kimmy

A Florida woman has been sentenced to 20 years for firing a warning shot into the ceiling in an attempt to protect herself from her abusive husband. Florida-- where shooting a black teenager gets you no jail time, but shooting your ceiling gets you 20 years. That's just FUBAR. -k

I don't think he should be let off the hook that easy. Let's be clear on this: he was 18 when this incident happened. Our society considers an 18 year old responsible for their behaviour. When the subject of youth crime comes up, people are often in favor of people younger than 18 being held responsible for their actions. Young adults make errors in judgment, but I think that by the time you're 18 you fully understand right and wrong and your character is formed. There are two possibilities here: Romney knew what he was doing was wrong, or he didn't. Neither speaks well of him as a human being. Why would he do something like that? Think about what motivates an 18 year old-- an adult for all intents and purposes-- to round up a posse to chase down another kid, hold him down, and cut off his hair while he cries for help? Mitt and his campaign are trying to spin it as Mitt just being a jokey jokester who sometimes did some dumb things. This incident isn't a jokey jokester having too much fun. This incident is an act of malice that demonstrates cruelty and a lack of empathy. So I'm not inclined to just file this under "an indiscretion". -k

Well said. While the spin some people have been trying to put on it is that it's just a silly controversy about a kid who wants to wear a Jesus shirt and a school that is trampling on his freedom of expression,there is a lot more to the story, and it's been overlooked or ignored: -k

What Obama was doing as an 18 year old matters a lot! What Romney was doing as an 18 year old is ... uh... boys will be boys! Romney has two different stories. The first is that he can't recall any such incident, and he's sorry if some of his "pranks" offended anybody. The other version is that they didn't attack the kid because they thought he was gay. It will be interesting to see which he decides to stick with. -k

Christians are the ones telling us they're the victims of persecution. The comparison of Christians today to Jews in the time of Hitler is pretty absurd, but it didn't come from me, it came from Bishop Daniel Jenky. The invitro fertilization comment was in reference to a Catholic school that is being sued for wrongful dismissal after they fired a teacher who sought IVF treatments. The Catholics are once again trying to present this as a secular attack on their religious beliefs. Or Christians talking about how anti-bullying laws are anti-Christian. I've mentioned lots of examples in the other thread. Christians trying to play victim for political purposes. This kid is doing the same. Hypothetically, if he had worn some other shirt would it still be ridiculous to suspend him for it? If the shirt had said, hypothetically, "White Power", or something like that? But we have been told that this is a kid who goes around telling other kids they're going to hell. So it's clear that that's exactly what message his shirt is supposed to give. You'd have to be extremely dense to think otherwise. If it was being worn by a kid who was known for telling infidel students that they were going to hell, then yes, I would. -k

Well, I guess the Hawks aren't the Hawks of a couple of years ago. I think a 101-point team is still probably a top team in most peoples' view. Nonetheless, complaining about home ice advantage seems a little silly considering they won all the games they played in Chicago. The real justification of the division winners getting top seeds is the imbalanced schedule, which unfairly punishes teams in tougher divisions. For example, suppose Phoenix and Vancouver switched divisions. Would the Coyotes have finished with more than 97 points if they got to play all those games against crappy teams like Edmonton, Calgary, Colorado, and Minnesota? Of course. Would the Canucks have finished with 111 points if they had to play more games against real opposition? Of course not. -k

