It is not a harmless shared delusion. That is to say that it is not harmless. There are Christians that are harmless but the religion itself, if taken as directed, is every bit as harmful to the body politic as cigarettes are to an individual.
This is unfortunate because there is much to like about Christianity but unless you are very similar to cafeteria Catholics(and at that point how do you straightfacedly consider yourself Christian) then there is at least as much to be appalled at.
New York’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy, hailed by the city’s mayor and police chief as crucial in fighting crime, could boast only a 3% conviction rate between 2009 and 2012, according to a report by the state attorney general released on Thursday."
Schneiderman's study found that 0.3% of the 2.4m stops led to jail sentences of more than 30 days, and 0.1% led to convictions for violent crime.
Oftentimes it seems to me that I get hired to tell clients what they already know to be true.
Tax the rich? IMF sparks a mini revolution (via AFP)Your I485, APPLICATION TO REGISTER PERMANENT RESIDENCE OR TO ADJUST STATUS is now ready for interview scheduling. When scheduling is complete, you will receive a notice with a time and place for your interview
"A friend of mine in the finance industry suggested letting tax rates grow logarithmically. Subtract out the first $20,000 of income. Then, as your income increases as a multiple of 10, your tax rate increases by 21% on any income in excess of $20,000. So, someone earning $120,000 would owe $21,000 in taxes (21% of $100K); someone earning $1,020,000 would owe $420,000, (42% of $1 million) and so on. Taxes on the working poor and middle class would go down or stay flat; taxes on the upper-middle class would go up slightly; and taxes on the various levels of "f***ing loaded" would rise subtantially."'via Blog this'
"Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday suggested that the proper response to Monday's shooting at the Washington Navy Yard was to "increase the stigma" around "certain forms" of mental illness. "
You have to admit a dark skinned miss america just looks weird. I think it should follow tradition and be given to a white lady. it's about heritage not hate.
"Yes, there’s that special Christian dictionary where “persecution” is defined as “not being able to use force of law and the machinery of government to impose my religious values and practices on everyone else, Christian or not.”"
"One of Snowden’s superpowers cited in that NBC story is the ability to “impersonate” high-level officials. This is a garden-variety capability that a lot of users with administrative access have. I have it in a couple of different forms on systems that I manage for clients. From the point of view of security, it’s a necessary evil, and it needs to be carefully controlled and audited. Hype and spin notwithstanding, the huge trove of documents that Snowden extracted from the NSA isn’t evidence that he’s some kind of Lex Luthor who couldn’t be thwarted by mere mortals. Instead, it shows that NSA’s controls were weak, and the NSA’s leadership needs to be held accountable"
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or
(2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
"Juan Cole 08/25/2013 at 3:08 am
The room for abuse here is enormous. Police can arbitrarily arrest someone and the go on a fishing expedition through his data. "
"Blowback! Actions being taken that create unintended consequences. The current trend has been to wantonly disregard Civil Liberties on all fronts. The Obama Administration has followed in the steps of the Bush Administration by embracing the world of cloak and dagger, NSA spying, Drones, The Patriot Act. By taking this course and embracing the National Security state the Obama Administration finds itself at odds with anyone who firmly believes in the idea of preserving civil liberties. That being said the Administration which happens to be a Democrat Administration in taking the actions it is taking is actually paving the path for something which would seem incredible but can happen., A Rand Paul Presidency."
"A valid driver’s ID, the standard photo identification issued by states, is accepted for purposes of voting. But as fewer young people obtain driver’s licenses, the routine connection between adulthood and a photo ID is increasingly broken. The partisan implications are clear: In 2012, President Barack Obama captured 60 percent of votes cast by Americans ages 18 to 29. And when it comes to driver’s licenses, there is a wide disparity between poor and minority teens, who are even more likely to vote Democratic, and wealthy and white teens.
