The outcome was astonishing, even i couldn't believe it and i've been campaigning for it since 2015. All of this might be out of date 3 hours after i post it, because things are happening fast.

Theresa May has decided to go into government with the DUP propping her up. If you have kept up in the last 6 weeks or so with all the smears about Corbyn/IRA/Sinn Fein and terrorism, then you should understand that the DUP is basically the *other* side of the irish conflict. They are socially conservative and many of their beliefs fall in line with sharia laws; abortion illegal (including for sexual assault or incest cases), homophobia wrong and harmful to society, creationist beliefs, climate change deniers. That list might have less impact to some in the US but in British politics, it's out there on the fringe, quite extreme.

In a month from tomorrow there will be the July marches in Northern Ireland (and elsewhere in UK), and we already saw a march yesterday where unionists (~DUP supporters) trashed a nationalist pub (~Sinn Fein supporters).

So now consider. Nationalists have been dragged through the dirt by Conservative MPs and in the press; accused of being terrorists in order to smear Corbyn to stop him getting power. Whereas unionists are being courted by the Conservative government, and the press turning a blind eye to the DUP and their connections to domestic terrorism.

The northern irish peace process was a great achievement and still stands despite bad feeling on both sides. Part of the good friday agreement that ensures this peace says that the UK and Irish governments must act as neutral mediators in times of disagreement between factions in NI.

So now it becomes clear why Jeremy Corbyn refused to criticise either the unionists or the nationalists in particular - as a true leader with a fucking brain in his head, he understood that to take sides or score points would be to risk Britain's safety and the safety of communities in NI. The reason people were able to smear him as a terrorist sympathiser and danger to this country is *because* he refused to say or do anything that endangered this country.

And it becomes rather worrying that the tories have risked all of that hard work and all of our safety in order to keep power for just a little bit longer. There are already talks of a legal challenge from nationalists.

The good side to this is that it seems doomed to failure. May's credibility is broken, in the UK and in Europe. The alliance with the DUP almost certainly can't happen or last very long. The only alternative leaders to May would make the Conservatives less popular. Polls that saw this surge coming are predicting now that Labour would do even better if another election happened right now. The last time this happened was Ted Heath, whose minority government did not last long, and Labour took over after a few days, and won an election a few months later.

Austerity is well and truly broken as an ideology.

Oh, and all the talk of "the death of social democracy" in europe was actually the death of triangulating centrists who have become completely alienated from ordinary people. Socialism lives.

What you really mean when you say "I believe everyone should have access to equal healthcare" is that you want someone else to cure your disease. You want someone to pay for your X-rays, someone to extend your lifespan. "Equal healthcare," as you are describing, means we both walk in with a disease and we both walk out without it. It means we all live to be the same age regardless of our condition or lifestyle.

Yet you don't care about people with Xeroderma Pigmentosum. Do you even know what it is? Why not? Why aren't you trying to cure it? Why aren't you donating as much money to the Xeroderma Pigmentosum society (http://www.xps.org) as you are to the American Cancer Society (http://www.cancer.org)? Kids with Xeroderma Pigmentosum rarely live past the age of 20.

Xeroderma pigmentosa, for those not in the know, is caused by an autosomal recessive genetic disorder, aka you are born with it. The symptoms are instant and immediate burning and malignant skin cancer upon even brief exposure to sunlight. Yes, you have all the drawbacks of being a vampire and none of the perks - you die if you go outside, even for an hour.

http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/lws_gems/4/images_4/xp_lg.jpg

http://www.tidsskriftet.no/lts-img/2001/fig200101023.jpg

http://www.metastaticlivercancer.org/dark-skin-girl.jpg

Without genetically modifying your DNA, you cannot cure this disease. This is just one of millions of examples of ways in which people will never be equal. Equality was never about everyone being identical...same height, same DNA, same lifespan, same income, same musical talent, same level of attractiveness...it was about people being treated equally, despite being different.

IMHO, Martin Luther King Jr. would spit on your vision of "equality" and "morality."

You want to make an argument for universal healthcare? You better use logic because you do not have morality or pity on your side.

