LittleWyvern

I'm not sure why that was a reply to my post, so here's a sentence that doesn't mention anything in particular about the post I just quoted!

I'm just glad you wrote it. I read that list too and thought "you know, that list seems pretty biased but I'm too lazy to post about what I feel is inaccurate about it." I'm sort of glad that I was lazy now, too, because I don't have as much political smarts as I should and what you wrote is better than whatever I could have written. :)

You're more right than you think. It's obvious the author of that list did so to make one group look good and the other group look bad. Elsewhere on the same site, Karla Downing writes: Towards TalkativeIntrovert's original question, you get more accurate information about any group when you avoid getting that info from the group's rivals/enemies.

I don't personally see an erosion of religious freedom: instead, I see a general trend to be more opposed to any mixing of religion and government, good or bad. It's not just a trend in the US: the main reason behind the protests in Egypt was that there was that the government was being too religious (which is a remarkable thing for Egyptians to say).

Hello! I'm excited to hear about your conversion story. :)

...cool story.

Maybe we just have different expectations? I kept on hearing from facebook friends and other sources that this was going to be worse than the Rodney King riots and that there would be mass lawlessness. I got email forwards (such as this one) proclaiming such doom as entire cities burning down and declarations of martial law. Now, I may have been only 3 years old or so when the Rodney King riots took place, but I'm pretty sure they were worse than this. Maybe you can correct me on that assumption. Now, in no way am I condoning violence or riots, I'm just trying to have a proper perspective on what little violence (relatively) there was. Maybe it depends on where you're getting your news from, but what I kept on hearing from the media is headlines like "(insert city here) gripped by rioting fury" and other sensational headlines. It's like Loudmouth_Mormon said earlier, the media has tried (and ultimately failed) to drum up riots and mayhem to continue their news cycle. So, yes, the media isn't portraying the story for what it really is but it's really the exact opposite from what you're assuming. Check my links in my last post if you don't believe me. Don't you at least see how the media is primarily responsible for fanning the flames on this one? Don't fall for the hype. I'll say the same thing I said before, it's downright irresponsible to try to drum up reports of riots. EDIT: I'd also like to suggest locking this thread in a day or so. Maybe there's a productive conversation to be had about the merits of Stand Your Ground laws, but nothing good will come out of trying to prove "racist" this or "thug" that.

What you are referring to is part of the Oakland protest and isn't nearly as dire as how you may have heard it described: The only reference I could find about "hundreds of thousands in damage and lost revenue to businesses" was the fact that Times Square was nonoperational during the protests yesterday, but the protests were generally peaceful and business appears to be back to normal today. There are still protesters near Times Square but last I heard their numbers are much less than last night. We're obviously looking at different crowds. If the media should be held accountable for anything, it's hyping up stories of riots and making the protesters look far worse than they really are.

That rally ended up staying generally peaceful and went without much incident. Pretty surprising considering how many people on the news kept on saying it wasn't going to be peaceful. EDIT: from what I've been able to tell, the small riot in Oakland is the only thing related to this case that wasn't generally peaceful. So much for all the hype I heard about cities burning down and such.

That seems like the practical thing to do. Smith had a King James Bible readily available to him. My guess is that Smith didn't want to get the Bible quotations wrong, so he used what was the most accurate translation of the Bible he had to either check his work or quote from.

It's downright irresponsible: if there were any riots, I'd blame it squarely on the media and those that parroted the idea, not any particular side of the argument. The media needs to stop the hype, and people need so stop perpetuating that hype (by continuing to hype the idea of riots, or saying things like Zimmerman is going to be murdered if he doesn't leave the country, etc.) and calm the heck down. Absolutely nothing good will come out of continuing to hype up the case or continuing to make the other side look bad. EDIT: bytor, if that meme is the same one I saw, it was made by a pro-Zimmerman facebook page as a parody.

You also have to understand the principles behind good translation. Any translator that knows what they're doing is going to translate from idea to idea, not from word to word. The Book of Mormon was obviously not originally written in English, and thus wasn't written in King James English ethier. However, Joseph Smith had a KJV Bible and read it regularly, and thus was familiar with that style of diction. Since that was what "scriptural language" was in the mind of Joseph Smith, that's how he expressed the ideas translated from the Book of Mormon. If he had a different translation of the Bible on hand, the Book of Mormon would probably look more like it instead.

You mean I can stop hearing about this trial on the news/facebook/work/etc.? I don't care what the verdict was, I'm happy just for that.

Of course not, don't assume things. I agree with you more than you think: Hispanic is a mess of a ethnonym and doesn't really say anything particularly useful here. I was just trying to explain its common usage.

If you're looking for the good that comes from the worst examples of a particular group that you can find, don't be surprised when you don't find it.

To be fair, calling Zimmerman white and calling Zimmerman Hispanic are both correct. Hispanic refers to a socio-cultural group, not a race: it's kinda like saying "this guy's ancestors had something to do with Spain." The exact definition is... well, complicated.

Polynesians everywhere are rejoicing right now.

Oh, I get the confusion now. I was referring to the painting itself, not the event depicted (which gladly only exists as a dream in McNaughton's head). I was anticipating claims of "Photoshop!" or "Group X made that up to make Group Y look bad!", etc.

Well, it's not fake, if that's what you're asking. Two things: First, since when are people in this painting "[my] icons?" Heck, since when do I have "icons" to begin with (I'm fairly certain I don't have any problems with idol worship)? Second, I don't find this offensive. I find this hilarious, especially since you just joked about it as if nobody would ever think of such a thing. I think they call it situational irony? I'd sure hope so, but don't underestimate the loyalty of Jon McNaughton fans.

From what I've been able to find, this statistic is attributed to a tweet by Allen West. In that tweet, West links to this article from CNS News, a spinoff of the conservative group Media Research Center. This claim, however, has a fatal flaw in that it simply tallies up the reported number of participants in all food assistance plans. That means that if a person participates in three different programs, that person will be counted three times. A much more accurate counting would exclude this overlap, but unfortunately CNS News has not done so and makes no attempt to even identify the overlap.

Unfortunately, that's not a parody: the artist seriously thinks that what you typed out in jest is a good idea and seriously wants to do it. ...of course, in my mind, that makes the picture that much more hilarious.

I sure hope this case winds down soon. I know democracy and trials are important, but media-famous court cases like this tend to become glorified soap operas (and not just any soap opera: the kind of soap opera that everybody loves to argue about for some reason) and bore me to tears. I've had to resort to listening to BBC to get any news that wasn't about this trial.

Are you poking fun at Jon McNaughton?

Well, yeah, but it's equally important for people to take at least more than a lazy cursory effort to find out what a group actually stands for and what kind of people are in it. It's the same thing we ask of investigators of the Church.

They're louder and more easily noticed? It's not like anybody's letting them hog the spotlight, it's just that if you're lazy about learning about a group you'll probably notice the worst people first and then decide you know all there is to know about it.