Dan M said:
> My question for the list is do you think this is inherently sexist;
> or could it be OK?
Wouldn't that depend on whether the rules say that only girls can enter
or not? If the rules say that anyone can enter but in actuality only
girls do enter, I don't see how it's sexist.
By the
Andrew P said:
> LOL, yes thats almost perfect.
> You just forgot to mention the Torquemada girdle.
And... the powered armour?
Rich, who thinks the twins should start a revolution on the Moon.
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Julia said:
> > World domination.
>
> By whom, exactly?
A race of atomic superwomen?
Rich, who was somewhat surprised to learn that an Italian town is going
to start paying EUR10,000 for each baby born there:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3252794.stm
__
The Fool said:
>> And I must say that I am *shocked*, SHOCKED, I tell you, to find none
> of
>> Brin-L's reisdent left-wingers criticzing this absurdity, and in
>> fact, several of them praising it.
>
> And I must say that I am *shocked*, SHOCKED, I tell you, to find none
> of Brin-L's reisdent r
John said:
> I stated plainly and simply that I believe that human life begins at
> conception.
Give that somewhere between 50% and 80% of conceptions end in natural
spontaneous abortions, that you think that human life begins at
conception, and that you think ending a human life is wrong, do you
JDG said:
> "Whatever one thinks about the merits of such an amendment, we are
> amazed (OK: not really) at the degree to which the [mainstream press]
> casts the President's decision in purely political terms -- rather
> than a response to the tens of millions of real Americans who are
> fund
Doug said:
> Do you oppose SSM and if so, why?
I don't oppose it, but there's at least one reasonable argument against
it: marriage is not just an agreement between two people but also an
agreement by which the government (at least the UK government!)
provides tax benefits for married couples in
JDG said:
> Another difference that I anticipate will develop will be the
> incentives for producing and raising children. These incentives will
> be applied to marriages, but not to civil unions. Civil unions, will
> however, acquire many of the rights of marriage that currently
> formalize the i
JDG said:
> At any rate, I find it has hardly been established that there somehow
> exists a universal "right" to marry a person of the same sex.
If we start from the premise that men and women should have equal
rights, then it's obvious, isn't it? After all, women have the right to
marry men, th
Michael said:
> Are sterile heterosexual couples denied marriage? What if the couple
> does not want children? IOW, is having children a requirement for
> marriage? The answer: No, it is not.
There's a rough analogy here between state-supported marriage and
patents. In the one case, the state ga
David said:
>> Rich, who has, however, argued elsewhere that he thinks that states
>> ought to introduce a kinship registry and cease recognising marriages
>> altogether, leaving them as a private and/or religious matter.
>
> Interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean. (Where's "elsewhere"?)
E
Andrew said:
> You are calling Jan "Jane", like its> somehow sub-optimal to be a
> women.
Actually, he isn't. He's calling Jan "Jane" because Jan keeps calling
Erik by variants of his name with additional or alternative letters.
Rich
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Travis said:
> Do you mean (A) singualarity? If so, I saw one the other night on TNG.
> If not...then could you explain? I probably am familiar with what you
> speak of, but it's not exactly rolling of my tongue.
He doesn't mean a physical singularity like the thing in the middle of
black holes:
Erik said:
> You do go on like a doofus, don't you?
I don't know if Andrew does, but I know I do!
Rich
GCU Single Line Reply
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The Fool said:
> The difference is that computer processor speed / # of transistors,
> RAM Size and Hard-Disk storage have all _continued_ doubling every 18
> or so months, and will continue to do so. It's actually slightly
> faster than that (there are two exponents, the rate of doubling is
> als
Trent said:
> If there is a wormhole and one extrinsic observer experiences 10 years
> of subjective time and another extrinsic observer experiences 1000
> years of subjective time then the wormhole must experience no less
> than 1000 years of subjective time.
What you've written is somewhat conf
Rob said:
> In heavily toward a Libertarian origin for the Culture. I don't see
> how a Socialist movement would ever give up power and control.
