If your grandparents adopted a male child, then they gave birth to your mother, that first child is not your uncle?

Not so hilarious when you become a grandparent, when your first child is 14.(or some type of after affect on your child)

One of the most common arguments I hear is that people would have their parents or grandparents "put down" to get at their inheritance quicker, which says more about the mentality of the people who put forth that argument than it does about euthanasia.

I actually read a comment from someone who said he wouldn't read Terry Pratchett because he was "morally reprehensible". When asked about it, he sad it was because Pratchett supported being able to choose when to die.

He felt it was more moral to force not only him, but also his friends and family to suffer the indignity of watching him lose his mind and become a pale imitation of his former self.

I truly pity people who have been raised with the outlook that he was in his youth, but it also makes me indescribably angry that so many live like that. I think the winning element here is that you can reach and change people through education. I wish the mantra of all future families was 'think first, believe later' (or something along those lines), because it's clear to me today that my parents and grandparents generations, and the current generations, though thankfully to a lesser extent, were raised on patriotism and faith, rather than reason and historical lessons.

Interesting that he quotes Janis Joplin ("Freedom is (sic) another word for 'nothing left to lose'").

My grandparents took me to see it (!?!?!), and they wouldn't have done that if it were rated R--I literally wasn't allowed to see an R rated movie until I was 17 (My dad and his family--well, enough said). I remember sitting in the theater hiding my eyes during the whole tearing-his-own-face-off scene.

I am guessing that I was one of the first pastors, if not the first, in my community not in opposition to gay marriage. I don't say this with any sense of accomplishment of having wrestled through some sort of epic moral struggle, because I never have opposed gay marriage as sanctioned by the State. I don't believe there is any Constitutional basis for opposing it. . I also see no issue with a business serving the gay community. By default, our family business has happily done so for decades. One of my favorite mottoes is, 'live and let live.' I am confident that people around me, including those gays that call me 'friend' know this about me already. Although I am a part of the Christian community where I live, not one of my gay friends has exited our relationship due to that, nor have I ever been considered a homophobe. My views on marriage are exactly that: conclusions I have come to with the resources at my command. And whether or not I disagree with you, I believe that I have no right whatsoever to impose my view of marriage on anyone. In the same breath, after considering my own failings, I have no right to judge how someone else chooses to live their life. I have concluded that whatever path they choose was never between me and them, but between them and God anyway.

The solutions to this common struggle today (the question of religious conscience living side by side with gender liberty) cannot be solved by enacting more law. Americans are, as always, legislating the soupe du jour. The trouble is, in a society where that kind of 'might makes right,' the pendulum can and does swing the other way to deleterious effect. I think that our common issue can be solved by a simple but powerful idea: a stronger community. Like it or not, we are in this together and only together can overcome the vitriol on either side.

I remember an incident many years ago when my Muslim ex-Uncle showed up at my grandparent's house for dinner. On the menu: pork. In one of the most despicable acts of imposition that I can remember happening in our family, my Grandfather decided that serving pork that day would give him some kind of twisted self satisfaction; a victory, of sorts. He decided that he would attempt to get our Uncle to violate his religious conscience and, if that not be possible, at the very least, offend my Uncle as much as possible within his power. I don't think anyone would argue that it wasn't within my Grandfather's rights to serve whatever meal he wanted in his own home. But was it morally right? If he had loved my Uncle, he would have put aside his own rights and made a way to foster community. That is what living together is about.

In the same vein, I don't believe any one of my gay friends would ever ask me to perform their wedding. Even given that right legally, they wouldn't ask because they love me and they would not attempt to get me to violate both my conscience and my own understanding of marriage. While we agree to disagree, we remain friends out of love. Love is what binds. The law divides. The law is a foreigner to community, the enemy of community, when it says, 'we can live together only when you do as I want you to do in order to satisfy me or my sense of offense for another." While laws are necessary in society, they are superfluous when love will do. But we don't want to work that hard. So we make rules. We call people names. We stereotype. We divide, condescend, and foment bitterness toward our neighbors, gay and straight alike.

I had a friend confess to me once, "My whole family is racist. I was racist. But I'm not racist any more." That didn't happen because of legislation. It happened because he got to know some black people and found out that he had some love in his heart for them. Wouldn't you have liked to have been there when he shook a black man's hand for the first time in his life? Yeah, me too.

