Freedom. If she makes a mistake, she gets to pay for her abortion. Worse, if a woman gets raped and gets pregnant, she also gets to pay for her abortion

You were a retard during the weekend, drank yourself into oblivion and fell down a flight of stairs? Yep, covered.

I thought the debate on abortion was over, but I guess not. All in the name of religion, because religion is Righteous. It's not about freedom, it's about religion imposing its rule on the state and the law. If it's not about religion, then tell me why a clinical legal act should not be covered?

Wait. Isn't Slashdot supposed to link me to articles? I know no one RTFA, but if there isn't any link at all and just a blurb, what's the point?

Well then, I guess it's time we pass a new law, ain't it.

Or maybe "oh here's a door. I wonder if it's locked. Newp. Well then, I guess I better go inside, take some photos and read some of their documents. And then use that information for presumably commercial purposes. It's got to be legal and right, the door was unlocked."

I wouldn't, and never have, but I think at least part of it has to do with hardware sales and partners.

I'm dreading the day my laptop dies, and I know people who don't know what to do now and turned to Mac because they couldn't stand Windows 8 (the mother-in-law preferred learning Mac rather than deal with Win8, seriously. She bought a Win8 laptop when her old HP from like 2005 died, and returned it within the week.) That probably doesn't sit well with partners like Intel, Dell, etc, and limits sales of both hardware and software.

Gold actually is very useful, but because it's so expensive it's not used for a lot of things. Example, blocking X-rays (you know that piece of lead armor you have to wear at the dentist when they're taking a photo of your teeth?). Sure, a lot of the price is the inflated feel of "gold is gold", but if it ever became dirt-cheap, it would be used more.

Actually, I'd like to see everyone resort to gun. Have a full-on civilian militia (isn't that why you have the right to bear arms?) vs SWAT/police. I know in some places it's called civil war, but hey, if a non-governmental agency is sending armed forces to break into a civilian house, to me that sounds like it's already started.

If civilians actually defended themselves against those non-regulated "cops" and you ended up with a few (dozens, hundreds?) of dead people, maybe one or two good things could happen:
-Revisiting the second amendment
-Regulating the use of police

Yea, damn the NBA for having so more black people than the US population average. This is discrimination against the whites, and has nothing to do with abilities.

No, no biker will you his/her custom bike if you can't ride one, that's called being stupid. He might say though "oh, you're interested but don't have your permit? Here's this great school I heard of..."

Qualification for biking, stamp collecting, or whatever, is showing enough interest and putting enough time/practice. Anyone, barring disability, can learn to ride a bike if he/she wants to. It's pretty damn hard inching your IQ from the 50th percentile to the 98th, however. This is exactly the same as a club for people 6'1 or taller, which is.. fine? It's just "hey I was born this way, how great." and has very little to do with interest, more with your intrinsic characteristics. Now if you want to call "snobbery" an interest...

High tuition seems to have very little to do with the number of students but everything to do with services/administration bloating and the policy of "you get a loan! you get a loan!" policy from the US government. One would think with more students, you would achieve better economy of scale and so be able to charge less per student.

Looking at this: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/..., it seems countries can have a high percentage of college-educated people without charging them a lifetime of debt.

I'm not sure if that's copy-protection or just lazy coding/porting from arcades to consoles. On the arcade, it makes sense to make a game hard enough that the player has to insert a few quarters to keep going, which is the whole business model. Since you don't put quarters into your console and paid $70 for your game, it also makes sense that you get continues for free, and that way no one has to change the gameplay.

I did face copy-protection in the form of passwords, but that was mostly just to continue playing, not to make the game easier (ex: Lands of Lore).

Money is a problem, because it creates an unfair battlefield. Obviously ultimately votes matter, everything politicians do is to ensure they get and keep their votes.

In the best of worlds, people should elect candidates with the best ideas, candidates they trust and want to put in a position of power. To educate the voters so that they can vote for the best ideas, these candidates need to advertise themselves and their platforms. During a school election for example, every candidate usually gives a speech in front of their class. Votes usually go to the most popular kid regardless of platform or ideas, but everyone has mostly the same opportunity to communicate their ideas. The problem is when the "speech" is scheduled in the gym with everyone present, and you have to shout to get yourself heard. Whoever shouts loudest has a better chance of being heard, and so the person with money (ie, a loudspeaker and a stage) has a better chance than someone without money.

Now if you have the stage and the loudspeaker, but act like a jerk and give enough free publicity to your opponent (re: Cantor), obviously you can still shoot yourself in the foot...

How do you propose you'd affect the stock price? Given a stock price is a valuation on the financial prospects of a company, wouldn't punitive damages impact it? Now of course, 400M for 4 large tech firms is not going to significantly impact anything, which is exactly why the judge questioned the amount (and it is by no mean an astronomical amount). Up it to 4, or 8 billions, and see if they take notice. Then the stock price will be impacted, the board members will start asking questions (unless they're too cozy up there), and you get the result you want.

I've thought about the creation of the universe. I don't have an answer, it could very well be a god, and I'm not arguing about that.

However you didn't seem to have seen my last sentence, "It does not concern the Big Bang, if that's what you're asking." The Christian/Muslim/Jewish God could have been the original spark, and I don't think anyone has a real clue or theory as to how that happened. However, you admit that organisms evolve, and that natural selection is truly a thing. That separates what you think from the creationism mentioned in the article, which is that there is no natural selection (re: "rejects the scientific theory of evolution"), and that God created us fully formed. Basically, a literal understanding of "and on the sixth day, "[...] God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." That is what I have a problem with.

No no no. Me, I choose to live in a society and abide by the social contract. That is my choice, I chose to live under a "totalitarian" regime. If you don't want to be part of your society, find yourself an island, defend yourself against pirates, it'll be your own country.