The sheer capacity of people to self-delude is quite astonishing, although not so much as it is amazing how bible thumpers are always turning themselves in to martyrs when they get caught doing something evil:
Reaction to Indiana’s new “religious freedom” law has come fast, hard and loud.
And the public firestorm has been fueled almost exclusively by critics — from gay rights activists to business leaders to celebrities— who see the law as a license to discriminate under the guise of religion.
Oddly and conspicuously missing has been a strong counter-show of public support by the law’s backers, including evangelical Christians.
***Indiana Right to Life has set up a link on its website that allows supporters to send “thank you” messages to the governor and the Republican lawmakers who sponsored the legislation.
“There is zero interest in gloating over the passage of this religious liberty bill. What we want to express is a spirit of appreciation for our legislature tackling this tough issue and and for the governor signing this bill,” Fichter explained.
“This law does not apply only to Catholics or evangelicals or to people of the Jewish faith. This applies to every citizen in the state of Indiana. So we think everyone wins, but our style is not to run this up the flagpole as some type of victory to gloat about.”
Fichter and other religious leaders stopped short of saying people of faith are intimidated when it comes to speaking about their faith, “although it is undeniable in today’s culture that an open profession of faith brings with it labels and stereotypes,” he said.
“That’s just part of the territory today.”
Curt Smith, president of the Indiana Family Institute, said that threat of public ridicule has affected some — but not all — believers.
NFL, Big Ten reviewing implications of Indiana religious freedom bill
“I think a lot of people have been bullied into silence,” he said, “But there are others who are stepping up. I see both: some people who are afraid to step up and yet I also see a smaller group that is more willing.”
Smith, who is shown standing directly behind Gov. Pence in one photograph from the private bill-signing ceremony, said the nature of Christianity also may help explain why the reaction appears to be so one sided.
“Some people would say that Christianity itself calls us to meekness. So there’s that sort of defining feature, that ‘turn the other cheek,'” he explained.
And then there’s a much more practical factor.
“Why would you want to engage a bunch of hateful people,” Smith asked. “We’re always accused of being bigots. Who had the signs (Thursday)? Who was yelling? I have that conviction so I can carry that into places. But most people don’t think like that.”
Read that last sentence again. The hateful people are not the ones who just enacted a law to legally allow them to discriminate, the hateful people are the ones pointing out the law is bigoted and awful. How dare someone call you a bigot for being bigoted? The horror.
Don’t break an arm nailing yourself to that cross, asshole.
Trentrunner
With the backlash, the law’s backers are now backpeddling, saying the law won’t discriminate against gay people, it’s to protect religion, etc.
My question:
So what precisely, in your mind, is your law intended to do? Because it seemed pretty fucking clear in the lead-up to its passage that it was designed to keep Jesus & Mary’s Bakery from having to bake an icky-gross-buttsex-total-yuck cake for a gay couple.
So, assholes, what’s the law for, if not that? Give me one concrete example.
Thought so.
SRW1
That godbotherer is so full of righteousness he practically can’t avoid peeing it over lesser humans.
WereBear
This is their idea of legislating? No spending money on bridges or education, but do waste tax dollars on defending it in court.
I feel like I’m living in a bad science-fiction movie.
Ruckus
Another installment of nice people being assholes.
Couldn’t we find a place where all the assholes could be overly religious to each other and leave the rest of us alone?
gf120581
The old “religious freedom” argument. The same one trotted out as a last ditch defense against integration.
Indiana would know. The state has a long and shameful history of bigotry. Need I remind you of the 1920s, when the Klan dominated the state? (So much so that they were dubbed “the sheeted Tammany Hall.”)
gf120581
@Ruckus: Branson?
Corner Stone
Somebody have a camera in my local truck stop’s bathroom?
DonBoy
“This law does not apply only to Catholics or evangelicals or to people of the Jewish faith”
— I’m sorry, you’re gonna fucking drag me into this? I’m supposed to believe there were a lot of Jews being forced to sell pork or something? STFU.
Ruckus
@gf120581:
I was thinking of some place a little more under water. Like Atlantis.
WereBear
But who would they harass and feel superior to?
Of course, they would form factions and torment each other. Would make a great movie: Lawd of the Flies.
Another Holocene Human
Meekness doesn’t pass ALEC or AFA bills to fuck with proles in their daily lives.
indycat32
Our mayor, the chamber of commerce, and businesses large and small opposed this law. If the NCAA and/or the NFL pull events out of Indy (e.g, the NFL combine which has been here since 1987, the Big ten football championship), it’s the local Indianapolis businesses that will lose financially, not those asshats who pushed this law
Another Holocene Human
Once again “the righteous” are unprepared for the massive backlash to their smug, smarmy shitstain hate politics and are running for the hidey holes. Brave, brave, brave!
Ruckus
@WereBear:
Of course, they would form factions and torment each other. Would make a great movie: Lawd of the Flies.
Maybe a taste of their stupidity would wake them up? Who am I kidding. They would just find ways to up the torment until they had another religious war with the last person standing feeling justified in starting the whole sack of bullshit all over. Again.
kc
I’m glad people are upset about this, but is this law different from the federal one that Bill Clinton signed or from “religious freedom” laws that have been passed in 18 other states?
Another Holocene Human
@Corner Stone: Dude, how filthy is your cab that you’re trying to sneak into the john with a lot lizard?
NobodySpecial
Simple solution: Stop being bigoted assholes. Much easier than passing a bill.
satby
I got totally fed up with a sort of family member on FB last night and basically called him a racist, specifically in his fervent hatred of everything President Obama does. His response? Only liberals like me bring race into everything.
And his wife was all furious with me too, and told me what a hatefilled beyotch I was, and suggested I start being grateful to be an American or something like that. The two of them have never shut up about his job being offshored by the same company that sent mine away, but pointing out that they voted for policies like that for the last 40 years, policies that will make life worse for their children and grandchildren, makes me the bad guy. But to be truthful, I was angry and as offensive as I could be by the time I snapped on him. It’s been coming on for a while.
Suzanne
The douchebags don’t like living in the world they created, in which now other people make negative assumptions about their character based on their religion.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Aimai
@kc: yes because that applied to government action not civil suits between private citizens.
Arclite
Based on the logic of Indiana’s law and the Hobby Lobby case, if as a member of the voodoo faith, I must sacrifice a virgin on the alter every year on the summer solstice, the first amendment will protect me, no?
jharp
Just got back from the protest in downtown Indianapolis.
Photos on the way.
Another Holocene Human
@gf120581: It’s not patriotism that’s the last refuge of a scoundrel, although they do love to wrap themselves up in a flag. It’s religion. Somehow, it can be twisted to defend any outrage, from slavery to genital mutilation of minors to rape to torture to murder and negligent homicide.
Somehow “religion” says that children are supposed to be slaves of the parents — and laws are passed that make it A-OK if parents let their children die through neglect, psychologically torture them, and neglect their social and educational and medical needs. It’s not false imprisonment if you’re a minor!
I could go on but that would take all day. Religion serves a purpose but it sure is funny how it becomes the fastness for assholes looking to keep being assholes or to ramp their assholery up without consequences.
My theory is they use religion to scare the crap out of kids and they’re hoping that the general adult population will still startle a little bit when they scream.
Another Holocene Human
@Arclite: According to the logic in Hobby Lobby, and also the Supreme Court in California which said “atheist sun worship” is not a religion (SCOTUS basically said Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t protected by RFRA but Catholics are), the COURTS will decide what religion is a true religion and which religions are faking (totally in violation of 1st amendment, but it’s an amendment, those don’t count except the 2nd). Your fake made up religion can just sod off.
(In my years ago civics class I learned that the test had to do with the harm religious practices might cause and the compelling state interest test, so believe whatever weird thing you want but ixnay on the snake handling. That was too rational and reasonable and let loose women flout God and Man so it had to go.)
Neddy Merrill
And here is Bill Maher being really stupid criticizing those that spoke against the gob shit of Dolce & Gabbana., synthetic babies. I can’t see why he thinks those opposed to such bullshit should just grin and bear it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFeDFva6tcg
This may be a bit off topic.
Frankensteinbeck
They want to yell ‘nigger’ so bad, they can taste it. The younger ones remember when ‘fag’ was a completely publicly acceptable insult. This is what it’s all about. They have felt frustration and resentment all their life that they have to watch what they say and do, because bigotry is no longer considered a virtue.
@Trentrunner:
This is why they’re being fairly quiet in supporting this. They know that this law is about religious freedom, not bigotry, but they don’t have any plausible sounding arguments. As the guy said above, the conflict between their wanting to be bigots and assholes, and the public shame they know they will receive for not maintaining deniability, drives them nuts. They retread old arguments and search constantly for new arguments to reflect this shame on their attackers.
myiq2xu
Hey John, why don’t you post the actual RFPA statute so people can read it for themselves?
Here is what the new law says:
Big ole hound
If corporate conventions, the NFL, NCAA and Big 10 teams refuse to meet or have contests in the state it could make these assholes lose $$$ which might force a quick turn around.
wrb
I was flown in to Notre Dame a year ago to crit some grad students’ design work. I thought it a lovely town. I’ve been thinking of giving some major contracts to an innovative manufacturer there. I guess that’s off. Too bad. South Bend along the river is fantastic, as is the campus.
John Cole +0
@kc: Others protect individuals from undue burden from government. This just allows people to be fucking assholes and scream “RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.”
This is far more radical.
Suzanne
@wrb: Make sure you tell them why, so they can feel motivated to write to write to their legislators.
smintheus
“This law does not apply only to Catholics or evangelicals or to people of the Jewish faith. This applies to every citizen in the state of Indiana.”
