drugs are increasingly being tested on homeless, destitute and mentally ill people

This is an outrage and a waste. We must switch to testing on the successful and the smart, who have nothing else to contribute anyway!

Second, it turns out many human trials are being run by doctors who have had their licenses revoked for drug addiction, malpractice and worse

Sure, malpractice, drug addiction and, especially, the unspecified "worse" are known to cause people to quickly forget all the training they've ever received in the medical school, and all the practice they got before losing their license.

Arbitrarily redefining the terms to suit your argument doesn't make you right, and ins't a valid form.

I am in full agreement with you here. Unfortunately, that — redefining the terms — is exactly, what proponents of "gay marriage" want the rest of us to do. They want the society to change the meaning of the word "marriage" to include homosexual unions (which no civilization in the history of the world has ever equated with regular marriage). You found "paraplegic karate" to be ridiculous — well, "gay marriage" is equally non-sensical...

Gays want to be "married". We all KNOW what they mean by that.

Yeah, they want the recognition — both societal and legal — that has hitherto been given only to the heterosexual couples, to be given to homosexual unions as well. Whether such recognition is a good idea or not, I don't believe it to be a human right — and that is how this subtopic started, when somebody up above equated Iran's handling of their gays with America's treatment of ours.

I was not suggesting that the law prevented gays from entering into straight marriages.

"Straight marriage" is just as much a tautology, as "gay marriage" is a self-contradiction (think "meatless steak")...

Having an "equal opportunity" President is proving to be so popular, I can't wait for Mr. Jackson to be treated by an "equal opportunity" heart surgeon...

fessed up to having a tech workforce that's only 1% Black, apparently par for the course in Silicon Valley.

Not only is Silicon Valley young and Illiberal, they are also working on developing their businesses and would not sabotage their start-ups' success by turning away real talent.

Whatever the problem is, Silicon Valley's "racism" ain't it...

Entire organizations exist for that sole purpose.

There are, indeed, organizations trying to keep the semantics of the term "marriage" from being redefined to include same-sex partners.

Nobody is out there trying to prevent homosexuals from marrying somebody of the opposite sex. It is not the law, that prevents them from entering into marriage, it is their own biology (or preference, or whatever).

No amount of policy change is going to help a paralyzed person do karate.

Not true. If we redefine, what "karate" means — creating, for example, a "paralyzed karate" (the way some wish to create a "homosexual marriage") and equating this new creation with the real karate (the way some wish to equate homosexual unions with real marriage) — we will have, magically, allowed a paralyzed person to practice the sport. Wouldn't that be terrific?

While you were sleeping, Rip Van Winkle, exclusive local franchise agreements (the crux of that paper) were made illegal by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Too little, too late, youngster. The existing monopolies have had too much of a head-start — an action like that taken against AT&T once would now be required. And that's unlikely, when the CEO is playing golf with the President.

painted a picture of a corporation overrun by the neverending quest for greater profit.

A typical anti-Capitalism drivel. The listed practices reduce profit and cause the company to either collapse or be taken over — unless it has powerful friends in government.

From the article: 'These employees told us the same stories over and over again: customer service has been replaced by an obsession with sales, technicians are understaffed and tech support is poorly trained, and the massive company is hobbled by internal fragmentation.

Yep, that's what leads to losing money. Few can survive it without being a monopoly.

It may well be that she wanted him to delete the tweet, and it may well be that she threatened to call the police, but those may be close in time and not otherwise related.

The first — demanding, he deletes a tweet — is enough, even if the threat of calling police didn't happen or was due to something else. Because if the man is doing something criminal, then he should be prosecuted regardless of whether or not he deletes a tweet. And if he is not, then the threat is that of malicious prosecution.

Similarly, it seems unlikely that the airline was monitoring Twitter

Of course, they do — Marketing departments nation- (and world-!) wide are watching their brands on Twitter and Facebook carefully — many offering discounts in exchange for "likes" even...

mandating punitive responses

Of course, nobody told Kimberley to threaten the man with arrest unless he removes the tweet. But they, probably, called her (or her supervisor) and she decided to retaliate against the complainant. Maybe, they suggested, she apologizes and asks him to remove it — politely, rather than on pain of arrest. But she felt righteous and was enraged — and nobody in her position (being able to ruin somebody's long-distance travel) should be given to such an emotion.

The airline probably does not give its side of these situations, as a matter of policy

According to TFA, the airline offered "boiler plate" apologies and vouchers for future travel — clearly, they believe the agent screwed up. I still think, she should be criminally prosecuted and pay a fine — her power over us is too big to tolerate even a hint of abuse of it...

Oddly enough, when American citizens are killed by the thousands as a response to direct actions of their freely elected democratic government, its called "terrorism"

"Terrorism" is a method — targeting (rather than accidentally hitting) enemy civilians has been frowned upon since shortly after the WW2.

