Saturday, December 26, 2015

Political Correctness

I can still remember the first time I heard the term "politically correct," on a bus in Chapel Hill in 1991. It sort of stood out as a term with a lot of suppositions behind it, and I wondered if this was a phrase that people used, or did it just pop out of a lady's mouth spontaneously.

Political correctness has emerged now, two decades later, as, apparently, America's greatest enemy. To hear some tell it, political correctness is preventing honest, clear-thinking citizens from telling the truth about things.

As an aside, the one thing you can get me to argue about on the Internet is whether anybody has really told you "you can't say Merry Christmas" any more. Nobody has told you that. (And Merry Christmas to George Leventhal for his Facebook post saying the same thing.)

Let me suggest a way to understand the concept.

Some things are morally good. Kindness and love are good. Forgiveness is good. Fairness, good. Telling the truth is good, and extra points when it's hard or goes against your own self-interest. Helping people is good, being cheerful and grateful for the beauty of the world are good. These things are "right."

Some things are morally repugnant. Killing or hurting innocent people is repugnant, whether in crime, terrorism, or war. Lying for your own gain is repugnant. Insulting people needlessly is morally repugnant. Cheating and greed. Keeping another person from obtaining something they need is morally repugnant. Vanity, egoism, unwillingness to take another person's perspective. These things are "wrong."

The ability to tell right from wrong is considered a fundamental criterion of mental ability, it is the question that determines whether a person is competent to stand trial, for instance. Granted, there is usually no straight shining line. All situations in the real world contain some ambiguity, where maybe you have to violate a principle in order to support another one. It's Christmastime, I will go out on a limb and say that peace on earth and goodwill to men are good things. War and conflict and mistrust, greed, violence get you a lump of coal.

So here is the thing with political correctness: some people do not approve when you say things that are morally repugnant.

There is a little bit of social pressure being applied, I understand, it is a little uncomfortable when people look at you as if you are a jerk. When you say something about a group of people, for instance, implying that all Muslims are terrorists or that Mexican immigrants are rapists, even if you can't see people's faces you know in your heart that they are thinking you are a jerk. You can sense that they are judging you, and that is one of the innate social mechanisms that keeps a society orderly and healthy. We strive to be evaluated positively and feel discomfort when we fail at that.

Normally, we call this feeling "conscience." Your conscience is your sense of whether what you are doing is morally good or repugnant. Political correctness is your conscience speaking.

Why is this "political?" Huh, good question. Politics is the art of getting people to vote for you, and people don't feel comfortable voting for a jerk. If you say you are going to enact policies that make life harder for poor people and easier for the rich, if you say ignorant prejudicial things about foreigners and women and gay people and declare war on random foreign countries, then at some point your unkindness, your unfairness, your moral repugnance might cost you votes. And if you don't win the election you have nothing, as a politician. So in that sense morally repugnant statements are politically incorrect.

The word "correct" in the term is ironic or sarcastic, it is there to deflate the repulsiveness of ugly statements by implying that some group is claiming the authority to define how "we" should think. Thus a statement may be correct in the sense that all Muslims really are terrorists, but politically incorrect because some people have decided you should not say that, maybe because it would hurt a Muslim person's feelings. The implication is that the people who have decided this, for instance people who believe most Muslims are honest people who want to take care of their families and live in peace, are laboring under some sort of delusion, and are manipulating "our" beliefs to serve their own misinformed agenda.

It gets a little more complicated than that: morally repugnant people feel vindicated by numbers. Hate thrives once it infects a majority. It is as if, for some people, right and wrong are a popularity contest, and the fact that a lot of people believe something makes it good. Hatred and other forms of moral repugnance find justification in the agreement of others, and this can be an accelerating process, as a greater majority is able to influence even more people.

We now have leaders of a major political party who assert that their morally repugnant statements are simply truths that some weak people don't want to face. Their rallies are getting raucous, and common sense is getting drowned out. The morally repugnant mob is arming itself, organizing political campaigns, their opinions are being adopted by the press, what was "frankly unthinkable a year ago" is now mainstream.

293 Comments:

Anonymous trans-brilliant said...

Relevant topic. Some good points. Potential marred by bias. Will detail after game

December 26, 2015 7:17 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt, a person as deeply biased as yourself has no concept of reality.

December 26, 2015 8:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Now watch Wyatt/bad anonymous the troll spew a bunch of hate and insults and then claim he's not a troll.

As Wyatt has said, its the nature of trolls like him to accuse others of being trolls.

Research shows internet trolls like Wyatt/bad anonymous are sadists

December 26, 2015 8:06 PM  
Anonymous everything is beautiful said...

the last two comments were common troll behavior

looking to elicit some type of response by insulting

sad...

btw, tonight, the Washington Redskins, exhibit A in the nuttiness of political correctness clinched a playoff berth

this team was named to honor the heritage of native Americans

there is no derogatory purpose and the heritage was not defamed or, in any way, disrespected

the team's fight song was written by a native American

high schools with majority native Americans have chosen the same nickname for their schools' athletic teams

polls show native Americans have no problem with the name

the billionaire owner of the team has committed to assisting native American groups in any way he can

many other groups have their ancestors with distinctive cultures so honored:

the Minnesota Vikings don't seem to bother Norwegian-Americans

and yet, the Political Correctness League of America was running out of projects so now we have a controversy

anyway, will try and unravel the bias in Jim's generally excellent post tonight

got to get to church this morning and we're having a beautiful Indian Winter day in the 70s, good for a hike down to the falls this afternoon

Merry Christmas, all!!

December 27, 2015 8:01 AM  
Anonymous factually correct said...

hey kids, I think you missed the passing, on Christmas Day, of Robert Spitzer

Spitzer, you may remember, was in charge of revising the APA's DSM in 1973

despite the fact that most professionals at the time believed homosexuality was a mental disorder, Spitzer allowed himself to be bullied by gay terrorists in to removing it from the DSM

later in the 21st century, when it had become politically incorrect for anyone in psychology to question any aspect of the gay agenda, he tried to show some integrity by reviewing the case of 200 ex-gays and determining that most had achieved a significant change in their pattern of sexual attraction through various reparative therapies

a few years later, he once again was bullied by gay activists into recanting his study, giving as his reason not any empirical logic but that he disagreed with right-wing social causes

a case study in political correctness, a phenomenom where political and social considerations trump facts

he was 83 when he died last Friday

December 28, 2015 8:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a nice fictional rewriting of the history of Dr. Robert Spitzer.

Nobody bullied Dr. Spitzer into anything, not when he decided homosexuality was not a disease, unless it is unwanted:

"...After a clash at a 1972 meeting of behavioral therapists in New York, Dr. Spitzer decided to hear the protesters out. Personally, he believed then that homosexuality was an illness, he later told public radio’s “This American Life.” But forever the devil’s advocate, he organized a panel for both sides to air their arguments at the 1973 APA conference in Honolulu.

There, an activist brought Dr. Spitzer to a secret tiki-bar gathering of closeted gay psychiatrists. Many had prestigious credentials, which convinced Dr. Spitzer that homosexuality was not some crippling condition.

Ultimately, Dr. Spitzer’s was the loudest voice arguing to drop homosexuality from the DSM. When old-guard psychiatrists pushed back, Dr. Spitzer appealed with logic.

“A medical disorder,” he explained to The Washington Post at the time, “either had to be associated with subjective distress — pain — or general impairment in social function.” If gays were happy being gay, then where was the disorder? But he offered a deft compromise: In subsequent printings of the DSM-II, homosexuality was replaced with “ego-dystonic homosexuality,” the condition of gays or lesbians unhappy with their orientation...."


And

"...Dr. Spitzer liked to provoke, and that may have shortened his reign at the top of his field. He sparred with old-line Freudians when he banned their cherished word “neurosis” — Dr. Spitzer, fixated on tangible symptoms, had no patience for the mysteries of unconscious conflict. He enraged feminists when he tried to classify PMS as a mental illness.

And he nearly undermined his social-justice legacy when, late in his career, he championed therapies to “cure” homosexuals. His 2001 study on the topic was pilloried by colleagues and gay rights activists alike for shoddy methodology, and in 2012, he retracted it.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a scientist write a letter saying that the data were all there but were totally misinterpreted,” he told the New York Times that year. “Who admitted that and who apologized to his readers...”
"

What was shoddy about Dr. Spitzer's 2001 methodology? He allowed gays who became ex-gay therapists to "self-report" on their supposed change in sexual orientation, while at the same time selling what they knew was ineffective treatment, since they themselves knew they were still gay.

< wink wink >

Don't believe it? Go ask Alan Chambers.

Christianity Today reported: Alan Chambers Apologizes to Gay Community, Exodus International to Shut Down

Rest in Peace Dr. Spitzer.

December 28, 2015 9:00 AM  
Anonymous Alan Chambers apology.... said...

"....Please know that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn't change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. I am sorry that there were times I didn't stand up to people publicly "on my side" who called you names like sodomite—or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him that I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry that I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine.

More than anything, I am sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection by Christians as God's rejection. I am profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith and that some have chosen to end their lives. For the rest of my life I will proclaim nothing but the whole truth of the Gospel, one of grace, mercy and open invitation to all to enter into an inseverable relationship with almighty God.

I cannot apologize for my deeply held biblical beliefs about the boundaries I see in scripture surrounding sex, but I will exercise my beliefs with great care and respect for those who do not share them. I cannot apologize for my beliefs about marriage. But I do not have any desire to fight you on your beliefs or the rights that you seek. My beliefs about these things will never again interfere with God's command to love my neighbor as I love myself..."


TTF's anonymous troll might want to try to attain that part: "love your neighbor as you love yourself."

Brimming with hatred isn't healthy for anyone.

December 28, 2015 9:25 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

There was never any rationale for including gayness in the DSM. Research done starting in the 1950's showed that gays were indistinguishable from heterosexuals on common measures of mental health and so in 1973 there was no argument for keeping gayness in the DSM.

The idea that Spitzer was bullied into retracting his "exgay" study is laughable. He held firm on his study through withering criticism for several years and long after the criticism had died down he finally decided to retract it. Obviously "bullying" had nothing to do with him recanting his flawed work.

The bigots "logic" is that gayness should be put back in the DSM because it was once there. Unfortunately for them they can never come up with any justification for putting gayness back in the DSM.

December 28, 2015 11:02 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Tonight, the Washington Redskins, exhibit A in the nuttiness of political correctness clinched a playoff berth this team was named to honor the heritage of native Americans there is no derogatory purpose and the heritage was not defamed or, in any way, disrespected the team's fight song was written by a native American high schools with majority native Americans have chosen the same nickname for their schools' athletic teams polls show native Americans have no problem with the name".

The teams fight song was NOT written by a native american, it was written by Corinne Griffin, the wife of George Preston Marshall, the team's founder.

Native Americans have long opposed the usage of the racist slur "Redskins" and consider it derogatory. The name was especially associated with bounties on native americans. The poll of alleged native americans had serious problems with it. Indian activist Suzan Shown Harjo, who has filed a lawsuit seeking to strip the “Redskins” trademark from the football team, said the poll neglected to ask some crucial questions.

“Are you a tribal person? What is your nation? What is your tribe? Would you say you are culturally or socially or politically native?” Harjo asked. Those without such connections cannot represent native opinions, she said.

Indian support for the name “is really a classic case of internalized oppression,” Harjo said. “People taking on what has been said about them, how they have been described, to such an extent that they don’t even notice.”

December 28, 2015 11:53 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Harjo declines to estimate what percentage of native people oppose the name. But she notes that the many organizations supporting her lawsuit include the Cherokee, Comanche, Oneida and Seminole tribes, as well as the National Congress of American Indians, the largest intertribal organization, which represents more than 250 groups with a combined enrollment of 1.2 million.

“The ‘Redskins’ trademark is disparaging to Native Americans and perpetuates a centuries-old stereotype of Native Americans as ‘blood-thirsty savages,’ ‘noble warriors’ and an ethnic group ‘frozen in history,'” the National Congress said in a brief filed in the lawsuit.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary says the term is “very offensive and should be avoided.” But like another infamous racial epithet, the N-word, it has been redefined by some native people as a term of familiarity or endearment, often in abbreviated form, according to Meland, the Indian professor. “Of course, it is one thing for one ‘skin to call another ‘skin a ‘skin, but it has entirely different meaning when a non-Indian uses it,” Meland said.

You never put racism up to a popular vote, because racism will win every time. It's not up to the offending class to say what offends the offended. Even if it were true that the majority of native americans weren't offended by the name, in a truly decent society what hurts a few should be avoided by all.


Wyatt/bad anonymous said "the billionaire owner of the team has committed to assisting native American groups in any way he can many other groups have their ancestors with distinctive cultures so honored: the Minnesota Vikings don't seem to bother Norwegian-Americans".

If the team owner was so committed to assisting native Americans he'd change the teams name and stop insulting them. Vikings refer to themselves as Vikings and don't take the name as a slur so there is no equivalence.

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "anyway, will try and unravel the bias in Jim's generally excellent post tonight.".

You will fail if you try because there's no bias to unravel. Bigots can never win a rational and honest argument. That's why people like you resort to lies and insults on a regular basis.

December 28, 2015 11:54 AM  
Anonymous Stay tuned, December is almost finished... said...

November was Earth’s warmest such month on record by a huge margin

"Last month was the warmest November on record by an incredible margin, according to NASA measurements. The global average temperature for the month was 1.05 degrees Celsius, or about 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than the 1951 to 1980 average. It’s also the second month in a row that Earth’s temperature exceeded 1 degree Celsius above average.

It was just in October that our planet first exceeded the 1-degree benchmark in NASA’s records, dating to 1880. Prior to that, the largest anomaly was 0.97 degrees Celsius in January 2007...

We have known that 2015 is all but certain to be the warmest year on record, though we did not know by how much it would be. Given the November report, 2015 will eclipse last year as the warmest year on record by a huge margin.

The Japan Meteorological Agency, which tracks the increasing global temperature, also concluded that last month was the warmest November on record since 1890, relative to the period from 1981 to 2010.

El Niño played a large role in November’s — and the year’s — exceptional warmth. El Niño is an event marked by abnormally warm ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. The extent of the warm water is huge this year, stretching from the west coast of South America to past the international dateline, which divides the Pacific Ocean. As of November, temperatures in parts of this vast region were running as much as 4 degrees Celsius, or about 7 degrees Fahrenheit, above normal.

But the Pacific Ocean wasn’t the warmest region of the globe in November — much of the warmth measured by NASA emanated from the Arctic, where temperatures were running anywhere from 4 to 10 degrees Celsius (7 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit) above average."

December 28, 2015 5:06 PM  
Anonymous illogic unveiled said...

"What a nice fictional rewriting of the history of Dr. Robert Spitzer"

odd comment to make when you then cut and paste a blatantly disingenuous Washington Post obituary

"Nobody bullied Dr. Spitzer into anything, not when he decided homosexuality was not a disease, unless it is unwanted:"

yes, they did

as anyone can clearly see by reading your paste

""...After a clash at a 1972 meeting of behavioral therapists in New York, Dr. Spitzer decided to hear the protesters out. Personally, he believed then that homosexuality was an illness, he later told public radio’s “This American Life.” But forever the devil’s advocate, he organized a panel for both sides to air their arguments at the 1973 APA conference in Honolulu"

a "clash",huh?

the protesters smashed exhibits, shouted down speakers, disrupted meetings

it's how bullying is done at professional meetings and Spitzer reacted by giving in

"There, an activist brought Dr. Spitzer to a secret tiki-bar gathering of closeted gay psychiatrists. Many had prestigious credentials, which convinced Dr. Spitzer that homosexuality was not some crippling condition"

here's where you can see the logic of this account collapsing

an intelligent man like Spitzer wouldn't assume someone with "prestigious credentials" couldn't have a mental illness

as for "some crippling condition", Stephen Hawking has "prestigious credentials"

does that mean ALS isn't a disease

absurd

"Ultimately, Dr. Spitzer’s was the loudest voice arguing to drop homosexuality from the DSM. When old-guard psychiatrists pushed back,"

it wasn't "old-guard" anything

it was the majority of professionals

"Dr. Spitzer appealed with logic"

really? let's look at this "logic"

"“A medical disorder,” he explained to The Washington Post at the time, “either had to be associated with subjective distress — pain — or general impairment in social function.” If gays were happy being gay, then where was the disorder?""

this is either taken out of context or a misquote

no trained professional would say you can't have a disease if you are happy and pain-free

homosexuality impairs one's ability to reproduce, which is a normal human function

it is, thus, a disease

December 29, 2015 8:25 AM  
Anonymous illogic unveiled said...

""...Dr. Spitzer liked to provoke, and that may have shortened his reign at the top of his field. He sparred with old-line Freudians when he banned their cherished word “neurosis”. He enraged feminists when he tried to classify PMS as a mental illness""

Freudians and feminists should have tried bullying

he'd probably have given in

"And he nearly undermined his social-justice legacy when, late in his career, he championed therapies to “cure” homosexuals. His 2001 study on the topic was pilloried by colleagues and gay rights activists alike for shoddy methodology"

at the time, gay activists were claiming that no one could find even one example of an ex-gay

no sophisticated methodology was required to disprove this

Spitzer examined 200 such cases

"What was shoddy about Dr. Spitzer's 2001 methodology? He allowed gays who became ex-gay therapists to "self-report" on their supposed change in sexual orientation,"

all studies of sexuality rely on self-reporting

"while at the same time selling what they knew was ineffective treatment, since they themselves knew they were still gay"

this is an unsubstantiated assertion

"Don't believe it? Go ask Alan Chambers"

was he one of the 200?

in the quote you posted he:

1. didn't say no one wasn't helped by reparative therapy, only "some"

2. said he continued to believe that homosexuality is outside of scriptural boundaries

3. still believes same gender marriage is unbiblical

"TTF's anonymous troll might want to try to attain that part: "love your neighbor as you love yourself."

Brimming with hatred isn't healthy for anyone"

so, if someone disagrees with a TTFer, that's hatred

but if a TTFer disagrees with someone it's not

nice egocentric world you've created for yourself

you might say your head's buried in the sand

fact:

homosexuality is a disease because it impairs the ability to reproduce, a normal human function

fact:

whether or not a condition is curable is irrelevant to whether the condition is a disease

fact:

anonymous didn't say anything shocking or insult anyone or seek any response other than agreement in this discussion so your characterization of "troll" is spurious

December 29, 2015 8:25 AM  
Anonymous the glimmer twins said...

"Last month was the warmest November on record by an incredible margin, according to NASA measurements"

after 17 years, finally a warm season

what a relief!!

the alarmists were beginning to get suicidal

at last there is a glimmer of hope that their dream of global climate catastrophe might be true

a glimmer is better than nothing

December 29, 2015 8:33 AM  
Anonymous self-evidently brilliant said...