You are lucky to live in a time where you even have access to a 60 year lifespan or diagnostic X-rays, because as far as I can tell, you haven't done a single thing to enable either. You think human progress is allocated by the government, 2.5% at a time? How many millions of people suffered through all types of diseases, plagues, wars, long hours, deprived social lives, rocky marriages, and short lifespans to create the technologies you are not only demanding as "rights" but complaining about the cost there of?

You resent those who inherit the fortunes of their fathers, yet you yourself have inherited the wealth of all of humanity - language, mathematics, engineering, art, music, literature, agriculture, architecture, and all the lessons of history - a sum far greater than any pile of gold. You are living your entire life off of the sweat, blood, and tears of your ancestors - and you have the gall to complain about what you've been given?

The billions of people who died before you weren't nearly as lucky, and I bet they didn't complain half as much.

No, you are NOT seeing the natural behavior of dolphins. There is NOTHING natural about what dolphins do in captivity other than eat, shit and fuck -- and there's serious debate whether the sexual behavior captive dolphin is natural or stress induced. You no more learn about the lives of wild dolphins by watching them in captivity than you learn about the social lives of humans by watching them in prison.

When contemplating the meaning of life I often go back to on of the great philosophers, Whedon, who wrote:

Life's not a song.
Life isn't bliss.
Life is just this.
It's living.

Like Sisyphus the work in itself is the meaning there is. In the grand scheme of things what we do does not matter very much, videos that show the scale of the universe seems to exemplify that. I would gather that there is no real meaning (as in purpose) of our existence. We can invent a bunch of them, which are of course temporally bound, like all things are, such as "we live to better ourselves and our species". We are but a short part in a very long chain of life, our purpose could be construed as just filling that role and making sure that our species evolves - the same "purpose" all other animals have.

The first and third question seems intertwined, so I'll just answer those two together.

Morals, ethics, personal relationships, social lives, these are all bound in a very finite time period and a very small amount of space. And yet they do matter, to me. The stars and quasars are pretty indifferent to who I meet at a party, but to me it can be pretty important. It's all about perspective.

Can I imagine myself not existing? Well, yes and no. I can look at relatives and friends who are not among us anymore and relate to the void they've left - I can imagine that I would leave a similar void in other people. This is of course only transient, and my memory would be replaced at some point, or at least diminished. We make a very small dent in the universe, but we still ought to enjoy it as much as we can.

It's much harder to reconcile the fact that when I'm dead I really don't exist anymore. That won't make it any less true though. I've argued earlier that we are essentially determined biological machines and that we in principle don't have free will, this is just as hard to reconcile myself with, but the fact that it's hard to imagine, won't make it any less true. (That on may actually be false, but I doubt it.)

We initially decided to homeschool because the South Carolina public schools were terrible. We also knew we would be moving a few times in the next few years so we thought it would be best.

Now we live in an area where the local schools are good (my daughter even tried them and liked them well enough, but decided to return), but this is our way of life now and we like it.

The first conclusion folks jump to is we're all religious shut ins. Nope. I've been agnostic for years, and I encourage my children to question anything and everything.
We're members of a secular co-op. Funny thing is we've been too busy with school, clubs and the kid's social lives to attend the co-op groups anymore. Home schooling today has sooo many options. The materials available are so vast and rich that it makes it easier than you think. The difficulty is the commitment and time put into it.

I feel for Teachers in public schools. They have no freedom to truly teach anymore in my opinion. I worked briefly in a public school and all I saw was teachers frantically coaching their class to take the standardized tests.

If I were to choose the one thing I like most about my kids being homeschooled I would have to say... They are better socialized individuals. They're not as peer driven than they would be if they were in a class full of the same aged kids all day. My kids can sit and enjoy time conversing comfortably with someone of ANY age.

What I want most for them is that they are both free thinking individuals that make their own decisions based on the values they develop on their own.. not some institution's or government's social agenda.

Sorry if this sounds a bit rambling here.. it's late

/agree with Ant.

My husband and I both play WoW, HL, Counterstrike, and Team Fortress, but we do that instead of plopping our butts on the couch and watching American Idol every night. Neither of them are particularly healthy things to do, but we've picked our poison and enjoy it. We both still hold down full time jobs, the cats still get fed, the lawn gets mowed, and we have social lives.

(Besides, I kinda like squicking folks and work who say, "So, did you see who got booted from the island last night?" by responding, "No, but we did kill a dragon, and I got an awesome wand..." )