That being said, I don't think Christians should mix politics with their faith. It mostly breeds hate and the gospel of Jesus Christ is never mentioned. I have moral objections to some things which are legal in the United States, but that isn't my focus. The Israelites when they were taken captive by Babylon were told by God to pray for the prosperity of the nation so they would live peaceful lives there. Babylon was a pagan nation, much worse morally than the United States. I think Christians should do more praying and less talking about the political situation.

I love America, and God has blessed it from its founding. I don't love the moral direction it has been heading and frankly I think it is in big trouble. God will eventually turn America over to its enemies if it continues down this path with no repentance.

As far as left and right, I am independent politically. I agree with some things on both sides, and disagree with much on both sides. The democrat party has become more and more secular so I don't agree with them as much anymore but the republican party worships God with their lips and not with their heart. I don't care for the cutthroat politics of either party, or the goading of their supporters, working them into a constant state of outrage and fervor and hatred of the other. Politics are poisoning this country and choking out civilized discourse. A Christian should never drink from that well but share the living water of Christ and speak the truth with love, sincerely caring about the other person regardless of their political affiliation.

When it comes to flying, if you get it wrong it mostly leads to death. This is not something you learn by just doing. Even the wright brothers had a fair grasp of aerodynamic, thermal dynamics, and if they took to the sky how they would get down before attempting their first flights.

Frankly getting into the air is the easy part, the landing is the hard part. Thankfully the plane was small light but rigged enough that it didn't crumple on a hard landing.

In other words, he doesn't know how to care for his daughter's well-being. The road to hell is paved with good intentions etc

And frankly I'm not sure the thing he cares more about isn't control.

As a life rule, if you threaten somebody when they say they want to call the cops... you might have done a fuckup.

I’m not really sure that’s fair. Hillary went through a pretty bruising campaign where she was accused of everything from conspiring to kill American diplomats to running a child porn ring.

After all that, she got more votes than dickbag and STILL lost.

At which point the right (including some of the poorest people who are suffering worst under cheeto-face) laughed in her face, and the left turned on her.

Quite frankly, if I was Hillary, I’ve have told the whole of America to get fucked.

That’s not to say she didn’t have her faults, but she was an order of magnitude better than Trump.

I understand that you (Bob) and Donald agree that what Obama did was wrong. And so it was doubly wrong of "Liberals" to have supported him so blindly. That is a legitimate though biased point of view which I would be foolish to argue against for it is your belief.

In that case please enligten us about what are you two aiming to achieve by throwing excrement in the general direction of a fan?

What is the plan? What can the US propose that Iran IS going to ratify? Will Iran (and North Korea and China and, come to think of it, any country) have any interest to make a new deal with the USofA, if they either brag and throw insults or sulk and walk away?

Complying (for the most part) voluntarily was a resonable step in the right direction for both Iran and the US, how does trashing this agreement help? I mean how does it help anyone except Donald in the short term by pleasing fanboys?

Donald usually avoids stating aims (or makes multiple confusing proclamations) and then claims any outcome as a victory. What is a victory in your scenario - regime overthrow? change of Iranian public attitudes towards "America"? a more friendly "supreme leader"? a different ruling moslem faction? or maybe fluctuating oil prices? restructuring of oil field ownership?

Obama limited this to nuclear weapons, seems like a good idea in retrospect, frankly.

I'm pretty sure his dad was Frank Sinatra [judging by looks alone].

Frankly, if someone hasn't yet managed to figure out what has been obvious for decades, "listening" to them isn't going to change their minds. Nothing will.

Unfortunately for them, Mother Nature tends to impose a capital penalty against extreme stupidity.

Frankly I think every press conference should go like this.

Disagree. Gold (or more specifically currency) has a huge number of advantages over barter, as shown with the second guy.

Barter has problems of divisibility, relative worth, storage, transport, etc... all of which are solved by a common currency.

Crypto has some advantages over traditional currency, but right now they're outweighed by the disadvantages such as instability (as mentioned by @notarobot), lack of trust, slow transaction speeds and frankly appalling levels of energy usage.

