So, if you can spare a moment between breathless rants about how sacrosanct our rights are, please, let us all in on YOUR secret plan to neutralize a fundamentalist religious creed (Wahabism) that
- believes women are chattel, homosexuals should be killed, etc.
- believes that the Koran is the only source of any worthwhile laws
- will cheerfully kill you because you disagree
Let's see.. a couple of edits here:
s/chattel/second-class citizens/
s/killed/discriminated against or beaten/
s/Koran/Bible/
s/kill/shout you down and work to make laws to limit your freedoms/
Now it reads:
- believes women are second-class citizens, homosexuals should be discriminated against or beaten, etc.
- believes that the Bible is the only source of any worthwhile laws
- will cheerfully shout you down and work to make laws to limit your freedoms you because you disagree
Sounds a lot like modern American Evangelical Christians. Only the degree in which they want to "punish" the "infidels" is different.
...though, I believe if they thought they could get away with it, most Evangelical Christians wouldn't mind killing homosexuals and those that disagree with them.
"Operation Rescue"-types have already crossed THAT line. Eric Rudolph anyone?
Stop the fearmongering. There will ALWAYS be someone on this planet that wants to kill you for who you are. Tribalism is ingrained in our DNA. The solution to that is not to change your way of life... it's to work to change the OTHER bastards' way of life. I have no problem with killing Wahabist terrorists who want to kill us. I have a MAJOR problem with devaluing what it means to be an American to accomplish this. If we devalue our Bill of Rights, then what the hell our we fighting for anyway?
yes.... many in the Navy considered him "an ass".... or worse. But they were all intimidated by him and he was able to have complete autonomy in running the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) because of it.
the thing with the chair legs was just another example of his intimidation techniques.;-)
Nowhere in the Declaration does it state or even imply that the "Creator" is the Judeo-Christian God of the bible.
It is intentionally vague, so as to apply to everyone's concept of who/what the "Creator" is.
For example, for Pagans, the Creator = Mother Nature.... and the Declaration means the same.
Even for an agnostic, "Creator" can mean whatever ends up being true.
It's a catch-all word that doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. A large percentage of the founders were Deists, and did not follow strict Christian teachings.... though they did believe in the concept of a supreme being, they didn't necessarily believe in the concept as laid out in the Judeo-Christian bible.
Side note... nowhere in the Constitution are the words "God" or "Christ" or any equivalent word used. Nowhere. The Declaration of Independence was a statement of grievances to a tyrant, and basically a "Divorce Decree"... it was (and is) not a governing document. *THE* governing document of the United States is the Constitution, and it specifically does NOT speak of a supreme being or even indirectly imply one.
I work for a Navy contractor. Admiral Hyman Rickover, the founder of the "nuclear navy", was your typical hard-ass type-A personality.
In his office he had two inches chopped off of the front two legs of his "guest" chairs, which forced guests in his office to be leaning forward. This put them in an uncomfortable position and gave him a subliminal "upper hand" over his guests.
Adm. Rickover knew this 50 years ago. This study is nothing but a confirmation of common sense.
That's why you get a good European or American luxury car and not a cheap Japanese or Japanese-rip-off city-driving gas-saving minicar.
I have a Buick Park Avenue, 25-30mpg and a good 250.000 miles on the odometer. The only things I had to repair were the usual O2 sensors, lights and EGR valve and I am not an old-man's driver, I usually go 5-15mph over the speed limit for hours on end.
Then you have those 50-60mpg Japanese cars with 3 cylinders being sold here in this area, that is just laughable. Even 4-cylinder Japanese SUV's here are a joke. The USA is too spaced out and has too much hills and warm/cold areas to get a car built to drive in Tokyo. One of my friends has a 4-cylinder Japanese SUV with 7 seats and when it goes uphill on a 15% slope at 35mph it makes unhealthy noises (grinding in the engine) while traffic is building up behind them (the speed limits are 45mph).
Then you also have Chevy with the 4-cylinder cheap Japanese-modelled cars and my parents have those. They have all types of problems. A bicycle ran in the side on one of them - an 11 year old with a bicycle - and bent the hell out of the front fender, breaking a spring and the switch that controls the interior lighting when the door is open. I had my Blazer come to standstill hitting a pole while spinning out of control at 40mph (winter, ice) and I got a scratch. The front fender hit a tree while off-roading and only the rusted-out breakline pinched.