Nope, it doesn’t. If you’re not religious, then this law doesn’t grant you the same right to discriminate against people you hate. Plainly unconstitutional preference given to the religious.
myiq2xu
@John Cole +0: The Indiana RFPA was modeled after this law:
Bill Clinton signed that into law in 1993 and it is still in effect.
myiq2xu
@smintheus: Wrong. The law would protect atheists from being forced to participate in a religious service.
smintheus
@myiq2xu: The US Constitution protects atheists from being forced to take part in any religious observances; your argument is nonsense. The Indiana law would not protect atheists who wanted to discriminate against gays, which is the whole point of the law.
Valdivia
I was talking to a friend who lives in berlin today (he’s not very political at all, doesn’t really follow US issues) and when I told him about this law in Indiana he thought I was joking. He could not believe it was possible to have something like this be a law in the 21st century.
Isn’t this constitutionally illegal?
ETA: I see that Hobby Lobby was the Trojan Horse for this, ugh.
delk
If these are your ‘deeply held religious beliefs’ how can you be bullied? Isn’t that that whole point of them being deeply held?
People waffling in their beliefs may be bullied, but if you are so sure, why are you afraid?
Put up the sign telling me that I am not welcome. I’ll stay away. Make my decisions easier. Practice what you preach. I promise you, I’ll happily walk right by. I have no need to be a jerk.
How about being neighborly? Put up your sign alerting me that while you will not serve me, the place (name, address, phone number, web address) around the corner will accept my business. Wouldn’t helping me be the christian thing to do? Believe it or not, I do know some christian people, I’d be more than glad to send them over. But then again, there is that whole horse and water thing, but that’s not going to be on me.
Xenos
@myiq2xu: Is the language in the second half of section 9, which allows people to sue the government, and be awarded fees, should they prevail in getting an injunction served on the government to stop it from enforcing anti-discrimination laws, in the federal statute?
MattR
@myiq2xu: And here is the major difference between the two (and I notice you started your excerpt of the Indiana law right after this section)
EDIT: Of course the Indiana law also includes the following section to protect businesses from having this law used against them.
MobiusKlein
Did the proponents of this law provide any concrete examples that would have been covered by this law?
I am suspicious of laws that have no wrong that gets righted, or problem that gets prevented.
If they can’t point to an example, why are they huffing so hard that it MUST BE PASSED?
Xenos
@smintheus:
That is the nut of it – members of legally recognized religions get a privileged status that allows them to discriminate. Can an atheist, or pagan, or animist, or spiritualist use this law to discriminate against Christians? Certainly not.
@MattR: Good catch. Business owners and executives get the privilege to discriminate. Common citizens wind up being second-class citizens, as intended.
gbear
@delk: Start looking for a fish sign on the windows of christianist businesses to let fellow bigoted christianists know that it’s a ‘safe’ place. None of them will put up a sign saying they are a non-gay establishment.
Culture of Truth
Can’t argue with that ironclad logic.
Iowa Old Lady
@gbear: I think some guerilla placement of stickers saying “We don’t serve gays” is in order.
myiq2xu
@Xenos: Yes
delk
@gbear: But, if I was a gay business owner, I’d put a fish sign in my window. I’d gladly take their money, and god willing, if my business was successful, be able to give that money to the Ali Forney Center for homeless gay youth.
scav
@Culture of Truth: By their fruits, you will know them.
myiq2xu
@MattR: I linked to the full text of both laws. I didn’t post everything because I didn’t want to blow up the comment thread.
JDM
@Neddy Merrill:
Because it doesn’t personally affect him. And what could be more important than that.
Tim C.
@Ruckus: Thing is they used to be. Back when being Christian in one denomination or another was a requirement of the culture at large they all hated each other. Sometimes they still slip and badmouth Catholics or Mormons and the infighting between the factions of Lutherans can be tragicomic to behold.
But sadly us secular humanists and progressive Christians and flat out none of the aboves are common enough that they are feeling the heat.
Baud
@myiq2xu:
I initially thought as you did, but Indiana put enough ambiguity in the law that a court could find it creates a defense to nondiscrimination laws. Maybe that’s not how it’ll play out, but if they wanted to copy the federal law, they could have done so.
The federal law isn’t all that great after Hobby Lobby anyway.
gbear
@delk: I suppose the ‘we serve everybody’ stickers will only warn christianists that they may experience discomfort if they go inside. As a gay man, I avoid places with fish signs. I’ve got nothing against people of faith, but if the fish is displayed, I assume they have an agenda that doesn’t include me.
Pen
@myiq2xu: the 1st amendment already does that.
mai naem
What the fuck is wrong with these people? Seriously, you’re going to make a cake or create some floral arrangements for a gay couple and that makes you gay or something? Seriously? Why not ask Jewish or Muslim docs how they feel about handling pig products for surgery etc. or Indian docs handling animal products? Do these morons not realize that the vast majority of gay couple are going to know you don’t like them/don’t feel comfortable with them and not even darken your door? Dumb fucks.
Also too, I thought this was what the flea market was all about. They’re always talking about flea markets! flea markets! Now, they decide they don’t like their flea market as much as their free dumb.
David Koch
Holder is the real racist for pointing out racism.
/fixxed news
Southern Beale
When I wrote about this last week a longtime commenter who was planning to attend Gencon gave a very long and thoughtful and, I felt, sincere reply about why they were still planning to attend Gencon, even though they felt really bad about it. The justification was that a lot of innocent people, many of them GLBT people, would be hurt by a boycott. And my commenter said he’d try to honor the boycott by only visiting businesses bearing the rainbow flag or whatever the symbol was that Indianapolis businesses who planned NOT to discriminate said they’d post.
Obviously, boycotts boil down to matters of conscience and everyone has the right to do what they feel they need to do and still be able to look themselves in the mirror in the morning. I had no plans to go to Indiana so me saying I’m going to boycott is easy because it’s purely theoretical. For people with actual plans they need to cancel, and the financial costs associated with that, it’s a tougher decision.
It’s probably easier for a company which is looking for a place to hold a convention in a few years to sat “nah” to Indianapolis than for a company which is already locked in with contracts and whatnot to pull out. Angie’s List is looking to pull out of an expansion of its operation there — an expansion that was supposed to start in days. That’s much tougher.
So I get it. I do think the argument that a boycott will hurt innocent people to be somewhat stupid. That’s the point of a damn boycott, after all. It hurts everyone because discrimination hurts everyone. And if Indiana wants to become the new Mississippi by legalizing discrimination, then let Indiana see what that really means.
If there are no consequences for hateful actions then they spread.
It also seems to me that if Gencon attendance is severely hurt by this legislative action, the conference will have a justification to cancel the remainder of its contract with the Indiana Convention Center. I think they are locked in for another 5 years …
mai naem
Has anybody asked Rand Paul what he thinks about this Indiana law and the backlash, considering what he said about the Voting Rights Act. I would love to see how he weasel words his way out of this one.
BBA
Yes, as often pointed out, this is a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” modeled after the federal law passed in 1993, only offering greater impunity. The federal RFRA is also a terrible idea – the government should not be making major policy carve-outs for religious views, period. And of course the title alone means it’ll never be repealed, if you oppose it you’re “against restoring religious freedom.” Apparently we’re supposed to think the reasonable decision in Oregon Employment Division, written by Scalia of all people, was the equivalent of the Thirty Years’ War. I can’t even.
eemom
@MattR:
Well done.
pseudonymous in nc
Who has the power, asshole? Those poor poor oppressed Christians in Indiana.
Also, let’s remember that the primary motivation for the federal RFRA was a series of cases dealing with Native Americans where SCOTUS basically said “fuck you, savages.” This wasn’t like DOMA where Bill Clinton was dealing with the Gingrichites in Congress. It’s just that the Christianists climbed on board the law and rode it in a different direction.
Southern Beale
Speaking of religious freedom, via ThinkProgress:
Ohhh. So it wasn’t about Jesus or the Bible or religion at all with this guy. It was about “me,” “my,” and “MINE.” So much for the farce that is “religious liberty.”
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@myiq2xu:
The Indiana law says their statute will also apply to disputes between private citizens (such as baking a wedding cake). Please explain how the “government entity” in your quote also automatically applies to private citizens so therefore we can all read the previous law as applying to private citizen vs private citizen, not just private citizen vs government entity.
Cervantes
@pseudonymous in nc:
I think you should write head-notes for West.
Riggsveda
Could stand to see a little of that Christian “meekness” in play out front of any Planned Parenthood in Indiana or anywhere else in the Republic. Wonder why we don’t?
gene108
Bigots don’t need a law to not serve gays.
You know, if you want “scare gay” people away from giving you business, you can always put up a sign on your store front that says quoting Leviticus 18-22 “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination” in big blazing letters to let people know, you do not like gays or some other expression of faith that tips people off gays are not welcome.
These god-botherers don’t want to keep gays out. They want gays to keep giving them business, but reserves the right to be assholes, when their customer does something they have an objection to like get married. Flowers for mother’s day, a cake for your niece’s birthday, and so on is not a problem, gay money is welcome as long as gays stay in their place and when gays get out of their place you can put them back in it.
If I was introducing a bill like this, I’d make sure that if you want to discriminate you have to publicly put a sign on your storefront that says, which groups you think are inferior and not worthy of your greatness, so the public can make informed decisions to not give you money.
geg6
They are freaking the fuck out and can’t hide their hate any more. The second largest stated religious identification is now “none.” Gays are getting married and the world hasn’t ended. The near sheriff is now living in the White House and no one has hung him yet. Sluts can’t shut up about fucking and birth control and controlling their own sexy parts, thank you very much. Brown people with accents are everywhere, perhaps taking their parking spaces or walking in the middle of the street or driving. Their own kids disagree with everything they stand for. Even the GOP (at least the money guys) are embarrassed by them and are working to undercut them. These are the screams of people who know they are losing and don’t know what else to do. I take great pleasure in watching them twist in the wind created by the hate they have shown us all lives deep in their hearts. And fuck Indiana. Rise up, if you are better than this.
