Obamacare Repeal Bill Heads to President, Pittsburgh Decriminalizes Marijuana, Chicago Law Department Under Review: A.M. Links

• 

  White House/Instagram

  Will the president's proposed executive actions on guns pass constitutional muster? (And can you trust those tears he shed on TV yesterday?)

• Did North Korea really test a hydrogen bomb Tuesday? Nobody knows! 
• Pittsburgh Philadelphia has quietly decriminalized marijuana possession. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., has been going back and forth about private pot clubs.
• A juror from Making a Murderer subject Steven Avery's murder trial said she only voted to convict Avery out of fear for personal safety.
• President Obama plans to veto a bill that Congressional Republicans have spent more than five years trying to pass.
• A Wheaton College professor has been placed on administrative leave for saying Christians and Muslims worship the same god.
• It's not just Chicago police who are under review but the city's law department, too.

New at Reason: 

Brickbat: As Cold as Ice 
By Charles Oliver

In Gun Sales, Whose Hands Are 'Wrong'? Obama wants to make it easier for the government to take away people's Second Amendment rights.
By Jacob Sullum

2016: A Look Ahead at the Year in California Government: Forget Star Wars. New Year will see existential battle between innovation and regulation.
By Steven Greenhut

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Did North Korea really test a hydrogen bomb Tuesday? Nobody knows!

Oh, that's right. North Korea still exists. We forgot.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"Did North Korea really test a hydrogen bomb Tuesday? Nobody knows!"

It seems like this is the kind of thing it shouldn't be possible to hide. Didn't we confirm their earlier tests with seismographic data? So, if an h-bomb produces an even bigger explosion, shouldn't the seismographic data be even more obvious?

[UnCivilServant]

The seismic data shows about the same force as their previous tests. so what may have happened is they set off a device, but only the fission starter triggered, greating a big boom and letting the scientists claim it worked to their psychotic manchild president to avoid being executed.

[Tonio]

Thanks. That's reassuring.

[Ammy520]

My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do..

Clik This Link inYour Browser....

? ? ? ? http://www.WorkPost30.Com

[R C Dean]

I've read speculation that they spiked a regular nuke with tritium, which apparently can increase the yield, but isn't a true fusion bomb.

Eh, they're Norks. Assume they are lying until independent collaborating evidence is presented.

[gaoxiaen]

Fat Boy Kim approves. Nobody (that is not Nork) approves.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

"And can you trust those tears he shed on TV yesterday?"

At this point I think Obama is a hologram; an image. Nothing else.

[Pope Jimbo]

Ed Muskie must really be crying now because a few tears sunk his campaign.

[Lee G]

Shorter NK: LOOK AT ME!!!!!

[grrizzly]

Look at me, look at me
Hands in the air like it's good to be
Alive and I'm a famous rapper
Even when the paths are all crookedy

[Rhywun]

Next thing you know, NK will get a cool tribal tatt.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hello.

I forgot.

Like you care.

[Old Man With Candy]

I was just testing some f-bombs. They worked!

[Princess Trigger]

Sugar Bombs!
http://images.akamai.steamuser.....7ECFE1A33/

[widget]

There is a greater than zero probability that a man-made nuclear explosion will take place in a city in this century. Oh, and good morning.

[Free Society]

Oh, that's right. North Korea still exists. We forgot.

Now headed by Supreme Leader Kim Dot Com.

[The Last American Hero]

We've got countless billions to throw at the NSA so they can listen to phone calls and scan our email, but somehow don't have the resources to know whether or not the Norks are testing nukes? You know, the country that has nukes and has repeatedly stated they are trying to develop a delivery system that can reach the US?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Don't forget, they're also in the business of selling delivery devices to other shitty regimes.

[SFC B]

Iran is preparing to have access to $150,000,000,000.00 they did not have before thanks to lifting of sanctions. And they're like an 8 hour flight from NK. So, at any moment, Iran is 8 hours away from developing a nuclear weapon.

Sleep well!

[Just a thought not a sermon]

132) The Washington Post editorial page was disgusting yesterday, with the writers stumbling over each other to denounce the racist, law-breaking occupiers in Oregon. Dana Milbank in particular wetted his collar with slobber from slurping on the authoritarian dick, and Eugene Robinson complained that because black protestors are sometimes dealt with violently, whites protestors should also be violently suppressed.

You know what? Skepticism and open resistance to government authority is fully American. I think the Oregon resisters and the Chicago protesters against law enforcement brutality are equally valid, and both as American as the Whiskey Rebellion or the Boston Tea Party. I'm glad to live in a country where some people don't just quietly eat whatever shit gruel the government serves to them, but throw the plate back in the server's face.

[DJF]

Watch it buddy, next thing you will say is that "all lives matter".

[sarcasmic]

Skepticism and open resistance to government authority is fully American.

It used to be, but sadly no longer.

[MetalBard]

Don't worry a Republican will be president again soon and dissent will go back to being the "highest form of patriotism" or whatever.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

In some ways, I prefer when there's a Republican in the White House. During those years, the Democrats at least pretend to care about civil liberties.

[CatoTheChipper]

I prefer Republicans. During those years, the Republicans are at least somewhat circumspect when it comes to new wars (e.g., Haiti, the Balkans, Libya, Syria, etc. It actually worked with Syria.)

[gaoxiaen]

+1 Mentally fucked-up statist.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

But the Federal government is protecting the sanctity of lands that belong to the people! The occupiers are traitors!

[gaoxiaen]

#humanlivesmatter

[straffinrun]

Blacklivesmatter shows up in Oregon to support victims of abusive government. Just wanted to see how naive I could be.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Meh. Armed take-overs of federal property don't strike me as an effective form of protest, no matter how legitimate the initial grievance was. I agree that the left-wing editorialists are sickening in the way they fall over themselves to bravely denounce the bad tactics every conservative protest while ignoring the hostilities of Occupy, BLM, et. al.

[Tonio]

^This. And one of the reasons they're ineffective is they throw red meat to the left wing editorialists while accomplishing nothing.

[Not okay]

The "armed" part of this seems to play into leftist assumptions that guns= violence. It doesn't matter that they are armed.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

If someone were trespassing on my property, it would make a big difference to me whether they were armed or not.

[SilentCal]

Even if you were hundreds of miles away, and outgunned them to such an extent that removing them could amount to pushing a button from the safety of an office for you?

[EMD]

"trespassing on my property"

I'm not quite sure about how the trespassing and property stuff work with "public" lands.

[Pope Jimbo]

I think the dudes in Oregon should have protested against the Bureau of Land Management specifically just to fuck with Black Lives Matter over who was the real BLM protesters.

[R C Dean]

The smart move at this point is to pack up and go home. They've made their point, gotten as much (good) publicity as they are going to get.

[Dakotian]

I disagree. The left would demonize any protest from Conservatives or Libertarians. It is much easier for normal, non-progressive, people to sympathize with a protest like this. It doesn't disrupt their lives like the Minneapolis BLM's protest. And as much as the media tries to make a big deal of them being armed, they are in such a remote location that they are not really scaring anyone by caring there death dealers. They are getting publicity for their cause without pissing people off.
In the end a may not be super effective, but neither was the Occupy movement or the BLM protest.

[Atanarjuat]

Eugene Robinson complained that because black protestors are sometimes dealt with violently, whites protestors should also be violently suppressed.

DL Hughely said on his radio show yesterday "they should treat them as harshly as a black child with a watergun". Um, everyone except the Tulpas and dunphys of the world condemned the shooting of that kid. Now he wants that same jackboot stomping on white people as official policy.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

This. The left doesn't want justice, they want revenge. It's fine if the government is oppressive to blacks so long as it is at least as oppressive to whites, as well.

[Tonio]

^Nailed. It.

[Akira]

It's a manifestation of their fixation on equality sameness. Just like with incomes: they don't care if every person is living in a plywood shack and eating gruel, as long as nobody is getting "excessively" rich. They'd rather smack down (politically disfavored) billionaires and decrease the nation's total store of wealth than accept the fact that when a society is both free and wealthy, you are not going to have absolutely uniform wealth distribution.

[Freedom Frog]

Why are you listening to DL Hughely?

[Atanarjuat]

He's legitimately funny when not talking about politics. The left-wing whining causes me to change the station fairly often. But sometimes it's good to hear an opposing point of view, even if it's a childish and ignorant one.

Also I tune in simply because it's on the radio at the time I go pick up my son.

[Zeb]

Yeah, how about not treating anyone that way unless absolutely necessary? Wouldn't that be a novel idea?

It's a lot like the "white privilege" thing. White people don't have privilege. It's just that certain other groups have historically gotten dicked over in various ways. The solution is to treat everyone as an individual, not to knock whitey down a peg.

[Tonio]

It's just that certain other groups have historically gotten dicked over in various ways.

You just restated the central thesis of white privilege. But, as DoM5k wrote above, this is not and will never be about treating anyone better; it is always and forever about treating someone worse.

[Zeb]

Yes, that was pretty much the intent. I don't think that the phenomenon that people call "white privilege" is entirely nonexistent. Just badly mischaracterized.

[Citizen X]

You know who else badly mischaracterized certain sociological phenomena?

[Anomalous]

Pretty much every sociologist?

[EMD]

Peter Griffin?

(Just taking a stab here)

[R C Dean]

Except that white privilege isn't a claim that other groups have historically gotten dicked over. Its a claim that everybody who isn't white is getting dicked over 24/7/365, right now.

[Zeb]

Maybe I'm putting too much into the etymology of the word "privilege", but to me that word says more that some people are getting special treatment and advantages more than that some people are getting screwed (or schlonged as the case may be).
I think that the disctinction is important because if white people do have special privilege, that would be a problem. But if white people are just getting a bit more respect for their natural rights than some other groups, it's a very different problem.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Exactly. Having your rights and integrity respected isn't "privilege," and the solution is to treat everyone that way.

Of course, the left would be content with white just getting more abuse. Because SOSHUL JUSTIZ or something.

[Restoras]

*knock knock*

This is the DHS and SS - we'd like to talk to you.

[Mazakon]

I've seen a different spin from some leftie comments about this. They were basically saying those guys are terrorists since they were occupying a government building and "government is us" (Actual words used).

[Zeb]

Because left wing protesters have never occupied any public space or government owned buildings.

[sarcasmic]

When left wingers do it it's because they want fairness and equality, as in free shit taken by force from the filthy rich. That makes them noble and wonderful.

These right wingers just want to be left alone. Can you believe that? They don't want to ask permission and obey orders. They just want to be left alone. That makes them dangerous monsters.

[Tonio]

^This. See, leftists are virtuous and selfless; right-wingers are guilty of the original sin of the religion of statism - selfishness.

