TheMightyEthan

Some kind of open world cop drama, set on the Citadel before he meets Shepard. Like LA Noire. It would be easy as hell to tell when Elcor were lying: "Deceitfully: I was not involved."

Removing my quotes to try and avoid a quote explosion. That's not the government's goal and you know it. That aside, whether specific programs are or are not the right way to go about it is a completely separate question from whether it should be the government doing it or not. I just disagree with you here, but it's an opinion so whatever. I disagree with you here, both philosophically and legally; I think wealth redistribution on a national scale is at least plausibly within the Commerce Clause power. That said, I think the power of the federal government has expanded in other areas (even areas I support philosophically) well beyond anything that can reasonably be justified by the Commerce Clause (the main clause the federal government has used to expand its influence). I was generalizing, I know that there are small local groups that do go to other places and do good work. Also, I did the political compass thing:

I liked this one http://www.politicalcompass.org/ But I haven't used in in 5 or 6 years, so I don't know how it is now.

Yeah, when I make crepes they're just a couple millimeters thick. Look basically just like that picture Johnny posted.

Without getting into your "strangling the people" comment ( ), allow me to explain: those of us who are doing well in our society have a moral obligation to assist those who aren't. Only widespread organizations like the government or the Catholic Church (examples, I know there are others) are capable of addressing the issue on a societal scale, and I prefer the government because unlike other organizations they can make it compulsory and they won't (or at least are less likely to) deny the aid to people because of unrelated moral objections (like refusing to let sexually active gays sleep in a church run homeless shelter). I also don't like more local solutions because then people in higher-wealth areas get more help than in lower-wealth areas. For instance education is one of the most effective ways to fight poverty, but the practice of paying for public schools with local property taxes means that schools in areas with low property values (poorer areas) get disproportionately less funding and thus a lower standard of education, and therefore it is much more difficult for the children in those systems to lift themselves out of it. I understand that government-funded schools are different than private charities, but it illustrates the problem of trying to address issues on a local level: rich areas get more help, poor areas less, so it ends up worsening economic disparity.

Oh I definitely agree that nobody's perfect, and ordinarily I wouldn't try and reconcile two seemingly unrelated philosophical outlooks like this, but since the sign was a church's sign it got me to thinking about how it would interact with their religious views.

But say a person truly believes in God to the very core of their being, and act like a good person all the time, even when not in the presence of any other humans or monitoring devices or anything. Are they really a good person, or is it just because they believe God is watching so in their mind they're never actually alone? How could you determine what such a person's true character is? I mean, obviously this question is entirely philosophical, with little to no practical significance.

"Liberal" is used almost interchangeably (but not quite) with "progressive." It's considered the opposite of "conservative", which generally means wanting to go back to some perceived lost ideals ("family", "hard work", whatever). Liberalism is also often associated with more support for government social programs and regulation, whereas conservatives tend to think the free market will take care of most problems we might encounter.

Unrelated to Yant's post, which I think does quite a good job of clarifying his stances: Today I saw a church with a sign that say "Character is what you are in the dark." Unlike most church billboards that I see, which tend to be quite confrontational and accusatory (along the lines of "Worship Jesus or go to Hell"), this was actually a message that I can agree with and I think it's good because it didn't instantly put me in an adversarial mindset (good for a church because if you want people to come to share your beliefs you're better off not making them feel attacked from the outset). It did, however, get me thinking: are Christians, who believe that God is all-knowing and ever-watching, ever truly "in the dark"? And if not what does that say about their character? (I know that question sounds like an accusation of bad character, but really I only mean it as something to think about/discuss.)

One thing that just occurred to me that they could do if you saved the Rachni that would be badass: Make it so that other races automatically assume the Rachni are evil, and want to wipe them out. Make it possible, but difficult, to prevent a war between the Rachni and the other races. Finally, make it so that if you fail to prevent that war then the galaxy is much weaker than if you had wiped out the Rachni, but if you successfully prevent it the galaxy is much stronger. Basically make the Rachni choice from ME1 high risk/high reward.

I would be shocked if choices in previous games made it impossible to get a "good" ending. I would not be surprised, however, if they merely made it impossible to get the "best" ending. Also, I'm sure ME3 will have some kind of total fail state where you complete the game but still lose to the Reapers, just like ME2 had. I can't imagine that that will be made inevitable by anything done in previous games though (though previous games' decisions may make it harder/easier to avoid).

Curiosity, not criticism: what is the symbolism of not wearing clothes made of two fibers?

I just make crepes in a regular frying pan, and about 20 cm across. Don't use any special too either, just let the batter spread itself out.

