Ironhold

A hypothetical that has come to mind of late. You have recently joined a new congregation. While getting to know everyone, you discover that Brother _____ is one of the more colorful members of the congregation. Among other things, he's on retainer for the State Gaming Commission. It turns out that he's been playing pencil-and-paper role-playing games since he was young, during which he discovered a rather incredible affinity for handling and rolling dice. Thanks to 2+ decades of practice, his affinity is so strong (almost to the point of being supernatural) that he can tell just by handling them whether or not any given set of die are loaded. He'a also so skilled / lucky that for most types of dice (6- , 8-, 10-, 12-, and 20-sided) if he's allowed to roll them by hand he can tell you ahead of time what number will come up, loaded or not. He can also seemingly calculate in his head the probability of any given set of numbers coming up from any given dice roll, and can - through observation - tell if a set of dice are deviating from this and by how wide a margin. The State Gaming Commission first learned about him when he and some friends decided of their own accord to "raid" a dirty casino. After confirming via observation that their dice games were indeed rigged, he put his skills to work by taking them for $5 million; he was literally going to bet the casino owner "all or nothing" (casino ownership vs. the $5 million) when an undercover inspector finally intervened, at which point he explained - publicly - his discovery. Since then, most casino owners in the state won't let him through the front door unless he's waving his state credentials around, and when he is waving his state credentials around they panic because they know he's there to inspect their dice tables and there's no trick in the book they can use to deceive him. How would you react upon discovering that you're going to church with Brother _____?

Consider this thread a catch-all for random news articles that strike your interest. ** 1 dead, 1 wounded in a hostage-taking gone wrong. Seems two guys got the bright idea to kidnap a 17-year-old right in front of her house. Her parents responded by both grabbing guns and opening fire. One of the two was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other was apprehended after he showed up at the hospital to have his wounds treated. Oops.

The building here in town has been vandalized and broken into so often that the previous building manager had the cops on speed dial. This includes an incident in which someone painted a pentagram on the front lawn and stapled a dead deer to it. A Protestant church in the area also suffered vandalism around the same time, but shattered exterior lights don't compare to something like this.

The term is used for people whose entire purpose is to tear down the LDS faith. Specifically, it refers to people who believe that the ends justify the means. That is, they'll gladly commit all sorts of wickedness in God's name. Some don't even recognize that they're sinning, others believe that God will excuse their actions under the circumstances, and the rest just don't care for morality at all.

I'll be honest - I'm surprised that my comment made it through moderation there.

Big thing is that they gave Peppermint Patty red hair when she's always been a brunette. The only way this would make sense would be if they were trying to make her the "Little Red-Haired Girl", but the wall poster on display at theaters now IIRC shows her and Patty as being separate characters.

This Gospel Coalition article on vicarious baptism. To quote them: Yes, the author literally said that. If they don't know just what Paul meant, then how can they be sure that we're wrong?

If the Legislature agrees on removal, he's gone. However, IIRC it's the President who will be given the opportunity to select the guy's replacement.

Things like this are handled in the legislature. It's a matter of getting enough members of the legislative bodies to vote for the guy's removal. As far as Obama goes, he's shown an unfortunate willingness to try and antagonize his political opponents, so even if this guy does get removed Obama may try to push forward someone similar to be his replacement.

Sounds like they've gotten confused about the old Pennsylvania Dutch practice of bundling.

Back when I was in high school, I nearly got one of the campus cops to publicly soil himself one day. I was taking an "intro to business and personal law" class as part of a trade / college prep focus. Well, one day the teacher invited the campus cops in for a question & answer session about the law. This proved to be a big mistake. The campus handbook said that if a fight broke out, all parties involved would be arrested for assault. I asked the cops about it. They all froze, a look of fear on their faces. The cop who had taken the lead on speaking looked especially confused and frightened. It took half a second for them to respond. Once they did, they explained that - yes - the law allowed for self-defense provided that the person tried non-violent options first (warnings, disengaging, et cetra) and only used the minimum amount of force needed to stop the attack. So yeah: I got the campus cops to admit that the handbook was fluff.

