Well, the PD conducted a photo lineup-- with the store's contracted loss prevention investigator as the "witness." She identified Mr. Williams. As the article suggests, this procedure is problematic given that the contracted investigator is also relying on the same video evidence, but the PD's failure is not as straightforward as a lack of any human comparison.

It's possible that Republican anti-science positions are worse in some ways, but Scientific American and MIT acknowledge that the problem is not limited to Republicans.

Unfortunately, the idea that people retain all of their rights as long as they haven't been found guilty simply isn't true. Suspects in criminal cases are routinely detained and lose their rights to freedom and self-determination. They are forced to go through the extremely unpleasant process that is the U.S. justice system. Your claim of "innocent until proven guilty" is simply a legal presumption of innocence in trial rather than any statement of equivalence between the accused party and a non-accused party.

As much as I like to see karmic justice for those responsible at News of the World, I don't believe gp's philosophy is that of "yielding to evil without resistance." Originally, the phrase "an eye for an eye" was a response to draconian punishments for legal offenses-- namely, penalties should be proportional to the harm. GP's concern of the whole world becoming blind is perhaps the recognition that we're all wrongdoers who deserve more punishment that we receive. Combined with gp's "two wrongs" statement, s/he probably believes that justice should be meted out by the governing authorities as opposed to vigilantes seeking direct retribution.

Your claim that

is just a straw man that has some interesting philosophical implications, but I won't dwell on them here, because I don't believe we're close to such a world. Suffice it to say that I don't believe gp is advocating no punishment for the wrongdoers, nor is s/he advocating doing nothing personally, but rather acting through legal channels. Okay, enough trying to defend the AC.

Parent makes an important point. To push it a little further, this new law is not so much about paying sales taxes (which purchasers are already obligated to do), but a question about what a state government can force an out-of-state entity to do (here, collect sales taxes on its behalf). New York state has gotten into hot water over a related issue before, when it effectively forbade out-of-state companies from shipping alcohol into the state. The discussion on the current law shouldn't be whether the sales taxes are justified or not, but rather the limits to what a state can compel an out-of-state entity to do.

Note also that this isn't a private outsourcing issue. California, recognizing that it is difficult to collect taxes accurately, isn't trying to pay someone to collect taxes on its behalf. It is trying to compel an out-of-state entity to do it. Yes, it already compels in-state entities to do so, and these in-state entities ostensibly benefit from other California services. One way of looking at this question then might be, does out-of-state Amazon sufficiently benefit from California services to justify compelling it to perform a state revenue function?

Incorrect. The Senate bill passed unanimously. The House bill was voted down.

The H.R. 2103, available here, doesn't explicitly say provide healthcare, but it does "provide assistance... [by] ensuring access to healthcare services."

I don't have any comment regarding what the general Republican position is or is against, but I think their opposition to H.R. 2103 (International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act) is understandable on narrower grounds. If they are concerned about 1) expansive executive power, and 2) abortion funding, I can see why they might be concerned with a rather simple-looking bill that does not seem to contain much guidance or oversight regarding how the President spends on "health services" for girls. If you're involved with U.S. politics, certainly you must be aware that government provision of reproductive health services is a politically charged issue.

I also don't know about the history of this legislation, but if you were cynical, you might consider the idea that some politicians could use exactly this type of legislation to paint others as "pro-raping children." It's pretty easy to slip in issues you really care about into high profile, difficult-to-publicly-oppose legislation. Especially when you're using procedural rules to push legislation through at the end of the year.

Agreed, but this is just to say that the sin-redemptive story is essential to Christianity. It is not the entire story, unless you are describing the Gospel as a very broad, amorphous concept. There are specific people in the Bible, examples of which I have cited previously, whom God/Jesus does not approach via a redemptive path. (Not to say that others might not have been redeemed via their sacrifice or example.) There are plenty more if you consider the Old Testament. For better or worse, there is a wrath to the God of the Bible that does not always result in redemption for everyone. If you believe the Allah of the Quran is not the same as the God of the Bible, it seems at least conceivable that God's wrath might be expressed via the burning the Quran. The God of the Old Testament sure burned more than just books.

Interesting to see this type of argument proposed on Slashdot. The Gospel purposes you cite are important to Christianity, but they are not the entirety of Christianity. For example, there are other things in the Bible (& Christianity) that are offensive to people. The idea that homosexuality is sinful, for example, pushes many people away from Christianity and the Great Commission. Of course, the idea that there is an independent arbiter of what is "sinful" or not is also offensive to some people. There is a couple in the New Testament who get the death penalty for not properly disclosing the sale price of their property-- it is not clear that their execution attracted others towards Christianity, and it sure didn't do anything to attract that deceased couple to Christianity. There are numerous cases of Jesus taking rather offensive and condemning actions towards the Jewish establishment that don't appear to have drawn them to Christianity and seem to have created more antagonism.

This is not to say that your point is wrong, but just that if you believe in the God of the Bible, it is not immediately clear if that God would or would not want the Quran burned. This assumes that your concept of causality is fair, which couchslug (175151) addresses in a more succinct post.

Well, you've raised a lot of different points in this post, although I'm not sure it hangs together as a unified argument. You start off with a bunch of questions about the "right" beliefs, which digitig (1056110) has addressed in part. Then we get to this:

It sounds like you are condemning this, but I don't understand why. If you work with the presumption that God is just some sort of social construct that, at most, helps us get along with the people around us, then the fact that people inherit their religious beliefs from the people around them shouldn't be surprising at all. I don't know what benefit there is from some sort of "rational" or scientific approach in making religion selection later in life if that's going to impede your social development as a younger person. Sure, if your thinking too closely mimics exactly what everyone else around you is thinking, that may limit your contribution to society and the chance for big advances. I'm not sure that's a real risk for young people; their chances for big contributions to society are probably higher when they're older and more capable of "rational" thinking.

Another alternative is that you're postulating the existence of some sort of God being that is analogous to the laws of physics or nature. If you don't respect the laws of physics or nature, bad things happen. Thus, we need to figure out the laws of physics and this law-God. You can't really negotiate with or placate the laws of physics, you just have to follow the rules. In this case, it really depends on what the consequences of not following the God rules are. If they just affect our relationship with the people around us, we're back in scenario 1. If they have some significant impact on us that is not mediated through other people, then we need a scientific approach to figure out what those impacts are. This is not easy.

A third alternative is that you could be postulating the existence of some sort of God being that is more analogous to a human with intentionality and will. This is God being with whom you could communicate and interact in a way that does not correspond to our interaction with the laws of physics. Another tricky area-- how do we interact with this type of God? Again, what are the consequences of interacting well or poorly with this God? What if this isn't a God that I can actually see and hear talking with me?

I wish I had more answers for you rather than a slew of additional questions. I just don't think the issues you are raising are a strong condemnation against religious belief formation. I think everyone wants to make "good" decisions about how they're living their lives, and at any time, we just make the best decisions we can given our limitations. We don't all agree, and both great things such as innovation, and terrible things such as wars, can result.

Although the next of kin might generally not contribute much to the work, this is not necessarily the case here. Christopher Tolkien, JRR's kid, actually did the compilation and editing for The Silmarillion and other pieces attributed to the elder Tolkien. C. Tolkien also did the maps for the LOTR. I don't know how much copyright he should be entitled to, but calling him worthless probably goes a little too far.

This is an interesting claim; it sounds very much like what Iran, North Korea, and the previous U.S. administration believe[d]. We're an independent country, we can pursue nukes, torture, and whatnot, and no other country has the authority to dictate to us.