It's hard for me to imagine these kids are actors which begs the question what made them cry

Honest question. What is the distinction between trans-gender and trans-race?

At least in Canada we are rapidly building into law not merely protections for gender identity, but legal requirements for others to also recognize/embrace people's chosen gender identities(forgive me, I know at least in Canada choice is the wrong word but I'm mentally lapsing on a better one).

Yet, trans-race is still dealt with as a joke, with the trans-race individuals an acceptable target of ridicule.

My own opinions don't sit as far out on the left, but watching those that are content with both declaring trans-gender identity an inalienable fundamental right to the extent that MtF athletes must be allowed no matter how clearly their 'choice' was biased by getting to be #1 in their sport., but then ridiculing anyone claiming trans-race is hard for me to reconcile.

Anybody else able to provide a rational difference between the two? It looks to me like an entirely subjective I agree with one but not the other thought process, but maybe that's just my ignorance?

The cult of education. OK. *doublepromote a *quality outline for a successful community.

Seems more like a commune than a cult though, imo. No religious dogma, no claims of divinity or direct connection to divinity by the charismatic but strict leader, no special compensation for the leader (like getting to sleep with all the women in the community), not even the claim that his way is the only way. It's hard for me to get to "cult" with all that missing.

Love your reply and POV. You got it pretty much 100% right IMO. I admit, as I Christian, I went in from a far more cynical perspective because this "wholly uninterested god" is way different from the God of the Bible. Not that God didn't bring some crazy disasters on humans in the OT, but damn, not this way or purpose as in the videos.

I don't mind people mocking God or Christians or overly religious zealots of any faith. Many are wholly deserved to be mocked. People (that includes me, God knows I'm a dumbass, lol) need to be held responsible for their own crap & offensiveness and be called out.

Still, I feel this series is not helping any discussion, just good for a laugh (maybe?) and some decent video editing & production. It's harmless if seen as a philosophical piece.

I'd love to see some intelligent, cool-headed no-trolling discussions on the pros & cons, history & evolution of religion and such. But it's really tough when religion is so politicized (especially in the USA) and often hijacked for self-serving purposes. (Godly man Roy Moore my ass!)

I live in Canada, and I would call myself a Christian in public here, but in the US? No freaking way... it's not out of fear of being mocked and anything... it's that I hardly see me as anything similar to those "evangelicals" from my own limited exposure to them in US media. It's like they're a different (offensive) beast.

It's hard for me to take him serious after he spent years complaining about Putin and then deigned to take a paycheck from RT to get back into broadcasting. He's been uber soft on his new boss since.

The best way to make a small fortune in racing is to start with a large fortune.

Given all of her advantages, I wonder how many other child racers would do as well. It's hard for me to call her a prodigy when her skill may be average for someone who's been racing for 8 years with top notch equipment and tutelage. She certainly has some advantages most people don't.

No NHS in the states. Personally, I think that'd be the way to do it. And I think it kind of needs to be a long and difficult road, to make sure that drastic option is necessary and won't be regretted later.

It's a bit hard for me to accept it, because I tend to think of it like that episode of South Park. Kyle can't actually become a tall black kid, and his dad can't actually become a dolphin.

But even though I think that is true -- you can't really become something you aren't -- I recognize that gender reassignment surgeries can be life saving / massively beneficial to quality of life in many cases.


To take a stab at answering your other questions:

I believe that Trump is saying that the military is instituting a blanket ban on transgender people from serving in the military. If / how the military elects to enforce that remains to be seen. I don't know the full timeline on that sort of stuff, but back in the 60's one (considered extreme at the time) way for young men to get out of being drafted to go to Vietnam was to take photos of themselves naked with another man (implying they were gay) or wearing women's clothing (implying they were trans). The mere implication that you might be either was enough to disqualify you from military service.

More recently, during Don't Ask Don't Tell you could be gay or trans in the military, but couldn't reveal that you were. That ended only 5-6 years ago. The military definitely wouldn't have paid for trans-related medical treatments prior to that, and didn't for quite a while after until Obama OK'd it.

Again, I don't really think that the military should be required / expected to pay for those kinds of treatments for soldiers, BUT I'd be 100% OK with something like the NHS making it available to any citizen, as in the UK. For one thing, I wouldn't want trans people to see the military as the only way to get those treatments (short of paying out of pocket), and having that be a major part of their motivation to join.

And I 100% agree that this is a basically a political distraction that sets back the rights and acceptance of an already marginalized group that in no way deserves it.

It's hard for me to know why Putin is doing what he's doing. When he moved on Crimea, was he doing it because of the advance of European influence closer to Russia's borders? He's short on good allies unlike 'the west', so can he let people chip away at his comfort zone? Or is he a crazed imperialist?

I don't know. Why don't I know?

