MrsRational

This is outrageous...why should Muslim kids get a couple of days off school when we can't even get a single day off for any Christian holidays!

This "debate" was a waste of time in my opinion.

Strange, why isn't this thread being flooded by people delighted that abortion went down since Obama took office?

What is the better idea that Republicans have?

Oh for Pete's sake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria_and_creationism http://myxo.css.msu.edu/lenski/pdf/2008,%20PNAS,%20Blount%20et%20al.pdf For a person with a BSc you sure aren't up to date on the current research. Where did you get your degree? Bob Jones University? I'm not going to play these games with you. Answer why you think prokaryotes cannot evolve despite the current research stating otherwise or I am not going to engage you anymore.

No, you're wrong. Asexual means non-sexual reproduction. Since bacteria do not mate they are asexual, they receive their genetic material from a single "parent" (I use this term for convenience, not in the true biological definition of a parent). Horizontal gene transfer is when an organism transfers it's genetic material to another that is not an offspring. Vertical gene transfer is from parent to child. Anyone who is willing to slog through Tristen's post will notice a lot of technical jargon and large words. This is generally a tactic some people use to try and dazzle the reader and make it hard to figure out what is actually being said. You would think that on a public forum one would try and make their comments as reader friendly as possible. The reason some people do not is partly for the reason above and also because they don't really understand what they are posting. In academic circles this is called s Pseudo-Intellectual, a person who tries to impress with tons of large technical sounding language that doesn't actually say very much. The way to call this sort of behaviour out is to ask them a specific question like I did. Since they don't actually have much knowledge of the subject in which they speak they either don't answer or try to drown you in more jargon and endless repetition of the same points. Luckily I have a masters degree in biology and a very high I.Q. to go with it, so I'll translate for anyone who cares: In a nutshell: Aside from actually confirming what I already said and not realizing it, he mentions how cells pass their immunity on to others via a process called "conjunction". This basically means cells touching each other. A nucleus is sort of a chamber that contains things like dna. Not all cells have a nucleus however so they contain their genetic material in the same membrane (the "shell") with everything else. Since bacteria are one of these non-nucleus cells they can pass their genes to one other merely by physical contact. After this he is making a circular argument that changes can only be passed from parent to offspring, and we know this because changes can only be passed from parent to offspring. No supporting data is provided of course. . So Tristen I ask you once again, why do you think a nucleus and sexual reproduction are required for evolution to occur? And please post in plain speak so everyone on the forum can understand what is being said. It's the polite thing after all.

For the uninitiated, this person is trying to claim that bacterial organisms cannot evolve because they lack a nucleus. He is also trying to claim that because bacteria reproduces asexually (horizontal gene transfer) that they cannot evolve. Both of these are of course, total nonsense and it is precisely because bacteria reproduces this way that they acquire resistance to antibacterial medication so quickly. Bacteria reproduce via a process called binary fission wherein the cell divides itself creating a genetically identical copy. When one cell becomes resistant, every "clone" thereafter is also immune. Those that are not immune are killed by said medication and the resistant strain is free to propagate unchecked. This is why it is so important to follow your doctors advice in regards to using antibacterial meds. If your infection becomes immune to too many treatments it creates a sort of "super bacteria" that is nearly impossible to treat. After that you either die, or your system destroys itself in the process of fighting the infection. I am unclear as to why a nucleus or sexual reproduction are required for natural selection or evolution. Perhaps you'd like to give us all a breakdown as to the reasons?

God did not give you the constitution, he gave us the bible. The constitution was created by human beings in 1787. Are you are saying you consider the two as equal? No matter what mental gymnastics you wish to play to convince yourself that Romans 13 doesn't apply to people you hate, we are to honour Gods appointed rulers as was the case under the pagan Caesar and is the case now. You do have the right to vote, as do your fellow citizens and in this case they went against you. Perhaps next election will be different but in the meantime you are to submit to Gods express commands. You cannot try and lawyer God with "gee I said perhaps/maybe/if".

Calling Obama the AntiChrist is a violation of Romans 13, where we are instructed to respect God's appointed rulers and submit to government. I'm not a fan of Obama but he is hardly any worse than other presidents I could name. You and other people need to accept that he won in a democratic election...twice...and stop attacking him. you have another election in 2016, so look ahead and not backwards. God gave us a constitutional republic and made it our responsibility to pick our president...... liberal democrats elected him Don't blame God for our ignorance. Are you saying Romans 13 is incorrect and God does not appoint our rulers? Or are you saying God only appoints the rulers that you like?

Calling Obama the AntiChrist is a violation of Romans 13, where we are instructed to respect God's appointed rulers and submit to government. I'm not a fan of Obama but he is hardly any worse than other presidents I could name. You and other people need to accept that he won in a democratic election...twice...and stop attacking him. you have another election in 2016, so look ahead and not backwards.