Since when did the Minds give up power and control? Or are you talking
about those insignificant humanoids they humour?
Rich
_
Jan said:
> There is ownership and then their is ownership. The point is that
> it has been our hard work, our society, our national decisions, and
> our commitment that has fostered these companies and allowed them to
> exist. As with every system there is trade offs. Our society has
> both good
Ritu said:
> I live in India. I was born here and have lived here ever since.
> I am curious - what made you assume otherwise?
You mean... they have the Internet in India? Next you'll be telling me
they have it in England! Or France!
Rich
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Gautam said:
> Let me suggest an analogy. Someone invents a gadget -
> a new computer program, let's say - that allows us to
> replace computer programmers with this program. Would
> you argue that the government should stop us from
> using that program? If yes, why? If no, then, how is
> offs
Reggie said:
> Just to be certain, I submitted this question to lawguru.com. I
> will post the results, one way or the other.
At most, this will show that the US Constitution doesn't protect freedom
of speech.
Rich
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Reggie said:
> Again, it depends on how you define freedom of speech.
Of course it does, but if you're prepared to redefine words then having
a discussion is quite difficult. It's perfectly possible, of course,
that the US Constitution protects something which isn't strictly
speaking freedom of s
Ronn said:
>> At most, this will show that the US Constitution doesn't protect
>> freedom of speech.
>
> What do you mean?
I mean that a freedom isn't a freedom if it's constrained, so that if
constitutional scholars consider such a constrained freedom "freedom of
speech" then they are using th
Ronn said:
> Instead of obscene language, then, how about the classic example of
> shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre?
That really isn't so difficult. Having a freedom doesn't mean that we
can't make contracts that voluntarily constrain that freedom. For
example, I could constrain my freedom
Doug said:
> I never said, by the way, that I favored tariffs or trade restrictions
> except in consideration of environmental factors and labor practices.
How about to preserve strategically important industries in the US?
Wouldn't it, for example, be embarrassing to one day go to war with
China
Erik said:
>> Personally, Erik, if you really want anarchy, there's always UseNet.
>
> Personally, JDG, if you really don't want to read Fool's opinion,
> there always the delete key.
There's also the killfile, which is even more effective and requires
even less effort.
> Better a fool than a s
Reggie said:
> So you think freedom of speech should protect use of the word "fuck"
> but shouldn't protect the right of people to talk about their
> religious beliefs?
I think that freedom of speech should protect both, but I think that
using "fuck" et al shows a lamentable lack of articulacy in
Debbi said:
>>> But what if I don't believe in God?
>
>> That means you are above average in intelligence and
>> education.
>
> My M.D. and my well-above-average IQ (even after a
> significant closed head injury) disagree with your
> supposition.
Of course, if A implies B that doesn't necessari
Rob said:
>> JD, with an IQ of 137
>>
>
> Mine is 158.
105, last time I took a test.
Rich, who doesn't think they measure anything interesting anyway.
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Erik said:
> But in this case, doesn't it? If his assertion, that not believing in
> god puts you "above average", then the group believing in god must be
> below average (or else the "undecided" group is large and well below
> average thus allowing the other two groups to be above average).
The
Erik said:
> That would be one way, but Why would you "have to" do it that way? Why
> can't it be disproved by showing that the group that believes in god
> is NOT below average?
Okay, so I should have said that the only way to disprove the Fool's
position based on the characteristics of one pers
Erik said:
> Yes, I think atheists are less than 10% in America (much less, I
> think).
Let's suppose that they make up 10% of the population. Furthermore,
let's assume that 90% of the atheists are smart and 10% stupid. Then if
we pick a hundred representative people, we can expect one stupid
ath
Erik said:
> 18%
Yes, you're right. I stupidly calculated 9/41...
Rich, who is his own counterexample!
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Ronn! said:
> This calculation seems to include some unstated assumptions about the
> distribution of intelligence in believers . . .
Does it? I said very clearly "let's assume..."