Blockchain might eventually become the future, but Bitcoin is basically dead because of these problems.

*related=https://videosift.com/video/Why-Bitcoin-Is-Not-Working

100%. As I mentioned in the golden globes thread, promoting Dr Oz is actually a social harm.

That said, gotta give Oprah at least some credit. She is not the one pushing this idea.

Frankly, it's a measure of how fucked up everything is under Trump that this is even taken seriously.

The video is right that pretty much the number one most important question is the weight of the truck (basically tare weight, which is actually the tractor plus empty trailer). When I watched the announcement, I thought Musk was slightly cagey about that, but I thought that he said that it would be in the ballpark of a normal ICE semi. Guess I should watch again.

I think Musk made some semi-optimistic predictions about battery tech improvement and economy of scale. Frankly, I think he's earned the right to be semi-bold with his predictions, given his and Tesla's track record (paying off govt. loan very early, single handedly pushing forward battery tech and production, etc. etc.). His optimistic predictions have a tendency of panning out.

The average American is never going to switch to an electric car purely or even largely for "green conscious" reasons. The switch will happen when the electric car is better than the ICE alternatives in concrete metrics like performance, reliability, and operating cost. Musk is pushing that date forward at an incredible pace. Arguably it is already true for many use-cases at the high price-point range of the Model S, but that price point limits the scope of the impact quite a bit. He knows that to really shake things up, he's got to get that price point down, and he knows that to do that he's got to improve the economy of scale on battery tech. Which he's doing by expanding it into adjacent markets like home batteries, etc.

I think he deserves a lot of credit for "walking the walk" when it comes to working hard to protect/improve the environment, as opposed to Al Gore et al. "talking the talk".

Frank Castle: The Early Years

"sensitivity is more important than truth,
feelings are more important than facts"

Bill, the fact that you think those are "feminine" values illustrates exactly why feminism is still important.

Bill Burr continues to be an unfunnny throwback to the 80s and frankly, I wish he'd just fuck off.

Louis CK, OTOH, is still a comedic genius.

But here's the thing people. Comedians are great at comedy, but they're comedians, not philosophers or sociologists.

Comedy just doesn't really work with nuanced issues. There are tonnes of jokes about Trump because he's such an obvious combination of dickhead and idiot; there really isn't anything complex about him.

But you don't see much comedy about free trade vs. anti-globalisation because it's a fucking complicated issue that has pros and cons on both sides. Comedy is about hyperbole and exaggeration.

I actually agree with you mostly, but you're not gonna like it.

One thing I will point out though - "I just don't connect gun regulations as an effective solution to mass murder."

We have data on this. Take Australia. In the 21 years leading up to Port Arthur and that massacre itself, which triggered the nation into heavily regulating guns, there were 16 mass murders of four or more people, totaling 137 murders. Since then, there have been 12, with a total of 76 murders. This despite there being population growth.

Violent crime rate has dropped from 1996 to now, mainly from reductions in robbery and a small drop in homicide rates.

There is very clear evidence that if most guns are removed from circulation, there are very real and likely benefits when it comes to reducing violent crime in general and murder.

I'm a political moderate and pragmatic. I go with what works. Don't care how liberal or conservative the solution is. I'm never in favor of regulation that is ineffective at solving problems.

And to that end, I'm against most gun control measures. I'm on board with banning assault weapons, fully automatic weapons, armor piercing bullets, but most gun control things like psychiatric evaluations, universal background checks? No.
Why? Because societal models we know that provided real progress on problems seemed to suggest one thing - it's the prevalence of guns that is the problem. If you make it marginally harder to buy guns by things like...

Three day waiting periods
Universal background checks
Psychiatric evaluations

They don't work. Banning guns works, though. It's worked time and time again. Australia, Britain, over and over and over, if guns lose prevalence, violence, murder, etc. decrease significantly.

At some point, society has to decide that giving up guns is worth it. But until that time, "common sense" gun control is a waste of time, and I quite frankly think it might do real effective gun control measures harm because when nothing gets better from these mild measures, they're going to point that out.