Phi for All

Emily Sue passed away and Joe Bob, her redneck husband called 911. The 911 operator told Bubba that she would send someone out right away. "Where do you live?" asked the operator. Joe Bob replied, "At the end of Eucalyptus Drive." The operator asked, "Can you spell that for me?" There was a long pause and finally Joe Bob said, "How 'bout if I drag her over to Oak Street and you pick her up there?"

So "Hour has one, duh" would be a huge mistake then. Pot calls kettle black.

Our, hour or Oww-er, It does make a difference. Diff-rence? Dif-fer-ence?

Hooray! The Official SFN Jokes Section now has more people viewing it than the Guns thread in Politics. Over 5000 of you think it's better to laugh than to kill. Good choice! You know what's funny? Not guns! I'm so glad you take the time to enjoy a chuckle while you reload. Just remember this: You don't need to kill a person with a gun. If you tell them a great joke they'll be doubled over, helpless with laughter, and you can just run away or club them to death with your shoe or something. We've beat the Guns thread in Views, but we're still behind in Posts. If you hear a great joke, write it down, or if you can't write, force someone else at gunpoint to write it down so you can post it here. We're counting on you to keep this thread alive and laughing. Jokes don't kill people. Except for that guy who choked on a soda at a George Carlin concert. And the woman who lost her spleen in a pun-induced explosion. Jokes don't kill very many people.

I am a straight guy who cares very little for things like dress sense. Since I'm buying clothes anyway, why not take the advice of those who are considered knowledgeable? I love QE because they point out things I do I've never really thought about that I could do better. Women often won't tell you these things. They just shake their heads, pass judgement and move on. I for one appreciate the point of view QE gives me. It doesn't scare me and a lot of their advice is really insightful.

And the Medal of Freedom goes to... Thales! Bravo! You've summed up my feelings very nicely. Since we can't get objective media here in the US, we must rely on those of you who aren't as affected to give us the broader, cleaner view.

In Chancery Englysh, *alle the billes that comprehende materes terminable at the commune lawe that semeth nought feyned be remited there to be determined. but if so be that þe discrecion of the counsail feele to greet might on that oo syde and vnmyght oo that other: (or ellus oþer cause Resonable þat shul moeue hem.) *Excerpt from a Privy Council Minute Book, circa 1424

The former is illegal and the latter is legal anyway if the partners are marriageable under current laws. But you were talking about the significance of the institution being diminished by allowing non-traditional arrangements. Do you believe that marriage as an institution is diminshed by the divorce rate and how easy it is to dissolve a marriage? I may not like how easy it has become to break solemn vows, but it does NOT diminish MY marriage one iota. My feelings, my vow and my relationship to my wife are not dependent on others for their validity.

There is a vast, gaping chasm of difference between personal opinion and discriminatory behavior.

Proving only that their criminal activity was premeditated and lengthy. The other networks jumped on Fox's bandwagon, not wanting to be scooped. By declaring such a close vote for Bush without firm results Bush's cousin unduly influenced voters on the West Coast who hadn't voted yet. It's a shame that some people waited until the last minute and felt it was more important to be on the "winning team", but that's America for you. Everything's a competition, especially in a two-party system.

This is the heart of the fallacy. The significance of marriage CANNOT be determined by anyone other than the people involved in it. Otherwise you leave your own version of happiness to the whims of others. The state or the church can merely sanction a union. What that union signifies is up to you and your spouse, regardless of any other factors.

I didn't mean to imply they were allowed to vote and their votes were simply not counted. Of course it was done beforehand, that's part of my point. An unprecedented purge of Florida's voter registration when the governor's brother is trying to win a swing state is just plain wrong! Your link to the Florida Election Commission's rebuttal of the report by a federal, bi-partisan agency like the US Commission on Civil Rights is also highly suspect. Their take on statistics and their objections to being called to task for this discrimanatory approach to voting is completely expected and equally completely suspect. The fact that taxpayer money from both Texas and Florida was used to doctor voter registration is just plain criminal. Add to that the fact that Fox New's early call of Florida's election projections, signalled by Jeb and George's cousin, John Ellis, and it's hard not to believe in conspiracies.

