For the most part, while there are exceptions, active suicide is almost unnecessary for someone in a grossly debilitated state. As a physician, I both have a living will and my family is well-informed that if I ever lose the ability to function mentally, in a way that is not reversible, I am not to receive ANY life-prolonging treatment. That means no artificial hydration, no feeding, and no antibiotics. Many of my physician colleagues have made similar arrangements. That's why MDs are the group in the population with the lowest end-of-life cost. While a surrogate or healthcare proxy may not make a decision to end a life, they are certainly within their rights to do the abovementioned, unless a person's living will specifically forbids it. In general, this means a person will pass away within days. For the most part it allows the family time to fly in, and make peace with the inevitable.

Creationist is not a system of scientific thought. Neither is "intelligent design". The whole concept of a scientific system is that it makes no assumptions, beyond being able to attain accurate and true measurements. Teaching "intelligent design" is a gross intellectual dishonesty because it IS an excuse to teach religion. Once you "presuppose" a specific world view, you've negated any concept of science.

I have faith, I even believe in God. Yet I'm a scientist, and I think I will utterly fail both faith and science if they are ever allowed to meet in my head. Once is a philosophical framework for the world. One is a structure of strict mathematics and logic. They have nothing to do with one another, and every time someone tries to bulldoze scientific education with their narrow-minded unimaginative worldview that does truly derive solely from a n-thousand-year-old book, it makes me cringe.

If I want to teach my kids religion, I'll do it, or I'll send them to temple, or a religious school. Please don't teach them YOUR version of a specific world view in public school.

I think tying CEO pay to minimum wage is a far worse idea than tying it to the lowest paid employee.

If the CEO wage is tied to the lowest paid employee, they can always double their pay by paying the employees more. They can't individually raise the minimum wage.

Except people tend to talk louder on the phone than in person... and you're trapped next them for the next n hours.

Put the phone down. It won't hurt. I promise.

I think this would lead to in-flight homicide.

Just to get the facts straight, the live attenuated polio vaccine is not used any more because the risk/payoff ratio changed so drastically (largely because of its success). We have the inactivated vaccine, which is not as effective, but does not carry a risk of disease. When the pool of the infected is low enough due to suppression by the live vaccine, there is no reason to use the live vaccine anymore.

Actually if you shoot someone with rock salt, you are likely to be arrested and prosecuted for assault... even in Texas... because you are telling the police in no uncertain terms, that you did not feel that you were in any danger. And they'd be right. Don't ever point a weapon at someone unless you want to kill them, intend to kill them, and are going to kill them (hopefully all of the above are solely for the reason of defending yourself or someone else).

I really hate to be the one to pose this question, but how many casualties are we willing to accept as a society for X in order to avoid Y? In the last decades, the answer in the US and much of the western world has been ZERO.

How many airplanes downed by terrorists can we tolerate before we strip any ounce of privacy and dignity from the travelers. Never mind that it's the safest way to travel even including 9/11 and all of its victims in the air and on the ground. The answer is NONE, bring on the department of fatherland security.

How many pedophiles peddling online child pornography are we going to accept, for the freedom not to be monitored 24/7 by an anonymous system that is designed to ultimately be a tool to instantly arrest or at least discredit ANYONE and ANY TIME. NONE, bring on the NSA.

How many school shootings are we going to tolerate for private persons having access to firearms that was granted by the constitution (please let's not demean the Founders by debating what the 2nd amendment intended in this thread), to engage in sport and have the means to defend themselves when law enforcement cannot (or will not). The answer is NONE.

So yes, if we are going to continue on our present course, the inevitable consequence will be self-driven cars with no option for manual control, made by 3-4 companies that are approved by the government to go a maximum of 25mph. The future is bright, ladies and gentlemen. Once we don't have any rights, have shut down all scientific research, and eliminated any ability to EARN wealth by work, rather than steal it, we will surely all be 100% safe.

Yes but Star Wars is also a movie in which time was measured in units of distance (your mother in how many parsecs?

So I've been watching the debate here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23_Ioj-TKj4

And I am not exactly sure whom I should vote for? Any ideas?

Sorry