The parallels are non-existent. Marriage has always, in every culture, place and time been about men, women and children (in the vast majority, a man, a woman and their children). We nowadays use it as a convenient legal shorthand for a number of privileges (e.g. hospital visitation), and it seems right to be that those same privileges be extended to those in homosexual relationships.
But the definition of the word marriage precludes the idea that men can marry men, or women marry women.
Personally, I don't believe that there should even be such a thing as civil marriage. It's a religious institution, not a legal one. If two men or two women wish to say that they're married, I'll not stop them. I'll just think that they're playing fast and loose with language.
Timothy McVeigh, while of a Christian background (like most folks in the US) was not a Christian; ISTR that he was actually rather militantly anti-Christian.
She wasn't marching 'against gays'; she was marching against gay 'marriage'. As far as I know she has nothing against homosexuals. One need not be intolerant of their sexual proclivities to note that the very idea of men or women marrying amongst themselves is absurd.
Which isn't to say that they don't deserve to have civil unions or somesuch.
I actually start to tear when I recall the last stand of Syrio Forell, and very, very little fiction causes anything even remotely akin to that reaction.
Try The Light That Failed, by Kipling. I cried when I reached the end--wonderful tale.
Ah--missed the bit about laws regulating sexual behaviour (I only skimmed the document--LDS stuff is bloody boring). Anyone who wants to regulate sex is a twit: the law should punish victimisers (e.g. rapists, thieves, murderers and defrauders) and no-one else.
Anything worthwhile that was done in awk has by now been rewritten in Perl.
Not really. As a Unix user and admin, I use awk constantly. Perl is general-purpose; awk has one raison d'etre and serves it well. I'd go so far as to say that any user who does not use awk for at least a few tasks cannot really call himself a Unix user.
What's your problem? He doesn't advocate violence or intolerance: rather, he just notes that many homosexuals define themselves by their sexuality, and that this is incompatible with a faith which requires its members to define themselves thereby (a man cannot serve two masters, after all). He also points out that the Mormons require no more of homosexuals than they do of the unmarried, the divorced &c. (nowadays--they used to be a lot laxer).
I'm not a Mormon, and indeed I don't find them to even be Christian, but if Card's remarks are representative of their beliefs then it seems to me that they are quite tolerant.
the permanence is significant, but the external/internal boundary is the most important difference.
That's a very good point. The old saying that we all put our pants on one leg at a time is based in the fact that until very recently we are all the same naked: yeah, a rich man has many properties and fine clothing, but at the end of the day he's not any different from the rest of us. But with the new trends of plastic surgery and genetic engineering, that may not always be the case, which worries me.
The most addle-pated hereditary ruler knew that he arrived at his position through an accident of birth, but a genetically engineered ueber will know that he is innately superior. That can't be good.
Windows is an Operating System. Therefore, FreeDOS is a literal alternative to Windows.
ISTR that DOS wasm't really an operating system--just a glorified boot loader. If that's the case, I doubt that FreeDOS has extended it to the point that it qualifies.
That would mean that FreeDOS isn't an alternative to Windows, let alone Linux or *BSD.
Constantinople was what the St. Constantine the Great (a Roman emperor) renamed the city when he moved the seat of government thereto. In practise, it became known as 'istan poli', 'the city' in Greek (much like London was known as 'town' for a period in England). 'Istanbul' is just a corruption of 'istan poli' by the Turks who invaded, raped and pillaged their way into ownership of the crown jewel of civilisation.
True enough that energy production per area is too low for solar power. OTOH, the western United States are full of godforsaken areas which gets lots of sun and will never be otherwise useful to man: the deserts. Why not turn those areas towards power generation? At least we'd get some use out of the accursed things.
Of course, we'd need to improve power-transmission technology since we'd be moving electricity from the middle of nowhere to productive areas, and perhaps that is impossible--but if it is possible, then I think it'd be a good idea.
This would even be good for the environment: the massive power installations would demand populations of engineers to service them, and thus cities would be built in the deserts. As our technology improves, this (e.g. providing food and water for those in the desert) will become more and more feasible, and more cities will sprout up in the cheap real estate of the wastes. This means that more fertile areas can be used for food production (look at the amount of suburban space on the East Coast which used to be farmland: wouldn't it be nice if it could have stayed as productive land?).
