unixknight

Yeah for YOU. Being positive is your superpower 😁 It must be so, if you can look at the DC area and like it. (love ya man)

Yeah there's a fine line between keeping informed and getting pulled into the outrage machine. If you can surf that line, more power to ya. I'd like to be informed and decide for myself what's important, even if it deprives media outlets of clicks.

Most of my favorite words do. 🤣 I remember a bunch of years ago thinking that Fox (the local affiliate in this case, not the network news) tended toward headlines that would get people to watch. Words like "topless" in a case like this would be emphasized even though the story was really more about a 53-year-old being in the SI swimsuit issue at all, with her particular attire not really being relevant enough to be in the headline itself. FNC isn't any different, which is a shame. They're already the closest thing we have to a conservative news network and they undermine their own credibility with that stuff. They don't need to do it. Conservatives who want to watch news TV will already watch them, and they're not gonna attract liberals with it.

"topless."

You'd be surprised. Have you ever noticed, in a lot of those phishing E-mails how easy they are to spot due to bad grammar and spelling, such that they couldn't possibly have actually come from eBay or the IRS or wherever? That's not an oversight. That's on purpose. They do it because they don't want to waste time on people who are smart enough to sniff them out at a later stage in the scam. They want stupid/naieve/inexperienced with the Internet people, and that's how they weed them out. It's actually a pretty successful approach, as evidenced by the fact that it... never... stops. That tells us that you can never underestimate the value of marketing to the dumb.

Kinda. It's a combination of things. Some will read the cookies your browser has stored. Others will go by the IP address, in which case then yes, your modem (or router) will be the common thread that results in ads being shared across machines in the household. Keep that in mind if your kids have Internet connected devices and you've been watching inappropriate material on yours.

Well, I was kinda hoping for a specific example of what you mean, but I guess going with "If you don't agree with me you must not have read the verses" approach is okay too. Not trying to be catty here, and I do appreciate you providing a reference to the verses in question, but I think at this point it's obvious that some of us are getting a different take on them than you did, and we've been trying to get you to focus your point in on exactly where that is. Just repeating your premise over and over isn't really an argument, brother.

I think @mikbone is talking more about the sensationalism in the headlines than the reliability of the stories per se. Fox has always been bad about that. These days CNN is giving them a run for their money, though.

Maybe. He did do all of those things, but that fits the other theory equally well. Again, working purely from the references provided.

Not only that, but the verses @Rob Osborn provides do state that Satan went into Judas, which makes it easier to understand how Judas could have been with Jesus, known Jesus' mission, heard Jesus' teachings, and still be so certain of the idea that Jesus was to be a militarized Messiah that he chose the most underhanded possible method of trying to goad Him into taking up that mantle.

Having looked at the verses you referenced, I don't see how they testify that Judas was motivated by greed alone. (Mind you, I'm not saying he was or wasn't, only that it isn't stated.) In fact, looking at the reference in Matthew 27, check out verses 3 and 4. Judas throws back the money and feels remorse only after Jesus was condemned. Now, if Judas were motivated only by evil and by greed, why would he care? More importantly, wouldn't he already have expected that outcome? The fact that Jesus was condemned doesn't appear to be what he was expecting to happen. That fits much better with the conclusion I referenced than the simplistic "he was just evil and wanted the silver." Not saying you can't possibly be right, only that your conclusion isn't supported in the verses provided.

Source, please?

I've actually read an analysis (I don't remember where) that suggests that Judas' motives may not have been for greed. The conclusion of this particular analysis was that Judas was expecting Jesus to lead a revolt against the Romans, liberating Judea from Roman occupation. This is what most people believed the Messiah was going to do. Judas' sin was to be blind to the bigger picture, and sold Jesus out as a way of trying to force the issue - in that by leading the Romans to Jesus, it would force the hand of the Messiah to start the revolt. That didn't happen, of course, and it was only in hindsight that Judas finally understood. That was why he went off an hanged himself. I don't know if it's true or not, but it makes more sense to me than the idea that he was motivated purely by a desire for a bag of silver coins.

One thing I'd like to share with everybody: If you're a sugar addict and you quit cold turkey, be very careful to keep your blood sugar where it needs to be by eating regularly. Yesterday, my wife skipped breakfast and just before lunch she nearly fainted. After having an apple she was fine. On another note, I'd strongly encourage everybody to listen to the podcast episodes that @NeuroTypical and I posted. There are a lot of great insights in the one he posted about picking a diet you can live with. Short term diets fail, and overly ambitious ones fail. The diet that works is the diet you can live with. The one I posted is about the physiological benefits of old exposure (among other things), which include better cardiovascular health, weight loss and a reduction in insulin resistance. I tried cold training about a year ago and lost 12 lbs in about a month doing just that and nothing else. I didn't stick with it because, well, I suck... But I'm going to try again after having listened to that podcast episode again.

Weekly weigh-in: No change. That's actually a good thing, considering the disaster that was the weekend.

Correct, which is exactly why I want to find sources with a minimum of ragesauce poured over them.

In my case, it's a matter of weaning not just for myself, but for my media sources. My YouTube recommended lists are gradually shifting from political commentary to Star Trek, movie reviews and so on... but it's a slow shift.

Yeah that's prettymuch common knowledge. And that's the problem. No matter what you do, it's going to involve sifting through a lot of garbage looking for the nuggets. Not worth it to me anymore.

I guess what I'm looking for is a source that won't waste my time with non-news stories that are purely designed to incite outrage for clickbait.

I know they're always going to be biased, but there's a big difference between bias and sensationalism.

@NeuroTypical Impressive! But seriously... Sorry for your troubles, man.

The problem in the way it's portrayed in the media, is that it's so light on fact and so heavy on emotionally weighted words. That, and it's all cluttered with news stories that aren't news. The President nominating somebody for a Judgeship is news. The news media vomiting all over itself over a bunch of high school kids is not. If anybody can recommend a news site that's just the facts, I'd be very grateful.

Day 7. My wife said to me last night that my demeanor has changed noticeably since I took that break from politics. She says I'm less grumpy and more playful than I was.

I had never heard of that before now, but I guess it's not a surprise. The biggest red flag being, of course, "And there's nothing... the prophet can say to show me otherwise." Sorry sister, but when it comes to doctrine, yes, yes there is. Personal revelation does not trump Church authorities, especially in matters of doctrine.

Yeah I don't disagree. I think we have to be super careful not to start going off into the reeds, acting as if this is all stuff that will happen, but we're the ones smart enough to see it coming. To me, the article itself is fairly bland. The essay it references seems meatier but I haven't finished reading it yet. The problem is it all comes back to the simple fact that we don't have much at all revealed about Heavenly Mother, to the point where it's understandable to not accept Her existence at all. That said, and maybe this is the former Catholic in me, I do find the idea compelling, because one of the justifications in Catholicism for the heavy emphasis on Mary is that she sort of serves as a mother figure for the Church, particularly for those who have no mother of their own, they can connect to her. I grew up on that idea so there is a space in my mind for Heavenly Mother to fit that sort of role. I suppose one could characterize that as an advantage or a defect, depending on point of view. Personally, I hope that more will be revealed. Maybe it will never happen, or maybe it will be at the next General Conference. Until then, we have to just keep on as before.