Why not?
Astronauts would get the option to volunteer on a per-mission basis.
That's already more of a choice than most military get.

No thanks Tesla, the NSA is bad enough, I don't also need a car that is constantly telling you what I'm doing... and BTW it is also OK for me to do what I want with my own damn property.

This from the article:
>>>
We should also note that apparently Tesla engineers detected this hacking or exploring and sent a nastygram to the cars owner, âoeTesla USA engineers have seen a tentative of hacking on my car.â, âoecan be related to industrial espionage and advised me to stop investigation, to not void the warrantyâ. Does Tesla have an network intrusion detection system installed on the cars? Do they have the right to not allow you to tinker with your own car?
>>>>

>> he thinks that a group of people doesn't get to do something.

Incorrect. Whether some groups of people are more or less likely to have the desire to marry someone of the same gender is irrelevant to an equality argument. The point is, there actually is equality currently because the existing law applies equally to everyone.

>> my argument is that everyone should be treated equal.

You should be happy then as they already are:
Regardless of your colour, gender, sexuality or race, you can't legally register as being married to someone of the same sex unless you live in a state that has already legally recognised same-sex marriage.

>> push legislation that strips rights away from an entire class of people

Being able to legally register as someone married to someone else of the same sex is not generally recognised as a "right".
In fact many if not most think its a "wrong".

>> Please show me where this guy was actually persecuted.

By your own words:

but I still find myself asking how such an intelligent, competant person could be wrapped up in being a bigot.

Nice use of ad-hominems there bro.

>> When those beliefs are abhorrent, sure.

Where is this abhorrent belief here? He thinks it wrong that same-sex couples should be allowed to gain legally married status. Apart from anything else, that view coincides with what Christian and most other religious beliefs teach.

According to the numbers on Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
If we assume everyone in the US who claims to be Christian acutally beleives the teachings/priniciples of their own religion, and even assuming that all the other non-Christian religions and atheists agree with gay marriage, that only leaves about 15% of Americans that could possibly think gay marriage is OK.

That means according to you over 75% of all Americans hold beleifs abhorent enough to be punshed by loss of their jobs.

The Nazis also used similalry convenient labels to slander anyone that happened to have beliefs that didn't completely agree with their rhetoric.

Please Keep your labelling to yourself. I for one want a society where people are free to choose what to beleive without persecution, even if it happens not to match some PeeCee agenda.

That's ridiculous.

People should be free to support whatever (legal) religious or political belief/party they wish, without being persecuted for that or even loosing their job.

This is true even if their beleifs happen not to be the same PeeCee bullshit that the liberals and media are trying to opressively brainwash everyone with.

Just a guess but I'm wondering if they're also cutting back on some community/social program that includes provision of PCs and/or internet access as a public service.

>> Are we going to get screwed without even a start button for the next 5 years that we run these servers?

Nope. Just install Linux on them. Have whatever desktop you want, or none at all.
What are you thinking running Windows as a server in the first place?

>> And, hell, if I want to kick back and surf or play a stupid game, I'm going to grab a tablet or smart phone ... not use my PC.

What if you want to play something more substantial than Angry Birds, such as Crysis or Skyrim? That is where phones or tablets just don't cut it on any level.

The really amazing thing is that one small Borough of London apparently employs over 2300 admin workers.
No wonder our taxes are so high.

>> All versions have an IR receiver.

I would much rather see support for 802.11, bluetooth or even X10 built-in instead of IR.

I wish manufacturers would finally kill IR off in favour or some wireless-based protocol.

I use an X10-based remote at home on my mythtv box, but it would be great if someone made a physical remote that was wi-fi/IP-based.

Yes I already know about the millions of phone apps, but I find controlling a TV setup via a smartphone isn't at all convenient.

Just another example of Microsoft missing the bus (and the point) by trying to catch up years too late with a worse copy of something that is already out there.

(web browsers, phones, tablets, xbox one, etc...etc...).

True to form, the inevitable next step is that Microsoft will genuinely not understand why their version fails instead of immediately becoming the next "big thing".

>> In my mind the question is how long until we realize we our saving our own skins and make some hard decisions.

Just look at the highest global polluters (in millons of tons of greenhouse gas per year):
China (6018)
US (5903)
Nothing anyone else can do:
Canada (614)
Britain (586)
Germany(858) ... is going to come close to making a real difference until those two runaway polluters accept responsibility.

Unfortunately many peoples, especially Americans, are kept uneducated, ignorant, lazy, and brainwashed (read: patriotic and religious) by their governments because it overrides independent thought so makes them easier to fleece and control as a group.

As most Americans would rather be spoon-fed what to think by the media than do even basic independent fact-checking, retards like Rush Limbaugh can and do dictate what a large part of the US population actually believes,(like global warming is actually imaginary and/or some commie plot). Apparently most Americans choose to believe anything as long as it means they don't have to move their supersized asses off the metaphorical sofa or out of their F-350s.

Chinese people have an actual excuse though as they just live in legitimate fear of a bullet for even publically questioning anything their government does. Same net result (no change), just different cause.

There is no limit to the greed and corruption of politicians, especially of the US. They are so far into it for themselves and the pockets of the big "special interest" groups, that they do anything so they can keep lining their own pockets, even if it means killing our planet. For example it's no coincidence that under the Bush administration the US was about the only country that didn't ratify the Kyoto protocol, and G.W. has personal links to oil companies like Halliburton.

So no, nothing will change until global waming being a human problem is blindingly obvious to even the average American in the street action will be perceived necessary in spite of what the US media and government is saying.

The first indicator will be that loonies like Limbaugh will start publically denying the obvious meaning of their earlier words, and moving towards agreeing with the majority of climate experts in order to salvage any reamining credability. The trouble is, by then it will also be WAY too late to actually do anything tangible to fix the problem.