Armyman25 posted:

This was on my Facebook this morning.

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

We shop pretty much exclusively at Aldi and eat a LOT of leftovers. We'll make spaghetti once and freeze a couple containers of it so we can have it two more times, for instance.

Davethulhu posted:

Interesting. Sterilization and Euthanasia were both cost cutting measures, and not part of the whole "master race" thing.

Involuntary Sparkle posted:

Actually, thinking about the whole thing, I'm wondering if she's just making up some numbers. She's mentioned in earlier articles that her sons have Bright Futures, which is a college scholarship program here in Florida. And she posted how much the older son's tuition is for this academic year:


Both are going to the same school, she says, so with those tuition costs and then most of it (~$70 per credit hour) being paid for through Bright Futures, where the hell is she getting $15,000 for two?

And she did also say this:


The increase she was talking about was 25 hours. I had to do 150 hours for the IB program! While being in IB!

And, it seems that a lot of her finance related articles have been pulled.

Strudel Man posted:

Ah. Well, given that you're apparently being very thrifty indeed, it doesn't seem especially absurd that they would spend quite a bit more than you on food.

Bruce Leroy posted:

Good job! She really seems to be making poo poo up throughout that article (there's no loving way community college costs $15,000/year for two people. poo poo, even many 4-year state schools cost less.), but even giving her the benefit of the doubt, she's still relatively wealthy if she and her husband can send two children to college without accruing any debt whatsoever, even if it is community college. E.g. If their sons are living at home while they go to college, they could each easily pay for community college on their own, even at minimum wage.

This woman is just fudging numbers and exaggerating hardship so she doesn't have to admit that she's financially well-off, yet still not satisfied with her life because she doesn't "feel rich" and "doesn't have money to burn." Her entire sense of self-worth and happiness is wrapped up in these upper-middle class stereotypes, like poo poo from "Desperate Housewives."

quote:

As a conservative, I am a strong believer in personal responsibility: You make the decisions; you take the consequences. Big government shouldn't be able to force you to buy health insurance. But if you make the decision to have no insurance, you need to take the consequence of having no health care unless you can pay for it out of pocket. Don't expect me (through my insurance premiums or my taxes) to pay for it for you.

The laws on the books (before Obamacare) force emergency rooms to treat people who come in whether they can afford it or not. This isn't freedom, or free-market capitalism; it is just government health care for freeloaders. As soon as the Supreme Court overturns Obamacare, I hope and expect that the true conservatives in Congress will pass a "No Care for Freeloaders" law -- if you don't have insurance and don't have a big wad of cash in your back pocket, you sit outside the hospital doors and stay sick, or die if that's what it comes to. At least you will die proud to have kept your liberty.

This just might have the same effect as the "individual mandate," since no rational person would decide not to get health insurance if they had to live or die with the consequences. If the court does strike down Obamacare, "No Care for Freeloaders" might just be our only path to universal and efficient health care.

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ, ST. LOUIS PARK

Borneo Jimmy posted:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/144989015.html

If you die in horrible agony from a treatable disease or injury, you sir are an American patriot

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

Yeah, I'm not saying everyone should spend as little as my family, just that that family isn't even TRYING to cut costs. Even cutting 25% per person would save them $250 a month, while still spending 150% of what my family does.

Borneo Jimmy posted:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/144989015.html

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ, ST. LOUIS PARK posted:

This just might have the same effect as the "individual mandate," since no rational person would decide not to get health insurance if they had to live or die with the consequences. If the court does strike down Obamacare, "No Care for Freeloaders" might just be our only path to universal and efficient health care.

Bruce Leroy posted:

Exactly. No one is saying that this family should be spending pennies per meal per person, but there are some really easy ways to significantly increase savings and efficiency that they probably aren't taking advantage of, e.g. making somewhat larger meals with the intention of freezing the leftovers for use as meals at a later date.

Borneo Jimmy posted:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/144989015.html

If you die in horrible agony from a treatable disease or injury, you sir are an American patriot

Borneo Jimmy posted:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/144989015.html

If you die in horrible agony from a treatable disease or injury, you sir are an American patriot

Borneo Jimmy posted:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/144989015.html

If you die in horrible agony from a treatable disease or injury, you sir are an American patriot

quote:

I was in attendance at the FreedMen Conquest 2012 event at Pershing Center on March 24. I was fortunate to have a backstage pass because of being part of the worship team band. I applaud Ron Brown for his beliefs and his courage to expound upon them in such a public forum despite UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman's not-so-subtle clubbing of Mr. Brown in the local press.