WereBear
Why did they even pass this law? Is a gay couple going to hold them at gunpoint to get their cake decorated?
This is a law in search of a crime!
JPL
@mai naem: Jeb Bush through a spokes person supports religious liberty laws. Rand Paul will do whatever it takes to win.
joel hanes
This applies to every citizen in the state of Indiana. So we think everyone wins
Hmmm. I think he hasn’t thought this through.
As an atheist, I find many flavors of theism to be offensively narrow and hateful. I’ve always figured that the “religious freedom” for theists meant that I had to treat theists just like anyone else in my public and professional life, just as I would expect to be treated regardless of my apparent inability to find God.
But Indiana and Pence have opened my eyes.
Had I funds and time, I’d move to Indianapolis, get a vendor license, set up a sandwich shop downtown, and refuse to serve Pentacostalists, pre-millennarian dispensationalists, Opus Dei members, Scientologists, Southern Baptists, creationists, televangelists, and people named Scalia.
myiq2xu
@Southern Beale: How does he determine who is gay and who is straight?
Botsplainer
What I want most from evangelicals and fundamentalists is for them to shut the fuck up about their pharisaic, stupid hypocritically observed faith, which is nothing more than a ridiculously inconsistent apocalyptic death cult.
delk
@Southern Beale: And of course, he refused to name his business.
Mike J
@geg6:
I honestly believe that the real number of “nones” has always been at least as high as it is now. People are now less afraid of the power the “Christians” have long held over us. And you are correct. Losing that power is what has them scared. The argument of the slaveholders was that we can’t get off their backs now, what if they treated us the way we treat them?
Mike J
@joel hanes:
If you really wanted to get a test case out there, the thing to do would be to refuse to serve black people and claim God told you not to. Of course everybody would think you an asshole, but it would get the gears turning faster. I’m actually curious as to how long it will be until we see the real thing and not a provocateur. And then I’m terrified to think what the current lineup of Supremes would say about it.
Just Some Fuckhead
Must suck to be a log cabin Republican in Indiana. You don’t support marriage equality and now you get shit on anyway by the Christianists.
mai naem
@JPL: Yeah, but I want to hear Rand say “Well, these religious freedom laws are okay, I mean I’m sure people aren’t going to do business with these businesses who discriminate.” Basically what he said about the Voting Rights Law.
WaterGirl
@delk: Some enterprising person should do a little research and name his business for him.
I’m not for outing gay people who don’t want to be outed, but I am completely for outing these bigots.
Cervantes
@Mike J:
… unless you were an African-American yourself.
tamiasmin
@Another Holocene Human: Religion serves a good purpose when it lessens the malice or thoughtlessness in one’s own behavior and introduces a bit of self-doubt and humility. Otherwise it’s just scolding and beating other people into submission. Unfortunately, the first is much harder and much rarer than the second.
scav
In Indiana, could fraternities now successfully defend their sexist and racist practices and expressions as religiously sanctioned action? Suitable texts exist –the bible’s been used in the past to defend slavery and the subjection of women — and presumably frats are entities that can be sued and thus are people.
WaterGirl
@Mike J: Hopefully, the ACLU is lining up some test cases as we speak.
MobiusKlein
@myiq2xu: How to determine Gay or not?
That’s where bigotry comes in to play!
Look a bit swishy, and your out! No need for proof, or science, or nothin’.
It mean the guy can exercise any sort of logic, and abuse somebody he suspects of wrong think.
VidaLoca
@gene108:
QFT. It’s not a religious issue at all, it’s a political issue. It’s about power, and privilege: who gets to use the power of the state to set the norms, who are these norms enforced against.
@geg6: And the thing is, if you can’t set the norms (and your point is correct: they’re losing their power to do so) you can’t get away with this. The power and control they would need to succeed at this is already slipping out of their hands and they can’t get it back, as desperately as they try. The ground has shifted beneath their feet; they’re on the outside looking in; they just have not caught up with that fact yet, or the implications that flow from it.
JaneE
There is a reason for that. Did you happen to notice how many people commented positively about the Disciples of Christ when they opposed this law? I think it was because it has become so rare for “Christians” to speak out against discrimination and bigotry instead of actively working to advance it.
Please, please explain to me how not judging someone else infringes on your Christian faith.
Iowa Old Lady
This just boggles my mind. If you don’t want to get same-sex married, no one is making you do it. So what’s your problem?
geg6
@Mike J:
If you look at the numbers, it’s the youngs, the ones who grew up under these assholes, who are opting out. There have always been more of us than they thought, but the number is larger now and the kids are fleeing in droves. This does not bode well for them and you and I and they know it. We’re happy about it; they’re in full panic mode.
Karen in GA
And whose fault is that? I seem to recall a bunch of right wing panty-sniffing bigots pretty much defining American Christianity for the past 15 years. Now they’re whining that they’re viewed as exactly what they are? Fuck these people.
Mustang Bobby
That’s because you are.
If you think that your religion tells you it’s okay to discriminate against certain people simply because of who they are, then perhaps you need to re-examine your religion… or at very the least your understanding of it.
Tommy
@Iowa Old Lady: Oh I get it. I am not getting married to another person of my gender, but if people want rock on. The world is changing. Being a bigot is not working so well for people these days.
Jay C
@WereBear:
Simple 4-word answer: Elane Photography vs. Willock:
From Wiki:
As localized as the Elane Photography decision might seem to be (and note: this was apparently a State law case), I think a lot of the gay-bashing crowd freaked out over a possible precedent, and decided to push the relevant statehouses (i.e. GOP/ALEC-dominated wingnuts) to codify “religious” exemptions so that Mom and Pop Christian down on the corner wouldn’t have their little business harassed, sued and/or bankrupted by suits from Those Evil Gays, over refusing services (on “conscience” grounds. of course).
My own take on shit like the Indiana law is that the real target isn’t so much gays, per se, or the largely imaginary “burdens” on religious folks, but the whole notion of anti-discrimination legislation itself. AFAICT, the Indiana RFRA is so broadly-worded as to allow a “religious” out for just about anybody in just about any situation where discrimination might become, under any circumstances, a matter at law. And asshole Mike Pence and his amen-chorus’s bogus disclaimers notwithstanding, providing legal cover for discrimination IS what this crap is about.
Karen in GA
@geg6: This a thousand times.
scav
@Mustang Bobby: For that matter, they should shut up and accept that our moral values inform us that they are bigots and not nice people to have as neighbors and furthermore that we can express same moral values with our cash and speech and actions, publicly. They call us damed for all eternity, we call them ignorant bigots, seems an equal exchange of complements.
MattF
A Georgia legislator forced proponents of a similar bill to give the game away (a Slate link, but a good one):
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/03/27/georgia_legislators_admit_religious_liberty_bill_is_about_discrimination.html
Of course it’s discrimination. D’oh.
delk
As a legally married gay man, here is something most anti-marriage equality people do not know.
As long as the blood sucking vampires that are in charge of student loan collections consider my gay marriage legal, my gay marriage is legal, and not going anywhere.
Matt McIrvin
Somebody hasn’t been reading Facebook comments.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@delk:
Yep. IMO, the Supreme Court will agree by a narrow margin that same-sex couples have the right to marry not because a majority has come around to the idea, but because there are a whole lot of corporations whose business would be affected by a decision that voided existing marriages.
MattR
@MattF: From that article:
(EDIT: For clarity, this is not Red State’s Erick Erickson)
Ruckus
@Southern Beale:
So much for the farce that is “religious liberty.
That is their religion and religious liberty, those that approve and demand these types of laws, to discriminate against those of whom they don’t approve. You don’t belong to their church? Smite you down. You aren’t bigoted in the same way they are? Once again, smiting. You don’t even have to be asking for their approval/disapproval but they sure are willing to give it.
JPL
@mai naem: Paul is in a bind because he is trying to appeal to the youth vote, which is difficult to do, if you tout Indiana’s law. Google didn’t help.
There are 19 states that have religious liberty laws but how many of those states also have anti-discrimination laws ? I don’t know but it might be interesting to research. GA has until Thursday to pass the law and they don’t have specific protections for the lgbt community.
joel hanes
@Mike J:
the thing to do would be to refuse to serve black people
Nah. I have no deeply-felt beliefs about pigmentation.
But my conviction that people named Scalia should be excluded from society burns with the righteous flame of zealous conviction, and I’m always deeply hurt when society tramples on it.
the Conster
@indycat32:
Oh well, maybe they’ll make sure to vote and get everyone they know to vote out these assholes.
kc
Not trying to be troll-y, but, from CNN:
kc
-@Aimai:
Okay, thanks. I haven’t seen that discussed in any of the articles I’ve read so far.
ETA: Actually, I’m not seeing that in the statute that someone just posted.
muddy
@Mike J:
Like Jesus wanted? What do you think they are, Christians?
Tommy
@delk: The best thing my parents ever did for me was paying for my college. It is a thing in my family. Education is paid for, no questioned asked, by my mom and dad. It was done for them to they are playing it forward. My niece, the only kid in the family, set up a trust fund for her. She can go to any school she wants. Pretty proud of that.
Gidy51
@Trentrunner: There aren’t any, Pence even said this.
Karen in GA
@satby: Same has happened to me. I don’t understand people like that and I’ve given up trying. Which led to ignorant racist gun-nut relatives saying that I’ve changed.
I can give concrete examples of how my and my husband’s lives have been made easier by Obama’s policies, and I have to wonder why people in my own family, or people I consider friends, would have preferred that my husband get laid off, or that we not get lower mortgage payments. They hate Obama more than they love me, I guess. Fuck ’em.
kc
@MattR:
Gotta protect those Job Creators.
kc
@kc:
I should say, although I’m not sure why there’s an outcry now when these kinds of laws have been getting enacted for years, I really am glad that this statute is getting so much pushback and negative PR. Hope it does some good.
