American taxes don't actually start at zero, unless the person is claimed by somebody else as a dependent. Those numbers are based on taxable income.
In the US tax system, you count up the number of people that are living on that income, and reduce the taxes paid accordingly. On top of that, you have the standard deduction, which further protects some income from tax. A single independent in the US can earn $8550 before paying taxes. The spouse gets the same deduction, meaning a married couple can earn 17,100 before paying $1 of federal income taxes. Each child in the US gets a $3400 dependent deduction, meaning a family of 4 subtracts $23,700 from it's income before paying taxes. In the US, we also have a child tax credit of $1500, which means the same family of 4 also gets back $3000 from their yearly bill compared to if the 4 people were all adults (2 parents taking care of two elderly parents). The tax bill for an individual making $50,000 dollars for a family of 4 is (based off last years charts with this years deductions) with a taxable income of 26,300 is 3186, and the two tax credits drop it to $186 (plus medicare and social security (7.65%) plus local taxes which range from 0-10% depending on which state tax you pay).
If I'm currently getting it in my basic package, NBC must not be asking anything for it. I don't know why that would change if it goes to a la carte. The same number of fans will be watching it if it is free or nearly free as watch it now, so I don't see any reason for the price to go up. If a la carte does go through and SciFi is expensive, I'd probably drop it since the only thing I'm watch on it anymore are movies I've already seen and Galactica, which will be done in May.
I think if we get a la carte, companies will have to give discounts for people to take their channels, possibly even giving it away in order to keep the ad revenue, which should be far higher from me watching one TV show than what they get from the cable company.
The government can't prevent you from saying it, no. So sit their in your chair and say what you want to say. Go hang out with your family and tell them whatever it is you have to say. But you don't have the right to call people randomly and ask them to buy something. Most of the time when we speak to sales people, either we've called or gone somewhere where we expect somebody is going to sell us something. Getting calls on the phone is different, it means that somebody is encroaching on our privacy to speak to us at a time when we're unprepared. Just as you can put up a sign that says "no solicitation" to keep sales people away, this is how we as a people have decided to handle this issue. We are telling you "Don't call us, we'll call you." This has been done because the system was being abused, and the playing field had to be leveled between our right to privacy and your right to talk. It was decided that the burden of ending the unwanted conversation should begin with the caller before the conversation began, by stopping all calls to anybody who publicly declared their desire to not get any signing up on a list.
There was a couple of court cases regarding this issue when the list came out.
As I recall, the judges decided that you can say anything you want to. But the First Amendment doesn't guarantee your right to be heard (as you mentioned), especially on somebody's private phone line, which is considered in this case to be the private property of the phone order. Your right to be heard does not include the right to be heard on somebody else's private property. The Do Not Call List is a list of people who've publicly declared they don't want to hear you and what you have to say so you can't call them and disturb them in their house by making their phone ring. That is, you don't even get to cause them 1 second of discomfort in the sanctuary of their house if they don't want you to.
The government, acting as the will of the people, has restricted abuses of the phone system, such as prank calls, stalking, and fraud that could be protected by free speech rights, but are considered abuses of the phone system that have brought unwanted incursions on our home. I heard that once upon a time, telemarketing companies had systems that could lock down a phone so the person couldn't use their phone until they'd listened to the entirety of a prerecorded message. That sure sounds like the case of some telemarketers who felt like they had a right to have their speech heard by everybody they chose. When the List was created 4 years ago, it seemed like the industry was moving towards sending every American 100 calls a night.
Surely SciFi wouldn't be that expensive. I got basic because I had to in order to get Cable Internet. I was flipping through the channels on my basic and found SciFi is included, and I'm only paying $12 for basic. I don't disagree that the prices of many channels may go up. But if you aren't paying for a bunch of them, surely the cost reduction in those will offset what you're paying for the ones you do want. Also, once many channels get hit with reduced income, they'll probably merge with similar channels, combine the best of their content, and offer themselves free to the cable company just to get in your home. If they don't, plenty of people will pony up for the channels they want or they'll decide it's not worth the price they're asking.
