Glad to hear you stating things as you did, I largely agree with you.

The trick playing out in Canada now is that because we've expanded the definition of protected classes more quickly than the US, the protected classes rights are interfering more and more.

I do not believe that religion should be a protected class in the same way as race, gender or ethnicity. Similarly sexual orientation and gender identity shouldn't be either. Race, Gender and ethnicity are all assigned at birth and can largely be determined by blood test and demonstrated to be something entirely outside an individuals control, choice and behaviour.

Religion is the most easily demonstrated as deserving a different status of protection than the others in that most religions ALL hold the others as heretical. Declaring other faiths immoral is necessary to religious freedom and I take as the very positive basis of America's freedom of religion notion being a wonderful agreement between Catholics and Protestants to agree to disagree over war.

More controversially, I would also class your sexual preferences and identity in with religion as a different degree of protected class. There is an element of behaviour and choice here that can not be determined at birth with any manner of blood test or parental bloodline.

More simply, the right to discriminate should not exist for immutable things people are born to and remain beyond their choice or control, while the right to discriminate based upon behaviours is entirely necessary and important. If you want to believe Scientology can help you heal broken limbs and transcend the world your free to it, but I'm gonna treat you differently than a sane person. To similarly treat someone different based upon race or gender though is unacceptable.

No, I looked into him and see he does put forth the dumbest of right wing conspiracies, like pizza gate, anti vaxing, 9/11 is a hoax, school shootings as false flag hoaxes, etc.
Then I looked at real DOJ missing person stats and noticed he's also bat shit insane with his numbers.

Not bothering with your link, but if a lefty says there's 10000 new child sex slaves in America every year, they're also idiots or liars...Swann is obviously, demonstrably both.
Political leaning doesn't make facts out of lies.

Your video, NVidia Real-time Ray Tracing Demonstration (GTC 2018), has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

You cannot regulate against or even readily identify evil individuals (at least not before they demonstrate the evil, at which time it's too late), so regulating access to the tools that make murder incredibly easy is the next best thing.

The evil game thing is a blatant red herring meant to distract from that needed gun regulation because one group wants no action at all.

9037 studies demonstrate that red meat causes cancer. I'm well aware that you can manipulate statistics, which is why there is an organisation called the World Cancer Research Fund. They've sifted through 500,000 studies and currently have identified 9037 legitimate studies. wcrf.org/int/research-we-fund/cancer-prevention-recommendations/animal-foods

You might not like vegans or Dr. Greger, but you cannot argue against over 9000 peer reviewed, and medical journal published studies, that are unrelated, done by non-vegans, and then filtered through by non-vegan scientists to assess the quality of the results.

EDIT: They say that more than 300g of red meat a week puts you in serious danger of developing cancer - that quite clearly means it is at least as dangerous as smoking.

It's the Malazan book of the Fallen, a series of books actually.

It's a fantasy series with magic and gods, but it gives a more accurate and unflinching look at human history than any history textbook ever has. It gives a very personal look at soldiers on all sides of wars being waged and the brutal choices forced upon them in very cruel world. Another quote from the series summarizes what sticks with me the most:
"The harder the world, the fiercer the honour."

It's the difference between heroic acts demonstrating actual sacrifices, versus hero's 'risking' dangers that we know will never harm them.

Common hatred is a much more effective motivator than common goals. Sad, but true.

Acknowledging G W being demonstrably better than Trump is in no way an endorsement of him any more than acknowledging golden showers are cleaner than full blown fecalfilia is endorsing watersports....it's recognition that bad comes in gradations, not just pass/fail.

“The most important thing that happens when a new iPhone comes out is not the release of the phone, but the disassembly of it.”

Demonstrably false. The market has proven that almost no one cares about this.

When the iPhone first came out, people derided it’s lack of removable battery. Good luck finding a high end smartphone with a removable battery these days. Then there was components soldered onto the board, then the removal of the headphone socket, all of which Samsung, etc have copied*.

Outside of a vocal minority, no one cares about phone repairability. If you do, congrats, you’re part of that minority, and that’s fine. Personally, I think it’s a reasonable thing, but clearly, most people prefer thinner, lighter, water resistant phones over fixable phones.

* note: yes, Apple have copied features of droid phones too. No, it’s not relevant to this discussion.

this has been demonstrably the case for like 4 decades.

You've already lost this discussion. Admit it to yourself and move on.

Yeah, that's why being anti Jew is called anti semitism. Duh. In the 40's, there weren't many non Semitic jews in Germany....or as far as I know, many non Jewish Semites.

My defense has indisputable fact, codified law, and honest statistics to back it up, Nazis didn't.

No, you insist I said that, but I didn't. Learn to read better without adding in your triggered bias. I insisted I haven't met one that wasn't a liar, many are criminals, and that those who stand in protection of criminals are criminals.
Standing up for the law, not your fellow lawman is all it takes, and some do that...far more need to. Because so few live up to that fairly low standard, they no longer get the benefit of my doubt and have to demonstrate their honesty and civility.