Well yeah, there are exceptions to anti-discrimination laws for what are called "bona fide occupational requirements", it's just those are pretty rare for straight-up gender discrimination. For instance a strip club could get away with only employing female (or male) dancers depending on what clientele they were targeting, but an otherwise normal restaurant can't get away with only employing female wait staff (though something like Hooters could). More commonly the issue comes up with indirect discrimination, like saying that in order to be a firefighter you have to be able to carry a 200-lb unconscious person at least x distance in y amount of time. Obviously more men are going to be able to do that than women so it's effectively discriminating against women, but because that's an actual requirement of the job it's okay. You wouldn't, however, be able to get away with the same requirement for a secretarial job because it's not actually a requirement of the job. It's just for any position that can be classified as a "minister" (so there's the obvious stuff like priests and rabbis and stuff, and also teachers at religious schools count, but the janitor doesn't) the religion is completely exempt from any requirements about who the can hire or fire and why, the justification being that who the ministers are is such a core part of exercising the religion that any government intrusion is too much and violates the first amendment.

@Dean: No, you wouldn't actually be tax free. Basically the first amendment has been interpreted such that the government is allowed to make exceptions to the law for religious beliefs, but they're not required to. So like in a lot of places churches get a free pass to serve alcohol to minors during Communion, but the government could also say the normal alcohol age applies and you can't serve the wine to kids. The only things the government definitely can't do is make a law specifically to promote or hinder a religion, and it can't make rules about who a church can or must employ as ministers (which is why the Catholic Church can get away with not allowing female priests even though ordinarily that would violate anti-discrimination laws). Anything outside of that is one giant grey area, and the question of whether a law violates the first amendment in that regard often turns on how fundamental to the religion the belief or practice in question is and how important the aim of the law is. But as a general rule the government is allowed to apply laws of general applicability (you can't kill people, you must obey posted speed limits, no public nudity, etc) apply to religions even if it's in violation of their beliefs, but it is also allowed to make exceptions for the religious practice if it wants. Usually (but not always) that ends up with Christians and sometimes Jews getting exceptions and everyone else being SOL. And the US school is pronounced "no-tur", even though that's not how the French word is pronounced. Proper nouns are funny like that.

There might not be an enforceable contract yet, but there is an offer from the customer to buy a specific product at a specific price, which will be accepted by GAME when they take the money and ship the product. But they can't just unilaterally change the offer to a different product and then "accept" it by charging and shipping it: the customer never agreed to that transaction.

LA Noire PC for $12.50? If that promo works in the US I might just buy that...

Ordinarily I just ignore stuff like that (like the pigeons in GTAIV), but in AC I loved it. I enjoyed just the act of playing that game so much, the traversal and the combat, that I loved an excuse to hang around in the game world after I beat it. I finished the story in 15 hours but I didn't "finish" the game until 45. It was great.

I haven't watched the video, so I don't know if they're talking about the school or the cathedral, but the school's name is pronounced no-tur dame.

Okay, now that I think we're past the confusion, I can actually discuss my views on the issue: I agree with you. I don't think it's a non-issue, but recognizing the issue I still come to the same conclusion as you. I think the question should turn on whether the purpose of the organization is primarily secular or not. The Catholic Church should not be required to provide contraception to their employees if it violates their religious tenets, but a Catholic Hospital should (assuming you have a law saying employers in general have to). The reason being that requiring organizations with primarily religious purposes (the Church) to do something against their beliefs fundamentally impairs their ability to exercise their religion because the only way to avoid the requirement would be to not have the Church, and thus not be able to freely exercise their religion. Organizations with a primarily secular purpose, like hospitals (healing people is secular, even if your motivations for choosing to do so are religious), however, are not so fundamentally tied to the right of free exercise; if you feel that strongly about not paying for birth control then you're free to not be an employer, and because that is not a fundamental part of you exercising your religion your right of free exercise has not been unduly harmed. @Dean: They can inquire into whether your claimed beliefs are actually your bona fide religious beliefs, or if you're just making shit up to avoid paying taxes. They can't say your beliefs are wrong, but they can try to determine whether you actually believe them.

Maple syrup all the way. Regarding the books thing: I stopped buying my books before classes started, I would wait and see if I actually needed the book before dropping the cash.

In what respect did you like AA better? Granted the "throw in every badguy ever" aspect of AC got a little ridiculous, but overall I thought it was basically like AA but everything more polished.

360 owners starting a new ME2 character do not get to make any choices at all about what happened in ME1 except who the human councilor is (and the only reason for that is because they done goofed in ME1 and forgot to save that information). But I'm with Dean, I think it would be retarded for your choices in the earlier games not to affect what ultimate outcome you can have. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to get a good ending if you killed the Rachni, I'm just saying it would make sense to not be able to get the best ending (or vice-versa if they wanted to pull a surprise and make saving the Rachni backfire).

Well I'm not Catholic so I can't say 100% about their dogma, but for one thing it's not reimbursing people for stuff they purchased, it's paying for it in the first place (though that's splitting hairs, I know). But I don't see the difference between buying it for someone and just providing it directly. Besides, the way religion works is they say it's against their religion so it is against their religion. It's not the government's position to tell people what their religious beliefs are.