Look, I can see this is an emotive subject for you, but you still haven't explained why I should be as horrified as you that this happens. Regarding the videos, I suppose I've got no problem with them being released (apart from the fact that the press will put as much of a negative spin on them as possible).

Regarding the legality; you are the one pre-judging here, not me. You assume they are guilty of a crime without evidence. Be that as it may, I don't think legality is really the issue here, from your tone I suspect it wouldn't matter to you whether this practice is illegal or not. It's certainly more of a moral issue for me, even though I seem to be on the other side of the fence.

The turd is teeming with bacteria, it has far more life than a dead fetus even if the fetuses life was arguably more advanced when it was in the womb. But it was aborted by its mother, and it's now dead. And the reason it's dead has NOTHING to do with what we're talking about (unless it turns out that patients were being solicited for procedures, which is a whole other issue).

Funnily enough, you can sell a poo to someone for $40: http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/sell-your-poop-13k-year-and-help-worthy-cause

I assume they are selling the fetuses for stem cell research? I'm sure there would be a freaky black market for this type of thing, I don't know how I would feel if they were selling the body parts to an underground fetus cannibal club, for example.

It seems immoral to me to waste perfectly good fetal cells, which could be used in a lab, and which may save someone's life. Is the problem here the money changing hands? Would you agree with donation of fetuses if no money was involved?

No.

A GMO can be created both by using material from another species (transgenic) or from the same species (cisgenic).

As for Monsanto, well they are a bit of a shitty company. Eg their Roundup and terminator seed business models are very exploitative to poor farmers. But the fact that they're assholes doesn't make GMOs inherently bad. In fact, all the evidence points to no health risks.

I kinda do, that's why I asked for it to be explained. I just posted a link (from a pro-life religious group) explaining why what they're doing is probably legal. And I don't see why profiting from the sale of human body parts is necessarily evil. In this case, would it not be morally worse to simply burn the fetuses and waste them? I assume I'm correct in thinking no girls were solicited into having an abortion for monetary gain by any party?


I agree, it would be more appropriate. Probably more expensive too. I don't know why the "good doctor" joked about a Lambo, don't see how it's relevant.


If it's illegal, tell me about the law they broke. They might well act shady and deny certain things, even if what they are doing is fully legal, because PR ≠ The Law.

You put a bit of a spin on my argument there, but essentially, that's what I think. I mean, this isn't even a debate about the actual abortion, the thing is already dead FFS. It's like having someone shit in your toilet, and you having the option to flush it or sell it for money. It's a crude analogy, but if I'm wrong, explain why.
As I said, in an ideal world it would be given for free, but unfortunately there's no such thing.

The big deal is, even if something is legal, it doesn't make it universally acceptable. They would be stupid to be fully open because they would get crucified by the public, because most people don't think rationally. There are other sectors which have this problem, such as the meat industry and the government (lol). PR is extremely important.

I'm all for free speech, but free speech doesn't mean everyone has to tell everyone else everything.

Yes of course, the high temporal coherence of the light causes the momentum of the objects particles change.

Yeah, this thread is really something... I've given up getting frustrated and am now thoroughly enjoying myself 

The obscure changes in topic are nuts, for instance we went from this:


to some neat observations about cloud anomalies:


To an ambiguous question about airline electronic communication protocol (However you interpret it, the answer's no):


to some interesting interpretations of how lenses work:


to this:


Gold.

Can someone explain to me exactly what the problem is with this? If the law is the problem, according to this link it's legal to sell fetal body parts: http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-sale-of-fetal-body-parts-is-gruesomebut-its-also-legal.

I see everyone shouting about how awful it is, but no real justification about why. Would you just throw the fetuses in the bin instead?

I guess in an ideal world, the clinics would give the fetuses for free to research companies.

Your system of decimal time without time-zones would be a massive headache. The whole reason time-zones exist is so everywhere on Earth, the same times correspond with the movement of the earth and sun.

