Nightingale

The loss of vision is probably PRA (progressive retinal atrophy) and is genetic. My dog's parents had DNA testing and are not carriers of this gene. Ditto for luxating patellas that can result in expensive surgery and pain for the dog. I haven't heard of heart disease being breed-specific for paps. Where did you hear that?

Cats: Rescue, unless you want a cat guaranteed free of certain health problems. Otherwise, reputable breeder. Dogs: Pound if you know how to train a dog and are okay with getting no support while doing it. Rescue if you already know what you're doing or the rescue is very supportive. Breeder if you want a specific breed of dog with a certain temperament, want to show, or you are inexperienced and want someone you can call at 3 am with questions, and want a dog guaranteed free of certain health problems. Pet Store: NEVER! No reputable breeder will ever sell an animal to a pet store, pet stores don't do genetic testing on their animals, and they provide no support, so you might as well get an animal from a rescue and not encourage the puppy/kitten mill market. At a pet store, you're paying breeder prices without the benefit of the breeder, and puppy mills are HORRIBLE. ___ I separated cats from dogs because they're very different. Dogs have been bred for centuries to specialize in certain things, and they've been bred for certain levels of energy and certain temperament. Dogs must be trained and you must know how to provide leadership for them, or they become dangerous. My cat's a rescue, I adore him, and he's a typical cat. Aloof most of the time, affectionate when he wants to be, trained himself to use a catbox. My dog's from a breeder, and he's a typical papillon. Small, very sweet, very intelligent, prefers people to other dogs, a great apartment dog, and exactly what I wanted. When I got the cat, I wanted a cat. When I got the dog, I wanted a very specific temperament, health certificates (I'd just lost a cat and couldn't deal with medical problems, either emotionally or financially, so I wanted to minimize my risk), and somebody I could call at 3 am if I had to. Now that I have more experience with dogs, my next dog will probably be from a rescue. Dogs from breeders aren't superior to dogs from the pound. They're just different in that a dog from a breeder is a known factor, while a pound critter is a wild card. Dogs from rescues are somewhere in the middle.

I should have used the word annoyed....thats the one I was looking for, again, sorry. Ive been in these athiest threads for the past week, were having alot of fun in there!! And Im sorry for calling you sister....I hope your question got answered, looks like you generated what you were looking for. take care. Yes, I did get the answer I was looking for, and had a couple of great discussions with LDS folks via PM. Thanks for everyone's contribution!

Offended or angry, no. Annoyed, yes, but only because you kept calling me "sister." I just didn't want this thread to degenerate into the usual Christianity debate, because I'm getting really sick of reading the same thing a million times.

Looks like where Mr. Green erred is legally marrying and divorcing while still cohabitating. In some states, cohabitation/sex after filing for divorce voids the divorce. So, Mr. Green was married in the eyes of the state to more than one women. If someone marries in a religious ceremony only, without license or state paperwork, they are not married in the eyes of the government, and no crime has been committed. (common law marriage laws get weird here, but a lot of states have abolished common law marriage, so it isn't as much of an issue). In the eyes of the state, if Mr. Green had just married the first one legally, and had a church marriage only with the other four, in the eyes of the state, he'd have been married to one woman and happened to have four others in his house.

If you get insurance, make sure you get ASPCA and not VPI. A lot of people have been unhappy with VPI (so unhappy that my vet's office removed the VPI brochures and started advising people to switch!). ASPCA is a bit more expensive, but well worth it, IMO. For example, ASPCA pays over $200 for teeth cleaning. VPI pays about $28. My cost for a cleaning for my cat is about $230.

DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- A Dallas man who spent more than 27 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit was freed Tuesday, after being incarcerated longer than any other wrongfully convicted U.S. inmate cleared by DNA testing. James Lee Woodard had been in prison for more than 27 years before DNA cleared him. James Lee Woodard stepped out of the courtroom and raised his arms to a throng of photographers. Supporters and other people gathered outside the court erupted in applause. "No words can express what a tragic story yours is," state District Judge Mark Stoltz told Woodard at a brief hearing before his release. Woodard, cleared of the 1980 murder of his girlfriend, became the 18th person in Dallas County to have his conviction cast aside. That's a figure unmatched by any county nationally, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions. "I thank God for the existence of the Innocence Project," Woodard, 55, told the court. "Without that, I wouldn't be here today. I would be wasting away in prison." Overall, 31 people have been formally exonerated through DNA testing in Texas, also a national high. That does not include Woodard and at least three others whose exonerations will not become official until Gov. Rick Perry grants pardons or the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals formally accepts the ruling of lower courts that have already recommended exoneration. Woodard was sentenced to life in prison in July 1981 for the murder of a 21-year-old Dallas woman found sexually assaulted and strangled near the banks of the Trinity River. He was convicted primarily on the basis of testimony from two eyewitnesses, said Natalie Roetzel, the executive director of the Innocence Project of Texas. One has since recanted in an affidavit. As for the other, "we don't believe her testimony was accurate," Roetzel said. Like nearly all the exonorees, Woodard has maintained his innocence throughout his time in prison. But after filing six writs with an appeals court, plus two requests for DNA testing, his pleas of innocence became so repetitive and routine that "the courthouse doors were eventually closed to him and he was labeled a writ abuser," Roetzel said. "On the first day he was arrested, he told the world he was innocent ... and nobody listened," Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas, said during Tuesday's hearing. http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/29/dna.exoneration.ap/index.html

Tom Green was legally married to multiple women, IIRC. The FLDS and other polygamous communities tend to have one legal marriage, and the rest are spiritual marriages and not legal marriages.