My experience is the exact opposite. Here are the cars my wife and I have owned and approximately how many miles we had them before they were replaced:
1. 1989 Chevy Baretta. Traded it in at about 80,000 miles because we needed a "family car". It had frequent engine problems and needed repairs often.
2. 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix. About 30,000 miles. Absolute piece of junk, spent as much time in the shop as on the road.
3. 1993 Toyota Corolla. Lasted 190,000 miles. Was still running perfectly, when we got rid of it because it was too small for our needs. Never had anything done except routine maintenance (tires, brakes, oil changes, etc).
4. 1994 Pontiac Trans Sport. Needed to have the engine entirely rebuilt after about 30,000 miles (thank God it was still under warranty). Practically coasted it into the dealership at 70,000 miles to trade it in. Another piece of absolutely shit.
5. 1999 Toyota Sienna. Still going... at about 125,000 miles now and running perfectly. Nothing major done except some body work after hitting a deer.
6. 2002 Nissan Altima. Traded it in after 40,000 miles...not because of any problems, but because my wife didn't like the "feel" of it. Don't ask. My wife is picky.
7. 2006 Toyota Camry. Up to about 15,000 miles and still perfect.
Moral of this story? Don't buy GM cars... ever. 3 times we did, 3 times they sucked. Toyota has never failed us... we have a combined nearly 350,000 miles on Toyota vehicles and NEVER anything more than routine maintenance.
You can keep your Buick... your experience with that GM car is an anomaly, in my opinion.
my office is stuffed with old computers (desktops and laptops) going back 20 years that I can't bear to throw away even though they are all obsolete (I still have an original Compaq luggable). They all work perfectly. I needed to retrieve some data from some old backup tapes and 5" floppys so I fired up an old Windows 95 computer last week and it worked perfectly.
oh, bullshit.
Windows 95 never worked perfectly, not even in 1995.;-)
Plenty of people could write long letters about how they have struggled with heroin most of their adult lives.
Would you not consider use of heroin a choice?
Yes... the FIRST time someone does heroin, it was a choice.
But you don't "choose" what type of person you are attracted to. Nobody wakes up one morning and says "Gee.. today I think I'll start to like fat chicks" or "I think I'll be attracted to bald guys with glasses today."
Sexual attraction is not something that a person can "choose". They can choose whether to act on it... but the nature of attraction is that it is not something we can consciously choose.
I like red-heads. I didn't sit around one day and decide "I think I'll like red-heads from now on." I just do. It's part of who I am, just like having brown eyes or being good at math.
You can argue whether gayness is biological or caused by one's environment... but nobody can seriously argue that it is a conscious "choice" any more than they can argue that heterosexuality is a conscious choice.
Comparing it to drug addiction or gambling is ridiculous. For those things, I might have a biological disposition to enjoy them, but I would never find out until I made a conscious first choice to try. Being attracted to the same sex is inate... the only "choice" is whether to act on it or not.
Does that make all Catholic Democrats hypocrites unable to deal with their own self-hatred and loathing?
If they subscribe to Catholic doctrine, yet vote for a pro-choice Democrat, then they are indeed hypocrits.
However.... simply being a Democrat and Catholic is not hypocritical, since there are many example of pro-life democrats (Bob Casey, new Pennsylvania Senator, for one).
A Catholic that voted for Casey is not a hypocrit...
The reason that there is a different standard for Democratic gays (Barney Frank, etc) and Republican gays (Mehlman, Drudge, Haggard, etc) is because the Republican gays are actively trying to demonize gays.
The worst offense a politician can incur is to be a hypocrit. If you're going to blast others for their lifestyles and actively work to pass laws to limit their lifestyles, all the while participating in the exact same lifestyles yourself... then you are:
A. A hypocrit
B. A masochist
and... it *IS* different for Democrats, because Democrats are NOT the ones trying to demonize the gay lifestyle.
ps. Preachers like Haggard claim that homosexuality is a "choice" and not an inate character trait. Then he writes an apology letter to his congregation saying "I have been at war with these inner demons most of my adult life". Sounds like he's admitting that it WASN'T a choice... it's just who he is and he's forced to come to grips with it. And his followers offer HIM forgiveness, meanwhile their still bashing OTHERS like him.