Forum member Punked made a quip in his status update that Obama's position didn't "evolve", it "etch-a-sketched", referring to the comment from Romney's staffer. When asked whether the conservative rhetoric Romney was spouting to win the Republican nomination would hurt his electability in the general election, the staffer replied that that once the nomination was locked up, it would be like an etch-a-sketch and they would give it a few shakes and all that stuff would be erased. Romney wants to talk about the economy. He doesn't want the election to be about social issues. Each time a state puts social issues back in the news-- whether it be North Carolina's new amendment, or some state pushing mandatory invasive ultrasound, or whatever Tennessee is up to next, it puts social issues back in the news, puts "the culture wars" back in focus, takes the economy out of the spotlight, and makes it just a little harder for Mitt Romney to "shake the etch-a-sketch". Speaking up on this doesn't win Obama votes-- people who care that much were already going to vote Democrat-- but it does cost Romney votes. Moderates who may be thinking "well, Mitt doesn't seem like such a bad guy, and I'm concerned about the economy..." will have second thoughts about voting Republican when Mitt has to keep standing up for conservative views on social issues. -k

boo hoo. Is this the kind of guy you want to go to war for? Like the Catholics who want to fire the teacher who sought invitro fertilization... I'm having a hard time feeling much sympathy for this punk-ass kid. I think you guys had better find some more sympathetic victims before you start howling about how the new Krystalnacht is upon you. -k

Truthfully I don't think I could shoot a bow at a mammal unless my life depended on it. I agree with what you're saying, bow-hunting really doesn't sound very humane. I enjoy meat... but I don't want to kill it myself. Fish, possibly. Fowl, maybe. Mammals... I don't know. The one animal I know I could kill without a moment's hesitation is a cockatoo. Oh no! That is just too cool! -k

They jailed Al Capone for tax evasion. -k

What of it? Is the shirt really the point? Or is the point that they suspended an obnoxious kid in an effort to try and get him to stop harassing other students? I guess you've decided that this is about a shirt, while I feel that this is yet another attempt to create a fake martyr for JeeeeeeeZus. -k

Excellent point, gentlemen. It seems to me that during the G20 fiasco, a number of police officers deliberately concealed their badge numbers to (presumably) avoid punishment for stepping over the line of appropriate police behavior. If protesters are going to be punished for concealing their ID, the police better damned well be held to the same standard. -k

Look, dude, this kid is a self-made martyr. Desperately wanted to get oppressed so that he could tell the world how he was being oppressed for his beliefs. Found a way. Good for him. How he got the attention he wanted, and the attention he wanted shows the world that he's a kook with a kook dad, and that he went around harassing other students. Good for him. Christian hero. Like I was saying earlier on in the thread, when Christians cry about how their freedom of religion is being oppressed, we usually discover that it's their freedom to be assholes that is being challenged. The real reason this kid got suspended? Because he's an asshole. You want a technical reason why he got suspended? Violating dress code or insubordination, I suppose. -k

Under the definition of atheism you're clinging to, not even Richard Dawkins himself is an atheist. Suppose someone told you that there's a teapot in an elliptical orbit around the sun somewhere between earth and Mars. If you're evaluating that claim, do you start off with the assumption that "Yes" and "No" are equally credible positions? Do you ask the person who says "no, there's no teapot" to put forth his case, or do you want proof from the pro-teapot side? An atheist is someone who says "I won't believe that the teapot is really there unless somebody gives me a reason to." -k

Being a butt-hole. -k

Hilarious comparison. -k

Christians do get bent out of shape all the time over this stuff. I've posted several examples in this tread, in fact. Christians being "offended" by the "You can be good without God" billboards and bus advertising, for example. Bus companies that have run Christian advertising for decades have had to "revise their policy" when non-Christians wanted to run advertising of their own. Or the school board that had the policy allowing the Gideons to drop off Bibles for students... had to "revise their policy" when non-Christians decided to drop off religious literature. Christians love to dish it out, but they sure can't take it. Tough-guys with glass jaws. -k

