SpoonDog

Presbyterians. Anglicans. Quakers. Episcopalians. Disciples of Christ. How can that possibly be the case when not all Christian denominations believe homosexuality is a sin, Mitch? Growing up Catholic, I never saw a hot dog cart wheel itself into Church and ask for Communion because a hot dog stand is an inanimate object without the capacity to have religious beliefs. A Baker can have religious beliefs, a Baker(y) can't. From what I remember, neither Jesus Christ nor the early church was all that jonesed about religious persecution...right? Here's the study I assume you're talking about, stating 80% of Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan believe what you're saying. It is as stupid and asinine to extrapolate those stats across the entire Muslim world as it is to say "most Christians believe in the death penalty for homosexuality" because most Christians in Uganda feel that way. If the numbers tell us anything, it's that Islam isn't monolithic.

There is nothing ambiguous about this statement, and it does not make any distinction between Muslim citizens protected by the United States Constitution and non-citizens. In 1948, in response to the Holocaust, the United States was signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It states unequivocally that all human beings are born free and equal, that all people have the right to be recognized as a person before the law, that all people are equal before the law, without discrimination and with equal protection, that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution, and that everyone is entitled to these rights without regard to race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or political affiliation. Now I'd agree the USA doesn't always live up to those statements, but they're just as much a part of our legal cannon as anything else. Even if that weren't the case, think about the implications of what you're saying- you're allowed to ignore mass murder because a 200+ year old slip of paper doesn't explicitly state otherwise. You don't have a legal obligation to donate blood, or sandbag to keep floodwaters at bay, or adopt some third-world child from overseas, either- people do those things all the time though, because on some level we understand the value of basic human decency. The question is whether you're willing to extend that basic sense of human decency and civilized behavior to everyone, or just those who look and think like you. ...I was raised Catholic. But by all means, educate this dumb heathen about the tenets of your faith, let's start with "Judge not, lest ye be judged." I'm a stupid heathen and I don't know anything about Christianity, which is why I'm dying to hear what "your religion" says about pride, greed, wrath, lust, and envy. I want to be educated on what Christianity says about divorce, about infidelity, about dishonesty. I want to be educated about the Sermon on the Mount, on how Jesus Christ says his followers should treat the poor, the meek, the hungry, the innocent, the merciful, and the persecuted. Then I want to see if you can keep a straight face as you explain to this ignorant heathen how your position opposing innocent Syrian war refugees conforms to your religious beliefs. I want to see if you can keep a straight face as you tell me Donald Trump embraces those Christian values. If you're capable of compromising your religious values under the guise of "national security," and if you're capable of compromising your religious values to vote for a guy like Donald Trump, then you're capable of compromising your religious values to bake two dudes a cake.

When people on this board take the position they're willing to curtail rights granted by the Constitution to a group of people because of their religion, that's bigotry. It's the definition of the term. Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the message. It's not even an indictment of anyone's character, it's simply a statement of fact. I have bigoted friends, family, coworkers- and I'm not gonna pretend I don't make jokes about Asian drivers, and I recognize I'm not gonna feel right at home in an AME church. I know I say things I don't mean, that I can be cavalier or dismissive about serious issues, I also recognize self-awareness and the ability to own ones' words and actions is a hallmark of maturity. It's another thing that bugs me about Trump. As much as I don't trust Hillary and agree she's made mistakes, she eventually comes around and owns up to them. She apologizes. I don't always think it's sincere, but she does it. The concept of accepting responsibility for one's words and actions is contrary to everything we know about Donald Trump. He doesn't apologize for anything he says, no matter how factually inaccurate or provably wrong he is. His acolytes eat it up. We all watched his camp move from "accuastions of plagiarism are absurd," to "we plagiarized," in two or three days- he then proceeded to throw an underling under the bus instead of take any responsibility, as head of the party and Belle of the ball. I don't think it speaks volumes of the guys' character.

