Up here in Canadia, The Lesser Republic of Canuckislavia, PC pretty much rages across the country-our attitude is easy to explain-we were a commonwealth for a long time, have some crap brit-like manifesto parading as a 'constitution', and were largely settled by European stock. Mostly slavic, Germanic, Brits, and a smattering of whomever wasn't really popular in europe. Thus, our pathetic, neurotic and distinctly no fun attitude. Friggin' sucks up here-any vitality is drowned in a sea of bureacracyand meddlesome hand-wringing.

And as far as the rich cultural tradition of sumo? Well, obviously, yes-but it's still obese clown wrestling to me. Yeah, I'm opinionated-wow, they're getting B-slapped, and backing down, for having a sense of humour about something that's already ridiculous? Maybe the Japanese are more culturally sensitive about sumo being really popular only in Japan.

Now, of course, I'm gonna get some angry person on here. Hee!

Aw..ya'll went and made me cry! That was so sweet!

Whoopsie-apologies for anyone having to go through all them there typos.

Perizade: a bit of disagreement here, based on a couple things, first, that fossils do not describe what any given lifeform does or does not know, or believe, and second, it's a kind of bogus claim-that the absence of belief proves animals were athiest. That's kinda silly. One does not define animals in terms of theistic or non-theistic tendencies. But that's mostly just a quibble.

It's along the line of "How does something without free will, no it has no free will? Or you could use conciousness as well.

Another fallacy of the tests-the maps used for intelligence. I detect a bias towards an academic form of intelligence. Harkens back to problems with IQ tests, where it was discovered that a functional problem with them, is what the tests measured. An example recently, one of many tests, where it was discovered that chimps and some monkies have better short term memory than humans. And yes, memory is a component of intelligence, if one considereds problem solving as a major element of intelligence. What kind of intelligence were they measuring? This is not addressed. Is it academic intelligence? Is it basic street smarts? Is it the ability to remember landscape forms to manouver around a forest?

So they're smarter-in what way? And in what situations? And sure, I could get into the whole 'sure smacks of measuring the width of heads now, don't it' angle, but that'll just set some delicate egos on fire. And why do liberals and athiests have to prove superior intellect? What's the allegedly objective reasoning behind this study? I can't prove, but feel that the objective could potentially be a desire to prove the reasoning behind one's position, based on any findings that demonstrate an overall greater intellectual capacity-'See? we're right, because we're smarter.'

Never mind that one does not even need to be a physicist to observe the obvious-that questions of such nature, such as is there conciousness, a soul, free will, or God, are very very likely to exist comfortably within a 4D and 5D dimension. We're developing instruments to observe such, but they're primitive. In other words: attempting to define, explore, or dismiss, the nature of things or even non-things, on higher dimensional planes, using only a # dimensional mind, which the secularists insist is the case anyways, will net very poor results, if any results.

I feel, personally, that athiests are far better off simply stating personal bias-like vegetarians. Should a vegetarian say to me (and some have) "I don't eat meat out of personal choice, because this is what I believe animals to be", I have no argument, I'm cool. Just don't preach to me, we'll get along fine. But when they use the biological argument, well now. Same with athiests. I got no problem with a simple, much more practical, and not at all a sweeping statement-"I choose to not believe in God, or that there is meaning to it all, or conciousness or mind."

But no, they gotta go and do exactly what many of the more fundamentalist Christians do (and yes, there are many, many liberal Christians, who talk of their faith as personal choice.) which is to make a sweeping pronouncement, as if it's fact, and that's all there is to it. Because even a cursory bit of research will easily demonstrate that it aint no fact. I'd love to see an athiest actually use the phrase I suggested. To describe it in terms of personal choice, nothing more. Because we all know, we're on a wee little planet, in a very large universe, with lot's of extra dimensions we don't have access to, so making grand pronouncements on the nature of it all, aint remotely rational.

