unixknight

Ok everybody, dinner at Pam's house next month... Be sure to avoid breakfast and lunch that day so you can come hungry!

True, she didn't beat him but we can't assume he didn't feel humiliated. Remember, he went to the office crying because he thought he was in trouble. I used to be Catholic, and yes I've had the ash on my forehead. To be ordered to wipe it off is to be ordered to put aside one's beliefs. How would you feel if you were told to go remove your garment over some arbitrary dress code? (No, I'm not saying they're equivalent. Just making a point.) It bothers me a bit that his explanation of what the ashes were was insufficient. Saying that it was a religion thing ought to have ended the problem but it didn't. Did the teacher think he was lying? At any rate, in this case the teacher apologized, the kid accepted, and that should have been it. It's unclear to me why this teacher was placed on administrative leave. That seems unnecessary and heavy handed to me.

This is the part that makes the difference. He tried to enlighten the teacher and was apparently ignored. In 2019 there's -zero- excuse for that. A teacher who was unaware could very easily have verified his claims by checking online. That didn't happen.

Oh, no sorry I picked that number at pseudo-random, it wasn't meant to reference your post. I saw that your example was a monthly amount and I was trying to focus in on the amount for a single meal.

Without knowing the tone you intended, I'm going to default to assuming it was lighthearted.

I really hate talking about this stuff... because it's incredibly hard to discuss what one personally does without it coming across as at least a little showboating. "Look how generous I am!" The idea behind fast offerings is to take the cost of the meals you would have had and donate that amount. Period. That's what's being asked. Don't overthink it, don't worry about whether it's "enough." Don't compare yourself to others and don't brag about what you do. If you want to do more, great. That's entirely up to you. The part that seems to be the most complicated is that if you normally make a meal of, say, a tuna sandwich and some fruit, it may be hard to estimate accurately, since bread isn't sold by the slice, it's sold by the loaf. What's an individual slice of bread cost? What's a tablespoon of mayo cost? Just make your best guess. If a loaf of bread costs $X and the number of slices is Y, then divide X/Y=Value. Do the same for mayo. Or you can estimate, as long as you're sincerely trying to make your estimate, maybe overestimate just a touch in order to avoid shortchanging. Add a can of tuna and the cost of whatever other ingredients you like in your tuna sandwiches. Add the cost of the fruit and done. It probably doesn't amount to much. I bet a tuna sandwich and a couple pieces of fruit come out to less than $5. Don't sweat it and don't feel guilty if the guy next to you talks about how he likes to throw in $20 per meal. That guy's probably bragging, either about how generous he is or how expensive his meal tastes are. (This is another good reason to keep the amount of your offerings to yourself.) I don't know exactly how my wife calculates our fast offerings. I trust her to do so honestly and that's enough for me.

Everything is putting the parts you want on the core of the rifle, which is the lower receiver in the case of an AR-15. When you go to do the background check, that's the part that has all the paperwork. Every other component is freely available without all the red tape. The lower receiver can either be complete (has the trigger mechanism already installed), incomplete (just the hunk of metal that is milled and drilled and ready for the parts to be installed) or an 80% lower, which is essentially a hunk of metal that's mostly complete, but it's impossible to install trigger parts or slide a magazine in. The advantage here is that they require no paperwork to purchase, but you have to be able to finish it yourself, which means buying the equipment and having some skills. About 20 years ago I built an AR-15 starting form a bare lower and installed everything myself. Bought the other parts gradually since I oculdn't afford to drop $1200 all at once. It was a pretty sweet rifle when it was done, but alas, I sold it too.

I got out of Magic when I realized it was getting more expensive than playing Warhammer. Not kidding. I have a couple decks just for playing with the kids or the wife, but when people ask me why I don't get really in to it, I honestly tell them it's because I just can't afford it.

Expensive, too... sadly. Otherwise I'd have a stainless steel Kimber M1911-A1 with wood grips by now.

I have thought about it, but first I'd need to have something to fire it with. I sold off my collection many years ago during some financial trouble and I haven't really made it a priority to get new ones now that things are better. I've also been toying with the idea of getting an 80% and building my own M1911 just for the technical challenge of it, now that I have my own house and a dedicated workshop in the basement. I dunno though. That kind of work isn't something I have much experience with and those things can be an expensive learning experience.

