The fact that Keith Richards is still alive after 40 years of heavy smoking, drinking and drug use, whereas people who take immaculate care of their health get cancer in their 30's and 40's has led me to conclude that most medical studies are bullshit and that your likelihood of contracting disease is about 95% genetics, 5% environment. Bah.
There are thousands of examples of studies that state the obvious, and people generally are so sheep like in their thinking they will not believe what they already intuitively know to be true until a "study" comes out to confirm it. But what gets me more are political agendas mascarading as hard science, such as the hysteria over global warming and second-hand smoke, the grossly overstated risk of heterosexual HIV, and the garbage taught at the sociology departments of universities that boys act like boys and girls act like and girls because boys are given guns and girls are given teasets. All of the above are the leftist equivalents of Torah law and are not to be challenged. To clarify, it's a common mistake to believe leftism is the absence of religion when the reality is that leftism is no less a religion than Christianity, Judiasm, or Islam. When the president of Harvard addressed why more men than women pursue engineering, he suggested there might be an inate difference between men and women that accounted for this. Now, if the modern univerisity were an institution of learning (which it stopped being a long time ago) someone would've said "that's an intersting theory, let's put it to the scientific method." Instead this poor guy was practically ridden out of town by radical feminist professors and like minded individuals for making such a statement. Why? HE INTRODUCTED A NON-CONFORMING IDEA INTO THE CHURCH. The sad irony is that institutions of learning are becoming centers of anti-intellectualism. I think I am justified in having skepticism in any sentence that starts with "Studies show...".
A lot of the "problems" the United States has the Netherlands shares, like immigration (the Turkish, etc.). I absolutely loved the two years I spent there and only hope that they don't buy into the US corporate way of messing stuff up
I try hard, desperately hard, to feel bad that Western Europe as we know it will no longer exist in 50 years. Why? First, start with the policy of multiculturalism. What is multiculturalism? It's the belief that one's culture is no better or worse than any other culture. When you truly believe that, you've already sewn the seeds of your culture's inevitable extinction. If you don't believe your culture is any better than any other culture, you have no reason to perpetrate it's continuation through marriage and family. I don't need to tell you that marriage, the birthrate, and Judeo-Christianity in Europe is in rapid decline in favor of a more hedonistic
and nihilistic model.
Seeking pleasure is all well and good, but the problem is that socialist economies like those in Western Europe need lots of worker bees working and paying taxes so the native Europeans can work 30 hour weeks and take half the year off on vacation or sick time. To achieve this they need to import workers...lots of them...many from Islamic nations...folks who do not believe in multiculturalism...they see Europe and the West as morally decadent and believe their way is better. Many are happy to take advantage of all the freebies and education inherent with socialist economies, while all the while loathing the host-countries' values.
This type of model can only sustain itself for a generation or two before the host country wakes up one day and finds itself an unwelcome stranger in its own land all without a single shot having been fired. Welcome to your brave new future, Europe.
A genocide against black Africans by the Arab government is occuring in the Sudan now. But since the perpetrators of the genocide are non-westerners, so the world media, the United Nations, and the world's Marxists/leftists don't care.
Your entire post typifies classic Marxism: that the world can always be broken down into an economic struggle. Economic inequity is the source of all human suffering. One must be a PhD in the humanities to believe such nonsense. Human suffering has always been and always will be caused by human evil, not economics. The people of third world countries don't starve for lack of money or good will. They starve because of they are ruled by corrupt governments who pocket all of the ecnomic aid money. One need not look any further than Saddam's food or oil scam. Let me clarify...the existance of the United Nations increases, not decreases, human suffering. Leftists often mock religious people for their faith in something that cannot be seen. Actually, believing in something that can't be seen actually takes LESS faith than to believe in something that has repeatedly, demonstrably, been shown to be a failure in the world...marxism/communism and the United Nations.
Homosexuality? About as much a crime as Heterosexuality
I don't think homosexuality should be criminalized , but acceptance of, and promotion of, are two different things.
I'm proud of our track record on diversity issues. We were one of the first companies to provide domestic partner benefits, or to include sexual orientation in our anti-discrimination policies. And just this year, we became one of the few companies to include gender identity or expression in our protection policies.
There have been several news stories that imply that Microsoft changed its position on an anti-discrimination bill, HB 1515, because of pressure from a conservative religious group. I want to make it clear that that is not the case.
Does anyone see anything problematic with Ballmer's statement from above? Obviously the domestic partner policies came about from pressure from the left, and they acted on that pressure. But he feels that acting on pressure from the right requires an apology and an explanation. The left has so brilliantly controlled and defined the tone of dialogue in society that the leftist can now boldly proclaim:
"I am a compassionate leftist, and because I am so compassionate and caring, to question any of the radical changes I want to make to society renders you a reactionary, hateful, close-minded bigot." To experience first-hand the left's dedication to diveristy of ideas and free-speech one needs only express a conservative view on any college campus to which one will most likely be yelled down, assaulted, your car vandalized, or called awful names. In my experience, "peace activists" are among the most violent people you will encounter.
On a side note, ever notice that because religiousity is associated with the right, the term "anti-religious bigot" or "religiphobe" does not exist in the vernacular? So if one is on the left one has a license to openly mock,denigrade, and make prejudgements about religious people without fear of being called ugly names like "homophobe". It is a beautiful arrangement.
I am puzzled as to why leftists are not disturbed or troubled by leftist activist groups pressuring corporations or other instutions to change their behavior or policies to mold them into the left's image. I can only assume that it is not the blanket concept of activist groups pressuring corporations, it is non-leftist groups pressuring corporations they find troubling.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that Keith Richards is still alive after 40 years of heavy smoking, drinking and drug use, whereas people who take immaculate care of their health get cancer in their 30's and 40's has led me to conclude that most medical studies are bullshit and that your likelihood of contracting disease is about 95% genetics, 5% environment. Bah.