Rich
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Ronn said:
> In this particular case, while I find no fundamental fault with the
> mathematical reasoning used, istm that said reasoning and the
> calculations which follow are essentially meaningless in determining
> the solution to the question being posed, because the assumption made
> at the b
Mike said:
> So, let's get serious here: If Islam does another 9/11, the
> likelihood is genocide. You're not helping by advocating
> appeasement, any more than an indulgent mom is helping by
> advocating letting her teenage brat get away with bloody murder.
> You're going to have all your treacly
JDG said:
> By whom?Under the usual standards that Presidents rate such
> things, I expect that he will be placed near or at the top of
> one-term Presidents if he loses re-election.
Regardless of Bush Jr's merits, he surely doesn't compare favourably
with Bush Sr, who skillfully managed the
Nick said:
> Analyzing the language of John Doe's postings (an area in which I
> have a fair bit of expertise), I see a disturbing similarity to
> that of the aforementioned banned member.
I thought that even without any impressive analysis techniques! Well,
other than the ones running in my he
Erik said:
> Try getting a clue.
What would you suggest as the first few steps towards gettting a clue?
What are the most important proto-clue concepts? (In general, I mean,
not specifically in this case.)
Rich
GCU Serious Question
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Erik said:
> Pay attention. Read carefully. Think about connections and
> possibilities.
Those are good. I'd add something like: "Assume you could be wrong;
think about the ways you're most likely to be wrong; find out if you
are wrong."
Any others? How about some good book recommendations on ge
Mike said:
> Mainstream Islam is stupider, meaner, more racist, more authoritarian,
> more genocidal than Christian Reconstructionism. Anyone care to debate
> that?
Hasn't it been established by careful, rational debate on Brin-L that
all religion is Evil?
Rich
The Fool said:
> How many has Vatican killed throughout the years?
Most of the people that the Vatican will have killed in the end are
alive today, because the Vatican has impeded the progress of science to
a large degree (and, to be fair, so have the other branches of
Christianity). Let's make t
Dan said:
> So, I guess the fact that officially atheistic countries, such as the
> USSR have had a much better track record in science than countries
> with a large fraction of church going Christians, like the US
> supports your contention.
Of course not: it just means that such countries will
Damon said:
> So how much blame should go on the Greeks then?
> Although their methodologies were sound, some of their
> theories were off the wall. I wonder how far science
> was put back when people "re-discovered" this?
Not so far as it was when those pesky Visigoths and Vandals and Huns
wreck
Gautam said:
> But the British lost 40,000 people in the first few
> hours of the Somme.
Just a small note: your other figures are for fatalities, but these
figures for the Somme are casualties. Of those, about a third were
fatalities; not that that makes it any less horrific.
Rich, who decided
Gautam said:
> You're quite right - my memory betrayed me on that
> one. Sorry.
I only knew because I made just the same mistake a few months ago. I
think the similarity between British casualties on the first day of the
Somme and total US fatalities in Vietnam lodged in my mind, and then
got bl
Dan M said:
> Are you arguing that one American life is worth more than 10, 100,
> 1000, 10,000 lives in Iraq?
Isn't the job of the US government to govern the US and the job of the
US military to defend the US's interests? In which case, wouldn't it be
a reasonable position for the US government
JDG said:
> Anyhow, at risk of feeding the troll, I would point out that this
> projected discovery of "longevity" probably wouldn't be possible
> without the discovery of genetics.
>
> JDG - And who first discovered that?
For all practical purposes, genetics was discovered in 1900 by the
bot
JDG said:
> I'm wondering if someone could help me out here.
Does this help?
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/papers/1989/89041401.html
Rich
--
In March 1989 the President, the Speaker of the House, the majority
leaders
Mike said:
> Allow me to bottom line this: all this hindsight 9/11 carping is going
> nowhere politically. Dick Clark and Jamie Gorelick (what an unfortunate
> last name) will not show the Dhimmicrats the way to victory.
So you're saying that neither major party in the US is competent? How
reassu
George said:
> I'm really impressed by the way the threads interweave dovetail in
> "Chrysalis." Events are poised for things to burst out in season 2.
