Overstaged

Or maybe it´s because being rebel now doesn´t cause the same impact as in a few decades ago. Society is not as uniform as it was in the past, we have a much bigger diversity of cultures living in the western world now, and there is not a strict system of social rules to be followed anymore. We officially live in a multicultural world, and being "different" now doesn´t cause the same shock as it did in the 50´s, 60´s, etc. Also, rebellion isn´t really necessary to make remarkable music. Music is about art, entertainment, it doesn´t necessarily needs a message to go with it. Many acts have strong political or ideological content, but lack any musical quality. The big music that remains untouchable in the history of the world was made by classical composers and in most cases it didn´t have any message to go with it, just the beauty of the music itself.

Religion is out of the game, in UK less then 8% of the people practice any religion, christianity is ruled out in the modern western world, and islam only grows because of immigration (and not local conversions). However, if you look at tabloids and magazines, you see things such as horoscope, re-incarnation, numerology and other esoteric beliefs are still very popular. In a recent poll it showed that in UK, the percentual of people who believe in spirits is bigger then the percentual of people that believe in God. So I don´t think people have become more rational, they only trade the idea of heaven/hell to infinite re-incarnations, and God/Joevah for a number of spirits and mystical forces that run the universe... How to explain astrology? If planets and stars dictate what happens in our life, then the Universe itself is some type of governing god, this isn´t rational at all. I have a friend that usually takes part on some sort of new age therapies, she has a serious chronic intestine disiese whcih sometimes cause big pain, and she says when she takes part on the treatment on the "spiritism center" she is healed from the pain by a "spiritual" (=dead, invisible) surgeon that works on her body. She says it works much better then the scientific medicine. To a person like this you can´t say that it doesn´t work... No matter how many scientific arguments, if I was feeling pain and now I don´t feel anymore this is enough reason to believe. Not that I´m sayng I believe in this type of therapy, but if it´s working for her then I won´t try to convince her to stop and go back to suffering with pain. I know there must be some scientific explanation, maybe what they do with her is nothing but hypnosis which makes her pain go away temporarily, but if it´s working and helping her, then it´s fine.

It´s not only 6 names, at least in Portugal they have an extense list of approved names, but of course they are all traditional names.

Not to mention the fame and fortune os these big superstars can make up for the suffering of having a ridiculous name...

If a revolution was so predictable, then it wouldn´t be a real revolution. I think things will really start to change in some way, because music is loosing its commercial value to big labels, it´s getting harder and harder to make million sellers and download sales cannot make up for the huge losses on physical record sales. Also, internet is becoming more important then music channels and radios, so to be big now, one has to score big on youtube, for example, so there´s a chance for unsigned artists to be seen and heard (since MTV only plays what they are paid for). This factors combined mean that in the next decades, music will be back to the domain of freethinkers instead of big corporations, and it will be harder and harder to see little disney girls breaking big like Britney did in the 90´s - I think the era of pop divas is over.

It was a different story... Puritans in USA prohibited something that was hugely used and accepted in society (alcohol), which obviously wouldn´t work. There´s no reason to legalize a drug that is not hugely accepted this way and isn´t part of our culture at all, if we go by your logic then we should also legalize murders and rapes, just because it happens, an maybe tax it to take it out of illegality... There´s no excuse for using marijuana, it doesn´t serve for nothing and it´s damaging. Or at least it should be restricted to people´s house, I have the right to walk in the streets without druggy people aorund.

No, it´s not hipocrisy. Drinking is also stupid and it´s something disgusting that destroys families, yet its legal, which doesn´t mean legality should be extended to other drugs, while they *still* are not totally accepted in society. Extending legality to weed would not stop the immense problems caused by alcohol, it would only add another problem to the list. People who use drugs couldn´t care less about poverty in Afghanistan, they feed a mortal industry, someone who buys this stuff and yet claims to be worried with 3rd world problems is a big hypocrit.

I think they should leave Wind Up since they´re not considered an inspirational band anymore and have gathered a lot of criticism from that segment since they became famous, the way of promotion for secular bands is very different. I don´t think this is necessarily the end. They wild need something very catchy and commercial for a comeback with the next album to remain popular, tough.

It´s just stupid to ask people for moderation of ADDICTIVE substance. Not everyone has the same strenght to resist addiction, specially people at a young age, who usually don´t work and don´t have anything useful to do during all day, and will take anything just to be accepted in a circle of friends. To ask for moderation is hypocrisy. Stuff like that isn´t necessary at all, there are other ways of having fun without using illegal substance. To hell with that excuse that it´s a medicinal herb... How many people use it with this intention? If it´s a medicinal herb then let it be used for that purpouse only, not just as a way of having fun. Who would seriously want to use a medicine that damages your brain cells... Not to mention people who buy this illegal stuff give a direct contribution to traficants, specially in 3rd world countries, which is the biggest cause of death up there. I´m so tired of hypocrit people tryng to be politically correct at everything and then go on and buy something that is fuelling a market that kills a million times more then the war in Iraq. They would boycott meat that is produced with violence against animals, clothes that are made with animal fur, or products from companies that have interest in the Iraq war... and then buy a product that is the source of millions of dollars to the biggest criminals in the planet who kill imoderately. Just look at the situation in Colombia... I blame it directly on every midclass adolescent who buys that type of substance.

Spice Girls = worldwide massive in the 90´s Girls Aloud = only known in UK, unknown to the world, never had a million selling album = NOBODIES = C-list act.