I'm pretty sure you aren't charged for them. Don't want to see them, set your TV, Cable Box or whatever to not show you the channel by setting it to skip. I get CSPAN (1 and 2 I think), 2 or 3 Shopping channels, and 2 broadcast channels on my basic package that I never watch, but I never see them because my DVR is set to skip them in the channel rotation.
They won't let you do it now. But a la carte is a game changer, that is it changes the rules of the game, which is the whole point and why they don't want it. They should not legally be able to force us to buy something we don't want to get something we do. They're practically charging us more for their best channel and giving us the lesser channels so we don't feel as bad about it. If that's the way they want to play the game, fine. Charge us the real price they want for the main channel and give the others away free, or offer discounts for selecting multiple channels from the same company. Heck, they can even choose to give away all their extra channels free as long as you pay for the expensive one. At least then we have the option of getting or not getting what we want.
If a la carte comes to pass, then they shouldn't be able to force us to pay for any channel we don't want to get one we do, so the government should say bundling is not allowed, unless customers have the option to buy each individually as well. Just because that's the way things have been doesn't mean that's the way they have to stay.
Referring to your earlier post, sure some channels will become outrageously expensive under their current contract. Well, the people that watch that channel will either pay the asked price, or they won't. Who cares if they currently charge you 3 times as much. The cable company can always offer it at the highest price, and refund subscribers any discounts at the end of the year/quarter/next bill if they so choose.
I get where you are coming from about how you're in a bind because of the policies of the companies that own the channels. Heck, we're on your side, we want to break their power too. I don't see how the satellite providers should be able to take advantage, since they should be required to play by the same rules as the cable companies.
Considering you'll have to train for years before you get into space, the body is in physical decline for most people by age 35-40, the intent is to make sure the candidates are still physically capably by the time they get into space.
Rare is the athlete that can compete at a high level beyond the age of 40, even then, there is a noticeable decline. Michael Jordan, for instance, in his last two years could no longer dunk like he could at 35 much less 25, and scored 8 and 10 points fewer than his career average.
I don't know insurance tables, but there's probably an increased likely hood of surprise physical ailments the older you get, and maybe this reduces the chance of difficulty on a mission.
Spacewalks in bulky spacesuits and other physically demanding tasks are best left to those closer to their prime.
There is also probably a cost issue at play. Astronauts recruited younger, can probably make twice the number of missions for the same amount of initial training, so it's more cost effective to employ younger astronauts who can be around for longer periods of time.
Well, for a scientist, engineer, or mathematician, I'm imagine it means they aren't fresh out of college. That is, they have 5 or 10 years of real world experience in their non-astronaut field of study.
Not yet on the video card. I managed to go from Etch to Lenny. The nVidia driver was the only difficulty. I think ATI's new drivers will be out in six months or so, then I'll be going from a 5300 to ATI.
Money involved in this project will be affected, although it should be in dollars briefly enough before being used to buy more parts and pay for assembly, that it probably won't have much effect. But I suspect they'll use euros, pounds, or some other currency that is more stable to transfer money from foreign governments to suppliers.
I would say the message would come across better if you send it to nVidia.
The big effect will be if every Linux OEM started shipping Radeon in every box, that could be a pretty big number of lost potential sales that they weren't considered for solely based on software.
This could really be huge in the progress towards making Linux mainstream. The last few times I've installed Linux, installing my 3D drive for nVidia has required a few steps most users wouldn't or couldn't do. Several distros won't automatically set this up during install because the drivers aren't open. As soon as we get these drivers, Linux setup and support should get that much easier, because the installer will pop up a dialog that says "RADION XXXX detected, install 3D acceleration? Y/N."
