I actually think Obamacare has done more good than harm, and I initially opposed it for a variety of reasons. That said, I don't see any necessary contradictions in being opposed to democrat sponsored reforms and buying drugs from Mexico.
It's not as if the only 2 possibilities are "support healthcare the way democrats want to do it" and "believe 100% in the system as it exists (i.e. buying medication in the US)"
I actually think one of the biggest problems in American politics is polarization. There is this assumption that you are either for A and against B or for B and against A. The idea of holding a nuanced position is unheard of. Politicians have simple positions because having a complex one means being attacked from 2/2 sides instead of just 1/2.
Furthermore, even if your parents are actually 1 dimensional conservative caricatures, ignoring big (Obama administration) government regulations that create an artificial monopoly (i.e. non free market) for American Pharmaceutical corporations seems like a right wing position.
It turns out that there are a few brands of radical conservatism that are occasionally at odds with one another. In this case it's being pro-free market vs. jingoism. But it actually gets more complicated, because classical liberalism actually embraced the free market. Then modern liberalism sort of abandoned the free market, and classical liberals got renamed to libertarians. And more recently republicans co-opted the libertarian label leaving people formerly labelled libertarians currently without a label.
But now through polarized lenses we boil that down to: Liberals support regulation of a greedy capitalist system that can not possible regulate itself, while conservatives believe all regulations on the market are socialist job killers.
Wow. That sounds liek a great deal. Maybe the landlord should not renew the rental lease and just turn it into a permanent airbnb rental and make more money.
In it doesn't stop with airbnb. There are annoyances just from having neighbors that invite over people I don't like, or in many cases I just don't like the neighbors themselves. I think a simple solution would be to stop people I don;t like from living near me.
I like this idea of a law prohibiting guests for more than 2 days, but I'd like to see it reduced to 1 or even 0, and also have it apply to the owners of properties as well.
Laws which permit X but not if it is in exchange for money are always a bit hard to manage. It's not always easy to prove a quid pro quo arrangement. Obviously in the case of airbnb it's pretty clear, but what about couch surfing? What about letting people you don't know stay at your place you are renting when you are on vacation? What if you let people stay in your apartment in exchange for food or use of a car?
Surely there is just some extra amount you can pay the insurance company to cover damage in the event of subletting. Just pass that cost onto your lessee if they want to sub-lease.
Look at it like a rental auto. You can not let any of your friends drive your rental, even if the rental agency is getting a "cut".
That's for insurance purposes. They allow you to add whoever you want as an authorized driver, you just might have to pay more.
Landlords do not get to prevent "strangers" from staying in their property. I can invite over whoever I want to stay in a place I am renting, nor do I have to even be there at the same time. It is only when it is for money that it counts as subleasing, and lease contracts will either specifically allow or disallow them. I have never seen a lease that stipulated that guests are prohibited or require approval by the landlord.
Or even if it isn't wartime... The lessee subleases the apartment to human trafficer. Without his knowledge, the landlord is now the owner of a child sex slave facility. Still no problem?
That's not necessarily true. The market value for a place to stay can fluctuate for all sorts of reasons. Look at how hotel rates fluctuate between weekdays and weekends, by season, and if there is some kind of special event happening nearby.
Furthermore there is a lot of cost associated in renting out a place for the short term. This is why staying in a hotel for a couple nights is more expensive over time than renting an apartment. The hotel needs to clean the room before every new guest arrives, etc.
I suspect you might have a hard time getting your landlord to clean your apartment before each of your airbnb guests arrive.
Not to mention that a lot of work goes into scheduling customers. Hotels don't get paid for the times that their rooms are empty, but a landlord still gets paid when you go on a vacation and your apartment is unoccupied.
It's property that you've entered into a contract to acquire the right to occupy and use in exchange money. What seems reasonable is simply having the contract spell out what is and is not allowed so both parties can make an informed decision about whether they want to agree to the contract.
I was just thinking in general. I do agree with your point about screen time being significant. I think a lot of those characters might very well be much more annoying if they were major characters that we see throughout the whole film.
I'm not trying to debate you. It's obviously subjective, to the point that you don't need to prefix "Jar Jar Binks is the worst" with "I think", because it's implied. I am just curious who you think is a worse character than Jar Jar Binks. Maybe it will be someone I agree is worse, but just didn't remember.
If the point is that they are in favor of the option of "wedding by arbitrary friend," why isn't that what they're advocating for?