I also applaud the Journal Star for actually covering this event ("Biblical truth is at stake," March 25), although the reporter missed a significant point made by Mr. Brown. "My name is Ron Brown. I do not speak for the University of Nebraska. My address is not 1 Memorial Stadium, Lincoln Nebraska," Mr. Brown stated in his opening comments. That message was received loud and clear by the assembled masses to whom Mr. Brown was speaking. I'm hoping that message is simple enough for Chancellor Perlman to understand.

As for Cyd Zeigler, the "gay sportswriter" (LJS words, not mine) who thinks UNL should fire Ron Brown for "what he has done with his religion": Has he not consulted the Bill of Rights? Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are two of the mainstays of our foundation as a country. He subscribes to the gay view of the Christian's intolerance of the gay lifestyle, but he is just as intolerant of our lifestyle if not more so. And he should stop confusing religion with Christianity. Religion is manmade. Christianity comes from God.

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

I saw this letter in the Lincoln Journal Star. The whole thing is terrible as hell, but what the gently caress does the bolded part even mean?

The Ten Commandments of Secular Sharia posted:

Secular fundamentalists, it turns out, have their own version of Sharia law.

It is just as unbending, rigid and dangerous to liberty as the Muslim kind. And secular Sharia has ten commandments, just like the Judeo-Christian tradition does.

The Ten Commandments of the Judeo-Christian tradition supplied the foundation for the American political experiment. As George Washington said, "Of all the disposition and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

By “Religion,” Washington meant Christianity, and by “morality,” he meant the Ten Commandments. In other words, according to the Father of our country, it is impossible to have political prosperity without building on the platform of the Christian religion and Christian morality.

But this is the very thing secular fundamentalists despise. So they have, in effect, written their own moral code on tablets of stone, to replace the moral code on which the Founders established our political and cultural life.

These new commandments must be obeyed, and those who flout them will receive the most severe and unyielding punishments, including censure, excommunication, (say, from graduate counseling programs), and fines in the forms of legal fees to the secular imams at the ACLU.

Here, then, are the Ten Commandments of secular Sharia:

1. “Government, not Yahweh, is God.” Secular fundamentalists want us to look to government for everything we were once taught to look for from God. Government is all knowing, all powerful, all wise, all caring. You know, all the things God used to be.

2. “You shall have no gods, period.” The goal of secular fundamentalists is the extermination of any and all mentions of God and Christ in the public arena. The only exceptions to the “no god” rule will be for Gaia and Allah. Gaia is to be worshiped, and any blasphemy against her, by plundering her for such things as the fuel on which the world runs, will be met with the severest punishment and condemnation.

3. “You shall not take the name of the homosexual agenda or Islam in vain.” If you do, we will land on you like a falling safe. Profanity, blasphemy, vulgarity, obscenity, pornography, all are fine. Criticize homosexual conduct, on the other hand, and we will cause the wrath of our god to descend upon you as a consuming fire. You will be silenced, marginalized and treated as a leper. We secularists have freedom of speech but you cretinous conservatives do not. If you have a problem with sexually deviant behavior, you are by definition a homophobic hatemonger and we don’t have to listen to you.

4. “Observe Halloween, Labor Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as holy days. Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving, on the other hand, must be wiped off school calendars as if they never existed.”

5. “Honor your father and mother - by which we mean liberal politicians, since they have turned government into your mommy and your daddy.” No husband, no problem: government will be the head of your home. No father, no problem: government will be your provider and raise your children for you.

6. “You shall not murder - unless it’s a defenseless baby in the womb.”

7. “You shall not commit adultery - unless it’s with another man’s wife. Fornication and sodomy without repercussions and penalty are okay too. And we’re working on polygamy and pedophilia.” Anyone who disagrees, and says anything remotely critical of such behaviors, will be subject to the wrath of the holy and righteous prophets of secular Sharia in the out-of-the-mainstream media, who will call down fire and brimstone on those who dare to challenge the sexual orthodoxy of leftist libertines.

8. “You shall not steal - unless it’s to plunder from the producers what they have earned to give to the non-producers what they have not earned.” Anyone who complains about this involuntary transfer of wealth will be judged by the secular mullahs as evil, greedy capitalists and silenced. Right after they have been ripped off.

9. “You shall not bear false witness - unless it is to tell blatant lies about the Constitution, American history, the economy, unemployment figures and drilling for oil.” As long as you are lying to advance the power and reach of government, or get a leftist politician reelected, it’s okay. Secularists have their own version of taqqiya, just like the Muslims do.

10. “You shall not covet anything - as long as it belongs to people who are poorer than you. If they have more money than you, they are evil oppressors who must be plundered of their ill-gotten wealth by our government overlords so it can be redistributed to the lazy, shiftless and irresponsible.”

I miss anything?

