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oxeador September 11 2010, 00:35:12 UTC
Why do you think it is good news that the pastor canceled the burning?

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easwaran September 11 2010, 05:54:51 UTC
Because it's objectively bad for people to do religiously inflammatory things for purely religious reasons, and it doesn't seem like there would be any good consequences to him doing it - just bad consequences of Islamic people being offended and doing bad things of their own.

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telso September 11 2010, 06:27:37 UTC
Plus, it's not like this could work in a backhanded way to make people think Christianity is crazy, as he's generally referred to as "fringe" or worse and, as Hilary Clinton or Robert Gibbs or someone in the Administration said, he has more media at his press conferences than parishioners at his pews, so it's not like he has much influence anyway. Christians (particularly clergy) have strongly come out against this guy, so it'd be hard to paint Christians with the crazy brush due to this guy.

Plus, that he was in the news was just keeping this Manhattan mosque issue in the news further, and people were making comparisons between the two issues, saying they're equally intolerant, which is why some people liked the "compromise". At least that may be reduced.

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secret_panda September 11 2010, 12:27:28 UTC
Oxeador: seriously?

Sigh.

It's courtesy if nothing else.

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telso September 11 2010, 03:17:26 UTC
1) DADT was also declared unconstitutional under the 5th Amendment (it earlier failed Equal Protection smackdown). (Only skimmed the decision so far.)

2) I hadn't yet heard of this (surprising), and was also surprised by these two paragraphs:
Congress twice passed legislation specifically calling for tax-funded stem cell research, which President George W. Bush vetoed. Some Democrats are considering whether to try the legislation again.

The lawsuit was filed by two scientists who argued that President Barack Obama's expansion of the number of stem cell lines available for government funding jeopardized their ability to win grants to research adult stem cells - ones that have already matured to create specific types of tissues - because of extra competition.
As to the first: how is it that Congress could pass such a law twice while Bush was around, but with more Democrats didn't pass it once while Obama was in charge. Man, your system is screwed up! (Not that mine is perfect ( ... )

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easwaran September 11 2010, 05:53:41 UTC
1) That's right, but somehow the 1st amendment argument is more surprising to me.

2) I suppose it's probably because Obama reversed the executive order and so congress thought they didn't have to do anything, so they tried to focus on other things I guess.

3) Agreed - the more I hear about this the more confusing it is.

4) That's certainly an interesting hypothesis. Do they know the order of the primaries for 2012 yet? Or is it only IA, NH, NV, and SC that they know as being early? Did she endorse Sharron Angle?

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telso September 11 2010, 06:20:23 UTC
Apparently (plan in graphic was not actually adopted, says article text), the rules are essentially the same as 2008, unless the Dems also adopt this plan: the original four (IA, NH, SC, NV) may start no earlier than Feb 1, while rest can't start till March 6, and delegates awarded before April 1 must be done "proportionally" (as we saw with the Dems in 2008, that could mean anything). (As before, non-binding votes, like caucuses that select members for larger caucuses who aren't bound to follow the local wishes, seem to be allowed earlier ( ... )

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krasnoludek September 11 2010, 07:05:22 UTC
1) I agree with you that DADT being unconstitutional under the 1st amendment is more surprising than under the 5th. The NYT article listed two examples given by the prosecution to argue that the law was unjust. They were both examples where someone's private, hidden conversations were discovered against their will. It seems the only way they could have complied with the law was to never talk about these subjects with anyone, which then is a pretty heavy restriction of speech. And as the judge determined, the government didn't have a strong enough interest for security to restrict such speech ( ... )

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secret_panda September 11 2010, 12:26:29 UTC
Re (4): former governors (and presidents, senators, congresspeople, and doubtless many other positions) get the title "governor" even after they leave office. So, like, President Carter is still "President Carter" even though he's no longer president, and technically you probably could call our current Secretary of State "Senator Clinton," though that would be rather silly.

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krasnoludek September 11 2010, 22:41:03 UTC
I had only really heard this in the context of presidents, and not lesser positions.

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secret_panda September 12 2010, 03:42:41 UTC
I don't know where the line is, but she's definitely still Governor Palin. (And hopefully she won't augment that title anytime soon!)

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