I fill my time... I must admit, my activities are not nearly as commendable and selfless as volunteering on a wildlife sanctuary... whenever I'm out on an outdoors trip I pick up other peopes litter, I recyle everything, I avoid buying nasty chemicals, I buy low-consuming vehicles... I write code that reduces the risk of catastrophe and nucleur plants.... that's about the extent of my good impact on the world. Woman... grin... sorry... it's easy to slip back into using words like man and mankind when talking about religion. It's part of the vocabulary. My apologies. s/man/human/ ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

Quoting "Anon" : > Hi Adam, > How's life? Haven't talked to you for a while. > Anyway, still remember our conversation on the Noah's Ark? The following > link is an article and its reference to show the dimension of Noah's ark and > if it is possible to fit all animals in it. Quite interesting. > > http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/Magazines/docs/cen\_v19n2\_animals\_ark. asp > > Regards, > Anon > Hi Chris Life's good... lots going on... just moved... getting ready for summer... test riding way-too-fast motorcycles... hope things are good with you. So, I read the article... LOL ... then I read on and LOLed some more. It's sad really. I've seen articles like this in the past... written by a stubborn believer, wearing blinders, pretending to answer a logical question by interjecting phrases involving math and science into a sermon... often the reason that these people are incapable of generating an infallable, complete arguement is that if they were logical people they would have questioned and given up their faith long ago as I did... they'll argue until they're blue in the face that 2 + 2 = purple. You know what this is? This is Star-Trek Science. He's interjectig science and math into a load of rubbish, to make it appear to make sense. "Well captain, if we reverse the polarity of our tractor beam, and use the fact that the square of the hypoteneus is equal to the sum o the squares of the other two sides, then the reverse ionic pull of the starboard nacelles will cause an overflow in the influx capacitor, since e=mc squared, and we will be able to propel our thoughts faster then the speed of light, and hence back through time." I could easily point out major flaws in all the critical keystones of this guys arguement... if you want to know what they are, just put yourself in my shoes. Pretend you're a skeptic, re-read the article, and try to find flaws in the arguement. After pointing out the flaws, I could come up with LITERALLY a hundred other INSURMOUNTABLE problems with the idea of the animals of the world surviving for 40 days on a little wooden boat.... problems not even tackled by his article, probably because he knew he had no chance. The whole thing is just too outrageuos. It's a position so weak, I would feel silly arguing against it. How did penguins and desert mice both survive the same ark? People that give up their faith do so with reason... we're not unintellient or crazy..

How can I test whether a variable is a hash, array, or scalar? I've got this complicated tree structure made up of hashes arrays and scalars, and I want to recursively print out every element. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

I don't understand what you mean; the governemnt will never force you to accept homosexuality. If we did 'create a new sport', as in, create a new relationship type for gays with all the benefits of marriage, then I think the gays of your country would be quite happy with that compromise. They would still be a little pissed off, becasue you would still not be officially recognizing them as being morally equal, but they would celebrate the fact that they were no longer being financially discriminate against. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

> My child, my discision That's a guaranteed recipe to cause your child to hate you and never talk to you again once they leave your roof. Do you honestly think you'd be able to change your child's nature? > Stoping a runaway freight train in its tracks. Defeating liberalism for no other reason than to prove that it can be defeated, to demonstrate that there is still an affective challange to an otherwise narrow minded, anti-intellectual group of moral zealots. Saddam has spoken ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

You seem a little new to the topic; (1) like it or not, marriage is something with implications in church, law, finance, and society in general. Married couples recieve many benefits that singles do not. If you allowed gays to form something similar to a common-law relationships, (e.g. a marriage recognized by state and society, but not by church) then you would address 90% of the greivances by gay people. (2) There's more than one f***ing church! Get off your high-horse! Alot of the world doesn't view homosexuality as being wrong! Would you refuse to recognize a marriage if it was held in a buddhist church? Such a marriage would not be a marriage under God (not your god anyway) Why then do you deny that homosexual marriage is valid? ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

You do have a right to be homophobic. You also have the right to believe that frisbee is sinful. Noone's going to throw you in jail for hating frisbee throwers. You just have to accept that alot of people are going to look at you funny, and suggest that you seriously question your f***ed up beliefs. Avid frisbeerers are probably going to be quite insulted and say "what the hell is WRONG with you?!?" The government shouldn't pass laws banning someone from playing frisbee in their own backyard, or set up taxation such that they'd pay thousands of dollars less if they played baseball instead. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

