Once again we see a solution in search of a problem, being put forward in the name of Jesus. More than anything, this constant push to insert Christianity into the secular world at every opportunity shows the Christian Nationalists are very insecure about their faith. So insecure they demand government step in and backstop their belief systems because they can't get the job done from their pulpits.
They make lots of noise and demand to be listened to, while never presenting anything in the way of objective evidence for their claims. They just want to run the world. If you want to see what genuine persection looks like, . . . hand power to the preachers.
Yup. They want to make the whole world agree with them so they can get out from under the cognitive dissonance they have to live with on a daily basis. Problem is that other beliefs and opinions will always be out there, regardless of their efforts, so they can either try to compartmentalize (which they don't wan tto do) or pull stupid stunts like this.
Question now is whether or not that bill will pass the Texas House, and I wouldn't bet against it, being that it's Texas we're talking about.
Gemini (Google's AI - gemini.google.com) does a good job of taking a rant and turning into a rational letter to your representative.
I sent one to my rep complaining about wasting time on bullshit like this that has no upside for Texans and examples of real problems that need to be tackled. (Like home finance reform and Austin's tent city problem)
Spot On! It's SUPPOSED to be enough for a christian to believe. So why isn't it? Because they don't really buy it, not deep down, in that place they never show anyone. That's why they have to constantly lasso other people into believing it, too. It's the only way they can reinforce their weak faith.
This is the most plausible explanation for their continued harassment of people and legislation attempts. If they were actually comfortable in their faith, they’d see no reason to force feed it everywhere.
I told my late mother about the BCE/CE thing and she told me that she objects to changing BC/AD to BCE/CE only because it leaves God out.
I honestly don't mind having BCE and CE there because I thought it was and still is intriguing and speaks the language of a great learning scholar IMO.
To me, leaving god out is the whole point, as I've said elsewhere. And as Joe King said, believers can substitute "Christian" for Common" if they want to get THAT bent out of shape.
The ONLY reason why this is an issue at all is the knee-jerk territory marking which Christians apparently can't help but indulge in.
We're talking about an objective measure of historical time that everyone [not just Americans, not just believers] can use as a reference, so there was no need to drag god into it in the first place, IMO. Agree with your take BCE and CE are clearer and more precise.
But the crossover at year 1-1 is inaccurate by 5 years or so, even if you accept that Jesus was born around then.
And that's going by evidence in the Bible itself.
Jesus, it would seem, was born Before Christ!
Nobody used the BC-AD dating system until more than 5 centuries later, when it was [mis]calculated by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Short). Jewish scholars have used CE-BCE for centuries, recognizing that it's an arbitrary dating system used by pretty much everybody else, so why not use it? But calling it BC & AD is just a Christian thing, and it's technically off by several years, anyway.
(BTW, I was told as a kid that AD stood for "after death" [of Jesus]. Even at age 6, I knew that left a gap of many years, unless Jesus died less than a year after birth! I suspect that mind-boggling stupidity arose from a redneck Protestant resistance to using a "Catholic Latin" phrase.)
This is performative christianity throwing itself on the floor, pounding its widdle feet and hands, and screaming "MOMMY!!! Look how they're oppressing me!!!"
I have long felt that, at least up to a point, religion thrives on persecution both real and imaginary. That sense of 'us against them' victimhood keeps people in the flock.
Just so, oraxx. Religion plays on a very basic, childish mentality of 'you're for us or against us.' And, frankly, that appeals to weak people who need an excuse for how disappointed they are in their lives.
Creationists like Dumb Idiot Ken Ham would force such rhetoric down the throats of people in all their media, literature, and their faculties just to keep their sheep in line.
Many charlatans, such as Charles Manson and that man baby in the WH, have been known to put their followers to the test by committing crimes and atrocities to prove their love for their leader. Even commit suicide by poisoning themselves.
It's really like they will pass up no opportunity to diminish their god, to debase their god, e.g. claiming that it sent Trump to be the US president. FFS, they're working as hard as they can to turn it into the god of cringe
Frankly, this business strikes me as reflecting no small amount of desperation on the part of Christian promoters who can't deal with governmental secularism. Personally, I'm all for the BCE and CE because 1) I'm not convinced that their carpenter-turned-rabbi ever existed and 2) if he did and regarding the whole "Anno Domini / Year of Our Lord" noise, he may be someone's god, but he ain't mine.
Keeping our time and date notations secular makes nothing but sense to me. Problem is that Christians of this stripe want to piss on EVERYTHING. It's territory-marking in boldface.
B.U. (Before Unix)/A.U. (After Unix) Many datetimes in computers are represented as the number of seconds since the Unix Epoch - January 1, 1970 00:00 UTC.
Or maybe we should use the year ARPANet came online as the Internet is the single biggest development for modern society.
Much less likely than Jan 1, 2000 was. Data is rarely stored in custom formats unique to each program now, so there’s a LOT less code to fix and much of it already has been.
not even close...rev. Miller, the 7th day adventist, strung his low intel followers along,for many years,finally,after many 'no shows' he announced to his flock(the millerites) that jesus would indeed return in 1844,....well ....he didnt ,and thats known as the "Great Dissapointment" lol....