"There was never any rationale for including gayness in the DSM. Research done starting in the 1950's showed that gays were indistinguishable from heterosexuals on common measures of mental health and so in 1973 there was no argument for keeping gayness in the DSM.

The bigots "logic" is that gayness should be put back in the DSM because it was once there. Unfortunately for them they can never come up with any justification for putting gayness back in the DSM."

homosexuality is a mental illness that impairs, at different degrees for different sufferers, the ability to reproduce without artificial assistance

thus, it belongs in the DSM

btw, the use of the term "bigots" to refer to those who hold this rational and self-evident idea is an example of trollery

December 29, 2015 8:41 AM  
Blogger Robert Rigby said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

December 29, 2015 9:01 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "anonymous didn't say anything shocking or insult anyone or seek any response other than agreement in this discussion so your characterization of "troll" is spurious".

You have a long and sordid history of insulting people and lying to provoke others. Most recently you've repeatedly claimed my husband and I have been lobotomized. Your repeated statments that gays are mentally ill is an insult intended to provoke. In the past you've made statements such as "In the United states you can be executed for any trivial reason, in Iran you have to do something serious to be executed like be a homosexual". You are the epitome of a troll. Instead of denying the obvious, acknowledge and apologize for your past trolling, stop insulting people and lying and after a long time people can begin to believe you've stopped being a troll.


Wyatt/bad anonymous said "an intelligent man like Spitzer wouldn't assume someone with "prestigious credentials" couldn't have a mental illness".

False. The point was that a person with prestigious credentials in the field of mental health proves he wasn't mentally ill - the two are mutually incompatible. These are Spitzers own words, your assertion about what he would or wouldn't assume is obviously false.

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "as for "some crippling condition", Stephen Hawking has "prestigious credentials" does that mean ALS isn't a disease".

ALS is a disease because it is is a general impairment in function, gayness is not a general impairment in function and so is not a disease. If you were asserting that ALS is a mental illness in the same way you are asserting gayness is Hawkings impressive credentials would prove he is not suffering from a mental illness.


"What was shoddy about Dr. Spitzer's 2001 methodology? He allowed gays who became ex-gay therapists to "self-report" on their supposed change in sexual orientation,"

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "all studies of sexuality rely on self-reporting".

False. Penile plethysmographs and no lie MRIs are used to provide an objective confirmation of claims. Not surprisingly no "exgays" claiming to have changed were willing to put their claims to these objective tests. Because they were lying.

"while at the same time selling what they knew was ineffective treatment, since they themselves knew they were still gay"

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "this is an unsubstantiated assertion".

The unsubstantiated assertion was that they had changed from gay to straight. The onus is on the person making the extraordinary claim to prove it, not on the skeptic to disprove it.

“A medical disorder,” Spitzer explained to The Washington Post at the time, “either had to be associated with subjective distress — pain — or general impairment in social function.” If gays were happy being gay, then where was the disorder?"

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "homosexuality is a mental illness that impairs, at different degrees for different sufferers, the ability to reproduce without artificial assistance".


Your layman's assertions about what is or is not a mental illness are irrelevant, its the professionals like Spitzer who are qualified to make such distinctions. Gays and lesbians are well capable of reproducing if they want to. The lack of desire to reproduce has never been considered a mental illness (especially given the disasterous repercussions of ongoing overpopulation). It most certainly isn't a "general impairment in social function" and given that gays are happy being gay it is not a mental illness. Case closed.

Once again, bigots "logic" is that gayness should be included in the DSM because it was once there. There was never any justification for including it in the DMS and The bigots have no justification for putting it back in.

December 29, 2015 12:00 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"Last month was the warmest November on record by an incredible margin, according to NASA measurements"

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "after 17 years, finally a warm season".

Wyatt has nothing except this tired old lie. He tries to deceive by pointing to localized cooling (such as the eastern U.S. in the last couple of years) while ignoring rising global average temperatures.

Of course the truth is 13 of the 15 hottest years on record have happened since 2000. The odds of that happening absent human created CO2 greenhouse gases are 1 in 27 million


2014 was the hottest year on record and 2015 almost certainly will be the new hottest year on record. While there is a margin of error with measurments showing which is the hottest year, statistically speaking there is zero chance 1998 was hotter than 13 years that measured hotter since.

And as Wyatt/bad anonymous is well aware of, those are atmospheric temperatures and 90% of global warming is stored in the oceans. The total environmental heating has accelerated since 1998.

December 29, 2015 12:33 PM  
Anonymous Robert Rigby said...

[Note: this comment was accidentally deleted by admin and restored later]

When I was growing up, a complaint about "Political Correctness" was a complaint that one wasn't allowed to say the N-word without social disapproval, any more. It has a poor history as an argument.

Spitzer's committee, when it removed "homosexuality" from the DSM added "ego-dystonic homosexuality", with the implication that therapy and medical treatment could change people from gay to straight. It was no surprise then that he did his study trying to prove that. Only after he realized the true failings of the study did he disown the latter term.

Posted by Robert Rigby to Vigilance at December 29, 2015 9:01 AM

December 29, 2015 12:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

" the ability to reproduce without artificial assistance"

Sterility impairs the ability to reproduce without artificial assistance and yet you apparently have no problem with sterile people marrying and engaging in non-productive sexual behaviors.

Or do you?

Pat Buchanan and his wife who have been married since 1971 have produced exactly zero offspring.

Justice Thomas adopted his nephew's son when his nephew ended up in prison and his greatnephew's mother was having trouble of her own.

Chief Justice Roberts and his wife married late in life, chose adoption over fertility treatments because such treatments are at odds with their faith, and look at how much respect one of your fellow anti-gay activists, a big muckety muck attorney no less, gave them for their life choices:

Top Anti-Gay Attorney Insults Chief Justice Roberts And Justice Thomas’ Decisions To Adopt Children

"...According to John Eastman, a law professor and chair of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, Roberts and Thomas’ adopted children are only growing up in the “second-best” environment:

“...You’re looking at what is the best course society wide to get you the optimal result in the widest variety of cases. That often is not open to people in individual cases. Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts’ family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option,” said John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage. Eastman also teaches law at Chapman University law school in Orange, Calif."

December 29, 2015 12:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt goes on and on (falsely) about how gays not procreating is a mental illness. For someone who doesn't have children himself the hypocrisy is sooo over the top.

December 29, 2015 1:21 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

By Wyatt/bad anonymous's own "logic" he's defined himself as mentally ill.

December 29, 2015 1:32 PM  
Anonymous watcher said...

evil incarnate

the government now thinks it can force people to use the livelihood to participate in homosexual "marriages" and bankrupt any who don't comply

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/29/oregon-bakery-owners-pay-more-than-135g-in-damages-over-refusal-to-make-cake-for-gay-wedding.html

our society is nearing a melt-down because gays refuse to live and let live

as the gay agenda takes each new step toward a totalitarian state, they swear that what rational people forsee will never occur

and it always comes to pass

eventually, freedom will be restored but the road to get there is looking scarier and scarier

December 30, 2015 11:53 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Give it up Wyatt, that handful of business owners all CHOSE to pay fines or close shop rather than serve those icky gays.

It is not the gays who refuse to live and let live, its bigoted business owners who insist on letting gay customers know they think they are disgusting and evil.

There's only 3 or 4 businesses out of the millions in the states that have chosen to close shop rather than serve gays, that couldn't be farther from a societal "melt-down" - enough with the crocodile tears already.

If you open a business to serve the public you are morally obligated to serve ALL of the public. You don't want to serve the icky gays then get yourself a job where you don't have to - its a free country.

These business owners complaint isn't that they themselves are forced to engage in sex they find objectionable or to enter a same sex marriage, its that they disapprove of others doing so. As such the interference with the right to act on their beliefs is trivial or insubstantial in that it is an interference that does not threaten actual religious beliefs or conduct.

There shouldn't be special rights for christians to disobey laws that everyone else has to follow.

December 30, 2015 12:15 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

And the fine wasn't only for discriminating against the lesbian couple, it was for publicly displaying their home address and phone number resulting in them being subjected to horrendous harrasment and death threats.

December 30, 2015 12:17 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Not to mention that bigots across the States sent them somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 dollars so they actually made out like bandits for their discrimination.

The right wing conservatives will never admit that if its okay for business owners to refuse to serve gays its okay for them to refuse to serve blacks, jews, or mixed race couples.

By Wyatt/bad anonymous's logic black people are evil incarnate for expecting business owners to serve them.

Another example of Wyatt/bad anonymous being a troll - calling gays "evil incarnate" for wanting the same rights christians have.

No special rights for christians!

December 30, 2015 12:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congratulations for finally admitting you read FOX News!

Even FOX got it partially right, but you'd have to read all the way to the very bottom of the FOX News piece, where FOX sometimes hides a kernel or two of truth.

For those who missed it, here is the last paragraph of http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/29/oregon-bakery-owners-pay-more-than-135g-in-damages-over-refusal-to-make-cake-for-gay-wedding.html:

"....A 2007 Oregon law protects the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people in employment, housing and public accommodations. The state ruled it also bars private businesses from discriminating against potential customers.

Keep reading and watching FOX all you want but remember:

STUDY: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All

December 30, 2015 3:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The bigot cake bakers were given $500k by other bigots so they're still $365K to the good. Most people would LOVE to be "forced" into that kind of "bankruptcy".

December 30, 2015 5:09 PM  
Anonymous "global warming has not increased since 1998" said...

Freak storm pushes North Pole 50 degrees above normal to melting point

"This story has been updated to include buoy measurements that confirm the North Pole temperature climbed above 32 degrees on Wednesday.

A powerful winter cyclone — the same storm that led to two tornado outbreaks in the United States and disastrous river flooding — has driven the North Pole to the freezing point this week, 50 degrees above average for this time of year.

From Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning, a mind-boggling pressure drop was recorded in Iceland: 54 millibars in just 18 hours. This triples the criteria for “bomb” cyclogenesis, which meteorologists use to describe a rapidly intensifying mid-latitude storm. A “bomb” cyclone is defined as dropping one millibar per hour for 24 hours.

NOAA’s Ocean Prediction Center said the storm’s minimum pressure dropped to 928 millibars around 1 a.m. Eastern time, which likely places it in the top five strongest storms on record in this region.

“According to the center’s records, the all-time strongest storm in this area occurred on Dec. 15, 1986, and that had a minimum central pressure of 900 millibars,” Mashable’s Andrew Freedman reported on Tuesday. “The second-strongest storm occurred in January 1993, with a pressure of 916 millibars.”

As this storm churns north, it’s forcing warm air into the Arctic Circle. Over the North Sea, sustained winds from the south are blasting at 70 mph, and gusting to well above 100 mph, drawing heat from south to north...

...“Consider the average winter temperature there is around 20 degrees below zero,” wrote the Capital Weather Gang’s Jason Samenow on Monday. A temperature around the freezing mark signifies a departure from normal of over 50 degrees, and close to typical mid-summer temperatures in this region..."

December 31, 2015 9:05 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt's not concerned that all the warm weather since 1998 shows global warming and all its negative consequences are happening, he's upset that it forces him to admit the people who accept that global warming is real are right.

December 31, 2015 12:38 PM  
Anonymous Happy New Year said...

"...As I heard Bernie Sanders crying out to the religious leaders at Liberty University, in his hoarse voice, with his wild hair – this Jew – and he proclaimed justice over us, he called us to account, for being complicit with those who are wealthy and those who are powerful, and for abandoning the poor, the least of these, who Jesus said he had come to bring good news to. And in that moment something occurred to me. As I saw Bernie Sanders up there, as I watched him, I realized Bernie Sanders for president is good news for the poor. Bernie Sanders for president is Good News for the poor. Bernie Sanders is gospel for the poor. And Jesus said "I have come to bring gospel" – good news – "to the poor."

And lightning hit my heart at that moment. And I realized that we are evangelical Christians. We believe the Bible. We believe in Jesus. We absolutely shun those who would attempt to find nuance and twisted and tortured interpretations of scripture that they would use to master all other broader interpretations, to find some kind of big message that they want to flout. We absolutely scorn such things, and yet somehow we commit to the mental gymnastics necessary that allows us to abandon the least of these, to abandon the poor, to abandon the immigrants, to abandon those who are in prison.

I listened to Bernie Sanders as he said he wanted to welcome the immigrants and give them dignity, as he said he wanted to care for the sick children and mothers and fathers who do not have health care, as he said he wanted to decrease the amount of human beings who are corralled like cattle in the prisons, as he said he wanted to do justice for those who have nothing and live homeless. And I remembered the words of Jesus who warned his disciples that there will be judgement, and on that day he will look to his friends, and he will say "Blessed are you for you cared for me, for I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was in prison and you came to visit me, I was homeless and you gave me shelter." And his disciples said, "When did we do any of those things for you?" And he said, "If you have done it for the least of these, you have done it for me."

Those words echoed in my heart as I listened to that crazy, hoarse-voiced, wild-haired Jew standing in front of the religous leaders of the Evangelical Movement, calling us to account, as a Jew once did before, telling us that he intends to care for the least of these, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to care for the sick, to set the prisoners free.

I wouldn't be much of a Christian if I didn't stand on the side of gospel for the poor, because, the last time I checked, that's where my master Jesus stood, and I'll stand with Him. And, for now, that means I stand with Bernie Sanders..."

Jm, a Liberty University Alumnus

December 31, 2015 3:34 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "the alarmists were beginning to get suicidal at last there is a glimmer of hope that their dream of global climate catastrophe might be true".

Accusing people who accept the reality of global warming of wanting it to happen, more standard troll behavior from the epitome of a troll - no interest in rational discussion, he's just hear to antagonize people who accept science.

December 31, 2015 4:13 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

THE CONSERVATIVE RETREAT ON GLOBAL WARMING HAS AT LAST BEGUN

After close to three decades of ignoring and/or actively subverting climate science, conservatives have finally been forced to acknowledge the face-lashing climate facts that are now afflicting the planet. The accumulating evidence of melting glaciers, drought, record wildfires, rising oceans and devastating flooding, has finally dislodged the permafrost position conservatives have clung to on climate science.

It is the watershed moment of retreat on this issue, which has seen an ever-quickening tap dance of clever positions, from ‘there isn’t any evidence’, to ‘climate change will be a good thing’, to ‘scientists are all corrupt and actively perpetrating a worldwide conspiracy’.

But let’s ‘pause’ and take special note of the crucial point the article concedes. “First, we should acknowledge the science as we know it today. Greenhouse gases absorb and redirect longer-wavelength radiation, but not shorter-wavelength radiation. When radiation from the sun hits the earth, some of it is absorbed by the land and the sea, which are consequently warmed by the energy. As a result, when the earth re-emits the sun’s radiation in the form of heat, it is disproportionately of the lower-energy, longer-wavelength sort that the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) foremost among them, trap or send back to earth. Thus, more carbon-dioxide emissions lead to a hotter planet.” Well what do you know? And guess what? THIS WAS ALL KNOWN 30 YEARS AGO. Nice for people to just acknowledge it now.

The next move of the obstructionists is the obvious one, to try to bog the discussion down in a morass of policy detail and diversion, and the linked article is a perfect example of what to expect. Read through all the handwaving and the bottom line is clear: No carbon tax. Which of course has been the bottom line on this subject from the beginning.

December 31, 2015 5:03 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

And what is offered as an alternative? Get ready to laugh until you cry, because here it is: “…our best option might be to adapt to a slightly warmer world. Trees and reflective paint are proven to cool urban areas substantially. There are likely other adaptations to be made.”

One of the most glaring errors in the article is the claim that fracking for natural gas has been a boon to reducing greenhouse gas production. The authors mention that burning natural gas produces half the carbon dioxide of coal but neglect to mention that fracking produces high levels of methane which is traps 25 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. At best the authors of the conservative article are unforgivably ignorant, at worst they are intentionally deceptive. Such a fundamental mistake/lie in the article calls into question all the claims made in the article.

Of course this pathetic little whimper will not stand up long, but it may stand up long enough to put the world further into the grave we’ve been digging for ourselves.

December 31, 2015 5:03 PM  
Anonymous farm to table said...

"Accusing people who accept the reality of global warming of wanting it to happen"

this is not so much an accusation as an observation

after so much hyperbole, and the insults thrown the way of anyone with an open mind, and the wild advocacy of the oxymoronic concept of "settled science", the alarmists would be embarrassed and horrified if proven wrong

and that's just the hordes of lemmings

the actual researchers have been caught falsifying information more than once and are currently resisting subpoenas from a congressional committee requesting data and e-mail concerning the adjustments to past climate data to make it conform to the global warming scenarios

so, there's ample reason for skepticism

"After close to three decades of ignoring and/or actively subverting climate science, conservatives have finally been forced to acknowledge"

"conservatives" have always held a varied continuum of nuanced opinions

it is liberals who have cultishly held to certain fixed and invariable positions

and there's a reason for that

"the face-lashing climate facts that are now afflicting the planet. The accumulating evidence of melting glaciers, drought, record wildfires, rising oceans and devastating flooding, has finally dislodged the permafrost position conservatives have clung to on climate science"

again, with the face-lashing hyperbole

even the alarmist scientists have said that some of the things listed here are not necessarily the result of global warming

"THIS WAS ALL KNOWN 30 YEARS AGO. Nice for people to just acknowledge it now"

about thirty years ago, we were in a period of global warming

scientists were beginning to realize their predictions of a coming new ice age were wrong

the warming lasted another decade and a half before halting at a plateau

it is an attempt by alarmist researchers to rationalize away this cessation that is the study now being investigated by Congress

"The next move of the obstructionists is the obvious one, to try to bog the discussion down in a morass of policy detail and diversion, and the linked article is a perfect example of what to expect. Read through all the handwaving and the bottom line is clear: No carbon tax. Which of course has been the bottom line on this subject from the beginning"

Here we see the driver behind all the chicanery

research scientists are chasing grant dollars but the obsession from liberals is due to the excuse for a worldwide governmental manipulation of the economy

"And what is offered as an alternative?"

well, right now, the cessation of global warming allows time for study

but if global warming were to resume and if it was determined to be caused by greenhouse gases, allowing renewed nuclear energy plants and massive reforestation programs would solve the problem quickly

there is no reason for governmental regulation or taxation

"Get ready to laugh until you cry"

a common occurrence down at the funny farm

January 02, 2016 4:28 AM  
Anonymous where free speech went said...

"Those words echoed in my heart as I listened to that crazy, hoarse-voiced, wild-haired Jew standing in front of the religous leaders of the Evangelical Movement, calling us to account, as a Jew once did before, telling us that he intends to care for the least of these, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to care for the sick, to set the prisoners free.

I wouldn't be much of a Christian if I didn't stand on the side of gospel for the poor, because, the last time I checked, that's where my master Jesus stood, and I'll stand with Him. And, for now, that means I stand with Bernie Sanders..."

