DrDNA

I believe that you are hinting at a very good point. There are some "co-habitating", unmarried couples that file joint tax returns. To my knowledge, no tax auditor has ever asked to see these couples' marriage certificates. If someone knows of a case where a tax auditor or some official from the IRS has asked for such a document, please correct me.

Exactly what does that have to do with abortion? You mean like these people?: Democrats for Life of America, Inc. http://www.democratsforlife.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=45&Itemid=49 Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League A nontheistic and nonreligious opposition to the life-denying horror of abortion "... because life is all there is and all that matters, and abortion destroys the life of an innocent human being." .....for AAPL membership; one must: 1) be an avowed atheist, agnostic, or other nontheist 2) oppose abortion and desire its abolition (with or without exceptions) 3) support nonviolence as the sole legitimate means of achieving the goals of the pro-life movement http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html Atheists Against Abortion http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=28580&start=0&sid=4b2f5452fcae1a4a5a2f9a03528f048c Libertarians for Life http://www.l4l.org/ There are more but you get the picture. Does that change your amount of respect any?

Then, if you ever get a chance to see Singapore, you should. It is amazing how nice, green, beautiful and open a city with a VERY dense population can feel. It was VERY well planned. Of course, the government had/has a lot more to say about the planning than simply enforcing zoning restrictions........

Yes. That is quite unfortunate. And I wish that it were not so. I believe that, in part, it may be a consequence of selective interpretation of the Old Testament: In Genesis 38:8-10, Onan is ordered to sleep with his brother's widow. He "pulled out" to not get her pregnant and was slain as a result. Deuteronomy 23:1. It says "He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of the Lord." While other Old Testament decrees and statements are ignored. And, later, Christian church leaders: Clement of Alexandria (AD195) said: "Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted". Pope Pius XI: "..........any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin. " And then Monty Python said: There are Jews in the world. There are Buddhists. There are Hindus and Mormons, and then There are those that follow Mohammed, but I've never been one of them. I'm a Roman Catholic, And have been since before I was born, And the one thing they say about Catholics is: They'll take you as soon as you're warm. You don't have to be a six-footer. You don't have to have a great brain. You don't have to have any clothes on. You're A Catholic the moment Dad came, Because Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate. Let the heathen spill theirs On the dusty ground. God shall make them pay for Each sperm that can't be found. Every sperm is wanted. Every sperm is good. Every sperm is needed In your neighbourhood. Hindu, Taoist, Mormon, Spill theirs just anywhere, But God loves those who treat their Semen with more care. Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted,... ...God get quite irate. Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is good. Every sperm is needed... ...In your neighbourhood! Every sperm is useful. Every sperm is fine. God needs everybody's. Mine! And mine! And mine! Let the Pagan spill theirs O'er mountain, hill, and plain. God shall strike them down for Each sperm that's spilt in vain. Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is good. Every sperm is needed In your neighbourhood. Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite iraaaaaate!

I believe that tree damage due to lightening strikes is 'primarily' a consequence of the cells boiling and exploding in the direct path between the strike and ground.....hence, sometimes, only one side of a tree suffers very severe damage while the other side looks relatively unharmed. Someone, please correct me if this is incorrect.

The majority's views are irrelevant in many cases. Hence the Electoral College system, Congress, Executive powers, the Supreme Court, etc..... Sometimes for better; sometimes for worse. Maybe I misunderstood your statement, but are you saying that gay couples are included because they can marry someone of the opposite sex?

Don't need no rockets with the space elevator made out of CNTs.

I refuse to base my opinion on abortion on less than 1% of the cases. Why does it always center around this?

Good idea Cap. No.

No. 1. Your circuit breakers wouldn't allow anything of any consequence to happen before they blew. 2. There is no such thing as a positive and negative pole in AC (alternating current) 3. Unless your pool is well insulated, the shortest route to ground probably is not the opposite end of the pool. Most likely the plumbing nearest your point of entry is. If you ever decide to bypass the circuit breakers, please let me know. It would certainly be a hit on YouTube.

I don't believe that anyone has mentioned it yet. If they have, excuse me. But one major stumbling block to this has been insurance coverage. For example, a Fortune 500 company that I used to work offered insurance coverage to spouses and to same sex partners. That made gay couples very happy but left out heterosexual couples living in similar situations. Unfortunately, unlike the same sex couples, unmarried heterosexual couples did not have enough momentum or clout to get the rule changed. And they were simply told to get married if they didn't like it. I believe that this rule was discriminatory. This may have been an exception. Some other companies that I am aware offer coverage only to "spouses".

It does not completely cover my position, but that is correct. ...along the lines of: a war is prevented if disputing parties do not engage in battle.

Every time the fed gov tries to define something, they screw it up and it turns out to be a bloody mess. It should be up to the parties involved to decide what marriage is (or is not), and the gov should stay out of it. Far out of it. Maybe someone could convince me that it should be up to the individual states, in which case the Supreme Court would probably screw it up, so I'm not leaning in that direction either. Besides, the recent propositions to define 'marriage as between one man and one woman' are just an example of another lame attempt to deflect attention away from the real issues we face as country and as a species. It serves one purpose and one purpose only- just to get people on both sides all riled up over nothing. Personally, I don't care who or what you marry; nor do I care how many whos or whats you marry. This goes along the same lines as me not giving a hoot what you do and who you do it with or to behind closed doors so long as it does not involve a minor, does not violate someone else's rights, and does not constitute animal cruelty.....eg, if the goat(s) likes it, good for you and the goat. And if you want to make an honest goat out of the goat(s), go ahead and marry it. Good luck to both of you. The push for 'flag burning amendments' in the 80s were another quite similar example of certain parties trying to deflect attention away from the real issues we face as a country and as a people. My flag is sacred only because I can burn it if I choose to do so. Take away that right and it becomes worthless. Along similar lines, marriage becomes less sacred when the government becomes involved and attempts to legislate or define it. PS: mooeypoo, I agree with you. Forces in the gay rights movement share some responsibility for blowing this issue up. Very good point you have made. But also, the people fighting against them so vehemently share a portion of the blame as well.