There is not a word in the English language strong enough to properly express how wrong you are. I've personally performed experiments evolving bacteria in a lab, and charted their progress for pharmaceutical companies. I've also assisted in medical research that relies heavily on the theory of evolution. Next time you get a bacterial infection just tell your doctor you don't need to follow the directions on your prescription bottle, because evolution has nothing to do with medicine. I was recently in the Hospital (ICU) with my 7 year old son who had a severe case of Pneumonia. I had a heart to heart with the Doctor in which we discussed @ length and in great detail my sons condition and the treatment options. After we were finished I asked him......"Do you believe in evolution?" He laughed out loud. My son fully recovered. PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There's the Anecdotal, here's the meat....... Marc Kirschner Chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Member of the National Academy of Sciences "In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all." Dr. Marc Kirschner: The Boston Globe, October 23, 2005 Philip Skell PhD (Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry Penn State University, Member of the National Academy of Sciences) 'Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. I also examined the outstanding bio-discoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.' Philip Skell PhD; Why Do We Invoke Darwin, August 29, 2005 So you were saying? Perhaps he laughed because it was such an absurd question. Seriously though, I don't believe this really happened. Otherwise you would be telling me that while your son lay gravely ill you took the time to ask a doctor about evolution. I really don't care about your quote mining and anecdotal "evidence". When you start posting peer reviewed data we can have a conversation. Unlike yourself I work in the field and have a masters degree in the subject. Others might humor you but I won't.

There is not a word in the English language strong enough to properly express how wrong you are. I've personally performed experiments evolving bacteria in a lab, and charted their progress for pharmaceutical companies. I've also assisted in medical research that relies heavily on the theory of evolution. Next time you get a bacterial infection just tell your doctor you don't need to follow the directions on your prescription bottle, because evolution has nothing to do with medicine.

You are incorrect Butero...it is you and a very few others who cannot stand "liberals". Most people are rational and can come together for the common good. You are an extreme ideologue...and just so people don't get in a tizzy I am aware there are extreme liberals as well. And true, when people are ideologically extreme they cannot stand dissenting opinions. Luckily most people are in the middle or next to it. One of the major problems is you have republican party desperate to survive, and in doing so keeps catering to more extreme fringes who would rather the country go down in flames than compromise. Most liberals hate conservatives. That has been the case for a long time, and over the years, there have been wishy washy Republicans that would rather come up with some kind of compromise than stand their ground. One such person was George H.W. Bush. The Democrats in Congress gave him a budget that raised taxes, knowing he had made a no new tax pledge. In the name of getting along and compromise, he signed it into law. They praised him for his bi-partisanship, until he was up for re-election, and then they used his compromise against him. This kind of thing has been going on for a long time, and many of us on the conservative side have said enough is enough. No more compromise! It is time to stand your ground, and let the liberals start compromising. As long as conservatives are the ones to cave, everything seems to be ok, but when they expect liberals to compromise, that is something else. Liberals and conservatives only get along when conservatives keep going along. I make no bones about being an extreme ideologue. I like to think I am as far to the right as Nancy Pelosi is to the left. Truth be told, most Democrats holding political office are extreme ideologues on the left. Most Republicans are center-right, and yes, they would compromise if it wasn't for those of us on the extreme right threatening them with a primary challenge. We are sick of them always giving in with the hard left. What has been going on is a gradual move to the left as the hard left demands compromise, and the spineless Republicans give in. They are doing this gradually, but I see through it, and more conservatives are seeing this trend as well. We are not going to give in. We are going to fight, not only to stop liberals/progressives dead in their tracks, but to repeal their past gains. It is time to put them on the defensive. If this means splitting the nation down the middle, I am more than ready to do it. I am ready today to vote to pull out of the union and start a new confederacy in the south. I am more than happy to give Cuomo his way and take all his conservatives in exchange for our liberals. Left, right, left right, left right, left right... You sound like a drill sergeant.

Okay now you are stating your points far better. So you acknowledge our health care system is good overall, I appreciate that. As to your first friend, the province will pay to fly people out of country for treatment if the needed care cannot be provided in a timely manner. I would find out if he paid out of pocket or if the costs were covered. As to the second...well "painful" is not the same as an emergency. Some people wait longer than they should, I do not dispute that but it is not the disaster some right wing blowhards on t.v. try to portray. I have only ever lived in Ontario so I cannot comment on other provinces. Each one runs it's own provincial health insurance plan and we all pay into it, so yet the terms vary slightly for province to province. It does happen sometimes and that is the sign of a good system. A bad system would tell them to wait until a Canadian doctor can treat them. There is a doctor shortage in Canada right now and the reason are very long and not something I can sum up in a brief post. Things are getting better however. I never said anything about who pays more in taxes I said the U.S. pays more per capita than Canada does on healthcare and Americans get less for their money on top. Sometimes yes. The reason our hospitals are cheaper is because of those evil regulations that prevent price gouging. I don't think so...what regulations do you think are silly? Doctors are strictly trained and regulated because I don't want any boob opening me up and sticking their fingers in my organs, I want someone well trained and certified for competence. I cannot wrap my head around why you would consider that a bad thing.