They are advocating for the *special* privileges of the clergy to be removed. This doesn't mean banning clergy to be wedding officiants, it means making these privileges non-special (i.e. everyone has them including your friends).
It's because wedding by arbitrary friend isn't what they're looking for. (Also, that option is already available to them.) They're looking for publicity for their shitty protest movement.
It *is* one thing they are looking for, it is not *the only* thing they are looking for. In addition to no wanting this for their own wedding, they also want for others to have this right as well. The protest movement is the mechanism of trying to secure those rights.
Plus think about it. You can design a religious wedding ceremony in a way that's respectful of guests who are a different religion than the couple.
I have been to many Christian weddings where things are said that are terribly offensive to non-Christians. With all the things that the bride and groom need to worry about, I don't think "making sure none of your many guests with diverse opinions are ever offended" should be added to the list.
You can also design an atheist wedding ceremony to be respectful of non-athiest guests.
Or you could just design the wedding you actually want.
Do you really think that the couple who went out of their way to get FSM declared a religion for marriage license purposes is going to be respectful of guests who are religious? Because that would be out of character for FSM types.
Yes. I realize you think that anyone who is associated with FSM must be a complete asshole, but it's just not true. Many of these people no doubt have family and friends who are religious, and as shicking as this may be to you, it is possible for people of different religions and people of no religions to get along.
FSM is merely a religion proxy that is occasionally necessary due to the special privileges afforded to religions. And it is one that happens to poke a little fun at religion.
If you throw a party, and you're not respectful of your guests, then you're an asshole. That's the only point.
Just about every Christian wedding I have ever been to has at one point proclaimed Christianity to be the one true religion either implicitly or explicitly. I don't think these Christians are assholes. This is just a facet of the religion to which they belong and want their wedding to conform to. I might be a little annoyed, but I know these are my friends and family, and I know they are just trying to have the wedding they want to have, and I want that for them.
You have your criteria of what counts as respectful and disrespectful, and I guarantee that this criteria is subject and not shared by everyone. I would suggest that maybe things that you don't find offensive actually are quite offensive and vice versa.
I feel like I've heard about an equal amount of accusations of racism for Jar-Jar and the Asian federation guys (being very little of either). The Asian federation guys were just not nearly as annoying.
I do think the anti Jar-Jar hype is over the top, (he was annoying but I've seen worse)
I also think the Jar-Jar hype was over the top, but I actually haven't seen worse. I think he was actually the worst character I've ever seen. He is not by far the worst. He is just the worst. Something has to be worst, even if nothing was ever bad.
Who is a worse character than Jar-Jar Binks? I'm open to having my mind changed.
New Hope: Great
Empire *and* prequels: OK
Jedi: Terrible
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is like saying: "Pizza is great. I don't really like Chinese Food, it's just OK. I also don't like to eat human feces, it's also just OK. Hamburgers are terrible."
I'm 100% against the state regulating who is allowed to officiate a marriage.
Me too
Some dickhead Pastafanarian got the New Zealand government to let Pastafanarian "clergy" officiate weddings.
Why is that a problem? What's the difference between a Pastafarian "clergy" officiate your wedding and having your friend officiate your wedding?
Those guys aren't a religion, they're a protest movement. (Here's how you can tell: They don't actually believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.)
Yes that's true. And the point they are making is that there is no way to objectively differentiate a "real" religion from a fake one, because they are all fake. And yes it's true that Pastafarians don't really believe in the FSM, but you actually don't know how many religious people actually believe in their religion either. There are no doubt many people who are "religious" only for the community aspect of their religion, and don't actually believe in the nonsense.
Since they could have had an atheist wedding before, it looks like the thing they're protesting for is to prevent clergy from officiating weddings at all. Which makes no sense at all.
I am not familiar enough with NZ law to know if they could have had anyone they wanted officiate their wedding without restriction. But I am certain that they are not protesting to prevent clergy from officiating weddings, because it makes no sense.
What is undoubtedly being protested is the undeserved status that clergy have in officiating weddings. They are not trying to prevent clergy from protesting weddings. I am sure they are merely trying to ensure clergy have equal rights to everyone else.
Also of note: In the US, there are pretend religions whose core beliefs are "Couples should be able to pick arbitrary friends to officiate their wedding." To that end, if you give them $10 or whatever, they will make arbitrary friends ministers in the pretend religion... And then they can officiate whatever kind of ceremony they and the couple decide to do.