[Hamster of Doom]

I don't notice any of the names complaining about lefties not supporting their protestors chiming in for the cause of fairness and the right to protest the other day.

But sure. It's just the lefties, guys. Juuuust the lefties.

[MetalBard]

There should be a drinking game. Drink every time someone mentions drone striking the protesters.

[Akira]

"There should be a drinking game. Drink every time someone mentions drone striking the protesters."

That's just downright irresponsible. You scroll past one page of NPR comments and you'd be dead of alcohol poisoning.

[perlchpr]

It's gonna have to be something damned cheap, too.

[Mike Laursen]

That was a bit sermon-y.

[Mike Laursen]

But thoughtful.

[Fist of Etiquette]

And can you trust those tears he shed on TV yesterday?

If Hillary and Boehner had a child, he would cry like this.

[Swiss Servator]

*struggles to hold breakfast down*

[Just a thought not a sermon]

If Hillary and Boehner's kid was crying, I'd give him something to cry about.

[Dark Lord of the cis]

I think being the child of Hillary and Boehner would be enough to cry about by itself.

[Akira]

Being closely related to either one of them alone would be enough to send me into fits of hysteric sobbing.

[Citizen X]

Pretty sure any fetus created by those two would spontaneously abort while still in the blastocyst stage.

[Lord Humungus]

New fragrance inspired by Putin goes on sale in Russia

A perfume, whose creator says was inspired by Russian President Vladimir Putin, has gone on sale in Moscow.

The "Leaders Number One" scent, created by Belarussian-born perfumer Vladislav Rekunov, is sold in a black bottle featuring Putin's profile at Moscow's luxury GUM department store as well as online for 6,500 rubles, or $95.

[Citizen X]

Be warned - the scent of Putin is known to cause tigers, bears, and women to go immediately into heat.

[Lee G]

bears, and women

Roughly equivalent in Russia

[kinnath]

There are plenty of gorgeous women in Moscow.

[Illocust]

And they are willing to wear bikinis in below freezing weather. Seriously those chicks are insane.

[Crusty Juggler]

Eh, I've done that; it's not so bad.

[Citizen X]

Russian women do tend to skew the calculus of the Hot/Crazy matrix, it is known.

[Lee G]

The Russian aging process

[Citizen X]

+3 rusalki

[Free Society]

bears, and women

Roughly equivalent in Russia

Hold the phone. Eastern Europe and Russia in particular have the hottest women in the world. And whatever your tastes may be, they certainly have the highest per capita ratio of hot women versus uglies.

[Mongo]

During the Cold War, I fell for the CIA's propaganda that Eastern Euro-chycks and Communistas were fat and ugly.

[Rhywun]

For those who care, the men rate rate rather highly in my book too.

[BearOdinson]

I find this statement vaguely offensive to all of us Ursine-Americans! (And I am saying this a (mostly) heterosexual male).

[grrizzly]

I was microaggressed by that irresponsible statement too.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I don't think I would to attend this orgy, but I'd be interested in viewing the video.

[Citizen X]

It ends with Putin pleasuring dozens of women atop a pile of bear and tiger pelts, naturally.

[straffinrun]

I'm holding out for his number 2 scent.

[Aloysious]

What you did there. Seen it was.

[Atanarjuat]

Ew.

[straffinrun]

I'm thinking a Putin growler smells of ...
Why even try with sugar free around?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Crying on TV and new fragrances for Presidents...I don't know what to believe anymore!

The image fabricating industry must be flying these days.

[MetalBard]

So it smells like what? Vodka and pickled herring?

[R C Dean]

Napalm in the morning.

[Rhywun]

I have to think that Putin did more than "inspire" this. More likely he commanded it to happen.

[Fist of Etiquette]

It's not just Chicago police who are under review but the city's law department, too.

So it's two places that will see no real consequences.

[Hamster of Doom]

Questions will be softballed. Answers may occur. Memos will be written.

Shit is getting real, yo.

[Lord Humungus]

Donald Trump's Strongest Supporters: A Certain Kind of Democrat

He is strongest among Republicans who are less affluent, less educated and less likely to turn out to vote. His very best voters are self-identified Republicans who nonetheless are registered as Democrats. It's a coalition that's concentrated in the South, Appalachia and the industrial North, according to data provided to The Upshot by Civis Analytics, a Democratic data firm.

Mr. Trump's huge advantage among these groups poses a challenge for his campaign, because it may not have the turnout operation necessary to mobilize irregular voters.

But it is just as big a challenge for the Republican Party, which has maintained its competitiveness in spite of losses among nonwhite and young voters by adding older and white voters, many from the South. These gains have helped the party retake the House, the Senate and many state governments. But these same voters may now be making it harder for the party to broaden its appeal to nonwhite and younger people ? perhaps even by helping to nominate Mr. Trump.

[Palin's Buttplug]

IOW - Bitter Clingers.

I prefer old blue-blood Republicans to the fundie-nut types.

[R C Dean]

And I bet you prefer old union-loyalist Dems to the crossover conservative types, as well.

[Restoras]

Apparently, it isn't just Cologne that is experiencing an increase in rape and robbery following the entrance of people from other places.

[DJF]

Isn't diversity when it comes to beliefs about rape and robbery wonderful!

[Tonio]

[golf clap]

[Libertarian]

Is the cologne causing rape and robbery called, "Leader's Number One?"

[Swiss Servator]

*narrows gaze*

[R C Dean]

Tahrir Square? Lara Logan?

Or are those down the memory hole now?

[Fist of Etiquette]

A juror from Making a Murderer subject Steven Avery's murder trial said she only voted to convict Avery out of fear for personal safety.

Or is that the reason she's saying that now?

[Lord Humungus]

Austria: Dismembered woman's head found in concrete block

A man strangled and dismembered his wife, entombed her head in concrete and then used the concrete block as a weight to drown himself in an Austrian lake, authorities said Tuesday.

Police official Gottfried Mitterlehner said the couple were a 72-year old man and his 71-year old wife from Germany but did not further identify them.

Officials told reporters the head was found in a block of concrete in a bag attached to the man's hand. The other hand also was weighed down.

The corpse and the bag were recovered by police divers from the waters of Traunsee Monday. A day earlier, two suitcases containing the woman's remains were found floating close to the lake's shore near the town of Gmunden, around 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Salzburg.

who could ever imagine an Austrian doing something so horrible...

[Swiss Servator]

No, no! You are supposed to say "You know what other Austrian..."

[straffinrun]

A woman takes down another great man.

[WTF]

You know what other Austrian....oh, hell, I just can't.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

This seems like a lot of unnecessary effort for a murder suicide.

[Tonio]

You know what other Austrian went to a lot of trouble to set the scene for a murder-suicide.

That, people, is how we do this.

[invisible furry hand]

Thank you for maintaining standards around here

[Rich]

Oscar Pistorius?

Wait. What was the question?

[Tonio]

Not Austrian.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Today's winner of the internet.

You people can just go home now.

[Mike Laursen]

I gotta give him points for creativity.

[Fist of Etiquette]

A Wheaton College professor has been placed on administrative leave for saying Christians and Muslims worship the same god.

Monotheism is heresy.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I know it's trendy to say Christianity and Islam are just different ways of worshiping the same God, a la Buttplug below, but they really don't seem much alike. They demand different ways of worship, promise different rewards for faith, require different lifestyles and societies. If you didn't know they had related historical roots, you probably wouldn't thank Allah and Yahweh seemed similar.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Well, if there is only one god, don't both religions by default worship that god? Judaism is just another slight variation on the One God idea. Same god again.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Yeh but the Jews started it.

[Citizen X]

You know who else blamed the Jews?

[Restoras]

Everyone?

[Old Man With Candy]

Well, if there is only one god, don't both religions by default worship that god?

Ummmm.... no.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Do Catholics and Protestants worship the same god?

[Old Man With Candy]

Do Catholics and Protestants worship the same god?

Ask a Catholic or Protestant. I'm a Jew and we don't do that 3 in 1 shit.

[SugarFree]

You worship the Demiurge, the idiot creator!

/angry gnostic

[Old Man With Candy]

I worship the Goddess Yoni.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Ask Celtic and Rangers fans.

[Swiss Servator]

+1 Whisky bottle smashed over the head

(one morning while in Iraq, with the 1st Scots - Royal Scot Borderers, an NCO of theirs was reading something and chuckling. I ask him what was up and replied "Coach o' Celtic died last night" and resumed guffawing. Brrrrrr....)

[Tonio]

Um, yes. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are jointly known as the Abrahamic faiths because they all hold that Abraham was the first prophet and all worship the same god. It's actually a doctrinal thingy in all three faiths(*). Having said that, you are right that you wouldn't know from practice that it's the same god, but that also applies to comparisons of judaism and christianity.

(*)Among mainstream theologians. Certain cranky sects may choose to retcon things otherwise, but from a theology/history pov they are outliers.

[R C Dean]

Well, if there is only one god, don't both religions by default worship that god?

No, not necessarily. I can believe in Jahweh as the one true god, and you can believe in Ba'al as the one true god.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are jointly known as the Abrahamic faiths because they all hold that Abraham was the first prophet and all worship the same god.

I don't think they do, any more at least. Jews don't buy into the Trinity, which is a statement about the true nature of God. If you disagree about the true nature of God, I don't you're worshipping the same God.

Not sure if Muslims do or not, but man, talk about arguing about angels on the head of a pin. Who gives a crap about metaphysics, anyway, when we have actual, real-world, meatspace differences that are profound.

[Zeb]

Then there is always the possibility that religions don't make sense and aren't internally consistent. That's what I'm voting for.

This is like asking which superhero would win in a fight.

[Irish ?s ESB]

"Well, if there is only one god, don't both religions by default worship that god?"

No. Because both religions would argue the other one is worshiping falsely and therefore aren't really worshiping God. The only way you can claim they worship the same God is if you have proof this God exists and that he accepts both modes of worship as legitimate.

[Zeb]

The gods of the Abrahamic faiths all have the same mythological origins and are the same in that sense. I think that's all you can really say objectively. No one says religions are supposed to make sense.

[Free Society]

Well, if there is only one god, don't both religions by default worship that god?

If that were the case, then the ancient Egyptian deity Aten is the same as the Christian god too.

[Zeb]

Sure, why not?

[Free Society]

Because religions that say "our god is the only god" are mutually exclusive by definition.

[Zeb]

I wouldn't say "by defnintion". I'm pretty sure that there are people who believe that all the various gods are manifestations of the same thing.

When it comes to the Abrahamic religions, I don't see how you can say that they aren't the same god for all three. It was certainly the same god in the early foundational stories from each religion with Abraham and everything. So unless one of the religions has changed which god they worship at some point along the line, it's still the same god understood differently.

