Drunkard

Thanks for Quoting the Pope's entire speech and providing your own commentary, Dark. The Pope may not have a vote but I imagine he'd be way more likely to vote for Bernie Sanders than any of the other candidates, including the other Democrats and particularly over the Republicans who promote war, guns, trickle down economics, and discrimination against those who follow a different set of beliefs. I can see why they elected Francis to be the Pope. If all Christians tried to emulate Jesus the way he does, I wouldn't have any issues with their religion.

Some of them are lazy and freeloaders. The majority are hard working people who have fallen through the cracks or have landed on hard times for a variety of reasons. What would you tell a single mother with 2 kids who works for minimum wage or slightly above at a fast food joint though? Suck it up? Should've stayed in school? Minimum wage is for teenagers so we won't raise it? Work hard and get promoted and one day you'll become the manager so you can make $25,000 per year and still be in poverty? We can't afford your welfare supplement for heating oil anymore because we have to give a tax break to some huge multinational corporation that just boosted its profits by building a call center in India while laying off 200 employees here in the US because they ave a fiduciary duty to their stockholders to maximize profits? Think about what any of those Republican candidates would say and then think of what Jesus or the Pope would say. I've never thought of calling somebody a Christian as a compliment but those people shouldn't be able to use his name in their description. It's flat out dispicable. I guess it's time for me to cool off. I don't usually let myself get worked up over message board debates but the level of hypocrisy gets my blood boiling the more I think about it.

The top 1% of this country own 40% of the coutry's wealthy and the bottom 80% of people own 7%. The top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 90%. The rich are doing just fine. In 2009 GE had pre tax income of $10.3 billion and not only didn't pay taxes but reported a tax benefit of $1.1 billion. That same year Exxon Mobil made profits of $45.2 billion and paid more taxes than any company in the world but none of it went to the US Treasury. We should cut social programs for working families while keeping the minimum wage as low as possible though. I'm sure Jesus would love that.

N'eo, I respect you and your opinions but we definitely disagree and that's fine. It's a difference of philosophy I guess. You hear political platforms and think how are we gonna pay for that and I think of ways to get the wealthy to pay their share. Things like estate taxes for multi-millionaires, the fact that most rich people pay no payroll taxes in addition to paying income taxes at reduced rates, and the fact that huge, highly successful and highly profitable companies pay no taxes at all while getting write offs to move jobs overseas just so their quarterly earnings can go up a few points. The rich have had it way too good for way too long and it's only getting better for them. Republicans love to fawn over the good old days of the 1950's but a big part of the reason those days were so good was because there was way more economic equality thanks in part to strong labor unions and businesses that focused on all stakeholders (including customers, employees, and the towns they did business in) and not just the stockholders who own the company and receive the profits.

It's their love the fetus, hate the baby mantra. The majority of people who have abortions are poor, single women, which also just happens to be the group that is most likely to collect welfare. So they want to get all the takers off welfare but then want to force women to have kids they can't afford. The cognitive dissonance is really quite baffling. Then add in the fact that they are against raising the minimum wage which would help getting people working at crappy jobs off the welfare system by forcing places like McDonalds, Burger King, and Wal-Mart to pay them enough to live without government assistance and their infatuation with guns and wars while claiming to be Christian and you have the trifecta of hypocrisy.

Not to pick a fight with Rob Lowe (although I think I could take skinny arms Rob Lowe) but I think that philosophy is completely out of date. Personally, I find the majority of non-rich Republicans to be stupid. Some of it is the religious aspect and some of it is the environmental/pollution aspect but most of it stems from seeing how many of them have been hookwinked by the wealthy to vote against their own economic interests either because of their religious beliefs, the military, or because of some deep rooted feeling that minorities are milking the system until the cow has dried up and is about to die off. That's how you get idiots like Joe the Plumber fighting battles on behalf of the wealthy, along with anyone who isn't a multi-millionaire complaining about the estate tax. That's how you get people in the 15% tax bracket or lower supporting a flat tax or a nationwide sales tax that will raise their taxes so the wealthy can pay less into a system that has helped them get where they are (despite their whole we built it nonsense of years past). They've been duped into fighting the battles of the rich while they get us to fight over the leftovers. They complain about some welfare queen getting hundreds of dollars a month while companies like Exxon pollute the environment and make billions of dollars while not paying 1 cent in taxes.

No problem, man. I hope I clarified my response. I think their rules should change but I personally mark way down the list of importance and don't think it should be decided by nyone but the church themselves. I think it should be completely up to the church. As a religious organization they should be free to put whatever rules they like in place as long as they aren't breaking any laws. It's their right to put in place whatever rules they like and it's my right to disagree with them.

Figures. I guess they could just be showing him respect or they could be fearing some sort of social media backlash for booing the guy. Or they're just spineless.

I'm not watching/listening but I wonder if the Republicans will boo him when he starts talking about the environment or helping the poor like that dirty hippie communist Jesus would have wanted.

2ForTripping nailed it. On a personal level I don't care about the sacraments or who administers them, but many cultures use religion as an excuse to place women in a subservient or 2nd class role. The Catholic church does this and many in the Muslim community also seem to do it, although on a much larger/worse scale with the beekeeper suits, their rules about women not being able to drive, or leave the house without a man, and the double standards they have about things like adultery/infidelity. I think equality is important although I'd rank that issue at or near the bottom compared to things poverty, war, and the environment. Of course, I say that as a male, so I would definitely understand if others ranked these items differently than I do.

