NightSG

What's the percentage of "small businesses" that are really just a way to recoup some costs of a hobby, or to be able to write off some expenses? (For example, a retired pro golfer near here would give a few private lessons each year just so he could write off the cost of building and maintaining 4-5 holes worth of top grade golf course on his acreage.) I'd be surprised if those didn't skew the numbers somewhat, despite no real intent of profit from the start.

Maybe the "lesbians" just tell you that so you'll quit hitting on them. I mean, given your choice of home locations...

This would be the first thing I'd have to see any system fix. As a general rule, IMO, people should lose no more than $0.50 of benefits for every dollar of take-home pay. Earn $200/week, you have $100 more overall than if you don't earn anything. $0.33 would be my proposed number, though; you're still getting some benefits until you earn twice as much as your basic needs. Then again, basic needs would need a lot of defining. Last time I sat down with some other folks who'd also experienced being truly poor without government assistance, one thing that was brought up was how much any of us would have loved to have had the option of some very simple things; how about bunkhouse/barracks style accommodation for dramatically less than a motel or cheap apartment? Good luck getting it past any level of government, but I'm pretty sure even when I was completely out of work I could have found some way to earn $200/mo for a shower and a warm, dry bed every night. Would have felt a lot better about it than camping on friends' couches, too. We also looked at what a true "minimum wage" would be. First off, if you don't have a job, you don't need to be in NYC, Chicago or LA; free bus ticket to rural Wisconsin or wherever a garage apartment or mother-in-law suite is available cheaply. (Another situation where bunkhouses would help.) Pick a roommate or have one (or more, depending on the house/apartment - big incentive to get married too, since any sensible system would give married couples priority on housing appropriate to their family size) assigned; not having to share housing is a luxury you can earn if you want it bad enough. Eating better than HDRs should also be earned; issue 7 of those a week to anyone who wants them, and cut off other food benefits. (On that, I don't care if Bill Gates pulls up in a Ferrari to pick them up; issuing 365/yr to every man, woman and child in the country regardless of income would be far cheaper than the current food assistance programs, and I know there have been times I was earning more than most of the customers at the steakhouses, but counting change for pork and beans, ramen and the occasional McD's dollar menu lunch because I put paying off certain debts quickly at the top of my budget. If I could have gotten 2200-2400 nutritious calories a day just by picking it up weekly at whatever .gov office with no hassle, I'd have done it then and had a lot less stress. Probably would have lived in a bunkhouse for 1-2 years too, if that was an option. Employer at the time had a serious squirrel infestation, so that would provide several meat servings a week...in theory, of course, as I would never covertly disregard the City of Richardson's ordinances on hunting and trapping within city limits. Unless I was hungry. Or tired of fixing chewed wiring. Or tired of cleaning up their messes.) Cell phone? I'll grant that to the ones actively seeking employment, or employed but still eligible for some level of benefits: a lot of potential employers won't consider you if they can't get in touch with you on short notice, and honestly, if I was living in a bare-minimum situation, I'd likely spend as little time at "home" as possible. ($2.08 for a McChicken and large soda with free refills, and if you're quiet and clean up after yourself at the one across from the college here, they'll let you abuse those free refills and the free WiFi for hours.) Then of course, job seeking pretty much requires being out and around as much as possible during business hours, so best not to have them trying to plan in a trip back home to check messages between applications/followups/interviews, when home may be on the other side of a major city. The ones not looking for work can go talk to their friends in person until they decide to earn enough for a $25/mo phone. Clothing budget? Unless you can show a specific work or health related need, you can pick the (solid) colors of the cheapest items locally available. If seeking employment, you get decent business clothing or a field-appropriate alternative. (Plain Dickies work shirt, pants and workboots for most unskilled, but everyone gets at least one set of dress shirt, slacks, coordinating jacket and tie. They can practice wearing it properly at "how to get through an entire job interview without calling anyone the N word or the MF word" classes if they don't get enough practice at church. No bling; "aspiring hip-hop artist" is an excuse, not a job description.) Essentially, if you want the taxpayers to cover your needs, you don't get to define your needs; common sense does, and you don't need 90+% of the junk people are getting on welfare as it is.

I think the phrasing you're looking for is "not more than one of those baptisms will prevail." I want to find a church that practices disbeliever's baptism. Instead of a last minute choir rehearsal on Sunday morning, it could have SWAT training refreshers to go raid the houses of folks who don't go to church, drag them in and dunk them.

How long do they have to pre-soak Mormons?

Going to have to nitpick this one; Mosiah 18:8 could be read as only an obligation to others of their own faith, but 18:9 doesn't appear to restrict applicability. "Those that mourn" and "those in need of comfort" would certainly appear to apply to everyone. Further, in 18:9 also comes the obligation to "stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death" which certainly doesn't look like "witness only to each other and keep quiet around the infidels." How old are the kids? Aside from Methodists, many others won't baptize before 12-13 anyway. (And while Methodists will do infant baptism, confirmation classes generally start at 11 for confirmation at 12.)