We're getting a few steps closer to the mainstreaming of Linux, which will snowball once games and other software starts to include Linux binaries/installers on the disks that you can buy retail.
Microsoft won't drop their price. They're doing this to increase revenues, but they won't drop their price. XP was released almost 6 years ago, the development costs have long since been paid for, Microsoft has made tens of billions in profit, and its still priced at the same price it was on day one. XP Home, non-upgrade edition has been priced $199 everyday since release.
The article is rather vague, saying that's how much they saved, but then how much revenue the satellites bring in over 6 months. If it's the later, that the income these satellites made, not what they saved. If they bring these down at the start of the 6 months instead of the end, they'd still earn the revenue by having the replacement satellites in place at the earlier date. Anyway, this doesn't really save much, it just allows them to push back the cost of launching the new satellites half a year. I suppose over 30 replacement cycles (15 year life, 6 month extra use, 450 years total) barring advancements in satellite engineering, they would finally have save the cost of one satellite and lanch. I'm not saying it's not a good thing that they've done this, but the article is pretty poor about the numbers and over states the benefits.
I'm wondering why they haven't started using ion drives on satellites. They would have to be significantly cheaper to launch and should last significantly longer, which should more than make up the cost of using newer technology.
I think it is included in the contract that when you borrow the stock, the owner you are borrowing from can force you to return it at any time so they can get their money out if they need to. Some people that were buying stock today were probably forced to by the people that they were borrowing from.
SCO Group might have been the ones buying shares today. If they have more than 50 cents cash for every share of stock, this would increase the value of the remaining outstanding shares. Example, if their were 20 million shares, and 20 million in cash, and the company bought 6 million shares, each share is basically worth a dollar if they close shop. If they buy 6 million shares at 3 million dollars, they then have 14 million shares and 17 million dollars. The value of the shares to the remaining owners is then closer to a $1.21 a share, which would be a 20% increase in the asset value of the stock. I don't know what the numbers are in this case, but many traders don't pay attention to these sorts of numbers when the stocks start falling in value.
While your comment is pretty spot on, the science of earth in the Bible does describe something different than what we know it to be today. Flat Earth.
Additionally, in the bible, the blue we see when we look up is water, kept out by a dome over the earth. (Genesis 1:7, Genesis 8:2)
I've yet to hear a Bible literalist (including Fundamentalists) explain this away.
The bible also contradicts itself in several places. In the first two chapters of the bible, there are two accounts of Creation. Most people only think of the first, the 6 days of creation. In the second, God makes man, then the animals, followed finally by the woman. Each creation account is supposed to tell us how we as humans relate to the world around us, and the second, also about how men and women relate to one another.
In the New Testament, three of the gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke (which are merely rewritten copies of one another), say that Simon of Cyrene carried the cross for Jesus. John explicitly denies this saying "Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha)."
There is no way to reconcile these differences and say that each and every word of the bible is literally and historically true. The only way these can be handled properly is to admit that the bible was never intended to be a history or science text, but instead is to be a book that is a spiritual and religious guide, but that Jews and Christians are supposed to only apply it to religious and moral truths about how Christians are supposed to live, not as a scientific book that really tells us what people believed thousands of years ago.
Everybody should be voting the way that gives themselves the most benefit, right? Well if some voters don't see any value in their vote beyond what someone will give them to vote a particular way, why should we care? Because it goes against the spirit of what democracy is? That wouldn't make it illegal.
Really, since nobody can prove that you voted for somebody that you'd traded votes for, you could conceivably offer to vote for hundreds of people, or trick people into voting for who you want, but then not vote the way you promised. Nobody could ever convict you of not following through on your 'contract' or following through, because the secret ballot would prevent you from being persecuted since nobody can prove you ever actually completed the trade.
Until we change our voting system, it won't really matter. What, three of the last four elections could have changed hands just by eliminating a third party candidate. That's a situation that should never be an issue in a well run election.
