Well, I've got news for you. In 2008 the unemployment rate in France was at 7.9%. Now the unemployment rate in France is 9.7%, which is exactly the same rate as in the USA.
If you cherry-pick your data, of course, you can make your favorite country look as good as you want to make it look.
Look at the long-term unemployment rate in France here. If you judge a "recession" by unemployment alone (you shouldn't; unemployment is not the leading indicator of economic ups and down), France has been in perpetual recession since late 1980s. If you think 10% average unemployment is normal for a developed economy, look at United State's historical unemployment rate. The reason 10% unemployment in U.S. is making news these days is because it's so exceptionally bad given what's the norm here. Heck. During the Bush years, 5, 6% unemployment was criticized as "jobless recovery" (and critics were, to a degree, right).
I may not have had the exact numbers (I didn't want to bother looking it up until you provoked me with your uninformed statement), but I stand by my statement: 10 to 20% unemployment (sure, on the lower end, closer to 10% than it ever was to 20%, at least according to official numbers that do not include discouraged workers), even during boom times (i.e. the 90s). As a rule, Europe has at best anemic growth—that's what you pay for tightly regulated socialist economy; you are lucky to get stability under that regime, as U.S.S.R. countries found out decades earlier.
I will not fly on those airlines again. They demonstrated total disregard for their passengers by staging a stupid publicity stunt
That would be stupid. The test flight didn't have any passengers. They risked no passengers' lives, even though some (as I) would gladly have. As for the pilots, I am sure they appropriately incentivized them, hazard pay and what-not. You can stick with the spineless airlines if you wish, but I am thankful for airlines like KLM (or whatever that Dutch one is) and Lufthansa; if it hadn't been for them, I might still be stuck in Germany.
And while my anger is definitely affected by how much I hate Frankfurt (although, after visits to some universities and institutions in the surrounding area, I don't hate Germany itself as much), my reasoning itself has little to do with the fact that I was stuck at Frankfurt—except that, unlike those whose U.S. to Europe flight may have gotten canceled, I have a first-hand experience with the threats of these volcanic ashes, at least in southern Germany: none. During the whole stay in the area (and on the return flight), I saw no volcanic ashes on the ground, in the air, on in the sky (and we had a very clear weather for many of the days). During the whole week, it was entirely possible to route flights through regions of sky with little or no volcanic ash; it was only a matter of volume, and it was the regulators' entirely senseless and brainless decision to bring that volume down to practically zero.
I speak as someone whose returning flight to U.S. was canceled after nearly 2 month's overseas travel. It was a definite over-reaction; if the law is that even 1 ppm of volcanic ash is enough to ground planes, then the law should be changed.
At the very least, there should be an option for desperate travelers (like myself, who was stuck in Europe for over a week after planning to be in that miserable continent for less than 3 hours, i.e. the layover at Frankfurt) to fly, after fully being informed of the risk and signing appropriate waivers.
And the test flights weren't publicity stunts: Lufthansa alone sent out at least 10 such test flights. The CEOs being on the flights? Sure. But they don't have 10 CEOs (per airline) to put on every one of the test flights anyway—not to mention presence of CEOs themselves are scientifically useless.
I know almost all regulations are written in blood.
Not this one. Not a single fatality owing due to volcanic ashes. Yes, there have been a few flights disrupted and a couple flights where all engines shut down and plane maybe had to crash land, but there have been no blood (unless you count scratches that may have happened in crash-landing) for this regulation.
Which country in Europe are you in? Every major European country I know is just as recession-hit as the US.
Well, France banking system was supposed to have dodged the bullet mostly. But when you are in a permanent recession (I think France's unemployment hangs around 10, 20% even during "boom" years), it's easy not to go down lower when the global economy slows down.
I am very glad that U.S. is not like Europe—especially the French.
If you're American you might have a different view on this, but as a European I trust my government over any business.
This is why I am so glad that I am an American living in the U.S., not a European stuck in that hellhole of a continent.
