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[Truean]

http://shine.yahoo.com/beauty/miss-universe-canada-disqualifies-transsexual-contestant-she-born-192000420.html

Awww. I'm not really getting the rationale behind any of this.  Also don't read the comments. I made that mistake. I was kind of of the impression that you couldn't do this sort of thing in Canada? No? I mean I sorta thought GLBT people were more protected there than here. I remember watching a documentary about women's downhill bike racing that tried to exclude a transgender woman (MtF transsexual), and for whatever reason, they didn't disqualify her.

Whatever else you wanna say, you've sorta gotta (or should at least) give her credit for getting as far as she did. Being a national beauty pageant contestant is a hell of a thing, and not easy. I'm not saying being in a pageant is some sorta awe inspiring thing, because if the last few Miss America winners are any indication, they can say some pretty nutty things. I'm just saying, that's a heck of a long road to go from being a transgendered kid to a contestant in a beauty pageant.

I dunno, when if ever could someone just be considered a normal girl in that situation? That's kinda that goal....

[Levi]

I was kind of of the impression that you couldn't do this sort of thing in Canada? No? I mean I sorta thought GLBT people were more protected there than here.

GLBT's still get a lot of discrimination here.  There are places in Canada where its better than others, but overall people are still pretty discriminatory.  The justice system usually does a good job protecting their rights, but stuff like this still happens.

Trump never really struck me as a bigot though, so maybe he'll get the organization to reverse their decision.

[Nadaka]

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/03/27/0039213/murdoch-faces-allegations-of-sabotage

So. The man behind the curtains of conservative world politics on 3 continents... That almost sounds like I am paranoid...

Ok, Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch conspires to collapse his competitors through rampant piracy hacking and fraud... That almost sounds like I am paranoid...

Stuff is going down. That is all.

[Heron TSG]

Went and found a petition for that, Truean. It's apparently not even in the rules!

[Neonivek]

A lot of counter arguments, while directly attacking the argument rather than the person making it, leave subtle hints that "anyone who actually believes this garbage is an idiot." Most commonly seen with sarcasm and satire. This, to me, is no better than direct ad hominem

It is one of the reasons why most of the logical Falacies are not as clear cut as they seem. Since there are situations where they make logical sense.

As well "If you actually believe this you are stupid" isn't "no better" it isn't even related. Ad Hominem's fallacy is that it never deals with the arguement dirrectly but rather the person who is making it (assuming the person themselves are not part of the arguement. For example it is fair game to attack someone's qualifications if they are making an arguement on the basis of those qualifications and blaw blaw blaw).

What your refering to is I think more closely related to "poisoning the well". You are already telling the audiance that what they are hearing is stupid.

[Truean]

Went and found a petition for that, Truean. It's apparently not even in the rules!

[sigh] Thank you, at least some people seem to care.  It's just, I've seen things like this repeatedly. It's just sort of a question no one will answer directly, which answers it indirectly with "never." The question is, "when can you just be a normal woman as a transsexual?" Are you just marked forever as different and not good enough/never able to just exist as anything approaching "normal."

http://news.yahoo.com/congress-approves-startup-focused-jobs-act-154503076.html

This doesn't help "startups." What this does, is help existing, fairly large businesses, "$50 million in shares before having to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission." This is not a "startup" level of business.

All of this doublespeak, doesn't help solve the real purported problem.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/george-zimmerman-lawyer-abruptly-cancels-interview-lawrence-o-150530798.html

Huh?

This whole thing stopped being about justice and started being about a media frenzy a long time ago. The real problem is Florida's "Stand your Ground," law, which should probably be changed. That law makes it hard or impossible to arrest someone in this situation. The thing he could've done, is plead for people not to try this case in the media.

Instead of that, everyone's past is being brought out for the enjoyment of the viewing public on details that have nothing to do whatsoever with it. We're completely getting away from what happened that night and we're going necessarily back further for no other reason than a desperate grasp at ratings, because we've fired all the decent writers and reality shows are a little played out....

