blackstar9000

+ friends- friends
35,445 link karma
26,108 comment karma
send messageredditor for 2 years
what's this?

TROPHY CASE


Two-Year Club

Verified Email

Well-rounded
2010-04-19

(1 more)

reddit is a source for what's new and popular online. vote on links that you like or dislike and help decide what's popular, or submit your own!

ChocolateGiddyUp, redditor of the day, September 02, 2010

blackstar9000 4 points5 points 2 hours ago[-]

Mostly the mayonnaise. Oh, and most restaurants I went to served them instead of bread.

ChocolateGiddyUp, redditor of the day, September 02, 2010

blackstar9000 3 points4 points 3 hours ago[-]

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't have singled out Belgium if we hadn't already been talking about it. The Freedom Party making it into the coalition in the Netherlands is definitely more worrisome, and it may be even more so that it's the majority party in France that's passing all of the xenophobic laws. If Belgium ranks with them at all it's only because a) they were the first to pass a law banning the burka, and b) they're the seat of the EU, which gives them a lot of influence over the whole of Western Europe.

To the cute girl in the green shirt waiting to be selected for jury duty in a Los Angeles courthouse...

blackstar9000 16 points17 points 4 hours ago[-]

Novelty account suggestion:

MeterMaid   

Replies to prose comments as though they were intended to be written in verse; corrects their meter.

Did Julius Caesar Exist?

blackstar9000 0 points1 point 4 hours ago[-]

There's a difference between atheism and anti-theism. I'm guessing you're doing that intentionally.

Of course. You can be atheist and not give a damn about whether or not anyone else believes that Jesus was a historical figure, but I can't see many reasons why anyone would go through that much effort to debunk the historicity of Jesus if they weren't interested in changing the beliefs of others.

Can you recommend an anti-theism reddit?

/r/atheism is about 33% anti-theism content, maybe more. That's the only one I know of that's consistently active.

Do you react the same to people who challenge other aspects of history?

I'll generally challenge people if they seem to be buying a poorly formulated argument. For example. The Jesus myth canard in particular gets my attention simply because so many people on reddit give it a pass simply because it's convenient for them to believe that historical inquiry works that way. It doesn't.

Why did this never make the news? Former CIA agent names JFK's killers on his death bed. E. Howard Hunt described himself as a "bench warmer" in the plot.

blackstar9000 3 points4 points 4 hours ago[-]

Probably because Hunt spent the better part of the 20th century denying it, didn't change his tune until after his personal cache had become unprofitable, was an admitted thief, forger and blackmailer, and an inquiry failed to substantiate his claim. The son to whom he gave those tapes is no saint himself.

ChocolateGiddyUp, redditor of the day, September 02, 2010

blackstar9000 5 points6 points 5 hours ago[-]

What is a mid-Lent festival? The 'carnaval' you mean?

Exactly.

Muslim religious festivals do get the same exceptions as extended to christian religious festivals. That is, although 'christian' holidays have traditionally been turned into holidays, a muslim can demand from an employer that his religious holiday be switched with the christian one...

That's a different question from whether or not the ban on facial coverings will be enforced the same with regard to Muslim festivals. In principle, American are equal before the law regardless of their race, but it remains true that the law is often implemented differently according to a person's race. To my knowledge, Belgium never set a hard and fast criteria for determining exceptions to the new law, and that leave a vacuum that's almost bound to be abused.

The Guardian's "Comment Is Free" section is soliciting essays on an interesting question, and I thought I'd open it to /r/DebateIt to see what everyone thought: "Can religion be apolitical?"

blackstar9000 [S] 0 points1 point 5 hours ago[-]

I've heard it argued that a lot of the European countries that are more secular in practice got that way in part because they never did turn officially secular. Religious affiliation became de rigeur and took on a kind of perfunctory status because of it. I don't know whether or not that's true, but it's plausible, and there's a certain appeal to that explanation.

ChocolateGiddyUp, redditor of the day, September 02, 2010

blackstar9000 3 points4 points 5 hours ago[-]

One caveat. Flashman is a total bastard. He does a lot of pretty awful things in the book, and not all of them are as funny as the others. So be forewarned. But otherwise, it's a jaunt.

Did Julius Caesar Exist?

blackstar9000 0 points1 point 5 hours ago[-]

No, but typically those who feel strongly enough about the historicity of Jesus to bother making an argument against it are anti-theists taking aim at the biggest theistic tradition in the West.

ChocolateGiddyUp, redditor of the day, September 02, 2010

blackstar9000 5 points6 points 6 hours ago[-]

Yeah, I've discussed it a couple of places -- mostly on /r/worldevents, probably -- but I'm not convinced. For example, the law provides an exception for some holidays and religious festivals. Presumably, that would allow masks for things like the mid-Lent festivals that are popular there (we thought about attending one while we were there, but couldn't fit it into our schedule). So one question I have yet to find a satisfying answer for is, would Muslim religious festivals get the same exceptions extended to Christian religious festivals? Presumably cops aren't going to arrest brides wearing a bridal veil, but what about Muslims mourning the death of a family member?

Basically, it looks to me like the language that includes all face coverings was included to make the law look more ecumenical, when it was really targeted against a particular cultural group, and that implementation will tend towards using it as a cultural gag order, rather than a safety precaution. And, really, if it were entirely about safety, why did it only come up now, during a flowering of Islamiphobia, rather than 10, 25, 50, 100 years ago? Using a mask to hide your identity during dangerous or criminal activity is nothing new, so why now?

Frankly, I have yet to see any carte blanch ban on burkas that was written to be wholly consistent with the principles of liberal society that such laws are purportedly meant to protect.

ChocolateGiddyUp, redditor of the day, September 02, 2010

blackstar9000 5 points6 points 6 hours ago[-]

Yeah, it's the burka ban and the threats of secession that worry me. Seems there's a bit of acrimony fomenting around there, although, I have to say, it wasn't really evident at street level when I was there. Maybe you have to be a native to recognize the signs, though.

ChocolateGiddyUp, redditor of the day, September 02, 2010

blackstar9000 4 points5 points 6 hours ago[-]

Incidentally, have you ever read any of the Flashman books? I ask because, when we talked about Thomas Hardy (I think it was you), you mentioned Terrance Stamp playing the British officer/rake in the BBC production of Far From the Madding Ground, and your description reminds me a bit of Flashman. I read the first book while I was on vacation last week, and it was pretty enjoyable.

ChocolateGiddyUp, redditor of the day, September 02, 2010

blackstar9000 5 points6 points 6 hours ago[-]

I'm a fan. Although, recent political developments have sort of put me off the idea of living there.

And he's winking at you because auto-cannibalism is your little secret, just between you and him.

ChocolateGiddyUp, redditor of the day, September 02, 2010

blackstar9000 5 points6 points 7 hours ago[-]

Brussels, huh? Do you know my friend Steve?

I'm really drunk and shit my pants. What should I do?

blackstar9000 0 points1 point 8 hours ago[-]

Get a job as a typist. Anyone who can form complete sentences and spell correctly while that inebriated has a real future in the field.

view more: next