Low-income and minority teens are the least likely to obtain a driver’s license before age 18. Only 25 percent of teens living in households with incomes less than $20,000 obtained their license before they turned 18, while 79 percent of teens were licensed by their eighteenth birthday in households with incomes of $100,000 or more. The findings for licensure by age 18 differed significantly by race and ethnicity, with 67 percent for non-Hispanic white teens, 37 percent for non-Hispanic black teens, and 29 percent for Hispanic teens."'via Blog this'
"Racism is the utter lack of compassion it takes to see a mother grieving for a boy and afraid for her own sons, and think, “Wow, that would be really easy to tweak in Photoshop to make her look stupid. Wouldn’t that be funny?”
Racism is dehumanizing. Racism robs this woman of her individuality, her humanity, and her gender. “And ain’t I a woman?” This mother ain’t a woman to “The Patriot Nation.” She’s an object to be ridiculed for mistakes she never made; mistakes, in fact, that someone intentionally added to a photo of her for the purpose of mocking her grief and fear."
"If the tone of voice someone uses is enough to make you discount their argument, then you didn’t care about the issue to begin with. And the repeated demand to have things ‘calmly’ explained to you simply means you’re looking for an excuse not to listen. This goes double for people who demand calm explanations, and then IGNORE those explanations when they are given. You. Just. Don’t. Care. And while it may make you feel good to SAY you care, your actions shine through the bullshit veneer of “but I want to learn!” So if you don’t care, at least be honest with yourself and with others. You don’t have to care about every issue, but don’t lie. It’s boring."
"The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed an eye-popping divide among Republicans in the Bayou State when it comes to accountability for the government's post-Katrina blunders.
Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame."
Two Halifax kayakers have successfully braved the unforgiving waters of the North Atlantic to paddle more than 175 kilometres from Nova Scotia to Sable Island in what they are describing as a life-changing experience. “It was nothing short of magical,” said Jan-Sebastian La Pierre, who made the nearly 30-hour voyage from Canso, the nearest point on Nova Scotia’s mainland to the island, with paddling partner Graham Carter.
The Wikileaks Party Lurches To The Right: Preferences Fascists, Mens-righters and Gun-lovers above the Greens | AusVotes 2013:
"The only people who can lodge the official form with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) saying what a party’s preferences are is the Registered Officer, or a deputy Registered Officer. Currently listed as Registered Officer for the Wikileaks Party is Gail Malone, with deputy Registered Officers Karen Cochrane, Cassandra Findlay and Omar Todd.'via Blog this'
Given that such an important “administrative error” has been made, no doubt the Wikileaks Party will soon let us know who lodged the wrong preferences with the AEC and how a person capable of making such an error was appointed to such a little-known but very responsbile post."
"University of Washington engineers have created a new wireless communication system that allows devices to interact with each other without relying on batteries or wires for power. "
"While I have done this blogging thing mainly as a hobby – since I have actual Real Life Skills that are monetizable in The Real World – it has also been a rather all-consuming hobby which has taken me away from my family, the outside world (why live at the beach if you’re going to spend every free hour in front of a computer?), and from reading actual books (in lieu of blogs written by idiots), as well as watching movies and the teevee and enjoying life’s rich pageant. What tipped the scales this time was the recent loss of the brilliant and greatly missed Doghouse Riley whom, I will note, was younger than moi when he passed so suddenly. As was Jon Swift. And Steve Gilliard. And Jim Capozzola. For me, this was a mortality wake-up call."
"Upon first glance, it looks like what’s happening is that Georgetown is paying for part of the cost of law school and the federal government is forgiving the rest. But as Jason Delisle and Alex Holt at the New America Foundation discovered, Georgetown’s cleverer than that. The tuition paid by new students — tuition they’re often paying with federal loans — includes the cost of covering the previous students’ loan payments."
"A clown wearing a President Barack Obama mask appeared at a Missouri State Fair rodeo this weekend and the announcer asked the enthusiastic spectators if they wanted to see “Obama run down by a bull.”
The antics led the state’s second highest-ranking official, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, to denounce the performance in a tweet Sunday. He said it was “disrespectful” to the president.
“We are better than this,” the Republican tweeted."
"Was there a birth certificate? You tell me. Some people say that was not his birth certificate. I’m saying I don’t know. Nobody knows."