I have no idea what happened that night. It doesn't look good and maybe he did shoot the kid without a valid self defense defense. I don't know, but I'm willing to bet focusing on the kid's past school disciplinary record or the guy's past bad acts, doesn't tell us anything useful to determining what happened that night.

The problem here, is a law that is, no matter what it was intended to be, a license to kill. <--- This is the problem and it needs addressed. Has there been a serious effort to have the law repealed or reexamined? If there has been, then it hasn't been getting nearly as much media face time as the soap opera this is quickly becoming, tragically in the name of "Justice."

[Reelya]

I know this isn't really that new but

Oct 2011 - Under New GOP Law, Florida Teacher Faces Huge Fines For The Crime Of Registering Students To Vote

What? They want to make it harder to vote, and make it a criminal offense to encourage people to register?

The teacher who heads up New Smyrna Beach High School’s student government association could face thousands of dollars in fines. Her transgression? Helping students register to vote.
Prepping 17-year-olds for the privileges and responsibilities of voting in a democracy is nothing new for civics teachers, but when Jill Cicciarelli organized a drive at the start of the school year to get students pre-registered, she ran afoul of Florida’s new and controversial election law.
Among other things, the new rules require that third parties who sign up new voters register with the state and that they submit applications within 48 hours. The law also reduces the time for early voting from 14 days to eight and requires voters who want to give a new address at the polls to use a provisional ballot.

[Truean]

I know this isn't really that new but

Oct 2011 - Under New GOP Law, Florida Teacher Faces Huge Fines For The Crime Of Registering Students To Vote

What? They want to make it harder to vote, and make it a criminal offense to encourage people to register?

The teacher who heads up New Smyrna Beach High School’s student government association could face thousands of dollars in fines. Her transgression? Helping students register to vote.
Prepping 17-year-olds for the privileges and responsibilities of voting in a democracy is nothing new for civics teachers, but when Jill Cicciarelli organized a drive at the start of the school year to get students pre-registered, she ran afoul of Florida’s new and controversial election law.
Among other things, the new rules require that third parties who sign up new voters register with the state and that they submit applications within 48 hours. The law also reduces the time for early voting from 14 days to eight and requires voters who want to give a new address at the polls to use a provisional ballot.

We used to call that "civics class."

Florida, no civics class and yes license to shoot to kill...?

[Capntastic]

Florida, no civics class and yes license to shoot to kill....

Is it wrong that I am actually getting annoyed that someone in Mr. Palau's thread is saying Trayvon and Zimmerman are both to blame?

It might just because he keeps using the phrase 'full retard', and I've spent some amount of time working with special needs people.  Either way, it's pretty dumb, since he seems to be relying on the misinformation spread by Stormfront to form his conclusions, and despite being shown that, he's yet to concede on that argument.

Edit:  Nevermind, he just explained that he doesn't know or care about what he's talking about, that's good enough for me.

[Truean]

Florida, no civics class and yes license to shoot to kill....

Is it wrong that I am actually getting annoyed that someone in Mr. Palau's thread is saying Trayvon and Zimmerman are both to blame?

It might just because he keeps using the phrase 'full retard', and I've spent some amount of time working with special needs people.  Either way, it's pretty dumb, since he seems to be relying on the misinformation spread by Stormfront to form his conclusions, and despite being shown that, he's yet to concede on that argument.

I learned a while ago that you can never let online stuff get to you.

Except this applies to real life quite a bit too unfortunately. People are never taught HOW (that is in what form or procedure) to think as opposed to WHAT to think (what conclusions you reach). Thus, the pictures of the wrong Trayvon Martin spreading like wildfire. Nobody even knows how to fact check. Then add to that derogatory language being the norm for kids and even as they grow into adults, and you've got a perfect storm of unnoticed, institutionalized, sometimes unintentional, prejudice. This is why I find it hard to play online games as it seems the only adjective kids know is "gay;" it's treated like a curse word you don't get in trouble for saying.

