

Au contraire mon frere - note the way things used to be:

I don't care what their names are, if they keep messing around with candy the way they are, I'm going to get seriously cross! And another thing: Victory V's don't have chloroform in them any more. Boo hoo

The line was engaged

They started in a small way, back in the 1980's, by getting rid of "Spangles". A small thing you might think, but worse was to come... Then they changed the name of "Marathon" to "Snickers". (Yes, I know that's what the Americans have always called it, but so what?) It got worse... They changed "Opal Fruits" to "Starburst". (Ditto...Americans...etc...blah blah...so what?) They did away with "Whispa"! (Admittedly they've now brought it back, but the memory of those terrible Whisperless years will remain with me till my dying day!) But now they really have gone too far. They've changed the shape of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate from its beautiful rectangular shape with its gently sloping sides to a kind of wierd oval with a kind of ellipsoidal "dome". It's the straw that broke the camel's back! It's a tough old world

This is probably how it would turn out: You've gotta like Thunderf00t :)

"Thou shalt ... commit adultery."

Summer is here again (I hope) and what would be summer without a great Summer Adventure? I have mine planned already. I'm going to be the first Briton to walk on the moon! "How will you do that?" I hear you ask. Well, let me explain. A few years ago I read a wonderfuil book by a French gentleman named Jules Vearne, who had a wonderful idea of getting to the moon using a big cannon and lots of gunpowder. What a pity those clever people in NASA never read it! It would have saved them a fortune in rocket fuel (but I suppose we would never have had nonstick frying pans, so its all swings and roundabouts). In any case I'm a bit nervous around gunpowder, but I made a few clever modifications to the design and have a perfect substitute! As every engineer knows, all great designs begin on the back of an envelope, so here's mine: Here's what happens: The "pullers" let go of the rope, causing the spring to expand, propelling my space-ship - our converted family car - through the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere and into "outer space". (Hope I'm not getting too technical for you.) I would have liked to invite everyone on this forum to the launch, but unfortunately there will only be room in the spectator area for really important people. (Like Bradley and Angelina Pitt, the Dalai Lama and the actress who played Servelan in the 1970's Sci Fi show "Blake's 7". You know the sort of people I mean.) So now we move on the more detailed phase of the design shown below. (Apologies for the highly technical calculations, but we engineers like to be very precise about these things.) Anyway, after a pleasant journey of 3.5 days I make a perfect 3-point (well, actually 4-wheel) landing on the lunar surface. Up with the Union Jack! Three verses of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow" (sung in honour of Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing), For England, Harry (Potter) and St. George! But how do I return home? Fear not, for as you can see I have drawn in a "Selenite" ("moon-man" for you non techie-types) who is able to use his translunary powers to send me back on a perfect trajectory to splash down somewhere off South End. Anyway the best part is still to come. Here's a diagram of me being knighted by the Queen for "services to the UK space program and yah-boo-sucks to NASA!" A perfect end to a perfect summer!

Thank you, but this does not really address the point I was making. My pont was that under a strict reading, any statement of faith running contrary to LDS doctrine must be an implicit violation of Rule 1. Since the site obviously does allow such statements of belief (and again PrisonChaplain is a case in pont), this is confusing. Now this is much more relevant; the "spirit of the law" is sovereign over the "letter of the law". The "rules" are merely an attempt to specify a mode of behaviour consistent with the "purposes and goals" of the organization, and are subject to change if they are found to conflict with the latter. This is how I've always perceived the de facto rules of the forum. The problem is entirely in the wording of the written rules which I think (for reasons I've already explained) are confusing. Let me give you an example:Question 1: "Joseph Smith was quite obviously a con-man. Why do you people believe in him?" Question 2: "As a Roman Catholic I believe there was no Great Apostasy, that the Priesthood originally bestowed by Christ upon His Apostles still flourishes on Earth today and that there was no need for any Restoration. However I am interested in understanding why other Christian denominations think differently. Can anyone please explain?" Question 1 explicitly violates Rule 1, and would probably be deleted by the first moderator who saw it. Question 2 implies the very same thing as Question 1, but experience suggests that (though it may alert the mods of possible "trouble to come") it would in itself be acceptable. Therefore in the spirit of helpfulness, I suggest the following addendum to Rule 1: 1a. While statements of belief which run contrary to the official doctrine of the LDS Church are permitted, these should not be expressed in a manner such as to belittle or ridicule LDS teachings, or as an attempt to draw LDS members away from their faith. P.S. I've just noticed this is my 1000th post!

