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Hey, this is the free market at work! Why is everyone upset about this? If it wasn't for government regulation we wouldn't have this problem! And now our godless heathen communist government wants to arrest people for simply trying to put those goods back into production? How shameful -- these "criminals" are really the unsung heroes of these regulated markets.

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warning: contains sarcasm.

Nice anecdote. I'm past suprise in finding a liberal offering up information intended to generate an emotional reaction rather than inform. Jobs have been lost in every year and under all economic circumstances.

Yeah, CURSE those GODLESS LIBERALS.

They're always looking for an EMOTIONAL reaction, because they want to MOVE TO SOCIALISM. They want to OUTLAW religion. They want to make abortions MANDATORY.

Worst of all, these liberals want to hand Osama bin Laden the keys to the castle so he can attack America again, because the "Blame America First" crowd gets off on that sort of thing.

(I'm sorry, I'm revelling in the irony. It's politics, and a lefty attacking a righty over appeals to emotion is just as ignorant as a righty attacking a lefty)

Hi there. Please compare any reasonable metrics for standards of living of the United states and countries in Europe. You may then comment with some more insight into what succeeds and what fails. The real situation is somewhat more complex than your comment indicates.

I'd advise you to pay special attention to the northern part, scandinavia in particular, as they are widely known to have the more left leaning policies.

Since all comparisons that show the United States in a less than favourable light are obviously made by heathen godless evolution-believing pinko terrorists, you may use the CIA world factbook if you please.

--Summer Glau

No you dumbass. That's how scientists think. Here's how we will *actually* there:
Let's go over it one more time shall we?
1) Chinese space probe to mars discovers enormous deposits of Gold/Pure Gasoline/or some valuable shit
2) Chinese probe hacked by NSA, findings sent to Obama/Palin who decide to act on it.
3) NASA budget quadrupled, Congress told there would be riots in cities if Godless Chinese were to conquer the Final Frontier.
3.a Father jonathan, O'reilly and Rove talk about "bringing the rich to the People of the Free World and Defending Mars against enemies of Freedom."
4) Congress passes a law authorising use of necessary means to "Bring the Riches of Free Planet Mars to democratic nations of the World."
5) Senate vetoes the proposal stating that it lacks medical insurance for mine workers and their children.
6) Congress appropriates $152 billion to pay for Miners Medical Guarantee Plan.
7) Senate passes the law with 3:1 vote majority. McCain abstains stating it doesn't contain enough protection for PoWs. Ron Paul votes against it, stating "Until the Fed is abolished, real Gold Standard cannot be established even with HUGE martian reserves."
8) President signs the law.

9) NASA hires 31,000 new contractors on open bidding. KBR cries foul.
10) KBR is guaranteed an exclusive-yet-non-binding contract to supply food and refreshments to all passengers to Mars.
11) NASA completes a massive extension to the Space Station at a cost of $1.2 Billion. Station now contains $800 toilet seats and $450 Hamburgers supplied by KBR.
12) NASA shortlists 12 astronauts: 9 Men with EVA hours of 500 min. 3 Women with EVA hours of 400 min.
13) The Gay & lesbian Association Against Defamation files a suit in SCOTUS against NASA alleging discrimination against Gays To Mars
14) Citizens of NYC and SF hold candle-light vigils in Support of GaysToMars. O'reilly darkly hints against subversion of Space.
15) A riot breaks out in NYC between Cops, Gays and Neocons resulting in 20 dead (all gays), 13 injured (cops) and 56 arrested (neocons).
16) NYC mayor bans further such demonstrations for 90 days, is promptly sued by ACLU & EFF. Ban upheld by NY Supreme Court. ACLU appeals and the appeal is upheld. Ban revoked. NYC police commissioner resigns.
17) NASA trains 12 astronauts: 3 Men, 6 women(!), and 3 Gay/lesbian combo. ACLU sues citing discrimination against men(!). Case dismissed with costs.
18) Russia launches 5 HUGE rockets from Baikonaur. The rockets discharge their payload on moon. One destructs.
19) Russia launches 6 HUGE rockets again to moon. The rockets cargo is Von Neumann machines that assemble a self-sustaining life station to be launched with Ion engines to Mars.
20) Russian president resigns after it was found he was secretly aiding China(!) China vehemently denies. Russia vehemently denies. NSA defector states NSA engineered it.
21) Space station launches a triple stage rocket built by Northrop Grumman, GD and GE. The launch is a success. Unfortunately the 10 of 15 electronic toilets fail due to the shock. Apparently some unknown indian software company had written the software for the same. The president issues a Presidential order excluding non-US companies from building spaceships for US.
22) Mid journey to Mars, a sex tape involving the 3 lesbians and 3 straight men is leaked. The Gay community is dismayed and outcasts the lesbians. Congress hauls NASA commissioner over coals. GAO inquiry finds KBR had overbilled NASA by $350 billion. the GAO report is re-classified and GAO denied funds for subsequent investigation.
23) Spaceship arrives at Mars. Protest Rallies and Victory Rallies clash in SF and NYC killing atleast 300 people in riots. Fox covers it truthfully.
24) First American on Mars lands to find the martian soil green with moss.
25) A Huge Terminator rolls into camera, greets the man in Russian and waits for response.
26) The american responds in English, whereupon he is vaporized instantly by the Terminator which

