It's mostly an invention of the media and behind-the-scenes influence.
Dude, I lived this shit since I was a little kid. My Grandparents fit the mold of today's modern far religious right. Problem with the "balme the media" straw man is that this was the 1960's, I don't think your evil media meme was so entrenched. In fact, these folks were mostly ignored, not "invented" at the time.
Take the Tea Party for example. Started out as a "hey, have some more influence in the political process, come meet up and just discuss things both sides of the aisle no big deal, we'll be trying to do this once or twice a month, we really just want people to get out and vote and have more understanding in the process and the message that people of different backgrounds are taking from things." Six months later, if you ever went to one of those events, you were labeled by the media as a racist murdering 1%er.
It's a lot easier to control people when you make sure that everyone understands that they all have to fit in a bucket, and you're the one that defines the buckets.
You mean like the bucket you tried to put the media in? Look at thine own self AC, you have met the enemy, and its staring at you in a mirror.
I suppose people think Chrome is a browser and not Google right on your system spying.
I suppose that no other software spies on you. If you are using W10, the idea that Chrome is a privacy issue is kinda funny.
There is no, has been no, and never will be privacy on the internet anyhow., and if you haven't been compromised already, it is just luck. Don't go for the tor meme either, which use just makes you extremely interesting to some folks.
People say Chrome's market share growth is because of Google pushing it everywhere they can. Well, Microsoft is pushing Edge hard - Cortana only uses Edge, and they've made Cortana harder to turn off now, etc etc - and yet Edge gets no love. Almost feel sorry for Microsoft, they must wonder what they're doing wrong.
The reason that Chrome is popular is that it isn't crappy. Even better when coupled with a chromebook. My Chromebook has had zero problems during a time when Windows has suffered many.
And please Microsoft fans, spare that tired old meme about Google tracking you. Because Win10 is giving Microsoft the keys to your kingdom, you're information has already been compromised anyhow, and people are just waking up to th efact that the internet is to security like screendoors are to a submarine.
Whether or not it is stolen land is entirely arbitrary as long as you can kill anyone who tries to take it back. Kind of the standard operating practice for America and Americans, no one owns anything until they own it, as long as they can kill to take and keep it. Evil is, as evil does.
Oh yes, only Americans are evil, eh? I've already given the references as to who thse people are. How about letting me know your ancesters are and th ecountry in which you live. I have a suspicion thet your hands are dirty as well.
And anyhow, is there some sort of force of nature that says that all lands belong to the first people settling there in perpetuity? Anyhow, let me know what I asked for, and if your people were the fist to live in the land you are in governing force, and if your people have never appropriated land from anyone else, I'll apologize most profusely.
Looking forward to my research on and education of your complete innocence, a product of a people who have never done wrong. Challenge accepted?
Some religious beliefs - particularly on abortion in some Christian divisions - were set down long before they became political issues. However, even with abortion the boundaries keep shifting. With science showing brain activity at ever earlier times in development, and technology allowing earlier premies to live, some Christian groups have moved from prohibiting abortion at 3-6 months to prohibiting it at conception or a few weeks.
It's a short jump from the reductio ad absurdum that these people have chosen to believe to reductio ad insanatum that following that path ensures.
Given that artificial wombs are being developed, there is no reason that every egg needs to be brought to full term.
The argument is as follows. Every human egg is the basis of a human, and while many sperm are used to fertilize an egg ( remember that one is the eventual fertilizer, but many of these sperm are employed in altering the composition of the egg wall to allow that one in) there is no question that the egg is the human. Every egg lost, every menstrual period, is a human life lost.
To argue that an egg is not a human until it is fertilized is abhorrent in God's eyes.
The fundies are just using one of those mental exercises that philosophical vegans fall into. They can argue themselves into a corner they cannot get out of because of some bad assumptions. All life is precious, plant or animal. But I have to friggin eat, and killing even a plant is still destroying life. And declaring a person a human at conception (or even before) ends up requiring criminal investigations of women for miscarriages.
It's not just that. We paint God in man's image then make him infallible and spend the rest of our lives apologising for arbitrary things. Though some religions have a catch-all, apparently some Gods are all forgiving.
