h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*sips greatly cheered by good friends*

Must dash - got a Chinook to catch. I wonder if they'll let me take one back to Lagos .....

*wanders in feeling smug at the fact I can spend a morning watching Kilroy only to find that it's been cancelled*

*s Gwe7n - I do hope things are ok witih you?

Z. Things are not ok. But they will be. Just a matter of time.

*Quickly makes Gwe7n some tea *

Over here that seems to cure nearly all ills..

[mtg]

Thank you, Z. *sips * Just what I needed.

s G7. Time will heal.

Gay marriages - I am in favour of them. Especially as it is becoming more and more that it is possible to rear children with two male or two female parents. Marriage provides intrinsic securities that are currently unattainable to G/Ls. I feel really strongly against Bush's comments in his announcement the other week about how he must protect against these types of marriages. If two people love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together, who are we to deny them that priveledge???

I have to agree, there are many people who do raise children in unconventional familes, where they don't live with both natural parents..

As far as I can see the only arguments against gay marriage are religons ones and it's not the point of religon to impose it's values on a state.

That said you really didn't need to know my opinions on it..

[M. Missed my chance to drone on and on about physics there, which is probably no bad thing ]

Gw7en...

...I wish there was something 'tangible' we could do for you. Like drive to Austin, hamstring the clown who's been giving you such problems, and shipping off to some remote corner of the world.

Keep on pursuing the legal avenues and let everyone near you know not to let the creep have access to you.

B4

Thanks, B4.

Gw7en, remember Zeppo is here whenever you need him. Me too.

I believe the only form of predestination is the one that says we are predestined to forever catch up with backlog.

10 years is not enough time to pass for trivializing a crime by dramatizing or exploiting it for a "true crime" show. There are still people affected by it too strongly, and without their permission it's simply offensive. Even 50 years later it can still hurt someone.

Lil, a .hqx file could be anything, it's just a mostly useless historical encoding (8-bit to 7-bit) meant to deal with ancient e-mail programs that don't automatically encode/decode binary attachments. Use Stuffit (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/19140 - it's a really excellent replacement for winZip) to process it, but since the Mac doesn't need filename extensions you'll still need to know what type of file is inside the .hqx file no open it on a Windows machine (so you can give it the ".doc" or ".pdf" or ".tif" extension or whatever).

d'E. Thank you, luv.

* Zeppo *

for Gwen.

Hyp

Gay marriages? Well if Churches, vicars, prayer stalls and the like are your thing, then why should I stand in your way

No more seriously, it is about recognising equality within all human relationships. It is not so much demanding equality under the eyes of 'God', more about under the eyes of your pension provider, or landlord, or healthcare provider. Slowly (but oh so slowly) these barriers are being broken down. In time I believe that in all areas non-married relationships (same sex or otherwise) will have the same status as marriage relationship.

And whilst we are on the subject. Do you remember Marv (I think it was you) posting a link to the American Families Association and their on-line petition against Gay Marriage? Well this is how it all turned out for them - http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,61982,00.html?tw=wn_polihead_2 - oh dear

Marriage was not meant to be a state sponsored affair anyway, or so says my daddy the priest. The only reason the state got involved was to collect more taxes. Marriage is between the people involved and their chosen deity or lack thereof. Anyone else is extraneous.

*sips *

That may be so, G7, but the legal structure of our culture now demands that relationships be formalized. For example, we don't have socialized medicine in the US, most of us receive health insurance as a employee benefit. Since an employee can have their family covered, they need a legitimate way to identify their family members. Marriage, birth and adoption certificates provide for that. I don't care if we call it marriage or civil union, but documentation is necessary.

And of course, any permutation of loving individuals that choose to form a family is okay in my book. Which brings to mind the polygamous faction of the Mormons. If they are all consenting adults, I don't have a problem with it. However, I don't approve of arranged marriages with minors.

[spk]