Guard Dog

No I'm still opposed to questioning someone about who they pray to, if anyone, when they bow their head at night. You can be an atheist and be opposed to abortion. It does not matter how someone arrived at the positions they hold. It IS fair to ask if the post you are applying for requires you to do something counter to those positions will you be able to do it?

saying that you don't care about the ideology pursuited by a politician is dumb (sorry) and you know why. OK, this is a good point. He's not a politician. He's a political appointee and a pretty low one at that. The only thing this guy will ever do is help figure out how the White House staff spends it's budget. However if he were a politician running for a public office I would have no problem with a voter taking his religion into account when they are deciding to vote for him or not. But this is a man applying for a job that now a lot of people don't want him to get because he has a different opinion about something completely inconsequential than they do.

My response is exactly the same regardless of whether the candidate is Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Satanist, or atheist: if the candidate is set on making a public statement condemning other groups on a total non-basis - if it's a Christian saying Muslims have a "deficient" theology or that all non-Christians are "condemned", or an atheist calling Christians "idiots" or "ignorant" and denouncing all religions, or a Muslim calling non-Muslims infidels or whatever - and then repeatedly reinforcing that statement when later questioned about it with the lame excuse of "Well, as a Christian...", it's going to raise some serious red flags for me on their ability to treat and serve all types of Americans equally. I one hundred percent agree with Bernie Sanders on his final statement: I'm not sure we need any more kinds of these candidates who evidently set on condemning and looking down upon entire groups of Americans for no other reason besides their stinking religion. As you literally just put it yourself a few posts ago, "[We] are heading down a dark road when [we] start judging people on what is going on in their heads." That's exactly what this candidate did, and it's why some of us would feel uncomfortable with him when it concerns a not insignificant amount of people on a total non-basis. I genuinely do not understand why everyone is up about this. So he thinks everyone who does not believe like he does is going to hell when they die. So f-----g what? Does it magically become true just because he thinks so? Does thinking that impede his ability to execute the duties of a mid level bureaucrat? Should people be denied employment in the public sector because of their religion? If he really believed Santa Claus was real and won't bring toys to bad children you might think he's a silly but he certainly would not deserve the treatment he got from Sanders.

am preferring to watch rather than participate for the moment, but please observe your reading is based on assumption rather than what mr. vought said. listen again to the actual quote. mr. vought specific distinguished the condemnation of non christians from their "deficient theology." gd understanding is likely how mr. vought meant, but he did make ambiguous by removing taking theology outta the equation. question: is it appropriate to ask a devout catholic judge, who has public spoken 'bout immorality o' abortion, how she would have applied roe v. wade to specific past abortion cases? HA! Good Fun! In the parlance of christian thought "condemned" only has one meaning. The meaning I described. As to the question you posed it would be completely appropriate to ask said judge. Because unless she was on or a candidate for or on the Supreme Court the precedents are pretty clear. It would be a gage not of her religious ideals so much as a gage on how much she is willing to buck precedent, challenge the status quo, and risk successful appeals. you see only one meaning, but a strict denotative reading doesn't support such. vought himself distinguished from theology in his quote, so why should only the christian understanding be applied, particular by a jewish senator? clear folks in this thread alone were confused as to meaning and scope of "condemned." as to judges it would seems you see as wholly appropriate to question the impact religion would have on the fitness of an appointee to do their job. HA! Good Fun! It depends on how you ask the question and to what end. You don't make the religion the point of the question so much as the willingness to check opinion at the door when the job requires it. Abortion, capital punishment, etc are legal. Unless you are on a high enough court to do something about that or a candidate for the legislature there is nothing to be done but apply the law no matter what you think of it. But I'd leave the religion aspect out of the question altogether. Judge Gromnir has publicly said he's Catholic. But that is irrelevant. Judge Gromnir opinions are what they are. Why or how he came by them is irrelevant. And none of it is relevant if it has nothing to do with the bench/office/position he is a candidate for.

You know the biggest difference between you guys and me? My response would be exactly the same whether the candidate were christian, muslim, or the lord high bishop of the church of Volurn. Who he prays to when he bows his head has exactly nothing, nothing what so ever to do with his ability to do his job. Sanders is the one who made this an issue. It was an ugly tactic by an angry little man. So he "thinks" non-Christians are all going to hell. Are they? No? Then who cares what he thinks. Don't believe in hell? Then who cares what he thinks. Can he crunch numbers and will he report any wrongdoing he sees? That is really all that matters.

The problem should be that because this man "thinks" wrong to Sanders and a lot of other people he is not qualified to serve as the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. A post pretty far down the trough of the DC power pigsty. Had he been a Muslim and answered that all Jews and Christians were "condemned" for their "deficient theology" and Sanders treated him as disrespectfully everyone would be howling for his head rather than the candidate's.

am preferring to watch rather than participate for the moment, but please observe your reading is based on assumption rather than what mr. vought said. listen again to the actual quote. mr. vought specific distinguished the condemnation of non christians from their "deficient theology." gd understanding is likely how mr. vought meant, but he did make ambiguous by removing taking theology outta the equation. question: is it appropriate to ask a devout catholic judge, who has public spoken 'bout immorality o' abortion, how she would have applied roe v. wade to specific past abortion cases? HA! Good Fun! In the parlance of christian thought "condemned" only has one meaning. The meaning I described. As to the question you posed it would be completely appropriate to ask said judge. Because unless she was on or a candidate for or on the Supreme Court the precedents are pretty clear. It would be a gage not of her religious ideals so much as a gage on how much she is willing to buck precedent, challenge the status quo, and risk successful appeals.

