The fat man is an innocent bystander. The 5 kids have probably been warned umpteen times by their parents "never play on the tracks, kids!" but have not heeded the warnings. They're about to get what's coming to 'em. Unfortunate, but they must take some responsibility for what is about to happen.

Yes, if you could have a highly intelligent, wise and benevolent Dictator. Then you would probably end up with much better results than in a democracy. I used to believe that democracy was the best system, but in recent years I've come to have my doubts. This is because it seems so easy to manipulate an electorate that is often woefully undereducated, apathetic, and lazy about researching serious issues. An example is the climate change crisis.

With very few exceptions, scientists are pretty much in agreement that this is a) real, and b) caused by man, and c) a likely to become a serious threat to human civilisation. Yet, governments are doing very little about this. Why, because they are worried about short-term issues. They do not want to do anything that hurts the economy in the short term, even if it saves the economy/nation in the longterm. Because their goal is to try and get back into power every few years - and this means trying to please the majority - instead of doing what they know is best their electorate. A dictator would not have this concern and could plan for the longer term. Furthermore, it is so easy to manipulate the beliefs of an undereducated and apathetic electorate. Take the climate debate again. The media (corporate owned, and acting in the interests of the corporate sector - which is also concerned with the short term issues of profits and shares) has provided the electorate with a very poor understanding of how serious the climate issue really is. Indeed, some media, like Murdoch owned media, has actively sought to muddy the debate and steer readers/viewers to doubt the scientists claims. With so many people so ignorant of the actual science, the government does not have the support to take the proper action required. Finally, our so called democracies have been bought by the corporate world, and most politicians are in the pockets of big business. So they are not acting in the interests of the majority anyway. So we don't have real democracies anyway.

I agree that the term Darwinism is dreadfully misused. I think it comes from a misunderstanding of the word 'fit' when people think of 'survival of the fittest.' Today people take this to mean the survival of the strongest or healthiest, when in fact it he meant by fit, those creatures that were best able to conintue thriving in their environment.

Just because Hong Kong is thriving, can we put this all down to the fact that it has a 'freer' market than China? It benefits enormously from its location, and many argue that it is in fact an integral part of the Chinese economy itself.

It depends how you define Capitalism. Can you show me a country where true laissez faire economics is practised? I don't know of one off the top of my hat. And it depends how you define Darwinism. If a situation where outside interference affects the outcomes can still be considered as coming under the umberella of Darwinism (such as a kind little girl finding the runt of the litter and feeding and caring for it so that it continues to thrive when it would have otherwise have died - (i.e. the runt has survived because it has somehow been a good fit for the environment because it would cute and piteous-looking enough to be saved) then yes. If you this is not your idea of Darwinism, because you believe that by rights the runt should have died, then no.

Because most capitalism practised (including that practised in the supposed champion of the free market - the US) is not really laissez-faire capitalism. Farmers and other industry sectors are often heavily subsidised, and thrive where they would otherwise have suffered. Most (all?) advanced countries that practise capitalism are actually mixed economies, where the government taxes its populace and redirects wealth and resources (whether that be to the poor and the sick, or the army and to help certain corporations over others).

Even if we say for arguments sake that using bad language requires little intelligence, it doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility that the speaker can also use the 'good' language that requires greater intelligence. Just as the fact that I sometimes walk does not preclude that I have the ability to run with the fastest of them. Thus the oft made statement that using bad language is a sign that the speaker has a small vocabulary set does not follow logically. Also, researchers now believe that the areas of the brain responsible for swearing differ from those used for normal speech. http://people.howstuffworks.com/swearing4.htm

So one could argue that swearing provides a different function from 'normal' speech anyway. Lastly, I have seen so many examples of highly intelligent people (as evidenced by their academic records) swearing like the best of them.

I am not going to support "No things were different then" because that also implies that Mohammed had sex with a 9 year old girl. But did he? Where is the proof? The only "proof" is that Aisha alledged to have claimed this herself, years later. So maybe it is true. In other words, Aisha did claim to have sex at 9, and whoever wrote it down (years after the fact) wrote it down accurately. However, we can never know. Because the only "proof" we have that Aisha had sex as a 9 year old are not from the Quran, but from a few Hadiths - which were orated by Aisha, but were only properly recorded in writing decades after her death. Perhaps it was even an exaggeration. Imagine for a moment you are centuries back in time, and there is no stigma about having sex as a 9 year old. Imagine Aisha, or some over-zealous unpolitically correct scribe, thought it would give Aisha even more cred to claim that she had been so perfect a female, that she had been mature enough for Mohammed at only 9 years old! Who knows? Furthermore, throughout history, certain Islamic scholars have thrown doubt on the claim that Mohammed could possibly have had sex with her at 9. They have argued, quite convincingly, that it was impossible, because it didn't fit with the chronological order of reported events - as she and her family where far from the region during the time she would have been 6-9. Many argue that the true age would have been closer to 15. Others estimate anywhere between 12-18. For those who want to investigate this, there are plenty of websites where this is discussed. A quick google provided this for example: http://www.discoveringislam.org/aisha_age.htm

There is also another possiblility. In the Arabic language at that time, it was common to report the unit and not the ten if it was understood what the 'ten' would be. For example, if Aisha said 16, it could have been written as 6, as it would be understood by the context that 16 was the amount. This is like the way we say back in '62, instead of 1962. We understand from context which century we are talking about, no need to give it in full.

So, my 'conclusion' is that we really don't know if he had sex with a minor or not, and therefore we cannot actually claim with any certainty that 'Mohammad was a pedo.'