I know, because that's what I did for my wedding.
Does this not exist in New Zealand?
I don't know. Maybe not.
The point is that only a douchebag would set up a ceremony based on a set of deeply held beliefs that they only hold as a joke.
I think you are confusing the way in which the this couple is fighting for the rights of people to hold ceremonies in whatever way they choose with how they actually decided to held their own ceremony.
I can fight passionately for the right for people to have weddings based on a star wars theme, without having a star wars themed wedding myself.
And even if they *did* want an FSM themed wedding, I don't think it makes them douchebags. Just like I don't think my Christian friends who have Christian weddings (e.g. ones where the pastor actually says that only unions blessed by Christ are legitimate) are douchebags.
The car dealership in this story is being held responsible because there was a contract (verbal or paper, it doesn't matter) that stated they would take care of the decals, and they did not do that.
Ok so lets assume there was a contract. Does this contract define what the consequences are for breach of the contract? Does it specify what is to occur if the decals show up in an Isis video?
Normally when you want to invoke breach of contract (which clearly occurred in this case), you simply arrive at the terms of what the contract prescribes in the event of a breach. Does the contract define a $1M award in the event of a breach, or unlimited compensation for any potential damages?
How much money do you think the car dealer should have to pay if due to decals not being removed, a teenager almost got in a potentially fatal car accident (e.g. life was put at risk but without any actual harm)?
The point of a marriage ceremony is that it's a celebration of two people who love each other.
ok...
If you're using it to act shitty to people who aren't doing anything bad to you, you're doing it wrong.
How is having more freedom to have whoever you want be your wedding officiant being shitty to other people?
And no, religious people aren't harassing athiests on their wedding day.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone make this claim. And I know I certainly didn't
Highlighting the absurdity of a system where religions are granted privileges that non-religions aren't, is not the same as being shitty to religious people during your actual wedding ceremony.
Just like how gay people getting married is not equivalent to being shitty to straight people.
Slashdot Mirror
I actually think Obamacare has done more good than harm, and I initially opposed it for a variety of reasons. That said, I don't see any necessary contradictions in being opposed to democrat sponsored reforms and buying drugs from Mexico.
It's not as if the only 2 possibilities are "support healthcare the way democrats want to do it" and "believe 100% in the system as it exists (i.e. buying medication in the US)"
I actually think one of the biggest problems in American politics is polarization. There is this assumption that you are either for A and against B or for B and against A. The idea of holding a nuanced position is unheard of. Politicians have simple positions because having a complex one means being attacked from 2/2 sides instead of just 1/2.
Furthermore, even if your parents are actually 1 dimensional conservative caricatures, ignoring big (Obama administration) government regulations that create an artificial monopoly (i.e. non free market) for American Pharmaceutical corporations seems like a right wing position.
It turns out that there are a few brands of radical conservatism that are occasionally at odds with one another. In this case it's being pro-free market vs. jingoism. But it actually gets more complicated, because classical liberalism actually embraced the free market. Then modern liberalism sort of abandoned the free market, and classical liberals got renamed to libertarians. And more recently republicans co-opted the libertarian label leaving people formerly labelled libertarians currently without a label.
But now through polarized lenses we boil that down to: Liberals support regulation of a greedy capitalist system that can not possible regulate itself, while conservatives believe all regulations on the market are socialist job killers.
I was being sarcastic.
Wow. That sounds liek a great deal. Maybe the landlord should not renew the rental lease and just turn it into a permanent airbnb rental and make more money.
I don;t think hotels are subject to rent control for the rates they charge customers are they?
In it doesn't stop with airbnb. There are annoyances just from having neighbors that invite over people I don't like, or in many cases I just don't like the neighbors themselves. I think a simple solution would be to stop people I don;t like from living near me.
I like this idea of a law prohibiting guests for more than 2 days, but I'd like to see it reduced to 1 or even 0, and also have it apply to the owners of properties as well.
Laws which permit X but not if it is in exchange for money are always a bit hard to manage. It's not always easy to prove a quid pro quo arrangement. Obviously in the case of airbnb it's pretty clear, but what about couch surfing? What about letting people you don't know stay at your place you are renting when you are on vacation? What if you let people stay in your apartment in exchange for food or use of a car?
Sounds like a good reason to have a higher deposit
Surely there is just some extra amount you can pay the insurance company to cover damage in the event of subletting. Just pass that cost onto your lessee if they want to sub-lease.