I think if a married couple doesn't agree on exactly how to handle tithing, then it makes perfect sense to separate it out between them. After all, when you're sitting in that Temple Recommend interview, they don't ask you if your family as a whole is a full tithe payer, they ask if YOU are. But, it can be a lot easier if both parties do agree. In my household, my wife handles the money and she just moves the tithe over each time one of us gets paid into a separate account, then pays it online. I don't know how often she does that, but it doesn't really matter. As long as it's getting done I don't really care. 😎

I had been trying to find ways to reduce the ammo cost, so first I tried rounds with a beveled bullet. (I forget what they were called.) Horrible jam. Barely made it through the box. Then I tried flathead since we were just shooting paper targets anyway... even worse. So I went back to ball ammo, but I tried these steel case Russian rounds hat I got from a gun show that worked okay, except that sometimes the ejection lever would get caught in the base of the casing and jam it up after the shot was fired. It happened about once every 10 shots or so, so it wasn't too bad, but I'd never want to rely on those in an actual defense scenario.

The only problem I had (and I understand this to be common among all M1911 models) is that if I tried to shoot anything other than regular ball ammo it jammed horribly. Mine was so picky it didn't like steel cased ammo either.

And I think this is at the core of the "hate the sin, love the sinner" philosophy. We aren't able to judge each other because we can't possibly know all the factors. It may be that some people truly deserve scorn while others who have committed similar acts deserve mercy... but it isn't for us to know which is which, so our default position should always be one of compassion. We can show compassion for each other without excusing sinful acts.

I used to have an old Colt M1911-A1. Loved that thing. Shooting .45 ain't cheap but I didn't care.

Unless it's a Kimber.

I can't help wondering if this was the Commission's desired outcome the whole time. This second attack was staged with someone deliberately going to the cake shop to trigger this action. I have a feeling Phillips had a good chance of winning his lawsuit and this was their way of dodging it. I dunno. Just speculating. In any case, I doubt this is really the end of the story.

The early saints weren't fleeing from radioactive fallout, bioweapons, mass panic or total societal breakdown. If any of those are the reason to get out, you'd better have something faster and more able to roll over obstacles than an oxcart.

About 10 years ago I had a co-worker who was gay. We got along fine because we shared interests in things like comic books, gaming and Star Trek. One day I was telling him about a friend I have who is gay but lives celibately because he's LDS and faithful. My co-worker said: "What a shame he has to suppress who he is to follow his church." One of the downsides of being an introvert is that we really suck at quickly coming back with the right thing to say. I didn't really respond to that, but what I should have said was: "He is being exactly who he wants to be. He's not defined by who he's attracted to." 'course... I only thought of that answer later.

Noooooice! I especially like the Beholder.

I had been doing research when I was working on building an army for a historical wargame. One of the sources pointed out that our impression of widespread homosexuality in ancient Greece had more to do with modern interpretations of certain imagery and statements than on that being the intended meaning. For example, people commonly claim that Alexander the Great was in a romantic relationship with his best friend. On looking at the original source documents, it turns out that entire idea is based on Alexander once having made a comment that this friendship was like that of Achilles and Patroclus. From that, people infer that, since Achilles and Patroclus were a couple... But not so fast! Everything Alexander would have known about the nature of Achilles and Patroclus would have been based on the Illiad and contemporary writings. There was no mention of such a relationship whatsoever. In fact, I've read the Illiad and both Achilles and Patroclus were said to have taken captive Trojan women into their tent for... companionship. The notion that they were lovers comes from writings that were made centuries later. Essentially, a Roman fanfic where somebody was shipping Achilles and Patroclus. And on that basis alone, it's commonly believed that Alexander the Great was at least bi, if not gay.

I agree with everything you said above. Well put. I wanted to comment on this part though, because I've spent some time studying the matter. The extent of this kind of behavior in ancient Greece is highly exaggerated. It did exist, but was more common in some City-States than others and in no case was it as common as we're told. Anyway, just a side note.

I mean, it's pretty unambiguous in Scripture that such relationships are sinful. As for why... I offer my 2 cents' We are commanded to be fruitful and multiply. Homosexual relationships do not produce life, and thus such a relationship violates that directive Children do best in homes with a male and female parent. Children growing up in same sex households are at a disadvantage here If indeed the purpose of eternal marriage and forever families is to construct a new family tree for humanity in the Celestial Kingdom, it isn't obvious to me how homosexual pairings contribute to it. I don't say this is a complete list, but it's what comes to mind as I read your comments.

Did you paint that? Nice work!

…. apparently because only now has civilization become "enlightened" enough to recognize the obvious moral superiority of such things... … or something like that.