I would like to think I could expect honesty. I could expect that the candidates get up in front of the nation in their debates and on their websites and say "Hey, things are looking dire. I'm not going to bullshit you, you're going to go through some rough times if things are going to be rectified..."
Is that too much to ask? Instead we've been offered hope and Joe Sixpack bought it up. Even if Obama does relatively well he's going to have a hard time holding office in 4 years because, frankly, he lied to the American people. Last night was the first time I've heard the man talk sacrifice. Sacrifice should have been his catch word all along. This is going to be used against him in his next run and even if the Republican, that will be likely to be elected, has our best intentions in mind it's going to slow progress as all transitions of that nature do.
No. We've been lead astray by both of the big party candidates. We should have been looked in the eye and told that even in the best case scenario there was going to be hell to pay. Instead we have a nation of people expecting the skies to open up and manna to rain from the heavens on January 21st 2009. They're in for some tough times...
So that's why we've had numerous articles about problems in the teaching of creationism/evolution in the STATE of Kansas?
Re:Democrats in the US still rely on fradulent vot
on
How We Used To Vote
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That's odd. The contested areas, at least in the 2000 election, weren't using electronic voting. What a bunch of FUD your post is. Either you're just bashing the right or you're sadly misinformed.
Though, in fairness, we can't really call modern republicans "conservative"... They've abandoned just about every virtue the party once had in favor of pandering to the bible belt. I'd love the chance to vote for a true fiscal conservative this election, but alas, we have none on the ballot.
Bob Barr.
Let me connect the dots: If the executive branch believes X, then the education system will slowly approach teaching X to the greatest extent possible using federal funds as the carrot-and-stick.
How about you connect those dots with some citations? The last I seen it was still up to the states of evolution/creationism was presented.
States have the right to choose a lot of policies unpopular with the administration, just as long as they don't hope to get any of their taxpayers' money back into the state for things like education, welfare, and infrastructure (roads). Few to no states can actually afford to do so on more than a handful of token issues.
Again, cite it. The last I recall federal highway dollars being threatened by an Administration was under Clinton. He was gunning for a unified drinking age of 21.
The difference between you and me? I know evolution is theory that best explains the facts, and I know Intelligent Design is simply a smoke and mirrors act to confuse people enough that they don't know what to believe.
In what way to do you think that it's a difference? Insults will get you nowhere with me.
Of course, I'm not sure where you get your impression that your society has an "inability to graduate students with the ability to read a mortgage statement". I assume you're referring to the mortgage crisis, which is as likely to be about people not planning for the future, not understand interest rates (particularly on credit cards), or most likely, not understanding that a housing bubble can't go in indefinitely.
And people not understanding interest rates different from the current situation? And just as you said that you can't offset what I said because it's not often spelled out I wasn't blaming the entire housing and foreclosure issue on one single thing. I see this is just going to be a bunch of nit picking at this point where it's going to take a 4 page post to make sure every single instance and base is covered. I'm really not that interested in that level of nonsense. I see why you feel that you have to go over things again and again.
I'm still not afraid of the fundies. Sorry that you put so much value into them. It was sweet how you tried to call fundamentalism as a difference between us when I see the difference is the fear of them.
If you don't have the presence of mind to be paying attention to both maybe it is best your attention be diverted... How about those Phillis? And what about Obama's rant about 440k being spent by CEOs after a buyout? If McCain's rant was to divert attention what about Obama's?
Earmarks is a serious issue. It's a legalized form of bribery. Why do you think that should be sloughed off? Are you seriously telling me that bribery and misappropriation of funds is a minor issue? Damn. It's a prosecutable offense when it doesn't happen on The Hill. It's just these kinds of attitudes that shows why we keep slipping.
Knowledge is a building. Rationality is the biggest stone in the foundation of modern human knowledge. Creationism is irrational thinking. Ignoring such a threat is extremely dangerous. This is an evil that should be taken very seriously before it's too late.
Before it's too late? Fundamental religious teachings is what has brought humans from mumbling pointless creatures to the point we are over the last 5000 years. You act like we're seeing something that is new.
No, religion is losing it's grip in the states. It's time that we dismiss this fear of taking their ideology head-first. If we can't stand up to a small number of mouthpieces on this matter how can we honestly look at ourselves as rational and logical creatures? Let their creationism be taught along side of evolution and show it for how ridiculous it is.
We have legalized abortion, some states with gay marriage and religious freedom here. What makes you think that this small sect of people is going to make the who country back pedal? They have their rights too and I'd never ask to see them silenced. I see no reason to fear them at all.