Some talking heads on TV just wistfully longed for the days of paper ballots. Only 6 years ago these same people were complaining about hanging chads, and chads falling out of boxes of ballots to be recounted, and election officials examining "pregnant" chads under jeweler's loupes and debating the "intent" of the voter.
Those aren't "paper" ballots... those are punch card ballots.
When we're talking about paper ballots, we're talking about literally a piece of paper, where you mark with an X next to the name of the person you want to vote for. No machines doing the counting, no issue with chads, not hacking possible... complete and easily verifiable paper trail.
The best system we have is the optical-scan ballots... which can be judged with the naked eye OR a machine... but leave a complete paper trail.
...that had no paper trail.
At the end, the old lady running the place gave me a sticker that said "I Voted".
I told her, that it must be a misprint... it should say:
"I Voted?"..For the record... this was PA district 06.
You heard some astroturfer call in to Rush Limbaugh today with this and now you are claiming it is happening to you.
Fuck you, liar. I don't listen to Limbaugh. I got a phone call claiming to be from the Sekula-Gibbs campaign at 11:30 PM. The number (since the dumbfucks didn't block off caller ID) traced back to Lampson's campaign.
Now go fuck yourself.
Ah... so you live in Tom Delay's old district, and no doubt were a supporter of the "exterminator".
That explains a lot.
Since you got the number from caller ID, can you please post it on here so we can verify that what you are saying is true? And how you actually know which numbers belong to the Lampson campaign? Please tell us how you verified that the number on your caller ID was from the Lampson campaign.
I'm still calling you on your bullshit.
ps. If I go "fuck myself", is that better or worse than what right-wing hypocrits like Ted Haggard and Mark Foley have done? I'm sure someone from "Sugarland" like yourself can quote the appropriate scripture for me.
I don't have modpoints, but I have karma to burn, so I'm highlighting this insightful post by an AC so that it gets more eyeballs:
Has it occured to you that your percieved slashdot bias against Republicans has to do with the 'news for nerds' angle.
The IQs are higher than average around here, the majority of the slashdot readership is smart enough see through these corrupt incompetents. Spin it how you will, worst President ever...
Hypothesis 1: The average intelligence of a slashdot reader is higher than the average intelligence of a non-slashdot reader. Slashdot readers are more perceptive than non-slashdot readers and have a better built-in "bullshit detector".
Hypothesis 2: Reality has a liberal bias.
Conclusion: slashdot has a liberal bias because slashdot readers are smarter than your average bear...er... elephant.... and are better able to understand reality.
And if you vote Democrat, are you actually voting for anything in particular or just voting "Not Republican"? That seems to have been their platform for a while. No actual plans or anything.
That is a very valid reason to vote Democrat.
This election is more of an intervention than an election. In order to begin repairing the damage, you have to first stop the abuse. Saying "NO!" to the current administration... or more accurately, "NO MORE!", is a VERY GOOD reason to vote for the opposition.
As Tom Friedman wrote recently.... If America elects to keep the GOP in control of every branch of government tommorow, then we are no more than a banana republic.
Karl Rove and George Bush are betting that we Americans, in general, are stupid. Tomorrow will tell if they are right or not.
So what's your point? Slashdot is hopelessly biased, we know that - but this is a common campaign scheme, and the Democraps are doing it to me and my neighbors in the middle of the night claiming to be calling from the Republican campaign.
Oh, bullshit.
You heard some astroturfer call in to Rush Limbaugh today with this and now you are claiming it is happening to you.
It's very easy to see what Republicans are up to.... just look for what they are accusing Democrats of doing, and then you'll know.
As Haggard, Foley, and others continue to prove... the GOP is the party of extreme hypocrisy. If you want to know what they're up to, just listen for what they're yelling about from the other side.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right.... years of starvation and poverty had no effect on them, but take away their access to iPods and they'll break out the guillotines!
Hence my sig.
Let's see.. a couple of edits here:
s/chattel/second-class citizens/
s/killed/discriminated against or beaten/
s/Koran/Bible/
s/kill/shout you down and work to make laws to limit your freedoms/
Now it reads:
- believes women are second-class citizens, homosexuals should be discriminated against or beaten, etc.
