12 METRO Monday, November 9, 2009 D Fanning the flames Chemical reaction: Fire Dangle, it is true that fire shares lots of traits with life. It feeds, it moves, it grows and by spreading it reproduces. However, fire unlike all known forms of life does not have DNA or RNA, which carry coded information from one generation to another. This allows for mutation and as a result Darwinian selection. Fire is simply a chemical reaction and as such can never evolve. Also, life-forms take chemicals from a state of entropy (disorder) and arrange them into organised systems. Fire, being a chemical reaction, can only increase entropy. These two reasons show how fire is not alive. I hope this answers your question. Ciarn, Tallaght Amy H, please explain to me how it is perfectly acceptable to have an all-women membership club, yet Portmarnock have an all- gents golf club membership and that is discriminating? It is exactly the same thing, yet Curves have operated for years without any backlash from the male population. Its women like you who want equality yet this situation has no equality in it. An organisation has the right to refuse admittance or membership to whomever they like. If you dont like how a club is run then go to another. The modern woman has no idea what equality is and I believe they have far too much power and its high time men fought back for some rights! A mans man, by e-mail Ive been listening to readers arguments over the past few months on public sector paycuts. More than 70 per cent of employees Dublins best-read letters page Metro Mail E-mail letters to mail@metroireland.ie with a name. Or text us. Text MAIL followed by comment and name to 53131. *Texts cost 30cent per message + standard network charges. SP. Oxygen8 Communications, Hospitality House, Cumberland Street South, D2. Customer service number 0818286606 talk to us Golf logic: Amy H, according to you if the Portmarnock Golf Club completely banned women from playing, it would no longer be discriminating. Strange logic. Pat, by e-mail High price: How can 8.65 an hour be too high when a cup of coffee costs 3 and a beer 6, not to mention car prices, house prices and all the other things that are much more expensive in this country than our European neighbours where the same cup of coffee costs 1 and the beer 3. Elaine, by e-mail Casual Fridays: Why is it that certain types of people go drinking on Thursday nights after they finish work? I am fed up with people in my work going on the gargle and coming in on the Friday hangin and unable to do anything but eat breakfast rolls and surf Autotrader for the latest in tinted windscreens. They should wait until Friday and have a few Kens with us guys. LadiesMan, by e-mail Majority rules: Confused, its called democracy. If the majority votes for a strike, all members must support it. OG, by e-mail In Brief in the public/civil sector earn less than 50,000 pa and 44 per cent of these earn less than 30,000 pa. The public sector is already paying for the hangover from the private sector party of the past five years! As a civil servant, I did not once get a bonus or get wined and dined by my employer. I joined the civil service because it was a job that was deemed secure. The cost of this decision was to earn 20k on average less than my equal in the private sector. Now that the economy has taken a nose dive I have to listen to the private sector begrudge me my wage and my job. You cant have your cake and eat it! While many in the private sector have lost their jobs and have had pay cuts, there are many more who have not taken any cuts. This is reflected in the fees charged by doctors, solicitors, accountants etc. I think your energies would be best directed at these people and the politicians who have made a hames of things rather than those of us trying to eke out a meagre living. Hard-working civil servant, by e-mail Sendusyour txt So Mr Lenihan doesnt want to increase the taxes on the high earners just in case they leave the country. Once more were paying the price while the high earners are becoming The Untouchables. Recently in the RDS, 8,500 people applied to leave Ireland. Dimi, Balbriggan LJ, we do use rollercoasters as public transport, theyre called the 27 bus! You should try it sometime, just dont have your breakfast beforehand! Mb Id just like to say that not all men think the same way Gaston does. I believe he gets smacked around by his wife every night which explains his low tolerance towards women. Len The blouse we paid for Gaston wake up and get out there! Women work and get paid so they can buy their own clothes! Decent men also do housework! Got Archaic Sexist Thoughts Offensive Neanderthal. IQ Its great to see so many people on the Dart taking part in Movember and I dont just mean the men! Well-Groomed txt MAIL to 53131* Gangsters paradise You better watch how youre talking and where youre walking in this... Foreboding: Life-size figures stare out from the tombstones wearing Hawaiian shirts and leather jackets, or smoking cigarettes THE people occupying these graves were larger-than-life characters when they were alive and they project the same menacing image in death. From shadowy figures clad in trademark heavy leather jackets, to a moody man smoking a cigarette, they carry an air of intimidation on their tombstones. One bust even has 24-hour CCTV to en- sure his last resting place remains in pris- tine condition. No sensible vandals would dare trample on the flowers replaced daily on many plots in this part of the Russian cemetery as it holds the bodies of known gangsters. One of the men brought to life by his im- age even features a gold watch and ring that stands out against the black stone making up his gravestone. Most of the images showed men clad from head to toe in 1990s Mafiosi leather, said photographerAlan Gignoux, who vis- ited the graveyard this summer. Some of them even had their speciality etched on the tombstones, such an expert in the use of knives. The graveyard sits in the industrial Uralmarsh area of Ekaterinburg, one of Russias most violent gangster zones following the break-up of the So- viet Union in 1991. Before that, it was the USSRs military manufacturing heartland. By MiLes erwin index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html