Our elections are no more rigged than your choice of buying Coke or Pepsi at the local supermarket are rigged. People latch on to this stupid everyone gets a vote idea, and that the founding fathers were racists and bigots when they prevented votes to various groups. The fact of the matter is they never intended everyone to vote, not for racist or bigoted reasons, but for the reason that has happened today. I know a guy that voted for Bush based soley on a talking fucking cartoon donkey in a snickers commercial saying he invented the internet! They wanted educated and productive citizens voting, not every whackjob fundie crackpot that couldn't pass a science class to save his life, nor some deadbeat welfare case begging for government handouts. What we have now is a leadership elected by the masses that can't be bothered to do research and just believes whatever insane story they see on Fox, MSNBC, or whatever. The problem is everyone gets to vote, and the vast majority of the populace are brainwashed TV watching jackasses that can't do their history for anything. People have no idea that BOTH of Gates and Rumsfeld serving as SecDef in the current mess were heavily involved in things like the Iraq-Iran war, or the Iran Contra business. People barely understand Cheney's roll with Halliburton, or Condi Rice's involvement with Chevron. Britney Spears and K-Fed get more media attention than the fact that our government just apologized to a canadian for grabbing him, shipping him to a foreign country, and torturing him...and then realizing "shit, not a terrorist". Its pathetic...
Incidentally..."It's been like 60 years" would put us back at the end of WWII and JFK was most certainly not assassinated then...if he had been it would have made it terribly difficult to be President when he was actually assassinated about 44 years ago.
Oh fuck off and get off your high horse. Take an economics class will you? That regional shit is one of the key methods of imposing a monopoly. Why the fuck should the consumer bear the burder of having a monopoly imposed on them? It shouldn't be the consumers riks "Gee, will the company get mad at me and take my money and destroy my product if I don't buy it from them at the highest price they can charge me?" Fuck that! If they company is going to do that regional bullshit, then they take the risk of people outside of that region purchasing from it. These companies should have their dicks slapped straight out of their hands, instead, they use their lobbyists for protectionist crap by giving handjobs to higher ups to pass laws to make shit like getting around region coding illegal.
I don't understand why the companies, or people like you, believe that they have some inherent right to charge the highest price they can anywhere and have it legally enforced. Its the other way around, consumers are supposed to have the right to purchase good at the lowest price possible. Next you are going to tell me that a restaruant that has higher prices in a bad part of town can have my stomach pumped to get their cheeseburger back if I went to the nice side of town where they sell the same burger cheaper. What if you had to worry that anytime Walmart slashing prices to push local competitors out of the market, that if you happened to be out of town and purchase something, and then they find out that you live in an area where the price of the item was NOT lowered to push competitors out they could just take it back without a refund?
So come off of it. It isn't the consumers problem to sort that shit out. If the company puts it on the market anywhere at any price then any consumer can purchase it at that price.
Uhm...what? The TCP sequence number issue is related to Man in the Middle attacks (which in the strictest sense is a type of spoofing, but not usually refered to like this). Spoofing is generally talking about sending packets pretending to be someone else, ie, putting a bad source on them. So now if I am computer A, and you are computer B, and I send you SYN DST A SRC C you will respond ACK/SYN to computer C. Unless my computer has PsychicHackWizard 3.0 or I have installed MagikRouter1337 those packets won't ever make it back to me.
I don't think we CAN take them seriously. Senator Foottapping I'm not Gay Craig, Senator Think of the Children Foley. The list goes on. Now, I think taking them seriously and holding them all accountable for being worthless scumbags aren't the same thing. We are definetly lacking on the accountability part. But think about it for a minute, most of the people that would even catch half the references/jokes are already at least aware of what is going on. The vast majority of the populace doesn't know, doesn't care, and only sees the stupid sensationalist pieces like "I'm not Gay" Craig, and have no idea that Senator "Internet Tubes" Stevens is under major investigation for big time bribes.
On that note, I really am not partisan, but why the hell do the Republicans seem to get the most monumentally stupid scandals? I mean, the blowjob thing was kinda big, but pretty minor stupidity in the grand scheme of things.
And I would guess that most of them are meant to make your eyes roll. Funny is also pretty subjective. I have seen a disturbing number of people watch people getting killed in various ways and they think that is funny. There is also the whole realm of jokes that aren't supposed to be funny because the groaning reaction from the "victim" hearing the joke is the funny part.
Except that we have more evidence supporting water being stripped of a planet (though not exactly the same way the story explains it) then anything regarding time travel. Your suspending the wrong disbelief.:P
Well yeah...but its supposed to be storytime not science time. My original point was that "filling the lakes with methane" doesn't mean they weren't already filled with methane to begin with. The rains have to fill the lakes...if they don't they will dry up as the fluids move elsewhere in the system. Its the same way our mundane Earth lakes stay full, the rain fills them with water.