- believes that the Bible is the only source of any worthwhile laws
- will cheerfully shout you down and work to make laws to limit your freedoms you because you disagree
Sounds a lot like modern American Evangelical Christians. Only the degree in which they want to "punish" the "infidels" is different.
"Operation Rescue"-types have already crossed THAT line. Eric Rudolph anyone?
Stop the fearmongering. There will ALWAYS be someone on this planet that wants to kill you for who you are. Tribalism is ingrained in our DNA. The solution to that is not to change your way of life... it's to work to change the OTHER bastards' way of life. I have no problem with killing Wahabist terrorists who want to kill us. I have a MAJOR problem with devaluing what it means to be an American to accomplish this. If we devalue our Bill of Rights, then what the hell our we fighting for anyway?
the thing with the chair legs was just another example of his intimidation techniques. ;-)
It is intentionally vague, so as to apply to everyone's concept of who/what the "Creator" is.
For example, for Pagans, the Creator = Mother Nature.... and the Declaration means the same.
Even for an agnostic, "Creator" can mean whatever ends up being true.
It's a catch-all word that doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. A large percentage of the founders were Deists, and did not follow strict Christian teachings.... though they did believe in the concept of a supreme being, they didn't necessarily believe in the concept as laid out in the Judeo-Christian bible.
Side note... nowhere in the Constitution are the words "God" or "Christ" or any equivalent word used. Nowhere. The Declaration of Independence was a statement of grievances to a tyrant, and basically a "Divorce Decree"... it was (and is) not a governing document. *THE* governing document of the United States is the Constitution, and it specifically does NOT speak of a supreme being or even indirectly imply one.
In his office he had two inches chopped off of the front two legs of his "guest" chairs, which forced guests in his office to be leaning forward. This put them in an uncomfortable position and gave him a subliminal "upper hand" over his guests.
Adm. Rickover knew this 50 years ago. This study is nothing but a confirmation of common sense.
Every time you fall on it?
Man... that just sounds weird. Do you fall that much?
Come on, man. You're a slashdot reader... supposedly you have a remedial education. The word is "lose".
"Loose" is what one's bowels are after eating at my mother-in-law's.
My experience is the exact opposite. Here are the cars my wife and I have owned and approximately how many miles we had them before they were replaced:
1. 1989 Chevy Baretta. Traded it in at about 80,000 miles because we needed a "family car". It had frequent engine problems and needed repairs often.
2. 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix. About 30,000 miles. Absolute piece of junk, spent as much time in the shop as on the road.
3. 1993 Toyota Corolla. Lasted 190,000 miles. Was still running perfectly, when we got rid of it because it was too small for our needs. Never had anything done except routine maintenance (tires, brakes, oil changes, etc).
4. 1994 Pontiac Trans Sport. Needed to have the engine entirely rebuilt after about 30,000 miles (thank God it was still under warranty). Practically coasted it into the dealership at 70,000 miles to trade it in. Another piece of absolutely shit.
5. 1999 Toyota Sienna. Still going... at about 125,000 miles now and running perfectly. Nothing major done except some body work after hitting a deer.
6. 2002 Nissan Altima. Traded it in after 40,000 miles...not because of any problems, but because my wife didn't like the "feel" of it. Don't ask. My wife is picky.
7. 2006 Toyota Camry. Up to about 15,000 miles and still perfect.
Moral of this story? Don't buy GM cars... ever. 3 times we did, 3 times they sucked. Toyota has never failed us... we have a combined nearly 350,000 miles on Toyota vehicles and NEVER anything more than routine maintenance.
You can keep your Buick... your experience with that GM car is an anomaly, in my opinion.
oh, bullshit.
Windows 95 never worked perfectly, not even in 1995. ;-)
The day Larry King can be called a journalist is the day that Rutgers will have an undefeated football team...
Yes... the FIRST time someone does heroin, it was a choice.
But you don't "choose" what type of person you are attracted to. Nobody wakes up one morning and says "Gee.. today I think I'll start to like fat chicks" or "I think I'll be attracted to bald guys with glasses today."
Sexual attraction is not something that a person can "choose". They can choose whether to act on it... but the nature of attraction is that it is not something we can consciously choose.
I like red-heads. I didn't sit around one day and decide "I think I'll like red-heads from now on." I just do. It's part of who I am, just like having brown eyes or being good at math.