Amir Khalid
@kc:
Do you have a link to the CNN story? Failing that, in the three cases the excerpt cites, was the use of these laws to defend the refusal of service successful?
Cervantes
@Gidy51:
Right, in Indiana.
PurpleGirl
“And, they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians we are by our love.”
I always thought this was one of the most horrible of “new” worship songs coming out in the 1960s. Had and Aunt who loved the song. But besides just being bad musically, in terms of my own life and treatment I found it to be hypocritical. (I have always stuttered and as a child was teased about it constantly, or mocked by ADULTS because I went to a public school and not the parochial school sponsored by the parish I lived in. Said school turned down the application my parents made to send me there.)
Religious freedom… HA!!! They just want cover for their hatred of anyone who is different.
WereBear
@Jay C: Thanks.
That also explains why they call it “religious freedom.”
El Caganer
@Tommy: Do what?
El Caganer
@PurpleGirl: Hey, stop hating on the Christianoids or Easter Bunny Jesus is gonna fuck your chocolate eggs right up.
MattF
But seriously, folks, what’s going on in a religion that doesn’t center on compassion? Isn’t compassion a big deal? Even for Christians?
kc
@Amir Khalid:
Here you go.
I do note that Adam Talbot, who is quoted in the article, says the Indiana law is broader, but the article doesn’t specify how.
MattR
@kc: Most of the other states with a version of the RFRA also had anti-discrimination laws in place that included sexual orientation. Indiana does not offer that state level protection and this new law explicitly overrides any city or municipality (such as South Bend) that has stricter anti-discrimination laws in effect
rea
@BBA: The federal RFRA is also a terrible idea – the government should not be making major policy carve-outs for religious views, period.
The federal RFRA was never meant to be interpreted as it was in Hobby Lobby, and was originally meant to overturn a Scalia opinion hostile to native American religion. Moreover, RFRA does not apply to actions by state governments, only the federal government.
WaterGirl
OT, but rikyrah if you are out there, thanks for the hot tip on The Wire being available for free as part of Amazon Prime.
I confirmed that it is available. Not only that, but I can watch it through Tivo. Yay!
jl
Surprise surprise. Pence was dumb enough to admit on the radio that there was really no big wave of disputes going on in the state that called for any government intervention one way or another. So, of course, what’s a principled minimal government ‘conservative’ to do but pass a law?
So, now the only ones who are puzzled and upset and feel victimized by the public response are the intolerant religious bigots. Everyone else is opposed or don’t much care.
So, yeah, that ‘forgiveness’ and ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘tolerance; stuff, some say that might have something to do with Christianity. Maybe including Jesus. But that Jesus is so last Dispensation. Now it is the Christ in Judgment coming to slay and damn those who do not follow whatever the latest Xtianist dogma is, supposedly. Those hateful people are the public face of Christianity today.
There was a post at Lawyers Guns and Money blog recently about the rise of reactionary political Christianity in the US. A new book claims it can be traced back to anti-New Deal reactionary profiteering rip-off US corporations propaganda from the 1930s. I’ll have to go back and look, sorry no link now, I have to go. But I am going to look it up and maybe get the book. Would not surprise me if the reactionaries’ public religion of the US is really just partisan political BS to maximize corporate profits in a dog eat dog, person eat person vision of the world.
NotMax
Pace M. Python:
Nobody expects the
SpanishIndiana Inquisition…Tommy
@El Caganer: Pretty clear was it not. My brother went back to college in his mid 30s. Parents paid for it all. You want to learn some shit paid. But then again I don’t recall a single time in my life where I was interested in a topic and mom and dad didn’t buy me every book they could find on said topic. I am 45 years young and my dad buys me books all time when I show an interested in something. Heaven forbid you learn a little.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: New Mexico has both a law protecting lgbt from discrimination and a religious liberty bill. In that case, if you refuse service, you can be sued. Utah has no protections so I’m not sure what happened.
greennotGreen
@El Caganer: Hahahaha! Thanks for the mood lightener.
I’m a pagan, but I was raised in the church. And I’d like to remind our Christian brothers and sisters of their Redeemer’s words:
“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
And: “A new command I give you: Love one another.”
pseudonymous in nc
@VidaLoca:
The weirdest part is that it directs the power of the state in order not to feel grossed out. This is the hill they’re going to defend to the death: the right to be unencumbered by awkwardness and instead throw it back in the faces of others.
Now, forgive me if my Catholic education is lacking, but are we not talking here about a religion founded around the concept of material sacrifice and the abandonment of family comforts to face ridicule, exclusion and persecution?
Chris
@satby:
Good for you. I am sick to death of this vision of “civility” in which we’re expected to nod politely and thoughtfully at their fascist principles, and pretend that because they’re spoken in an indoor voice without any cuss words, they’re totally deserving of consideration.
Doubly so because I have yet to meet any of these people who will ever extend the same courtesy to us. Don’t you dare call them racist, no matter how loudly and often they call for profiling or display Confederate flags or talk about how black people had it better under slavery. But the next time they compare their latest tax hike and the poor person’s thirty dollars a month in food stamps to life under Stalin and Mao, you should totally pretend that they’re saying something deep and profound and not throwing a tantrum about the things that make their obscenely privileged and comfortable lives possible.
Baud
@kc:
So many offensive things are done all the time, it is hard to understand what causes one particular thing to click.
satby
@Karen in GA: They also keep wailing about the ACA, no matter how often I point out it’s the only way this 60 year old tubby lady would have insurance now. They know I’ve worked all my (teen to adult) life, so when I point out that their desire to have the law repealed would leave me at risk in an accident or health crisis, I get crickets.
Yes, their tribal identification is much stronger than their empathy for their own family. Crazy shit.
Chris
@gene108:
This is one thing that came out in spades when people were calling for a boycott of Orson Scott Card’s film and the conservative backlash that was all about censorship and intolerance. Apparently, the same people who are, again, outraged by the idea of a poor person getting thirty bucks a month in food stamps, believe Orson Scott Card has a constitutional right to my purchase of his movie tickets, and that anything less than that is “intolerance.”
PurpleGirl
@myiq2xu: He knows in his gut; he just knows.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@kc:
As far as I can tell, the main difference is that the Indiana law applies to businesses that want to deny service, not just individuals. It allows businesses to claim they have religious liberty.
Corner Stone
Wiscy v AZ, peeps!
raven
@Corner Stone: fucking draftees
Corner Stone
@El Caganer: To paraphrase Just Some Fuckhead from back when President Sheriff Stuck was amongst us, sometimes you just got to give it up to Jesus.
Gex
jl (sorry reply borked on my phone)
look up Paul Weyrich. He recruited the religious right for Reagan. He said flat out that it was desegregation that brought the fundies to politics. But I would imagine it is the New Deal that got the money boys interested in getting the votes however they can.
As a side note, the war on women and gays is just an outgrowth of the war on blacks. Weyrich said the fundies didn’t really give a rip about feminism or Roe v Wade at the time.
Ruckus
@Karen in GA:
@satby:
I’ve never understood why we had to bend over backwards for family members who are assholes. Family or not they are still assholes. I wouldn’t sit down knowingly to eat with an asshole I wasn’t related to by shear chance why should I with one that I am? Civility is useless if one side has no concept of it. Family is useless if it means getting treated like shit. I’ll take my chances with strangers, they might turn out to be nice people.
greennotGreen
Do the bakers who don’t want to bake cakes for the Gheys also sit in judgement of second marriages? How about marriages in which both partners aren’t virgins? Radically different ages? That might be gross. A bunny and Hugh Hefner? Yuck! Wait, wait, I’ve got it! Different races! Clarence Thomas better be glad he got married when he did and presumably someplace other than Indiana.
Corner Stone
Can someone please to explain wtf chicken fries are?
Karen in GA
@Ruckus: Yep.
Corner Stone
Ok, this scares the shit outta me:
“Rehab is (a lot) tougher than playing,” Clowney said. “You gotta be in there earlier than everybody, you’ve gotta leave later than everybody. That’s a lot tougher than playing.”
Jadeveon Clowney ‘very encouraged’
greennotGreen
@Ruckus: If you don’t live near them, an occasional interaction is doable. I’ve got an unreconstructed racist uncle, but I think I’m still in the will. I can be pleasant once a year to not embarrass my mother and maybe someday get some cash.
Baud
@Ruckus:
I’ll never understand liberals who don’t understand how much they are hated by their supposed family members who are truly in-the-tank conservative. Denial, maybe?
raven
@greennotGreen: I’m really bummed about an upcoming family wedding. Not only am I going to miss the Georgia-Alabama game but my moron half-brother and his fascist wife will probably be there.
MattF
@greennotGreen: It’s happened to me that the racist uncle does/says something bad enough that you don’t want to see him again, ever.
greennotGreen
@Corner Stone: One of the worst thought-out ad campaigns in a while. Little strips of fried chicken presented in a box that has a sad-looking chicken’s face on it. The campaign includes a young hen falling for some good-looking chicken fries instead of a nice live rooster.
Jeffrey Dahmer would probably find it persuasive.
greennotGreen
@MattF: Yeah, well in my case it was my father who said those things. Ultimately, I forgave him. Some people’s ability to love is limited, and they are the poorer for it.
debbie
@Ruckus:
I don’t. In fact, I haven’t spoken to one of my brothers (the one who can’t let go of the birth certificate bullshit) since Thanksgiving. I’ve quite enjoyed it.
MattF
@greennotGreen: Fair enough. My uncle was always being victimized by someone, and my dad (as the oldest son) felt it was his responsibility to protect him. I never felt that.