Shog9 wrote: This is why you began your first post with "f*** the law"? Inflammatory bullshit. I think it was understood by all that I meant "f*ck the existing discriminatory laws." Again, you're saying nothing. You're just arguing irrelevant details and word usage, because you can't generate a real counter-point. Is it because you have nothing to say? You bore me. Run along now, little one. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

Canadian flag - LOL! Not that it made any sense. Good point about the effeminate heteros, although I still wonder... perhaps those effiminate men were still more predisposed to being gay, but they are still in the closet. There are plenty of cases of family men coming out of the closet too late, and being forced to either leave the situation, messing up the lives of those they'd already commited to, or to carry on their gay life in secrecy. Anyway, I can't make any furthur comment about hte correlation between homosexuality and effeminacy. All points have been made, all sides have stated their platform, let's call it a day. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

>Either you care nothing for the law, or you wish it to be changed. Which is it? Obviously I care greatly for the law. That is why I wish it to be changed. >And who decides what reasoning is valid? Who decides what is right and what is wrong? In your opinion, who are these people who haven't made the correct decisions yet? I suppose public debate will eventually shift the concensus, and eventually the law-makers elected by the people will listen. >Any form?[of prejudice is wrong] Always? Let me define my position for you. 1) Prejudice is always wrong 2) When prejudice gives an unfair disadvantage to, or in some other way harms, an individual or group, for no erason other than unfair discrimination, then it is wrong and the situation should be remeied. Don't come back and say 'Oh, well then I assume you want to protect the rights of those who believe in child-sacrifice'. Such an act is wrong for other reasons. >No, but i prefer to hire professional thinkers apparently so (aka your government) >1) US != America >2) relationship != marriage >3) things that are unequivocally equal are indistinguishable. If there wasn't some difference, we wouldn't be discussing this. that == nonsense. You're trying to point out flaws in my grammar or word-usage, because you can't come up with a valid counter-arguement. Fine, substitute 'relationship or marriage' and substitute 'equal in every way pertinant to this debate' I suspect this sub-thread is going nowhere... ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

Stan Shannon wrote: Because we are not talking about race, or genetics or anything at all to do with biology. Many would argue that we are talking about biology. Alot of gays realize their sexual orientation as young as puberty. As a hetero male, if I see a sexually attrative naked woman, I'm going to sprout a woody. That's not by decision, I'm not saying 'C'mon little buddy, time to wake up' My litle buddy wakes when he wants to. That's the nature of a hetero. A gay guy can try as hard as he wants, but a naked female figure standing 6 inches from his face is just not going to do anything for him. Show him biceps and beards though, and he'll pitch a tent. How many times have you seen a guy walking down the street, and you just know that he's a homosexual. Why is that gay men are nearly always effinate in some way, no matter what culture he's from? My answer is that there is a 'gay gene' and it carries along with it a set of characteristics. Seconldy, once again, you're confused. If either o us is, it's you who are suggesting that the government should dictate our beliefs and enforce laws to that end. PS look up the definition of tyranny. "So you can freely exercise your religious convictions so long as you do it precisely according to the dictates of the state. Wow, that is what I call freedom. Gee, you Canadians are so advanced." Straw man. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

:-D You mean you've never recieved a b***j** ?!? Even from a chick?!? That's where all of this anger is coming from. You need some release, dude! Sucks to be you! Soooo, getting head is a sexual perversion, eh? What then is not a sexual perversion? (please answer this question, I'm positive I'll have a good comeback) yeah, yeah, keep you're political opinion, but as long as you excersize your freedom of speech, the rest of us will excercise ours. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

Sure, having mothers and fathers as one type of role model is important for society. We need breeders if we're going to propagate the species. The existance and recognition of homosexuals is not going to dissuade good little hetero children from growing up spawning. Bear in mind that not all heterosexuals, and even more to the point, not all heterosexual marriages are involved in pro-creation. There's no need to create a 'standard' and apply it like a broad-sword, to try and convince a homosexual to go against his/her nature, and start procreating. It's a shame that our society persuades homosexuals to group together in certain cities. There is a significant population of Homosexuals in my hometown (Toronto) and so even though I'm a happy heterosexual (and at one time a major homophobic), I've met lots of happy homos, and I was forced to question my own beliefs. I came to the inevitable conclusion that there's nothing wrong with homosexuality at all. Homos can't help being homos; sexuality seems to be totally innate. Therefore, we shouldn't discriminate against them. If everyone went through this same fair, rational thought process, our society would evolve for the better. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