Incidentally, this is why I am so pissed off that I was stuck in that hellhole of a continent for more than a week (the continent I never planned on being in for longer than 3 hours; I was connecting from India to England when my outgoing connecting flight got grounded!), due to the actions of asshole regulators of the asshole continent.
I will be the judge of what is safe enough for me. Why couldn't they let some flights go, if the passengers would sign waivers of liabilities? Are we stupid babies, like those regulators?
Also, if the airlines lost an aircraft because they were allowed to go flying, and were being sued by the families of the victims, they'd be screaming blue murder at the regulators saying they didn't do enough to protect the airlines.
As one of those hapless travelers who got stuck in Europe when he'd much rather be in the good ol' U. S. of A., here's a thought: why couldn't they let only some flights go, when all of their passengers have signed waivers of liabilities (and purchased life insurances, if necessary) and the pilots and crew have been paid hazard pay (along with life insurance premiums)?
If I could, I would have been on one of those flights—I was away from U.S. for almost 2 months and couldn't wait to get back, even before this whole mess happened. If I could get everything moving to my whims, as these regulators apparently did, I would have these brainless and spineless regulators hanged publicly. But I guess such powers are reserved only for the criminally stupid, like these regulators.
That's great for 4-engine planes like the 747, A340 and A380. What about the twin-engines used for shorter-haul flights?
Then ground only those shorter-haul flights. Shorter-haul means people on those flights don't really need to fly anyway. At least after the crowd over the weekend cleared, they had a number of options—train, bus, ferry, for some of those that had to travel over water.
It was the long-haul flights (like the one I was on, to/from U.S. and Asia) that really had to fly, both for passengers and cargo, and why did these have to get grounded?
In the end, it's all perfectly in line with the general thinking of these regulators: responses completely out of proportion to actual or perceived threat, and exercise of powers with utter disregard of their real world consequences. Who made them kings anyway?
Given the history of aircraft encounters with volcanic ash clouds - near disaster every time, averted only by heroic efforts by the pilots - the total shutdown was the only appropriate short-term response.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't call a week (I'm counting 15th as well, since that's when my connecting flight out of Frankfurt to London got canceled) "short-term". And I'll bet you wouldn't either, if you were stuck in Frankfurt for a week—when you never planned on being in that city or the airport longer than 3 hours in the first place.
If these regulators had cancelled flights just through, say, over the weekend, maybe that would have been reasonable. But when all they did was sit on their hands for 5 days saying, "Oh, we don't know what levels of ashes are safe, so we must ground everyone. After all, I don't need to fly this week," I think they should be held personally responsible for all the economic harm—not just to airlines but all related shipping industries and passengers who were inconvenienced (there were even some rumors of some stranded travelers getting laid off by their company because, well, they weren't at work; thank God my boss wasn't so heartless).
Thankfully, the heroic pilots at several airlines flew those successful test flights and, faced with reality, even those brainless regulators had to back down eventually—but their response, at least after Thursday and Friday, were nothing but reasonable. For comparison, remember that U.S. shut down our airspace only for 3 days after 9/11, even though we had no way of knowing whether there would be follow-up attacks nor a way to test for it (as these regulators did all along).
I don't know about Branson, but some of the airline CEOs did go up on one of those successful test flights they sent up Sunday through, I think, Tuesday after eruption. It still took those regulators days after that too lift the senseless ban.
And this flawed computer model grounded me at Frankfurt for more than one week! (And I never planned on being at Frankfurt longer than 2 hours; I was connecting to a flight to London.)
Everyone here who says regulators acted appropriately will surely change their tune if this senseless and groundless overreaction stranded them at a foreign non-destination for a week (more, actually), causing them to miss work and leisure travel alike.
If, at the level of ashes they had over most Europe, it was so dangerous, how were all the test flights (conducted over Sunday through Tuesday after the eruption, I think) successfully conducted, and if there were so much ash in the air, how come I didn't see any at Frankfurt, either on the ground or on the way up on Friday's flight?
This was a senseless overreaction. At the very least, they should have let some flights go (as they eventually did, thank God for protestations of airlines, if belated), even if they had to make passengers sign waivers of liabilities.