There's a gulf between the FBI's actual findings and Hillary's interpretation of the FBI's findings, and that's one of my biggest complaints against her, too. Doing what she did I simply don't believe she genuinely thinks the rules apply to her, and I don't understand how she can say whistleblowers like Snowden or Manning should be prosecuted when she's left the country just as vulnerable. But if you really and truly believe national security is such a high priority, it makes no rational sense to endorse the guy imploring Russian Intelligence to break into the account of a former senator and secretary of state. I'm as curious as anyone what's in those deleted emails, and I'd hazard a guess some is pretty incriminating. But I have no evidence of that, neither does the FBI, neither does Donald Trump. That's what he's asking though- that an extrajudicial activity, a crime, be committed against an American citizen, on the basis of zero evidence of wrongdoing. Regardless of party affiliation or how much you despise Hillary, reasonable people should be able to agree that crosses a line. his is before the man has ever been elected to office, before he's ever been privy to sensitive national security intelligence. If he cannot perform responsibly at the candidate level, there's absolutely no reason to believe he'd be able to perform responsibly as President.

I'm not a fan of Hillary, but there is something to be said for stability. If you don't have a job, if you're not looking for a job, if you're not planning on getting a job in the next four years or you're looking to go overseas for a job, I can understand how Trump may be a viable option. Whether Trump likes it or not our economy and our politics are entwined with the rest of the world's. Our economy's still pretty lethargic and many haven't recovered from the last recession- we're handing a hamster to an imbecile and hoping for the best. That, and I get the impression Trump is playing checkers while Putin's playing chess. The guy's singular foreign policy achievement is booting little old ladies off their land in Scotland. Whether you think Trump's qualified or not, you can't argue his presidency would be throwing an amateur onto the global stage at a time both China and Russia are taking stronger and more aggressive positions. If he's only half as hapless a President as he is an event planner, it leaves a tremendous power vacuum for those two nations to exploit.

I certainly don't know the outward difference between a Syrian Christian, a Syrian Muslim, and a Syrian Jew. Many Americans are profoundly ignorant about the world around them- Sikhs and Indians are routinely misidentified as Muslims. 75%+ of Muslims aren't Arab. I have to routinely remind friends and coworker Bosnians are neither Russian nor Christian. I have a friend from Madrid, and I've watched people's tone, attitude, and body language change when he opens his mouth and speaks in a Spanish accent instead of Middle Eastern. I have another friend from Tunisia everyone assumes is from Memphis because they don't "sound African." If we were good at identifying terrorists (or even identifying Muslims) it'd be one thing- but most Americans are so clueless about the religion and its demographics they could point out a Muslim on the street only a fraction of the time. It'd be hysterical, except our position in the world means our ignorance has consequences for millions of others. Growing up where I did, when I did, I went to school with Muslim refugees Iranians, with Pakistanis, with Somalis and Kenyans. They went to class, they got decent grades, they played soccer, they were on the football team, they swam, they ran track. Turns out they were just people, there wasn't anything inherently awful or evil about them. Grade school through high school I had classes with Bosnian refugees- while I was in third grade learning multiplication their houses were being shelled. They were survivors of genocide- they witnessed bombings, executions, hangings. Six, eight, ten year old kids- if they were lucky they didn't have to actually watch their parents, grandparents, extended family killed. They were not the instigators of violence. They were not the perpetrators of violence. they were the victims of violence. It's not a joke, it's not something to be treated cavalierly. Human beings are not M&M's. Stripping people of their humanity makes a facile argument easier to defend. It makes unjustifiable behavior seem justifiable. That's why at various points in history we've reduced other human beings to numbers on a page, on a uniform, or on a forearm. Refusing candy because one may be poison sounds pragmatic. Allowing the entire population of Branson to be executed because one resident may be a terrorist is psychopathic. The math doesn't change, but removing the human element certainly makes the decision easier to stomach. The only difference between you and a Syrian refugee is that you're not a Syrian refugee, and that's simply a product of random chance. You won the effin' lottery when you were born here instead of there. Don't mistake that blind, dumb luck as meaning you're any more valuable, more meaningful, or more irreplaceable than any other human being. You're just lucky. The world's a risky place whether we do something or do nothing, and we're going to be threatened by terrorism whether we accept zero refugees or ten refugees or a thousand or a million. Your parents understood that- they were willing to fight and sacrifice and die for the cause that all human lives are of inherent worth. They accepted European refugees when asked. They accepted Russian refugees. They accepted Jewish refugees, not knowing the full extent of what was going on in Germany. You guys don't have the same luxury of ignorance. You guys can rationalize it however you like, what you're saying is you're willing to compromise the welfare of 10,000 people for a 0.0001% reduction in your perceived sense of risk. I can't think of a better definition of cowardice.

