JoeWeber

For giggles. https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1009847187088347136

Despite your criticisms of me, we seem to have a lot in common. I am familiar with both of the aforementioned substances. Then please explain how it is that you are so uptight, unimaginative and stuck in your ways. You come off like someones wired tight Christian Uncle not someone who has really seen the light.

I wonder if she wasn't trolled by someone on her staff, perhaps at the behest of her husband or one of his underlings. It's not difficult for me to imagine her being given the jacket to put on without ever seeing the back. She's married to a misogynist; would you not expect him to sabotage any message she has that isn't in lock step with his? FLOTUS is definitely out of touch with typical Americans. But I'm not sure that she is missing her moral compass entirely like her husband repeated demonstrates himself to be. ETA: I'm also not entirely convinced she has said compass. You have to wonder. If it was her just acting out it was still a tacky, dumbass way to do it. Also, she's a clothes horse and that was a simple $39 jacket that really wasn't matching attire. Occam's razor?

Less than a week after Trump read the phrase "seperate but equal" off a teleprompter, with a straight face? Come on. They know, they just don't give a fuck. I would say the same of a few of the local hard core righties.

Oh well; I take that back. She is as bad as Trump. Can anyone seriously imagine Michelle Obama wearing such a thing on such an occasion? I can not wait to read the justifications for such a tone deaf, selfish, and for our nation, embarrassing act. Bit by bit these idiots are robbing us of our national pride. It's sickening.

Think about that. Think about what? I simply tossed it out to stop some liberal, like me, from making the suggestion.

OH, I see. Well, let's see what was going on "around" that poem at the same time: Immigration Act of August 3, 1882 (22 Statutes-at-Large 214) First general immigration law, established a system of central control of immigration through State Boards under the Secretary of the Treasury. Provisions: Broadened restrictions on immigration by adding to the classes of inadmissible aliens, including persons likely to become a public charge. Introduced a tax of 50 cents on each passenger brought to the United States. Foran Alien Contract Labor Act of February 26, 1885 (23 Statutes-at-Large 332) The first “Contract Labor Law,” made it unlawful to import aliens into the United States under contract for the performance of labor or services of any kind. Exceptions were for aliens temporarily in the United States engaging other foreigners as secretaries, servants, or domestics; actors, artists, lecturers, and domestic servants; and skilled aliens working in an industry not yet established in the United States. Amended in February 1887 (24 Statutes-at-Large 414) to render it enforceable by charging the Secretary of the Treasury with enforcement of the act and providing that prohibited persons be sent back on arrival. Payson Act of March 3, 1887 (24 Statutes-at-Large 476) Restricted the ownership of real estate in the United States to American citizens and those who have lawfully declared their intentions to become citizens, with certain specific exceptions. Act of October 19, 1888 (25 Statutes-at-Large 566) First measure since the Aliens Act of 1798 to provide for expulsion of aliens—directed the return within one year after entry of any immigrant who had landed in violation of the contract labor laws (see acts of February 26, 1885 and February 23, 1887). Immigration Act of March 3, 1891 (26 Statutes-at-Large 1084) The first comprehensive law for national control of immigration. Provisions: Established the Bureau of Immigration under the Treasury Department to administer all immigration laws (except the Chinese Exclusion Act). Further restricted immigration by adding to the inadmissible classes persons likely to become public charges, persons suffering from certain contagious disease, felons, persons convicted of other crimes or misdemeanors, polygamists, aliens assisted by others by payment of passage, and forbade the encouragement of immigration by means of advertisement. Allowed the Secretary of the Treasury to prescribe rules for inspection along the borders of Canada, British Columbia, and Mexico so as not to obstruct or unnecessarily delay, impede, or annoy passengers in ordinary travel between these countries and the United States. Directed the deportation of any alien who entered the United States unlawfully. Act of March 3, 1893 (27 Statutes-at-Large 570) Provisions: Added to the reporting requirements regarding alien arrivals to the United States such new information as occupation, marital status, ability to read or write, amount of money in possession, and facts regarding physical and mental health. This information was needed to determine admissibility according to the expanding list of grounds for exclusion. Established boards of special inquiry to decide the admissibility of alien arrivals. Irrespective of the conditions or circumstances everyone should be appalled at the idea of children being taken from their parents arms and then locked away. Quoting poetry or immigration acts, while enlightened and learned, get us nowhere. This is not a local border problem anymore than National Healthcare is health problem. The problem is wealth distribution both nationally and globally. National lines drawn in the sand, border walls or even gated communities mean nothing to those who fear for their personal safety or their families welfare. Under stress people migrate just as our forefathers did out of Africa a quarter million years ago. If you or your family are being shot at, oppressed or starved you look for another place to live. It's that simple. Of course, Guatemalans aren't migrating in droves to Argentina any more than Bedouins are migrating from the Sahara to the Gobi. If they go at all it is to someplace they heard was better. And even knowing upfront that where they go will result in the host nation putting some of their kids in hell holes won't change their will. After all, they don't catch everyone and it's always the other guy. Maybe as a species we simply can not do any better than walling ourselves in whilst ignoring the plight of our fellows; one quick look around the world and it sure seems that's the prevailing view. No, I don't have a solution at hand and I am not taking in a refugee family while I think it through. I simply believe that at it's core the problem is not any one nations immigration laws or the enforcement thereof. I believe it's a big, slow moving problem that can only be solved by looking outside our borders and beyond our lifetimes. But we won't. We won't because we are predators by nature, by and large, and that's probably because that's the only way it works. After all, the Federation fought the warlike (and homogenous) Klingons and the Romulans and the Borg but they never fought the Orchid People in the Dandelion quadrant, as I recall. We, on the other hand, have the honor of protecting our Federation, and way of life, from poor Hondurans. So, if separating kids from their moms and dads, useless, cruel and counter productive though it may be, is our only tool then so be it, right? After all, we have bible verses, and Breitbart on our side. SCOTUS mit uns.

