So that's another way luck out preformed hard work for me.

I'm just proving that it's not an absolute. Some people find pure luck with zero effort. On average, you do best with both, but there are exceptions.

For a certain few, yes, waiting for luck can be the best method, not for most.

That's certainly the intelligent method, but no, you don't HAVE to prepare yourself, sometimes success just falls in your lap.
For example; It took zero preparation to be prepared to inherit money, not one whit, pretty damn lucky if you ask me.
Second example; most people require preparation to be successful at tests. I took the GED 1 1/2 years after quitting school to work, I didn't prepare one minute, I scored 98 percentile on every test in the pack. That's not from hard work, it's from being lucky enough to have a functional brain and decent memory...I didn't work hard in school, I always claimed to learn by osmosis, I was in AP classes when I left to go work.
Third and most obvious example; Through pure luck, I was born white. I find that to be incredibly lucky considering the roadblocks being any other race puts up, especially in America, especially in the deep south where I was raised, even more so in recent years but it's always been true. I certainly didn't work hard to achieve whiteness, I've worked hard to not take advantage of it at other's expense, probably unsuccessfully.

Some people don't even NEED preparation to succeed during disasters, you often just need to be flexible and quick to adapt, that a might be from preparing, or might be natural traits you're born with.

Understandable, I'm from the deep south, and it was a struggle to understand.

Most of this stuff I've never had for Thanksgiving or heard of it. Like WTF is butternut squash soup? Not only have I never had it for Thanksgiving, this is the first time I've even heard of it. Same for spice roasted carrots. I think I've only had carrots on Thanksgiving if we have a roast instead of Turkey. I've had scalloped potatoes, but never for Thanksgiving. Cornbread stuffing on Thanksgiving? I'm from the deep south and we don't have that for Thanksgiving. Probably because we eat cornbread every other day of the year, so for Thanksgiving we just have regular old stuffing.

IMO, to be devout in any religion, you must be a fundamentalist. If you believe you have access to the direct instructions from GOD, and you believe in that god, yet you ignore the parts you dislike, you aren't following the religion and are an infidel, not devout. EDIT: Unless your text specifically allows you to use your own morality and interpretations, but I have not heard of a religion that does that.
As I see it, if you apply your own morality you are creating your own religion. Codified religions come with a defined set of morals that are unmodifiable, indisputable and unquestionable. If you question them, you question god, so can't be devout or following the religion. (This would be a good reason for any true believer to read only the original texts in their original tongue, not a translated version that's someone else's interpretation of the meaning.)

The religious texts are the central authority, they all contain specific rules and requirements. If you ignore some of those, IMO, you aren't honestly religious, you're a fan of religion.

I grew up in the deep south. I can say for certain that you are wrong that almost everyone ignores the outdated bits, but it's correct that most do hide the fact that they believe them because they know it makes them look terrible....but get them at a church picnic and you'll find out they do think slavery is fine, and whores should be stoned to death, etc. They are just mostly too chicken shit to do it themselves, as their book directs them to, because they're afraid of repercussion (and because they don't really believe god will protect them for being righteous, or that heaven is enough reward for being a martyr).

Yeah, keep changing the topic and ignoring my statements.
Ours is not a pure secular democracy, even though it was intended to be one, so not as different from a theocracy as you suggest by far. (that does not mean there's no difference, it means you imply they are near opposites) Perhaps if the clear intent of the founders was the rule, we would be, but it's not.

Try having a religious discussion in the deep south as an atheist and see if you don't feel at risk for your life. In public, maybe surviveable, but get religious people together where they feel 'safe', you'll see the bile and vitriol for the 'other' come out in spades. Hitchens knew full well it was not gone, and that the 'other' was not safe, and that religion doesn't always wear the smiley face even today.
Bye.

insane, back when I was in highschool there was no cops/guards/etc

We even had a smoking section, and guns could be brought on campus.

For smoking section you just needed a letter from parents that they knew you smoked. and on recess the smokers all hung out there.

To bring gun to school, it was during any hunting season. You had to have note from parents that they know. The gun had to be visible, either gun rack in back window of truck or in passenger seat. Rifles and Shotguns only no pistols.

You had to have your Hunter's Safety Course card, Your Hunting License both on you to give copies at office.

You had to leave your vehicle keys with the front office and submit to random vehicle search of the hunter's vehicles only.

So while everyone could go to their cars at recess, or if you had extra empty elective, some of us juniors would drive up to Hardees before lunch and grab fast food then be back before 4th period started, but the hunters had to leave their keys with front office and they could not retrieve them until end of school.

So much more freedom.

Smoking was banned on campus for students only my 10th grade year, but Teachers had the smoking lounge in building. There was a teacher's lounge on each hall, the back hall F where weight lifting, welding, home ec, and vocational classes were was where the teacher's smoking lounge was. Most students friendly with teachers could sneak in there and smoke anyhow.

crazy times.

I had a 84 Camaro and kept a flare gun under seat my dad owned a boat and had couple extra flare guns. So I had that for some crazy reason thinking if someone attacked me, at point blank range I'd put on a huge firework show


Then there was the stereotypes that were proven right not wrong.

