I really think that a lot of the problem is that both sides are missing the distinction between science and philosophy. The "evolutionist" side for acting like they can scientifically prove the non-existence of God (this is actually just a hypothesis that exists under their scientific activities) and the "creationist" people for wanting to teach their philosophy (that there is a creative intelligence behind the universe) as science.

As scientists, both sides should really be doing the same thing -- the "evolutionist" side is looking for the mechanisms that drive evolution and for the intermediate types in the fossil record, while the "creationists" should be looking for the mechanism by which the Creator did his work. There's no reason that they have to be at each other's throats, really.

That said, it might be useful to have a couple of days at the beginning of the chapter on evolution where both philosophies are presented, thus calming fears of both sides that their views are not being taught. The actual scientific content should try to avoid (as is generally done in textbooks) any bias toward either of the philosophies.

This argument only works for "intelligent design" type creationists. The "Young Earthers" and the like might be mentioned in the introduction, but then no further attention should be paid to them in science class, because they are simply not doing science.

I could even see allowing additional extensions beyond the first, but the cost of these should increase exponentially. If Disney is convinced that derivatives of Steamboat Willie are going to drive them into the ground, they can pay an ever-increasing fee to protect it. Something like first renewal costs $10,000 (or more), second is $20,000, third is $40,000 and so on. At a certain point, even Disney would be moved to let things slip into the public domain... The reason for the high renewal fee is that if the work isn't generating serious income, there is no point in renewing the copyright, and if the work is that valuable, the public has a vested interest in getting it into the public domain

I just used some Babylon 5 for my English class (I have all boys, so showing soap operas, as the German government would have me do, was really out of the question). From the first season, there are really only one or two episodes that really add to the plot, and one of those would be more noticed in retrospect, once things start happening. Seasons 3-4 are the best part of the series, where the story takes place, and the actors have more or less gelled into their roles. (Season 5 was a bounce back from being cancelled, so that they had crammed most of the story into Season 4, and as a result seems to drag a lot.)

Despite the preview, I messed that one up: s/innocent/guilty/ .

Well, if she ends up not being found innocent, then she doesn't have a criminal record. If the police have to be "beyond a shadow of a doubt" before they can arrest somebody, the justice system might as well not exist. And a reasonable suspicion exists here -- the woman just received a hugely expensive ring from a man who wasn't exactly rich. It is reasonable for the police to think that she might have known that the ring was stolen.

Around here we've had the German police threaten to bodily carry American HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES to a German high school because they had had the temerity to get a high school degree before the legal age of being able to stop going to school in Germany. (They were 16, IIRC.)

On the other hand, I'm pretty O.K. with this. It is in society's interest that the kids go to school (whether they learn anything or not), and if they refuse to do this (breaking the laws for mandatory education), they can be sent to alternative education or carry the device. If they choose alternative education and fail to attend, they go to juvenile hall. Nowhere are the kid's rights being infringed that I can see.

Hmm... In 1989 I got to Graduate School, where I had email, telnet, gopher and news. After leaving school, around 1993 or so, I had a dialup account with Steve Jackson games with the same sort of all-text access (presumably I could have used lynx, but I didn't really know about the WWW at that point). Would that I had kept an email address at io.com! They were offering home SLIP connections, but they cost more than I was willing to pay (and needed a more able computer than I had at the moment). If you ordered a SLIP connection, you were required to buy a reference book from them, as you were expected to troubleshoot yourself.

This is almost exactly the idea that I had had a couple of years ago on Slashdot (not copyrighted). I think I suggested doubling the rate at each step, but the principle is the same. If Disney is really convinced that the entire conglomerate is going to go under if somebody samples "Steamboat Willie" in a commercial, then they can pay to prevent it. Most stuff would arrive in the public domain pretty rapidly, and the things that stayed in private hands would be available to the public, as someone would be actively promoting it.

The periods should probably be scaled according to the medium somewhat -- protection for a computer program could actually be much shorter than for a book or movie. As it is, PacMan has another 65 years of protection or so

By the logic of most of the people posting here, if I publish a book and anyone chooses not to stock it in their store, I can claim censorship and take them to court. What if my book isn't any good? What if I'm trying to get my commentary on the Gospels into the Atheist book store? What if...

The right of the stores to sell the material that they deem appropriate is sacrosanct. Otherwise, all the bookstores are going to go down by being forced to keep lots of books in stock that they may sell once every 10 years. Is it "censorship" that WalMart refuses to carry graduate-level Mathematics texts? No, it's simple business. For better or worse, WalMart has determined that it is in their interests to provide only products that meet with a certain set of moral norms. This is primarily a business decision -- they presume that if they are selling CDs that parents will not approve of, the parents will not allow children to shop there, thus cutting their revenue.

Apple has to have the ability to decide what they sell, otherwise, by the Slashdot "all censorship is wrong" mentality, they would be forced to carry child pornography - Nazi - Holocaust denial - Terrorism howto software, and then be shut down by the government. And the decision of what they choose to sell or not sell must rest with the company, otherwise we can't hold the company responsible for what they sell.

It is another thing if the government steps in and says that a particular piece of software cannot be sold anywhere. That's why we have a special name for this practice. The common usage of "censorship" to apply to anyone who chooses not to distribute material for any reason, cited in the parent post, essentially makes the term useless. We need to expand our vocabulary. WalMart doesn't "censor" artists, but rather "bowdlerizes" them.

The Wizard of Oz: contrast between the sepia tones in Kansas with the Technicolor of Oz. A major plot point.

Schindler's List: by coloring only the little girl's coat in the scene of Jews being rounded up, the filmmakers sought to increase the emotional attachment to the people being killed.

But as an adjective, meaning #2 of "moot" in the link you so kindly provided is "deprived of practical significance: made abstract or purely academic". One could argue that your parent was using this meaning.

The key is that the military personnel is in uniform, and so are immediately singled out for perks. I'm sure policemen in uniform have the same sort of reception. Clergy occasionally gets the same (depending on flight and ground crew -- other times they are singled out for "special treatment" by the TSA). Most doctors and nurses don't travel recognisably "medical", so would hardly expected to get random upgrades...