Just once, I'd like to see someone brew some iced tea, walk across the street to that gay neighbor or that Christian neighbor and sit down and find some commonality. I read above (can't remember who wrote it) that the Bible's morality is trumped by today's morality. I say that the epitome of morality exists in the words of Jesus when he says, "Love your enemies." That, to me, is the fulfillment of what it means to be human.

In related thoughts, I think the Church needs to tell the State, 'Goodbye. We are not going to act as your agent any longer in arena of legal marriage. We will not sign your documents. You have the legal authority over marriage in our society but the Church has the spiritual authority as the Church sees fit." That leaves room for some congregations to perform gay weddings and others to not as they see fit. It leaves room for live and let live. It leaves room for love.

Just my opinion here, but I think there are better ways to solve the issues with soaring profits while paying people nearly nothing for said profits.

Negate tax loop holes. If you're making a billion more each year, you shouldn't be showing a 0 dollar tax burden year after year. Incentivize expanding (lower taxes, etc), heavily tax companies who sit on their money or offshore nearly everything but still call themselves a US company. You should not get both the benefit of low cost offshoring, while the US has to maintain a military presence, infrastructure, and other safety/security institutions that allow you to operate your business and live in safety as you do.

Regulations on speculation that have made a lot of markets spiral out of control. I'm no economist, but when you see prices rise and fall based on rumors and possibilities...look at fuel prices especially. People shouldn't be making money on commodities when they have no hand in adding value to said commodity. If they aren't processing/shipping/extracting/packaging/ANYTHING but sitting on something waiting for a price spike, you need to take that avenue of profit out of the equation. There are places out there with enough buying power they can literally buy all supply, hold it for a few days to jack up the price and sell it off. Creating false shortages should get you a kick to the nuts.

Basically put profit back into production and manufacturing instead of offshoring and screwing with markets to get profit.

Leads to stagnation and often times inferior products as people race to the bottom to drive costs down to increase profits.

For stagnation, look at the broadband market. They have done jack and shit to improve it for a long time now for the majority of the the US, there is absolutely no reason for them to because monopolies and ability to drive costs down while continuing to jack up the rates and influence laws in their favor.

Inferior products, a good example of this would be the Craftsman line of products. Or hell something as simple as kitchen utensils...they look the same until you've had em for a bit and your forks and spoons are bending and not holding up in the dishwasher like they should getting kinda "off" looking.....probably made in China or some other Asian nation with inferior stainless steel. Then you got your US made ones, they might be more expensive but they still make them the same way they did your grandparents silverware...which your grandparents left to your parents and they still look better than the inferior china ones.



This is why I don't believe offshoring lowers consumer prices, because you might spend less on a single thing..but it likely won't last as long and you end up either buying a "good quality one" or repeatedly buying shitty ones. I do however believe offshoring lowers COMPANY costs, and increases their profits. Rarely does stuff actually end up cheaper once they offshore it, and if it does it usually comes with a swift decline in quality.


Lots of ...."off" ways of thinking about things that have become ingrained into the media and people's minds. And I think it's intentional. Minimum wage debate puts the focus on the "greedy" worker, and gives them another reason to move more jobs offshore "to maintain low prices for consumers" yet the company profits continue to go up. IE they pay less to make it, you pay the same or more to buy it. And people are too busy blaming joe schmoe for his minimum wages to notice they just keep doing this shit.

Actually, and I havent done any maths at all here, nor do I know exactly what kind of test this is, but I suspect, on a hunch, that this a relatively close mix by the look of it too. Grossly simplified argument/examples :If one of your parents are black, thats 50%, if one of your grandparents, that 1 in four= 25 %, if one of your great-grandparents were black, thats 12.5%. So hes pretty black, that white supremecist asshole.

So.. "statistical noise" as in the kind of noise a couple of "mixed race" great-grandparents make when they have sex?

Would you feel better if you watched your grandparents make out? Or two really, really ugly people? Or a straight couple but one of them has been dead for a week?
There's a difference between homophobia and simply witnessing an sexual act that is very unsexy to you. The awkwardness comes from the insecurity how to behave you have when it comes to homosexuality. It's similar with racism. Say the wrong thing, react the wrong way and suddenly you worry that you come across as a hater even if you did nothing unusual or wrong. Suddenly you are afraid to react in understandable or even appropriate ways just because you fear being percieved as a homophobic or racist.

