Sunday, January 11, 2015

I Am Charlie

No you're not. Most people don't like free speech. BTW is it still not about religion?

52 comments:

  1. There is religion...and there is fundamentalist religion.

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    1. But the key difference is the late Jerry Falwell never opened fire on the staff at Hustler. Don't make that MSNBC mistake.

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    2. The Jewish people have been millennial targets of terrorism. The following is taken from one of their Anti Defamation League articles:\
      "Typically, single-issue extremism emerges as an ultra-radical wing of a much broader social or political movement, a wing so agitated about its chosen cause that its adherents may come to believe that violence in the service of that cause is justified or even required.

      The radical anti-abortion movement emerged in the 1980s; its violence peaked in the early 1990s with dozens of bombings, arsons, murders and attempted murders. The frequency of anti-abortion violence began to ebb in the mid-1990s, but never dissipated entirely. Anti-abortion violence has actually remained a consistent, if secondary, source of domestic terrorism and violence, manifesting itself most often in assaults and vandalism, with occasional arsons, bombings, drive-by shootings, and assassination attempts." IMO, fundie religion of any stripe fosters being
      right while all others are wrong, and among the most imbued, we find
      individuals from those groups who think they in their righteousness can be
      judge, jury & executioner.

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    3. If I understand you correctly we need to put the anti-abortion movement on an equal threat pedestal as radical Islam even though I don't recall reading anything about anti-abortion violence in the press of late even though they're a mostly pro-choice press that would jump at the chance. I'm sorry if the Rev. Pat Robertson doesn't scare me.

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    4. OR to put it another way perhaps 9/11 could have been prevented but that we were too obsessed with the supposed threat from the Right, well liberals anyway. It is well-known liberals are uncomfortable discussing radical Islam.

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    5. Equal threat, hardly. My point is that certitude can in rare instances affect
      a few unstable adherents You get the same situation with the Greenpeace types as well as the numerous half-cocked 'militias'. In those examples we note the possibility, but rarity. Hardly comparable to
      the ISIS/El Queda and similar movements tracing their roots and ideals
      to the Muslims. Then again, we need recognize individuals who rise above violence.

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    6. Well that's the thing. Talking about anti-abortion violence in the age of Boko Haram and IS seems so dated, so 90's like watching Tom Selleck on Cozi TV.

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  2. HUMOR - Funny but when I'm looking for something funny I think of Harry Reid and exercise equipment for a 30-yr. old. The Prophet Muhammed doesn't come to mind. Hasn't occured to Seinfeld either. There's an old saying why throw rocks at a junkyard dog? (I'm not referring to the Prophet here) I am so not Charlie.

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  3. The Kurds are Muslim. How come the other Muslims pick on them?

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    1. & hell of a bunch of good fighters too.

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  4. Replies
    1. Sounds like she wants it to be true. Call the Yonkers Ghostbusters. So something was different, a bit off about that house. I feel that way about the workplace. I blame it on the fluorescent lights. Everyone at work feels out of sorts but they don't know why. I believe we've reached Meander Ave.

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  5. Thinking about freedom of speech and egregious insults, reminds me of gradeschool kids hollering across the street...'yo mama so fat, etc' I sort of like
    political cartoons when they are somewhere near actuality, but satire simply for the
    sake of meaness is always inflammatory. Reminds me of the guy that walks into
    a bar in Red Lodge, Montana and announces, 'ain't nobody in here but cowboys and
    queers'.

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    1. I honestly never heard of Charlie Hebdo until now.

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  6. I have much respect for progessive religion.

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  7. Urban critters- daughter in Topeka had a possum in her garage last month. She
    chased it with a broom, it keeled over playing possum and she thought she had killed
    it. It got up, hissed and ran away. A couple nights ago, she heard growling in the back yard, got up and saw a feral cat and a fox having a go round. She chased with her broom, neither played dead, the fox skeedadled and the cat jumped up on the birdbath for drink. How do these animals thrive in an urban environment?

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    1. I have an older gray cat that's extremely territorial, chases other cats away and even fights them fiercely if they even step foot in his zone. So one evening my cat's in a room I call the little room, just an almost shedlike area that comes in from the outside and leads to the kitchen. In walks a young 'possum snooping around for food and is literally an inch away from the cat. The cat does absolutely nothing, knows better.

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  8. Had some aches and pains last night so took some Tylenol PM (#1 Doctor Recommended in Rite-Aid). Not only did I seem self-aware most of the night but felt weird the next morning and seemed to make the tinnitus worse. Scotch 'n' soda wins again.

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    1. I would think so. Straight Tylenol (acetaminophen) is a pain reliever, I have
      taken one before bed for years for arthritis in my neck. But the Tylenol-PM
      throws in diphenhydramine, an antihistamine. It doesn't take too much before you get "daytime sleepiness, confusion, constipation, dry mouth, and urinary retention". Unlicensed of course, but I'd recommend the PM stuff for when you have a bad cold or flu. Unfortunately, diphenhydramine can also
      be quite addictive. Now scotch & soda, I have no problem with and highly recommend.

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    2. Advil PM ain't perfect but I've gotten more out of it. It has a higher % of what you said (the Benadryl stuff) but if I were a doctor I'd be recommending the nightly Rodell Napolean.

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  9. I hear ISIS hacked CentCom's Twitter account.

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  10. I guess while the press was covering all the world leaders in Paris, the Boko Haram
    massacred 2000 folks in 16 villages.

