Personhood implies social responsibility.
This is much more than paying taxes, it involves a wide range of social interactions including employment, self-reliance, participation in government etc.

Chimps if "released" could not function in our society. Releasing them into the wild would be a death sentence for most lab animals.

They would still need to be cared for, and are unlikely to be able to contribute much.

I do not see how a judge could make a finding of personhood under (what little I know of) American law.

A major function of adolescence is forging a life apart from the parents' control.

Parents can facilitate this by gradually relinquishing control in response to trustworthy behaviour on the part of the teen.
The progression results in self-disciplining young adults who are independent, yet respect authority

Parents can thwart the burgeoning independence of their adolescent children by attempting to control and monitor their offspring's behaviour, even when the adolescent has shown no tendency toward suspicious behaviour. Treating ANYONE in a suspicious manner tends to foster the behaviour expected.
This progression results in young adults who resent authority, and have sub-standard life skills.

"Just because you can" is never a valid reason for doing something.

All humans have "similar" DNA

Is that somebody will have a bright idea that we can deliberately prolong the status quo.

They then convince a bunch of idiots w/ money and power (aka politicians) that their "solution" will somehow save the planet.

Humans will do what humans do best: We will adapt.

The climate is changing. Let it change. Go with the flow.

from the article::
"Human rights groups estimate that China executes thousands of prisoners a year, but correspondents say that the official figures remain a state secret."

non-Google translation:
"Nobody knows -- not even the Chinese government -- how many prisoners are executed each year...

Since governments in general disregard laws with impunity, what difference can it possibly make to pass laws requiring warrants? They will do what they are going to do anyway. The existence of a law will not change this behaviour. The powerful are not constrained by laws, only the weak.

This is sofa king lame.

You don't need a service to extract the audio.from a YouTube stream

While I have no objection to anyone doing this themselves for the convenience etc, I DO object to someone trying to extract $$$ from something that is not his

.

I have always been like this.
I do not remember anything bad that happened to me.
I can be reminded, and when I am, I remember them in sufficient detail, but in general, I just plain don't.
One of the the greatest blessings of my existence.

Then get them back there RIGHT NOW and make them clean it up.

And a geological period at that.

So following the announcement of the postponement, MS decides to include the updated calendar info in a patch.
Since the patch isn't a critical or security patch, a large portion of end users -- and a larger portion of systems administrators would not install the patch.

Still not a news item.
I gave up on the holidays calendar years ago due to an overabundance of errors -- primarily inclusions of US holidays in the Canada calendar.
I suspect most Outlook users in the UK did the same.

In any jurisdiction where a machine sits between the voter and the offical count, no election outcome can be trusted.
"the people" as in "Government, of the people, by the poeple for the people" have been disenfranchised for decades.
The situation now is more along the lines of "Government of the powerless, by the stooges, for the elite"

There are no candidates for office anywhere in the "free" world that are not controlled by corporations & their cartels, trade unions or organized crime.
Even if sufficient numbers of independant canditates could be elected, their ideologies are so fragmented that they would be unable to stand against the onslaught of the powerful self-interest groups.

I was tempted to mod this funny.
There is a common misconception amongst law-abiding people that making something illegal will change other people's behaviour, because they themselves change their behavour in response to a change in law.

As society becomes increasingly fragmented, the fraction of the earth's population that could be described as "law-abiding" is decreasing rapidly, and the process is further accelerated by governments that bow to the pressure of special interests.

Examples of laws that are defied or ignored abound.
Here on Slashdot we tend to revile copyright laws, and other IP laws.
Others openly defy laws controlling substances -- drugs, alcohold, tobacco etc.

Why on earth -- or above it -- would anyone abide by a "law" that would be ultimately unenforceable?