So indentured servitude is OK so long as it's mentioned in advance?
Sure, except for the very narrow types of indentured servitude prohibited, at least in U.S., by U.S. Constitution.
If you say "indentured servitude is not acceptable" for a very broad definition of "indentured servitude", you invalidate quite a lot of contracts, such as the noncompete clauses, nondisclosure agreements, etc. that are meant to reduce the unknowns of running a business. Without those contracts and the world being full of unscrupulous individuals as it is, good luck running a free market economy.
The "regardless of deed" portion implies I could murder babies and rape women as much as I wanted...so long as I accepted the grace of god, I would still be perfect. That's fucking stupid.
In short, what you say is truethe essence of forgiveness is what you did in what is essentially previous life no longer holds any importance. Many who convert do wish to make amends for their previous wrong-doings, and as much as that desire may be inspired by the Holy Spirit, the act of making amends is not what saves them.
Now, if you are implying that one could accept God's grace and simultaneously do everything possible to break, e.g., the Ten Commandments, that brings into question whether that person really accepted God's grace. Think of a cheating wife who insists that she loves her husband but continues to have affairs with other men—is her claim that she loves her husband really sincere?
In any case, this is a very subtle theological point, and given that you dismiss the whole notion as "fucking stupid", I don't expect you to understand the argument (or take the effort to wade through the apparent conflict between points made by Paul in Romans and by James in James). In the end, all I am trying to argue for is that the doctrine of Christianity is self-consistent (at least if you aren't trying to impose your own personal preference onto it from outside), which is more than what you can say for some secular system of beliefs (e.g. moral relativism) some people hold.
In short, because some choose not to accept the grace.
But I thought it was regardless of deed...
And acceptance of the grace is not contingent upon some kind of deed—i.e. you don't need to go on a pilgrimage; you don't have to keep kosher or vegetarian diet, etc. etc. Even the baptism is more an announcement of your acceptance of the grace than actual acceptance itself.
The entire act of acceptance is in one's mind and belief.
If by "regardless of deed" "regardless of personal choice" is meant, well, it would be pretty pointless to have a doctrine, wouldn't it? Not only are your acts inconsequential, what you believe wouldn't count either!
Again, this is Christian orthodoxy, so you will probably disagree, but the doctrine is, we are saved (i.e. made perfect, made righteous, or "justified") by grace alone, not by works or deeds. Yes, we have done and do terrible things—all those things are forgiven by God's grace (and sacrifice of Jesus) and that's the sense in which we are perfect.
You will probably disagree with this radical redefinition of "perfect", but all I am trying to say is that Christian doctrine is, at least, self-consistent: i.e. God is perfect; we are made in God's image, and these two facts are reconciled by the fact that we are, indeed, perfect.
I always thought that was weird, because that would mean that god is imperfect...which kinda goes against the whole "omnipotent" thing.
You are assuming that we are imperfect and that's why you run into the paradox.
We are perfect—because we are made in God's image and he is perfect. Yes, there was the Fall and all that, but at least within Christian Orthodoxy, Jesus fixed all that and we are, once again, perfect in God's eyes (not by works, but by grace). This perfectly fits with the whole omnipotent thing—because God can make even us frail human beings perfect so that we are acceptable to him.
It may not be his name, but it's his title. "God" in "God save them" should be capitalized (unless you really mean a nonspecific divine entity, rather than the God of Abraham), the same way "President" is capitalized in "Mr. President" or "President Obama".
On the other hand, some people even capitalize third person pronouns like "He" or "His" when it's associated with God—I never got that.
The article does explain why the gun was loaded—and possibly why there was a round in the chamber:
Cheyenne's stepfather, Douglas Cronberger, 32, owned a semi-automatic pistol that he normally kept in a secure location, out of the reach of Cheyenne and the couple's 1-year-old child, Ashe said. But after taking it out to investigate a possible prowler, Cronberger left it on a table and forgot about it, officials said.
The stepfather was irresponsible, nonetheless. After ascertaining that there was no intruder, he should have left the gun in the safe condition (at the very least with the round out of the chamber) if not lock it up as he normally does.