Even if a scientist is a mass murdering pedophile, that would still have zero effect on the veracity of their claims. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

I guess after one sees dozens of mall and school shootings, some of us start to care about the victims. That is such circular reasoning if I ever heard it. The problem is everyone isn't responsible and accidents, drive by shootings and mayhem occurs daily in the U.S. Why on earth would anyone be opposed to barring a convinced killer, the mentally unstable or an armed robber from owning a weapon? I'm no fan of Obama but stop acting as if he is Caesar, the president cannot just take away your rights or change laws with a declaration and a wave of his golden scepter. There have been abuses from the top down by both Republicans and Democrats which started under Bush and Obama continued unabated. I agree, and I think the time has come for a more representative election system. Of course no democracy is perfect regardless of the system of government but they can always be made less imperfect.

Actually, wait times are not a myth. I have too many friends who live in Canada who tell me their stories. What you consider and Canadian health care considers a trivial issue, is not what others consider trivial. What if you needed a simple outpatient procedure in order to eat solid food? You were living on a liquid diet. And you were turned down for the procedure? Does Canadian insurance cover your medicine? (This coverage varies by province) Do you have supplemental insurance? (66% of Canadians purchase supplimental insurance to cover what their health care government insurance does not). To cover the cost of their socialized medicine, the price comes out of national income tax, provincial income tax, other taxes including sales taxes (GST & PST), money raised thru lotteries. Some provinces charge a special additional health care tax. Plus other possibilities I am not aware of as many of the taxes are at the Provincial level. Canada spends about 12% of it's gross national product on their health care system, and then private companies still finance supplemental insurance, and individuals still purchase private insurance to make up for what isn't covered. (A lot of Canadians who live near the border, travel to the U.S. to shop because the cost of goods is much less in the U.S.) That plus, the average salary for doctors in Canada is $125,000, vs about $185,000 in the U.S. A lot of U.S. doctors aren't crazy about the long expensive education (student loans), a job which requires a lot of overtime, plus on call hours, etc. Plus government breathing down you neck with silly regulations. Every anti-health care American I meet "has a Canadian/U.K. friend who says it's horrible". 1. Do you live here? Have you used the health care here? have you asked any other Canadians here? No? I think we'd know better than you about our own health care. 2. Stubbed toes and minor injuries are trivial issues. They might not be trivial to the person who is in pain and wants care now, but we have the thing where people who are dying get seen first. 3. Prescription meds in Ontario are usually not covered. I cannot speak for other provinces. 4. Supplemental health insurance covers things like better rooms, amenities and more time for sick leave. Not things like injuries or illness which are 100% covered by out health plan. Some cover medication and dental. 5. It's covered by taxes...so what? The United States pays more per capita than we do and coveres far far less. 6. Medical care is Cheaper in Canada, I challenge you to prove otherwise or that Canadians travel to the U.S. for cheaper care. I expect numbers from sources and cited studies, not blogs and anecdotes. 7. Maybe you don't want your doctor to study for eight years and have any standards of competence imposed on him, but I like surviving my treatment.

You're probably correct but let's not speculate since we don't know those details for sure. Fair enough you did say those things, and I agree it is wrong to bring children into an unstable relationship. However the title of the thread is clearly a slam against gay people when their sexuality had nothing to do with this legal issue.

Wait times are a myth. If you are someone who has a trivial issue...a cold or a stubbed toe then yes you have to wait hours. If you have cancer or need life saving operations there are no wait times. Usually if you cannot get the treatment you need fast enough here they will pay for you to have the operation done outside the country. I'm sure one or two people will try and dredge up a few cases of people who fell through the cracks, and to that I say "don't bother". No system is perfect but in Canada no one dies because they are poor and we have zero medical related bankruptcies. And yes we still have a thriving private insurance industry despite government run health care.

