Phi for All

Soon we'll have employers demanding access to our Facebook accounts so they can check all our personal contacts and thoughts....

Well, that's the hypocrisy of the religious right Republican. They want smaller government that doesn't intrude in people's lives, less taxes and freedom, but only if you believe the way they do. And only when the intrusions don't involve sex. And only when the tax money benefits just them and no one else. And only when the freedom isn't free enough to be responsible for your own body.

The beer is scattered on the wind, when you blow its head off.

Next time you go to Starbucks, call the barrista a coffee jerk, they'll love it.

Watching Dr. Who, Tardis is bigger inside. Hey, it's a whoku!

I thinks it's time for ydoaPs to haiku.

Which tranny did it have (now there's a word that has completely changed its meaning...)?

I definitely know Car Hop and Soda Jerk (Sonic Drive-in Restaurants out west here still use Car Hops). I'm pretty sure a Drug Store Cowboy hangs out near the Soda Jerk. Wow, I was trying to think of some terms from the 70s to counter Moon's terms from the 50s and 60s, but you went back to the 90s. 1590s, or 1600s iirc. In the 70s we drove Goats... People used to carry a torch and drive jalopies in the 40s... The 20s had flappers...

! Moderator Note The personal attacks and sniping will stop NOW. Be civil or be gone. Do not respond to this modnote.

Are you JJ's friend, or know JJ's friend?

Aww, you know that's not what I said. Good luck to you. Make sure to stop by in the limo and flip us the bird when you strike it rich. X-ray vision, cool. I chose mind control, but it only works on me.

I didn't expect intellectual dishonesty from you, Justin. Singling out women for doctor-prescribed birth control or abortion requirements when they aren't targeting men who get doctor-prescribed penile enhancement drugs. What if it was the woman's husband or boyfriend who wanted his lady to get the abortion? This bill doesn't require HIM to watch one being done. Absolutely not. Your medical insurance is part of your compensation package, not some gallantry on the part of the employer. If your employer were trying to deny this on his own, he'd get thrown in jail. This bill is just trying to make it legal for your employer to ignore the complaints they'd be bound to get.

For starters, because they're applying it to women only. Is that the way you want your country to treat women (ask your wife if you're unclear; she's probably like you and doesn't like one-sided arguments). As swansont said, they aren't going to be asking why the man is taking Viagra, even though there's a huge amount of men who take it but don't have erectile dysfunction. Your employer is paying for their fun, as opposed to unwanted pregnancies.

You're making the mistake of assuming only one side of the equation would change. When does THAT ever work out right? And your statistics about doctors dropping Medicare patients are only from Texas (where everything is BIG, even their mistakes ). Right now, Medicaid and Medicare have suffered under so many years of budget cuts and bills passed to hobble their buying power that it's plain to anyone with eyes and ears that they're being set up to fail, a lot like our public education, to make way for more privatization. Since it would be a public fund, we should probably get our representatives to guarantee payment on a net 30 or 60 day basis, like the rest of the business world. NOW ask your doctors if they like the notion. Seriously, it gets really tiring to talk about fixing the system, only to have detractors keep comparing it to the old system in order to keep it from getting fixed. Aren't you looking at the evidence? We score lower on everything to do with healthcare except cost than 20 other countries that have a national program. Do you not trust the evidence, or do you not trust our politicians to set it up correctly? And if it's the latter, why are you trusting them with the rest of what they're doing with our money?

I wanted to make sure you were prepared for some fallout. When a member responded to your Creation Story thread, you made a personal attack, and I thought the member was being very conversational and polite. But he disagreed with some of your points, so I'm guessing he wasn't profound enough for you. I have no problem with you expressing your faith. But if you are going to reject others comments then this is no more than preaching, and that IS against our rules. I didn't mean to hijack your thread. I'm perhaps a bit sensitive when it comes to people who join this science forum strictly to post in the Religion section. It's supposed to be an add-on for our members, not the sole reason you came here.