I've been telling you people for years that there is more open-mindedness and diversity of thought in the evangelical world than the secular world

I noted this speech here when Sanders went to Liberty and what I also noted then still applies:

liberal colleges generally ban conservative speakers they disagree with

evangelical colleges favor open dialogue and free speech

January 02, 2016 4:35 AM  
Anonymous summer breeze makes me feel fine said...

"This story has been updated to include buoy measurements that confirm the North Pole temperature climbed above 32 degrees on Wednesday"

actually, temperatures in the mid-30s happen at the North Pole

not usually at this time of year but the same system brought 75 to Washington on Christmas Eve

would only be significant if it happened long-term over a number if years

January 02, 2016 4:41 AM  
Anonymous gitchy goomy said...

"that handful of business owners all CHOSE to pay fines or close shop rather than serve those icky gays"

the business owners in question didn't refuse to "serve those icky gays"

these particular owners were happy to provide "icky gays" with the same services they provide to most of the general public

they only would refuse to engage in providing services that enable activity they consider immoral and a violation of their religious beliefs

this their constitutional right in America

they didn't discriminate against individuals

they discriminated against immoral activity

which is the duty of all moral people

"It is not the gays who refuse to live and let live,"

there are multiple places in the same area who would be happy to profit by providing services to enable this type of immoral activity

so the lesbians in questions could have simply left and bought a cake elsewhere

thus, they could have held their beliefs unhindered and so could the bakers

but the lesbians would prefer to force others to participate in immoral activity

"its bigoted business owners who insist on letting gay customers know they think they are disgusting and evil"

they held to their religious beliefs about a particular activity, they never made a judgement about any particular individual

"There's only 3 or 4 businesses out of the millions in the states that have chosen to close shop rather than serve gays, that couldn't be farther from a societal "melt-down" - enough with the crocodile tears already"

None of us are free when one of us are chained

-Ray Charles

"If you open a business to serve the public you are morally obligated to serve ALL of the public"

no, you aren't

like anyone else, business owners are free to work for whom they choose

"You don't want to serve the icky gays then get yourself a job where you don't have to"

again, no one here has chosen not to "serve the icky gays"

they only assert their constitutional right to abstain from participating in activity opposed to their religious beliefs

"its a free country"

yes, it is

but gay advocates don't like it that way

January 02, 2016 5:55 AM  
Anonymous gitchy goomy said...

"These business owners complaint isn't that they themselves are forced to engage in sex they find objectionable or to enter a same sex marriage, its that they disapprove of others doing so"

no, it's that they are being forced to participate in the wedding

"As such the interference with the right to act on their beliefs is trivial or insubstantial in that it is an interference that does not threaten actual religious beliefs or conduct"

this is incorrect

it threatens both

"There shouldn't be special rights for Christians to disobey laws that everyone else has to follow"

actually, it's a constitutional right and it applies to people of all religious beliefs

"And the fine wasn't only for discriminating against the lesbian couple, it was for publicly displaying their home address and phone number resulting in them being subjected to horrendous harrasment and death threats"

this is wrong

the Commissioner specifically said so:

"The Commissioner concludes that complainants’ emotional harm related to the denial of service continued throughout the period of media attention and that the facts related solely to emotional harm resulting from media attention do not adequately support an award of damages."

"Not to mention that bigots across the States sent them somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 dollars so they actually made out like bandits for their discrimination"

additionally, the bakers have seen business expand because of the publicity

but the fact they overcame evil, isn't an excuse for evil

"Congratulations for finally admitting you read FOX News!"

the article in question was simply brought to my attention from a newsfeed on a general browser

you may have been thinking about when I said I don't regularly watch FOX News, or any other cable news

I have been watching cable news more recently, with all the election developments, though

I flip through CNN, MSNBC, al Jazeera and FOX

Keep reading and watching FOX all you want but remember:

"STUDY: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All"

must be why TTFers seem so misinformed: they only want to watch not read

January 02, 2016 5:56 AM  
Anonymous an impeach of an impair said...

"The point was that a person with prestigious credentials in the field of mental health proves he wasn't mentally ill - the two are mutually incompatible."

completely false, prestigious credentials does not preclude mental illness

to say otherwise ignores history

"These are Spitzers own words, your assertion about what he would or wouldn't assume is obviously false."

actually, Spitzer didn't use the term mental illness

he referenced "crippling condition" and "medical illness"

although, as I said, I believe it's either a misquote or taken out of context

"ALS is a disease because it is is a general impairment in function"

obviously false

a specific impairment in function is just as much a disease as a general one

"gayness is not a general impairment in function"

it may be

but it definitely impairs the specific function of reproduction

so it is a disease

"Penile plethysmographs and no lie MRIs are used to provide an objective confirmation of claims. Not surprisingly no "exgays" claiming to have changed were willing to put their claims to these objective tests"

Not surprisingly, this unreliable methods aren't widely used

"The onus is on the person making the extraordinary claim to prove it, not on the skeptic to disprove it"

contradicting the gay agenda doesn't make a claim extraordinary

"Your layman's assertions about what is or is not a mental illness are irrelevant, its the professionals like Spitzer who are qualified to make such distinctions"

well, Spitzer, "the professional" flip-flopped on this

so, we laymen have to give it a shot

"Gays and lesbians are well capable of reproducing if they want to"

"well"?

the lack of desire presents an impairment

"The lack of desire to reproduce has never been considered a mental illness"

didn't say it was

I said lack of sexual attraction to the opposite gender is

"Sterility impairs the ability to reproduce without artificial assistance and yet you apparently have no problem with sterile people marrying and engaging in non-productive sexual behaviors"

we weren't discussing marriage

we were discussing how homosexuality represents a mental illness, impairing a normal function of the body

January 02, 2016 6:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"January 02, 2016 4:28 AM
January 02, 2016 4:35 AM
January 02, 2016 4:41 AM
January 02, 2016 5:55 AM
January 02, 2016 5:56 AM
January 02, 2016 6:24 AM"



All that hate roiling within is not conducive to a good night's sleep.

January 02, 2016 10:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

”not usually at this time of year but the same system brought 75 to Washington on Christmas Eve”

It brought a lot more than 75 to Washington on Christmas Eve. The Earth’s weather, as climate change theory states, has become much more erratic with unprecedented events around the globe.

"Cataclysms from the North Pole to South America

From the top of the world to near the bottom, freakish and unprecedented weather has sent temperatures soaring across the Arctic, whipped the United Kingdom with hurricane-force winds and spawned massive flooding in South America.

The same storm that slammed the southern United States with deadly tornadoes and swamped the Midwest, causing even greater loss of life, continued on to the Arctic. Sub-tropical air pulled there is now sitting over Iceland, and at what should be a deeply sub-zero North Pole, temperatures on Wednesday appeared to reach the melting point — more than 50 degrees above normal. That was warmer than Chicago.

Only twice before has the Arctic been so warm in winter. Residents of Iceland are bracing for conditions to grow much worse as one of the most powerful storms ever recorded blasts through the North Atlantic. This rare “bomb cyclone” arrived with sudden winds of 70 miles per hour and waves that lashed the coast.

Thousands of miles south, in the center of Latin America, downpours fueled by the Pacific Ocean’s giant El Niño pattern have drenched regions of Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay…

The dramatic storms are ending a year of record-setting weather globally, with July measured as the hottest month ever and 2015 set to be the warmest year.

Up and down the U.S. East Coast, this month will close as the hottest December ever. In much of the Northeast into Canada, temperatures on Christmas rose into the 70s — tricking bushes and trees into bloom in many locations. In the Washington area, forsythia, azaleas and even cherry blossoms were suddenly in full color…

In rain-soaked Missouri, where more than a dozen people have died because of the flooding, Gov. Jay Nixon (D) has declared a state of emergency…

Dozens of new precipitation marks were set last weekend, in some cases doubling or even tripling old records…

What is most remarkable about this week’s flooding through the nation’s midsection is not the magnitude, but the timing. Under normal circumstances, this degree of wintertime flooding is not possible because there is not enough moisture in cold winter air to support such rainfall totals…

In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the scenes have been similar much of this week as storms made the month the wettest December in some locations…

balmy Arctic temperatures are exceptionally rare in December, when sea ice is normally expanding…”

-- https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/freakish-weather-runs-from-top-of-the-world-to-the-bottom/2015/12/30/61203efa-af2c-11e5-b711-1998289ffcea_story.html

”would only be significant if it happened long-term over a number if years’

Sea ice has been diminishing for decades as sea levels and global average temperatures on land, sea, and air have been climbing.

January 02, 2016 10:52 AM  
Anonymous sunny day, everything's A-OK said...

"All that hate roiling within"

this type of extremist characterization of those who have a differing opinion is why our society has become so polarized in the 20th century

at least with Republican finally in control of both Houses in Congress this year, some progress has been made

"It brought a lot more than 75 to Washington on Christmas Eve. The Earth’s weather, as climate change theory states, has become much more erratic with unprecedented events around the globe"

easy to fool twenty-somethings with statements like that

anyone any older realizes that there is always some remarkable weather event going on

alarmist changed their talk from "global warming"to "climate change" during the 17 year hiatus from warming

now, anything other a world-wide Mediterranean weather pattern is cited as proof we need a global authority to regulate our economic activity

"Sea ice has been diminishing for decades as sea levels and global average temperatures on land, sea, and air have been climbing"

sea ice has decreased at the northern pole and increased at the southern pole

global temperatures have been in hiatus

as far as the greenhouse connection, global carbon output remained steady in 2014 and fell in 2015

why didn't temperatures fall?

January 02, 2016 11:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do you imagine something came along and removed all the carbon already pumped into the environment prior to 2014 and 2015?

Sorry, but while your head remains firmly planted in the dirt nothing has come along to remove all the carbon and green house gasses already pumped out and polluting Earth since the Industrial Revolution.

It will take a lot more than 2 years to right what has been wrong for more than a century.

January 02, 2016 12:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"at least with Republican finally in control of both Houses in Congress this year, some progress has been made"

Yet Another Health Care Repeal Vote To Open Congressional Year

It is insanity, not "progress" to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

IF (big if) any repeal of Obamacare is ever passed by the House and confirmed by the Senate, President Obama will veto it and there will be insufficient votes to override his veto.

January 02, 2016 1:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What did GOPers tell us to expect would happen if we reelected President Obama in 2012?

1. Gas was supposed to cost $6.05 per gallon.
In March 2012, on the floor of the United States Senate, Mike Lee (R-UT) predicted that if Obama was reelected gas would cost $6.05 per gallon by the start 2015. Lee said that gas prices would rise 5 cents for every month Obama was in office, ultimately reaching $6.60 per gallon.

Lee was not alone. Newt Gingrich, running for the GOP nomination, predicted that if Obama was reelected he would push gas to “$10 a gallon.”

Today, the nationwide average price for a gallon of gas is $2.00.

2. Unemployment was supposed to be stuck at over 8%
In September 2012, Mitt Romney predicted that if Obama is reelected “you’re going to see chronic high unemployment continue four years or longer.” At the time, the unemployment rate was 8.1% and had been between 8.1% and 8.3% for the entire year.

The unemployment rate currently stands at 5.0% and has been under 6% since September 2014. Since January 2013, the economy has created over 7.8 million new jobs.

3. The stock market was supposed to crash
Immediately after Obama won reelection in November 2012, Trump tweeted "The stock market and US dollar are both plunging today. Welcome to @BarackObama's second term."
--https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/266285251515531264

The Dow Jones Industrial Average currently stands at 17,425.03 and, despite a downturn in 2015, is up over 27% since Obama was reelected.

January 02, 2016 1:48 PM  
Anonymous elephant in china shop said...

"Do you imagine something came along and removed all the carbon already pumped into the environment prior to 2014 and 2015?

Sorry, but while your head remains firmly planted in the dirt nothing has come along to remove all the carbon and green house gasses already pumped out and polluting Earth since the Industrial Revolution.

It will take a lot more than 2 years to right what has been wrong for more than a century."

what has been wrong?

compare life before and after the industrial revolution

life expectancy and living standards have skyrocketed

large swaths of the world's population live in a near paradise and the conditions is spreading slowly but without reversal to third world countries

"It is insanity, not "progress" to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results."

yes, how insane

except the numbers keep changing

and eventually Dems will have to go along

in a bi-partisan achievement, No Child Left Behind was recently replaced after years of "insane" trying again and again

as for now, politician have votes on record

vital information for voters in the upcoming election

"IF (big if) any repeal of Obamacare is ever passed by the House and confirmed by the Senate, President Obama will veto it and there will be insufficient votes to override his veto."

as the election nears, fewer Dems will want this unpopular albatross around their neck

don't be so sure that the veto might not hold before Obama leaves

"What did GOPers tell us to expect would happen if we reelected President Obama in 2012?"

any time more than one Repub says anything, Dems simply say "GOPers said"

there is great diversity in the GOP

"1. Gas was supposed to cost $6.05 per gallon."

gas prices have only declined because of activity that Obama has tried to stop

"2. Unemployment was supposed to be stuck at over 8%"

fewer Americans are employed than at any time since the Great Depression

it's worse among minority groups who are much worse since Obama moved in the White House and starting using his position to take fancy trips for himself and his family

"3. The stock market was supposed to crash

The Dow Jones Industrial Average currently stands at 17,425.03 and, despite a downturn in 2015, is up over 27% since Obama was reelected."

only up so much because it crashed when he was elected

January 02, 2016 3:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yet another failure to comprehend what you read.

I said and provided a link confirming: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average currently stands at 17,425.03 and, despite a downturn in 2015, is up over 27% since Obama was reelected."

You replied with no source to confirm it, "only up so much because it crashed when he was elected"

Obama was "reelected" in 2012. The stock market crashed in 2008 when Bush/Cheney were running things into the ground.

Crash of 2008-2009

"On September 16, 2008, failures of massive financial institutions in the United States, due primarily to exposure of securities of packaged subprime loans and credit default swaps issued to insure these loans and their issuers, rapidly devolved into a global crisis resulting in a number of bank failures in Europe and sharp reductions in the value of stocks and commodities worldwide. The failure of banks in Iceland resulted in a devaluation of the Icelandic króna and threatened the government with bankruptcy. Iceland was able to secure an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund in November. In the United States, 15 banks failed in 2008, while several others were rescued through government intervention or acquisitions by other banks. On October 11, 2008, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the world financial system was teetering on the "brink of systemic meltdown."

The economic crisis caused countries to close their markets temporarily.

On October 8, the Indonesian stock market halted trading, after a 10% drop in one day.

The Times of London reported that the meltdown was being called the Crash of 2008 and older traders were comparing it with Black Monday in 1987. The fall that week of 21 percent was not as large a drop as the 28.3 percent fall 21 years earlier, but some traders were saying it was worse. “At least then it was a short, sharp, shock on one day. This has been relentless all week.” Business Week also referred to the crisis as a "stock market crash" or the "Panic of 2008."

Beginning October 6 [2008 before Obama was elected President] and lasting all week the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower for all five sessions. Volume levels were also record breaking. The Dow Jones industrial average fell over 1,874 points, or 18%, in its worst weekly decline ever on both a point and percentage basis. The S&P 500 fell more than 20%. The week also set 3 top ten NYSE Group Volume Records with October 8 at #5, October 9 at #10, and October 10 at #1...

...By March 6, 2009 the DJIA had dropped 54% to 6,469 (before beginning to recover) from its peak of 14,164 on October 9, 2007, over a span of 17 months."


And as we all know during 14 of those 17 months when the DJIA dropped 54%, George W. Bush was President of the United States. Even his TARP program, which Bush had signed into law on October 3, 2008. was not enough to stop USA's economy from continuing to crash.

"Between May 1999 and May 2009, employment in the private sector sector only rose by 1.1%, by far the lowest 10-year increase in the post-depression period."

Things didn't start to improve until after President Obama was elected. Seven point eight million new jobs were created after President Obama was reelected.

January 02, 2016 5:27 PM  
Anonymous postcard from a land ravaged by Obama said...

thanks for the amusing exercise in propaganda

anyone who thinks the Obama administration has successfully managed the economy hasn't been paying attention

and the American voter has been paying attention

January 03, 2016 9:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I see you have not provided any evidence disproving the facts presented yesterday via Wikipedia and Bloomberg -- what you call "propaganda" -- about the Great Recession and comparing job creation under Bush and Obama.

Obama is not up for reelection to a third term, but if he was, he'd win again.

No doubt the losing side would perform and ignore yet another autopsy report about the causes of their loss.

January 03, 2016 12:29 PM  
Anonymous Twitter fun with domestic terrorism said...

Colin Miner
@cominerWhomever came up with #YallQaeda to describe the Oregon militia, I take my hat off to you. And then put it back on and take it off again.

Pat Ondabak
@PatOndabak
Whoever coined the hashtag #YallQaeda is brilliant. Redneck terrorism has descended on Oregon.

Brandon Friedman
@BFriedmanDC
#YallQaeda makes no sense to me because the militia people are from the West and Upper Midwest, not the South. Have to go with #VanillaISIS.

Khaled Bey
@KhaledBeydoun
The emergence of #VanillaISIS in Oregon sparks fears of radicalizing disaffected hipsters in Portland.

Stonekettle
@Stonekettle
You know you're a badass Tea Party patriot when your militia takes over an unprotected bird sanctuary

Lara Petticord
@fatdownjacket
Every successful revolution starts with takeover of closed visitor center with gift shop. #OregonUnderAttack #YallQaeda

January 04, 2016 8:42 AM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

Like al queda and ISIS, there is divine guidance behind the occupy Oregon domestic terrorism:

"On Saturday, Ammon Bundy joined several others in the takeover at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon's Harney County. Bundy has said that his faith led him to the refuge to defend Dwight and Steven Hammond, father and son ranchers sentenced to prison in 2012 for arson, then released and given new sentences last year.

Bundy, a Mormon, is the the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who famously had a legal battle with the government that ended in an armed confrontation in 2014.
“I got on my knees and I asked the Lord,” Ammon Bundy said in a video posted a day before the occupation, describing how he got the "overwhelming urge" to learn about the Hammonds.

Bundy said he prayed: "'Lord, if you want me to write something, then please help me clear my mind and show me what I should write.’ And that’s what happened.”

Wow, with help from above like this, we should have no problem defeating religious terrorists from anywhere around the world.

Have a nice day.

Cynthia

January 04, 2016 7:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"On Chief’s Island in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, a special lioness has captured the attention of big cat lovers and scientists alike. Her name is Mmamoriri and she’s something of a local legend.

Despite being female, Mmamoriri sports a full, dark mane. She’s more muscular than most lionesses and when she roars, the sound is louder and deeper than a typical lioness. Unless you take a close look, you’d swear she’s a male lion. Locals dubbed her Mmamoriri, which means the “Hairy Princess.”