And there is a ton of science that doesn't have this same weak point. Do you honestly think that having evolution being taught along side of creationism as a theory is going to bring down the rest of science education? Please. That's nonsense. And I understand how the fundamental atheists have had their way here in making people that but it's so far fetched that it's ridiculous. And frankly, from the aspect of science, the grand theory of evolution should be taught as weak precisely for the reasons you fear that it is attacked, there is a ton that we don't know about it yet. Students need to see how these things come together from a scientific aspect. At the same time the same teachers can discuss the scientific or lack of scientific backing for creationism. If science can't pass this test maybe the Evangelicals have been right all along. I know I'm not afraid of it.
As for the people who proclaim that "God will provide" for them? How many do you really think this is? Seriously. Our society's inability to graduate students with the ability to read a mortgage statement is more of a concern to me and has more direct effect on my life. If there were so many with the attitude that "god will provide" than these problems we have today would have been happening all along.
They teach that poor people weren't pious or good enough, because obviously if they were, God would have provided for them.
Care to cite this? I'm extremely skeptical of this.
You'd better think long and hard about whether you want rational or magical people, because that's the root of science versus religion.
Again, if science is correct it will withstand the attacks from the religious. The way that people would have it here would be more of a run and hide mentality. Also, religion is quickly losing it's grip on the United States. We can't sit and hide from the religious fundamentalists just because they want to bicker and argue. As they lose power and their arguments remain the same they can do nothing but lose more ground. To turn your back on that truth means that you just want fast easy solutions and that's also a bad example in the education of the youth.
What does any of this have to do with evolution? All you're saying is that you're going to bash anything any conservative says. And while there are slight legitimate concerns in there when you dig through everything else those matters are mostly decided on the state level. Go back to the first paragraph of my post for more reference.
Yeah, and if we elect a Democrat they can take social programs that they will make 1950s Poland look like a capitalist democracy. We hear the same bullshit from both sides and, frankly, it's old.
There's a big difference between thinking something is good and thinking something is over priced. And I think you missed the entire point of the projector issue (not a big surprise around here).
Unless you happen to believe in creationism (like many do in the USA) then this is the trigger to vote for McCain/Palin.
Let's be honest here. Unless Palin is actually teaching the class her outlook on evolution has zero to do with her relation to education. Infact, keeping her in as a governor is probably more likely to get creationism pushed on more students than her being a vice president. On the federal level all she's going to do is go on and on about budgets. That's it.
If every intelligent person voted, these elections would never be too close to call.
Intelligent by who's standards? If your idea of intelligent is the normal Slashdot "everyone who thinks like me" kind of thing than I'm sure you're right. As for me? I know tons of vastly intelligent people who have some ideas that are far from my own. Enough to make me question who's really right. And out of these same tons of people many probably think creationism has some glimmer of truth to it. It doesn't bother me because I'm not asking them to teach biology to me.
Even if I were the difference between the evolutionist camp and the creationist camp means jack shit in the real world. How about we leave that stupid little debate behind and work on the idea that we're graduating kids that can't balance a checkbook. A fucking checkbook has a lot more to do with how this country progresses than whatever theory you have on the origins and progression of life. I bet you that if everyone in this country believed in creationism but could balance a checkbook we'd be a lot better off. We haven't even go an acceptable majority of the kids graduating to cover the basics of everyday life and we're busy bickering over evolution? Huh?
Also the nefarious involvement of unscrupulous people doing bad things to win, decreases the predictability of an outcome, when both sides are doing it.
It's just another reason to reject the two party system if you ask me. When we can finally shed ourselves of the "us or them" maybe we'll also let go of the hate that accompanies it.
But the OP was talking about religious fundamentalism with association with war. Certainly Iraq has broken down to that at this point but he seemed to be saying that we're better off to ignore fundamentalism ("admit we can't fight religious nuts"). My point being is that there are points where the fundies bring the war to us. I am really having a hard time understanding why people aren't associating a war with a root cause of fundamentalism being associated with anything but Afghanistan. I even went as far as to point out that Iraq was not rooted in fundamentalism as a caused but rather degraded to that level after the existing government was dismantled. I would like to have thought that it's a pretty clear statement.
A nice way of putting it but what do you do when the war is brought to us? Oddly enough, people keep forgetting what they claimed they'd never forget less than a decade ago.
Sure, Iraq is still a cruel situation and one that was handled badly but don't think for a second that it's going to stop there. Even if the US pulls out and "plays nice" the fanatics are going to dig in somewhere else and do harm to US interests simply because they can. Let's face a real fact here. The 9/11 attacks were supposedly over the US backing Israel and having troops in Saudi Arabia. Do you really think that even if we pulled the plug on this and removed all of out troops from their "holy land" that they wouldn't try to find another purpose to martyr themselves to?
