My gay friends looked into adopting but eventually concluded that going through a surrogate was actually faster and cheaper than trying to adopt a healthy baby.

(It's easier to adopt children with health issues or older children, but there are obvious reasons why would-be parents would prefer not to do that.)

Plus, it's unpopular to say this but genetics matters. Many important traits (e.g. IQ) are highly heritable and parents who can't or won't care for their own children are probably a population with worse-than-average genetic assets.

But Cerberus isn't dead. Living dogs aren't in heaven.

Anything is edible if you believe in yourself.

I thought that was exactly what you wanted.

Assimi-milation!

What a wonderful phrase

Assimi-milation!

Ain't no passing craze

It means no worries

For the rest of your days

It's our problem-free philosophy

Assimi-milation!

Is this a common sentiment? I had roommates until I was 27 and to me it was the normal way for young, single people to live. I never thought of my roommates as a burden or considered living without them a high priority. Even when I could have gotten my own studio apartment, I preferred to split a much nicer apartment with a couple other people.

I call bullshit on a definition of "living wage" which claims that someone making $100,000 a year is earning less than a living wage (even in Hawaii).

How do people handle this sort of thing in an IRL game? Do you roleplay romance with the DM? Is it weird?

I can't prove that you're wrong, but my impression is that (1) many immigrants go by American nicknames simply because they're tired of explaining how to pronounce their name and (2) Republicans appear to start out more distrustful of outsiders (although some of that may simply be due to a greater willingness to express politically incorrect opinions) but they can grow to trust and support individuals - they do "have black friends," so to speak.

IMO Vivek's ethnic background is a disadvantage but not a disqualifier. I guess we'll see how he does in the primaries. (I wouldn't bet on him, mostly because I would bet on Trump.)

It's almost unbelievably cheap for a combat aircraft - over five times cheaper than an MQ-9 Reaper drone, which costs 32 million. (And Reapers aren't capable of air-to-air combat, although they have other capabilities that these drones will probably lack.) Manned fighters cost even more. An F-35 is 80 million, and it's a relatively low-priced jet. An F-22 costs about twice as much. Even a single Sidewinder air-to-air missile is 400 thousand.

$5.8 billion for a thousand combat drones? That's incredibly cheap, especially since the implication is that this includes amortized R&D costs and the per-unit cost will eventually be even lower.

As for "slaughterbots" - I'm not sure why some people are inclined to trust human soldiers more than machines. Humans don't exactly have the best track record for minimizing violence...

Nikki Haley is Nimarata Randhawa and plenty of Republicans support her...

An accident is unintentional, not unpreventable.

The socks imply being dressed without actually concealing anything, so someone wearing only socks isn't just naked but rather naked while intending not to be. It's like how lingerie is somehow more revealing than plain nudity.

In principle, where should the line be drawn between local and state control in matters like this? On the one hand, I think notification policies are mean-spirited and likely to do real harm. On the other hand, they have the support of the majority in these school districts. If we say that the state ought to override local policy in cases like this, what will we say in cases where a conservative state government is seeking to impose its will on progressive communities (sanctuary cities in states that are cracking down on illegal immigrants, municipalities refusing to enforce drug laws, etc.)?

(The answer is probably "neither side has a principled stance regarding the balance of power between state and local governments so we might as well do everything we can to support specific policies we agree with rather than abstract principles" but IMO it would be nice if there were commonly-accepted principles about this sort of thing.)

George Washington would shed a tear if he could see that Americans have been reduced to defending themselves with weapons that don't involve fire, loud bangs, and clouds of black smoke.

It's funny how different people's experiences can be. I grew up in a big city and didn't learn to drive until my mid 20's when I was living somewhere a lot less crowded. Then driving allowed me to experience a feeling of physical power and freedom which I had never felt before. (I think other people might get such a feeling from running or otherwise physically exerting themselves, but I never did.) Now I'm back in a big city and so I can't actually drive to most places (there would be nowhere to park) but I still own a car - not having a car would feel like having my metaphorical wings clipped.

I didn't say it was cheap.

Those piss me off for reasons beyond manual supremacy - they're bad UI design too. A knob is for controlling something (like volume) which varies continuously over a range. It is not for selecting from a short list of discrete options!

I had a fried starter and a girlfriend who didn't know how to drive a manual, so I had to ask her to push while I sat inside. Not the manliest day of my life...