While some have offered the opinion that Mmamoriri “evolved” her masculine characteristics in order to ward off danger, the truth is less dramatic. Genetic testing shows that Mmamoriri is in fact female.

She may look and sound like a male, but we now know that’s not because of any errant chromosomal shenanigans. Scientists who have examined her say Mmamoriri’s genitalia is fully female and there’s no evidence of any male organs. Mmamoriri simply was born that way.

Ph.D. candidate Simon Dures told Africa Geographic that Mmamoriri’s physical characteristics are probably the result of exposure while in the womb to an excess of androgens. Androgens are hormones which stimulate the development of male characteristics — particularly primary and secondary sex characteristics. This phenomenon is well-documented in humans, but is less common in animals

Dr. Luke Hunter, president and chief conservation officer of big cat conservation organization Panthera, offered a similar explanation to National Geographic.

Mmamoriri, now 11-years-old, is not the first maned lioness to attract attention in this relatively isolated area of Botswana. Another maned lioness named Martina gained fame in the same area a number of years ago. She hasn’t been seen since 2002. Surprisingly, there may be as many as five other maned lionesses in this area.

The BBC recently profiled Mmamoriri in its TV special “World’s Sneakiest Animals.” If you missed it, catch the episode featuring her at this link. Her story begins around the 42-minute mark.

By all accounts, Mmamoriri’s pride treats her no differently than other members of the group. Her role is somewhat different than it might normally be, though. While she socializes with other females, Mmamoriri also takes on the typically male role of pride protector when other lions challenge the pride’s territory or when predators pose a threat.

Mmamoriri, being bigger and stronger than the other lionesses, is better able to bring down prey and defend it after the kill. Her mane, size and aggression combine to fool outsiders into thinking she’s a male.

This incredible lioness is not ostracized by her pride for her unusual differences. Rather, those differences help the group survive. If only humans could be as accepting of other humans who are “different” in similarly unique ways..."

January 05, 2016 1:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Cynthia, do you prefer to be refered to as a male or as a female?

January 05, 2016 2:43 PM  
Anonymous cinco de winter said...

quoting Cynthia: "I have never claimed that I am a woman."

Cynthia has embraced reality.

Give it a try, Priya.

You'll feel much better than you do now.

btw, a few days ago you were claiming warm Christmas is proof of the global warming pudding

alas, temperatures in the NE USA are now below average

so sorry

I know how about global warming catastrophe is to you

January 05, 2016 7:17 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

Hi Priya,

That is not a question people normally ask me, and normally I do not have to tell people how to address me. People simply start using feminine pronouns automatically when they meet me. The only people who insist on using masculine pronouns are those that have learned of my medical history and seem to have some kind of religious axe to grind, or somehow delude themselves into believing that they have some kind of god-given duty to "remind" me of something they think that I have forgotten. I have not forgotten; sometimes I still have nightmares about it.

As a child in elementary school, I was mercilessly harassed by my Christian classmates for being too effeminate to the point of a suicide attempt at age 9. Now as an adult, I am harrassed by Christians again post-GRS apparently for being too masculine. I find it ironic, but at least now I understand why those children were so abusive. There is something in the way certain Christians raise their children. It is part of how Christians reinforce there cultural control over society from the very earliest ages. Anyone who does not conform to their doctrine is systematically ostracized until they leave, commit suicide, or figure out how to blend in. I learned to watch the boys in my class and mimic their behavior as a matter of self-preservation.

Fortunately, US society is slowly ripping away the social chains that Christians have shackled our society with for centuries, and future generations of trans kids will hopefully grow up being as cherished, and treated as well as any other child.

Peace,

Cynthia

January 05, 2016 9:08 PM  
Anonymous Edwin Superstarr said...

Hi Cinco

You seem to blame Christians for all your troubles.

Why do you say kids that harassed you were Christians? Are you saying Jews and atheists were bosom buddies with you, or are you just making stuff up?

And now, as an adult, Christians are harassing you for being too masculine? I thought you said in the previous paragraph that you were so feminine that no one calls you "he" unless they know your medical history

Uh, I hate to go all Perry Mason but what you say don't make no sense!

you're contradicting yourself and scapegoating a group of people

it's called hate speech

War,

what is it good for?

January 05, 2016 10:03 PM  
Anonymous is it bam-bam or peebles? said...

oh, and go smoke a dynamite stoogie!!

January 05, 2016 10:10 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

Firstly, I do not blame Christians for all my problems, only the ones they have created.

Secondly, I know those kids were Christian because I went to school with them, and 7 of the first 12 years of my education were at Catholic schools. I even went to church with some of these kids. I went to schools in neighborhoods that were predominantly white with a handful of Latinos, and Christian.

Thirdly, all you have to do is look up this page to find someone who used masculine pronouns; he or she frequently argues for "Christian" values and morality. He or she could potentially be of another faith, but statistically, Americans are most likely to be Christian. Some people knew me before my transition - there is one particular family that claims to be devoutly religious (and Christian) that absolutely refuses to use my legal name or feminine pronouns with me. For the 23-07 battle, I told folks of my medical history so they could see for themselves just what kind of person they were claiming was mentally ill and conflating with pedophiles. Granted, they did not all reveal their religion to me. There is a chance that some of them could be Hindu, Budhist, Jewish,or perhaps even Zoroastrian; again, statistically, they were most likely Christian. As Christians always like to remind us, this is a predominantly Christian nation. Also, none of the people who have harrassed me and also identified their faith, claimed to be anything other than Christian. For your reference, I include Mormons under the Christian banner, because of conversations I've had with them where they point out "Jesus Christ is included in the name of our church!".

So you don't have to be Shelock Holmes to figure this stuff out. It's elementary my dear. But if you need anything else explained, just let me know.

Have a nice day,

Cynthia

January 06, 2016 8:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"btw, a few days ago you were claiming warm Christmas is proof of the global warming pudding"

It's not only Christmas that was warmer.

Seven of the warmest global monthly temperature departures from the 20th Century average were set in 2015:

"1) 0.98°C, Oct 2015
2) 0.91°C, Sep 2015
3) 0.89°C, Mar 2015
4) 0.88°C, Feb 2015
4) 0.88°C, Jan 2007
6) 0.87°C, Aug 2015
6) 0.87°C, Jun 2015
8) 0.86°C, Feb 1998
9) 0.85°C, May 2015
10) 0.85°C, Mar 2010"


And 2015's El Nino has just tied the peak for the El Nino in 1997-8:

"Sea-surface water temperatures in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific Ocean over the latest three-month period from October through December 2015 were 2.3 degrees Celsius above average, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. That departure from average, commonly referred to as the sea-surface temperature (SST) anomaly, ties the peak anomaly measured during the 1997-1998 El Niño, the strongest El Niño on record since recordkeeping began in 1950, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center."

But you can stick your head in the still warm ground outside as a few days of typical winter weather after months of unseasonably warm temperatures and pretend these facts do not exist.

It would be difficult to smoke your stogie (not "stoogie") with your head in the dirt.

January 06, 2016 8:26 AM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

A quick correction - after double checking the comments, the masculine pronouns directed at me are on the "Looking Back at a Victory" page, not this page as noted above.

Have a nice day,

Cynthia

January 06, 2016 9:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Today's WaPo:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/01/06/d-c-area-forecast-gradual-warming-trend-and-a-few-rain-chances-through-weekend/

January 06, 2016 9:59 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Cynthia, you didn't answer my question. You said in an earlier thread that you didn't consider yourself female, so my question is not what do other people call you, but which do you prefer, female or male pronouns?

I've been referring to you as female, but if that's not what you prefer I'd like to know.

January 06, 2016 12:11 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "quoting Cynthia: "I have never claimed that I am a woman." Cynthia has embraced reality. Give it a try, Priya. You'll feel much better than you do now.".

A comment intended solely to antagonize. And Wyatt wants people to believe he's not a troll.

You're so transparent Wyatt.

Remember, research shows internet trolls like Wyatt/bad anonymous are sadists

January 06, 2016 12:34 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said ""btw, a few days ago you were claiming warm Christmas is proof of the global warming pudding".

A typical lie for you. I do not claim that any short term localized cooling or warming trend proves or disproves global warming, that's your schtick. You're the one absurdly claiming that localized short term cooling in the Eastern U.S. a year or two ago proved global warming was false. If you were being consistent with your past assertions you'd now be claiming the present short term warming in the eastern U.S. proves global warming is real.

But of course you don't care if what you say now contradicts what you've said in the past, only that it serves your false anti-global warming narrative.

I've stated consistently that no localized short term warming or cooling trend says anything about global warming but rather it is the long term global average temperatures which determine if there is global warming. And the long term global average temperatures show global warming is real and the current short term localized warming in the eastern U.S. IS consistent with that whereas your claim that the localized short term cooling in the eastern U.S. over the past couple of years disproves global warming is NOT consistent with long term global average temperatures.

As I frequently pointed out, you know better than to make the arguments you do about global warming, its just willful stupidity on your part.

January 06, 2016 12:47 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Typical trolling by Wyatt/bad anonymous. He's well aware I carefully stated several times the current localized short term warming in the U.S. doesn't prove global warming but he lies and says I did.

No localized short term warming or cooling trend proves or disproves global warming. IT IS THE LONG TERM AVERAGE GLOBAL TEMPERATURES WHICH DETERMINE THIS AND THEY SHOW GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL.

January 06, 2016 12:49 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad news for Wyatt/bad anonymous:

Anti-gay people die younger than those who are accepting

Research shows people who espouse anti-gay views die younger than those who don't.

"Anti-gay prejudice is associated with elevated mortality risk among heterosexuals, over and above multiple established risk factors for mortality," wrote the researchers, led by Mark L. Hatzenbuehler of Columbia University.


You see Wyatt, accepting your anti-gay views won't make me happier, it'll make me die sooner, like you.

January 07, 2016 1:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

...One of the most impressive efforts to understand what’s happening to Earth is an ice coring project at one of the summits of the Antarctic ice sheet, called Dome C, where scientists drilled down 2 miles, pulling up air bubbles with atmosphere samples from 800,000 years ago. By analyzing these ancient air bubbles and comparing them with air samples from all the ice above it, scientists determined that there has almost never in history been as much carbon in Earth’s atmosphere as there is now. That’s helped confirm that we are in an unprecedented period of planetary warming and shifts in climate patterns.

The Antarctic Peninsula is bearing much of the brunt of those climate changes. But even so, a few days there is not enough time to “see” global warming in action; looking at all the ice, one climate change denier on the ship joked that he was planning to report back to Rush Limbaugh that “it’s still really cold” in Antarctica. But animal behavior here is already changing: Some creatures are now found farther south than they used to be, seeking colder water, and some penguin colonies have disappeared. And scientists as recently as last fall predicted that a complete western Antarctic ice melt—which they say is inevitable and probably already underway—would raise sea levels by about 10 feet in a just few centuries.

Ninety-eight percent of the Antarctic continent lies beneath an ice sheet: miles-thick ice covering a vast area that has formed over hundreds of thousands of years. There are two ice sheets on Earth; the other covers Greenland. Antarctic ice is not melting as obviously or as quickly as the ice sheet in Greenland—where 80 percent of the surface ice is now melting every summer. This past November, researchers announced that losses suffered by the Zachariae Glacier in that country’s northeast could open up a second “floodgate” of ice melt, joining the notoriously fast-retreating Jakobshavn Glacier in the west. But Antarctica appears to be the next to start hemorrhaging ice: Scientists are finding fragile points on the continent’s western coast, where seawater overheated by global warming is slowly working its way beneath glaciers.

The weight of millennia of ice has pushed the landmass of Antarctica below sea level. Currently, only an underwater ridge is keeping one large and pivotal glacier, the Thwaites Glacier, which has been called “the weak underbelly” of the western portion of Antarctica’s ice sheet, from breaking off and falling into the sea. Scientists are noticing the glacier is starting to “lose its grip” on the ridge as it melts, and once it retreats behind the shelf, computer models indicate that the warmer-than-usual seawater will rush under and around it, creating channels of flowing water that will erode the glacier from the inside out, causing it—and quite possibly the entire western Antarctic ice sheet behind it—to eventually slide into the sea.

Scientists are as certain as they can be that this will happen. What they don’t yet know is when. The most pressing work in the Antarctic is to get a handle on whether this catastrophic melt is likely to happen over a long period of time or within a few decades. Their findings are of the utmost significance to every human on the planet but are particularly pressing for the hundreds of millions of people who live in coastal regions—according to one estimate, sea level rises and coastal flooding will cost $100 trillion annually in lost infrastructure and industry by 2100..."


http://www.newsweek.com/2016/01/15/antarctica-explorers-crusiegoers-scientists-seek-answers-inside-continents-ice-412382.html

January 07, 2016 3:40 PM  
Anonymous ha ha, say the clowns said...

"WASHINGTON -- Republicans just passed a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the 62nd time, and it's going to get vetoed. That calls for a party!

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) held a ceremony Thursday afternoon to celebrate sending legislation to President Barack Obama that would revoke parts of the president's signature health care law. It's the first time they've gotten a repeal bill to the president's desk. Dozens of GOP colleagues stood with Ryan as he gave remarks, all smiles, eager to commemorate the moment.

"It has been a long time in getting here, but here we are," Ryan said to cheers. "This is the closest that we have come to repealing Obamacare. And now we are sending that repeal to the president's desk."

But Republicans actually are no closer to repealing the health care law than they were the previous 61 times they voted to do it. They haven't repealed anything, and they know the president is going to veto their bill. And, as HuffPost's Jeffrey Young reports, even on the precipice of what they want to be seen as a win on Obamacare, Republican leaders still have no answer to the question of what their alternative plan would be for the millions of people getting health care under the current law....."


Repealing Obamacare without replacing it would take us all back to "the good old days" of:

--no coverage for preexisting conditions

--lifetime caps on coverage

--children cut off family plans before age 26

--extra charges for women to be insured

--insurers can drop coverage when you get sick

--no coverage for preventative care at no-out-of-pocket cost

And Mr. Ryan and friends celebrate all of the above! Yippee!!

Happy Days Are Here Again!!

January 08, 2016 9:14 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Republicans couldn't look like bigger buffons with this latest Obamacare stunt.

January 08, 2016 9:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

School Vouchers and Student Achievement: First-Year Evidence from the Louisiana Scholarship Program

"We evaluate the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP), a prominent school voucher plan. The LSP provides public funds for disadvantaged students at low-performing Louisiana public schools to attend private schools of their choice. LSP vouchers are allocated by random lottery at schools with more eligible applicants than available seats. We estimate causal effects of voucher receipt by comparing outcomes for lottery winners and losers in the first year after the program expanded statewide. This comparison reveals that LSP participation substantially reduces academic achievement. Attendance at an LSP-eligible private school lowers math scores by 0.4 standard deviations and increases the likelihood of a failing score by 50 percent. Voucher effects for reading, science and social studies are also negative and large. The negative impacts of vouchers are consistent across income groups, geographic areas, and private school characteristics, and are larger for younger children. These effects are not explained by the quality of fallback public schools for LSP applicants: students lotteried out of the program attend public schools with scores below the Louisiana average. Survey data show that LSP-eligible private schools experience rapid enrollment declines prior to entering the program, indicating that the LSP may attract private schools struggling to maintain enrollment. These results suggest caution in the design of voucher systems aimed at expanding school choice for disadvantaged students."

January 08, 2016 2:41 PM  
Anonymous Rest in peace, David Bowie! said...

Turn and face the strange ch ch changes.

Look out you rock and rollers.

Hot Tramp I love you so!

January 11, 2016 4:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you got your mother

in a whirl

she's not sure

if you're a boy or girl

seems like DB's passing should be a post from the blog

January 12, 2016 10:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Letter from an Oregon Militiaman

January 12, 2016 1:50 PM  
Anonymous there's only one step down from here said...

Democrats have fallen into a sinkhole with quicksand at the bottom

they ain't ever coming up

the lowest percentage of Americans in history identify with Dems:

just 29 percent

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/poll-political-party-identify-217562#.ithjvdy:EeXf

that's pathetic

and what hope is there?

there's the former first lady with baggage going up the wazoo

the latest batch of e-mails has her total of top secret e-mails through her personal computer at 1200

including at least one where she schemes to hide her e-mail system from the State Dept

currently, there are FBI agents threatening to resign if she's not indicted

and that's the least of her troubles

there's the money her foundation took from foreign governments

while she negotiated with them as Secretary of State

it's the kind of thing Robert McDonnell was convicted for

and howzabout all the anti-women statements she made about the women who accused her chubby hubby Prez of abusive behavior ('it's amazing what you'll get when you drag a dollar bill through a trailer park')?

any statements Trump's made pale by comparison

does anybody remember when Bill asked her to study how to reform the healthcare system in 93?

it was such a disaster that Dems lost both houses of Congress in 94

did you know she used to be a senator from NY even though she's not from NY?

and she didn't accomplish one damn thing her whole time on Capitol hill?

did you know she's already ran for Prez before and was rejected by America?

she just can't take a hint

did you know she was once SEcretary of State?

and she is the main architect of the current global catastrophe?

do we even need to mention Vince Foster?

oh, but you say:

there's always Bernie!!

a self-described socialist who opposes gun control

yeah, America's gonna warm right up to that!!

I remember last year Rachel Maddow was on Letterman

the discussion came to whether Trump might run

Maddow said 'really?' and started rolling her eyes around with an impish grin and everyone had a good laugh

America will wipe that smirk right off her face

she'll be out of a job when her low-rated cable network goes bankrupt

and Trump will be in the White House

maybe she can hold cue cards for Ellen Gegenerate


January 12, 2016 10:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"there's always Bernie!!

a self-described socialist who opposes gun control

yeah, America's gonna warm right up to that!!


Who needs facts when you have your own opinion and insist on keeping your head firmly planted in the dirt?

Yesterday's WSJ reported:

"...Among all registered voters, Mr. Sanders shows big leads over Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio and Donald Trump in New Hampshire and leads Messrs. Cruz and Trump in Iowa. He and Mr. Rubio are tied in Iowa..."

The results are pretty much the same in the national polls cited by RCP.

January 13, 2016 9:29 AM  
Anonymous down low said...

oh, come on

you know the American people aren't that familiar with him

right now, he's the anti-Hillary

won't be that way in fall 2016

personally, I like the guy

but his views will never be accepted by Americans

and Donald Trump, with his talent for the low blow, will make sure we all know Bernie well before election day

January 13, 2016 11:00 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Yawn.

January 13, 2016 12:36 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Whatever happened to "president Huckabee", "president Walker" and "president Rubio"?

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

January 13, 2016 12:44 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Research shows with each instance of verbal or physical harassment, the risk of self-harm among LGBT youth is 2 ½ times more likely.

This is Wyatt/bad anonymous's goal when he attacks LGBT people. He knows it harms them and he likes that because he's a sadist.