Look at it like a rental auto. You can not let any of your friends drive your rental, even if the rental agency is getting a "cut".
That's for insurance purposes. They allow you to add whoever you want as an authorized driver, you just might have to pay more.
Landlords do not get to prevent "strangers" from staying in their property. I can invite over whoever I want to stay in a place I am renting, nor do I have to even be there at the same time. It is only when it is for money that it counts as subleasing, and lease contracts will either specifically allow or disallow them. I have never seen a lease that stipulated that guests are prohibited or require approval by the landlord.
The landlord is guilty of crimes are committed on his property by a sub-lessee. It's the law.
Or even if it isn't wartime... The lessee subleases the apartment to human trafficer. Without his knowledge, the landlord is now the owner of a child sex slave facility. Still no problem?
If landlords want a portion of the airbnb income, then renters should not have to pay rent for the time that they are out of town or at work, etc.
That's not necessarily true. The market value for a place to stay can fluctuate for all sorts of reasons. Look at how hotel rates fluctuate between weekdays and weekends, by season, and if there is some kind of special event happening nearby.
Furthermore there is a lot of cost associated in renting out a place for the short term. This is why staying in a hotel for a couple nights is more expensive over time than renting an apartment. The hotel needs to clean the room before every new guest arrives, etc.
I suspect you might have a hard time getting your landlord to clean your apartment before each of your airbnb guests arrive.
Not to mention that a lot of work goes into scheduling customers. Hotels don't get paid for the times that their rooms are empty, but a landlord still gets paid when you go on a vacation and your apartment is unoccupied.
It's property that you've entered into a contract to acquire the right to occupy and use in exchange money. What seems reasonable is simply having the contract spell out what is and is not allowed so both parties can make an informed decision about whether they want to agree to the contract.
I was just thinking in general. I do agree with your point about screen time being significant. I think a lot of those characters might very well be much more annoying if they were major characters that we see throughout the whole film.
I'm not trying to debate you. It's obviously subjective, to the point that you don't need to prefix "Jar Jar Binks is the worst" with "I think", because it's implied. I am just curious who you think is a worse character than Jar Jar Binks. Maybe it will be someone I agree is worse, but just didn't remember.
If the point is that they are in favor of the option of "wedding by arbitrary friend," why isn't that what they're advocating for?
They are advocating for the *special* privileges of the clergy to be removed. This doesn't mean banning clergy to be wedding officiants, it means making these privileges non-special (i.e. everyone has them including your friends).
It's because wedding by arbitrary friend isn't what they're looking for. (Also, that option is already available to them.) They're looking for publicity for their shitty protest movement.
It *is* one thing they are looking for, it is not *the only* thing they are looking for. In addition to no wanting this for their own wedding, they also want for others to have this right as well. The protest movement is the mechanism of trying to secure those rights.
Plus think about it. You can design a religious wedding ceremony in a way that's respectful of guests who are a different religion than the couple.
I have been to many Christian weddings where things are said that are terribly offensive to non-Christians. With all the things that the bride and groom need to worry about, I don't think "making sure none of your many guests with diverse opinions are ever offended" should be added to the list.
You can also design an atheist wedding ceremony to be respectful of non-athiest guests.
Or you could just design the wedding you actually want.
Do you really think that the couple who went out of their way to get FSM declared a religion for marriage license purposes is going to be respectful of guests who are religious? Because that would be out of character for FSM types.
Yes. I realize you think that anyone who is associated with FSM must be a complete asshole, but it's just not true. Many of these people no doubt have family and friends who are religious, and as shicking as this may be to you, it is possible for people of different religions and people of no religions to get along.
FSM is merely a religion proxy that is occasionally necessary due to the special privileges afforded to religions. And it is one that happens to poke a little fun at religion.
If you throw a party, and you're not respectful of your guests, then you're an asshole. That's the only point.
Just about every Christian wedding I have ever been to has at one point proclaimed Christianity to be the one true religion either implicitly or explicitly. I don't think these Christians are assholes. This is just a facet of the religion to which they belong and want their wedding to conform to. I might be a little annoyed, but I know these are my friends and family, and I know they are just trying to have the wedding they want to have, and I want that for them.
You have your criteria of what counts as respectful and disrespectful, and I guarantee that this criteria is subject and not shared by everyone. I would suggest that maybe things that you don't find offensive actually are quite offensive and vice versa.
Yeah I saw that family guy episode too.