That said, many people will never agree with you no matter how much you prove your case or how much you disprove theirs. They have preconceived notions and favor anything that bolsters them while trying to discredit anything that tears them down. Asking people to be reasonable in real life or on the internet is often tilting at windmills at some point in time, someone necessarily has to determine what is and is not acceptable.

In the end, the following we know: a.) The guy should've listened to the police dispatch and not pursued the kid, b.) Kid may or may not have contributed to a bad situation, c.) regardless of any contribution or lack thereof by kid to bad situation, guy shot kid in the damn chest, fatally, d.) Kid had no weapons (though conceivably guy could argue bulges in pockets.... I don't know) and finally e.) guy vastly outweighed kid.

In any event, don't let stuff get to you. It also bothers me when people use "gay," "retarded," or similar words as adjectives but I pick my battles. Feel free to try and rationally change people's minds but know that more often than not, it's gonna be difficult and sometimes impossible.

[Kilroy the Grand]

Capntastic, I'm sorry if I offended you. I just don't take discussions on the internet very seriously, and you shouldn't take what I say very seriously. Some of the information I got was in fact from a Chan, but not 4chan, and I thought the information they provided seemed likely enough. Also blame the "full retard" thing on robert downey jr, he's the one that ingrained it into my brain.

[Capntastic]

I'm not offended, Kilroy, I just think that if you're going to pose an argument or try to tell people they're getting too worked up over something, you should make a proper case with like, evidence or reasoning.  You have to admit that "I don't care, but y'all're too mad about this" is sort of asking to have people take issue, when it's a pretty important thing.

[Truean]

Capntastic, I'm sorry if I offended you. I just don't take discussions on the internet very seriously, and you shouldn't take what I say very seriously. Some of the information I got was in fact from a Chan, but not 4chan, and I thought the information they provided seemed likely enough. Also blame the "full retard" thing on robert downey jr, he's the one that ingrained it into my brain.

from a Chan, but not 4chan

There's your trouble. I commend your honesty though.

Even if there were some decent stuff there, so much shit is mixed in that it's impossible to filter fact from fiction. As for the Chan/4Chan distinction, you're talking about the difference between the internet's hate machine toilet and the bathroom floor tiles right around the internet's hate machine toilet. Neither passes the smell test and I'm not swallowing anything from either.... Anything from those places should be thoroughly researched before being relied upon.

That said, we shouldn't mention the chans and especially not 4chan for two reasons. 1.) Information there is hard to factually verify. 2.) I really, really don't feel it's worth it to piss them off because they hate being talked about and we don't need them deciding it'd be fun to trollololol us. No good can come from this.

[Truean]

Sorry for the double post but this warrants it:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/scalia-mocks-health-care-law-cornhusker-kickback-provision-205148292.html

Highlights: Health care law debate~
1.) Scalia is the champion of texualism. He has written several books on it.

2.) He threatens to strike down a portion of the law that was never passed into law.

3.) Then he says the court shouldn't have to read the bill before it in order to decide its constitutionality....

If you don't feel like reading the bill you're supposed to determine is constitutional or not, then retire. Do your job in the way you, yourself, have stated your job should be done, or let someone else do it.

Whether you love or hate this law, no one has read it. The Congress didn't read it when they passed it; the president didn't read it when he signed it; the Supreme Court isn't reading it in the court case about it. How the hell is this possible? How is it that the people passing, enforcing, and interpreting the law just don't read it?

How can pretty much everyone in the government approve sweeping legislation they don't even understand?

[kaijyuu]

Some constituents: Pass the healthcare bill! I don't care what it actually says, it's got to be better than what we got!
Other constituents: Don't you dare pass the healthcare bill! I don't care what it actually says either, it's evil and rewarding laziness or something!
Politicians themselves: I don't care at all! It doesn't line my pockets in any way!



May or may not be a gross oversimplification.