If we went with your system, everything would go out of sync - seasons, and the amount of daylight would fluctuate to the extent of totally fucking up everyone's body clock. Also everyone would have to learn their new time, and would have to learn the time of every other place they visited. You would find places would make their own arbitrary times for going to work etc.

It would be a big mess, you need to think of a better system if you want to change anything 

You're from Mexico then I take it?



 

I don't really get what you're saying here, my point was that the reason they were prosecuted was because what they did was illegal. Imams denying funerals is not illegal, however of course it is discrimination: most religions are discriminatory by definition - they only accept those that believe their doctrine. To simplify things I'll make my views clear:

I don't agree with the law that forced the bakers to pay up - I believe that a private business should decide who it serves, not the state.
But I do think the bakers were stupid to not follow the law in this case - an analogy to this would be a drug user/dealer being executed - I don't agree with the law, but I think they are dumb for not following it.

Of course I would condemn anyone being killed by muslims (or anyone else). This would include gays, trannies, drug users, women etc. I would make exceptions for violent opponents or instances of self defence, stuff like that.

Quite why you're comparing gays killed by muslims and gays not receiving wedding cakes, I'm not sure. It's not a non-constructive parallel, it's pretty irrelevant as far as I can see. The state could start making laws against religious institutions, but it's pretty obvious that this would be a dick-maneuver.

When I called your thread "non-constructive", I was referring to the fact that it is a blatant attempt to get a rise out of both Muslims (who might disagree with homosexuality) and pro-gay rights people (who might disagree with the Muslims). The thread serves to inflame the issues, rather than resolve them.

Thanks, this makes sense. I may not agree with your opinions on homosexuals but you are clued up on some things. I have nothing against gays but, as I said, I would agree with a ban on gays donating blood seeing as they are a high risk demographic, for whatever reason.

I made my views clear in my previous post about why I think gay men are a high risk HIV group, feel free to pick holes in my conclusions.

Some good recommendations in here, nice to some some David Lynch fans...

Here's a few:

Battle Royale - Crazy Japanese thriller, and excellent fun it is too!
What We Do in the Shadows - Very funny mockumentary about a bunch of vampires living in a house in New Zealand.
Tokyo Gore Police - Ridiculously over-the-top, recommended.
La Haine - French film about kids living in a Paris ghetto, beautifully shot and very entertaining.

And as someone said earlier, the new Mad Max film is fucking amazing, If there's one film you should watch in a cinema so far this year, it's this. Some of the scenes literally had me laughing with pure joy at the shit I was witnessing.

You posted the other day that one third of victims of paedophilia are male. Now you say that most paedophiles are gay. Get your facts right.

On topic, this is a dumb case, but they've obviously gone for the maximum payout because they knew that stories like this are super-popular with the media. Did they plan the incident? It's certainly possible but we should probably get some evidence before accusing them of that.

I have no problem with gay marriage, but this does seem disproportionately harsh on the bakers. On the other hand, business rules are pretty strict in supposedly free countries like the USA and UK, so they should have known that this was a bad idea. They have five kids as well, these breeders shouldn't be turning anyone's business down. At least the gays aren't contributing to the overpopulation problem, in fact they're actively helping by adopting unwanted kids. Ha, went a bit off topic there... 

Well you're right, on the surface of it it is pretty dumb, and that case was blown way out of proportion. But I can see why - by operating in a certain state, the business must operate by the state's rules. If they do not, then they risk prosecution. A case of this nature would be lucrative, as it obviously appeals to mass media, what with the gay discrimination and a wedding cake. So the lawyers went all-out, and secured a whopping deal.

With the muslim clerics denying funerals, they're not really breaking the law as far as I know. They're just being assholes.




Wilikon it's easy to see the point you're trying to make with this thread, and it's pretty non-constructive.

Anyway, I say good for the guy - at least he's acting more like a religious person should, i.e. generally being nice to people. I really dislike this authoritarian way of running certain sects of religions whereby you're not a "true christian/muslim/etc" unless you believe and do everything they say. Some are stricter than others, Islam is probably one of the worse ones so this guy's got some guts...

