Which, of course, was the plan all along.

Rich person + Flimsy Excuse = No Conviction.  What country do you think this is?  Reasonable doubt is for poor people.

I’m sorry, I look back at what I wrote and I meant it more literally than it sounded.  You are, actually, factually, lucky.  That wasn’t code for “that was a poor decision IMO”.  I’ve been in almost that exact situation (flu, not homeless but definitely starving college student one check from eviction and with parents…

There’s a very interesting distinction being glossed over in her answer: “It depends on how much you have to give.” The bit about most people having been sick and therefore not having a very full GI tract? That’s modern day, mundane death, in hospital, of senescence or chronic illness.

Technically I shouldn’t eat dill or dill pickles, since it’s part of the Ragweed family and I’m allergic. Although, I’m told I’m only allergic to the pollen. I’ve had dishes with dill flavoring (sauce, etc.) and not been bothered. I’ve had dill pickles and not been bothered, though I can’t say it’s ever been a huge…

You’re lucky you didn’t contaminate the whole office.  Norovirus is fairly contagious.  Even assuming you washed your hands scrupulously, everyone who used that bathroom until it got cleaned with bleach was at risk.

Here’s the thing: Japan isn’t the U.S. The people and culture are significantly different. And, I’d wager, one of the ways they are so different is in bathroom ettiquette - never mind diet.

Follow with me here: “I don’t think homosexuality is natural” “I think it’s a sin.” These are points you can discuss, which do not denigrate or treat people as less than human. No reason to call someone a bigot here.

Actually, nobody in the government - right now - is fighting state provisions for gay marriage. Maybe there should be a federal law, but in the meantime not interfering with the state level when it goes permissive is better than nothing.

LOL at ruining a billionaire’s life. As if that could even happen for anything less than a feud with another billionaire, and usually not even then.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal described it something like this way:

Somehow I must have royally screwed up my language, because several people like you apparently think I’m arguing in favor of discrimination. I dunno how I messed up that bad but I am ill right now so maybe not as articulate as normal.  I’m just going to go ahead and apologize.  It’s certainly not my intent to justify…

It’s not absolute, and it’s NOT about relative morality when you’re talking about permission to live in peace as you would like to.

I’m pretty sure refusing service based on sexual orientation, an irrelevant matter to a business transaction that doesn’t involve sexual congress, is not “harmless”, so you have that much of your example 100% backwards.

There are some pretty clever ways to work UBI that don’t boil down to “hey everybody, here’s a fat but still insufficient check whether you need it or not”. Like Reverse Income Tax (if you’re below a realistic poverty line, you get paid to cover the difference, otherwise you only get taxed on what you earned over that…

You mean the healthcare shortage where nobody in their right mind would go into medical school debt or the trouble of nursing school so that they can literally mop up shit for minimum wage and mandatory unpaid overtime for their whole lives?

Sorry, but cultural tolerance for intolerant ideology is what got us into the most despicable stuff going on in America (and at our hands across the world) for the last 150 years or more.

For whatever reason, they’re taught only one tactic: overwhelming force backed by belief in their nigh-absolute authority. Even if they make a mistake or commit a wrong that ends with someone dead, they remain in the right because they have a vast apparatus to protect them - which is exactly what they’re supposed to…

I’m torn. I really do get the point about over-apologizing.

File under “Performances that make you realize an old pop song is maybe better than you remember it being”: Nicki Bluhm and her ‘Gramblers’ singing in a van. Surprisingly good acoustics.