Y2K predates Unix, COBOL programs and databases at the time represented dates as strings with only two digits for the year. Unix had absolutely no problem with Y2K. Unix sort of has a problem with 2038 due to the 32-bit vs 64-bit integer issue, but most of the code has been rebuilt with the larger size as data handling software has been consolidated into a few standardized programs instead of being coded as part of every program written by every individual company.
I don’t expect it to be a real problem because the IT world has the lessons of Y2K and 38 years to prepare.
And they feel a deep and abiding need to impose their group think and group speak on everybody else. And Dear Leader just might impose it from the Whitehouse as a sop for their continued support.
Personally, I like the AD timestamp. But not only does my personal preference not matter, it is also not an important enough hill to die on.
Talking of important matters - can someone local please (please!) explain to me, whether there are not any more urgent matters for the Texas (part-time) legislature to attend to? Have all the problems in Texas now been solved, that they can spend some of their (very!) limited time on discussing and legislating on what timeline descriptions should be used?
It's actually worse than that, because they're not opening up the options, they're doing the opposite. And by doing that they're interfering with free speech rights of the students, the teachers and the school book makers.
I've just thought of a parallel - lets say the legislature in a state decides that all temperatures should be in Celsius. And as a second provision, they are outlawing the double denomination of Celsius PLUS Fahrenheit. Question - does that parallel work? Or is it completely off?
I remember you writing that you are actually based in Texas. There are a few things which I find interesting about Texas and maybe I'll have the opportunity to visit at some point.
Did we not chat about this part-time legislature thing a wee while back? I have a dim memory.
But this is actually a really interesting question, how a state (and not a titchy country like Iceland or Monaco) can organise its affairs with such a limited democracy. I remember reading somewhere that towards the end of the parliamentary terms, the working hours become crazy because they trying to get a lot of work done in a very short time. Like scheduling meetings for stupid o'clock.
Maybe we can chat about this some time? How it works, are there movements to professionalise it, does it give an outsize level of power to the executive and related questions. Whenever you've got time, I'd be interested to read your view on all of this.
That happens near the end of legislative sessions in Floriduh. For instance, the only bill they are 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 to pass is the budget. Which they didn't do this year during their regular session. They are going to have to schedule a special session to try to get it done, which, btw, will cost about $50,000 (€44,005) a day.
I forgot to mention some repukes' great idea: eliminating property taxes, which fund our cities, counties, and special districts. I have yet to hear any repukes' plan on how to make up for the lost revenue. 🙄
Deathsantis's biggest fantasy to ruin our state! 2026 can't come fast enough to flush this turd. He's trying to give away our beloved local Ringling Museum to his Hillsdale prototype project college. The lovely college he's trying to force nonintellectuals into.
I haven’t read the whole article yet…bit of a time crunch. But I had to look up what BCE & CE are. Never heard of them.
I went to public schools my entire life & it was always BC & AD. And there was NO religion taught in public schools in those days. I graduated from high school in 1966.
From what I’ve read so far, this seems like another shiny object to take our eyes off the fact that our constitutional rights and tax payer purchased property & benefits are being stolen.
I’d like to see us focus on preserving our constitutional rights first. If we can save those, we can look into minutiae later.
Since I no longer believe Republicans do anything because they want good in the world, I have to ask which lawmaker has a relationship or received money from a textbook publisher?
And my weird brain, being what it is, had this decidedly odd fantasy about grade school kids taking home binary math problems to their Christian parents.
"Dad? I don't understand why 1 + 1 = 10, could you explain it to me?"
Well, Mr. Norman, when it’s your life on the line I will make sure to minimize your concerns as you have mine. But, it is not a nit, and I wasn’t being picky. The more we accept the narrative that these women were some magical threat, the more likely we will forget that they were just people trying to live in a volatile society that was gunning for them. It is not a nit to be concerned about the reality of today where women are losing their human rights quickly and facing persecution. This also goes for people of color and immigrants facing ICE. This is the talk that convinces folks to look the other way when law abiding immigrants, undocumented, documented, and citizens, are being rounded up and shipped off to prison camps in other, hostile countries. But let’s keep minimizing folks’ concerns, I’m just hysterical because this would never happen here. Right?
Jesus has not Personally weighed in on this issue, of course...
Yesterday, as I went to the Post Office, a woman was standing in front of it, giving out little plastic crosses to anyone who came in.
When I told her I wasn't interested, being Jewish, she said, "You know, Jesus was Jewish."
I snapped on her, "And you Christians have spent the last 2,000 years trying to kill us, with the Spanish Inquisition, pogroms, and the Holocaust. Do you think Auschwitz was a good way to spread Christianity?"
She had no answer. I left her there and went in.
When I exited the Post Office, she didn't bother me.
Yeah, it was harsh, but I'm tired of conversion efforts. Especially the day after two Israeli Embassy officials were shot to death in Washington in front of the city's Jewish Museum. Both were fairly young -- a lot younger than me -- and the guy who was arrested for it shouted "Free Palestine" and appears to have mental issues.
