Thursday Next

I assume you are referring to the part that prohibits passing laws impeding the free exercise of religion. It seems to me that a law prohibiting "no contraceptives on health plan for workers in a Catholic hospital rules" in no way impedes the Catholic Hospital's freedom to express its religion. The Hospital is still free to say that it believes abstinence is the only form of contraception that a good Catholic should use they just can't refuse to help people who think differently.

Turns out one of my friends helped animate this. Small world. EDIT: This guy, incidentally http://www.matthewkeen.co.uk/

Agreed, not discriminatory, just... a bit... mean?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9083438/Sean-Penn-calls-Prince-Williams-deployment-to-Falkland-Islands-unthinkable.html Native American Politician and Part-Time Actor Sean Penn gives us the benefit of his years of experience in foreign diplomacy insisting that the entirely indigenous population of Argentina hand over the Falkland islands because the UK are a bunch of mean old colonials... They're ours, now piss off.

So basically a tamer form of Judge Dredd? It's actually not far removed from what Japan had according to that beeb article. Cases were presided over by Judges, and even if you confessed the prosecution still had to go through the trial and produce evidence. (In the UK if you plead guilty you skip straight to the sentencing).

So if I work for a Jehova's Witness run outfit they can refuse to pay for my blood transfusion!?! Crazy.

Oh right. Yeah they should. Got to be cheaper than paying for maternity leave and cover. Suck it up.

To answer your queries regarding the legal system from a (UK viewpoint with some bonus Japan facts) - You are required to disclose your evidence, however, if something does appear at the last minute the court can admit it in the interests of justice. (Obviously, if you're known to have been concealing evidence you run the risk of being held in contempt, being disbarred and/or having a mistrial and starting from scratch). The rule in full is: (1) Any duty of disclosure continues until the proceedings are concluded. (2) If documents to which that duty extends come to a party’s notice at any time during the proceedings, he must immediately notify every other party. You could try to argue that the Prosecutor does not "notice" the evidence until he decides to produce it... but most (probably all) Judges would give you short shrift for that, then again the Judge in PW games is not "most Judges". - Depending on the case, certain Judges (Magistrates specifically), can preside over and give a verdict on cases. There are three types. Summary Offences, Either Way Offences, or Indictable Offences. Summary Offences, speeding tickets, etc are held before a Magistrate. Either Way Offences are held before a Magistrate or at Crown Court (trial by jury) depending on the "seriousness", Indictable only Offences (such as murder, rape etc) will always be held before Crown Court. It should be noted that you always have the option of trial by jury. But the judge will not look kindly on you bringing a speeding ticket for £60 to court so it's best to stick to Magistrates. Strangely, there's something to this no-jury trial thing, Trial by Jury was only recently reintroduced in Japan. http://news.bbc.co.u...fic/8181225.stm - "You have the right to remain silent." I wouldn't put many of Phoenix's clients on the stand as they are either vulnerable, look guilty as hell, or are batshit crazy. I doubt your client would appreciate you putting them in front of Edgey. EDIT: No idea why I formatted it like that... tidied it up now.

wrt to that "Attack Fox News" story, I'm sure that lots of companies have entire laundry lists of vaguely unsavoury things they'd like to do to a competitor. These lists then land on legals desk and get pared down (or stripped to the bone). Since Fox is not alleging that this other company actually did anything, this is akin to finding out that someone you don't get on with really doesn't like you. Which is hardly news. The school lunch thing is a bit, nanny state-ish. I guess it can be explained, if not justified, under the goal of reducing childhood obesity, but I think that if lunches are inspected, the most that should happen is that the school contact the parent directly to suggest a more balanced lunch. The parent can then tell the school to eff off if they so choose. If it's an issue of the child coming in with no lunch, or just a bar of chocolate and a can of red bull every day and the parent tells you to go forth and be fruitful then you put in a call to child services or whatever the relevant body is and they can investigate. I don't think you can have a pop at the First Lady for wanting kids lunches to be healthier. It's not like she's physically one poking her nose into the lunchbox. Finally, Ethan, what's that referring to? A specific news story?

Well, they can cry me a river, which I will then dam up and use to generate more leccy.

Awww, poor smoke stacks/cooling towers. They could at least have shown them being evil, belching noxious fumes into the air and all that jazz, also, I doubt that three little windmills would generate as much power. Also, what are the "Big Six"? Coal / Oil / Gas / Nuclear (maybe?) what else? Methane?

The deal at Amazon keeps getting better, Vita (WiFi) + 8gb card + Rayman (or other selected titles) £227.84. It'd be £277.84 for the 3G version.

I'm not overly invested myself. I just think that Ellen, and all gay people should be treated equally. If the 40,000 mum's were complaining that she was the face of JC Penny when she had been caught up in some sort of publicly indecent lesbian romp in the middle of Central Park, then yes, her behaviour would not be conducive to continuing in that role. However, to my knowledge, Ellen has not been the subject of any recent sex, drug or violence scandals, so I don't see this as anything other than discriminating against someone because of what they are. On the other hand, someone who is known to have performed acts of violence against women, Chris Brown, should not have been on stage representing the Grammy's. Not because of what he is, but because of what he did. Note that this is all based on my morality. People are, and should be free to say what they want. There is no law against being closed minded and petty yet. It just winds me up when demonstrably bad people are let off the hook, while "good" people are vilified for their choice of partner.