And there's the problem...expensive shows like that will never happen on a fan-funded basis.

Conventionally speaking, you would be correct. But IT is allowing for a lot of business models that wouldn't have been possible with conventional financing techniques. I'm not saying it will be easy or happen tomorrow but I think that the internet will allow communications and financing that completely outstrip the conventional way of doing things. Politics is changing dramatically. The majority of Obama's funding came from small-time donors. Individually, their donations don't account for crap. Collectively, they outstrip the best efforts of the old school fundraisers. Also case in point, local races can blow up on the national scale and gain fundraising attention that simply would not have been possible in the past. That Republican who accused her Democratic opponent of being an atheist and taking godless money, she ended up earning her opponent a ridiculous amount of netbucks once the story hit the blogs.

I speculated about this stuff in papers for my entrepreneurship class in college. I figured it'd be years before this sort of stuff started happening in the real world. It has been years but it is happening. It'll be more years until we see stuff like a fan-funded Firefly but it'll happen.

The two general explanations are:

Universe is eternal
Universe is not eternal (eternal something else exists "outside" the universe that caused our universe)

Out of those two, you have a few options:

1) Universe is eternal, the universe is godless
a) Universe is eternal, the universe is god (i.e. reality/god = same thing)

2) Universe is not eternal, the universe is godless
a) Universe is not eternal, the universe has a god "outside" the universe (which is a misnomer, technically the universe would be 'inside' god, or made out of god, god being the substance of all existence, in this case).

Right. And the Greek philosophers, from Thales and Pythagoras on, with a few exceptions, further added that

3) The Universe changes, therefore is changeable, and therefore it is not eternal.
4) Without an eternal cause, nothing can exist.
And so therefore, a transcendent eternal unchangeable God must exist as a logical necessity.

> So the theist says "ah well, we're here because God created us." So we say "Fine, now you have to
> explain not only our existence but that of God as well".

Technically, not.

An hypothetical transcendent god belongs to a level where cause and effect might not be defined: they are concepts dependent on a timeline (cause first, then effect). If cause and effect is not defined, then "the reason for something", its cause, it is a concept that doesn't make sense. Purpose implies time, too. And "making sense" depends on binary logic, another thing that might be restricted to this universe. Being "one", "creator", "love" are all religious or at least spiritual concepts.

I don't really see why a godless universe ought be a multiverse. This one universe could expand and collapse indefinitely, with life being one in trillions probability, meaning that rare but infinite times you'd have life. I also dunno why scientists are so intent on mechanical views of the universe. The mechanical view has worked up to now, there's no guarantee we don't have to resort to "will" or "spirit" to model how things are, later. A god might have created a multiverse. Or a multiverse of multiverses where every result of every interaction occurs according to every conceivable and inconceivable law.

BTW, the captcha for this post is "convert"!. You got a message :D

... the whole idea that there are multi-verses goes right against the grain of science itself, multiplying entities needlessly.

