The problem is patents are just as effective when a guy spend 10 minutes thinking up something obvious 2 days before anyone else and then spend 1000$ patenting it. Wait's 10 years and then sues everyone for 100 million $.

That's how heat pipes work.

Electric cars have little problems dealing with in town commuting. The issue is being able to take it for longer trips. Now you can spend an extra 10k per car on battery's and drag them around all the time, or you can use a hybrid trolley system for those times when you need the extra range. The advantage is you only need to cover a fairly small area before network effects take off.

PS: Charge 20c / kwh and it's cheaper than gas while still paying for the infrastructure.

We do use oil for peaking power plants and backup generators. Also Trains are another area where oil and electricity compete head to head.

PS: It seems obvious to me that electrifying highways is much simpler and cheaper than trying to build electric cars with 300 mile ranges.

Your analysis forgot to take into account the fuel savings from not slowing down and speeding up and 50 meters is a tiny school including parking area my high school was about 450m long.

But far more important is a 1 in 500,000 chance of collision with a 50% fatality rate is ridiculously high, considering there is 180 school days in a year and over 100,000 schools with an average of say 10,000 trips past them per day you would expect something like (180 * 100,000 * 10,000) / (500,000) = 360,000 accidents in front of schools per year. Chancing that chance to 1 in 50 million = 3,600 pedestrian accidents per year which a reasonable number. (Ignoring fatality rate because that relates to speed, where number of accidents are fairly independent of speed.)

So assuming there was a 5% chance he was wrong and the school was in use and a 1 in 100,000,000 chance of a fatal accident per drive by of a school with students, the actual numbers work out to saving 20 billion * 10 seconds = 633.7 years vs. 50 years.

Christianity does not universally prohibit gay marriage. There is actually a wide range of reactions to gay people in each of the sects perhaps most surprisingly for me:

Old Catholic, Allows as member, Ordains (after 3 years?), and Blesses unions, but does not allow Marriage.

On the other hand Episcopal (2,057,292 members) expressly allows it as do other sects.

Many fall somewhere in the middle and are not unified in there opposition, Anglican (80 million members), Pentecostal (115 million followers worldwide in 2000), and Lutheran have somewhat mixed views with some local denominations allowing gay marriage while others apparently prohibit it.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominational_positions_on_homosexuality

PS: You see something of a fractal pattern on the issue ex: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran church body in the United States, as of August 21, 2009, voted 559 to 451 in favor of allowing non-celibate gays to become ordained ministers. The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LC-MS), the second largest Lutheran church in the United States at 2.4 million members, does not ordain homosexuals. Lutheran churches in Germany are also divided on the issue of blessing same-sex unions. In general, very few churches in the more rural parishes (Baden, Saxonia, Hesse-Waldeck) are in favor of blessing same-sex unions while the urban churches do allow them (Hanover, Rhineland, Westfalia, Brunswick, Oldenburg, Berlin-Brandenburg, Bremen, Northelbia...).

So I don't care if two men or two women have a civil union. Hell, I don't care if they want to call it a marriage. They can have a wedding in a church for all I care. I agree, the issue is not should the government allow gay marriage but should it BAN such unions. IMO, I would rather the government decide to remove any recognition of marriage than to regulate it. I just don't want to be legally bound to recognize it (I would, but that's my choice), nor do I want my church sued for refusing to perform the ceremony. I think your concerns are unfounded. The hole issue is separation of church and state. If your religion chooses not to acknowledge gay marriage then that's it's choice. PS: There may be some issues (for some people) with the way insurance etc is currently dealt with. However, I would suggest there is an easy way do deal with that, simply allow people to say "marriage or civil union" when they issue such polices. If you want to call something a zimbo that's fine, as long as other people are allowed to call it a marriage.

The first recorded mention of the performance of same-sex marriages occurred during the early Roman Empire.[41] These same sex marriages were solemnized with the same ceremonies and customs which were used for heterosexual marriages.[42] Cicero mentions the marriage (using the Latin verb for "to marry", i.e. nubere) of the son of Curio the Elder in a casual manner as if it was commonplace. Cicero states that the younger Curio was "united in a stable and permanent marriage" to Antonius.[43] Martial also mentions a number of gay marriages.[44] By Juvenal's time, gay marriages seem to have become commonplace as he mentions attending gay marriages as if there were "nothing special.".[45] These gay marriages continued until Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. A law in the Theodosian Code (C. Th. 9.7.3) was issued in 342 AD by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans. This law prohibited same-sex marriage in ancient Rome and ordered that those who were so married were to be executed.[46][47] Note: This is also the approximate age of the written record, prior to this written language was far more abstract, and the fragments that remain are less well understood.

Also for a non western perspective: *In the southern Chinese province of Fujian, through the Ming dynasty period, females would bind themselves in contracts to younger females in elaborate ceremonies.[39] Males also entered similar arrangements. This type of arrangement was also similar in ancient European history.[40]*

PS: As another poster pointed out there is significant evidence that gay marriage predates humanity. So the question boils down to "Does Marriage predate Religion" which is somewhat ambiguous and depends on your definition of religion and Marriage. The basic problem is religion predates the written record so while you can find evidence of gay unions 4000 years ago it's in a tomb http://www.pridedepot.com/?p=357

Gay marriage predates Christianity.

If we are going to uphold the idea of separation of Church and State we need to accept that Religion covers more ground than just Protestants vs. Catholics.

You sir are and idiot completely lacking in imagination. An improperly designed pool could easily destroy a house. However, outside of a massively poor design, the standard issue is having a properly designed fence to keep young children from falling in and dying. (Yes, this is actually a common problem.)

PS: As a fireman what the standard procedure is for a fire at a pool supply store. It's far more nasty than you might think.

Useage outside of peek times is meaningless. So someone who downloads 2MB/s at peek times cost more than someone that downloads at 1MB/s 24/7.

Well, after that contract you can use the iPhone to another network.

While computers have significant issues with subtraction, I am positive someone can find a solution to this monumental problem. After all the algorithm, while clearly complex seems solvable if only networked computers could connect to some remote resource to discover new information occasionally. Or perhaps these computing devices could respond to some sort of human interaction to gather such information and respond in a well defined manor.

You did not understand what I wrote. I could restate part of the question as "How do you know you actually believe anything?" but language is ambiguous and the idea is complex so who knows if you get my point.

Or even three questions: "do you know what belief is?" followed by "do you understand what 'Jesus is Lord' means?" Followed by "do you have that belief?" but even that's extremely vague.

Anyway Parables are a great way for someone to completely miss the point while thinking they understand what you area saying. It's possible that God does not care about the minor details (and it's a reasonable argument to make), however that's also a massive assumption. (Both in how God feels and what's minor.) (EX: "Is eating specific things at specific times important or minor?" is really two question "is it minor?" and "Is it important?")

PS: My point is simply one of clarity. It's easy to shape what you read/hear/see to fit your prior assumptions, but be careful when you assume you completely understand a given sentence let alone a book and or things of importance.