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

THE GAYING OF AMERICA 10 reasons to walk out on 'Day of Silence' posted:

A broad coalition of pro-family groups recommends that students stay away from school on Friday, April 20, 2012, the national “Day of Silence,” if the school is officially recognizing and/or compelling students to observe this event during instructional time by a silent protest. High schools and even some middle schools are now the target of this event.

The Day of Silence is supposedly led by students, but actually led by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which describes itself as “championing LGBT issues in K-12 education since 1990.” Did you catch that? “K through 12″? Younger and younger students are the target of this group. The younger the better, because they are easier to manipulate.

The Day of Silence goal is not, as I am told frequently by outraged emails from misinformed students, to help end all bullying. The goal is to exploit the tender sympathies of kids to promote homosexuality and gender confusion. The agenda is everything; Judeo-Christian morality is the enemy; and sadly, kids are the tools.

GLSEN teaches students that homosexuals and gender-confused people are “silenced” and under persecution by those who object to this behavior, and that traditional moral concerns cause bullying. No hard, objective data exist to support this contention, and the event itself causes hostility, confusion and division.

Here are 10 reasons I believe Christian students in particular and possibly even teachers and staff should refuse to honor this event by school attendance:

1. A silent protest in support of immoral, God-dishonoring behavior is in itself profoundly deceptive. All sexual behavior outside man/woman marriage is sinful in God’s eyes. Why should Christian students and teachers be in the position of accommodating this flagrant violation of their principles?

2. Any explicit or implicit message encouraging teens and even younger students to experiment freely with homosexual behavior is not “social justice” or “tolerance,” but actually, child corruption.

3. Allowing classroom silence to honor the Day of Silence unleashes tremendous peer pressure for students and even teachers to endorse sexual immorality, or be considered “enemies” of those peers and teachers proudly involved in homosexuality. This puts people of faith in the position of violating Christian doctrine through tacit approval (Romans 16:17-18; Ephesians 5:11). They are also intimidated into self-censoring their First Amendment rights.

4. The Day of Silence encourages students to nurture prejudiced, hostile and bigoted attitudes against Christians and others with traditional moral beliefs, and to spread inaccurate and harmful information.

5. Using legitimate concerns about bullying and teen suicide to advance the promotion of homosexuality in schools is educational malpractice. It’s totally unnecessary to stop bullying and prevent harm to students, and Christians should not be a party to this gross distortion of a genuine problem. No one needs to embrace homosexuality or gender confusion in order to prevent bullying, but GLSEN routinely takes this deceitful position.

6. Teachers know harassment when they see it. They can simply say, “Cut it out!” But GLSEN and the Day of Silence pressure teachers to amend this to, “Cut it out, because you are only permitted to say good things about homosexuality!” When did we all sign up to become public-relations agents for the good reputation of homosexuality? This viewpoint discrimination forces an untruthful and ungodly agenda on staff members, when stopping verbal harassment can be accomplished without becoming champions of “gay” behavior.

7. There are legitimate lessons students should learn about prejudice and bias. But Day of Silence promoters deceptively link moral objections about homosexuality to racial discrimination or anti-Semitism in an attempt to legitimize the pro-homosexual agenda and portray homosexuals as perennial victims, while disguising the harmfulness and risk.

8. Teachers have used the DOS to inappropriately become classroom advocates and models of this deviant behavior. In one Ohio school, a teacher used a PowerPoint presentation to tell students about her “gay” support and even disclosed to students that she was a lesbian, without prior notice to parents or permission from her principal.

9. The health and lifestyle risks of homosexuality are virtually never shared on the Day of Silence. Instead, students are given the deceitful impression that homosexuality is just as safe and worthy an identity as heterosexual dating and marriage.

10. The DOS message inhibits Christians from witnessing to their peers caught up in homosexuality or gender confusion. There is salvation through Jesus Christ and the hope of leaving this sin behind. Calling homosexuality a sin on the Day of Silence would be considered “hateful,” when it is actually God-honoring and respectful to the hearer. It may lead them to an eternal home with God. But that won’t happen if the truth is suppressed, which it always is on the Day of Silence. Stay home that day, and choose to witness on another, where perhaps you will have a fair chance of being heard.

Bruce Leroy posted:

constantIllusion posted:

I want to believe that the modern conservative discourse is just an elaborate scheme to troll the uneducated shut-ins of America, but I know these people are really serious in thinking what they think.

quote:

The New York Times sits at the apex of American media. Its decisions on what to cover often define what TV networks and less prominent newspapers think is news. And many times its reporting is groundbreaking and trenchant, which is why the Times has won so many Pulitzer Prizes.

