joojie

cosmos, by Carl Sagen The Hidden Reality, by Brian Greene and Physics of the Impossible, by Michio Kaku are all free on google docs. open the link, go to file and select download, or press ctrl and s. thanks to Science Panorama for making these avalible for free, and to I f*cking love science on facebook for posting the links.

I would like to say here that I will be backing out of the discusion, as I realy don't know much about the ethics of war.All I wanted was to know whether there are any Scottish O'ists, and it is clear that the discusion has veared WAY of course (how did it even end up here ?) You can continue to discuss it all you want, but I will take no more part in an argument I am not qualified to argue beyond my personal opinion.

I agree, but then why was hiroshima targeted instead of where some goverment higher ups are (not the emporer himself of course or who would surrender). Being nuked is a punshment way out of proportion to electing a tyrant.

How do you know that all, or even a majority, of hiroshima victims were supporters of the regime? How do you know thatt an uprising was only prevented through fear? I am not claiming that this is the case, but only that you can't blame the citizens of a country for actions commited by the goverment.

I wish I could watch it, but it is almost midnight here in the UK. Anyone have any idea wether it will be avalible to watch after?

Thank you for the appology, and I admit that I may have overreacted. True, If winning a war depended on using a nuke, one should be used, ASUMING THE WAR IS JUST. The uk is at war with iraq etc, the point of which was to kill husain and end taliban rule. Husain is dead, and we are causing more destruction than the taliban. We would have more success with economic sanctions, trade embargos and other diplomatic solutions.

I would like to point this out now, I never clamed that nukes being in scotland is the main, or even a major reson to want independance, but an example of westminister seeing us as second-class citizens. All I was pointing out is that all the UKs nukes are dumped here, whilst charging us half a million for the honor! I would like to point somthing out, in the Hiroshima nuking, 70,000 civilian, non combitant, inocent people were killed, and many more in the aftermath. how was this wholesale slaughter justified? There is a reson we are not allowed to just murder every civilian of a country we are at war with.

True, but the time spent deciding would allow us to act in our defence, plus Pakistan would have no good reson to nuke us in the first place.

Grames, even if they have no respect for the poeple living in the UK's life, the backlash from people living in pakistan would be enough for them to at least think twice.

But you only need two countries with nuclear capability for M.A.D to work, plus no countries with nuclear capability are going to go to war with us any time soon. We are allied with the US and france, Russia wants to join the EU, and will not want to jeperdise the chance, North Korea has the warheads, but lacks the technology to succesfuly fire them, China and Indea have no problem with us, and there are lots of pakistani people living in the UK, so Pakistan will be unwilling to risk killing thear own people.

Yes, hit me where it hurts, my spelling ability. How about you focus on the issue at hand instead of attempting to avoid it by insulting me, or failing that, keeping quiet. I don't need to predict the future to know that we don't want to waste millions on a program designed never to be used. no-one on earth would be stupid enough to actualy use a nuke in a combat context, M.A.D and all that, so what is the point in having them?

While it is true that ofence does play a part, it can be fulfilled with conventional missles and bomber planes. The only use of nukes is to try and stop other countries using them, and as very few countries have them(UK, US, Russia, India, North Korea, China, France and pakistan) , and those who do ain't going to be attacking the UK any time soon, they are prety much usless. No countrie is ever going to use them after Hiroshima, so why spend millions of tax payer money on updating them?

I agree, the states job is not to work for 'any and every type of citizens intrests', but it should not treat part of the country as a nuclear dumping ground. The point of nuclear deterent is that they will never be used, so why is the Scottish public spending half a million for it. You are right, by the way, England, Wales and Northern Ireland( forget about them?) do pay for nuclear deterant, but scotland pays half a million towards somthing we all want out of our country. The army has a ligitamate use, for self defence (although we are unjustly using it for much more at the moment, unfortunatly), and nukes have no part to play in this. They are wepons of pure offence, imediate anialation, long lasting damage and self immolation from the volly of nukes that are guarenteed to be fired back at the aggressor. In short, the nillist dream.

Where in the UK are you from? I am Scottish and am ashamed at the lack of Brittish Objectivists.

Seing as how this is a story for children, you might want to replace cole's gun for a dart gun. This means that the childrens book remaines more or less murder free, and lets them come back later in the book as another obstical.

Was raised more or less Athiest, we never went to any kind of church, but the only nearby primary school was catholic and the best secondary school is catholic, so I had a catholic education. Me and my dad are athiest, my two sisters are catholic (still going through primary school brainwashing), my brother recently converted to islam and my mum is a spiritualist, go figure.

SoftwareNerd. As to question one, no-one can predict with much certanty what specific laws will be enacted, as party politics will still play a role in the shape of our country, but it is almost universaly agreed that step one would be to get all the UK's nuclear stockpile out of scotland, where 100% of it is as of now. For question two, To take this point to it's logical conclusion, the ideal would be for all men to be self governing, esentialy being the anerchist paradice. What is needed is a government that A. the people respect and B. works in it's citizens intrests. For scotland, Westminister fails at both criteria, but Holyrood passes the former to a certain extent, (although, in fairness, not compleatly) and totaly for the latter.

Why does the concept not apply to scotland?

Is that good enough reason for independance?

While it is true that scotland is a rather socialist country, so is the UK as a whole. plus, a lot of our 'restrictive' and 'redistributive' policies don't come from us, but the EU.

Point out that being truly altruistic, then you also give your money, help or whatever to the attacker, the robber, the killer and the rapist.

I think the question is better phrased as, is it moral to kill a man to save several men. Personaly, I would side with Ozymandias. As death will occur no matter what, the best that can be done is to minimise it.

In any case, Ayn Rand was born in russia, but that doesn't mean that they are capitalist or objectivism friendly. You can't judge a country based just on a few historical figures.

Smith is cited as the father of modern economics and capitalism-wikipedia. Seems like he would be rather pro Objectivist .

Our indevidual rights will be better protected because we will finaly get some representation. In the EU, there are more MEPs for london alone than the whole of Scotland. We are little more than an after thought for Westminister, and with independance, we will be able to represent ourselves fairly. Scotland owns the majority of the north sea oil, but get very little if any benefit from them. Any money goes to Westminister, And we no longer want to be ruled by looters. As for the highlands claiming independance, there wouldn't be enough people there. the highlands are mostly uninhabited and uninhabitable. it would be like the mohave desert claiming independance (sans Las Vagas). Plus, we do represent the highlands. They wanted wolves re-intreduced to the highlands, so we re-intreduced them.