Some cultures were tolerant of homosexuality itself (even if they mocked it a bit), but none equated homosexual unions with marriage.

They were tolerant to the point of recognizing the unions; sanctioning and accepting them within society with the same deference as hetero unions.

What "equivalent of gay marriage"?

The roman equivalent of marriage; since marriage in 200 AD doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as marriage means today.

"With this man[1] Elagabalus[2] went through a nuptial ceremony and consummated a marriage [...]"

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/T...

[1] - Zoticus, a male consort of Elagabulus
[2] - Elagabulus, Roman Emperor, AD 218 to 222

And he was hardly the first or only, but at least this one is rather clearly and unambiguously documented as a "marriage", and not some other male-male relationship.

but it was always "hetero".

It really wasn't though.

Exactly. And the primary (if not the only) purpose of it â" always and everywhere â" was to rear children.

That would only be necessary in monogamous marriages within a Christian framework. It was plenty common for plural marriages to include marriages to both men and women.

And where did those children come from? Adoption? Surrogate mothers?

Additional female wives, concubines, consorts...

I fail to see, how a union of one male and one female must imply the former's ownership of the latter.

Those marriages you speak of for the purpose of "rearing children" were much more than that.

Those "Marriages" were contracts of chattel, duties, and obligations. (And the women was the chattel). The entire purpose of those "for the purpose of child rearing" marriages was not simply to bring a man and women together to produce children, but to establish the payment to the women's family for chattel rights to the woman and the joint offspring, define the amount of the payment, and to define terms for reparations to the 'buyer' if an offspring wasn't forthcoming. (including the return of the 'merchandise' and 'refund', perhaps even damages for time etc. To suggest that those elements are of "marriage" are any more or any less intrinsic to the transaction than the hetero nature of those contracts is simply nuts.

That's what happens today, except it is spent on TV ads, direct mail, paid media placements and talking heads. Paying people for their votes directly would probably be cheaper for everyone involved except the advertising and PR firms who reap a windfall each election cycle.

I don't actually like the idea of buying votes - I think accepting money for a vote is fundamentally prostituting your most basic civic rights. But that's a choice and I don't see why prostitution isn't legalized, either. I guess my point is just that "vote selling" is only one degree of separation away from the status quo today and might actually be a more efficient way of getting to the same place.

Your aren't talking about ethics or morals, you're talking contract law. And we don't know what the contract amounts to. We do, however, know that MS was treatening to sue people right and left over secret patents, so it's quite reasonable that Samsung may have felt that they were coerced into signing the agreement. If so, then it's quite ethical to look for any escape hole.

Given the history of government, expect the voting mechanism to be bought from a company which has little transparency, and little interest in fixing problems.

The history a voting machines in the US is a history of fraud and probable fraud. If you switch to an on-line voting system, expect it to be vulnerable to fraudulent voting and difficult to check. And illegal to validate. ("That's our proprietary code your'e trying to inspect!")

Do not support it. Were it an open system, I'd be cautiously supportive, but recent history tells me not to expect that.

Sounds like a good deal. I did opt for a lot more options, tv card, wireless, dual burners, fairly high end card in its day etc., which ate up part of the balance. I know I could have built for a little less, but sometimes it is a matter of putting the risk on someone else, and how much your time is worth at the time. But either way, it shows it pays to buy quality. I'm using that computer right now, on my TV in the bed room :)

I don't know if the headline is just poorly written, but it seems to suggest that Microsoft is suing Samsung for Android patents.

Microsoft owns Android patents? Since when?

The Bitcoin network uses about $35 worth of energy to process a single transaction.

This seems extremely unlikely, since processing a transaction means transmitting a few hundred bytes and doing doing some simple cryptography and database lookups.

Now, I don't know how much energy a single credit card transaction uses, but given the transaction fees that processing companies charge, I'm willing to bet that it's far, far less than $35 worth.

Yet for some reason you think this logic doesn't apply to Bitcoin transactions.

Local elections are the only ones that are important. The national system is so rigged that nothing individuals can do will make a difference.

However, be aware that local elections are the next target of corporate types. In the past two years, the Koch brothers have spent millions on school board elections, and not in the areas in which they live.

If you do get involved locally, be prepared to make a real fuss, and make sure you don't get busted for pot or beat your wife. In fact, don't even allow yourself to get into a situation where you can be framed for a pot bust. People have tried to get involved in local politics and have had their lives destroyed for their trouble.

And if you try to fight what has been cynically referred to as "election reform", be prepared for death threats.

Even for a computer?

7000 people will die of the influenza in Liberia this year. That's nearly ten times the number of people that have died from Ebola.

Which is why things like Swine Flu get worldwide attention.

I know you've seen a lot of scary made-for-TV movies and what-not,

An argument from condescension? How very logical of you.

but despite that, there is no disease that can penetrate a hazmat suit.

That depends on the specifics of the hazmat suit in question, of course. Even airtight with its own supply isn't necessarily good enough since you might be contaminated when taking it off. And most are far from airtight, since that basically cripples you - apart from the bulk, you can't sweat.

Period.

Spelling out "Period" simply signals your argument didn't sound convincing on its own, even to you.

If my wife contracted this, I'd put on the suit and go right in and give her a hug. There would be absolutely no risk to me. None, zero, nadda.

Well then, the medical professional talked about in this article must have been a fool then, and treated his patients without this foolproof hazmat suit of yours.

Online voting is better than paper, when online comes with crypto. There is no attack type possible with online voting that's impossible with paper. The difference is in the details and maybe the ease. But when anonymous voting is abolished, there is no room for "fraud", just intimidation, and intimidation is low in the US.

It'd be hard to make an online system any worse than our current paper system.

Who am I to decide? I'm a human with a functioning brain. Quit bitching about me using it and learn to use yours.

You have the right to retain your property, but not the right to acquire it. There's a difference.

And your credentials are what, exactly?

Well, yes...but if it's illegal (under Irish law) for the company in Ireland to transmit the data to the US, they they are demanding that the company chartered in Ireland under Irish law comit a crime.

I don't know that that applies in this particular case, but there is much information that the EU forbids export of to any country that doesn't protect the information. And that definitely includes the US, where personal information is seen as a corporate asset over which the individual has no right.

In fact, I find it quite plausible that the demanded information might be illegal for the Irish company to transmit. (This goes contrary to the assertion made earlier that the agent of MS merely needs to push a button located in the US and the information will appear...unless there's criminally sloppy systems design.)