Then you posted the actual law. Why would Marc read that? It would undermine his argument. Yo's, the law states "conspiracy" not "collusion". Collusion is a tad after the conspiratorial fact, sort of. As I understand the distinction it's definitely collusion when you are behind bars. Until then it's a claimed conspiracy. I carry none of that to the cross. The point is that Marc is a very binary thinker and that which you may consider obvious may need a bit more 'splainin'.

“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.” -Steve Jobs The older I get, the more I'm inclined to believe most people would be better off experimenting with hallucinogens than with religion. Ha! The last time I spoke to Jesus was during my only bad acid trip. I was 15 years old and worried that I would never come down! I stopped believing when I was nine, but that stuff they grind into you as a young child has a way of sticking in your head. Hey, c'mon. If people are willing to talk about how LSD rewires your brain can we do it in its own thread? It's interesting stuff. Plus, and no offense to Rob meant here, but I think the way LSD affects your mind would make you less prone towards religion. Depends on the tab, right? Purple Owsley isn't Orange Sunshine, so they say.

Ron, Saying stuff like that frightens some and pisses off others. You believe you are not of the corporeal world but, nonetheless, you seek to modify it for those who see it as the one world they will ever know. You believe you were created with a predilection to believe in a God. That's a very convenient view that, as ever, can only be defended by using belief in God as your starting point. I believe that a predilection to believe is a selected trait. My starting point is observing that the ancients had no science beyond religion and often no governance beyond religion. They were superstitious, fearful of nature and convinced that the supernatural was real. They trusted their shamans and priests to guide them. I have no trouble seeing how over time those traits might be saved by natural selection in the exact same way I can see how a fear of being too close to the edge of the cliff would be saved over time. Hence, I believe you have succumbed to your own natural wiring by cleaving unto the Jesus proposition. Of course it feels incredibly right and thoroughly natural to you. How could it not?

I've believed the possibility for a long time. First, I developed a sense of spiritual awareness at an early age. Second, God said that Abraham's seed would be like grains of sand. Third, all born-again Christians are adopted into the family. You brought up the notion of conjecture about how my brain was wired. I added on to it with my guess in an attempt to confirm your supposition. So you believe that God created you wired to believe in God so that you would? Do I have that right?

