I don't know about other women, but I don't care to be the recipient of any kind of sacrifice. Obviously this woman has the qualities he values, such that he wants to marry her. We should love one another for our virtues, not our vices...

If you are referring to the meconium, this doesn't actually happen with most babies. About 10 to 15% of babies pass meconium before or during birth, and about 2 to 5% of those aspirate/ingest it. It is more typical to pass meconium about 12 hours after birth, and minimal diaper changing skill will prevent any of it from being consumed :)

No other obvious purpose? How about wanting to play a (paid for) foreign version of a game? Or what if you really do back up your (paid for) game and want to play the copy while keeping the original protected (Probably a good idea for anyone who has cats or toddlers in the house...). Or, (and this one I have to admit is kind of lame), I had a game a long time ago that somehow I managed to lose. It was legitimately purchased for me, and after a few moves, I just can't find it. Now, it turns out to be a pretty rare/hard to find game, and if I want to purchase another copy, I have to pay over 100$ on Ebay or the like. You could say it's my own fault for losing it, and I'd have to admit you had a point. But, if I were to download and burn a copy and mod my system to play it, I think you'd have to admit that I wasn't stealing or otherwise being immoral by doing so.
It's too bad that there are people who will also pirate games, which I still believe is wrong. But the fact remains that there are plenty of (at least ethically) legitimate purposes for a modded console, and I don't think that other people's bad behavior should prevent me from using my console for those purposes. The automatic assumption of guilt seems to be what really bothers us here.

It's really not that simple. There are going to be kids who don't care, and won't pay attention no matter what the teacher does. I had some very good teachers, that made class interesting, but there were still kids who acted up in class, and they made it less interesting for the rest of us.

Maybe schools have changed since the dark ages of the late 80's when I was in school, but even if the parent can directly call the child on a cell phone, the student still has to have some kind of discussion with a school official for permission to actually leave school, right? I'm sure that the school is responsible for the kids, and knowing their whereabouts.
Does this really make things that much faster than the parent calling the school in the first place? I can't imagine it's that hard to "track down" the student, what with class schedules and clocks and such...

I do see the point here. Students do need to learn to think, not just regurgitate. But, allowing phones in class is more likely to be a distraction to the student using it, and possibly other students as well. Young kids especially are still learning how to learn, and ensuring that students learn to think and work individually is more important than making it like the "real world", for the same reasons we don't kick our child out of the house if he doesn't finish all his chores (even though in the real world, an adult may lose his job if he doesn't perform adequately).
Making use of phones part of classroom activities is a problem anyway, because not every student has a phone, and not every student that does have a phone has one with the same capabilities. Some parents decide their kids don't need cell phones, and some parents can't afford to give their kids a phone.
Really, cell phone use in the classroom should not be allowed, and if the rule is broken, the phone sits on top of the teacher's desk for the rest of the day/period (so the student can see clearly that the teacher is not "snooping" in it), and the infraction documented. Parents should be notified at the beginning of the school year that phone use in the classroom is not allowed, and what the consequences are, and then those consequences should be applied. Maybe after so many infractions, the phone is not given back to the student, but the parent has to come get it, for example. You don't have to stop the kid from having the phone in his possession, but if it makes noise, or is brought out of the pocket/bag/whatever during class, then there's a problem.

+5 Insightful, where are my mod points...

awwww... :)

Actually, you'd be surprised. I used to ride public transportation to work every day, and people frequently tried to sell bootleg DVDs to me. Amazingly, several people actually bought from them...

This is a serious question: If it's not worth wasting your money on to buy, then why on earth did you waste your time downloading and watching it? Either a product is worth the asking price or it's not. If it is worth it to you, buy it. If not, do without...

What about geeky women?

... who was expecting this to involve the new recovery.gov?

I think there's an important caveat to the "just get out there and do your thing" advice. Some aspect of "doing your thing" should involve doing it in groups of other people. This will increase your chances of meeting other people who are also into something you are. For example, I was looking for something to do to "get out more", and I took a dance class at the community college. I hadn't expected it, but I met my husband in that class. Maybe I'm just lucky

I can see your point for sure in the case where someone buys it used when the game is still fairly new. It's obviously silly to spend 55$ on a used game that you could get new for 60$. On the other hand, I tend to wait until a game has been out for quite a while before I get it, because I just can't afford to spend that kind of money on a game. So I pay a lot less than the new price for the games I buy, usually less than 20$, and my trade-off is that I don't get to play the game as soon as it comes out. But, I have a busy life, and don't suffer for waiting for a game to get cheaper. I'm certainly not having any desire to "stick it to the developer", and I would really love it if I could buy it new after that long wait and have the money go to the developer. The problem with this is, after waiting that long, the game isn't available new anymore.
Maybe if they do switch to digital distribution for console games, the developer or publisher could sell it directly to me at that much cheaper price after the game is older and less in demand, and get my money. That would be great as far as I'm concerned, although then the consoles would have to be able to play the digitally distributed game, which would make piracy easier. I would love for someone to come up with a model that allows us to pay less for the game when it's older and in less demand, and still support the developer.
In any case, I still think it's perfectly ethical to buy and sell used copies. As long as the physical media is needed to put in the console to play (and unless you mod the console, you can't do it with a copy AFAIK), the situation is still much closer to buying and selling used cars than it is to sharing mp3s.

I wonder if cats really do know stuff like that. It could be that they have a more sensitive sense of smell. One of my cats always follows me to the bathroom first thing in the morning, and he only started doing it a few days before I found out I was pregnant. Maybe the change in hormones or something. I'm curious to see if he keeps doing it after my son is born, and to see how the kitties react the first time they feel kicks while sitting on my lap.