I keep seeing people say that the government should get out of the marriage business, but it seems like Religions should get out of the marriage business. Religions should be in the ceremony business, not the marriage business. Which is good because that's how things generally are. Too many people don't seem to understand that the religious ceremony is intended to make the signing of a piece of paper in front of two witnesses feel special. However, the marriage licence is provided by the state and is the same no matter what religion (if any) you subscribe to. That's not a bad thing, but too many people are making the mistake of confusing the ceremony with the actual marriage. For simplicity's sake being married in front of god conveys no legal status at all until you sign the government provided piece of paper.

The reason the government is involved and should remain so, is because there are significant and important legal implications to marriage. Beyond tax implications, there are legal issues such as inheretance (particularly important if the home is not in name of both partners), end-of-life care, hospital visitations, prison access, health benefit access, and the list goes on and on. Adn that's before we get to any provisions that are supposed to provide assitance to those raising children.

Actually, people who are unmarried and living together may be treated the same as someone who is married and living together (it's called common-law), though I doubt you could claim a common law status with your brother or sister, but that's because you are assumed to not be in stable long term exclusive relationship.

In which case the board made a decision that his views were counter-productive to the organization and they did what they had to. I'd prefer to think that he had the wisdom to see that his political history was damaging to the foundation, that he was foolish enough to require the board to force him out. Of course, there were other options he could have engaged in, he could have apologized, recanted his views and made a gesture of reconciliation (like publicly donating money to a pro-gay-marriage campaign). However, while I haven't been following the story too closely, it appears he tried to take the "I won't let my prejudices influence how I deal with my should-be-less-than-equal underlings" approach, which he couldn't pull off.

I am always amused at the self-righteousness of those who believe the tolerant should tolerate their intolerance.

They're almost amusing as those who believe that their free speech rights should be used to stiffle the criticism of others.

No apparent reason? Are you daft? Your primary evidence that blacklisting is happening is a handful of people complaining that it is not.

It seems you have some sort of problem with actually reading and understanding what other people write.

First some real actual evidence of what you claim to be true, would be nice. Posting a let me Google that for you which doesn't even point to what you claim is simply foolish.

If this is the quality of the "evidence" that you normally present, it's no wonder you are routinely dismissed.

Here's a hint: you're wating my time, kid. Come back when you have something definitive.

How about some actual evidence of a systematic blacklisting process? Leaks that show the censorship is going on, perhaps? Like the one from Fox News that says doubt must always be cast on climate change?

How about a credible list of people who have blacklisted from the media, science conferences, and journals? I'm only aware of the rules actually being bent or broken to publish matierial critical of climate change and no actual verified instances where the reverse happened. Every time I've seen that claim leveled by "climate skeptics" after a little digging it seems to turn out that either a) nothing was ever submitted in the first place apparently because the submitter determined it wouldn't be accepted anyway and decided not to submit at all (thus a self-fulfilling prophecy) or b) it was rejected because it failed peer review because of significant methodological errors and the author refused to make revisions.

Additionally, if there are scientific papers or authors who are being blacklisted, you'd think it would be easy enough to gather and post the papers online for all to see. We have this thing called the internet where anyone can host their own web site. However, we never see the blacklisted papers merely the claim from the advocats for the supposedly oppressed claiming that it's happening and it's big.

You cannot have a rational discussion on this topic without any actual evidence. What evidence could you produce?

You wrote:

The evidence is Apple CEO Tim Cook telling a libertarian to pull his head out his ass? Or Neil Degrasse Tyson saying anti-science loons shouldn't be given equal weight with scientists? Or are the comments of an unnamed CNN correspondent evidence of this conspiracy to shut out climate change deniers? Maybe it's the letter to the editor? Is Elizabeth Black from Boulder, Colerado the secret illumanity leader who's perpetuating this pro-climate change blackball campaign?

Right back at you.

I'm glad we agree on something.

You should read Tuff Voyaging by George R. R. Martin. It's a collection of short stories, but if I remember correctly, one of the stories does feature a planet with something like 200 billion people on it.

Those aren't scientists, the NIPCC is primarily funded by the Heritage Insitute. They're a conservative libertarian think-thank as such they're a political group. One, you've probably heard of before, they're the guys who ran the add campaign claiming the Unabomber believes in climate change.

The IPCC report is written by scientists with expertise in the field, the NIPCC report is written by lobbyists with clients in the field.

First I'd like some evidence of this extraordinary claim.

Second, assume for a moment that there was a group of people who genuinely appear to be charlatans who claim expertise where they have none and repeatedly lie and distort the truth to advance their own agenda which runs counter to the general welfare. What would you do about them? How do you suggest dealing with an instransigent group whose primary purpose is obstructing your work so they can benefit from your failure?

They look like libertarian talking points possibly from the Heritage Foundation or one their ideological ilk. They like to push the "they want to control everything so don't believe them" and "it can't be happening because capitalism" angles.

What's interesting is that if I move your start points around, I get a different graph on with different results. It's dangerous to put too much emphasis on cherry-picked time lines.

So... According to you the industrial revolution started in 1945, and there were no large scale events going on between say 1938 and 1945 which could have influenced the global climate?

Not at all. The driver simulation studies are designed to show that using a cell phone is more distracting that not using a cell phone, however, that's not a particularly useful result in the real world. The real question we want answered is whether normal cell phone usage patterns lead to a higher rate or severity of accidents. After all if you're not talking to someone on the cell phone, you could be talking to someone in the car, eating a sandwich, drinking a bottle of water, adjusting the radio, adjusting the air conditioning, reciting an entire Monty Python sketch to yourself, or lost in a fantasy. You can't compel people to pay attention with laws. The early evidence seems to suggest that distracted driving laws are not having any effect on accident rates.

Maybe cell phone use displaces other equally distracting behaviour?

Additionally, according to the U.S. Government the highest rate for distracted driving fatalities involving cell phones is 2.3% (21% of 11%) and that's for drivers aged 15-19. So it's a minority of a small minority of fatal accidents, the focus on cell phone use may be because the behaviour is more obvious, newer and thus easier to single out. This could be just another senseless moral panic.

Are those studies as rigorous as the studies that show children playing exciting games become more excited than those playing boring games which is then extrapolated to conclude that playing violent games must make children more violent? Sometimes the results of a study do not actually match the publicized conclusions.

I am skeptical, I believe those driving studies show that using a phone is distracting, but I'm not convinced that they actually show that the drivers are more distracted than they would be otherwise be. There are a number of other factors that would come into play in real world condition that might not be reflected in the simulators, including that there are plenty of other distractions in your typical car and I suspect a good driver would know not to use a cell phone when driving in trying conditions.