January 13, 2016 12:56 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said ""btw, a few days ago you were claiming warm Christmas is proof of the global warming pudding".

A typical lie for you. I do not claim that any short term localized cooling or warming trend proves or disproves global warming, that's your schtick. You're the one absurdly claiming that localized short term cooling in the Eastern U.S. a year or two ago proved global warming was false. If you were being consistent with your past assertions you'd now be claiming the present short term warming in the eastern U.S. proves global warming is real.

But of course you don't care if what you say now contradicts what you've said in the past, only that it serves your false anti-global warming narrative.

I've stated consistently that no localized short term warming or cooling trend says anything about global warming but rather it is the long term global average temperatures which determine if there is global warming. And the long term global average temperatures show global warming is real and the current short term localized warming in the eastern U.S. IS consistent with that whereas your claim that the localized short term cooling in the eastern U.S. over the past couple of years disproves global warming is NOT consistent with long term global average temperatures.

As I frequently pointed out, you know better than to make the arguments you do about global warming, its just willful stupidity on your part.

January 13, 2016 1:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Typical trolling by Wyatt/bad anonymous. He's well aware I carefully stated several times the current localized short term warming in the U.S. doesn't prove global warming but he lies and says I did.

No localized short term warming or cooling trend proves or disproves global warming. IT IS THE LONG TERM AVERAGE GLOBAL TEMPERATURES WHICH DETERMINE THIS AND THEY SHOW GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL.

January 13, 2016 1:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad news for Wyatt/bad anonymous:

Anti-gay people die younger than those who are accepting

Research shows people who espouse anti-gay views die younger than those who don't.

"Anti-gay prejudice is associated with elevated mortality risk among heterosexuals, over and above multiple established risk factors for mortality," wrote the researchers, led by Mark L. Hatzenbuehler of Columbia University.


You see Wyatt, accepting your anti-gay views won't make me happier, it'll make me die sooner, like you.

January 13, 2016 1:19 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

For some reason the above link is not working. Copy and paste into your browser instead:

http://www.businessinsider.com/antigay-prejudice-and-elevated-mortality-2014-2

January 13, 2016 1:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

2015 Unambiguously the Hottest Year on Record

"BERKELEY, Calif., Jan. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- According to new Berkeley Earth analysis, 2015 was unambiguously the hottest year on record. For the first time in recorded history, the Earth's temperature is clearly more than 1.0 C (1.8 F) above the 1850-1900 average. 2015 was approximately 0.1 degree C (about 0.2 degrees F) hotter than 2014, which had tied with 2005 and 2010 as the previous hottest years. 2015 set the record with 99.996% confidence. The analysis covered the entire surface of the Earth, including temperatures from both land and oceans. The warming was not uniform, and for the contiguous United States, it was the 2nd warmest year ever (+1.33 C), surpassed only by 2012.

Elizabeth Muller, Executive Director of Berkeley Earth, notes, "Berkeley Earth has taken a cautious approach to announcing hottest years. A year ago, we announced that 2014 was not a clear record, but only in a statistical tie with 2005 and 2010. Now, however, it is clear that 2015 is the hottest year on record by a significant margin."

Including 2015 in the plot of temperature over time also seems to erase the much talked about "pause" in recent warming. Richard Muller, Scientific Director of Berkeley Earth says, "This new high temperature record confirms our previous interpretation that the pause was temporary and that global warming has not slowed." Lead scientist Robert Rohde adds, "The decades-long rise due to greenhouse gas emission is now clearly continuing."

In total, Berkeley Earth estimates that 16.9% of Earth's surface and 16.4% of its land surface set record high annual averages in 2015. There were record highs in much of South America and the Middle East, and parts of the US, Europe, and Asia.

The international community has set a goal of limiting warming to no more than 2 C above pre-industrial levels; the Earth is now approximately half way to that limit. Robert Rohde said "At the recent rate of warming may begin to cross that threshold in about 50 years."

Elizabeth Muller stressed, "The most important things we can do to mitigate global warming include energy efficiency and the increased use of renewables, natural gas, and nuclear power. It is time for us to stop being picky about which is the very best solution to global warming – we need all solutions that are available to us today."

The details behind these conclusions, including charts showing the warming and maps showing the distribution, are at: http://berkeleyearth.org/temperature-reports/"

January 13, 2016 1:25 PM  
Anonymous Link repaired for Priya Lynn said...

http://www.businessinsider.com/antigay-prejudice-and-elevated-mortality-2014-2

January 13, 2016 1:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, Obama gave a great SOTU last night which has apparently reduced you to reeling off long debunked conspiracy theories.

Vince Foster was debunked by Ken Starr!

And how did the GOP respond to Obama's last SOTU speech??

"...Nikki Haley’s official rebuttal speech really made Obama’s point for him. Yes, Haley was clearly using the speech to campaign against Trump on behalf of, well, anyone else in the race.

However, her speech made it clear that the objection to Trump is almost entirely aesthetic, with her jab about “the loudest voice in the room”. But on the substantive issues, Haley made sure the conservative base knew that the Republican Party fully supports this vortex of bigotry and paranoia they’ve been sucked into. And in doing so, she proved Obama right.

For instance, Obama’s point about how it’s irresponsible to exaggerate the dangers of terrorism or to imply that he’s secretly working for the other side? Haley did just that: “Even worse, we are facing the most dangerous terrorist threat our nation has seen since 9/11, and this president appears either unwilling or unable to deal with it.”

Or Obama’s warning about exploiting anti-Muslim bigotry to pander to bigots? Oh yeah, Haley did that, too: “And in this age of terrorism, we must not let in refugees whose intentions cannot be determined.” (Her implication that we do so is a flat-out lie. Refugees have a lengthy process, of an average of 18-24 months, of vetting to get into this country.)

Perhaps the worst part of her speech, however, was when Haley exploited the hate crime committed in her state — a mass shooting at a black church that took the lives of nine people — to pander to racists who want to believe the Black Lives Matter movement is deliberately instigating riots: “We didn’t have violence, we had vigils. We didn’t have riots, we had hugs.”

As Jamelle Bouie noted on Twitter:

Jamelle Bouie ✔@jbouie
“We didn’t have riots, we had hugs” is such a slap in the face to communities that had real and deep seated problems.

Jamelle Bouie ✔@jbouie
Haley is praised for her conciliatory rhetoric but that line reveals how much she’s also perfected the use of dog whistles.

In his speech, Obama warned about those who promise “to restore past glory if we just got some group or idea that was threatening America under control.”

It’s not just Donald Trump. The woman the Republicans flagged to offer their official rebuttal used her speech to do just that. Haley used her speech to take swipes at refugees, at immigrants, and at protesters who are trying to reduce police violence. She went about as low as you can go, weaponizing the loss of innocent lives to chastise people who are trying to stop the loss of more innocent lives. She was exactly the threat to “rational, constructive debates” that Obama warned about.

It may seem strange to see a president use his last State of the Union address to focus so much on the ugly, divisive rhetoric of the right. But at least he had his Republican colleagues on hand to prove how right he was to do so."

January 13, 2016 1:34 PM  
Anonymous citizens united said...

an earthquake is coming that will demolish Montgomery County politics as we have known it

the SCOTUS is poised to declare fair share union dues confiscated from non-union members of government agencies to be unconstitutional

the money behind the Apple Ballot will have to be returned to those from whom it was stolen

the cycle of union dues to union which contributes to Democrat politician who votes for higher public employee salaries to fund more union dues will be forever banned

so long, donkey people

January 13, 2016 10:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Judicial activism is the earthquake you hope will come so maybe there will be another GOPer elected to office in Montgomery County. The last Montgomery County Executive who was a member of the GOP was also the first MoCo Executive ever, James Gleason who was in office from 1970-1978.

Since then every MoCo Executive has been Democratic.

Charles Gilchrist 1978-1986
Sidney Kramer 1986-1990
Neal Potter 1990-1994
Doug Duncan 1994-2006
Ike Leggett 200-2016

The elected members of the Montgomery County Council are all Democrats too:

Robert Berliner
Craig L. Rice
Sidney A. Katz
Nancy Navarro
Tom Hucker
George L. Leventhal
Nancy Floreen
Marc Elrich
Hans Riemer

Even in the six years since the January 21, 2010 SCOTUS decision in the Citizens United case, GOPers can't win elected office in MoCo.

If SCOTUS rules against the unions collecting dues for non-members, who the unions must by law represent in grievances, it won't change the election outcomes here in Montgomery County.

In 2014 in Montgomery County, Hogan/Rutherford lost to Brown/Ulman by a vote of 163,694 to 97,312.

January 14, 2016 9:50 AM  
Anonymous hee-haw said...

"Judicial activism is the earthquake you hope will come"

the judiciary is tasked, by the Constitution, with overruling legislation that violates the Constitution

"Judicial activism" would be when judges make laws

forcing people to support political activism is unconstitutional

unions are not governmental units

they don't have the power to tax

bye-bye, donkey-heads

January 14, 2016 11:23 AM  
Anonymous Creepy GOP bill proposed in VA... said...

Creepy Virginia Toilet Proposal Could Require Genital Inspections, Critics Fear

Transgender people would face a $50 fine for using "wrong" bathroom.

...A Republican lawmaker in Virginia is so concerned over which bathrooms transgender people use, including children at school, that he is proposing a law that would fine them $50 each time they enter a restroom that doesn't match their "anatomical sex."

House Bill 663, proposed by Delegate Mark Cole of the state's House of Representatives, defines anatomical sex as "the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person's anatomy." It would require all restrooms on property owned or leased by the state "solely be used by individuals whose anatomical sex matches such gender designation."...

...The bill does not specify how "anatomical sex" will be confirmed by the law-enforcement officer, but civil rights advocates say there's really only one way to be sure.

"[A]dults would be required to inspect children’s genitals before they use the bathroom,"..."

January 14, 2016 11:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

schools have birth certificates on file and have a record of students' gender

this is not a problem

"civil rights advocates" are getting desperate

"girls" with guy parts don't belong in the girls' room

they belong in the boys' room, where they will get a special swirly welcome

January 14, 2016 12:12 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Typical troll behavior by Wyatt/bad anonymous. Posting comments just to antagonize fair people and advocating forcing transwomen to use the men's room where he admits he knows they will be violently attacked. That's because Wyatt is a sadist as research shows.

January 14, 2016 12:20 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Of course Wyatt advocating violence against LGBTs is nothing new. In the past he's condoned imprisoning and executing gays:

In this thread he said regarding Uganda's law requiring the death penalty for gays for more than one act of engaging in same sex sex:

I said "Bad anonymous left out one situtation where the Uganda law called for the death penalty - if the person was a repeat "offender".
That meant if you had sex with more than one same sex partner, or more than once with the same partner they proposed putting you to death."

Bad anonymous responded: "yes, Robert said that too I didn't leave it out on purpose, I didn't know about it. Of course, penalties should increase with repeated offenses but the death penalty would be wrong".

And in this thread Wyatt/Bad anonymous expresses support for India recriminalizing gay sex:

And in this thread Wyatt/bad anonymous supports executing people for being gay.

"in the U.S., you can be executed for doing nothing in Iran, you have to commit a serious crime, like homosexuality"

January 14, 2016 12:27 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Not surprisingly Wyatt/bad anonymous has since tried to walk back his comments showing his true feelings by laughably claiming gay sex is synonymous with having sex in public and he was "really" advocating imprisoning and executing gays for having sex in public - he just refers to having sex in public as homosexuality,

How pathetic. You can't fool anyone with that Wyatt. You're just a disgusting person.

January 14, 2016 12:31 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"A Republican lawmaker in Virginia is so concerned over which bathrooms transgender people use, including children at school, that he is proposing a law that would fine them $50 each time they enter a restroom that doesn't match their "anatomical sex."

House Bill 663, proposed by Delegate Mark Cole of the state's House of Representatives, defines anatomical sex as "the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person's anatomy." It would require all restrooms on property owned or leased by the state "solely be used by individuals whose anatomical sex matches such gender designation."...

...The bill does not specify how "anatomical sex" will be confirmed by the law-enforcement officer, but civil rights advocates say there's really only one way to be sure.

"[A]dults would be required to inspect children’s genitals before they use the bathroom,"..."

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "schools have birth certificates on file and have a record of students' gender this is not a problem".

Wrong. It is a problem. The law specifically requires that a person's gender be determined by their anatomy, not their birth certificate. As any person assigned male at birth could have female anatomy (or vice versa) the law requires the inspection of children's genitals before allowing them to use the bathroom. Plus its a lie that schools have birth certificates on file.

January 14, 2016 12:40 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Just think what bigots like Wyatt/bad anonymous are demanding:

That these two transexual men use the women's bathroom!

January 14, 2016 12:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"schools have birth certificates on file and have a record of students' gender"

Sometimes gender designations by those doctors represent his or her best guess.

The GOP supposedly supports limited government, yet Virginian Marc Cole supports legislating that public school personnel must check your children' genitals before possibly fining them for peeing in the wrong potty at school.

Imagine the poor public school employee trying to figure out the genitals of intersex students, when even OB/GYNs may not be able to determine the gender of intersex newborns. If Cole's bill is passed into law, every public school in Virginia will need some way to determine if each intersex child has ovaries or testes because some external genitalia are ambiguous.

January 14, 2016 2:39 PM  
Anonymous in the land of the swirly twirly gumdrops said...

"The GOP supposedly supports limited government, yet Virginian Marc Cole supports legislating that public school personnel must check your children' genitals before possibly fining them for peeing in the wrong potty at school.

Imagine the poor public school employee trying to figure out the genitals of intersex students, when even OB/GYNs may not be able to determine the gender of intersex newborns. If Cole's bill is passed into law, every public school in Virginia will need some way to determine if each intersex child has ovaries or testes because some external genitalia are ambiguous."

this is all propagandistic extrapolation

in most cases, a person's story is well-known in the community

if there's any doubt, the school will simply request a doctor's note, as they do for other circumstances

guys shouldn't be in the girls' room swinging their thing around

it's common sense

and if they want to dress like a girl when they're a guy

and they wander into the boys' room that way,

they'll likely get a swirly welcome

no real harm done, just a little social discipline to maintain decorum

the answer: don't come to school dressed like a girl if you're a guy

problem solved

January 14, 2016 3:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What problem?

How many of us segregate the bathrooms in our homes by gender?

Not me, not my parents, not my grown children in their homes either.

Maybe you like to wave your schlong around in the mens room but can you show us a single example of a trans woman doing so?

No one will be holding their breath while you come up with nothing.

January 14, 2016 3:57 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Typical trolling behavior, Wyatt/bad anonymous saying a vicious assault is "no real harm done". What a sadist!

January 14, 2016 4:03 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Just think what bigots like Wyatt/bad anonymous are demanding:

That these two transexual men use the women's bathroom!

He's either crazy or a troll. Wait who am I kidding? He's both!

January 14, 2016 4:10 PM  
Anonymous King of Candyland said...

"What problem?"

that would your apparent problem with gender segregated rest rooms

Priya thinks a swirly is a "vicious assault"?

it's not a big a deal

just ask Ward

he survived

January 14, 2016 4:22 PM  
Anonymous you can clean him up but said...

true

Ward's daily swish in grammar school helped him maintain basic standards of hygiene

that, and the roach motel he wears around his neck!!

January 14, 2016 4:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Maybe you like to wave your schlong around in the mens room but can you show us a single example of a trans woman doing so?

No one will be holding their breath while you come up with nothing."


< Crickets chirping >

January 14, 2016 4:38 PM  
Anonymous sick of the slick and wicked said...

if you think I'm going to respond to your request to provide you with pornography, you're insane

you sick TTFer!!

January 14, 2016 4:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Look who thinks supporting a statement you made yourself earlier today, "guys shouldn't be in the girls' room swinging their thing around," with an example from the real world is "pornography."

That's just stupid.

And of course, you still can't come up with an example of a trans woman doing so.

< Crickets continue chirping >

January 14, 2016 5:32 PM  
Anonymous swirly time down south with Ward and June said...

we're not going to get graphic

I'm sure you'd love that, you creeper

society has always believed separate bathrooms for genders is appropriate and there's no compelling reason to change that to cater to a clearly delusional situation among a very tiny subset of anatomical males

"How many of us segregate the bathrooms in our homes by gender?

Not me, not my parents, not my grown children in their homes either."

typical BS from a TTFer

obviously, this bill isn't concerned with single user restrooms

you people are pathetic


January 14, 2016 5:51 PM  
Anonymous tilt-o-whirl said...

a new study out shows that Swirly Reparative Therapy actually works

same gender sexual attraction is reduced up to 59% among gays treated to a swirly every 4 hours

the only down side is having to wake up in the middle of the night for treatment

a small price to pay for a chance at a normal life for these people

another triumph in the treatment of a mental disease once thought incurable

January 14, 2016 8:01 PM  
Anonymous whirl on, silver wheels said...

"shake it off"

Taylor Swift

January 14, 2016 8:20 PM  
Anonymous President Ben speaks to internet trolls said...

"You know, you go to the internet, you start reading an article, and you go to the comments section—you cannot go five comments down before people are calling each all manner of names," Carson said. "Where did that spirit come from in America? It did not come from our Judeo-Christian roots, I can tell you that."

January 15, 2016 1:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

looking at the above, the only person I see calling another person a name is Priya, who seems intrinsically unable to disagree with anyone without calling them bad-anonymous

well, you're preaching to the choir

we've all seen this behavior from Priya

January 15, 2016 2:09 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Troll Detected

January 15, 2016 2:21 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous laughably says he's not a troll. Not even remotely convincing when he continuously posts stuff like this:

"Ward's daily swish in grammar school helped him maintain basic standards of hygiene that, and the roach motel he wears around his neck!!".

You're not even fooling yourself Wyatt.

January 15, 2016 2:24 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"Most polls don't matter much. But this one does. A recent Public Religion Research Institute survey has revealed a devastating truth: While about 80 percent of black Christians believe police-involved killings -- like the ones that killed Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, and so many more -- are part of a larger pattern of police treatment of African Americans, around 70 percent of white Christians believe the opposite ... that they are simply isolated incidents.

And before many begin disassociating with the term "white Christians," we should look deeper. The numbers include 72 percent of white evangelical Protestants, 71 percent of white Catholics, and 73 percent of white mainline Protestants. This is about all white Christians.

What's worse? Take away the moniker of "Christian" and the numbers drop to around 65 percent. White Christians are as a whole less likely to believe the experiences of black Americans than non-Christian whites. This is a shameful indictment of the church. We need to change this -- and we can.

It's time for white Christians to act more Christian than white."

January 15, 2016 2:24 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous the only reason I call you bad anonymous is to distinguish you from other posters. AS I've repeatedly offered to you in the past:

Pick ONE unique pseudonym (as you've promised you would in the past)and use ONLY that pseudonym and I'll stop calling you bad anonymous and refer to you by that pseudonym.