"“The food programs are designed to take care of people who can’t work, not won’t work. And we all know those people that won’t work, right?” he asked the audience. “They’re abusing the program, and we’ve got to get them off of it.”"
"Five upper-class neighbourhoods in the city of Portland - Irvington, Arbor Lodge, the SW hills, Laurelhurst and Eliot - have been targeting people with disabilities.
"There are sixteen people in this neighbourhood who vote and receive cash disability payments," the note read, posted by an anonymous writer known only as Artemis of the wildland, suggesting that those people who receive disability benefits are a menace to the republic. "The names of these people are being posted where they can be seen by taxpayers and the neighbourhood can decide who is truly disabled." The mayor's office is concerned with the underlying threat of violence, the Portland Commission on Disability requests that anyone who has received or seen the flyer to report it, in order to track it. The Portland Police are searching for the author of these hate-mongering flyers, asking anyone who knows who may be behind the flyers to come forward."
"Fox News’s Chris Wallace challenged House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and the GOP-controlled House for failing to pass key appropriations before the government runs out of money in September, demanding to know why the party is wasting time holding its 40 Obamacare repeal vote and pursuing other highly partisan partisan measures. "
"But you can take this to the bank: there is no conspiracy to keep cancer cures from the public. If you do want to look for a conspiracy, take a look at those who are trying to make a buck from promoting the notion that such a conspiracy exists."
In a good world, we would judge someone not by how many times they had seen a dick but by how many times they had resisted being one.
"To recap, Zeigler is a three-star police chief, one of the highest ranking officers in the NYPD. His mistake was that he was off-duty and black. When he showed his identification badge, the cops who ordered him out of his SUV didn’t believe who he was. The defense of the two white plainclothes officers who approached Zeigler was that they saw a gun in the SUV and only then ordered Zeigler out of his vehicle at gunpoint. Apparently one of the cops then got into an argument over Zeigler’s ID badge. "
"Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says he's glad Gov. Bob McDonnell is returning all the gifts he received from a major political donor. But he has no plans to repay the more than $18,000 in gifts he received from the same benefactor."
Lets be honest 73% of black women are unwed mothers since they get more handouts if their unmarried. #uniteblue #libcrib #uppers
— Tom Janoski (@tsj_washington) July 28, 2013
"First they came for the corporate lawyers.
And I said nothing.
Next they came for the MBAs.
And I said nothing.
Then they came for the bankers.
And I said nothing.
Because they were right."
Allen West has all my respect.
The black community needs more black leaders like West and Larry Elder who don't put up with the victimhood mentality most in the liberal left paint blacks as and how race baiters like Obama, Sharpton and Jackson love to play up to.
Created by former Alabama Klan boss and long-time white supremacist Don Black in 1995, Stormfront was the first major hate site on the Internet. Claiming more than 130,000 registered members (though far fewer remain active), the site has been a very popular online forum for white nationalists and other racial extremists. But a 2008 assertion by Black's wife that she opposes racist beliefs damaged Black's standing in the white supremacist movement.
"Big #Data’s utility is derived from its bigness. In the aggregate value is extracted." - http://t.co/4HWwliEBwr
— SmartData Collective (@SmartDataCo) July 23, 2013
Big Data is more about Marketing and less about Architectural Considerations #marketecture
— rob wolfe (@robwolfe) July 23, 2013
"Well, since he’s a pure progressive who regularly bashes the most liberal president in our lifetimes, President Obama, I think us white folks should stand by our Weiner-man. Never mind the fact that he seems to be a pathological liar to his various mistresses and wife who was home with their infant child while he was out trying to buy condos for his mistresses and getting them jobs at Politico.
That’s it, maybe President Obama should start having affairs and lying about them, then make sure Michelle stands by him even after that, and THEN he’ll finally get support from the white privilege progressives. Seems to have worked for the Clintons and Wieners. I suspect though that President Obama will continue improving the lives of millions around the world, especially those in extreme poverty, and re-building America’s middle class, and leading by example in his personal life and on and on, instead of following the Clinton/Weiner paths, so he’ll just have to keep doing without support from white privilege and online progressives. To each their own!"