An acolyte (from the Greek for 'attendant') may be (theoretically) of any age, but as they in some ways represent the angels (who are always represented as young men, i.e. in their twenties) it's certainly seemly for men to serve in that capacity. What's really unseemly is the use of boys, when one thinks of it: that's all part of the 'Awww' school of liturgics which holdest that that which is cutest is most sacred.
In the Orthodox Church, one may find bishops, priests, deacons, monks, subdeacons, readers and acolytes around the altar--and it may be that not one is less than thirty. Serving God isn't child's play: it's a business for adults.
Which is not to say that we haven't in our numbers boys as well. One of my own brothers started at the tender age of four. But the norm is for there to be more men in the sanctuary able to vote than otherwise.
We believed that Hussein had WMD; we did not believe that he had WMD capable of hitting the US. Part of the reason for the war (the legal casus belli, in fact) was his non-compliance with UN resolutions designed to prevent him from acquiring such WMDs.
No, 'little children' are kids of six or eight, with no real sense of responsibility. There is an eleven-year-old at church who serves alongside us men as an acolyte, and does a pretty good job of it. By the time one has hit twelve, one is no longer a little kid. Certainly not an adult, of course--but getting there, at least.
They committed Nanking. We're talking about a nation which only half a century ago was eating the livers of POWs; we're talking about a nation which less than a decade ago outlawed child porn: I highly doubt that they would be fastidious about invading China again.
Guillotine (multiplayer card game where you get to collect the heads of French nobility. funny and silly, even my mother likes it)
What's the sequel? Cambodia, a game in which you collect the eyeglasses of intellectuals? Buchenwald, a game in which you collect bars of soap made from various classes of prisoner? The French Revolution was a bloodbath, it was mass insanity, it was mass murder. It's not something to laugh at, but rather to cry over.
Here anyone is free to start a university. If it's good, it'll be recognised. It may even be accredited (which just means that some organisation approves of it). If it's bad, it'll fail.
You err in assuming that the speed limit is sane. This is almost never the case. I recently started driving the limit, and it is incredible how insanely low they are, and how much longer it takes to get from point A to point B if driving the limit. It's utterly absurd, really.
I will admit that once in my life I was in a place where the limit was too high: the hill country around San Marcos, Tx. But that was a single time. Around here (Denver, Colo.) the limits are uniformly 5-10 mph low.
The reality is that the US government knew damn well that they were going to kill innocent civilians, and they made a calculated decision that their political goals are worth more than those people's lives.
Ummm...yeah. That's what anyone who goes to war does. When we fought the Second World War, it was because our leaders made a calculated decision that their political goals (e.g. American sovereignty, opposing national socialism &c.) were worth more than the lives they cost. And you know what, they were right.
Same with Iraq. Same with any war: the decision is made that the cost is worthwhile. You may disagree in one or another case, but even you would apply that same calculus.
Ummm, if everyone lived to be 1,000 then they would all have an equal opportunity to make money, and so no one person would become supremely powerful. If everyone has $1,000,000,000, then even an apple costs $1,000.
Another way to look at it is this: yeah, an individual in that future society would command resources unimaginable to us today. But you and I command resources our great-grandparents would never have thought of: right now we are discussing events in realtime from around the world; ships bring us food out of season; machines make our clothes (heck, most of us have more and better clothing than Solomon ever had).
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But the definition of the word marriage precludes the idea that men can marry men, or women marry women.
Personally, I don't believe that there should even be such a thing as civil marriage. It's a religious institution, not a legal one. If two men or two women wish to say that they're married, I'll not stop them. I'll just think that they're playing fast and loose with language.
The same way that the amount I spend on food isn't an expense to any company I own stock in.
Stock options are an expense to the stock holders, not the company. They affect the company's bottom line not a whit.
Timothy McVeigh, while of a Christian background (like most folks in the US) was not a Christian; ISTR that he was actually rather militantly anti-Christian.
Which isn't to say that they don't deserve to have civil unions or somesuch.
Try The Light That Failed, by Kipling. I cried when I reached the end--wonderful tale.
And The Matrix was aimed straight at the 14-24 year old male market, just like what the Sci-Fi channel puts out.
I rather liked their Dune miniseries.
Ah--missed the bit about laws regulating sexual behaviour (I only skimmed the document--LDS stuff is bloody boring). Anyone who wants to regulate sex is a twit: the law should punish victimisers (e.g. rapists, thieves, murderers and defrauders) and no-one else.