In California, castle doctrine isn't absolute: I am not allowed to kill my landlord if he is running away from the property after being beaten (only) half to death for breaking and entering.
Apparently there has to be an immediate threat to my life or something.
I've seriously considered writing to Jeff Bezos and saying I will only buy a Kindle if he will arrange to get me free Kindle copies of all the books I bought, which the eBook industry has rendered useless piles of bits.
While that would be nice, you are forgetting that there's no such thing as a free lunch—and when you bought your physical books, you were buying them with the explicit understanding that that's the only copy you got.
Imagine: if you buy hardcover version of a book, would you also demand that you should be given a free copy of the paperback (perhaps for a buck or so to cover the printing costs)? If you can't make that demand for printed copies (and most people would consider such demands unreasonable), why should you be able to make the same demand just because the copy is digital, instead of print?
If Amazon can work out that kind of deal, you, as Amazon's customer, will be paying for that in other ways—which is probably why they didn't work out such a deal.
I love books. I much prefer to read a dead-tree book than an e-book. There's just something I love about sitting on a couch with a book in my hands turning the pages as I read.
That's funny. I prefer my Kindle for the exact same reason. There's just something I love about sitting on a recliner with my Kindle in my hands, turning the pages as I read, without having to worry about holding down the pages so that the pages don't close on me or damaging the spines of the books permanently by opening up the pages too much.
I'd rather very much focus on the book and its content, as I can with Kindle (or any ebook reader with reflective screen, really), not how I am struggling with its physical manifestation.
I don't see how this is a Catch-22. This is more like false dichotomy. There are many third options. For one, they need to screen smarter, i.e. start profiling and hire people who can talk to passengers to assess their intent, rather than just looking for physical objects.
Catch-22, FYI, involves a situation where the very act of trying to escape a bad situation puts you back into the bad situation. e.g. (From the novel) in a war, you would be crazy to go out to the battlefield and fight, which would qualify you for medical leave (mental illness). But, to get that exemption, you have to ask, but the very act of asking proves that you are not crazy, so you no longer qualify.
But they never speak up against those who do, so I lump them all together, the deathers, the birthers, the teabaggers: all the wacky conspiracy theorists; the libertarians, the Austrian Schoolers, and all the other lassaiz-faire deregulationists: these are the true conservatives of America. If you find these stereotypes offensive, then perhaps you ought to do something to prove that there are other, alternative forms of conservatism that are not based on fear, anger, hatred, violence, and domination.
Interesting that you would characterize a group of libertarians (I'm not sure about birthers, and if by "deathers" you mean people who are suspicious of broad government programs, I think there's a good overlap) as being based on a variety of emotions such as fear, anger, hatred, violence, and domination. Where do you get your facts from, MSNBC?
First, the most prominent libertarian political figure, Ron Paul, keeps saying, more than any other liberal Democratic candidates, that we need to pull out of the whole region of Middle East. Who's "pro-war" here? Ron Paul, standing for libertarians, or Barack Obama, standing for liberals?
Second, the Libertarian Party specifically rejects initiation of violence. I suppose the fact that this is a cornerstone of that organization is more of a relic of history, when they wanted to distinguish themselves from communist or anarchist groups that wanted to overthrow the U.S. government entirely, but in any case, libertarians believe in retaliation (and hence their pro-military view, so that they can retaliate when necessary), but not initiation.
Third, of all political philosophies, libertarianism is one most emotionally devoid---both negative and positive---of them all. It starts out with simple premise that all rights derive from property rights, starting from self-ownership, and the rest of the philosophy is pretty much logical deduction from that premise, guided by respect for everyone's rights, untainted by fuzzy standards of empathy or special consideration of any particular group of people, such as the poor or the rich. Of all the emotional characteristics that you ascribe to libertarians, perhaps one is even remotely close: fear, that is, fear of the government, but the libertarian fear of the government is only a useful rule of thumb, because governments are the most effective destroyer of property rights who can also legitimize their acts of destruction.
