A number of people in this thread are speaking positively on the nature of his “resignation” statement, commending him for at least not offering the standard bullshit non-apology of “sorry you were offended”. But...

Alas, this article did not answer the question I was hoping it would.

Encyclical means “letter” - it’s an old term for a letter from a bishop, archbishop or Pope that was meant to discuss a topic of some importance and was meant to be circulated among the clergy in general.

But a letter from the Pope on climate change? There are actual climate scientists out there. Frankly, I don’t care what the Pope has to say on climate change. I’ll listen to the experts. 

Way to put words in my mouth.

You would have to be pompous enough to be the pope to claim that something you wrote, which is 192 pages, is a letter.

my god, you sure are dedicated to trying to debate a completely different point from the one I’m making.

after I opened [Anansi Boys] up found out that Neil Gaiman wasn’t narrating. That disappointment me until I started listening. I cannot recommend it enough.

That you think such laws [”preventing people who are not duly certified in a profession from declaring themselves to be qualified in that profession”] are “fantastic” is a subjective opinion....Here’s an objective fact: They are also UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Or rather, they would be if they existed

Laws preventing people who are not duly certified in a profession from declaring themselves to be qualified in that profession are FANTASTIC and incredibly important to keep unqualified nut jobs from parading themselves around as doctors, lawyers, engineers etc.

it sounds like Oregon has laws against holding yourself out as an engineer without being duly licensed

Except apparently in Oregon you do need a license to declare yourself an engineer, hence the fine. Not saying I agree with the rationale in fining him, just saying if Oregon has a law that says you can’t call yourself an engineer without a license, he would appear to have broken that law.

If anybody is ever curious what a first amendment violation being used to suppress criticism looks like

Do constitutional rights apply to non citizens?

“That was probably very disappointing for her to see her work pooped out by Hollywood like that, just capitalizing on the name.”

This is asinine. The Bible is a series of stories that occur in real geographical places where white people weren’t. Of course it’s whitewashed.

I don’t know the details about this particular incident - maybe this is someone who got into trouble because of an impairment instead of the usual cause of pedestrian injury, unsafe behavior. But to the people speculating that the warning time was dangerously short in general - that’s not necessarily the case. …

The last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati zoo in about 1905. It was laying eggs all the time trying to reproduce the species, but the zoo keeper did not know that they needed to lay eggs on the ground instead of in a tree. The captive bird’s only nest was in a tree, so the eggs kept falling to the ground and…

I get that the normal response to someone in trouble, even if the person is Trump, is to feel sorry for them. But...

Other than Albert, my favorite Miguel Ferrer performance was when he showed up on Magnum, PI alongside the actor Anne Lockhart in scenes that took place in Pearl Harbor in 1941. Ferrer looked very much like his father and Lockhart looks very, very much like her mother... So Jose Ferrer and June Lockhart were cast to…