The jocks hung out together, the headbangers/smokers hung out together, the nerds, the band folks like me as my senior year I was drum major
and the blacks stayed together all in separate cliques at lunch and recess and before/after school.

stereotypes even went further.

the only highschool girls with babies (during time I was there I stress) were black girls, they had to build a daycare from the old mechanic shop behind the highschool for them. And even though this was the early 90s in the south, you'd hear over the Intercom every 6 months "All Black female students to gym at this time please" where they'd get lectured on abstinence, or condom use, and std's and such.

the only time rest of the student body went through that was in 10th grade they'd take the boys one day, and girls the next day.

We had a blast though as the guys, the protection/std talk was given by one of the football coaches, and during the talk with the guys and showing various "shock images" of std's on penis on the TV, when he got to the "sex ed" portion, he flipped in a Nina Hartley porn intro where a nude Nina Hartley showed the correct way to place a condom on. haha was hilarious looking back before "political correctness" went out of control.

I loved highschool and college.

Graduated high school in 94, got associates in 96, took year off then got bachelors in computer science in 99.

But 89-94 (our highschool here in the deep south is 8th through 12th) most are 9-12, but not here. It's still 8-12th here. So it's nothing seeing 12th graders dating 8th graders. Freaky yea, but not unusual.


If you got into a fight, if a coach was around he'd let the fight finish, unless it got a bit too over the top then they'd break it up. You didn't get suspended, you lost recess privileges usually 3 days plus the starter of the fight got 10 licks of the paddle in principle office, the other only got 1 to 3, or if person was just dominated and got ass kicked you just got detention.


Kids didn't act up at all most times. And the reason was Corporal Punishment. Not private paddling either.


Once I was having a bad day, me and "highschool" sweetheart were having a bit of a spat. We sat next to each other so we were bickering a bit during class. Teacher had yelled at me to shut up and do the work. I sighed "Leave me the fuck alone"

bad move.

She called me to front of class and I got 5 licks of paddle in front of everyone. They'd stick finger in your belt loop and yank it up tight to put that extra sting on it. Embarrassing as hell! Even female older teachers who didn't paddle hard, it was just too embarrassing to get paddled, so kids behaved.


And of course if you refused paddling which you could but you'd take a zero for the day's work. few of those in a semester and no matter how hard you worked you were flunking that semester.


But the system worked.

It wasn't until they went crazy insane on political correctness, stopping corporal punishment, and putting cops/rent a cops/guards in schools and after the No Child Left Behind was signed into law, they severely dumbed down kids forcing the smartest to learn at the slowest kids pace. Doc's prescribing SSRI's like candy to kids in MASSIVE quantities, that schools in today's culture are crazy.

Actually no, I know I have an Irish accent. And yes, everyone has some kind of accent, but it's a question of degrees. A Scottish accent or a deep south US accent is far more pronounced than a neutral English accent.

The point is that an accent is a deviation from standard pronunciation.

I guess that if an AI "learned" language from Die Antwoord, it would have a South African accent. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a scene where Dev Patel leaves and finds the robot has learned to speak while he was away.

Anyway, as I said... because movies.

Hugh Jackmans haircut is still stupid though

Sort of... (come on, some geek had to come out and say it). Legos are made from ABS plastic. The Acrylonitrile bit are usually derivatized from gases - acrylonitrile from propylene from cracked propane, and the Butadiene bit more often these days (but not always - depends on your feed stream) from ethylene made from cracked ethane . The 'S' bit, styrene, is produced from benzene (which is very, very bad juju) which indeed comes from Erl, as it is pronounced here in the deep south. Sorry, no offense intended, but what's breakfast without a bit of a science lesson?

Don't give me that false equivalence BS, you don't have a different viewpoint, you have a demonstrably bad viewpoint.

I don't hate you, I pity you. I'm not the one that hates homosexuals and minorities,

people like you and lantern who judge people on the basis of skin color, and sexual orientation....

...are not good people, it's that simple. You are relics of the past.

It is socially acceptable to shame and call out people like you and lantern when we catch you voicing your antiquated ideas. Your social viewpoints are becoming less and less acceptable with each day. Even the right is slowly backing away on their attacks on minorities and homosexuals.

Your ideas...don't work, they never did.

I've told you and your pal lantern many times that you are free to be as backwards thinking as you want in the privacy of your own home and your own brain. But when you voice your bad ideas in public, expect to be called out and shamed.

You can play the victim card all you want. but you know it's not just me picking on you. Long before I ever showed up, you've been called out and shamed by many others here and you've been reprimanded by the staff of this website on multiple occasions. I'm willing to bet that unless you live in a hole in the ground in the deep south, you know better than to voice your ideas in public in real life since you know you'll get in trouble. Being an anonymous troll on a website is the only place you can voice your bad ideas, isn't it?

I understand that you're angry. The world changed on you and you're too set on your old ideas to change with it. Well you better hang on, because it's going to keep on changing and people who share your viewpoint will keep dying of old age. As it should be.