My grandparents had what is to me a seriously weird belief that once you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you were in like Flynn. Nothing else mattered.
"Atheism is a religion" is a claim made frequently by people trying to destroy the intellectual superiority that is inherent to atheism. It's a claim made by people (among others) who are lazy or ignorant, and assume that all beliefs (and even lack of beliefs) are based on nothing more substantial than wishes.
Atheism is a religion in the exact same way that abstinence is sex.
Pastafarianism was created as a parody of religion, and is still advocated as such today. People don't join because they actually believe, but because they want to protest the thought process that drives memberships in other religions.
Their souls need saved, and the drive for the truth inevitably takes you to the presence of his noodliness. What's more, he is a kind God, and merely invites you to try the true way for 30 days. If you don't like it, your old religion will probably take you back.
Therefore, it is not "every bit as legitimate as traditional Christian..." The very center of it is non-religion. Drop the bullshit double-speak because you know damn well this is exactly the case.
So sad. Do ye not want your afterlife reward of fine beer volcanoes and even finer strippers? All you need to is follow the 8 condiments.
As far as dropping the bullshit, well, how can we do that and discuss religion at all?
In the case of pastafarianism, the practicioners don't actually believe a bit of it. In the case of Christianity, the practitioners actually believe. This isn't some surface-level detail, this is the single most relevant distinction between the two, which completely confutes your claim.
Once you drop the bullshit, then we can have a meaningful conversation about how misguided all religions actually are.
Do you think that the politicians who waffle when asked about whether the earth was created 6000 years ago or the other fundy myths actually believe what they tell you?
And I have no idea how to have a meaningful conversation with people who in an earlier time, would have me killed or tortured for not believing as they do, and some of the more primitive members of humanity are still happy to do that.
So in the meantime, I'll settle for ridiculing them, and a pretend religion that is indistinguishable from their realpretend religion is a fine way to do that.
Yeah yeah, take whatever group you don't like, and strawman the living fuck out of them. It kind of leaves out my family, who were serious liberals, yet were very religious.
And then there was me, the most conservative one of the bunch, who doesn't have any part of that bullshit fairy tale or any fairy tale for that matter.
Funny. That fits my family exactly. I remember being shocked when I got to college and there was an association of religious with conservative. All the conservatives I knew were atheists and all the leftists I knew were United Church of Christ, etc., deeply religious.
That's because the "religious right", which is as much a political group as a religion, have somehow managed to usurp the whole definition, turning it into a nasty tempered cherry picking of the Old Testament's baser parts. I've never seen the Sermon on the Mount mentioned unless they are pressed into it, which you would think would be a "Christian's" guiding principles, being marching orders given by the man himself.
I do understand that the Republican party is issuing a new translation of the New Testament, to be known as the Cruz Edition, in which Supply Side Jesus tells the apostles to distribute the loaves and fish among the people, but only those who have passed a drug test first.
Nah, Pastafarian isn't a real religion. There's not enough guilt and self loathing for it to count as a religion. Maybe what you really need is some fundamentalists who run out and bomb all the infidels who don't like Italian food.
Isn't it a pity that in the quest for making God in man's image, that we even incorporate humankind's lust for killing other humans into the dogma?
You are missing the point. Nowhere in the arguments they were mentioning socio economic factors. Only the technical factors such as air humidity etc.
Now, when social and economic factors are taken into consideration the astronomers are shown to be hypocrits.
Well, this is the difference between a guy on Slashdot and the real world. Because you seldom build a facility using one and only one criteria. And as it turns out, when accessibility, altitude, weather and location are taken into account, the Hawaiian location is really hard to beat, given the other location's issues.
Regardless, your accusation of hypocritical Astronomers is interesting. You need to study up on the ethics of the people opposing them in this case. The only people who can stand up for that group of racists are the people in that group. They not only don't want Astronomers there, they don't want anyone not a "Native" Hawaiian: to be on the Island period. BTW, a Native is defined as Hawaiians who have ancesters who lived their prior to 1778. Date based racial identity - who knew? So they don't even want Micronesians there as well as teh evilz "white" man, or Asians. I suppose it surprises the world that racism is alive and well in other than teh evilz whites.