When I was a kid, I had an aunt who was a Pentecostal, and her adult son was a traveling evangelist. (I'm reminded of him every time I hear "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show"). This woman had scrapbooks full of news clippings about the death of Marilyn Monroe, and at ever opportunity would pull them out and bore my mother (her sister) to death talking about it. I think some people are just wired to worship celebrity. Apparently, religious faith and celebrity worship are addictions that are not unlike many others. Thankfully, however, no one is insisting that I organize my one life around the purported divinity of Elvis, make a Hajj to Graceland or accept at my doorstep badly printed copies of his writings. So that's good. You've gone dark, Ron, as you usually do when things are too close to the bone. You know it's true that humans believe because we are wired to believe. Refute the proposition or agree. I am very sorry to have disappointed you. My wife and I are enjoying personal time. I have long believed that I am from the seed of Abraham. Therefore, being wired to believe is a distinct possibility. That does not mean that I am not supposed to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ just because I am one of the selected given the honor of receiving and accepting it quicker. You believe you are descended from seed of Abraham? I've never before heard the claim although, admittedly, I travel in less exalted circles. Is that usual amongst those you know and how did you come to believe so? Is it a Galatians thing or something you just know?

When I was a kid, I had an aunt who was a Pentecostal, and her adult son was a traveling evangelist. (I'm reminded of him every time I hear "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show"). This woman had scrapbooks full of news clippings about the death of Marilyn Monroe, and at ever opportunity would pull them out and bore my mother (her sister) to death talking about it. I think some people are just wired to worship celebrity. Apparently, religious faith and celebrity worship are addictions that are not unlike many others. Thankfully, however, no one is insisting that I organize my one life around the purported divinity of Elvis, make a Hajj to Graceland or accept at my doorstep badly printed copies of his writings. So that's good. You've gone dark, Ron, as you usually do when things are too close to the bone. You know it's true that humans believe because we are wired to believe. Refute the proposition or agree.

When I was a kid, I had an aunt who was a Pentecostal, and her adult son was a traveling evangelist. (I'm reminded of him every time I hear "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show"). This woman had scrapbooks full of news clippings about the death of Marilyn Monroe, and at ever opportunity would pull them out and bore my mother (her sister) to death talking about it. I think some people are just wired to worship celebrity. Apparently, religious faith and celebrity worship are addictions that are not unlike many others. Thankfully, however, no one is insisting that I organize my one life around the purported divinity of Elvis, make a Hajj to Graceland or accept at my doorstep badly printed copies of his writings. So that's good.

I agree. I was an Elvis fan and memorized the words to his first 104 songs before I went into the Air Force. Then I threw away all his recordings because I got tired of moving them around. The money I simply trashed, oh well. In 1977 I was working in a restaurant in Taos, NM when he died. The news shocked and saddened me but, oh well. You memorized the first 104 Elvis songs and then joined a structured organization that controlled the day's of your life? Perhaps you have a natural predilection for verse memorization, adulation and giving yourself over to a higher power. You can not risk conceding the possibility, though it sits before you in your own words, but the tendency may well simply be in your nature.

Folks, why do you interact with this guy. Look at his signature. "America will never be destroyed from the outside, if we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. Abraham Lincoln " They are clearly trolling with a signature like that while being divisive and running in circles. The ostensible reason, per Billvon, is that engaging Marc Rush on SC somehow keeps him from saying the same stultifying things somewhere else. It only appears to be masochistic head banging and then only to someone who isn't reading things closely. Actually, we're performing a valuable public service.

So then it's all a pretense and we are merely tools to further an end of your design?

What would it take? Outside of the SC bubble what does it matter? Maybe if you and Kallend and other serious thinkers would quit feeding Marc and Ron and Windsor and others they would go away and better conversations would follow.

Yes. Also, yes.

We're contemporaries. On the German side of the frontier I had my first close up look at the business end of a Heckler & Koch MP-5, in Belgium the Gendarmes had Uzis. Both are 9x19mm submachine guns/Maschinepistolen. The Baader-Meinhof group was very active at the time, and folks were way skittish. The German did say "Pass, bitte," so he wasn't being mean, but I pulled my passport out without any sudden movement. The windshield was hit North of Baltimore on I-95 and you're right, it did not penetrate, but it impacted enough to leave a clear impression of the projectile. The crater was a round profile that measured 0.355, the very round nose ruled out a 9mm Parabellum of any description, and was too small for a 0.365 9mm Russian/Makarov. The terminal ballistics and bullet shape of much of any .38/.357 was ruled out as well. My suspicion is that it was an inadvertent discharge, since the trajectory appeared to be over the tree line. O.K., it was a slight exaggeration to make a point. Billvon does that to people. Had the officer used the form "du" I might believe that the weapon didn't stay across his chest. Certainly, it did. As he used the form "bitte" you were actually much closer to a reach around than an execution. All is well that ends well. If it were my windshield, I'd have called State Farm and gone drinking before all of that forensic measuring but that's just me.

