kimmy

Trent Reznor has been one of my musical heroes for a very long time and I was overjoyed that he won an Oscar. I thought it was a great soundtrack... was an awesome blend of music and movie, and perfectly fit the main character. We meet him ghosting through the cold grey campus, surrounded by people and not making contact with any of them... and the music is this melancholy piano riff, backed up with this somewhat discordant and vaguely unsettling electronic undertone... the scene and the music tell you a lot about the main character without him saying anything.I looked for the US-version Girl With The Dragon Tattoo soundtrack on youtube, and the title track is a cover version of Immigrant Song that struck me as being almost sacrilege. I can't say I approve. -k

*sigh* ...I'm not sure if you're being purposefully obtuse, or if you're drunk, or what. I offered my opinion on the way the candidates deliver their message, not an opinion about who I support. I supported Harper in previous years because I thought he was the best option. I ceased to support Harper in the last election because his government did some things that lost my trust. I'd never support Santorum, because his statements about personal liberty are anathema to my views. I could flat out never support the man. End of story. No sweater vest and no amount of "regular guy" relateability could change that. I agree with the latter... but not the former. -k

aww As a "concern group", you mean? -k

I doubt that very much. One of the decisive factors in Tuesday's Michigan vote was that Santorum lost badly among female voters. People remarked on it immediately when he came out and led off his concession speech with a transparent appeal to female voters. He (or his advisors) knew what went wrong, and that speech was a heavy-handed plea for women to give him another chance. You've written often enough about Harper's "women problem" over the years; Santorum has a similar "women problem". I'm a little weird, August... I'm in a minority in finding Harper likeable... and I'm in a minority in finding Santorum likeable too. The "dad factor" kind of works for me, but it clearly doesn't work for many women. Rick's "regular guy" factor clearly doesn't work for many women either. Moonlight suggested earlier that maybe Mitt Romney's good looks help him with women... but I have a hunch that a lot of the issue is just that women have read some of the stuff that Santorum has said and written over the years. -k

I did quote the portion of the transcript where he explains his ruling, and he makes it clear that lack of evidence over Elbayomy's intentions was a primary factor. Perhaps the prosecutor filed the wrong charges; if he acquitted Elbayomy because he didn't believe Elbayomy intended to "harass or alarm" Perce, then surely some other charge would have been more appropriate. If attempting to "negate the offensive situation" by ripping up signs and costumes were legal in the United States, the Westboro Baptist Church would find their protests a lot more exciting. And again, I don't know why you guys are intent on deflecting attention from the judge's disturbing comments by focusing on the acquital. As well, I note that you declined the opportunity to clarify your "extremists on both sides" comment. -k

It was Carolina, but yes. The future looks good... but it's taking an awful long time to get here. -k

Not long ago it looked like the Leafs were going to make the playoffs but now they're in serious danger of falling too far behind. 5 points doesn't sound like a lot to make up with 18 games left, but now that teams get points for overtime losses and shootout losses, it's harder to make up ground. The Leafs missing the playoffs wouldn't be that big of a surprise, but the Washington Capitals missing the playoffs would be a huge shock. Right now they're also in serious danger. As an Oiler fan, I can barely even recall what playoffs are like. -k

I NEED MORE ALL CAPS TO HELP THE ENORMITY OF THIS SITUATION SINK IN -K

He's got more college degrees than Barack Obama-- a BA, an MBA, and a Juris Doctorate. We're not talking about a dumb guy ridiculing educated people... we're talking about a very educated guy trying to sell uneducated people on the idea that education isn't for everybody. His daughter Elizabeth is also in college (though she is taking a year off to campaign for him.) I wonder if he's worried that she is going to get "indoctrinated" into a "liberal" or lose her "faith commitment" (like "62%" of her classmates, according to Rick.) She's been talking about how she has gay friends who support her dad. I wonder how Rick feels knowing that his pristine daughter is befriending Sodomites as she attends college and tours the country supporting his campaign. I often notice Elizabeth on stage with Rick during his speeches-- she always stands out because of her long curly black hair. Honestly, the girl has magnificent hair. Anyway, when Rick made particular mention of her during his speech on Tuesday I did a bit of reading about her. As it turns out, she has been hosting town hall meetings for him. And when Rick had to leave the campaign during his youngest daughter's medical emergency, Elizabeth stepped in and took over his campaign appearances during his absence. She is 20 years old. That blew me away. I'm 28 now, and the idea of attempting to host a town hall meeting or do campaign appearances terrifies me beyond belief. The idea that Rick's 20 year old daughter is doing that stuff for him is amazing to me. She sounds like quite an impressive young woman. -k