I think you showed restraint. Had she been polite, she would have stopped when you said you weren't interested. Next time it happens, ask them if they respect Shabbat and eat Kosher food. It will seems more polite, when it's not.
In the movie "Quest for Fire," actress Rae Dawn Chong, in one of her first big roles, plays a Neanderthal who introduces her boyfriend to the comforts of that position, suggesting that she created it and provided its blessings to humanity forever after.
She later told an interviewer that people have recognized her over the years, and come up to her, saying, "Thank you for inventing the missionary position."
As she is my first celebrity crush (and I still have a crush on her), I got a good chuckle out of that.
A college buddy of mine told me a story about an interesting experience his family had with doorstep evangelizers. His dad was out mowing the lawn one day when a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses stopped by and wanted to give him their presentation. He said he was busy at the moment, but maybe it was something the whole family would like to hear, so could they come by again Thursday evening at 7 PM? They said they would.
The following day my friend’s mom was headed out the door to go grocery shopping when a pair of Mormon missionaries were walking up, also wanting to make their pitch. But she said she couldn’t right now, could they come back, oh, say, Thursday night at 7? Of course they could.
So the appointed hour arrived, and so did the two pairs of crusaders, and there was some laffing and sorting and explaining, and eventually it was decided that the two teams would take turns giving their spiels. So the first pair would say something, and then some family member would turn to the other team and say “What do you think of that?”, and the answer would be some painfully polite version of “No, they’re full of shit.”, and this apparently went on for several hours.
My buddy said it was the best night’s free entertainment they ever had.
Frankly, GOOD FOR YOU! Those people tend WAY too much to blather their Christianity out as though that was the only belief that existed. You may have managed to wake her up, if only temporarily.
She'll likely go back to sleepwalking, sad to say ... but she may just remember you, too.
I ALWAYS remind Christian missionaries about the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms, and the Holocaust, and that all four were the works of devout Christians (even if Himmler was forming his own occult religion, which never got off the ground).
"We believe in a God Almighty who stands above us, he has created the Earth, the Fatherland, and the Volk, and he has sent us the Fuhrer. Any human being who does not believe in God should be considered arrogant, megalomaniacal, and stupid, and thus not suited for the SS."
Given their history of burning anyone daring to disagree with them, I would have told her to shove them up her ass. Or, just take the evil cross and stomp on it.
Say it with me, kids, "For those accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
Christian nationalists wear their fears and insecurities on their sleeves and, in this case, in their ludicrous legislation. The harder they force their christianity on the public, the more the public walks away from it - hopefully, on their way to a legal defense group to challenge this violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.
FTR, history and the dating of history didn't begin with christianity. Civilizations thrived around the world long before an obscure Middle Eastern preacher allegedly lived and died. But if we're going to get into religious dating of stuff, I vote we use BO and AR - Before Odin and After Ragnarok.
Why not just go all the way and make everyone write out “in the year of our Lord” on all the dates? I mean, if we’re gonna demand archaic systems in the name of tradition, might as well be accurate.
Only problem is, which "Lord" are we talking about? Jack Lord ("Book 'em, Danno!"), Lord March (he of the Goodwood Festival of Speed), or Lew Lord (Miss Tracy? Prepare the standard 'Rich and Famous' contract..."), or some other lord.
Tracey Lord. I think she's done more good than YHWH. (What, just because I'm gay doesn't mean I didn't enjoy a good T&A movie on USA "Up All night" as a young adult)
Wow, Texas must have a wonderfully functioning society with a balanced budget, stellar infrastructure, great schools, affordable housing for all, senior care, and full access to healthcare for everyone who needs it. No wonder their lawmakers have so much time on their hands to fritter away on stupid shit that doesn't matter and that NOBODY LIKELY EVEN NOTICED until these small-minded petty kkkrister control freaks made an issue out of it.
Math is not hard. Their gods tell them math is evil. Even as the minions use computers, lights, refrigerators, cars and other gadgets brought to us by science. They want to drag us back to riding donkeys and cooking dinner over smoldering camel turds.
Socially, they want it to be a mythical 1950, with their rose-colored vision of the nuclear family, LGBTQIA+ completely hidden, and Jim Crow in full effect. Economically, they want 1925, the height of the Gilded Age, with the rich owning everything and everyone else (including children) slaving in their factories with no middle class and no union protections. That's also a pipe dream, the heavy manufacturing we need won't ever come back, and what might will be automated to the point that the poor will be starving outside the gates instead of on the factory floor.
I think the rednecks want to go back to the 11th century so serfdom can be practiced, and that Christianity was the dominant religion in Europe. That conversions can be forced on people, and the bible (or the church) was the last word on truth.
used to hear this all the time in those semi- abandoned small towns in upstate NY,near the VT border" Well,things WILL get better,when the mills come back" Sigh.....
EXACTLY what they want to do ... because we're dealing with a lot of scared little kids in grownup suits, who can't deal with doubt or alternative beliefs or opinions and need the world to agree with and conform to them.
And they have a useful idiot in the Front Office who seems more than willing to help.