You don't want to do that you have no one to blame but yourself for me calling you bad anonymous.

January 15, 2016 2:32 PM  
Anonymous rolling on a sliver said...

Priya accuses someone of being a troll for assuming that Ward experienced a few swirlies as a child but perhaps they were playing with Priya because of Priya's previous over-reaction to the very mention

as in so many cases, Priya has a tremendous chicken-egg problem

btw

Priya, have asked Ward how many swirlies he had growing up

and did they influence his same gender attraction

remember, this is for posterity!!

I'm sure all the anons are grateful for your generous offer

I won't even mention that if you were confused, you were still not obligated to refer to anyone in a derogatory manner

take a little time for personal reflection and see if you don't conclude that you are actually a troll

just speaking as one of many anons, please refer to me as Peter the Great

January 15, 2016 2:47 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "this is all propagandistic extrapolation in most cases, a person's story is well-known in the community if there's any doubt, the school will simply request a doctor's note, as they do for other circumstances".

In many cases peoples story is NOT known. Children assigned one gender at birth live as another and no one other than their parents knows any different until they look at their genitals. Asking the child to get a note from their doctor to determine which bathroom they can use is just forcing a third party genital inspection on children. As we've been saying, there's no way around the fact that this proposed law will require children to have their genitals inspected before being allowed to use the bathroom they want to.

Wyatt and bigots like him want these two burly men who were born women to use the women's bathroom and terrify all the women there. He's an insane sadist!

January 15, 2016 2:51 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"just speaking as one of many anons, please refer to me as Peter the Great".

You mean "Speaking as one anon who pretends to be many". You didn't post your comment as "Peter the great". Your entire comment was trolling, you're not even feigning not being a troll anymore.

Post your all your next comments as "Peter the great" and ONLY "Peter the great" and I'll refer to you as such as long as you stick to that and have anything non-trollish to say.

January 15, 2016 2:57 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

"As we've been saying, there's no way around the fact that this proposed law will require children to have their genitals inspected before being allowed to use the bathroom they want t"

ACTUALLY, THERE IS A BIG WAY AROUND IT:

LIKE MOST LAWS, SUCH AS SEAT BELT LAWS, IT WON'T BE ENFORCED OFTEN

ONLY IN BLATANT CASES

SORRY TO DISAPPOINT YOU AND WARD

NO PUBLIC GENITAL INSPECTION ARE ON THE HORIZON

January 15, 2016 3:19 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Ooooo, testy, testy. All Caps/screaming in fact.

I never said all children will have their genitals inspected, only some of them. Or as you call them "BLATANT" cases. So, as you can see there is no way around it - this law will require some children to have their genitals ispected before they are allowed to use the bathroom of their choosing. Case closed.

Also, you initially asked to be referred to as "Peter the great", now you're posting as "GREAT PETER", two different pseudonyms. This is typical weaseling for you, promising to do or say or not say something and then trying to gradually wiggle your way out of it a little bit at a time.

This reminds me of this thread when you said "rolling thunder at June 03, 2008 3:23 PM said...
Oh, alright. From henceforth, I'm Rolling Thunder.

Jeez, you try and entertain everybody and this is the thanks you get!".

Of course back then you never again referred to yourself as "Rolling Thunder". Given your history it is extremely unlikely you'll post only under the name "Great Peter" but I'll give you a chance. If you post under any thing that doesn't say exactly "Great Peter" then the deals off. I'm not going to put up with you trying to weasel your way out of this.

January 15, 2016 3:32 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Actually, I take it back. This law will require ALL children to have their genitals ispected before they use the bathroom of their choosing. There's no way of knowing if any child is transgendered in secret and it would be discrimination to only inspect the genitals of some children. Either all children will have to have their gentitals ispected, or none. All children have to be treated equally.

Case closed.

January 15, 2016 3:37 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

pRIYA, YOU'RE DISPLAYING AN IGNORANCE OF THE AMERICAN WAY

FEW LAWS ARE CONSISTENTLY ENFORCED HERE

IF THAT'S DISCRIMINATION, WE DISCRIMINATE WILDLY

LAWS ARE GENERALLY KEPT IN THE BACK POCKET OF THE GOVERNMENT FOR USE WHENEVER THE MAN WANTS TO COERCE PEOPLE

TAKE SEAT BELT LAWS

SORRY TO DISAPPOINT YOU AND WARD:

THERE WILL BE NO GENITAL INSPECTION OF CHILDREN

YOU TWO CAN STOP DREAMING
TECHNICALLY, IT'S ILLEGAL TO DRIVE WITHOUT WEARING A SEAT BELT

BUT YOU CAN DO IT WITH IMPUNITY

THE ONLY TIME IT'S ENFORCED IS WHEN SOME RICH A-HOLE THINKS THERE'S TOO MUCH TRAFFIC ON HIS STREET AND BRIBES A COP WITH A LITTLE OVERTIME PAY TO SIT THERE AND HARASS DRIVERS GOING BY HIS HOME

January 15, 2016 3:54 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

"Given your history it is extremely unlikely you'll post only under the name er""Great Pet but I'll give you a chance"

you are so much more marvelously magnanimous than mere mortals can comprehend

however, you misspelled my name

I'm not "Great Peter"

that sounds pathetic

I'm GREAT PETER

January 15, 2016 4:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Virginia is for lovers

of transvaginal ultrasound probes

and

of determining the "anatomical sex" of people who pee in public restrooms, including public school students.


January 15, 2016 4:57 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/13/monica-crowley-the-deal-with-the-clinton-devil-is-/

roundabout twenty years ago

America made a deal with the devil

because Bill Clinton had cooperated with Newt Gingrich's contract with America and moved forward with Reaganomics, America was booming

so, they turned the other way when Clinton was accused rape and assault and abuse

and tolerated Hillary calling his accusers trailer trash, setting back women's rights for decades

it was classic toleration of evil for financial gain

they've now recanted

and Hillary is going down

January 15, 2016 5:01 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

"of determining the "anatomical sex" of people who pee in public restrooms, including public school students."

give it up, psycho-creep

Virginia is not going to allow guys to go in girls' room and pull down their zipper just because they dress up like a girl

it's common sense

coming to a county near you

your fantasies won't come true

January 15, 2016 5:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's unlikely any kids' panties will be checked because this bill will not be enacted into law.

Unlike his disgraced and convicted predecessor Gov. "Vaginal Probe" McDonnell, Governor McAuliffe will not sign a VA state GOP sponsored big invasive government bill into law.

Now that SCOTUS has agreed to hear it, we should know if "VP" McDonnell will do time for his crime or not by June 2016

January 15, 2016 5:42 PM  
Anonymous Mr Great Peter said...

"It's unlikely any kids' panties will be checked because this bill will not be enacted into law.

Unlike his disgraced and convicted predecessor Gov. "Vaginal Probe" McDonnell, Governor McAuliffe will not sign a VA state GOP sponsored big invasive government bill into law."

McAuliffe is part of the Clinton sleazeball brigade. You really count on him for anything. Like his old buddies the Clintons, he'll do anything under the right circumstances. He has no principles. Besides, he's had a little trouble controlling the legislature in Virginia.

You consider it "invasive" for the government to keep guys from trespassing in the girls' room? And you, no doubt, thinks it's not invasive for the government to tell bakers they have to help gays' celebrate deviant homosexual "weddings"?

It's obvious you are not motivated by principle but an agenda to corrupt our society.

"Now that SCOTUS has agreed to hear it, we should know if "VP" McDonnell will do time for his crime or not by June 2016"

McDonnell and his wife were an embarrassment to Virginia but the remedy for his type of behavior is at the ballot box. He broke no law. The things he did are standard for politicians. Certainly, Hillary and Bill have done scores of more corrupt things. And Hillary may have broken some actual laws. The FBI is currently for her indictment.

Back to McDonnell. He'll be cleared by the SCOTUS because even sleazeball politicians have rights. You can't be thrown in prison because people don't like the way you act. You're entitled to a trial where you are judge on whether you broke the law. Not a trial on whether there should be a law against what you did.

Meanwhile, the guys who dress like girls and go traipsing into the girls' room should be sentenced to a week of swirlery.

January 16, 2016 8:18 AM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

that oughta adjust their behavior

January 16, 2016 8:23 AM  
Anonymous Reply to the TTF troll said...

"You consider it "invasive" for the government to keep guys from trespassing in the girls' room?"

No I don't and I didn't say I did,

I consider it invasive for lawmakers to propose verifying "anatomical sex" of people who use public restrooms.

Ladies' room, unlike mens' room, do not have communal urinals where some men might go "swinging their thing around." Instead, ladies' rooms have private stalls with doors that close and lock so each person who pees in one does so in complete privacy.

This is especially true in public schools girls' bathrooms.

January 16, 2016 8:35 AM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

"I consider it invasive for lawmakers to propose verifying "anatomical sex" of people who use public restrooms."

the bill doesn't speak of any type of verification

here's the original post by the propagandist who initiated this discussion:

"..The bill does not specify how "anatomical sex" will be confirmed by the law-enforcement officer, but civil rights advocates say there's really only one way to be sure"

"civil rights advocates" are, well, advocates

meaning they extrapolate (make things up) to promote their view

presumably, in the few instances where there was suspicion that a guy was dressing like a girl and going in the girls' room, the principal would discreetly call them down and discuss the matter

if there were still doubt, the parents could be called and, if there is still a doubt, perhaps a note from a physician

but you rabid fanatics know well none of this would ever happen

it's a law that would only be enforced in rare blatant and flagrant cases

in those cases, everyone knows what's going on

this is a law that would be on the books for an as-needed basis

now, go give yourself a swirly

btw, we all notice that now that an anon has chosen a handle, Priya no longer feels the need to call anons anything

which just proves that Priya did not refer to the anons derogatorily out of necessity

it was an intentional act to engage in trollery

Priya is a troll

case closed

January 16, 2016 9:05 AM  
Anonymous Tony the Tiger said...

it's always GGGGGRRRRREEAAATTTT!!! to see a case closed

January 16, 2016 9:38 AM  
Anonymous goodbye said...

and thus concludes the Teach the Facts blog

thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts over the years, especially the insightful anonymi

so long

January 16, 2016 12:24 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

I don't keep up the blog like I used to, posting several times a day, mostly because the fight has been fought and won. I will continue to post occasionally for the community.

The departure of one troll does not "conclude the Teach the Facts blog."

JimK

January 16, 2016 12:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is that the swan song from our swirly troll?

AMEN!

January 16, 2016 1:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If selling a gay couple a wedding cake means a chrstian baker participated in their wedding then selling a gun to a murderer means a christian gun store owner participated in the murder.

January 16, 2016 1:23 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous posted as "Tony the Tiger" and "Mr. Great Peter" instead of "Great Peter" so the deal is off. I knew he wouldn't stick to his word.

Good anonymous said "I consider it invasive for lawmakers to propose verifying "anatomical sex" of people who use public restrooms."

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "the bill doesn't speak of any type of verification presumably, in the few instances where there was suspicion that a guy was dressing like a girl and going in the girls' room, the principal would discreetly call them down and discuss the matter if there were still doubt, the parents could be called and, if there is still a doubt, perhaps a note from a physician but you rabid fanatics know well none of this would ever happen it's a law that would only be enforced in rare blatant and flagrant case".

It doesn't matter what the law didn't say, it only matters what it said which is that who can use what bathroom will be determined by anatomy. There's only one way to verify that and that's by genital inspection as Wyatt/bad anonymous admits when he calls for a third party to do the inspection ("doctors note")

And of course the law can't discriminate against some students so it requires that either ALL students have their genitals inspected or NONE.

Case closed.




January 16, 2016 1:33 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous has claimed he was going to stop posting in the past and of course he lied and kept posting. Same thing will happen with this "so long".

January 16, 2016 1:38 PM  
Anonymous Happy Religious Freedom Day said...

"For all of the shouting about religious liberty — from the landmark Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case, to the passage of the anti-gay Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Mississippi, and more — there is barely any mention, let alone any observance, of the official national Religious Freedom Day, enacted by Congress in 1992 and recognized every January 16 by an annual presidential proclamation.

The day commemorates the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786.

Why is this seemingly obscure piece of Revolutionary-era legislation so vital? And why doesn’t the Christian Right want you to know anything about it?

The bill, authored by Thomas Jefferson and later pushed through the state legislature by then member of the House of Delegates, James Madison, is regarded as the root of how the framers of the Constitution approached matters of religion and government, and it was as revolutionary as the era in which it was written.

It not only disestablished the Anglican Church as the official state church, but it provided that no one can be compelled to attend any religious institution or to underwrite it with taxes; that individuals are free to believe as they will and that this “shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”

As a practical matter, this meant that what we believe or don’t believe is not the concern of government and that we are all equal as citizens.

Following the dramatic passage of the Statute in 1786, Madison traveled to Philadelphia, where he served as a principal author of the Constitution in 1787. As a Member of Congress in 1789 he was also a principal author of the First Amendment, which passed in 1791.

Jefferson was well aware that many did not like the Statute, just as they did not like the Constitution and the First Amendment, both of which sought to expand the rights of citizens and deflect claims of churches seeking special consideration.

So before his death, Jefferson sought to get the last word on what it meant. The Statute, he wrote, contained “within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohametan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

That is a powerful and clear statement. Jefferson, almost 200 years ago, refuted the contemporary claims of Christian Right leaders, many of whom not only insist that America was founded as a Christian nation, but that the framers really meant their particular interpretation of Christianity. (And they are sometimes encouraged by a surprisingly wide array of pundits.)

Jefferson further explained that the legislature had specifically rejected proposed language that would have described “Jesus Christ” as “the holy author of our religion.” This was rejected, he reported, “by the great majority.”..."


January 16, 2016 5:03 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

January 16, 2016 5:17 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

You remember, there is one rule, anon.

JimK

January 16, 2016 8:10 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Well, that was a short goodbye Great Peter, just under five hours. Rather impetuous of you. You should stop making those childish claims you're going to stop posting, you just look foolish.

January 16, 2016 9:19 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

Priya, you misspelled my screen name. That's GREAT PETER. I know you're committed to the idea that everybody should be obligated to call people their chosen name so you'll want to go along. After all, you used to call yourself "Randy" and when you changed your name to "Priya", I was courteous enough to call you that.

"You remember, there is one rule, anon."

Unbelievably, people, he speaks the truth. His only principle is that delusion must be indulged. Jim's getting up there so I think we should all give him a break. Like Bernie Sanders, he's everyone's crazy Uncle Ed. "Hey kids, GET OFF MY LAWN!!" Don't laugh, we'll all get there someday.

January 17, 2016 1:15 AM  
Blogger JimK said...

The earliest articulation of the rule that I can find is August 27, 2009, back when I was still a youngster. That's pretty consistent.

JimK

January 17, 2016 8:00 AM  
Anonymous THE GREAT AND COURTEOUS PETER said...

LOL, JK

January 17, 2016 8:45 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous, you broke our agreement. You initially asked to be called "Great Peter" which I agreed to and then you posted as "Mr Great Peter" and "Tony the Tiger" and lastly as "The Great and courteous Peter" so I'm under no obligation to refer to you as "Great Peter".



And I agreed to call you by the ONE UNIQUE name of your choosing as long as you stuck to that. I never agreed to any specific capitialization of said name.

I knew you'd try to weasel your way out of this, and I'm not having it. If you thought I was going to indulge your childishness and backtracking you're wrong.

January 17, 2016 10:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great Peter and GREAT PETER are spelled the same, but anyone can see one is courteous and the other is loud-mouthed.

January 17, 2016 10:59 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "After all, you used to call yourself "Randy" and when you changed your name to "Priya", I was courteous enough to call you that".

You lie. You frequently called me Randy Schimnosky long after I legally changed my name to Priya Lynn.

January 17, 2016 11:00 AM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

"you broke our agreement. You initially asked to be called "Great Peter" which I agreed to and then you posted as "Mr Great Peter" and "Tony the Tiger" and lastly as "The Great and courteous Peter" so I'm under no obligation to refer to you as "Great Peter""

uh, Priya

you claimed you had no choice but to refer to anonymi in a derogatory manner because you can't distinguish them apart

now, you claim you can clearly tell who an anonymous is despite the use of different names

you're not fooling anyone so perhaps you should stop making yourself look like a fool

simply admit you've behaved as a troll and reform yourself moving forward

and don't pull that old line that you can't change because you were "born that way"

there are many methods to alter behavior

worse comes to worse, have Ward give you a swirly

again

January 17, 2016 2:08 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "you claimed you had no choice but to refer to anonymi in a derogatory manner because you can't distinguish them apart".

You lie. I never said I had no choice, I said I did that to distinguish you. I was certainly well capable of choosing not to do that.

And you're not fooling anyone by implying you didn't post as "Tony the Tiger", "Mr. Great Peter", and "The Great and courteous Peter". You insist on being dishonest, I'm not playing along. You were never sincere about agreeing to post only as "Great Peter", right from the start you were planning on continuing your practice of pretending to be different people and posting under different names.

Why don't you say goodbye for good this time you child.

January 17, 2016 2:34 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

This is the religious right’s radical new plan: The very real efforts to create an American theocracy in plain sight
The religious right can't win at the polls. But that will not stop them from pursuing this dangerous, scary path

In the past several years, as the inevitability of gay marriage has grown clear, the religious right has unceasingly shifted focus to a new field of battle—one that they call the battle for “religious freedom.” “Gay rights will trample Christians’ religious liberty!” they claim.

But the worst violations of religious liberty actually came from the anti-gay religious right itself—from a 2012 constitutional amendment in North Carolina, which criminalized the performance of gay marriage. The law was successfully challenged by the United Church of Christ in 2014. “By depriving the Plaintiffs of the freedom to perform religious marriage ceremonies or to marry,” the UCC argued, “North Carolina stigmatizes Plaintiffs and their religious beliefs”—and the court agreed, finding it to be an unconstitutional violation of their rights.

Which is why it’s not surprising that UCC’s general minister and president, the Rev. John C. Dorhauer, wrote the preface to a major new report, shedding new light on the right’s decades-long campaign to redefine religious freedom into a tool for their own theocratic domination. “Removing someone’s civil rights by empowering the government to protect and preserve my religious homophobia is not my idea of religious liberty,” Dorhauer writes. But that’s exactly how the religious right has tried to stand the idea of religious freedom on its head. “What they want to call religious freedom is in fact the kind of oppressive religious tyranny that my ancestors left their homeland to escape,” Dorhauer added.

January 17, 2016 2:37 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

“When Christian Right leaders talk about religious liberty, they often really mean theocratic supremacism of their own religious beliefs inscribed in government,” Clarkson points out. The report presents a detailed account of how their Orwellian agenda is unfolding, combining up-to-the-minute analysis of recent developments with an historical account dating back to the 1970s and the birth of the modern-day religious right, defending Bob Jones University’s “right to discriminate,” based on religion. As noted in the report:

As recently as the 1980s, Christian Right activists defended racial segregation by claiming that restrictions on their ability to discriminate violated their First Amendment right to religious freedom….