I mean really. You are upset about their explanation of the sea boiling off without batting an eye at the time travel part? Also, care to explain why places like Venus seem to show evidence of once having water that is no longer there? Mole people with giant tanks? A planet can be stripped of its water, but it may not work exactly like an oversimplified story explains it.
Because honestly, being able to say stupid shit about our elected officials is a rather critical point in remaining free. The day we MUST remain respectful to those with political titles is a dark dark day for the people. So you might as well enjoy it before Dubya get supset about beign called the Missing Link and bans evolution theory outright.
Oh and by the way you should at least read the summary and article once before going off on it.
"The Governator has killed a recent data protection law in California, and it won't be back. Using a tried-and-true argument, that the bill would have 'driven up the costs of compliance, particularly for small businesses,' California Governor Arnold Schwartzenneger vetoed what some are calling one of the nation's most stringent proposed e-tail data breach security laws."
Okay...I see 1 Governator reference in the title, 1 Governator reference in the summary, and oh...wait...what is that?! His full freaking title and name and title!...So look at that, used at least once just like you said. Now read the article. I count no less than 7 times he is called governor, 5 uses of his last name, and 0 governator lines. So once again, what the hell are you whining about?
So, why doesn't anyone ever seem to be upset about calling Reagan "The Gipper". Same thing...same exact thing even, because it was also from a movie role. Governator is also a hell of a lot easier to spell than Schwarzenegger. I don't see it as undignified, insulting, or anything to be even remotely upset about. It's like the little emo cry baby guy screaming "Leave Britney Alone." I have a difficult to spell/pronounce last name so I have had more nicknames, shortenings, and whatnot that I can count. It doesn't bother me, and actually frequently am amused by the nicknames people come up with (assuming they aren't being derogatory pricks).
YOU think its a cheap extremely lame joke. Most people think its just an amusing nickname and most people don't give a shit about it. I would even be willing to give you some leeway on the argument with "Slick Willie" or "The Shrub" or even "King George" because those were meant to be largely derogatory.
I'm not entirely sure but it sounds like you are denying the ability for a lake to evaporate away. Even more, to cite the water cycle with such a weak understanding if that is your claim. When water evaporates it goes into the air. It does things like form clouds, move around, and then fall somewhere else. To cite a childrens story about the oceans evaporating as evidence that a lake or pond cannot do this is disturbing. I hope this wasn't your intent.
Do you honestly believe that the man doesn't think being called the Governator is funny? His primary fame came from those movies. It isn't like they are calling him anything inherently derogatory. He was famous for being the Terminator, he is the Governor, he is the Governator! Big deal, don't get your panties in a twist over a dumb nick name. I really suspect that he probably thinks its funny that people call him that, shit, it wouldn't surprise me if he likes the nickname given that he got it for being wildly successful.
We have methane eating bacteria here already. There is a great deal of life as we know it that doesn't need oxygen. I think you are grossly oversimplifying and misunderstand what "life as we know it" really means. Just be cause us squishy hairless monkeys need large amounts of oxygen doesn't mean everything around us does too.
It is the same as how here on our much more boring earth, rain fills our lakes. If a pond or lake doesn't get any rain it will eventually evaporate away, it has to be refilled. I don't think it was meant in the sense of "its filling the lake with something other than what is already there" so much as "this is how these lakes were formed and are maintained".
I remember as a child reading about this stuff and being fascinated. It has been a long time, but the descriptions I read stuck with me. I can't say how accurate they are, but to think about the very large slow moving waves of non water moving on these moons is amazing. The gravity and so on makes the waves move so much differently than what a wave lookes like here in the ocean. Even if we can't ever set foot on some of those places, I really hope we start getting good clear color pictures of some of these places. These kinds of pictures would really spark new interest in our little corner of space. Most of what we have are just black and white stuff, and the color ones aren't the real colors, but spectrograph type things.
Uhm...the US Soldier/Mafia thug comparison is flawed in so many ways I cannot even begin to describe. The Mafia thug signed on to make big profits and participating in shakedowns increases those profits. The US Soldier serves in peace and in war and the VAST majority did not sign up to participate in the war. They were ordered to go, if they DON'T go then they can go to federal pound me in the ass prisons for a very long time. Additionally, if they fail to do what they are told in the field they can recieve the death penalty (although this has not happened in a very long time). Now, the flip side to this that no one seems to ever want to think about because they are too busy spitting on soldiers and calling them babykillers. Exactly what do you think would happen if the military just suddenly decided they weren't going to follow the orders of the elected leaders? I mean, I am sure they are just going to go home and hang out and do nothing like every other military force that told the existing government to fuck off has done right? I mean...that way they can all go home and be drug out of their homes and stuffed in overcroweded prisons for disobeying.
Look up coup d'état and tell me you want the military making its own decisions rather than following the elected civilian leaders. It is a hell of a lot easier to replace elected civilian leaders that are doing bad shit than it is to undo a military takeover of your government. For a long long time military was focused on Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) which come in a huge variety from show of force, to humanitarian aid. It has been only recently that this has been all but abandoned for open warfare anywhere our paranoid leaders can think of.