I find it odd that in this forum we have people who want to shrug at the same people who would put our collective heads on a stick if they could but rage with absolute fury if someone wants to teach creationism in a public school. Am I missing something here?
And just for the record, Osama and his boys weren't too happy with Saddam either. The war in Iraq only became a religious conflict after Saddam had been displaced. The sad truth is that Iraq should have been a done deal in 91 but the UN fumbled the ball so badly that they make Bush look like Patton.
It may be good but the bottom line is that neither you nor he (nor I nor anyone else for that matter) knows what will happen if a significant troop withdrawal happens. The country may well destabilize and continuing to pull troops under those conditions is not "responsible". He may have to keep an unknown number of troops in there for his entire administration. He doesn't know this to be sure.
By Obama taking office he's also taking on the problems of the last administration. This is true for every president. If he leaves Iraq and it falls into civil war or genocide than he's ultimately failed.
The mere fact that tons of state and local level positions go to candidates who have no opposition on the ballot shows that these positions are soft targets in comparison to higher offices. Can you imagine the ballyhoo if the Democrats or Republicans decided that they didn't have a hope in hell to win the presidential election some year and just let it go? That's exactly what I mean by a soft target.
These parties are willing to throw millions and millions (soon to be on the billion dollar mark as dumb and dumber's combined totals at this point are just a million dollars shy of a billion) at a race they can't win but abandon others? That's certainly a soft target. Even the Libertarians have spent a million on Bob Barr's bid. Not a great amount in comparison but how many races could be helped where the candidate has an actual chance to win with these funds? That's where I would want my money to go.
Or maybe the problem was that too many people did.
Can you back this up with anything more than a political cartoon? Otherwise you're acting like we may as well be voting on whatever the headlines are in the daily papers on election day. It just doesn't hold water with me.
Slashdot Mirror
I would like to think I could expect honesty. I could expect that the candidates get up in front of the nation in their debates and on their websites and say "Hey, things are looking dire. I'm not going to bullshit you, you're going to go through some rough times if things are going to be rectified..."
Is that too much to ask? Instead we've been offered hope and Joe Sixpack bought it up. Even if Obama does relatively well he's going to have a hard time holding office in 4 years because, frankly, he lied to the American people. Last night was the first time I've heard the man talk sacrifice. Sacrifice should have been his catch word all along. This is going to be used against him in his next run and even if the Republican, that will be likely to be elected, has our best intentions in mind it's going to slow progress as all transitions of that nature do.
No. We've been lead astray by both of the big party candidates. We should have been looked in the eye and told that even in the best case scenario there was going to be hell to pay. Instead we have a nation of people expecting the skies to open up and manna to rain from the heavens on January 21st 2009. They're in for some tough times...
Sadly, for 90% of the worlds population it's not obscure at all.
So that's why we've had numerous articles about problems in the teaching of creationism/evolution in the STATE of Kansas?
That's odd. The contested areas, at least in the 2000 election, weren't using electronic voting. What a bunch of FUD your post is. Either you're just bashing the right or you're sadly misinformed.
Sorry, not a democrat.
Sorry, never said you were a Democrat.
Though, in fairness, we can't really call modern republicans "conservative"... They've abandoned just about every virtue the party once had in favor of pandering to the bible belt. I'd love the chance to vote for a true fiscal conservative this election, but alas, we have none on the ballot.
Bob Barr.
Let me connect the dots: If the executive branch believes X, then the education system will slowly approach teaching X to the greatest extent possible using federal funds as the carrot-and-stick.
How about you connect those dots with some citations? The last I seen it was still up to the states of evolution/creationism was presented.
States have the right to choose a lot of policies unpopular with the administration, just as long as they don't hope to get any of their taxpayers' money back into the state for things like education, welfare, and infrastructure (roads). Few to no states can actually afford to do so on more than a handful of token issues.
Again, cite it. The last I recall federal highway dollars being threatened by an Administration was under Clinton. He was gunning for a unified drinking age of 21.
The difference between you and me? I know evolution is theory that best explains the facts, and I know Intelligent Design is simply a smoke and mirrors act to confuse people enough that they don't know what to believe.
In what way to do you think that it's a difference? Insults will get you nowhere with me.
Of course, I'm not sure where you get your impression that your society has an "inability to graduate students with the ability to read a mortgage statement". I assume you're referring to the mortgage crisis, which is as likely to be about people not planning for the future, not understand interest rates (particularly on credit cards), or most likely, not understanding that a housing bubble can't go in indefinitely.
