Disqus - Latest Comments for RonThompson

Re: How Lincoln Spoiled His Own Legacy

RonThompson — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 14:22:35 -0000

And to follow up on a point that I made here as a reply, but has been deleted, the English language Bible which uses "abomination" in Leviticus is a translation from the Latin vulgate, which is often a translation from Greek, and always a translation from the original Hebrew. In current English, "abominate" means "to hate, loathe, abhor". It does not have an implied religious connotation, but of course it is chiefly used by religious people because it was the verb chosen for the King James version, and it could easily be a form of abominari in the Vulgate.

Re: How Lincoln Spoiled His Own Legacy

RonThompson — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 14:12:55 -0000

Who's more qualified? If she's nominated, Hillary could, and likely will, do worse.

Re: How Lincoln Spoiled His Own Legacy

RonThompson — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 13:56:41 -0000

Well, of course, the Leviticus we have in English language Bibles today is a translation from the Latin Vulgate, which is often a translation from Greek, and always a translation from the original Hebrew. The question is, what was the word in the original Hebrew, and what do we know about how that word was generally employed when the originals were composed?

Re: How Lincoln Spoiled His Own Legacy

RonThompson — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 13:51:07 -0000

It does not.

Re: How Lincoln Spoiled His Own Legacy

RonThompson — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 13:30:41 -0000

Abominari is a first conjugation deponent verb in Latin, meaning to deprecate or detest.

Re: How Lincoln Spoiled His Own Legacy

RonThompson — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 12:51:43 -0000

I think the cause of the war among the people who started the war was slavery. For political reasons, Lincoln defined it in the beginning as a war for union, but the only reason the union needed to fight a war was the refusal of the slave power to accept the election results. I suspect that, among Union enlisted soldiers at the beginning, "saving the union" was a much more common motivation than "ending slavery".

Re: How Lincoln Spoiled His Own Legacy

RonThompson — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 12:46:53 -0000

No, I think you overstate it there.They would not have left the issue of slavery on the table, never to be deal with, but if Lincoln had been elected with a Republican Congress, as he was, and there had been no secession before Congress first met on July 4, 1861, I think it's pretty clear that they would have passed a law reinstating the Missouri Compromise provision banning slavery in territories north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, and a law greatly revising the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. They wouldn't have dealt with slavery in the ultimate sense of killing it, but they would have dealt it some harmful blows.

Re: How Lincoln Spoiled His Own Legacy

RonThompson — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 12:36:31 -0000

This article was very good, but contains the statement "In 1854, when popular sovereignty champion Stephen A. Douglas had proposed splitting the Missouri Territory into the states of free Nebraska and slave Kansas,"

Of course, Douglas proposed the creation of the two territories without any conditions on the status of slavery, saying that the inhabitants would decide the issue in framing a constitution prior to application for statehoood.That is what "popular sovereignty" means. He wasn't dividing the territory into states--he was dividing a territory into two territories. And it wasn't the Missouri Territory, it was the Nebraska Territory.

Re: 2015 San Francisco Giants Top 10 Prospects

RonThompson — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:40:32 -0000

I see the part about sentences and paragraphs has left you bumfuzzled. Perhaps you could try to understand what I'm saying, instead of trying so hard to misunderstand what I'm saying.

Re: 2015 San Francisco Giants Top 10 Prospects

RonThompson — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:38:43 -0000

:-)

Re: 2015 San Francisco Giants Top 10 Prospects

RonThompson — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 17:15:57 -0000

Well, let me try again. I see the list. I am talking about the text of the article--the part with words, sentences, and paragraphs. I could understand it when the Brewers article mentioned prospects in only one paragraph--the Brewers don't have any prospects, but Tom Haudricourt was too polite to say so directly. But the Giants do have prospects, and it seems odd that the writer could give us eleven paragraphs on "2015 San Francisco Giants Top Ten Prospects" without once mentioning Tyler Beede or Kyle Crick.

Re: 2015 San Francisco Giants Top 10 Prospects

RonThompson — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 16:25:37 -0000

I didn't miss it, sir or madam. The headline at the top of the page is "2015 San Francisco Giants Top Ten Prospects". And yet in an article of eleven paragraphs, the only prospects mentioned are Susac and Matt Duffy.

Re: 2015 San Francisco Giants Top 10 Prospects

RonThompson — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 12:57:55 -0000

Don't they have any prospects? I thought this article was supposed to be about the top Giants prospects in 2015. Instead, we get a panegyric to the front office? Aren't there other, more appropriate, places for beat-sweeteners?

Re: When Agents Get Played

RonThompson — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:34:13 -0000

An agent advises a client. The client is free to instruct the agent. If Drew held out, it was because Drew was unrealistic, not because Boras victimized him. Guys like Drew are a penny a pound. If he thought Boras could get him a contract out of proportion to his worth, then more fool he.

Re: 2015 Milwaukee Brewers Top 10 Prospects Chat

RonThompson — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:55:36 -0000

Bradley, yes. Jury's still out on Jungmann.

Have the Brewers been the worst team in the majors at drafting since JZ left, or only 29th, with the Angels worse?

Re: 2015 Milwaukee Brewers Top 10 Prospects

RonThompson — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 13:53:51 -0000

Shorter Tom Haudricourt: The Brewers don't have any prospects, so I'll talk about the 2014 season and the affiliation changes instead.

Re: With Maddon Hire Looming, Cubs Fire Renteria

RonThompson — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 23:47:34 -0000

For all you guys out there who are about to dump your wife because your old girlfriend got divorced, this is how to do it with class.

Re: Dana Loeschs New Gun Book Botches Quotes From The Founding Fathers

RonThompson — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 14:15:51 -0000

In her book, Loesch also attempts to demonstrate that the Founding
Father's view of the Second Amendment matches her own, but in doing so
she misquotes, and often takes out of context, the Founder's true words.

Why is this so difficult? When you are taking about something belonging to one person, the apostrophe comes before the s. But when you are talking about something belonging to more than one person, the apostrophe comes AFTER the s. Some people add another s after the apostrophe--they would write Founders's. But the preferred correct way of writing it would be Founders'. Founder's is simply incorrect.

Re: Eschaton: Why Does Everyone Pretend Cuomo Is A Presidential Contender

RonThompson — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 12:36:51 -0000

Well, because in the New Gilded Age, leadership positions are confined to the Ruling Families. Why else would George W. Bush be President, or Luke Russert and Rand Paul be taken seriously?

Re: Cole Hamels Can Block Trades To Twenty Clubs

RonThompson — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 20:36:27 -0000

Hamels is permitted to designate twenty of the league’s thirty clubs.

Uh, this is baseball. We have two leagues, and they have fifteen "clubs" each.

Re: Eschaton: Gangnam

RonThompson — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:42:59 -0000

Your idea seems to assume that NBC wants to get the best person and put on the most informative show. I think it makes far more sense to assume that NBC has a corporate culture which serves the 0.1% and corporations slavishly, and that their on-air talent are the people who can do the most plausible job of covering for the rich. It's just that a) that job has gotten a lot harder since 2007, and b) a guy like Gregory, who might have been perfect for the job then, is an air-head unable and unwilling to adapt to the circumstances created by the Great Recession and the escalating tempo of nutsification of the Republican Party. You could do this show in 2007 and not be perceived as a corporate shill, while expressing the "both sides do it" gravitas of the traditional Broder-style pundit. But it doesn't work anymore. It has no answers for the real problems we face, just warmed-over rehashes of the arguments of the 80s and 90s. Gregory was never a newsman; he was always a TV performer.

Re: 'Meet The Press' finishes distant third, again

RonThompson — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:28:38 -0000

Which one, Cheney's lapdog Russert, or everybody's pekinese Fluffy?

Re: 'Meet The Press' finishes distant third, again

RonThompson — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:27:27 -0000

Longstanding habit, and the mistaken but virtuous idea that they are staying abreast of public affairs and being a good, informed citizen by watching this garbage. The same reason people used to subscribe to Time and Newsweek--they don't understand public affairs, but they think the pundits do, and are doing their best to explain it.

Re: A Question for Mr. Charles Pierce

RonThompson — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 16:19:16 -0000

What an asshat this writer is.

Re: Scientists find second, 'hidden' language in human genetic code

RonThompson — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 15:00:40 -0000

Well, you're the guy with a Ph. D. in molecular biology, right? Because otherwise, who would give a flying fck what it sounds like to you?

Seems like the "intelligent" way to accomplish two tasks would be to do them separately, and not do one on top of the other with the chance of increasing mutations. Or are mutations just God's way of confusing us?