You are incorrect Butero...it is you and a very few others who cannot stand "liberals". Most people are rational and can come together for the common good. You are an extreme ideologue...and just so people don't get in a tizzy I am aware there are extreme liberals as well. And true, when people are ideologically extreme they cannot stand dissenting opinions. Luckily most people are in the middle or next to it. One of the major problems is you have republican party desperate to survive, and in doing so keeps catering to more extreme fringes who would rather the country go down in flames than compromise. We are, amazingly, closer to being in agreement than you realize. Firstly, I own three guns and I have no problem with you or anyone owning a gun or ten guns as long as you're responsible. I simply desire a machination in place to make sure gun owners are law abiding and responsible. If someone has a violent criminal record or a history of mental illness, they should be barred from owning a firearm. It's just common sense to me. I also think machine guns or high capacity magazines should be restricted, but perhaps even then there could be a process for one to buy that kind of hardware. I'm not an unreasonable person and I don't think gun ownership in itself is a bad thing as all. My father took me out skeet and target shooting and it is a treasured memory for me. I believe it's a wonderful sport and there are lots of character building possibilities for young people who want to take it up. I also agree with you that a winner take all approach is bad and doesn't take demographics into account. We have a similar problem here in Canada with a first past the post system that does not take into account the true demographics of the voters. We have 308 seats and the Conservative party has 160 of those, which is a majority government. However, they only won 39% of the vote so their number of seats is not proportional to the voters will. I can see a similar issue in the U.S. where a state might have 20 electoral votes, but suppose only 51% votes democrat. That means all the votes go to the Democrats when in a proportional system the votes would be split. I think that is far more fair to the voters and the country can have it's say better. Your bigger problem is this "Us vs them" culture that have been festering the last ten years. You all need to work together and pull the country back, divisiveness will only hasten the ruin.

And you'd be ripped off the bench so fast your butt would catch fire. It's cool I wasn't accusing you of anything, I just had not seen that tidbit. And again you make this out to be a gay issue when this can and has happened to straight couples as well. This case just happens to involve a lesbian. Whatever you might think of her sexuality, they are still her children and she probably loves them. Every study has shown that children of LGBT parents do just as well as any other child, and in fact the biggest difference is the stigma these children face from their peers because if their parents sexuality. Even if homosexuality is a sin, something I am unsure of, we do not rip families apart because a parent is "sinful". Hell, we don't even always take children away from parents who beat or molest them. The one area we are in agreement on is the irresponsibility of adopting so many children, especially since one parent can (and did in this case) leave. I believe parents should be able to economically provide for their children even in the event of the loss of a spouse. Obviously the women who left is a deadbeat parent and the mother should sue her, not this man. I understand her motives, but I still think she is doing a crappy thing to this guy.

I think this debate will have two losers.

a gun that fires 500 rounds a second? I only know of one... and it only holds about 50 rounds at most. an AR-15 only fires about 12 to 15 fully automatic and they are illegal in all states without a special machine gun weapons permit..... and that's nearly impossible to get. Oh, btw, I don't disagree with people not needing machine guns, but what he calls an assault gun isn't a machine gun...... and banning clips over 7 rounds is just silly. I said 500 rounds per second as a joke. Point being I don't think anyone needs to own machines guns or other such types of weapons. Regardless I just wanted to correct the slight mischaracterization of what he said. I don't care what you think I need, my needs aren't your business. As for Cuomo, the voters got who they wanted, what was it PBHO said after he was elected? Oh yeah. . ."Elections have consequences." It's a public forum and I am allowed to participate as much as you are. Part of living in a society is we all have an interest in the common good and sometimes that involves a little compromise. I think knowing my neighbour isn't both unhinged and owning a machine gun is a good thing. I enjoy target shooting and would never deny a rational person the right to own guns but there have to be limits.

This is only about gay people in the sense that two of the three participants happen to be gay. Since 40 - 50% of marriages now end in divorce the same "issues" could be applied to straight couples as well. There have been thousands upon thousands of cases where dad can't get his wife pregnant, so he brings a man over and leaves him to spend lone time with his wife. Especially in rural areas with little to no access to fertility clinics, and among the poor. Had the fathers in these cases up and left the "donor" would also be legally liable under the law. These women did a crappy thing to the guy and I am not defending their behaviour, however this would not have happened if he had followed the law. Nevertheless, it's still opening a can of worms. Only for those who make other peoples sex lives their business.

I am reading this story and I don't see where it says her girlfriend/wife left her. This is only about gay people in the sense that two of the three participants happen to be gay. Since 40 - 50% of marriages now end in divorce the same "issues" could be applied to straight couples as well. There have been thousands upon thousands of cases where dad can't get his wife pregnant, so he brings a man over and leaves him to spend lone time with his wife. Especially in rural areas with little to no access to fertility clinics, and among the poor. Had the fathers in these cases up and left the "donor" would also be legally liable under the law. These women did a crappy thing to the guy and I am not defending their behaviour, however this would not have happened if he had followed the law.