Well, a little linguistic quibble here. A belief is something you believe. For example, I believe that 2 + 2 = 4 and that water is wet. Frankly, it would be foolish NOT to believe either. So you are correct to use the term "fact" (or "truth") for verifiable things like that, which anybody can check out for themselves and find to be true.
But it's more appropriate to refer to things like 2 + 2 = 5 and "water is dry" as "fallacies" or "lies" or "untruths" (or, more charitably, "misunderstandings"). What religious people have is undemonstrable assertions, more properly termed "suppositions" or "hypotheses".
Once again we see a solution in search of a problem, being put forward in the name of Jesus. More than anything, this constant push to insert Christianity into the secular world at every opportunity shows the Christian Nationalists are very insecure about their faith. So insecure they demand government step in and backstop their belief systems because they can't get the job done from their pulpits.
"Christian Nationalists are very insecure about their faith."
↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑
THIS!!!!!
They make lots of noise and demand to be listened to, while never presenting anything in the way of objective evidence for their claims. They just want to run the world. If you want to see what genuine persection looks like, . . . hand power to the preachers.
Yup. They want to make the whole world agree with them so they can get out from under the cognitive dissonance they have to live with on a daily basis. Problem is that other beliefs and opinions will always be out there, regardless of their efforts, so they can either try to compartmentalize (which they don't wan tto do) or pull stupid stunts like this.
Question now is whether or not that bill will pass the Texas House, and I wouldn't bet against it, being that it's Texas we're talking about.
They do not excel at anticipating consequences.
Yep, and god help me I'm a texan
I'm a Texas resident, but I'll never be a Texan. ;)
Gemini (Google's AI - gemini.google.com) does a good job of taking a rant and turning into a rational letter to your representative.
I sent one to my rep complaining about wasting time on bullshit like this that has no upside for Texans and examples of real problems that need to be tackled. (Like home finance reform and Austin's tent city problem)
I'm sorry but it's gotten to the point where ranting is the most rational thing to do.
I'm not sure they have enough cognition, to have dissonance.
Spot On! It's SUPPOSED to be enough for a christian to believe. So why isn't it? Because they don't really buy it, not deep down, in that place they never show anyone. That's why they have to constantly lasso other people into believing it, too. It's the only way they can reinforce their weak faith.
This is the most plausible explanation for their continued harassment of people and legislation attempts. If they were actually comfortable in their faith, they’d see no reason to force feed it everywhere.
I told my late mother about the BCE/CE thing and she told me that she objects to changing BC/AD to BCE/CE only because it leaves God out.
I honestly don't mind having BCE and CE there because I thought it was and still is intriguing and speaks the language of a great learning scholar IMO.
To me, leaving god out is the whole point, as I've said elsewhere. And as Joe King said, believers can substitute "Christian" for Common" if they want to get THAT bent out of shape.
The ONLY reason why this is an issue at all is the knee-jerk territory marking which Christians apparently can't help but indulge in.
We're talking about an objective measure of historical time that everyone [not just Americans, not just believers] can use as a reference, so there was no need to drag god into it in the first place, IMO. Agree with your take BCE and CE are clearer and more precise.
But the crossover at year 1-1 is inaccurate by 5 years or so, even if you accept that Jesus was born around then.
And that's going by evidence in the Bible itself.
Jesus, it would seem, was born Before Christ!
Nobody used the BC-AD dating system until more than 5 centuries later, when it was [mis]calculated by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Short). Jewish scholars have used CE-BCE for centuries, recognizing that it's an arbitrary dating system used by pretty much everybody else, so why not use it? But calling it BC & AD is just a Christian thing, and it's technically off by several years, anyway.
(BTW, I was told as a kid that AD stood for "after death" [of Jesus]. Even at age 6, I knew that left a gap of many years, unless Jesus died less than a year after birth! I suspect that mind-boggling stupidity arose from a redneck Protestant resistance to using a "Catholic Latin" phrase.)
Well, we can't have any of that Popish nonsense down here da buy-bull belt!!
Considering Jesus most likely never existed, it is a stupid fiction to push. BCE makes sense based on real events.
And their small penis too, no doubt.
This is performative christianity throwing itself on the floor, pounding its widdle feet and hands, and screaming "MOMMY!!! Look how they're oppressing me!!!"
I have long felt that, at least up to a point, religion thrives on persecution both real and imaginary. That sense of 'us against them' victimhood keeps people in the flock.
Just so, oraxx. Religion plays on a very basic, childish mentality of 'you're for us or against us.' And, frankly, that appeals to weak people who need an excuse for how disappointed they are in their lives.
Creationists like Dumb Idiot Ken Ham would force such rhetoric down the throats of people in all their media, literature, and their faculties just to keep their sheep in line.
https://youtu.be/l8ukak8P2vY?si=4V7i_ZKYOpr8jsPg
ALL the hearts for the Monty Python video! That's exactly the scene I was thinking of!!
If the Bible commanded REAL believers to test their faith by jumping off a cliff, I'd feel more comfortable with Christian Nationalism.
Many charlatans, such as Charles Manson and that man baby in the WH, have been known to put their followers to the test by committing crimes and atrocities to prove their love for their leader. Even commit suicide by poisoning themselves.
