Sayonara

Please try to add something to the discussion next time.

I had a feeling something like that was on the way...

Yes. Yes it is.

Why would I want to remove IE, spite aside?

The sentences were handed out in a Jordanian court. You know, in Jordan. Like Jim said: That might be hard to understand for an Americanese or UK audience but as the old saying goes, "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime."

It makes me feel tired, not offended.

Some browsers like Opera allow you to reload a page automatically at regular intervals. Firefox has an extension that lets you do the same thing.

What is the expiration setting for cookies in your browser? The SFN login cookie will persist forever if you let it. Mine never ever logs out because my browser is set to allow web sites to determine cookie lifetime.

And then in the climactic duel of the final installment, Neo finds the baddie in the real world, runs at him with a flying kick, falls on the ground and gasps... "I don't know kung fu!" Then the baddie shoots him. Ace.

Which incident? I am having a "too tired to think" episode.

...and you'd have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that pesky Phi for All and his ability to spell

These are called "conclusions". They come after the reasoning, not before it. Because the current alternatives suck even more. No, probably not, but that doesn't really mean anything does it? Do you not see the fatal flaw in this approach? (pun intentional) Because (a) that would be a severe breach of human rights, and (b) it would be worse than the "inhumane" behaviour you are currently decrying. The responses to this have already been made in the thread. Refute those replies instead of stating the same position again. Yes, you generally do own something when you take it over. It might not be top draw for all the fluffy bunnies but that's the way the trophic web crumbles and if they don't like it, they had better just go and evolve faster. Meaningless. Rate of adaptation is key to survival. This is true, but it doesn't relate very well to any of your blanket statements about animal testing. Yes, let's ignore pharmaceuticals and life saving drugs. That will work.

Very kind of you to say so

Right, good, I think we are on the same wavelength on those issues. But my angle on this is that the same should hold true for all bills (which is pretty much what you originally asked, I think). Why do we need to single out those that are put forward by SIGs? If media attention and a lack of due diligence are the problem, then society needs to address that and not direct resistance at the SIGs (who are, essentially, citizens who have every right to request a change to the society they live in, even if it's not the best idea ever). I'm not saying that SIGs should be allowed to run crazy passing this bill and that bill without being answerable to the society they are trying to modify, but that they don't deserve or require being made into a special argumentative case. Although I suppose they are useful as a tool for highlighting problems with the political system they are using, as you have done.

That only stands up if this being understands that eating the apple is wrong. It is my understanding that in the Eden scenario, that's the lesson God is teaching man. He doesn't tell them eating the fruit of the tree is wrong; he simply forbids it and allows them to make their own mistakes, as one might teach a child.

Am I moving this to "Speculations" then?

If you look around, there are plenty of threads where staff have been mocked and lampooned (often very cleverly). They're a little hard to find now because there are so very many more serious discussions going on, but they are there. Especially from the old days when there was not so much activity and we were all bored Staff are just like anyone else - catch them on a good day and they'll laugh harder than anyone else, catch them on a bad day and they'll eat your brains with a spoon. Now get in that kitchen and make me some pie

I seem to remember a while ago reading about the "next generation" of mobile devices, which were worn on the skin and drew power from the body. There were working prototypes but as usual the "next generation" is turning out to mean "the eighth generation from this one". So essentially yes, but I doubt we'll be powering machine cities any time soon. Don't forget that we convert food into energy because we need the energy. The heat we produce maintains a constant (well, near enough) optimum temperature for our biological processes, so you'd have to capture the waste heat that was radiated or convected away from the body in order to claim back any significant proportion of spare energy. Some kind of "smartsuit" would probably be necessary, but you then have the problem of temporarily storing the energy.

So the proponents of this bill must shoulder the stigma of all previous actions by any and all gay lobbies? Isn't that why bills are put forward? So that a sceptical and objective impact analysis can take place? I don't see why anyone has to make the job harder by adding the burden of extra resistance such as "not in my kid's school!". Bills don't always get passed though, do they? There is a difference between dictating policy, and saying how you think part of the world should work.

