Kosmo

But a cartoon still can sparkle rage and debate http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/15/america/15humor.php

If Britain has a problem providing 10.000 men I wonder how Luxembourg will handle this request.

The Terracotta Army has bronze weapons that don't rust like the roman iron weapons. The fact that the Chinese used bronze weapons for so long it's evidence that they did not master well iron metallurgy. Despite some claims it seems that China imported iron objects from other areas.

The US it's the only country still upholding the free speech. In all Europe and Canada broad definitions of hate speech make even true allegations to be open to persecution.

If we are speaking of attitudes toward the war it's clear that WW1 was the turning point. Before that war was not always perceived as bad as it is seen now. Romans clearly engaged in war without giving it much thought and martial qualities were highly appreciated. Ancient war was not as devastating as WW2 because armies were small, slow and concentrated. The devastation occurred on a small area along the marching route and often inhabitants had time to hide if they had suitable shelter near by. Helveti were mostly warriors killed on the battlefield while people in Hiroshima were mostly civilians. War often brought change, sometimes for the worse, but it played a major role in technological and cultural diffusion and the shaping of political structures. The Republic, in Rome and in the Greek city states was a political expression of a new military organization, the mass levy made possible by cheap iron weapons. Caesar's campaign in Gaul was not only devastating but also brought to NW Europe the many advances of Mediterranean civilizations. The population loss was quickly compensated by a rapid growth made possible by this advances and by the roman peace. Indeed, for large areas the roman conquest meant the beginning of a period more peaceful then the constant warfare before.

The devastation brought by modern wars had vilified war, but war was not so bad before it became an industry. Holland became world's most richest and developed country in 1648 after more then 80 years of early modern war. You say war it's "undeniably destructive" and I don't believe that. War it's sometimes creative, revolutionary and brings change. To go beck to roman history, Italy became the bedrock of the roman empire only after it was devastated by several wars. The Etruscans and the Greeks were absorbed and Italy became Latin after Hannibal's campaigns and the Social War.

Manowar: Hail and Kill would be nice for Sulla's homecoming party. My father was a wolf Im a kinsman of the slain Sworn to rise again I will bring salvation, punishment and pain The hammer of hate is our faith Power and dominion are taken by the will By divine right hail and kill

Lasairian it's a beautiful fish with a fancy name. I have his blue brother in a tank right behind me. BTW what size it's that tank? It looks really small. Sometime ago I had kept a female in a small tank and she developed a nasty fin rot from the toxic waste in the water. I cured her but she never looked that good again. The betta that I have now has his own little kingdom with 30 l of water and a plant (microsorum) in which he sleeps. Gravel and a micro filter will be added soon and later some light and if the plants go well maybe some shrimps. A betta can do well in 10 l of water but as I wanted to add a filter to reduce the cleaning and the water change it was to little.

An a Audi it's an overpriced Skoda.

Yes, the attitude of the Soviet Union was important. By the summer of 1988 Gorby stated that he will not interfere again with the Red Army, so the communists of the vassal states were left alone to face the mounting internal discontent.

Salve A. I would read that link later, now it's 3.14 AM. Thank you for the link anyway. My replies are numbered after the quotes you used. 1. So no new species. Is not what natural selection must do? Create new species by selecting traits? 2. I did not think that competition must mean direct extermination but it could mean deadly competition for the same resources. If the bearers of the "advantageous" trait did not become the sole population it means they did not win the competition with the bearers of the "unfit" traits. 3. Poor choice of words on my part. Agreed. 4. Agreed. 5. I said maybe because we don't know if that happened. I'm an evolutionist, but I believe that after our species took it's current form the biological evolution of the human race stopped. Our civilization shields us from many natural factors. The competition it's played in other areas: technological advances, social and political structures etc and usually those "defeated" simply adapt to his changes and don't physically end.

I could not say it better. It was the best tournament I've seen.

If the members of any species don't reproduce, it's relevant because that species doesn't remain the same; it gets extinct. And it doesn't even have to 'get extinct' to count as species change. If half the red male cardinals evolved blue feathers instead of red ones, that would be a classic example of species change in spite of the fact that red male cardinals didn't go extinct. Yes, but then you will have a species with different traits and all species have trait variations among the populace. Lactose tolerant people did not eliminate lactose intolerant ones and it's unlikely that they will do. The species it's the same having both lactose tolerant and intolerant so natural selection did not create a new species with the advantageous trait. The same can be claimed for the origins of races, that they are adaptations to different climatic conditions, but they are local trait variations not different species. BTW great link, thank you. Maybe a disease could have let survive only those that had genetic immunity to it.

Romanian revolution had no clear goals, organization or leadership in the first phase, until Ceausescu was forced to run by protests and the breaking of the security system. At that point a new center of power with goals, mass organization and leadership emerged in the hands of second rank communists, army leaders and government officials, while some dissidents and revolutionaries were allowed to join. The riots were directed against Ceausescu, at the abuses of power and at the poor living conditions So, we had a massive popular riot (some claim that was started by actions of foreign intelligence services) that forced a change at the top of the political system. Neither capitalism, human rights or democracy were the goals of this mass demonstrations. Despite being desired by some of the revolutionaries they were not accepted as a platform by all participants. The communists that got the power could not bring the river beck so they were forced by a combination of reasons (public protests, internal disunity, western pressure, weak legitimacy etc) to accept the goals that were being formulated now by the intelligentsia. Still, this goals were not those of the majority of the population. As often the case the revolution gradually became more radicalized. The post-Ceausescu leadership fulfilled the basic desires of most people, but were threatened themselves by more radical groups. I think this gradual radicalization of goals it's common to most revolutions in history.

