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[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think this links transparency with elections and voter turnout together. I notice that Wisconsin and Minnesota are near the top (both much higher than average turnout), and states like Arkansas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia at the bottom (some of the lowest turnout states).

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I’m a huge flip flopper on this issue, to be honest. I question the moral justification of the death penalty, and the states right to end the life of one of its citizens, but I also think that 99.99% of those executed in the last twenty years deserved it. I also had a relative who was murdered in a home invasion in 2011, which is a personal bias.

What exactly are you basing this on?

Empirical data. Like I said, I really don't care about the issue, and IIRC, only 30-40 people out of the thousands of people executed in the United States were of questionable guilt. Only five of them have been completely exonerated. Obviously that is the fault of the justice system in general and not the act of execution.

I'm not sure where you get 99.99%.  The remainder would be 1 in 10,000.  There have less than 5,000 executions in the US in the last 20 years.

30-40 people of questionable guilt?  Still way too much.  There is no justification to risk executing a single innocent person.  Sure, it's the fault of the justice system, but the justice system should not have the authority to kill people.  The justice system can never be perfect.

I don't see how anyone could support the death penalty after reading this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/12/after-nearly-30-years-on-death-row-glenn-ford-is-exonerated-and-free/
This is the victim of the corrupt justice system.  Innocent people can be executed because of corrupt police officers who know their innocence, and because of judges liking to appear "tough" for political purposes.

Many consider the human capacity for evil as a justification for harsh authority.  The problem is, people with authority can also be evil.  Human society will never be perfect enough to precisely determine who deserves to live and who deserves to die.  There should be punishment for lawbreaking, and the risk of punishing the innocent is unavoidable.  However, the negative effects of the imperfect justice system can at least be moderated by nixing the right of society impose death sentences.  Life imprisonment is appropriate for the very worst crimes.  It's harsh, but at least the wrongly convicted would have the rest of their lives to prove their innocence (and it would also be easier on the convicts' families).

I personally think some people deserve to die, but I have no faith in society to make accurate determinations on who does deserve death.  Occasionally, I hear about horrific cases that cause my emotional side to want the disgusting criminals dead, but then I remind myself that allowing even the worst of the worst to live is necessary to prevent the justice system from committing the ultimate injustice against an innocent person.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

There is nothing broken about the Supreme Court except for the fact it sometimes reaches decisions that you disagree with, sometimes vehemently.  That is not an excuse to change the existing system. 

You're missing the point.  I don't know where you came up this the silly idea that anyone who disagrees with the precise structure of the system just doesn't like the court's decisions.  The court makes some good decisions, some bad decision.  Even if a decision is good, that doesn't mean that lifetime appointment itself is good.

Whether decisions are good or bad has nothing to do with why some disagree with the concept of lifetime appointments.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I hate coffee, but I like Coca-Cola, so only a few small ones.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What does this even mean?

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I ruined my voice by doing a pretty dead-on impression of Tom Waits for my best friend today, and then strained it further when Tom Waits was mentioned on Jeopardy when my dad and I were watching it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Let's keep masturbating over Saddam Hussein to a minimum here, thanks.

There was no Berlin Wall under Hitler!!

There was no Holacaust in the GDR, either.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's usually discussion of feminism on MRA blogs

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Kansas or Utah.  No matter how much Oklahoma hates Obama, it has historically been more Democratic, and it still has too many registered Democrats.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Why do people think the NJ Democratic establishment wants Christie out of office?

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Jesus Christ, man. I mean Shelby's one thing, but Sessions is.......

The quote is pretty funny, though.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Adam, for the love of all that is holy, quit changing your signature back to this format. It stretches the page to the point that posts are unreadable.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I find it pretty shocking that your teachers actually dismissed a professional opinion and just imposed special ed to you because of their gut feelings. Actually, I find it shocking that this is even legally possible - I mean, don't they require some sort of medical certification for this thing. This sort of behavior is absolutely inexcusable and runs counter so many educational principles that it should be considered a serious violation. Once again, this seems to have been a terrible experience and I'm truly sorry for you.

It also means that what happened to you can't be blamed with overdiagnosis of Asperger's since if I understand correctly you were actually never diagnosed as such. It seems that the only qualified neurologist who was involved in this process actually was right all along. Just like the renowned Parisian neuropsychiatrist who diagnosed me with Asperger's was. I'm not claiming that all psychiatrists/psychologists are above all blame (in fact, in France they are blamed for having completely misunderstood autism for decades, with dramatic consequences). Still, I don't think that anyone here has solid grounds to claim that (beyond the media hype that certainly exists) Aspergers is actually overdiagnosed.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Put all FFs. The Vermont senators are fantastic, the Virginia senators are mediocre.

Warner is the worst and most overrated senator of the bunch.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Russia's right to do what they please in their sperhe of influence.

Russia has no such right. "Sphere of influence" is an utterly disgusting concept that belongs in the dustbin of history.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/hell_test.html

This is a lengthy but very interesting article I read about hell. 

It certainly made me rethink some of my beliefs theologically, but I would like to see a second opinion.

Many of these arguments mirror those of universalists on this forum, but they go into much more depth.

Several of the key arguments against hell in this are:
1. the pagan origin of the ideas of hell + most original Christians being universalists, and pagans adding the part about eternal hellfire
2. The original Greek/Hebrew manuscripts did not contain the concept of hell, but the Latin translation mistakenly does, from which the 1st believers in hell derived the doctrine.
3. When translated to English, a lot of words were mistranslated to 'hell'. 

There are a whole bunch of other arguments against hell, but many of them are non-scriptural and just about what a loving God would do (very common ones). 