You can argue whether gayness is biological or caused by one's environment... but nobody can seriously argue that it is a conscious "choice" any more than they can argue that heterosexuality is a conscious choice.
Comparing it to drug addiction or gambling is ridiculous. For those things, I might have a biological disposition to enjoy them, but I would never find out until I made a conscious first choice to try. Being attracted to the same sex is inate... the only "choice" is whether to act on it or not.
or a Brokeback Mountain West Democrat.
If they subscribe to Catholic doctrine, yet vote for a pro-choice Democrat, then they are indeed hypocrits.
However.... simply being a Democrat and Catholic is not hypocritical, since there are many example of pro-life democrats (Bob Casey, new Pennsylvania Senator, for one).
A Catholic that voted for Casey is not a hypocrit...
The worst offense a politician can incur is to be a hypocrit. If you're going to blast others for their lifestyles and actively work to pass laws to limit their lifestyles, all the while participating in the exact same lifestyles yourself... then you are:
A. A hypocrit
B. A masochist
and... it *IS* different for Democrats, because Democrats are NOT the ones trying to demonize the gay lifestyle.
ps. Preachers like Haggard claim that homosexuality is a "choice" and not an inate character trait. Then he writes an apology letter to his congregation saying "I have been at war with these inner demons most of my adult life". Sounds like he's admitting that it WASN'T a choice... it's just who he is and he's forced to come to grips with it. And his followers offer HIM forgiveness, meanwhile their still bashing OTHERS like him.
(It would've been embarrassing for the reporter to have just come out of the john and have the robot say "shit".)
When Kevin Bacon put his hand in the robot, it said "chicken".
Cool! you're 50% of the way to a BLT!
I think it means "Republican Retard".... but of course, that's kind of redundant, don't you think? ;-)
Those aren't "paper" ballots... those are punch card ballots.
When we're talking about paper ballots, we're talking about literally a piece of paper, where you mark with an X next to the name of the person you want to vote for. No machines doing the counting, no issue with chads, not hacking possible... complete and easily verifiable paper trail.
The best system we have is the optical-scan ballots... which can be judged with the naked eye OR a machine... but leave a complete paper trail.
...that had no paper trail. At the end, the old lady running the place gave me a sticker that said "I Voted". I told her, that it must be a misprint... it should say: "I Voted?" ..For the record... this was PA district 06.
Ah... so you live in Tom Delay's old district, and no doubt were a supporter of the "exterminator".
That explains a lot.
Since you got the number from caller ID, can you please post it on here so we can verify that what you are saying is true? And how you actually know which numbers belong to the Lampson campaign? Please tell us how you verified that the number on your caller ID was from the Lampson campaign.
I'm still calling you on your bullshit.
ps. If I go "fuck myself", is that better or worse than what right-wing hypocrits like Ted Haggard and Mark Foley have done? I'm sure someone from "Sugarland" like yourself can quote the appropriate scripture for me.
Hypothesis 1: The average intelligence of a slashdot reader is higher than the average intelligence of a non-slashdot reader. Slashdot readers are more perceptive than non-slashdot readers and have a better built-in "bullshit detector".
Hypothesis 2: Reality has a liberal bias.
Conclusion: slashdot has a liberal bias because slashdot readers are smarter than your average bear...er... elephant.... and are better able to understand reality.
That is a very valid reason to vote Democrat.
This election is more of an intervention than an election. In order to begin repairing the damage, you have to first stop the abuse. Saying "NO!" to the current administration... or more accurately, "NO MORE!", is a VERY GOOD reason to vote for the opposition.
As Tom Friedman wrote recently.... If America elects to keep the GOP in control of every branch of government tommorow, then we are no more than a banana republic.
Karl Rove and George Bush are betting that we Americans, in general, are stupid. Tomorrow will tell if they are right or not.
Oh, bullshit.
You heard some astroturfer call in to Rush Limbaugh today with this and now you are claiming it is happening to you.
It's very easy to see what Republicans are up to.... just look for what they are accusing Democrats of doing, and then you'll know.
As Haggard, Foley, and others continue to prove... the GOP is the party of extreme hypocrisy. If you want to know what they're up to, just listen for what they're yelling about from the other side.