There are thousands of examples of studies that state the obvious, and people generally are so sheep like in their thinking they will not believe what they already intuitively know to be true until a "study" comes out to confirm it. But what gets me more are political agendas mascarading as hard science, such as the hysteria over global warming and second-hand smoke, the grossly overstated risk of heterosexual HIV, and the garbage taught at the sociology departments of universities that boys act like boys and girls act like and girls because boys are given guns and girls are given teasets. All of the above are the leftist equivalents of Torah law and are not to be challenged. To clarify, it's a common mistake to believe leftism is the absence of religion when the reality is that leftism is no less a religion than Christianity, Judiasm, or Islam. When the president of Harvard addressed why more men than women pursue engineering, he suggested there might be an inate difference between men and women that accounted for this. Now, if the modern univerisity were an institution of learning (which it stopped being a long time ago) someone would've said "that's an intersting theory, let's put it to the scientific method." Instead this poor guy was practically ridden out of town by radical feminist professors and like minded individuals for making such a statement. Why? HE INTRODUCTED A NON-CONFORMING IDEA INTO THE CHURCH. The sad irony is that institutions of learning are becoming centers of anti-intellectualism. I think I am justified in having skepticism in any sentence that starts with "Studies show...".
A lot of the "problems" the United States has the Netherlands shares, like immigration (the Turkish, etc.). I absolutely loved the two years I spent there and only hope that they don't buy into the US corporate way of messing stuff up
I try hard, desperately hard, to feel bad that Western Europe as we know it will no longer exist in 50 years. Why? First, start with the policy of multiculturalism. What is multiculturalism? It's the belief that one's culture is no better or worse than any other culture. When you truly believe that, you've already sewn the seeds of your culture's inevitable extinction. If you don't believe your culture is any better than any other culture, you have no reason to perpetrate it's continuation through marriage and family. I don't need to tell you that marriage, the birthrate, and Judeo-Christianity in Europe is in rapid decline in favor of a more hedonistic and nihilistic model.
Seeking pleasure is all well and good, but the problem is that socialist economies like those in Western Europe need lots of worker bees working and paying taxes so the native Europeans can work 30 hour weeks and take half the year off on vacation or sick time. To achieve this they need to import workers...lots of them...many from Islamic nations...folks who do not believe in multiculturalism...they see Europe and the West as morally decadent and believe their way is better. Many are happy to take advantage of all the freebies and education inherent with socialist economies, while all the while loathing the host-countries' values.
This type of model can only sustain itself for a generation or two before the host country wakes up one day and finds itself an unwelcome stranger in its own land all without a single shot having been fired. Welcome to your brave new future, Europe.
Genocide is a Crime against Humanity.
A genocide against black Africans by the Arab government is occuring in the Sudan now. But since the perpetrators of the genocide are non-westerners, so the world media, the United Nations, and the world's Marxists/leftists don't care.
Your entire post typifies classic Marxism: that the world can always be broken down into an economic struggle. Economic inequity is the source of all human suffering. One must be a PhD in the humanities to believe such nonsense. Human suffering has always been and always will be caused by human evil, not economics. The people of third world countries don't starve for lack of money or good will. They starve because of they are ruled by corrupt governments who pocket all of the ecnomic aid money. One need not look any further than Saddam's food or oil scam. Let me clarify...the existance of the United Nations increases, not decreases, human suffering. Leftists often mock religious people for their faith in something that cannot be seen. Actually, believing in something that can't be seen actually takes LESS faith than to believe in something that has repeatedly, demonstrably, been shown to be a failure in the world...marxism/communism and the United Nations.
Homosexuality? About as much a crime as Heterosexuality
I don't think homosexuality should be criminalized , but acceptance of, and promotion of, are two different things.
I'm proud of our track record on diversity issues. We were one of the first companies to provide domestic partner benefits, or to include sexual orientation in our anti-discrimination policies. And just this year, we became one of the few companies to include gender identity or expression in our protection policies.
There have been several news stories that imply that Microsoft changed its position on an anti-discrimination bill, HB 1515, because of pressure from a conservative religious group. I want to make it clear that that is not the case.
Does anyone see anything problematic with Ballmer's statement from above? Obviously the domestic partner policies came about from pressure from the left, and they acted on that pressure. But he feels that acting on pressure from the right requires an apology and an explanation. The left has so brilliantly controlled and defined the tone of dialogue in society that the leftist can now boldly proclaim:
"I am a compassionate leftist, and because I am so compassionate and caring, to question any of the radical changes I want to make to society renders you a reactionary, hateful, close-minded bigot." To experience first-hand the left's dedication to diveristy of ideas and free-speech one needs only express a conservative view on any college campus to which one will most likely be yelled down, assaulted, your car vandalized, or called awful names. In my experience, "peace activists" are among the most violent people you will encounter.
On a side note, ever notice that because religiousity is associated with the right, the term "anti-religious bigot" or "religiphobe" does not exist in the vernacular? So if one is on the left one has a license to openly mock,denigrade, and make prejudgements about religious people without fear of being called ugly names like "homophobe". It is a beautiful arrangement.
I am puzzled as to why leftists are not disturbed or troubled by leftist activist groups pressuring corporations or other instutions to change their behavior or policies to mold them into the left's image. I can only assume that it is not the blanket concept of activist groups pressuring corporations, it is non-leftist groups pressuring corporations they find troubling.