Nevertheless, there is often an insular, condescending quality to the Times’ coverage of areas outside the Northeastern seaboard and outside the usual range of values, interests and beliefs of its newspaper’s executives and editors. Says who? For one, its first ombudsman. In 2004, veteran journalist Daniel Okrent wrote that the newspaper treats a wide range of American groups “as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide.” A perfect example: the Times’ front-page story about the fiery death of auto racing legend Dale Earnhardt Sr. at the 2001 Daytona 500. Its detached, faintly amused tone led writer Christopher Caldwell to suggest the story should have been headlined “Inexplicably Treasured Cracker with Mustache Immolated in Bizarre Folk Ritual.”

But where this tunnel vision is most disturbing is on the U.S. budget and economy. At a time when most of the rest of the world is wary of deficits and confiscatory tax rates, the Times’ opinion writers are often strident outliers.

Last week, the paper’s Economics Scene columnist, Eduardo Porter, suggested hiking the top U.S. marginal income tax rate to 80 percent or more.

For years, its star op-ed columnist, Paul Krugman, has called for immense new government spending far beyond the record sums spent by the Obama administration, contrary to his anti-deficit screeds under the last president.

As for the Times’ editorial page, it too has chosen a demagogic course. In November 2010, it offered a tempered endorsement of the draft conclusions of the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson budget reform commission, which called for simpler but higher taxes; higher payroll taxes and reduced benefits to bring Social Security out of the red; military spending cuts; and health care cost containment.

Since then, however, this constructive approach is hard to find. Instead, the Times’ editorial page touts a narrative that Republicans who disagree with Barack Obama’s economic policies do so not because they have different views but because they know the policies will work and they don’t want to help the president win re-election. Bipartisan warnings about the budget nightmare that looms, largely because aging baby boomers will sharply increase the cost of Medicare and Social Security, are framed as being “catchy but false Republican talking points.”

What makes this narrative so ironic is that one of the first powerful voices in the U.S. media to warn of the baby boomer threat to the budget was, you guessed it, the editorial page of The New York Times.

It outlined the need for changes in Social Security benefit formulas and financing in an editorial headlined “The Toll of the Pension Clock” on June 1, 1980.

No, 1980 is not a typo. Thirty-two years ago, the Times saw this problem coming. Now that baby boomers have begun to retire and the problem is upon us, the Times almost reflexively impugns the motives of those who want to do something about it. This is not what we would define as progress.

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

I saw this letter in the Lincoln Journal Star. The whole thing is terrible as hell, but what the gently caress does the bolded part even mean?


EDIT: the whole letter is even dumber, because the controversy is not about the event at Pershing, but about Brown's advocating against Omaha's anti-discrimination resolution and using his position at Nebraska in his advocacy.

closeted republican posted:

In conservative evangelical (not sure about more moderate conservatism) circles there's a strong belief that their religion is super special because God came to Earth via Jesus which somehow shows that Christianity is the One True Religion because of what he did, while with other religions, God simply revealed himself via prophets and the like. This is almost always used to subtly insult other religions like Islam, Judaism, and others. It's a pretty childish and passive-aggressive view that rooted in looking better than everyone else, which makes it par for the course for conservative evangelicalism.

seniorservice posted:

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/31/2012-ny-times-heed-1980-ny-times/

quote:

But where this tunnel vision is most disturbing is on the U.S. budget and economy. At a time when most of the rest of the world is wary of deficits and confiscatory tax rates, the Times’ opinion writers are often strident outliers.

closeted republican posted:

In conservative evangelical (not sure about more moderate conservatism) circles there's a strong belief that their religion is super special because God came to Earth via Jesus which somehow shows that Christianity is the One True Religion because of what he did, while with other religions, God simply revealed himself via prophets and the like. This is almost always used to subtly insult other religions like Islam, Judaism, and others. It's a pretty childish and passive-aggressive view that rooted in looking better than everyone else, which makes it par for the course for conservative evangelicalism.

Jeseuss posted:

I've got a winner for you guys. Sorry if it was already posted.



Welcome to Purdue University. Wait you're gay? Get the gently caress out fag.

"THOMAS: Put more money into cures, not treatment posted:

The debate isn't new, but as the country awaits the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, suppose the conversation switched from a health care system devoted primarily to caring for the sick to one that gives top priority to finding cures for disease? A healthier public would sharply reduce expenses associated with catastrophic illness.

There is also the issue of prevention so that while cures are pursued through research, people might adjust their lives in ways that give them the best chance of avoiding sickness altogether.

A useful starting point is a paper published in 2009 by Partnership for Prevention (https://www.prevent.org), "A nonpartisan organization of business, nonprofit and government leaders working to make evidence-based disease prevention and health promotion a national priority."