Corner Stone
Who buys a Buick? How are they even still in production?
debbie
@geg6:
This would describe me and my parents but they didn’t react the way these clowns have. There’s got to be something else going on.
MattF
@Corner Stone: There’s actually an answer to that question:
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-chinese-buyers-love-buick-2013-4
Ruckus
@greennotGreen:
Some people’s ability to love is limited, and they are the poorer for it.
This is true. So, do I have to suffer for it?
Ultimately, I forgave him.
It is always better to rise above and be the better person but with years of abuse how do you draw that line?
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: In an abusive situation, I think the answer is… forget about the abuser, the right thing is whatever makes you whole.
My two cents.
Chris
@Baud:
I’m not sure I agree with this. But to me, it’s irrelevant – that’s not even the problem. The problem is, to borrow from J. K. Rowling – “if you call everyone else like me a Mudblood, why should I be any different?”
Your family members may not hate you (the generic “you,” not Baud). It’s very possible that they believe you’re One Of The Good Ones. So what? They’ll still vote to defund your Medicaid and food stamps. They’ll still cheer on the Oakland PD when it tosses a grenade over your unconscious corpse. They’ll still support the right of everyone to discriminate against you. So what if they’re not thinking “oh yes, I’m doing to screw Chris. Because fuck that guy” when they’re doing it? If their thought process is “I’m voting to screw all these other people, the bad people who really are communists and traitors and leeches, because I hate them so much that I’m willing to turn you into collateral damage just to get at them,” or simply “I’m too oblivious to even realize how badly the things I’m voting for are destroying your life,” how does that make them any better?
WaterGirl
Jeffereyw, I have your awesome buns rising in the oven. Hmm, your recipe, I should have said.
I made up my own sloppy joe recipe. Instead of sweet with ketchup and sweet relish I do meat and onions and celery and rotel. Spicy! Your bun recipe holds up nicely.
Ruckus
@debbie:
I don’t talk to my only immediate family member left. Too much selfishness and religious bullshit going on there. Along with being attacked at family gatherings and funerals. Took some time but I finally decided that I’d had enough and pulled the plug. 15 yrs ago was told that when we were the last two we would be friends. My parting question was what in the world would make you think I’d have anything to do with you, once parental obligations are over?
delk
@Ruckus: I bailed on my older brother about 6 years ago. Got tired of the passport checks at Teabagistan.
I believe the last thing he said to me before I got up and walked out the door was, “How’s that hopey changey thing going?”
And of course, he’s an n-word dropping racist but he’s fucking a black chick so what’s it to me?
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I agree.
I have to live with myself first and foremost so I want me to be someone I’d like others to be comfortable with. Not sure I’ve succeeded but I think it’s at least better to attempt it.
raven
@delk: I have a right wing, combat Marine cousin who did time for reefer and has three kids with an African American woman. He calls me “weather underground” and laughs.
Allan
@myiq=2: A bad law is a bad law no matter who voted for it in a legislature or signed it as chief executive.
Baud
@Chris:
This is wise, as is the rest of your comment. Don’t listen to me. I’m extreme because I am a sociopath who has no patience for people or their avoidable frailties.
jeffreyw
@WaterGirl: Mmm… sloppy joes! I use minced onions and sweet peppers although an occasional jalapeno will find its way in. I tend toward sweet and spicy, ketchup has a role, as do BBQ sauces of various flavors.
Amir Khalid
@delk:
It’s probably not your business now, or mine ether; but does your brother’s black significant other not know he’s a racist, or does she pretend not to mind?
Ruckus
Wow.
Can’t really say I’m glad to hear others feel the same way about family but wow, there must be a lot of us.
Corner Stone
@MattF: Fascinating, thanks.
That answers part of the conundrum, I guess. Why they are still spending advertising dollars in the US market is a separate query.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: Forgot to mention that I also add chili powder! Yum. Nice comfort food. I also like spicy and sweet together.
Are you a fan of peppadews? Spicy ginger ale? Blenheim makes the best ginger ale ever – the one with the pink cap is super spicy, the one with the gold cap is less so. i go for the pink one, of course.
greennotGreen
@Ruckus: What Watergirl said.
Ruckus
@delk:
Lots of others have done that over the years. Getting laid and liking/respecting someone are not even close to being in the same ballpark for many. Does he actually like women at all, or is he just, as the olds say, scratching an itch?
Suzanne
Arizooooonaaaaaaa, bear DOOOOOOOWN.
Believe me, my family is a pretty FUBAR group of people, but the racists, sexists, and homophobes are dead, except for one. It’s my generation that has the gay and interracial marriages. Love it.
jeffreyw
@WaterGirl: Nope, and nope. I’ve seen pics of peppadews but none for sale around here. Diet Mountain Dew!
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: AZ isn’t backing down.
Still think Wiscy is the better team but AZ is making them prove it.
Corner Stone
Got to make the gimmes.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: That is a most excellent question.
@Chris: I really appreciated your thoughtful comment. I was going to say that it was wise, but then I saw that Baud had already said that, and I don’t want to look like a copycat.
I found a bunch of synonyms for wise; here are the ones I think fit your comment: sage, astute, perceptive and insightful.
Howard Beale IV
These Religious Freedom Restoration Acts are an abomination. Everyone is going to be exposed to things they don’t like, but to codify their hurt feefees into laws is just sheer nonsense, if not outright insanity. Freedom of Religion also means Freedom From Religion.
PurpleGirl
@Ruckus: I’m another who has pulled back from family almost completely. When my brother-in-law died in 2008, no one — not my sister, his wife or their two daughters — called to tell me. Years ago I visited my brother in the hospital and when I said I had to leave to catch a train, that I was meeting my boyfriend, my brother said (direct quote) “Oh a black man.”
A lot of my stress in life was reduced as I pulled back. One of the best decisions I ever made.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: You can buy peppadews on-line. So they don’t have peppadews at the olive bars in your grocery stores? Or they don’t have olive bars?
Blenheim ginger ale comes in diet, too. I believe that’s the silver cap. But I’m not sure a fan of mountain dew would be a fan of ginger ale, so never mind.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Well one sister was gay, I lived for a couple of decades with someone of different ethnicity and I’m old(er) and on SS. Folks didn’t cotton to sisters “living arrangements” at first but did treat her black girlfriend well over the years so we were pretty good on the racist/homophobe front.
debbie
@Howard Beale IV:
I just don’t understand how Freedom of Religion has become Freedom to Discriminate. Didn’t most religions begin as a reaction to discrimination?
Paul in KY
@satby: Good on ya! Keep on telling him & her the truth!
Villago Delenda Est
@Howard Beale IV: Not according to some asshole congressman from Texas, who, in conflict with the very plain wording of Article VI of the Constitution, wants to force Air Force officers to say “So help me God” at the conclusion of their oath of office.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Jesus wept.
NotMax
@Corner Stone
They’re chicken breasts cut into a french fry shape and size, then coated and fried. Sometimes baked.
Now lamb fries, that’s a whole ‘nuther ballgame. Will let you Google that one.
@jeffreyw
Bought this ketchup earlier in the month, but haven’t cracked it open yet.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: My grandparents were tremendously racist, but in the northeastern way. They certainly disapproved of the KKK and lynchings and Jim Crow, and they watched “To Kill A Mockingbird”, but they were the kinds of racists who didn’t think they were racist. But whenever I played with a friend who was of a different race, they referred to her as “the nice little black girl”. And they complained about Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley, and the “dysfunction in the black community”. I remember once my grandmother complaining about “Oprah’s blackness coming out”.
And now they have biracial great-grandkids. MUAHAHAHAAAAA.
Ruckus
@PurpleGirl:
Reducing stress is selfish. You are the one that will live longer, not them. However…. It is the best reason to move on and find some peace in your life. Stress leads to high BP and cardiac arrest, among other fun things. Take it from one that has to take meds every day to keep them from killing me, reducing stress is the number one thing for living better.
NotMax
@Corner Stone
They’re chicken breasts cut into a french fry shape and size, then coated and fried. Sometimes baked instead.
Now lamb fries, that’s a whole ‘nuther ballgame. Will let you Google that one.
@jeffreyw
Bought this ketchup earlier in the month, but haven’t cracked it open yet.
Paul in KY
@JPL: Rand has to win the Repub nomination. Plus this is sorta the libertarian kind of thing he would like, so I would think he would be OK with it. He’ll probably try & mealy mouth it a bit so he has some deniable plausibility if this thing really blows up bad for Republicans.
NotMax
FYWP. Can a mod take my food-related post out of limbo please?
dmbeaster
The Indiana law is NOT the same as the Federal law or those already passed in other states. The key difference is that it voids existing anti discrimination laws passed by loval governments and allows private discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Federal law applies to US govrrnment action that burdens the private exercise of religious beliefs and was fairly trivial until it got stretched all out of shape by Scalia in Hobby Lobby. The other existing state laws are like the Gederal one. Nothing about the Federal law authorizes private action against other people that would violate a law, but is allegedly permitted based on private religious belief. The conservative defense of this law as allegedly more of the same id dishonest.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
What goes around, comes around. Are you saying they deserved to have mixed race grand kids?
Saying mixed race always cracks me up. Almost all of us are Heinz 57. (For those of you too young to know the reference, we are all mutts) Thousands of years of people having kids and the kids having kids…….
debbie
@WaterGirl:
And at this point, so do I. I just don’t see how we get out of this.
Aleta
I have two sisters, both scientists. One is a radical tea party girl (opposes all taxes and zoning, opposes nat’l parks, rabid side of gun rights, a practicing survivalist who can hardly wait). The other is a fundamentalist Christian.
They disagree on almost everything; can’t be in the same house without a huge fight; no longer speak to each other. The second one honestly thinks Satan may be at work in the acts of the first one.