Yeah, I agree with you - I don't see anything wrong with this and don't know why they removed it. I was expecting a far more extreme video tbh, I reckon there is some shady reason that it was removed, possibly an attempt at the "Streisand Effect" to gain publicity for the film?

Oh yeah, and you should probably stop using "sodomites" to describe gays, seeing as by your own admission you engage in sodomy (with ladies)   It also makes you sound a bit like a crazy preacher/dancehall MC.  

As I said above, if it's as simple as that then why do we see non-gay male prison inmates raping/having sex with each other? I'm arguing that it not just simply sexual attraction, there's a element of power involved.

That's a possibility, however it would be time consuming and expensive. I think it's better to separate the issues of underage sex, and unwanted pregnancy. One is a health issue, the other a criminal issue. This approach could be detrimental to the aims of the programme, because many girls would not come forward if they thought their boyfriend could be investigated/arrested, resulting in unwanted pregnancies.

Good stuff, we've got some IPA fans in here.

I've been trying some of the "Flying Dog" beers recently, a bit tricky to get in the UK but worth it. "Raging Bitch" is excellent, as is the "Snake Dog IPA". Amazing label art by Ralph Steadman as well.

In the UK, some of the Brewdog beer is great. I had a "Restorative Beverage for Invalids & Convalescents" the other day, highly recommended if you are a fan of strong Imperial IPAs. It's 8.7% ABV, but hides the alcohol well.


Do you mean this?



If so it looks interesting, I've tried a few Dogfish Head beers and they're good.

This is a futile argument because it's incredibly hard to prove that male paedophiles are sexually gay or straight. IMO it's very likely that there's a overriding power dynamic, not related to sexuality, that causes some men to have sexual relations with young boys. We see this with prison inmates and with other people in positions of power and responsibility, such as catholic priests and schoolteachers.

Also it's in these types of ultra-conservative institutions that we tend to see paedophilia, not in the gay community.

On topic, I don't really see the problem of contraception in young girls, as long as the method is approved and tested for them. After all, the average age for girls to start puberty is 11, and some will undoubtedly experiment with boys. I think it's a good idea that the parents aren't notified, because that would put many girls off having the procedure, and could result in many unwanted pregnancies.

However it does seem that simpler non-invasive contraception, like condoms, would be a more sensible option. Maybe people feel safer with a method that doesn't involve trying to squeeze a tight plastic bag over your penis during the throes of passion?

There's a lot of ambiguous stats being thrown around in here, this is how I'm interpreting them:

I do believe that gays are more segregated from mainstream society. This means that when they do get together in clubs etc, then they are more likely to hook up with other gays and have one-night-stands etc. This would have been especially true in the 70s, when this study was performed.

An analogy for a heterosexual would be if it was socially unacceptable to chat girls up in the street, but once a week there's a party which all the hot girls go to specifically to hook up with you - you'd be inclined to indulge, right? I imagine it feels like you're a kid in a candy shop.

Also, gay men probably have similar sex drive to hetero men, so this would make them promiscuous. All of these things, together with the fact that anal sex is more likely to lead to AIDS, and that men don't have vaginas, explains to me why the statistic is so high in the gay demographic.

It seems that some of you are saying that gays are inherently physiologically more likely to catch AIDS. I don't think there's any evidence to support this, feel free to prove me wrong.

Regarding the ban on blood donation, I feel that it is morally justified to stop people from a high-risk demographic giving blood. However, I don't see why they couldn't be tested for HIV first, and then allowed to donate after a negative result.

You're right, this is the classic right-wing economic stance. However a quick look at this guy's site tells me that the reason they are trying to silence him is for his right-wing racist/fascist stance, probably primarily his anti-semitic and neo-nazi views.

I don't agree with what he says, but I think he should be allowed to voice his opinion. What's more, bullshit cases like this set a dangerous precedent whereby anyone with government-opposed views could be silenced in the future.