While the North Carolina House of Representatives has finally killed the bill to allow the state to establish a state religion, a new study found that 34 percent of adults would favor establishing Christianity as the official state religion. While 47 percent opposed the establishment of state religion, it was less than a majority.
Another 11 percent thought that the Constitution allowed for the establishment of an official religion. Thus, they are entirely unaware of the workings of the first amendment or the prior rulings of the Supreme Court.
Republicans were the most likely to favor the establishment of a state religion with 55 percent favoring it in their own state and 46 percent favoring a national constitutional amendment.
While the poll reportedly included 1000 people (a sizable group), I still want to believe that it is skewed and that most people recognize the danger of religious-based government in a world torn apart of sectarian violence. Even if these people lack knowledge of the Constitution, they are given a daily lesson on the dangers of state-sponsored religion in their newspapers and news broadcasts. For those advocating such a change, they leave us with the chilling view that, for some, the problem with abusive theocratic regimes like Iran is simply the disagreement with the choice of the religion.
Source: HuffPost
One of my daughter’s best friends was in the race. She was about fifteen minutes from the finish line so she was not injured but her mother was waiting for her at the finish line and witnessed the explosions but also was not injured.
ap,
Boston police have confirmed that there were forty-six wounded–some are in critical condition.
ap,
I just listened to the local news here. There have been three explosions. Two simultaneous explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Two people have been reported dead and twenty-three injured. News reports also say there was an explosion at the JFK Library around 4:30.
I don’t know if this is accurate:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/watch-live-coverage-2-large-explosions-reported-boston-marathon-least-2-dead-23
WATCH LIVE COVERAGE: Boston Marathon Bombing — Report Claims Suspect Identified, and at Least 12 Dead, 50 Injured
TV footage showed an explosion sending up a white plume of smoke along the sidelines of the race.
April 15, 2013
Update 1:33 PM: From the New York Post — ” A federal law-enforcement source confirmed to The Post there are at least 12 dead and nearly 50 injured. Fox News reported that Massachusetts General Hospital was treating 10 people with amputated limbs and all operating rooms were on hold.
Authorities have a identified a suspect, who is currently being guarded in a Boston hospital with shrapnel wounds.”
SwM,
I’m listening to ABC and they’re wondering about unconfirmed reports of a bomb found in a nearby hotel and police report that so far 2 are dead and 22 injured. The police report is official … the bomb in the hotel is speculation.
http://www.businessinsider.com/possible-third-bomb-at-boston-marathon-2013-4 There could be more bombs, Blouise.
Tony C.,
Now I feel better and it didn’t cost me a cent!
Reminds me of something a comedian told me years and years ago … in order to be funny, a joke must carry an element of truth.
BTW … Doesn’t look good for the folks in Boston …I just pulled this off of one of the twitter sites (that’s blood on the ground)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BH6kFLDCQAAcSDO.jpg
Blouise: No worries, I do not believe in anything supernatural, but several of the fictional shows I enjoy(ed) are distinctly supernatural. “Being Human,” “Merlin,” “Heroes”, “Lost Girl,” “Haven,” etc.
There is an interesting observation from evolutionary psychology that many of the things we find entertaining and fun to do are essentially practicing survival skills with the danger removed. Beginning with playing “Tag,” “Hide and Seek,” and games of throwing accuracy and puzzle solving. Hiking, fishing, hunting, running and various forms of racing are all fun when nothing but bragging rights are at stake.
It may be the same with our fiction; we need the high stakes of drastic life consequences (including death) while subconsciously knowing for certain it isn’t really real, in order to enjoy the story. It may be the reason we even have imaginations to allow us to enjoy fiction, the survival advantage of an imagination is that it allows our future lives to be rehearsed.
The non-survival benefit is that we can also have fun rehearsing scenarios that are impossible in real life.
Tony C.,
Justified is a great show! In my opinion, quite possibly one of the best series presently airing. Gene, Bob, and I are great fans of all things Justified. I can not, and thus do not try to, reconcile my enjoyment of Justified with my disdain for guns. Everybody on that show either shoots someone or gets shot by someone … there are a few stabbings, explosions, and poisonings but death by gun is the normal course of events. I suppose if I were psychoanalyzed the unconscious forces of the gun culture would
be revealed at work in my subconscious.