If they really are capitalists, they can make money like the rest of us by earning it.
Oh geesh, I thought the sarcasm was obvious.
If I drop the sarcasm, the people who are claiming that "their" mountain is sacred are just a bunch of racists and grifters, and not only do not want a facility there, they do not want Americans or Asians there, and want to revert to the pre-Hook Hawaii of several hundred years ago. But if they can milk some money out of the "ferners", they'll be happy to do so.
https://www.splcenter.org/figh...
Here's a great example - http://dailysignal.com/2015/11... A special election in which Registration to vote was restricted to “Native Hawaiians,” who are defined as only those whose ancestors lived on the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778.
So no Virginia, Racism and ethnic purity are not concepts only of "white people" These racist mutherfucks are even discriminating against Micronesians. Which is pretty nasty but they demand some sort of date based racial purity that even excludes their own.
So complely dropping the thin veneer of even sarcasm, these people are racists and grifting assholes, and frankly, I would be more than willing to have a military action taken against them. They are evil. Sorry, but the evilz racists 'Murricans were in a Revolutionary war when you decided who "true Hawaiians are, and even more sorry, we don't have to give you back "your" place any more than we have to graft ourselves on to great Britain. Don't like it? well, you know the secession drill.
Now see, wasn't that much nicer when I was just being sarcastic?
Who wants to work in Pakistan, India or Chile, if the world can be convinced that Hawaii has the best place for the telescope.
Weird that a person of presumed insight doesn't know that Chili has the other premier astronomy site in the world.
Regardless, along with air quality and height, there are other issues like accessability, and stability. The suitable areas of Pakistan aren't terribly stable, and India is stable but not as accessible as a spot in the USA.
As well, there is nothing stopping India or Pakistan from building a world-class observatory if they find that in their interests. But Hawaii is their, it's a premier spot that is accessible, and it is on US soil. Kind of a no brainer to build an observatory there.
Yeah yeah, take whatever group you don't like, and strawman the living fuck out of them. It kind of leaves out my family, who were serious liberals, yet were very religious.
And then there was me, the most conservative one of the bunch, who doesn't have any part of that bullshit fairy tale or any fairy tale for that matter.
Regardless, despite what people have been trained to think, there are right wing atheists, and left wing deeply religious. If a religion has a litmus test of politics, it is a political group more than a religion.
Their so-called 'native religion' is nothing but a pathetic hoax
I wholeheartedly agree! A hoax like all religions!
The tricky part is that there really isn't a good way to differentiate. A Pastafarian is every bit as legitimate as a traditional Christian or a fundamentalist one, or Muslim or Hindu, or Jain and so on Nowhere is it written that a god cannot have a sense of humor.
In the Name of the Pasta, and of the Sauce, and of the Holy Meatballs, R'Amen.
They are capitalists, merely making money. And if those liberal scientists don't like that, they can build their telescope on a different highest mountain in Hawaii.
>Old Josef and Adolf are without a doubt the biggest mass murders that we know of.
Without a doubt even... I guess sharing your sources is out of the question?
Seriously? Okay, here ya go
Let's first take the non-war participants deliberately killed by Germany. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Of necessity, there are low and high estimates, and for holocaust deniers, it goes as low as 0. But holocaust deniers are right up there with flat earth's, so I don't count them. So this grouping accounts for 5 to 6 million Jews, from 130 to around 300 thousand other "undesirables."
There are some other accountings that claim other higher numbers - you can see them on the cite. Those are less accepted, but estimates as high as 20 million total are sometimes brought out. I'm not certain what to make of those numbers, so I'll rely on the more accepted ones.
Numbers from Soviet repression from the same document are looking at around 7 and a half million.
These are not the military numbers, but civilians killed for fun by both groups.
Total military deaths estimates from 21,000,000 to 25,500,000
Total civilian deaths due to military action from 29,000,000 to 30,500,000
Total civilian deaths due to ware related famine and disease, from 19,000,000 to 28,000,000
Total WW2 deaths from 70,000,000 to 85,000,000.