And finally, "domination" is the characteristic most aptly applied to liberals, not libertarians or even most conservatives. Small-government conservatism, which is the core of any American conservatism (I won't deny that there are some flavors of conservatism which go much, much beyond these core principles, but they are fringe, not mainstream), can be described as "live and let live", i.e. we won't dominate others, but we will not let others dominate us. On the other hand, the core of progressive liberal agenda is reforming the humanity into their image. Public education (for which I do credit progressives) which instill in the children their view of right and wrong. Government programs incentivizing particular set of behaviors. Tax incentives that amount to micromanaging people's behavior. High taxes that make these tax incentives look good. As... laudable as some of these goals are, reforming others must necessary include dominating them first, militarily, economically, or by some other means.
Slashdot Mirror
If you cherry-pick your data, of course, you can make your favorite country look as good as you want to make it look.
Look at the long-term unemployment rate in France here. If you judge a "recession" by unemployment alone (you shouldn't; unemployment is not the leading indicator of economic ups and down), France has been in perpetual recession since late 1980s. If you think 10% average unemployment is normal for a developed economy, look at United State's historical unemployment rate. The reason 10% unemployment in U.S. is making news these days is because it's so exceptionally bad given what's the norm here. Heck. During the Bush years, 5, 6% unemployment was criticized as "jobless recovery" (and critics were, to a degree, right).
I may not have had the exact numbers (I didn't want to bother looking it up until you provoked me with your uninformed statement), but I stand by my statement: 10 to 20% unemployment (sure, on the lower end, closer to 10% than it ever was to 20%, at least according to official numbers that do not include discouraged workers), even during boom times (i.e. the 90s). As a rule, Europe has at best anemic growth—that's what you pay for tightly regulated socialist economy; you are lucky to get stability under that regime, as U.S.S.R. countries found out decades earlier.
That would be stupid. The test flight didn't have any passengers. They risked no passengers' lives, even though some (as I) would gladly have. As for the pilots, I am sure they appropriately incentivized them, hazard pay and what-not. You can stick with the spineless airlines if you wish, but I am thankful for airlines like KLM (or whatever that Dutch one is) and Lufthansa; if it hadn't been for them, I might still be stuck in Germany.
And while my anger is definitely affected by how much I hate Frankfurt (although, after visits to some universities and institutions in the surrounding area, I don't hate Germany itself as much), my reasoning itself has little to do with the fact that I was stuck at Frankfurt—except that, unlike those whose U.S. to Europe flight may have gotten canceled, I have a first-hand experience with the threats of these volcanic ashes, at least in southern Germany: none. During the whole stay in the area (and on the return flight), I saw no volcanic ashes on the ground, in the air, on in the sky (and we had a very clear weather for many of the days). During the whole week, it was entirely possible to route flights through regions of sky with little or no volcanic ash; it was only a matter of volume, and it was the regulators' entirely senseless and brainless decision to bring that volume down to practically zero.
I speak as someone whose returning flight to U.S. was canceled after nearly 2 month's overseas travel. It was a definite over-reaction; if the law is that even 1 ppm of volcanic ash is enough to ground planes, then the law should be changed.
At the very least, there should be an option for desperate travelers (like myself, who was stuck in Europe for over a week after planning to be in that miserable continent for less than 3 hours, i.e. the layover at Frankfurt) to fly, after fully being informed of the risk and signing appropriate waivers.
And the test flights weren't publicity stunts: Lufthansa alone sent out at least 10 such test flights. The CEOs being on the flights? Sure. But they don't have 10 CEOs (per airline) to put on every one of the test flights anyway—not to mention presence of CEOs themselves are scientifically useless.
Not this one. Not a single fatality owing due to volcanic ashes. Yes, there have been a few flights disrupted and a couple flights where all engines shut down and plane maybe had to crash land, but there have been no blood (unless you count scratches that may have happened in crash-landing) for this regulation.
Well, France banking system was supposed to have dodged the bullet mostly. But when you are in a permanent recession (I think France's unemployment hangs around 10, 20% even during "boom" years), it's easy not to go down lower when the global economy slows down.