[Free Society]

I wouldn't say "by defnintion". I'm pretty sure that there are people who believe that all the various gods are manifestations of the same thing.

I'm pretty sure there are some people who insist that there exists such a thing as a square circle, but nonetheless the fact remains that those are categorically different shapes and so that claim is false by definition.

When it comes to the Abrahamic religions, I don't see how you can say that they aren't the same god for all three.

I'm fairly neutral on that issue. The hill I'm fighting on is the claim that all monotheistic deities are fundamentally the same as the Abrahamic god(s) because they make the same claim of sole godhead.

If I said, "there is no god but Cthulhu", it wouldn't exactly be appropriate to classify it as an Abrahamic religion.

[Zeb]

Well, I'm sticking with why I said about "by definition". But I'll agree that it is not a good assumption that all monotheistic religions have the same one god. I was mostly just being flippant about the Aten thing because as far as I'm concerned they are all just fictional characters. Jaweh, Jesus and Allah all share the same literary/traditional origins and that's all there really is to say from a non-believer perspective.

[Free Society]

Categorical claims are true or false by definition, that's just how they work... by definition 😉

I was mostly just being flippant about the Aten thing because as far as I'm concerned they are all just fictional characters.

I absolutely agree. This is just a discussion about mythology and categorical claims, in my opinion.

Jaweh, Jesus and Allah all share the same literary/traditional origins and that's all there really is to say from a non-believer perspective.

Yeah, that's why I'm fairly neutral on the topic. Even if one were to consider them different gods, at a minimum they sprang from the same ancient Semitic pantheon of gods worshiped by Bronze Age Jews and Semites in the area. Abraham's revelations are an innovation on that ancient belief system after all.

[perlchpr]

Jah, weh?

[perlchpr]

Hail Eris!

[invisible furry hand]

They are also different in their nature: most Christians consider their God to be a trinity (ie. one God in three persons).

[SugarFree]

Unitarians and others don't. No one questions if their "God" is the same entity as the triune God of other forms of Christianity. Some argue the nontrinitarians are not Christians, but what they believe is far more doctrinaire than Mormons or Seventh Day Adventists and both of those sects still worship "God."

[Citizen X]

+1 Arian Heresy

[invisible furry hand]

Which is why I said "most". But the point stands: the Trinity is a different conception of God. It's considered a blasphemy in the Quran.

[SugarFree]

I agree. I'm just pointing out that the many interpretations of the nature of God do not mean that they are not all referring to the same entity.

Warty might same that Steve Smith is a gorrilla. Episiarch might think Steve Smith is your mom. JW might think Steve Smith is a Super Mutant. I think Steve Smith is a shaved Sasquatch.

None of that means we aren't all still talking about Steve Smith.

[invisible furry hand]

Great, now i'm worried that you are all right about Steve Smith

[Rich]

STEVE SMITH GOD ON HIKER TRAIL!

[Cdr Lytton]

STEVE SMITH RAPE BELIEVERS FIVE-WAY!

[Zeb]

I don't think "trendy" is the right word to use. I'm pretty sure that it has been the mainstream view for a very long time that the Abrahamic religions do worship the same God but disagree about his precise nature. But they all agree that it is the god who talked to Abraham, so I don't see how you could say it isn't the same god.

And if you don't believe in gods, it really isn't a meaningful question. Is made up entity A the same as made up entity B? I don't think that's a real question.

[SugarFree]

Tiamat isn't real either, but you can argue about how many hit points she has based on which edition of the Monster Manual you follow.

[Zeb]

Well, I could if I had any idea what you are talking about.

[SugarFree]

I GAVE YOU A LINK! A LINK! ARGH!

[Citizen X]

I think he was just calling you a nerd, Sweet'n'Low.

[Zeb]

Yes, I did see the link URL enough to see that it was dungeons and dragons.

[Zeb]

And you could probably call me a nerd too, but I never really went for a lot of the traditional nerd activities.

[Burt Macklin (FBI)]

And you never see the Muslim god and Christian god in the same place at the same time...

[Mr Drew]

While I'm not hip enough to use tweener abbreviations, I wanted to say that this literally made me laugh out loud.

[WTF]

He's lucky he only got placed on leave for his heresy. Wait a minute, don't Muslims believe that the Christian Jehovah and Allah are the same entity? Whe exactly did he offend with this?

[WTF]

"Who"

[Just say Nikki]

Wheaton has avoided naming a specific theological problem with the professor's statements.

[Tonio]

^This. They don't like it, but they're smart enough (barely) to avoid saying why they don't like it.

[SugarFree]

Wheaton is saying that she violated their Statement of Faith, which is explicitly Trinitarian.

As a Christian liberal arts institution, Wheaton College embodies a distinctive Protestant evangelical identity, represented in our Statement of Faith, which guides the leadership, faculty and students of Wheaton at the core of our institution's identity. Upon entering into a contractual employment agreement, each of our faculty and staff members voluntarily commits to accept and model the Statement of Faith with integrity, compassion and theological clarity.

[Just say Nikki]

All that means is "Muslims are worshiping God wrong." Which we already know Christians would think. I don't think Trinitarianism is a problem at all, but if that is there problem, they should explain that.

[SugarFree]

theological clarity

They have explained that, just in flowery language.

[Just say Nikki]

They haven't even said that this was the claim that was a problem. It could have been some other part of her statement of solidarity.

[Tonio]

Yeah, the trinitarian thing is a pretty lame dodge.

[Free Society]

Wait a minute, don't Muslims believe that the Christian Jehovah and Allah are the same entity?

If you follow the trail back through time you'd see that Jehovah and Allah are both amalgamations of the same pantheon of gods from Bronze Age Judaism.

[BearOdinson]

THIS, THIS, a thousand times THIS!!

[Palin's Buttplug]

A Wheaton College professor has been placed on administrative leave for saying Christians and Muslims worship the same god.

I thought this was common knowledge. The god of Abraham, the father of all religions, etc, blah blah.

[Restoras]

Will the president's proposed executive actions on guns pass constitutional muster?

Why the fuck is 'shall not be infringed' so hard to understand?

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

The "not" part, I think.

[straffinrun]

Succinct and depressingly accurate.

[Tonio]

Melissa clause. Duh. /prog

[Free Society]

The 2nd Amendment: Liberal Edition

[invisible furry hand]

Australia's Libertarian Senator answers a question on Twitter:

@labourareliars: "if someone called you a 'baldy lunatic fuckwit', you'd be fine with it?"

His response: "I'd call you a cunt. And probably a rude name after that"

[Idle Hands]

I think you should set him up with nikki:

? In November, the NSW senator said that police had earned the saying "all cops are bastards".
? That same month, he called children "bundles of dribble and sputum" and praised people for not having them.
? In July, he labelled another Twitter user a "legitimate f---wit" when they raised his anti-wind farm views.
? In June 2014, he said he thought John Howard "deserved to be shot" when the former prime minister cracked down on firearms following the Port Arthur massacre.
? And following the 2014 Martin Place siege, he said tough gun laws had made Australia a "nation of victims".

why can't we have politicians like that here?

[Zeb]

That's why we need mandatory voting.

[straffinrun]

You spelled "ban" wrong.

[Zeb]

Didn't Australia elect a Libertarian (not sure if it's this same guy or not) pretty much because he was at the top of the list of candidates and lots of people were forced to vote but didn't care.

[straffinrun]

I'm typing on an IPhone over a beer and cigarettes in a shithole bar. Give a dude a link.

[Zeb]

Give me a bar where I can smoke.

[invisible furry hand]

Yep, that's the same guy. Also helped that his party is called the Liberal Democratic Party, and allegedly some people confused that with the mainstream Liberal Party (which is an uneasy mix of conservative and classical liberalism)

He's an interesting guy. My favourite policy of his is where he suggested that, instead of combatting people smuggling, we just cut out the middleman and sell entry to Australia

[straffinrun]

Thanks, IFH. A veterinarian with the name "Lion Helm". Awesome.

[Rhywun]

I can't picture this guy making it anywhere near Congress.

[CatoTheChipper]

If we ever were to get mandatory voting, I'd change my name to "None Of These", and run for office.

[SugarFree]

We do. He's name is Donald Trump. What, you can't handle what The Donald is putting down?

[Idle Hands]

can anybody handle that yuge of a message?

[Libertarian]

why can't we have politicians like that here?

He makes Trump look like Harvey Milquetoast.

[Libertarian]

Is it too late to change the Free State project from NH to Australia?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

What an idiotic question. I've been called worse (especially when I played soccer and hockey) and generally ignore or scoff it off. Someone really needs to write 'sticks and stones' 100x on the chalk board.

Jesus Christ.

[Tonio]

I like that guy. He seems to have picked up on why people like Trump - they're tired of the nuanced, transparent bullshit spouted by most politicians.

[Lord Humungus]

The subversive feminism of two Obama staffers' Secret Service codenames

Secret Service code names tend toward the masculine, if for no other reason than the majority of people who need them are of the dude persuasion. President Obama is "Renegade." President George W. Bush is "Trailblazer." Even many women's names, though typically far less aggressive, skew androgynous. For example, Michelle Obama is "Renaissance," while Laura Bush is "Tempo."

So the decision by two top Obama staffers to go by names that sound more like twee kittens than the latest SUV models was a departure from the norm. Nancy-Ann DeParle and Alyssa Mastromonaco, who served together as deputy chiefs of staff from 2011-2013, intentionally went for the ultra-feminine when selecting their monikers: Peaches and Popsicle, respectively.

...

Another subtle strike for feminism from the West Wing? Both women kept figurines on their desks of Smurfette, the sole female character on the popular cartoon show who has become a symbol of gender inequality.

[Citizen X]

Popsicle, the most phallic of desserts? What's so feminine about that?

[Idle Hands]

It is cold and too much exposure can result in a headache?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

"Smurfette...who has become a symbol of gender inequality"

Wut

[SugarFree]

Everyone knows that true femininity only comes from a mad alchemist creating it in a lab as a sinister plot.

[The Last American Hero]

I thought Smurfette was the ultimate Matriarch.

[Citizen X]

"Cucksmurfative"

[Crusty Juggler]

I am impressed.

[DrZaius]

The Smurfs were communists. The builder (hammer) and farmer (sickle) were an inspiration to all. Papa Smurf looked like Karl Marx, Brainy like Trotsky and was constantly exiled from the community. Gargamel was en evil Jew who wanted to the Smurfs into gold, and his cat was the American politicians that were controlled by the Joos. Smurfette was the communal wife or something.

[Crusty Juggler]

Their real codenames were "Shoes" and "Ponies."