It's really like they will pass up no opportunity to diminish their god, to debase their god, e.g. claiming that it sent Trump to be the US president. FFS, they're working as hard as they can to turn it into the god of cringe
Frankly, this business strikes me as reflecting no small amount of desperation on the part of Christian promoters who can't deal with governmental secularism. Personally, I'm all for the BCE and CE because 1) I'm not convinced that their carpenter-turned-rabbi ever existed and 2) if he did and regarding the whole "Anno Domini / Year of Our Lord" noise, he may be someone's god, but he ain't mine.
Keeping our time and date notations secular makes nothing but sense to me. Problem is that Christians of this stripe want to piss on EVERYTHING. It's territory-marking in boldface.
B.U. (Before Unix)/A.U. (After Unix) Many datetimes in computers are represented as the number of seconds since the Unix Epoch - January 1, 1970 00:00 UTC.
Or maybe we should use the year ARPANet came online as the Internet is the single biggest development for modern society.
Well, if we really want to stay current, how 'bout TE [Twitter Era] and AE [After Elon].
Impactful, but not compared to the Internet.
OK, how 'bout BC and AC [Before cellphones and After cellphones]?
I’d argue that the Internet has had a bigger impact on communication than the phone, much less the cellphone.
What did we use to get Internet access at first ?
It was just a joke, cd.
"The number of seconds since the Unix Epoch"
Including the prophecy that the world will come to its end on 19 January 2038 at 03:14:08 UTC.
Much less likely than Jan 1, 2000 was. Data is rarely stored in custom formats unique to each program now, so there’s a LOT less code to fix and much of it already has been.
Has there ever been any end of the world prophecy that became true on the predicted date?
not even close...rev. Miller, the 7th day adventist, strung his low intel followers along,for many years,finally,after many 'no shows' he announced to his flock(the millerites) that jesus would indeed return in 1844,....well ....he didnt ,and thats known as the "Great Dissapointment" lol....
Not that anyone's noticed...
That was the whole cause of the Y2K problem. Datetimes stored like that needed to be updated from 32-bit to 64-bit storage, or something like that.
Y2K predates Unix, COBOL programs and databases at the time represented dates as strings with only two digits for the year. Unix had absolutely no problem with Y2K. Unix sort of has a problem with 2038 due to the 32-bit vs 64-bit integer issue, but most of the code has been rebuilt with the larger size as data handling software has been consolidated into a few standardized programs instead of being coded as part of every program written by every individual company.
I don’t expect it to be a real problem because the IT world has the lessons of Y2K and 38 years to prepare.
Thank you for the correction. I knew there was a 32-bit v 64-bit issue with UNIX dates, I just forgot the details.
I propose 11:29:21 GMT July 16, 1945 as being the transition point.
Won't work. That wasn't the end of the Nazis.
There has always been and will always be Nazis/analogues.
Let There Be Light happened on 11:29:21 GMT July 16, 1945. 😁
And another correction to my misremembered history. I just rewatched Oppenheimer, one would think I could remember that. Thank you.
I'd like to suggest BG and PG - Before Gutenberg and Post Gutenberg
Because I'd argue that he had a greater importance for modern society.
That isn’t a bad choice either and far enough in the past to interest historians. Also no one living was born in BG.
And they feel a deep and abiding need to impose their group think and group speak on everybody else. And Dear Leader just might impose it from the Whitehouse as a sop for their continued support.
Personally, I like the AD timestamp. But not only does my personal preference not matter, it is also not an important enough hill to die on.
Talking of important matters - can someone local please (please!) explain to me, whether there are not any more urgent matters for the Texas (part-time) legislature to attend to? Have all the problems in Texas now been solved, that they can spend some of their (very!) limited time on discussing and legislating on what timeline descriptions should be used?
It's actually worse than that, because they're not opening up the options, they're doing the opposite. And by doing that they're interfering with free speech rights of the students, the teachers and the school book makers.
I've just thought of a parallel - lets say the legislature in a state decides that all temperatures should be in Celsius. And as a second provision, they are outlawing the double denomination of Celsius PLUS Fahrenheit. Question - does that parallel work? Or is it completely off?
I sent a letter to my rep on that exact issue. Texans have *real* problems.
As to the Celsius/Fahrenheit analogy, works for me.
I remember you writing that you are actually based in Texas. There are a few things which I find interesting about Texas and maybe I'll have the opportunity to visit at some point.
Did we not chat about this part-time legislature thing a wee while back? I have a dim memory.
But this is actually a really interesting question, how a state (and not a titchy country like Iceland or Monaco) can organise its affairs with such a limited democracy. I remember reading somewhere that towards the end of the parliamentary terms, the working hours become crazy because they trying to get a lot of work done in a very short time. Like scheduling meetings for stupid o'clock.
Maybe we can chat about this some time? How it works, are there movements to professionalise it, does it give an outsize level of power to the executive and related questions. Whenever you've got time, I'd be interested to read your view on all of this.
