This brings to mind the case of Gloria Ramirez, who was admitted to the hospital and whose blood, when taken in a syringe caused those who smelled it to become physically ill. Several of the hospital workers who were near Gloria had to be hospitalized themselves, and the hospital declared an internal emergency (Gloria herself died shortly thereafter). While there are some theories about how the hell this happened, nobody really knows. Bit of a tangent, but TFA made me think of it.

Known in the scientific community as a "Dwarf Woman."

In other words, to really give a satisfying answer to that mystery from a materialist perspective, you would have to flawlessly explain what consciousness is, precisely why particular arrangements of protons and electrons and neutrons bring it about, and why other arrangements of matter are not conscious (or for an interesting twist, why consciousness is an inherent property of all matter and highly ordered organisms are just a particularly refined expression of it).

This is pretty much the same logical fallacy that the creationists use to undermine evolution. I can't think of the name of the fallacy off the top of my head, but it goes something like this:
"So you believe in evolution, but can you calculate every single evolutionary step of how an amoeba evolved into a human?"
"No, science hasn't gotten that far yet. Evolution is just a model to describe-"
"AHAHA! You admit that you don't understand how it works! Evolution is a lie!"
I'd say it's wrong to dismiss an idea completely just because the intricate details aren't fully worked out. And as for your point that not everyone is willing to make the assumptions needed to support materialism, many would argue that your worldview in fact requires more assumptions. Kindly step off of your high horse please.

Quoting author David Wong here...

There exists in this world a spider the size of a dinner plate, a foot wide if you include the legs. It's called the Goliath Bird-Eating spider, or the "Goliath Fucking Bird-Eating Spider" by those who have actually seen one.

It doesn't eat only birds - it mostly eats rats and insects - but they still call it the "Bird-Eating Spider" because the fact that it can eat a bird is probably the most important thing to know about it. If you run across one of these things, like in your closet or crawling out of your bowl of soup, the first thing somebody will say is, "Watch it, man, that thing can eat a fucking bird."

I don't know how they catch the birds. I know the Goliath Fucking Bird-Eating Spider can't fly because if it could, it would have a different name entirely. We would call it "Sir" because it would be the dominant species on the planet. None of us would leave the house unless a Goliath Fucking Flying Bird-Eating Spider said it was okay.

There's some strange defect in American culture that equates stupidity with honesty. Hence people electing their leaders based on who they want to have a beer with. I have no idea how we've survived as long as we have.

...your ability to get laid if you get this as you inform your partner that you have the Pig Disease.

The fact is that Americans aren't capable of picking some other party. The problem isn't in the will of the American people, it's just in the way our elections are set up. Our winner-takes-all system for congressional elections insures that there will be only two parties. Sweden has a proportional representation system, meaning that it's at least possible for a third party to emerge. The only way to solve the problem in America would be to drastically rewrite our election laws.

The current majority on the Supreme Court has a tendency to disregard civil liberties, particularly those of students. Just look at Morse v. Frederick, the Wikipedia article of which is linked in the summary. Clarence Thomas, the nutjob who unfortunately doesn't seem out of place at all among his ideological brethren on the court, wrote this in his concurring opinion for that case:

in the earliest public schools, teachers taught, and students listened. Teachers commanded, and students obeyed.

Keep in mind that the "originalist" viewpoint espoused by the conservative wing of the court is basically that the way rights were looked at in 1790 is almost always the way we should be looking at them now. We're talking about a mentality that students have no rights whatsoever and that school officials should essentially be given permission to do whatever they want.

It isn't so much the one-man-one-vote system that's the problem, it's the one-district-one-representative system. In a system where only one office is being filled per election (say, a single representative of a congressional district), any number of parties will eventually coalesce into two, since this will consolidate resources and votes. Countries that have districts that elect multiple representatives at a time are far more likely to have more than two parties. This is referred to in political science as the N+1 theorem, where N is the number of offices that are filled in a particular election, and N+1 is the maximum number of major parties that will exist in that district. So basically, the only solution to the two-party system in this country would be to change the Constitution so that congressional districts elect more than one representative at a time. (While each state does have two senators, the problem still exists since both senators from a single state generally don't run in the same election.)

Nobody has a right to demand I help buy them a car. Or pay their mortgage.

So we have absolutely no problem giving 700 BILLION dollars to the banks whose greed caused this mess in the first place, but if we give a cent to those who were screwed over by deceptive lending practices and corporate greed, it's suddenly a human rights violation? Yes, I recognize the bank bailout was necessary. But it sure as hell wasn't fair. Yes, some homeowners did act irresponsibly, but not nearly as irresponsibly as the financial institutions whose JOB is to know better. If you're willing to let home values continue to plummet due to unnecessary foreclosures just because you're still caught up over what's fair, then you're intentionally blinding yourself to a little thing I like to call REALITY.

This sort of thing is going on everywhere. That's why it's a recession. I think it's a little unfair to say that right now it's all Microsoft's fault that they have to cut wages because consumers can't afford their products (not that I'd shill out $150 for Office even in a good economy). It's not like companies can just say, "Wait a minute... if we don't lay people off and/or cut wages... this recession will end!" If that were possible we wouldn't have recessions at all.

It isn't "not the same thing at all." Both are First Amendment cases where the freedom of speech was tossed out the window for the same tired old "think of the children" argument. And current precedent set by Tinker states that just because you're in a school doesn't mean that the First Amendment doesn't apply.

The case might continue to the Supreme Court.

Since the current Supreme Court has held in Morse v. Frederick. that the phrase "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," when displayed in a school setting, is so incredibly dangerous that the First Amendment must be thrown out the window, I think the odds that they'll hold up the First Amendment in this case are less than favorable.

...as to whether the robots will be programmed to make the "nom nom nom" sound as they are busy ripping off your children's limbs for fuel.

This is absolutely a free speech issue, and while the government has the power to regulate speech, this generally applies to the time, place and manner of the speech rather than its content.

The Supreme Court has long held that if the government wants to regulate speech based on its content, the regulation must serve a compelling government interest, be narrowly tailored to fit that interest, and be the least restrictive means possible. This test is referred to as "strict scrutiny." ( Source)

In this case, COPA is simply way out of line. While the status of protecting minors from the horrors of breasts as a compelling government interest is debatable (I would argue that it is none of the government's beeswax), COPA is definitely not the least restrictive means possible to protect the children. Responsible parents can and should control the content that their children access through the means available to them, and thus any government regulation beyond this is by definition not the least restrictive means possible. So any government regulation to this end is unconstitutional as long as free speech is involved and parents have at the very least the opportunity to parent responsibly.