[Rhywun]

President Obama is "Renegade."

lolwut

[EMD]

" of the dude persuasion"

These words. In the Washington Post. Have some dignity, writers.

[invisible furry hand]

Urgh

A Syrian refugee reportedly allowed smugglers to rape his wife as payment for his family being trafficked to Europe.

[Atanarjuat]

Is that one of those cuckservatives I keep hearing about?

[WTF]

Those are the kind of people we need to bring here, to make America great again!

[straffinrun]

How's it rape if he consented?

[Libertarian]

You know you're gonna burn in hell, right?

[straffinrun]

But will it have a "safe space"?

[Tonio]

Well, there is a biblical (OT) precedent...

[Free Society]

Go on...

[ant1sthenes]

Hey, he didn't say she was his sister.

[Lord Humungus]

College To Fire Prof For Religious Views

Wheaton College in the western suburbs of Chicago began the process of firing Larycia Hawkins on Tuesday for her claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. In December, the political science professor wore a hijab to show solidarity with her Muslim neighbors leading to recommendations that she resign. "I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book," she posted on Facebook at the time. "And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God." This week, Provost Stanton Jones informed her that her termination from the school had begun.

[Illocust]

Since when is it in dispute that the Abrahamic religions all worship the same God? We disagree on which texts should be included and methods of worship, but it's the same big guy.

[Overt]

I dunno. It isn't crazy to look at texts describing God as a "Turn the other Cheek" hippy and another claiming he exhorts people to murder and win the 72 virgin lottery and say "These are describing two different gods. Is your father my dad just because I claim it? Just because I happened to get some functionary to put it on a birth certificate?

[Lee G]

There's an argument that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are not the same. Not necessarily saying I buy into it, but it exists.

And the Gnostics are another branch altogether. Probably the most heretical of the bunch.

The Abrahamic religions are far more varied than most believe. Certainly more varied than your average Joel Osteen adherent would acknowledge.

[Citizen X]

Gnosticism actually predates Christianity, though it did heavily inform a lot of the early-to-medieval Christian "heresies." Religious history from the Axial Age on is pretty fascinating.

[Lee G]

I think they should bring back the Antinomians. Put the fun back into evangelism.

[Citizen X]

I'm partial to Manichaeism, myself.

[Homple]

"Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin"

[Mazakon]

Here's a Federalist article which at least gives some validity to the reasoning. It says about how Christians believe in the Trinity where Jesus was the Son of God whereas to Muslims he was simply a man.

[Citizen X]

Muslims do believe in the virgin birth, though. They also believe that Isa bin Maryam was taken directly to heaven right before the crucifixion, because God would never allow His second-best prophet to be killed like that.

[BearOdinson]

These fucking monotheists and their "our way or you will burn in hell". As if Hel is hot (hint: Hel is considered by many to be in Niflheim, the realm of cold).

At least my Jewish friends (and family!) don't believe that non-Jews have to follow Halacha (Jewish law), although the whole "idol" thing is a bit of problem for me.

[Tonio]

IIRC the more traditional jews don't believe in an afterlife for mortals.

[ant1sthenes]

Parts of the NT suggest a similar view: the dead are physically resurrected on judgment day, but until then, they're just dead. Only Jesus actually went straight to heaven.

[CatoTheChipper]

Since when was it in dispute that the Abrahamic religions all worship the same God?

Since about 632 CE.

In Sura 5:73, Mohammad (PBUH, etc.) writes of the Christians:

They have certainly disbelieved who say, " Allah is the third of three." And there is no god except one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment.

Since Nicaea, every major Christian denomination has professed a triune godhead, an incomprehensible neo-Platonic doctrine whereby the one true god exists in three distinct, eternal, and coexistent persons. Mohammad rejects that triune god, and favors the original Jewish monotheistic concept of God. The Prophet is quite explicit about this: he says that the Christians "certainly disbelieve" because of their Trinitarian doctrine. If one disbelieves in Allah, one does not believe in Allah, and in no way can that person be considered to "worship the same God" as the Muslims.

Still, both Christian and Muslim Arabs refer to their god by the name of Allah.

[UnCivilServant]

A religious instution is firing a faculty member who made public statements counter to the doctrine or their denomination. I believe her contract included statements about not going off-doctrine, at least in public and in official association with the institution.

Nothing much here.

[Just say Nikki]

And yet the institution curiously declines to state in what way exactly she was going against their doctrine or policies.

[Tonio]

Yeah, I'd really like someone to call them out on this. Paging Christianity Today and all the other trade publications...

[UnCivilServant]

Ask them yourself, after reading their statement on the matter http://www.wheaton.edu/Media-C.....Dr-Hawkins

[Just say Nikki]

I read it weeks ago when this was first in the news and without clarification it does not bear on this woman's case.

[Tonio]

Like Nikki, I also read that statement and also failed to find in it anything responsive to the question at hand. Don't assume things, UCS.

[Mongo]

You gotta tow the lion when working at an evangelical college. I guess a previous employee was in trouble for getting too cozy with Catholics.

[straffinrun]

Don't we have a name for when commenters do this?

[Lord Humungus]

Hitler?

[straffinrun]

Is there any question to which Hitler is the answer?

[Lord Humungus]

Plenty.

[Hamster of Doom]

Hitler?

[straffinrun]

Plenty Hitler. If I have another kid no name shopping for me.

[BearOdinson]

Its Hitlers all the way down

[The Last American Hero]

The phrase People of the Book is used in the FUCKING KORAN to describe Jews and Christians. Of course the Koran also says that Muslims should be nice to the people of the book - essentially that while they have not yet accepted all the tenants of Islam, they are cousins in faith worshiping the same God.

[Citizen X]

As Dar al-Islam expanded, Zoroastrians and Hindus also became unofficial "people of the book" for pragmatic reasons.

[R C Dean]

the Koran also says that Muslims should be nice to the people of the book

Where values of "nice" include extorting money from them and treating them as second-class people, instead of cutting their heads off.

[ant1sthenes]

In peace. In war, however, looting and raping are doing God's work.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Does this put the debate of whether to fire Melissa Click in more focus?

[Crusty Juggler]

She should serve her sentence in my bedroom, if you know what I mean.*

*I mean that I would like to be with her. Sexually.

[Tonio]

You like screechy harridans? She looks decent (in the sense of normatively dumpy middle aged lefty academic), in her faculty bio page picture, but after having seen the ugly come through in that "I need some muscle over here" picture -- NFW, even if I were straight.

[Rhywun]

Thanks for placing the image of banging Carrot Top in my head.

[Free Society]

"the debate" is basically Robby and Hugh "LEAVE ROBBY ALONE" Akston versus everyone else, if the comments on that article are any indication.

[R C Dean]

Does this put the debate of whether to fire Melissa Click in more focus?

In one case, the faculty member is being fired for contradicting the university's orthodoxy, and in the other, the faculty member is not being fired because she adhered to the university's orthodoxy?

[EMD]

What does this have to do with her job?

[SugarFree]

(And can you trust those tears he shed on TV yesterday?)

I know our Dear Lizzie is just kidding, but really GOP, don't make this a thing. Talented liars can cry on command without resorting to wiping Ben-Gay in their eyes.

[R C Dean]

I think its revealing that, when he's talking about actual bodies are fresh in the morgue, he doesn't muster a single tear, but when he's talking about how he can't do everything he wants by decree, he bursts into tears.

[WTF]

Will the president's proposed executive actions on guns pass constitutional muster?

No, but since when does that matter?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Philadelphia has quietly decriminalized marijuana possession.

So quietly I'll be the cops don't even know.

[Citizen X]

Won't they be surprised!

[Lord Humungus]

Fresh abuse allegations against UN peacekeepers in CAR

The United Nations has launched a fact-finding mission into new allegations that its peacekeepers sexually abused four underage girls in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR).

The UN mission in CAR, known as MINUSCA, said in a statement on Tuesday that it was "investigating fresh allegations concerning both sexual exploitation and abuse and other misconduct by UN Peacekeepers and international forces in Bangui".

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said that the four victims had been provided with medical and psychosocial care, but did not specify when the alleged abuse took place or how many peacekeepers were involved in the case.

[sarcasmic]

Daisy Ridley looks out of this world as she wears sheer-paneled swimsuit during Miami beach getaway

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....taway.html

Star Wars actress "looks out of this world," get it? Ha ha. Um, yawn. Not bad though. I wouldn't kick her out of bed.

[SugarFree]

I especially like the goatse shot.

[Fist of Etiquette]

That's no moon.

[Atanarjuat]

The photographer probably stepped past dozens of better looking chicks to snap those pics.

[Freedom Frog]

She looks like a regular chick at the beach. God damn do I hate star fucking publications.

[Libertarian]

It's so hard for a 23 year old to look good in a swimsuit, isn't it?

[Lord Humungus]

I see she's one of those 'constant swimsuit adjusters'

[EMD]

She could use a few more reys of sunshine.

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Obama plans to veto a bill that Congressional Republicans have spent more than five years trying to pass.

What was the last federal legislation to be repealed? (Or tax, depending how you look at it.)

[Lord Humungus]

Warty & Whey Protein don't mix:

Black hole caught 'burping' galactic gas supply

Black holes are well known for consuming gas and stars, but the two arcs of material glimpsed here are the equivalent of a burp after a big meal, the team said.

The black hole at the centre of NGC 5194 probably gorged on gas that was delivered by the small galaxy's interaction with its much bigger, spiralling neighbour. As that matter fell into the black hole, huge amounts of energy would have been released - causing the outbursts.

Eric Schlegel from the University of Texas at San Antonio, who led the study, explained that the crucial observation was the cooler hydrogen gas being propelled ahead of the hot, X-ray emitting waves.

[invisible furry hand]

Your creepy Australian wildlife story for the day: the spider wasp's breeding habits

[Citizen X]

Australia exists as a horrible warning to the rest of the galaxy not to fuck with Earth.

[Swiss Servator]

Australia.... Earth's Gladiatorial Combat Ring

[SugarFree]

Purely as an aside...

The Stingwings in Fallout 4 are mutated scorpionflies. When you loot the "stinger" off their corpse, you are actually ripping off their penis.

[Libertarian]

If you're expecting me to feel sorry for a spider, it ain't gonna happen.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Australia scare me.

Obama. Please ban Australia!

[Sonoran Desert Rat]

Meh. I get these in my front yard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=287mfv6lbDU

[sarcasmic]

Now that's a really heavy metal! Campaign is launched to get newly discovered element named after dead Mot?rhead rocker Lemmy

A petition is suggesting one of the newly discovered elements be named for Mot?rhead rocker Lemmy, who died of cancer on December 28
The Change.org petition has received more than 15,000 supporters
Some fans said the heavy metal namesake isn't what Lemmy would want
The four new elements were verified on December 30

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....d-him.html

A petition on Change.org is calling for one of four newly discovered super-heavy elements, chemical number 118 in the periodic table, to be named 'Lemmium'.

