I am going to open a crap storm here, but in my opinion there is a difference between what Jesus preached and the Catholic Church. (Of course, I'm Lutheran.) That said, my beliefs should not trump or impact Catholics because I selfishly think differently than them.

I am also going to politely ask how is what is happening now any different when the Democrats went against everything Bush and GOP proposed? (It is not. It is just becoming more partisan.) Critical thinking needs to be exercised when pointing out generalities within politics. If we do not use critical thinking, then we just become mindless political drones that are unable to discern the difference between a party's values and personal values, read about Adolf Eichmann. The members of the GOP politicians are becoming more independent, which is how it should be. We should all be bothered by the old 'rank and file' approach that have been exercised in the past...by both parties. At the end of 2013, we saw a bi-partiscian budget get through the Senate, and Democrats joined with the GOP on pushing back against the POTUS on his stance with Iran. Some progress is being made, we should be happy that maybe...just maybe our politicians might be able to reach compromise without personal attacks and demagoguery. I'd buy you a Molson and talk about it, if we were in the same city. :)

God bless.

1 - Birth control pills can help some women with some medical conditions that have no relation to birth control where there is no other option. I for one believe most religious organizations would not take issue with addressing medical conditions with medication. But the argument you make has no respect to the federal government affecting the beliefs and practices of some religions (that clearly you do not either understand or respect).

2 - So other methods like abstinence aren't as effective as birth control pills?

3 - The EEOC's opinion is worthless next to the U.S. Constitution, which is the case at hand. As an aside, now men have to pay more than ever, and have to pay for services that they'll never use.....thanks ACA, perhaps that is an EEOC item to be addressed? (j/k, it'll never happen)

The Congressional Branch has been wrong before....remember slavery and "separate but equal" practices?

Those bastards took my pet rabbit, I hope they choked on his bones.....

Nowhere in the ACA is there an attempt to cut the actual cost of health care, in fact they only increased the overhead, which increases the costs.

Now that I have a few people's attention, particularity ACA supporters, understand there is a different between the cost of health care and the out of pocket costs to individuals for insurance. The ACA was an ill attempt to reduce the cost of coverage by politicians, without regard to how businesses function. By adding additional forms, additional data collection, and governance there may be some benefit many years down the road, but that will never be tied back to the ACA, so it will be considered an intangible benefit.

We are risking 85% of the previously insured to help 15% of the uninsured. I pray that the 85% don't get totally screwed over, but so far the promises aren't being displayed with the planning.

I hear all the cool kids are using ruby these days with mongodb to make their apps webscale.

This attempt is an example of the political science version of social engineering.

It matters not who the person being harmed is, it matters that they are needlessly harmed, just for existing with a specific genetic sequence.

It is pure discrimination. If you grant or deny someone additional opportunity based on gender or race the negatives will be long lasting
    1) You will build a weaker resource pool that will lead to weaker products, and a worse economy
    2) You will create resentment that will take generations ...etc

So facebook was created by a creep that wanted to stalk women, and now the same creep wants to effectively force men out of computer science thus adding more 'younger' women to his staff. What a creep.

This is the kind of crap that we need to protest. We are killing our society as a whole with these practices. I have two daughters and one son, I want them all to do the best they can and reap the rewards of their hard work.

By chance is he going to Oracle?

Seems fitting...

People are always complaining that that our government can't work together, especially on the environment.

Perhaps unintentionally, you completely renewed my faith in our political system when you shared that, "Many actually turned off the servers."

Clearly Democrats and Republicans CAN work together on the environment.

The "great shutdown of 2013" was a bipartisan effort to curb global warming!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

---
Always look on the bright side of life....

Politicians and government are the problems.

There were a lot of games played to get where we are. With the data available, it would appear that too much was promised, therefore, too much was expected by the people. It appeared from day one to me that they tried to go for pretty over function.

I admit that I went onto the website a few times to simply look over the different options. Of course I could not browse the plans at the time because I was not going to start the process of entering in a bunch of information to a site that I did not trust. So yes, I guess I just said that I don't trust the US government. Huh, those black helicopters landing in my yard are quieter than I would have thought. :)

Right now I have insurance that I like, but I doubt I'll get to keep it. I gotta submit this post before they drag me to prison....

That sucks. Sun was cool. Oracle just sucks money are brains out everything it touches and torches.

Vader - How is that possible?
Luke - Father, your "Emperor" committed to spending programs that largely kick after the time of that report.
Vader - You don't understand the power of the dark side of the aisle.
Luke - I'll never join you, your Democratic ways are too rank and file.

The problem is economics, at a macro level, and more importantly for some a personal level, are wrapped up in this debate. People want more power and money.
What both side of the argument want is to influence or control the debate as to what, if anything, we do about it. So really it is how the controllers of the debate can profit. Pretty simple. Nebraska is a "red" state, the University of Nebraska is extremely liberal (I worked there), the Omaha World Herald (commonly called the weird herald) is owned by Warren Buffet, who is a big democratic supporter. So you have the conservatives controlling the politics in the area going up against liberals in the Universities and the media.

Everyone knows that climate change is real, everyone knows that even a butterfly passing gas would have an impact, albeit very very small. The masses in the US these days need to be told what to think by 'experts' to feel good about something.

The reality is nobody conservative or liberal wants to pollute unnecessarily, but when it comes down to a purchasing decision, we're not going to bankrupt ourselves to move to green energy. If the scientists feel that have a problem and we're polluting it, then they should propose a reasonable alternative....there like...smart and all....right? :)

The Whitehouse statement says, "The President assured the Chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of Chancellor Merkel." Soooo from this the POTUS can say we know what phones you use, and we are not listening to them right now, or going forward?? Is he saying that yeah, sure we listened to your calls in the past and since you're ticked now we'll only listen to your staff's calls?? Words are funny and the POTUS has no quote on record.

The fact that we're losing the rank and file politicians is good in my opinion. People voting their conscience, not their party. Now it just needs to happen to the democrats, we need more independent thinkers. At least they're not debating about which is better, vi or emacs. That could go on forever...

My apologies, but my perception of time somehow placed the vandalism of the memorial before the shutdown by over 2 months. To clarify the Lincoln Memorial was spray painted earlier this year on July 26, 2013, and the shutdown was like around October 1, 2013? So, by chance are you smoking some Mary-Jane laced with synthetic tachyon speed boost? If so, did you get that drug through the Affordable Care Act website when it was working long ago in the distant future? :) It could be that the old Lincoln Memorial got tagged again, but I could not resist having a little fun.