cofty

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Posts by cofty

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  286

  Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Baker Who Refused to Bake Cake for Gay Couple

  by Simon in

  1. social
  2. current

  seems like such an obviously correct decision to overturn the previous overreach - it should never have been necessary to go to the supreme court but happened because the rights of the religious were being ignored.. as the fundamental level, no one should be able to compel you to work for them or to provide services that go against your beliefs, and certainly not have the government be able to force you to comply.. if this was allowed there would be so many unreconcilable situations that would clog up courts over nonsense.. i also have little patience for these activists that intentionally look to be offended.

  it really doesn't do their cause any good to go round looking to make trouble for people.

  it's also misguided because it ends up strengthening religious rights over effectively stupid issues.. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/us/politics/supreme-court-sides-with-baker-who-turned-away-gay-couple.html.

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  cofty

  The baker should not be allowed to refuse service because the customer was gay. The issue was being asked to make a cake for a gay wedding.
• 
  286

  Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Baker Who Refused to Bake Cake for Gay Couple

  by Simon in

  1. social
  2. current

  seems like such an obviously correct decision to overturn the previous overreach - it should never have been necessary to go to the supreme court but happened because the rights of the religious were being ignored.. as the fundamental level, no one should be able to compel you to work for them or to provide services that go against your beliefs, and certainly not have the government be able to force you to comply.. if this was allowed there would be so many unreconcilable situations that would clog up courts over nonsense.. i also have little patience for these activists that intentionally look to be offended.

  it really doesn't do their cause any good to go round looking to make trouble for people.

  it's also misguided because it ends up strengthening religious rights over effectively stupid issues.. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/us/politics/supreme-court-sides-with-baker-who-turned-away-gay-couple.html.

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  cofty

  The bigoted baker would claim it violates his conscience/religious rights to bake a cake for the black couple

  No it wouldn't that would rightly be illegal. This is NOT what happened in this case.
  
  
• 
  286

  Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Baker Who Refused to Bake Cake for Gay Couple

  by Simon in

  1. social
  2. current

  seems like such an obviously correct decision to overturn the previous overreach - it should never have been necessary to go to the supreme court but happened because the rights of the religious were being ignored.. as the fundamental level, no one should be able to compel you to work for them or to provide services that go against your beliefs, and certainly not have the government be able to force you to comply.. if this was allowed there would be so many unreconcilable situations that would clog up courts over nonsense.. i also have little patience for these activists that intentionally look to be offended.

  it really doesn't do their cause any good to go round looking to make trouble for people.

  it's also misguided because it ends up strengthening religious rights over effectively stupid issues.. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/us/politics/supreme-court-sides-with-baker-who-turned-away-gay-couple.html.

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  cofty

  Very pleased to see the right outcome in this case.

  Nobody should be compelled to act contrary to their conscience even if we disagree with their opinions.
• 
  138

  LEAKED: WHQ Accounts: 2016-2020 Budget

  by Fay Dehr in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  leaked: whq accounts: 2016-2020 budget [part 1 of 5] https://youtu.be/g08tw2v3b4s.

  leaked: whq accounts: 2016-2020 budget [part 2 of 5] https://youtu.be/rpceb5v0vbe.

  leaked: whq accounts: 2016-2020 budget [part 3 of 5] https://youtu.be/2xa08ukc_6i.

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  cofty

  My summary. Please tell me if I have facts wrong.

  • The organisation used to make a significant percentage of its income from the profits of publishing - small margins & huge volumes, volunteer labour
  • Legal problems (Jimmy Swaggart) put an end to the pretence of it not being a commercial venture.
  • The GB introduced a 'simplified' model where mags were to be given away for free but expected JWs to contribute the normal costs as a voluntary donation when they collected their supplies at the K.Hall. This was to be in addition to regular contributions and to donations received for the literature from the public.
  • The vast majority of JWs declined to take advantage of this new 'opportunity'. They took their magazine order for free and discovered that the public almost never offered a donation.
  • It eventually became clear that printing literature resulted in financial loss rather than profits so over recent years it has been severely curtailed to the point where the WT and Awake have all but been discontinued.
  • Because of bad management and probably a large amount of 'Jehovah will provide' rhetoric, they carried on living beyond their means and selling off real estate to make up the shortfall in revenue.
  • This leaked video proves that all branches have been instructed to make a 10% cut in their budget year on year and to adopt a new accounting system that will allow HQ to closely monitor their spending.
  • Within a few years the real estate dividend will be used up. There is no prospect of any permanent increase in contributions and no new business model so the only solution is a permanent reduction in the size of global operations.