[Zeb]

Fuck yeah.

Though Lemmy never really liked the "Heavy Metal" label very much.

[sarcasmic]

I saw them do a show on cable, and he started it off by saying "We're Motorhead and we play rock and roll!"

[Mongo]

Outsiders call hair-poof bands like Poison and Motley Crue "heavy metal."

[Tonio]

Yeah, the sex, drugs and fast cars/bikes branch of the metal family tree pretty much ended with Motorhead. The sex, drugs and occult branch of the family, as typified by Black Sabbath, flourished.

[The Last American Hero]

Judas Priest might disagree.

[Rhywun]

Judas Priest is a branch all its own.

[Lord Humungus]

People Are Mad That This UK Fried Chicken Truck's Logo Looks a Like a Cock

What do you see when you look at the image above? Do you see a D and a B neatly placed together so as to form the initials of the Dirty Bird fried chicken brand? Or is it perhaps just a drawing of a rooster? Or, alternatively, do you see a pair of hairy testicles and a penis, which appears to be spraying orange sperm directly upwards in a thick, viscous stream? Yeah, you and a lot of other people.

Whatever your personal interpretation, the somewhat phallic design is causing a bit of a stir in the Welsh city of Cardiff, where it's displayed across the van of fried chicken street food vendors Dirty Bird.

"I was queuing up with my two young sons when I looked at the logo and realized what it represents," a customer named Abigail Griffiths told Wales Online. "It is not the sort of thing that should be on display around children."

[Idle Hands]

Well it is a cock.

[SugarFree]

If you don't want to put it in your mouth then don't put it in your mouth.

[sarcasmic]

A new lady for the new year? Comedian David Spade hits the beach in Hawaii with bikini-clad mystery blonde

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....londe.html

It's good to be rich.

[Libertarian]

These rare historical photos are pretty unnerving.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Apple cut its I-Phone sales forecast 30%.

"Peak Cell Phone" is now a theme.

[The Last American Hero]

Must be that juggernaut of an economy driving those sales through the roof.

[Lord Humungus]

German carpenter invents on-off contraception switch for sperm

The tiny valves are less than a inch long and weigh less than a tenth of an ounce. They are surgically implanted on the vas deferens, the ducts which carry sperm from the testicles, in a simple half-hour operation.

They are controlled with a simple on-off switch which the man can reach under the skin of his scrotum.

So far Mr Bimek himself is the only man who had them implanted. He underwent the operation under a local anaesthetic so he could help direct the surgeon.

Hartwig Bauer, the urologist who carried out the surgery, told Spiegel the valve was preferable to a vasectomy.

"A third of patients want to have the operation reversed later, but it doesn't always work," he said.

[Illocust]

Hope it works as expected. A easily reversible low risk contraception method for men that doesn't impair pleasure in sex will be a revolution. Our birth rates in the modern world are going to plummet again.

[invisible furry hand]

They are controlled with a simple on-off switch which the man can reach under the skin of his scrotum.

Sounds like it could easily be accidentally switched on (or deliberately by someone else)

[Citizen X]

Maybe if you have to key in a passcode or scan your retina or something first...

[R C Dean]

Most men aren't flexible enough to get their eyeball underneath their nutsack, X.

[Citizen X]

The switch will have to be wired into some kind of wall-mounted console. Duh.

[Libertarian]

"This dang thing don't work."

/Hank Hill

[EMD]

Avoid threesomes with people you can't trust?

[Tonio]

And had this happened in the US, the FDA (or whoever) would have come down hard on the surgeon for implanting unapproved medical devices in a human subject.

[Lord Humungus]

This may have already been posted:

'Python Challenge' Reinstated To Remove Invasive Snakes From Florida's Everglades National Park

Burmese pythons established themselves in Florida following the accidental or intentional release by pet owners, and have since dramatically impacted the park's ecosystem by preying on native wildlife and competing with native predators. While Burmese pythons prefer to live near streams in rainforests, they can survive in a variety of habitats. In the wild these snakes prey on mammals, birds, and reptiles of various sizes.

During the Python Challenge participant hunters compete to catch the most and the longest pythons. In addition to offering various prizes, the event aims to make people aware of non-native species and how to report them to local authorities. In the previous challenge, held in 2013, hunters captured 68 snakes.

[Swiss Servator]

This DOES NOT include the take from Mounty Python's python ranch.

[Juvenile Bluster]

I practically live in the Everglades. Still haven't seen a python (have seen alligators in the lake behind my house though).

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

About those croc tears.

Obama, from what we've learned, doesn't do anything unless it's carefully orchestrated. So what did he learn from his advisors (to the point he listens to them) or the polls that permitted him to conclude it was a good idea to go on TV and cry like a baby? To use tears as a tool to appeal to emotions. There has to be a reason other than trying to show his bull shit compassion.

[John]

Maybe he is taking his political cues from Boehner.

[Akira]

Gun control supporters tend to be much more emotional, so many of them were probably crying while watching that. When they saw Obama crying, it galvanized an already deeply emotional connection. As a result, it's going to be pretty much impossible for them to say anything about Obama other than jubilant, glowing praise.

They see him as their lord and savior.

[R C Dean]

I wonder if his Teleprompter had a cue for him to cry.

[John]

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/223250/

Steve Smith considers becoming an open borders Libertarian.

[Lord Humungus]

+1 More Hikers to prey on

[John]

So few political movements are reliably pro rape enough to meet his standards.

[Just say Nikki]

A Wheaton College professor has been placed on administrative leave for saying Christians and Muslims worship the same god.

I still have not seen Wheaton make any specific theological complaint about what the professor did. They have not actually said that saying Christians and Muslims worship the same god was the problem. I would love some clarity on this from Wheaton. Very weaselly.

[John]

If they did not say that, then they are morons who either don't understand or don't take their own theology seriously.

[Just say Nikki]

I have no idea why you think that. It's perfectly normal for Christian theology to hold that Muslims are (incorrectly) worshiping the same God they are.

[John]

I am sure some believe that. They are just wrong. The Christian bible makes it clear that Christ was the fulfillment of the convenient and the last messenger from God. There will be no more prophets or messiahs. Jesus was it. People who claim to be such afterwards, be it Muhammad or Joseph Smith are false prophets leading people away from God.

I don't say that as some endorsement of Christianity. It is just a fact. And Christians who claim "but other religions worship the same God", especially when talking about Mormonism and Islam, both of which claim to be later messengers from the same God as Christ, are just wrong and not taking their own professed beliefs seriously.

[Just say Nikki]

That Christian theology holds Mohammed is a false prophet has absolutely no bearing on whether Allah is the same as the Christian God. And you don't get to tell people whose beliefs you don't understand that they're not taking those beliefs seriously.

[John]

That Christian theology holds Mohammed is a false prophet has absolutely no bearing on whether Allah is the same as the Christian God.

Yes it does. The same God wouldn't send a false prophet. If you don't accept Christ as the messiah and Savior of man kind, you are not worshiping God. From a strict Christian perspective, Muhammad was an agent of Satan and anyone who follows him is destined to burn in hell unless they repent before they die.

[Just say Nikki]

The point isn't that Muslims are correctly worshiping; it is that they are incorrectly worshiping the same God. Do Jews and Christians not speak of the same God because Jews don't accept Christ?

[John]

The point isn't that Muslims are correctly worshiping; it is that they are incorrectly worshiping the same God.

I don't know what else to tell you. They are not worshiping the same God. They are worshiping, from the Christian perspective, a false made up God. Were the Hebrews worshiping the same "God" when they went for the Golden Calf? Do the Zoroastrians? No. You are either worshiping God or you are not. It not that they are doing it wrong or just attending the wrong Church.

[Zeb]

So which Christian denomination is the correct one, John? I'm pretty sure they don't all worship in exactly the same way, or even agree about the true nature of God. Do you tell Unitarians or other anti-trinitarians that they don't worship the same god as Catholics?

[Trshmnstr, terror of the trash]

1) different religion =/= heresy =/= schism. Most Protestant denominations disagree on soteriologically insignificant issues, some fall into heresy, and once you differ enough on who you think God is, you start worshipping a different God.

It's like if you were friends with Warty pre-doomcock. Are you really still friends with Warty after he got the doomcock? The Trinitarian Christian God is so different in form and in substance than Allah or Yahweh of the Jews that it is a huge stretch to call them the same God.

2) Unitarians worship government, so of course they don't worship God! (kidding... Kind of). Unitarians and other anti-trinitiarians have been heretics since the first council of nicaea... Are they Christians? I personally don't think so. Trinitarianism is a basic building block of Christianity. Without it, Jesus is just a lunatic with the power of persuasion.

[CatoTheChipper]

Mohammad agrees with proposition #1: he explicitly says that trinitarian Christians "certainly disbelieve".

In Sura 5:73, Mohammad (PBUH, etc.) writes of the Christians:

They have certainly disbelieved who say, " Allah is the third of three." And there is no god except one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment.

[Zeb]

The same God wouldn't send a false prophet.

No shit. That's why the "false" is in there. Real profits are sent by god.

[Libertarian]

From what little I've seen of the Old Testament, I am thankful that modern Christians don't take their own theology seriously.

[John]

The Old Testament is no longer the law. It is why Christians don't keep kosher. So talk to Jews about that.

[Tonio]

The OT doesn't count, unless we're talking about those icky gays. /fundie

[John]

Lots of things in the New Testament go against the gays. Neither book is down with sodomy.

[kbolino]

Romans 1:26-27

Basically, Paul said that part of the OT was correct. What he doesn't say, however, is that Christians are called to enact the punishment; only that God acted justly in punishing the Sodomites.

[kbolino]

You are encouraged to note the irony of me making this statement in conjunction with what I said below. My interpretation of Paul's words has as much bearing on Christians as Tonio's statement.

[Trshmnstr, terror of the trash]

I agree with your interpretation. This is actually one passage of scripture that pushed me towards libertarianism. I was sick of conservative "Christians" pretending that being gay was somehow worse than shacking up with their girlfriend or getting some on the side from the secretary at work.

[Swiss Servator]

I didn't know a private religious college owed you an explanation of their employment actions?!?!

[Just say Nikki]

ENB is claiming she knows why they did it. None of us knows.

[Just say Nikki]

And I don't think she violated their policy. She's tenured. It looks from my perspective like Wheaton is the side that is going to be in breach of contract.

[Swiss Servator]

Seems apparent to me, if you look here: http://www.wheaton.edu/About-W.....al-Purpose

[Just say Nikki]

Where, specifically, does anything there contradict anything the professor has said? That statement does not say Muslims worship a different God from Christians.