Yeah...well your scumball plan of exporting your stupid has failed you! Tom Green, Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, and so on...you couldn't get rid of them fast enough and now your screwed too!
Take that you smug little bastards! You sit up there all pointing and laughing at how insane the IP system has gotten in the US... HAH! Welcome to the new world, not so smug now eh? One Cent...holy crap... And its not even some profit mongering megacorp up there, its your freakin federal agency suing the city. On top of that the irony involved in the fact that the whole thing is about trying to get 'one cent' out of the tax, and the government response is to charge them for asking for it! Aaaahahahahahaa. Now maybe you won't be so damned smug when stupid shit happens here down south of you.
First of all, not once did I say I was a believer in it, I just said that going off about how Jesus was such a hypocrite for the named reasons is inaccurate at best, I didn't touch the naked guy on a torture device because that while irreverent it is certainly not very inaccurate and I have called him the zombie lord while teasing my catholic friends.
So since the hospitality explanation of Sodom isn't enough I will go ahead and point out the other points. In the various other points homosexuals are not singled out, more often than not it was included in a list of hedonistic behaviors (which I suppose you could say fuck for fun falls under that category, but doing something for fun doesn't make it hedonistic, its the excesses that make it hedonistic). Now lets look at history of the "God said don't do it" Sickness was "sent by God" because the science of it wasn't understood, and sickness was interpreted as a punishment for doing something God didn't want you to do. Now most of those "God said no" behaviors have a very high risk of infections in a time period when hygiene wasn't exactly the word of the day. Now, I don't really care what your views of homosexuality are, asses (male, female, and animal are all mentioned) are havens for all manner of deadly bacteria. So when Abraham sticks it in Josephs backside, or even the sheep and spreads E. Coli around and kills a bunch of people...I think it is reasonable to assume they would associate that kind of thing with God isn't happy.
Jesus also gave explicit instructions to his followers that if they didn't want to hear the message just walk away and shake the dust of your sandals. Not exactly intolerance there, just "oh well, leave em be, it is none of your concern", this of course has been translated to "Crush the infidel" by any number of religions by people who really have no idea what is actually taught.
Sexual promiscuity has so many implications in a variety of problems in the time it is no surprise that it was frowned on. Lineage is important in many cultures and sexual promiscuity makes that difficult at best in a time without parental testing. Even in modern day WITH the advances in medicine, hygiene, and protection it is still tied to widespread disease. It also deals with the purity aspect, which it has been proven time and time again that people who say there is nothing wrong with screwing anything with a pulse also say "unless its my daughter, then its not ok".
I think people going on about Islamofacists and other such drivel is equally offensive. It irritates me to no end to hear people talk what Islam teaches when they have no damned clue what they are talking about. It is even doubly funny when Christians go off about how Islam is violent because it shows how precious little of the Old Testament they are aware of. Members of a given religion are frequently just as guilty as not reading their own damned material as the critics of the same religion...which ultimately leads into stupid pissing matches about my God is better than your God or wild accusations about how God hates XYZ.
If you really read it the only thing Jesus really said was truely unforgivable is to harm children/lead them astray. "It would be better that you put a millstone around your neck and throw yourself off a cliff".
Christians in the truest sense shouldn't hold that belief because that is not what is taught. That doesn't mean practitioners don't interpret things with their own bias to fuel their hatreds, which is pretty fucking counter to what the stated goal was in the first place of Love thy Neighbor and whatnot. Just like a bunch of crazy fucks strapping bombs to their chests or flying planes into buildings aren't representations of what Islam teaches, they are just fundamentalist zealots with an axe to grind. With such wildly inaccurate representations and disrespect towards others believes be it Islam vs Christian vs Athiest vs Buddhist vs whatever we will never see an end to the fighting.
Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Shamanism, Druidic, and many others really qualify as long standing religions with involved belief structures and behaviors (though not always very evident by their practicioners).
New Agers as best as I have ever seen are a group of wildly varying beliefs cobbled together out of various sources found at Barnes and Noble frequently coming from Shamanism or Druidic areas of belief. Unless we are talking about a different group of New Agers I don't think its relavent to the discussion to call this group a religion as they have no discernable belief structure
Scientologists can hardly be called a religion when their founders own writings talks about setting up a fake religion to leech money and gain control over people.
Mormons are basically Christianity: The New World Story. Which while I'm not a big fan of alot of their beliefs, I think it is interesting that they actually attempt to explain what was going on in other parts of the world in relation to spread of the teachings of Jesus. So while a relatively young branch of Christanity (which by world standards is young itself) I think they are covered by discussing religion
As far as "daring to treat their beliefs with impiety" as you so nicely put it, that would generally require an actual understanding of the beliefs are. Rather "hypocrit enough to preach "tolerance" while being against gays, people who like to fuck for fun and people who don't share the same beliefs" has precious little to do with anything that Jesus actually taught and is more in the land of fundamentalists and othe dogmatic crap.