The bill passed the House of Representatives and is being sent to the Senate. It's not a done deal yet. It's entirely possible that a bill can be pushed through Congress only to be thrown out as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Of course, this Supreme Court also voted to give corporations the rights of people a few years ago. This is so typical of US politics, bringing up all kinds of stupid, shitty initiatives when there are thousands of more important things they should be focused on. All to pretend they really care about the non-political concerns of a large block of voters. And shame on the religious right for bringing their Church into our State.

Do you want me to close the thread so it retains it's sanctity and sacred position, or shall I leave it open for comment? This is a discussion forum, so statements like this don't leave much room for two-way talk. What you're most likely to get are comments that agree and disagree with the statement. Are you prepared for both?

And it will probably all boil down to that, lots of hand-waiving for something that will inevitably be struck down. In the meantime, it will galvanize the religious right to support the Republicans, and also take the focus off all the skeletons in the GOP closets, as well as help people ignore forget what happened with the last Republican president. This will be especially important if the GOP doesn't field a popular enough candidate out of the four frontrunners. They may have to rally around Jeb Bush.

Well, our private insurers have lobbied to make the payout for medical insurance from employers mandatory. If you have a job that pays for part of your medical insurance, they don't give you the option of taking more cash and dropping the insurance. If they did, I'm sure a lot of young people would do just that.

First I would need to know what the planet's goals are, what it wanted to achieve, and then I would work on a marketing platform that would convey those goals to an advertising audience. For instance, Mars is already known as the red planet, but that may sound angry (red-faced) or broke (in the red), so I would base the platform on red being sensuous and sexy, Valentine red, romantic red. I would make Mars the place for lovers. This brand would hopefully take some of the market away from Venus. Sorry, this was my first impression when I read the thread title. Just a little joke, please don't be offended. Actually, when astronomers look at a planet, they can already tell if it has an atmosphere or not by the way the light from it's sun strikes it. Is this what you're looking for, Lala?

OMG, read the post you quoted. "If, instead of paying money to private healthcare insurance you paid it into a national fund..." The doctors would continue in their private practice, they won't be working for the government. It will simply be the government we pay premiums to, at a lower rate because the national fund doesn't require the profit margin private insurance does. And the doctors will get paid by the government instead of private insurers. The medical community would love it if we had a national healthcare fund. They have to overcharge for everything to make up for the delay in payment that private insurers impose on them (I'm serious, ask your doctor, ask your dentist, they often have to wait 120 days to get paid!). Here's a great article from Yes! magazine: http://www.yesmagazi...ts-what-ails-us This bit is particularly relevant:

This is the result of a couple of generations of underfunding public schools. We have a huge amount of uneducated people (specifically science education) who are happy to let their church and political leaders make all the tough decisions for them because it makes their heads hurt to attempt rational thinking. It's pathetic, and it fits in so well with our present economic/political climate that it almost seems engineered. Keep 'em dumb, rile 'em up over emotional issues so we can step in with control so they feel safe, and they'll never suspect what we're really doing.

I get what you mean here, but the only reason we'd be allowed to do that is if the moniker was offensive in some way. We actually have a very strict set of guidelines we have to follow when it comes to suspensions and banning, unless someone is spamming advertising or posting porn. What I've learned here is that too many people want the freedom NOT to educate themselves. They disdain what they don't understand and refuse to do anything about it. It's much easier to sneer than to study, but it's intellectually dishonest.

esbo has been suspended for a week for repeated rules violations, ignoring requests for evidence, and ignoring the evidence others worked hard to provide to support their arguments.

! Moderator Note When you make a claim here and people refute it with evidence (aka, something you have to read), you need to read it or stop making the claim. You also need to refrain from using logical fallacies as arguments. You also need to stop making personal attacks on other members. We attack ideas here, not people. All of this was in the rules you agreed to when you joined. Unfortunately, you chose not to read them or abide by them. Now you have the freedom to do something else for the next week.