Ranxerox

Personally, I don't believe that Franklin quote, because it is not a Ben Franklin quote. The actual quote is "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Lest someone ask what the difference between the two quotes, it is the difference that of a wise man and fool. Pretty much every law demands that you give up a liberty, be it the liberty to drive the speed that you want to drive, the liberty to tell lies in order to make a profit, or liberty to kill your daughter's boyfriend because he has it coming. It turns out that these liberties, even that last one, aren't considered essential liberties. Nor is it just a matter of what type liberty is a stake, the safety being won is also critical to the equation. If the safety is not little or temporary, even things that one might regard as essential liberties are up for grabs. The government can demand that I support it with my tax dollars, because if taxation were made voluntary the government would soon fail. It can restrict my freedom of speech even in matters of conscious where state secrets are concerned. It can restrict my sincere practice of religion if that practice places other people in danger. So, yes liberty is important and it is worth sacrificing safety in it's name, but Benjamin Franklin understood that is it it was not and could not be a total absolute. Therefore, Mr Franklin put qualifiers in the statement in order to extol the importance of liberty but also to give us something workable the real world and not just for the benefit of those taking the liberty. Also, it is worth noting, that the Charlotte city council denied the march permit out of concerns for public safety. These concerns turned out to 1000% justified. The Charlotte city council was right and the ACLU was wrong. One can say that hindsight is 20/20, but this wasn't hindsight. This was foresight on the the part of the city council. They looked at the dangers and at the tools that they had to address those dangers and correctly decided that it wasn't worth the risk. In the wake of the tragedy that followed, had the ACLU not had a crisis of confidence that would have said something unflattering about them.

Internal debate within the ACLU when different civil liberties come into conflict with each other is not a bug; it is a feature. We live a perilous juncture in American history, where either the thoughtless championing of free speech (I see you, Facebook, Twitter) or the abandoning of free speech could easily plunge our country into fascism. *Gasp! The Horror!* We may actually have to proceed forward with a nuanced response, and Goddess knows that as a country we are not good at those. So, if the organization, that has spent more time thinking about civil liberties than any other, is passionately debating how best to go forward, that is a good thing. Maybe all those fine, passionate, committed, legal minds can help us thread the needle between giving our enemies all the communication tools they need to hopelessly divide our country and sacrificing the very liberties that makes our country special. Right now the ACLU is enjoying huge surge in support, but they are also having to weather a huge surge in commitments. They are engaged in a 150 lawsuits against the Trump administration, and you know that is going to eat a lot of resources. Resource allocation is going to remain crucial moving forward. One of the internal complaints among ACLU staffers was that white supremacist cases seemed to get to jump to the front of the line. Would it be the death to liberty if Nazis and Klansmen had to enter the back of the queue like everyone else? "The city council has denied has denied out request to march on city hall in protest of the new housing project they are planning for the n*****s and the illegals!" "That not right. Your voices have a right to be heard. We will take you case. Our next case opening will probably be in 8 months." "Eight months! Our march is suppose to be 6 weeks!" "Well, sorry about that, but we have a huge number of people seeking our help, and I just don't see how we can help you any sooner than that. Maybe, you can win the case on your own, and if not, well, we will help you with your appeal in 8 months." To me the above conversation, seems perfectly reasonable to me, and if members of the ACLU staff reprioritize how they take cases that might be for the best. The ACLU has a history of championing the underdog, and white supremacist aren't quite the underdog that they were a couple years ago. Adapting to changing circumstances is necessary for any organization that wishes to have a future. Let them talk, let them debate and let them adapt. Remember that the ACLU doesn't pass laws and isn't proposing outlawing Nazi marches, and I have no doubt that if someone else proposes such a law that the ACLU will speak out.

Oh, the Outsider thing goes deeper than that. The first we see an Outsider comic in Black Lightning, it is in the hands of Anissa's soon to be girlfriend, Grace. The comic book she is carrying is one of the early issues of the Outsiders, but a latter incarnation of the team has a brick named Grace who is Asian and queer just like the girlfriend. So, you just know that if Black Lightning makes it season 3, girlfriend Grace is going to get super strength or it is going to be revealed that she had it all along.

I just assumed that Themyscira exist in some alternate dimension and that the pair exited it a lot closer to London than Steve entered it.

That isn't really the opposite of what Pattern Ghost was saying. PG was referring to knife wielders in general whereas the person you spoke to previously was specifically referring to knife wielding muggers. Muggers probably only make up a small percentage of knife wielders. So, it is perfectly possible that most knife wielders aren't ready to use the knife, but muggers are not like most other knife wielders. Also, PG is a member of law enforcement. It seems likely that muggers with knives, as murderous as they may (or may not) be, don't get into confrontations with police. After all, they know that the police officer has a gun, and probably also know the old adage about not bringing a knife to a gun fight.

I was disappointed to discover that she was not playing Tracy Burke.