Hmm. The NFP works as well as anything else. NFP does not involve counting from the days of menstruation using beads or rings. That is called the calendar rhythm method, and is only about 93% effective, which means 7% of women have irregular cycles that fall outside of the usual expected dates based on the 'average woman.' My wife can't use the calendar rhythm method, because she always ovulates between days 17-21. NFP involves making observations that are closely tied to when ovulation occurs, then after it is passed, the couple is in the clear. Using a condom with NFP is not recommended, because the when a condom breaks, it's guaranteed to happen during the time of the month when the woman will get pregnant. The German study I mentioned found that couples using condoms during the fertile time where twice as likely to get pregnant (.8%) instead of the standard.4%.
I agree that sex is extremely important in how relationships work. But, considering 95% of people lose their virginity before being married, how is the 5% of people that wait to have sex responsible for a 50% divorce rate and all the miserable relationships you were referring to?
It's just the opposite. People that have sex without a commitment, especially women, tend to invest emotionally in the other person after they've had sex. They then allow their emotions cloud their judgment of the person and end up in a bad relationship because they couldn't see the bad stuff because they were blinded by their hormones that want more sex and will overlook the bad stuff to get it.
People that live together and try out a relationship before tying the note must have a better time at having successful relationships, right? Just the opposite, many experts say that those that cohabitate before marriage end up with a higher divorce rate, not counting the cohabitation relationships that never progress to marriage.
The satisfaction rate of modern marriages is around 40%, another 50% end in divorce, so the other 10% must be unhappy?
The source of all this unhappiness would probably surprise you, but it is contraception. Couples that use NFP report twice the satisfaction levels of couples that use contraceptives, in informal polls that I've seen. This bears out in the divorce rate of such, which has never been rigorously studied, but is estimated to be well below 10%.
You might wonder why contraception has such a dramatic effect on marriage? The whole point of contraception is to turn a woman into a man: somebody who can have sex without getting pregnant. Sex switches from being the joining of two complementary people to two people using each other to get their orgasm. I and my wife have a very profound respect for each others sexuality and fertility, because we are confronted with the possibility of getting pregnant for a least one week a month. When we take a week off from having sex, you can be very sure that she understands that I appreciate her more because I respect her as a woman because I'm not using her body for my gratification. When I met my wife, I had to teach her this. If I wanted to change her back now, I wouldn't have a chance. She knows she has a good thing, and she'd never go back.
Just on a side note, earlier this year, the FDA was looking into the fact that the pill is now only 98% effective (20 pregnancies per 1000 women per year) compared to the 99% effectiveness of the 70s. Meanwhile, there was a German study that found that NFP was more effective than 99%, and Symptothermal NFP is is 99.6% effective (4 pregnancies per 1000 women per year). Does NFP require more effort to use? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes. Fortunately, it comes with the side benefits of eliminating the need for marriage counseling and a regular trip to the pharmacy, and can be used for the price of about $200 for life including instruction.
Well, this protects the university from litigation. If they cutoff only those users they get notices on, then they have a perfectly valid justification for shutting them off. These users are locked into student housing for the remainder of the semester, but they will know what risk they are taking if they P2P in the future, and will have to live with the consequences, and schools don't include a "legal protection from RIAA/MPAA fee" in the list of fees students are forced to pay. I don't get the anger over this issue, and I'm more disposed to hate KU than anybody.
If students don't want to live with this policy, they can move off campus, and get AT&T or Cox broadband services. Sure it costs a LOT more to live off campus in Lawrence, but, if you want to do things like distribute other people's music, that is a choice you have to make. Of course, with the money you save by living on campus, you could buy the media you want and use your computer for classwork instead.
Slashdot Mirror
American taxes don't actually start at zero, unless the person is claimed by somebody else as a dependent. Those numbers are based on taxable income.
