PolarVortex

No carpets... hardwood floors. But I sweep up enough white cat hair each week to open a good-sized first-aid station. I do it joyfully and with gratitude. He's the best thing next to a wife and kids.

Why not make your own gift card? E.g., "this card worth one Saturday of free babysitting" or some other wanted service. And if the recipient doesn't like it, you can be sure it won't turn up for sale at Gift Card Granny.

Yes... life would be so much easier if He were available on iTunes.

Actually, the explanation I read is simpler than that. The Greek verb "to hear" can be used with the accusative or genitive. When used with the accusative, it means "to hear," and with the genitive it means "to hear without understanding" (I think). In Greek these verses don't conflict at all: one verse says only that they heard a voice, and the other says they did not hear a voice with understanding. Trouble erupts when you translate this into English. IIRC there are English translations that make this difference clear, but I can't seem to find them at the moment and I really need to get back to work. See also http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=731 Next question?

Google "discount gift cards." There is a site called Gift Card Granny or something like that. I think you can buy gift cards on eBay at a discount as well. The discounts aren't huge, but if you're buying five $100 gift cards you might be able to get a deal. I have absolutely no experience with these sites... so proceed with caution!

I would put it this way: if you are a public figure or business leader who opposes the GLBT agenda (and simply contributing money to the wrong political cause can count as opposition), then many GLBT organizations will swivel the spotlight directly upon you and lather up all kinds of howling and uproar until you resign or are forced out. That's not right. But I also think that once GLBT legal issues (e.g., same-sex marriage, adoption rights, and discrimination) have settled down, the GLBT thing will disappear from society. A tiny percentage of marriages will be same-sex, but nobody will care much. And in a way, that's what the GLBT industry has wanted all along.

As a teenager and young adult I was criticized for giving cash and gift certificates (precursors of gift cards) to people because they weren't personal and they revealed the dollar amount of my gift. But I think times have changed a lot. I don't get many gifts, but when I do I like gift cards the best, especially gift cards to restaurants. You do know that a secondary market has opened up for gift cards, and you can often buy them at a slight discount?

I wondered if there was anything like the Richter scale for spicy food, and there is. It's called the Scoville scale, and it ranges from 0 to 2.2 million. (Why couldn't they map this onto a nice scale from 1 to 5?) At the high end with a score of 2,200,000 is something called the Carolina Reaper, which I won't be adding to my Vegetarian Slop any time soon. The scale keeps going for chemical compounds, and something called resiniferatoxin scores a staggering 15 billion on the Scoville scale. I wonder if Ben and Jerry's will make an ice cream flavor based on this chemical. How did we survive before Wikipedia? Sriracha sauce is about as spicy as I can go (Scoville=2,200) but I like spicy food in general.

Here's a trivia question. We're all familiar with the story of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. The story is actually recounted twice in Acts, but the two stories contradict each other on one point: whether Paul's companions heard the voice from heaven. Acts 9:7 "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man." Acts 22:9 "And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me." How can these both be true?

Herman Munster (which I also used for the "A-Z Fictional Characters" thread)

I think the train is called the Eurostar now. I took it from Paris to London for a day trip a few years ago, and it was a lot of fun. You have to clear British customs in Paris before you board, and the British customs agent thought I was totally insane for going to London for the day. But then he saw my American passport and muttered something like, "Well, that explains it." So I was in London for only six hours. I saw St. Paul's and the British Museum and did a lot of Christmas shopping and (most importantly) saw the site where they filmed the TV show "Black Books." (Netflix has it, and it's a riotously funny Britcom... highly recommended.)

Or TCOJCOLdS? I can't count the times I've been corrected for miscapitalizing that D.

A while back I read a story in the newspaper about an elderly woman in San Francisco who had died at the age of 90, and she had never left San Francisco. As I recall, she had never even traveled to many other important parts of the city. Wasn't there a Russian short story about some guy who stays in one room for like 20 years on a bet, and he walks out a day before he'd win the bet as a sign of intellectual indifference to worldly things? Travel is a great luxury of modern times, even if you only travel to neighboring states.