Personally I enjoyed Iron Fist. The martial arts were bad, but I watched Arrow for years and its martial arts were in there own way just as bad despite the years of practice their actors had doing them. The pacing was good, without the the feeling that episodes 8 through 12 were just there as padding like so many Netflix series. The story with Ward and his father was compelling. Madame Gao was a good villain. Colleen Wing was cool. Moreover, prepare yourselves for heresy, I liked the character of Danny Rand. Yes, if I was a fan of Danny Rand from the comics, I probably would have hated him in the Netflix series. However, Danny Rand in the comics never really did anything for me. The Netflix's Danny Rand at least I found interesting. The idea that taking an orphan and training him for years to be some ultimate warrior would result in not some peaceful zen warrior but instead in a really emotionally messed up man struck me a wonderful overturning of a stale troph. Every good thing about Danny Rand was stuff that he brought with him to K'un-Lun as a sweet, innocent boy. All K'un-Lun added was violence. If you doubt this, look at messed up Davos is. Early on we see him subduing and tying up a food truck owner to use his truck to spy on Danny, and to pass the time he scares the s*** out his prisoner. Had Danny Rand not won it instead, this is the guy who would have become Iron Fist. Think about that. I also liked him in the Defenders. I found him to be a refreshing counterpoint to everyone else's angst and cynicism.

You set the bar for Trump getting your vote extremely low. You asked for only one positive achievement with the rest being just a short list of items not to screw up. You didn't even ask that he not get us into a war as long as it wasn't with someone on your list. Still, the chances that he wouldn't screw up one of the items was extremely low, and I expect he will cross some more off your list before he is done. ? Even though it isn't a surprise, the torpedoing of the Iran deal is incredibly sad. That agreement was the product of years of economic and diplomatic pressure in order to get Iran to the bargaining table and months of hard work to craft an agreement that would stop Iran's nuclear program and be acceptable to both sides. The fact of the matter is is represented a decent chance at peace. Now all the work and care and commitment to peace is being flushed down the toilet like a McDonald combo meal three days after Trump finishes eating it. I'm not a man who apologizes for being an American, but I kinda of feel like I should now. Sorry, world. We decided not to give peace a chance.

Deleted Scene From The Black Panther

With the exception of Speed, these stats aren't a bad representation of Batman. The 9 Speed, however, is ridiculous. Depending on the campaigns level of Dex/Speed inflation, I could justify giving Batman a Speed of anywhere from 4 to 7. However, Regardless of campaign, only speedsters should have ever have 9 Speeds. Though, if I remember right, DC Heroes didn't have a stat directly analogous to Speed, so the conversion probably is estimating it off one or more combat stats. As Batman would have had fantastic combat stats, the conversion just got a bit carried away with the Speed, I'm guessing.

California is one of 14 states that sends more money to the federal government than it gets back in benefits (link). So, I'm really not sure what mistakes it is that the family thinks they are being asked to clean up. It is certainly not financial help that they are giving us.

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You mean the comic book version? The article doesn't show Anna Diop in her Starfire costume.

Bah! Things said by Ms Sanders reflect neither reality nor whats going on inside of the Trump White House. Michael Wolff's book was just scurrilous, gossip mongering, and it was still a more accurate description of White House happenings than any Sarah's news conferences.

I disagree. It is all normalized down to killing per year. Yes, the data from a ten year period is going to be do a better job ironing out statistical outlier years than just looking at 3 years, but 3 years will usually be enough to give a person a sense of things. So, yes, IMHO this chart and graph do a good job showing how dangerous each state is to it law enforcement officers and how dangerous those law enforcement officers are in turn.

Agreed on both points. ROM was like Micronauts in that it was much better than it had any right to be based on it's original toy origins.

Ms Marvel, Kamala Khan. My second favorite is the Atom, Ryan Choi.

I'm okay with them dying like chumps. I am less okay with Thor taking not so much a moment to ask about them or mourn their passing, despite them being his friends for centuries if not millenniums.

You should do that. The Average White Band had some pretty good songs.

Yeah, it has been a strong season. The time travel aspect has been particularly interesting since AoS has been taking the stand that the future it set in stone. Because while this the first season which has actual time travel, there have been people who could see the future since season 2, and their statements about the future have always come to pass. Now, they are in a place where they absolutely have to change the past/future and the fate of the planet is riding on it. I'm certain that they have figured a way out for of the whole destruction of the planet thing. but I doubt they do it by ignoring the rules about the time that they have already established. So, I'm very curious how they are going to pull off this trick. Also, since we are talking about A0S, didn't Ming-Na Wen give a strong performance last episode? It is always cool to see the softer sides of Melinda May's personality. IMHO, that was one of the best episodes in the entire series.

Well, it is Friday night ...

Nor virtue.

Perhaps, but not soon. Downs syndrome is an entire extra chromosome. That is a lot harder to work around than a single bad gene.

This chart is a good look at how the tax bill would effect income groups collectively, but I was curious what it would do to average individual tax bills. Unfortunately, the Joint Committee on Taxation's report didn't have a chart addressing individual average tax payers. However, it did have all the information that I needed to make my own. Here it is. Notice that while there are some nice take breaks in the beginning, nobody is coming all that far ahead by 2027. If you are making over a million dollars a year, that $13,506 tax break is going to be virtually unnoticeable. On the other hand, if you are earning between $10,000 and $20,000 that $318 dollar tax increase is going to devastating. People making between $10,000 and $20,000 are usually watching every dime and don't have an extra $318 laying around. Really, this bill is a huge amount of pain for very little gain, and is going to add over a trillion dollars to our national debt. Just a colossal turd sandwich no matter how you look at it.