That happens near the end of legislative sessions in Floriduh. For instance, the only bill they are 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 to pass is the budget. Which they didn't do this year during their regular session. They are going to have to schedule a special session to try to get it done, which, btw, will cost about $50,000 (€44,005) a day.
They are too busy jacking off with their usual masturbatory fantasies to pass any real legislature here.
I forgot to mention some repukes' great idea: eliminating property taxes, which fund our cities, counties, and special districts. I have yet to hear any repukes' plan on how to make up for the lost revenue. 🙄
Deathsantis's biggest fantasy to ruin our state! 2026 can't come fast enough to flush this turd. He's trying to give away our beloved local Ringling Museum to his Hillsdale prototype project college. The lovely college he's trying to force nonintellectuals into.
I haven’t read the whole article yet…bit of a time crunch. But I had to look up what BCE & CE are. Never heard of them.
I went to public schools my entire life & it was always BC & AD. And there was NO religion taught in public schools in those days. I graduated from high school in 1966.
From what I’ve read so far, this seems like another shiny object to take our eyes off the fact that our constitutional rights and tax payer purchased property & benefits are being stolen.
I’d like to see us focus on preserving our constitutional rights first. If we can save those, we can look into minutiae later.
Since I no longer believe Republicans do anything because they want good in the world, I have to ask which lawmaker has a relationship or received money from a textbook publisher?
Follow the money .... always a good motto.
Nothing too petty for xtians to engage in. And they wonder why their numbers continue to dwindle.
No, you, eh?
Now there is. :)
(Too early in the morning for me. I’m only halfway through my coffee)
What's next? Make the use of arabic numerals illegal?
LXXXVI XLVII
86/87 ? It's when I was in first grade 😁
Edit: I really need more sleep. Why I read 87 instead of 47 ?.
Yes, a lot of Americans are 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 dumb.
https://www.wfla.com/news/survey-most-americans-say-arabic-numerals-should-not-be-taught-in-school/
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - G. Carlin
Potential interesting survey "If you are against Arabic numbers, would you prefer Maya* or Roman* numbers ?
* Only one of them has "0", imagine the fun to do precise calculation or to program computers with the other.
It'd be also 'interesting' to send some of these folks into a supermarket or restaurant with the prices displayed as Roman numerals ....
And everything written in classical Roman alphabet where the "w" and "j" doesn't exist and "u" and "v" are the same letter.
Or in Euros.
I love Euros!
I still have some from our last trip abroad!
And my weird brain, being what it is, had this decidedly odd fantasy about grade school kids taking home binary math problems to their Christian parents.
"Dad? I don't understand why 1 + 1 = 10, could you explain it to me?"
I remember my binary lesson - like you I just couldn’t get my head around 1+1=10. I really only understood it years (!) later.
And related to that - when I saw a Babbage machine in action, it was really really hard to comprehend how this machine was doing calculations.
It’s a fascinating piece of kit, if you’ve got the chance go and see one!!
😂😂😂
the steps may be small
but the USA is heading for a fascist theocracy.
When books that give reality are not accessible, then the ones that are accessible will contain nonsense,
and soon only nonsense will be available---then eventually nonsense will become 'facts'
the next step will be to make facts illegal.
Back to Salem anyone?----witches burn nicely..
And no---I'm not joking.
We aren't, either, which is why we fight against this crap.
well---i seriously wish you well with it all----it scares me and i dont even live in the usa
They didn’t burn witches, they burned women.
Point well made!
when i next have a surplus of nits, i shall call on your skills to pick them
Well, Mr. Norman, when it’s your life on the line I will make sure to minimize your concerns as you have mine. But, it is not a nit, and I wasn’t being picky. The more we accept the narrative that these women were some magical threat, the more likely we will forget that they were just people trying to live in a volatile society that was gunning for them. It is not a nit to be concerned about the reality of today where women are losing their human rights quickly and facing persecution. This also goes for people of color and immigrants facing ICE. This is the talk that convinces folks to look the other way when law abiding immigrants, undocumented, documented, and citizens, are being rounded up and shipped off to prison camps in other, hostile countries. But let’s keep minimizing folks’ concerns, I’m just hysterical because this would never happen here. Right?
to eliminate the nits altogether----the witches of Salem were hanged, not burned---i was merely abusing my literary licence somewhat
Jesus has not Personally weighed in on this issue, of course...
Yesterday, as I went to the Post Office, a woman was standing in front of it, giving out little plastic crosses to anyone who came in.
When I told her I wasn't interested, being Jewish, she said, "You know, Jesus was Jewish."
I snapped on her, "And you Christians have spent the last 2,000 years trying to kill us, with the Spanish Inquisition, pogroms, and the Holocaust. Do you think Auschwitz was a good way to spread Christianity?"
She had no answer. I left her there and went in.
When I exited the Post Office, she didn't bother me.
Yeah, it was harsh, but I'm tired of conversion efforts. Especially the day after two Israeli Embassy officials were shot to death in Washington in front of the city's Jewish Museum. Both were fairly young -- a lot younger than me -- and the guy who was arrested for it shouted "Free Palestine" and appears to have mental issues.
I'm tired of that nonsense.
Handing out torture devices, how sweet. Bless her heart.