In the US tax system, you count up the number of people that are living on that income, and reduce the taxes paid accordingly. On top of that, you have the standard deduction, which further protects some income from tax. A single independent in the US can earn $8550 before paying taxes. The spouse gets the same deduction, meaning a married couple can earn 17,100 before paying $1 of federal income taxes. Each child in the US gets a $3400 dependent deduction, meaning a family of 4 subtracts $23,700 from it's income before paying taxes. In the US, we also have a child tax credit of $1500, which means the same family of 4 also gets back $3000 from their yearly bill compared to if the 4 people were all adults (2 parents taking care of two elderly parents). The tax bill for an individual making $50,000 dollars for a family of 4 is (based off last years charts with this years deductions) with a taxable income of 26,300 is 3186, and the two tax credits drop it to $186 (plus medicare and social security (7.65%) plus local taxes which range from 0-10% depending on which state tax you pay).
The error is only in Excel 2007? (Check Slashdot title.)
If I'm currently getting it in my basic package, NBC must not be asking anything for it. I don't know why that would change if it goes to a la carte. The same number of fans will be watching it if it is free or nearly free as watch it now, so I don't see any reason for the price to go up. If a la carte does go through and SciFi is expensive, I'd probably drop it since the only thing I'm watch on it anymore are movies I've already seen and Galactica, which will be done in May. I think if we get a la carte, companies will have to give discounts for people to take their channels, possibly even giving it away in order to keep the ad revenue, which should be far higher from me watching one TV show than what they get from the cable company.
The government can't prevent you from saying it, no. So sit their in your chair and say what you want to say. Go hang out with your family and tell them whatever it is you have to say. But you don't have the right to call people randomly and ask them to buy something. Most of the time when we speak to sales people, either we've called or gone somewhere where we expect somebody is going to sell us something. Getting calls on the phone is different, it means that somebody is encroaching on our privacy to speak to us at a time when we're unprepared. Just as you can put up a sign that says "no solicitation" to keep sales people away, this is how we as a people have decided to handle this issue. We are telling you "Don't call us, we'll call you." This has been done because the system was being abused, and the playing field had to be leveled between our right to privacy and your right to talk. It was decided that the burden of ending the unwanted conversation should begin with the caller before the conversation began, by stopping all calls to anybody who publicly declared their desire to not get any signing up on a list.
There was a couple of court cases regarding this issue when the list came out.
As I recall, the judges decided that you can say anything you want to. But the First Amendment doesn't guarantee your right to be heard (as you mentioned), especially on somebody's private phone line, which is considered in this case to be the private property of the phone order. Your right to be heard does not include the right to be heard on somebody else's private property. The Do Not Call List is a list of people who've publicly declared they don't want to hear you and what you have to say so you can't call them and disturb them in their house by making their phone ring. That is, you don't even get to cause them 1 second of discomfort in the sanctuary of their house if they don't want you to.
The government, acting as the will of the people, has restricted abuses of the phone system, such as prank calls, stalking, and fraud that could be protected by free speech rights, but are considered abuses of the phone system that have brought unwanted incursions on our home. I heard that once upon a time, telemarketing companies had systems that could lock down a phone so the person couldn't use their phone until they'd listened to the entirety of a prerecorded message. That sure sounds like the case of some telemarketers who felt like they had a right to have their speech heard by everybody they chose. When the List was created 4 years ago, it seemed like the industry was moving towards sending every American 100 calls a night.
Surely SciFi wouldn't be that expensive. I got basic because I had to in order to get Cable Internet. I was flipping through the channels on my basic and found SciFi is included, and I'm only paying $12 for basic. I don't disagree that the prices of many channels may go up. But if you aren't paying for a bunch of them, surely the cost reduction in those will offset what you're paying for the ones you do want. Also, once many channels get hit with reduced income, they'll probably merge with similar channels, combine the best of their content, and offer themselves free to the cable company just to get in your home. If they don't, plenty of people will pony up for the channels they want or they'll decide it's not worth the price they're asking.
