One or two nutjobs? Really?

It was on the front page of Fox News, so Joe Six-Pack likely noticed.

You can't possibly expect a civil servants political views to always align with those of the government unless you assume they change them every time a different political party comes into power. Would you overturn the civil service every time an election is held?
And unless you civil service is composed entirely of apolitical workers, you can't expect them all to be 'neutral' outside of the office.

Ah, good info on the Oracle stuff. In a former life I had partner access and never bothered looking after I lost it... thanks!

Just can't bring myself to fork over for the MSDN sub though. Dynamics is only available at the Premium level ($6k) as far as I can tell.

Apples to apples, I don't believe either of those companies provide an 'Express' version of the ERP software (Oracle/JDE/PeopleSoft/Dynamics AX/NAV). As an independent, it's always been frustrating to try to evaluate new releases from those vendors.

You seem to forget there's one more phone available, likely at a reduced price. That's not to say every stolen phone ends up being sold, but many are. So $Phonemaker doesn't end up with the money in that case.

Statistics disagree

While overall the armed forces are less likely than civilians to offend, they are three times more likely to be convicted of violent offences; 20% of younger males (under 30) have been convicted of violence compared with 6.7% of civilians. Those who served in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan were 53% more likely to offend violently than those not on the frontline. Those with multiple experiences of combat had a 70%-80% greater risk of being convicted for acts of violence.

That doesn't mean that I agree with 'profiling' veterans, just that your assumption may be off.

You may want to listen to the content of that 'endless discussion' sometime. There's very few significant topics that weren't addressed somewhere in the Star Trek franchise. And it had a somewhat novel way of addressing them - often from the point of view on non-humans. Sure, that had been done before - but not on that scale.

Very few entertainment franchises, and certainly none as successful as Star Trek, have addressed the breadth of topics that it has.

Because it's Star Trek, and we expect some depth. The franchise that provided thought provoking (though occasionally asinine) entertainment. That's the core of the franchise, not snappy-but-shallow dialogue and big action. The only thing retained are the characters, or at least a one-dimensional simulation of them.

Change the characters and the name and it's a fine popcorn movie.

OSC isn't simply opposed to SSM.... he believes they are 'abnormal', belong in prison, prone to paraphilia and a product of rape and incest. In several jurisdictions it's considered hate speech - though I don't subscribe to the idea of criminalizing speech. And your comparison was entirely fair - the KKK doesn't actually publicly endorse lynching homosexuals any longer but do state that it should be a crime. Just like OSC.

His opposition to SSM is irrelevant. I don't give a hoot if he's for or against it, to be honest. That's a difference of opinion. I do care, however, if he denigrates a segment of the population based on how or with whom they choose to pair up. And I state my objection with my wallet.