DigitalShadow

The first one who applied should get the kid. I don't think that it should factor in to the decision, but those decisions are so subjective in the first place that I think it is unrealistic to think that the person's personal biases could be left completely aside no matter how hard they tried. Just like with heterosexual relations, it is relatively safe with the same partner, but promiscuous activities are the part with high risk. STDs are relatively easy to test blood for, as long as their blood is clean, I don't see why it should matter. I've never actually donated blood, but if they have a place on the form to indicate that you are sexually active with multiple partners, I don't think it needs to be specified if they are the same sex. Also, I'm no expert, but I can see how male/male relations would have a higher STD transfer rate than male/female, however it also seems to me that female/female relations would have a much lower STD transfer rate than even male/female. If this were statistically proven, would you then conclude we should only allow lesbians to donate blood? Insurance companies already can and do change your quote/coverage on just about every seemingly insignificant factor imaginable, whether "fair" to you or not, I don't see why this would be any different. If they see a statistical correlation unfavorable to them, there will be a question on their forms for it and they will charge you more, that's just how they work as a business out to make more money for its share holders.

Actually I'm not so sure that it is illegal. Selling a burned copy is most certainly illegal (counterfeiting), uploading a digital copy to other people is also illegal (this is what all the RIAA lawsuits have been about), but burning an extra copy of a CD you have legally purchased and even giving that CD away is a bit more murky legal territory. It's up to you to decide whether it would be ethical or not, but from a legal standpoint it is unclear at best. I can also say that while legally it makes no difference whether it is MOTC or Metallica, there is a world a difference in potential consequences because the rights to Metallica are held by a major label who is associated with the RIAA and actively prosecutes, while the MOTC rights are held independently*, not by one of the major labels and I seriously can not imagine the church taking part in the RIAA shenanigans that are taking place. *I know this because I work for a music distributor who works with the 4 major labels, and the only way we ended up acquiring the content for MOTC was through working with Deseret Book who also did not even require DRM (unlike all the labels at the time)

5) What if there was a transporter accident and an exact duplicate was created of her at that moment and you couldn't tell them apart?

I am all for freedom of speech and expression and while I personally tend to think "who cares?" that they were wearing American flags on Cinco de Mayo, to put this in perspective, they are high school students who were most likely intentionally being disruptive, refused to stop when asked and were sent home. Seriously? This is news and worthy of getting outraged?

Chuck Norris doesn't have to be on the list, he would still win hands down.

I believe the point of Congress is more than simply executing the unadulterated will of the people, otherwise why not just replace the whole system with direct voting for issues? Actually I think it's more a result of the severe ideological polarization in this country. As for the plan itself, I don't like what I've heard, but I also don't have time to read the whole thing. I'm also surprised you were hoping for a Canadian or UK type model of health care. I was under the impression most conservatives consider those "nanny state like."

But the person writing the article didn't think it was over the top and I've experienced much of the same sentiment from my co-workers. Isn't the very purpose of congress to make these kind of decisions though? If we can't trust these representatives elected by the people to make large scale decisions regarding our future, then our entire system of government is fundamentally broken and the founding fathers were wrong. You could make the argument that the current crop are for the most part corrupt and undeserving of their position, but do you really think it would be much different if we threw them all out today and held another election? I'm really not sure what to think since as a result of their ideology many people have a vested interest in proving it is either pure evil or the greatest thing ever, it is difficult to get a grasp on the overall impact and cut through the propaganda on both sides.

Overstating by saying things like "20 Ways Obama Care will take away your freedom." I'm not sure what "take away your freedom" means to you, but to me it has more serious implications than simply extra taxes and some regulations on health insurance companies.

I don't particularly agree with the process or result either, but I believe that many people (particularly conservative) are overstating the implications of all this just a bit. I am all for demanding more of our elected representatives regardless of party affiliation or ideological leanings, but forgive my suspicion when it seems mostly conservatives are making this demand and it happens coincidentally when liberals come in to power. If it were conservatives in power that were blundering toward a conservative goal (yes, I admit liberals are blundering right now), I can guarantee you would be much more understanding and much less outraged.

Shouldn't you be happy about this? I thought that was on your list of 20 reasons our freedom is being taken away.

Watch your mouth! Talk of renewable energy is not allowed on this forum

You still could have said the phrase. As long as in your head you were picturing a large structure holding back water rather than a swear word, I'm sure it would have been fine

As a non-believer, I don't think it's offensive, but I also don't think it's worth fighting over on either side. If I remember correctly last time this was brought up here, it was mentioned that "under God" was only added to the pledge of allegiance during the red scare because they thought communists wouldn't say it or some other nonsense.

When is the last time you flew? Haven't you heard that carrying bottled water on a plane means you are obviously a terrorist.

I'm not a Microsoft fanboy by any means, but I like my Windows too much to use anything else on a regular basis. My friend is always tinkering with his Ubuntu install trying to get a particular piece of hardware or software to work on it that would easily run on Windows. I would rather just use windows and if the operating system needs anything, I know enough low level windows hacking to fake it with an application I could write. I've used windows since I've used computers, starting with Windows 3.1 when I was little. I know it's quirky and bloated and has security holes, but it is familiar to me and in many cases it is better than people give it credit for.

I was just joking, not trying to be a Grinch

Done.

But my point was that saying Merry Christmas is allowed to happen in those institutions, just not in very specific scenarios and in those same scenarios, the other bad things you mentioned aren't allowed either, so it doesn't really seem like a very fair or accurate comparison to me.

I seriously doubt places of employment that don't allow their employees to wish customers Merry Christmas allow them to swear at customers. I also don't think schools that don't allow teachers to wish their students Merry Christmas allow those same teachers to swear and I'm pretty sure there is no problem with students wishing each other Merry Christmas. Also there are a multitude of TV shows specifically about Christianity, so I'm not sure I what you're getting at here.

Say whatever you want, if someone chooses to be offended by your attempt at wishing them well, it is their problem in my opinion. As has been stated, there is no one phrase that will prevent anyone from being offended. If I had to guess, I would say that more people would be offended by "Happy Holidays" than "Merry Christmas" but it probably varies quite a bit by location.

Unless someone was specifically looking for LDS teachings, they most likely wouldn't run in to anything LDS simply because they have internet access and there are LDS teachings on the internet. It's kind of like wondering why millions of people don't call you even though you have a phone and billions of other people have phone access.

I think most of the scenarios outlined have more to do with people being stubborn and ignorant rather than dishonest. If people truly believe what they are saying, just because you do not understand why they believe what they are saying, does not mean they are necessarily being dishonest.

I would have to agree that the Kool-aid references are in bad taste and the "joke" is certainly getting old. Aside from it being based on a tragedy, it is a cheap, disparaging quip that really adds nothing useful to the conversation. I'm not really one for "political correctness" which I'm sure this thread will be accused of trying to enforce, I'm mostly just tired of seeing it in political conversations ad nauseum.

Has my vote too, but in order to make it an avatar it should probably be cropped a bit to just the part around the font of the train.

Now I have Tom Sawyer stuck in my head. Luckily I have terabytes of music at my command