If by "a counterbalance to welfare reform", you mean "a chance for politicians to kiss religious sphincter while maintaining the 'Private Citizens always do it better than government employees' mantra", then yes, I agree. However, the FBIO (or OFBI&CI as it's now known) can't provide funds to organizations that discriminate in providing services. As with the Boy Scouts of America: you can choose to accept government funds and not discriminate, or you can reject government funds if you wish to maintain discriminatory policies. But you can't accept government funds while maintaining discriminatory policies. Which is why (for instance) you'll find that Catholic Charities in Massachusetts are begrudgingly providing adoption services for gay couples. Because despite what you're selling, Dick, holding the reigns on 63% of Catholic Charities' budget *is* a big stick. To put this in human terms, a few months back I read about an Oklahoma couple who were trying to adopt. Every adoption agency in the state happened to be Christian-run and every adoption agency happened to place regular Christian church attendance high on their list of priorities in determining whether a prospective couple were good candidates for an adoption. Now, there had better not be federal funds going to support adoption agencies that would blatantly discriminate based on religion. And if there are no government funds to support non-discriminating agencies, the excuse had better not be "well, we support these faith-based agencies under OFBICI instead". Thanks for thinking of me, Dick, but I know that you and whats-her-name love it when Canadians talk about America, and I wouldn't deprive you and whats-her-name of your fun. -k

The idea that "anti-Christian prejudice" is a left/right issue is largely a result of the "religious right" being heavily invested in the Republican Party. -k

Of all the things going on this spring, the Coyotes demolishing the Predators is probably the most surprising to me. The Kings destroying the Blues is a close second. A lot of people complained about the playoff seeding system. "It bugs me that a bullshit team like the Coyotes can get the 3rd seed just because they won a crappy division." Well, that bullshit team has torn up two of the top teams in the league. And the other finalist is also from that crappy division, and they've also ripped apart two of the top teams in the league. Holy crap. Extra congratulations for Phoenix captain Shane Doan, who has been in the NHL for just about 20 years and never won a playoff series until this year. It must have been tough living in his sister-in-law's shadow all this time. -k

The only person who actually gets bent out of shape about "anti-Christian prejudice" on this board is Shady, and the truth is that he's not even a Christian. He only cares because it gives him a chance to parrot Fox News talking points. If Betsy was still here, she might be the one Christian who'd get bent out of shape. But she was taken in the Rapture. Perhaps Harold Camping could put us in touch with her. -k

Hell no. Obnoxious, beligerant Christian assholes harassing people until they're told to stop, then crying victim when they're told to stop? If not for the fact that this occurred in Nova Scotia, this would be prime material for the "Persecuted Christians in America" thread. The kid's dad looks like a real champ, in his paramilitary gear. I bet he's got a shed full of assault weapons to defend himself for when the rapture happens. The Christians :wacko: are being oppressed! :wacko: Somebody put out an APB for Shady. He needs to hear about this. -k

Condi Rice is a class act. She deserves better than being a side-show on Mitt Romney's campaign of failure. The Republican Bible-Tard base would never accept her anyway. -k

Yeah, sure. Peeves' awesome website had a picture of such "desecration" in progress-- a pad the size of a baseball diamond cleared out. Ooooh. Not much different from the pads for cellular transmission towers that dot mountaintops all over the country. If I get out my telescope I can see two such cell sites from my balcony. A tiny amount of land. Far less land than is eaten up just creating right-of-ways for power transmission line towers. Holy fuck. What a freaking lack of perspective. I assume these tactics are intended to scare the piss out of urbanites who have never been out of the city and have no idea how electricity gets from far-away generating stations to their homes. Have you ever actually seen what high voltage transmission lines passing through a forest look like? Have you people ever actually seen conventional energy being extracted from the ground? Oil pumps and rigs? Coal? Natural gas? Hey, if you want to see what mountains being desecrated really looks like, why don't you google up "mountaintop removal mining". -k

I remain of the belief that storage of the energy created by wind-power is possible, and would eliminate the main complaints about windpower, which are primarily related to the up-and-down nature of wind. Some obvious possibilities include charging batteries, generating hydrogen, pumping a liquid uphill, compressing gasses, spinning a flywheel... These may not be technologically or economically feasible at an industrial scale right now, but one should never say never. -k