Wow. Ignorant much? The Mosaic laws forbidding close relations were not in effect at the time of Adam and Eve (allegorical or not). No one in their right mind would think that laws put into effect hundreds if not thousands of years after an act would then retroactively condemn someone for breaking a law that did not exist at the time they performed the action.

My personal belief (supported by many scholars, but I'll leave it up to you to take the time to look if you care to do so) is that the Mosaic laws were put into place due to the apparent slow degradation of the species. Adam was said to have lived 900+ years, but by Moses' time, the average lifetime was said to be nearer 175 years of age. Marrying of close relations was no longer a safe option. Marrying a sister or cousin could introduce more and more defects into the human gene pool, so it had to be outlawed. Not that they necessarily understood the intricate details of the genetic code (obviously not), but they understood breeding processes and knew that it caused defects in the animal kingdom, so it's not at all unlikely they understood the consequences of close relations marrying.

So the objection to incest for any rational modern Christian due to the social, genetic, and mental issues it can cause does not preclude the belief that there must have been one initial pairing of humans, and that that pair had children who intermarried to have more children. Both make logical sense.

It is likely we all came from one initial set of 'parents' and that intra-familial marriage had to occur at the beginning. This does not mean that it is fine and dandy for brother and sister to marry each other now, especially when we know better genetically and socially speaking.

No, Hitch Hiker's Guide To the Galaxy... the "B ship" if I recall correctly, filled with the "useless" part of the population (phone sanitizers, politicians, economists) ... idiots declared leaves as currency, but then realized there was massive inflation due to the abundance of leaves, so their solution was to deforest the planet in order to keep the value of the leaf currency stable.

Google's spam filters are that specific... they apply both globally and individually. Google knows that email from ebay is spam to me in my one account, but is vital information and "important" in my other account.

Why do I suddenly have images of Minority Report in my mind... little spiders built with this technology in it, remotely controlled, identifying everyone in a building quickly... completely disregarding the rights of the people to be secure from unreasonable search...

Restricted websites = pay for access (paywall) websites, such as porn, technical forums, some newspaper websites, etc.

On top of paperless billing is "automatic payments" for your "convenience" (it's really for their convenience). So, mystery charges are added to a bill, you get an email with your itemized bill telling you "thank you for your payment" and good luck trying to get the company to refund that money.

It has always been the burden of the individual to pay the proper use taxes in their own state on purchases made in other states. If I drive up to NY and buy a Plasma TV, I am expected to both recoup my taxes paid in NY on my way out of the state and additionally remit my Use taxes to my home state. This is how the law works. This same law applies to me ordering mail order products (Sears had a whole legal case that decided in favor of this setup), and Internet sales are no different than Catalog sales or sales across state lines. That no one really follows this process appropriately with physically purchased items from other states (though many follow this process for items purchased in other countries) is not enough reason to suddenly put the burden on the small store trying to run it's business according to the law.

Because Ohio, for example, is unable to enforce their local tax laws on their own residents, I, being a business in an entirely separate independent state am somehow required to collect that tax on behalf of the inept state government of Ohio? That does not make sense and is in violation of the independence of the individual State, and violates the Constitution. "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state." It's pretty simple. The constitution says that the federal government and the states agree not to levy a tax against my products should I export them from my state to another state. The state may levy a tax on their residents for purchasing a product from another state (and they do through the Sales and Use tax), and my state may levy a tax on me for any sale to someone within my home state, but the other 49 states simply cannot levy a tax against my exports to other states.

Invite on it's way to you.

Wish I had mod points. This sums it up nicely!

Sent you an invite so you can check it out.

I wanted to just say "Invite sent." because it was short and to the point, but Slashdot won't let me... it says "This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original...". So... be more original, eh?

An invitation to the services for communications between various social circles mimicking the interactions of real life social circles created by the company named after 10 to the 100th power, only misspelled, has been electronically dispatched to your virtual equivalent of a postal mailbox and awaits your attention and action.

Hopefully that's original enough for Slashdot :-)

Compartmentalization is exactly what Google+ is all about. The Circles feature means you can compartmentalize your work, personal, family, friends, acquaintances, extended family, internet only friends, and any other grouping you can come up with. Each and every post requires that you select just who will have access to these posts, so there is no chance of merging the two if you don't want them to merge. If you have something you want to announce to all of these groups (such as woo hoo! I have a new grandson!) then you can easily do that while still keeping all other communications in their silos. It is leaps and bounds easier to do this in Google+ than it is to do this in Facebook.

I'm for a "Federal Sales Tax". Simple, if I sell in a state I have a physical presence in, I must abide by the local laws where my business resides. If I sell across state boundaries, all of those sales must collect a "Federal Sales Tax". This "Federal Sales Tax" collected is then distributed to the 50 states with 50% being distributed evenly across all 50 states and the remaining 50% distributed based on a percentage of population living in that state (so ND would get a very small portion of the second half whereas California would get a very large portion of the second half, but both states would get an equal share of the first 50% of the tax).

Such a system would eliminate the burden on the buyer to be 'honest' and report their use tax (who really does this?), makes a very reasonable burden on the seller to collect a tax for sales across state lines, and all 50 states benefit from the taxes.

While I'd prefer to just say "screw all of this", eliminate all forms of taxation except sales tax, make it a flat 10%, and tax EVERY sale (from the manufacturer to the wholesaler to the retailer to the reseller), but that's just a pipe dream.

I'm a small business owner. I sell to the 48 contiguous states and D.C. Right now, I have to be aware of any sales that occur in PA, and also have to be aware of any sales to people in Philadelphia specifically, because I must collect different taxes for each case. This is enough of a headache for a one person operation, but I make enough from the side business to make it worth the effort. I expect there are tens of thousands more like me, if not hundreds of thousands. We all are making an extra % of income from side businesses, collecting the tax for our state, and allowing other states to require their citizens to pay a Use tax on products they order across state lines. This is logical, and fair to businesses, as the burden to a business with one or two employees of having to keep track of the taxes in each county, borough, municipality, city, town, hamlet, and commonwealth in each state would be so extreme as to make nearly all small businesses either close shop or stop selling across state lines (and to cut one's audience to 1/50th the size almost guarantees going out of business in this day and age).

Now from my limited understanding of the economy, it would seem that a sudden disappearance of say 5-10% of income on hundreds of thousands of people in the 50 states could negatively impact our economy. Suddenly, I'd not have extra money to spend on entertainment and services (the only things our economy really produces much of at this point), and therefore those services would no longer be collecting taxes from me, and therefore the government would lose money. Seems pretty straightforward to me that to force the business to handle all of the tax legwork for all states in which they sell a product would kill any and all small businesses from selling anything on the internet, and would cripple the larger online businesses, eliminating the grease that makes the wheels of our economy turn.

Am I wrong here? I know I'd have to simply close up shop if a law required me to keep track of all 48 states' tax laws and all the tax intricacies of the various towns and sections of those states. I can't imagine I'm in the minority here.

Invite sent.