The numbers are numbing. How does one mentally address that? The number would be devastating even if the death count were halved. And there simply isn't a way around the truth that this was mainly a European war, started and fueled by Europeans, one that the present day presumed most evil Americans didn't even want to get into but were attacked and then entered.
So when I hear Europeans strutting around like cock-a-whoops, proclaiming their superiority over the Stupid Americans, I sort of chuckle, becuse I know they are a couple of dictators away from starting World War Three.
Extremism begets extremism. Cutting off avenues for vulnerable people to be swayed by extremism works. It's not about the current extremists, but stopping new ones being formed.
Well, give me the examples than. Post WW1 Germany was stomped on, and look what that gave rise to.
The occupation of Germany by the allies didn't officially end until 1990. Until that point, at least nominally, the US had the legal authority to tell all of the elected German leaders to go home and institute direct rule from Washington DC.
Even if we did and could, we didn't-did we?
The reason for the total beatdown of Germany by Russia and the US had a few sources. Hitler refusing to surrender was one, Russia was on a mission of revenge that I don't begrudge at all, and America had learned from the results of the excessively punitive punishements inflicted on Germany after WW1, which allowed the whole Nasty ball to get rolling in Germany - this is not saying that WW2 was not Germany's fault, which it was. So after rubblizing the place, we wanted to treat the survivors as well as could be done.
And having more than one atomic bomb at the ready, it is perhaps providence that Germany surrendered when they did, instead of trying to draw it out any longer.
Didn't the USA take the title when it dropped nukes on the Japanese?
How many people do you think were killed by those 2 bombs? They weren't even the deadliest bombing runs of the war.
Do you include the many thousands/millions that didn't die from invading Japan? Seriously, check out Operation Downfall. For some perspective, Olympic estimated 766,700-815,548 personnel while Normandy landings had 156,000.
Europeans simply cannot accept that they are by the numbers, the most barbaric and murderous people the planet has produced. They managed to for a short time, lower worldwide population.
Old Josef and Adolf are without a doubt the biggest mass murders that we know of.
But you'll never convince Europeans that it isn't the evil 'Murricans who inflicted rougly 200,000 casualties in Japan when they nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And there was a very simple method for the Axis powers to avoid the war with 'Murrica. That ended when Imperial Japan decided that a sneak attack would make us surrender, and Some European country decided that they needed to declare war on us as well. So when the final tally is made, Germany and Japan started the war. Russia and 'Murrica finished it.
>Does it follow that Europe's nasty record of being the number one killer in the world was a result of free speech?
Didn't the USA take the title when it dropped nukes on the Japanese?
What? You seem to forget the Europeans who killed over 6 million undesireables in Europe during the 30's and 40s. And Old Josef, who killed an unknown number. And those were non-combatants. Add the soldiers killed in WW2, and we actually made a momentary global reduction in population for s short period, almost alll courtesy of the enlighterned and sophisticated Europeans.
I realize that you have a deep and abiding hatred, of us Americans, but is your hatred so ingrained, your ability to think so propagandized that you ignore what Europeans did to each other?
The Americans you claim to have killed more people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had a total casualty of 135,000 in Hiroshima, and 64,000 in Nagasaki. http://www.atomicarchive.com/D...
But if I recall correctly, some Europeans have a real knack for wht they proudly called "The Big Lie.
It is worth keeping in mind that Germany went through the Nazi take-over, and at the end of the world war, it was the United States (and the allies with us) that took away free speech in Germany, making it illegal to advocate Nazism.
If you're wondering why the European Union (dominated by Germany) doesn't protect freedom of speech, blame the Nazis. And blame us.
Wow, I had no idea that Germany was like a state or something, and at present ruled by 'Murrica.
Slashdot Mirror
It's mostly an invention of the media and behind-the-scenes influence.
Dude, I lived this shit since I was a little kid. My Grandparents fit the mold of today's modern far religious right. Problem with the "balme the media" straw man is that this was the 1960's, I don't think your evil media meme was so entrenched. In fact, these folks were mostly ignored, not "invented" at the time.
