I guess when my windshield gets a knick in it or if someone rubs my fender, it's time to throw out my car!

So the solution is to create an environment for girls where they can succeed, and will likely produce good jobs later in life. Whereas boys are sentenced to a frou-frou go nowhere education in the language arts which may or may not enable them to be a successful barista?

Maybe the solution is to have separate boys and girls schools in general, that may be something we need to figure out. But, to use a horrible term from our past, we should at least TRY to make them separate but equal. Encouraging boys to hop on the short bus strikes me as terrible, the entire purpose behind this effort is to enable girls to get the better paying jobs by increasing their achievement potential, we should not encourage boys into the crappy (or non-existent) ones and remove potential achievers from the STEM field in a bizarre attempt at equality. Boys already screw up enough trying to pursue pro sports careers that will never amount to anything.

I understand your fear of Scientology's litigious nature. Perhaps the Christians, Muslims and Mormons should sue me for this: but I know a number of gay people whose lives have been ruined by their religions, and a number of women who have hurt or severely injured themselves in the pursuit of abortions denied to them by religious people. How many muslim girls have been killed because they had the temerity to be raped? How many men were killed for being gay? All these religions are bad when the worst elements of them are allowed to run free. But they are not all wholly bad, all the time. Even the damn Church of Satan, whose existence is defined by worshiping evil, does quite a bit of good at times.

So it seems like you're still just picking on Scientology.

I'm not saying the sins of the father should be held against us. I'm saying that we should study our history and learn what we did wrong, or else what's the point in studying history at all?

There's internally derived guilt from recognizing all you have may be ill-gotten, and there's externally derived guilt seeking reparations and apologies. The latter I have no empathy for in this case, everyone involved is dead. But there's no reason we shouldn't understand that we came from a real bad scene, and we should try not to do it again.

Off topic, but Chinese were probably our country's very first "H1B'"s. We brought them here, had em build some railroads, and sent the ones who lived back. We focus a lot of black slaves, and we're committed to not making that mistake again, but we forget the other abuses we've perpetrated and absolutely ARE reliving them.

In historical context it makes sense. If one were to believe a King derived the power to rule from Divine Right, then the King would be the man to trust, as God's direct interpreter. However, if one thinks that no man has been given such a Right, then one way of slapping that man in the face is to say "In God We Trust". Not literally God, he can't be reached for comment, or any particular one.

That the G word is mentioned is offensive only to people interested in politics. Besides, in practice it should read "In The Invisible Hand We Trust", which if written on paper would collapse our economy immediately due to overwhelming hilarity.

I have no issue with religion, as long as it stays in its place (outside of government) and we don't favor one over the other. I don't understand why any religion gets a tax exempt status, and I know people who operate "churches" of very dubious merit for the tax benefits. The notion seems dumb, let's can it. But perhaps there are good reasons that I don't understand.

My issue is that I don't really like playing favorites, If we can't universalize this to all religions, we shouldn't do it at all.

Then why can't the government use that same weapon on Scientology? It picks up the dregs and misfits from other religions and gives them purpose. It has "science" in its name, which for people who don't know much about science may imply some relationship. That can be useful?

I see no reason why it is any better or worse than any other "religion". It may be more effectively activist than most evangelicals, but remains significantly less powerful than the Roman Catholic Church, which has definitely pegged most meters of malignant evil at points in history. It just seems like we're playing favorites. I don't like that when it's the Christians shitting on the Muslims, and I don't like it when it's pretty much everyone shitting on Scientologists.

The reason we hate them is they are so litigious, the problem is in the laws they use to silence people. Those same laws are used by "legitimate" entities to silence dissent as well, more effectively than governments ever have. This is a different problem, not solved by picking on their tax status.

The steaming pile of excrement just passed the bar exam and is trying to take JT's old job tilting at windmills.

Then lets avoid picking on Scientology and revoke tax exempt status for all churches.

I don't think there's anything strange about feeling guilt. We should, we took what wasn't ours for no reason other than we thought we knew better. We did know better, and built something they never could have. That they may not appreciate or respect what we've done is entirely irrelevant and we should not feel guilt. Those who hold to the old ways are free to do so, because we are enlightened enough to tolerate that, but we don't have to embrace it.

At the same time, we could probably have done the job with infinitely greater compassion, avoided some slaughters that were not necessary, and done a better job of trying to integrate with them rather than isolate and corner them. For that we should feel guilt, the same as we should feel guilt for having built a free country, where all men are created equal, on top of slavery.

Note that while we learn the trail of tears in explicitly negative terms, we don't apologize nor give back the land. That isn't ever going to happen. Mostly we visit the closet with the skeletons, confront the skeleton then turn around, close the door and move on.

It does very little for the Armenians or their supporters.

Intent definitely matters insofar as understanding the law of unintended consequences, when pursuing similar objectives in the future.

I'm sure it doesn't matter in terms of apologies or results.

The Gauls literally got screwed out of existence.

That's how I want to go.

So I don't want to tell you what to do, but these are highly convenient:
http://www.kohls.com/product/p...

From a comfort/practice perspective I'd take these over pants any day of the week. Additionally as pants also are known to hold wallets, and the traditional manly place of placing a wallet is the right rear pocket which is not ideal from a back health standpoint. A fanny pack can also hold this, and car keys and other famously pocket things.

Of course, as with may things practical, there seems to be a social stigma both with not wearing pants and with wearing fanny packs. To the point that you can't be caught dead with one

You already have a damned smartphone. All the functionality is there without the extra $350 expendature.

Anyone who wears pants is an idiot. You already have underwear, all the functionality is there without the extra [$20,infinity) expenditure.

Never mind that most of us work in such climate controlled environments that clothing has entirely lost functional value and is primarily a vestige of social (read: bullshit) requirements, not actual utility.