You say you can pay your tithing and still fall short of heavenly worthiness. This is true, and my argument is not that a tithe-paying, temple-going mormon who happens to fall short in other ways would still get into heaven.

My point is that it doesn't matter how righteous a mormon is, or how thoroughly they obey every other precept of the religion -- if they don't pay their tithing, they cannot go to the temple and are therefore not worthy to get to heaven.

You have to pay your tithing to go to the temple. If you don't, your righteousness in other areas is moot -- the money is required as part of the package deal to get into heaven. It's very handy for the LDS church. No wonder they had so much money to spend on prop 8.

Mormons must be temple worthy members to attain the highest degree of heaven, the Celestial Kingdom. In order to obtain a temple recommend, Mormons must go through a temple recommend interview with their bishop. In the 4 temple recommend interviews I went through (and passed), I was asked if I was a full tithepayer. The first time I approached the bishop about my temple recommend, he told me I needed to be a full tithepayer for one full year before I should even bother with the interview. My siblings (WA residents), parents (ID residents), grandparents (CA residents), and cousins (UT residents) have all confirmed that they are asked the same question in temple recommend interviews; it is considered normal.

If I cannot go to the highest degree of heaven unless I have a temple recommend, and I must be a full tithepayer in order to have a temple recommend, what does that mean? I must pay for my pass into heaven.

Mormonism. The religion that forces you to pay to get into heaven.

My husband's co-worker died because she didn't have health insurance. She didn't qualify for work-health insurance because she worked part time (4 hours a week) as an independent contractor. She was in her late 40's, slightly overweight, and died in her sleep. Why did she die in her sleep in her late 40's? Because she had high blood pressure. As a single, childless woman, her income (from 4 hours of work a week) was too high to qualify her for medicaid. But because she was independently contracted and her hours had been reduced, she didn't qualify nor could she afford health insurance. Without health insurance, she couldn't afford to see the doctor or acquire medication. Without treatment, she was unable to work more hours to afford health insurance to pay for treatment.

So she died, in her 40's, from an easily managed health issue that was simply not affordable for an average American in our modern health"care" system to take care of without health insurance.

You haven't seen the tolls from the east coast then have you? We are getting a bargain for tolled roads.

I feel bad for celebrities. Not sorry, not pity -- I mean, they could give up the fame and money for a life of mediocrity if they really can't handle the paparazzi/ fame, so in that sense it's a choice. But I still feel bad for them. I don't think it's a fair trade-off, to always have to be in the spotlight and be followed around all the time just because you like to act, perform comedy, or sing. And for someone like Lohan, who was started in this life when she was just a kid . . . what did anyone think all that attention and fame would do to a kid?

DiCaprio, Jolie, and Barrymore went off the rails for a bit, too. Not as noticeably, because the internet wasn't really around to amplify every bad decision, but they did. And they've recovered and become respected actors and philanthropists.

There's still hope for Lohan. She's young and making a lot of stupid decisions, but there's still hope for her to clean up her act and learn from her mistakes. I wish we could all just collectively and politely turn our backs and ignore her until she gets her act together. It seems so much kinder than pointing and laughing at her.

I was going to point out that the Nook doesn't have a backlit screen, either, and then I realized you must have the Nook Color (I own the Nook Touchscreen; I prefer reading to playing games/ watching movies). I know the Nook is an Android system and can be rooted -- have you done that with the Nook Color, out of curiosity? I understand you can overclock it, flash a new rom, and essentially have a tablet. Although, with the most recent Nook product, I guess that's not really necessary.

I have a friend, by the way, who has rooted their Nook Touchscreen -- he wanted to read all his books, from all the libraries, on his Nook. So he rooted it and added the free android app for Kindle, just so he could read both Amazon and e-pub books on his Nook reader instead of switching between the two libraries. You might see if you can root or jailbreak your Kindle (I heard some kids managed to break their DRM a few years ago) and put the free Nook app on your Kindle to access your e-pub files on a backlit screen.

I do know enough about the Kindle to bash it, because I was gifted a Kindle. Amazon's policies, combined with an annoyance at their slow response to customer complaints/ requests, were what initially started me looking elsewhere. I researched the Sony e-reader and came to the reluctant conclusion there was nothing that could match the Kindle. Then the Nook came out, and I was able to play with it in-store. It was way more intuitive than my Kindle.

So I researched them, the pros and cons of both. Nook was the clear winner. What I find most interesting is that since the Nook has come out, Kindle has begun making massive changes -- changes they previously resisted making -- to their e-pub, e-book, and e-lending services. These changes were made in direct response to their biggest competition. And the Kindle's they've come out with since is in some way based on innovations Nook pioneered -- CNET rated the Nook the best e-reader of 2011, and the Nook Color sales were the highest of all the e-readers.

FYI, first-gen Nook had a 2-week battery life. I know because I went on a 2 week motorcycle trip, charged it the night before I left, put it on airplane mode, read it every night in my tent, and charged it two days after I returned home.

Second-gen Nook blows my first-gen out of the park for battery life. :-)

I know, for real. For all everyone's been dogging on Netflix, their streaming selection kicks Amazon's "Prime" out of the park -- and Netflix is less expensive.

I dunno what the big deal about Amazon is, personally. People overlook the scummy stuff (like remotely removing on-line content from people's devices; trying to prevent their early-days authors from publishing e-books elsewhere; cutting all CA affiliates in an attempt to not charge sales tax; etc. etc.) to tout how awesome they are. So last Christmas, we bought a Prime membership, figuring we'd be buying Christmas gifts online.

Turns out, Amazon's prices weren't that great. I guess if you live in the middle of no-where, with no Costco or Target nearby (although both Costco and Target have online presences, so . . . ?) then it's worth it. But mainly. every time I found a deal on Amazon (look! The roomba is less expensive on Amazon then it is at the roomba website!) I found a better deal elsewhere (holy crap, the roomba's 1/2 the price at Costco.com . . . what the fudge?). Then this Prime movie/ t.v. streaming came out, and I was thinking, "Finally, this'll be worth something."

Nope. We have Netflix streaming already, have for years -- Prime offers pretty much the same general content that Netflix does, except less of it. Netflix just has a larger selection.

The Nook offers the exact same thing -- online archives. That's par for the course with an e-reader.

I think of it more as an Apple vs. Android type of thing, personally. Kindle reminds me a lot of Apple with how much they try to control how their device is used; like they think they still own the individual Kindle even after it's sold.