Take the Tea Party for example. Started out as a "hey, have some more influence in the political process, come meet up and just discuss things both sides of the aisle no big deal, we'll be trying to do this once or twice a month, we really just want people to get out and vote and have more understanding in the process and the message that people of different backgrounds are taking from things." Six months later, if you ever went to one of those events, you were labeled by the media as a racist murdering 1%er.
It's a lot easier to control people when you make sure that everyone understands that they all have to fit in a bucket, and you're the one that defines the buckets.
You mean like the bucket you tried to put the media in? Look at thine own self AC, you have met the enemy, and its staring at you in a mirror.
I suppose people think Chrome is a browser and not Google right on your system spying.
I suppose that no other software spies on you. If you are using W10, the idea that Chrome is a privacy issue is kinda funny.
There is no, has been no, and never will be privacy on the internet anyhow., and if you haven't been compromised already, it is just luck. Don't go for the tor meme either, which use just makes you extremely interesting to some folks.
People say Chrome's market share growth is because of Google pushing it everywhere they can. Well, Microsoft is pushing Edge hard - Cortana only uses Edge, and they've made Cortana harder to turn off now, etc etc - and yet Edge gets no love. Almost feel sorry for Microsoft, they must wonder what they're doing wrong.
The reason that Chrome is popular is that it isn't crappy. Even better when coupled with a chromebook. My Chromebook has had zero problems during a time when Windows has suffered many.
And please Microsoft fans, spare that tired old meme about Google tracking you. Because Win10 is giving Microsoft the keys to your kingdom, you're information has already been compromised anyhow, and people are just waking up to th efact that the internet is to security like screendoors are to a submarine.
Whether or not it is stolen land is entirely arbitrary as long as you can kill anyone who tries to take it back. Kind of the standard operating practice for America and Americans, no one owns anything until they own it, as long as they can kill to take and keep it. Evil is, as evil does.
Oh yes, only Americans are evil, eh? I've already given the references as to who thse people are. How about letting me know your ancesters are and th ecountry in which you live. I have a suspicion thet your hands are dirty as well.
And anyhow, is there some sort of force of nature that says that all lands belong to the first people settling there in perpetuity? Anyhow, let me know what I asked for, and if your people were the fist to live in the land you are in governing force, and if your people have never appropriated land from anyone else, I'll apologize most profusely. Looking forward to my research on and education of your complete innocence, a product of a people who have never done wrong. Challenge accepted?
A Pastafarian is every bit as legitimate as a traditional Christian or a fundamentalist one
More so. At least the guy who started Flying Spaghetti Monster admit it was a joke religion. The other religions just keep pretending.
Sokath, his eyes uncovered. Bless you son, for you have been touched by his noodly appendage.
Some religious beliefs - particularly on abortion in some Christian divisions - were set down long before they became political issues. However, even with abortion the boundaries keep shifting. With science showing brain activity at ever earlier times in development, and technology allowing earlier premies to live, some Christian groups have moved from prohibiting abortion at 3-6 months to prohibiting it at conception or a few weeks.
It's a short jump from the reductio ad absurdum that these people have chosen to believe to reductio ad insanatum that following that path ensures.
Given that artificial wombs are being developed, there is no reason that every egg needs to be brought to full term.
The argument is as follows. Every human egg is the basis of a human, and while many sperm are used to fertilize an egg ( remember that one is the eventual fertilizer, but many of these sperm are employed in altering the composition of the egg wall to allow that one in) there is no question that the egg is the human. Every egg lost, every menstrual period, is a human life lost.
To argue that an egg is not a human until it is fertilized is abhorrent in God's eyes.
The fundies are just using one of those mental exercises that philosophical vegans fall into. They can argue themselves into a corner they cannot get out of because of some bad assumptions. All life is precious, plant or animal. But I have to friggin eat, and killing even a plant is still destroying life. And declaring a person a human at conception (or even before) ends up requiring criminal investigations of women for miscarriages.