That said...the imporant part is to actually read and understand for yourself other religious sources and the like. Not take the rantings of some dumb ass redneck fundie shouting about Jesus rode a dinosaur while hatin faggots and killin niggers as what Christiantiy has anything to do with. Its like saying all Germans are Jew hating murderers without understanding what really went on and who was really responsible.
You probably wouldn't be surprised in the least to find that most of the intolerance and other such crap associated with Christianity and Islam specifically came about when various rulers added their 2 cents to help gain control...as is the case with most religions. But hey, don't let history and objectivity get in the way of flinging insults at believers of various faiths.
There is a ton of Christianity that has been borrowed along the way too. Part of assimilating other cultures as it grew. "Winter Solstice?! We have that! We call it Jesus's Birthday!"..."Fertility Celebration...we have that! We call it Jesus's came back from the dead day!"...and so on.
Now...for all my attempts to respsect others beliefs and religions, it doesn't stop me from giving my catholic friends crap on easter about the Zombie Lord, but that is all in good fun.:)
Buddha/Buddhism predated Jesus by quite a bit. I have even read some interesting theories about the 3 wisemen from the east and also about the missing period in Jesus's life in realtion to that. I don't know that there is much historical content that supports it, but it certainly is an interesting avenue of curiousity. Buddhism even today remains the main religion in much of the asian world. There are alot of Buddhist concepts and undertones in much of the things that Jesus was said to have taught.
Unfortunately it seems that the Jewish/Christian/Islamic chain of religions have walked away from "let he without sin cast the first stone" to "cast the largest stone you can find before someone else can cast the first stone".
I also would like to congratulate you on remaining objective as an athiest. So many others just turn to arrogant and insulting tones rather than attempting to look at things objectively. They just treat it as some mass delusion rather than looking at any of the historical or social aspects that have caused any of these belief structures. I don't really consider myself athiest, but I don't really hold any allegience to any religion.
You forgot to mention that it is a very small minority of historians that actually make this claim. Most historians do infact agree that he was a real historical figure. Loose Change also is a great documentary about how the government caused 9/11...so long as you ignore all the utterly moronic claims, the lies, the altered quotes, the false credentialed experts, and completely abandon all common sense and understanding of history. It relies on anti-government bias to sell its message. Don't let your bias get in the way of the truth or you will fall into the same pit of the Christians who refuse to accept anything but their version of the story. Son of God or not, the man is incredibly interesting from a historical aspect as to the how and the why of him becomming the center of so many things in the western world.
"The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds.... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted." - Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000)
Actually no, I have read large parts of the Bible and find many of the social aspects fascinating. For example that whole gays are bad story from Sodom taken in historical social context has precious little to do with gays. It has to do with the customs of hospitality more than anything. But a good little Christian and a good little Athiest both demand its about some faggot hating God and parade their hate and ingorance for the world to see. Jesus is also not the shiney happy guy Sunday school teachers make him out to be, he was one pissed off jew, angry at the fact that people couldn't just stop being pricks to eachother and get along despite their differences.
Because insulting others "superstitious" beliefs just shows how pathetic and insecure you are in your own beliefs. That and it just shows you are an intolerant prick no different than the ones you insult. I am not Christian myself, but I don't go around insulting others "supersticious" belief structures. Atheists seem to be one of the most guilty of not being able to disassociate the actual belief structure from the actions of fanatics and zealots. At the same time I have met precious few Atheists that didn't approach the subject from a position of anything less than overinflated self importance and condesending tone. Your choice to believe or not to believe, but you certainly don't have to be a prick to anyone who disagrees.
Given that you have not read the bible then you have no idea what he preached beyond what fundamentalists have told you.
But I don't think you need to. You have clearly demonstrated that you are too ignorant to be able to actually read the damned thing with any kind of social, historical, or other context beyond "aahahah naked guy on torture device" mentality.
So you are right, there is no need to read the bible to become an ignorant, loud mouthed jackass insulting someone elses beliefs. You would fight right in with the bible thumpers too, its not like they read much of it, they are just ignorant, loud mouthed jackasses insulting others beliefs. Right up your alley.
I will point out the LAWYER types are the ones claiming that book had anything to do with what this kid was doing. Which is a convenient legal scapegoat because now they can wave that silly book around instead of having to prove he really knew what he was doing from other mystery sources. Very few people know how hokey that book is, and its not going to be hard to scare the masses into being afraid of that book.
Further, it is a VERY damned good example for the government to latch onto to start a book banning campaign in the name of anti-terrorism. Prosecutors get an easy case, government gets an easy example. Win Win. Look at Jose Padilla, doesn't seem to be much shortage of evidence that this guy was scum, but it makes it awefully damned hard to defend him against the government using him to set really bad precedents on how they are allow to treat citizens by applying a few nice lables.