And people not understanding interest rates different from the current situation? And just as you said that you can't offset what I said because it's not often spelled out I wasn't blaming the entire housing and foreclosure issue on one single thing. I see this is just going to be a bunch of nit picking at this point where it's going to take a 4 page post to make sure every single instance and base is covered. I'm really not that interested in that level of nonsense. I see why you feel that you have to go over things again and again.
I'm still not afraid of the fundies. Sorry that you put so much value into them. It was sweet how you tried to call fundamentalism as a difference between us when I see the difference is the fear of them.
If you don't have the presence of mind to be paying attention to both maybe it is best your attention be diverted... How about those Phillis? And what about Obama's rant about 440k being spent by CEOs after a buyout? If McCain's rant was to divert attention what about Obama's?
Earmarks is a serious issue. It's a legalized form of bribery. Why do you think that should be sloughed off? Are you seriously telling me that bribery and misappropriation of funds is a minor issue? Damn. It's a prosecutable offense when it doesn't happen on The Hill. It's just these kinds of attitudes that shows why we keep slipping.
Knowledge is a building. Rationality is the biggest stone in the foundation of modern human knowledge. Creationism is irrational thinking. Ignoring such a threat is extremely dangerous. This is an evil that should be taken very seriously before it's too late.
Before it's too late? Fundamental religious teachings is what has brought humans from mumbling pointless creatures to the point we are over the last 5000 years. You act like we're seeing something that is new.
No, religion is losing it's grip in the states. It's time that we dismiss this fear of taking their ideology head-first. If we can't stand up to a small number of mouthpieces on this matter how can we honestly look at ourselves as rational and logical creatures? Let their creationism be taught along side of evolution and show it for how ridiculous it is.
We have legalized abortion, some states with gay marriage and religious freedom here. What makes you think that this small sect of people is going to make the who country back pedal? They have their rights too and I'd never ask to see them silenced. I see no reason to fear them at all.
And there is a ton of science that doesn't have this same weak point. Do you honestly think that having evolution being taught along side of creationism as a theory is going to bring down the rest of science education? Please. That's nonsense. And I understand how the fundamental atheists have had their way here in making people that but it's so far fetched that it's ridiculous. And frankly, from the aspect of science, the grand theory of evolution should be taught as weak precisely for the reasons you fear that it is attacked, there is a ton that we don't know about it yet. Students need to see how these things come together from a scientific aspect. At the same time the same teachers can discuss the scientific or lack of scientific backing for creationism. If science can't pass this test maybe the Evangelicals have been right all along. I know I'm not afraid of it.
As for the people who proclaim that "God will provide" for them? How many do you really think this is? Seriously. Our society's inability to graduate students with the ability to read a mortgage statement is more of a concern to me and has more direct effect on my life. If there were so many with the attitude that "god will provide" than these problems we have today would have been happening all along.
They teach that poor people weren't pious or good enough, because obviously if they were, God would have provided for them.
Care to cite this? I'm extremely skeptical of this.
You'd better think long and hard about whether you want rational or magical people, because that's the root of science versus religion.
Again, if science is correct it will withstand the attacks from the religious. The way that people would have it here would be more of a run and hide mentality. Also, religion is quickly losing it's grip on the United States. We can't sit and hide from the religious fundamentalists just because they want to bicker and argue. As they lose power and their arguments remain the same they can do nothing but lose more ground. To turn your back on that truth means that you just want fast easy solutions and that's also a bad example in the education of the youth.
What does any of this have to do with evolution? All you're saying is that you're going to bash anything any conservative says. And while there are slight legitimate concerns in there when you dig through everything else those matters are mostly decided on the state level. Go back to the first paragraph of my post for more reference.
Yeah, and if we elect a Democrat they can take social programs that they will make 1950s Poland look like a capitalist democracy. We hear the same bullshit from both sides and, frankly, it's old.
There's a big difference between thinking something is good and thinking something is over priced. And I think you missed the entire point of the projector issue (not a big surprise around here).
Unless you happen to believe in creationism (like many do in the USA) then this is the trigger to vote for McCain/Palin.
Let's be honest here. Unless Palin is actually teaching the class her outlook on evolution has zero to do with her relation to education. Infact, keeping her in as a governor is probably more likely to get creationism pushed on more students than her being a vice president. On the federal level all she's going to do is go on and on about budgets. That's it.
If every intelligent person voted, these elections would never be too close to call.
Intelligent by who's standards? If your idea of intelligent is the normal Slashdot "everyone who thinks like me" kind of thing than I'm sure you're right. As for me? I know tons of vastly intelligent people who have some ideas that are far from my own. Enough to make me question who's really right. And out of these same tons of people many probably think creationism has some glimmer of truth to it. It doesn't bother me because I'm not asking them to teach biology to me.