[UnCivilServant]

If you read the statement of faith http://www.wheaton.edu/About-W.....al-Purpose How do you reconsile it with what the professor claimed?

Their statement to the public was that her claims facially contradict the statement of faith professors are contractually bound to agree to in order to teach at the institution. And that she has not been able to give an explaination to reconsile her statements with that statement of faith.

[Just say Nikki]

How do I reconcile them? There is nothing to reconcile. She did not say anything that contradicted the statement of faith, and Wheaton has not specified what they think contradicts it.

[Tonio]

Sorry, Switzy, I'm with Nikki on this one. That statement does not specifically address the question. No, the college doesn't owe outsiders an explanation, but we are entitled to ask them for one and to mock them mercilessly when they don't.

[Swiss Servator]

And they can serenely ignore you , nikki and everyone else....as if those mocking have anything but disdain for an Evangelical Christian college in the first place.

[kbolino]

I find the discussions about other peoples' beliefs truly hilarious. As though they're going to give a rat's ass about what non-believers think, or that they should be held to some sort of arbitrarily and externally defined "consistency" about their beliefs.

Of course, this applies as much to the people who quote the Quran and say what Muslims really believe, or should believe, as to those who talk about Christians.

[kbolino]

Jeez, I said that before I read the rest of the thread. Arguments about what Christians really believe by non-Christians and arguments about what Muslims really believe by non-Muslims in the same thread. What a wonderful bout of intellectual circle jerking.

[Zeb]

This is true. I enjoy discussing theology and religion. But then I step back and realize that I've been arguing about the true nature of (according to my worldview) fictional characters.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Cologne New Year gang assaults: Mayor says women should have code of conduct to prevent future assault
...Mayor Henriette Reker attended an emergency meeting with Chief of Police Wolfgang Albers and Wolfgang Wurm to discuss how to deal with the attack, where dozens of women were repeatedly touched and groped, with one case of alleged rape in the center of town.

"It is important to prevent such incidents from ever happening again," said Mayor Reker, as reported in German by RP Online. "We have heard by now that they [the attacks] have occurred in other cities. This of course is not comforting to us." ...

...The attackers were described as North African and Arab appearance by the police. The Mayor has said that not all of the attackers were newly-arrived refugees and had already been known to the police, as reported by The Local....

[Lee G]

If the code of conduct includes lethal force then it might work.

[John]

Such are the wages of being on the Prog plantation. Slut walks were great until they were no longer useful to the cause. Now Muslims are what is useful and these sluts need to stop asking for it. Don't worry, I am sure the Progs won't turn on the gays and tell them to get back in the closet once Muslims become a powerful voting block.

[MetalBard]

Thats ok the gay activist groups know their place on the Prog plantation, just like the women who protested sexual harassment in the 90s but feel in lockstep to support Bill Clinton.

[John]

I have no doubt that the gay activists will happily sacrifice other gays at the alter of Progressivism.

[MetalBard]

They know who their real enemies are. It's those mean ol' Rush Limbaugh conservative types. The Muslim groups are just other victims of the evil white man.

[CatoTheChipper]

First they fantasize about a non-existent rape culture.

Then they allow immigration from a no-shit-for-real rape culture.

Progressivism is a mental disorder.

[Zeb]

A few carrying pistols in their purses would probably help.

[John]

I wouldn't hurt. Of course, that is not allowed in most of Europe. The European governments have not only disarmed their populations but are now inviting in gangs of animals to prey on them.

[Tonio]

But surely that's victim-blaming?

[R C Dean]

Intersectionality, my friend. Brown(ish) Muslim males rank higher on the victim stack than white women.

[ant1sthenes]

The progressive stack is actually a loop. Once you punch down hard enough and often enough, you break through the bottom and come out the top again.

[Lord Humungus]

During Their Interview, Chris Matthews Compares Hillary Clinton to Bobby Kennedy

"Totally different," Clinton said. "I had the hardest time when I started saying 'I' and 'me.' I'm happy to say my husband this, or candidate X or Y. But to stand up there and be the person out there, and it is a big challenge ? There's something a little bit daunting about holding yourself out, asking people to support you, to give you money, to vote for you. It's hard."

"You know who went through that?" Matthews asked. "Another New York senator, Bobby Kennedy. He was his brother's brother, and all of the sudden he had to be the guy, and he stuck his neck out."

Kennedy was the Attorney General when his brother, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963. He left the Lyndon Johnson administration the following year to run for the New York Senate seat and won. He went on to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, but he was murdered the same night he won the California primary.

[Raven Nation]

Interesting comparison: Bobby Kennedy assisted his brother in attempting to assassinate at least one foreign leader.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Interesting Comparison: Bobby K assisted the President in tag-teaming various women.

Man, these comparisons are getting spooky accurate!

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Two More Major German Cities Report New Year's Sexual Assaults By 'North African Groups'
...The news of the mass sexual assaults by "North African groups" of around 1,000 people didn't break until Monday afternoon when Cologne's police chief Wolfgang Albers called it a "completely new dimension of crime." The number of total assaults has since grown from 60 to more than 100, spanning over three cities.

Similar incidents as the ones in Cologne took place in Stuttgart and Hamburg, with two and nine incidents, respectively. All three cities report the same profile of large groups groping women to distract them in order to steal their purses, but police say there are no indications of the events being related....

[MetalBard]

Look I have it on good authority on here that the rape epidemic is completely made up, and immigration, no matter the source or their reasons for arriving, is an absolute good with no possible negative effects whatsoever.

[Zeb]

Too bad no one actually ever says either of those things.

Rape happens a lot more than most of us would like to believe. Immigrants can and often do do bad things.

There is a reasonable debate to be had about these things, but completely mischaracterizing the arguments against your position is pretty lame. You sound like some kind of proggie who thinks that the only way anyone could possibly disagree with them is a denial of reality.

[MetalBard]

I'm sorry you must have Cytotoxic on block or something, because this is pretty much exactly what he says.

[R C Dean]

Him and Shikha both.

[Zeb]

OK, fine. Almost no one actually says those things. And no one cares what either of those people thinks. The vast majority of people who favor more open immigration believe no such thing.

[sarcasmic]

You sound like some kind of proggie who thinks that the only way anyone could possibly disagree with them is a denial of reality.

Pretty much.

[Free Society]

Too bad no one actually ever says either of those things.

You haven't talked to Cytotoxic lately. As I recall he was offered numerous times to restate the claim without all the absolutes and he explicitly declined. I'll be damned if I can find the exact post in question, however a quick google search yielded some results that shows you how Cytotoxic views immigration as an absolutely good thing. Maybe he doesn't choose his words carefully, or maybe he's just intellectually dishonest or both, I don't know. But it's not a mischaracterization.

Porque Pig|4.30.15 @ 10:59PM

And Gillespie reminds me an awful lot of the Aging Liberal Hippie Douche. Reasonoids seem to forget that that episode mocked both racial prejudice AND ivory tower claims that immigration doesn't cause any problems.

Cytotoxic|5.3.15 @ 1:02PM

But those claims are true: immigration is never bad.

Cytotoxic|5.3.15 @ 1:09PM
Another thread full of economic illiterates who profess to love freedom but piss their pants at the sight of foreign people coming to America. "We want less government -Oh GOD foreign people! PROTECT US UNCLE SAM!"

It is not the USG's job to protect you from your irrational worthless fears.

Immigration has never been bad, ever.

emphasis his.
I don't know why people find it so hard to believe that Cytotoxic worships at the alter of Infallible Immigration Policy.

[Zeb]

OK, so maybe there is one person making that argument. One person who is often mocked or ignored. It's still stupid and obnoxious to keep pretending that that is what most people who favor more open immigration think.

[Free Society]

Sure he's an outlier by libertarian standards, if you could call Cytotxic a libertarian that is, but he'd be par for the course for most of the multicultists.

[Zeb]

Meh. Even those people don't really make those claims. I think that for them it's more about white guilt and progressive notions that you can engineer society to be just right if you just have enough of the right programs. And only the wrong kind of people criticize non-European culture and religions.
I do agree that many are deeply in denial about the comparability of certain aspects of Islamic culture with western society.

[Zeb]

Compatibility, not comparability.

[Free Society]

Meh. Even those people don't really make those claims.

Ah but they do. Those people take egalitarianism to extremes beyond any reason. All people are equal and all cultures are equal, like blobs of clay that are molded entirely by their environment and diversity is always good, everywhere, for everyone, for it's own sake

Please note, I'm not calling all open boarders advocates multicultists because the multicultists as a group are making specific about human nature, which open boarders advocacy doesn't necessarily touch upon.

[Zeb]

Maybe I just can't imagine the minds of people who deny individual agency to that extent. Or perhaps I just won't.

[Free Society]

I believe there is room for individual agency and for calling out the overwhelmingly similar threads of behavior and belief among groups of individuals. But I work in the insurance industry so maybe that's why.

[Citizen X]

Cytotoxic isn't a libertarian. He's a fascist child who skimmed part of The Fountainhead once at Barnes & Noble while his mom was in the Romance section.

[John]

"North African groups". Probably a bunch of old school French colonialists or something. Whoever they are, they clearly have no religion. Religion had nothing to do with this. Nothing.

[MetalBard]

Plus they like totally had it coming to them because the French owned colonies or something, and so it really their fault or something.

[Restoras]

I bet it was the French Foreign Legion, those randy bastards!

[Just say Nikki]

Religion had nothing to do with this. Nothing.

Do you have some kind of evidence that it did?

[John]

Yes I do. It is considered morally acceptable in Islam for Muslims to rape and enslave non-Muslims.

It is funny how you are one of the first people on here to get your hate on about the evil evangelical Christians but you seem to admit no fault in Islam. Do you think it is just bad luck that women are treated so horribly in Islamic nations?

[Just say Nikki]

You don't even know whether the perpetrators are Muslim.

Do you think I like Islam? No. I don't. It's retarded. But your collectivization, general suspicion, and mind-reading are a bunch of BS.

[John]

You don't even know whether the perpetrators are Muslim.

Yeah because there are tons of Zorastrian and atheist North African immigrants to Europe. Jesus Christ Nikki, did you take geography in school? They are North African immigrants, what in the hell do you think they are?

[MetalBard]

When the perpetrators are all described as north-African, and their attack follows a common MO then them being Muslim is a virtual guarantee. Does virtue signaling require you to toss away all deductive reasoning skills?

Oh and this whole "anti-collectivization" crusade I see on here from time to time is a load of shit. It's like the new PC of HnR, and is used when someone doesn't have an argument. Using collectivizing words is part of the English language. When someone says something like "The gays do this..." or "the blacks believe this.." they don't literally mean every single gay or black in the known universe.