What you're saying is that anyone that suffered directly from decisions made by the US governments has the legitimate right of shooting down *any* american

I am saying nothing of the kind. My point was not, that Gazans all "deserved to die" because of their vote — I was simply responding to mrspooni's claim, that "Palestinian people as a whole are not Hamas". They are Hamas or Hamas-sympathizers and do deserve the burdens of war. Any other country in the region would've summarily killed (Syria, Iraq) or expelled (Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) such people — Israel's restraint is, if anything, inhumane.

And now we can go back to those "direct actions" of our freely elected government, which, in your opinion, justify killing Americans. Which actions are those? Bin Laden's major grief with the US, for example, was — America's desecration of the holy soil of Saudi Arabia, which we defiled with our infidel boots. Is that a good reason for you?

Its not the hater's portrayal when you have western media covering it [...] Are you really convinced that Hamas has a super-duper propaganda machine that is bigger and more efficient than Israel's/US machine

Hamas has inherent propaganda-advantages:

• they are the underdog, whom "low-information" spectators always prefer;
• their non-military policies (inasmuch as they are known at all) are Socialist, bringing every "low-information" bum with a Che Guevara T-shirt on their side;
• Western countries have a much bigger share of Arabs and Muslims now, than even 20 years ago — who all sympathize with their "brethren"

After starting — and loosing — several "real" wars in the 20th century, Arabs have given up on the "honest" battlefield success. They've switched all their efforts into terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other. They are succeeding.

Shit happens when you bomb one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and they don't care.

Retaliation will hit any area in the world, from where thugs shoot at somebody. Israel's retaliation will try to hit the thugs only, but it is not, of course, guaranteed... That the area is "densely populated" should be the concern of the shooters, not of those, who defend themselves and their country.

Not everyone in Israel agrees with this.

Not everyone in Israel... Two Jews will, infamously, have 3 opinions on most matters...

Arabs, on the other hand, are much more determined — 2/3 voted for Hamas in the free elections of 2006. 2/3rds wish to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. Any state living next to such enemies is absolutely justified in doing anything to defend itself.

What you mean is that Israel doesn't consider what is 'currently' Gaza to be its own terriitory -- but that its own territory expands inch by inch at the crest of a bulldozer

Ariel Sharon demolished Israeli settlements in Gaza and forcibly pulled all of the "encroaching" settlers back. Hamas' charter did not change — they still aim for destroying Israel...

Lets at least keep reality on the table here.

And reality is, the Arabs should've accepted the UN partition plan of 1947 and built their own state. That they chose to instead wage war — and not just one, but many — is their own fault. And the fitting punishment for that aggression is loss of land. And as long as the morons keep shooting at Israel, they will (or should) continue losing land. Occupying the enemy's territory is perfectly proper conduct in war — and if the stupid enemy is not giving up for decades, then the loss may become permanent.

Majority of people are arguing against Israel because they want the senseless killing to stop

Where was this "majority of people", when Hamas were firing dozens of rockets per day at Israel? Watching soccer? Why don't you go back to that — and leave the arguing to people with attention spans longer than 30 minutes...

Yes and not long ago all US citizens had the right to be married to one person of the opposite gender of the same race.

What the rest of the society considers worthy of recognition as "marriage" should, indeed, be up to that society... This is not about sex-life, which should be up to the willing participants, but about other people's opinions: "We are a married couple!" "No, you are not — you are two men..." "Yes, we are — this new laws says so!"

To force others to consider a particular union as "marriage" may be illiberal...

No doubt eventually we will knock the gender caveat off of marriage too

Sure. And move straight on to fighting the species caveat next, will you not? Or, perhaps, the one person caveat will be next — why can't I be married to two consenting adult human females and an adult male cat — at once, after all? How is that prohibition not discrimination?

While we are at it, lets just get the state out of marriage and just allow exclusive legal partnerships between any two consenting adults.

Full agreement here — there should be no special provisions for "spouses" in any laws — we are all equal subjects and citizens. Until then, however, "marriage" and "spouse" are legal terms and their precise definitions are up to the legislatures...

Well then, Iranian homosexuals have the same rights as everyone else there: they can avoid gay sex or die.

No such dilemma exists for American homosexuals — their sex-lives are entirely up to them.

What they seem to be fighting for is for the rest of us to treat their unions as "marriage". And for that the term needs to be redefined...

The guy in the wheelchair may be deprived of his ability to practice karate, but its not because his fellow citizens are campaigning and voting to keep him from doing it.

Nobody is campaigning to keep the homosexuals unable to marry — they are unable to do so already. Not because they have no right — only because they have no ability.

It is more to do with proportional response.

This is utter bullshit. If an enemy is trying to kill you, you try to kill them — using the best weapons you've got, hitting them as hard as possible. Because they are doing their best.

You also have to consider that the Palestinian people as a whole are not Hamas

That lie was exposed as such, when the Gazans voted — in free and internationally-observed elections — for Hamas.

For every innocent non-terrorist killed, that will recruit many terrorists.

Contrary to the haters' portrayal, IDF are not indiscriminate killers they don't need this sort of calculations to try their hardest to avoid killing innocent civilians. Shit still happens, unfortunately.