What, you want to became filthy rich by working? You don't have to work or to have your money working for you, you need people to work for you! Imagine how fun is that!

Transmitted traits do not change the human species because no trait can give an advantage in the competition among traits. The advantage has to be significant enough as those who have it to replace those who don't have it. This never happened until now since the appearance of our species. The fact that not all members of a species successfully reproduce it's irrelevant because this is not adding new traits, so the species remains the same, it does not evolve.

Polytheists were as interested as monotheists in fostering unity and bashing religious dissent. Intolerance as such it's a political act. Romans had their religion as a "national" branch of a loosely defined Hellenic religion and were tolerant with the other brunches. But if a religion did not fit the mold of identifying local gods with the roman ones the romans were nasty. Druids, Dacians, Jews and Christians were persecuted while Carthaginian and Egyptian gods were despised. Between Septimius Sever and Constantine the roman emperors actively attempted to give religious unity to the empire around the cult of Sol Invictus, a religion that blended monotheism and polytheism. Constantine decided that he had better chances of religious unity around the empire with Christianity so he helped define Christianity, create an "universal church" and fight heresy. There is nothing in Christianity that violently refutes other religions or splinter groups like in Islam. Before becoming an official religion Christianity was not monolithic and various groups showed a large variation in language, in holy texts, in doctrine and in practice. It was the need of religious unity of the roman state and of his instrument, the Church, that created the pressure for conformity and standardization. The role of Constantine and of later emperors was paramount in fostering unity. Many who were persecuted as Christians were now persecuted as heretics like the donatists of North Africa.

The ideas of Malthus were great for biology but not good for the study of humans. An animal population with lots of food will increase until they run out of food while, today we see the richest human populations with lots of access to food are dropping in numbers. "The coming population bust" a nice article about Malthus and world demographic trends on IHT: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/23/opinion/edjacoby.php Natural selection does not apply to humans as it does to animals. Weak, unfit people can have offspring while strong and healthy might die childless. To use it for populations it's also wrong. European conquests brought colonialism and a numeric bust of the conquered populations. While some more vulnerable populations decreased in numbers (like those in America) most rapidly increased (in Asia and Africa) Another example it's in Transilvania. Here, for a 1000 years, Hungarians and Germans were more successful then Romanians as they ruled the country, owned the land, lived in cities and had better education. Usually more affluent populations have a lower rate of increase then illiterate peasants. This applied in Transilvania meant that romanians gradually became the absolute majority and finally reached political and economic power. Who was the successful group? I say that natural selection works the other way around to humans: a more successful population has greater chances of extinction by demographic decline. And this is maybe the roman story.

"Social Darwinism", the idea of evolution based on natural selection applied to human society, does not belong to Charles Darwin (being created mainly by Herbert Spencer), and does not have many supporters.

I'm getting a bit tired of this Christian bashing, not because I'm a Christian (I'm not) but because it's a false statement. What religion had the people that created tolerance, science, secularism and human rights? Where they Pagans, Buddhists or Muslims? Are many non-Christian cultures noted today for this qualities? Christians were persecuted for at least 200 years, but they still won. Paganism was violently supported by the roman state and still lost. Is this a chance of Fortune? Christianity was an unstoppable bottom-up revolution that changed the state, morals, art, law, identity etc. Constantine just went with this flow because those who tried to went against it failed. The moment an emperor accepted Christianity was unavoidable.

Your joking, right? I've seen tanks ready to fire in front of the place where I live, but not even Ceausescu, a Stalinist dictator, could not convince the "communist" army to fire at us, again, with live ammunition. If you believe that the Romanian army would fire at Romanians exercising their rights because a EU bureaucrat said so or that it will allow foreigners to do it, it means things are pretty bad in Britain. This reminds me of a conversation with an American that was trying to convince me that he needs a sniper rifle to defend himself from the government, while for me it's obvious that in front of an MBT it's futile to fire back, but one could still hold it's ground. Do you really believe that the proud man and women of the British armed forces will ever fire at you in order to deny your, almost 1000 years old, rights? I never read the full over 270 pages of the Lisbon Treaty and I can bet you did not either. I had to read the Treaty of Nice for some law school exam and it's boring and complicated. Jumping to conclusion it's, still, not the way to understand a complex process.

The manipuli, the roman non-phalanx formation, was used also, and maybe developed, by Samnites and other southern Italians. The Italian allies of Pyrrhus and the romans were using manipuli during the Italian expedition of the king of Epirus. My guess would be that manipuli were used by the roman army around the Second Samnite War.

This is nothing compared to some Athenians, like Plato or Euripides, that preferred hoplites over Navy despite the obvious importance of the navy for Athens. I believe that roman legionaries were not an elite (like Napoleon's Imperial Guard, Waffen SS, paratroopers, airborne infantry or marines) but a mass of well drilled fighters. The best infantry of antiquity were, I think, the silver shields of Alexander, the soldiers of the Macedonian phalanx heavy infantry that conquered the Persians, the Scythians and the Indians.

Thank you, A! This makes things clearer.

Nice. This reminds me of an old peasant telling to a TV crew about local traditions and stories. When asked from where did he knows that he indicated an anthropological study.