Thanks.

My parents' ward usually has an annual Trunk-or-Treat event the Saturday before Halloween; failing this, it's early in the afternoon on Halloween itself. The centerpiece is an annual chili cook-off, in which members bring in pots of chili for judging. Once judging is complete, the people who showed up get to eat buffet-style.

Depending upon the source, I might even have a canned response hosted on my Deviant Art account; if he's got good ad-blockers installed, I could give him a direct link.

So why are you criticizing something that you've never read?

You still have an angel carrying the gospel.

Tell me - Revelation 14:6, KJV 6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, If any angels bringing a gospel are supposed to be suspect, then who is the angel John saw?

It's a bit more complicated then that.

Water can't be all three at the same time. It can be at the point between two of them, but not all three. Yes, we do. It's Mormonism 101 that we do.

My nieces and nephews love all things Snoopy. This month, McDonald's facilities that serve the United States will be offering Peanuts figurines as the Happy Meal promos. My parents are thus wondering what specific figurines they'll be offering as part of the promotion. I figured that I could just check online, but to no avail. McDonald's.com doesn't have any images, and Happy Meal.com (what Yahoo, Bing, and Google sent me to) isn't working. Anyone know where I can get the images? Thanks.

I'm 31 and still living at home. I had a decent enough office job I worked part-time while doing my undergraduate work, but I was laid off when the recession hit. I had just enough money left to finish my degree and get started on graduate school, and so any plans to "spread my wings" had to get put on hold. I have my MBA, but white-collar jobs so greatly retreated from my area due to the recession that I'm now having to save up so that I can afford to relocate. Until then, I'm helping my parents take care of the house and I pet-sit for them when they're gone.

I'm pretty sure I was playing "Doom" and "Doom II" as far back as the 5th or 6th grade. My older brothers (high school) had a copy on their computer, and I started playing it after seeing them play it. The agreement was that I'd do a level or two to vent steam from school that day, and then I'd get on my homework.

Science site Citadel of Myths has an ongoing discussion about the film and its scientific merits in its forum; you might want to have a look at it. I'm there under the same username. At the time the original book was written, storms like that on Mars were a concern because it was believed that they'd still be at something resembling full Earth power; it wasn't until after the book came out that NASA discovered the fear was baseless. As far as the bacteria goes, it wasn't just the vacuum, but the cold that did it; they froze to death. As far as the cursing goes, you'd be surprised what people spout off in a survival situation.

I admit that I was half-tempted to hand out copies of the newspaper I work for in addition to candy this year.