Instead of African Americans being discriminated against by Bob Jones, the university argued it was the party being discriminated against in being prevented from executing its First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court disagreed….

Two things are worth noting here: first, the primacy of discrimination as a political motivation, and second, the “envious reversal” of victim and victimizer that lies at the heart of the conservative victimhood shtick. Elaborating on the first point, the report also notes:

…..even before the issues of abortion and homosexuality became the policy priorities of a newly politicized Christian Right, its leaders fought the perceived threat of racial equality at conservative Christian academies by claiming their religious freedom to discriminate. This legacy should remind us that the Right’s religious liberty campaigns mobilize old arguments around new targets, and that their agenda extends beyond questions of contraception coverage, or marriage and nondiscrimination in the LGBTQ context.

January 17, 2016 2:55 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

In short, Bob Jones University is not just an old case, irrelevant to what’s happening today. It represents, at its core, the exact same argument that conservatives are making today. As Faulkner wrote, “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even the past.”

We see this as well with regard to the second point, the “envious reversal” of victim and victimizer. Portraying themselves as victims, uniquely, if not solely threatened with the loss of religious liberty, is the central premise of the right’s “religious liberty” crusade, even though, as the UCC case shows, their phony claims of victimhood can lead to actually victimizing others instead.

As the UCC case underscores, the cause they are actually advancing is neither religion nor freedom, but the antithesis of both: theocratic political control. No church, minister or priest anywhere in America has ever been forced to perform a gay marriage against their will—the kind of scenario that so-called “religious freedom” advocates supposedly fear. Yet, for almost two years, UCC ministers in North Carolina faced criminal charges if they dared to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony. UCC’s case made it stunningly clear which side was really interested in religious liberty, and which side was deceptively hijacking the concept to force its own narrow-minded religious views onto the rest of society—the exact opposite of what most Americans instinctively know religious freedom to be.

“The evangelical Protestant Christian Right and U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are intensifying their campaign to carve out arenas of public life where religious institutions, individuals, and even businesses may evade civil rights and labor laws in the name of religious liberty,” Clarkson writes in the executive summary. “By creating zones of legal exemption, the Christian Right seeks to shrink the public sphere and the arenas within which the government has legitimacy to defend people’s rights, including reproductive, labor, and LGBTQ rights.”

January 17, 2016 2:56 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Their goal is to impose a conservative Christian social order inspired by religious law. To achieve this goal, they seek to remove religious freedom as an integral part of religious pluralism and constitutional democracy, and redefine it in Orwellian fashion to justify discrimination by an ever wider array of “religified” institutions and businesses.

Clarkson describes religification as “a tactic … by which an organization rewrites mission statements, contracts, and job descriptions in an attempt to exempt institutions from the law in as many ways a possible,” and he points out that “The groups promoting this tactic, such as Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Institute, have issued handbooks to help organizations protect against ‘dangerous antireligious attacks.’”

One such “dangerous antireligious attack” involved 2,800 employees of the St. Peter’s Healthcare System of New Brunswick, New Jersey, whom the hospital tried to cheat out of their pension benefits under the guise of “religious freedom.” The hospital had underfunded its pension plan by $30 million, claiming a religious exemption from the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which protects individuals in most private pensions by setting minimum standards, including mandatory fiduciary and funding requirements. “Pensioner Laurence Kaplan was concerned that the plan was underfunded and his lawsuit showed that indeed it was,” Clarkson reports:

For more than 30 years it operated the plan according to ERISA standards. But in 2006, St. Peter’s stopped fully funding the plan, seeking—and eventually receiving—a determination from the IRS that it was eligible for the church exemption under ERISA. But the federal courts disagree. St. Peter’s must now comply with ERISA’s protections including full funding of the plan.

January 17, 2016 2:57 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Clarkson uses the term “religification” in a fairly narrow, carefully constrained sense. “The usage for my purposes is not in making the secular religious,” he told Salon, “but in making religious institutions and more of their employees and functions subject to doctrine for purposes of inoculation against societal laws and regulations.” There have been tendencies heading this way for some time, but they got a tremendous shot in the arm in 2012, with the Hosanna-Tabor Supreme Court decision, which found that a teacher was exempt from normal firing protections because she served in a ministerial capacity, having led students in prayer three times a day and taught religion four times a week. The ruling greatly intensified religification pressures, which in turn is why it matters so much to be clear about the lines. “For example, a church receptionist is not exactly a secular job,” Clarkson said. “But it is usually a stretch to call it a ministry by any reasonable standard.”

The Southern Baptist manual suggests assigning “… employees duties that involve ministerial, teaching, or other spiritual qualifications—duties that directly further the religious mission. For example, if a church receptionist answers the phone, the job description might detail how the receptionist is required to answer basic questions about the church’s faith, provide religious resources, or pray with callers.”

While the courts may not buy the idea that a receptionist can be reasonably construed as a minister in the legal sense, this is the kind of thinking that is permeating the conservative Christian world in the wake of Hosanna-Tabor.

What we can see going on here is particularly perverse. The receptionist’s job ordinarily has nothing ministerial about it, and being protected by labor laws, for example, in no way constitutes a real “dangerous antireligious attack.” But by seeking to religify itself, the church is effectively trying to roll back the rights of others—both secular employment law protections and their own religious freedom. After all, one could even be a good, believing Southern Baptist receptionist and still feel religiously oppressed by being forced to follow someone else’s bureaucratic religious script.

January 17, 2016 2:57 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

This brings us to the very core of the problem: Religious freedom is not about religion vs. irreligion, but about individual freedom vs. institutional coercion. Government is not the only institution that can coerce. Over the centuries, churches themselves have proven themselves remarkably adept at it, which is why the freedom to leave one church and join another—or no church at all—lies so close to the heart of true religious freedom. True religious freedom for the individual is intimately intertwined with the pluralistic diversity of the society in which they live, and is clearly reflected in our own history.

The actual origins of religious freedom in America don’t jibe at all with the religious right’s attempt to hijack the term, especially with their myth of America being founded as a “Christian nation.” It traces back to the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777. The report notes that “before his death, Jefferson sought to get the last word on what it meant,” specifically:

The Statute, he wrote, contained “within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohametan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination”….

Jefferson further explained that the legislature had rejected proposed language that would have described “Jesus Christ” as “the holy author of our religion.” This was rejected, he reported, “by the great majority.”

The intention of religious pluralism could not be clearer, much to the religious right’s chagrin.

January 17, 2016 2:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The Hobby Lobby decision not only extended religious exemptions to private businesses for the first time in U.S. history, it gave private business owners the power to override scientific truth. In a little-noticed echo of Galileo’s confrontation with the Catholic Church, the Supreme Court came down firmly against science, as it “allowed the religious views of the owners of these companies to trump medical science in claiming that the four contraceptives at issue—two kinds of birth control pills and two kinds of intrauterine devices—were abortifacients,” despite an amicus brief submitted by medical associations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, refuting the claim.

There can be no quick-fix solution to such a sweeping, deeply rooted, and well-funded organizing effort as this. The report’s call-to-arms for a long-term organizing response is certainly warranted. But there is a quick fix for being puzzled, misled, disoriented, or confused on the subject of religious freedom. Read the report for yourself. And then do something about it.

January 17, 2016 2:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "now, you claim you can clearly tell who an anonymous is despite the use of different names".

As a liar you might claim you didn't post as "Tony the Tiger, "Mr. Great Peter", or "The great and courteous Peter". An honest person who only posted as "Great Peter" would deny those posts as well. But what an honest person would never do is say "You can't tell if that was me because the names were different", they'd merely say "It wasn't me".

If you hadn't posted as "Tony the Tiger" or "Mr. Great Peter" or "The great and courtesous peter" it would be a simple matter for you to email Jim and have him verify that those posts weren't posted under the same IP address as the "Great Peter" comments. You didn't do that because you made all those posts under four different names.

January 17, 2016 3:15 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

Priya, the anonymous option on this blog is not deceit

there is no reason you can't deal with each comment on a stand-alone basis

it's a discussion of ideas not personalities

you suffer from many delusions that are indefensible

therefore, you desire to build cases against personalities rather than discuss issues

this is why you are so fixated on keeping track of what has been said by whom

beside your delusion about gender, the above lines of attack by you demonstrate that you suffer from:

1. materialism
2. collectivism

because of this, you believe that anyone who enters an agreement to perform services in exchange for compensation for anyone is obligated to do it for everyone

you think this because you believe such arrangements are a "privilege"

that the economy is owned collectively by the government and that all participants are under the supervision of the government and bound to support the governmental agenda, and are granted the privilege to participate under accountability to the government for supporting this agenda

but you're wrong

everyone has the right to associate with and partnership with and deal with anyone they choose

it's called freedom of association and doesn't change because compensation is part of the arrangement

every organization has a a mission and they have the perfect right to insist that those who join the organization share in the mission

if the organization has a religious purpose and homosexuality is a violation of their religious doctrine, it simply follows that they may choose to not employ homosexuals

it's just common sense

homosexuals should seek employment in organizations whose mission they can support, just like everyone else

as for your incessant derogatory reference to anonymous posters, these are acts of trollery

own your actions

it's the first step to mental health

January 17, 2016 11:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh look who's playing doctor.

It's a Dr. Frist wannabe misdiagnosing on the basis of less than a videotape and just as wrong.

Go give yourself a swirly and support my freedom to tell you to do so!

January 18, 2016 7:54 AM  
Anonymous James Peron said...

Sledgehammers and Rights: The Double Standards of the Religious Right
When a gay person is fired for being gay, we hear from conservatives that "it's freedom of association." However, when a fundamentalist Christian is fired with cause, for misusing their workplace as a pulpit for anti-gay hate, the same conservatives drop the "freedom of association" argument and pick-up the sledgehammer of "freedom of religion."

Apparently "freedom of religion" is so widely interpreted as to justify absolutely anything a fundamentalist Christian does.

There is a double-standard the Religious Right indulges frequently. It's a right when they do it, it's persecution when you do.

Of course, the Religious Right long have been masters of hypocrisy and double standards.

The newest such hypocrisy is the case of Dr. Paul Church who worked at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The urologist thought it wise to use the hospital's internet system to post anti-gay rants to all staff.

Church tried to pretend his concerns were "medical" in nature because the gay "lifestyle" is deadly. Oddly, he accompanied this with quotes from the Bible -- hardly a source of medical wisdom.

In 2011, Church went before a peer review committee for his offenses. He was told sending such material to other staff violated hospital harassment policies and to stop.

Of course, he refused and posted several more anti-gay tirades referencing the Bible. His lawyers, from the anti-gay group Liberty Counsel, claimed that Church "made known his objections in a medical capacity" and was thus free to do what he did. The medical textbook he used... oh, wait, it wasn't a medical textbook, it was the Bible.

His lawyers, Liberty Counsel can't even be honest about with their name -- their version of liberty only applies to people like themselves, not others. They filed an amicus brief to support sodomy laws in Texas. No "freedom of association" there, liberty only applies to people they like.

After repeatedly violating hospital policy, Church's right to practice at the hospital was revoked.

January 18, 2016 9:35 AM  
Anonymous James Peron said...

Of course, Religious Right sites were apoplectic about the decision. Lifesite weeped, "A well-loved and respected doctor with a background in sexual-risk behaviors has been expelled from one of the United States' most prestigious and top-ranked medical centers after he raised evidence-based health risk concerns over the center's decision to endorse and celebrate the homosexual lifestyle."

CharismaNews, which generally advocates faith healing not science, claims Church was a "popular doctor" expelled "after he voiced his religious beliefs about homosexuality." At least they saw his rants as "religious views" and didn't pretend he was merely voicing "health risk concerns."

Liberty Counsel, however, is no advocate of freedom of association. They dedicated a whole page of their website to telling fundamentalists how to use anti-discrimination laws in their favor. If worse comes to worse, the Christians can always hire Liberty Counsel to fight against their employer's "freedom of association."

The Religious Right has never advocated freedom of association, or liberty. Such rights, in their minds, are exclusive reserves guaranteed to fundamentalists alone while denied to others, particularly "godless sodomites."

One of the more blatant examples of this "rights-for-me-not-for-thee" view was the attempt by Republican legislators in Washington state. They filed a bill to provide exemptions to discrimination laws for those with "sincerely held religious beliefs."

But, as USA Today noted, "The measure would not apply to the denial of services to people under a protected class under federal law, such as race, religion or disability."

So, what was the purpose of the bill? It would legalize anti-gay discrimination for Christians, but would prevent discrimination against Christians. It would not apply to race, religion or disability, but gays are not a protected class in federal law. They were the target of the bill. It was legislation meant to grant Christians the right to discriminate against gays, but God forbid, gays were never to have a reciprocal right regarding Christians.

Under Washington discrimination law, Christians and gays were both covered. Fundamentalist Christians demanded the right to discriminate as they wish, while simultaneously retaining the privilege of being protected from discrimination. Yet, they accuse the LGBT community of demanding "special privileges."

When Christians start lobbying government to remove themselves as a protected class under anti-discrimination laws -- and only then -- will I believe they are serious about freedom of association. Until then I'll just view it as another self-serving attempt by fundamentalist to twist the law to grant special privileges to themselves, and only to themselves -- all others be damned, literally.

January 18, 2016 9:37 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Priya, the anonymous option on this blog is not deceit".

I never said it was. What's deceit is when I say to you "I'll stop referring to you as bad anonymous if you chose one unique pseudonym and post only under that pseudonym" and you respond in acceptance of my offer "'m sure all the anons are grateful for your generous offer...please refer to me as Peter the Great" and then you procede to post under a variety of different names and claim they weren't all you - that's deceit.

Wyatt absurdly claimed me calling him "bad anonymous" was trolling. It'd be trolling if I called a good person "bad", its not trolling when what you say is the truth - "Bad" is an accurate characterization of Wyatt/bad anonymous, the truth isn't trolling.

And in the meantime Wyatt/bad anonymous posts over and over things like "Ward's daily swish in grammar school helped him maintain basic standards of hygiene that, and the roach motel he wears around his neck!!" - now that's Trolling!

There's no equating me calling him "bad" with untrue nasty comments like that. But of course that's readily apparent to rational people, its just Wyatt that needs to have reality explained to him.

January 18, 2016 11:42 AM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

"then you procede to post under a variety of different names and claim they weren't all you"

Priya, you confused person

I've never done what you said here

I simply don't confirm or deny such accusations

and, as I've said, I believe it's irrelevant if we're going to discuss issues here

what someone has said previously has no bearing on whether their current point is correct

the obsession with identification is simply to divert from substantive issue

I realize that is necessary for you because your points lack logical fortitude

but facts are facts

think about it

after your swirly treatment

January 18, 2016 11:44 AM  
Anonymous bemused again said...

"JANUARY 18, 2016 9:37 AM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.

JANUARY 18, 2016 11:23 AM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.

JANUARY 18, 2016 11:33 AM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author."

Looks like a troll needs a swirly!

Ward, can you take care of it?

January 18, 2016 11:46 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Troll detected!"

Wyatt's comment at 11:46 is typical troll behavior of him - it serves no purpose and is solely intended to provoke.

January 18, 2016 11:49 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "what someone has said previously has no bearing on whether their current point is correct".

A ridiculous and obviously false assertion.

For example as I documented in this thread at January 14, 2016 12:27 PM you've posted comments condoning the imprisonment, assault, and execution of LGBT people and at other times you've claimed you don't believe same sex sex should be a punishable crime.

You have a long history of blatant lying, for example in October 2013 when we were debating who the public blamed most for the government shutdown you posted poll numbers on what percentage of people blamed Republicans or Democrats, only you dishonestly switched the Republican and Democrat poll numbers to try and deceive readers into believing the public blamed Democrats more. Shortly after that you copied and pasted a news story about how the number of abortions had dropped significantly just BEFORE Republicans passed a bunch of laws restricting abortion, only you changed the wording and inserted the word "AFTER" where "BEFORE" belonged.
Then you later said that you consider there nothing wrong with drastically changing the meaning of news stories you copy and paste as long as you didn't post where they came from.

This sort of blatant past dishonesty has direct bearing on all your future claims, casting them into severe doubt.

Obviously what a person's said in the past often has DIRECT bearing on whether their current point is true.

How pathetically childish and dishonest of you to claim otherwise.

January 18, 2016 11:59 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "I've never done what you said here I simply don't confirm or deny such accusations".

You accepted my offer to stop calling you bad anonymous on the condition that you select one unique pseudonym and post ONLY under that pseudonym. You failed to keep up your end of the bargain, that was DECEIT".

While you didn't deny that your posts under "Tony the Tiger", "The great and courteous Peter" and "mr. Great peter" were you, you stated that there was no way to know they weren't different people which was in itself an attempt to deceive - a lie through omission.

Once again, an honest person in that situation would never have posted "You can't know that those were all me", he would have posted "I didn't make those posts!".

While a few of your statements are not technically lies, they are lies in spirit in that they are intended to deceive and mislead. I think your bible has something to say about adhereing to the letter of the law while crapping all over the spirit of the law.

January 18, 2016 12:06 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"I think your bible has something to say about adhereing to the letter of the law while crapping all over the spirit of the law."

Research shows people like Wyatt/bad anonymous believe being a christian unconditionally means they are a good person and so they think behaving unethically doesn't change that.

January 18, 2016 12:09 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Also, Wyatt/bad anonymous's long history of past troll coments about condoing swirlies of LGBT people and my husband being lobotomize and having a roach motel around his neck have direct bearing on whether any current staments he makes about not being a troll are true.

So when Wyatt/bad anonymous childishly says "what someone has said previously has no bearing on whether their current point is correct" this is another example of how that's obviously false.

January 18, 2016 12:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

When Wyatt/bad anonymous says "what someone has said previously has no bearing on whether their current point is correct" it makes clear that his motivation in posting anonymously and under various pseudonyms is firstly to deceive others by allowing him to contradict himself without being held accountable, to lie repeatedly and have people treat his current comments as though he has no history of lying so his character doesn't impugn any unsupported and probably false statements he makes, and lastly to pretend that there are multiple people sharing his viewpoint (as he so obviously does in this thread).

Its all DECEIT, DECEIT, DECEIT!

January 18, 2016 12:25 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Fantastic post James Peron!!!

January 18, 2016 12:39 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

that was quite a series of rants, Priya

one can almost see the spittle sputtering from you as you get more and more worked up, rambling the same mistaken point over and over

"You accepted my offer to stop calling you bad anonymous on the condition that you select one unique pseudonym and post ONLY under that pseudonym. You failed to keep up your end of the bargain, that was DECEIT"."

for all you know, I did post under one name

not saying I did, not saying I didn't

but, remember, mystery is what makes life so fun

I don't negotiate with terrorists, howvever, and made no deal with you

I simply provided a name you could use for me if you wanted to turn from your trollery

you're still free to do so but I'm not agreeing to anything more than I've already done:

calmly present the opposition to the gay agenda

hope you're having a swirly day!!