This seems to suggest to me that, by default, you consider the aims of a SIG to be a selfish agenda. This is something of a political convenience, because the moment their aims are deemed non-selfish, and therefore no longer an "agenda", they suddenly stop being a special interest group. As far as I am aware there is no requirement for political change to always meet everyone's approval -- if there were such a requirement nothing would ever happen. What is the actual basis for labelling the proponents of this bill a "special interest group"? It depends where you draw the line with transgenderism as a condition of being. If you are only considering post-op transexuals, then you are right -- the significance of contribution is going to be really small (at least in terms of individuals. Theoretically it only takes one transgendered person to cure cancer). However if you consider a person to be transgendered the moment they identify that their "internal" gender does not correspond to their anatomy, then basically you're talking about a portion of the population since man first appeared.

I think we are pretty much in the same place now, politically speaking. The only part where we might disagree is this bit: My response to that would be that it's not going to be the only question on the exam paper, and any student is free to learn or ignore the material depending on how many guaranteed marks they want to sacrifice. I realise this is not much of a choice, but it is still a choice, and my view is that setting work in the curriculum on gay social history and then expecting pupils to be able to discuss that topic is no more "forcing" them to learn it than expecting them to discuss the significance of, say, the bill of rights. Although many would probably argue that the latter is more useful to the typical US citizen, at the same time neither topic should be required to justify its existence any more than the other, since they both reflect different aspects of the same society.

If I am reading between the lines, and appear to be looking for "subterfuge", it is only because you are not supplying full reasoning for the objections you have stated. I am not trying to be combative; I am simply trying to establish a better understanding of your position. Perhaps we do agree on some key points but it should not have to fall to me to guess at your logic. Do you not have any thoughts on the meat and bones of my last post? I think you are missing the point slightly. The value of this bill is not that it shows gays etc do contribute, but that they can contribute. Not necessarily - you don't have to present a homophobic reason as such in order to present an objection to something, even if your motives are utterly homophobic. But I recognise that's splitting hairs somewhat. What I mean is that the fact we mention Professor Bighips is gay does not change anything about his wonderful invention we're about to study. I still don't see where this "focusing" is coming from. To me, that implies that the thrust of the course will be about gay people, which I don't believe is the intention of the bill at all. If you study 50 historical personalities over a two-year course and, say, 6 of those are not straight, you can hardly be said to be focusing on "gay history". I really don't think curriculum authorities will be going out of their way to pack the gay into lesson plans. Why the term hijacking? If you are studying a personality in a lesson then any of their attributes are perfectly valid topics. Clinging to ideas such as hijacking is part of the problem in the first place. Surely it would be unreliable to include them accidentally. And we should reasonably expect an open-minded and democratic society to be inclusive. But nowhere in the bill does it require or request any such slanting or focus. That is something that has just appeared from nowhere in this thread. Hard to justify maybe, but it does happen and it will continue to happen unless something stops it. It's sad, but there we are. Don't forget that an individual is generally smart, but a group can be relied on to make stupid decisions. That's why society needs curricula and legislation. They'll be required to learn about the contribution of the individuals and expected to be able to demonstrate that knowledge under exam conditions or in coursework. They would have to do this whether sexuality was mentioned or not, so the inclusion of that information makes no difference in terms of grading. Well, now we are becoming inconsistent. If we're only considering social sciences then it might be time to abandon the Einstein's theory example. I don't think anyone plans to attach arbitrary significances to the sexuality of historical or contemporary figures. It should not be about saying "hey look, she was a lezzer and she was great!" The function of this bill is to say to the future society "look, gays and bis are here, and they make as much difference to everyday life as anyone else does." For the reasons we have already discussed, a large segment of society do actually need this pointing out to them. Well yes, but that's not where the bill has effect so why go into it? No worries. I suspect some people are reacting to this bill as "heavy handed" because they fear the ways in which it might be implemented. However two things spring to mind: (1) that's not the bill's fault, and (2) most schools will just do the absolute bare minimum required to meet legal requirements and horror "the SIGs are invading!!!!!111" scenarios will not arise.

No, it didn't "fail". You just put a load of carriage returns in to the post to make it look like there is a missing attachment.

Seen RevPrez recently?

You don't have to quote someone's entire multi-paragraph post just to give us a link instead of a counter-argument. Please make better use of the tools available and stop wasting database space.