  In short, the organisation has peaked.

  However fast or slow it proves to be (SBF v Morph) the future is one of decline.
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  291

  Evolution is a Fact #1 - Protein Functional Redundancy

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i intend for this to be one of a series of bite-sized ops on the evidence for evolution.. introduction to dna genes are sequences of dna made up of words (codons) each of which are three letters (bases) long.

  there are only four letters in the genetic alphabet (acg&t) each word or codon is the recipe for one amino acid.

  there are 20 different amino acids in living organisms.

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  cofty

  Hooby you really don't understand it do you?

  There are three possibilities.

  1 - DNA sequences identical across all species

  2 - DNA sequences randomly different across all species

  3 - DNA sequences vary in a pattern that exactly corresponds to the relationships previously identified by evolution.

  Turns out the answer was number 3.
• 
  138

  LEAKED: WHQ Accounts: 2016-2020 Budget

  by Fay Dehr in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  leaked: whq accounts: 2016-2020 budget [part 1 of 5] https://youtu.be/g08tw2v3b4s.

  leaked: whq accounts: 2016-2020 budget [part 2 of 5] https://youtu.be/rpceb5v0vbe.

  leaked: whq accounts: 2016-2020 budget [part 3 of 5] https://youtu.be/2xa08ukc_6i.

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  cofty

  I think these 3000 properties earmarked for sale might be in addition to kingdom halls. This online presentation took place in 2016 but the programme to identify kHalls for sale and merger is ongoing since then.

  Edited to correct date.
• 
  138

  LEAKED: WHQ Accounts: 2016-2020 Budget

  by Fay Dehr in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  leaked: whq accounts: 2016-2020 budget [part 1 of 5] https://youtu.be/g08tw2v3b4s.

  leaked: whq accounts: 2016-2020 budget [part 2 of 5] https://youtu.be/rpceb5v0vbe.

  leaked: whq accounts: 2016-2020 budget [part 3 of 5] https://youtu.be/2xa08ukc_6i.

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  cofty

  And yet there is a comment on one of the clips that states that contributions have never been higher.

  Is that a lie of is the crisis simply that they are terrible at budgeting? If so they are admitting to carelessness with 'the Master's belongings'. Hardly a sign of being 'faithful or discreet'.
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  170

  UK justice..

  by zeb in

  1. social
  2. current

  tommie robinson has reported often about what he sees as the demise of british society by the imposition of 'sharia' norms.. https://www.infowars.com/update-tommy-robinson-gets-13-months-for-livestreaming-outside-courthouse/?utm_source=nightly+newsletter&utm_campaign=9e3ceb30f6-email_campaign_2018_05_25_03_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e12661a83c-9e3ceb30f6-38680565.

  yesterday he was jailed for 13 months for reporting outside a court in the uk.

  his was a non violent offence.. what no community service?

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  cofty

  It was in part Maajid Nawaz who persuaded Robinson to leave his own organisation the EDL to cooperate on education about Islam and Islamism.

  Interesting conversation here between Maajid and Tommy when he called in to his LBC radio show.

  ...
• 
  170

  UK justice..

  by zeb in

  1. social
  2. current

  tommie robinson has reported often about what he sees as the demise of british society by the imposition of 'sharia' norms.. https://www.infowars.com/update-tommy-robinson-gets-13-months-for-livestreaming-outside-courthouse/?utm_source=nightly+newsletter&utm_campaign=9e3ceb30f6-email_campaign_2018_05_25_03_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e12661a83c-9e3ceb30f6-38680565.

  yesterday he was jailed for 13 months for reporting outside a court in the uk.

  his was a non violent offence.. what no community service?

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  cofty

  yeah, we've all joined the BNP by mistake at some time or another.

  He was indeed a member in 2004 for one year when he was 20 years old.

  "I was looking for a way out, I was looking somebody to be addressing this Islamic extremist problem. I joined for one year, I didn't know Nick Griffin was in the National Front, I didn't know non-whites couldn't join the organisation. I joined, I saw what it was about, it was not for me,"
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  21

  JW UK Branch update 2018: "Follow the White Elephant"

  by Fay Dehr in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  https://youtu.be/y5uydq1mwtm.

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  cofty

  Brilliant!

  I agree though that a more detailed factual timeline would be really interesting.