"In the Commons debate, Public Health Minister Jane Ellison told the House: 'This is a bold step for parliament to take, but it is a considered and informed step. And for the many families affected, this is light at the end of a very dark tunnel.'" But as the old joke goes, when politicians see light at the end of the tunnel they usually borrow money to buy more tunnel. Does this make the embryos trinitarian?

What a heartwarming story!

That's certainly an idea worth exploring. If I were emperor, I'd allow everyone to accumulate all income in tax-free accounts. Whenever you withdraw money, x% of the amount is taxed at a flat rate, where x is different for everyone and depends on how many dependents you have, your age, your criminal record, your weight in pounds, and maybe how much you interrupt others when they try to speak. (Guess what my biggest pet peeve is?)

I think Romney would have been more conservative. Clinton kept screaming against "tax cuts for the rich who don't need them," and I don't think Romney would have said that. I liked Clinton. That whole issue irritates me. I wish the GOP would push to drop all income taxes for the poorer 50% of all taxpayers. It wouldn't cost that much (the richer 50% of all taxpayers pay 97.75% of all income taxes), and it would kill that incredibly stupid meme, promulgated by a certain president with a last name starting in O, that the rich aren't paying their fair share in taxes.

All U.S. states except Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Iceland and all major countries in western Europe except Portugal, Norway, Ireland, and the microstates Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, and Monaco. Canada and Mexico. Russia and the Czech Republic. I've run (jogged) in most of these places as well. I once knew of someone (a friend of a friend) who had run marathons in all 50 states. I was impressed.

The Sheriff has some ideas we should look at. I've always thought that if someone is convicted of a crime, then the victim, the police department, and the court system should all send him a bill for all the costs of convicting him and repaying the victim. The convict can go to some prison-like factory making license plates or coding iPhone apps, and he gets out when the debts are repaid. In the case of murder, treat it the same way insurance companies do then they sue airlines for passengers who are killed. Okay, maybe the iPhone apps thing wouldn't work. That would be cruel and unusual punishment. (I hate, hate, hate Objective-C.)

Are you really claiming that light, heat, and gravity are the same thing, like a "bachelor" and an "unmarried man" are the same thing? If so, I'm puzzled why my mattress seems so lumpy at night when I turn all the lights off. In any case, try explaining the LDS view of God to a Protestant, Catholic, or Jew. It's very hard for them not to regard it as polytheism. One of my favorite writers, William Lane Craig, has gone so far as to say that Mormons aren't that different from the Greeks and Romans, who had many gods at various stages of progression.

I was always taught that the Trinity was like our sun, which is one heavenly body that comes to us in three benevolent forms: light, heat, and gravity. That was the Lutheran explanation I heard, anyway. But I've never understood why people regard the Trinity as a confusing doctrine, nor have I understood why Trinitarian denominations are ridiculed over this belief. I remember reading Count Belisarius by Robert Graves and being amazed that people of that time (AD 500 or so) could fight over something so fiercely. People then fought over the Trinity the way people now bicker over abortion, gun control, capital punishment, and knitting in church.

The Washington Post once ran a contest about profile claims that were technically true but phrased carefully to hide some deeper flaw. For example, if a Cyclops created a profile on LDSPlanet, he could truthfully claim that he's not cross-eyed. But your idea is interesting.

Since I'm still unmarried, I am wondering whether my eternal partner started the war in heaven.

Yes, I remember reading them... but then why are you confused about Rush's use of these terms? Surely you would expect him to use them in their American senses.

I'm with you, yoyoteacher. In my pre-LDS days, I attended a megachurch with a woman on staff who was almost 90 years old and still single. One day she was invited to speak to my Sunday school class. She hobbled up to the microphone and blurted out: "When I die, I'll have only women pallbearers. You men never took me out in life, and by God you'll not take me out in death." I always roared with laughter when I thought about this, but in retrospect it does seem like an odd way to begin a Sunday School lesson. But everyone's stories here are very nice. Interestingly, no mention of blind dates... that's how my own parents met.