I'm pretty sure you aren't charged for them. Don't want to see them, set your TV, Cable Box or whatever to not show you the channel by setting it to skip. I get CSPAN (1 and 2 I think), 2 or 3 Shopping channels, and 2 broadcast channels on my basic package that I never watch, but I never see them because my DVR is set to skip them in the channel rotation.
They won't let you do it now. But a la carte is a game changer, that is it changes the rules of the game, which is the whole point and why they don't want it. They should not legally be able to force us to buy something we don't want to get something we do. They're practically charging us more for their best channel and giving us the lesser channels so we don't feel as bad about it. If that's the way they want to play the game, fine. Charge us the real price they want for the main channel and give the others away free, or offer discounts for selecting multiple channels from the same company. Heck, they can even choose to give away all their extra channels free as long as you pay for the expensive one. At least then we have the option of getting or not getting what we want.
If a la carte comes to pass, then they shouldn't be able to force us to pay for any channel we don't want to get one we do, so the government should say bundling is not allowed, unless customers have the option to buy each individually as well. Just because that's the way things have been doesn't mean that's the way they have to stay.
Referring to your earlier post, sure some channels will become outrageously expensive under their current contract. Well, the people that watch that channel will either pay the asked price, or they won't. Who cares if they currently charge you 3 times as much. The cable company can always offer it at the highest price, and refund subscribers any discounts at the end of the year/quarter/next bill if they so choose.
I get where you are coming from about how you're in a bind because of the policies of the companies that own the channels. Heck, we're on your side, we want to break their power too. I don't see how the satellite providers should be able to take advantage, since they should be required to play by the same rules as the cable companies.
I'd think 10s of millions would love to see JarJar the Jedi wield Lightsaber Chucks.
Considering you'll have to train for years before you get into space, the body is in physical decline for most people by age 35-40, the intent is to make sure the candidates are still physically capably by the time they get into space.
Rare is the athlete that can compete at a high level beyond the age of 40, even then, there is a noticeable decline. Michael Jordan, for instance, in his last two years could no longer dunk like he could at 35 much less 25, and scored 8 and 10 points fewer than his career average.
I don't know insurance tables, but there's probably an increased likely hood of surprise physical ailments the older you get, and maybe this reduces the chance of difficulty on a mission.
Spacewalks in bulky spacesuits and other physically demanding tasks are best left to those closer to their prime.
There is also probably a cost issue at play. Astronauts recruited younger, can probably make twice the number of missions for the same amount of initial training, so it's more cost effective to employ younger astronauts who can be around for longer periods of time.
Well, for a scientist, engineer, or mathematician, I'm imagine it means they aren't fresh out of college. That is, they have 5 or 10 years of real world experience in their non-astronaut field of study.
Banks only have to keep 10-12% of the funds available for withdrawal. The rest is invested/loaned out to make money.
Not yet on the video card. I managed to go from Etch to Lenny. The nVidia driver was the only difficulty. I think ATI's new drivers will be out in six months or so, then I'll be going from a 5300 to ATI.
Money involved in this project will be affected, although it should be in dollars briefly enough before being used to buy more parts and pay for assembly, that it probably won't have much effect. But I suspect they'll use euros, pounds, or some other currency that is more stable to transfer money from foreign governments to suppliers.
I would say the message would come across better if you send it to nVidia.
The big effect will be if every Linux OEM started shipping Radeon in every box, that could be a pretty big number of lost potential sales that they weren't considered for solely based on software.
This could really be huge in the progress towards making Linux mainstream. The last few times I've installed Linux, installing my 3D drive for nVidia has required a few steps most users wouldn't or couldn't do. Several distros won't automatically set this up during install because the drivers aren't open. As soon as we get these drivers, Linux setup and support should get that much easier, because the installer will pop up a dialog that says "RADION XXXX detected, install 3D acceleration? Y/N."