The thing I hated the most about that particular angle of the debacle was when Florida suddenly got a long list of people who had committed felonies in a different state. Florida law says you can't vote if you've committed a felony anywhere. Of course, the list was used to purge voter registration based on name alone and they didn't bother to check whether or not you were actually the "John Smith" who was a convicted felon. They just took all the "John Smith's" off (if JS was in a crucial county). Which state sent them this special information? Texas. That reeks of special privilege.

James Bond walks into a bar and takes a seat next to a very attractive woman. He gives her a quick glance, and then casually looks at his watch for a moment. The woman notices this and asks, "Is your date running late?" "No," he replies, "Q has just given me this state-of-the-art watch. I was just testing it." The intrigued woman says, "A state-of-the-art watch? What's so special about it?" Bond explains, "It uses alpha waves to talk to me telepathically." The lady says, "What's it telling you now?" He tells her, "Well, it says you're not wearing any panties." The woman giggles and replies, "Well it must be broken because I AM wearing panties!" Bond smirks, taps his watch and says, "Bloody thing's half an hour fast."

Ah, I begin to see. You think the practice of monogamy is barbaric and you'd like to "have your cake and eat it too", as it were. Open marriages abound, but very few last very long. I know one couple who is still together but their open marriage only operated for about five years. They eventually realized why they married each other in the first place and agreed to stop seeing anybody else sexually. I'm not against non-monogamous marriages, but I don't see them being very successful. There's a lot of our psychological makeup involved in our sexuality and our image of attractiveness to our spouses. Many people would find it very very easy to imagine themselves with another sexual partner while within a marriage but find it difficult to allow their spouses the same privelege.

No, I said that sexual definition is NOT the only prerequisite but merely one of them. Marriage, like most anything in life, is not as simple as you'd like it to be for argument's sake. Marriage is sought by people for many reasons, but not all occur in every marriage. To list a few (certainly not a comprehensive list) I would say regular "secure" sexual gratification, cohabitation, legal benefits like insurance, family access (hospital regulations, etc), long-term commitment to a relationship, and stability for raising children. I'm grateful for everyone's views because I honestly never looked at the hypocrisy of having a religious ceremony (in many cases but not all) be regulated by the state. I think we need to examine the need for broader approaches to this institution to include the many adaptations of a modern lifestyle. There will always be those stick-in-the-muds who view change as a diminishing of what they already have, but I say to them that what you have is personal and it's only YOUR feelings and attitudes that can diminish it.

Mwa ha ha! Seriously, I hope I see your intentions here, Severian. I'm certainly not trying to impose a prejudged personal view on anyone. I was only trying to coax some further information about this thread's intention from it's author. I'm currently reading Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and in the story he's got various marriage contracts ranging from troika's to line families where several generations are "bundling" together. In fact, no one I've read about so far has a simple man-wife marriage. But even in this story, having sex within the marriage does seem to be one of the contractual agreements involved. I'm not saying that sex is the only prerequisite for a marriage of any kind, but I do think that a certain agreement ABOUT sex is a prerequisite. Whether you agree to monogamy within the marriage or at least agree to make your extra-marital affairs known to your partner(s), I do think a certain amount of negotiation is implicit in a marriage of any kind. Vows ranging from "forsaking all others" to "let's be open & honest about who we're sexing-up" would almost always be included by anyone wanting a long-term relationship protected by a marriage contract.