And how does this relate to the study? So some liberals and secularists are allegedly smarter in some specific areas. Or perhaps slightly more adapted. So? Whoopy doo. I'm plenty smart6 myself, and have friends who are much smarter. Heck, I have a pagan friend whose smarter. Does that mean the pagans are right? Nope. It's generally meaningless, and once again, the athiests prove that their not quite getting the point. No big deal-welcome to the human race, lot's of spend lot's of time getting some points, not getting others, and generally having quite a good time mucking about in all of that.

In the meantime, I shall insist to any of my athiest friends that the least they could do, is to either keep their views to themselves, or at least have mininum social skills-simply hold that a certain viewpoint, or way of looking at things, is personal choice, and no more than that.

Nerds-leave the funny to those who know how to do the funny.

Nice colours, but that name is horrendous.

Whoops-that's 'were', not 'wre'.

JermH-pretty much-note that the sentence is constructed so that it's difficult to work out wether the average is per person or the whole group. However, two things still stand: the temporariness, which does not address mental/physical issues, or, for those who have a genetic predisposition (there a few), the physical issues, and the question of numbers. 35 people isn't a lot to go on. Wre clinical trials performed?

Of course, if it's 20 pounds per person, how one wind's up, depends on one's pre-surgery weight. If one is 100 or more pounds overweight, the difference will not be much. Even if one is only 60 pounds overweight.

Great-now I want a playmobil reaper!

Addendum: right. 35 people at an average weight loss of 25 pounds, makes that, oh, say, less than a pound per person. And my math is crap, but I'm pretty sure it's reasonalby good good on this one. So, pay a big sum, go through discomfort, lose virtually no weight. Sounds great.

How many people? Only 20 pounds? Hmn. Some problems: it's only for a short while, so they'll go right back to the eating, and hey, ice cream, pop, bon bons, milkshakes and so on, are all easily digestible, things that one need not chew.

In other words, if I can come up with a work around in approximately a minute, so will the doctor's patients. Meanwhile, he'll make some nice quack money from people too lazy to diet, and exercise.

Not likely to ever work-kind of a laws of physics thing. Bicycles are one of the more effecient energy converters around, and are already around. Mainly, with this thing, you've got major energy issues to tackle. First, the sheer weight of the thing negates any, if not all benefits from either legs or arms. Two guys equals approximately four hundred lbs, which they have to move along. The gears in it, are at top efficiency, with tremendous weight added to them, and no way to overcome that (because one has to go to literally heavier gears, and then the efficiency is lost, said heavier gears have extra weight to push around). There isn't any way to overcome that. Factor in the weight of the batteries-batteries are very heavy, and depending on the number, quite a lot. Batteries and bodies are tasked with pushing around what is now likely several hundred pounds, so speed is slow, efficiency is lost (they were breathing hard just going a short distance), there are no gains, toxicity eliminates any so-called eco friendliness, and the unfortunate fact of the matter is, they can try, and try, til the cows come home, but those engineering problems will likely never be overcome. These guys are not engineers. They're not eve3n very good at tinkering.

Aesthetically ugly. Noisy. Still have to wear a helmet.
Unprotected, not good. Batteries are extremely toxic, so
not remotely eco-friendly. And likely not at all fast enough
to be acceptable on the highway. Also, how does one go
about licensing this thing? Is it a bike, or a vehicle?
Should it even be allowed on the road? How much road rage
will it inspire? If it is licensed, and one rides it drunk, is
one subject to the same DUI charges that a car driver
would be?
I'm not seeing broad market potential. I'm seeing hobby kit
car for a few odd people.

Kryten! Yep, from Red Dwarf-best robot ever! And he speaks more languages than Data, anyways. Any robot with several heads will automatically rule all.

Call it what it is-courtesy Neil Young-"it's a piece of crap." Very expensive piece of crap.

That if-if, they ever get it running? Will prove that scientists are very good at finding very small, very unimportant whatsits.