Indeed.
I never got that.
But I subscribed to you.
I think you showed restraint. Had she been polite, she would have stopped when you said you weren't interested. Next time it happens, ask them if they respect Shabbat and eat Kosher food. It will seems more polite, when it's not.
I’m just fed up to my back teeth with missionaries coming to my door and into my life to “spread the word of Christ.”
The only time I want to hear the word “missionary” is when it’s followed by the word “position.”
Made me laugh. The second paragraph, that is.
Thankyou.
That was the idea.
In the movie "Quest for Fire," actress Rae Dawn Chong, in one of her first big roles, plays a Neanderthal who introduces her boyfriend to the comforts of that position, suggesting that she created it and provided its blessings to humanity forever after.
She later told an interviewer that people have recognized her over the years, and come up to her, saying, "Thank you for inventing the missionary position."
As she is my first celebrity crush (and I still have a crush on her), I got a good chuckle out of that.
I have never heard of that movie but thanks to youtube I've now seen a couple of clips.
Thankyou.
I’m sure Youtube provides the scenes where Rae explains and demonstrates the concept.
A college buddy of mine told me a story about an interesting experience his family had with doorstep evangelizers. His dad was out mowing the lawn one day when a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses stopped by and wanted to give him their presentation. He said he was busy at the moment, but maybe it was something the whole family would like to hear, so could they come by again Thursday evening at 7 PM? They said they would.
The following day my friend’s mom was headed out the door to go grocery shopping when a pair of Mormon missionaries were walking up, also wanting to make their pitch. But she said she couldn’t right now, could they come back, oh, say, Thursday night at 7? Of course they could.
So the appointed hour arrived, and so did the two pairs of crusaders, and there was some laffing and sorting and explaining, and eventually it was decided that the two teams would take turns giving their spiels. So the first pair would say something, and then some family member would turn to the other team and say “What do you think of that?”, and the answer would be some painfully polite version of “No, they’re full of shit.”, and this apparently went on for several hours.
My buddy said it was the best night’s free entertainment they ever had.
Sounds like it would make a good “reality show.”
I would like to have seen it. All that was missing was the popcorn and the voting cards.
Frankly, GOOD FOR YOU! Those people tend WAY too much to blather their Christianity out as though that was the only belief that existed. You may have managed to wake her up, if only temporarily.
She'll likely go back to sleepwalking, sad to say ... but she may just remember you, too.
I ALWAYS remind Christian missionaries about the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms, and the Holocaust, and that all four were the works of devout Christians (even if Himmler was forming his own occult religion, which never got off the ground).
"We believe in a God Almighty who stands above us, he has created the Earth, the Fatherland, and the Volk, and he has sent us the Fuhrer. Any human being who does not believe in God should be considered arrogant, megalomaniacal, and stupid, and thus not suited for the SS."
-- Heinrich Himmler
To join the SS, you had to prove your Aryan background for generations.
For a woman to marry an SS man, she had to possess the Reich Sport Medal, as proof of her ability to bear strong children for the Fuehrer.
😱🤢🤮
I always point out that certain Nazis had "God Mit Uns" on their belt buckles, when they lie, and say the Nazis weren't christians.
Given their history of burning anyone daring to disagree with them, I would have told her to shove them up her ass. Or, just take the evil cross and stomp on it.
https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/499534280_634220976312271_1771554932750901951_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296_tt6&_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=-iCCqKt0fl0Q7kNvwGnbH4R&_nc_oc=AdlvCCnXtb5Pkg9V3kRQ4ZP8inpqnyFlTV4rCJoC4dS8Nj84L5bjjvNnQA5h9MHVFeY&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-2.xx&_nc_gid=gC19_HOGMQuvLInWN00DGQ&oh=00_AfKEGsW14DcA5NP4U3hwmbR2V0PJs5UcAdamG-AttyEbkA&oe=68367238
If I had magical powers I would have that printed in every church bulletin across the USA.
Say it with me, kids, "For those accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
Christian nationalists wear their fears and insecurities on their sleeves and, in this case, in their ludicrous legislation. The harder they force their christianity on the public, the more the public walks away from it - hopefully, on their way to a legal defense group to challenge this violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.
FTR, history and the dating of history didn't begin with christianity. Civilizations thrived around the world long before an obscure Middle Eastern preacher allegedly lived and died. But if we're going to get into religious dating of stuff, I vote we use BO and AR - Before Odin and After Ragnarok.
Or we can go with the Chinese calendar. It's the year 4719.
We are Westerners, we should use the pre christian Roman Calendar. We are now in 2778.
Edit : Sorry, I should have written MMDCCLXXVIII.
Fuck this! From now on, we use Stardates. It is now Stardate -358789.63
Galactic Standard Calendar
Why not just go all the way and make everyone write out “in the year of our Lord” on all the dates? I mean, if we’re gonna demand archaic systems in the name of tradition, might as well be accurate.
Only problem is, which "Lord" are we talking about? Jack Lord ("Book 'em, Danno!"), Lord March (he of the Goodwood Festival of Speed), or Lew Lord (Miss Tracy? Prepare the standard 'Rich and Famous' contract..."), or some other lord.