But they vote the same. They’re both rigid thinkers and quite paranoid, especially toward Obama and other Democrats. Both think climate change is a hoax. The second one believes that Obama, etc. are trying to stamp out Christianity and make it illegal for any soldier to pray, and that the Pentagon has been overrun. (I’m not sure by what.)
Both were sexually assaulted when young; both later escaped very abusive partners. One credits the doctrine of absolute self-reliance and control with saving herself and believes others need to do the same. She believes the ACA will bring the end of the US. The other has found relief from her pain in being saved and in charismatic Christian belief. She too is prepared for the end times.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: I think they are still in production because they don’t look like Buicks & at the plant, they think they are making Pontiacs :-)
PurpleGirl
OT: Tonight’s Star Trek on MeTV is City on the Edge of Forever. And I think, despite Harlan Ellison’s complaints and whining, one of the best episodes of the show. Special bonus — Joan Collins before she became Joan Collins.
delk
@Amir Khalid: Well, she isn’t deaf, and they have together for 7-8 years, so I don’t really know. It makes both my sister and I and our husbands scratch our heads.
She seemed nice to me, from what I remember. I saw her a couple years ago when his daughter got married. I limited my conversation to my brother to one word, “Congratulations” and left it at that.
Paul in KY
@Aleta: Tell em both that the ‘Pentagon’ is actually a giant satanic pentagram. All marked out in sub-basement 12. Obama knows all about it…as it was made for him (buwahahahahahaha).
Another Holocene Human
@Mike J: That’s a nice thought, but there were some definite upheavals, such as the Catholic Church child abuse coverup, that changed some peoples’ minds. There’s a big cohort of Catholic quitters who would have gladly continued to be cafeteria Catholics like their parents and grandparents who now don’t want their kids anywhere near Catholic instruction. I believe that’s why white Catholics have gone from half liberal half conservative to majority conservative — the liberals quit.
(I see your point in that a lot of Catholics were atheists or agnostic. But there is a difference when you make that break with the Catholic traditions you were clinging to despite that. There’s been an emotional break with the Church.)
I wasn’t raised in other religious traditions so I can’t speak to that except to say that the boomer evangelicals/GenX really blew it with their kids. Millennial/Gen Y evangelicals are streaming out of the politicized, apocalyptic, hateful church they grew up in.
PurpleGirl
@Aleta: And neither one sees how similar they are to each other, amirite.
raven
Big foul trouble for the Cats.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: They didn’t “deserve” to have biracial grandkids. That’s not something you earn or don’t earn with your behavior.
But if there is a God, his sense of irony is pretty spot-on at times.
raven
That’s some bullshit by the big man for Wisky.
Chris
@WaterGirl:
LMAO, thanks!
(Writing grad school papers is a never ending search for synonyms to say the same thing again without it sounding like the same thing…)
MattF
@Paul in KY: There’s lots of folks on the intertubes who agree with you:
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Illuminati/dc.htm
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
You are right, I stated it wrong. Irony is what I was intending. I like irony, it’s like karma only subtle and doesn’t take an act of a mythical being.
bemused
@Suzanne:
The makeup of families is changing and has been changing for a long time. I don’t know why people fight so hard to not believe that or think they can stop the changes in their own families. It’s as inevitable as the sun always rising in the east.
Corner Stone
What the hell was the AZ coach so pissed about going into break after the layup by Pitts?
Cervantes
@Ruckus:
Not least because there is no biological basis for the (pernicious) cultural construct that we call “race.”
raven
@Corner Stone: It’s cumulative.
Aleta
@PurpleGirl: for sure. And both contradict their beliefs by using the govt for free education (in CA long ago), high paying jobs, loans (roads, airports).
WaterGirl
@Chris: It was the opposite for me in grad school. They made us write shorter papers, so you had to edit the heck out of them and take out all the places where you repeated yourself. It made for a much better paper and it really made you think about what you wanted to say but it was hard work.
This was when no regular people ever had computers, so we paid the departmental secretaries to type our papers for us. I remember commenting to one of them once that it seemed like anything I turned in got an A, so maybe I shouldn’t try so hard. The reply back: that’s because, unlike the others, you know how to write a complete sentence.
The nuns from grade school would have been proud.
Mike J
@debbie:
The southern baptists were founded to support slavery. They did officially renounce that stance and apologise for it eventually.
Corner Stone
Slah-pee!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Corner Stone: I think it’s been building for a bit.
Corner Stone
Nice footwork by Frank the Tank down low.
Another Holocene Human
@PurpleGirl: That always mystified me, the “ooo, Joan Collins” talk because I was young enough to have completely missed the Joan Collins drama.
And Diane Muldaur, who was droolworthy on TOS (the episode with Sargon, forgot the title) was apparently on LA Law but I was kind of too young for that. I remember Miami Vice, though.
Paul in KY
@MattF: Thanks for the link, but I’m not going there.
Corner Stone
Can’t call that ticky foul.
Corner Stone
“Thass what I toled him!”
Steeplejack (phone)
Sitting at Dulles waiting to board for Vegas. Flight delayed an hour, and two gate changes–C14 to D11 to C1–have given me quite the workout.
Drinking a warm, overpriced beer in a place that has inexplicably not-awful background music: Nazz, “Open My Eyes, B-52s, “Love Shack.”
raven
We went on a tour this afternoon of a place right in town in Athens. It was built in the 20’s by a local man and his family. He had spent time in China, Japan and Korea and many of the elements of this “retreat” had Asian influences. It’s now looking like it will be purchased by the city and land trust and preserved. Here’s a couple of pics.
pic 1
pic 2, camelback bridge
Howard Beale IV
@Ruckus: Speaking of stress reduction….
raven
@Steeplejack (phone): I’m just a few blocks from “The Atlanta Highway”!
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human: Diana Muldaur was in two episodes; in the other one, she had a telepathic rapport with the Medusan who would drive you insane if you looked at it. And, of course, she was Doctor Pulaski on season 2 of TNG.
Aleta
@debbie: Didn’t the Puritans and most of the other religious colonists (except the Quakers) come to the US in order to have the freedom to persecute non-believers in their religion?
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): That’s almost the same as cumulative!
raven
@Aleta: Yea so? Irish came here to escape oppression too.
greennotGreen
@Aleta: How can they be scientists? Or, at least, good scientists?
Paul in KY
@raven: Very nice. Is that stone on the underside of the bridge? Looks like it could be wood, although I would be surprised if it was…wood.
Aleta
@raven: My grandmother’s father and family came to get something to eat.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Steeplejack (phone):
Holy shnikeys! Logins and Messina, “Angry Eyes.” If it’s the long version I’ll buy stock in the company.
Paul in KY
@greennotGreen: The Lord God, in his infinite wisdom, allowed that the magic of chemical reactions always works the same. All praises to his name.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Steeplejack (phone):
Okay, then, who owns Potbelly?
raven
@Paul in KY: It does look like it but it’s concrete. They used stone and concrete all over to make benches, lanterns, tables, grotto’s and all kind of cool stuff.
Here’s a story about it.
raven
@Aleta: My grandfathers grandmother from Clare the same.
Ruckus
@Cervantes:
Absolutely, it’s all cultural/tribal. It comes from fear of outsiders, those that may want to come in to your area and rape, plunder and steal. If you have some (easy) way to identify outsiders then you can protect against them. Might just have had some justification on an individual basis hundreds/thousands of years ago, not the racist part but identifying outsiders when you have an almost closed society. Nowadays, not so much, especially as this is supposed to be an open, inclusive society we live in.
Steeplejack (phone)
@raven:
Second-greatest song of the ’80s. First: Tears for Fears, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
raven
@Steeplejack (phone): I like Deadbeat Club because it’s my neighborhood.
Steeplejack (phone)
@raven:
I like them in general.
I dated a woman who was an ASL interpreter at Georgia. Got to know Athens pretty well.
Ruckus
@Aleta:
Yes.
Aleta
@greennotGreen: I’ve seen one manipulate her data to achieve result, so I suppose she extrapolates her own character to that of climate modelers. And, I think, since accepting their results would come perilously close to endorsing regulation, her brain must either reject the research or reject itself.
raven
@Steeplejack (phone): They were gone when I moved here 30 years ago but they come back from time-to-time. We are close enough to what was Allen’s to have heard the bugle from the Navy School before it moved. Normaltown is undergoing a big renaissance with a number of decent bars, eateries and a good Mexican grocery store.
danielx
What RFRA amounts to is a very large, very public “FUCK YOU” to Indiana gays from the state’s fundie legislators and those they represent. They’ve been doing a slow burn ever since they were totally betrayed by John Roberts and the Supremes on the issue of gay marriage back in October of last year.
PurpleGirl
@Mike J:
The southern baptists were founded to support slavery. They did officially renounce that stance and apologise for it eventually.
Ah, but it’s still in their hearts and shows in much of their behavior. Have they made overtures to just regular Baptists? Regular Baptists remember that they came here to the Americas to get away from Europe’s oppression; real oppression by the way.
Steeplejack (phone)
@raven:
I haven’t been to Athens in 20 years. Left Atlanta in ’05.
Paul in KY
@raven: Thank you for the link.
Paul in KY
@Steeplejack (phone): They (Tears for Fears) are going to be at Bonnaroo. Planning on seeing them.
raven
@Steeplejack (phone): Yea, lot’s of changes. Much of downtown has turned into a mini French Quarter except down by the 40 Watt and that area. You can’t park anywhere without paying and it’s made Normaltown ripe for non-student type folks. The Georgia Theater is nice since the fire and rebuild but everything starts so late it has to be pretty special to get me there.
Cervantes
@raven:
I know that house. There used to be fountains and fish-ponds and water-lilies on the property. It was a very long time ago.