Keystone was batted around eight years before it was finally mothballed. Even if Trump has the inclination and the money and the political will to actually go through with building a wall, the idea it's going to be done any time soon (within a first term) is pretty unrealistic. The idea that people willing to cross 100,000 square miles of inhospitable desert but are gonna throw their hands up at the sight of a wall seems pretty unrealistic. The constant assertion our nation's at the brink of economic collapse, that we don't have enough money for roads or bridges or ports or zika or social security or healthcare or education or replacing lead pipes but we can gin up the cash to build, equip, maintain and patrol a 1000+ mile border wall in perpetuity seems pretty unrealistic.

I feel like we've reached the point where the only surprise would be if Ronnie Reagan's re-animated corpse emerged from the grave to sucker-punch the Republican nominee for conspiring with the Russians. We've reached the Twilight Zone. As vehemently as I disagree with Republicans on a lot of issues, they were willing to run a fair nomination process. Party leaders may not be pleased with the selection, but the respect the voters' will enough to hold their noses and see it through. The DNC chose to abandon that moral ground and I'm not sure their leadership realizes how many bridges they've burned in the process, particularly with younger voters. I don't understand why Hillary's expending so much energy trying to poach Bernie's supporters instead of making inroads with the moderate Republicans turned off by Trump- it seems like it'd be an easier row to hoe. I can't vote Trump, given the things he says he believes. But I do sympathize with the argument that making him president is proof-positive of just how broken our system is.

The guy can charge whatever he wants for access, it just seems odd he'd use taxes to justify what's almost certainly unreported income. For $30 you can practically rent a canoe or kayak, float in from Kelly's or Hammond Camp, and make a day of it. There's fish all over that river, no sense (IMO) in shelling out cash to fish one small section.

I've waded around the Blair Bridge area at 900 cfs and that's about as much flow as I'd be comfortable dealing with. 1100's generally to high (for me) to wade fish NFOW comfortably.

I think it's the other way around, Ruthead, but I may be mistaken. If I remember right MDC's wildlife code is permissive (prescriptive?) meaning unless it says you can in the little booklet, you can't. Keeps folks from dumping truckloads of tilapia in loz or karate chopping turtles in half, just because MDC hasn't thought of it. Al or someone else may know better. The one time I was stopped by an agent at Montauk he chewed me out for using a two-fly rig- no citation or anything, I can't even remember whether he checked my license.

Casenet says 20+ citations in 15 years, not exactly Mr. Citizenship. Agents may not be able to do much about the monetary penalties, but surely they can suspend hunting and fishing privileges, though I doubt that has any effect on guys like this.

No here one is condoning the behavior of people who lie about their condition or abuse prescription meds. I think what folks are trying to get across is you and I and wrench don't have the background, the education, the training, the skill set to ascertain whether someone else does or doesn't have a disorder requiring some form of treatment. If you saw Eric Clapton today your first impression probably wouldn't be "Gee, this guy's been a trainwreck half his life." On the other hand there's folks like Morrissey who'll probably never be all puppies and kittens. Some folks get the flu and wind up with fevers, chills, muscle aches, they're laid up in bed for days and lost fifteen pounds in the process. I get the sniffles and a sore throat. Different people exhibit different symptoms, and I'm willing to admit sussing out who's in genuine need and who's abusing the system is beyond my pay grade. But I'd rather err on the side of caution then hear a kid offed themself because someone didn't know what they were talking about and just thought they needed to harden up.