The paper was titled "The Economic Argument for Disease Prevention: Distinguishing Between Value and Savings." The authors — three doctors and an executive consultant with an MBA — wrote, "There are three kinds of prevention. Primary prevention can be accomplished by modifying unhealthy behaviors (e.g., smoking, physical inactivity), which cause many diseases and account for 38 percent of all deaths in the United States, administering immunizations to prevent infectious diseases and reducing exposure to harmful environmental factors. Secondary prevention can reduce the severity of diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, through screening programs that detect the diseases or their risk factors at early stages, before they become symptomatic or disabling. Tertiary prevention — the effort to avoid or defer the complications of diseases after they have developed — is the current focus of medical care."

That focus on tertiary prevention is the driving force behind rising health care costs.

As baby boomers age, the cost of treating the rising number of diseases and common illnesses attributable to aging will increase. Finding cures is the most logical approach to keeping health care costs in check.

Take Alzheimer's disease. Because of medical advances, more people are living longer, and more will likely contract this slow-progressing, eventually fatal disease. According to the Alzheimer's Association (https://www.alz.org), "Medicare and Medicaid will spend an estimated $140 billion in 2012 on people with Alzheimer's and other dementias." Worse, it says, "Caring for people with Alzheimer's disease will cost all payers — Medicare, Medicaid, individuals, private insurance and HMOs — $20 trillion (in today's dollars) over the next 40 years. The overwhelming majority of that will be spending by Medicare and Medicaid." It would cost far less if we found a cure for Alzheimer's.

The three leading causes of death in America remain what they have been for some time. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they are: heart disease, cancer and chronic lower respiratory diseases.

What is needed is political leadership, not unlike John F. Kennedy's vision of putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. If the forces of technology can be marshaled to achieve a major task in space, why can't medical and political forces, working together and without the polarization that divides Washington, find cures for diseases here on Earth? Disease does not discriminate. Democrats and Republicans get sick. Where is the downside to cooperating to find medical cures? Especially if the Supreme Court overturns part, or all, of Obamacare — but even if it doesn't — finding cures to diseases that kill is a worthy objective that will produce dividends for millennia to come and contribute to human happiness. It will also substantially reduce the federal deficit and national debt.

It is rare when an issue has no political negatives attached to it and finding cures for diseases is one of them. Working together might even improve the political health of Washington, which, according to opinion polls, is in critical condition.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/04/4391928/thomas-put-more-money-into-cures.html#storylink=cpy

"Jimmy Carter – a truly evil man posted:

Will You Boldly Proclaim"I am a Christian"? Sign the pledge now! billygraham.org/I-am-a-Christian

What happens when an evil man is interviewed by a know-nothing interviewer from a corrupt and decadent faux news agency?

You need someone like me to sort out the sublime (not much of that) to the ridiculous.

So that’s what we’re going to do. Decipher and decode the Huffington Post’s Q&A with the insufferable Jimmy Carter.

Asked by HuffPost senior religion editor Paul Brandeis about Creation, Carter said: “I happen to have an advantage there because I am a nuclear physicist by training and a deeply committed Christian. I don’t have any doubt in my own mind about God who created the entire universe. But I don’t adhere to passages that so and so was created 4,000 years before Christ, and things of that kind. Today we have shown that the earth and the stars were created millions, even billions, of years before. We are exploring space and sub-atomic particles and learning new facts every day, facts that the Creator has known since the beginning of time.”

Well, wait a minute! Was it millions of years ago or billions? There’s a big difference between the two. Why so imprecise? That doesn’t sound like a nuclear physicist talking. Just how old is the Earth? And if the Creator has known all this from the beginning of time, why would He inspire the authors of the Bible to get it wrong?

Asked about homosexuality and the Bible, Carter had this to say: “Homosexuality was well-known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born, and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things – he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.”

Wait a minute! Isn’t Jesus God? And didn’t God inspire the Bible? Just because Jesus isn’t quoted in red letters in the Bible discussing homosexuality, does that mean He never addressed it? Doesn’t it suggest, on the contrary, that Jesus didn’t dispute the law of the Bible? In fact, wouldn’t His atoning sacrifice on the cross be rendered ineffective if He didn’t uphold the law in its entirety? Does Jimmy Carter believe there is disagreement within the Trinity on homosexuality?

Here’s what the Bible says about homosexuality with no ambiguity:

Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

Romans 1:24-28: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;”

Of course Jesus never said “gay people should be condemned.” In fact, I don’t know anyone who says that. What most Bible-believers say is that homosexuals should turn away from their sin – just like adulterers, fornicators and liars should. Further, Jesus does talk very specifically about marriage – and he affirms what it is supposed to be in God’s economy: an institution between one man and one woman for life (Mark 10:7-9).