I spent the whole day yesterday parked in front of my TV. Literally every waking moment. I watched sports all day. Tampa Bay Rays vs Oakland A's. USA vs Ireland in Rugby. That went about as well as you'd expect. We suck at rugby I'm sorry to say. After that is was Marlins vs Pirates and Redbirds vs Nashville. Today however, I'm going to be a bit more productive.

OK, for those who are missing what he means by "condemned" what he is saying is that he believes when Muslims die they are going to hell. There is an unfortunate aspect to most religions in that they are "right" to the exclusion of all others. However, that "rightness" is enforced by God after everyone shuffles off this mortal coil. Meaning there is nothing he can do about ti. But, does him thinking someone is going to hell make it so? Does one person believing something another does not make it real to the other person? If you believe in ghosts does that suddenly make them real? Does thinking something that can be neither proven nor disproven disqualify person from being the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget? Make no mistake here, Bernie Sanders and some of you here on this board are saying this man does not deserve to serve in a minor political office because of how he thinks about a subject no one can prove or disprove and changes nothing about his job. Sanders and all of you might as well disqualify him because he roots for a different sports team than you. Or that he prefers Memphis style BBQ over Carolina style. You are heading down a dark road when you start judging people on what is going on in their heads. I am a Christian. Does that make any of you think less of me?

many o' the original d&d icons fell on hard times in the 90s and beyond. david trampier being a widely publicized case. feels wrong to shrug of as the human condition. c'est la vie? no. just no. I didn't know that. I did know they lost control over their creation.

I'll agree with half of that. I went to the Rugby Sevens World Cup a few years ago in Vegas. I had a great time but I notices something about the game. The fastest team wins like every match. It's almost preordained. With a full 15 on 15 match there is a lot more strategy and team work. Rugby Sevens is just a footrace with a ball. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean it isn't entertaining. But as a fan of the sport I'd prefer the "real thing". The same with basketball. For me the best part of the game is the way a good team moves the ball using all five players on the floor. Go to 3-3 and it just becomes a shooting match. You take the best parts out.

Good point!

Whatever respect I had for Bernie Sanders is completely gone now. A candidate's religious convictions have no place in a confirmation hearing and his willingness to vote against a candidate strictly over a difference of opinion on religious doctrine is absolutely wrong. But I have no doubt had the candidate been a member of any other religion and made statements supporting a strict interpretation of it's doctrine Sanders would not have made a peep. https://youtu.be/jjQSwYV5Qzs

Loretta Lynch came out that show yesterday looking even worse than Trump did. It's enough to make you throw up your hands and yell out "they're all crooks"!

I started reading this last night: It's all about Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and the team that created D&D back in the '70s and the cultural phenom it became. Both good and bad.

Cavs fans did not react all that well to the last Lebron divorce. https://theringer.com/2017-nba-finals-lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers-los-angeles-lakers-clippers-25e353094845

Talk about a marriage made in heaven! http://ballparkdigest.com/2017/06/08/craft-beer-and-baseball-the-trend-continues/ If you are a fan of good beer this is a wonderful time to be alive isn't it?

This just sucks: http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/ex-nfl-indiana-wr-james-hardy-found-dead-in-river/ar-BBCjQZt?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

I was just reading Bleacher Report and realclearsports.com. It seems a lot of folks are in a snit about ESPN bringing Hank Williams Jr. back to MNF. Where ESPN went wrong is not so much that they leaned left in their politics, it's that they allowed sports and politics to mix at all. Sports fans come from every political stripe and it's one of the few things left we can all still relate to each other about. Reddest Republican and bluest Democrat can dismiss their differences for a moment and happily discuss how the Giants did last night. Mixing politics into sports only spoils that. Check your politics at the door and let us enjoy football, baseball, whatever. Oh, and yes ESPN way overpaid for their broadcast rights. That didn't help either.

Since the Grizz were knocked out I haven't watched any of the games until tonight. What an impressive win though. Kudos to GS for closing the gap in the 4th. Volo is right though. That missed 3 pointer by the Cavs with 12 seconds settled the whole thing.

Doh! Wrong thread. See the NBA thread.

How is that not making 2 donations? You donated money THEN can either let them use of the course for free (which would be seen as a donation) or charge them like everyone else and use that money to another one. That situation is either donate twice to same organization or donate twice to different organization. Nothing legally wrong with it. It's not even inherently dishonest. It just does not sit well with me. Maybe if I didn't give a damn about the charities involved I wouldn't care.