The store I bought it from looked at the open shrink wrap and said "Sorry". They wouldn't even let me exchange it because, according to the manager, they'd have to eat the cost of it.

That's a shoddy operation. Most retailers can get exchanges or credit from the manufacturer but even if this is a case where they couldn't they never should have let the customer take the loss. It's a good way to lose a customer for good (and for the measly wholesale cost of a DVD).

Come on. Taxation is no more an "evil" than the electric bill. It's simply one of the costs of living in a modern society.

I might not enjoy paying taxes buy I don't enjoy going to the dentist either. That doesn't make either one of them an "evil".

I found out years after the fact that we'd stopped attending church because of tithing. We'd run into financial difficulties and when my mother talked to our minister about how much to give she was told the church was a "business" and she needed to keep tithing at the same level.

I'm no friend to Scientology, but it's bizarre theology and penchant for control and money seems no different than any other religion. It's just newer, smaller, and easier to pick on. Give it a thousand years and volcanoes and H-bombs will seem as natural as talking snakes and virgin births.

Your argument is essentially how the bittorrent protocol could be used while ignoring the standard way TPB does use it.

The intellectual dishonesty in this debate is absolutely staggering. If the fact that the site is named The Pirate Bay isn't enough to illustrate its purpose in unauthorized redistribution of copyrighted works, a browse through the top 100 torrents and their mocking I.P. owners should.

Not even close. Google indexes keywords and points you to relevant sites. The Pirate Bay hosts and distributes torrent files and provides trackers so they can function.

Google pointing to torrents is simply an incidental consequence of its legitimate uses and wouldn't even exist if bittorrent indexing sites like The Pirate Bay weren't operating.

There are plenty of legitimate downloads via the Pirate Bay

Which is dwarfed several magnitude over by infringing content. A quick browse through the top 100 torrents easily demonstrates that.

That TPB can be used legitimately doesn't mean that's its primary focus. The fact that the website is named The Pirate Bay should be a pretty good clue to its intent (not to mention them constantly mocking IP owners).