....says the guy with the pot jokes. I suppose there are people who fake mental disorders, but they have nothing to do with the people who actually have mental disorders. There's certainly people out there with undiagnosed mental disorders living reasonably healthy lives. it has no more to do with the people who are seeking medical attention than the guy with the undiagnosed tumor does with the chemo patient. If you don't want to take a doctor's advice, take drugs, or undergo treatment that's your decision to make, but it has nothing to do with one's moral fiber. I know folks who's legs have gone green because they didn't go to the doctor and get their diabetes under control. I know folks who ignored that hacking cough until it was stage four and there was nothing to do but wait for the end. I know folks who went for the gun because sitting on a couch is for sissies. I'll be the first person to raise my hand and say asking for help when I need it is among the toughest things for me to do. But I also understand there's an enormous difference between bravery and egotism.

It's not some uniform mass of grey goop, Wrench. Different parts of the brain govern different activities so yeah, a kid may be great at video games AND a social basketcase not because he's faking it or because it's bullshit, but because the "spatial processing" region of his brain is functioning properly and the "picking up on social cues" region isn't. What you're arguing is analogous to telling a customer the fuel pump can't be broken because the cowling isn't cracked. It just ain't so.

It helps for me to think about it like diabetes in the brain- some folks can manage it with diet, excercise, or other life changes. For other folks it's a hard-wired imbalance in brain, and those folks can no more train their brain to produce more of a hormone than someone with Type I diabetes can train their liver to produce more insulin. Suggesting in all instances someone can overcome it through sheer force of will is simply, profoundly, ignorant. Whatever you believe is irrelevant- it's simply not true. Saying someone with depression, bipolar disorder or other mental disorder just needs to get over it is as nonsensical as telling an amputee to suck it up and will their arm into growing back. What a Syrian kid's woken up to every day for the past five years is normal, but it isn't on the level. Sexual harrassment is "normal" in the sense it's happening all the time, that doesn't mean it's a-ok for me to grope your wife. "Normal" is just what an individual is used to seeing every day, it isn't monolithic and it doesn't carry any moral baggage. On the flip side- if you can't accomodate the group of people least likely to commit a crime because the fact they exist offends your sensibilities, it isn't saying anything about that group of people. It's saying something about you.

As the nation watches two sociopaths vie for Leader of the Free World it becomes abundantly clear most Americans aren't that worried about mental disorder ;). I'm highly suspicious Urgh and Glurgh spent a substantial amount of time arguing about who uses what hole in the cave, and for probably half the world or more a trip to the bathroom is about as unceremonious as it is for my mutt. Only in America are we so hypersensitive about our BMs (and the BMs of everyone around us) that we're willing to make a federal case out of it. It's not changing the world. It's accepting the way it's always been. I'm not a doctor, but if it really is a mental disorder then recognizing transgendered people isn't going to "incite a flurry of that kind of thing-" such disorders aren't contagious. If it is a mental disorder, it's pretty innocuous compared to all the other stuff we put up with- not like Baton Bob was at the helm of Lehmann Bros., and maybe J. Edgar would've been less cranky had he been able to use the ladies' room. And if it's a mental disorder, it's not something follks can switch on or off any more than they can male pattern baldness.

This is why eyes roll every time "PC Culture" is invoked. A kid's far more likely to be assaulted by dad, stepdad, uncle, cousin, neighbor, coach, teacher, or priest than a man in a dress in the ladies' room. In my own life experience I've known folks who were assaulted by family members, friends, supervisors, teachers, coaches. I don't know of anyone who's been assaulted by transgendered folks. Just last week I was reading about Willmore Park.  , since January 30+ men, mostly married, in what's probably the whitest part of St. Louis city, have been cited for public indecency, prostitution, etc. I played there as a kid. My sister played soccer there. While we've been gnashing our teeth about the infinitesimally small chances a guy in a dress is gonna assault someone in the ladies' room some of those arrested plead to minor charges, pay a fine, and are back out on the street. But hey, they're doing it in the bathroom which corresponds with their birth certificate. It has nothing to do with political correctness- if we're willing to accept the risks posed by us folks in the "normal" demographic, then there's no need for legislation protecting us from the infinitesimally smaller risk posed by transgendered folks. At best these bathroom bills are designed to assuage the misinformation and irrational fear one group of folks holds against another. Rant over.