January 18, 2016 1:30 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Troll Detected!

January 18, 2016 2:03 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

What's deceit is when I say to you "I'll stop referring to you as bad anonymous if you chose one unique pseudonym and post only under that pseudonym" and you respond in acceptance of my offer "'m sure all the anons are grateful for your generous offer...please refer to me as Peter the Great" and then you procede to post under a variety of different names and claim they weren't all you - that's deceit.

Your intent from the start was to mislead us into believing you were sincere in agreeing to my proposal while giving yourself weasely cover to later claim you didn't agree to it as you knew you wouldn't adhere to it.

Typical Wyatt/bad anonymous trolling. When he's not outright lying he's acting like the Pharisees in the bible and sleazily playing to the letter of the law while crapping all over the spirit of the law.

You couldn't be more transparent Wyatt. Deceit is in your nature as is proven by your last (and all the other) comment. You're not fooling anyone, least of all yourself.

January 18, 2016 2:19 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt is afraid to read my devastaing rebuttal to his absurd claim that a past comment has no bearing on whether or not a present comment is true so he tries in vain to dismiss it by calling it a rant while trying to put a brave face on his cowardice by hiding behind trolling.

Face it Wyatt, there's a long history in the justice system of a person's past behavior and comments determining how much credence should be given to current comments.

And let's not forget how all the past times you've condoned the imprisonment, assault, and execution of LGBTs proves false your later statments about not being in support of punishing people for being gay.

January 18, 2016 2:26 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "I simply provided a name you could use for me if you wanted to turn from your trollery".

An obvious lie. You intended to mislead me and the readers into thinking you sincerely agreed to my offer to stop calling you bad aonymous. You're a deceitful person at heart.


Wyatt absurdly claimw me calling him "bad anonymous" iw trolling. It'd be trolling if I called a good person "bad", its not trolling when what you say is the truth - "Bad" is an accurate characterization of Wyatt/bad anonymous, the truth isn't trolling.

And in the meantime Wyatt/bad anonymous posts over and over things like "Ward's daily swish in grammar school helped him maintain basic standards of hygiene that, and the roach motel he wears around his neck!!" - now that's Trolling!

There's no equating me calling him "bad" with untrue nasty comments like that. But of course that's readily apparent to rational people, its just Wyatt that needs to have reality explained to him.

January 18, 2016 2:31 PM  
Anonymous GREAT PETER said...

when someone displays an inordinate amount of anger, such as Priya has, you know that they are mad because they've been proven wrong

but anger is just crap

which is pretty funny considering all the questions swirling around Priya's head

January 18, 2016 2:47 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Instead of dealing with the iron-clad rebuttals I made of his false statements Wyatt/bad anonymous thinks he can just call them "angry" and people will magically think he's disproven them. Not even a nice try Wyatt.

Note how after Wyatt agreed to my proposal by saying "I'm sure all the anons are grateful for your generous offer...please refer to me as Peter the Great" he complained that in one comment I refered to him as "You" rather then "Great Peter" and on multiple subsequent occaisions he complained I didn't capitilize "Great Peter" (which he called a mispelling). Then when I said he had broken our agreement by posting as "Tony the Tiger" he disagreed with me by saying that I couldn't know it was him posting under both pseudonyms. After that when I again said he had broken our disagreement he repeatedly disagreed with me by saying I couldn't know who posted under the different names.

This is not the behavior of a person didn't agree to post under only one unique pseudonym. Those are statements of a person trying (and failing) to defend himself from the accusations that he broke our agreement.

When he saw his denials weren't credible or working he then tried to backtrack further and say he never agreed to my proposal.

Wyatt/bad anonymous's deceit is obvious to everyone, even him. He's just not man enough to drop the farce and admit he lied.

January 18, 2016 3:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

LOL, Wyatt, it doesn't matter how much you weasel, deflect and try to avoid my devastating rebuttals by calling them "angry" or "rants", you just can't get around the truth.

You can never win when you depend on lies Wyatt - you just look childish and deceitful.

January 18, 2016 3:53 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Did I mention what a great post James Peron made?

A devastating and crystal clear explanation of how people try to hide their attempts to deny equality to gays and lesbians by falsely claiming they're defending religious "liberty".

January 18, 2016 3:58 PM  
Anonymous jamie pair-on said...

Priya, since the GREAT AND COURTEOUS PETER said LOL, JK

you've made 32 posts in a rage, deleting 4

other TTFers have made 4

non-TTFers, 6

clearly, you're somewhat unbalanced

and the whole wide internet is watching you

January 18, 2016 4:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your hatred for God's LGBT creations is staggering.

And that’s a fact.

You have so much hatred inside you that you cannot contain it.

You constantly spew your hatred for LGBT folk here in the comment section of the Vigilance blog.

And you've been doing it for years.

In this thread alone, you have spewing your hatred as “Great Peter,” “bemused again,” “the Great and Courteous Peter,” “goodbye,” “Tony the Tiger,” “Mr. Great Peter,” “rolling on a sliver,” “whirl on, silver wheels,” “tilt-o-whirl,” “swirly time down south with Ward and June,” “sick of the slick and wicked,” “you can clean him up but,” “King of Candyland,” “in the land of the swirly gumdrops,” “hee-haw,” “citizens united,” “down low,” “there’s only one step down from here,” “ha ha, say the clowns,” “is it bam-bam or peebles?,” “Edwin Superstarr,” “cinco de winter,” “postcard from a land ravaged by Obama,” “elephant in china shop,” “sunny day, everything’s A-OK,” “an impeach of an impair,” “gitchy goomy,” “summer breeze makes me feel fine,” “where free speech went,” “farm to table,” “global warming has not increased since 1998,” “watcher,” “self-evidently brilliant,” “the glimmer twins,” “illogic unveiled,” “factually correct,” “everything is beautiful,” and “trans-brilliant.”

Brimming with hatred isn't healthy for anyone.

January 18, 2016 4:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And before you almost settled temporarily on "Great Peter," you spewed your hatred multiple times in your fake guises all over the blog.

If you don't want your drivel corrected, quit driveling here at Vigilance.

You said you were leaving.

So go.

You and your hatred will not be missed.

January 18, 2016 4:23 PM  
Anonymous that'll be the day said...

yes, and do provide us with an example of any of the non-TTF anons' "staggering hatred"

(crickets chirping)

January 18, 2016 4:29 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

LOL Wyatt, the number of posts I've made and deleted in no way has any bearing on the truth of my arguments.

On the other hand, your long history of lying and contradicting yourself does have a very direct bearing on the truth and credibility of your current statements as I've so ably demonstrated.

And of course none of my posts were made "in a rage". They were rational with iron-clad logic, to the point, and thorough. Wyatt is just afraid to address them because he knows he can't.

You know you've been defeated and can't rebut my points so you pathetically and cowardly try to ignore them and hand wave them away by calling them "angry", "rants", and frequent(?!), delusionally thinking that takes the place of reasoned arguments of which you have none.

You can never win when you depend on lies Wyatt - you just look childish and deceitful.

You're weak Wyatt. Suck it up, be a man and admit you lied.

January 18, 2016 4:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"yes, and do provide us with an example of any of the non-TTF anons' "staggering hatred""

I'm not going to repeat your hateful crap from above. Scroll up and read it yourself.

Every insult you have hurled at Priya Lynn, Cynthia, and me is full of hate.

If you are too blind to see it, maybe you should quit sticking your head in the dirt all the time so your eyes might have a chance to let you see all your hatred laid out there in black and white.

Or maybe you should just take your own advice to wash the dirt out of your own eyes:

"now, go give yourself a swirly"

January 18, 2016 5:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"A lawsuit filed against the gym chain Planet Fitness over its policy of allowing trans people to use the changing facilities that accord with their gender presentation has been dismissed by a judge, making an important statement against anti-trans scaremongering.

You may remember that in March 2015 a branch of Planet Fitness in Michigan hit the headlines after a woman took exception to another woman who was trans using the same facilities as her. The complainant, Yvette Cormier, took her objections to the Planet Fitness’ front desk but was told the trans woman was within her rights to change using those facilities.

Unsatisfied, Cormier decided to take her complaint further.


"Cormier was not satisfied with this response and, while continuing to misgender the woman, attempted to make her complaints heard at Planet Fitness’ corporate office. She then returned to the Midland Planet Fitness and reportedly began telling other women in the locker room about her so-called concerns. Planet Fitness then called Cormier to warn her that they have a “no judgement” policy and that she was violating the terms of her membership agreement by refusing to drop this matter. Cormier said that she would not stop telling other women about the incident. At this point, she was told that her membership was being revoked as a consequence."

Unfortunately, not long after this, Cormier decided to take the matter even further. Contending that Planet Fitness subjected her to potential sexual harassment as a result of allowing a trans woman to use the same changing facilities as her, Cormier announced she had found representation with Kallman Legal Group of Lansing and was suing Planet Fitness for over $25,000. The suit alleges that Cormier faced an invasion of privacy and emotional distress, and that Planet Fitness’ policy breaches the Michigan Consumer Protection Act as well as violating the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.

Throughout this case Planet Fitness has remained steadfast that it would not be changing its policy allowing people who consistently identify as a particular gender and present as that gender to use the changing facilities that match their identity. Planet Fitness has also said that Cormier did not have her membership cancelled in retaliation for complaining, as she claims, but instead had her membership canceled because, among other things, she began bothering other clients who were attempting to use the gym’s facilities.

Cormier’s case has now been dismissed after Judge Michael J. Beale of the 42nd Circuit Court of the County of Midland found that Cormier had failed to provide evidence for any of her claims...."

January 18, 2016 5:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Continued

"...In the dismissal Judge Beale very clearly states that he is not ruling on whether trans people are protected under Michigan law. In terms of federal law, the Obama administration has made it clear that, in the government’s opinion, the Civil Rights Act applies and that sex protections cover trans people. Michigan state law does not carry those protections however, and so a defense of trans rights on those grounds would likely have been problematic.

Instead, Judge Beale sates: “This Court is not called upon to determine whether transgender persons have any protected rights for use of a locker room facility, rather the issue is whether Plaintiff has stated any valid cause of action against a business allowing transgender persons to use the locker room that corresponds with their gender identify.”

Beale goes on to state “there was no intrusion upon the solitude or seclusion of the plaintiff by the presence of the clothed male [sic] in the common area of the restroom.”

Beale also made an important statement regarding Cormier’s claim of sexual harassment, saying that Beale had failed to prove “quid pro quo” that sexual harassment had taken place given that at no point had the trans person attempted any kind of sexual advance, sexual communication or anything of that sort. This gets to the heart of what Cormier is in fact alleging: that by simply allowing a trans woman to use the same facilities, Planet Fitness is subjecting women to the threat of harassment. That simply isn’t true, and Beale’s determination reflects that, saying, “Additionally, implementing a policy allowing individuals to use the facility based upon their own gender identity does not constitute conduct or communication inherently pertaining to sex…” and therefore the claim of potential sexual harassment fails.

The judge also noted: “Plaintiff may have reasonably expected only women would be present in the women’s locker room, even in the common area; however, she could no longer reasonable expect only women would use the facility after being told about the ‘judgment-free zone’ policy of Planet Fitness.”

The judge’s framing of this issue, and the somewhat otherizing language, is problematic but the findings represent a firm statement in favor of Planet Fitness’ ability to set its own trans-inclusive policies.

Nevertheless, Cormier’s lawyers have already said they will appeal to the circuit court. That appeal will be watched closely by LGBT rights groups who would welcome further affirmation by the courts that trans people in public accommodations do not constitute a risk–something that is blatantly clear to anyone who has looked at the facts or has even an ounce of compassion."

January 18, 2016 5:10 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I'm not hearing any crickets.

Wyatt/bad anonymous said "yes, and do provide us with an example of any of the non-TTF anons' "staggering hatred"".

God, I could go on all day on that! Just a few examples:

"homosexuality is a mental illness" (not according to all major mental and physical health organizations - this is an attempt to demean and promote fear and hatred of gays)

"but the lesbians would prefer to force others to participate in immoral activity (No one is or wants to force others to participate in sex they find objectionable. There's nothing immoral about things which hurt no one, this is simply promoting hatred, fear, and oppression.

"as the gay agenda takes each new step toward a totalitarian state, they swear that what rational people forsee will never occur and it always comes to pass" (promoting hatred and fear of and agression towards innocent people)

""girls" with guy parts don't belong in the girls' room they belong in the boys' room, where they will get a special swirly welcome" (advocating devasting assaults)

And there's the times you condoned imprisoning and executing gays for being gay which I documented at January 14, 2016 12:27 PM


"guys shouldn't be in the girls' room swinging their thing around" (a lie intended to promote hatred and violence against trans people)

"if they want to dress like a girl when they're a guy and they wander into the boys' room that way, they'll likely get a swirly welcome no real harm done, just a little social discipline to maintain decorum"

"Priya thinks a swirly is a "vicious assault" it's not a big a deal just ask Ward he survived"

"Ward's daily swish in grammar school helped him maintain basic standards of hygiene that, and the roach motel he wears around his neck!!"

And then there's all the times Wyatt said Ward and I have been lobotomized.

The most hateful and disgusting thing is when he tries to trivialize and justify bigots sticking people's heads in toilets that sometimes contain urine and feces. In his sick mind whatever is done to LGBTs is "no big deal" as long as they survive the attack (at least thats what he says when he isn't condoning executing gays)

These types of attacks scar children for life, they never get over it and experience life long anger and depression at the injustice that diminishes their happiness. THIS IS WHAT WYATT/BAD ANONYMOUS CONDONES

This is but a tiny fraction of Wyatt/bad aonymous's staggering hatred of LGBT people.

January 18, 2016 5:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If selling a gay couple a wedding cake means a chrstian baker participated in their wedding then selling a gun to a murderer means a christian gun store owner participated in the murder.

January 18, 2016 5:27 PM  
Anonymous the condescending caliph said...

no, because a gun need not be used for murder

if he sold a gun to someone he knew would commit murder with it, that would be an accessory to murder

if a baker bakes a cake knowing it will be used for a nefarious purpose, such as a deviant "marriage", he commits evil

think about it

when you pull your head out of the swish bowl!!

January 18, 2016 6:14 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Poor, poor Wyatt. Reduced to pathetically suggesting that me making and deleting more posts than others proves me wrong.

You can never win when you depend on lies Wyatt - you just look childish and deceitful.

You're weak Wyatt. Suck it up, be a man and admit you lied.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

January 18, 2016 6:29 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/bad aonymous said "no, because a gun need not be used for murder if he sold a gun to someone he knew would commit murder with it, that would be an accessory to murder if a baker bakes a cake knowing it will be used for a nefarious purpose, such as a deviant "marriage", he commits evil".


Nope, there's no way around it, there's nothing nefarious or evil about a gay wedding and a wedding cake need not be used for a gay wedding (it could be a joke, or thrown away, or used for a heterosexual wedding).

Anyone selling a gun knows it can be used for murder and anyone selling a wedding cake knows it might be used for a gay wedding.

If selling a gay couple a wedding cake means a chrstian baker participated in their wedding then selling a gun to a murderer means a christian gun store owner participated in the murder.

Anti-gay Christian business people are hypocrites - case closed.

January 18, 2016 6:43 PM  
Anonymous who dat deletin' comments? said...

"JANUARY 18, 2016 6:14 PM
Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author."

alas, people in a rage have trouble getting it out right

it's a clear sign of anger

"Nope, there's no way around it, there's nothing nefarious or evil about a gay wedding"

no, other than the fact that two people are ruining their lives indulging a delusion which has introduced invariably fatal diseases to our society, it's just peachy

"and anyone selling a gun knows it can be used for murder."

and they know they it can be used to prevent one too

that's why Bluck Obama, who wants to take everyone else's guns away, surrounds himself with squadrons of agents carrying

what a hypocrite!

he knows guns can keep him safe but he doesn't want everyone else having the same protection

meanwhile, young black males are gunned down daily

"If selling a gay couple a wedding cake means a chrstian baker participated in their wedding then selling a gun to a murderer means a christian gun store owner participated in the murder."

no, because a gun is probably the best way to prevent murder

but a cake that says "Randy & Ward" probably won't prevent a homosexual "wedding"

Anti-gay Christian business people are hypocrites - case closed.

"Poor, poor anon. Reduced to pathetically suggesting that me making and deleting more posts than others proves me wrong."

no, that doesn't make you wrong

it a symptom, not a cause

you make many posts because you know you're wrong and try to obscure that

it's like the old adage:

if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance

try to baffle 'em with the stuff in the swirl

January 18, 2016 6:52 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

There's more of that staggering hatred from Wyatt/bad anonymous - calling gay weddings "nefarious", "deviant", and "evil".

Oh Wyatt, will you ever learn not to deny the lies and hate you post?

January 18, 2016 7:07 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

And more typical troll behavior from Wyatt/bad anonymous, trying to provoke by trivializing violent assaults where people are held up side down and have their heads put in toilets that sometimes contain feces and urine.

These types of attacks scar children for life, they never get over it and experience life long anger and depression at the injustice that diminishes their happiness. THIS IS WHAT WYATT/BAD ANONYMOUS CONDONES.

That's more of that staggering hatred of LGBT people.

January 18, 2016 7:12 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Congratulations Wyatt/bad anonymous!


You started out this thread trying to pretend you weren't a troll and I was because I called you "bad" and you couldn't have done a better job of demonstrating you're a troll!

It'd be trolling if I called a good person "bad", its not trolling when what you say is the truth - "Bad" is an accurate characterization of Wyatt/bad anonymous, the truth isn't trolling.

And Wyatt/bad anonymous posts over and over things like "Ward's daily swish in grammar school helped him maintain basic standards of hygiene that, and the roach motel he wears around his neck!!" - the epitome of trolling.

There's no equating me calling him "bad" with untrue nasty comments like that.

January 18, 2016 7:26 PM  
Anonymous one of the regular anons said...

as anyone can see, the anon was responding to you persistent hostility

you've convinced yourself that the gay agenda is the conventional wisdom and so anyone that disagrees is just trying to shock everyone

but you're wrong

many times during this thread, you've stated that if someone doesn't deny something, it must be true

while that's a false assumption, it may not be for one who believes it

hence, since you take this position, I'll assume this is correct:

"Ward's daily swish in grammar school helped him maintain basic standards of hygiene: that, and the roach motel he wears around his neck!!"

any other of Ward's nasty habits you want to discuss?

does he scratch himself and peel bananas with his feet?


January 18, 2016 7:40 PM  

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