The two general explanations are:

Universe is eternal
Universe is not eternal (eternal something else exists "outside" the universe that caused our universe)

Out of those two, you have a few options:

1) Universe is eternal, the universe is godless
a) Universe is eternal, the universe is god (i.e. reality/god = same thing)

2) Universe is not eternal, the universe is godless
a) Universe is not eternal, the universe has a god "outside" the universe (which is a misnomer, technically the universe would be 'inside' god, or made out of god, god being the substance of all existence, in this case).

Those are the most parsimonious explanations, if you want to be honest with yourself.

Hey, and not all Christians (defined for my purposes as persons appreciating and following the ethical insights and teachings of Jesus), feel the need to believe a load of extraneous stories that were added decades after his death, or a bunch of mythology that was part of the culture Jesus happened to be born into, but is otherwise also just stories.

After all, the man said seek for the truth. To my mind that implies that the unconditional intellectual honesty of science is consistent with his teachings, even if it leads you to reject those stories.

I know my personal faith in a loving God is not completely rational, but then (a) at least I don't pretend I know what God is or wants, and (2) even if I became convinced that the universe was Godless, I'd still be a Christian by the definition given above.

Silly Godless wretches, the Earth is 6000 years old in God years!

If you'd done your Bible study like you were supposed to, its all right there in that verse everyone knows about.

Geez.

No, they invaded Afghanistan because they knew if they didn't a bunch of religious nutbars would take over. That was the only thing keeping the fundamentalist terrorists in check.

Of course the Regan administration saw this as 'godless commies repressing religious freedom' and started training and passing arms to the Afghan rebels to fight the communists. Russia eventually saw this as an unwinnable war and pulled out.

That provided the path for the religious nutbars to take over Afghanistan which brings us to the modern day mess we have there.

Good job Republicans!

"A skinned media player is a godless one" -- Me

The results indicate that older voters are more conservative, with support for McCain gradually increasing from 32% (median age 23) to 44% (median age 34) up to 53% (65 or older). People become less liberal and more conservative as they advance in years.

You're totally ignoring that McCain is much older that Obama and it's not just that he's conservative, but he talks like someone stuck in 1960. I'm sick of 60s politics. "No, you're a godless communist" Enough!

Will change mean that I am not called a racist if I disagree with Obama?

Of course not! We'll just call you a terrorist.

Will change mean that slavery is now something that can finally be put to bed 145 years after it ended?

Oh hell no! We'll hold a candlelight vigil every year and use it as the platform for our next campaign!

Will change mean that people can have a rabid hatred of Obama as people had of Bush and still be free?

Absolutely, you unamerican, traitorous, bastard!

Will change mean that people with little money will have more money?

You want MONEY?! Get out there and earn it! How dare you just expect money!

With change my conservative values will that make me a target of hate?

America. Love it or leave it!!!

Will change mean the majority be sensitive to my beliefs and values?

You're not a godless babykiller are you?

Will change mean nothing has really changed but people are now happy Europe is not mad at us any more?

Screw those arrogant bastards, we don't need them!

Will change mean that our troops will be not be forgotten.

NEVER! They make for great campaign fodder and magnetic ribbons! We'll make a meme out of it that secretly means "Support us or you're not a real American!"

Will change mean that government will not take over our 401k, healthcare, car payments, house payments, freedom?

Freedom? You have plenty of that! As long as we can tap your phone lines and tell you who you can and cannot marry.

Will change mean that Obama will campaign for change in 2012?

Nope. We'll "Stay the Course!"

Change is all well and good but what does change mean. It can mean a lot of things to a lot of people but now the work has to begin words are not enough by any person any where. While people disagree with any election we still have the only country in the world that can transition peaceably from power to power every 4 years if need be. We still have a document that no other country in the world dares to implement because it gives the freedom to the people and not those that run the government.

Change means that everything I just stated above was in jest.

I see far more first amendment attacks from the American Left than I do the American Right.

I take it you're from the Sarah Palin school of Constitutional interpretation, where extremely vocal criticism by the press or private citizens/organizations amounts to a violation of the first amendment. Or you're just throwing this statement out there, without offering any support for it.