Great that you've seen the film, but I seriously doubt that you "have it" unless it's an illegal, pirated copy. It would be nice if you'd actually read what you quoted me on. I did not say the Saudi's were flown out of the country on 9/11 and neither did Moore. They were picked up from around the country on the 12th & 13th and flown to an evacuation point. They did, as you say, leave the country on the 14th. From Logan Airport, where the hijackers themselves took off from (ironic, but not a conspiracy). I always find it very telling when people say that Michael Moore is a complete liar. Like anyone else expressing his point of view, he needs to be examined closely for motive. His film has plenty of conjecture, but it also has plenty of facts in it as well. Yet you and other obvious Bushies push the load of pony crap that Moore is lying every step of the way. Your "Bill O'Reilly flaming" style of ignoring facts and bringing up the same-old-lame-old and throwing your tired, anti-liberal rant-fests just shows how completely close-minded and anti-progressive you've become. Jumping up and down, post after post, screaming, "NOBODY LEFT ON 9/11!!!" when everyone here is trying to debate facts instead of fiction has not helped the progress of this thread one bit. I think Michael Moore did a creditable job of putting together this documentary. For critics who want to take it apart frame by frame there is plenty to work with. But just as Bowling for Columbine started out as a protest against guns and became a warning against sensationalist media, I think Fahrenheit 9/11 started out as protest against an inept, warmongering liar of a politician and became a warning about absolute power and the corruption of very, very rich people who want nothing more than to become even richer.

Why are two heterosexual people of the same sex marrying? If they love each other as spouses then they would be having sex. If they are not having sexual relations why are they monogamous? If they are having sex then they aren't heterosexual. You've lost me on this one.

Wrestling in jello- very hard to do in tights, harder in latex.

Olympic wrestling; so much better with women and lots of jello!

Thank you. What I can't figure out is how we keep forgetting how much our leaders have been lying to us. Reagan used to make up these outrageous stories that his followers never bothered to check, like "the fact" that trees cause more pollution than cars. Bush Sr. lied about the whole Iran-Contra relationship. Clinton lied about his relationship with "that woman". And now Bush has come up with a whole new way to lie, the "let's just shove it down their throats with a little spin on it" lie. These are probably the most harmful because, unlike the other three presidents, you don't find out about Bush's bulls**t until the damage is done. Then you're in too deep and have spent too much money and have killed too many people to back out honorably.

Chatting is like life: So much better in person (when I type I post).

So much of what Bush does that angers me revolves around flat-out ignoring what the experts say and making bold statements against their advice that must be executed in order to be proven true or false. His tax cuts to the rich, his war on Iraq based on Hussein's WMD programs, his assertion that suddenly a Constitutional ammendment is necessary to protect us from homosexuality, all of these things were rejected by those whose job it is to know better. Bush is the biggest liar of all time! He campaigned as a moderate, is considered by the majority of Americans to be highly conservative, and yet, as National Journal's Jonathan Rauch recently noted, George W. Bush has governed with the most radical agenda of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And most of what he's done so far seems to be dedicated to overturning what Roosevelt created from the ashes of the Depression. Currently Bush seems to be breaking treaties and alliances with foreign powers in a bid to realign the entire world structure. Is this what you conservative Republicans voted him in for? To change the face of the whole world in Bush's image and spit in the face of allies the world over? I still say he's using this whole homosexuality thing as a smoke screen for his more underhanded objectives. We'd like the president to be able to produce jobs, make prescription drugs more affordable, protect the environment that we and our loved ones will have to survive in, and maybe thwart some terrorists along the way. Bush has done none of these things and in fact has made every single one worse. If a boxer threw that many matches, you have to say he'd been paid to take the falls, wouldn't you?

It is unfair, I suppose, to bring up your youth and lack of experience in life, but I have no other recourse when you make statements like this. You say they have chosen an abnormal lifestyle. Have you never been in love before? Have you never felt so deeply about someone that you feel like your very existence would be threatened if they were not involved in your life? Now imagine that somehow that person simply happened to be of the same sex as you are. Biology doesn't require you to reproduce in order to fall in love. Attraction to the opposite sex, while in the majority, is not a prerequisite to a loving relationship. Love is the most powerful thing in the world when you're in it, and you will defend your rights and those of the one you love with all your heart.