Carter continues: “I draw the line, maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people. I’m a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs. So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn’t require them to.”

Arbitrarily? Has Carter ever read the First Amendment? And what about the Bible-believing civil judge? Should he or she be forced to violate his or her own moral principles by being forced to participate in sin?

Question: “Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life (John 14:6). How can you remain true to an exclusivist faith claim while respecting other faith traditions?”

Carter: “Jesus also taught that we should not judge other people (Matthew 7:1), and that it is God who judges people, so I am willing to let God make those judgments, in the ultimate time whenever it might come. I think ‘judge not that you be not judged’ is the best advice that I will follow. Maybe it is a rationalization, but it creates a lack of tension in my mind about that potential conflict. There are many verses in the Bible that you could interpret very rigidly and that makes you ultimately into a fundamentalist. When you think you are better than anybody else – that you are closer to God than other people, and therefore they are inferior to you and subhuman – that leads to conflict and hatred and dissonance among people when we should be working for peace.”

But that’s not what Christians are commanded to do by Jesus. We are commanded to spread the gospel for the salvation of many. I know this hasn’t been a big part of Jimmy Carter’s life. But it remains the unequivocal, central role of the Christian in the world. We’re not supposed to just live and let live – because to do that actually means death for those we don’t confront with their sin and the salvation message.

Question: “There is a scripture passage attributed to Jesus, ‘Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth, I did not come to bring peace but a sword’ (Matthew: 10:34). How do you interpret that, in light of your basic belief in Jesus as the Prince of Peace?”

Carter: “For the last 35 or more years, my wife and I have read the Bible last thing every night and just last week we read that passage and discussed it a little bit. What Christ was saying was that when we have conflict in our mind or hearts, between our secular duties and teachings of Christ, we should put the teachings of Christ first.

“He was predicting what would happen, that his teachings might cause divisions among people as they decided to follow God’s ordained duties such as peace, humility, service to others, alleviation of suffering, forgiveness – when we face those conflicts, we should adhere to the principles that never change, to the moral values that are taught through religion.”

This man was permitted to teach Bible classes in a Southern Baptist church? He has admitted he doesn’t even believe in marriage as it is defined in the Bible, yet suggests “we should adhere to the principles that never change, to the moral values that are taught through religion.” Very confusing reasoning here. By the way, the “sword of the Lord” is truth – the Word of God. Though Jesus will return someday soon wielding a different kind of sword.

Question: “Should we approach the Bible literally, or metaphorically?”

Carter: “When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God, but written down by human beings deprived of modern-day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible. But the basic principles are applicable to my life, and I don’t find any conflict among them.

“The example that I set in my private life is to emulate what Christ did as he faced people who were despised like the lepers or the Samaritans. He reached out to them, he reached out to poor people, he reached out to people that were not Jews and treated them equally. The more despised and the more in need they were, the more he emphasized that we should go to and share with them our talent our ability, our wealth, our influence. Those are the things that guide my life, and when I find a verse in the Bible that contradicts those things that I just described to you, I put into practice the things that I derive from my faith in Christ.”

I love this answer because there’s actually some truth in what he says about himself. Carter, too, reaches out to people who are not Jews and treats them equally. However, he is one of the most repugnant anti-Semites on the face of the earth – so he’s not quite so accommodating to Jews.

This is why I call Jimmy Carter a truly evil person. He still tries to masquerade as a Christian, though his views are increasingly heretical if not those of an apostate.

Jesus says when judgment day comes, there will be some He turns away, even though they claim to have prophesied in His name.

“Depart from me, I never knew you,” Jesus says (Matthew 7:23).

I wonder what goes through Carter’s mind when he reads that verse with Rosalyn?

quote:

We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.

Bruce Leroy posted:

How does stuff like this get published in a print publication?

I understand how this stuff exists on the internet (e.g. comments on youtube, yahoo news articles, etc.), but what the gently caress is the editorial staff doing if such stupid, ignorant, homophobic bullshit gets published?

What's next, letters from white supremacist and/or neo-nazi groups?

Also, I love the lovely titles newspaper give to the "letters to the editor." Just look at this letter, it's titled "Resident provides suggestion for LGBT youth." Yeah, that "suggestion" is "keep out of our town and college you fags and fag lovers."

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

If I were an editor I would publish the stupidest, most ignorant bullshit I could, because it would highlight how insane the positions in question really are.

Also because I like trolling.

Bruce Leroy posted:

What's next, letters from white supremacist and/or neo-nazi groups?

quote:

Recently, a volunteer neighborhood watch member was involved in a shooting of a person of a protected class. All of a sudden it became a race issue across the country thanks to our half-arse corporate press.

