Phi for All

Are you confusing me, Phi for All, with Phil? I can see the similarity in our usernames. If not I would ask you to point out where I made use of ad hominem in my arguments. It's one fallacy I'm usually careful to avoid. Slippery Slope is usually my weakness.

Switch the order of these two sentences and you've answered your own question. With something as important as your health you should never rely on advice from people (even smart people ) who don't know you and your health history. There could be many simple explanations for your symptoms but diagnosis is important and MUST be done by someone qualified who can run the proper tests. Go to outpatients or your primary care provider as bascule suggests. *See a doctor* because your baby needs her mother healthy and happy and worry-free. Do it for your baby, do it for yourself, just do it. If there is something seriously wrong it's best to get help early. If it's not serious at least you'll sleep better and worry less. There is no reason not to go as soon as you can. Will you promise you'll go? Please post back here and let us know the results.

You don't need a personal ID. Click on a member's name (Bignose invited you to send him a message) at the top left of any of their posts and you will get a menu allowing you to send a Private Message. Type it out like an email and you can send Bignose a message that won't be seen by anyone else.

It sure doesn't help that prisons make a ton of money for the private contractors who get concessions with them. Aramark wouldn't want legislation that will shrink their foodservice and laundry market so I doubt they fund many candidates who are *actively* out to curb crime. That's total speculation though, I haven't looked up how much profit there is in providing services to the penal system. Just a gut feeling.

I think at this point you need to define the term "accept". Many people in the above situations may be too afraid to help a victim and risk being stabbed themselves but then they'll turn around and vote for legislation aimed at curbing such violence. To me that's not "accepting" crime.

If everything you're going to talk about is legal why would there be repercussions? Ethical questions are no problem and as soon as we determined that your solicitations to a bestiality site were not for actual bestiality our legal concerns went away. But private discussions with our members (some of whom are minors) is something we're rather protective of. Besides this thread we don't really *know* you very well, lordmagnus. You have no history with us outside this topic. You joined to discuss it and due to its sensitive nature asking to continue privately without the support and input of the community is frankly rather creepy. No one speaking to you will face repercussions as long as the rules of this forum are upheld. And I would hope anyone speaking with you privately would use their utmost discretion.

Crap! This sh*tty thread is showing up on My Yahoo home page. I'm so em-bare-assed my face is flush! I refuse to be potty to this! Sorry, didn't mean to wipe out everyone's enthusiasm.

Very sorry, inefficient transportation and GW just seem like such a good fit. But of course you were talking about the swindle video so please forgive us. It seems like there is some new info just in about your video. Timing didn't work out to merge the two threads so please see this thread about The Great Global Warming Swindle Swindle.

What makes you think Phil is a Moderator?

I'll check with my sister-in-law who works for the Regional Transportation District but they're having enough trouble pushing FasTracks through. Important people who will never ride light rail don't think anyone should. And those same people don't ski the Front Range, they only fly to Aspen.

A 100-foot long Architeuthis, so I could swim the deep oceans munching on great whites and appear every so often to a few individuals (and then use my tentacles to steal their cameras). And for violating the spirit of animal reincarnation, you get to live extraterrestrially alone on Pluto with your all-around betterness. *Wonderful* animal. You are now the God of Pluto. Your single worshipper is an atheist.

We become so dependent on "convenience" mentality that one day the whole species suffers a massive stroke when all the television remotes get hit with an EM pulse from badly manufactured wristwatch popcorn-poppers and we all have to heave our bloated selves off the couch to change the channel manually.

Thread is open again. While it seems highly unethical to take this discussion private with so many legal concerns unsatisfactorily answered, the Staff won't stop you from using the PM service to do so. Please exercise caution. Also please report any questionable requests if you choose to contact lordmagnus privately regarding his experiment.

As individuals we sometimes forget we are not alone. It's bad to feel threatened as you walk the streets alone but it's much worse to allow two girls to terrorize a whole busload of people. Chances are if just one person stood up on that bus and said, "WE aren't going to sit here and let you do this. You can frighten one person but this bus has twenty people on it and we're ALL standing up to you RIGHT NOW!" those girls would sit down and get off at the next stop. Of course, it would really help if the rest of the folks on the bus took your cue and actually stood up but people are always looking for someone else to lead in situations like that and they're grateful when someone else takes charge. Even criminals with guns aren't going to shoot an entire busload of people who stand up to them. I'm a big fan of the Broken Window Theory. Fix up your neighborhood, clean up the graffitti, fix the broken windows and show the criminals that *this* neighborhood CARES. Again, everyone needs to take a stand and they will rally around someone who starts the movement to remind them that they aren't alone. Criminals want easy pickings and apathy is their greatest ally. There will always be crime but it doesn't have to be so high where you are if you're willing to get others motivated to help reduce it. The Broken Window Theory has been tried and tested in many hardcore crime areas in the US (and elsewhere I believe) and it works. Unfortunately it requires vigilance and while most people are willing to get fired up if they know they aren't alone eventually apathy sets back in if you don't stay on top of things. It's really weird how banding together to make something positive happen is one of the greatest feelings in the world and empowers us as a community, yet our default state seems to be one where we just want to be by ourselves and do our own thing. As a species we tend to forget our power as a group and seem to prefer our weakness as individuals.