This concept is flawed, because, science doesn´t make reality, it only DISCOVERS reality. It was not science who made the gravity, it only discovered it, but gravity was already REAL before it was discovered, and even before human beings were here to notice it. If we were to discard anything that has not been scientifically proven, then our views would be a lot limited since science is always evolving. We only have 5 senses, and that were given to us by evolution from other animal forms, so our mind can only capture what our biological body allow us to, and still very limited (example, there are thousands of different colours that cannot be viewed by human eyes). Try explaining to someone who was born blind what is a colour, what is the difference of green and blue... it would be impossible. Then imagine if evolution had led our species to be completely blind (like many animal species), then we wouldn´t have any idea of what is colour, light, etc, but this things would still exist in nature without ever being felt or captured by our senses. Imagine how many things are there in the universe that we will never know simply because we don´t have the biological possibility to it. Of course, that´s no argument to convince anyone that God exists, but still I think the idea of denyng it completely as an impossibility is also dogmatic and religious. Concerning our scientifical knowledge, the most natural attitude would be agnosticism, at least until we discover where our universe came from and have a final answear. Acording to Soren Kierkegaard, doubt is an essential part of faith. There is not point in having faith that the sun or the moon exists. Faith consists in commitment to something that you think is probably true, acording to this XIX century philosopher. If one knows for sure that God exists because of scientific proof, then faith disappeared. That´s why acording to St. Paul, the 3 biggest gifts to a man are faith, hope and love, but love is considered the biggest of them all - because it´s the only one that, acording to him, will last forever, cause faith and hope will end when they "see" God face to face, just like hope ends when the thing you wanted happens.

But, by the way, I don´t think it should be obrigatory... if people want to donate, then they have to say so...

What difference it makes, since a few weeks on and you´ll be eaten by worms? I don´t think the dignity of a dead body is more important then the health of a living person, a letting someone blind, sick, or dying because of that is more repugnant to me then being mutilated. The only bad thing is... I don´t know how it works in UK but in my country you can´t legally sell blood or organs, which means if you donated you or your family won´t get a cent, HOWEVER, when you need a blood transfusion or a new organ you have to pay a horrible amount of money, which means in fact, organs ARE sold but who gets the money is not the person/family who donated it... and that kinds of pisses me off. I know it cause recently a friend of my family needed blood tranfusion and have to pay a huge amount for that, HOWEVER when I donated blood all I received was a sandwich. (Not that I am complained cause I wanted money, but I thinkit should be given for free).

"All known science" is something that changes all the time, since a few years ago Big Bang was THE theory, and now it´s the big crunch just like you stated. 100 years ago scientists thought that it was impossible that the universe had a creator since it was considered to be eternal, and not have a begining, a few decades later it all changed as the biggest scientists embraced the thought that the universe had a begining at some point in the past.

No, at least acording to mainstream religions, God is not physical and doesn´t have a body. In the example I mentioned, Y would be invisible for X, but it still would be aproaching faster then the speed of light. The gravity that holds us is the same law applied in the entire universe, the only difference is the amount of mass. Bigger bodies cause bigger gravity atraction, the atraction is proportional to the mass of the body, but even a small hydrogen atom cause gravity atraction (proportional to its mass). So whoever went to other galaxies and told their stars to behave exactly the same way as our stars behave when it comes to gravity force?

It can be cool to see this snubs being just the "support act". By the way, when is Emma having her baby?

Really? So what if a body "X" is traveling at 90% of the speed of light (legally allowed), and in the oposite direction there is another body "Y" coming at 90% of the speed of light aswell? An observer located on X would see Y aproaching much faster then the speed of light, and as traditional physics know, speed is relative to the observer. So Einstein was right when he said everything is relative, including the speed of light rule. And its possible for something to be present all over the universe without travelling faster then the speed of light, as long as this "something" is not a physical body, for example, gravity is present in the entire universe and it doesn´t need to be travelling everywhere to make sure that, wherever a body is, it will atract the stuff around it.

Because He is onipresent and doesn´t need to travel anywhere, and maybe He doesn´t need to watch other planets because there are no living being there, they are just cold rocks with no life.

Yes, in the universe seems like emptyness is the rule, matter is the exception. Seems like 99,999% of the space is emtpy, cold and dark, we are just too lucky to live where matter, heat and light exists.

Well, imagine if every one of these supposed big bangs that keep hapening after each other is exactly the same... Then after each explosion matter has to be distributed in the universe exactly the same way it happened in the "last" big bang, in any detail... Then this mean if the theory is right, when the universe starts to collapse into itself and a new explosion happens, each little piece of matter will be distributed again the same way it happened in the last time, then eventually things will happen the same way again with our planet, evolution, the appearence of men, etc. It´s like we are living a live that has happened before and will continue to happen infinite times because each atom of this universe has its trajectory built when the explosion happens.

Just a celebrity excentricity.

what a freaking demonstration of ignorance

Like somebody made fun of him and he decided to shoot the person??? I think it´s impossible that when killing 31 people he could have targeted its victims, it was pretty much anyone he found on his way... Probably had a go with some of them but others he might not even know...

That is because Canada and Switzerland don´t have 250 million people like USA... which means any type of event in these countries happen with less frequency. Plus, anything that happens in USA has more global media coverage.

Ok, certain things ARE impossible for us