It's not just that. We paint God in man's image then make him infallible and spend the rest of our lives apologising for arbitrary things. Though some religions have a catch-all, apparently some Gods are all forgiving.
My grandparents had what is to me a seriously weird belief that once you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, you were in like Flynn. Nothing else mattered.
"Atheism is a religion" is a claim made frequently by people trying to destroy the intellectual superiority that is inherent to atheism. It's a claim made by people (among others) who are lazy or ignorant, and assume that all beliefs (and even lack of beliefs) are based on nothing more substantial than wishes.
Atheism is a religion in the exact same way that abstinence is sex.
Pastafarianism was created as a parody of religion, and is still advocated as such today. People don't join because they actually believe, but because they want to protest the thought process that drives memberships in other religions.
Their souls need saved, and the drive for the truth inevitably takes you to the presence of his noodliness. What's more, he is a kind God, and merely invites you to try the true way for 30 days. If you don't like it, your old religion will probably take you back.
Therefore, it is not "every bit as legitimate as traditional Christian ..." The very center of it is non-religion. Drop the bullshit double-speak because you know damn well this is exactly the case.
So sad. Do ye not want your afterlife reward of fine beer volcanoes and even finer strippers? All you need to is follow the 8 condiments.
As far as dropping the bullshit, well, how can we do that and discuss religion at all?
In the case of pastafarianism, the practicioners don't actually believe a bit of it. In the case of Christianity, the practitioners actually believe. This isn't some surface-level detail, this is the single most relevant distinction between the two, which completely confutes your claim.
Once you drop the bullshit, then we can have a meaningful conversation about how misguided all religions actually are.
Do you think that the politicians who waffle when asked about whether the earth was created 6000 years ago or the other fundy myths actually believe what they tell you?
And I have no idea how to have a meaningful conversation with people who in an earlier time, would have me killed or tortured for not believing as they do, and some of the more primitive members of humanity are still happy to do that.
So in the meantime, I'll settle for ridiculing them, and a pretend religion that is indistinguishable from their realpretend religion is a fine way to do that.
Yeah yeah, take whatever group you don't like, and strawman the living fuck out of them. It kind of leaves out my family, who were serious liberals, yet were very religious.
And then there was me, the most conservative one of the bunch, who doesn't have any part of that bullshit fairy tale or any fairy tale for that matter.
Funny. That fits my family exactly. I remember being shocked when I got to college and there was an association of religious with conservative. All the conservatives I knew were atheists and all the leftists I knew were United Church of Christ, etc., deeply religious.
That's because the "religious right", which is as much a political group as a religion, have somehow managed to usurp the whole definition, turning it into a nasty tempered cherry picking of the Old Testament's baser parts. I've never seen the Sermon on the Mount mentioned unless they are pressed into it, which you would think would be a "Christian's" guiding principles, being marching orders given by the man himself.
I do understand that the Republican party is issuing a new translation of the New Testament, to be known as the Cruz Edition, in which Supply Side Jesus tells the apostles to distribute the loaves and fish among the people, but only those who have passed a drug test first.
Nah, Pastafarian isn't a real religion. There's not enough guilt and self loathing for it to count as a religion. Maybe what you really need is some fundamentalists who run out and bomb all the infidels who don't like Italian food.
Isn't it a pity that in the quest for making God in man's image, that we even incorporate humankind's lust for killing other humans into the dogma?
You are missing the point. Nowhere in the arguments they were mentioning socio economic factors. Only the technical factors such as air humidity etc. Now, when social and economic factors are taken into consideration the astronomers are shown to be hypocrits.
Well, this is the difference between a guy on Slashdot and the real world. Because you seldom build a facility using one and only one criteria. And as it turns out, when accessibility, altitude, weather and location are taken into account, the Hawaiian location is really hard to beat, given the other location's issues.
Regardless, your accusation of hypocritical Astronomers is interesting. You need to study up on the ethics of the people opposing them in this case. The only people who can stand up for that group of racists are the people in that group. They not only don't want Astronomers there, they don't want anyone not a "Native" Hawaiian: to be on the Island period. BTW, a Native is defined as Hawaiians who have ancesters who lived their prior to 1778. Date based racial identity - who knew? So they don't even want Micronesians there as well as teh evilz "white" man, or Asians. I suppose it surprises the world that racism is alive and well in other than teh evilz whites.