Details are important!
Tracey Lord. I think she's done more good than YHWH. (What, just because I'm gay doesn't mean I didn't enjoy a good T&A movie on USA "Up All night" as a young adult)
And she has that hilarious song she did with the Lords of Acid. It is on the "greatest tits" album.
Screaming Lord Sutch, perhaps?
Voldemort.
You-Know-Who.
Don't start.
Lord Vetinari
Oh, and we can't forget Lord Garth (late of Izar)!
Queen to queen's level three, captain?
We have no time for chess problems. Beam me aboard!
> "Goodwood Festival of Speed"
And here I am thinking that if you have good wood, speed is not really what you should be looking for.
Hey, I didn't name the place. I just enjoy the rolling iron that the Duke of Richmond gathers for his events!
Is that you, Reacher?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBWn1rQZhmA
Nope ... but I like Alan Ritchson! And yeah: Details matter!
Lord John Gray
Or Jamie Frazier Laird of Lallybrock.
The White Christians are once again searching for a problem to fit their solution. Meanwhile, Rome burns
Wow, Texas must have a wonderfully functioning society with a balanced budget, stellar infrastructure, great schools, affordable housing for all, senior care, and full access to healthcare for everyone who needs it. No wonder their lawmakers have so much time on their hands to fritter away on stupid shit that doesn't matter and that NOBODY LIKELY EVEN NOTICED until these small-minded petty kkkrister control freaks made an issue out of it.
Throw in living wages and then they might be able to make some claim that they are endeavouring to be "Christian" through action. 🤔
I did not realize that before cock and after dick were Christian terms. I guess you learn something every day.
Not so surprising. BC and AD are inventions of the Catholic Church. And we know how they feel about cock/dick: The younger, the better.
Under 10 if possible
Inches?
How about adopting the metric system? Or is that a demonic tool?
Oh no, that's math and "math is hard". It's also foreign so evil by definition.
Math is not hard. Their gods tell them math is evil. Even as the minions use computers, lights, refrigerators, cars and other gadgets brought to us by science. They want to drag us back to riding donkeys and cooking dinner over smoldering camel turds.
Are you saying that my idea for camel turd smoke flavored BBQ sauce might not go over well?
George Washington would roll over in his grave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk
It's Unamerican!
UnMurkkkan.. FIFY
The CE/BCE scale still treats the birth year of Jesus as the focal point.
They're not fighting neutrality. They fight against something already in their favor.
That's actually a valid point. You could use a different timescale, such as 'American Era'.
That of course would give rise to a very different fight, would you use as Year 1 of AE as 1492, 1619 or the year the vikings turned up?
The oldest archaeological traces of the people who will become American Natives.
Any idea when that was?
I don't remember the exact estimation but there is at least one site older than Clovis.
Estimates are between 10 and 20 thousand years ago.
I've heard theories of 40,000-50,000
The piss-marking isn't good enough unless they hang their own signage on it, too.
^^^I do wish they could be housebroken, all the territorial pissing is nasty.
Seems like they just want to turn back time - and all the progress we have been making toward inclusion and acceptance!!
Socially, they want it to be a mythical 1950, with their rose-colored vision of the nuclear family, LGBTQIA+ completely hidden, and Jim Crow in full effect. Economically, they want 1925, the height of the Gilded Age, with the rich owning everything and everyone else (including children) slaving in their factories with no middle class and no union protections. That's also a pipe dream, the heavy manufacturing we need won't ever come back, and what might will be automated to the point that the poor will be starving outside the gates instead of on the factory floor.
I think the rednecks want to go back to the 11th century so serfdom can be practiced, and that Christianity was the dominant religion in Europe. That conversions can be forced on people, and the bible (or the church) was the last word on truth.
used to hear this all the time in those semi- abandoned small towns in upstate NY,near the VT border" Well,things WILL get better,when the mills come back" Sigh.....
In the South it was: "Save your Confederate money, the South will rise again."
I rather think they'd prefer 1850 to 1950, excepting only the technological conveniences of modernity.
EXACTLY what they want to do ... because we're dealing with a lot of scared little kids in grownup suits, who can't deal with doubt or alternative beliefs or opinions and need the world to agree with and conform to them.
And they have a useful idiot in the Front Office who seems more than willing to help.
Ours are not beliefs. They are verifiable facts. It’s the goddies that have mere belief on their side. :D
Well, a little linguistic quibble here. A belief is something you believe. For example, I believe that 2 + 2 = 4 and that water is wet. Frankly, it would be foolish NOT to believe either. So you are correct to use the term "fact" (or "truth") for verifiable things like that, which anybody can check out for themselves and find to be true.
But it's more appropriate to refer to things like 2 + 2 = 5 and "water is dry" as "fallacies" or "lies" or "untruths" (or, more charitably, "misunderstandings"). What religious people have is undemonstrable assertions, more properly termed "suppositions" or "hypotheses".
He certainly isn’t helping his cause, he keeps shooting himself in the foot! Sad and scary at the same time.
👆🎯And we have a winnah! ding, ding, ding.