Because my government have shown themselves over the years to be a bunch of twats who will literally tell bare faced lies, whilst smiling, and when confronted with the horrors of what they've done they throw their heads back and laugh like a fucking sea lion swallowing a fish whole. And that's what they've done to their OWN PEOPLE. To other countries countries we declare war and send in the multinationals to rape their resources. I consider the invasion of Iraq equally dodgy as the invasion of Crimea. So my moral compass for what's ok and not ok no longer has a baseline.

On the other side, a bunch of people who used to know how the world worked back in 1970 probably thought propaganda was the best way to whip up some nationalistic pride and resentment toward the reds, but in 2017 the majority of young people don't trust a single word they say. So these 70 year old media mogul billionaires can't even tell a believable truth anymore - even if Putin's tanks were half way down my street i'd have to clap eyes on them before i could be sure.

Plus Russia's leadership is Putin himself, he's the spearhead, and he's very cunning. Our leadership is spread across a set of democratically elected people, half of which are both incompetent and self interested, while half of those remaining are merely one or the other. It's easier for one person to look competent and assured. Someone like Merkel has to share the associated incompetency of whatever the German equivalent of her 'cabinet' is.

Cool. Coming out of a baptist family I get it, even if i was never that extreme -- westboro... i knew some families sort of like them though... home schooled on the belief that the Bible is the ultimate framework for governing. Not too far off from the us versus them. Same family that taught an anti-evolution class for our youth group. *shudder*

I became an indignant atheist not long after leaving religion. Now, I embrace Took me many a long night hating on religious people.

Until I had a long conversation with a friend who was a microbiologist, observing evolution on a daily basis, and maintaining a healthy Christian perspective. (Well, at the time it was... now he is sort of Phelping me. It's really hard for me still, to accept religious people, even when almost everyone I know is -- many of whom will always judge me for who I am.)

I mostly enjoy the diversity among my Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Buddhist, and Hindu brothers and sisters. They just need to respect my beliefs and recognize that I am not recruiting them and they are not recruiting me. Atheists are the worst at this.

As long as there is seperation of church and state. That is an important concept in maintaining a diverse nation open to dialog like she suggests.

Also, opening dialog with people only works if they reply back hahaha -- most of the angry internet people i know post across a wide array of websites and don't really return for replies that often.

Actually, I think the 2014 show was entirely new stuff compared to the one that I saw first. It is hard for me to call which time was better -- I saw them first (with the twinkie bit) when I was like 17 or so, and then again in my 30's.

I was really entertained by the twinkie bit -- memorable enough that that was probably my overall favorite non-musical bit of either performance I saw. But overall I think the later show might have been even better. And like I said, I don't remember any rehashed material between the two, but the time span between them makes me not 100% sure about that.

The teleprompter text warmup stuff -- sarcasm and jokey stuff -- was really good in both shows also. With regards to songs, Rods and Cones is probably my single favorite of theirs. The giant drum that is below human hearing range but physically compresses your chest was featured in that early show, from the "Audio" album era. That wasn't used in the newer show, and it added something to the live show even though you can't actually "hear" it so much as "feel" it. But obviously home stereos can't reproduce that, and there are a lot of good songs from the newer albums / shows also.

Yeah I thought the same. I stopped short of saying so b/c I also think "wtf was this guy even filming? A convenience store opening up? And he's pretending like it opened because he showed up so he can get wut? street cred? Sounds like bullshit."

BUT the reason I stopped short is b/c I can confirm, people ARE really this stupid and boring in real life. Getting stuck on that point makes it hard for me to believe one way or the other that this isn't real.

I can't invoke channels, but I propose EIA.

And I know this is terrible, but frankly if there is any segment of the global population that we can collectively benefit from "evolving away from", it is idiots like this that inject shit like Krokodil into themselves until they are removed from the gene pool.

Very hard for me to feel any empathy for such people. Maybe I'd feel differently if I personally knew any addicts ... but I'm not sure even that would help.

Hard for me to wrap my mind around this kind of language. How does something like this evolve? Are they more musical than Western languages? Fascinating.

(And yeah, do they lose nouns and not verbs? There is a question to be researched!)

It's so hard for me not to be judgmental when i watch this video. I'm old

That was a bit hard for me to follow....
But I agree, it's not so hard....people just feel differently about exactly what constitutes being 'racist'.
racism:"noun
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement"

Some accept the generalized idea that it's only about negative racial prejudice, some accept the idea that it's about (falsely*) discriminating (used in the literal sense, meaning "to note or observe a difference") between races at all (*because in nearly every case, race is not actually indicative of a specific trait).

The difference between prejudice and racial prejudice is the latter is prejudging based on race. It can be a positive or negative judgment, in either case. EDIT: that's why when it's negative, you would say 'prejudiced AGAINST'.