Thanks much for sharing those photographs.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Paul in KY:
Cool.
Corner Stone
Wonder if we’ll get a post 5 hour thread for the UK ND game?
satby
@raven: a bit of trivia: when I was in Ireland 4 years ago they had a replica of the kind of ship that the Irish took to North America fleeing the famine. It was tiny, BTW; I’ve seen bigger cabin cruisers in Monroe Harbor. The Irish call them “famine ships”, here on the other side of the pond I grew up hearing about the “coffin ships”.*
It’s all in the perspective, isn’t it?
* proud greatgrandaughter of Mayo.
raven
@Cervantes: Yea, it’s actually more than one house on the property but the one on the hill overlooking the river is really nice. There is money to stabilize it right now and it will be really cool to see it all come back. Those ponds are dry but the rock structures are there and can be brought back to life. I guess people that built it were also involved with Montreat.
Steeplejack (phone)
About to board? At least there is a herd-like movement toward the gate. So important to board with Group 3, before the proles in Group 4.
I’m in Group 5, steerage. Maybe because I have an aisle seat on an exit row?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
When you’re getting over a cold, there are worse things than lounging in a dim room with a purring cat on your lap.
Steeplejack (phone)
Nelson Muntz Ha-ha! Cleaners still cleaning, so nobody’s boarding for a while.
satby
@Steeplejack (phone): LOL
raven
@satby: This is Bridgette Elizabeth Downs Figg. She came by herself from Clare in 1841. Her husband and both sons fought in the Civil War and her son Jason was killed at the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864.
Corner Stone
Dagger!!
raven
Best chance to beat Kentucky.
Suzanne
Damnit, Cats.
Cervantes
@raven:
Yes, the one house I’m thinking of was built as a summer home. I know the property has dwindled over the years. It started out at more than 200 acres. What is it now, half that?
And yes, there was a Montreat connection.
I hadn’t thought about the place for (what must be) decades. I’m very glad to hear there is an effort to preserve it. Do you have other photographs? (Thanks again.)
Corner Stone
@raven: I want to see what UK does to ND’s top rated offense.
Steeplejack (phone)
@satby:
But I got TSA Pre, so there’s that.
raven
@Corner Stone: Yea, could be fun.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: I hope so. I’m here at work doing a production implementation & would like to discuss the game.
Cervantes
@Ruckus:
It’s baggage we don’t need.
But try telling that to racists!
Ruckus
@Steeplejack (phone):
I always end up in group 5, steerage. Must be my upbringing. Or maybe that karma thing because computers know I don’t respect them.
NotMax
Third try to post this.
@Corner Stone
They’re chicken chests cut into a french fry shape and size, then coated and fried. Sometimes baked instead.
Now lamb fries, that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame. Will let you Google that one.
@jeffreyw
Bought this ketchup earlier in the month, but haven’t cracked it open yet.
raven
@Cervantes: Here’s an album and I’ll add more.
Athens Banner Herald article.
Preservationists hope to save Beech Haven, little-known Athens gem
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: Indeed it is! Had I seen your reply before making mine, I’d have said simply “see raven’s reply” as opposed to what I wrote.
Ruckus
@Cervantes:
Can one tell racists anything? Seem to be a pretty closed minded group, taken as a whole. Sure some of the individuals occasionally open their minds to the possibility that they have been wrong, but it seems rare.
Aleta
@raven: amazing face. where did she live after first arriving?
raven
@Aleta: The men entered the Civil War from Nashville but my family tree also indicates Birmingham, Alabama. After the war they ended up in Chicago. She’s a little happier in this shot, my grandfather is on the ground holding the baby.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Steeplejack (phone):
Did you have to pay extra for the exit row? We’ve discovered that it’s worth it for some airlines, not worth it for others. Paid exit row on Virgin America is awesome — not just extra leg room, but no luggage fees, free food, and free movies. American barely gave an extra inch of leg room and no other freebies.
raven
@Aleta: If you like old pics you’ll enjoy this one of my mom’s aunt Venus.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
On behalf of Pogonip and the rest of the group, I am formally requesting a pupdate. Thank you.
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Awww. That sounds so nice. The purring lap cat, not the cold.
Aleta
@raven: Is she the one in black? Dates on either photo? Why did she come across alone? How old was she when she came ?
greennotGreen
@Paul in KY: So, not research? Because that requires looking at the evidence and forming hypotheses…that can be tested and proven or disproven by evidence. Neither fundamentalists nor tea party types are big on analyzing evidence. (In the case of fundamentalists, I believe the clash is between “biblical inerrancy” and the actual history of the book.)
raven
@Aleta: Yes, the info on the back leads me to think it’s about 1900.
She came in 1854 at 13.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: She still looks like a woman who did not suffer fools gladly. The young woman with the infant is stunning. Is there a family resemblance to gramps?
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: Most likely.
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): The bags under the eyes are a stone giveaway! And losing a son probably didn’t help. I think the surviving son was an alcoholic, not a shocker. He was in the 1st Tennessee Cavalry and lived.
SiubhanDuinne
@Another Holocene Human:
Diana Muldaur was literally drop-dead amazing on LA Law.
Corner Stone
When your team’s leading rebounder is 6’5″…and you’re playing the trees of KY…
Not going to end well, most likely.
Aleta
Your grandfather looks a bit of a rogue. He and his grandmother look “present.”
raven
@Aleta: He was quite a guy. Sold hats in the Dakota’s and even worked CCC camps to try to keep the family alive.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Corner Stone: That’s a pretty realistic assessment, I think.
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): They are smart, quick, upperclassmen and have NOTHING to lose.
Thor Heyerdahl
Really late to the thread…however can we be surprised at the Indiana Legislature passing bullshit legislation?
This is a legislature that tried to square circles in the “Indiana Pi Bill” in 1897 – even though (per wiki “…better approximations of π than those inferred from the bill have been known since ancient times”). It passed the state house but thanks to the actions of mathmetician Professor Clarence Abiathar Waldo it failed in the state senate and never became law.
More history via a Purdue University site here
Cervantes
@raven:
Thanks for the Shearer article.
Charles Rowland came from one of the older New England families.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ich habe es gesehen, was du da getan hast.
raven
@Cervantes: My pleasure.It’s cool you know about it.
raven
Cherry pickin.
Chris
@WaterGirl:
The best class I’ve had so far in that respect was the one guy who made us write three papers per semester instead of one, but each of the papers was 10 pages instead of 25. It’s such a relief when you don’t have to figure out how to stretch out your paper by five extra pages of sesquipedalian loquaciousness when you’ve already said everything you had to say.
Aleta
@raven: One tough family.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: I’ll help… JC, we need a pupdate. Thanks in advance.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: We have to put the kwahooli on #24. Also don’t see how those 5 guys are going to go the whole game.
Ninedragonspot
@Corner Stone: An unfortunate name for the product, since “duck fries” refer to the animal’s testicles. I’ve only been served the duck variety once in the US (over pasta, with coxcomb, greens and breadcrumbs), but in Taiwan (at least) both the chicken and duck variety are found in traditional dishes. Helpful hint: if you’re ordering duck fries with your hot pot, let them cook a good 8-9 minutes.
Baud
@Thor Heyerdahl:
Per wiki
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: Disgraceful.
Mike J
Don’t forget, Bovine Spongiform Time starts tonight.
Corner Stone
Can anyone besides Martin explain to me why someone would actually have a use for an Apple Watch?
PurpleGirl
@Mike J: I don’t get the reference. Please explain.
PurpleGirl
@Corner Stone: First adopter bragging rights?
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: Someone needs to tweet Cole and tell him duty calls.
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
Use? Use!? It’s an Apple gadget! with a lower-case i in front of the name and everything! Gotta have it!
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: Snob value.
Baud
@Corner Stone:
No, Martin is the only one.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: Not you, too, Amir! I am disappoint.
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: Look on Apple’s website. You can watch the video of the famous model who explains how she uses hers and how it impacts her life.
Edit: among other things, it helped her train for her marathon and she relied on it heavily during the marathon.
I should add that I didn’t watch the whole thing – I was just skipping through until they got to the new MacBook.
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
Don’t worry. I was just illustrating the, ahem, thought process. I shoulda put quote marks around it.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Corner Stone: I believe it shows upper level access to worship at the foot of the Great Turtleneck. That’s as close as I can get.
Pogonip
@gbear: As none of the above, I avoid those fish-sign places too. Small businessmen who flaunt their “Christianity” are the ones who will always try to cheat you blind. I am wary of so-called “Christian” bookstores for the same reason. Catholic bookstores are overpriced but honest.
FYAC wanted to change “bookstores” to “oom stores”. Is it legal to sell ooms in Indiana?
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid:
:: sigh of relief ::
Mike J
@PurpleGirl:
British Summer Time. BST always reminds me of BSE, aka mad cow disease.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Is that like being Cleared Theta Clear?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
(In-flight wi-fi now!)
Heinous extra charge, no freebies, but worth it for the extra 4-6 inches of leg room. (This is United.)
Once I get the Tanqueray drip deployed I’ll be good to go. Vegas ETA about four hours from now.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: I suspect it may be.
Baud
@Steeplejack (tablet):
The prices for that seem to have skyrocketed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Prices for what? Leg room or Tanqueray drips?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
WiFi. Don’t know about the other things.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
It’s just a relatively-small-computer-that-you-can-wear. Why would you wear one? Use your imagination. A friend of mine once built one that served one function only: it could help you beat the odds at roulette.
Apple’s relatively-small-computer-that-you-can-wear can serve a number of functions, only one of which is to keep time accurately. If you see no useful possibility in it (at the moment), you probably have no need for it (at the moment). There’s nothing wrong with drawing this conclusion (at the moment).