"These two strands -- stupidity and racism -- are inseparable. The pairing seem to find a home at National Review with some regularity. It's been a little over a year since the magazine cut ties with self-described racist John Derbyshire for basically writing the same thing that Victor Davis Hanson writes here. Hanson couldn't even be bothered to come up with anything new. He just ripped off Derbyshire. His editors could evidently care less. A few days later the magazine cut ties with Robert Weissberg for offering pro tips to white nationalists. I'm not quite sure why they bothered with the kabuki. You are what your record says you are and at some point one must conclude that these are not one-offs, that the magazine which once blamed the Birmingham bombing on "a crazed Negro," is dealing with something more systemic, something bone-deep."'via Blog this'
"CUTLER: I had a front-row seat to the '86 amnesty. If you give lawful status to a bunch of illegal aliens who are being exploited, guess what, they will no longer be willing to be exploited. They will demand to be paid on the books, they will have the right to expect that they will be treated equally as Americans, but more importantly, they will have an equal standing in a labor pool that's already unable to find work. An alien who is naturalized or given employment authorization legally cannot be discriminated against, so they could get the same jobs that Americans desperately need to avoid losing their homes to foreclose."
"I had some sympathy for the laws because as, you know, as Americans we should be independent, we should be able to defend ourselves, be strong. But the argument he made about, you know, do we really want all sorts of people, do we really want what happened here, people walking with guns feeling free to shoot off without legal protections, without the normal legal process? Now, that's a compelling argument, which he put very well. And so I think if people hear that, there will be - you know, I think in my heart I certainly felt a little more desire, yeah, maybe something does have to be done about these laws."
"While I told him that I would have removed one or two posts — it’s not uncommon for writers to hastily pen a column they later regret — I found the breadth of the request to be excessive, and to be honest, quite cowardly. Doing so, I told Jack, was a repudiation of the very persona he had created as a writer and radio personality. It was a denial of the very views that had made him a local media celebrity and a rising star in the so-called liberty movement, and as such, a slap in the face to all those who had ever supported him. It was best, I said, that if those points of views no longer applied to him, Jack should pen a column detailing how he had changed his mind, but he declined. And frankly, that told me all I needed to know about Jack’s conversion. It was solely for appearances only. It was not heartfelt. It was not true. It was simply to protect his boss, Rand Paul, as he plots a path to the White House in 2016."
"I will just comment that in a country 10% African-American with America's history, Rand Paul's position on the Civil Rights Act--that since you cannot bring a gun onto private property without the owner's permission owners should be able to exclude African-Americans from stepping onto the premises willy-nilly--is a white supremacist position. "
" The Party of Lincoln is now Rush Limbaugh's gimp-suited plaything and has stacked Congress with enough deeply paranoid, face-defiant, lockstepping meatsticks that, as Ed Rogers, (a top aide to both Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush) notes, to kill "the art of governing in Washington":"
"The one thing that never occurs to these guys is that racism is not like monetarism or socialism or academicism or henotheism or anarcho-syndicalism; it's not a thought system we can sit up arguing about all night and be, other than the hangover, none the worse for wear after; it's cancer. Centuries of experience documented by historians and artists show it, if you need guidance, but a few years living in America ought to wise you up to it pretty quick all by itself. "
"HOOVER - AL - Hoover Board of Education met tonight to discuss the proposal to discontinue bus transportation for students effective 2014-2015 school year. The decision came about after Hoover has been experiencing declining revenues. "
"Unlike Honolulu, the city of Calgary is not in the United States of America. Unlike the Panama Canal, at the time of John McCain's birth, Calgary is not administered by the U.S. Government or occupied by U.S. Armed Forces. The only argument Senator Cruz can make for being a natural born citizen is that his mom was born in Delaware. That's sufficient, but it was exactly the same situation Obama would have been in if it had been true that he was born in Kenya. If Obama needed to show his birth certificate to prove his eligibility to be president, then Ted Cruz is ineligible. The Tea Party and Donald Trump should be saying that Ted Cruz cannot be president because he isn't a natural born citizen. But they aren't saying it. "
"Fifty-five people followed Ray into the sweat lodge; three died from overheating and 19 others were hospitalized after they collapsed, vomited, had trouble breathing, hallucinated, foamed at the mouth or fell unconscious.