The reverse is not true. Most of the Atheist bashing I see is confined to odd little corners of the Internet, such as forums dedicated to fundamentalist worship of one flavor or another, or the 42nd page of the newspaper.

You might have heard recently about how Elizabeth Dole called out Kay Hagan for attending an event hosted by a group called Godless Americans (among others, but none of the other groups were mentioned in Dole's attack ads). The implicit message here is that atheism is so horrible that having any association with an atheist group is counts as a black mark against a person's character and suitability as a member of Congress.

This is the Elizabeth Dole campaign, an sitting congresswoman. She's the wife of a former major party candidate for the presidency of the United States, not a "fringe group on the Internet."

Reaching back a bit, there is the infamous quote from George H. W. Bush when he was campaigning for the presidency: "... I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

People campaigning for public office today usually have a little more tact than that, but anti-atheist sentiment is not at all a fringe phenomenon, on the Internet or elsewhere. It's not uncommon at all for people to make comments about atheists, that if were said about Jews, would be called out by everyone as rank bigotry.

I wouldn't expect a non-atheist to see it though. We've been conditioned as a society to recognize the injustice faced by certain minority groups, but atheists usually aren't such a group, so a lot of the derogatory commentary about atheists might not even register as something potentially offensive. But it's definitely out there.

Who in this godless world has modded this insightful? IP addresses, MAC addresses, host names, user agents - NEVER trust any information which comes from an untrustworthy source or has travelled along an untrustworthy path. Plain and simple. If you don't trust it, kick it out. If you trust it, check it out in detail and see whether your trust was warranted.

Your suggestion is akin to enforcing valid return addresses on letter bombs.

Besides, you did hear about bot nets, did you? You know, those pesky things that keep stuffing your e-mail box with all those nice ads for penis enlargement and cheap medication? If not: welcome to life!

My statement "we can hope so", was that he's "not Christian and is actually a godless socialist who has used his Christian church as a cover for his run for President" from the GGP post - I wasn't meaning "we can hope so" with regard to him not being Muslim. (although, to be quite honest, I consider both religions equally as bad as each other).

I was aiming for a combination of "funny" and "insightful" mods based on that, but will probably get "Troll" if anything from the religious nutjobs of the world. (both Christians correctly interpreting and Muslims misinterpreting - both probably hate me!)

What's your point? You could have a city with only 5 people that vote the same way and if the rest of the country was 50-50 then it would rule. Not very convincing.

I think the real problem you have is that the current system disenfranchises people in heavily populated states and you happen to reallly like it that way.

Traditionally, cities are places with diverse political opinions -- much more diverse than small towns. The reason that one party, the Democratic party, gets so much support from urban areas is the other party, the Republican party, routinely trashes city-dwellers as out-of-touch, decadent, godless elitists. It's the same reason Republicans don't have support from gays, blacks, single women, muslims, atheists, Latinos, and people with advanced degrees. If the Republicans would just stop waging a culture war against urban Americans and started appealing to urban Americans with policies that work better than the Democratic policies, then urban-dwellers would vote Republican. Look at Mayor Bloomberg: He's not a Democrat but he's exceptionally popular in New York simply because he fixes problems, he runs a clean ship, and he doesn't spit on the electorate.

The Republicans need to stop using people as punching bags to rile up the base and start listening to their problems. But the only thing Republicans know how to do anymore is cut taxes, fearmonger, and appeal to bigotry.

I think it would be a huge boon for our democracy if the Republican party actually had to appeal to an honest majority of Americans for its political survival.

but he's certainly NOT Christian. My guess would be godless socialist who has used his "Christian church" as cover for his run for President. And I'm not too sure about his church, either.

Meh - I don't do graphic novels if you discount Viz, hence referencing the film. Whether the author intended it or the film just changed the emphasis slightly, I'm sure the US were kicking up the same old shit somewhere else back in the 80's that fits just as well.

The parallels with BTN and the US news channels, the military curfew, culture of fear etc. are fairly obvious, and the descriptions of the broken "US" in the film being "Godless", full of terrorists, "we should take the country back" etc. seem pretty straight with a lot of the stuff that's been bandied about at various times over Iraq/Iran/Whoever else has our oil.