But back to the point involving gun safety … Nader’s book “Unsafe at Any Speed” was one of the first steps taken in dragging automobile manufacturing, kicking and screaming all the way, into the realm of producing safer vehicles. To that end I do not believe it to be an exaggeration in opining that Nader can take partial credit for saving several hundred thousand lives. Would that another individual, unafraid of the authority figures arrayed against him/her, produce a work entitled “Unsafe at Any Caliber”
Blouise: “Justified” looks like a good show; unfortunately it conflicts with others my wife and I like, so I will have to wait for a weekend marathon to record and catch up.
I will note, btw, that those modifications I talk about do not require any electronics or batteries to implement. If you think about something like a five minute kitchen timer that runs on a spring; a safety on the gun could be implemented like that, the human must compress a spring to hold the safety off, and two minutes later the safety clicks back on.
The same is true for requiring separate actions to chamber a bullet and then fire the weapon; like a thumb-lever that chambers the bullet, and automatically retracts the bullet if not fired within two minutes. Simple springs, simple dumb steel tech, which can all be made very reliable.
gbk: There is little point in addressing you directly; you have proven you will not listen to reason. If I want to talk about you with somebody else, I will. I am not talking to Bron as an indirect method of talking to you, I am talking to Bron to talk to Bron, and I know full well you can read it too, and I have the balls to not give a damn.
If I have anything further to say to you, I certainly shall. As it stands, my opinion is that you have proven yourself a broken record unworthy of my further attention.
Tony.,
I did, however, find your discussion with Gene on gun safety rather elegant but testing of your theories will never be done as we are prohibited from doing same by legislation the gun manufacturers, through their lobbyists, have pushed through Congress.
{I am referring to the discussion you started off with this:
“In fact, that is the whole point of owning a gun, instead of just owning a good hunting knife: Ease of use.
America does have a gun problem. I believe people should be allowed to own guns for self-defense, I believe they should be allowed to carry, but you do your argument damage with your implied pretense that guns are no different than any other weapons. They are very different, and the differences are precisely why we own them.” (Tony)
You followed with:
“The problem is the gun because the gun (as currently constituted and regulated) removes all barriers to successful impulsive murder. The problem is not in the people for having these impulses, those are a natural result of evolutionary pressures in our psychology. The problem is in removing the time and action barriers that would give rationality time to dissuade the shooter from murder. If somebody commits considered murder (as the crazies and criminals do), THEN the problem is in the person.” (Tony)
And finally:
” … because what we know is that guns, as currently manufactured and regulated, defeat the natural mental mechanisms that would otherwise drastically reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by guns.
I believe if simple modifications to a product would effect large changes in the death rate due to that product, both intentional and unintentional, then it is fair to say the problem was in the product, not the people.” (Tony) }
Although Gene poo-pooed my fantasies that ‘ “It was my autonomous nervous system that shot him” isn’t a valid defense.” ‘, I still think it is something Ava Crowder could use, but then, who am I kidding? Boyd’s just going to shoot someone and all will be well. (referencing FX’s Justified)
Tony C.,
Well, I have real work to do, contractual obligations that have not allowed any sleep for three days now. But you keep right on building your list of, “things that can kill.” I’ll be back on Thursday.
Tony C.,
“GBK is wrong; the argument does not need to be informed by the intent or design of the gun. The argument is about whether an individual should be liable because their stolen property caused the criminal death of another person.”
Your argument is futile Tony. The design of any tool is the basis for use. I have never in this thread referred to liability because a person’s, “stolen property caused the criminal death of another person.”
This is your stretching of argument to include: 1) cars, 2) kitchen knives, 3) martial arts practitioners, 4) combat knives, 5) guns not committing crimes, 6) marketing of guns, and 7) drugs used by veterinarians for the purpose of euthanasia.
Quite a broad swath of bullshit — the ever shifting, and might I note, verbose ramblings of desperate argument.
As an aside, please have the balls to address me directly in this thread and not use others as a proxy.