Obligatory

http://www.xkcd.com/295/

To be fair, stupid people act stupidly on a fairly regular basis.

Ha ha wow I just watched that movie for the first time a few days ago.

It's "The Net" if anyone doesn't get it.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Knoppix

Translation: I personally like Visual Studio better, probably because I used it first and got used to it, and I am unable to tell the difference between my personal preferences and an objective comparison of the capabilities of different applications.

I will now respond to the person who replied to me with a cherry-picked example of some random thing of trivial importance that I know how to do in Visual Studio and not in Eclipse.

Wow. Just ... wow.

Do you also think that all fiction writers are evil bastards? From Chaucer to Shakespeare to Dostoevsky to Poe?

Meh. I was remembering him in Mission Impossible, where I thought he was decidedly mediocre, and yeah he was on my mind because of Going Clear. But maybe that was just a bad movie; I'll take your word for it.

Wow. Don't you need help holding that immensely broad brush?

There is such a thing as acting talent. Not everyone can play Hamlet and excel in the role. Not everyone can play the Doctor and excel in the role. Of course, most likely just about anyone could play soap opera stars and be passable in the role. That's a nugget of truth to what you say.

Another nugget is that many big-name stars (say, Tom Cruise) are ditzes extraordinaire with very little talent. But you can't really blame the industry for that. Blame the general public for having exceptionally poor taste.

There are truly talented actors out there. And, most of them probably never get their big break. But some do, and they contribute greatly to the productions in which they work.

YES YOU CAN.

What you can't do is discriminate against a constitutionally or federally protected class. That's a list of things including race but not including sexual orientation.

Pediatricians can, and have, refused to see the children of gay couples. That's disgusting, but not illegal.

You want it to be illegal? That's fine. Get a state or federal law passed adding gayitude to the list of things businesses can't discriminate against. Start by not shouting misinformation on the Internet. Because while you're doing that, your opponents have organized in dozens of states and are passing laws opposite to what you want.

But if you want to stay on the Internet, why don't you tell me why you think my earlier analysis about the impact of these laws you don't like is wrong, assuming you think I'm wrong? Learning to make a coherent argument will help you in your political campaign later.

You must be new here, because his view is essentially a textbook statement of the standard Libertarian position on this issue.

Also, reading comprehension fail.

You:

Him:

You again:

Your bubbliness might be hurting you here, but not in the way you think. You might want to try to consider positions you don't really understand a little more before having a knee-jerk reaction like this. Thinking something shouldn't be illegal isn't the same as thinking it's morally okay. I don't agree with DarkOx on this, either, but he's not a monster. He just disagrees with us on something.

And that's why YOUR side of the argument loses. These laws won't result in "No gays allowed" signs, because, unlike with race, you can't just look at someone and tell if he's gay. All these laws will result in are things like some bakeries run by very religious individuals not make cakes for same-sex marriages. Which is perfectly fine, because other bakeries will, so no one gets hurt.

Do you really think it's alright to force a deeply religious baker to make a cake for a gay wedding if the baker is devoutly religious and thinks he's helping the people to sin? Yes, the baker is wrong-headed and should change his mind, but people aren't perfect, attitudes take a long time, sometimes a generation or two, to change. You'd be causing the baker significant emotional distress. Probably, the baker would shut down and get a different job. And what you get in return for harming that baker is that gay couples wanting to marry don't have to type in "gay friendly bakery near Memphis, TN" once in their lives.

This isn't like racial segregation. There are superficial similarities, but this isn't going to end with gay-only schools and gay-only hospitals and gay-only restaurants. Such a system would be impossible to enforce, and very few people really would want to do that anyway: gays have already been tolerated in Western society for a very long time, since before slavery was eliminated even.

This isn't about hate. It's about religious freedom. You just think the people who will exercising their religious freedom are stupid and wrong, so you don't want them to be able to exercise it. They are wrong, and likely stupid for some value of stupid. So are the people exercising their freedom of speech to deny the Holocaust. But you don't lose your freedom of speech for being stupid and wrong, and you don't lose your freedom of religion, either.

lol. Why bother avoiding accusations of sexism? You're an anonymous coward on Slashdot. What are you afraid they're going to do to you?

Anyway, the right way to treat people who are too easily offended is to brush them off, not acquiesce to their neurosis. If enough people call them on their bullshit, they'll grow a thicker skin and stop being so easily offended, and that's better for everyone in the long run.

I'm sure most women wouldn't object to not being called mobsters, but if you're really concerned about it, use they and get the number agreement wrong. Using "she" is just distracting.

Also, it's not sexist. Defaulting to one gender, usually male, is how most languages deal with the issue. It's just understood that the gender is indeterminate. For instance, Spanish uses "ellos" for a group of mixed gender people, while "ellas" is referred to a group of only women. No one gets confused by this.

Both major parties in the US are anti-slavery today, as well as most minor parties.

Yes, and the customers or state would still foot the bill, because the insurance premium raises the cost of doing business for all banks, making the interest rate spread offered to customers higher and a bank in trouble more likely to fail, due to the increased difficulty of making profits when the cost of business is higher.

Stealing from someone where insurance will cover it just means you're stealing from a lot of people instead of just one.