Stan Shannon wrote: Red Herring. How so? I see racial discrimination and sexual discrimination as being nearly identicle issues. Both unfairly restrict the rights and freedoms of specific groups of people based on irreleavant attributes of those groups. Stan Shannon wrote: Does every form of sexual perverson deserve its own set of special rights? And will we all be forced by the law to accept behavior we find morally unacceptable simply because the state tells us we have to. Homosexuals do not deserve special rights, but they do deserve the same rights as heterosexuals. Laws cannot force you to accept or believe anything. You can live the rest of your life as a biggot, noone will stop you. You have freedom of thought and speech. But laws can protect people's rights, and currently certain laws give unfair advantages to heteros. Stan Shannon wrote: And will we all be forced by the law to accept behavior we find morally unacceptable simply because the state tells us we have to. But that's exactly what your asking for. Discrimination is morally unacceptaable to me, and you'er suggesting I should accpet it because it's part of American law. Stan Shannon wrote: Sure, the U.S. is behind the rest of the world - in tyranny, we would kind of like to keep it that way. Er, what are you suggesting? That because non-discrimition and tyranny are both not part of American law, they are therefore somehow comparable? Stan Shannon wrote: Unfortunantly, you are probably right. We will be forced down the same statest path as Canada. Whatever the state says is normal, is normal, and to hell with free exercise of religion You seem to be confused. Canadian law does permit free excercise of religion, and any other practice under the sun that does not impinge on the rights and freedoms of others. That's the point. YOU'RE the one whose suggesting that the beliefs of individuals should be subverted by the government's religion (A specific branch of Christianity, no doubt). YOU'RE the one who actually believes that "Whatever the state says is normal, is normal, and to hell with free exercise of religion" Canadian law makes it possible for you to have any beliefs, religions or views that you want, as long as you are not somehow harming anyone else. For instance, Canadian law gives the same tax advantages to people in same-sex marriages as it does t

F*ck the law, the laws need to be changed. People need to make decisions about what should and shouldn't be by using valid reasoning about what is right and wrong. Any form of prejudice is flat-out wrong. Have you all lost the ability to think for yourselves? There probably still exist racially-prejudice laws that noone has gotten around to officially erasing. Would you question why these law are no longer enforced? Complete legalizing of homosexuality is inevitable. Being somewhat conservative, America is a bit behind some other countries in recognition of homosexuality as a valid type of relationship, equal in every way to hetero relationships and hetero marriages. America will catch up with the times eventually though. This issue will continue to be debated until the laws are corrected. Ooooh... this is sure to spark some debate! ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

Can anyone recommend a good FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) component that I can download? I simply want to pass it some data, and have it pop up a window displaying the FFT. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

I'm not sure what you mean exactly - Canada also taxes both citizins and residents. This makes sense to me, seeing as residents and citizens share the same benefits. Don't complain too much about US taxes - in Canada we pay alot more, and for what? Overcrowded schools and a mediocre health care system. We get taxed when we earn, and taxed when we spend. In Ontario, we pay 15% at the cash register for goods and servies, but a good portion of the subtotal is tax - tax that the retialers, wholesalers and manufacturers had to pay while producing and delivering those goods and services. Aparently, if you buy a new car, you pay tax on it. If your buddy then buys that car off you, he has to pay tax on it all over again. The same car gets taxed each time it changes hands. WTF is up with that? Rise up, people! Grab your pitchforks! :mad: ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

We don't get any exiting catastrophes up here in Toronto... :(( no earthquakes, tornados almost never happen, and even the hurricanes that you send up fizzle out to a squirrel fart before they reach us. For a while it looked possible that Isabelle could be a repeat of Hurricane Hazel, which killed 100 people in America before heading North to slaughter another 81 in Toronto, but alas. Now we're just forecasting a bit of rain... *sigh* The most exciting disaster I've been around for has been a blackout. (yet another problem sent up from the states... ;P) ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

I'd tell you mine, but I'd be breaching the kid sister law. ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P

What, no staircase? http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html[^] ;P Why is the phrase "It's none of my business" always followed by "BUT..." ;P