August, you knucklehead! As I keep pointing out, I did not "choose" Santorum at all! I was referring strictly to the candidates' stage-presence. I dislike Santorum's views immensely and would never support him. -k

So, to return to the judge's comments, I draw your attention to this portion: So it appears that the deciding factor in the judge's decision was not that he did not believe the incident actually occurred, but rather that he believed Mr Elbayomy was not trying to harass or frighten Mr Perce, but rather to negate the "offensive situation". If some average American happened to be walking down the street and saw Shirley Phelps holding some of her hateful placards, or "Shawn The Baptist" shouting his disgusting views... and they decided they needed to "negate the offensive situation", would a judge be as lenient? I doubt it. To do so would be a violation of Shirley and Shawn's first amendment rights. (see the video in the "This is why America is great" thread to watch a policeman making sure that Shawn The Baptist's first amendment rights are protected.) The judge's comments give two reasons to wonder if he considers this incident different from a typical American trying to silence somebody like Shirley Phelps or Shawn The Baptist. The first reason is his rant about how important religion is to Muslims, and the second is his comment that Mr Perce was outside the bounds of his first amendment rights and that mocking religion wasn't what the founding fathers thought the right to free expression should be used for. And both of those ideas ought to be really offensive. The idea of treating Muslims as some special class of defendant because they're not just religious, they're really-really religious ought to be offensive to everybody, particularly Muslims. There's an implicit idea that they're not capable of behaving like adults. Like they have to be treated like special needs children because they're not capable of obeying the law when their prophet's insulted. And the idea that offending someone's religious beliefs is a whole separate category from offending some other aspect of their identity is, to me, repulsive. The idea that religious beliefs must be respected is what put Galileo in prison. Nobody's religious beliefs are exempt from commentary, analysis, criticism, mockery, or ridicule. The law doesn't say that religious beliefs must be respected, only that peoples' right to believe must be respected. In summary, Judge Martin is an asshole. If he has indeed been threatened, that is unfortunate. However, he is fully deserving of all the attention and criticism he has received. -k

One of the cool things about being an atheist is that you can just laugh about this "posthumous baptism" instead of being offended. Ok, the Mormons are putting on their magic underwear and performing voodoo rituals to try to direct souls to Mormon heaven instead of Jewish heaven? That's... well, that's super for them, I guess. I hope they have lots of fun doing that. Isn't the Mormon heaven supposed to be another planet, and if so shouldn't they be using rocket ships instead of magic water to get people there? So... people are apparently livid that Anne Frank has been posthumously baptized... ...but they really shouldn't be. To suggest that these people have the power to take away Anne Frank's Jewishness is just silly. They can't. They're not wizards or angels, they're just a bunch of idiots sitting around performing ridiculous rituals. I gave up trying to cast magic spells when I was a young child... but I guess some people don't grow out of things. Unless... Ann Frank's latest diary entry. -k

Which "both sides" are you referring to? Religious people and atheists? If yes, then I don't see what atheists have done to be considered "one and the same" as the religious fanatics who serve up death threats with worrying frequency. If you're assuming that the "threats" being directed at Judge Martin are coming from atheists... well, that's a pretty big assumption. -k

Ennio Morricone's "Ecstasy of Gold", from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", is a classic piece of movie music. In addition to the classic western, the piece has also become identified with Metallica, who for 30 years have used the song as the introduction for their concerts. This particularly dazzling performance kicked off the concert Metallica played with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG62B_dHfDQ -k

It's not the acquittal I'm concerned with. If there wasn't enough evidence, there wasn't enough evidence. I do wonder at the claim that "there were no witnesses" when the thing occurred in the middle of a parade. At the very least "Zombie Pope" was an eyewitness. The judge's comments on the altercation itself: These comments make it clear that the question in the judges' mind isn't so much whether an altercation actually took place, but rather what Mr Elbayomy's intentions were and the severity of the altercation. I have to run off to work; I will get back to this later. -k