I guess for now on we'll have to constantly throw out adjectives like "some" or "most" before every noun instead of assuming that the people reading the comments are actually intelligent enough to understand that you didn't literally mean everybody.

[sarcasmic]

I guess for now on we'll have to constantly throw out adjectives like "some" or "most" before every noun instead of assuming that the people reading the comments are actually intelligent enough to understand that you didn't literally mean everybody.

Speak for yourself, because John does literally mean everybody when he talks about Muslims.

Not only that, but anyone who questions his collectivist views about Muslims thinks Islam is cool and wonderful.

That's how he feels. So again, speak for yourself when you say you don't mean everybody.

[MetalBard]

Now whose mind reading?

[sarcasmic]

He has said that in so many words. No mind reading necessary.

[Rhywun]

When someone says something like "The gays do this..." or "the blacks believe this.." they don't literally mean every single gay or black in the known universe.

Nevertheless it is the exact same phenomenon of collectivization that we criticize in the Left all the time. If you can't be careful with language, don't be surprised if you get attacked for it.

[spqr2008]

The issue with imprecise collectivization is that it leads easily to the "No True Scotsman" argument.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

I guess for now on we'll have to constantly throw out adjectives like "some" or "most" before every noun instead of assuming that the people reading the comments are actually intelligent enough to understand that you didn't literally mean everybody.

But this generosity should not be afforded to Cytotoxic, I guess.

[sarcasmic]

John doesn't need evidence. It feels true so it must be true.

[MetalBard]

Sarcasmic there is plenty of evidence that the Islamic religion sees women as inferiors who deserved to be punished for not behaving more modest. It is not unreasonable to think this might be a factor when a Muslim gang rapes a woman in Germany.

[sarcasmic]

I find it humorous, especially from John, when people say things like that. There are men who feel that way regardless of their religion. There are plenty of Muslims, take the 9-11 hijackers for example, who pick and choose what parts of their religion that the will follow. Those guys drank in strip clubs for example. So maybe assholes are assholes, religion is religion, and correlation is not causation.

[John]

I just read the books sarcasmic. I don't write them. If anyone is acting on "feelings" it is you and Nikki. Saying Islam is cool makes you feel good and tolerant. Have fun virtue signaling but that I not how I roll. I don't really don't give a fuck about looking virtuous if it means denying reality.

[sarcasmic]

Saying Islam is cool

You've got the straw man on the ropes! Give it another left! C'mon Red Tony! You've got this one!

[John]

You are telling me Islam doesn't produce a rape culture and isn't horrible misogynistic such that it doesn't have anything to do with the correlation between Muslim immigration and increased rape rates. And that is just completely at odds with all of the actual evidence.

If you don't want to be accused of virtue signaling, stop denying the obvious.

[sarcasmic]

There are cultures where Islam is the predominant religion where men don't go around gang-raping women.

Correlation is not causation.

[R C Dean]

There are cultures where Islam is the predominant religion where men don't go around gang-raping women.

I think its fair to say that there is substantial and disproportionate overlap between Islamic cultures and cultures that justify rape and abuse of women.

But, this really is bizarre. These mobs have been identified as Islamic immigrants; why are we arguing about whether they are or not?

[Azathoth!!]

Could you name one?

[bacon-magic]

citation needed

[MetalBard]

It's not virtue signaling. It's just that sarcasmic is programmed to be snarky 100% of the time.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

This is closer what actual rape culture looks like. Not the bullshit hysteria on college campuses.

[Libertarian]

That was one of my first thoughts. I also wondered what percentage of the women present were assaulted. Was it anywhere near the "one out of five" of our college women? Perhaps the girls at Harvard would be safer if we sent them to Cologne on New Years Eve.

[Tonio]

^This. The silence of western feminists on this is deafening.

[MetalBard]

Yeah but poor middle eastern Muslim men have more victim points then women. PC is like a giant hierarchy of victimhood, you can't criticize the higher ups.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Overwhelmed by 'Migrants,' Sweden Throws in the Towel as Europe Faces 'General, Permanent Terror Threat'
...But Sweden's abrupt reversal is potentially far more consequential. Across Europe this year, two countries have stood out for their uncommonly generous reception policies: Sweden and Germany.

Now, Sweden is actively trying to keep people out, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure from critics within her own center-right coalition to do the same after the country welcomed a record 1 million asylum seekers this year. During her Christian Democratic Party conference in December, she bowed to those critics, at least in part, saying that Germany needed to "palpably reduce" its refugee numbers....

[John]

This is what freedom looks like.

/signed

Cytoxic.

[Lord Humungus]

+1 Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

[Libertarian]

+ Kris Kristofferson

[Raven Nation]

-1 Janis Joplin's version is waaay better.

[Lord Humungus]

I prefer Waylon Jennings cover

[Libertarian]

But KK wrote it!!

[Raven Nation]

True. But Alexander Hamilton helped write the constitution but I like Thomas Jefferson's interpretation better.

Here's Janis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXV_QjenbDw

[kbolino]

But KK wrote it!!

And Bob Dylan wrote "All Along the Watchtower". But Jimmy Hendrix's version is better. And the Beatles (well, Lennon and McCartney) wrote "With a Little Help from My Friends". But Joe Cocker's version is better.

Not that the originals are bad (well, Dylan trying to do his own song like Hendrix did is bad, but the original isn't). It's just that the other versions are better.

[Unreconstructed (Sans Flag)]

I was with you until the Cocker reference. Bleh!

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Mother-of-four who won $188million Powerball prize less than a year ago spends $12million bailing out her 'heroin-trafficking' boyfriend for the third time - bringing total cost to $21 MILLION
Marie Holmes bailed her live-in boyfriend, 31-year-old Lamarr McDow, out of jail early Friday morning after posting his $12million bond
This is the third time since March that Holmes, of Shallotte, North Carolina, as bailed McDow out of jail
She posted his $3million bond in March and a $6million bond in August
Holmes has also paid approximately an additional $1,470,000 in bail bondsmen fees that she will never get back
Holmes won the lottery in February and accepted a lump-sum payment of $188 million

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Assuming he shows up for court, she should get the money back.

"Holmes has also paid approximately an additional $1,470,000 in bail bondsmen fees that she will never get back"

What? If she has the cash, why is she using a bondsman?

[Citizen X]

You can take the trash out of the trailer, but you can't take the trailer out of the trash.

[Raven Nation]

She'd be better off using the cash to pay the DA to keep the guy in prison.

[Tonio]

Hon, for that type of money you can buy yourself a new boyfriend and repeat as needed.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

She will prove why the poor are the poor.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Cover-up claim over NYE mass sexual assaults
...Many people accused the national media of engaging in a cover-up due to the ethnic background of the criminals, with many pointing to the fact that it took days before the details of the story reached national attention.

One commentator wrote sarcastically that "it is fascinating that the event in Cologne on New Year made it through the media censorship."..

...Writing for the Huffington Post Deutschland, Anabel Schunke accused the police of covering up details about the suspected criminals in order to protect public order.

Questioning why no details were given on the appearance of the suspects when police called for witnesses, despite plentiful CCTV footage, Schunke suggested that police chose to leave important details out so that the public would not make a connection between the crime and refugees....

[Tonio]

I'm wondering if this scandal will bring down the current government?

[R C Dean]

It'll be interesting. We are already hearing (see above) that this is a fake scandal, and has nothing to do with immigration or Islam.

I guess the cops did an even better job of covering up the mobs of native-born Germans who went around molesting women in past years.

[Free Society]

Imagine if European immigrants to some middle eastern country were forming roving rape gangs on Ramadan. I'm sure that half the country would be saying "those people don't reflect badly on Europeans, because REAL Europeans would never do that".

I think we can also rest assured that the government would cover it up so the locals wouldn't be mean to the poor wittle Europeans and they'd issue stern warning to the violated Muslim women to dress conservatively so as not to attract the lustful gaze of the beloved and innocent immigrants that are never responsible for their actions.

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

So... the West should lower its standards to that of Middle Eastern countries. OK.

[Free Society]

So... MJGreen habitually mischaracterizes people's arguments. Not that accurately reporting crime and steadfastly prosecuting perpetrators really counts as "lower standards", but I can see how you might think that living in your multicult bubble of blissful ignorance.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Silicon Valley Is Filling Up With Ex-Obama Staffers
...Edward-Isaac Dovere reports in Politico that the fastest-growing chapter of the Obama alumni association is in Silicon Valley. For the people who helped get Obama elected and worked for him once he did, there's something about San Francisco and its environs that just feels right: the emphasis on youth and trying things that might fail, chasing that feeling of working for the underdog, and even using that word "disrupting" to describe what they do. "A lot of people who moved out here were present at the creation of the Obama '08 campaign," says Tommy Vietor. "There's a piece of them that wants to replicate that." Vietor left the White House two years ago, and he and his business partner, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, founded a communications strategy firm with a focus on speechwriting for tech and other start-ups. "If you're writing for a CEO out here, they're more likely to be your peer than your grandfather," says Vietor. "They're young, they're cool, they get it."

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Other former Obama staffers who have come to Silicon Valley include former campaign manager and White House adviser David Plouffe at Uber, Kyle O'Connor at Nest, Semonti Stephens at Twitter; Mike Masserman, at Lyft; Brandon Lepow at Facebook; Nicole Isaac, at LinkedIn; Liz Jarvis-Shean at Civis; Jim Green and Vivek Kundra at Salesforce, Alex McPhillips at Google; Gillian Bergeron, at NextDoor; Natalie Foster at the Institute for the Future; Catherine Bracy at Code for America; Hallie Montoya Tansey at Target Labs. Nick Papas, John Baldo, Courtney O'Donnell and Clark Stevens at AirBnB, and Jessica Santillo at Uber. ...

[Lee G]

So depressing...

[Palin's Buttplug]

They are gainfully employed. How is that depressing?

[Restoras]

Because they are professional rent-seekers, shit-for-brains.

[Atanarjuat]

No, they were hired for their skills, not their connections.

[Crusty Juggler]

Vietor is the guy who called Bret Baer dude when being interviewed about the Benghazi debacle.

[Certified Public Asshat]

I enjoyed the alt-text.

*applause*

[Jordan]

A sign of the end times: Slate's chief political correspondent writes a remarkably sane about race and the Oregon militia:

Confrontations at Ruby Ridge and in Waco, Texas, ended with scores of dead (white) civilians, and inspired the Oklahoma City bombing?the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil prior to Sept. 11, 2001.

