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Impeach Bush With A Federal Criminal Complaint FP.

Coincidentally, to confirm that I'm not a script, I had to type "dissent".

Amazing.

Call 1-800-ALQ-AEDA and request the detention; military commissions trial; conviction; and sentencing of the world's most dangerous person: President-VICE Richard B. Cheney.

Thanks for your support of freedom and democracy.

This is the United States of America.

Patriotically From Alphane,
Kilgore Trout

An interview with the founder of Pandora.com indicated that

(Pandora.com's) Westergreen: [] But there’s another piece of the story. Half of the money we pay to SoundExchange each month goes to the labels, and half goes directly to the artists. If these new rates do stick, then the only way webcasters will stay alive is to start striking direct licensing deals, at lower rates, with the major record labels. If those deals are struck, then all of that money goes directly to the label, and goes under the umbrella of traditional record deals, where only a very small percent ends up going to artists.

(TruthDig's) Sinnreich: So you believe that one of the strategic reasons the RIAA has for supporting these higher rates is so labels can offer a competitive lower rate directly to webcasters, which would mean more income overall for labels and less income for artists?

Westergren: That’s exactly right.

Sinnreich: That sounds pretty nefarious.

Westergren: It’s business. These are businesses that are struggling, and they’re trying to maximize revenue.

Sinnreich: Have you seen any evidence of labels making direct deals with webcasters?

Westergren: SoundExchange just announced that they’re happy to let the RIAA deal directly with webcasters. Labels, throughout this process, have also been soliciting deals on the side. And they’ve already signed some—[popular webcaster] Last.fm signed a couple.

Sinnreich: Some have argued that the labels might also negotiate lower rates in exchange for promotional concessions from webcasters—the kind of thing that’s sometimes referred to as “payola” in terrestrial broadcasting. Would Pandora consider such an arrangement?

Westergren: Pandora has never, ever taken money to play music, and we never will. Labels have certainly offered, and I don’t think that’s nefarious—it’s the same as buying a billboard, or an end-cap [a type of display] in a record store. I think that is undoubtedly part of the motivation for direct licensing deals, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a promotional element to many of those deals. And that’s just business.

So I'm guessing the copyright owner or even a consortium of owners can cut individual deals with individual internet stations thus cockblocking SoundExchange, but on internet stations they don't cut deals with, SoundExchange will be there.

Thank god the Neocon/pro-Israeli terrorism takeover of the US government is starting to falter:

http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20070227_pe ntagon_whistleblower_on_the_coming_war_with_iran/

This video is really disturbing: http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20070206_evan gelicals_make_war_on_evolution/

• "Evolution is some people's attempt to explain a world without God." Funny, I always thought the theory of evolution, like any other result of the scientific process, is an attempt to understand our observations of the universe around us. If God created that universe, how is our attempt to understand it a bad thing? And how is doing so somehow implying God does not exist? The statement creates conflict where it doesn't seem to me to exist.
• Who should you trust first, God or a scientist? This is a misleading question. I know no one who has personally had a verbal conversation with God. So, answers from God must come from other sources. A more accurate question for this speaker would have been to ask: Who should you trust first, the Bible or a scientist?

Scientific illiteracy is something a lot of people in the US seem to be putting a lot of effort into.

This video is really disturbing: http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20070206_evan gelicals_make_war_on_evolution/

Especially the poster which says "God Says it. I believe it. That settles it."

Their rallies promote the very scary and negative elements that they vehemently deny (or spin):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/22/144636/455
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20060523_batt lecry_ron_luce/

A comical take on this is Tony Hendra's book and "Godcasts":
http://www.henryholt.com/messiahofmorrisavenue/god cast.htm

Peace - out.

Shamelessly stolen from Sam Harris' Atheist Manifesto.

Look how much has come out with the Republicans in charge: everything from the plan to divide up northern Iraq amongst oil companies to the CIA's torture program.

Since the US seems to be preparing to attack Iran or at least engage in some type of 'regime change', they'll probably have to rebuild their infrastructure anyhow. Maybe the new 'supreme leader' will allow broadband, that is, if the Iranians aren't all dead or suffering for radiation sickness from our depleted uranium munitions.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601009_bush s_nuclear_apocalypse/
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101806Q.shtml
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9814279694 71020612
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/1 6/144204

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/200609 27_kip_hawley_idio

See this article or this article for more details.

which highlights the rudeness in my own post. I must first apologize for that.

Actually, I thought you were quite civil, but thanks anyway, and I apologize in turn for any pedanticism or rudeness on my part.

As far as references go, I generally read Biblical Archaeology Review on a sporadic basis, and it's a very even-handed and scientific publication. They tend to skew pro-Christianity if there is any question on an issue, but they are much more fair than other publications.

There is a lot of scholarship on documents referencing Christ, I cannot tell you where I've read about the Talmudic writings and Tacitus, Josephus, et al specifically because I have read so much about them over the years. I think the best place to start is Google, which could then point you to peer-reviewed articles and perhaps Amazon books on the topic.

As a math guy, I am constrained to point out that Jesus probably died around 30 A.D., which would cut the time in half. But even a couple of hundred years, in my understanding, is not a great deal of time when you're talking about the transmission of old texts. Anyway, I'm definitely not an expert.

Of course you are correct on the math, that was a hangover from my youth, when I thought AD stood for "after death" and not "anno dei." I still occasionally brain fart on that.

Neither am I an expert, but generally I think these texts were oral traditions first, then scattered textual records, some of which appear to have drawn from a source proto-gospel which is referred to as "Q" (which is an abbreviation for some German word, cannot remember what). The point is, the texts first had to be subject to at least several decades of human error or deliberate manipulation in transmission, and then the texts that were included in the official cannon were decided by human institutions. In other words, even if one assumes that the story of Jesus is true, it's very difficult to know what parts of the story are true, due to the vagaries of humans: their imperfection (meaning mistakes in transcription or accidental omissions) and the agendas of the church forefathers (some scholars believe firmly that Jesus spoke 20% or fewer of the words attributed to him in the Gospels, and that the rest was words put in his mouth). I can think of an example of stuff that is suspected of being fake: the whole "doubting Thomas" story, which only appears in John, is thought by Elaine Pagels (whom you should consider reading, she's very interesting) to be an agenda-driven fabrication taking a shot at the Thomists, whose much different interpretation of Jesus (the Gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic gospel) did not make it into the cannon. Such possible manipulations, or even mistakes, we have to accept as, if not fact, possibility. That this happened for so many years exposes the documents to a lot of manipulation.

Is it possible for a kernel of truth to survive? Oh course. Is it possible for the truth to be reported perfectly? I don't think so, outside of mystical guidance, which has to be rejected out of hand from a scientific standpoint. I suppose that somewhere in between those extremes lies the truth, and that analysis of the Bible and source documents that did not make it into the Bible might give us a more accurate picture of early Christianity.

snip... Blind faith just isn't going to cut it.

Well, I have to level with you, I said that, but that's not really what I believe. That's not to say I was lying, I was simply saying I think that way of thinking is fine for some people. I said that in deference to anyone else who might be reading and their religious sensibilities. I don't want to stir up people's religiosity any more than I already have. It's simply too personal of a thing, and pointless to debate.