I am very glad that U.S. is not like Europe—especially the French.
This is why I am so glad that I am an American living in the U.S., not a European stuck in that hellhole of a continent.
Incidentally, this is why I am so pissed off that I was stuck in that hellhole of a continent for more than a week (the continent I never planned on being in for longer than 3 hours; I was connecting from India to England when my outgoing connecting flight got grounded!), due to the actions of asshole regulators of the asshole continent.
I will be the judge of what is safe enough for me. Why couldn't they let some flights go, if the passengers would sign waivers of liabilities? Are we stupid babies, like those regulators?
As one of those hapless travelers who got stuck in Europe when he'd much rather be in the good ol' U. S. of A., here's a thought: why couldn't they let only some flights go, when all of their passengers have signed waivers of liabilities (and purchased life insurances, if necessary) and the pilots and crew have been paid hazard pay (along with life insurance premiums)?
If I could, I would have been on one of those flights—I was away from U.S. for almost 2 months and couldn't wait to get back, even before this whole mess happened. If I could get everything moving to my whims, as these regulators apparently did, I would have these brainless and spineless regulators hanged publicly. But I guess such powers are reserved only for the criminally stupid, like these regulators.
Then ground only those shorter-haul flights. Shorter-haul means people on those flights don't really need to fly anyway. At least after the crowd over the weekend cleared, they had a number of options—train, bus, ferry, for some of those that had to travel over water.
It was the long-haul flights (like the one I was on, to/from U.S. and Asia) that really had to fly, both for passengers and cargo, and why did these have to get grounded?
In the end, it's all perfectly in line with the general thinking of these regulators: responses completely out of proportion to actual or perceived threat, and exercise of powers with utter disregard of their real world consequences. Who made them kings anyway?
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't call a week (I'm counting 15th as well, since that's when my connecting flight out of Frankfurt to London got canceled) "short-term". And I'll bet you wouldn't either, if you were stuck in Frankfurt for a week—when you never planned on being in that city or the airport longer than 3 hours in the first place.
If these regulators had cancelled flights just through, say, over the weekend, maybe that would have been reasonable. But when all they did was sit on their hands for 5 days saying, "Oh, we don't know what levels of ashes are safe, so we must ground everyone. After all, I don't need to fly this week," I think they should be held personally responsible for all the economic harm—not just to airlines but all related shipping industries and passengers who were inconvenienced (there were even some rumors of some stranded travelers getting laid off by their company because, well, they weren't at work; thank God my boss wasn't so heartless).
Thankfully, the heroic pilots at several airlines flew those successful test flights and, faced with reality, even those brainless regulators had to back down eventually—but their response, at least after Thursday and Friday, were nothing but reasonable. For comparison, remember that U.S. shut down our airspace only for 3 days after 9/11, even though we had no way of knowing whether there would be follow-up attacks nor a way to test for it (as these regulators did all along).
I don't know about Branson, but some of the airline CEOs did go up on one of those successful test flights they sent up Sunday through, I think, Tuesday after eruption. It still took those regulators days after that too lift the senseless ban.
And this flawed computer model grounded me at Frankfurt for more than one week! (And I never planned on being at Frankfurt longer than 2 hours; I was connecting to a flight to London.)
Everyone here who says regulators acted appropriately will surely change their tune if this senseless and groundless overreaction stranded them at a foreign non-destination for a week (more, actually), causing them to miss work and leisure travel alike.
If, at the level of ashes they had over most Europe, it was so dangerous, how were all the test flights (conducted over Sunday through Tuesday after the eruption, I think) successfully conducted, and if there were so much ash in the air, how come I didn't see any at Frankfurt, either on the ground or on the way up on Friday's flight?
This was a senseless overreaction. At the very least, they should have let some flights go (as they eventually did, thank God for protestations of airlines, if belated), even if they had to make passengers sign waivers of liabilities.
Real laws by "requests for comments" (RFC)? That sounds like either despotism (by pimply CS grad students) or anarchy. I don't care for either.
