Charles Tupper /m4950 - You get hassled by street toughs every day. You get a big, mean dog, the harassment suddenly ceases. Is it really so far fetched that when you vary one variable, the change in results is probably due to the varying variable?

Regarding Canada, I was making the pit bull point to try to point out that some forms of protection don't have to actually get used to be effective. If you don't find it illustrative of that point then drop it. It serves no useful purpose other than that.

On stem cells, you can't get new teeth from pharmacology. Stem cell therapies to give you new teeth are currently under human trial. What I find objectionable is that the embryonic stem cell people seem to want to suck money away from the adult stem cell people. They not only praise the (nonproven) wonders of easily pluripotent cells, they also disparage the adult stem cell approach. They're on an ideological mission and if they succeed, I feel that we're likely to have excess deaths.

/m4956 - Some people let their adult children come home and stay for free. Some people make their kids pay rent so that they don't get too comfortable back at their childhood nest becoming sad, infantilized specimens of humanity. The US idea of its allies paying more for their own defense is a hint. You can't be a self-respecting nation and spend that little on defense if for no other reason than to stop land grabs by those marauding danes. <<snicker>>

cesare /m4951 - The US may violate a treaty but it is not true that inconvenient treaties are nonbinding. The convention on torture is *assumed* violated by PenGun and others but they haven't really bothered to go around and do the inconvenient work of actually gathering evidence. It's content-less libel and slander at the present time. From what I can tell, signficant mental and physical discomfort can be applied without it tripping the torture convention and that's covered much more fully in the enabling legislation, legislation that's been around for a few years and never really provoked a lot of outcry up to the present moment.

Not that Dave /m4952 - I guess that the Black Panther party, the Weathermen, the Red Army Faction, and a dozen more organizations that have never been accorded protection were all wrongly denied protection under the convention. Sorry, I don't buy it.

If you have a general determination that the Taliban do not qualify under the Geneva Convention (and we did) you don't have to have a further proceeding that a particular Taliban member qualifies. His membership in the Taliban knocks him right out. Ditto for Al Queda.

Article 2 of the same convention states

Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

Neither the Taliban nor Al Queda accept or apply the Convention. Once that situation occurs, which organization they are a member of is irrelevant.

PenGun /m4953 - There are two price criticisms of Apple. One is legitimate, the other illegitimate. The legitimate one is that Apple is much more expensive than white box or build it yourself. The illegitimate one is that Apple is more expensive than HP, IBM, or Compaq. All I'm saying is that you should distinguish between the two because if you don't, you'll get lots of useless debate establishing that #2 type objections are illegitimate and not really what you meant.

Mark Childerson /m4955 - The US generally stands by its treaty obligations at least as much as any other country. The idea that wartime releases it unconditionally is simply not correct either as US policy or international law.