I also had the whole insane logging in with your Email problem. I used just about every I ever had and could not get into the site. finally in an act of desperation I checked  one last thing and found out that the new login email field is CASE SENSITIVE. So if anyone still can't get in that's probably it.

Oh and another thing as long as everyone is complaining. I use Firefox and it kind of sucks that I can't use the spell-check functionality in the new message text-box. Sometimes less it more. A normal text-box has many advantages.

I've been reading some of the comments here. There are a lot of users here who, like me, use alternative browsers. A lot of users who know their way around a computer and understand the idea behind hypertext tags. There are even some Unix folks here, it seems. This is supposed to be "a clear thinking oasis", A place where the intellectuals and geeks can also feel at home. This isn't the website of some tabloid. It's RD.net. I'm not saying to take away the new functionality. I'm sure a lot of people like it. Maybe I'll learn to like it too. But maybe you can give us the option to have a little old-style text-box to play with if we want to.

avg_ls_inline_popup { position:absolute; z-index:9999; padding: 0px 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; width: 240px; overflow: hidden; word-wrap: break-word; color: black; font-size: 10px; text-align: left; line-height: 13px;} avg_ls_inline_popup { position:absolute; z-index:9999; padding: 0px 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; width: 240px; overflow: hidden; word-wrap: break-word; color: black; font-size: 10px; text-align: left; line-height: 13px;}

I don't know. I just don't think it's that interesting really, unless you go and turn it into something it's not, like proof that chimpanzees are, whatever its supposed to prove. When you look at what the video actually is, you see one minute, out of context, from a bad angle. You can't really see much. They tell you that it's a dead individual and the other chimps are gathered around it, and then they go and one stays. As was mentioned before Elephants do that stuff to, and I believe we have better clips of them doing it, in the wild as opposed to in an enclosure.

The second video actually showed much more interesting behavior in my opinion. I'm generally perplexed about the reaction of the researchers to this. Maybe they have data that the films didn't show. Maybe they have insight that I lack. But in any case it isn't about the touchy feely stuff on grief etc.

I don't know maybe I'm not being a sport and I should just roll with it, but damn it I don't think it's that important.

33. Comment #484268 by BryanFisher

Well since you already apologized I can't really get mad now can I? I'm sorry you're in pain. I hope you feel better in future.


I think we all know that this soul business is bunk, yes, but I also think some of us may have been a little hasty in being impressed (granted, some have also raised caveats). Whatever we may know about the emotional and social depth of the chimpanzee mind, we know regardless of this clip. This clip teaches us very little in fact and I find all the getting impressed and emotional about it disturbing. It's silly to attribute too much to a clip like that. I'm annoyed by it because it's in the level of the kind of attitude to animal behavior you see in the popular media ("this live ape is staying next to that dead ape, ergo apes have much emotional depth"). Quite frankly it doesn't prove anything of consequence as far as I can see, and I don't see the point of it. Why is it here? I'd expect it as the last bit of some popular news broadcast.

20. Comment #484181 by Helena M
And others deeply impressed.

This is hardly news and hardly proof of anything. We already knew they do that stuff and we still don't know what exactly they experience. This hardly proves anything about a "soul" as the religious call it. The devout will claim this behavior can be explained by purely physical processes. They will be right. Point is, this also applies to our behavior. There's no point in trying to prove that chimps have a what we don't even have. There's no point in arguing whether that chimp is really sad or just reacting naturally, because being sad is just reacting naturally.

Does it have something to do with our feelings for a dead person that we knew? Very probably. Can this clip prove that therefore chimpanzees experience grief. Not really. There's probably much better evidence for that available even today. This clip may invoke strong feeling in us when watching it, but it establishes very little about the depth of chimpanzee emotions.

Most likely scenario if Israel intervenes:

1) A shorts conflict.
2) Some dead Israelis, a lot of dead Lebanese.
3) A cease-fire forced on the parties.
4) A new international "solution" that purports to insure the security of Israel, The independence of Lebanon, and the disarmament of Hezbollah.
5) The complete and utter failure of said solution.
6) Distrust of international community in Israel driving populous even further to the right.
7) Disregard of international community in Syria and Iran continues and the carry on supporting Hezbollah.
8) People of Lebanon get screwed, again.

Same old story.