Slashdot Mirror
Our elections are no more rigged than your choice of buying Coke or Pepsi at the local supermarket are rigged. People latch on to this stupid everyone gets a vote idea, and that the founding fathers were racists and bigots when they prevented votes to various groups. The fact of the matter is they never intended everyone to vote, not for racist or bigoted reasons, but for the reason that has happened today. I know a guy that voted for Bush based soley on a talking fucking cartoon donkey in a snickers commercial saying he invented the internet! They wanted educated and productive citizens voting, not every whackjob fundie crackpot that couldn't pass a science class to save his life, nor some deadbeat welfare case begging for government handouts. What we have now is a leadership elected by the masses that can't be bothered to do research and just believes whatever insane story they see on Fox, MSNBC, or whatever. The problem is everyone gets to vote, and the vast majority of the populace are brainwashed TV watching jackasses that can't do their history for anything. People have no idea that BOTH of Gates and Rumsfeld serving as SecDef in the current mess were heavily involved in things like the Iraq-Iran war, or the Iran Contra business. People barely understand Cheney's roll with Halliburton, or Condi Rice's involvement with Chevron. Britney Spears and K-Fed get more media attention than the fact that our government just apologized to a canadian for grabbing him, shipping him to a foreign country, and torturing him...and then realizing "shit, not a terrorist". Its pathetic...
Incidentally..."It's been like 60 years" would put us back at the end of WWII and JFK was most certainly not assassinated then...if he had been it would have made it terribly difficult to be President when he was actually assassinated about 44 years ago.
Oh fuck off and get off your high horse. Take an economics class will you? That regional shit is one of the key methods of imposing a monopoly. Why the fuck should the consumer bear the burder of having a monopoly imposed on them? It shouldn't be the consumers riks "Gee, will the company get mad at me and take my money and destroy my product if I don't buy it from them at the highest price they can charge me?" Fuck that! If they company is going to do that regional bullshit, then they take the risk of people outside of that region purchasing from it. These companies should have their dicks slapped straight out of their hands, instead, they use their lobbyists for protectionist crap by giving handjobs to higher ups to pass laws to make shit like getting around region coding illegal.
I don't understand why the companies, or people like you, believe that they have some inherent right to charge the highest price they can anywhere and have it legally enforced. Its the other way around, consumers are supposed to have the right to purchase good at the lowest price possible. Next you are going to tell me that a restaruant that has higher prices in a bad part of town can have my stomach pumped to get their cheeseburger back if I went to the nice side of town where they sell the same burger cheaper. What if you had to worry that anytime Walmart slashing prices to push local competitors out of the market, that if you happened to be out of town and purchase something, and then they find out that you live in an area where the price of the item was NOT lowered to push competitors out they could just take it back without a refund?
So come off of it. It isn't the consumers problem to sort that shit out. If the company puts it on the market anywhere at any price then any consumer can purchase it at that price.
Uhm...what? The TCP sequence number issue is related to Man in the Middle attacks (which in the strictest sense is a type of spoofing, but not usually refered to like this). Spoofing is generally talking about sending packets pretending to be someone else, ie, putting a bad source on them. So now if I am computer A, and you are computer B, and I send you SYN DST A SRC C you will respond ACK/SYN to computer C. Unless my computer has PsychicHackWizard 3.0 or I have installed MagikRouter1337 those packets won't ever make it back to me.
I don't think we CAN take them seriously. Senator Foottapping I'm not Gay Craig, Senator Think of the Children Foley. The list goes on. Now, I think taking them seriously and holding them all accountable for being worthless scumbags aren't the same thing. We are definetly lacking on the accountability part. But think about it for a minute, most of the people that would even catch half the references/jokes are already at least aware of what is going on. The vast majority of the populace doesn't know, doesn't care, and only sees the stupid sensationalist pieces like "I'm not Gay" Craig, and have no idea that Senator "Internet Tubes" Stevens is under major investigation for big time bribes.
On that note, I really am not partisan, but why the hell do the Republicans seem to get the most monumentally stupid scandals? I mean, the blowjob thing was kinda big, but pretty minor stupidity in the grand scheme of things.
And I would guess that most of them are meant to make your eyes roll. Funny is also pretty subjective. I have seen a disturbing number of people watch people getting killed in various ways and they think that is funny. There is also the whole realm of jokes that aren't supposed to be funny because the groaning reaction from the "victim" hearing the joke is the funny part.
Except that we have more evidence supporting water being stripped of a planet (though not exactly the same way the story explains it) then anything regarding time travel. Your suspending the wrong disbelief. :P
Well yeah...but its supposed to be storytime not science time. My original point was that "filling the lakes with methane" doesn't mean they weren't already filled with methane to begin with. The rains have to fill the lakes...if they don't they will dry up as the fluids move elsewhere in the system. Its the same way our mundane Earth lakes stay full, the rain fills them with water.