> This is probably the most coherent, intriguing, and ripe with
> anticipation season ending cliffhanger of any of the most popular SF
> series.
Dan said:
>> Yea, but that's just becasue the force of gravity at the sun is
>> greater. An ounce of flesh on earth has far more mass than the
>> average
>
> ounce of material in the sun. (weight = mass*gravitational force)
Is an "ounce" a unit of mass or weight? I never did grasp those old
uni
Dan said:
> No, what I meant to say was that the total energy in an average ounce
> of material on the earth is greater than the total energy of an
> average ounce of material on the sun, because the mass of the material
> on the earth would be so much greater.
Ah, okay. Thinking in masses is so
Andy said:
> You do not chose to be Jewish if your mother is. You are Jewish.
Isn't that argument roughly the same as if I set up the "Slaves of Rich"
and said anyone with brown eyes was automatically a Slave of Rich and
when people with brown eyes said they weren't my slaves I replied "Yes
you a
Andy said:
> "It's a sudden and quick haemorrhage. A quick loss of blood pressure
> and the brain is instantaneously starved of blood and there is no
> time to start feeling any pain," said spokesman Dr Majid Katme.
If you were going to be executed, would you choose having your thoat cut
over
Jeff said:
> The claim, however, that the two vehicles are mobile germ labs has
> been repeated frequently by both Blair and President George Bush in
> recent days in support of claims that they prove the existence of
> Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
I'm starting to think the recent war was
Erik said:
> Does Dawkins make this argument in the book? It doesn't sound like
> him.
It's been a while since I read it, but I think he does make that
argument. Of course, Andy hasn't mentioned that he then goes on to say
that evolution isn't random chance: it's random mutation followed by
non-r
*raises hand sheepishly*
Rich, who wonders if there aren't also American hypocrites; and who
further wonders what might happen if a heavily armed state of foreign
nationals was sudddenly formed in, say, Texas. And who actually thinks
that the Palestinian terrorist organisations are descpicable eve
Andy said:
> And I'd point out that what "reproductive fitness" is can be
> complex (for example, why the Cystic Fybrosis gene survived...).
How is it complex? Entity A is more reproductively fit than entity B in
environment (physical and biological) E if A on average produces more
descendents t
Jeffrey said:
> Obviously fake. I mean, c'mon, Americans playing SOCCER?
That would be "football". The stuff you guys mostly play is "American
football" ;)
Rich
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Julia said:
> The thing is, Texas has more to lose by leaving the US than it has to
> gain, and most of us understand that. The parallel doesn't quite work.
Okay, choose some other state. I was just trying to make people imagine
how they might feel if a foreign Israel was set up in the Palestinia
Dan said:
> But, that's not quite fair, because that's not exactly what happened.
So if one wished to create a science-fictional situation with the US in
the position of Palestine, how would one do so? Do you think it would
require an alien Israel? And then how far in the future would it have
to
Gautam said:
> Yeah, but there have been Jews in that area since
> before recorded history and they made up a very large
> proportion of the population before the Israeli War of
> Independence.
Isn't that rather like saying that the Kingdom of Jerusalem was kinda
okay because there were lots of C
Dan said:
> How about, over a period of years, the US is inundated by foreigners
> who look like they will drastically and permanently change the ethnic
> makeup of the US? No sci-fi needed. :-)
Yes, but that's not really the same situation, is it? Can you imagine a
separate sovereign Hispanic st
Julia said:
> OK, why *did* it survive? Do you know?
I don't know about cystic fibrosis in detail, but it's presumably
because having one copy of the gene conveys some advantage that
outweighs the problems involved with having two copies. Another example
is the incidence of thalassemia in Ferrara
Jan said:
> Unless requested by a client or an employer, the code illustrates how
> the finished code works.
The only problem with that is that the code can only illustrate what it
actually does rather than what it should do. That's why it's so
important to have comments that give the intention o
Jon said:
> Rich, did he crosspost to Culture?