Even if I were the difference between the evolutionist camp and the creationist camp means jack shit in the real world. How about we leave that stupid little debate behind and work on the idea that we're graduating kids that can't balance a checkbook. A fucking checkbook has a lot more to do with how this country progresses than whatever theory you have on the origins and progression of life. I bet you that if everyone in this country believed in creationism but could balance a checkbook we'd be a lot better off. We haven't even go an acceptable majority of the kids graduating to cover the basics of everyday life and we're busy bickering over evolution? Huh?
Also the nefarious involvement of unscrupulous people doing bad things to win, decreases the predictability of an outcome, when both sides are doing it.
It's just another reason to reject the two party system if you ask me. When we can finally shed ourselves of the "us or them" maybe we'll also let go of the hate that accompanies it.
No, the media has an agenda and will twist whatever facts it has to in order to fulfill it's own desires.
My C=64 with a 1.02 MHz processor and 64K ram beats Ubuntu's hands down.
2009 is the year for CBM 64 Basic V2 on the desktop! Woohoo!
Oh oh! This will be like 9/11 times 2000. That's right, 1,822,000!
Actually, 9/11 * 2000 = 1636.3636363636
But the OP was talking about religious fundamentalism with association with war. Certainly Iraq has broken down to that at this point but he seemed to be saying that we're better off to ignore fundamentalism ("admit we can't fight religious nuts"). My point being is that there are points where the fundies bring the war to us. I am really having a hard time understanding why people aren't associating a war with a root cause of fundamentalism being associated with anything but Afghanistan. I even went as far as to point out that Iraq was not rooted in fundamentalism as a caused but rather degraded to that level after the existing government was dismantled. I would like to have thought that it's a pretty clear statement.
BTW: If you haven't happened to notice that there is this little war in a place called Afghanistan. That's what the direct inference was too.
Again, quote me. You can't. You read something into it that simply isn't there. You're the one making a reach for it, not me.
Quote me where I tried to associate 9/11 with Iraq. QUOTE ME. Don't tell me what you think you read.
A nice way of putting it but what do you do when the war is brought to us? Oddly enough, people keep forgetting what they claimed they'd never forget less than a decade ago.
Sure, Iraq is still a cruel situation and one that was handled badly but don't think for a second that it's going to stop there. Even if the US pulls out and "plays nice" the fanatics are going to dig in somewhere else and do harm to US interests simply because they can. Let's face a real fact here. The 9/11 attacks were supposedly over the US backing Israel and having troops in Saudi Arabia. Do you really think that even if we pulled the plug on this and removed all of out troops from their "holy land" that they wouldn't try to find another purpose to martyr themselves to?
I find it odd that in this forum we have people who want to shrug at the same people who would put our collective heads on a stick if they could but rage with absolute fury if someone wants to teach creationism in a public school. Am I missing something here?
And just for the record, Osama and his boys weren't too happy with Saddam either. The war in Iraq only became a religious conflict after Saddam had been displaced. The sad truth is that Iraq should have been a done deal in 91 but the UN fumbled the ball so badly that they make Bush look like Patton.
It may be good but the bottom line is that neither you nor he (nor I nor anyone else for that matter) knows what will happen if a significant troop withdrawal happens. The country may well destabilize and continuing to pull troops under those conditions is not "responsible". He may have to keep an unknown number of troops in there for his entire administration. He doesn't know this to be sure.
By Obama taking office he's also taking on the problems of the last administration. This is true for every president. If he leaves Iraq and it falls into civil war or genocide than he's ultimately failed.
The mere fact that tons of state and local level positions go to candidates who have no opposition on the ballot shows that these positions are soft targets in comparison to higher offices. Can you imagine the ballyhoo if the Democrats or Republicans decided that they didn't have a hope in hell to win the presidential election some year and just let it go? That's exactly what I mean by a soft target.
These parties are willing to throw millions and millions (soon to be on the billion dollar mark as dumb and dumber's combined totals at this point are just a million dollars shy of a billion) at a race they can't win but abandon others? That's certainly a soft target. Even the Libertarians have spent a million on Bob Barr's bid. Not a great amount in comparison but how many races could be helped where the candidate has an actual chance to win with these funds? That's where I would want my money to go.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzI3ODEyM2U4YWQxZDU4ZWQ5Yjk4YWNmZjIzM2U3NmY=
Google is your friend.
Or maybe the problem was that too many people did.
Can you back this up with anything more than a political cartoon? Otherwise you're acting like we may as well be voting on whatever the headlines are in the daily papers on election day. It just doesn't hold water with me.