If I'm reading your story correctly, you found a venemous snake and then nothing happened. You've walked by this venomous snake a couple times, and nothing's happened. Hundreds of others have walked by this place, in this popular state park, and nothing's happened. It's great you're warning people the snakes are there, and sure it's risky, but there's a hundred other risks from the swingset to the picnic table we accept every day. I'm okay with poisonous/venomous snakes in the area because I understand the risk is being overstated.

my understanding was maximum rod length for tournaments was 8', so Sage went a hair under so their rods would be allowed.

It's a solution looking for a problem. The reality is children aren't the ones commonly bit- it's young adults, 18-30, Darwin Award candidates messing with snakes. You're far more likely to be bit by a venemous snake trying to kill it than had you just left it alone. Any snake which managed to survive may be more aggressive towards perceived threats in the future, effectively created the problem which never existed in the first place but which you decided to solve. Half a million visitors a year without incident means you're overstating the threat. Sure there's a chance a snake could injure a kid, but If past experience is any indicator, there's nothing to be gained from killing them. And you're never going to kill all of them- which means you're never going to solve a problem which never really needed solving in the first place. It's pointless. People are allergic to bees and wasps, all sorts of wild animals carry rabies, and branches and tree trunks kill or injure far more people every year than snakes. But we're not knocking down hornets nests or waxing bats or cutting down every tree along the stream. We accept those unlikely events for exactly what they are and we live with them.

They're venemous, not poisonous, and to put it in perspective there's 500,000+ visitors to Roaring River every year. It could happen, but I haven't heard of many folks being bitten, much less killed. To be honest you're far more likely to be bitten by the dog, or bitten by the girl, than being bitten by a cottonmouth.

...so what you're saying is, last year MDC did something which directly benefited you. I don't know how many people use LOZ boat ramps in January when average daily temperature is just above freezing, and maybe you're right that after record flooding the best use of MDC time and resources is to make sure one boat ramp is cleared AND the surrounding area is properly manicured for the handful of people using it between now and spring. Maybe. But if some brush next to a boat ramp bothered me enough I was willing to rescind the conservation sales tax or restructure MDC...I'd ask some questions about myself first, then I'd call MDC to do something about the brush next to the boat ramp. You know, instead of being ticked about it for two months. But that's just me. Different strokes, I suppose. $12.50 for every $10,000 dollars spent in the state. That's what goes to MDC. Less than a pizza. I'm sure there's some mismanagement of MDC funds, I wish I'd get more out of it. But I also realize the amount I pay is inconsequential to my daily existence, and in return I get a whole lot of things I like. Maybe you don't agree, and that's completely fine. You can have the opinion MDC is overbudgeted or that they don't do enough- but to suggest they do nothing is simply dishonest.

Exactly. It took a long time before I was able to consistently catch more than 1-2 fish on the Current, a lot of time sitting on the bank scratching my head and trying to put something together. There's a lot of learning that goes on when you have that sort of experience, you're able to see where fish lie and how they react and develop a skill set you're then able to apply to other systems- for me, that was as much the reward as the actual fish. To me it seems the "Zero to Hero" crowd, in general, takes the whole thing way too seriously and they're frequently the ones leeching info online to get their rocks off. It's harmless I know, but I tend to roll my eyes- mostly because aside from the fish I'm not sure what it is they're gleaning from the experience.

Exactly- you're not sure. You don't know. You don't know that if you caught a striper or a hybrid or a walleye last year it's because MDC raises them at Lost Valley. There are dozens of public accesses and thousands of acres of public lands in your six-county area- I don't even live there and I've used Lead Mine, Fiery Fork, Saline, Toronto Springs, and whatever the one on Turnback is. There's an MDC office in Camdenton, I pass a sign for an MDC sign shop every time I'm in LOZ, and you're an hour away (or less) from Runge- an excellent, free public educational facility. Provided by MDC. You may not know all the things MDC does, even in your own neck of the woods, but that doesn't mean MDC does nothing. Every year, MDC cuts a check to every county in the state for Payments in Lieu of Taxes. Doesn't matter if it's a chunk of vacant forest or a boat ramp or a nature center. If MDC bought it after 1976, MDC's still paying for it. And that's just part of what MDC spends money on: things like "employees" cost year after year, it's not as though you raise one age class of walleye or wipers and you're done, it's not as though you burn one woodland or prairie and it's all set for the rest of time.