No, not this time.
Rich
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*** Begin of forwarded message ***
Date: 13/06/2003 07:40
From: Freeler Abuse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: STOP YOUR CYBER-TERRORISM!! (fwd)
--- Forwarded message follows ---
Would you please be so kind to inform your list that we contacted this
user?? It is of no use to sen
om: Freeler Abuse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Freeler B.V
To: Richard Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: STOP YOUR CYBER-TERRORISM!! (fwd)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 09:40:19 +0200
User-Agent: KMail/1.5
References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In-Reply-To: <[E
Jon said:
> Because a largely underdog-sympathetic media in Europe has framed this
> as a poor, defenseless arab people fighting against an all-powerful
> jewish state.
In your opinion, are the European media more biased than the US media?
In my opinion, the British media, at least, are consider
Jan said:
> ...We are in complete agreement...I think.
Yes, I think so too. What much of it comes down to is that code isn't
primarily a method for humans to communicate with machines but rather
for humans to communicate with humans: themselves, other developers
working at the same time, and futu
Gautam said:
> Not sure if thalassemia is a European term for sickle
> cell anemia, which has the same effects.
No, they aren't the same thing. I chose thalassemia for my example
because it's less well known than sickle cell anaemia.
Rich
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Jan said:
> Then of course the same people were the ones making "convincing sells"
> to the VCs and getting funding for solving NP complete problems with a
> Turing machine in 6 months.
What kind of .com business plan is that?! It has *obvious* revenue
streams when the product is complete - they
John Giorgis said:
> When it comes to discussing the situation in Israel/Palestine, there
> is very little serious reason, other than as a purelya cademic
> pursuit, to debate the history of the problem.
So you don't think that understanding the origins of current problems as
part of an attempt t
John Giorgis said:
> 2) I think that the history of the Israel/Palestine problem is highly
> unlikely to be repeated in other conflicts in the future.
Suppose some manner of Kurdistan were produced and various Turkish and
Arab groups expelled or otherwise displaced. Wouldn't that be quite a
simil
Reggie said:
> 2) The word used for brother can also mean cousin. So the siblings to
> which the bible refers are probably a combination of cousins and
> half-siblings from Joseph's first wife.
Wouldn't those be "step-siblings", Jesus' father being God and all?
Rich
_
Dan said:
> One of the truisms that has been accepted by me, and others, is that
> the US ecconomy has been growing faster than Europe's, and that this
> reflects the advantages of less governmental control of the ecconomy.
> I decided to try to find the numbers on this.
I've just started reading
Gautam said:
> Herbert Stein famously said that an unsustainable
> trend will not be sustained. I don't quite see how
> this particular trend is going to end, though.
By 2050, I fully expect full-spectrum anti-agathic treatments, a mature
nanotechnology, human-equivalent AI and so forth. Given a
John said:
> JDG - You atheists are really doing yourselves proud here.
Hey, can I be one of the Intolerant Atheists too? It looks like such
fun! ;)
Rich
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Erik said:
> I'd even be willing to bet that no serious agency in the world has
> even STARTED actual construction of a space elevator by 2023.
I'd be willing to bet that too. The construction of a space elevator
would require the manufacture of many, many orders of magnitude more
carbon nanotube
Jan quoted:
> Well If god hadn't meant for us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made
> them out of meat.
People are made of meat too. ObSF: the cannibals and vegetarian
guerrillas in _Delicatessen_.
Rich
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I know that Gautam, at least, enjoyed my article "The economics of space
transportation" and thought that some of you might be interested in the
second part of my series on the economics of space. This one is called
"The economics of interface transportation" and covers the launch
vehicle market:
David said:
> If wombats were credible WMD, he would have included them too. : )
...thus giving me the chance to point out that I was responsible for:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blosxom.cgi/2002/Oct/22#wombat
Rich
VFP A Colder War
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Brad said:
> I don't suppose4 you got a free copy of _Singularity Sky_ out o fit,
> did you?
No, alas not.