If you haven't seen the photos of the memorial they set up in the building, it's pretty powerful. https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/13/us/inside-first-baptist-church/index.html

There are assumptions in there that make my brain hurt. Unless they have a lot of very specific information about those particular ammonites that they haven't bothered to share, it's like waking up with sand in your underwear and concluding you must have walked to the Sahara in your sleep.

"Which one of you wise guys changed onions to hot drinks in that revelation I sent out?"

It better not be F&T Sunday. OTOH, I'm really looking forward to a ~200 year Sunday afternoon nap.

Well, while every denomination has some people who follow their version of the Great and Holy Checklist, (If Jesus is lucky, a minor mention of remembering Him may be on the list somewhere below dietary habits.) most non-LDS discourage such behavior and treat those people like the retarded cousin you don't associate with.

Why waste time carrying out the trash or having a job? Don't you have faith that God can get rid of your garbage and send you a paycheck when He's ready for you to have it?

Shallow water fossils and a smooth transition to deeper in one direction and land-based plants in the other doesn't match a large cataclysmic event; that would be like throwing a handful of playing cards out the car window on the freeway, and having them land in perfect new-deck order.

The evidence there is deceptive, though; we wouldn't get yards-thick layers of marine fossils from a 40-day flood here, (400 miles from the nearest body of salt water) for example.

When war is upon you it's too late to start training. The enemy will have years of experience, and you won't even know how you're really going to react the first time a bullet whirrs past your head.

Around here, if you go without water for a day in the summer, you'll regret it. Last bishop that I recall mentioning it basically said if you need water, drink water. He was also diabetic and under doctor's orders not to fast. He'd still try sometimes, and more than once we'd have to make him eat a Pop Tart or something similar because we didn't want people thinking he was drunk.

Some will, but only to the extent that having you get a preowned car instead of a new one, or a smaller house than you wanted leaves you with a few hundred more a month to invest so it grows their commission. But if the bishop can't help, does he really not know of any other local resources? When I was dropping off flyers at local churches a couple years ago, one thing I noticed was that nearly all had lists of local charities' addresses, phone numbers, hours and what they will help with, on the assumption that anyone asking their (or any) church for help will likely benefit from more than it can offer.

Also, find out about local restaurants running specials; here, between dollar burger night at the cafe (about 2-3 times as much burger as what McDonalds will sell you for a buck) the free meal at the free-or-$5-depending-on-the-week senior citizens' center dance (usually corn dogs or pizza, but always plenty) and some other similar stuff, you can "eat out" cheaper than staying home sometimes.

As I understand it, she's not actually getting any of that money at any point. The best she could do would be to hand over 1/10 of the textbook pages, ore require the bishop to take 1/10 of her classes for her. Been there, done that. Wouldn't recommend it, especially long term. (Also had a lovely week of sub 500 cal/day absorption, no matter how much I ate. I'll leave the details of where the rest went and in what condition to your imagination. Suffice it to say if that ever happens again, I'll only be eating liquids and very soft solids.) What you're describing is called robbery; the simple fact that they felt the need to have a separate statute suggests that there must be some means by which a religious leader could compel payment that wouldn't fall under the definition of a law that already exists in every state. Or FedGov could just decide that no longer giving the Church tax exempt status is no more a punishment or compulsion than refusing a TR.

Sounds like your bishop is a bit on the clueless side. The financial planners I've met generally know roughly half as much about helping someone in a true financial crisis as I do about menstruating. They have no personal experience with having to decide between the electric bill and the water bill because the money just isn't there, and they don't particularly care to learn about it either. They're good at convincing someone that maybe the gym membership and deluxe cable plan could be expendable, or that a 3 year old factory reconditioned car for $20k less might be a better idea if you can't afford to make payments on both a new car and a 6,000 square foot house. After all, the good money comes from helping people figure out how to barely scrape by on a $125k+ annual household income, so they can both afford to pay for the service and remain dependent on it. They're not so helpful when your budget is incapable of meeting your actual needs to start with.

That just doesn't even sound right; I've yet to hear a bishop talk to anyone in even minor financial difficulty and not offer at least a week's groceries. Frankly, I've never heard of a leader at any church not making that offer to even a random stranger on the street; when my ex wife got laid off the same week I had my hours cut, we put off applying for any sort of government aid because the CoC minister across town heard about it and had a couple of his members drop off a minivan load of food, then gave us a number to call if we ran out before the job situation improved. As many times as Jesus specifically mentioned feeding the hungry, one might get the impression He meant it. Wouldn't having your food taken care of for a couple weeks out of each month free up about the right amount for tithing anyway?

Just don't be surprised if your ward insists on decontaminating you with a firehose before letting you back in the building after having a chat with not just an infidel, but one of their leaders.

Because you're not allowed to change, even if they do.

And for that matter, talk with her new pastor; at least to find out where they stand on breaking up a family over religious differences. It could go either way, but at the very least you'll know the battlefield a bit better.