You are intimately familiar with firearms, and the laws governing them in the USA. You have no familiarity with having one of your children fall victim to random gun violence. Or with the advantages countries with reasonable gun laws enjoy. Like not having motorists waving firearms at them in road rage incidents. Oddly enough, I do have a marked familiarity with random violence that drops children, have lived in sundry countries that have laws that I suspect you would term 'reasonable.' I have been spared any incidents involving motorists waving firearms in road rage incidents; the only motorists that have ever made firearms known in my experience have been cops, and I have had the odd submachine gun stuck in my face (as I GINGERLY pulled out my passport...). I don't count the .380 slug that hit my windshield, since it was from long enough range to be arbitrary. Your guess regarding my familiarity is entirely wrong. Should I trust your instincts about much of anything else? O.K., I'll bite. "the odd submachine gun stuck in my face (as I GINGERLY pulled out my passport...)" How old are you, Mr. Winsor? I'm 64 and the only time I've had the experience it was called an assault rifle and there was no offer that I do anything gingerly. Also, a .380 slug is a bit of a pop whistle round as you surely are aware. Good for inside the car but if it didn't penetrate your windshield from afar then I suspect it would have just bounced off. Please tell the story.

Everything you just posted is a damned lie! Marc, I have a bridge for sale - cheap. You threw out a troll post as bait, and I bit. My bad. Sorry to everyone else. In fairness, when you are fishing for trolls......

You picked up on that also. Ron, I'm not responding to the newsfeed. I'm responding to your words. I'd like to know just how you can counsel anyone when your curiosity goes no further than your own self interest and is limited to your own past experiences? Seriously, how do you reconcile your ignorance of things that anyone should know, like HPV, with your belief that you can counsel troubled minds? Do you honestly believe that your own life's experiences and personal beliefs are sufficient for the task? A professional counselor, the good ones, do not tell people what they know. They ask questions much more than give answers. The only goal in counseling is to facilitate growth in the client whereby he can function in society at a productive level of personal responsibility. Becoming aware of the spiritual component of life plays a major part. To change your life, I believe you must have a higher power on which to rely. Jesus Christ is the Lord of all or He is not Lord at all. Thirty-seven years ago He changed my life and I am certain He is willing to save all those who call upon Him. Then, by your own words, you are not a real counselor nor ever have been. Apparently, you don't really seek to help people with their problems. You seek to convert them to your beliefs. That would be the description of a common proselytizer. What counsel would you give to a young gay kid? Be happy? Your value is no less than any other person. People will love you and you they no less equally than any other? Or, would you point them in the direction of the holy spirit in the hopes that Satan will be driven from their souls and they will then be normal like you. I believe a genuine counselor helps people get comfortable with who they are, not with who they are not. Nor do they pass the sort of judgements on lifestyles and desires as you do, ay least here, with regularity. They seek, using a variety of understandings, to get folks comfortable in their own skins. You seem to want your clients to abandon themselves in exchange for a belief system that meets your personal approval; that is to accept your higher power and if they refuse then there is no help.

You picked up on that also. Ron, I'm not responding to the newsfeed. I'm responding to your words. I'd like to know just how you can counsel anyone when your curiosity goes no further than your own self interest and is limited to your own past experiences? Seriously, how do you reconcile your ignorance of things that anyone should know, like HPV, with your belief that you can counsel troubled minds? Do you honestly believe that your own life's experiences and personal beliefs are sufficient for the task?

That is my point. It did not concern our work. I suspect that it played a zero part in real estate development and contract negotiation as well. Good googaloo, Ron. So if it's not thumbtacked to the wall of your cubicle then you don't need to know it? Your implication is that you shouldn't even want to know it. Your words are the very definition of incurious.