Ixnay on the ikes-lay. It's more like a plumbing snake in the pipes; it's going to unthinkingly (and unfeelingly) steer to where there's an opening, fueled by it's own growth mechanism. Unlike me, however, the plant can't make the decision to sit down in frustration and refuse to traverse the maze. If it met a dead end and couldn't find a way out it would continue to bunch up until further growth was impossible.

Umm, Bermuda. Yeah, Bermuda, *that's* the ticket!

It would take a revolution to make *that* popular.

And Boulder briefly considered flyovers before they chose to make the more expensive underpasses. They'll spend more money but the benefit is that the view isn't marred by above-ground structures. Efficient AND more pleasing. I wish we could have an elevated maglev train between Denver and Boulder. It would show everyone that trains don't have to interact with traffic, that light rail can reduce automobile use and that people can make better use of their commute time if they don't have to pay attention to the road. And maglevs are sooooo sweet and green! A great example of more efficient technology that saves money over the long run AND is a more pleasurable experience to boot.

I look at it this way, if we invest billions in becoming more aware of how we use limited resources and how we affect the planet we live on it will never be wasted. Remember that one of the overlooked benefits is that we get a cleaner place to live. I'm always harping on smarter ways of building roads in the US. We let people drive on asphalt the day it's put down and that insures the road will need to be redone within a year or two. Allowing it to cure saves money but inconveniences us and for some that's a wash as far as the economic factor. But we always forget that if we let the roads cure we get ten years or more of fantastic roads! So even if our global warning fears turn out false we'll still get a cleaner home out of it.

This would seem to cover a human in a coma but what about that individual? Is this a person or just a human? Are we making a distinction between the two? What about someone who has no brain function and is being kept alive artificially? Are they still a person or are they just human? For that matter what if you had just a human brain that was hooked up to support systems and a speech synthesizer so its thoughts could be heard? It could argue that it is a person so is it by Cap'n's definition?

I highly concur as a member of SFN and I would hate to see another member led into a bad decision made without without the input of the entire community. Personally I frown on taking this private and it makes me question the intent of the OP. As a Staff member in a gray area I am compelled to close this thread temporarily to allow adjudication. If you are considering contacting lordmagnus by PM on this issue I highly recommend you wait for the outcome of the Staff deliberations.

Slavery/racism: Wrong in every aspect. However, if you pay them an acceptable wage (as determined by the payee) and allow them to do as they please when their work is done for the day, you move from slavery to employment. God help you then. Abortion: I love children but I personally think the host should have superior rights until birth. A time must be set for legal purposes and I think the first trimester should be allowed for "mistakes", the second trimester for severe health reasons and any later only for life and death situations. Potential can't be considered imo because it is too vague. Animal rights: I think we are progressing to the point where we will not need to feed upon animals but until that time comes we need to avoid cruelty wherever possible. If it costs more to be humane then that will force the market to consider alternatives. We need to stop putting so much emphasis on convenience and expediency and start thinking more long-range about EVERYTHING. Genetic engineering: One of the toughest questions for me. The implications are very severe and there are many gray areas. Fallacious logic abounds ("it works great on *this* so it should work great on *that*") and we need to constantly ask ourselves whether we should do something just because we can. Artificial intelligence: We have to remember that we think of ourselves and our intelligence from one frame of reference. It is delusional to assume we are the ultimate in intelligence. We had better have a comprehensive framework in place to determine what "artificial" is before we make something that has the potential to be smarter than we are. Extraterrestrial life: While I don't think we are alone, I think the possibility of contact in the next century is remote (we seem to be having some difficulties right here at home). If we find life off-planet it probably won't be as complex as our own. If ETs find us they will most likely be more complex. Again, we should have a pretty clear framework in place to determine how we might gauge the complexity of alien lifeforms and our response to them.

Perhaps you should start a new one because this thread is about Human / Ape Crossbreeding. Bad form to hijack someone else's thread, you Wal-mart shopper.

Did you change your email and password on the home computer? You mentioned you changed one computer due to hackers.

Excellent point. You said this better than I could have. Hybrids should either have all the responsibilities and rights of a human or none of them. Anything in between seems like exploitation. Read further down this post. mak2 was making a joke about Wal-mart employees (or possibly customers).