Law enforcement has been willing to use lethal violence against armed white protesters and the results were catastrophic. It's no surprise federal agents are cautious; they walk with the hard-learned lessons of the 1990s. Even if the Bundys are paper tigers, no one wants to relive the past. In that, law enforcement officials are correct.

In any case, why won't they shoot at armed white fanatics isn't just the wrong question; it's a bad one. Not only does it hold lethal violence as a fair response to the Bundy militia, but it opens a path to legitimizing the same violence against more marginalized groups. As long as the government is an equal opportunity killer, goes the argument, violence is acceptable.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Yeah, when I wrote about the Washington Post's god-awful response to this, I was thinking of mentioning Jamielle Bouie's editorial on Slate as a contrast. For a liberal, he's awfully reasonable on some occasions.

[kinnath]

Mr. Bouie has written quite a few remarkably sane articles on sensitive topics. I can't understand why Slate keeps him around. 😉

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

This is a shockingly reasonable article. Very surprised it came from Bouie.

[spqr2008]

Broken Clocks and so forth.

[JD the elder]

Eh, not so much. "Confrontations at Ruby Ridge and in Waco, Texas, ended with scores of dead (white) civilians"?

Firstly, there weren't "scores" of people at Ruby Ridge to begin with, much less dead people. I guess you could say there were scores dead at Ruby Ridge AND Waco, but only in the sense that there are millions of people in Connecticut and tied up in my basement right now. Secondly, the throwing in of "white" is not only inflammatory, it's not even very factually correct: there were numerous Black, Hispanic, and Asian people among the dead at Waco.

[Lord Humungus]

'Making A Murderer' Subject Steven Avery Is Guilty As Hell

Here are some basic things we know:

Parts of Halbach's body were found burned in Avery's fire pit.
Evidence of Avery's involvement was found inside his home.
There is DNA evidence tying the bullet found in the Avery garage to Halbach.
Avery was the last known person to see Halbach alive.
Police found her car, with blood on it and in it, left on the Avery family's lot.
Avery's high-school age cousin, Brendan Dassey, confessed that he had assisted his uncle in murder of Halbach.*

Now, to believe Avery is innocent, a person must believe that an implausible number of conspiracies had been unfurled in the case: for starters, the placing of the car, the blood, the body, the keys, and all other evidence. The cover up would have included two DAs and a large group of cops in two police departments. And while it's not improbable that some of those involved might be morally capable of setting up Avery, Dean Strang (now a sex symbol) and Jerome Buting offered no evidence that anyone had done so, only accusations.

[John]

Like the West Memphis boys, these sorts of cases are never as simple as the docudramas make them appear. It is certainly possible that he is innocent. If he is, he is the single most unlucky person on earth because it would mean he was both framed for a rape he did not commit and was in the wrong place at the wrong time such that they could frame him for murder. Seriously, that is one hell of a coincidence.

[Jordan]

Dean Strang (now a sex symbol) and Jerome Buting offered no evidence that anyone had done so, only accusations.

The fact that the key did not magically appear until the 7th search, in plain sight in an area that had been searched a million times, during a search by the two guys who had the most incentive to frame him strikes me as pretty compelling evidence. Also, the fact that the blood vial had been tampered with. As far as I'm concerned, the key and blood evidence is completely unreliable. That leaves me with no reason to not believe there's a chance the car, bones, and bullet were planted as well.

The guy may be guilty, but the state definitely did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, thanks to police and prosecutorial misconduct.

[Lee G]

And if the police and prosecution falsify evidence, then the case is forfeit, regardless of actual guilt.

[Citizen X]

+1 O.J. Simpson

[Jordan]

Then there's other facts, like Dassey's obviously coerced confession, the fact that Colborn called in Teresa's plate 2 days before her car was discovered, and the fact that the Cuyahoga County Sheriffs lied about the Manitowoc County Sheriffs involvement. Even if he's guilty, they botched the case plain and simple.

[John]

You would be amazed at how cops can actually fuck things up. It certainly looks suspicious that the key was magically found after so many searches but it is not impossible. Stranger things have and do happen.

As far as the confession, if it was coerced, why did the judge allow it in? What is the evidence that it is unreliable and coerced and why did the judge not see it that way? Maybe the judge was a hack; a lot are. But, maybe the confession wasn't so obviously coerced. I honestly don't know. Beyond that, even if it were, you can be coerced to tell the truth. The fact that it was coerced makes it unreliable and inadmissible. It does not make it necessarily untrue. It is unreliable, meaning it can't be relied upon to show guilt or innocence.

[Jordan]

The judge was definitely a hack. They showed excerpts from the tape in the documentary in which the police clearly fed the kid what they wanted him to say and badgered him into changing his story until it matched what they wanted.

[Jordan]

And they interviewed him without his mother or attorney present, and his IQ puts him in the borderline retarded range.

[John]

Again, that means he didn't get a fair trial and the confession should never have been admitted. It does not, however, mean he is innocent. That is all I am saying.

[John]

That doesn't surprise me. But, that doesn't make what they were feeding him untrue. You are assuming what the police thought they knew about the crime was false. And maybe it was. Suppose, however, the police were right and the things they were feeding him were the truth and he was guilty. Being guilty, he of course isn't going to want to admit the truth and only did so after they bullied and coerced him into admitting the truth. And being unwilling to admit the truth easily, had to be fed it by the cops instead of just saying it.

I don't know which is the truth here. I am just saying that the fact that they fed him facts and bullied him into admitting it is not inconsistent with his guilt. It sure as hell isn't reliable proof of his guilt. I wouldn't convict him based on that. It is also, however, not evidence of his innocence either.

[R C Dean]

It certainly looks suspicious that the key was magically found after so many searches but it is not impossible.

I think you just said there was reasonable doubt.

As far as the confession, if it was coerced, why did the judge allow it in?

SOP, would be my guess.

[John]

We are talking factual innocence versus legal innocence RC. I get it that he probably should have been acquitted. But that doesn't mean he didn't do it.

I wonder sometimes if they ever taught you any actual law at Harvard.

[Michael]

(And can you trust those tears he shed on TV yesterday?)

Last night I caught a part of some PBS documentary on Israel. It featured a clip of Netanyahu meeting with Obama at a press conference some time ago. I don't regularly follow developments on that front since I have no particular interest in it, so I had no idea that Obama then publicly called him out in front of the international media to immediately stop all settlement development on lands captured in 1967. It never ceases to amaze just how little class Obama is capable of showing. It's like hiring a skywriter to inform your significant other that you want to see other people.

[Citizen X]

It's like hiring a skywriter to inform your significant other that you want to see other people.

That's not classy? Shit, i gotta call and apologize to some folks.

[robc]

The world's newest (only?) female libertarian was born at 3:57 yesterday afternoon.

[Lord Humungus]

congratulations! (if congratulations are in order)

[SugarFree]

Woo! Long may she lead us unto the Promised Land of New Hampshire!

[Sevo]

And all parties are healthy and happy, we hope?

[invisible furry hand]

Congratulations robc!

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Congratulations, sir!

[Atanarjuat]

When will the naming rights auction be held?

[Rich]

Congrats, robc! Does she have a name?

[straffinrun]

Wow, excellent? My daughter turns 7 on Friday. No joking on this. May she bring you all the happiness mine brought me.

[Lee G]

Congrats. We'll see if she remains a libertarian under your authoritarian rule in a few years.

[sarcasmic]

As my boss told me when my now six year old daughter was born, before you know it she'll be all grown up and you'll be old.

[Rhywun]

To be fair, "before you know it, you'll be old" happens without kids too.

[Tonio]

My very best wishes to your wife and new daughter.

[Swiss Servator]

Wait, does this mean you are off Nikki's "Ban Moms" squad?!?! 🙂

[Brett L]

Congrats!

[Sevo]

Paywall, but here's the money quote:

"S.F. chief bars firefighters from buying Super Bowl badges"
[...]
"San Francisco is playing Super Bowl host city, but Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White has nixed the idea of individual firefighters buying the NFL-sanctioned commemorative badges that celebrate the event ? in part out of concern that the game leads to domestic violence."
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bay.....ate-result

First, she can't bar firefighters from buying anything legal. Secondly, she's stupid enough to fall for that old chestnut about 'leading to domestic violence'.
But it's 'way worse than that:

"SAN FRANCISCO / Chief's husband said he feared for his kids / In 911 tape, he's heard telling dispatcher his wife gave him 'two big bumps' on head"
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/.....660586.php

Yep, she's a husband-beater. They're separated, she's paying spousal support.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Yep, she's a husband-beater. They're separated, she's paying spousal support.

But she did that in response to the NIners' losing the Super Bowl a few years ago, so lesson learned.

[EMD]

The lights went out in more ways than one.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Sevo, I should have asked given our brief yappings about the business climate in Cal.. why do you stay?

[Sevo]

Suffice to say, my business is legal in all respects and legally flys under the radar of most of CA's regs. There are costs in making sure it is so, but they are minor by comparison.

[Rich]

Will the president's proposed executive actions on guns pass constitutional muster musket?

FTFY

[Sevo]

Again, paywall:

"With Obama's orders, gun control activists sense momentum"
[...]
"President Obama wipes a tear as he speaks on reducing gun violence in the East Room of the White House on January 5, 2016"
[...]
"So it might seem odd that gun control activists greeted President Obama's tearful announcement Tuesday of an incremental tightening of gun laws as a turning point in their fight."
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bay.....ate-result

They gave this guy a quarter of the front page and top of the continuing page inside to write about un-nammed 'activists' who, with no mentioned communication have made it clear to the writer that they have 'turned a corner' as a result of some f'ing crocodile tears and now 'have momentum'!
I hope he's as embarrassed as he should be.

[EMD]

"reducing gun violence in the East Room of the White House "

Kudos! How many people have been shot in the East Room?

[UnCivilServant]

Was it standing during Jackson's Presidency?

[Crusty Juggler]

"The Significance of Lysander Spooner"

[Sepper]

Does anyone here own a Bushmaster ACR?

[perlchpr]

A Wheaton College professor has been placed on administrative leave for saying Christians and Muslims worship the same god.

Because it was offensive to Christians, or to Muslims? Or both!?

[Zeb]

As the school still has an explicitly Christian mission statement, I think mostly Christians.

[Hank Phillips]

At least President Obama is serious about preserving our Second Plank responsibilities set forth in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. That Progressive Income tax the Senile Court declared Constitutional as is diametrically opposed to what Patrick Henry had in mind.

[Fist of Etiquette]

How dare yinz besmirch Pittsburgh's good name by confusing it with Filthadelphia.

[EMD]

For Mom. I think Dads get better treatment from teenaged girls.

[EMD]

For Mom. I think Dads get better treatment from teenaged girls.

[Unreconstructed (Sans Flag)]

As the father of a teenage girl...[citation needed]