I support Eric Korpla's post , all the staff of SETI@home and all of the volunteers,
it's amassing what they have accomplished with such little money and resources,
SETI@home is the scientific experiment that most excites the imagination of people worldwide,

I just want to help find ETI.

Best Wishes to you all,
--- Byron.

My whole post was about the Royal Family in the context of the paparazzi, I am sorry you fail to see that. I shall explain again.

I see exactly what you're saying. And it is easy to see you did and continue to conflate two issues.

1) The royal family are paid to do nothing but serve as a distraction for the populace, i.e. "oooh, look at how much baby weight Kate has lost" etc.

2) The Parazzi exists because of this. The media that obsesses about the Royal Family do so as a deliberate tactic to keep people distracted from the real problems.

My post about Hawking goes against point 2.

3) The royal family have no other function in modern society.

Pretty much a rehash of point 1. Yet some have found useful ways to serve the greater good, as pointed out in Exhibits A and B regarding charity.

4) They live and extremely privileged life because of this function. Their children go to schools that mine could only dream of. They have wealth that none of us can fathom.

If, by some chance, you become the next Bill Nye (not entirely impossible), you could be hounded by paparazzi as Hawking was.

5) The paparazzi hound them because this is the role of the royal family. Although other people could get hounded, they do not get paid millions of pounds to do so. There is no sweetener for the average person in the street. I suspect there are many people out there who would swap places with the royal family in a heartbeat despite this.

A rehash of earlier points.

[quote[6) I have no sympathy for them because they are fine. They will always be fine. They have had far more than most people, they are not treated as ordinary and they get far more protection than ordinary people. There are many people deserving of my pity. The royal family are not any of them.

Humans are humans.
They will always be fine? On what do you base this prediction? How's the former royal family of France doing?

So what actually does make someone black? What made this woman think she was black of feel that she wanted so badly to be black?

Self identification? I mean, its not uncommon for white people to act like they are black, although in most cases it ends up in them just appropriating black culture (almost every white rapper/hip hop star ever). That said, it could be that someone sincerely feels a close association to black culture, to the point they adopt it as their primary identity. If we take a look at history, there have been cases of for example British soldiers (in the days of the British empire) who went 'native' and became almost indistinguishable from actual native people. I don't think thats racist though.

Also, a lot of black people go 'white' as well. Except no one finds that in any way remarkable because our culture pretends that white is the norm and people conforming to that norm aren't really noticed.

This Poet's Powerful Explanation Of 'Black Privilege' Will Give You Chills - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/11/black-privilege-poem-crystal-valentine_n_7564476.html

In the mean time a hairy subject:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/chinese-feminists-fight-body-hair-freedom-n373096

You are still telling women what they should and shouldn't do, that is sexist.

Patronising maybe, sexist no.

For the past few months there have been some interesting & serious questions asked on this board.

They remain unanswered, instead just as this thread has shown by the last dozen or so posts, they get by-passed. However, I'm going to ask this one again - I'll take odds it never gets answered!

I think women should be allowed to do as they damm well please

Fair point, but at what cost?

I hate fake boobs. I don't understand if this is really a thing men supposedly like as nearly everyone I talk to doesn't like them either. Women should stop doing this and most other cosmetic surgery immediately!

Right, so the guys you talk to don't like boob jobs so women should be stop having cosmetic surgery in order to stop offending your male sense of taste? I hope you realize how incredibly sexist that is.

What!?!? I say that women shouldn't go through with cosmetic surgery because I think they should be happy with the bodies they have and you tell me it is sexist? And further you assert that their doing this offends my male sense of taste? It couldn't possibly be about me wanting people to feel good about themselves naturally?

Its been noted that cosmetic surgery can have a very positive effect on a person's sense of self worth.

Their self worth shouldn't come from their breast size. But obviously since you've felt the need to broadly defend cosmetic surgery against a boob job comment, I do understand that there are times where cosmetic surgery can help during certain situations such as after a terrible car accident. I would hope that in context with a boob job comment, you would understand that I am only referring to unnecessary cosmetic surgery like buttocks injections and lip injections just for the sake of altering one's appearance to best fit some notion of beauty.

Now I understand why Germaine left Australia, your loss, our gain.

Hahahahahaha........

You can keep her, her bad attitude, bad behavior, bad morals and those huge chips on her shoulders.

Oh wait, that describes some around here too. :-O

Cheers.

So tell me, who doesn't like Germaine Greer besides you, Wiggo and Chris S, all males I believe?

I can imagine that the transgender community is not her biggest fan, unless she has changed her opinion on transgenders in the meantime.

The 60's in Sydney were certainly very entertaining with the cat fights on the streets.

These days she only pays us very short occasional visits because a lot of women here still feel the same way about her now as they did back then and she always seems to get caught out lying on those visits by those she claims to be helping.

Ess Germaine Greer is not liked more here because as Wiggo says she got caught out lieing . She's a con artist . Shore people don't like her for the woman lib skit but even more dislike her because of things she's been caught out doing over here .