I feel like I've heard about an equal amount of accusations of racism for Jar-Jar and the Asian federation guys (being very little of either). The Asian federation guys were just not nearly as annoying.
I do think the anti Jar-Jar hype is over the top, (he was annoying but I've seen worse)
I also think the Jar-Jar hype was over the top, but I actually haven't seen worse. I think he was actually the worst character I've ever seen. He is not by far the worst. He is just the worst. Something has to be worst, even if nothing was ever bad.
Who is a worse character than Jar-Jar Binks? I'm open to having my mind changed.
So by your rating scale:
New Hope: Great
Empire *and* prequels: OK
Jedi: Terrible
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is like saying: "Pizza is great. I don't really like Chinese Food, it's just OK. I also don't like to eat human feces, it's also just OK. Hamburgers are terrible."
Shouldn't you be drinking beer in a parking lot before a football game?
You are insane.
I'm 100% against the state regulating who is allowed to officiate a marriage.
Me too
Some dickhead Pastafanarian got the New Zealand government to let Pastafanarian "clergy" officiate weddings.
Why is that a problem? What's the difference between a Pastafarian "clergy" officiate your wedding and having your friend officiate your wedding?
Those guys aren't a religion, they're a protest movement. (Here's how you can tell: They don't actually believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.)
Yes that's true. And the point they are making is that there is no way to objectively differentiate a "real" religion from a fake one, because they are all fake. And yes it's true that Pastafarians don't really believe in the FSM, but you actually don't know how many religious people actually believe in their religion either. There are no doubt many people who are "religious" only for the community aspect of their religion, and don't actually believe in the nonsense.
Since they could have had an atheist wedding before, it looks like the thing they're protesting for is to prevent clergy from officiating weddings at all. Which makes no sense at all.
I am not familiar enough with NZ law to know if they could have had anyone they wanted officiate their wedding without restriction. But I am certain that they are not protesting to prevent clergy from officiating weddings, because it makes no sense.
What is undoubtedly being protested is the undeserved status that clergy have in officiating weddings. They are not trying to prevent clergy from protesting weddings. I am sure they are merely trying to ensure clergy have equal rights to everyone else.
Also of note: In the US, there are pretend religions whose core beliefs are "Couples should be able to pick arbitrary friends to officiate their wedding." To that end, if you give them $10 or whatever, they will make arbitrary friends ministers in the pretend religion... And then they can officiate whatever kind of ceremony they and the couple decide to do.
I know, because that's what I did for my wedding.
Does this not exist in New Zealand?
I don't know. Maybe not.
The point is that only a douchebag would set up a ceremony based on a set of deeply held beliefs that they only hold as a joke.
I think you are confusing the way in which the this couple is fighting for the rights of people to hold ceremonies in whatever way they choose with how they actually decided to held their own ceremony.
I can fight passionately for the right for people to have weddings based on a star wars theme, without having a star wars themed wedding myself.
And even if they *did* want an FSM themed wedding, I don't think it makes them douchebags. Just like I don't think my Christian friends who have Christian weddings (e.g. ones where the pastor actually says that only unions blessed by Christ are legitimate) are douchebags.
The car dealership in this story is being held responsible because there was a contract (verbal or paper, it doesn't matter) that stated they would take care of the decals, and they did not do that.
Ok so lets assume there was a contract. Does this contract define what the consequences are for breach of the contract? Does it specify what is to occur if the decals show up in an Isis video?
Normally when you want to invoke breach of contract (which clearly occurred in this case), you simply arrive at the terms of what the contract prescribes in the event of a breach. Does the contract define a $1M award in the event of a breach, or unlimited compensation for any potential damages?
How much money do you think the car dealer should have to pay if due to decals not being removed, a teenager almost got in a potentially fatal car accident (e.g. life was put at risk but without any actual harm)?
You're missing the point there, bub
Really?!
The point of a marriage ceremony is that it's a celebration of two people who love each other.
ok...
If you're using it to act shitty to people who aren't doing anything bad to you, you're doing it wrong.
How is having more freedom to have whoever you want be your wedding officiant being shitty to other people?
And no, religious people aren't harassing athiests on their wedding day.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone make this claim. And I know I certainly didn't
Highlighting the absurdity of a system where religions are granted privileges that non-religions aren't, is not the same as being shitty to religious people during your actual wedding ceremony.
Just like how gay people getting married is not equivalent to being shitty to straight people.
I think you are the one missing the point.