I work for the Copperas Cove Leader-Press newspaper. I started out as a courier, then branched out to perform other duties. On April 26, 2013, I was in the office waiting for the newspapers to arrive. I made it a point to arrive 30 - 60 minutes early most mornings so that I could get the office prepped and ready; this way, everything was done so that we could get straight to work once the papers arrived. At about 2:45 AM, I was just finishing up. The last thing for me to do was to wheel the metal furniture dolly / cart to the front of the building so that we could use it to unload the papers. I brought it up, turned my back to the door, and went to sit down when I heard a horrific noise. This is what I saw. I appear to have misplaced my copy of the newspaper that had the final coroner's report. But what happened is painfully clear. A young man in his early 20s had consumed an astounding quantity of alcohol, marijuana, and Xanax. For reasons unknown, he felt himself well enough to drive. He was doing about 80 or so and going westbound on US Highway 190 (now known as Business 190 in that stretch) when he lost control and crossed the line of traffic. He was going so fast that he jumped a creek that serves as the property line between my building and that building, bounced off the far bank of the creek, rolled onto his right side, and went through the front of a wooden office structure. The young man was killed instantly. I showed the copy to a member of my parents' ward, a retired US Army medic. He explained that given the quantities which showed up, the young man may not have even been awake when he died; if he was, he didn't feel anything despite how violent his death was. Fortunately, the storefront he hit an insurance company's branch office. At the other side of the building, on ground level, was a hair salon loaded with plenty of flammable and explosive products. (See the red sign in the video? That was the shop.) When I went outside, there was a small fire in the engine block; I could see it from the other side of the creek. I called 911, cradling my cell phone to my ear while I went for one of the office's fire extinguishers. I jogged over as fast as I could (I have a lot of old injures that slow me up), at which point I met with residents of the apartment complex on the other side of the highway. I handed them the extinguisher so I could continue my call, but none of them knew how to use it. I was about to go handle the fire myself when a police officer showed up. He took the extinguisher, told us all to clear out, and started smashing windows on the car to check on the driver. Just after I made it back to the newspaper office's parking lot, I heard a "Whoosh!" sound and looked back around. The engine had gone up, and so now the entire front of the building was on fire. All I could do was call the guy who was our head editor at the time and get him down to the office. I called my parents to let them know I was fine, and then alerted the other couriers since they hadn't arrived yet. I finished my route, came home, and spent the next half hour looping "Honoo No Overdrive" (the theme from Transformers: Car Robots) so that the world felt right again. Eleven months later... We'd switched to having the papers arrive in the late afternoon / early evening. My job at the time was to prepare the newspapers that would go out by mail. This meant simply applying the mailing labels, getting the bundles together, tying them with twine, and getting them in the mail bags. It didn't take very long, and this night I was done early. Given that I had time to spare, I figured that I'd detour on the way home and visit a friend of mine; there were good odds he'd still be up and I hadn't seen him in a while. Along the way I spotted a silver Corvette parked in the middle of the street, the driver talking with the driver of a vehicle that was off to the side of the road. My first instinct was to pull over and see if they were all right, but a voice told me "Keep going; it'll be fine." So I did. I get a block or two down the road and I hear the same horrific sound coming from behind me. I see a cloud of dust in my rear-view mirror and so I do a u-turn. The two vehicles were parked just before the crest of a small hill. Because of this, an oncoming SUV - one that had just passed me - hadn't seen them since we were on the other side of the crest. The driver plowed into the Corvette at such a high rate of speed that she totaled it, almost completely caving the front end in. The Corvette slammed into the other car, seriously damaging it. The other car slammed into - and sheered off - a brick mailbox. The car had also knocked over a resident of the house they were parked in front of. Once again, I called 911. I was still talking to dispatch when I parked my car and got out to investigate. The occupants of the various vehicles were out and trying to collect themselves. I wound up helping the kid who had been knocked down - guy couldn't have been more than his late teens - try to collect himself. He was in shock from what happened, but he had enough sense left to realize that he was in shock and so he tried to fight it. He actually had the presence of mind to ask a female relative to get his music player, only to realize that [1] it was already in his pocket and [2] he had forgotten to recharge it. I helped the kid onto the stretcher when the ambulance arrived. His ankle & foot had been injured, but the paramedics were optimistic that he'd be just fine in time. With them gone, I had a chance to assess the situation. As part of it, I heard the SUV driver admit that she'd been drinking, at which point the police officer questioning her told her that she was going to jail. About this time, one of the neighbors came up to investigate. The minute he saw the Corvette, he freaked out. It turns out that he was the dealer who had sold the Corvette to its owner just a few days ago, and so he knew the people who were involved. Specifically, the guy who owned the car and his 10-year-old son. The father had, like me, decided to stop and visit some friends (the people in the other car, who lived at the house we were in front of) on his way home. When the guy realized what happened, he threw his arm in front of his son to shield him. The boy survived unscathed, while the guy had cuts to his legs. With the Corvette obviously totaled, the dealer offered to drive them home. Before they left, however, the dealer and I got to talking. When I told him that, from the looks of it, everyone had survived despite how horrific the scene looked, all he could say was "Praise the Lord."