I love the idea of Medicare for all. It would finally unlink the issue of having people's primary insurance tied directly to their place of employment for most Americans and it would give the government more bargaining power when it comes to negotiating with the ever rising costs of prescription drugs. No more need for companies to cut hours and hiring 3 part time employees instead of 1 or 2 full time ones in order to keep hours under a certain threshold. No more having to deal with Cobra when you change jobs. Fewer people running to the ER for non-emergency services because they don't have insurance. Medicaid would be greatly reduced as I imagine they would only need to provide the equivalent of a Medicare Supplement policy to help cover copays and deductibles. Will it be expensive? Definitely, but there are ways to help fund it. Removing the cap on payroll taxes for social security and place payroll taxes on capital gains at the same rates (6.2% and 1.45% if I remember correctly) or higher if necessary. The right leaning people will scream socialism but I would think many of those pro-business people would love for their companies to not have to deal with having to offer insurance to their employees as a benefit to help them recruit and retain the best and brightest people to work for them. It would likely improve their bottom lines immediately and lead to the economic growth that seems to give them hard ons in their stump speeches.

Thank you for the response, sir. I don't usually expect that answer from right leaning people but I appreciate your ability to be objective beyond ideologies, although I believe you lean more Libertarian than Republican. Cheers to you though!

What about Bush sitting there for 7 minutes while reading to children and waiting for his piss to dry after finding out the country was under attack? We live in a nuclear age where every second can make a difference and he sat there for 7 minutes. I think he should've gotten up immediately. What say you, sir?

The new Pope is awesome. He's not the judging type when it comes to homosexuality and even atheists can get into heaven. I still don't think it exists but it's a nice sentiment on his part, and hey, if I'm wrong I'll be telling St. Peter at the pearly gates that his man, Francis said I made the cut. From an unbiased and simplistic standpoint the Pope is a religious figurehead and I completely understand most of his views, which I'll paraphrase as and arbitrarily number as: 1) Helping the poor is good 2) War is bad 3) Abortion is bad 4) Contraception is bad 5) Polluting the environment is bad 6) Women should not be priests I personally agree with 1, 2, and 5 while I disagree vehemently on 4 and 6. On 3 I definitely see his point but I disagree because I'd prefer to keep the Roe v Wade ruling in place and wish that if things like contraception and the morning after pill were encouraged instead of discouraged then number 3 would be less and less prevalent in society in general which should help make number 4 seem helpful because it reduces 3 and abortion is worse than contraception. To sum it all up, I agree with half his platform and I don't even follow his belief system. I think unbiased people can agree that Republicans tend to place much more emphasis on their faith when it comes to campaigning and making political decisions than Democrats do, but what I don't get is how they can claim to be followers of this guy (the Pope) or the guy he's supposed to be emulating (Jesus) and then ignore half of his platform like I do (particularly when it comes to claiming to want to be Christ like, while doing the opposite of what Christ would do). Seems completely hypocritical to me to act like Jesus should be emulated and then to ignore half his message.

I haven't followed this case other than this thread but could he have been wearing a condom?

Colon, the Brad Marchand of cancers

I guess we can agree to disagree. I don't really care for any of their designs. Even the mostly green ones which are the best of a sad lot in my opinion. I don't care for the giant white stripe being so close to the bottom of the jersey because it just accentuates the stupid tails at the bottom of NHL jerseys now (this also happened with the white tail at the bottom of the red blackhawks jersey as well). They design the jersey to be tucked in and luckily they put an end to that nonsense but then they keep the same stupid design of having it uneven at the bottom. Make no sense to me.

I haven't really messed around with 10 too much. One buddy of mine updated and it didn't work so he had to do a clean install to get it to function at all. It looked like 8 at first glance though and honestly, I just hate the fact that it seems designed more for tablets and phones than actual computers. Maybe I'm just a 34 year old curmudgeon though.

No chance. I don't even like having to have a touch screen phone but I've accepted it. I prefer a real start menu with access to my control panel, printer, and a list of all my programs rather than scrolling through countless screens of app icons. From my cold dead hands!

Hopefully by then they'll have a new OS out that's actually designed for computers again. I loved xp and kept it until I got 7 so I was able to avoid vista. Hopefully I'll be abe to avoid 10 and the next one or one after that will be better.

So the team can dress like a christmas tree? I'd pass.

You can't leave that creative liberty up to them or they'll it up. Just look at the slug and the turdburger. They can't resist stupid ideas like giant gray cuffs and pit stains.

SFinNS, Thank you for the information. I removed those updates from my desktop and my girlfriends laptop last night, although I think when I shut down my computer it re-installed it because I have automatic updates set for my default setting. I'll make sure to change this setting so I have to approve any update download and installations before I remove it again and will keep a post it note with the KB3035583 number located near both computers. I can't stand windows 8.1 or 10 from what little I have messed with them because they seem designed for a phone or tablet and not a computer. I almost feel like Charleton Heston did with guns. They'll get my windows 7 from my cold dead hands.

That link won't open here at my work but I remember Murray shrugging that rumor/story off like it was some sort of standard negotiating tactic. Likely because he was still butthurt about not being drafted in the 1st round and he wanted a contract in line with where he thought he should have been drafted rather than where he was. Either way, the contract negotiation issue likely wasn't a big reason for moving him and we held pretty much all of the leverage over him.

If Nelson is a RFA can't he solicit an offer sheet from another team? I thought all ELC's were 3 years and as long as a team make him a qualifying offer they retain his rights but if they can't agree on a contract the player could still sign an offer sheet with another team. Maybe I have it wrong though.