Fact, Mr. Zimmerman falls under the same category as the black individual, i.e. his mother was of the “non-white Hispanic” identification. The father is of the Jew community and an upper middle-class person involved with the judicial system. Both qualify by law as minorities as does their son Mr. Zimmerman. So by law it is not a race issue.

Do you notice the majority of photos of the deceased are from his grade school period and not his face book pictures of a tough football playing person flashing gang hand signals?

If the facts are that Zimmerman’s nose was broken and was bleeding on the ground with a pretty large and athletic man on top of him with his head being bounced on the sidewalk, the law has been for decades that if you are in fear of great bodily harm you have the legal privilege of using whatever force you see as necessary to terminate the attack. This is why with the investigation even including the FBI there has been no arrest. In fact, with one minority killing another minority under present law it cannot be a so-called hate crime. Is this case being used to discourage citizens from protecting their neighborhoods?

Could be, but one last question. If the deceased would have been white with blue eyes and blond hair, what do you think the story would might be like. Or more likely the story would have remained local and ended up in the local newspaper back in the used car section.

Tom Metzger

Leon Einstein posted:

It seems that they often do just this.

a 10th grader writing in for a class assignment posted:

Have you ever wondered if NASA really did send men to the moon? Well I have. My name is (...); I am a sophomore at (...) High School in Indiana. I am writing a persuasive essay that I hope will one day come out in the newspaper. I am writng about NASA and how I don’t really think they sent men to the moon. I am not dissing them or anything; I just don’t believe the fact that they say that they did go to the moon. I have been researching a lot and I have found many pictures that they “supposedly” took on the moon, and I have found that all these pictures can’t be “real” pictures because all of these pictures show random and unreal things. So I hope after reading what I have researched you will think twice about believing if NASA did really send men to the moon or not.

The first picture that I saw that NASA claims that’s real is a picture that shows the American flag on the moon. The only problem with this picture is that it shows the flag waving and as you might know there is no air and most certainly no breeze in outer space. This really got me thinking because if there is no air in outer space why is the flag waving?

Another picture I found shows the footprints of the astronauts especially Neil Armstrong’s. The problem with this one is that how can footprints be possible if there is no dust on the moon? This can’t be possible because the moon’s surface is hard and very rocky, therefore making footprints impossible.

There was another image taken and this one shows no stars on the background. If you can see stars from the earth, wouldn’t it be easier to see them from outer space? My point here is that if you capture photos from the moon you must be able to see some stars from the background. It wouldn’t matter what direction you would take the picture. Two other images show earth from the moon. In one image the earth is closer than the other image. The question is which one is correct?

Now the main pictures that really got many people’s and my attention were the shadows that certain pictures show. Now the only source of light on the moon is the sun. The only problem with all these images is that the shadows shown appear in multiple directions not only in one. Didn’t NASA know that technology would advance and people wouldn’t notice?

I’m really trying to prove a point here, and that point is that I don’t believe that NASA sent men to the moon because of these images that I have seen. Well at least not now. The only way to find out if they did go to the moon is to prove that the American flag is still on the moon. That is the only proof that they can show the world. I hope this article really got you thinking about what NASA is capable of doing. You don’t have to believe it; I just hope it gets more people thinking.

a 10th grader writing in for a class assignment posted: posted:

moon landing bullshit

Saint Sputnik posted:

a 10th grader writing in for a class assignment posted:

I’m really trying to prove a point here, and that point is that I don’t believe that NASA sent men to the moon because of these images that I have seen. Well at least not now. The only way to find out if they did go to the moon is to prove that the American flag is still on the moon. That is the only proof that they can show the world. I hope this article really got you thinking about what NASA is capable of doing. You don’t have to believe it; I just hope it gets more people thinking.

Saint Sputnik posted:

quote:

Recently, a volunteer neighborhood watch member was involved in a shooting of a person of a protected class. All of a sudden it became a race issue across the country thanks to our half-arse corporate press.

Fact, Mr. Zimmerman falls under the same category as the black individual, i.e. his mother was of the “non-white Hispanic” identification. The father is of the Jew community and an upper middle-class person involved with the judicial system. Both qualify by law as minorities as does their son Mr. Zimmerman. So by law it is not a race issue.

Do you notice the majority of photos of the deceased are from his grade school period and not his face book pictures of a tough football playing person flashing gang hand signals?

If the facts are that Zimmerman’s nose was broken and was bleeding on the ground with a pretty large and athletic man on top of him with his head being bounced on the sidewalk, the law has been for decades that if you are in fear of great bodily harm you have the legal privilege of using whatever force you see as necessary to terminate the attack. This is why with the investigation even including the FBI there has been no arrest. In fact, with one minority killing another minority under present law it cannot be a so-called hate crime. Is this case being used to discourage citizens from protecting their neighborhoods?

