Thursday Next

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.

Well, you have to pay for the plan too so I'm not going to... I hear tell that if you have an iPhone (maybe other phones too?) then you can tether your 3g connection from that to the Vita. That's exactly what I intend to do. WiFi Hotspot the phone et voila, 3G. No separate pay as you go sim or contract. Besides which, the use cases for 3G are pretty limited.

It's pretty similar, largely because it is based on the Christian ceremony that pre-dates the discovery of America. You don't actually need a license per se. You do however (but only for a Civil Marriage) need to give notice of your intent to marry / civilly partner consisting of full name, age - minimum of 18 (or 16 with parental consent), address, nationality, current status (single, divorced, etc), occupation, and intended venue for your marriage or civil partnership. After 15 days, you will be granted authority. How this boils down in practicality is you will go to your registry office (or church) and when you book in a date you will have to supply those details. Your earliest available date will be at least 15 days out. Notice will be publicly displayed for 15 days by the registrar or the vicar will press-gang you into attending church for at least 6 months and make a "Banns" public announcement of the impending doom marriage 3months prior depending on whether you have gone CofE or Civil. The idea is to give people plenty of time to "speak now" before having to "forever hold their peace". Interestingly in the UK marriages must take place between 08:00 and 18:00, hence the lack of chapels operating at 4am and overseen by Elvis impersonators. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/12-13-14/76/section/4

How about we let both gay people and straight people choose whether they want to marry and enter a civil union? I bet there's people on all sides of the fence wishing they had access to the other option. Couldn't agree more.

I've got Uncharted and Rayman on the way. Wipeout is pretty cool. Motorstorm RC is a pretty interesting title. Speaking to a Sony rep yesterday he said that if you buy one version of it (PS3 or Vita) you get the other one free. I'm also pretty sure that the trophies for them are the same so you can play on the go, then when you get home boot up the big version and carry on where you left off. I don't think saved games auto-sync (yet) so you'd have to do a bit of copying across. Ruin does this too and the save data definitely syncs on that one. EDIT - Apparently Ruin is called Warrior's Lair now. Obviously no one told the Sony rep. Other titles with this cross play stuff include Wipeout 2048. I got the impression that Sony are very keen to push this whole buy one version-get both thing so I'd expect most first party titles to do it (as they should) and many third party ones too.

Then a civil marriage is for you, which forbids the mention of religion, so you already have an option for what you want. If you're attaching any religious connotations to marriage in general, then it is entirely your own doing. And your point about people saying it is wrong that straight people can't have a civil partnership is exactly my point the whole reason there are civil partnerships is to make it different from a civil marriage between straight people - it is not what gay people want. We want marriage equality not so-called "gay marriage". With regards to incest, I agree about the parent child issues but I would imagine siblings that embark on an incestuous relationship are probably psychologically damaged. Maybe they had abusive parents that pushed them closer together, so while they may be consenting, it's probably a n unhealthy relationship. I just don't like the term "marriage" and prefer "partnership" for a number of reasons. 1. "Marriage" has religious connotations for me. 2. "Partnership" better expresses the type of relationship I would want to commit to. 3. To your point above. If we're going to say that marriage and civil partnerships are the same, then I should be allowed to have whatever joining ceremony I like. As for sibling relationships being born out of strife. I'm sure this isn't always the case. There are numerous stories of separated at birth siblings who have led perfectly healthy lives and got into relationships with each other unknowingly. Besides which, if we're going to legislate relationships based on the emotional state of the people involved then that's going to be a pretty sweeping law. Provided they are both medically of good mental capacity, then the law should butt out. For example, we don't legislate against girls marrying boyfriends who beat them up. We don't impose a statutory cooling off period after receiving your Decree Absolute before you can marry again. People do lots of things that are potentially unhealthy. Drinking, smoking, eating at McDonalds, having unprotected sex with strangers, body modification (sometimes all within the space of a single evening)... we don't legislate on any of it it so long as the people involved are adults (McDonalds excluded) and have the capacity to consent to what they are doing, and I don't think that we should.