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Current events
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Whoa.
PS considering that it's illegal to do anything that would provide hard evidence of voter fraud, it's not surprising that there would be no hard evidence of voter fraud. -
We like to refer to the Wonder Twins as "Grave".
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RobotBastard said:
Whoa.
PS considering that it's illegal to do anything that would provide hard evidence of voter fraud, it's not surprising that there would be no hard evidence of voter fraud.
[citation needed]
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So I need to provide a citation for the fact that it's illegal to ask for voter ID?
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I think what xeno is saying is that there are probably numerous ways of proving voter fraud (forensic accounting techniques, for example) that would not in fact be illegal.
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Our coolest name portmanteau is clearly grajavianoah, which was our super talented rockband collective. Ian played the drums like animal, and noah was afraid of all the instruments.
Feel free to name all future female or male babies after me, and when they come home crying from school because everyone is calling them godzilla or graziesmella just pat them on the head and assure them they will grow into it. -
I don't think anyone truly believes that there is a huge problem with voter fraud in this country. This is obviously a ploy to try and suppress votes by creating an issue where there really isn't one. But at the same time I can't really argue against it. It is not a crazy idea to require people to prove who they are before they vote. As much as I hate that there is a Republican led effort to try and disenfranchise as many people as they can through methods like this, I can't come up with a real argument against it.
I'm a lot more bothered at actions done by Florida and other states to limit early voting and to also increase the bureaucracy and difficulty of registering new voters http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/17/obama-campaign-sues-over-ohios-cutoff-date-for-early-voting/
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grumps said:
Our coolest name portmanteau is clearly grajavianoah, which was our super talented rockband collective. Ian played the drums like animal, and noah was afraid of all the instruments.
I forgot about that. Now I want to make my John Waters Batman character halloween costume again. -
It would be hard to argue that someone can't afford Pennsylvania's $13.50 ID fee. Probably not impossible, but very hard.
http://www.dmv.org/pa-pennsylvania/id-cards.php -
It's not that pretty much anyone couldn't scrounge up fifteen bucks, it's that if I am a homeless dude and $13.50 buys me, like, three meals, why the fuck am I going to get an ID with that money?
Also, if I have $13.50 but can't get to a DMV because there is no public transportation where I live and I'm homeless and none of my homeless friends have cars then I'm fucked anyway. -
grumps said:
I think the larger group affected is people who work who cant afford to just get the day off to go to the dmv to get an ID solely for the purpose of voting
That's me. Last time I went into the DMV on Saturday there was like a two hour wait and it was packed. I promptly said "fuck that shit". -
Yes, you'd think that the people who want everyone to be documented and have ID would also be sponsoring legislation to make ID and documentation a lot easier to get.
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THANKS OBAMA!
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Yeah, creating a system to deter fraud while knowingly creating a class of well-intentioned individuals primed with the need to circumvent the new system sounds like a good way to make no progress at all.
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Drought, skyrocketing food prices, global unrest? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/business/food-prices-to-rise-in-wake-of-severe-drought.html?src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/national/index.jsonp and http://necsi.edu/research/social/foodprices/updatejuly2012/
What do you think? -
Maybe if fuel manufacturers weren't legally required to blend corn ethanol into their gasoline, farmers would be able to sell more of their corn crop as animal feed rather than ethanol stock.
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RobotBastard said:
Yes, you'd think that the people who want everyone to be documented and have ID would also be sponsoring legislation to make ID and documentation a lot easier to get.
Yes, that would be a breeze to get through the House and Senate.
RobotBastard said:Maybe if fuel manufacturers weren't legally required to blend corn ethanol into their gasoline, farmers would be able to sell more of their corn crop as animal feed rather than ethanol stock.
They aren't able to now?
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Dreg said:
RobotBastard said:Maybe if fuel manufacturers weren't legally required to blend corn ethanol into their gasoline, farmers would be able to sell more of their corn crop as animal feed rather than ethanol stock.
They aren't able to now?
I think it is more along the lines of, they would be more willing to plant more food crops instead of ethanol corn if they weren't making piles of money off of ethanol corn.
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exagenous said:
Dreg said:
RobotBastard said:Maybe if fuel manufacturers weren't legally required to blend corn ethanol into their gasoline, farmers would be able to sell more of their corn crop as animal feed rather than ethanol stock.
They aren't able to now?
I think it is more along the lines of, they would be more willing to plant more food crops instead of ethanol corn if they weren't making piles of money off of ethanol corn.
Would the farmers be amicable towards the government preventing them from making piles of money?
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So this whole Chick FIl-A thing has really blown up. Truthfully, I haven't really patronized them for years now because of their CEO's fundamentalist Christian views. I will occasionally get a free chicken sandwich coupon from them that I'll use but for the most part, I refuse to patronize their business.
