it's a city state

the policies that work for one small rich densely populated tightly controlled area does not apply to large areas of rural and urban, rich and poor

singapore offers no lessons about how to run real countries

Without making any kind of statement about which "side" might be right or wrong this is exactly how the homosexual community will react the moment that someone, somewhere figures out what exactly makes a person homosexual vs. heterosexual and then announces that they can change them from one to the other. The first gay person, for whatever reason who gets "treated" will be attacked mercilessly for It by people who feel that he's betrayed their culture. Now whether that's ever possible I don't know and really don't care. Gay people surround me at work and at home and it doesn't affect me in the least bit. The only thing I want them to be able to do is be happy and enjoy their lives. I don't think it's a sin or a problem at all but someone will and if they find a gene that can be changed or a spot in someone's brain that can be modified in some way to "fix" them they will and then all hell will break loose. I think it's just human nature.

Agree with you 100%

Patent monopolies are a *tremendous* gift to inventors, and they should be granted (if ever) only for tremendous gifts to the world. The broken patent system has brainwashed people into thinking that every you ever do needs to be patented so that no one else can ever do it.

The pharma patents always get pushed to the front of the class in these discussions. Fine. Cure cancer & patent your cure. We'll pay you for the favor, and we'll pool money to make sure that all the poor people with cancer can also afford it.

But the relative position of a trackpad and keyboard?

We all did. Each and every one of us. It's impossible to resist and at the same time it doesn't work nearly as well if you don't do it.

I put it in bad enclosure, I guess:
"Modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledged the authenticity of the reference to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" [13] and has rejected its being the result of later interpolation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

"his first mention in the writing of Josephus is a fairly obvious forgery, it being neither in his tone or style of writing, and added into a margin"

I'm no historian, but it sounds like you aren't either? Wikiped says >.

There's also: "Scholars generally view these variations as indications that the Josephus passages are not interpolations, for a Christian interpolator would have made them correspond to the New Testament accounts, not differ from them"

Now, you might be 100% right that it is all a pile of lies, etc. But if modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledge the authenticity of a "fairly obvious forgery" you might need to expand your case a bit.

"in the U.S., for example, where compassion and charity are no longer considered Christian"

I wish I had mod points for you.
In broad strokes, "Christianity" in America means "Conservative Republicanism". Case in point: Two things that were drilled into me throughout my (Protestant) upbringing were 1) You always vote for the Christian candidate; and 2) Mormons are not Christians.

Can you guess which candidate those people chose in 2012? Romney, in droves

I cut the cable about 8 months ago, and (almost as healthy) quit smoking 1 month ago

"people have started to do every normal activity we would do on the Internet through those two portals because it costs them zero"

Typical reductive garbage. The internet is important for 5 billion reasons. Sharing photos is just on of those.

This is like saying "people watch every normal TV show through those three channels (ABC,NBC,CBS)

As a net-connected consumer, it is assumed that you read the EULAs and terms for all the sites you visit and the software services you use, and that you go through this process again periodically (every few weeks) in case anything has changed.

Did you know: most people spend 4-5 hours reading terms and EULAs for every 2 hours of using their computers. It's just basic responsibility. It's called the free market, freely-entered-into contracts, meetings of the minds, equal footing, etc. It works grat.

M

thank you

a clone tool like what?

that you only just switched disk drives in your preexisting comp and are entitled to the OS?

You're absolutely correct, but hypocrisy has never stood in the way of politics

I can't figure out why that isn't obvious to everyone. I've even seen it rendered into an "easy to forward to all your paranoid friends on facebook" picture captioned "When a boot is on your throat it doesn't matter if it's the left one or the right one" and still there are people so wrapped up in their side being the correct one that they can't see past "Obama" or "Fox News". This is bigger than both parties.