I am curious what some of the more conservative Christians on here (DC Al Fine, JCL for instance) think of those three arguments and the article in general.

One problem I have with the mistranslation argument is that regardless of what name we give for "hell", if Jesus was talking about a place to dread in which you'd be better off plucking your eye out, that's not a good place to be!  It doesn't matter whether that's sheol, gehenna, hell, or Hades.  So a real mistranslation would have to be of the whole parable, not just 1 word about hell.   I would like to see this addressed in more detail what the alternate meaning of the teachings about cutting your arm off/plucking out your eye could mean if it didn't mean punishment after death.

Just some stuff to chew over at the very least........

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The central issue at hand is that Turkey is now a democratic country (which has not necessarily been true in the past) and that Kemalism is not an electorally viable ideology. As long as that remains the case the AKP will continue to win, because it represents the majority of the Turkish people. This is true across the entire country, as a quick look at the electoral map will show. The AKP is not a movement of backwards hicks.

In other words, despite the sincere attempts on the part of Atatürk and Kemalists to whitewash Turkey, Turks are under no obligation to conform to whatever left/right liberal/illiberal paradigm that Westerners insist on forcing upon them. That Erdoğan is generally popular and has not always been completely on board with state control over Islam does not make him some combination of Vladimir Putin and Ayatollah Khomeini. Turkish history and politics are fascinating as they are. It does nobody any good to muddle things by focusing on what this means for secularism in Europe.

Now, if we'd actually like to discuss this election rather than bemoaning the death of laïcité in Turkey, I'd be very interested in doing that.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It appears the time has come in regards to the Opebo questions.

Oh no. Here we go.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm inclined to say Williamstown, actually.  Certainly I'd pick Howard Beach over most small towns, but that part of the country is uniquely appealing.

What was the last dinner you cooked?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I used to like him, but that was when I was under the illusion that he was the most electable Republican Presidential candidate. HP.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

There's definitely good country out there, though most is trash. I don't know that I can say the same for pop punk. I do like Charli XCX though, but I don't know if she counts.

...what the hell? Why the hell would she?

Plenty of people have labeled her pop punk, from Slate to Rolling Stone to the BBC:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/charli-xcx-sucker-20141217
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25330600
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/12/02/charli_xcx_breaking_up_video_watch_the_singer_kiss_her_ex_goodbye_with_a.html

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Reagan by far.

But Thatcher is farther left and didn't randomly invade Grenada, and she certainly didn't sabotage any peace talks to get into power.

I'm not sure by what measure Thatcher would be "farther left" - she just happened to lead a country with a much more developed redistribution system, so she had more to work with. But she did much more damage to UK than Reagan did to America, and her neoliberalism was much more deep-rooted and articulate. Also, while Reagan was a hopeless buffoon with ridiculous ideas and policies, he doesn't strike me as a downright evil person like Thatcher.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Republicans look to have a better chance taking a Senate seat in Colorado than defending Pat Toomey.

I'm pretty sure people have already explained this, but for Senators who are mostly anonymous, that approval rating metric doesn't work. It might work for Senators who have very high name recognition.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Not happening. Baby Boom Republicans in the seventies were more liberal on social issues, but took a massive rightward shift during the Holy Saint Actor's presidency, and I expect a similar trend will happen eventually. Being socially liberal is simply the conformity of the hour and will fade eventually, just like how everybody predicted the religious right would take over the world in the mid-80s and again during 2003-2005.

Why do you hate Reagan so much, He is been one of the best presidents in the past 50 years along with Clinton

For a start, Reagan's domestic policies were pretty bad-brutal safety net cuts, radical deregulation, civil liberties violations, corporate welfare, etc, etc. But his authoritarian foreign policy, as well as his "secret government" drug-running and black market arms trade, play some role as well.

Reagan Tax cuts and deregulating was needed at the time. Taxes were skyhigh and there where too many regulations. Too many regulations is bad and too little regulations is bad and Reagan deruglated to a level where it was required.

Reagan inherited the Worst Recession since the Great Depression and with 10% unemplyment and 12 % inflation and left with 5.4% unemployment and low inflation. Plus his foreign policy let the US to win the Cold War(Nixon deserves more credit fore this though)

Nixon, Ford and Carter all signed deregulation bills, and each time it was a disaster (especially trucking deregulation) and worsened the economy. So, I don't accept there was hyper-regulation when he took office; he merely added more poison to cure the disease. He was expanding the policies of his predecessors.

Reagan tax cuts simply enriched corporations, who have had ridiculously token tax ever since. What helped the economy was when credit was loosened in 1983-1984 and a bubble formed for a few years. It had nothing to do with Reagan's policies, and in any case, many of the jobs created in the eighties were low-wage, burger-flipping jobs that had no health care, sick leave or pension.

It's interesting how people keep claiming that Reagan ended the Cold War. How? By aiding  the Contra terrorists? By bombing Libya pointlessly? By supporting Saddam Hussein? By supporting Khmer Rouge? By running drugs? The only halfway possible explanation I've ever heard is that the SDI was meant to bankrupt the Soviets. If that was the case, then it was simply more "secret government" scheming that just got lucky.

What is perhaps is the biggest problem with Reagan is that he added absolutely nothing to the debate. Neoliberal economics had already been gradually adopted since Nixon, tax cuts had been in the political realm since Truman, and his foreign policy goals were consistent with other Cold War presidents. He has no legacy, and it's time this be admitted.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The county seat of Alpine pretty much became a rural San Francisco starting in the '90's.

Basically the demographics shifted greatly. The county was already becoming Democratic on a statewide level.

Alpine's pretty much like California's internal Vermont.

And Mono's pretty much like the internal New Hampshire.