'Thrians!

I guess you are right Beagles, a man is innocent until proven guilty.  I hadn't thought that one through.  I guess it's good to have a union protect you at times like that, otherwise you are out on your ear.  I guess it's the way that police unions are always protecting bad cops and fighting rules to root them out, that makes me disfavor them.

Generally anymore we use the term devil's advocate, to mean we are giving a contrary opinion, but one we are not necessarily espousing ourselves, as in dem headquarters, "Let me play the devil's advocate, how could Hilary not have known that those emails contained classified matter?"  The purpose here would be to see what the other side might say and then find a way to counter it, like when they have those pre-debate debates and somebody stands in for the opponent.

And sometimes it's a way of covering yourself.  You want to express this contrarian opinion, because maybe it's been bugging you, but it's unpopular in your crowd and you don't want them to think that you yourself believe it, so you preface it with that phrase, "Let me play devil's advocate."

As for that story, it's hard to believe that Satan is not a lawyer isn't it?  If it was a jury trial why didn't they hang the jury, and if a judge trial why not the judge.?  Hum, why not hang Jesus, isn't it His job to keep us from doing the devil's work?  Well I guess the point is free will, and you are just telling the story, you are being the devil's advocate.

Foreign aid, we have been through that before.  It's not all that much money, and per capita it doesn't amount to much and mostly it is just a tool of foreign policy, do what we want and the money flows, otherwise we shut it off.

My bigger point is how do you measure generosity, bravery, honesty, or other abstract, poorly defined, qualities, especially across countries, to the point where you can rank one above the other?

I notice neither of the other members of the institute has fessed up to going along with the Santa game to get more loot.  I'm trying to remember if when I was a kid, I enjoyed gifts more knowing that they were no-strings attached, rather than from my parents who might expect some good behavior from me in exchange.  Of course Santa was supposed to keep track of the naughty and nice, but you know, you can just see Santa standing in front of the stocking with a lump of coal in one hand and a bright red fire truck in the other and you know he's going to say what the hell, and his eyes all atwinkle, toss the truck into the stocking.  There is still plenty of winter where he comes from and fire trucks don't burn that well.

Well Christmas (and here of course,I mean Santa Christmas, those religious nuts can just do a little research and put the birth of their savior in say, April, when the shepherds would be seeking their sheep, and leave Dec 25 to us latter day Mithrians ('Thrians!)) is the most hypocritical day of the year.  There is all that peace on earth and good will to man crapola, but we all know it is all about the loot.  But you know I'm not all that against hypocrisy, it's just another form of manners, and if it took that screaming Christmas section of Walgreens that you passed to buy a lousy pack of gum, to move you to give the bum outside the door a buck, well still the cause of good will towards man is advanced.