I mean really. You are upset about their explanation of the sea boiling off without batting an eye at the time travel part? Also, care to explain why places like Venus seem to show evidence of once having water that is no longer there? Mole people with giant tanks? A planet can be stripped of its water, but it may not work exactly like an oversimplified story explains it.
Because honestly, being able to say stupid shit about our elected officials is a rather critical point in remaining free. The day we MUST remain respectful to those with political titles is a dark dark day for the people. So you might as well enjoy it before Dubya get supset about beign called the Missing Link and bans evolution theory outright.
Oh and by the way you should at least read the summary and article once before going off on it.
"The Governator has killed a recent data protection law in California, and it won't be back. Using a tried-and-true argument, that the bill would have 'driven up the costs of compliance, particularly for small businesses,' California Governor Arnold Schwartzenneger vetoed what some are calling one of the nation's most stringent proposed e-tail data breach security laws."
Okay...I see 1 Governator reference in the title, 1 Governator reference in the summary, and oh...wait...what is that?! His full freaking title and name and title!...So look at that, used at least once just like you said. Now read the article. I count no less than 7 times he is called governor, 5 uses of his last name, and 0 governator lines. So once again, what the hell are you whining about?
So, why doesn't anyone ever seem to be upset about calling Reagan "The Gipper". Same thing...same exact thing even, because it was also from a movie role. Governator is also a hell of a lot easier to spell than Schwarzenegger. I don't see it as undignified, insulting, or anything to be even remotely upset about. It's like the little emo cry baby guy screaming "Leave Britney Alone." I have a difficult to spell/pronounce last name so I have had more nicknames, shortenings, and whatnot that I can count. It doesn't bother me, and actually frequently am amused by the nicknames people come up with (assuming they aren't being derogatory pricks).
YOU think its a cheap extremely lame joke. Most people think its just an amusing nickname and most people don't give a shit about it. I would even be willing to give you some leeway on the argument with "Slick Willie" or "The Shrub" or even "King George" because those were meant to be largely derogatory.
I'm not entirely sure but it sounds like you are denying the ability for a lake to evaporate away. Even more, to cite the water cycle with such a weak understanding if that is your claim. When water evaporates it goes into the air. It does things like form clouds, move around, and then fall somewhere else. To cite a childrens story about the oceans evaporating as evidence that a lake or pond cannot do this is disturbing. I hope this wasn't your intent.
Do you honestly believe that the man doesn't think being called the Governator is funny? His primary fame came from those movies. It isn't like they are calling him anything inherently derogatory. He was famous for being the Terminator, he is the Governor, he is the Governator! Big deal, don't get your panties in a twist over a dumb nick name. I really suspect that he probably thinks its funny that people call him that, shit, it wouldn't surprise me if he likes the nickname given that he got it for being wildly successful.
We have methane eating bacteria here already. There is a great deal of life as we know it that doesn't need oxygen. I think you are grossly oversimplifying and misunderstand what "life as we know it" really means. Just be cause us squishy hairless monkeys need large amounts of oxygen doesn't mean everything around us does too.
It is the same as how here on our much more boring earth, rain fills our lakes. If a pond or lake doesn't get any rain it will eventually evaporate away, it has to be refilled. I don't think it was meant in the sense of "its filling the lake with something other than what is already there" so much as "this is how these lakes were formed and are maintained".
I remember as a child reading about this stuff and being fascinated. It has been a long time, but the descriptions I read stuck with me. I can't say how accurate they are, but to think about the very large slow moving waves of non water moving on these moons is amazing. The gravity and so on makes the waves move so much differently than what a wave lookes like here in the ocean. Even if we can't ever set foot on some of those places, I really hope we start getting good clear color pictures of some of these places. These kinds of pictures would really spark new interest in our little corner of space. Most of what we have are just black and white stuff, and the color ones aren't the real colors, but spectrograph type things.
Sure they do...RFC is all over their paperwork. Request For Compensation
Uhm...the US Soldier/Mafia thug comparison is flawed in so many ways I cannot even begin to describe. The Mafia thug signed on to make big profits and participating in shakedowns increases those profits. The US Soldier serves in peace and in war and the VAST majority did not sign up to participate in the war. They were ordered to go, if they DON'T go then they can go to federal pound me in the ass prisons for a very long time. Additionally, if they fail to do what they are told in the field they can recieve the death penalty (although this has not happened in a very long time). Now, the flip side to this that no one seems to ever want to think about because they are too busy spitting on soldiers and calling them babykillers. Exactly what do you think would happen if the military just suddenly decided they weren't going to follow the orders of the elected leaders? I mean, I am sure they are just going to go home and hang out and do nothing like every other military force that told the existing government to fuck off has done right? I mean...that way they can all go home and be drug out of their homes and stuffed in overcroweded prisons for disobeying.
Look up coup d'état and tell me you want the military making its own decisions rather than following the elected civilian leaders. It is a hell of a lot easier to replace elected civilian leaders that are doing bad shit than it is to undo a military takeover of your government. For a long long time military was focused on Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) which come in a huge variety from show of force, to humanitarian aid. It has been only recently that this has been all but abandoned for open warfare anywhere our paranoid leaders can think of.