Thanks for trying to mediate Cap. No. I am 100% completely in favor of birth control. I want to make that abundantly clear. I believe that this all began when I made an alternate analogy to the thread creator's analogy (which was about Kings and Princes and Spaniards...): From that purely hypothetical situation, I think it kinda went down hill from there.......... Oh, and I am against calling pro-lifers and religious people stupid. I'd be against it even if I wasn't pro-life and religious. That excludes me. You all can call me anything you want.

I always try to grab on to something in cases such as this. Yes. Certainly not. And if you think that is a better analogy, well that's your opinion and I respect it, but you are wrong. Why don't you spend your time, money and effort EDUCATING them. I'd rather not say (blushing) Excuse me, but I said NEWBORN. The line is there. It's not my fault if you can't see it. Maybe you could look harder. The religion bashing part was aimed primarily at Mr iNow. But if it makes you feel better, it seems that you are almost as adept at calling pro-lifers stupid as he is at calling religious people stupid. You're a nice person. I suggest you might consider taking a Bioethics and/or a Philosophy class. I honestly don't have time to teach you. Even nicer than I ever imagined.

Have they done something to injure you?

iNow, Oh yeah. ''Please answer MY question....' That was a real heart breaker. What was I thinking when I said that? You mean these questions? Dear Lord man; let me find a crayon. "What if 54% of all kings who wanted to get rid of the prince had taken these precautions? Yes, those are the real numbers." No. If I put on a seat belt and drive like an idiot, I'm still responsible for crashing and all the damage done. "What if not all kings had access to these precautions, or even knew of their existence?" What is this? 10,000 BC? "What if the "voluntary" activity was the single deepest, strongest urge the kings had, and the urge was hard-wired into their nervous system?" So is eating. And if I weigh 500 lbs from overeating. It's my fault. And if I eat somebody and they're in my colon, you can't kill them. You'll have to wait until I poop them out. "What if most of the 'kings' were too poor to care for the prince?" What kind of a question....who ever heard of a poor king? I always wanted a prince in the family. I'll adopt him myself. No wait. I'll have to wait in line for 3 yrs behind all of the other newborn want-to-be adoptive parents. BTW: Have you ever wondered how many people or how many would-be young scientific minds you all have chased off this site with your religion-basing, pro-life bashing intolerance? You guys are ok....until somebody disagrees with you. EDIT: To Mr Skep

This is a perfect example of why this topic can not be discussed rationally on this forum. An opposing view (eg, pro-life) is presented, and the insults fly....... Aren't the pro-lifers were supposed to be the belligerent ones? What have you proposed or presented? NOTHING, except rude, crude and socially unacceptable remarks. I don't care if you are a moderator, you (especially you), should learn how to behave like a dignified human being. You can disagree with people without hurling insults at them.

I presented an alternate scenario. To which you responded: I don't know what your problem is (besides immaturity), but isn't there some sort of minimal behavioral requirement or standard of decorum for moderators? I would hope, that at least as a minimum, the standard for members would apply.

If taunting and insults are the best you can do, you get an F. Unfortunately, this means that you will have to repeat the course during the summer, while your counterparts are watching TV or outside swimming and playing baseball.

I hesitated to participate in this because I expected it to degrade quickly to that level after I presented an alternate view compared to the sciforum member majority. Thanks for your opinion. And thanks for reinforcing my initial assumption.

First of all, I should have answered the original question before presenting a modified scenario or changing any details. According to the scenario presented, probably not. Now, please answer MY question before modifying my scenario or adding details to it.

Oky doky. Please humor me and allow me to change a couple of things and imagine a slightly different, but similar, scenario. For example, forget the random stranger for a moment. Let's focus only on the King and the Prince and a entirely voluntary act by the King. Let's say that the King knowingly and willingly was a participant in a voluntary activity. And the King's voluntary activity was well known and accepted for hundreds of thousands of years to, with a high probability, result in the creation of a Prince. The King knew before he participated in the activity that the resultant Prince would with 100% certainty have a condition that would require the Prince to tap into his (the King's) kidneys for about 9 months or so. So the King was a participant in that voluntary activity An activity which he knew had a very good chance of creating a Prince. The king knew with certainty that the resulting Prince would not have functioning kidney's for nine months or so; thereby requiring the use of his own kidneys to keep this Prince alive. Would the King be obligated to do this or let his son die? Of course a natural response is going to be along the lines of what if [less than 1% of the time] 'the act was not voluntary'... But this is purely focused on 100%, completely voluntary.

First of all, ALL RNA isolation methods yield residual DNA. Popular methods include DNase I digestion, phenol:chloroform extraction, or lithium chloride precipitation. All of these have been shown to be successful are removing DNA from RNA. I believe that DNase I digestion and/or DNase I digestion followed by one of the other methods often works the best.

YT sure is looking pretty these days. I wonder if she has a boy friend.