As much as current democracy/Congress is likened to sausage making, I think this sausage is far preferable to that mess.
Sure, except for the very narrow types of indentured servitude prohibited, at least in U.S., by U.S. Constitution.
If you say "indentured servitude is not acceptable" for a very broad definition of "indentured servitude", you invalidate quite a lot of contracts, such as the noncompete clauses, nondisclosure agreements, etc. that are meant to reduce the unknowns of running a business. Without those contracts and the world being full of unscrupulous individuals as it is, good luck running a free market economy.
In short, what you say is truethe essence of forgiveness is what you did in what is essentially previous life no longer holds any importance. Many who convert do wish to make amends for their previous wrong-doings, and as much as that desire may be inspired by the Holy Spirit, the act of making amends is not what saves them.
Now, if you are implying that one could accept God's grace and simultaneously do everything possible to break, e.g., the Ten Commandments, that brings into question whether that person really accepted God's grace. Think of a cheating wife who insists that she loves her husband but continues to have affairs with other men—is her claim that she loves her husband really sincere?
In any case, this is a very subtle theological point, and given that you dismiss the whole notion as "fucking stupid", I don't expect you to understand the argument (or take the effort to wade through the apparent conflict between points made by Paul in Romans and by James in James). In the end, all I am trying to argue for is that the doctrine of Christianity is self-consistent (at least if you aren't trying to impose your own personal preference onto it from outside), which is more than what you can say for some secular system of beliefs (e.g. moral relativism) some people hold.
And acceptance of the grace is not contingent upon some kind of deed—i.e. you don't need to go on a pilgrimage; you don't have to keep kosher or vegetarian diet, etc. etc. Even the baptism is more an announcement of your acceptance of the grace than actual acceptance itself.
The entire act of acceptance is in one's mind and belief.
If by "regardless of deed" "regardless of personal choice" is meant, well, it would be pretty pointless to have a doctrine, wouldn't it? Not only are your acts inconsequential, what you believe wouldn't count either!
In short, because some choose not to accept the grace.
The long answer would be too long for Slashdot, and frankly, I'm not sure if I have it entirely right.
Again, this is Christian orthodoxy, so you will probably disagree, but the doctrine is, we are saved (i.e. made perfect, made righteous, or "justified") by grace alone, not by works or deeds. Yes, we have done and do terrible things—all those things are forgiven by God's grace (and sacrifice of Jesus) and that's the sense in which we are perfect.
You will probably disagree with this radical redefinition of "perfect", but all I am trying to say is that Christian doctrine is, at least, self-consistent: i.e. God is perfect; we are made in God's image, and these two facts are reconciled by the fact that we are, indeed, perfect.
You are assuming that we are imperfect and that's why you run into the paradox.
We are perfect—because we are made in God's image and he is perfect. Yes, there was the Fall and all that, but at least within Christian Orthodoxy, Jesus fixed all that and we are, once again, perfect in God's eyes (not by works, but by grace). This perfectly fits with the whole omnipotent thing—because God can make even us frail human beings perfect so that we are acceptable to him.
It may not be his name, but it's his title. "God" in "God save them" should be capitalized (unless you really mean a nonspecific divine entity, rather than the God of Abraham), the same way "President" is capitalized in "Mr. President" or "President Obama".
On the other hand, some people even capitalize third person pronouns like "He" or "His" when it's associated with God—I never got that.
The article does explain why the gun was loaded—and possibly why there was a round in the chamber:
The stepfather was irresponsible, nonetheless. After ascertaining that there was no intruder, he should have left the gun in the safe condition (at the very least with the round out of the chamber) if not lock it up as he normally does.
Only in certain parts, unfortunately.
In California, castle doctrine isn't absolute: I am not allowed to kill my landlord if he is running away from the property after being beaten (only) half to death for breaking and entering.
Apparently there has to be an immediate threat to my life or something.
While that would be nice, you are forgetting that there's no such thing as a free lunch—and when you bought your physical books, you were buying them with the explicit understanding that that's the only copy you got.