Yeah...well your scumball plan of exporting your stupid has failed you! Tom Green, Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, and so on...you couldn't get rid of them fast enough and now your screwed too!
Take that you smug little bastards! You sit up there all pointing and laughing at how insane the IP system has gotten in the US... HAH! Welcome to the new world, not so smug now eh? One Cent...holy crap... And its not even some profit mongering megacorp up there, its your freakin federal agency suing the city. On top of that the irony involved in the fact that the whole thing is about trying to get 'one cent' out of the tax, and the government response is to charge them for asking for it! Aaaahahahahahaa. Now maybe you won't be so damned smug when stupid shit happens here down south of you.
First of all, not once did I say I was a believer in it, I just said that going off about how Jesus was such a hypocrite for the named reasons is inaccurate at best, I didn't touch the naked guy on a torture device because that while irreverent it is certainly not very inaccurate and I have called him the zombie lord while teasing my catholic friends.
So since the hospitality explanation of Sodom isn't enough I will go ahead and point out the other points. In the various other points homosexuals are not singled out, more often than not it was included in a list of hedonistic behaviors (which I suppose you could say fuck for fun falls under that category, but doing something for fun doesn't make it hedonistic, its the excesses that make it hedonistic). Now lets look at history of the "God said don't do it" Sickness was "sent by God" because the science of it wasn't understood, and sickness was interpreted as a punishment for doing something God didn't want you to do. Now most of those "God said no" behaviors have a very high risk of infections in a time period when hygiene wasn't exactly the word of the day. Now, I don't really care what your views of homosexuality are, asses (male, female, and animal are all mentioned) are havens for all manner of deadly bacteria. So when Abraham sticks it in Josephs backside, or even the sheep and spreads E. Coli around and kills a bunch of people...I think it is reasonable to assume they would associate that kind of thing with God isn't happy.
Jesus also gave explicit instructions to his followers that if they didn't want to hear the message just walk away and shake the dust of your sandals. Not exactly intolerance there, just "oh well, leave em be, it is none of your concern", this of course has been translated to "Crush the infidel" by any number of religions by people who really have no idea what is actually taught.
Sexual promiscuity has so many implications in a variety of problems in the time it is no surprise that it was frowned on. Lineage is important in many cultures and sexual promiscuity makes that difficult at best in a time without parental testing. Even in modern day WITH the advances in medicine, hygiene, and protection it is still tied to widespread disease. It also deals with the purity aspect, which it has been proven time and time again that people who say there is nothing wrong with screwing anything with a pulse also say "unless its my daughter, then its not ok".
I think people going on about Islamofacists and other such drivel is equally offensive. It irritates me to no end to hear people talk what Islam teaches when they have no damned clue what they are talking about. It is even doubly funny when Christians go off about how Islam is violent because it shows how precious little of the Old Testament they are aware of. Members of a given religion are frequently just as guilty as not reading their own damned material as the critics of the same religion...which ultimately leads into stupid pissing matches about my God is better than your God or wild accusations about how God hates XYZ.
If you really read it the only thing Jesus really said was truely unforgivable is to harm children/lead them astray. "It would be better that you put a millstone around your neck and throw yourself off a cliff".
Christians in the truest sense shouldn't hold that belief because that is not what is taught. That doesn't mean practitioners don't interpret things with their own bias to fuel their hatreds, which is pretty fucking counter to what the stated goal was in the first place of Love thy Neighbor and whatnot. Just like a bunch of crazy fucks strapping bombs to their chests or flying planes into buildings aren't representations of what Islam teaches, they are just fundamentalist zealots with an axe to grind. With such wildly inaccurate representations and disrespect towards others believes be it Islam vs Christian vs Athiest vs Buddhist vs whatever we will never see an end to the fighting.
Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Shamanism, Druidic, and many others really qualify as long standing religions with involved belief structures and behaviors (though not always very evident by their practicioners).
New Agers as best as I have ever seen are a group of wildly varying beliefs cobbled together out of various sources found at Barnes and Noble frequently coming from Shamanism or Druidic areas of belief. Unless we are talking about a different group of New Agers I don't think its relavent to the discussion to call this group a religion as they have no discernable belief structure
Scientologists can hardly be called a religion when their founders own writings talks about setting up a fake religion to leech money and gain control over people.
Mormons are basically Christianity: The New World Story. Which while I'm not a big fan of alot of their beliefs, I think it is interesting that they actually attempt to explain what was going on in other parts of the world in relation to spread of the teachings of Jesus. So while a relatively young branch of Christanity (which by world standards is young itself) I think they are covered by discussing religion
As far as "daring to treat their beliefs with impiety" as you so nicely put it, that would generally require an actual understanding of the beliefs are. Rather "hypocrit enough to preach "tolerance" while being against gays, people who like to fuck for fun and people who don't share the same beliefs" has precious little to do with anything that Jesus actually taught and is more in the land of fundamentalists and othe dogmatic crap.