Kind of like you saying it's wrong to assume a heroin junkie will steal from you if you let them stay in your house...Will they all steal, no, should you just say they're certainly thieves, no, do you trust them with your house keys because they might not, Fuck no.

Have a nice day, I'm tired of responding to your misrepresentations....I'll take my Godwin's Law win and leave now.

No.
When friends and family do something wrong, they're still wrong, and I tell them.


And you fucked up your non quote...all police are suspect to me and must prove their honesty and responsibility. This one proved his irresponsibility and demonstrated that his department doesn't need more officers or funding.

Cops are liars, murderers, and bullies....and I suppose some of them are good people...but not the ones who stand with the liars and murderers. ;-)

Being held accountable for what we do is a good thing, but ignoring degrees and distinctions can turn it bad.

Weinstein out of a position of power, out of a job, and quite possibly into jail: good. Deserved, and sends an important message to those that might want to abuse their power in similar ways in the future. Precedent set -- however things worked before, we won't stand for that shit anymore.

Louis CK out of favor, and on record for doing creepy things which reduces opportunity to continue doing said creepy things. Also removed from positions where he could exert pressure to "consent" to said creepery where consent likely wouldn't be granted if the threat of job repercussions wasn't implied or patently stated. Again, good outcome -- in my opinion including the fact that he likely won't face criminal charges while Weinstein may.


Franken, on the other hand, was held accountable for actions in a way that I found troublesome for two reasons:

1) He was under scrutiny for past actions, yet placed under the judgement of current (bleeding edge current, even) behavioral standards. That is trending towards ex-post-facto law. I can't pass a law in December making it illegal to wear white shirts, then throw you in jail for having worn a white shirt in November before the law was in effect.

It isn't the same thing because sexual harassment has been illegal all along, and because he wasn't really facing legal trouble, just professional / political trouble -- where "ex-post-facto" judgments aren't prohibited. Still, it seems like when standards change we should try to limit judgement under current standards to current behavior. There's a reason why it works that way in law.


2) Furthermore, a lot of the scrutiny Franken was under completely stripped the behavior from context. Context is extremely important. That's why Weinstein "asking" women to "consent" to his rapey behavior wasn't OK, even though asking for consent is sort of the baseline "good"/expected behavior -- they weren't actually completely free to tell him to shove it.

Ignoring the context of Franken's behavior means that it is immaterial that he was working for the USO at the time, where on-stage suggestive stuff and raunchiness was/is pretty much the whole idea. Immaterial that on-stage "groping and kissing" stuff may well have been scripted as such, and basically consented to by the actors -- part of the show.

Combine that with ignoring degrees of offense, and we're listing Franken's name in the same sentence with Louis CK and Harvey Weinstein, which is ridiculous. Franken "had to" be a sacrificial lamb to demonstrate that Democrats are willing to walk the walk as well as talk the talk on this issue -- but did he really?

If more Democrats were willing to "tell it like it is", as I'd argue Maher is doing here, Franken could have said that the photo where he mimed groping a sleeping Karri Turner was a mistake, a joke in poor taste done in the context of an entire tour that seems in poor taste by modern standards, and that could have been the end of it. He could still be in office, and the Democrat party at large would have been better off, as would the net balance in Congress with regards to women's issues.

But nope. Context, distinction, and degrees are all meaningless, so Franken's name is in that same list of dirty sleazeball asshole men, no asterisks or footnotes necessary. I don't think the outcome of that game goes in a favorable direction.

There is no evidence whatsoever that he lived again, and barely anecdotal evidence that his body went missing.
You vastly overestimate the theories acceptance outside devout religious theological scholars.
It's not all nonsense, just the magic parts.

History. Constantine converted and compiled the bible to consolidate and grow his political powers.

Satan wrote and fulfilled the bible and prophecies to trick you, just like every other religion. See how that falls apart?

Verified "truth" is a fact demonstrable in the physical world.
I don't buy into isms.

No, they were clearly instructions to individuals, not government...please. Even accepting your view, it's still killing, so no one could carry out the governmental stoning imperative...catch 22, you defy god either way.

But, since I don't believe, I don't accept or reject him.

Ahhh, so he didn't die for the world, only his supporters, you say, with non supporters (mostly tricked thorough no fault of their own) getting eternal torture. Diabolical, monstrous in fact.

Only like cancer that only exists when you believe it does.

I do those things for myself, it's working fine and I take responsibility for myself. I would suggest if Jesus worked as you say, to perfection, no Christian would ever be depressed or do wrong, they would be perfect people without problems....1)what about when you/they don't behave perfectly, is Jesus busy?

If there was zero law enforcement on earth and no vigilantes, it would be like that.

A sign, like the cardboard sign the driver's holding? Yep.

I might get in the car out of curiosity, but wouldn't just accept that coincidence or mental implantation means divinity. I would think it's likely I'm being visited by ET, who would be easily mistaken for gods by believers.

2)Again, I must ask, if you know he has that power of personal revelation, but chose to not use it, why would you defy your own God's wishes to try to convert others? Maybe he needs us heathens to be heathens.

Are we expected to be surprised at the reveal?
Is she demonstrating a racing/fire suit?
I'm lost. What?