You'll be fine. It's impossible to imagine what fatherhood will be like until you hold your son/daughter in your arms for the first time. I read a lot of books before my daughter was born, but the ones that helped the most weren't the ones that gave parenting advice, but instead the ones that explained the baby/child's development process.

My advice to an expecting father? You and your wife should enjoy your time together as much as possible right now. Go to the movies. Go out to dinner. See some concerts. Have lots and lots of sex while you still can. I was told by a friend that I wouldn't understand the meaning of "busy" until I had a child and looking back that was 100% correct. You and your wife won't have much alone-time (or any time for that matter) for the next couple of years unless you've got grandparents living nearby willing to babysit (we do, and even with that we're lucky if we get a once-a-month date night together).

I was a little surprised to see them use a woman as the driver in 1936. Perhaps I'm underestimating my grandparents' generation.

Sure, there is no need to speak in terms of civil war. Unless you're one of these guntoting, armed to the teeth nutjobs who think it would be a good idea. You know, the kind of people who buy an *assault rifle* for self defense.
However, no matter how well trained your riot police is, their less than lethal tactics are only useful up to a certain amount of people, they can become rather useless if the crowds get too big to contain or simply too violent themselves. That's when it gets interesting, that is when protest can turn into riots.
When the cops face huge, somewhat peacful crowds, they might enter Tiananmen Square. At what point would american cops or military personnel start thinking that it's unwise or inhuman to start firing into the crowd? Before the first shot? After the second magazine? On day three?
It's not the 1960s anymore but the sixties are not forgotten. Not by those who faced police officers willing to fire into the crowd. You know, black people. The kind of people whose parents and grandparents are still alive to tell them about their fight against oppression. This is still alive in the american concious, it shaped your country and it won't go away soon. Just ask Barak about his birth certificate.
Civil unrest is part of your recent history, the seed is there. Even under a President Stalin all you'd need go from isolated, contained riots to complete and irreversible shitstorm is a Martyr, a Neda Agha Soltan or a Treyvon Martin. No matter what ethnicity (although african american would be nice), that would present a tipping point.
Your police can bring out the tanks on Times Square if they want but if half of NY shows up, these guys inside the tanks might want to get out ASAP.
The Erich Honecker regime of the German Democratic Republic was basically brought down by somewhat peaceful demonstrations of people shouting "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it anymore" in east german accents.
The StaSi, the Ministry of State Security, who was efficient enough to make *every* citizen a potential informant in the eyes of their opposition, ran from the protesters like little girls. They used to imprison and torture people who spoke up.
The east german border used to be the most secure in the entire world. It was protected by minefields and guards who shot and killed anyone who tried to cross it. Before David Hasselhoff even had a chance to put on his illuminated leather jacket the government caved and just fucking opened it. People just strolled through Checkpoint Charlie and bought Bananas as if it was Christmas.
This was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. You know, the guys who lost over 20 Million people in WW2 and still kicked the Nazis in the nuts.
Nobody brought a gun. All the east germans had was shitty cars and lots of anger. They tore down not just a dictatorship, they tore down the iron curtain.
And they didn't even have a Nelson Mandela. Or Lech Walesa.
I still stand by my point: strength in numbers, not caliber.

I asked someone with more knowledge in this area than I have, and the clothing looked like what you would expect from Spain around the time of the first world war. The toys look like they would date, at the earliest, from the 1920s or 1930s... the era of Buck Rogers style rocket ships.

The animation school where this film was made is in Valencia, in Spain, and maybe the students imagined a rural village from their grandparents' or great grandparents' era?

"If this doesn't work they would consider something more extreme including shaving her head."

Is that even legal? Yeah, her behavior is not okay but actions like that would be doing nothing to address any real problems going on.

I grew up between two sets of grandparents. I spent most my time with the ones that were controlling and abusive. They had this kind of mentality. Shame or punish the child into acting right. That just made my brother and I hate them more. The only time we ever "acted out" was with them. As with the other grandparents, we never wanted to be a disappointment to them. If I did something wrong, I felt horrible without them doing anything.

Maybe I'm reading into it to much but there is something that reads this is more about their pride than her general well being. If they really cared about her they would address the root of the problem instead of making a spectacle.