The protections against legal loan-sharking here are appallingly modest -- 36 percent interest remains perfectly legal. And those protections are weirdly restricted, applying only to a single sub-set of the public: military families. If it makes sense to protect military families from this kind of sleazy, coercive lending -- and it does -- then it shouldn't make sense that such protection applies only to military families. Read more
"Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire." Read more
Something the size of a mustard seed can produce a nasty invasive weed ... or a hilariously inept piece of graphic design. Also: Residency incentives; civilian courts prove capable; "5 Christian Books I WIsh I'd Never Read;" and the archetype the gatekeepers require us to describe as a historical person. Read more
I wouldn't like this story at all if I thought it ended with Batman choking the Joker to death while laughing maniacally. I think that ending would ruin this story for me -- and would probably ruin all the other Batman stories as well. That's how Tim LaHaye wants his stories to end -- with the Good Guys punching the Bad Guys to death. And I don't think that ending fits with the rest of the story. Not at all. Read more
Antonin Scalia is also fully aware of the Roman Catholic Church's teaching and practice on divorce and remarriage. He is fully, completely aware that any Catholic with a valid civil divorce has every legal, civil and constitutional right to remarry. And he is fully, completely aware that this has never in any way, shape or form ever meant that a Catholic priest could be legally compelled to consecrate such a wedding. Justice Scalia knows this. Everyone knows this. Read more
"This is why those pious calls to 'respect the law,' always to be heard from prominent citizens each time the ghetto explodes, are so obscene. The law is meant to be my servant and not my master, still less my torturer and my murderer. To respect the law, in the context in which the American Negro finds himself, is simply to surrender his self-respect." -- James Baldwin in 1966, reading like he's writing in 2015. Read more
If you're a teenager in Harrison County, Mississippi, and you've been sentenced to write a 1,000-word essay on the book of Revelation as a plea-deal for underage drinking, then I hereby invite you to copy-and-paste anything on that subject from this blog. Also: Laura Turner follows up on that "Tinder for Christians" app; The Liar Tony Perkins demonstrates yet again how he earned that title; and John Oliver offers a wagonload of mystery chicken to the Lords of the Sweatshops. Read more
"And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, 'No, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Since this man is my guest, do not do this vile thing. Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not do such a vile thing.'" Read more
Please, please someone get an account for "Christian dating" app Collide and list Ruth 3:4 as your favorite verse. Also: NYC strikes a blow against the "credit score" scam; another post-sincerity religious exemption; everything you need to know about journalism in one headline; and a reminder that God is not a lethally incompetent railway worker. Read more
Consider Rayford's use, again, of the word "emergency" here. Parts of the airport are actually still on fire. The runway is littered with wrecked planes and dead bodies. They have run out of room for incoming planes to land, but more planes are arriving every moment. To Rayford, none of that constitutes an "emergency." An emergency is something that affects him. Read more
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