Not really. As a Unix user and admin, I use awk constantly. Perl is general-purpose; awk has one raison d'etre and serves it well. I'd go so far as to say that any user who does not use awk for at least a few tasks cannot really call himself a Unix user.
I'm not a Mormon, and indeed I don't find them to even be Christian, but if Card's remarks are representative of their beliefs then it seems to me that they are quite tolerant.
Or did you wish him to be accepting of buggery?
That's a very good point. The old saying that we all put our pants on one leg at a time is based in the fact that until very recently we are all the same naked: yeah, a rich man has many properties and fine clothing, but at the end of the day he's not any different from the rest of us. But with the new trends of plastic surgery and genetic engineering, that may not always be the case, which worries me.
The most addle-pated hereditary ruler knew that he arrived at his position through an accident of birth, but a genetically engineered ueber will know that he is innately superior. That can't be good.
ISTR that DOS wasm't really an operating system--just a glorified boot loader. If that's the case, I doubt that FreeDOS has extended it to the point that it qualifies.
That would mean that FreeDOS isn't an alternative to Windows, let alone Linux or *BSD.
Constantinople was what the St. Constantine the Great (a Roman emperor) renamed the city when he moved the seat of government thereto. In practise, it became known as 'istan poli', 'the city' in Greek (much like London was known as 'town' for a period in England). 'Istanbul' is just a corruption of 'istan poli' by the Turks who invaded, raped and pillaged their way into ownership of the crown jewel of civilisation.
Of course, we'd need to improve power-transmission technology since we'd be moving electricity from the middle of nowhere to productive areas, and perhaps that is impossible--but if it is possible, then I think it'd be a good idea.
This would even be good for the environment: the massive power installations would demand populations of engineers to service them, and thus cities would be built in the deserts. As our technology improves, this (e.g. providing food and water for those in the desert) will become more and more feasible, and more cities will sprout up in the cheap real estate of the wastes. This means that more fertile areas can be used for food production (look at the amount of suburban space on the East Coast which used to be farmland: wouldn't it be nice if it could have stayed as productive land?).
Dear Lord--are all linguists leftists?
In the Orthodox Church, one may find bishops, priests, deacons, monks, subdeacons, readers and acolytes around the altar--and it may be that not one is less than thirty. Serving God isn't child's play: it's a business for adults.
Which is not to say that we haven't in our numbers boys as well. One of my own brothers started at the tender age of four. But the norm is for there to be more men in the sanctuary able to vote than otherwise.
We believed that Hussein had WMD; we did not believe that he had WMD capable of hitting the US. Part of the reason for the war (the legal casus belli, in fact) was his non-compliance with UN resolutions designed to prevent him from acquiring such WMDs.
No, 'little children' are kids of six or eight, with no real sense of responsibility. There is an eleven-year-old at church who serves alongside us men as an acolyte, and does a pretty good job of it. By the time one has hit twelve, one is no longer a little kid. Certainly not an adult, of course--but getting there, at least.
They committed Nanking. We're talking about a nation which only half a century ago was eating the livers of POWs; we're talking about a nation which less than a decade ago outlawed child porn: I highly doubt that they would be fastidious about invading China again.
What's the sequel? Cambodia, a game in which you collect the eyeglasses of intellectuals? Buchenwald, a game in which you collect bars of soap made from various classes of prisoner? The French Revolution was a bloodbath, it was mass insanity, it was mass murder. It's not something to laugh at, but rather to cry over.
What's really bad is that I still suck at it. *grumble*
Freedom is nice.
I will admit that once in my life I was in a place where the limit was too high: the hill country around San Marcos, Tx. But that was a single time. Around here (Denver, Colo.) the limits are uniformly 5-10 mph low.
Ummm...yeah. That's what anyone who goes to war does. When we fought the Second World War, it was because our leaders made a calculated decision that their political goals (e.g. American sovereignty, opposing national socialism &c.) were worth more than the lives they cost. And you know what, they were right.
Same with Iraq. Same with any war: the decision is made that the cost is worthwhile. You may disagree in one or another case, but even you would apply that same calculus.
Another way to look at it is this: yeah, an individual in that future society would command resources unimaginable to us today. But you and I command resources our great-grandparents would never have thought of: right now we are discussing events in realtime from around the world; ships bring us food out of season; machines make our clothes (heck, most of us have more and better clothing than Solomon ever had).
A rising tide lifts all boats.