Could be, but one last question. If the deceased would have been white with blue eyes and blond hair, what do you think the story would might be like. Or more likely the story would have remained local and ended up in the local newspaper back in the used car section.

quote:

Spread the word about dangers of alcohol


Often under the guise of a “health food” or as an ingredient in many recipes, the promotion of alcoholic spirits is sadly overtaking our culture, as it insidiously lures individuals deeper and deeper into addiction. Promoted as a sign of “gourmet” or “fine cooking” many cookbooks, TV chefs and cooking magazines promote the use of alcohol in the preparation of food.

Whether through lack of knowledge or misinformation, many of these cooking “professionals” believe that alcohol, when subjected to the heat of cooking, somehow “boils away” leaving only the flavor.

This is a myth! According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Nutrient Data Laboratory, it takes about three hours to eliminate almost all traces of alcohol. In some recipes, as much as 85 percent of alcohol is retained.

Recipes calling for use of spirits present a clear and present danger. The potential serious problems associated with cooking with alcohol are fully realized when one considers the categories of people for whom even a minute amount of alcohol is detrimental and even dangerous. Examples include persons with weakened or diseased livers, expectant mothers and recovering alcoholics.

Many people may not be aware that alcohol use can increase their cancer risk. The website of the American Cancer Society lists several types of cancer linked to alcohol use, including cancers of the mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus, liver, breast, colon and rectum. Alcohol is a drug that kills cells.

Please spread the word about the harmful effects of alcohol during April’s Alcohol Awareness Month!

Loreta Jent

The writer is Illinois P.R. director of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union

quote:

There have been a few readers who have asked about The Pantagraph’s recent decision not to publish a series of strips of the Doonesbury comic.

For those not familiar with the issues, the six strips focused on a new Texas law that requires counseling and a sonogram before women can receive an abortion in Texas. The law is controversial. Some see it as an affront to their civil liberties and a woman’s right to choose. Others see it as a deterrent to abortion.

No one who reads Doonesbury on a regular basis will be surprised that author Garry Trudeau’s series was critical of the new law and he made the point that the law is representative of the way the Republican Party views women.

The distributors of the Doonesbury strip warned editors that the series of cartoons may be offensive to some readers and offered replacement strips if editors didn’t want to publish the original ones.

I want to use this column to explain how we made that decision at The Pantagraph and discuss the one mistake we made.

Such notices from the suppliers of comic strips are not unusual and the issue comes up more often with the Doonesbury strip than most others. No one worries too much about Family Circus nearing the boundaries of good taste.

The series by Trudeau dealt with the new Texas abortion law in such a way, however, that caused many editors here to question whether it was appropriate to print in the newspaper. The question centered around one strip, which was more explicit than made us comfortable. Although our issues were primarily with this one day’s strip, there was no way to run the others in a series and leave out one.

Several of us discussed the issue and decided that we wouldn’t publish the Texas abortion law strips. Instead, we opted for re-runs of former Doonesbury comics.

Our decision was based solely on the explicit content and not the political stance Trudeau took. A factor in the decision was that Doonesbury appears on the comics page, a page which could attract our youngest readers. If we didn’t want views like those portrayed in Doonesbury in The Pantagraph, we’d quit running the strip entirely.

The Doonesbury strip is published in 1,400 papers in the U.S. I haven’t seen an exact count, but most reports say that about 100 papers carried substitutes for the Texas abortion law strips. Others moved the strip for the week from the comics page to the editorial page.

The mistake I made was not ensuring that we let readers know of our decision at the time it was made. That allowed some readers — and the McLean County Democratic Party — to openly wonder if the newspaper’s stance was a political one. We should have given readers an explanation so they would know our decision was based on the explicit nature of the strip and not the politics. I’ll try not to make that mistake again.

As I wrote last week, I’m always open to suggestions, compliments or complaints. I’ve heard from many of you since then.

Shasta Orange Soda posted:

Saint Sputnik posted:

The only way to find out if they did go to the moon is to prove that the American flag is still on the moon. That is the only proof that they can show the world.

Boxman posted:

I think the kid is just mourning the death of our space program, and is trying to get a movement going where people are calling for a return to the moon. At least, that's what i hope.

Shasta Orange Soda posted:

What kind of self-respecting American racist says "arse"?

John Derbyshire posted:

(10) Thus, while always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of those mean differences, use statistical common sense:
(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.

(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.

(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.

(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.

(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.

(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.

Cahal posted:

I was directed to this essay via here: