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NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#103751: Oct 21st 2015 at 10:18:40 PM

You beat Florida: quit complaining. wink
I was about to mention that, actually. As a guy born in raised in Florida, the Only in Florida meme irritates the shit out of me. I can sympathize with people from Texas getting annoyed at "texas" becoming synonymous with "crazy".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Mopman43 Since: Nov, 2013
Ekuran Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#103754: Oct 21st 2015 at 11:13:59 PM

Guy mentions key lime pie and Cuban sandwiches as his first examples of things that make Florida awesome? I like him already.

I didn't actually know that that was the reason why the Florida Man stories are around, though. Not because I didn't know about the Sunshine law, but because I didn't know that other states didn't have an equivalent of it.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#103755: Oct 21st 2015 at 11:51:10 PM

Ah, it was just that a lot of news stories ran with titles like "Florida Man does such and such" and it just caught on that he was the worst superhero ever or something like that.

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#103756: Oct 22nd 2015 at 5:21:47 AM

Teenager describes fatal beating at upstate New York church

Seriously. WTF.

It isn't Florida nor Texas that have a monopoly of crazies and religious nutbags.

Inter arma enim silent leges
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#103757: Oct 22nd 2015 at 6:19:19 AM

I don't think that anyone seriously tried to make that claim. Rather, the proportion of media stories about them tends to be higher in certain states.

edited 22nd Oct '15 6:19:28 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#103758: Oct 22nd 2015 at 6:35:27 AM

It's a rural thing and upstate New York is as rural as it gets.

Oh really when?
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#103759: Oct 22nd 2015 at 7:14:29 AM

Six churches, five of them predominantly black, have burned in St. Louis in the past 2 weeks

For the second time in six months, black churches are burning.

There have been six fires since October 8, all within a few miles of each other around St. Louis. Five have been at predominantly black churches, while the sixth was at a mixed church. Each fire has been set at the door, and while most have done minimal damage—one pastor called them “amateur hour” arsons—one nearly destroyed a building.

The situation is not unlike the arsons that followed the massacre at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston this summer. As The Atlantic pointed out at the time, there’s a long history of terrorism against black churches in America, one that begins in the era of slavery and continues up through Reconstruction, the civil-rights era, and into the 1990s. But unlike those burnings—and despite the intense focus on the St. Louis area since the August 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson—the recent arsons have been slow to get the same attention, either in the national media or even in the area.

If a series of attacks on churches is terrorizing, support from within the community and the nation is one comfort. Facing the attacks mostly alone seems to grate on some of the churches.

“People should be standing up and saying, ‘Hey I’m with you,’” the Revered Rodrick Burton, the pastor of one targeted church, told The Washington Post. “I’ve been surprised at the apathetic response. To me, it’s very telling, very disappointing.”

Burnings of black churches has often been a tactic for white supremacist groups. In 1995 and 1996, dozens of churches burned in the South. A special Justice Department task force eventually obtained hundreds of convictions, including Ku Klux Klan members who burned South Carolina churches. But as Emma Green pointed out in June, there are a stunning number of intentional fires at houses of worship each year—around 280 annually between 2007 and 2011—and the motives are sometimes hard to prove. Many are a result of racial animus. Some are simply set by firebugs. In some occasions, what looks initially like arson turns out to be accident. In July, during the summer arson spree, Mount Zion A.M.E. in Greeleyville, South Carolina, which had been burned in the 1990s arsons, again caught fire and was destroyed. But law-enforcement officials later determined that the Mount Zion’s fire wasn’t a crime.

It should be noted that accidental church fire are not the rarest thing, but 5 predominantly black churches burning within a few miles of each other, all less than half an hour by car from Ferguson, the site of massive racial struggle and unrest, seems like more than a coincidence. Hopefully it'll be nothing.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#103760: Oct 22nd 2015 at 7:24:10 AM

@Tomu - Don't tempt me. I might write you in as a protest candidate at the rate things are going.

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#103761: Oct 22nd 2015 at 7:35:53 AM

[up][up] Yes. Well. And I hope all these news I keep reading about war and refugees in the middle east are nothing but a very elaborate story and that things are actually ok but that would be sorta silly of me tongue

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#103763: Oct 22nd 2015 at 7:38:57 AM

If the fires are starting at the doors then they're not going to be anything but arson.

Now I wouldn't be surprised if they were ruled to have been accidents started by local young black men who keep suicidally lynching themselves. But that's because I have no faith in US local level law enforcement.

edited 22nd Oct '15 7:40:20 AM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#103764: Oct 22nd 2015 at 7:56:02 AM

We all know the real culprit.

Inter arma enim silent leges
Medinoc from France (Before Recorded History)
#103765: Oct 22nd 2015 at 9:05:14 AM

[up]Who's this douchebag?

[down]Thanks.

edited 22nd Oct '15 9:38:54 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#103767: Oct 22nd 2015 at 11:35:30 AM

An American special forces member was killed during a rescue mission that saved over 60 hostages from an ISIS prison.

ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#103768: Oct 22nd 2015 at 1:03:41 PM

[up]

Well, "The Needs of the Many" and all that - plus, that's the kind of act that's (justifiably) given glory to the military in the past, and it's good to see such acts receiving the attention they deserve.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
SciFiSlasher from Absolutely none of your business. Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#103769: Oct 22nd 2015 at 1:30:01 PM

[up][up][up] Don't forget white nationalist. The guy really doesn't have anything going for him.

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#103770: Oct 22nd 2015 at 2:45:43 PM

RE: Florida

I heard somebody argue once that the reason so many stories like that come out of Florida is because it's just as crazy as the rest of the south, but gets more out of state visitors, and that thusly, things that would go unremarked about in Mississippi end up making the news.

Of course that's probably not especially fair to the rest of the south, but I still find it amusing.

Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#103772: Oct 22nd 2015 at 2:49:38 PM

d00d they linked that same thing in this very page

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#103773: Oct 22nd 2015 at 2:50:52 PM

...Don't judge me.

"Yup. That tasted purple."
Memers Since: Aug, 2013
#103774: Oct 22nd 2015 at 3:13:44 PM

Ok deadbeatloser22 we wont.

Anyway if you know Texas didn't want to be the laughing stocks of the world they would you know stop being complete idiots and not pass stupid and crazy laws.

Texas:

  • One must acknowledge a supreme being before being able to hold public office.
  • It is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing.
  • The entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a formula for making beer at home.
  • Up to a felony charge can be levied for promoting the use of, or owning more than six dildos.
  • Homosexual behavior is a misdemeanor offense.
  • In Dallas it is illegal to possess realistic dildos.
And thats not even getting into the really stupid shit.

edited 22nd Oct '15 3:16:44 PM by Memers

Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#103775: Oct 22nd 2015 at 3:15:53 PM

One must acknowledge a supreme being before being able to hold public office.

Which is unconstitutional as hell.

"Yup. That tasted purple."

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