Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

Did they all share a holding cell with the can of gummi wieners?

The Pope says that use of contraception can be justified in areas hit by the Zika virus.

In lesser news, Trump says that the Pope is terrible and will come crawling to him after ISIS takes over the Vatican or something.

It's hard to tell how much of it is genuine and how much of it is from necessity of hedge against substantial loss of relevance. I guess since the two are identical in effect that intent is irrelevant. Catholic are dwindling in the U.S. more so than other Christian sects and they aren't exactly going strong worldwide.

He's been getting more kudos than he deserves. The new pope talks the talk, but very little has substantially changed in the Vatican. They're still working very hard to cover up and downplay the decades long sexual abuse of children, still spreading aids in Africa, still pumping up the abortion rate while fighting against it legally (despite what the USSBC would want you to believe).

Hey guys, did you hear that the latest Pope pretty much adheres to the doctrine of the 2,000 year old faith he leads? I know, right??

My bar is low for the Church. Someone just saying dig slower is a pleasant surprise.

Sue for religious persecution!

I'd have thought the Egg McMuffin would already be sans meat, but I can't remember the last time I ate McDonalds breakfast.

Hashbrowns are awesome.

That's dumb. According to the online menu there's a Sausage McMuffin and Sausage McMuffin with Egg, so it should be named similarly. I'm going to not question the bagel, because the thought of a McDonalds bagel just frightens me.

I went to that cronut bakery, but didn't feel like standing in line so had a kouign amann instead, which some people consider to be superior anyway :)

I've also made them since and they are outstanding.

Umberto Eco, too. I remember fumbling my way through Foucault's Pendulum back in high school.

Quick, who'll be the third author in the death trifecta?

Does Feb. 8th count?
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/08/margaret-forster-award-winning-author-dies

(Just the first hit on search for "author dies february 2016"

Edit:
This one was closer.
http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2016/February/Honoring-Charles-Ryrie

Edited, Feb 19th 2016 9:35pm by TirithRR

Never heard of Ryrie. Foster wrote a good biography of du Maurier. I don't think either qualifies in this context, though.

Irrelevant. The law in question was never intended to apply to harm from investigative journalism, but was written to deal with identity theft. That it's being so grossly misused is a huge problem. Are you sure that Texas is unique in this? Or that it will always be unique? Isn't it kind of important that we nip this particular misinterpretation in the bud right now before dozens of other states pass similar statues, also with no intent to affect journalism?

The precedent is not just set with regard to this one statue. I think you're missing the forest for the threes. The concept of "harm" is not defined in that one statute, but is presumably used in many statutes, not just in Texas, but all over this country. The precedent is about applying a legal definition of "harm" to harm caused by providing truth about someones activities. So, by this new definition you've invented, if I reveal that my next door neighbor is a child molester, I can potentially suffer legal repercussions under any of a number of civil and criminal actions because by doing so I have clearly caused "harm" to that person. This standard appears to be regardless of the truth or falseness of the claim itself. Note that nowhere in there was the claim that the videos were faked or false had any bearing on the charges being filed. The jury didn't state that it was harm because the claims made were untrue. They merely decided that the facts did not constitute a crime on the part of PP, not that anything in the video was false.

And that's a problematic precedent to set. There are presumably an uncountable number of uses of the word "harm" in various statutes scattered through our legal system. So now, journalists have to navigate a minefield of such statues, hoping that they don't happen to inadvertently violate some law because they "caused harm" while doing something? Oh no, I caused harm to another driver on the road while driving myself, which constitutes felony reckless driving. But the "harm" I did was film him drinking a beer while driving down the street. Tomorrow, I'll accidentally commit a federal crime by filming someone threatening voters to vote for a specific candidate in an election, because by doing so I've "harmed" that person within a polling place during a federal election. Surely you can see how this interpretation could be incredibly problematic. There's no end to the possible ways this could bite us.



You weren't reading hard enough then. One section made a point to make a distinction between someone who gave accurate identification when applying for a job, and just hoped the business wouldn't check up on what he wrote, with another who provided fraudulent information. Several other examples strongly suggest that false ID had to be used to obtain the access they did. You're free to pretend that no one ever uses a false ID for this sort of stuff, but that seems inanely naive.

Edited, Feb 19th 2016 7:07pm by gbaji