Rich
GCU One Line Reply
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Dan said:
> The best explaination of what space and time actually are is given
> in the Critique of Pure Reason. Briefly put, space and time are
> the a priori forms of our intuition.
But what is intuition if not a process operating through time?
Rich
___
Brad said:
> But isn't our intuition wrong--or perhaps it would be better to say
> that our intuition does not prepare us to study quantum mechanics
> and relativity? It's true that brains that have our intuitions of
> space and time tend to help the selfish genes that program them
> replicate
Dan said:
> Indeed, this gives a very good place to stand when trying to
> understand QM. If electrons don't exist apart from the human mind,
> then it isn't surprising that their properties don't exist apart
> from observation.
But some of their properties *do* exist apart from observation, or a
Chad said:
> What I see is attempts to demonize Mike because, well ... He's
> winning...
...even if he is weak on terrorism. I mean, did you see how he totally
ignored my suggestion of an Alaskan gulag for liberals?
Rich
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Mike said:
> Hey, Gary, there's a whole bunch of us not afraid to say that Western
> democracy is better by far than anything the Muslims have done since the
> invention of zero.
The Muslims may have contributed many worthwhile things to civilisation
but the invention of zero wasn't one of them.
Keith said:
> Unfortunately, this turns out to be expected from evolutionary
> psychology considerations.
>
> Rather than repeat it here, put "xenophobic memes" in a search engine
> for the concepts.
Isn't evolutionary psychology about *genes* for behaviours common to all
humans (as compared to
Dan said:
> The problem I have with evolutionary psychology is that it is an a
> posterori general explaination.
The problem I have with evolutionary psychology and "memetics"
(especially in combination) is that I often find it hard to see what the
theory being proposed actually is. This is espec
Dan said:
> Most data suggests that it is mostly environmental. Indeed, my
> wife knows of no studies that indicate a genetic link. She has not
> worked in the field for about 10 years, so it is possible that
> there has been a recent study we don't know about, but its still
> likely she would h
I'm just catching up on thousands of Brin-L messages that I was too busy
to read at the time. I won't comment on most of them, but this one
caught my attention.
Debbi said:
>> > Hasn't it been established by careful, rational
>> >debate on Brin-L that all religion is Evil?
>
>> I believe so. La
Rob said:
> But threatening to refuse communion and/or excommunication goes far
> beyond free speech. It is coercion.
How is it coercion? Would my refusing to give someone money or to say I
like thembe equivalent to coercion? If not, how is that any different?
And why can't someone whose denied c
The Fool said:
> A cell is not a person. A cell has no rights. A cell does not and
> should not have rights.
So if I were to destroy exactly one cell in your body at a time until
none were left then that would be okay? If not, at what stage would it
become other than okay?
Rich
___
Gary said:
> It was the belief of the official state religion of a totalitarian
> regime that information it disapproved of should be suppressed.
In what sense was the Dominate a "totalitarian regime"? It seems to me
that under Diocletian and his successors the Roman Empire became
increasingly ha
Damon said:
> (keep in mind that the Roman Empire per se did not collapse until
> 1453 when the Turks under IIRC Suleyman the Magnificent conquered
> Constantinople)
and later
> We know the Roman Empire in the West collapsed in 476 when Odoacar.
For someone who is stressing continuities elsewh
Damon said:
> And yet the people living it it continued to refer to themselves as
> Romans (or, specifically, Romaioi), people outside the empire
> referred to them as Romans (the term Romanians comes up often when
> referring to the Byzantine Empire). Whether or not the fragment of
> Empire that
Damon said:
> Those are all great points, and illustrates that history is an
> interpretive and analytical art. While I certainly hve no
> objections to your agruments, regardless I still see the final
> Byzantine emperors as inheritors of old Roman authority, and
> besides which, having commonly
Andrew said:
> Ahh, yes, truly said.
> Do you think it is sufficiently illuminating
> to be classified as a Renaissance?
An Enlightenment, surely.
Rich
GCU One Line Reply
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