We're getting a few steps closer to the mainstreaming of Linux, which will snowball once games and other software starts to include Linux binaries/installers on the disks that you can buy retail.
Microsoft won't drop their price. They're doing this to increase revenues, but they won't drop their price. XP was released almost 6 years ago, the development costs have long since been paid for, Microsoft has made tens of billions in profit, and its still priced at the same price it was on day one. XP Home, non-upgrade edition has been priced $199 everyday since release.
The article is rather vague, saying that's how much they saved, but then how much revenue the satellites bring in over 6 months. If it's the later, that the income these satellites made, not what they saved. If they bring these down at the start of the 6 months instead of the end, they'd still earn the revenue by having the replacement satellites in place at the earlier date. Anyway, this doesn't really save much, it just allows them to push back the cost of launching the new satellites half a year. I suppose over 30 replacement cycles (15 year life, 6 month extra use, 450 years total) barring advancements in satellite engineering, they would finally have save the cost of one satellite and lanch. I'm not saying it's not a good thing that they've done this, but the article is pretty poor about the numbers and over states the benefits.
I'm wondering why they haven't started using ion drives on satellites. They would have to be significantly cheaper to launch and should last significantly longer, which should more than make up the cost of using newer technology.
Are you thinking HALO 2 which is Vista only and has been out three months?
What's the uplink speed on that?
I think it is included in the contract that when you borrow the stock, the owner you are borrowing from can force you to return it at any time so they can get their money out if they need to. Some people that were buying stock today were probably forced to by the people that they were borrowing from.
SCO Group might have been the ones buying shares today. If they have more than 50 cents cash for every share of stock, this would increase the value of the remaining outstanding shares. Example, if their were 20 million shares, and 20 million in cash, and the company bought 6 million shares, each share is basically worth a dollar if they close shop. If they buy 6 million shares at 3 million dollars, they then have 14 million shares and 17 million dollars. The value of the shares to the remaining owners is then closer to a $1.21 a share, which would be a 20% increase in the asset value of the stock. I don't know what the numbers are in this case, but many traders don't pay attention to these sorts of numbers when the stocks start falling in value.
While your comment is pretty spot on, the science of earth in the Bible does describe something different than what we know it to be today. Flat Earth.
Additionally, in the bible, the blue we see when we look up is water, kept out by a dome over the earth. (Genesis 1:7, Genesis 8:2)
I've yet to hear a Bible literalist (including Fundamentalists) explain this away.
The bible also contradicts itself in several places. In the first two chapters of the bible, there are two accounts of Creation. Most people only think of the first, the 6 days of creation. In the second, God makes man, then the animals, followed finally by the woman. Each creation account is supposed to tell us how we as humans relate to the world around us, and the second, also about how men and women relate to one another.
In the New Testament, three of the gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke (which are merely rewritten copies of one another), say that Simon of Cyrene carried the cross for Jesus. John explicitly denies this saying "Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha)."
There is no way to reconcile these differences and say that each and every word of the bible is literally and historically true. The only way these can be handled properly is to admit that the bible was never intended to be a history or science text, but instead is to be a book that is a spiritual and religious guide, but that Jews and Christians are supposed to only apply it to religious and moral truths about how Christians are supposed to live, not as a scientific book that really tells us what people believed thousands of years ago.
I say all of this as a believing Christian.
It is? Which law is that?
Everybody should be voting the way that gives themselves the most benefit, right? Well if some voters don't see any value in their vote beyond what someone will give them to vote a particular way, why should we care? Because it goes against the spirit of what democracy is? That wouldn't make it illegal.
Really, since nobody can prove that you voted for somebody that you'd traded votes for, you could conceivably offer to vote for hundreds of people, or trick people into voting for who you want, but then not vote the way you promised. Nobody could ever convict you of not following through on your 'contract' or following through, because the secret ballot would prevent you from being persecuted since nobody can prove you ever actually completed the trade.