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Baud:
Seat upgrade heinous. Wi-Fi reasonable at $3.99 an hour. Tanqueray overpriced but expected to be so.
Alan in SF
“although it is undeniable in today’s culture that an open profession of faith brings with it labels and stereotypes.”
Hey, maybe if they stopped acting like hateful, lying, vindictive morons who want the government to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us, we’d stop saying that about them.
Baud
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Have a good flight.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
It’s just a relatively-small-computer-that-you-can-wear. Why would you wear one? Use your imagination. A friend of mine once built one that served one function only: it could help you beat the odds at [a certain game of chance in which a wheel features prominently].
Apple’s relatively-small-computer-that-you-can-wear can serve a number of functions, only one of which is to keep time accurately. If you see no useful possibility in it (at the moment), then you probably have no need for it (at the moment). There’s nothing wrong with drawing this conclusion, I presume you agree.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Baud:
Thanks. See above, Tanqueray drip.
And we seem to be facing much less of a headwind. Flight time west usually over five hours.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: I’ve thought about it quite a bit, actually. Keeping time is the absolute bottom of it’s offerings, IMO.
But I consciously sometimes go hours during the day not pulling my iPhone out of my pocket. It (iWatch) seems to me to be a weapon of mass distraction.
Tommy
@Cervantes: It wasn’t that long ago you might have asked why would somebody have a phone in their hands. iPhone. I have a Jawbone 24 (what a stupid name BTW) on my wrist. Monitors the number of steps I take. Heart rate. You name it. Syncs with my phone. That is just the way we are going.
Baud
@Steeplejack (tablet):
They obviously slowed the plane down so you would buy more WiFi time.
ETA: Never mind. I misread your comment.
Corner Stone
@Tommy:
Does it track how many times you peek at it during a 24 hour period?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I am an analog watch person, so the appeal of the Apple Watch escapes me completely.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
People said the same thing about the Web, and cellular telephones before that, and e-mail before that, and television before that, and radio before that, and the phonograph before that, and mass-produced books before that — all true in some sense, perhaps, but not the whole story, either.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s not a watch in that sense, even though it’s called one.
Cf. Pods, Phones, and Pads.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Baud:
No, we’re going faster than usual. Wheels up about 40 minutes ago, and already we’re only 3:40 out.
Track me? http://unitedwifi.com/travel/index.htm?req=147198
Still no Tanqueray drip. Gonna have to Archerize this operation.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
The price escapes me. One of the main reasons I’ll stay an android person.
Tommy
@Corner Stone: Nope but is does vibrate telling me I have not entered all the info it wants. Had the thing for months and it still freaks me out it does this. I use a third party app, MyFitnessPal, and if I don’t enter the info it vibrates.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I have a 1943 Omega Bullseye. So, yeah.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Use a cheesy 80s pickup line on the flight attendant and grab all the little Tanq bottles while the FA is gobsmacked?
@Corner Stone:
Nice.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: I doubt the comparison makes any sense, at this point.
Corner Stone
@Tommy:
This is exactly what I am looking for! Thanks!
R. Porrofatto
Indiana Right to Life has set up a link on its website that allows supporters to send “thank you” messages to the governor and the Republican lawmakers who sponsored the legislation.
And it’s worth it to see just what kind of “thank you” messages they’re getting. Here’s one:
Tommy
@Cervantes: I have about a $500 watch on my arm. I can’t imagine not having it with me at all times. The very rare times I don’t have it on I feel naked without it. I am also a geek of a pretty high order. I’d think I would be in Apple’s wheel house. But I could not imagine I need my watch to do more than it already does. It tells time. It is waterproof. A stopwatch to time when I am cooking something. Not sure I want my watch to do a lot more than that.
Cervantes
@Tommy:
That’s great! I couldn’t be happier. (For you, I mean).
@Corner Stone:
Not clear to me what you mean, but that’s OK. I have been called to other chores and pastimes and pursuits. I’m sure that by the time I next look in, you’ll have achieved your full understanding or at least a very good facsimile thereof!
NotMax
@Steeplejack
High school classmate’s father was (at the time) the sole importer of Tanqueray.
Powerful incentive for a more serious relationship but alas, didn’t happen.
pseudonymous in nc
@Cervantes:
And if enough people buy it now, the version that comes out in a few years will be even better. But there need to be enough people to buy it now.
I was looking at a Carson clip from 1972 where he brought out the first LED digital watch (the 18K gold Pulsar P1) and the audience let out a collective gasp when he pressed the button and the time came up, seconds and all. There was an even bigger gasp when he said it would sell for $1500. In fact, it sold for $2100, the price of a small car. People paid $400 in 1973 dollars for the stainless steel P2, the price of a Rolex at the time. The fact that they paid that amount of money then meant, at least in part, that you could buy cheap quartz watches in 1980.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Exactly!
Drip now on line. Bombay Sapphire rather than Tanqueray. Not a problem. Gin and juice. Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes:
Or maybe in the interim you can ponder on it further and figure it the fuck out for yourself what I mean.
Here, I’ll help you out a little. I have a watch. I also have several internet enabled devices. They currently exist, friend.
Ruckus
A watch? Nice thing about being even semi retired is not caring much about what time it is. Even if I’m running out of it.
NotMax
@pseudonymous in nc
Same time period, knew someone who laid out 600 bucks for the Hewlett-Packard calculator with scientific functions.
Again same time frame, I paid $100 for the first credit card size portable digital alarm clock by Seiko. It was very attractive, so much so that someone stole it from me. (Picture, although mine had English writing and was done up in sapphire blue with brass accents.)
Tommy
@Corner Stone: The world will be interconnected with tech. That is just how it will work. I noted I have a fitness bracelet. It knows much about me. Given I input much of the info it has, but even if I didn’t it processes info. Tells me I didn’t sleep well last night. I should do this or that. It tells me stuff like this all the time. How our future looks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy:
We know you didn’t sleep well at night and we didn’t need a watch.
Jay C
@R. Porrofatto:
Ummm, R.? I think someone is missing their snark tags on that one……
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Last time wore a watch, LBJ was in office. There are clocks everywhere.
Do have a nice heavyweight 19th century pocket watch (key wind type). But no particular reason to drag it out.
Tommy
@Corner Stone: I bought the thing to help me sleep better. Thought if I analyzed it I could figure it out. My gosh I was so wrong. I sleep less than I thought now I track it. Wish I did not know what I know now.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: I like my watches, but I also recognize that, in this day and age, they are as much socially acceptable pieces of male jewelry as functional timekeeping devices.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
One of the few ways a gentleman can accessorize.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack (tablet): Exactly.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: As I noted I never take my watch off my arm. But I have a really expensive watch downstairs. I only wear it from time to time. As you said it is “male jewelry.” Just wear it when I get “dressed up.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Do you use a different arm?
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Silly Omnes, that’s what the corpse is for.
Major Major Major Major
Wearable tech will be popular once it gets out of niche/geek-with-lots-of-money territory. Google Glass failed because it was both, and also because it made you look like an idiot and a jackass. The Apple-ified HUD device that will come out in a couple years (even if not made by apple) will be the breakout in head-mounted stuff I think. Jawbone/Fitbit/etc., stuff like Nest, that’s all succeeding because it does one thing and does it well. I for one can’t wait for some smart glasses, but I’m an augmented reality specialist so there you go.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Good point.
schrodinger's cat
@Steeplejack (tablet): Nice! I like that gin. Also too, Beefeaters
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: I actually prefer regular Bombay in anything other than a martini.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I prefer gin with a twist of lime, or with tonic. Not a huge fan of martini.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: No pink gins?
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
You’re upset? Let’s see … You made a cryptic comment (“I doubt the comparison makes any sense, at this point.” What comparison, exactly?), so I said it was “not clear to me what you mean” and begged off for the night. You took it hard?
Not much help, you’re right, because I had already assumed these facts, as you may have surmised from my first response to you.
Not sure why you’re upset, really, but it does take all kinds to fill the world, I guess.
Rook
The real truth of this horror is when parents use this law to justify beating their children in the name of their religion.
Cervantes
@Rook:
Raises an interesting question: Has anyone correlated child-beating with any sort of religiosity? (I have no idea.)
Utt Bugley
I’ve lived in or close to Southern Indiana (Evansville) all my life. Their law and their defense of their law is 1000 Limbaughs. One Limbaugh equals 1000 bulls worth of feces.
Donalbain
@kc:
Holy fuck? Police officers can use this sort of bill?!?
WaterGirl
@R. Porrofatto: Reading that makes me happy!
Great idea, perfectly executed! Props to the person who wrote that.
WaterGirl
@Donalbain: What part of the phrase “public service” do these people not understand?
If you do not want to have to mingle with the unwashed masses, then do not take a job where you are serving the public.
See retail business, hospitals, police, fire, Farmacist, teacher, daycare…
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Never had one.
Cervantes
@WaterGirl:
Seconded, heartily.
tim holder
@Southern Beale: Yeah the guy never identified his business,fuckng coward.
Cain
@Aleta:
That is so interesting.. I think that is why a lot of folks are right wing. Something has happened adn the rigid thinking is part of trying to deal with life and manage their pain. That’s why I generally don’t yell and scream about conservatives… there is something broken there.
Cervantes
@Cain:
That’s true compassion — and it’s truly inspiring.
It appears you’re not much like your namesake:
(Genesis 4:9, in case anyone’s keeping track.)
J R in WV
I won’t ever do a deal with a “FISH” emblem business, I can’t trust them to do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do.
Cars with that emblem, watch out for their unsignaled lane change, slam on the brakes, swerve, because they don’t care about you and know G-d will take care of them, no matter how stupid they are.
I guess those above who say they’re about to lose their power to punish the non-religious, and are freaked about that fact are on the money. I try to be low-profile and polite, but I won’t let them walk all over me at all.