Once upon a time, atheist groups tried to run bus ads with messages like "There's probably no god, so stop worrying and enjoy life." and "You know it's a myth." These ads generated a lot of controversy and were rejected by some advertising agencies and transit companies. More recently atheist groups have tried ads with less confrontational messages like "You can be good without god." and "Don't believe in god? You're not alone." and these too provoked controversy and anger from some people who felt that they were an affront to their religious beliefs. That prompted some atheists to wonder, is there any sort of atheist advertising that *wouldn't* offend people? What about really, really, really inoffensive ads? As you can see, some of the suggestions include pictures of fluffy kittens or chocolates, informative messages like "Buses carry many people", and helpful hints like "Drive Safely." Would even ads like this offend? The North East Pennsylvania Freethought society decided to find out. Rather than kittens or chocolate, they came up with an ad that simply featured the word "Atheists" on a blue background with the web addresses of the sponsor organizations. But even this ad is apparently too controversial for the streets of Scranton. The transit system has rejected it. The transit system has run advertising for a Holocaust denier website, according to this post, but the word "atheist" is clearly on a completely different level. So, to bring this post back to the threat title, I congratulate the County of Lackawanna Transit System for standing up for Persecuted Christians in America (or, at least, the Scranton parts of America.) Thanks to the patriots at COLTS, Persecuted Christians will not have their sensibilities offended by having to see the word "Atheist" roll by on buses. Praise be! -k

Not sure if you're aware, but "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" is a gag made up to parody religion. Nobody actually worships it. It seems like some religious people are convinced that atheists must worship *something*-- I have heard atheists accused of worshiping trees, the Devil, science, Darwin, Dawkins, and even themselves. It seems almost as if some people can't comprehend the idea that there are those who simply don't believe in a higher power. -k

I watched some of the coverage on CNN tonight. At one point one of the correspondents mentioned talking with a senior Santorum strategist-- who he identified by name but whose name I don't recall-- who said that Santorum had been hurt by some of Santorum's remarks this week. The CNN panel referred to Santorum's remarks as "going down the rabbit hole"-- strange tangents where Santorum called the president a "snob" for saying he wanted every American to go to college, ranted about "liberal indoctrination" at universities, and said that JFK's famous speech about separation of church and state made him "want to puke". The strategist said that they would return the focus to Santorum's economic populist message. Also noticed that Rick started off his speech tonight by talking about working women-- his 94 year old mom, his wife, his daughter who is campaigning for him... it seemed fairly apparent that somebody on his team said "Rick-- chicks hate us. Butter them up a little, will ya?" I was disappointed that when Rick mentioned that his mom got a college degree, nobody in the audience had the sense to shout "What a snob!" -k

The difference between saying "you're a doofus" and "doing what you did makes you look like a doofus" is semantic at best. And it's a trivial point in the issue, because by far the more concerning aspect of this is the judge's other comments about (a) the idea that upsetting people of different cultures isn't protected by the first amendment, and (b ) attempting to rationalize the accused's actions by explaining how seriously Muslims take religion. I don't think that those aspects of the judge's remarks have been misrepresented at all. And if you're trying to distract from the substantive issues of the judge's remarks by focusing on the "doofus" comment, well, sir, that would make you look like a doofus. Now, regardless of whether Shady has "an agenda", or whether Shady would have posted the link if it had been about an angry Wiccan attacking somebody in a witch costume, it's a legitimate news story and a legitimate discussion. If judges are re-evaluating basic rights in light of political correctness, or if judges now consider religious fervor to be a reasonable explanation for attacking people in the street, those are really things that people ought to be talking about. -k

But that's kind of a made-up narrative, don't you think? Do people really think of Michigan when they think of Romney? I understand Massachusetts, and I understand Utah... but other than having been born there why would Michigan be a stronghold for Romney? It's like saying Toronto should be a power zone for Stephen Harper. Michigan seems like it should be ideal for the "blue collar Republican" spiel that Santorum has based his campaign around, and "he opposed the automaker bailout" ought to be a particular vulnerability for Romney in Michigan I would think. -k

"To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A." -the Chick-Fil-A company mission statement. I hear their chicken sandwiches are heavenly. -k

One needn't rely on Daily Caller for the judge's comments. They can be found from other sources. -k

Here's what I thought of when I saw the hoopla religious-people have been making about Dawkins saying he doesn't completely rule out the possibility that a god exists: -k

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Arizona is an "all or nothing" state (like South Carolina) while Michigan will divide up delegates proportionately to the poll results. So it seems to me that winning or losing Michigan by a few percentage points isn't that big of a deal, because the delegate count will come out pretty close either way. -k

I still didn't hear an answer to the question of whether "Chick-Fil-A" is a religious institution. -k