As I told lantern, start taking your own advice. You keep claiming that gays and minorites need to "suck it up".

Suck it up bob, suck it up. Why don't you practice what you preach about "rugged individualism" and quit whining? Take it like a man, right?

If you don't like it, go find a website that shares your viewpoints. Freedom of speech does not exist on a private website.

Deal with it. Your prejudice is only going to keep getting called out and you will continue to get shamed.

An interesting response.

I hadn't realized that the life of black people in the South isn't universally known. It is such a stain on our history, such a cruel example of the Honors English theme of "man's inhumanity to man."

For me, that article wasn't about class warfare and voting rights. It was a portrait of fear overcome, and taught me some details about what it meant to be black in the deep South (you have to walk in A LINE when you meet a white person on the sidewalk???!!!)

Whenever I begin to think about this article, I start to tear up.

Which is interesting to me -- that that wasn't your take-away. Which means to me our shame isn't as internationally known as I thought. I think. Or maybe not. Whatever

So, it seems to make your point of Christian tollerance you show me a site all about Christianity including a part where non-Christian speak is absolutely not allowed. Hmmmm.? You don't see the issue there?
You are allowed to say whatever you like, and others are allowed to speak their mind about what you said. Where's the persecution? Being ignored is not persecution, neither is being disagreed with, and so far as I know no one banned you.
My experience was far different, growing up in the deep south as a non-Christian is a truly hard row to hoe, and a dangerous one. I also disagree that our entertainment or education system is secular, it may have pockets of secularism, but not an entirety by far. Consider how you would feel if your money had "there is no god" printed on it, it's an example of how our society caters to religion across the board.
As far as religious freedom's being curtailed, that's a good thing, religion has enjoyed a freedom from responsibility for it's actions for far too long, and needs to be curtailed before we live in the Christian equivelant of sharia law, like many Christians support and vote for.
I would continue this discussion, but you do not seem to be following the logic or even the truthful statements I am presenting. As I wrote previously, I do not expect to change your mind, I simply hope to offer a different point of view for the other readers of this exchange.
Not ignoring, but done replying.

I know my enemies and my friends and allies. I also have become quite deft at disengaging a potentially hind-brained copper from his predictable, robotic license.

My general rule of thumb is polite, courteous, etc.-Keep the robot's heart-rate down, make them feel in control, cooperate.

Sometimes this does not work, especially the further out of the city you travel, constables and sheriffs necks tend to be redder...This is Texas, you must remember and while the pigs of Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Carolinas (deep south) are much worse, you still have to factor in asshole-redneck-douchebag.

In the event I get no quarter from a cop who's simply human garbage, I let rip with my assessment, this after I already know I'm going to jail. Every time this has happened incidentally, was for unpaid parking tickets, and once for possession of an oz. of weed, which the prick searched my vehicle about 30 mins. for before he found it....A total piece of shit, this assessed after an attempt at a conversation with the asshole-The cunt risked my life with his driving as well, breaking all speed limits to get me downtown to county, probably because I would not stop verbally assaulting him from the backseat...He deserved all I had and more, the buzz-killing prick who was "JUST DOING HIS JOB."

Here's to all the people who scream "TROLL" whenever someone leaves one remark on a post without returning for a "discussion" (perhaps that's all that one felt needed said to make a simple point?)


@shatterdose "Who typically freaks out? People that are guilty or crazy"-That sounds like a willing herd animal using broad generalizations in favor of a police state.

@arekin-Agreed-I am not implying that I would have handled this scenario any differently-

@bmacs27-All relevant and valid observations-Our distrust, fear and derision of cops in the U.S. comes from conditioning-The so-called, "war on drugs" has been the bane of law enforcement since prohibition, that and CORRUPTION from top to bottom-

@moopysnooze THANK YOU!!?? How much more WILL the cattle take, eh??

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Really good bit of pop history. Hee-Haw is embroidered into my childhood. It came on after the cartoons. My parents were from the deep South and never liked it. It offended them I think because of the sterotypes. I still watched.

hell where I live in Georgia we are still segregated. Check out Blue Ridge, Ga on wikipedia or whatnot. It's sorta a segregation agreed upon, Blue Ridge went all white, and couple towns over went all black, very heavy racism on both sides, whites better not get caught in their town and vice versa. Living in the deep south is FUN!

and im not exaggerating which is crazy. But oh well it works. Course nobody wants to cause a stink anyhow in the Blue Ridge mountains thousands of acres of mountainous forest to get lost in

yea growing up here in the deep south me and my brother would catch them using a spotlight, stick and bag.

there was an old black man in town that would buy them 5 dollars a piece, they ate them and he'd skin them and sell the skins.

course my dad was a big hunter and thought it was neat that we found a small part of hunting we could make a little summer money with.

usually after 2 weekends me and my brother would get about 20-30 dollars each for the possums we'd bring the elderly black man and he was always so nice to us.

but he probably made a ton more money with the hides since possum, raccoon hides sell for a lot here in the south, huge market in them.