If they really are capitalists, they can make money like the rest of us by earning it.
Oh geesh, I thought the sarcasm was obvious.
If I drop the sarcasm, the people who are claiming that "their" mountain is sacred are just a bunch of racists and grifters, and not only do not want a facility there, they do not want Americans or Asians there, and want to revert to the pre-Hook Hawaii of several hundred years ago. But if they can milk some money out of the "ferners", they'll be happy to do so. https://www.splcenter.org/figh...
http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/b...
They even have a "Kill Haole Day" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Here's a great example - http://dailysignal.com/2015/11... A special election in which Registration to vote was restricted to “Native Hawaiians,” who are defined as only those whose ancestors lived on the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778.
So no Virginia, Racism and ethnic purity are not concepts only of "white people" These racist mutherfucks are even discriminating against Micronesians. Which is pretty nasty but they demand some sort of date based racial purity that even excludes their own.
So complely dropping the thin veneer of even sarcasm, these people are racists and grifting assholes, and frankly, I would be more than willing to have a military action taken against them. They are evil. Sorry, but the evilz racists 'Murricans were in a Revolutionary war when you decided who "true Hawaiians are, and even more sorry, we don't have to give you back "your" place any more than we have to graft ourselves on to great Britain. Don't like it? well, you know the secession drill.
Now see, wasn't that much nicer when I was just being sarcastic?
Who wants to work in Pakistan, India or Chile, if the world can be convinced that Hawaii has the best place for the telescope.
Weird that a person of presumed insight doesn't know that Chili has the other premier astronomy site in the world.
Regardless, along with air quality and height, there are other issues like accessability, and stability. The suitable areas of Pakistan aren't terribly stable, and India is stable but not as accessible as a spot in the USA.
As well, there is nothing stopping India or Pakistan from building a world-class observatory if they find that in their interests. But Hawaii is their, it's a premier spot that is accessible, and it is on US soil. Kind of a no brainer to build an observatory there.
Which way does liberal outrage swing these days?
I think the latest algorithm works like this:
Yeah yeah, take whatever group you don't like, and strawman the living fuck out of them. It kind of leaves out my family, who were serious liberals, yet were very religious.
And then there was me, the most conservative one of the bunch, who doesn't have any part of that bullshit fairy tale or any fairy tale for that matter.
Regardless, despite what people have been trained to think, there are right wing atheists, and left wing deeply religious. If a religion has a litmus test of politics, it is a political group more than a religion.
Their so-called 'native religion' is nothing but a pathetic hoax
I wholeheartedly agree! A hoax like all religions!
The tricky part is that there really isn't a good way to differentiate. A Pastafarian is every bit as legitimate as a traditional Christian or a fundamentalist one, or Muslim or Hindu, or Jain and so on Nowhere is it written that a god cannot have a sense of humor.
In the Name of the Pasta, and of the Sauce, and of the Holy Meatballs, R'Amen.
Bingo! We have a winner!
They are capitalists, merely making money. And if those liberal scientists don't like that, they can build their telescope on a different highest mountain in Hawaii.
Pastafarians are at the other end of the alimentary canal from bullshit.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
>Old Josef and Adolf are without a doubt the biggest mass murders that we know of.
Without a doubt even... I guess sharing your sources is out of the question?
Seriously? Okay, here ya go Let's first take the non-war participants deliberately killed by Germany. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Of necessity, there are low and high estimates, and for holocaust deniers, it goes as low as 0. But holocaust deniers are right up there with flat earth's, so I don't count them. So this grouping accounts for 5 to 6 million Jews, from 130 to around 300 thousand other "undesirables."
There are some other accountings that claim other higher numbers - you can see them on the cite. Those are less accepted, but estimates as high as 20 million total are sometimes brought out. I'm not certain what to make of those numbers, so I'll rely on the more accepted ones.
Numbers from Soviet repression from the same document are looking at around 7 and a half million.
