DeadCanDance

In the XIXth century, in South Africa, the boers discovered one of the greatest gols mines in the world. Paul Kruger, who was the Transvaal president at the time, said only one thing: "Instead of rejoicing at the discovery of gold, you should be weeping because it will cause our land to be soaked in blood". Same thing is happening and will happen in Afghanistan.

I agree with the LBT hospitals and schools. I have a question, though: Is the number of patients the number of beds, or the total in a month? Medical centers have, usually, beds for hospitalization and ambulatory attention (we call that 'boxes' in Chile), and a medical center with 3.000 beds usually cover larges districts of a city.

I'm not catholic, but I always liked the gothic cathedrals. My favourite landmarks are the Cathedral of Amiens, the biggest gothic cathedral in France, the cathedral of Reims, where the kings of France used to be crowned, and the cathedral of Laon, the first example of a magnificent gothic cathedral.

Two things: the first, natural law is not a basis to a sound government. Mainly because you can't rely on a 'mystic' basis on the State structure, you have legitimacy or not, and legitimacy is a matter of fact. Second, it's very unlikely that the catholic church is the institution that brought us to the Middle ages. It was a mixture of political and social change, the fall of a centralized power in Europe brought the drawing people from the cities to rural areas, the destruction of many cultural and scientific goods, etc. Today Middle ages are not known as a Dark age, there are many known advances and of course, the basis of the Renaissance. It was the catholic church who, trying to make a more accurate calendar, commisioned a scientific commision, who discovered the Earth's rotation, etc.

As a law student, I had to read a lot about the matter. But I think that for most of the contents on US founding fathers principles or Declaration of Independence should be subject of an exegesis. Why? Simply because the original principles are redacted for white european-descent landowners. An example: before the sixties, not all men in US were equal in rights; the civil liberties movement sought to abolish barriers for african american people: but the barriers were constitutional according to the Supreme Court! So, the basis for an understanding on the matter is about historical context, etc., not an approach based on a simple reading. Furthermore, the conception that I read on the posts targets a modern conception of rights (as human rights). Human rights are a twentieth century development, as the eighteenth century sought bourgeois rights. A modern conception on the 'natural law' issue should take it as Kelsen's grundnorm or Hart's rule of recognition; the basis on natural law, and the interpretation of that clause traces over the authority of law, but nothing else. For instance, the only discussion on 'what is a natural right?' should be self-explaining: natural rights are supposed to be self-evident, but, is it self-evident that gun possession is a right? (avoiding the conflict on the matter itself).

Originally posted by: saltandsauce OK, i am going to explain precisley WHY smoking was banned in pubs when one drinks alcohol (depressant) their heart rate slows down when one smokes cannibis (stimulant) their heart rate increases if you take an "upper" and a "downer" at the same time, your heart rate does not even out, in fact it goes all over the place which increases your rate of a heart attack dramatically (heart disease is the biggest killer in the UK) that is why smoking was banned in pubs. In countries which have state funded healthcare it IS in the LEGITIMATE interest of the government to reduce heart attacks and heart disease since it has to pay for it. the old arguement "the government needs the money" is one of the worst and most irritating since that is EXACTLY the arguements put forward by the civil service, tobacco industries and weak ministers to relax/not restrict smoking activities/advertising. why does everyone want to smoke anyway? what happened to the hippies of yore who got high of flowers and trees andd political activism and all that BS. It looks like (to me anyway) so many people are determined to smoke to relax that they will drag through more worry, stress and anxitey just for a smoke. smoking isn't "some great liberty" like voting, free speech, free press, and the right to monopolise that free press. nobody dies because of not smoking but people die under opressive government (that's where the free speech and voting comes from). this is something so trivial in the overall scheme of things that well, maybe you should just chill and do something else. the FDA allows unsafe pharmaceuticals because (against common sense) it's purpose is not to safeguard the public alcohol has more uses than getting one intoxicated, it was historically used as a soap (distilled alcohol only) to wash clothes/floors/yourself/whatever and you'd give your kids it because the water was poisoned with factory runoff/effluent from the city. that is why alcohol wasn't banned. quote> I don't like the argument posted here. Just because the worst dictatorship is not the censoring one; is the one that can't let you choose. Freedom of choice is a basic human right, actually is the core of them. You like a girl? Well, you have freedom of marriage. You'd like to express yourself? Freedom of speech (including art). In the other hand, smoking isn't a big deal. Is just like choosing to drink or not to drink. The government would be interfering with your freedom of choice if they don't let you do that.

Sorry I didn't read the whole thread, but I'm an activist for legalization (in my country) though I'm not a marijuana smoker. In the end, all arguments about marijuana prohibition relies on paternalistic arguments: health issues, highly addictive effects, etc. That doesn't differ greatly from all legal drugs, including alcohol, tobacco and caffeine. But the marijuana prohibition also creates a number of problems. The first is the low quality of marijuana, that creates on itself a lot of health issues. The second is the effect of any ban: traffic and black market. I think that growing for personal uses shoyld not be penalizaed on the ground of civil liberties, but also in health issues, allowing the consumer to choose better products to smoke.

Thank you in advance!!! Seems a lot expected...

What about avenues with four lanes, ore one way roads with four lanes? I know that they're far behind a highway, but cities doesn't have only highways, and bigger avenues/roads serve better.

I'm from an Spanish-spoken country, and in spanish, most of family names come from spanish villages, as Carmona or Arredondo. I use them. Other thing is to translate some words to another language, for example, swedish, and name the city after one of their characters, as K