The difference I see there is that you hire spokespeople to represent the company whereas people working the checkout counter are just random employees. As long as the random employees don't do anything offensive in their capacity as a store employee then people don't really care. As long as Chris the Checker doesn't go on a racist rant while he's checking people out I'm not going to hold his views against the store. With a spokesperson on the other hand the store actually went out and picked that person specifically because they think that person should represent their store. I agree, it's a fine line, and in practice doesn't make much difference. There's a big difference between being racist and being gay. Rather than a "racist rant", if Chris the Checker should, while conversing with a customer say that he's going out with his boyfriend that night, do you think that the customer would be (morally) right to raise an objection to his continued employment? I mean, all staff are representatives of their employer, we're constantly reminded of the company's values and expected to uphold those values when dealing with other people on company business, whether internal clients or end users. If we act in a way that is contrary to those principles, then we get reprimanded. In retail, you always have to be smartly presented, helpful, approachable, etc. etc. etc. this is because you are a spokesperson for the company when you're at work or depending on the organisation in uniform.

I think it is a question of semantics. Saying "I disagree with your choice of spokesperson and will no longer shop at your store and will encourage others not to shop at your store." is fine. Saying, "You should sack Ellen because she is gay and I don't like it." is not. How would this be different if the group had started because a shop assistant was hired who was known to be gay? I can't imagine anyone would be comfortable with telling JC Penny to sack Ellen who works on the tills on a Saturday for being gay.

Well, maybe I'm using the wrong medical terms. Maybe physiological may be more correct. There are significant measurable differences in the way that women's brains work and think and such vs. men. I'm not sure you can say the same about a black guy vs a white guy or a rich guy vs a poor guy. Disclaimer: don't misconstrue this to mean that I'm demeaning men or women or anything like that. I'm just saying men and women are different. I fundamentally disagree with that viewpoint. Women do not have a common brain pattern nor do men have an equivalent and different one. There's a disproportionately large amount of males in this forum and we're all very different, physiologically, psychologically, whatever. Some people here are creative, some are sensitive, some are stoic some are bullish, we've got gays, straights, Asians, Swedes, Brits and Americans we've all lead very different lives and I would bet a lot of money that we're all very different people. Of the serious relationships I've been in no two have been the same, had I got married to any of my previous girlfriends no test would have been applied to check our respective mental states, emotional connection, or personality traits so why should it affect the labelling of the union? The homosexual relationship between Elton John and his partner is not the same as the heterosexual one between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, that said, the relationship between Brad and Angelina is not the same as the one between The Queen and Prince Philip. Since all three are very different, which one is the marriage? If you're going to apply sameness then you should apply it across the board, in which case every union between two people should be named by the people involved, if they all choose marriage, then so be it.

What about the psychological differences between whites and blacks? Rich and poor? Blue collar workers and white collar workers? Every relationship is different in that respect, but they when they publicly declare their commitment they can all get married.

Believing that any two people regardless of gender feel an emotional connection is a leap of faith. No two couples love each other the same way. If we're going to use that as the deciding factor as to whether you have a "marriage" or a "partnership" then it should be decided by a game of Mr and Mrs.

It's pretty clear what she is saying to my mind: 1. She was married to a man she loved who is now dead. 2. What she misses most about that relationship is not the stuffing of body parts into orifices, but the emotional closeness. 3. Whatever her views on the physical elements of a homosexual relationship, she understands and accepts that two people of the same sex can have that same emotional connection. From this she draws the conclusion that we should not label a formalisation of that emotional connection differently to the one between a man and a woman.

Hmmm... And yet on http://uk.playstatio...m/psvita/games/ it says: " Visit the PSP Games Finder to check out the full range of downloadable PSP titles and minis games which can also be played on PS Vita. " EDIT Well that formatted weird... Anyway, looks like you are right. Given that no PS1 titles are listed here: http://blog.us.plays...les-to-ps-vita/

Just to address one point quickly. I was told by a Sony rep that all digital PSP content will be compatible with Vita on release, including PS1 titles and (hypothetically) PS2 titles, if (hypothetically) Sony were to (hypothetically) release PS2 titles on the EU PS Store (hypothetically).

^Ditto^

Having done a bit of reading around the intertubes, it seems that "some scholars" as there always seem to be, are of the opinion that the word taken to mean "homosexual" could just be a misinterpretation of "prostitute" or generally "sexual deviant". In Corinthians the word arsenokoitēs (ἀρσενοκοίτης) appears in a list of sexy/raucous/otherwise fun things that you can't do. Someone somewhere along the line has taken the Ancient Greek translation of an Arabic word and decided that it means homosexual intercourse and thus it is banned.

I guess it all depends on the dogma you adhere to and how strongly. Homosexuality Performing a homosexual act is a sin (good point Ethan), so is eating meat on a Friday, going to work on Sunday and coveting another person's possessions (thought-crime tastic). Also, apparently Deuteronimy sp? Also has some stuff on this as does Romans 1, though the "author" of that gospel has had a lot of stuff disregarded, like how cool slavery is, and how women are 2nd class citizens.