Brian

Hey! I didn't post a picture of a pie or describe the taste of a pie or the smell of a pie cooking or even use the word pie.

Blackberries are about a month away here. Blueberries are starting to come in south of here but I'll wait until mid- to late-August when they start to ripen at Graveyard Fields.

I looked for your picture here but didn't find you. https://bankrobbers.fbi.gov/robbers-container Were you wearing a disguise?

As a public service: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/pus

Same here -- I really do look quite a bit like my avatar, even more so 25 years ago and with a few whiskers.

Of all the things I've lost, I think I miss my mind the most.

I propose a mental filter which replaces the word "race" with the phrase "morphologically differentiated population."

I totally agree with you, Apech. Part of the problem is that every term we use to discuss these broad and hereditary groupings of intraspecies variations becomes tainted. With dogs or horses, there is no negative connotation to the term "breed," but we can't use it in polite company when talking about humans even though the concept is the same.

Just some science rather than opinion...

42, obviously. No, I don't think you did say it, Apech. Not sure why you would want to get persnickety about the definitions of particular races when the definitions of species aren't fully nailed down (won't be and can't be, I suspect). Groups like the AKC have invested considerable energy in nailing down definitions of breeds within other species. I agree that this is a potentially dangerous when applied to the human species and I'm not advocating for "race standards" like this but it seems silly to me to maintain that distinctions between broad groups of people simply don't exist.

We haven't been arguing. I've been asking questions and you've been not answering them. That's certainly not an argument and I would suggest it isn't even a discussion.

The argument was that intraspecies distinctions are cultural fabrications. I say that's politically-correct nonsense -- that's all.

I'd like to see the data collected, please, or the error analysis.

I suggest they are not essentially the same. Acknowledging that distinctions exist between breeds of horses is important if you want one to help you plow a field or pack coal out of a mine, for example...

Ignoring for the moment that inconvenient "often" in the bolded Wiki quote -- and ignoring that no one has claimed "race" or "breed" equate to "species" -- I find it somewhat disturbing that you apparently see no difference between a dachshund and a mastiff, or between a Percheron and a Shetland.

So things which can interbreed are essentially the same and those which cannot are essentially different? Interbreed is an interesting word.

A Percheron: A Shetland:

Ah. Wonder whether the butterflies would agree. Is there a meaningful difference between a dachshund and a mastiff? A pug and a border collie? A Percheron and a Shetland?

Just for clarity... Other systems and practices want people to investigate for themselves and draw conclusions from their own observations. The distinction, then, is that your group believes -- and seeks people who also believe -- that the video of John Chang on YouTube is hard objective evidence?

Meaningless to whom?

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Tossing a coin taoistically is simple -- attach nothing to the outcome. Heads it's heads, tails it's tails.

Heaven will direct it.

We each have a shadow self we cannot see except through our interactions with others. Traits we seek to repress grow stronger there. Learning to recognize and face our shadows is something most people never do except, perhaps, tangentially and then we usually rationalize it away.

The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite, That ever I was born to set it right!