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I think the difference this time is that last time, it was just investigative journalists tracking down where the money was going. This time, Dan Cathy gave an interview with the Baptist Press, and he made statements that pretty clearly indicate that yes, the organization is against marriage equality.
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I thought it was well understood that they were a fundie organization. I'm as surprised as Dave.
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Every so often someone rediscovers that Chick-Fil-A donates to religious causes and it's like WHOOOOOOAAAAA IM NEVER EATING THERE AGAAAAAAAAAIN
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Mike, there's a difference between religious causes like Christian charity to homeless people and fucking persecuting minorities.
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karaokeninja said:
Mike, there's a difference between religious causes like Christian charity to homeless people and fucking persecuting minorities.
Very little, actually. I can only speak authoritatively about Christianity, so I'll limit my comments to this: in Christianity, the same moral system that produces religious charity produces--even demands--persecution. -
Let's go back to the context here. Mike said, "Every so often someone rediscovers that Chick-Fil-A donates to religious causes and it's like WHOOOOOOAAAAA IM NEVER EATING THERE AGAAAAAAAAAIN"
If Chick-Fil-A gives money to homeless shelters, rad. They don't. They give money to "gay people need to die" organizations. Therefore I think it's perfectly legit to choose not to eat there. We made that decision years and years ago when they gave us Christian propaganda tapes with our junk food, but I mean, this is a little more egregious than that. -
It's legit to patronize or not patronize any business for any reason.
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JonBrescia said:
Very little, actually. I can only speak authoritatively about Christianity, so I'll limit my comments to this: in Christianity, the same moral system that produces religious charity produces--even demands--persecution.
Explain.
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Maybe I was flip, there, but there always seems to be this attitude like the person has uncovered this amazing terrible secret that nobody had ever known about and they gotta tell everyone right away. I mean, it's kind of cute to realize that this is maybe the first overtly-political decision that some people have ever made, and you can understand how they're excited, but after a while it's like "okay yeah, you know you aren't the first person to do this, right?"
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This could be a lengthy piece, but I'll try to keep it really brief. The idea is, the Bible is central to Christian belief. It must be the inerrant word of god. It is free from error and contradiction. It is only the poor human mind that has trouble grappling with such lofty ideas. Even so, Christians must rely on it as their guide, the thing which provides all the moral notions to be applied in this world. However, if you take the entire Bible to represent a single, all-encompassing moral system, then you run into problems. Contradictions, real or apparent, rear their heads, and individuals must use their minds to figure out how to proceed. Does the Old Testament Law still apply, or is it void? Do I stone people or not? Jesus forgives, but he and his pappy are both wrathful. We're instructed to be both good and, in my estimation, evil by the same text. See the tortured Catholic explanation of Jesus' crucifixion:
Catholics said:Although God the Father brought great good out of Jesus’ death, nevertheless those who killed him, and all who approved of it, did what was objectively wrong. Why? Because, as Pilate acknowledged, Jesus was an innocent man. The Father knew, however, that the leaders of the people would condemn him and he consequently willed to work his (the Father’s) salvific plan in light of it. Jesus did what was pleasing to the Father and those who brought about his death did not.
Thus, an innocent scapegoat is saddled with the crimes of all mankind and beaten, lashed, and hung up to drip-die. The source of all goodness in the universe ("Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning") invented a plan whereby mankind's salvation was to be effected by spawning himself in the physical world, scapegoating that self, and then having it commit suicide by cop. This, of course, is individual persecution, but since it cuts to the core of the religion, I think it's also the most important. Scapegoating is never a morally good act.
See also: commands to murder, to commit genocide, to execute, to ostracize, and to demonize (sometimes literally) the Other throughout the Bible, with particular emphasis on the Old Testament. Hell, that Residents video I posted in another thread the other day was a live performance that interpreted Judges 11:29-40, in which god commands a dude to go kill his enemies, whereupon the dude swears to god that, if victorious, he'll kill the first thing that rushes out to greet him. When that thing turns out to be his daughter, he's really upset, but a promise is a promise, bros before hoes and all that, so she's given some virgin grieving time before she's offed as a sacrifice to god. Women are categorically dismissed as having equal value. Gays are abominations. And on and on.
Unfortunately, the same cafeteria-style system that allows for selecting only the "good" parts of Christianity also allows people to select as many of the "bad" parts as they want, and there's no way to argue against their choices in almost any case. -
In more important news, poop is destroying escalators.
http://sfist.com/2012/07/26/volume_of_excrement_in_the_wheels_b.php -
Jon: "Thus, an innocent scapegoat is saddled with the crimes of all mankind and beaten, lashed, and hung up to drip-die."
Or maybe what happened was we learned that we are no longer ruled by God, neither to be punished, commanded, or rewarded. We wanna torture God's son to death? Go ahead! He won't stop us, and he won't flood the Earth afterwards.
PS insisting that everything in the Bible should be taken literally in a modern context is like claiming that the parable of Mary and Martha means that God commands you to have a dirty house.