Until we change our voting system, it won't really matter. What, three of the last four elections could have changed hands just by eliminating a third party candidate. That's a situation that should never be an issue in a well run election.
Hmm. The NFP works as well as anything else. NFP does not involve counting from the days of menstruation using beads or rings. That is called the calendar rhythm method, and is only about 93% effective, which means 7% of women have irregular cycles that fall outside of the usual expected dates based on the 'average woman.' My wife can't use the calendar rhythm method, because she always ovulates between days 17-21. NFP involves making observations that are closely tied to when ovulation occurs, then after it is passed, the couple is in the clear. Using a condom with NFP is not recommended, because the when a condom breaks, it's guaranteed to happen during the time of the month when the woman will get pregnant. The German study I mentioned found that couples using condoms during the fertile time where twice as likely to get pregnant (.8%) instead of the standard .4%.
I agree that sex is extremely important in how relationships work. But, considering 95% of people lose their virginity before being married, how is the 5% of people that wait to have sex responsible for a 50% divorce rate and all the miserable relationships you were referring to?
It's just the opposite. People that have sex without a commitment, especially women, tend to invest emotionally in the other person after they've had sex. They then allow their emotions cloud their judgment of the person and end up in a bad relationship because they couldn't see the bad stuff because they were blinded by their hormones that want more sex and will overlook the bad stuff to get it.
People that live together and try out a relationship before tying the note must have a better time at having successful relationships, right? Just the opposite, many experts say that those that cohabitate before marriage end up with a higher divorce rate, not counting the cohabitation relationships that never progress to marriage.
The satisfaction rate of modern marriages is around 40%, another 50% end in divorce, so the other 10% must be unhappy?
The source of all this unhappiness would probably surprise you, but it is contraception. Couples that use NFP report twice the satisfaction levels of couples that use contraceptives, in informal polls that I've seen. This bears out in the divorce rate of such, which has never been rigorously studied, but is estimated to be well below 10%.
You might wonder why contraception has such a dramatic effect on marriage? The whole point of contraception is to turn a woman into a man: somebody who can have sex without getting pregnant. Sex switches from being the joining of two complementary people to two people using each other to get their orgasm. I and my wife have a very profound respect for each others sexuality and fertility, because we are confronted with the possibility of getting pregnant for a least one week a month. When we take a week off from having sex, you can be very sure that she understands that I appreciate her more because I respect her as a woman because I'm not using her body for my gratification. When I met my wife, I had to teach her this. If I wanted to change her back now, I wouldn't have a chance. She knows she has a good thing, and she'd never go back.
Just on a side note, earlier this year, the FDA was looking into the fact that the pill is now only 98% effective (20 pregnancies per 1000 women per year) compared to the 99% effectiveness of the 70s. Meanwhile, there was a German study that found that NFP was more effective than 99%, and Symptothermal NFP is is 99.6% effective (4 pregnancies per 1000 women per year). Does NFP require more effort to use? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes. Fortunately, it comes with the side benefits of eliminating the need for marriage counseling and a regular trip to the pharmacy, and can be used for the price of about $200 for life including instruction.
Well, this protects the university from litigation. If they cutoff only those users they get notices on, then they have a perfectly valid justification for shutting them off. These users are locked into student housing for the remainder of the semester, but they will know what risk they are taking if they P2P in the future, and will have to live with the consequences, and schools don't include a "legal protection from RIAA/MPAA fee" in the list of fees students are forced to pay. I don't get the anger over this issue, and I'm more disposed to hate KU than anybody.
If students don't want to live with this policy, they can move off campus, and get AT&T or Cox broadband services. Sure it costs a LOT more to live off campus in Lawrence, but, if you want to do things like distribute other people's music, that is a choice you have to make. Of course, with the money you save by living on campus, you could buy the media you want and use your computer for classwork instead.