That said...the imporant part is to actually read and understand for yourself other religious sources and the like. Not take the rantings of some dumb ass redneck fundie shouting about Jesus rode a dinosaur while hatin faggots and killin niggers as what Christiantiy has anything to do with. Its like saying all Germans are Jew hating murderers without understanding what really went on and who was really responsible.
You probably wouldn't be surprised in the least to find that most of the intolerance and other such crap associated with Christianity and Islam specifically came about when various rulers added their 2 cents to help gain control...as is the case with most religions. But hey, don't let history and objectivity get in the way of flinging insults at believers of various faiths.
There is a ton of Christianity that has been borrowed along the way too. Part of assimilating other cultures as it grew. "Winter Solstice?! We have that! We call it Jesus's Birthday!"..."Fertility Celebration...we have that! We call it Jesus's came back from the dead day!"...and so on.
:)
Now...for all my attempts to respsect others beliefs and religions, it doesn't stop me from giving my catholic friends crap on easter about the Zombie Lord, but that is all in good fun.
Buddha/Buddhism predated Jesus by quite a bit. I have even read some interesting theories about the 3 wisemen from the east and also about the missing period in Jesus's life in realtion to that. I don't know that there is much historical content that supports it, but it certainly is an interesting avenue of curiousity. Buddhism even today remains the main religion in much of the asian world. There are alot of Buddhist concepts and undertones in much of the things that Jesus was said to have taught.
Unfortunately it seems that the Jewish/Christian/Islamic chain of religions have walked away from "let he without sin cast the first stone" to "cast the largest stone you can find before someone else can cast the first stone".
I also would like to congratulate you on remaining objective as an athiest. So many others just turn to arrogant and insulting tones rather than attempting to look at things objectively. They just treat it as some mass delusion rather than looking at any of the historical or social aspects that have caused any of these belief structures. I don't really consider myself athiest, but I don't really hold any allegience to any religion.
You forgot to mention that it is a very small minority of historians that actually make this claim. Most historians do infact agree that he was a real historical figure. Loose Change also is a great documentary about how the government caused 9/11...so long as you ignore all the utterly moronic claims, the lies, the altered quotes, the false credentialed experts, and completely abandon all common sense and understanding of history. It relies on anti-government bias to sell its message. Don't let your bias get in the way of the truth or you will fall into the same pit of the Christians who refuse to accept anything but their version of the story. Son of God or not, the man is incredibly interesting from a historical aspect as to the how and the why of him becomming the center of so many things in the western world.
... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted." - Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000)
"The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds.
Actually no, I have read large parts of the Bible and find many of the social aspects fascinating. For example that whole gays are bad story from Sodom taken in historical social context has precious little to do with gays. It has to do with the customs of hospitality more than anything. But a good little Christian and a good little Athiest both demand its about some faggot hating God and parade their hate and ingorance for the world to see. Jesus is also not the shiney happy guy Sunday school teachers make him out to be, he was one pissed off jew, angry at the fact that people couldn't just stop being pricks to eachother and get along despite their differences.
Because insulting others "superstitious" beliefs just shows how pathetic and insecure you are in your own beliefs. That and it just shows you are an intolerant prick no different than the ones you insult. I am not Christian myself, but I don't go around insulting others "supersticious" belief structures. Atheists seem to be one of the most guilty of not being able to disassociate the actual belief structure from the actions of fanatics and zealots. At the same time I have met precious few Atheists that didn't approach the subject from a position of anything less than overinflated self importance and condesending tone. Your choice to believe or not to believe, but you certainly don't have to be a prick to anyone who disagrees.
Given that you have not read the bible then you have no idea what he preached beyond what fundamentalists have told you.
But I don't think you need to. You have clearly demonstrated that you are too ignorant to be able to actually read the damned thing with any kind of social, historical, or other context beyond "aahahah naked guy on torture device" mentality.
So you are right, there is no need to read the bible to become an ignorant, loud mouthed jackass insulting someone elses beliefs. You would fight right in with the bible thumpers too, its not like they read much of it, they are just ignorant, loud mouthed jackasses insulting others beliefs. Right up your alley.
I will point out the LAWYER types are the ones claiming that book had anything to do with what this kid was doing. Which is a convenient legal scapegoat because now they can wave that silly book around instead of having to prove he really knew what he was doing from other mystery sources. Very few people know how hokey that book is, and its not going to be hard to scare the masses into being afraid of that book.
Further, it is a VERY damned good example for the government to latch onto to start a book banning campaign in the name of anti-terrorism. Prosecutors get an easy case, government gets an easy example. Win Win. Look at Jose Padilla, doesn't seem to be much shortage of evidence that this guy was scum, but it makes it awefully damned hard to defend him against the government using him to set really bad precedents on how they are allow to treat citizens by applying a few nice lables.