I heard something similar from an LDS member.

Right now, I'm combining Care Credit and ASPCA Pet Health Insurance to help pay for my critters' medical expenses. Care Credit is a health credit card that is accepted by many vets (check with yours, and if they don't take it, encourage them to do so). It gives you at least 3 months at zero interest (sometimes more, depending on the balance, and what your vet has arranged). Then, the ASPCA insurance pays 80% of what's average for those services in your area (and so far, they've been pretty accurate within a few dollars). I have not had any claim denied, they've never said I should have gone with a less expensive treatment route, and they even covered medical boarding for my cat when I was out of town and couldn't give him his antibiotics. I'm extremely happy with them so far. They've got a couple of different plans, ranging from cheap (catastrophic coverage only) to more expensive but covers damn near everything (I went with that one. I pay $65 a month for my dog, and get $5000 of coverage per incident, $13,000 annually, and vaccines and routine care is covered, with a $100 per year deductible). So, what I do is put the vet bills on the care credit card and submit my claim, and then I pay off the care credit card when the refund check arrives a few weeks later. And then, I've still got a few months to pay off the remaining 20%. When I'm making more money and have savings, I'll probably drop the insurance, but right now, I know if something happened I couldn't cover the vet bills, and the insurance has come in handy more than once. It's nice to be able to make decisions based on what's right for my animals, not what's right for my wallet.

YAY! I can read and post without scrolling over every time I click to a new screen!

Thank you for the historical perspective!

I believe that the new (non-polygamy) revelation basically makes a loophole so that they can achieve the highest levels of heaven without multiple wives. If I understand it correctly, the newer prophets can have revelations that re-interpret things, but they can't directly "overturn" (I'm sure that's not the correct terminology) previous revelations. In this case, the newer revelation says that since the world isn't ready for plural marriage, otherwise devout Mormons can still make it to the top ranks of heaven, because they've essentially "done their best" to comply with the heavenly mandate, within the worldly restrictions placed on them by (other) men. Thank you! That makes sense!

Thank you, Tom! So if celestial marriage is the proper way of things and leads to the highest levels of salvation, are the people down here that are not practicing it just screwed until society is ready to accept polygamy, or was there a work around that allowed LDS not practicing polygamy to reach the higher levels of heaven?

I'm sure it is something like most Christians not putting people to death that work on the sabbath or selling their daughters into slavery according to ancient "laws" as outlined in the old testament. I don't really think that's it, because in Biblical times, putting people to death or selling daughters was not considered part of the way to salvation and could therefore change with the times without altering the core beliefs, but in the time of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, polygamy was something necessary to reach certain levels of the LDS idea of heaven.

Sister, please just stay with the gospel. Come to God in all truth, confess your sins in all truth, humble yourself before the invisible God, believe that Jesus took your sins away with his own blood and that God raised Jesus from the dead, pray for the Holy Spirit and you will find the grace you need to persevere to holiness. There is no other way to becoming the righteousness of God. ... I am sorry about the passionate response. Um...thanks for your input, I guess, but you didn't address the question I asked. Can we keep this thread on topic? I'm not LDS, I'm just trying to understand someone else's perspective, so I'm looking for input from people who are LDS. In the meantime, you might enjoy these threads about Christianity: "I would like to tell you a bit more about God" Christian Skydivers

In all this confusion about LDS/FLDS that's been in the news, I was researching both groups, and I have managed to completely and totally confuse myself. The questions: The LDS religion is based on the words and revelations of Joseph Smith, the first prophet, right? Section 132 of Doctrines and Covenants seems to say that the way to heaven/godhood/etc is through polygamy. So what I'm trying to figure out is how the modern LDS church can both follow the revelations of Joseph Smith and not be polygamous at the same time. I know there was something about a manifesto, so can later prophets contradict Joseph Smith?

For my first communion, I got about fifteen rosaries, ten bibles and more gold cross necklaces than I could wear in a lifetime. My favorite gift was the $20 my uncle/godfather slipped me under the table (He gave me a rose petal rosary and a savings bond too). I still have the rosary.

Alrighty then ... you've got yourselves a mule. SWEET!

The Huckleberry is really good, light and fruity. Tri-Motor Amber is a hoppy beer (according to James, it's like Sam Adams but less bitter).

If you're willing to bring some Huckleberry and Tri-Motor Amber, James and I will pay the $25 (plus the cost of the beer, of course).

Can you smuggle some of their Huckleberry Honey? I have been dreaming about that beer! They don't have anything like it down here.

You can usually find them on Ebay for cheaper than that. People finish them and then sell them.

Funniest thing I ever saw was, combined with lots of yellow ribbon magnets, in shoe polish on the rear windshield of a white SUV was "Prey for our troops".

If you're really stuck here's how to get to Perris from LAX via public transportation. 1. take the shuttle from the airport to the Green line. 2. Take the Green Line to the Norwalk Metrolink station 3. Take Metrolink to Downtown Riverside 4. Take Metro 22 bus from the train station to Perris. The bus drops off in Perris, at the corner of 4th and Wilkerson, which is about five blocks from the DZ, and get someone to pick you up there. The entire trip should cost you less than $15. Make sure you have a credit card at the metrolink station, because you buy tickets from a kiosk that usually doesn't take cash. helpful websites: http://www.metrolinktrains.com http://www.riversidetransit.com/Home/index.html