Ray was convicted of negligently causing the deaths of Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, New York; Lizbeth Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minnesota; and James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee. Ray was found negligent, but acquitted of manslaughter charges that could have sent him to prison for 30 years."
"Imagine the public outcry if the Department of Justice — Eric Holder’s Department of Justice no less — were to take legal action against George Zimmerman, notwithstanding his acquittal this past weekend. "
"Hi, I’m Ted Nugent. I have nine children from seven women, and I’m running for president.” Nugent takes a sip of water, having delivered his potential slogan. “Yeah, I’m thinking about it.”"
. What would have happened if he would have carried pepper spray instead?my guess is that he never would have got out of his car and Trayvon Martin would still be alive.
"Quinoa is a low-calorie, gluten-free, high-protein grain that tastes great. Its popularity has exploded in the last several years, particularly among affluent, health-conscious Americans. But the kinks that kept the grain out of Freshii that day are emblematic of the hurdles it will face to becoming a truly widespread global commodity and a major part of Americans’ diet.
It shows the crucial role of global agribusiness, big-ticket infrastructure investment, and trade in bringing us the things we eat, whether we like it or not. In short, it’s hard to keep something on the menu if you might not be able to afford it the next day. And the American agricultural economy makes it hard for a new product to reach the kind of steady prices and day-in-day-out supply that it takes to make it big."
"“What I hear all the time coming out of the administration in Washington is that it’s the working poor [who benefit from Medicaid],” Corbett told WTAE, a local ABC affiliate, on Saturday. “Yes it is working, but you should be investing five, ten dollars in co-pay to understand that you go to to the hospital or the doctors, you just can’t keep going and going and going and think everything is going to be covered. You have to know that you have some interest in what’s going on.”'via Blog this'
Rick Perry Reacts To Zimmerman Verdict: 'I Think Our Justice System Is Color Blind' | ThinkProgress:
"Arguing on CNN Sunday Morning that the jury in the George Zimmerman case “made the right decision from their standpoint,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) dismissed any suggestion that America’s justice system is unfair to African-Americans or other people of color. In Perry’s words, “I think our justice system is color blind.” Watch it: "
"This is filed under our new American credo --- "Protect Us At All Costs!" Americans are so frightened of everything, even 17 year old kids with nothing more than skittles and tea in their hands, that they must "protect" themselves from all threats by any means necessary. The government police apparatus may be vast, extremely powerful and growing exponentially, but even that is not enough. In places like Florida they empower citizens to carry concealed weapons to "protect" us as well. "
"I think Zimmerman executed Trayvon Martin in cold blood. I think he just got away with murder. I think he should have been held accountable for what he did. But, to my dismay, the prosecution did not prove my theory of the case and the defense did several things to cast doubt on my theory. In the end, the defense didn't have to do much to win because that's the way the law is written."
"6.) I think the message of this episode is unfortunate. By Florida law, in any violent confrontation ending in a disputed act of lethal self-defense, without eye-witnesses, the advantage goes to the living. "
"Yesterday afternoon an African-American couple was eating at the outside tables at Benny’s Burrito in Greenwich Village when a drunken man, complaining about his wife leaving him and his job at Goldman Sachs, crashed their table. Douglass Reddish, 25, the man with his girlfriend, tried to help the man steady himself but got a different response than he likely expected. “This n***** wants to fight me?” said the unidentified man according to witnesses at the scene, “You n*****s are why I lost my job!”"
"Telecom giant Rogers Communications Inc. has pulled its sponsorship of a Dartmouth concert just hours after an announcement that American entertainer Chris Brown would perform at the show. "'via Blog this'
Erick Erickson