These are not the military numbers, but civilians killed for fun by both groups.
Total military deaths estimates from 21,000,000 to 25,500,000
Total civilian deaths due to military action from 29,000,000 to 30,500,000
Total civilian deaths due to ware related famine and disease, from 19,000,000 to 28,000,000
Total WW2 deaths from 70,000,000 to 85,000,000.
The numbers are numbing. How does one mentally address that? The number would be devastating even if the death count were halved. And there simply isn't a way around the truth that this was mainly a European war, started and fueled by Europeans, one that the present day presumed most evil Americans didn't even want to get into but were attacked and then entered.
So when I hear Europeans strutting around like cock-a-whoops, proclaiming their superiority over the Stupid Americans, I sort of chuckle, becuse I know they are a couple of dictators away from starting World War Three.
Extremism begets extremism. Cutting off avenues for vulnerable people to be swayed by extremism works. It's not about the current extremists, but stopping new ones being formed.
Well, give me the examples than. Post WW1 Germany was stomped on, and look what that gave rise to.
The occupation of Germany by the allies didn't officially end until 1990. Until that point, at least nominally, the US had the legal authority to tell all of the elected German leaders to go home and institute direct rule from Washington DC.
Even if we did and could, we didn't-did we?
The reason for the total beatdown of Germany by Russia and the US had a few sources. Hitler refusing to surrender was one, Russia was on a mission of revenge that I don't begrudge at all, and America had learned from the results of the excessively punitive punishements inflicted on Germany after WW1, which allowed the whole Nasty ball to get rolling in Germany - this is not saying that WW2 was not Germany's fault, which it was. So after rubblizing the place, we wanted to treat the survivors as well as could be done.
And having more than one atomic bomb at the ready, it is perhaps providence that Germany surrendered when they did, instead of trying to draw it out any longer.
Didn't the USA take the title when it dropped nukes on the Japanese?
How many people do you think were killed by those 2 bombs? They weren't even the deadliest bombing runs of the war.
Do you include the many thousands/millions that didn't die from invading Japan? Seriously, check out Operation Downfall. For some perspective, Olympic estimated 766,700-815,548 personnel while Normandy landings had 156,000.
Europeans simply cannot accept that they are by the numbers, the most barbaric and murderous people the planet has produced. They managed to for a short time, lower worldwide population.
Stalin killed more than Mao
Old Josef and Adolf are without a doubt the biggest mass murders that we know of.
But you'll never convince Europeans that it isn't the evil 'Murricans who inflicted rougly 200,000 casualties in Japan when they nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And there was a very simple method for the Axis powers to avoid the war with 'Murrica. That ended when Imperial Japan decided that a sneak attack would make us surrender, and Some European country decided that they needed to declare war on us as well. So when the final tally is made, Germany and Japan started the war. Russia and 'Murrica finished it.
>Does it follow that Europe's nasty record of being the number one killer in the world was a result of free speech?
Didn't the USA take the title when it dropped nukes on the Japanese?
What? You seem to forget the Europeans who killed over 6 million undesireables in Europe during the 30's and 40s. And Old Josef, who killed an unknown number. And those were non-combatants. Add the soldiers killed in WW2, and we actually made a momentary global reduction in population for s short period, almost alll courtesy of the enlighterned and sophisticated Europeans.
I realize that you have a deep and abiding hatred, of us Americans, but is your hatred so ingrained, your ability to think so propagandized that you ignore what Europeans did to each other?
The Americans you claim to have killed more people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had a total casualty of 135,000 in Hiroshima, and 64,000 in Nagasaki. http://www.atomicarchive.com/D...
But if I recall correctly, some Europeans have a real knack for wht they proudly called "The Big Lie.
It is worth keeping in mind that Germany went through the Nazi take-over, and at the end of the world war, it was the United States (and the allies with us) that took away free speech in Germany, making it illegal to advocate Nazism.
If you're wondering why the European Union (dominated by Germany) doesn't protect freedom of speech, blame the Nazis. And blame us.
Wow, I had no idea that Germany was like a state or something, and at present ruled by 'Murrica.