Imagine: if you buy hardcover version of a book, would you also demand that you should be given a free copy of the paperback (perhaps for a buck or so to cover the printing costs)? If you can't make that demand for printed copies (and most people would consider such demands unreasonable), why should you be able to make the same demand just because the copy is digital, instead of print?
If Amazon can work out that kind of deal, you, as Amazon's customer, will be paying for that in other ways—which is probably why they didn't work out such a deal.
That's funny. I prefer my Kindle for the exact same reason. There's just something I love about sitting on a recliner with my Kindle in my hands, turning the pages as I read, without having to worry about holding down the pages so that the pages don't close on me or damaging the spines of the books permanently by opening up the pages too much.
I'd rather very much focus on the book and its content, as I can with Kindle (or any ebook reader with reflective screen, really), not how I am struggling with its physical manifestation.
This may be a catch-22 for TSA :)
I don't see how this is a Catch-22. This is more like false dichotomy. There are many third options. For one, they need to screen smarter, i.e. start profiling and hire people who can talk to passengers to assess their intent, rather than just looking for physical objects.
Catch-22, FYI, involves a situation where the very act of trying to escape a bad situation puts you back into the bad situation. e.g. (From the novel) in a war, you would be crazy to go out to the battlefield and fight, which would qualify you for medical leave (mental illness). But, to get that exemption, you have to ask, but the very act of asking proves that you are not crazy, so you no longer qualify.
Not every dilemma is a "Catch-22".
But they never speak up against those who do, so I lump them all together, the deathers, the birthers, the teabaggers: all the wacky conspiracy theorists; the libertarians, the Austrian Schoolers, and all the other lassaiz-faire deregulationists: these are the true conservatives of America. If you find these stereotypes offensive, then perhaps you ought to do something to prove that there are other, alternative forms of conservatism that are not based on fear, anger, hatred, violence, and domination.
Interesting that you would characterize a group of libertarians (I'm not sure about birthers, and if by "deathers" you mean people who are suspicious of broad government programs, I think there's a good overlap) as being based on a variety of emotions such as fear, anger, hatred, violence, and domination. Where do you get your facts from, MSNBC?
First, the most prominent libertarian political figure, Ron Paul, keeps saying, more than any other liberal Democratic candidates, that we need to pull out of the whole region of Middle East. Who's "pro-war" here? Ron Paul, standing for libertarians, or Barack Obama, standing for liberals?
Second, the Libertarian Party specifically rejects initiation of violence. I suppose the fact that this is a cornerstone of that organization is more of a relic of history, when they wanted to distinguish themselves from communist or anarchist groups that wanted to overthrow the U.S. government entirely, but in any case, libertarians believe in retaliation (and hence their pro-military view, so that they can retaliate when necessary), but not initiation.
Third, of all political philosophies, libertarianism is one most emotionally devoid---both negative and positive---of them all. It starts out with simple premise that all rights derive from property rights, starting from self-ownership, and the rest of the philosophy is pretty much logical deduction from that premise, guided by respect for everyone's rights, untainted by fuzzy standards of empathy or special consideration of any particular group of people, such as the poor or the rich. Of all the emotional characteristics that you ascribe to libertarians, perhaps one is even remotely close: fear, that is, fear of the government, but the libertarian fear of the government is only a useful rule of thumb, because governments are the most effective destroyer of property rights who can also legitimize their acts of destruction.
And finally, "domination" is the characteristic most aptly applied to liberals, not libertarians or even most conservatives. Small-government conservatism, which is the core of any American conservatism (I won't deny that there are some flavors of conservatism which go much, much beyond these core principles, but they are fringe, not mainstream), can be described as "live and let live", i.e. we won't dominate others, but we will not let others dominate us. On the other hand, the core of progressive liberal agenda is reforming the humanity into their image. Public education (for which I do credit progressives) which instill in the children their view of right and wrong. Government programs incentivizing particular set of behaviors. Tax incentives that amount to micromanaging people's behavior. High taxes that make these tax incentives look good. As ... laudable as some of these goals are, reforming others must necessary include dominating them first, militarily, economically, or by some other means.