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    1. If the Nigerian Army can't defend Nigerians from the likes of Boko Haram why even have a military force? for what purpose?

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    2. As we all know one world leader was missing. How boneheaded can one get? Even if you don't want to go you kinda have to. I'm not into the whole wake scene but sometimes you gotta go in the closet and get your suit out ya know? There are certain required protocols in Life, weddings, funerals,visiting folks in the hospital, massive unity rallies in Paris...

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    3. Agreed; sort of an obligation. Although France is our oldest ally, we recall
      not too long ago there was the 'American Fry' movement. Given that Europe has done little about terrorism, other than decry US drones, we note that it was a US drone that eliminated Anwar al-Awlaki who trained one of
      the French terrorists. Obama still takes a lot of criticism for the use of
      drones and targeting traitors that were once US citizens, but IMO he is
      doing more than the bevy of bigtime funeral dudes over there.

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  11. Romney to run again? Where has be been? Pope announces people should not
    provoke other religions...for once aligned with Bill Donahue. Boko Haram in part
    secretly supplied by ranging Nigerian military. Where do the Kardashians stand on
    all this?

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    1. I rather like Romney. Kim K is going buff again this time for Love Magazine.

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    2. IMO, Romney may be the sanest of that bunch. I just don't like big biz,
      fundies or militias taking over, ya know?

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    3. & Al Sharpton taking over on the Left and OWS and...both sides got their problems.

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  12. Replies
    1. I still don't understand bitcoin. Ten months in jail for selling illegal firecrackers to farmers? my God on July 4th in Yonkers they could arrest half the city if they wanted to.

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    2. Mr. Ver said he landed in the hospital for lack of sleep because he was reading about bitcoin all night. I was wondering how the sleep-deprived become sleep-deprived in the first place esp. since it's been medically proven in sleep experiments that if you stay in bed for several hours you'll sleep at least part of the time even if you later claim you haven't sleep. So I've come up with the theory that the sleep-deprived constantly do the stupid thing of getting out of bed to do things like make a sandwich, stare out the window or read about bitcoin:)

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  13. It is said that everyone should have a hobby (or several) to unwind or ignore the rate race. Mine is a basement full of model trains; while most would get bored pretty quick, I have been at it since 1968 and still spend many hours 'playing with trains'.
    One of the more peculiar ones, though is this guy that took an I-phone photo every day for a year of a burr oak tree out in the pasture. Even posted it, as you can see. Better, we suppose than the usual year
    of 'selfies'....

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    1. If Henry David Thoreau had a smartphone. One woman told me once her hobby is drinking.

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    2. We have a local video store owner who sees porn as a hobby. I honestly never looked at it that way. Should get together with the drinking woman.

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  14. Henry David Thoreau: lucky for him there was no Wi-Fi available at Walden Pond.
    I don't think they had take out back then either, poor guy.

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    1. A few philosophical parts of Walden were over my head. He wasn't a real hermit though as he occasionally visited the Village and chatted with the folks. Parts of the book struck me as being hypercritical of Society like just give me a skillet and an egg and a couple of matches and I'll be happy for the rest of my life kind of attitude.

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    2. Never got Thoreau, but then Moby Dick was another of that genre that
      seemed boring. We may be assured, though, that in this day of cable TV,
      there would be a series, Henry vs the Northwoods, depicting his struggles
      with nature, like all those tepid cable tales about moonshiners, Alaskan
      squatters, Duckfolk and the various 'survival' series. Episode 1: Henry
      struggles from his cabin in the dead of winter and snowshoes down to the pond for coffee water.

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    3. Even though it's a free download I have no desire to read "Lady Chatterley's Lover" or James Joyce for that matter.

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    4. I read Schopenhauer's 'World As Will' during breaks in basic training. Pretty soon, the pushups and five mile runs were more interesting...

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    5. So it's not my imagination. Many of the classics we were required to read in school ARE boring.

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  15. You can vote on which is the most boring classic book. From War & Peace, Brothers Karamazov,
    and Crime & Punishment on up to Gulag Archipeligo, the Russian novel offer
    many many more words than required. But they are considered great works by
    'experts'.

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    1. See that's the thing about "Atlas Shrugged", it's as long as some of those Russian monstrosities but it ain't boring. That's my bar - it ain't boring. Currently I'm reading Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw." So far it seems alright.

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    2. Had to read 'Turn of the Screw' in college lit. It was OK as those things go, but I blew the test: who would think putting a sail mast in a toy boat was an innocent child mimicking a blatant sex act?

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    3. Such a non-Freudian you.

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    4. Freud was always diagnosing and handing out advice. He smoked 20
      cigars a day, even while having over 30 operations for oral cancer. He
      should have seen a shrink.

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    5. & he was not a nice man. Young psychologist and Freud devotee Herbert Silberer made some remarkable insights into the nature of sleep, presented a paper to Freud who haughtily pooh-poohed it. Soon thereafter the devastated Silberer hung himself.

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  16. I was a rather poor student of literature. Wasn't Freud the author of 'The Id and the Odyssey ? My expertise in the field is based on Mel Brooks and that
    definitive study 'What About Bob?'

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    1. I remember that movie. Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss.

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  17. I never cared for Bill Murray. He seemed snarky, arrogant and flippant. Then I saw
    'Groundhog Day' and 'Scrooged' and became a convert.

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    1. Seems the quintessential average guy. I liked "Quick Change."

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