I've been fascinated with the LDS church ever since the missionaries visited my over 20 years ago. Though I've sported various anti-mormon arguments over the years, the real reason I never joined was because I never felt comfortable with the church as a whole. There are some big differences between the way I think and the way an average Mormon thinks, and these clashes of ideas on this site have often helped me to clarify my own thinking. For one thing my own religious background has led me to see "sin" as primarily an attitude of mind rather than comprising of specific sinful acts, but a lot of people here take the opposing view and the exchanges have sometimes been enlightening. Also (to be perfectly honest) I've occasionally used this site an outlet for some of my more perverse humour, which not everyone appreciates (certainly not my wife). I seem to have some kindred spirits amongst the Mormons!

I was looking at a recent thread by Klein Helmer (http://www.lds.net/forums/general-discussion/54151-there-room-genuine-dissent-board.html now closed) who enquired whether dissention was really tolerated on this site. The prevailing response was that it was tolerated - so long as "site rules" were observed. But looking through the rules, I can see where Klein Helmer is coming from: Consider the first 2 rules: 1. Do not post, upload, or otherwise submit anything to the site that is derogatory towards The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its teachings, or its leaders. Anti-LDS Propaganda will not be tolerated anywhere. The problem is that anyone who states they disagree that Mormonism is "The True Church" is ipso facto calling Joseph Smith a madman or a liar. (Cf. the Lewis Trichotomy.) Is this not derogatory? Taking this to its logical conclusion, a Roman Catholic (for example) who posts on this board is, by dint of stating his own faith, breaking Rule 1. 2. Please be conscious of the fact that although LDS.NET is aimed towards an LDS audience, that the membership of this site consists of friends from an array of different backgrounds, beliefs, and cultures. Please be respectful and courteous to all, and know that everyone who is willing to follow the Rules and Terms of LDS.NET are welcome to participate and be a member of LDS.NET. Keep in mind that anything posted, uploaded, or otherwise displayed on the site should be understandable to friends of other faiths as well as to members. Please define any LDS vocabulary that friends of other faiths may not understand (i.e. Mutual, Relief Society, and Deacon.) The phrase "…who is willing to follow the Rules and Terms of LDS.NET…" is problematic. As I said before, a poster who claims to profess a belief contradictory to Joseph Smith’s prophethood implicitly violates Rule 1. He (or she) therefore excludes himself (or herself) from the provisions of Rule 2, and Rule 2 is therefore redundant. The only way you can really make sense of Rule 1 (and by extension Rule 2) is by assuming that "anything derogatory" actually means "anything explicitly derogatory" and that the statement of premises which necessarily lead to derogatory inferences is allowable. But the rules as they currently stand don't clarify this, and I can understand why people like Klein Helmer (and myself!) get confused. P.S. It did occur to me that this post may itself be against the site rules, but I don't believe that it is. Firstly as this site is not affiliated to the LDS church, I would reasonably infer that its rules have no ecclesiastical significance, and further that criticism of said rules would not be considered "...derogatory towards The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its teachings, or its leaders." Secondly though the rules prohibit open complaints about individual moderators, I see nothing prohibiting discussion of the rules themselves. Thirdly I am not (perish the thought!) trying to stir up trouble; I am genuinely interested.

There are two possible sorts of question here, and this sort of response only really addresses one of them. (Assuming of course the Church really is true.) It's like asking "why does a clock tell the time?" One could answer (a) "because that's what a clock is intended to do", or (b) "because it has a wound spring and cog wheels that drive the hands, and some sort of regulator which makes it unwind at the correct speed". I think Dahlia is looking for the second kind of answer.

Too right there are! The greatest kids' show there ever was (or ever will be!) is of course Bagpuss! Bagpuss: 8/13 - The Mouse Mill - YouTube

Maybe he's been watching Brainiacs. Now that's a great show!